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thank you mister music .....
Krystian Zimerman, the great Polish concert pianist, is usually a man of few words. He doesn't, as a rule, talk to the audience during performances. He says little or nothing in the press between his all-too-rare concert tours - not even about his habit of travelling everywhere with his own Steinway grand piano. He rarely grants them the pleasure of an encore.
So he triggered more than the usual rumble of discomfort when he raised his voice in the closing stages of a recital at Los Angeles' Disney Hall on Sunday night and announced he would no longer perform in the United States in protest against Washington's military policies."Get your hands off my country," Zimerman told the stunned crowd in a denunciation of US plans to install a missile defence shield on Polish soil. Some people cheered, others yelled at him to shut up and keep playing. A few dozen walked out, some of them shouting obscenities.
"Yes," Zimerman responded with derision, "some people when they hear the word military start marching."According to Mark Swed, the Los Angeles Times's veteran classical music critic who witnessed the incident, Zimerman hesitated before deciding to speak up. He was about to strike up the first notes of the final piece on his programme, Karol Szymanowski's Variations on a Polish Folk Theme, when he "sat silently at the piano for a moment, almost began to play, but then turned to the audience".
Swed said he delivered his tirade "in a quiet but angry voice that did not project well".Zimerman appears to have been upset by Barack Obama's decision, announced this month, to maintain the Bush-era policy of installing a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/28/krystian-zimerman-missile-defence-poland
- By Gus Leonisky at 28 Apr 2009 - 9:08pm
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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start II
President Barack Obama has said the US and Russia have an "excellent opportunity" to improve relations on a "whole host of issues".
They include nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan and Pakistan, conflicts in Iraq and the Middle East, and the global economy, he said.
Mr Obama was speaking after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Mr Lavrov had earlier met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for talks on reducing nuclear stockpiles.
Russia and the US have begun working on a new treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or (Start I), which expires in December.
'New level'
Mr Lavrov's visit came after Nato exercises in Georgia put relations between the two countries under renewed strain.
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Not to mention the umbrella... see toon at top.
umbrage at the umbrella
15 June 2009ReutersThe Foreign Ministry has spurned an offer from the United States to participate closely in its planned European anti-missile system, instead urging Washington to drop its proposals and start afresh.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that he was hopeful that Moscow might consider hosting either radars or a data exchange center as it recognized the growing threat from Iran.
But Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Moscow would not entertain any novel ideas until Washington dropped its intention to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.
"Only a rejection by the United States of plans to create a ... missile defense system in Europe could lay the groundwork for our fully fledged dialogue on questions of cooperation in reacting to potential missile risks," Nesterenko told reporters late last week.
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See toon at top.
key decisions...
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has urged the US to move relations forward by shelving plans for a missile defence shield in Europe.
His comments come ahead of a summit between US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dimitry Medvedev.
They serve, correspondents say, as a clear sign that the powerful former president will have to be taken into account during the negotiations.
Mr Obama is preparing to visit Moscow between 6 and 8 July.
Reducing both countries' nuclear stockpiles, as well as Iran and North Korea, will be on the agenda when he meets Mr Medvedev.
'Two feet'
Mr Obama said on Thursday that the US was developing a "very good relationship" with the Russian president.
But, says the BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow, Mr Putin has persistently made it clear that it is he - not his successor - who takes all the key decisions.
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see toon at top
reality bites .....
Obama scraps bush missile-defence plan.... George W. Bush crafted a plan to bring a missile defense system to Poland and the Czech Republic. In one of the more dramatic departures from the previous administration, President Obama announced this morning that U.S. policy is changing course.
The White House is not abandoning missile-defense altogether, but on the advice of the Pentagon and the unanimous judgment and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. will "instead deploy a reconfigured system aimed more at intercepting shorter-range Iranian missiles."
As the president explained this morning, "This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems, and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program.... To put it simply, our new missile defense architecture in Europe will provide stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and America's allies. It is more comprehensive than the previous program; it deploys capabilities that are proven and cost-effective; and it sustains and builds upon our commitment to protect the U.S. homeland against long-range ballistic missile threats; and it ensures and enhances the protection of all our NATO allies."
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/142704/obama_scraps_bush_missile-defense_plan