Section: US & Canada
Energy Deals Keep Lights On for Ukraine’s New Year Festivities
Ukraine will have stable enough imports of coal and electricity to welcome the New Year with well-lit festive trees in homes and illuminations on the streets, national energy authorities said Wednesday. “All Ukrainians will be able to greet the New Year with light. There will be no outages in the near future,” Volodymyr Demchyshyn...
Obama Reaching Out To Russia Behind The Scenes, Kissinger Used To Woo Putin
The Obama administration has worked under the radar to heal relations with Vladimir Putin’s government in Russia for months, according to a Bloomberg report. Those plans included sending Secretary of State John Kerry to meet with Putin and to have former Secretary of State and Cold War point-man Henry Kissinger call Putin to discuss an end...
The Wonkiest Yard
Since the 2014 midterm-election rebuke, President Barack Obama has been talking about the coming two years – his last two years in office – as the “fourth quarter” of the football game. Here at Shadow Government, we think this is an illuminating metaphor for thinking about the foreign policy challenges and opportunities confronting Team Obama....
Watch North Korea’s Supreme Leader Fly A Plane
North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, is depicted in propoganda as a man of extraordinary abilities. A couple of years ago, the hermit nation announced that its supreme leader mastered the art of driving at the young age of three. And by the time Kim reached his eighth birthday, the future despot could pilot automobiles at speeds of up...
Putin hails Crimea annexation as ‘most important milestone’
Russian President Vladimir Putin used his New Year’s address to hail the March annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region as “the most important milestone in the country’s history.” …read more Source: Los Angeles...
What U.S. Intelligence Predicted the World Would Look Like in 2015
Nine months before the September 11 attacks—and just days after the Supreme Court halted the Florida recount, handing the presidency to George W. Bush—U.S. intelligence officials published an 85-page prediction for what the world would look like in 2015. It’s a world that seems familiar in some ways, and utterly foreign in others. And...
The Best Worst Quotes of 2014
What a year it’s been. In 2014, we discovered new purported threats (Ebola/Islamic State), militarily intervened in yet another country (Syria), and got reacquainted with old interventions (extending combat operations in Afghanistan and redeploying troops to Iraq). In thousands of press conferences, congressional hearings, speeches, and...
The Ruble Is Plunging
The ruble is collapsing again. The currency dropped another 5% on Wednesday. Over the course of the day, it got as weak as 62.03 rubles to $1, but right now it’s around 60.2 rubles to $1. The ruble closed on at 56.71 on Tuesday. The currency’s plunge coincides with Brent oil falling to a 5.5-year low on Wednesday — down as low as...
Putin hails Russia’s annexation of Crimea as historic
Russian President, who praises Crimea’s ‘return home’ in his New Year’s speech, also sends messages to heads of state …read more Source: The Globe and...
Russia Starts A New Economic Union Tomorrow And It Already Looks Like A Disaster
A huge new economic union will begin tomorrow. You might not have heard about it, though, because its biggest member — Russia — has been a little preoccupied with its own economy recently. The Eurasian Economic Union (EEA), which succeeds the Eurasian Economic Community and customs union, begins on Jan. 1, 2015. It’s made up of Russia,...
