My conclusion about what makes so special this city. After 4 years living, feeling and growing in London !!
ON THE ROAD TO OUR GREATEST VERSION!!
See you on the next VIDEO and….PURA VIDA.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
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Supporting Blockchain revolution with determination.
But without take myself too seriously!
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China has moved quickly to avoid a trade war by offering concessions on U.S. beef exports and better market access for financial investments, the Financial Times reports. The U.S. and China also agreed to a 100-day plan to address trade imbalances.
Additional concessions by China are said to also include agricultural imports. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday discussed trade options at their first face-to-face meeting in Washington.
“The atmosphere at the talks was good,” Chu Shulong, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, told the Financial Times. “Trade is the most worrying issue for the U.S. and China. But it looks like a trade war can be averted for at least the next 100 days while the two sides negotiate.”
The treaty would allow American beef to be sold in China for the first time since 2003 and allow majority foreign ownership in China’s securities and insurance companies. China imposed a ban on American beef in 2003 triggered by a case of mad-cow disease in Washington state.
U.S. officials are also looking for a lower tax rate on automotive imports while China is seeking greater protection for Chinese investment in the United States.
Source: newsmax – Report: China Offers Concessions on Beef Imports, Financial Investments
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Hungarians rose up in one of the largest protests against the seven-year rule of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Sunday, protesting against new legislation that could force out of the country one of its top international universities.
The Central European University (CEU), a school founded by U.S. financier George Soros, could be forced to leave Hungary after a bill passed in Parliament this week by Orban’s Fidesz party set stringent, new conditions under which it must operate.
The bill has led to criticism from hundreds of leading academics worldwide as well as from the U.S. government and the European Union.
The protest drew some of the largest crowds against Orban’s seven-year rule, with organisers estimating attendance around 70,000. The crowd marched across a bridge over the river Danube and filled the square outside Parliament, which was defended by several lines of police, some in riot gear.
Thousands of people, mostly students, stayed on after the main protest for an unannounced march on the building of the Education Secretariat, then on to the headquarters of Fidesz, where where they chanted anti-Fidesz slogans before, with numbers dwindling, they blocked Oktogon square, a busy intersection in central Budapest.
Though passionate, the protest remained peaceful throughout.
Hungarian President Janos Ader must now sign the bill by Monday to make it law. The protesters said they wanted to convince Ader to reject the bill and refer it to a constitutional review.
“What do we want Ader to do? VETO,” the crowd chanted. “Free country, free university!”
“The government wants to silence pretty much everyone who doesn’t think the same as them, who thinks freely, who can be liberal, can be leftist,” protest organiser Kornel Klopfstein, a PhD student at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, told Reuters.
“According to the government one of the centres of these people is at CEU… We should stand up for academic freedom and for CEU.”
The students sat down on the pavement and chanted slogans like “Here is the end, Viktor”, or “Fidesz is dirty”.
Crackdown on Dissent
The government has been tightening up on dissent in other ways as well, proposing tighter rules on non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which will have to register with authorities if they have a yearly foreign income of 7.2 million forints ($25,000).
The rules are admittedly targeting organisations funded by Soros, a Hungarian-born American financier who for decades has given away billions of dollars of his fortune to support causes of a liberal “open society” worldwide.
The Hungarian premier has often vilified Soros, whose ideals are squarely at odds with Orban’s view that European culture is under an existential threat from migration and multiculturalism.
Orban has often said NGOs are doing Soros’ bidding.
“The government is always looking for someone to fight with, and Soros seems like a perfect person for this because he funds NGOs in Hungary and he funds CEU as well,” Klopfstein said.
CEU Rector Michael Ignatieff has said the school would continue operations as normal and demanded that the law be scrapped and additional international guarantees of academic freedoms be added to current legal safeguards.
The U.S. State Department will send diplomats to Budapest next week to address the CEU crisis, said Ignatieff, who spent several days in Washington to lobby the U.S. government, lawmakers and the media.
“They want to completely undermine and eradicate what remains of civil society,” Bara Bognar, a 40-year-old finance professional, told Reuters. “This is the first protest I have ever participated in. There is a level at which you must be present, so here I am.”
“The method, the lack of dialogue, the efforts for years to annihilate all democratic institutions, this cannot be the future of us nor our children.”
Source: newsmax – Massive Protest in Hungary Against Bill That Could Oust Soros University
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Rep. Adam Schiff on Sunday said he wouldn’t recuse himself from the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election, Politico reports.
Schiff is the top Democrat on the committee. Mike Rogers, a former Republican chairman on the committee, called for his recusal Friday, accusing him of politicizing the investigation and contributing to the intelligence committee’s “loss of focus.”
“Both Nunes and Schiff are equally to blame for the Committee’s loss of focus,” Rogers wrote in an op-ed on CNN.com. “How can a committee, which handles sensitive classified information, conduct its business when the purportedly secret information is discussed – even by insinuation – publicly in front of the media?”
Schiff last week suggested to the media the panel had “more than circumstantial evidence” of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign during the election.
Schiff on Sunday said Rogers’ suggestion of recusal wasn’t “serious.”
“A lot of us have characterized how we’ve seen the intelligence,” Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“Mr. Rogers and others don’t quarrel with those who say they’ve seen no evidence.”
Rep. Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence Chairman, temporarily stepped aside from the probe last week after he said “several leftwing activist groups” filed accusations against him with the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Source: newsmax – Schiff Says He Won’t Step Aside From Russia Probe
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A 17-year-old asylum-seeker from Russia was arrested Sunday in connection with an explosive device found near a busy subway station in Norway’s capital that police defused before it detonated, authorities said.
The youth was detained on suspicion of handling explosives, but investigators do not know if he planned to carry out an attack with the homemade device, Signe Aaling, chief prosecutor for Norway’s PST security service, said.
Aaling described the explosive as “a primitive improvised explosive device with limited damage potential.”
“PST is now working on finding his intentions and find out whether others are involved,” she said.
The youth was not identified, but security service head Benedicte Bjornland said Norwegian intelligence was aware of him. He is an asylum-seeker from Russia who arrived in Norway with his family in 2010, Bjornland said.
Bjornland also alleged that the youth was part of “extreme Islamism” circles in Norway. He was arrested based on a tip from the public, Bjornland said without elaborating.
“It is likely that that attacks in France, German, Great Britain, Russia and Sweden can create a copycat effect in Norway with people with Islamic sympathies,” Bjornland said, listing the locations of extremist attacks that have devastated Europe in the last year.
“The attacks demonstrate how easy such attacks can be carried out, and prove to others that it is possible to make something similar,” she added.
The teenage suspect’s lawyer, Aase Karine Sigmond, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that her client denies wrongdoing and had distanced himself from the Islamic State group.
“We are talking about boyish stupidities,” Sigmond told NRK.
The teen, who lives in Oslo, is scheduled for a pre-trial custody hearing on Monday.
The discovery of the explosive Saturday night — found on the street just outside the Groenland subway station — prompted police to evacuate late bars and restaurants in the Norwegian capital.
The Oslo explosive was found less than a mile from the government buildings that were damaged in a deadly bomb attack carried out by right-wing extremist Anders Breivik in 2011. That bomb and a subsequent gun massacre at a Norwegian island killed a total of 77 people.
Norway was put on high alert after neighboring Sweden suffered a truck attack in Stockholm on Friday that killed four people and injured 15.
The risk of a significant attack striking the country was raised on Sunday to “likely” for what intelligence officials said would be a two-month period.
Source: newsmax – Teen Asylum-Seeker ID’d as Suspect in Norway Explosive Case
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President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency in Egypt following twin church bombings that killed dozens of people in two cities Sunday.
Sisi announced the “state of emergency for three months” in a defiant speech at the presidential palace after a meeting of the national defence council.
The Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for the church bombings in the Nile Delta cities of Alexandria and Tanta in which at least 44 people were killed.
The emergency law expands police powers of arrest, surveillance and seizures and can limit freedom of movement.
Egypt had been ruled for decades under a state of emergency, which was cancelled under Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2012.
Rescinding it had been a main demand of Egyptian rights activists during the 2011 revolt that overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.
Following Morsi’s overthrow by Sisi, then an army chief, in 2013, a state of emergency was declared for a month after deadly clashes between police and Islamist protesters killed hundreds and Islamist mobs attacked Christian properties.
Part of North Sinai where the Islamic State group’s Egyptian affiliate is based has remained under a state of emergency.
Source: newsmax – Egypt’s Sisi Declares Three-Month State of Emergency
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe shared his support Sunday for President Donald Trump’s strike on Syria this week, and the two leaders vowed to work together amid North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear threat, the Washington Examiner reported.
“[Trump and Abe] agreed that [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, including women and children, was abhorrent and warranted a strong response from the international community,” the White House announced, per the report.
The statement comes hours after reports a U.S. Navy strike group called Carl Vinson was moving toward the western Pacific Ocean near the Korean peninsula.
“The clock has now run out, and all options are on the table,” the White House said earlier this month.
After a strike on a Syrian air base late Thursday night, President Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in Florida this weekend, reportedly addressing North Korea’s worrisome behavior.
“U.S. Pacific Command is fully committed to working closely with our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies to maintain security,” the military command in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region said, according to reports.
Source: newsmax – Report: Japan’s Abe Supports US on Syrian Strike, NKorea
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A joint command center made up of the forces of Russia, Iran, and militias supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the U.S. strike on a Syrian air base Friday crossed “red lines,” and it would respond to any new aggression and increase its support for its ally.
The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at a Syrian air base Friday from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched earlier in the week, escalating the U.S. role in Syria and drawing criticism from Assad’s allies including Russia and Iran.
“What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines,” said the statement published by the group on media outlet Ilam al Harbi (War Media). “From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well.”
“Russia and Iran will not allow America to dominate the world,” the statement concluded, according to CNN.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meanwhile, blamed Russian inaction for helping fuel the chemical weapons attack it had reacted to, saying Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria.
He said the United States expected Russia to take a tougher stance against Syria by rethinking its alliance with Assad because “every time one of these horrific attacks occurs, it draws Russia closer into some level of responsibility.”
Putin, Rouhani Speak
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani said in a phone call aggressive U.S. actions against Syria were not permissible and violated international law, the Kremlin said Sunday.
The two leaders also called for an objective investigation into an incident involving chemical weapons in Syria’s Idlib and said they were ready to deepen cooperation to fight terrorism, the Kremlin said in a statement on its website.
Syrian army forces had been losing ground across the country until Russia intervened militarily in September 2015, propping up Assad and protecting its own interests in the region.
Assad has also drawn heavily on foreign Shi’ite militias sponsored by Iran, led by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, for his most important gains since the Russian intervention.
The joint command centre also said the presence of U.S troops in northern Syria where Washington has hundreds of special forces helping the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to oust Islamic State was “illegal” and Washington had a long-term plan to occupy the area.
The regional alliance said the U.S. cruise missile strikes on a Syrian base which Washington said was involved in a chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians would not deter their forces from “liberating” all of Syrian territory.
In Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the U.S. missile strike was “a strategic error, and a repeat of the mistakes of the past,” the state news agency IRNA reported.
“The Islamic Republic has shown that . . . it does not back off and its people and officials . . . do not retreat in the face of threats,” Khamenei said.
Many Syrians opposed to Assad’s rule consider Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iranian-backed troops as occupiers seeking to drive out mainly Sunni Syrians from the areas they live in. They hold Iran and its allies responsible for the displacement of millions outside the country.
They also see Russia as a foreign occupier whose relentless aerial bombardment of rebel-held areas has led to thousands of civilian casualties. Some accuse Moscow of applying a “scorched-earth policy” that targets hospitals, schools and residential areas more than frontlines to break the resolve of the anti-Assad insurgency.
Source: newsmax – Russia, Iran Warn US: Cross ‘Red Lines’ Again, ‘We Will Respond With Force’
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The world’s oldest and most experienced spacewoman is getting three extra months in orbit.
NASA announced Wednesday that astronaut Peggy Whitson will remain on the International Space Station until September. The 57-year-old astronaut arrived last November and was supposed to return to Earth in June. But under an agreement between NASA and the Russian Space Agency, she’ll stay another three months and take advantage of an empty seat on a Soyuz capsule in the fall.
This mission — her third — will now last close to 10 months. Scientists are eager to monitor any changes to her body, to add to the knowledge gained from retired astronaut Scott Kelly’s recent one-year flight.
The two men she flew up with in November — France’s Thomas Pesquet and Russia’s Oleg Novitskiy — will return in June without her.
Whitson has already spent more time in space than any other woman, counting all her missions, and just last week set a record for the most spacewalks by a woman, with eight.
This weekend, she’ll take over as space station commander, her second time at the job.
And on April 24, she’ll set a new U.S. record for most accumulated time in space. That NASA record — 534 days — is currently held by former space station resident Jeffrey Williams.
Whitson welcomed Wednesday’s news.
“I love being up here,” she said in a statement. “Living and working aboard the space station is where I feel like I make the greatest contribution, so I am constantly trying to squeeze every drop out of my time here. Having three more months to squeeze is just what I would wish for.”
NASA’s space station program director, Kirk Shireman, said Whitson’s skill and experience make her “an incredible asset” up there, and her extra time will be put to good use.
There will be a return seat for Whitson in September because the Soyuz due to launch later this month will carry up one American and one Russian, one person fewer than usual. Russia is temporarily cutting back to two station residents. With Whitson’s extended stay, the orbiting outpost will continue to have a full crew of six.
Whitson, a biochemist who grew up on a farm in Iowa, became an astronaut in 1996. She served as NASA’s chief astronaut from 2009 to 2012, the only woman to ever hold the job.
Source: newsmax – Veteran NASA Spacewoman Getting 3 Extra Months in Orbit
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A U.S. decision to move a Navy strike group toward the Korean peninsula is a “prudent” reaction to a pattern of provocative behavior from North Korea, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Sunday.
U.S. President Donald Trump will review options to remove the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, McMaster told Fox News Sunday, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed with Trump last week that the situation is unacceptable.
“It’s prudent to do it, isn’t it?” McMaster said, when asked why the Navy strike group Carl Vinson, whose flagship is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of that name, will make its way toward the Korean peninsula from Singapore as a show of force.
Reuters was the first to report the deployment on Saturday.
“This is a rogue regime that is now a nuclear-capable regime, and President Xi and President Trump agreed that that is unacceptable, that what must happen is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” McMaster said.
North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un, have repeatedly indicated an intercontinental ballistic missile test or something similar could be coming, possibly as soon as April 15, the 105th birthday of North Korea’s founding president and celebrated annually as “the Day of the Sun.”
Pyongyang tested a liquid-fueled Scud missile this month.
Source: newsmax – McMaster: Movement of US Navy Strike Group a Reaction to NKorea
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President Donald Trump condemned ISIS’s Palm Sunday church bombings in Egypt, expressing “great confidence” Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi “will handle the situation properly.”
So sad to hear of the terrorist attack in Egypt. U.S. strongly condemns. I have great…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 9, 2017
…confidence that President Al Sisi will handle situation properly.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 9, 2017
President Trump and el-Sisi had met at the White House on April 3, while Pope Francis, also denouncing the attacks, had been scheduled to visit Egypt on April 28-19, according to AP.
Bombs exploded at two Coptic churches in different cities in northern Egypt as worshippers were celebrating Palm Sunday, killing at least 43 people and wounding about 100 in an assault claimed by the Islamic State group.
Source: newsmax – Trump: ‘Great Confidence’ in Egyptian President After Attacks
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