Section: US & Canada
U.S. adds more Russians to sanctions list
WASHINGTON – The United States has levied new sanctions against more Russians for Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, hitting well-connected insiders, including the man known as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chef. The updated list, announced on December 20 by the Treasury Department, includes seven Russians and more than three dozen...
Are the Kremlin’s LNR and DNR about to unite or fight each other?
The Kremlin has deliberately obscured the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), in eastern Ukraine, under a fog of confusion. As such, on a single day in mid-December, a Russian analyst argued that the two self-styled republics are about to unite into one entity (Novorossiya), while at the...
U.S. Congress passes massive defense bill
Magnitsky rights measure, military assistance to Ukraine also part of legislation WASHINGTON – The U.S. Congress has backed legislation giving the president new, broader authority to impose sanctions on human rights abusers worldwide, building on an earlier law that has infuriated the Kremlin. The measure, formally known as the Global Magnitsky...
Worldwide conference of Plast Ukrainian Scouting held in Kyiv
KYIV – The Conference of Ukrainian Plast Organizations (known by its Ukrainian-based acronym as KUPO), the body uniting Plast groups worldwide, met in the Ukrainian capital on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the country’s re-establishment of independence. In attendance were more than 100 delegates and guests from Australia,...
Professor from Odesa in Texas on Fulbright
AUSTIN, Texas – Dr. Volodymyr Dubovyk, an associate professor of international relations and director of the Center for International Studies at Odesa National University in Odesa, Ukraine, is spending the 2016-2017 academic year in Austin, Texas, on a Fulbright Scholarship. St. Edward’s University and the University of Texas at Austin...
Two priests celebrate 40th anniversaries
STAMFORD, Conn. – Two Ukrainian American clergymen recently celebrated the 40th anniversaries of their priestly ordinations with celebrations in Kyiv and Rudno, near Lviv. The Very Rev. Mitred Archpriest Roman Mirchuk of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, who currently resides in Mykolayiv, Ukraine, and the Rt. Rev. Mitred...
War reporter’s stories from Ukraine
“In Wartime: Stories From Ukraine,” by Tim Judah, New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2016. ISBN: 978-0451495471. $27 (hardcover) or ISBN: 9780451495495 $13.99 (kindle/e-book) The ongoing disinformation war and military war that Russia has escalated since its 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine are the subject of author Tim Judah’s...
Trump releases letter from Putin asking to ‘restore’ U.S.-Russia relationship
President-elect Donald Trump on Friday released a holiday letter he received from Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he hopes the U.S. and Russia will be able to “live up to” the overtures expressed by Putin and that “we do not have to travel an alternate path.”Putin’s letter, dated Dec. 15, expresses desire for greater cooperation...
More Clashes Near Donetsk Kill Two More Ukrainian Troops
Shelling, mortar fire, and heavy gunfire continued in eastern Ukraine, with at least two more government soldiers killed amid the latest outburst of fighting in the region. …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...
Today’s letters: Climate change, language training, Aleppo
Climate change is the least of Kiribati’s problems Re: Migration with Dignity, Dec. 17. I found the article on Kiribati interesting. However, permit me to add a few details in the spirit of helping understand these issues. First, most of Kiribati’s GDP is mainly government revenue from tuna fishing licences to Japanese and American...
