Category Archives: Viva!

Keira Knightley: ‘Iraq was the first time I’d been politically engaged’

7232.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=forma

In an exclusive interview, the actor talks about her new film Official Secrets, in which she plays Katharine Gun, the whistleblower who tried to stop the Iraq war

• Read an interview with the real Katharine Gun

The role of Katharine Gun in Official Secrets is played by Keira Knightley. Earlier this summer, a few weeks before her second child was born, Knightley, 34, sat down and talked exclusively to the Observer about why she took the part, and why she felt she believed that the film was coming out at a timely moment.

Did you spend much time with Katharine to prepare for the part?
Not a huge amount. I had lunch with her, and she came to the set once. I really liked her. Gavin Hood, the director, had said he didn’t want a characterisation of her. I mean, I don’t look anything like her. She has an interesting accent because she was brought up in Taiwan. I really wanted to do that, but Gavin wouldn’t let me. I’m not a journalist, of course, so this was the first time I had asked anyone any questions that they legally could not answer. What is amazing about Katharine is that her point of view is so utterly clear. As far as playing her, that point of view had to come across. This is a story told through her eyes.

Continue reading…

Trump and Giuliani ‘Repeatedly’ Pressured Ukraine to Investigate Joe Biden’s Son: Report

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, 2016

President Donald Trump “repeatedly pressured” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden‘s son, Hunter Biden, according to a late Friday report by the Wall Street Journal.

According to anonymous sources said to be familiar with the matter, President Trump reportedly urged Zelensky to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on the proposed inquiry and pressured him to do so “about eight times.”

“He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know,” whether the younger Biden had been shielded from prosecution by the intervention of his father, one of those sources told the outlet.

That source, however, said there was no discussion between Trump and Zelensky which linked the longed-for probe to the provision of foreign aid to the Ukraine. The WSJ‘s source also made clear that they “didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid-pro-quo for his cooperation on an investigation.”

Giuliani confirmed he met with Ukrainian officials to discuss the issue. Per that report:

Mr. Giuliani in June and August met with top Ukrainian officials about the prospect of an investigation, he said in an interview. The Trump lawyer has suggested Mr. Biden as vice president worked to shield from investigation a Ukrainian gas company with ties to his son, Hunter Biden. A Ukrainian official earlier this year said he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden or his son.

After the initial July call between Trump and Zelensky, the Ukrainian government issued a press release which said the call largely centered around Trump congratulating Zelensky on his election win and that Trump had also expressed hopes “that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve [the] image of Ukraine [and] complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine” and the United States.

The discussion between the two presidents has since taken outsized form. Critical speculation has suggested that Trump conditioned foreign aid to the Ukraine on the country’s initiation of a probe into Biden. Further developments suggest the ongoing whistleblower complaint controversy is directly related to such discussions between the Trump White House and the Ukrainian government.

Giuliani says the discussions about whether Biden had a corruption investigation into his son killed are immaterial to the foreign aid issue, telling the WSJ that his meetings with Ukrainian officials occurred weeks before the Trump administration began to review a $250 million foreign aid package.

Regarding the underlying issue of alleged Biden family corruption, however, Giuliani is not being shy about the desire for an investigation to commence. Again the Friday report:

In recent months, Mr. Giuliani has mounted an extensive effort to pressure Ukraine to do so. He told The Wall Street Journal he met with an official from the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office in June in Paris, and met with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Mr. Zelensky in Madrid in August. Mr. Giuliani told the Journal earlier this month that Mr. Yermak assured him the Ukrainian government would “get to the bottom” of the Biden matter…He said his meeting with Mr. Yermak was set up by the State Department, and said he briefed the department on their conversation later. The State Department had no immediate comment.

Last week, a spokesperson for Biden’s presidential campaign said Giuliani’s efforts were “beneath us as Americans.”

[image via DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images]

US Universities And Retirees Are Funding The Technology Behind China’s Surveillance State

via aleksey godin and friends

Millions of dollars from US university endowments, foundations, and retirement plans have helped fund two billion-dollar Chinese facial recognition startups: SenseTime and Megvii. The Chinese government is using their technologies to surveil and profile its own citizens.

us-universities-and-retirees-are-funding


View Entire Post ›

Donald Trump is no hero of the working class. And the GM strikers know it | Robert Reich

3210.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=forma

The walkout at General Motors is a predictable and powerful result of the president’s own kind of capitalism

Donald Trump pretends to be a tribune of the working class, standing up for American jobs. Last week nearly 50,000 General Motors workers went on strike to get what they see as their fair share of its profits and stop further layoffs. Trump’s response? A shrug.

Related: ‘It’s devastating’. End of GM in Ohio town as Trump fails to bring back midwest jobs

Continue reading…

ttv: nbcnightlynews: This is Greta Thunberg’s full opening…

ttv:

nbcnightlynews:

This is Greta Thunberg’s full opening statement at today’s congressional climate change hearing: 

“My name is Greta Thunberg … I don’t want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists … And then I want you to take real action.”

For more: See our reporting on climate issues around the world, as part of our series Climate in Crisis.

“Listen to the Scientists”

By: Greta Thunberg (via @nbcnightlynews​ )

Date: Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Location: Capitol Hill

More: This past Wednesday, Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old climate and ecological crisis activist, testified in front of US Congress for real climate change action. Throughout her testimony, this teen Swede politely disputed arguments from congressmen in the room and displayed a sense of humor and intelligence beyond her years. Watch to see her replies.

The latest #ClimateStrike is happening now — and you can play a part.

Playlist: Climate Change is Real | Live Past 30 | Change the Rules | Listen to the Scientists

New agreement gives US plenty, Salvadoran migrants nothing

Alexandra-Hill-Kevin-McAleenan.png

El Salvador’s Foreign Minister, Alexandra Hill, was in Washington, D.C. yesterday to sign an agreement with the US Department of Homeland Security.  In the agreement Hill signed, El Salvador pledges to work with the US to become a country where refugees from third countries can seek asylum.  Reuters reported on the joint press conference announcing the agreement:

“The core of this is recognizing El Salvador’s development of their own asylum system and committing to help them build that capacity,” Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told reporters in Washington after signing documents with El Salvador’s minister of foreign affairs, Alexandra Hill. 

“Individuals crossing through El Salvador should be able to seek protections” in the Central American country even if they were intending to apply for asylum in the United States, he added. 

Neither official said when the arrangement would take effect or provide details on how it would be administered. It was unclear how such a deal would work, given that most migrants from other countries take routes that avoid crossing the small, poverty-stricken El Salvador. 

“We are going to work out operational details. This is just a broad agreement,” Hill told Reuters upon leaving the signing ceremony.

There should be no doubt that this agreement is not part of some humanitarian interest by the US in creating a region-wide system of humanitarian protection for refugees.  Instead, this agreement is a piece in a Trump administration agenda to make asylum claims impossible in the US with a legal argument that refugees who pass through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras can and should have applied for asylum in those countries and thus are not entitled to asylum in the US.

You can watch the complete joint press conference here.

Hill started her remarks by stating “My president, president Bukele, since day 1, has changed policy 180 degrees.   We are now allies of the United States after a decade of a government that was pro-Chavez.”  Then, Hill talked about two subjects which are not advanced by this agreement at all.  First, she described as “the main issue” the plight of Salvadorans who have fled as migrants because of violence or economic necessity.   And yet the agreement she signed appears to have done nothing for such migrants.

This agreement does not contain measures for Salvadorans who might currently be on the migrant journey, stuck at the Mexican border by metering policies, imprisoned in immigration detention centers, or dumped back in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols to wait out their immigration court proceedings.   While Hill invoked the images of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 26, and his toddler daughter Valeria who drowned in the Rio Grande as she spoke about the predicament of Salvadora migrants, this agreement does nothing to change the Trump administration policies which force migrants to attempt dangerous journeys across the Rio Grande or through barren deserts.

Hill also talked passionately about the 195,000 Salvadorans in the US on Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) which the Trump administration is attempting to cancel and force them to return home.  Hill stated that these TPS holders have deep roots in the US and put their hands over their hearts for the US national anthem and also for the national anthem of El Salvador.  She made it clear that the Salvadoran government was advocating for a path which would allow TPS holders to remain in the US. 

However, Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker magazine  tweeted that Hill was having no success on this point:

According to a senior Trump Administration official, gov’t of El Salvadoran asked U.S. to extend T.P.S. for 200K+ Salvadorans living in the U.S. in exchange for signing asylum deal announced today. And was told that T.P.S. was a non-starter for US. Salvadorans signed anyway.

El Salvador would almost be starting from scratch in creating a system to accept refugees.   Although El Salvador passed a refugee law in 2002, I searched in vain across current Salvadoran government websites to find any information about current activities of  “CODER,” the commission which is established under the law to accept refugee applications.   The only mention was a press event in 2016 where then foreign minister Hugo Martinez stated that 49 persons “in recent years” had been accepted as refugees in El Salvador. 

One also has to question whether El Salvador seriously plans to accept any quantity of refugees from other countries like Venezuela or Cuba in the future, given its need to devote resources to the needs of thousands of Salvadorans being deported from the US and Mexico each year.

So what does El Salvador get out of signing this agreement?   There is probably some additional security funding which will make its way to El Salvador to fight gang violence on the grounds that such violence is a push factor for migration.  El Salvador also looks to see progress on agricultural guest worker visas for legal migration.   Finally, the agreement pushes Nayib Bukele’s argument that he is the best partner for the US in the region, as he continues to seek investment and backing for his other ambitious initiatives in the country.

But for the Salvadoran migrant outside of the country, despite the words of Foreign Minister Hill, this agreement offers nothing.