Section: US & Canada
Gina Haspel, Trump CIA nominee, ‘shrouded in scandal,’ says Russian press
As Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, testified at the Senate hearing this week, media from around the world — especially from India, Russia and Ukraine — weighed in with their concerns. On Wednesday, the controversial but widely respected long-time veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service batted …...
Attack On LGBTI Event In Kyiv Highlights Police Inaction, Says Watchdog
Members of a far-right Ukrainian group disrupted an LGBTI event in Kyiv on May 10 without Ukrainian police intervening to stop their actions, Amnesty International said in a May 11 statement. …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...
Could America Pull Troops Out of South Korea If It Wanted?
Ramon Marks Security, Asia The implications could be catastrophic. Today the world waits to see whether toughened sanctions, hard nose diplomacy, and even exchanges of nuclear ‘red button’ threats have worked to persuade Kim Jong-Un to give up his nuclear arsenal. At the very least, these Administration initiatives appear to have played a...
Leto, directed by an outspoken Putin critic, is a tribute to the Soviet underground rock scene
Kirill Serebrennikov is under house arrest while his punk movie musical premieres at Cannes. Kirill Serebrennikov’s punk movie-musical Leto is at Cannes, but its director isn’t. He’s under house arrest after his nonprofit was raided last summer by Russian law enforcement, allegedly because Serebrennikov is under suspicion of...
Viktor Vekselberg, the man at the center of the week’s biggest Trump-Russia news, explained
Michael Cohen received $500,000 from an affiliate of Vekselberg’s company. Was it a Kremlin payoff to Trump? Viktor Vekselberg is a powerful Russian oligarch who is worth roughly $13 billion, making him one of the richest men not just in Russia but in the world. We learned earlier this week that Columbus Nova, an American company with ties...
The two Eurovision songs China refused to show, and what happened next
As Eurovision fever ramps up toward Saturday’s Grand Final, the plug was abruptly pulled on China’s coverage. The immediate termination of the broadcast contract with Mango TV followed the alleged censorship of two performances in Tuesday’s first semifinal round of the annual competition of glossy pop music. The statement by...
Why Do-Gooders Love Development Statistics
When National Public Radio radio host Gregory Warner visited Davos earlier this year, he discovered a dizzying world of ranks and stats, all designed to help guide investors and do-gooders. Representatives from India, Ukraine, Indonesia and other countries, he quickly realized, would pitch media and investors only about their top rankings, and...
Ukrainian Activists Storm TV Owner’s Home
Ukrainian nationalists broke through a police cordon to enter the house of opposition lawmaker Serhiy Lyovochkin, who is a co-owner of Inter TV. …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...
Ukrainian Activists Storm TV Owner’s Home
Ukrainian nationalists broke through a police cordon to enter the house of opposition lawmaker Serhiy Lyovochkin, a co-owner of Inter TV. The radical activists were angered after a statement against the renaming of streets for World War II-era Ukrainian nationalists was removed from a broadcast. …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...
Prominent Ukrainian rabbi inaugurates prayer for Trump’s success
(JTA) — The rabbi of Ukraine’s largest synagogue inaugurated a prayer for the success of President Donald Trump in defending Israel and the United States. Rabbi Moshe Azman, one of Ukraine’s chief rabbis, announced the prayer on Thursday on the website of this congregation, which based at the Brodsky Synagogue in the capital Kiev. It...
