Washington Ignoring Situation in Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Russian Ambassador to US Says

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The United States should pay attention to the situation in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (Kiev Monastery of the Caves), and not engage in moralizing about democracy, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said.

"Americans should find courage to move from moralizing at the 'Summit for Democracy' towards meaningful steps to stop blasphemy and crackdown on the Orthodox community," Antonov said in a statement.

On March 10, the National Kiev-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Preserve in Ukraine ordered the monks based in the monastery to leave it by March 29 after an interdepartmental Ukrainian commission accused the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of violating the terms of an agreement on the use of state property. Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said the monks could stay in the Lavra if they joined the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).

The Russian Orthodox Church says the UOC is a "self-governing church with the rights of broad autonomy" within the Moscow Patriarchate. However, in the wake of the special military operation that Russia launched in Ukraine more than a year ago, the UOC said it was independent from the Moscow Patriarchate and did not support the operation. In January, the Ukrainian government submitted a bill to parliament that seeks to ban the UOC in Ukraine if its connection with Russia is proven.

REC to Promote Russian Products on China's Most Popular Messaging App, WeChat

The Russian Export Center (REC, part of the VEB.RF) is launching an official account on WeChat, a multipurpose social media, messaging and payment app developed in China.

Russian goods presented in national online stores under the "Made in Russia" brand will be promoted there for free, the center reports.

©AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

"WeChat can be said to be the national social network of the Celestial Empire, as 90% of the country's residents use it. They use it for both personal and business purposes. And of course, they pay attention to the goods advertised there.

That is why we have opened a WeChat account so that every consumer in China knows where to find high-quality Russian products and what their special features are. All goods certified as "Made in Russia" and placed in national stores on popular Chinese marketplaces will be promoted there. This promotion will be free of charge for the exporting companies themselves," said Alexey Murzenok, Director of International Partnership Programs at the Russian Export Center.

To take advantage of promotional opportunities in the Chinese market, an exporter must submit an online application for placement in one of the national stores through the My Export digital platform and obtain a "Made in Russia" certificate.

In order to find the REC’s account on WeChat, just type "Made in Russia" in the search box. The first publication there is a general article with links to active national stores. In the near future, a catalog of Russian-certified products will appear there. It will provide the Chinese public with information and links to Russian products that can be purchased. The promotion of the account will also be launched very soon. In addition, the first advertising campaign will be devoted to the relaunch of the project to develop a network of national online stores, of which there are already more than 10 in China, and the national "Made in Russia" brand promotion program.

If an exporter wants to get his goods into the network of national stores on Chinese marketplaces and advertise on WeChat, he should take the following steps: first, he needs to use the free international marketplace selection service on the "My Export" digital platform. It will help him determine the target country for export, as well as analyze the company's readiness to export and the company's development strategy.

Then the exporter must choose the National Store, which is located in one of the Chinese marketplaces, and apply for placement and promotion there. This can be done at the exporter's own expense or with government support from regional export support centers - this option is available to small and medium-sized enterprises. The service includes the design and placement of product cards in the marketplace account, export shipment support and advice on import conditions, as well as organizing sales for 12 months and basic promotion.

The exporter can obtain a "Made in Russia" certificate both before submitting an online application for placement and promotion in national stores, and during the service process itself. It is important to note that the "Made in Russia" certificate is issued only for voluntary certificates of conformity. You can find out all the details and submit an application at the REC’s website. After the product hits the online shelf, Chinese WeChat users learn about it through a promotion with a "Made in Russia" account.

National stores are joint online stores on foreign marketplaces where you can find Russian goods in various categories from different sellers. In addition, the goods must have a "Made in Russia" certificate. The project is promoted by the Russian Export Center in cooperation with the Russian government under the national brand "Made in Russia".

In total, there are 30 national stores in China, Turkey, Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia. For example, national stores in China are located on marketplaces such as Kuaishou, Douyin, Tmall, 1919 and Taobao; in Turkey - on Trendyol and Amazon; in Southeast Asia - on Lazada and Shopee.

Every Little Bit Helps: South African Eco-Activist Promotes Preservation of Oceans Around Africa

March 30 marks the International Day of Zero Waste. As stated by the United Nations General Assembly, this day is designed to draw people's attention to sustainable consumption and production patterns. The initiative is aimed at moving the world closer to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

People should not think what they are doing does not make a difference, even small gestures could help preserve the planet, South African Zoe Prinsloo, Founder of Save a Fishie, said in an interview with Sputnik.

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Ahead of the UN-designated Zero Waste Day, Sputnik interviewed a South African environmental activist, who has been doing beach clean-ups since she was 10 years old in order to save the oceans from pollution.

Zoe Prinsloo, the founder and CEO of Save a Fishie
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The founder and CEO of Save a Fishie, an environmental organization created five years ago and operating on South African beaches, said it was hard to find a way to make a difference for polluted oceans. This is why she started doing beach clean-ups, she added.

"My vision with Save A Fishie is to help the average person who wants to help the planet but isn't sure how; saving the planet can be quite intimidating to a lot of people so I try to encourage everyone that if we all just picked up a few pieces of litter whether at our local beach, park or road it can make the world of a difference and in-turn save lots of fishies!" the activist said.

Prinsloo, who was nominated as one of the Top 100 Young African Conservationists and won the Youth division for the Business Person of the year 2021, also outlined the obstacles she faces in her work.

"I am self-funded and cleaning the beach is not exactly a paying job. I am so passionate about what I do, so I rely on sponsored clean-ups from companies, donations and people buying my eco-friendly products to keep my dream alive of doing this full-time," she stated.

Answering a question on what could be done by government and communities to assist her, Zoe said sharing the company's "social media posts and campaigns, liking and following" it on those platforms would help Save a Fishie grow.

Another option, she added, is to attend beach clean-ups.

"The more hands we have, the more litter we can remove from the beach before the tide washes it back out to sea," Prinsloo stated.

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Speaking about the sufficiency of available facilities for combatting waste problems, the activist noted that more recycling depots and drop-off points along with better education around the state of oceans, the effects of certain actions, and what people can do would definitely help.

In her opinion, living a waste-free lifestyle nowadays is very important, "considering how fast paced we are moving." A waste-free lifestyle can be healthier and much more beneficial for people and the planet, she added. "It may sometimes be a bit harder in the beginning but in the long run will save you lots of time and money. It also helps us appreciate everything we have and everything our planet has given us," Prinsloo stated.

The eco-activist also sent a message to people, particularly young Africans, on Zero Waste Day, saying "never feel like you are not doing enough or that what you are doing is not making a difference. Honestly trust and believe that every little piece is making a difference and

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Sputnik talked to Prinsloo on the eve of the International Day of Zero Waste - an initiative designed to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns, society's move towards circularity and awareness about how zero-waste initiatives help approach to achieving the 2030 Sustanable Development Goals. The SDG set by the United Nations in 2015 imply 17 goals to achieve by 2030, including those aimed at tackling climate change, preserving oceans, forests, and fighting pollution.

Promoting zero-waste initiatives through this international day, which was adopted by a UN General Assembly resolution on December 14, 2022 and is to be observed on March 30 annually, can help advance all the SDG.

South Africa, as one of the fastest developing African nations, generates a lot of waste, which require an adequate response. According to the UN-Habitat, a UN-controlled program designed to promote sustainable development of localities, South Africa is expected to start producing more than 20 million metric tons per year by 2025.

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Trash Free Initiatives Require More Funds and Cooperation

During the annual climate conference held in November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the host country's Foreign Minister and COP27 President Sameh Shoukry said African nations require additional funding to confront the negative effects of climate change. "Indeed, African countries suffer greatly from the effects of climate change without being major contributors to this problem," Shoukry stated at a press conference.

He added that Africa needs assistance in adapting to climate change, and it is important to provide countries of the continent with necessary state-of-the-art technological solutions. At the same time, Africans more actively draw attention to use of the continent's own institutions and funds in solving their problems.

For instance, Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo during the US-Africa Leaders' Summit in Washington in December 2022, urged Africans not to rely on the West financially.

"If we stop being beggars and spend African money inside the continent, Africa will not need to ask for respect from anyone, we will get the respect we deserve. If we make it prosperous as it should be, respect will follow," he noted.

Akufo-Addo also called for solidarity between African nations, saying the continent's skills and manpower are sufficient to make "Africa work."

Along with him, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said that African nations could cooperate more to provide more African solutions.

Breaking: Russia’s main security agency said it had detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, for what it described as espionage

An undated photo of journalist Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal Moscow bureau reporter who was detained on Thursday by Russia's Federal Security Service. (AFP/Getty Images)

Russia’s FSB security service said on Thursday that a reporter with the US newspaper The Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, had been detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on suspicion of espionage, the Interfax news agency reported.

In a statement quoted by Interfax, the FSB said it had “stopped the illegal activities of US citizen Gershkovich Evan, born in 1991, a correspondent of the Moscow bureau of the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, accredited at the Russian Foreign Ministry, who is suspected of spying in the interests of the American government”.

No comment was immediately available from the newspaper.

The statement said Gershkovich had been tasked “by the American side” with gathering information on “the activities of one of the enterprises of the military-defence complex”. It provided no evidence.

Gershkovich is the first reporter for an American news outlet to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War. His arrest comes amid the bitter tensions between Moscow and Washington over the fighting in Ukraine.

Gershkovich’s last report from Moscow, published earlier this week, focused on the Russian economy’s slowdown amid Western sanctions imposed when Russian troops entered Ukraine last year.

Before joining The Wall Street Journal, 31-year-old Gershkovich worked for Agence France-Presse in Moscow.

He was previously a reporter for The Moscow Times, an English-language news website.

Gershkovich speaks Russian. His parents live in the United States but are originally from the Soviet Union.

Mr. Gershkovich reports on Russia as part of the Journal’s Moscow bureau. He is accredited to work as a journalist in Russia by the country’s foreign ministry, the FSB said.

The FSB said it had “stopped the illegal activities” Mr. Gershkovich was conducting and that an espionage case had been opened against him in Yekaterinburg.

Deaths Feared After Two Military Helicopters Collide Over Kentucky

A Black Hawk military helicopter. guvendemir/Getty Images

Two military helicopters have collided during a training mission over the US state of Kentucky, media reported on Thursday, citing an army spokeswoman.

The incident took place on Wednesday evening, American news otlet said. Reportedly, the aircraft in question were Black Hawk helicopters and the accident resulted in casualties.

Multiple people are feared dead after two army helicopters collided in the air above Kentucky Wednesday night, officials said.

The two 101st Airborne Division helicopters crashed during a routine training mission over Trigg County at around 10 p.m., Fort Campbell officials said.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear wrote in a tweet early Thursday that he had received "early reports of a helicopter crash and fatalities are expected."

We’ve got some tough news out of Fort Campbell, with early reports of a helicopter crash and fatalities are expected. @kystatepolice, @KentuckyEM and local officials are responding. We will share more information as available. Please pray for all those affected.

— Governor Andy Beshear (@GovAndyBeshear) March 30, 2023

Early Thursday, Army officials at the fort said the status of the crewmembers who were aboard each HH60 Blackhawk copter was unknown.

However an Army soldier at the scene of the wreck told local radio station WKDZ that multiple people had died and the county coroner had been called.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also said he suspects there will be multiple fatalities.

“We’ve got some tough news out of Fort Campbell, with early reports of a helicopter crash and fatalities are expected,” Beshear tweeted. “[Kentucky State Police, Kentucky Emergency Management,] and local officials are responding.”

Firefighters responded to extinguish flames shooting out from the mangled aircrafts, photos obtained by the radio station show.

Firefighters responded to extinguish flames shooting out from the mangled aircrafts, photos obtained by the radio station show.

A resident who lives about a half-mile away from the collision site told the station they heard “a pop and two booms” at the time of the mid-air crash.

Army officials said the collision is under investigation.

“The command is currently focused on caring for the servicemembers and their families,” Fort Campbell officials said

The HH-60, a modified version of the Black Hawk helicopter, can be used for air assaults, medical evacuations and other purposes, according to the Army.

In 2018, seven servicemembers died when an HH-60 crashed in Iraq. A military investigation later found that, as a result of a pilot error, the helicopter had struck a steel cable strung horizontally between two buildings.

Starbucks ex-CEO denies 'union busting' in Congress

STORY : Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz appeared on Capitol Hill Wednesday to defend himself and the coffee chain against allegations of "union busting" during a U.S. Senate committee hearing.

SANDERS: “Over the past 18 months, Starbucks has waged the most aggressive and illegal union busting campaign in the modern history of our country.”

In a heated exchange, Sen. Bernie Sanders, chair of the chamber’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, grilled the Starbucks billionaire founder on claims made by the National Labor Relations Board… which alleged that Starbucks violated federal labor law by offering new benefits - like higher wages and student loan repayment tools - only to non-unionized stores.

SANDERS: “NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) judges have ruled that Starbucks violated federal labor law over 100 times during the past 18 months, far more than any other corporation in America.”

SCHULTZ: “Sir, Starbucks coffee company unequivocally, and let me set the tone for this very early on, has not broken the law.”

The Seattle-based company has previously denied allegations that it illegally fired pro-union baristas or spied on workers as hundreds of U.S. stores organized unions starting in late 2021.

SAXTON: “In April, our store won our election by a landslide, 26 to 5. Despite all of the threats and intimidation.”

Among other who testified were Jaysin Saxton, a former Starbucks employee from Georgia, who alleged that managers watched and listened to conversations from workers who wanted to form a union.

SAXTON: “…We were constantly being watched and managers listened in on our conversations through our headsets.”

Schultz, who left his third stint as CEO on March 20, said he did not have any direct role in firing workers who supported the union or closing unionized stores.

He remains on the company's board.

Republicans at the hearing defended Schultz, praising the company's competitive wages, health benefits, employee stock purchase program and other perks.

Starbucks' shares closed up nearly 2% on Wednesday.

Elusive ‘Einstein’ Solves a Longstanding Math Problem

An “aperiodic monotile,” or einstein, is a shape that tiles an infinite flat surface in a nonrepeating pattern. The authors of a new paper called their einstein “the hat,” as it resembles a fedora. Credit... Craig Kaplan

Last November, after a decade of failed attempts, David Smith, a self-described shape hobbyist of Bridlington in East Yorkshire, England, suspected that he might have finally solved an open problem in the mathematics of tiling: That is, he thought he might have discovered an “einstein.”

In less poetic terms, an einstein is an “aperiodic monotile,” a shape that tiles a plane, or an infinite two-dimensional flat surface, but only in a nonrepeating pattern. (The term “einstein” comes from the German “ein stein,” or “one stone” — more loosely, “one tile” or “one shape.”) Your typical wallpaper or tiled floor is part of an infinite pattern that repeats periodically; when shifted, or “translated,” the pattern can be exactly superimposed on itself. An aperiodic tiling displays no such “translational symmetry,” and mathematicians have long sought a single shape that could tile the plane in such a fashion. This is known as the einstein problem.

“I’m always messing about and experimenting with shapes,” said Mr. Smith, 64, who worked as a printing technician, among other jobs, and retired early. Although he enjoyed math in high school, he didn’t excel at it, he said. But he has long been “obsessively intrigued” by the einstein problem.

And now a new paper — by Mr. Smith and three co-authors with mathematical and computational expertise — proves Mr. Smith’s discovery true. The researchers called their einstein “the hat,” as it resembles a fedora. (Mr. Smith often sports a bandanna tied around his head.) The paper has not yet been peer reviewed.

“This appears to be a remarkable discovery!” Joshua Socolar, a physicist at Duke University who read an early copy of the paper provided by The New York Times, said in an email. “The most significant aspect for me is that the tiling does not clearly fall into any of the familiar classes of structures that we understand.”

“The mathematical result begs some interesting physics questions,” he added. “One could imagine encountering or fabricating a material with this type of internal structure.” Dr. Socolar and Joan Taylor, an independent researcher in Burnie, Tasmania, previously found a hexagonal monotile made of disconnected pieces, which according to some, stretched the rules. (They also found a connected 3-D version of the Socolar-Taylor tile.)

David Smith’s explorations using cut-out paper. Credit... David Smith

From 20,426 to one

Initially, mathematical tiling pursuits were motivated by a broad question: Was there a set of shapes that could tile the plane only nonperiodically? In 1961, the mathematician Hao Wang conjectured that such sets were impossible, but his student Robert Berger soon proved the conjecture wrong. Dr. Berger discovered an aperiodic set of 20,426 tiles, and thereafter a set of 104.

Then the game became: How few tiles would do the trick? In the 1970s, Sir Roger Penrose, a mathematical physicist at University of Oxford who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on black holes, got the number down to two.

Others have since hit upon shapes for two tiles. “I have a pair or two of my own,” said Chaim Goodman-Strauss, another of the paper’s authors, a professor at the University of Arkansas, who also holds the title of outreach mathematician at the National Museum of Mathematics in New York.

He noted that black and white squares also can make weird nonperiodic patterns, in addition to the familiar, periodic checkerboard pattern. “It’s really pretty trivial to be able to make weird and interesting patterns,” he said. The magic of the two Penrose tiles is that they make only nonperiodic patterns — that’s all they can do.

“But then the Holy Grail was, could you do with one — one tile?” Dr. Goodman-Strauss said.

An example of a Penrose tiling with kites and darts. Credit... Craig Kaplan

As recently as a few years ago, Sir Roger was in pursuit of an einstein, but he set that exploration aside. “I got the number down to two, and now we have it down to one!” he said of the hat. “It’s a tour de force. I see no reason to disbelieve it.”

The paper provided two proofs, both executed by Joseph Myers, a co-author and a software developer in Cambridge, England. One was a traditional proof, based on a previous method, plus custom code; another deployed a new technique, not computer assisted, devised by Dr. Myers.

Sir Roger found the proofs “very complicated.” Nonetheless, he was “extremely intrigued” by the einstein, he said: “It’s a really good shape, strikingly simple.”

Imaginative tinkering

The simplicity came honestly. Mr. Smith’s investigations were mostly by hand; one of his co-authors described him as an “imaginative tinkerer.”

To begin, he would “fiddle about” on the computer screen with PolyForm Puzzle Solver, software developed by Jaap Scherphuis, a tiling enthusiast and puzzle theorist in Delft, the Netherlands. But if a shape had potential, Mr. Smith used a Silhouette cutting machine to produce a first batch of 32 copies from card stock. Then he would fit the tiles together, with no gaps or overlaps, like a jigsaw puzzle, reflecting and rotating tiles as necessary.

“It’s always nice to get hands-on,” Mr. Smith said. “It can be quite meditative. And it provides a better understanding of how a shape does or does not tessellate.”

When in November he found a tile that seemed to fill the plane without a repeating pattern, he emailed Craig Kaplan, a co-author and a computer scientist at the University of Waterloo.

“Could this shape be an answer to the so-called ‘einstein problem’ — now wouldn’t that be a thing?” Mr. Smith wrote.

“It was clear that something unusual was happening with this shape,” Dr. Kaplan said. Taking a computational approach that built on previous research, his algorithm generated larger and larger swaths of hat tiles. “There didn’t seem to be any limit to how large a blob of tiles the software could construct,” he said.

With this raw data, Mr. Smith and Dr. Kaplan studied the tiling’s hierarchical structure by eye. Dr. Kaplan detected and unlocked telltale behavior that opened up a traditional aperiodicity proof — the method mathematicians “pull out of the drawer anytime you have a candidate set of aperiodic tiles,” he said.

Mr. Smith’s hat tiling made with the Polyform Puzzle Solver by Jaap Scherphuis. Credit... David Smith

The first step, Dr. Kaplan said, was to “define a set of four ‘metatiles,’ simple shapes that stand in for small groupings of one, two, or four hats.” The metatiles assemble into four larger shapes that behave similarly. This assembly, from metatiles to supertiles to supersupertiles, ad infinitum, covered “larger and larger mathematical ‘floors’ with copies of the hat,” Dr. Kaplan said. “We then show that this sort of hierarchical assembly is essentially the only way to tile the plane with hats, which turns out to be enough to show that it can never tile periodically.”

“It’s very clever,” Dr. Berger, a retired electrical engineer in Lexington, Mass., said in an interview. At the risk of seeming picky, he pointed out that because the hat tiling uses reflections — the hat-shaped tile and its mirror image — some might wonder whether this is a two-tile, not one-tile, set of aperiodic monotiles.

Dr. Goodman-Strauss had raised this subtlety on a tiling listserv: “Is there one hat or two?” The consensus was that a monotile counts as such even using its reflection. That leaves an open question, Dr. Berger said: Is there an einstein that will do the job without reflection?

Hiding in the hexagons

Dr. Kaplan clarified that “the hat” was not a new geometric invention. It is a polykite — it consists of eight kites. (Take a hexagon and draw three lines, connecting the center of each side to the center of its opposite side; the six shapes that result are kites.)

“It’s likely that others have contemplated this hat shape in the past, just not in a context where they proceeded to investigate its tiling properties,” Dr. Kaplan said. “I like to think that it was hiding in plain sight.”

Marjorie Senechal, a mathematician at Smith College, said, “In a certain sense, it has been sitting there all this time, waiting for somebody to find it.” Dr. Senechal’s research explores the neighboring realm of mathematical crystallography, and connections with quasicrystals.

“What blows my mind the most is that this aperiodic tiling is laid down on a hexagonal grid, which is about as periodic as you can possibly get,” said Doris Schattschneider, a mathematician at Moravian University, whose research focuses on the mathematical analysis of periodic tilings, especially those by the Dutch artist M.C. Escher.

Dr. Senechal agreed. “It’s sitting right in the hexagons,” she said. “How many people are going to be kicking themselves around the world wondering, why didn’t I see that?”

The einstein family

Incredibly, Mr. Smith later found a second einstein. He called it “the turtle” — a polykite made of not eight kites but 10. It was “uncanny,” Dr. Kaplan said. He recalled feeling panicked; he was already “neck deep in the hat.”

The hat, left, and the turtle. Credit... David Smith

But Dr. Myers, who had done similar computations, promptly discovered a profound connection between the hat and the turtle. And he discerned that, in fact, there was an entire family of related einsteins — a continuous, uncountable infinity of shapes that morph one to the next.

Mr. Smith wasn’t so impressed by some of the other family members. “They looked a bit like impostors, or mutants,” he said.

But this einstein family motivated the second proof, which offers a new tool for proving aperiodicity. The math seemed “too good to be true,” Dr. Myers said in an email. “I wasn’t expecting such a different approach to proving aperiodicity — but everything seemed to hold together as I wrote up the details.”

Dr. Goodman-Strauss views the new technique as a crucial aspect of the discovery; to date, there were only a handful of aperiodicity proofs. He conceded it was “strong cheese,” perhaps only for hard-core connoisseurs. It took him a couple of days to process. “Then I was thunderstruck,” he said.

Mr. Smith was amazed to see the research paper come together. “I was no help, to be honest.” He appreciated the illustrations, he said: “I’m more of a pictures person.”