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Conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch will tie the knot for the fifth time, at the age of 92 years, he said Monday in an interview with his own newspaper, the New York Post.
Murdoch is engaged to Ann Lesley Smith, a 66-year-old former police chaplain in San Francisco and widow of American country singer and media executive Chester Smith.
"I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love -- but I knew this would be my last. It better be," he told the tabloid. "I'm happy."
Murdoch divorced his fourth wife, model Jerry Hall, last year after six years of marriage.
The Australian Murdoch, whose media empire includes The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and other influential outlets, is worth more than $20 billion, according to Forbes.
Murdoch met his new fiancee last year at an event he hosted at his vineyard in California and soon enough the pair decided to spend "the second half of our lives together," the tycoon was quoted as saying.
"In perspective, it’s not my first rodeo. Getting near 70 means being in the last half," said Smith. "I waited for the right time. Friends are happy for me."
The wedding will take place this summer and the couple plans to split their time between the United States and Britain.
Murdoch, who has six children, was first married to Patricia Booker, an Australian flight attendant, whom he divorced in the late 1960s.
He and his second wife, Anna, a newspaper reporter, were together more than 30 years before divorcing in 1999. His third marriage to Wendi Deng ended in 2013.
© Agence France-Presse
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President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday that Russia was open to discussing China's proposals to end the fighting in Ukraine at the start of high-stakes talks in the Kremlin.
The summit comes as China seeks to portray itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine conflict, but Washington warned the world should not be fooled by Beijing's moves.
Xi's three-day trip also serves as a show of support for internationally isolated Putin, just days after a war crimes tribunal issued a warrant for his arrest over accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
"We are always open to negotiations," Putin told the Chinese leader, who was on his first visit to Moscow since the start of Russia's military intervention in Ukraine last year.
The United States has accused Beijing of mulling arms exports to Moscow -- claims China has vociferously denied.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced skepticism over Xi's Ukraine proposals, warning they could be a "stalling tactic" to help Russia.
"Russia alone could end its war today. Until Russia does, we will stand united with Ukraine for as long as it takes," Blinken said later in a statement.
'Constructive role'
Xi and Putin came together in part to discuss China's 12-point position paper on the Ukraine conflict, which includes a call for dialogue and respect for all countries' territorial sovereignty.
During his initial meeting with Putin, Xi hailed "close ties" with Russia and the Russian leader said the two countries had "plenty of common objectives and tasks".
State news agency RIA Novosti said talks between the Russian and Chinese leaders lasted four and a half hours.
The two will meet again for formal talks on Tuesday.
Putin has welcomed Beijing's statements on Ukraine as being indicative of a willingness to play a "constructive role" in ending the conflict.
But Kyiv on Monday reiterated calls for Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine.
"We expect Beijing to use its influence on Moscow to make it put an end to the aggressive war against Ukraine," Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said in comments sent to AFP.
The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group said Monday that his forces control more than two-thirds of the embattled eastern Ukraine town of Bakhmut -- scene of the longest battle of Russia's offensive.
"At the moment, Wagner units control around 70 percent of the city of Bakhmut and are continuing operations to complete the liberation of the city," Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an open letter to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
A day before Xi's arrival, a defiant Putin went to the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Mariupol -- his first visit to territory captured from Kyiv since Moscow's forces pushed across the border in February 2022.
'Objective and impartial'
Xi's visit also comes just days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin on the accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
Beijing said Monday the ICC should avoid what it called "politicization and double standards" and respect the principle of immunity for heads of state.
Russia said it had opened a criminal probe into ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, saying he had accused "a person known to be innocent" and was planning "an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection".
Beijing and Moscow have drawn closer in recent years under a partnership that has served as a diplomatic bulwark against the West.
China has lambasted what it sees as a US-led pressure campaign against Russia as Moscow's military effort in Ukraine drags on, instead calling for what it calls "impartial" mediation of the conflict.
"No single country should dictate the international order," Xi wrote in a Russian newspaper article published on Monday.
Closely watched
Beijing's stance has drawn criticism from Western nations, which say China is providing diplomatic cover for Moscow's armed intervention.
They argue that China's proposals are heavy on grand principles but light on practical solutions.
In Brussels, EU ministers agreed Monday on a two-billion-euro plan to raid their own arsenals and jointly purchase desperately needed ammunition for Ukraine.
The European defense and foreign ministers backed an initiative aimed at providing Ukraine with one million artillery shells in the next 12 months as well as replenishing EU stocks.
Meanwhile the United States announced $350 million in new military aid to Ukraine, including ammunition for Himars rocket launchers.
Analysts say Xi's moves are unlikely to yield a cessation of hostilities, but his trip will be closely watched in Western capitals.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Xi could also be planning his first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since the conflict began.
Zelensky has said he would welcome talks with his Chinese counterpart.
© Agence France-Presse
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The London police forces, Britain's largest, is institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic and could still be employing rapists and murderers, a scathing independent review said Tuesday.
The report, written by government official Louise Casey, was commissioned after the kidnap, rape and murder two years ago of a London woman, Sarah Everard, by serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens.
But since then, another officer, David Carrick, was also jailed for life for dozens of rapes and sexual assaults stretching back two decades, and several other Met scandals have emerged.
Casey found the shocking crimes had been perpetrated in a pervasive culture of "deep-seated homophobia" and predatory behavior, in which female officers and staff "routinely face sexism and misogyny".
Officers from minorities suffer widespread bullying, while violence against women and girls in the majority white and male force has not been treated seriously enough, she concluded.
Asked if there could be more officers like Couzens and Carrick -- who at one point served in the same armed unit protecting MPs and foreign diplomats -- Casey said: "I cannot sufficiently assure you that that is not the case."
"It is the police's job to keep us safe as the public," she said. "Far too many Londoners have now lost faith in policing to do that."
'Upsetting'
Casey's findings come nearly 25 years after the Macpherson Report, which probed Met failures after the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993, also found the force institutionally racist and recommended dozens of reforms.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that what was happening inside the Met was "simply shocking and unacceptable" and that "there needs to be a change in culture and leadership".
But he backed its chief Mark Rowley, who was appointed after Cressida Dick was forced out last April, to "restore confidence and trust" through a draft overhaul unveiled in January.
Rowley called Casey's report "a very upsetting read".
"We have a real problem here. We have misogyny, homophobia and racism in the organization and we're going to root it out," he told Sky News.
The report, which identified "systemic and fundamental problems" within the Met including "inadequate management", made 16 recommendations that would constitute a "complete overhaul".
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has responsibility for the force and initiated the review, said he expected all of them to be fully implemented quickly.
"It's in all of our interests to make sure that the police service changes, root and branch," he told the BBC.
'Unacceptable'
Failure to reform could mean the force, which polices more than eight million people over 620 square miles (1,605 square kilometers) in the British capital, would be broken up, Casey warned.
"The bottom line is this if an organization can't fix itself then there has to be change," she told BBC radio.
But she noted: "The tougher thing is to ask the organization to change its culture and to do a better job."
The Met had failed to protect its female staff and the public from "police perpetrators of domestic abuse, nor those who abuse their position for sexual purposes", her report stated.
"Time and time again, those complaining are not believed or supported. They are treated badly, or face counter-claims from those they have accused," it said.
The 363-page review also said an "absence of vigilance" meant that "predatory and unacceptable behavior has been allowed to flourish".
Racism also exists within the force, with discrimination "often ignored" and complaints "likely to be turned against Black, Asian and ethnic minority officers".
The Met's investigations of crimes was also criticized, with the review saying that the force relied on "over-stuffed, dilapidated or broken fridges and freezers" to store forensic evidence.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge as forensic samples in rape cases, and some appliances were so full they were strapped shut.
One fridge broke down, meaning the evidence inside could no longer be used, the report found.
© 2023 AFP
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