Section: US & Canada
A Canadian peacekeeping mission to Ukraine nothing more than a fantasy?
There has been a lot of reporting in the last two days about the potential for a Canadian peacekeeping mission to help stabilize the conflict in Ukraine. The Liberals have talked about it. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has endorsed the idea of a UN peacekeeping mission led by Canada. Russia is also interested in the United Nations sending...
Gangsters of the Mediterranean
Among the wealthy sophisticates who came and went from their seaside villas on the Spanish island of Mallorca, there was something that didn’t quite fit about the Russian who lived in a neoclassical mansion on the Avenida Portals Vells. Tall and powerfully built, with a flattened nose and graying, short-cropped hair, he looked more like an...
Mila Kunis says local refused to let her see childhood home in Ukraine
Mila Kunis at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, Calif., Oct. 20, 2017. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images) (JTA) — Mila Kunis and husband Ashton Kutcher tried to visit the actress’ childhood home in Ukraine with her parents, but a local who opened the door would not let them in, she said in an interview. Kunis, who is Jewish and in 2012...
Verkhovna Rada passes more laws to meet IMF and Maidan demands
KYIV – Ukraine’s reformist yet occasionally obdurate legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, moved ahead this week with more bills to further enhance a constantly overdue pro-European agenda on the back of promises of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. A more representative electoral bill was approved in the first of two readings on November 7. It...
Groysman pitches Ukraine as business opportunity for Canada
OTTAWA – During his first-ever visit to Canada, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman remarked, in an exaggerated way at the Ukrainian Day on Parliament Hill reception organized by the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Program, that “every day in Canadian history” has had a Ukrainian element in it. But that comment made on October 31 somewhat...
Ukrainian Caucus co-chairs introduce resolution on 85th anniversary of Holodomor
WASHINGTON – Congressional Ukrainian Caucus co-chairs, Reps. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), Andy Harris (R-Md.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), on November 7 introduced a resolution commemorating the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor Famine-Genocide. The resolution honors the estimated 7 million to 10 million Ukrainian people who...
As Russian support for Ukrainian war ebbs, Kremlin mulls new ‘hybrid’ tactics
Vladimir Putin’s Anschluss of Crimea gave him a big political boost, and Russians still overwhelmingly support the annexation of that Ukrainian peninsula. But support for Russian forces and their clients in the Donbas is declining, with ever more Russians against backing these breakaway groups and expressing fears that the conflict there...
Erdoğan brokers deal with Putin to release Crimean Tatar prisoners
September and October saw a fresh wave of house searches, arrests and increasing oppression of regime critics on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. But on October 25, two Crimean Tatar political prisoners, Akhtem Chiygoz and Ilmi Umerov, were freed and extradited to Turkey after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan brokered a deal with...
Trump Rails Against China’s ‘Unfair’ Trade Practices
DANANG, Vietnam (AP) — Promising to put “America first” in his trade practices, President Donald Trump used a speech in Vietnam Friday to denounce multilateral agreements embraced by the region and deliver what appeared to be a rebuke to China, railing against trade practices he says have put Americans out of work. “From this day forward we will...
White House: No ‘Formal’ Trump-Putin Meeting Planned During Asia Trip
DANANG, Vietnam (AP) — President Donald Trump will not have a formal sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin while the two attend a summit, the White House said Friday shortly before Trump landed in Vietnam, the fourth stop on his first official visit to Asia. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force Once, White House press secretary Sarah...
