'Butcher' Putin 'cannot remain in power': Biden

Yahoo – AFP, Aurélia END, 26 March 2022 

US President Joe Biden, with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz (c) visiting Ukrainian
refugees in Warsaw on Saturday (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

President Joe Biden on Saturday called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a "butcher" who "cannot remain in power" after meeting top Ukrainian ministers for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Within minutes of his comments during a visit to Warsaw, a White House official played down the remarks saying Biden "was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change". 

"The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region," the official said. 

Biden compared Ukraine's resistance against Russia to the anti-Soviet "battle for freedom" and said the world must prepare for a "long fight ahead". 

"We stand with you," he told Ukrainians in a sweeping speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, which he began with the words of late Polish pope John Paul II: "Be not afraid." 

He said Russia had suffered a "strategic failure" in Ukraine and told ordinary Russians they were "not our enemy", urging them to blame Putin for the heavy sanctions imposed by the West. 

He also warned Russia not to move on an "inch" of NATO territory, reiterating the "sacred obligation" of collective defence for alliance members. 

"We will have a different future, a brighter future rooted in democracy and principle, hope and light. 

"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," he said, concluding his address. 

Russian missile fragment 

Biden earlier on Saturday met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who made a rare trip out of Ukraine in a possible sign of growing confidence in the fightback against Russian forces. 

The meeting took place at the Marriott Hotel in the city centre -- opposite a Warsaw train station where there has been a constant flow of Ukrainian refugees since the conflict started. 

Biden sat at a long white table between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, facing Kuleba and Reznikov, an AFP reporter saw. 

There were Ukrainian and US flags in the background. 

During the meeting Biden was flanked by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (far right, facing) and sitting opposite Kuleba and
Reznikov (front 3rd right) (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

Kuleba gave Biden the fragment of a Russian missile that struck a base in Yavoriv near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv close to the Polish border. 

"The invincible character of Ukrainians and Western ones, especially US ones, are the recipe for our victory," Kuleba said after the meeting. 

Kuleba said he had discussed new sanctions that could be imposed against Russia and how to ensure the current ones are properly implemented. 

Blinken and Austin "pledged continued support to meet Ukraine's humanitarian, security, and economic needs", State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. 

Biden last met Kuleba in Washington on February 22 -- two days before Russia launched its assault. 

Since then, Kuleba has also met Blinken in Poland, next to the border with Ukraine on March 5. 

'He's a butcher' 

The US leader later visited a refugee centre at the National Stadium in Warsaw where he met several refugees, including some from the city of Mariupol which has suffered the worst of Russia's assault. 

Asked by reporters what he thought of Putin's actions, Biden responded simply: "He's a butcher." 

"I remember what it's like when you have someone in a war zone and every morning you get up and you wonder, you are just wondering, you are praying you don't get that phone call," said Biden, whose son Beau served in Iraq before dying of a brain tumour. 

He also said he was "not sure" that Russia had changed its strategy in Ukraine after assertions by Russian officials that they were altering their war aims to concentrate on the eastern Donbas region. 

During his visit, Biden also told Polish President Andrzej Duda that NATO's collective defence was a "sacred commitment" for the US, adding: "You can count on that... For your freedom and ours." 

Duda told him that Poles felt a "great sense of threat" from the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine.

French first lady forwarded Polanski rape accuser's letters to officials

Yahoo – AFP, Anne Pascale REBOUL, November 9, 2019

Polanski has been a fugitive from US justice for years (AFP Photo/Valery HACHE)

Paris (AFP) - French first lady Brigitte Macron forwarded two letters written to her by a former model who has accused Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski of raping her as a teenager to two members of the government, her office said Saturday.

Valentine Monnier on Friday became the latest woman to accuse the acclaimed Polish-French film director of rape, telling France's Le Parisien newspaper that the alleged incident occurred in 1975 when she was 18 at Polanski's chalet in the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad.

Following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, Monnier said she had written letters about the alleged rape to Los Angeles police and to the French first lady as well as to the French Culture Minister Franck Riester and Secretary of State for Equality between Men and Women Marlene Schiappa.

Macron's office said they had found the 2018 letter in which Monnier complained that had had no response from Schiappa's office.

It said Monnier had been sent a reply in February last year stating "that Brigitte Macron cannot intervene in judicial processes" and copied that letter to Schiappa.

Monnier "wrote again in 2019 about the financing of a Polanski film by the culture ministry and we responded while copying it to Franck Riester," Brigitte Macron's office said.

Schiappa wrote to Monnier in March last year and hailed her courage "in daring to break the silence of 42 years" and adding that she understood her trauma while underscoring that such things were to be dealt by the judicial system.

Monnier told Le Parisien that the alleged rape was "extremely violent", adding that Polanski "pummelled me until I gave in and then raped me, making me do all sorts of things."

She said she recounted what had happened to her that very night to two women who were also staying in Polanski's chalet: her best friend and another woman who became Polanski's girlfriend for four years.

Both women were contacted by Le Parisien and confirmed Monnier's version.

Other accusations

Monnier, who acted in a few films in the 1980s, said she had finally decided to speak out as Polanski's new film about an error of justice was due to come out.

Polanski's lawyer Herve Temime said the director "firmly denies all accusations of rape," adding that the allegations "which date back 45 years have never been reported to judicial authorities".

Polanski has also been accused of sexual assault by others. In 2010, British actress Charlotte Lewis accused him of "sexually abusing" her in 1983 when she was 16.

Another woman, identified only as Robin, accused him in August 2017 of sexual assault when she was 16 in 1973.

In September 2017, former actress Renate Langer filed a new complaint alleging she had been raped by Polanski in 1972 when she was 15.

Polanski, who directed "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown", was accused of drugging a 13-year-old girl before raping her at film star Jack Nicholson's house in Los Angeles in 1977.

He admitted statutory rape after a number of more serious charges were dropped, and spent 48 days in custody to undergo psychiatric evaluation before being released.

In 1978, convinced a judge was going to scrap his plea deal and send him to prison for decades, Polanski fled to France and has been a fugitive from the US justice system ever since despite repeated attempts to have him extradited.

Plans for Polanski to preside over the Cesars, the French equivalent of the Oscars, were abandoned in 2017, amid the fall-out from "Me Too" movement that started with accusations of sexual assault against US producer Weinstein.

Although awarded the 2003 Best Director Oscar for "The Pianist", Polanski was expelled from the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018.

Keeping the spirit of Poland's Solidarity movement alive

Deutsche Welle, 6 June 2013

It´s nearly 25 years since the mass movement in Poland began a process which led to the fall of communism across Europe. But are the young Poles of today forgetting the role Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement played?

With eyes focused on Syria, protests in Turkey, and continued fears over Egypt's direction, some fear very recent Polish history is being forgotten by today's generation. So how are the country's historians trying to ensure young people understand the tumultuous events of the 1970s and 80s which led to the fall of communism?

Jan Daniluk, one such historian, was barely five years old when voters ousted the communist government in June 1989. Today he's the spokesman for the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw, which serves as custodian of the Polish historical record during the 60 years that spanned the Nazi and communist dictatorships. Daniluk has seen such rapid changes in his country that he wonders whether people his age can grasp how hard life was for their parents and grandparents. 

Solidarity led by electrician Lech
 Walesa crushed the communists in
a landmark election victory

"In our times, we have McDonald's, we have Internet, we can travel, we have passports; we can drink Coca-Cola without any stress that it's a taste of imperialism, right? And the problem is that we just cannot imagine that it was really different just 25 years ago?"

He worries that his generation's lack of interest in Poland's recent history could lead to civic apathy.

As Poles reflected on Tuesday on the 24th anniversary of the historic elections on June 4 1989, the days of dismally long lines for commodities as basic as toilet paper seem very long ago.

Roads to Freedom

It was a year which shaped the world: China's suppression of protest in Tiananmen Square, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In Poland the Solidarity movement led by electrician Lech Walesa crushed the communists in a landmark election victory triggering the fall of communism as mass movements swept repressive leaders from power.

In Gdansk, the dockyard birthplace of Solidarity, deep in a bunker built by French prisoners during World War II is the remarkable Roads to Freedom exhibition. It's been converted to a space that reconstructs the country's post-war history so clearly that visitors could be forgiven for thinking they've descended into a time warp.

'They were really brave'

A few life-size, costumed mannequins look stunningly real. One of them, a weary woman, has half a dozen rolls of toilet paper strung over her shoulder like a satchel. She's standing outside a dismal storefront with an expression implying she's waited in line for hours just to get this simple commodity that probably wouldn't be available again for months. Welcome to Poland's not so distant past.

Poland saw waves of strikes and
 street demonstrations during 1988
and 1989

"There's something inside me, I look at these photos, these tired persons, their faces and I think God, they were really brave. Because it was really something, yes?" reflects Daniluk.

He's concerned that Polish youth might begin to take their democratic freedom for granted if they don't know anything about the communist past.

At the University in Gdansk, Natalia Bogdanovich is studying Latin, French and Spanish. Even as a non-history graduate, she feels it's crucial to have a basic knowledge of what Poland went through to get to where it is now.

"I think it's very important because when I listen even to the stories of my grandma, and how hard it was in daily life to get a washing machine, to get a wheelchair if you were sick... I see how much easier it is for me to live now...because of what Solidarity did in our country."

Fading interest?

But according to Professor Grzegorz Berendt, "the number of people really interested in the communist past is smaller and smaller."

In his view young people just want to live their lives in the present and can't be bothered with what happened before they were born.

"I am a little disappointed, but I understand their situation. It's the same all over the world. Maybe you know a country where teenagers are more interested in history than in rock 'n' roll or something like this. But I doubt it!"

The past is the future

 Solidarity was the first non–communist
party-controlled trade union in a
Warsaw Pact country

But his central argument is that it's not enough to get today's youth to care about history. He sees a great need for the rehabilitation of Polish national memory, which was suppressed under communism.

With the study of history discouraged in the old days, hundreds of thousands of Polish dissidents victimized by the regime were never acknowledged until now. Berendt regrets even their own descendants are not that interested in what happened.

"But we are lucky to give back the memory to society of the people who did a lot of good things in our past. On the other hand, we have, of course, very hard-core enemies: people who benefited from the communist system. And they started to destroy evidence of their crimes, burning documents, and they do not want to look back. They tell us, 'you have to look forward, to the future. Past is not important.' But past IS important for the consciousness of a society."

Professor Berendt and Jan Daniluk, historians from two different generations, know very well that a country's honest biography cannot be written in black and white. In Poland, there is much more truth to be told. And they hope those who inhabit the future will want to hear it.