9 June 2008. A Shot of Culture, if you please…

Popular British show group Stomp returns to Moscow

The popular British show group Stomp returns to Moscow for a new tour in a much-awaited follow-up to two previous performances. Starting off as a street performance outfit nearly 20 years ago, Stomp has since grown into an international sensation, having performed in over 350 cities in 36 countries worldwide, dancing on Broadway and during Oscar and Grammy award ceremonies. These extravagantly-attired dancers use everything but conventional percussion instruments, trashcans, tea chests, plastic bags, plungers, boots, and hubcaps, to fill the stage with compelling and infectious rhythms ranging from step-dance to rap to flamenco. Long billed as the Kings of Rhythm, the British dancers break through language barriers and easily get their message across to people of every nationality.

3 June 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=27934&cid=51&p=03.06.2008

About 200 films will be screened at the 30th Moscow International Film Festival

John Cassavetes (1929-89), famous American film producer

The 30th Moscow International Film Festival shall run from 19 through 28 June. Its president shall be director Nikita Mikhalkov, who was elected to the post for three years at the last year’s meeting of the organising committee. The jury shall be headed by the famous actress Liv Ullmann, who played leading roles in nine films directed by Ingmar Bergman. About 200 films shall be screened during the festival. The festival programme includes several retrospectives, including films by John Cassavetes, a pioneer of American independent film, and a retrospective of Socialist avant garde cinema.

5 June 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28057&cid=51&p=05.06.2008

New York Opera Company offers “Porgy and Bess” in Moscow

The New York Opera Company shall offer a production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in a one-off performance in Moscow Friday. According to the composer’s will, all the singers are black. The opera has been around since 1935. Many tunes in it, including Summertime, now have lives of their own.

6 June 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28108&cid=51&p=06.06.2008

19th Kinotavr film festival opens in Sochi

There are 14 full-length movies set to be screened during the 19th Kinotavr film festival opening tonight in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, to run until 15 June. The festival’s jury is led by the prominent Russian director and playwright Pavel Chukhrai. According to Mark Rudinshtein, the man who organised this cinematic event in 1994, Kinotavr has since uncovered a flurry of new names and talents in modern cinema.

7 June 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28121&cid=51&p=07.06.2008

“The Russian Measured Icon: Its History and Present Day” exhibition opened in Prague

A baptism in contemporary Serbia. Everybody’s having a grand ol’ time… except for the kid! NOBODY does things like our Serbian brothers, God luv ’em!

“The Russian Measured Icon: Its History and Present Day” exhibition has opened in Prague. It displays photo copies and consecrated special icons. In the old days, these icons were presented to each baby at the time of its baptism. They were painted on a special board, the height of which was the exact height of the baby and the width was same as its shoulders. The baby’s patron saint was painted on the icon.

8 June 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28179&cid=51&p=08.06.2008

Voice of Russia World Service

9 June 2008. A Day at the Races…

Russia’s Dinara Safina faces Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic in the French Open finals

Dinara Safina (1986- ), Russian female tennis star

Russia’s Dinara Safina is facing Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic in the French Open finals, and on the men’s side, last year’s Roland Garros winner Rafael Nadal from Spain will be playing against the world’s Number One, Roger Federer of Switzerland, in a much-awaited showdown scheduled for tomorrow. In the semi-finals competition, Nadal ousted Serbia’s Novak Jokovic and Federer beat Gaël Monfils of France. The prize at stake is 15.5 million euros (569.899 million roubles. 24.133 million USD. 12.306 million UK pounds)

7 June 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28119&cid=52&p=07.06.2008

European Championship in football opens today

Guus Hiddink (1946- ), Dutch coach of Team Russia

The European Championship football series kicks off today, co-hosted by Switzerland and Austria. The Swiss will get the competition off and running when they meet the Czech Republic in the opening game in Basel, and Portugal will face off with Turkey in Geneva. Russia plays its first game on 10 June in Innsbruck, Austria, against the formidable Spanish side.

7 June 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28120&cid=52&p=07.06.2008

Euro 2008 continues

The teams of Group B meet on Sunday at the Euro 2008 European football championship, which is now underway in Austria and Switzerland. Austria plays Croatia in Vienna and Poland plays Germany in Klagenfurt. The teams of Group A played on Saturday. The Czech Republic defeated Switzerland 1-0 in Basel, and Portugal impressively defeated Turkey 2-0 in Geneva.

8 June 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28166&cid=52&p=08.06.2008

Russian sail training ship Pallada crossed the Red Sea

The Pallada leaves her homeport of Vladivostok on 2 November 2007 on her around-the-world voyage

The Russian sail training ship Pallada, currently on a circumnavigation of the globe, left behind the Red Sea, which is known for frequent attacks by bandits on transiting ships. The vessel navigated through the Gulf of Aden and entered the Arabian Sea. The itinerary will then take the ship to the Indian Ocean. Before Pallada returns to her home port of Vladivostok in the middle of August, it’s due to call at ports in Malaysia, China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. The Pallada has been en route on its round-the-world voyage since last November, a voyage that’s been dedicated to the 190^th anniversary of the expedition of a flotilla of Russian ships under Bellingshausen and Lazarev that circumnavigated the earth, and also to the 50^th anniversary of Russian Antarctic exploration.

9 May 2008

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28197&cid=52&p=09.06.2008

Voice of Russia World Service

Up to 20,000 Russian fans likely to attend Euro 2008

Up to 20,000 Russian fans are expected to cheer their side on at Euro 2008, to be jointly held in Austria and Switzerland this month, the head of the Russian Football Union said on Friday. “I believe that between 15,000 and 20,000 supporters will arrive from Russia”, Vitaly Mutko told the newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta (The Russian Newspaper), adding that while only 6,000 tickets had been allocated to Russia for each match, he expected that the team’s fans would buy tickets “through other channels”.

The tournament kicks off on Saturday with a game between Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Russia starts their campaign with a match against Spain on 10 June. They then face Greece on 14 June and Sweden on 18 June. The number of Russian fans attending major soccer tournaments has increased each year since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

6 June 2008

http://en.rian.ru/sports/20080606/109377684.html

Euro 2008 kicks off in Austria and Switzerland

Euro 2008 kicks off on Saturday with a Group A match between hosts Switzerland and the Czech Republic. The tournament, the third largest sporting event in the world after the Olympics and the World Cup, is being jointly played in Austria and Switzerland, with the final to be held in Vienna’s Ernst Happel stadium on 29 June. Over the next 23 days, the tournament will see 31 games at eight different stadiums across the two countries. Joint-host Austria is in Group B and faces Croatia in their opening game on 8 June.

“The party is going to start”, said UEFA President Michel Platini on Friday. “There is going to be a lot of drama, there will be pain and joy, and the best team will be the winner. I also hope that football will be the winner. I’m expecting wonderful emotions and I’m passing the ball on to all the players, who are key to our success”. Respected British bookmakers William Hill make Germany 4-1 favourites, with Spain at 5-1, and Italy at 13-2. Russia is a 22-1 outsider. Greece, who shocked the world by winning Euro 2004, is also at 22-1. Some 20,000 Russian fans are expected to attend the tournament to cheer on their team. Team Russia, managed by experienced Dutch coach Guus Hiddink, kick off their campaign with a game against Spain on 10 June.

7 June 2008

http://en.rian.ru/sports/20080607/109473734.html

Ivanovic beats Russia’s Safina to take French Open title

Ana Ivanovic (1987- ), Serbian female tennis champion

Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic beat Russia’s Dinara Safina in the French Open women’s final on Saturday to win her first grand slam title. Second-seeded Ivanovic, 20, outplayed 22-year-old Safina (13) to clinch the match in straight sets 6:4, 6:3. Safina, the younger sister of Russia’s former world No 1, Marat Safin, was playing in her first grand slam final after ousting three of her higher-ranked compatriots, including top seed, Maria Sharapova, Yelena Dementyeva (7) and Svetlana Kuznetsova (4).

7 June 2008

http://en.rian.ru/sports/20080607/109507923.html

RIA-Novosti

Canadian MPs Call for Granting Asylum to US Army Deserters

The Canadian Houses of Parliament, Ottawa

The House of Commons in the Canadian Parliament voted in a non-binding motion this week to the effect that US soldiers who deserted the military because of their opposition to the war in Iraq should be allowed to stay permanently in Canada. The three opposition parties, which together hold a majority of seats in the House, backed a motion that said the government should allow conscientious objectors and their families from the United States “who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations” to stay in Canada.

In recent history, Canada was a haven for tens of thousands of US draft dodgers during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and has attracted an estimated 200 Americans to date who are resisting the Iraq conflict. Bob Rae, foreign affairs spokesman for the main opposition Liberal Party, told reporters outside the Commons after the vote, “Canada has always been a place which has welcomed those who seek peace and seek freedom”.

The minority Conservative government opposes the idea, arguing that, unlike during the Vietnam War, the current US military is composed of volunteers, and also that Washington allows people to apply for conscientious objector status. “People do not join with their eyes closed. If they do, then, they have their own problems”, Conservative MP Laurie Hawn, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Canadian Air Force, said during debate on the motion.

Nevertheless, most of the members of the main opposition parties in the Canadian Parliament thought otherwise and moved to support the right of US war resisters to stay in Canada permanently. Late last year, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of two US Army deserters whose applications for refugee status had been turned down by immigration authorities, which opened the way for the expulsion of American Iraq war resisters who chose to move to Canada rather than go to fight a war they object to.

5 June 2008

Yuri Reshetnikov

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28041&cid=87&p=05.06.2008

The Obama Phenomenon: The View from Russia

US Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) (1961- ), presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in 2008

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will suspend her campaign and endorse Senator Barack Obama on Saturday, bringing an end to a ground-breaking presidential race. Groundbreaking it truly is, because, for the first time in the history of the United States, the country has a chance to see a woman or an Afro-American move into the Oval Office. Still, halfway through, the primary race has been described as the most intense, expensive, and unpredictable ever held. Few believed that the Illinois Senator, too young, too inexperienced, and definitely not White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, could get so close to winning the presidency.

Barack Obama has been smart enough to realise all these “too”s and he turned his deficiencies into strong points by making Change the call word of his campaign. Americans, eager to elect anyone but Bush, put their trust in the Illinois Senator who himself is a living example of things “moving on”. Mr Obama’s forte is that he won’t play by the rules set by America’s political establishment. The Obama campaign reached its highest point after Fr Michael Pfleger, a white Catholic priest, recently told the congregation at the Democratic candidate’s church that Hillary Clinton felt entitled to the presidency because she is white. Mr Obama, already the darling of Hollywood superstars, business executives, and, now, politically-aware young Americans, said in a statement he was “deeply disappointed” in Fr Michael, accused the priest of racism, and said he was pulling out of his congregation.

As to his fellow Democratic rival, by mid-March, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign knew it had a problem with what it had once assumed was a reliable firewall, its support amongst the so-called superdelegates. Her entire campaign was generously peppered with mistakes that were too many to ignore. The commanding lead she had held in superdelegates at the start of the contests, she was about 100 ahead of Mr Obama, had dwindled by mid-March to just 12. The superdelegates were showing a degree of independence that the Clinton campaign had not counted on, not quite buying her argument that she was more “electable” than Mr Obama. After Barack Obama scored 11 back-to-back primary wins, the former First Lady began to worry, stopped radiating confidence, and started making mistakes. Fellow women were the first to feel alienated, followed by young Americans, and, then, the business community. During the past month, Mrs Clinton was openly fishing for compassion. The tactic surprisingly worked and Hillary, first betrayed by her husband, and, then, by her party’s bigwigs, won states that had previously been expected to vote for Obama.

The entire history of US presidential elections shows that Democratic hopefuls should never be too popular. In 2000, after the departure of the hugely popular Bill Clinton, everyone was betting on Al Gore, but, his half-hearted campaign put the victory into the hands of the less suave and media-favoured George W. Bush. As recently as January, everyone was sure that the hugely unpopular Bush had all but nixed GOP chances for the presidency. Feeling comfortably assured of their imminent victory, the Democrats were already busily carving up Cabinet seats and relegated campaign management to the candidates, whose non-stop bickering and outright mudslinging eventually left the Democratic camp bitterly split. This split could play right into the hands of their Republican archrival, John McCain…

6 June 2008

David Brian

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=28099&cid=87&p=06.06.2008