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Elon Musk denies he spoke to Putin about Ukraine war

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Elon Musk has refuted claims that he communicated with Vladimir Putin before putting his recommendations for stopping Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a Twitter poll.

Head of the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer claimed that Mr. Musk had personally briefed him about the chat with Mr. Putin.  However, Mr. Musk has since denied this.

“Putin and I have only communicated once, perhaps 18 months ago. The topic concerned space, “Musk posted a tweet.

The Tesla CEO invited his 107.7 million followers to vote on how to end the conflict in Ukraine last week.

One of the ideas was to organise elections in regions of Ukraine that Russia claims it has seized and has occupied. His remarks were well received in Moscow.

If the people’s will is to have Russia go, the multibillionaire said. Four Ukrainian regions have already been annexed by Russia, according to President Putin, after phoney referendums that Kyiv and its Western partners deemed fake. All four of these regions are not entirely under Russian authority.

The illegally annexed Crimea by Moscow in 2014, according to Mr. Musk, should be “officially” recognised as a part of Russia. According to Mr. Bremmer’s account in a newsletter, Mr. Musk told him that the Russian president was “prepared to negotiate,” but only if Ukraine agreed to some form of permanent neutrality, Crimea remained under Russian control, and Kyiv acknowledged Russia’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

Mr. Bremmer claimed that the CEO of SpaceX had informed him that Mr. Putin had stated that these objectives would be achieved “no matter what” and that a nuclear attack may be launched if Ukraine attacked Crimea.

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Creeslough explosion: Jessica Gallagher and Martin McGill funerals take place

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Two of the 10 persons killed in the Creeslough, County Donegal explosion have had their funerals. Masses were celebrated at St. Michael’s Church in the community for Martin McGill, 49, and Jessica Gallagher, 24.

Ms. Gallagher would be remembered for the “ripples of love, affection, and warmth” she left behind, mourners were told during her funeral. It was said of Mr. McGill that he had a “beautiful, gentle soul.”

They were among those who perished in the accident at a gas station in the little community in Ireland’s northwest last Friday.

The reason of the explosion is being looked examined, but according to the police, it seems to have been an accident.

The residential units, a convenience store, and a gas station were all located within the complex of buildings where the explosion occurred.

The main store for the 400-person village, which has been grieving an extraordinary loss of life in its community, includes a post office.

Father John Joe Duffy, a Creeslough priest, referred to Ms. Gallagher’s “radiant grin” during the funeral Mass.

Whether things were good or bad, “she always brought the sun,” he remarked. The fashion designer, who was scheduled to start a new position in Belfast on Monday, utilised Donegal tweed as a feature in her work, mourners were told.

Fr Duffy went on to say that the county was “in her heart.”

He claimed that Pope Francis had expressed how “heartbroken” he was by the catastrophe. Both of Tuesday’s funerals were attended by Irish President Michael D. Higgins’s top assistant.

Mr. McGill, who was originally from Scotland, was praised for being a loving son and taking good care of his mother. In order to care for both of his parents, he relocated to Creeslough, although his father had now passed away.

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Shock and horror after Russia’s wave of strikes across Ukraine

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Wave after wave of explosions have been heard over the past few hours, not just in Kyiv but all over this huge nation, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east and Odesa in the south.

There is a sense of déjà vu for those of us who were present when Russia’s extensive invasion started in February. It has been advised that we spend as much time as possible in the basement because more strikes with missiles and drones are anticipated.

However, this is also unique. The explosions in Kyiv are substantially more nearby the city’s centre. Loud reverberations near streets and places we’ve gotten to know well over the previous eight months, not far-off thumps from the suburbs.

It’s hard to know what is being targeted, but according to a statement from Ukraine’s ministry of culture, the Philharmonic building and museums were both struck.

A large crater at a playground was visible in one of the social media videos going around. Another displayed a missile striking Mayor Vitali Klitschko’s glass bridge, a well-liked tourist destination and vantage point across the Dnipro River.

Living in an apartment with a view of the playground in Shevchenko Park is Olena and Valerii Badakh.

“It was gruesome. Our lives suddenly had a gaping hole in them. It was awful, “Olena informed me.

Two days ago, when Ukrainians joyously applauded the attack on the bridge connecting Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, social media was swamped with videos and memes.

These days, all the films show shell-shocked locals, burning rubble, and dire warnings.

Even when it seems expected, the shock is still present.

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Creeslough: Girl, 5, and dad among 10 killed in Donegal blast

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The 10 victims of a Friday explosion in Creeslough, County Donegal, have been identified by name, according to Garda. Shauna Flanagan Garwe, five, and her 50-year-old father Robert Garwe are among the victims. The explosion also claimed the lives of Catherine O’Donnell, 39, and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan.

Hugh Kelly, 59, Martin McGill, 49, Martina Martin, 49, James O’Flaherty, 48, Jessica Gallagher, 24, Leona Harper, 14, and others also passed away. On Friday, there was an explosion at a gas station in the hamlet. An Garda Sochána confirmed on Sunday that a man in his 20s is still hospitalised and in a severe condition.

Seven further blast victims are still receiving medical care at Letterkenny University Hospital and continue to have stable conditions. The location is still blocked off while the inquiry is ongoing.

Post-mortem investigations are being conducted, but the findings won’t be made public. Supt. Liam Geraghty stated at a press conference on Sunday that the tragedy has had a “big impact” on the small, rural community.

“They were all folks who were shopping in their local shop,” he said. “They are all local people, they are all extremely involved in the local community.”

“We have very, very young children – the schools are going to be impacted, local GAA clubs are going to be impacted, the local church and general community is going to be severely impacted by this incident.

“But it is very strong community. So I’m sure the community will come together and will support each other.”

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Crimea bridge partly reopens after huge explosion – Russia

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Hours after a large bomb destroyed portions of the road, light traffic has once again started to flow across Russia’s only bridge to the Crimea.

According to investigators, three persons were killed in the explosion on Europe’s longest bridge, which served as a symbol of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Russian authorities assert that the victims were in a neighbouring automobile when a lorry exploded.

The bridge’s railway portion, where oil tanks caught fire, has reportedly also been reopened. After authorities announced the restricted reopening, video showed vehicles using the road.

2018 saw the opening of the rail and road crossing, which is a crucial supply route for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a counsellor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, did not expressly attribute blame to Ukraine but wrote: “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning.

Everything that is illegal must be destroyed, everything that has been taken must be given back to Ukraine, and everything that Russia has captured must be evicted.

The explosion on the bridge was compared by the Ukrainian defence ministry to the April sinking of the Russian missile cruiser Moskva.

Two infamous Russian power symbols in Ukrainian Crimea have been destroyed, it tweeted. “What comes after that?”

The official Twitter account of Ukraine simply wrote, “Sick burn.”

The response of the Kiev administration to the destruction of civilian infrastructure, according to Russia’s foreign ministry, “is a witness to its terrorist nature.”

The symbolism and impact of seeing the bridge, which President Putin opened, on fire cannot be overstated.  The bridge has been utilised by Russia to transport soldiers, military supplies, and equipment to battlegrounds in southern Ukraine.

In light of their commitment to retaking the peninsula, Ukrainian authorities claimed it to be a valid target. Any assault on Crimea, where there is a sizable Russian force presence, will be viewed as a further grave humiliation for the Kremlin. Ukrainians particularly detest the bridge. One day after Russian President Vladimir Putin turned 70, the fire sparked an uproar on Ukrainian social media.

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Belarus, Ukraine, Russia activists win Nobel Peace Prize

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The Nobel Peace Prize has been given to a jailed activist from Belarus as well as two organisations from Russia and Ukraine for promoting democracy and human rights. As a rebuke to two authoritarian governments, the choice to honour Ales Bialiatsky, Russia’s Memorial, and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties.

In December of last year, Russia forcibly closed Memorial in advance of Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Alexander Lukashenko protests led to the imprisonment of Bialiatsky. The CCL of Ukraine has kept tabs on political repression and atrocities committed in regions of the nation that Russia has invaded or annexed.

All three had made “an excellent effort to expose war crimes, human rights abuses, and the misuse of power,” according to Berit Reiss-Andersen, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who spoke to reporters.

She responded that the Nobel prize was always given “for something and to somebody and not against anyone” when asked if the committee was making a statement to Russia’s president on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

Belarus’s long-time ruler is a close ally of President Putin. After a re-election in 2020 that was widely condemned as rigged, he brutally cracked down on protesters and then allowed Russian forces to use his country as a launchpad in its war against Ukraine.

Ales Bialiatsky, 60, established the civil rights organisation Viasna, which is Belarusian for spring, in 1996, two years after Mr. Lukashenko took office. He was first imprisoned in 2011, and last year, he was again incarcerated without being given a reason. He is one of the 1,348 individuals that Viasna claims are being imprisoned as political prisoners in Belarus at the moment.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, an exiled opposition activist, hailed the Nobel committee for “recognising all Belarusians struggling for freedom and democracy,” and Natallia Pinchuk, Bialiatsky’s wife, said she was “overwhelmed with emotion.”

A spokesman for the Minsk foreign ministry claimed that Alfred Nobel was “turning in his grave” as a result of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Bialiatsky.

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Annie Ernaux: ‘Uncompromising’ French author wins Nobel Literature Prize

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The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to French author Annie Ernaux for her “uncompromising” 50-year body of work that examines “a life marked by vast discrepancies regarding gender, language, and class.”

The coveted award, which is worth 10 million Swedish kronor (£807,000), is given out by the Swedish Academy. It was “a huge honour,” she remarked.

The committee’s leader, Professor Carl-Henrik Heldin, praised the 82-year-work old’s as “admirable and enduring.”

In her semi-autobiographical works, he claimed she employed “courage and clinical clarity” to expose “the inconsistencies of social experience [and] convey shame, humiliation, jealousy, or the inability to know who you are.”

Her books, including A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story, are considered to be contemporary classics in France.

Ernaux is the first French woman to win the literature prize, and told Swedish broadcaster SVT it was “a responsibility”.

“I was very surprised… I never thought it would be on my landscape as a writer,” she said. “It is a great responsibility… to testify, not necessarily in terms of my writing, but to testify with accuracy and justice in relation to the world.”

Over the course of her 20 novels, “she has been devoted to a single task: the excavation of her own life,” The New Yorker stated in 2020.

Since 1901, the Nobel Prizes have recognised excellence in literature, science, peace, and, more recently, economics. Abdulrazak Gurnah, a novelist from Tanzania, received the literary award the previous year.

Other winners have included playwrights Harold Pinter and Eugene O’Neill, as well as novelists Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Toni Morrison, poets Louise Gluck, Pablo Neruda, Joseph Brodsky, and Rabindranath Tagore, and novelists Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Toni Morrison.

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Hans Niemann ‘likely cheated’ in more than 100 games

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An investigation found that a chess player at the centre of a cheating scandal “possibly” cheated in more than 100 online games.

Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion, has accused Hans Niemann of cheating, although no proof has been provided.

According to a Chess.com investigation, Niemann has probably cheated “far more often” than he has admitted.

However, it did not uncover any proof that he had cheated in his match with Carlsen or any other “over-the-board” games.

The American has admitted to cheating in casual games in his youth, but he disputes doing so in games that were intended to be competitive.

The BBC has contacted the 19-year-old for comment and he has already accused Carlsen and Chess.com of attempting to destroy his career.

The story started last month after Carlsen, who is widely regarded as the best player of all time, suffered a shocking loss to Niemann at the Sinquefield Cup.

Prior to publicly accusing Niemann of cheating last week, the Norwegian had already levelled subtle charges against him.

Now, Chess.com, where the majority of the world’s best players participate, including for cash prizes, has published a 72-page inquiry of Niemann’s games.

The website, which banned Niemann for alleged cheating, asserts that it is possible he committed fraud as recently as 2020, especially in prize money competitions and when competing against highly regarded “well recognised” figures in the game.

Niemann vigorously denied the allegations when they first surfaced earlier this month, stating he was prepared to play the game while unclothed to demonstrate that he wasn’t using any equipment to cheat.

“I don’t care, because I know I am clean. You want me to play in a closed box with zero electronic transmission, I don’t care. I’m here to win and that is my goal regardless.”

Niemann’s over-the-board games were statistically analysed by Prof. Kenneth Regan, who is widely considered as the world’s foremost authority on chess cheating, and no evidence of cheating was discovered.

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Qatar World Cup 2022: Paris joins boycott of fan zones over human rights

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The latest French city to declare that it won’t be erecting massive screens and fan zones for the upcoming World Cup in Qatar is Paris. Concerns about the host country’s ecology and human rights were mentioned.

On ethical concerns, Lille, Marseille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, and Reims are also abstaining from the competition. The event’s location in the winter, according to Pierre Rabadan, head of sport at Paris City Hall, was also taken into consideration. After the Socialist mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, criticised the Qatar World Cup as “nonsense in terms of human rights, the environment, and sport,” the movement got underway on Saturday.

She laid the blame on worries about workers’ rights in Qatar, the allegedly high number of deaths among foreign employees, and the environmental impact of the stadiums, which are all outfitted with outside air conditioning, just like other mayors on the left and right.

A massive screening that was scheduled to take place in Marseille if France advanced to the final has since been cancelled.

The competition “has gradually converted itself into a human and environmental catastrophe, incompatible with the principles which we expect sport – and especially football – to promote,” the city’s socialist mayor, Benoit Payan, said.

Uncertainty surrounded the number of French cities actually setting up outdoor locations where fans could follow the development of the French team, the 2018 world champions in Russia.

The mayor of Angoulême in southwest France stated that his choice had more to do with finances than it did with Qatar’s human rights situation.

A huge screen costs “many tens of thousands of euros,” according to Xavier Bonnefont. “It seemed paradoxical to us to risk this sort of money at a time when we are trying to find economies to bear the escalating cost of energy,” he said.

“In any case, I don’t think many people would have shown up in the cold. In a bar, customers will be just as content.”

The number of boycott requests for the World Cup, which is being held in France from November 21 to December 18, has been rising, albeit they are still not widely accepted.

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Sacheen Littlefeather: Native American activist and actor who refused Oscar for Brando dies

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Marlon Brando’s advocate Sacheen Littlefeather, who turned down the Oscar for The Godfather on his behalf in 1973, has passed away at the age of 75. The Academy reported that the actress, who had breast cancer, passed away on Sunday.

Two weeks after being honoured by the organisation at an event in Los Angeles and receiving a public apology for how she was treated at the Oscars, she passed away. At the occasion 50 years ago, Littlefeather, who is of Apache and Yaqui descent, was jeered while speaking on stage.

The Californian, born Maria Cruz, donned full Apache regalia for the first Oscars to be broadcast worldwide, and she explained on behalf of Brando that he would not accept his best actor award for the mafia movie in order to protest the mistreatment of Native Americans in the film industry and to draw attention to the Wounded Knee protests.

In order to protest government oppression, residents and radical AIM activists descended upon the nearby village of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973 in large numbers.

A violent standoff with federal agents ensued as a result of the demonstration and lasted 71 days.

When announcing Littlefeather’s passing online, the Academy cited her as saying: “When I am gone, always be reminded that whenever you stand for your truth, you will be keeping my voice and the voices of our nations and our people alive.” Littlefeather is the subject of the 2021 documentary Sacheen: Breaking the Silence.

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