[Say that in English:] Fed Shifts to a Less Predictable Approach to Policy Making...

Nick Timiraos, The Wall Street Journal; hear also

Officials on uncertain path, likely tying decisions to short-term economic data

Excerpt:

“Raising rates too quickly could unnecessarily shorten the economic expansion, while moving too slowly could result in rising inflation and inflation expectations down the road that could be costly to reverse, as well as potentially pose financial stability risks,” said Fed Vice Chairman in a speech Tuesday. ...

The process of learning more about the two estimates, said Mr. Clarida, “supports the case for gradual policy normalization, as it will allow the Fed to accumulate more information from the data about the ultimate destination for the policy rate.” ...

What I wish to do before I die ...

image from

Read Dante's Inferno ...

Odin iz naskhikh? ... [One of ours?] ...

• POLITICS

Mueller Asked About Trump’s Link to Billionaire Russian-Azerbaijani Family

Publicist Rob Goldstone, who arranged Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 with Donald Trump Jr., met with special counsel team in March

British publicist Rob Goldstone, center, arrived at a closed-door meeting with House Intelligence Committee last December in Washington, D.C. He set up a meeting between high-level members of the Trump campaign and a Russian lawyer in June 2016. PHOTO: ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES

By Rebecca Ballhaus, Wall Street Journal.,  Sept. 24, 2018 3:10 p.m.; see also

Bernardo Bertolucci, Last Tango in Paris director, dies aged 77

Andrew Pulver, The Guardian

Politically pioneering Italian director of The Conformist and Last Tango in Paris, who went on to win the best director Oscar for The Last Emperor, dies from cancer

Bernardo Bertolucci, the multi-award-winning Italian director of Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers, has died at the age of 77 after a spell with cancer, his publicist confirmed. He had been confined to a wheelchair for over a decade, after surgery on a herniated disc in 2003 was unsuccessful and rendered him unable to walk.

Bernardo Bertolucci: the brilliant last emperor of highbrow cinema

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In a film-making career that stretched back to the early 60s, Bertolucci became a key figure of the extraordinary Italian new wave (alongside, and the equal of, Antonioni, Fellini, and Pasolini) but – uniquely – made a successful transition to large-scale Hollywood film-making with 1987’s The Last Emperor, which won nine Oscars, including best picture and best director for Bertolucci.

 The Last Emperor. Photograph: Christophe d'Yvoire/Sygma/Corbis

Bernardo Bertolucci: 'I thought I couldn't make any more movies'

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Bertolucci was born in Parma in 1941, the son of a poet and teacher, and was raised in a literary and artistic atmosphere. His father Attilio was friends with Pier-Paolo Pasolini, then a novelist and poet, and Pasolini hired the 20-year-old Bertolucci as his assistant on his 1961 debut, Accattone. This proved to be Bertolucci’s big break: Pasolini helped him further by recommending him as the scriptwriter for La Commare Secca (The Skinny Gossip aka The Grim Reaper), which became Bertolucci’s directorial debut in 1962.

Bertolucci continued to contribute as a writer and ideas man, notably on Sergio Leone’s epic spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West. But his directorial career took off with Before the Revolution (1964), a Parma-set account of a Marxist student’s affair with his aunt, and the highly influential The Conformist (1970), both of which foregrounded Bertolucci’s commitment to radical leftwing politics. “I lived in a kind of dream of communism,” he later remarked.

The Conformist: No 13 best arthouse film of all time

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The Conformist also marked the beginning of Bertolucci’s collaboration with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (who had been a camera operator on Before the Revolution). Together the pair would create a string of visually seductive masterworks, including The Spider’s Stratagem (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972) and 1900 (1976). Last Tango, which starred Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, made Bertolucci internationally renowned – and notorious – and allowed him to recruit a high-profile cast, including Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu and Burt Lancaster, for his 300-minute epic 1900.

The Last Emperor, backed by British producer Jeremy Thomas, became Bertolucci’s biggest awards success, with the film-makers having secured unprecedented permission to film inside Beijing’s Forbidden City. Having pulled off a success on such a big scale, Bertolucci remained with Thomas, and the pair went to make The Sheltering Sky, Stealing Beauty and The Dreamers. In the latter film, Bertolucci returned to the heady mixture of radical politics and eroticism with which he had made his mark decades before.

Bernardo Bertolucci: 'Films are a way to kill my father'

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However, in a precursor to the #MeToo campaign, a controversy erupted in 2016 over the extent of actor Maria Schneider’s consent to Last Tango’s infamous “butter” scene, after a three-year-old video resurface in which Bertolucci admitted he and Brando had failed to fully inform her of the details of the proposed scene.

Bertolucci’s final completed feature was Me and You, adapted from a novel by Niccolò Ammaniti. He had been married since 1978 to film-maker Clare Peploe, and had no children.

•This article was amended on 26 November 2018, to correct the year of Bertolucci’s birth.

The collapse of this cannabis stock offers a valuable lesson to every investor

By Ciara Linnane, Francine McKenna, and Tomi Kilgore, The Wall Street Journal Published: Nov 26, 2018 7:00 a.m. ET; see also (1)

MarketWatch/Steve Goldstein

Photograph taken Oct. 2 at the address in suburban Washington, D.C., listed by India Globalization Capital Inc. as its headquarters.

Slavic brotherhood ...

Ukraine Leader Calls for Martial Law Amid Tense Standoff With Russia

Kiev has troops on military alert and demands Moscow release ships and crew members

Russian forces fired on and detained three Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea, near the Crimean peninsula, a move that threatened to reignite tensions between Moscow and Kiev. Image: FSB Handout via RTR

42 COMMENTS

By

Thomas Grove, The Wall Street Journal

Updated Nov. 26, 2018 11:07 a.m. ET

MOSCOW—Ukraine’s defense ministry put its troops on military alert Monday, a day after Russian forces fired on and detained three Ukrainian naval vessels near the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, a move that threatened to reignite tensions between Moscow and Kiev.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on parliament to approve his declaration of martial law for 30 days starting Wednesday. In a televised address, Mr. Poroshenko said the measure was necessary in order to prepare the country’s defenses in case of a full-scale invasion by Russian forces, which he said intelligence reports showed were gathering along the countries’ border.

Mr. Poroshenko said that Ukraine’s Council on National Security and Defense had proposed that he declare martial law for 60 days, but that he had chosen 30 days instead in order not to interfere with the campaign for presidential elections, which he said should take place March 31. 

Mr. Poroshenko, who is seeking re-election, demanded Russia release the ships and its crew members amid the biggest confrontation between the two nations since Russia’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine when Moscow annexed Crimea and supported an armed uprising in the country’s east. Russian authorities said 24 Ukrainian soldiers had been detained after the incident. 

The situation threatens to raise tensions between the Kremlin and the West, which has supported Ukraine in recent years, days ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires, where U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are due to meet.

The White House referred questions about Ukraine and the call for martial law to the State Department, which didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The confrontation began when three Ukrainian naval vessels—two armored artillery ships and one tugboat—were traveling from the Black Sea port of Odessa to reinforce a Ukrainian naval grouping on the Sea of Azov.

A Ukraine army APC is shown in eastern Ukraine, on Monday. PHOTO: ALEXANDER SHULMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Russian coast guard stopped the ships, fired at them and prevented them from passing through the Kerch Strait, which separates the two bodies of water. Several crew members were injured as a result, both Russian and Ukrainian authorities said.

Moscow has blamed the incident on Ukraine, saying Russian coast guard ships had detained the vessels after they were performing dangerous maneuvers in Russian waters. The Federal Security Service, which oversees Russia’s border forces, said its coast guards were forced to shoot at the ships after Ukrainian vessels ignored orders to stop.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the incident wasn’t an attack but an attempt to protect Russia’s borders. Mr. Putin, he said, had been alerted to the standoff on Sunday and was being kept up-to-date on the situation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was inspecting the detained ships and said Moscow wasn’t afraid that the incident at the Kerch Strait could bring about any new Western sanctions.

Russia has already been the target of numerous sanctions, beginning in 2014 when it intervened in Ukraine following the overthrow of a pro-Russian president. Since then it has faced additional measures for 2016 election meddling in the U.S. and the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the U.K.

“Regarding sanctions…They’ve long ago stopped bothering us,” he said during a news conference.

Mr. Poroshenko spoke about the incident Monday with Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which Ukraine isn’t a member.

The secretary-general expressed full support for Ukraine’s navigational rights in its territorial waters under international law, according to a NATO statement.

Both Russia and Ukraine have the right to navigate the waters in the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov, according to a 2003 agreement.

Tensions around the Sea of Azov have risen in recent months as Russia has delayed passage in and out of the Kerch Strait for Ukrainian ships. Industrial centers on the sea, including Mariupol and Berdyansk, depend on ship traffic as an economic lifeline to export metals and grains. Russia in turn has accused Ukraine of harassing its ships.

The European Union also lent its support to Kiev, and EU foreign affairs spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, said Monday at a regular press briefing that the confrontation was “one of the top priorities” for the 28-member state body.

“It is imperative that utmost restraint is shown to de-escalate the situation,” Ms. Kocijancic said, encouraging Russia to immediately release the Ukrainian serviceman and open the Kerch Strait to resolve the “unacceptable” developments.

Russian and Ukrainian assets took a hit Monday amid rising tensions between the two neighbors.

The Russian ruble fell by 1% against the dollar while the RTS stock market index shed 1.9%.

Investors also sold Ukrainian government debt, with the yield on government bond maturing in 2025, rising to 10.487% from 9.922%.

The confrontation and likely imposition of martial law plays to Mr. Poroshenko’s strengths as he seeks re-election in March. He is seen as a capable figure who has rallied international support and stood up to Moscow, though many fault him for his failure to crack down on corruption or increase living standards in the country. 

The detention of the two armored artillery ships is a loss for Ukraine’s navy. The forces only have six such ships, all of which were built over the last several years to help Kiev fill a gap in its naval forces after Russia impounded Ukraine’s naval ships following the annexation of Crimea.

The two ships were traveling to the Sea of Azov to reinforce two other armored artillery vessels stationed there.

—Ann M. Simmons in Moscow, Emre Peker in Brussels and Georgi Kantchev in London contributed to this article.

Write to Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

‘Armenia!’ Review: Exploring the First Christian Nation

An exhibition at the Met is filled with objects that make it clear that, for their creators, the celebration of beauty was also a religious act.

Crescen-shaped earrings (11th-12th century) PHOTO: HRAIR HAWK KHATCHERIAN AND LILIT KHACHATRYAN

3 COMMENTS

By

Edward Rothstein, The Wall Street Journal

Sept. 29, 2018 7:00 a.m. ETNew York

It is remarkable how deeply rooted our greatest art museums are in the religious realm. Artifacts reflecting profound faith—even those once used in the most sacred rituals—are at the foundation of these institutions. Removed from their origins in worship, these relics, illuminations, reliquaries and statues settle into an afterlife in our secular aesthetic temples, making it clear that for their creators (as for many viewers) the celebration of beauty is also a religious act.

Armenia!

The Met Fifth Avenue
Through Jan. 13, 2019

Such are the impressions left, too, by “Armenia!” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The title’s exclamation point promises a sensation of amazement the Met has long cultivated. Gathered in eight galleries are more than 140 opulent Armenian artifacts created over more than a millennium beginning in the fourth or fifth centuries, many of which have not traveled for centuries and most of which have never been seen in the U.S. 

Gospel book, Berkri, Lake Van region (Vaspurakan) (1338),. illuminated by Melk’isedek PHOTO: HRAIR HAWK KHATCHERIAN AND LILIT KHACHATRYAN

Yet, secular amazement aside, with very few exceptions these are artifacts of devotion and worship, created by one of the world’s most ancient cultures and organized by Helen C. Evans, the curator of Byzantine art at the Met and C. Griffith Mann, a curator of Medieval art at the museum. Here is a 13th-century liturgical book stand that once held the Lectionary of the Armenian Church, the vegetal and animal carvings testifying to fertile spiritual ground; and here, too, is a 3,000-pound stone Khachkar—a monumental carved image of the cross typically set into the walls of churches and monasteries, this one made in the late 12th-early 13th century, in which the cross is surrounded by delicate filigree of carved rock. There are gold-leaf illuminations of Gospel books and Bibles; ornate reliquaries said to hold relics of martyred saints; 17th-century ceremonial garments of gold, silver and silk threads.

Reliquary cross with relics of St. George, Lake Van region (Vaspurakan) (1746) PHOTO: HRAIR HAWK KHATCHERIAN AND LILIT KHACHATRYAN

These are the traces of a distinctive faith, for though Armenia’s history is ornate and knotty and scarred by exile, disruptions and 20th-century mass killings, and though its lands were battered by Islamic conquest (Armenian terrain touching on regions between Turkey and Iran), we sense an astonishing consistency, a set of traditions and beliefs maintained over centuries.

Khachkar, Lori Berd, (late 12th-early 13th century) PHOTO: HRAIR HAWK KHATCHERIAN AND LILIT KHACHATRYAN

Armenia is considered to have been the first Christian nation, its commitment sealed by a primal conversion, commemorated by the first artifact here: a four-sided stela from the fourth-fifth century showing an animal-headed man who may be King Tiridates the Great, who, out of stymied passion for a nun, brutally massacred her community, but was then converted to Christianity by the haloed St. Gregory, here carved in stone. An 13th-century English map of the Holy Land, drawn by a monk who spoke with Armenian travelers, shows another myth of origin: Armenia as the home of Noah’s ark, the boat resting on the peaks of Mount Ararat.

We learn, too, that over the centuries, Armenians became global traders, situated at a crossroads and having, at times, access to three bodies of water: the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian seas. We see jewelry of the 11th-13th century from the Armenian city Dvin, which was, until its Mongol destruction in the 14th century, one of the largest cities east of Constantinople.

Radiate Cross, Ani (11th-12th century) PHOTO: HRAIR HAWK KHATCHERIAN AND LILIT KHACHATRYAN

But it is not the artifacts of trade that are the attractions here, but the artifacts of faith. The Armenian kingdom of Cilicia on the Mediterranean may have had connections with the Crusader states, and Armenian merchants were active on trading routes that led them to England, China, India and Russia, but we are primarily aware of Armenian Christianity: It seems both precarious yet invariably firm—as if resembling the Ark resting on Ararat.

Gospel Book with enameled and jeweled silver plaques, manuscript: probably Cilicia, 13th century; plaques: Kayseri, 1691. Silversmith: Astuatsatur Shahamir PHOTO: THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

We accept that impression without fully grasping it in detail: The show’s main flaw is that we never get a very clear picture of the distinctive aspects of Armenian Christianity. Yet we are suffused with its spirit as we make our way through the galleries. Some sense of its distinctiveness also arises from the photographs of churches and monasteries, both at the show and in the sumptuous catalog, looking as if hewed from rugged landscapes of mountain, rock and sea.

Bible, Monastery of Gladzor, Siwnik‘, (1318), illuminated by T‘oros of Taron PHOTO: HRAIR HAWK KHATCHERIAN AND LILIT KHACHATRYAN

Here, we see, is a cosmopolitan culture under persistent assault and subject to perennial accommodation that yet held fast to its religious foundation in cloistered, forbidding settings. A devotional spirit is cast by the sounds from one gallery where we hear “Miajn Surb” from “Les Chants de La Liturgie Armenienne” by Makar Yekmalian (1856-1905), a work that seems to mix aspects of Gregorian chant with folkish turns and a sensuous serenity.

Ecclesiastical Cope, Iran (first half 17th century or later) PHOTO: THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK

We get a more complicated sense of that devotion in images produced at medieval scriptoriums. They can combine a ritualistic formality with a wry individuality. In a 14th-century illumination for the Book of Psalms, the artist T‘oros of Taron shows David playing an Armenian instrument from which the Psalms emerge, while on the facing page, the family tree of Jesse literally sprouts from his belly, leading to David as ancestor to Christ above. And in an illumination by Hakob of Julfa (c. 1550-1613) the Creator is given an all-too-human visage, gazing at his work of creation with a look of dismay, even bewilderment, as, perhaps, he envisions the history yet to unfold.

—Mr. Rothstein is the Journal’s Critic at Large.