Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky broke her silence Tuesday about her illicit 1990s affair with president Bill Clinton, saying she wants to reclaim the narrative of events that brought her global humiliation.

Lewinsky, now 40, was in her early twenties when she became the infamous blue dress and beret-wearing muse who engaged in sexual relations with the president and then endured a colossal backlash that nearly drove her to suicide.

After years of being turned away by potential employers and ridiculed online, she decided to write her version of events in this month's Vanity Fair magazine.

"It's time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress," Lewinsky wrote, in excerpts posted on the magazine's website.

"I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I've decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past."

She said her radio silence was so complete for nearly a decade that rumors swirled that the Clintons must have paid her off to keep her quiet.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," she wrote.

It is time to stop "tiptoeing around my past -- and other people's futures," she said, in a possible reference to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's expected White House run in 2016.

News of the Lewinsky affair broke in 1998 and became an all-consuming scandal that nearly brought down the Clinton presidency. He was impeached by the House of Representatives that December but was acquitted by the Senate.

Published: 06 May 2014

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Billionaire gambling tycoon James Packer and his former best man, the head of Australia's Nine Network, insisted Monday they were still friends despite being involved in an ugly punch-up at Bondi Beach.

The Sydney Morning Herald said more than 50 images show Packer and David Gyngell throwing and receiving punches and wrestling on the ground on Sunday afternoon.

It sparked a bidding war for the photos, which Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. appears to have won, publishing the first four pictures online Monday afternoon.

"We have been friends for 35 years and still are," Packer and Gyngell said in a joint statement as News Corp. non-executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch arrived at the Packer compound.

"In that time we have had our fair share of ups and downs. We respect each other and neither of us will be commenting further."

Bondi resident Chris Walker, who says he witnessed the incident, tweeted about a "massive street fight" outside Packer's multi-million dollar home.

"Holy crap, big street fight outside my house... Not thugs, James Packer... And some other angry bloke going toe-to-toe - total brawl... Wow," he said.

"Packer packered a punch but copped a couple of hits straight to the jaw... Then they all fell on the concrete fence and I think the other guy broke his face.

"They were looking for teeth after he left... I was so thrilled, with a camera in my hand I didn't take a pic," he added.

One other witness told The Australian newspaper that the fight was "like two mad dogs going at each other's throats", while another said Gyngell was engaged in an abusive phone call -- reportedly to Packer -- immediately before he arrived.

The first pictures showed the pair -- Packer in a baseball cap and sunglasses and Gyngell unshaven and barefoot -- brawling before the Nine executive was restrained on the ground by a security guard.

Published: 05 May 2014

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An Italian cardinal is moving into a 600-square-metre (6,500 square foot) Vatican apartment in apparent contradiction with Pope Francis's call for a "poor Church", Italian daily La Repubblica reported on Sunday.

Tarcisio Bertone is the Vatican's former Secretary of State, a role equivalent to prime minister, and the report said his luxury lodgings were stirring unease as Francis has pushed for clergymen to be more humble.

The flat also has a 100-square-metre roof terrace and is next to St Martha's Residence -- a Vatican hotel where Francis has taken up home, spurning the grander Apostolic Palace where popes usually live.

La Repubblica said that Bertone's flat would be about 10 times bigger than the apartment where Francis is living and that he was planning to move in before the summer after extensive building work.

It said the house combined an apartment of up to 400 square metres formerly inhabited by the head of the gendarmerie under John Paul II and the roughly 200-square metre flat where a Vatican monsignor lived.

Bertone's stint as Secretary of State under Benedict XVI was highly divisive in the Vatican administration and top clerics had asked the then pope to dismiss him.

He was accused by critics of being too authoritarian and too connected with sleazy Italian politics.

Published: 20 April 2014

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South African prosecutor Gerrie Nel indicated on Tuesday that he would wrap up his searing cross-examination of Oscar Pistorius, who has now spent more than a week in the witness box.

Nel has spent five emotion-filled days dragging Pistorius over the coals, accusing him of lying, tailoring evidence and crying to avoid tough questions.

"We will today finalize the cross-examination of the accused," Nel told the court while asking for a two week postponement.

The cross-examination resumed Tuesday with Nel accusing the sprinter of a cover-up, claiming he knowingly killed the 29-year-old model.

Nel picked at inconsistencies between Pistorius's evidence in court and his lengthy bail application about the noises he heard as he shot.

"There's no indication that you thought they (perceived intruders) were opening the door in your bail application," said Nel.

"You are thinking of a version constantly and not dealing with the question," Nel claimed.

"It's getting more and more improbable and you're tailoring more and more as we go on."

Pistorius tearfully denied the allegation several times.

Published: 16 April 2014

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Several hundred protesters blocked work on a controversial monument in Budapest Tuesday which Jewish critics say glosses over Hungary's active role in the Holocaust.

Around 300 people angrily tore down a cordon erected by workers and occupied the site of the planned monument, which the Hungarian government says will mark all the victims of Hungary's occupation by Nazi Germany in 1944.

Critics say the monument -- which will depict Hungary as an angel being attacked by a German eagle -- absolves Hungarians of their active role after the occupation in sending some 450,000 Jews to their deaths.

One protester, Szabolcs Kerek-Barczy, also an opposition politician, told AFP that volunteers would mount a round-the-clock guard to prevent the restart of building works.

"It is an extremist memorial that covers up the past with a lie, and a gesture (by Prime Minister Viktor Orban) to the far-right," he told AFP.

"We won't let it be built!" he added, as police observed the protesters without intervening.

The monument was originally scheduled for unveiling on March 19 to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of mass deportations of Jews after the Nazi occupation.

After protests in Hungary and abroad, and a boycott of official anniversary commemorations in 2014 by leading Jewish organisation Mazsihisz, the government postponed the construction until after the general election which took place on Sunday.

Published: 09 April 2014

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With elections looming on April 6, a new party is trying to win over Hungary's largest ethnic minority, the Roma, a community scarred by deep poverty and racism and disillusioned by traditional politics.

"Until now, the Roma have never had credible leaders," said Aladar Horvath, a prominent rights campaigner and leader of the new Hungarian Gypsy Party (MCP), at a recent party event.

"If we stick together, we can fix our problems. No one else will," the soft-spoken 49-year-old told AFP in Ozd, a rusting former industrial town right on the Slovakian border.

Vast steelworks once employed thousands of Roma in Ozd, a town of about 34,000 inhabitants, but today, they lie derelict.

Widespread unemployment and poverty has fuelled mistrust against the Roma, and far-right party Jobbik -- the country's third biggest party -- is building on that anger.

Its posters are plastered across the town, while in its manifesto, it vows to stop "Gypsy crime", create ghettoes for Roma "deviants" and place "difficult" Roma children in special live-in schools.

But Horvath is pledging to fight that.

Campaigning in a ramshackle community hall, he told a crowd of about 100: "I have brought good news, you have something and someone to vote for!"

"We will defend ourselves from Jobbik, prevent our children from starving and guarantee free education in unsegregated schools, and normal jobs," he said.

Sometimes called Gypsies, the Roma account for around 8-9 percent of Hungary's 10-million population.

But only four Roma MPs are in the outgoing 386-seat parliament, and three of them are from Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz Party.

The fourth, Agnes Osztolykan, of the green LMP party, often complained of being a lone voice battling against Jobbik's anti-Roma rhetoric.

Battered by poverty and discrimination, many Roma harbour deep mistrust of politicians.

"Always empty promises, then they just stuff their pockets once elected," said Galambacz Peterne, a 40-year-old Roma mother of two, who lives on the outskirts of Ozd.

Published: 31 March 2014

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When mobile social app Yik Yak swept into Auburn University, some of the coolest kids were quick to start posting on it.

But no one knows who is saying what because the comments are anonymous.

"It spread pretty fast," says Nickolaus Hines, a junior at the school in the US state of Alabama.

"The majority of things are jokes or things which are obviously funny," said the 21-year-old. But "some ... are pretty mean."

Yik Yak, which allows smartphone users to see posts in a radius up to five miles (eight kilometers), is part of a flurry of new apps that offer novel ways to interact on social networks without revealing one's identity.

But while some laud these new platforms, others blame them for false rumors, stress and even suicide.

"Anonymity is a beautiful thing," Yik Yak claims. "It gives people a blank slate to work from, effectively removing all preconceptions about them."

Apps of this kind are certainly raising eyebrows in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Secret, launched last year, recently raised $8.6 million in venture capital.

Published: 30 March 2014

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Recovering the black boxes from the Malaysia Airlines jet that crashed into the southern Indian Ocean is a Herculean task, even with the wealth of sophisticated equipment being deployed.

Any hope of finding survivors from the missing plane was extinguished on Monday when Malaysia's prime minister announced satellite data showed MH370's journey had "ended in the southern Indian Ocean" off the west coast of Australia.

Seventeen days after the Boeing 777 disappeared, distraught relatives were forced to accept what they had long feared -- that the 239 passengers and crew on board were never coming home.

 

The plane's two black boxes are key to solving the mystery of why the plane veered so far off course and its final fate, but experts say that the search for them will be long and difficult.

In theory, the black boxes containing flight data and cockpit voice recordings will continue emitting tracking signals for about another two weeks, with an average audible range of two to three kilometres (nearly two miles).

But with no debris in the remote search area confirmed as linked to the plane, it is still a case of looking for a needle in a haystack.

"Picking up a signal from the beacon seems an outside chance," said a member of the team that hunted the black boxes from Air France flight AF447 that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009.

- Vast search zone -

The investigator, who asked to remain anonymous, noted that in the Air France case the signals were not heard at all. One transmitter had failed and the other had fallen off on impact and was never found, he said.

"So I'm fairly pessimistic about this approach," he said, recommending that the immediate priority should be to catalogue every piece of debris that is discovered.

 

 

Published: 25 March 2014

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Almost  10 years ago Vladimir Putin came to Ukraine. Then on Ukrainian television, he campaigned for the government candidate - Viktor Yanukovich. Former intelligence bet on double sitting felon. Russian media, significant sums political strategists, even Orthodox priests were thrown out to bring him to power. However, the Ukrainian people took to the streets peacefully protesting against the rigged elections. Then we all thought that the Orange Revolution triumphed and Ukraine had a good vaccination against tyranny.

Several years passed, and Yanukovych , using , strife between Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko , still came in the corridors of power . Step by step, he firmly advancing steadily on the rights and liberties of Ukrainians , stifled free press , tearing apart the opposition faction in parliament. His son, in a short time , became a billionaire , and journalists excitedly wrote about the shadow corruption schemes related to the son of the head of state. Behind their backs Yanukovych , rubbing his hands with satisfaction , stood Putin . Ukraine gradually transformed into Belarus, further and further moving away from the civilized world toward Asian dictatorship.

Almighty  Putin*s plans  confused  by ordinary students who came to Kiev*s main square * Maidan* in November last year . Yanukovych , enticed cash loans from Moscow , just refused to sign the document on the EU-Ukraine Association . Logic dictator understandable, because Europeans demanded to release opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, fair elections and radical reforms . Russia also gave money and instead asked only to lay his knees . Rebellious youth like animals dispersed special squad "Berkut" . Only Yanukovych , like Putin , greatly miscalculated. Ukrainian people refused to cave . Less than a day after the massacre , on Independence gathered hundreds of thousands of people.

Day after day, people's resistance was growing stronger . Police catch activists ridiculed them , scurrying around Kiev authorities hired criminals who kidnap leaders protesters. And the people became more and more in the capital of their supporters came from all regions . In the 20- degree frost protesters poured water from a point blank shot machines , they were beated upc,snipers fired on them. Increased the number of deaths , which exceeded one hundred . However, the Ukrainian people was held , and he proved that no one can break his desire for freedom. Yanukovych in a hurry fled from his palace , leaving adrift huge amount of jewelry , vintage cars and other luxury items . He flew to Russia , and from the traitor refused even members of his party , formerly zealously supporting it .

Putin realized that he may lose Ukraine forever. Strong, rich state, where people are not jailed from - for a poster in his hand, and next side  to Russia, this is a nightmare for the master of the Kremlin. Indeed, in this case Russian can begin to ask questions, be interested in: "And why Ukrainians, without oil and gas, live better than us?". Naturally it is an ordinary revenge people who mistook him twice in a row all the cards.

Published: 25 March 2014

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In the dark of night in Crimea, Anastasiya steps into a pool of yellowish light from a street lamp.

The weary 30-year-old with mousy blonde hair looks furtively side to side and her voice falls to a whisper at the sounds of passersby.

"There is not going to be any democracy here. Not with Putin in charge," said Anastasiya, who lives in a housing block on the scrappy western outskirts of Simferopol -- the main city on the Kremlin-ruled peninsula.

"I want to leave but I can't sell my flat. What am I going to do? I just don't have the money," the mother of two said in an interview with AFP.

Ukraine's government estimates there are 25,000 people in Crimea like Anastasiya who want to flee the region after its Russian takeover.

Some of them are already leaving, moving in with friends and relatives in other parts of the country.

The government has set up special hotlines for people fleeing to find jobs and receive pensions, although the practicalities of uprooting and moving to a new city can be daunting.

Before a March 16 disputed referendum on breaking off from Ukraine and joining Russia, there were a few isolated pro-unity rallies in Crimea.

Published: 24 March 2014

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