News Headlines - 19 January 2020

▽Putin Says He Doesn’t Want Return to Soviet-Era Lifetime Leaders - Bloomberg

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he favors keeping term limits in place, arguing against a return to the Soviet-era practice of lifetime leaders.
Asked by a World War II veteran if he backed ending a ban on more than two presidential terms -- which would allow Putin to continue ruling after 2024, when he will be 71 -- the president said this would make it impossible to ensure an orderly transition of power.
“It would be very worrying to return to the situation in the mid-1980s, when heads of state stayed in power until the end of their days, one after another,” Putin said on a visit to St. Petersburg to mark the 77th anniversary of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad, according to the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

▽Space Force uniform revealed on Twitter - CNNPolitics

The new US Space Force has shown off its utility uniform, and it's bound to look familiar.
Technically, the nation's freshest military branch revealed its new name tapes, which attach to the uniform. "U.S. Space Force" can be read in blue embroidery, a Twitter entry posted Friday shows.
The larger point is that the name tapes are going on the same kind of camouflage uniforms already in use by the Army and Air Force.

▽Facebook says technical error caused vulgar translation of Chinese leader's name - Reuters

Facebook Inc on Saturday blamed a technical error for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s name appearing as “Mr Shithole” in posts on its platform when translated into English from Burmese, apologizing for any offense caused.
Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, January 18, 2020. Nyein Chan Naing/Pool via REUTERS
The error came to light on the second day of a visit by the president to the Southeast Asian country, where Xi and state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi signed dozens of agreements covering massive Beijing-backed infrastructure plans.
A statement about the visit published on Suu Kyi’s official Facebook page was littered with references to “Mr Shithole” when translated to English, while a headline in local news journal the Irrawaddy appeared as “Dinner honors president shithole”.

▽When sexual abuse was called seduction: France confronts its past - BBC News

An 83-year-old French writer once feted by the Paris intellectual set now finds himself ostracised because of his writings about sex with teenage boys and girls.
From the 1960s onwards, Gabriel Matzneff made no secret of his passion for seducing adolescents. But a new book by one of the teenagers he slept with in the 1980s has led to a criminal investigation for rape of a minor.
And now debate is raging in France about who is more to blame: Matzneff himself or the world he moved in.

▽Legendary chef Paul Bocuse's restaurant loses its third Michelin star

The restaurant of famed French chef Paul Bocuse, who died almost two years ago, has lost the coveted Michelin three-star rating it had held since 1965, the guide said on Friday.
The Michelin Guide told AFP the quality of L'Auberge du Pont de Collonge in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or near Lyon, near Lyon, “remained excellent but no longer at the level of three stars”.
The restaurant, in France’s food-obsessed southeast, will have two stars in the 2020 edition.