Section: US & Canada
Russia’s Kerch Strait bridge: New threat to regional stability
After illegally annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia declared it would build a 12-mile-long road-and-rail bridge across the Kerch Strait, connecting mainland Russia to the occupied Crimean peninsula. And last year (2016), with construction under way, Moscow officials promised that the building of this massive bridge would “in no way limit [maritime]...
North Korea’s Bitcoin and Kenya’s New Railway: The Week in Global-Affairs Writing
North Korea Is Dodging Sanctions With a Secret Bitcoin Stash Yuji Nakamura and Sam Kim | Bloomberg “North Korea appears to be stepping up efforts to secure bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which could be used to avoid trade restrictions including new sanctions approved by the United Nations Security Council.Hackers from Kim Jong Un’s...
North Korea’s Bitcoin and Kenya’s New Railway: The Week in Global-Affairs Writing
North Korea Is Dodging Sanctions With a Secret Bitcoin Stash Yuji Nakamura and Sam Kim | Bloomberg “North Korea appears to be stepping up efforts to secure bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which could be used to avoid trade restrictions including new sanctions approved by the United Nations Security Council.Hackers from Kim Jong Un’s...
Coal Mines In Eastern Ukraine Threatened By Rising Water
The closure of coal mines in separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine is causing serious trouble for miners working nearby. As groundwater fills up the disused mineshafts, it seeps into the operational ones — and brings a risk of imminent flooding that threatens countless livelihoods. (Current Time TV) …read more Source:...
The little hockey country that could: South Korea has big plans for the Winter Games
It was loud and it was raucous. The patter of thunder sticks mixed with cheers and some screams, echoed through the year-old arena. In the stands, co-ordinated dancing was led by an eight-person team of conductors. This was the eager anticipation of 5,800 spectators brimming over for a rare event. This was hockey night in Gangneung, South Korea....
Poroshenko to make repeat bid for U.N. peacekeepers in Donbas
KYIV – Historically, Ukraine has been in the top tier of contributors to United Nations peacekeeping missions in conflict zones worldwide. Now, one of the intergovernmental body’s truce contingents might land in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has waged an unprovoked war since April 2014, a month after it illegally annexed the Ukrainian...
How I Believe Facebook Was Censoring My Political Speech
In the Summer of 2007 I traveled to China to speak at a conference concerning security preparations for the Olympic Games, which were to be held in Beijing the following year. While transiting Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport I noticed something odd. The internet sites that I checked every day would not open, to include The American...
War Games Meet Mind Games
Russia and Belarus officially launched their weeklong war games on Tuesday, in a display of military muscle-flexing that has set much of Europe on edge. As the Wall Street Journal notes, the Zapad (“West”) drills began with Russian tanks moving toward Belarus, while a wary NATO keeps watch with a surveillance plane: NATO had promised to keep a...
In the Ukrainian city of Uman, businesses and mobsters follow the Jewish pilgrims
An Israeli visitor to Uman examining a Ukrainian luxury limousine parked on the city’s heavily Jewish Pushkin Street, Sept. 8, 2017. (Cnaan Liphshiz) UMAN, Ukraine (JTA) — By selling coffee to Jewish tourists, 18-year-old Yuri Breskov can earn in a week more than his teachers from high school make annually in this provincial city. His...
Zach Braff Discovers He’s Advertising Erection Pills In Russia
Zach Braff, star of the popular television show “Scrubs,” discovered his photo is being used to sell male performance enhancement pills in Russia. The actor tweeted a facepalm emoji accompanied with a photo of himself as Doctor John “J.D.” Dorian on a Ukrainian ad selling erectile dysfunction medicine. The ad stated the medicine...
