Section: US & Canada
International Monetary Fund’s Rogues Gallery
Photo by Ryan Hyde Introduction The IMF is the leading international monetary agency whose public purpose is to maintain the stability of the global financial system through loans linked to proposals designed to enhance economic recovery and growth. In fact, the IMF has been under the control of the US and Western European states and its policies...
Forget Putin’s Global Posturing—Russia’s Biggest Challenges for 2016 Are Domestic
After a remarkably fraught and complicated 2015, Vladimir Putin’s Russia finds itself still sanctioned by the West for its conduct in Ukraine, dogged by falling oil prices and dicing with a deadly conflict in Syria. And it’s increasingly difficult to foresee the challenges Putin and his country will face in 2016—or how they will...
Supervisor’s prison sentence for scaffold deaths sends message to Ontario employers
In the first case of its kind in Ontario, a Toronto project manager who oversaw a construction crew involved in a deadly scaffolding collapse in 2009 has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years prison. Vadim Kazenelson was found guilty last June on four counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm....
Manager in deadly Toronto scaffolding collapse gets 3 1/2 years in prison
TORONTO — A Toronto project manager who oversaw a construction crew involved in a deadly scaffolding collapse in 2009 has been sentenced to three and a half years behind bars. Vadim Kazenelson was found guilty last June on four counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm. The judge...
Putin: ‘Paris Attacks Could Have Been Avoided If The U.S. Had Listened To Me’
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the Islamist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people in November could have been avoided if the U.S. and others had listened to his advice, and not intervened in the Middle East. Putin gave a rare foreign interview to popular German tabloid Bild on January 5 in the Russian city of Sochi, with the full...
How hackers remotely crippled the Ukrainian power grid
Security investigators say they’ve figured out how hackers likely caused a Dec. 23 electricity outage in Ukraine that left 80,000 people without power for six hours — the first known power outage ever caused by a cyberattack. …read more Source:...
Italy Wants in on Russian Pipeline
Italian papers are reporting (article in Italian) that Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi concluded two days of talks between Moscow and Rome with a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which he insisted that Italy’s Eni get to participate in the proposed “Nord Stream 2” pipeline extension. Renzi made headlines...
Putin Discusses Terrorism, Russia’s Economy, Sanctions And Angela Merkel’s Fear Of Dogs In New Interview
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed sanctions, terrorism, NATO and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s dislike of dogs in a wide-ranging interview with German newspaper Bild published Monday. The Russian leader admitted that economic sanctions levied against his government after the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 have...
Putin Describes EU Sanctions As ‘Theater Of The Absurd’
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described European Union sanctions against Moscow in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis as “absurd.” …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...
Russia’s ruble tanks on first day of trading after holiday
MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian ruble has tanked on the first day of trading after a ten-day holiday period as the price of oil continues to decline. The national currency dropped by nearly 2 percent half an hour into trading to 76.1 rubles on Monday at the Moscow stock exchange’s first currency trading session since Dec. 31. Oil prices, the...
