British newspaper the Guardian today published an article called "Maria Sharapova returns." Maria Sharapova's triumphant performance in the third round of the championship in Melbourne eclipsed her failure at the Australian Open
Sharapova pulled out two match points in the second round qualifying game against Alexandra Panova. It took her only 61 minutes to reset the pedestal with Zarina Diyas, who is 16th in the rankings.
"I think I played well," said the athlete. "I was just playing during the last game and I did not think about who my opponent was."
Sharapova is to meet with Chinese player Peng Shuai in the fourth round and if she remains in the championship, in the quarterfinals, she will meet with Eugenie Bouchard.
Another article in The Guardian is about the problems of FIFA. The article "FIFA at risk of losing three major sponsors because of scandal" writes about three FIFA sponsors who joined during the World Cup in Brazil in 2014 refusing to renew their contracts with the governing bodies of FIFA.
Castrol, Continental Tyres and Johnson & Johnson – so-called second-rank sponsors with quite high ratings in Brazil – have already confirmed that they will not renew their contracts.
Sponsors can invest at least $1.5 billion in the organization for each of the four-year cycles. Continental Tyres has been a sponsor of the World Cup since 2010, Castrol since 2008 and Johnson & Johnson signed a contract for one cycle in 2011. The companies' decisions not to renew the contracts scares Zurich that FIFA sites are becoming unfit for brands. This in turn will cause the sales department of FIFA to seek regional partners, to fill the gap in the budget
The football organization will seek companies in Russia and the Middle East – in the regions that will host the next two championships – to fill this gap. There are also plans to use the target markets of developing countries to stabilize the situation.
The Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman runs an article "Premiere of Turkish film 'Ivy' will take place at the international Sundance festival". The world premiere will take place on Monday evening in the Egyptian Theatre and will be shown five times throughout the festival, which runs until February 1 in Park City, Utah.
'Ivy', the second film by director Karachelik, is one of the 12 films presented at the festival, which opens up new prospects for developing the film industry throughout the world.
Another article in the Turkish newspaper was called "2014 was a record year for sales of real estate". In December last year, sales were up to 16.3%, which gave impetus to the real estate market in late 2014. Home sales increased by 19.8% in 2014 compared to 2013 figures.
The total amount of corporate and individual real estate sales from foreign buyers will reach $5 billion this year. Industry representatives believe that the housing sector will continue steady growth in the coming years. It is expected that 7,000,000 new homes will be built in Turkey over the next 20 years.
"How popular are Putin and Obama in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine?" ask Gerard Toal and Joan O'Loughlin in an article which appeared in the Washington Post. The newspaper organized surveys with support from the Political Science program of the U.S. National Science Foundation. The survey was conducted in six regions in the southeast of Ukraine with the exclusion of the war zones of Luhansk and Donetsk. The authors also used the results of the Levada Center survey conducted in Crimea during the same period. "First, in the oblasts of southeast Ukraine, there is general skepticism about political leaders, with only Poroshenko receiving a small positive likeability rating among Ukrainians who said they spoke both Russian and Ukrainian at home. Putin received by far the highest negative ratings of the four leaders. In the smaller Crimea survey, Putin scored strongly on the likeability scale among both Russians and Ukrainians, with Tatar respondents on balance neutral. Aksyonov scored moderately well in the likeability scale of this overwhelmingly Russophonic sample. Obama’s rating is a mirror image of Putin’s in Crimea but even in the six southeast oblasts, the overall score is negative for all groups," the article concluded. The results of the survey also show that there are no significant differences in opinion between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians."Moscow won’t admit it, but Russia is at war with Ukraine", Doug Schoen, Forbes' contributor writes."Russia can continue to feign ignorance, but this constitutes the most dangerous, deeply irresponsible escalation of violence and tensions in Ukraine since a little-observed ceasefire was signed in September," the article reads. "We have a moral obligation, not to mention considerable political interests at stake, in ensuring that... Ukraine is allowed to chart a course of successful, peaceful, and prosperous development as an intact and independent country... America and the West must be no less invested in achieving peace, defending sovereignty, and protecting international norms by refusing to allow Russia to achieve its aims in Ukraine," Schoen writes."The Chilly Fallout Between Putin and His Oligarch Pals" is an article which appeared in Bloomberg. "The ruble’s plunge has heightened opposition to Putin’s backing of the rebellion in Ukraine among his wealthiest allies, prompting the president to shrink his inner circle from dozens of confidants to a small group of security officials united by their support for the separatists, two longtime associates said," the article reads. Referring to a political consultant, Sergei Markov, the article reports that the core group of Putin's supporters consists of a group around Putin is by Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov, Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The article also reports that Putin has been tightening his power after the uprising in Ukraine in order "to weaken the network of businessmen and officials who’ve been allied with Putin since he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s.""Russia's Population Is Still Growing, But Trouble Lies Ahead," Forbes' contributor Mark Adomanis writes. The article notes an increase of about 275,000 in Russia's population in 2014, which a lower increase than in 2013. The current economic crisis makes population growth less likely. "Now that Russia’s economy is set for a nasty recession of indeterminate length, and now that real incomes are getting hit by a combination of currency weakness and inflation, it’s not terribly surprising that its population dynamics are starting to weaken," the article reads. "If oil rebounds to $70 or $80 a barrel by the end of the year, as a number of forecasters expect, then the demographic impact of the economic downturn will be noticeable but not nearly enough to quality as a 'shock.' If oil stays at the current level or heads lower then I expect there will be a very noteworthy and very negative impact on the growth rate, perhaps even a return to modest overall population loss," the author of the article offers his forecast.An article headlined "Europe Appeals to Putin’s Ego As it Seeks Peace in Ukraine" with a subheadline "In Davos, European leaders offer to make Putin's Eurasian dreams come true —but only if the conflict in Ukraine ends" written by a Ukrainian journalist, Simon Shuster appeared in Time magazine. "The Chancellor brought up the geopolitical vision (some would call it a fantasy) that Russian President Vladimir Putin has long been promulgating. “Later on, in the bigger picture,” Merkel said, “we can try to explore possibilities of cooperation, and an economic area that President Putin himself called ‘from Vladivostok to Lisbon’". Shuster believes that the European leaders brought up this idea as "a carrot to dangle in front of Russia, and a way to coax a change in Putin’s thinking on Ukraine." "Underneath its idealism, then, the proposal that Merkel and her allies offered Putin in Davos on Thursday may not do much more than stoke his [Putin's] ego. But for the sake of peace in Ukraine, they can be forgiven for hoping he goes for it," the article concludes.An article headlined "Empire, Islam and Russia. Faith in expediency" appeared in the Economist. "Russia sees itself as a proud successor to an imperial realm which co-opted rather than converted the religious communities that lay in its path. Like the tsars, today's Russia sees no contradiction between fighting certain forms of Islam in the Caucasus and shoring up that faith, in return for guarantees of loyalty, in other parts of its domininion," the article reads. The author believes that Putin's government "is a common, imperial regime—one that punishes "blasphemers" of all kinds, including those who challenge the regime itself, and colludes with religious authorities to maintain social control—is different from the liberal model of co-existence, where no religion is protected and each must argue its case in an open market-place of ideas." "Establishing a democratic space where all opinions are respected, based on a deep consensus on the value of freedom of speech, is a harder and longer road, but a better guarantee of peace. And whatever your religious views, it's nicer to live in places where blasphemers don't get whipped," the article concludes.
