Life: Eurovision win lifts spirits in Ukraine, raises eyebrows in Russia

Ukrainian politicians hailed their country's surprise weekend victory in the European Song Contest as a continent-wide endorsement in their smoldering conflict with Russia, while Moscow said the competition had been hijacked by politics.

Ukrainian singer Jamala overtook the bookmakers' favorites, Russia and Australia, to win the normally light-hearted contest with the song "1944" about the war-time deportations of ethnic Tatars from Ukraine's Crimea peninsula by Soviet dictator Stalin.

The singer, herself of Crimean Tatar descent, had drawn parallels in interviews to Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, which provoked Western condemnation of the Kremlin and was opposed by many in the region's Tatar minority.

Under Eurovision rules, her victory on Saturday evening means the 2017 contest will take place in the Ukrainian capital. One pro-Kremlin politician in Moscow suggested Russia might boycott the event next year.

After the results were announced in Stockholm, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Twitter: "Personally congratulated Jamala with the victory. Today her voice spoke to the world on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people. The truth, as always, prevailed!"

Ukraine's victory, 12 years after it last won the Eurovision title, lifted the mood of people worn down by two years of conflict with Russian-backed separatists in the east as well as political crises, corruption and poverty nationwide.

"It is a great win, and a very timely one. People need such things these days,” said Nikolay, a student from Kiev who only found out about it when a friend showed him a clip on her phone.

Nastya, a barista also from Kiev, had watched the contest through the night. “I am so happy," she said. "It is a small victory for Ukraine, it strengthens the spirit of our people.”

Greeted by singing and cheering fans on her arrival in Kiev on Sunday evening, Jamala said the win was double-edged.

“I think it’s a big opportunity for us and at the same time it is a huge responsibility because Europe trusted us,” she said.

Asked if next year's event could be held in Crimea, she said: "It's hard to see that happening for the time being".

DAY OF REMEMBRANCE

Ukraine marked an annual day of remembrance for victims of political repression on Sunday -- including Soviet purges of Crimean Tatars and other groups on Ukrainian soil.

Tatars, a Muslim people indigenous to the Black Sea peninsula, now number about 300,000 in a population of 2 million. While many Crimean residents want to be ruled by Moscow, many Tatars are still mistrustful of the Kremlin after the wartime deportations and have opposed Moscow's annexation.

That has unleashed fresh tensions. Two weeks ago, the Russian administration in Crimea banned the Crimean Tatars' highest ruling body, the Mejlis, and there have been accusations -- denied by Moscow - of systematic persecution of the Tatars.

Mejlis leader Refat Chubarov, said Jamala's victory marked another step toward liberating Crimea from the "Russian occupation".

"We saw an incredible number of true admirers of Jamala's talent, supporters of independent Ukraine, allies of the Crimean Tatar people," he said in a Facebook post.

Several Russian politicians said a pop music contest which is supposed to be free of politics had been skewed by political considerations and anti-Russian stereotypes.

"Geopolitics won on aggregate. Political meddling triumphed over fair competition," Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the upper house of the Russian parliament, wrote in a Facebook post.

Franz Klintzevich, another member of the Russian upper house of parliament, said he believed the Ukrainian hosts would exploit next year's contest to advance their political agenda in their conflict with Russia.

"If nothing changes in Ukraine, I don't think we should take part in this," he was quoted as saying by RIA news agency.

Moscow denies annexing Crimea. It says the region's people expressed their will to become part of Russia in a democratic referendum, and that it only sent in troops to make sure the popular will was respected.

Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine erupted soon after Crimea changed hands. More than 9,000 people have been killed and while a ceasefire agreed in February 2015 is largely holding, the two sides have yet to reach agreement on holding local elections

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.-Challenge to Australia's Senate voting reforms in boost for PM Turnbull

Challenge to Australia's Senate voting reforms in boost for PM Turnbull

Australia's High Court rejected a challenge to reforms to Senate voting on Friday in a boost for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ahead of elections on July 2.

Legislators passed the reforms in March, making it harder for smaller parties to enter parliament through vote-sharing deals.

Should Turnbull be returned as prime minister, the verdict clears the path after several years of key policies being rejected by the upper house.

Independent and minor party senators elected at the last election in 2013 have stalled key aspects of the government's agenda, including changes that would make higher education and health care more expensive and limit access to welfare.

The government is running neck-and-neck in opinion polls with the center-left Labor opposition, a sharp turnaround from Turnbull's honeymoon period, during which he was one of the most popular leaders in Australian history.

Turnbull still faces a gloomy economic outlook and Australia's hard-line immigration policy has drawn criticism at home and abroad.

The voting reforms were challenged by independent Senator Bob Day.

"The hurdle of getting elected to the Senate will be so high, they will never succeed," Senator David Leyonhjelm, a supporter of Day, told reporters in Canberra. "That is anti-democratic."

opposition.-U.S. concern grows over possible Venezuela meltdown: officials

U.S. concern grows over possible Venezuela meltdown: officials

The United States is increasingly concerned about the potential for an economic and political meltdown in Venezuela, spurred by fears of a debt default, growing street protests and deterioration of its oil sector, U.S. intelligence officials said on Friday.

In a bleak assessment of Venezuela's worsening crisis, the senior officials expressed doubt that unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro would allow a recall referendum this year, despite opposition-led protests demanding a vote to decide whether he stays in office.

But the two officials, briefing a small group of reporters in Washington, predicted that Maduro, who heads Latin America’s most ardently anti-U.S. government and a major U.S. oil supplier, was not likely to be able to complete his term, which is due to end after elections in late 2018.

They said one “plausible” scenario would be that Maduro’s own party or powerful political figures would force him out and would not rule out the possibility of a military coup. Still, they said there was no evidence of any active plotting or that he had lost support from the country’s generals.

The officials appeared to acknowledge that Washington has little leverage in how the situation unfolds in Venezuela, where any U.S. role draws government accusations of U.S.-aided conspiracies. Instead, the administration of President Barack Obama wants "regional" efforts to help keep the country from sliding into chaos.

“You can hear the ice cracking. You know there’s a crisis coming,” one U.S. official said. “Our pressure on this isn’t going to resolve this issue.”

Maduro hit back on Friday night, blasting what he said was a meeting "to conspire against Venezuela" in Washington.

"Washington is activating measures at the request of Venezuela's fascist right, who are emboldened by the coup in Brazil," he said during a televised broadcast in reference to this week's impeachment of fellow leftist Dilma Rousseff in Brazil.

Maduro, 53, then declared a 60-day state of emergency which includes the "necessary measures" to protect Venezuela in the event of a foreign attack, he said, without providing details. [L2N18B014]

Mobs in Venezuela have stolen flour, chicken and even underwear this week as looting increases across the crisis-hit OPEC nation where many basic products have run short, and the U.S. officials said this could spiral into widespread unrest. Soldiers fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters on Wednesday as Venezuela's opposition marched to pressure electoral authorities into allowing a recall referendum against Maduro.

Maduro has sworn he will not be forced out before his term expires in 2019 and accuses the opposition of seeking a coup against him to destroy the socialist legacy of his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez. Washington has had an acrimonious relationship with Caracas for years, especially following U.S. support for a short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez.

The U.S. officials insisted that the United States was not “rooting against” Caracas but just wanted to see the crisis defused.

They expressed concern for a possible spillover to its neighboring countries, especially Colombia, but said most of the instability would be "self-contained" to Venezuela.

Such intelligence assessments help U.S. policymakers decide on how to respond. There was no immediate comment from the White House. The administration quietly sought last year to improve relations but the imposition of new U.S. sanctions and drug-related indictments stoked fresh tensions.

The officials cited the risk of a Venezuelan debt default. Maduro's government has consistently paid its debt on time and has slammed market fears of a default as an international smear campaign.

Weak oil markets and an unraveling socialist economy have fanned concerns that the Venezuelan oil firm PDVSA will be unable to make nearly $5 billion in bond payments between now and the end of the year.

ISS.-Islamic State Yemen suicide bomber kills 25 police recruits: medics

A suicide bomber killed at least 25 new recruits inside a police compound in the southern Yemeni city of Mukalla on Sunday in an attack claimed by Islamic State, medical and security sources said.

The victims were queuing up to register when the bomb, which wounded 25 others, went off, the sources said.

It was the second deadly blast in four days to hit the city, a hub for al Qaeda before the militant group was pushed out last month in an offensive by Yemeni troops backed by a Saudi-led coalition.

In a message on its online news agency Amaq, Islamic State said Sunday's attacker was a "martrydom-seeker" who had detonated his explosive belt. It said around 40 died in the attack.

The city's security director, Mubarak al-Awthaban, who was at a nearby office when the suicide bomber struck the Fowa camp in the southern part of Mukalla, survived, security sources said.

Before being forced out, al Qaeda militants took advantage of more than a year of war between the Iran-allied Houthis and supporters of the Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to carve out a mini-state stretching across much of the southern coast, including Mukalla.

Their militant rivals in Yemen's branch of Islamic State have carried out a series of suicide attacks on all parties to Yemen's tangled conflict.

The growing Islamist militant threat has led the Houthis and the Yemeni government to embark on peace talks now under way in Kuwait.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab countries intervened in the war in March 2015 in support of the government, which had been swept into exile by the Houthis.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Islamic State view the Arab coalition as a pawn of the West and see the Shi'ite Muslim Houthis as apostates deserving death.

The U.S. military announced last week it had deployed a small number of personnel to Yemen to aid in the fight against AQAP, its first troop presence in the country since the Houthi takeover.

EI.-Australia charges five men over plot to sail to join Islamic StateEI.-

Australian police have charged five men suspected of planning to travel to Syria to join Islamic State via a journey that would start in a small motor boat taking them to Indonesia and the Philippines.

The men, aged between 21 and 31, were charged on Saturday with preparing to enter a foreign country "for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities," an offense that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Australian Attorney-General George Brandis told reporters on Sunday "their intentions to travel to the Middle East to engage in terrorist war fighting were known to the authorities," and that their passports had earlier been canceled.

The five, who were not named, were arrested on Tuesday after towing the seven-meter motor boat almost 3,000 km (1,865 miles) from Melbourne to Cairns in northern Queensland state, police said.

The men, in custody since Tuesday, will appear in court on Monday.

Brandis said that when it became clear to the men they could not leave "in an orthodox way, they remained under surveillance so that if they attempted to leave the country in this very unusual way they would be able to be stopped and they were."

There is "an unusual character to the plot, I know it has been ridiculed, but these are serious crimes," he said.

NO CURRENT THREAT

A separate police statement said there is no current threat of a terrorist act to the Australian community arising from this investigation.

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown radicals since 2014 and authorities say they have thwarted a number of potential ones. There have been several "lone wolf" assaults, including a cafe siege in Sydney that left two hostages and the gunman dead.

About 100 people have left Australia for Syria to fight alongside organizations such as Islamic State, Australia's Immigration Minister said last month.

Police said earlier this week that it was unclear where the men had planned to put the boat in the water. Indonesia and Australia share a maritime border, but it spans several hundred kilometers of open sea at its narrowest point.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said Melbourne-born radical preacher Musa Cerantonio, a vocal supporter of Islamic State who was deported from the Philippines to Australia in 2014, was among those charged. Police declined to comment on the report.

On Sunday, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she will attend Syria peace talks in Vienna on Tuesday co-chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

(This story has been refiled to add a missing word in first paragraph, and delete the extraneous word in last paragraph)

WASH.-Assessor diz que não acreditar ser DonaldTrump em gravação supostamente de porta-voz

WASHINGTON - Um importante assessor de Donald Trump disse neste domingo não acreditar na reportagem que afirma que o bilionário se passou por seu próprio porta-voz para vangloriar-se sobre sua vida pessoal a uma revista de celebridades.

O Washington Post divulgou uma gravação de áudio na sexta-feira de um homem que se identificou como “John Miller”, um suposto agente publicitário de Trump, e que teria falado sobre encontros românticos do bilionário durante uma conversa com um repórter da People Magazine em 1991.

Depois de ouvir a gravação durante o programa “State of the Union”, da CNN, o assessor sênior de Trump, Paul Manafort, afirmou não acreditar que aquela seria a voz do candidato favorito do partido republicano para disputar as eleições norte-americanas.

“Mal posso entender a gravação”, disse Manafort. “Não posso dizer quem é. Donald Trump diz que não é ele, eu acredito que não seja ele.”

Na sexta-feira, Trump disse ao programa "Today", da NBC, que a voz não era dele, embora tenha admitido usar ao menos um pseudônimo para falar com repórteres no ano passado.

A reportagem original da People Magazine, publicada em 1991, descreve Miller como “um misterioso relações públicas que se parece justamente com Donald”.

Poucos dias após a publicação, a repórter da People Sue Carswell, que gravou a entrevista, disse que Trump admitiu ter se passado por Miller como uma brincadeira e teria se desculpado por isso.

No início do mês, Trump selou sua indicação para disputar a eleição presidencial de 8 de novembro pelo Partido Republicano e tem trabalhado para tentar unificar o partido a seu favor.

A gravação rapidamente se espalhou pela mídia norte-americana e, no sábado, o popular programa humorístico Saturday Night Live, satirizou a gravação, com um ator interpretando Trump, em que ele telefonava para repórteres fingindo ser seu próprio porta-voz.

Las mujeres de los futbolistas del FC Barrcelona, estrellas de la fiesta de la Liga del Barça

Sofia Balbi y Antonella Rocuzzo, en la fiesta de la Liga del Barça ${imageCaption}

Las parejas de los futbolistas acabaron siendo las estrellas en la fiesta que el FC Barcelona organizó anoche en el Hotel W de la Ciudad Condal para celebrar la vigesimocuarta Liga del club azulgrana, conquistada unas horas antes en Granada.

Tras la cena, la fiesta prosiguió en la discoteca del hotel, Eclipse, con participación destacada de Shakira, pareja de Gerard Piqué. Las mujeres de Leo Messi, Antonella Rocuzzo, y de Luis Suárez, Sofía Balbi, colgaron un ‘selfie’ en Instagram.

Los jugadores, que cerraron la celebración bien entrada la madrugada, se reencontrarán esta tarde para la rúa que empezará a la seis de la tarde en el World Trade Center y acabará en la Avenida Rius i Taulet tras subir por el Paral·lel hasta la Plaza España.

¿Qué fue antes, el huevo o la gallina? ¡Misterio resuelto! Científicos responden si fue antes el huevo o la gallina

¿Qué fue antes, el huevo o la gallina? La pregunta lleva años buscando respuesta. Y la humanidad lleva años tratando de dársela.

Desde Aristóteles, en siglo IV a.C., a Stephen Hawking, en el XXI, muchos han intentado resolver el dilema y acabar con el eterno debate. Los últimos han sido los miembros de la comunidad Big Van, científicos sobre ruedas, que han dado respuesta a la pregunta en forma de esquema evolutivo. ¿Su conclusión? Fue antes el huevo.

El grupo de 19 científicos publicó este domingo en su página de Facebook este dibujo, que ya se ha compartido más de 600, veces según el cual los huevos aparecieron con las amniotas, muchos millones de años antes a la aparición de la humanidad. Las gallinas llegaron años después con las aves.

10 misterios que la humanidad no ha podido resolver

ATLÁNTIDA, LA ISLA SUMERGIDA

La describió el filósofo griego Platón hace más de veinte siglos y desde entonces no sabemos dónde está. Se trata de la Atlántida, una enorme y próspera isla-ciudad que, según los historiadores, se encontraba frente a las Columnas de Hércules, en lo que hoy se conoce como el Estrecho de Gibraltar. Durante siglos se ha hablado de este lugar paradisíaco como el centro y punto de partida de la cultura en Occidente.

A partir de excavaciones y de fotos satelitales, investigadores alemanes, españoles y norteamericanos piensan que esta civilización que desapareció totalmente a causa de una gigantesca inundación o un tsunami alrededor del año 550 antes de Cristo se encontraba ubicada en la marisma de Hinojo, en el Parque Nacional de Doñana.

El esquema, que también han compartido con éxito en Twitter, ha recibido decenas de comentarios de usuarios de distintas redes sociales: algunos aplauden la conclusión y otros la ponen en duda. ¿Qué te parece a ti? ¿Te convence?

PABLO IGLESIAS (Podemos) descuartiza a ALBERTO GARZÓN de IU y al clásico comunismo.

Casi nadie ponía en duda de lo que, al final, ocurrió, por tanto, así lo anticipé en http://blogdejuanpardo.blogspot.com.es/ . Pablo Iglesias es el líder de la extrema izquierda española y sobrepasó los 5.000.000 de votos. Alberto Garzón se quedó en la quinta parte. En una alianza entre Podemos e Izquierda Unida resultaba evidente que correspondía a los podemitas la parte del león. Alberto Garzón ha conseguido situar en las listas, eso sí, a diez de sus hombres y mujeres con posibilidad de llegar al Congreso. Es decir, multiplicará por cinco si se repiten los resultados su presencia parlamentaria.

Faltaba por poner el cascabel al gato: el nombre de la alianza. Pablo Iglesias rechazaba el más lógico: Podemos-IU. Ha conseguido que solo figure el suyo. El Unidos Podemos es la demostración final de cómo el líder podemita se ha merendado a Alberto Garzón.

Unidos Podemos no pasa de ser una máscara como lo era y lo es Izquierda Unida. En casi toda Europa, ante la probabilidad de un vapuleo electoral, des-aparecieron, tras la caída del muro de Berlín, las siglas del Partido Comunista, arrasado por el desmoronamiento de la Unión Soviética y la evidencia del fracaso del sistema marxista. En España, no. En España, el Partido Comunista permanece y está escondido tras la máscara de Izquierda Unida a la que domina plenamente.

Podemos es el Partido Comunista del siglo XXI; Izquierda Unida, el Par-tido Comunista clásico, el de toda la vida, que languidecía con pobres resultados electorales. La alianza y el acuerdo entre los dos partidos comunistas han abierto alentadoras expectativas a sus fieles. El Partido Comunista podría relegar al PSOE a un tercer lugar en las elecciones del 26 de junio.

Lo que está claro que debemos dejarnos de eufemismos y llamar a las cosas por su nombre. Unidos Podemos es, sencillamente, el Partido Comunista. Y que nadie se llame a engaño de a quién va a votar