Section: US & Canada
Poroshenko announces Putin meeting in new peace push
Kiev (AFP) – Ukraine’s Western-backed leader Petro Poroshenko promised Monday to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin and involve US President Barack Obama in his stalled push for peace with pro-Kremlin fighters in the separatist east.The surprise announcement came days after the first direct peace talks with the rebels in three months...
2014 Had the Fewest Crashes in the History of Air Travel
Judging by media coverage, 2014 has been a bad year for the aviation industry. But as the world anxiously awaits updates from the year’s fourth major air tragedy, an examination of the data shows air travel has never been safer. It has undoubtedly been a horrendous year for Malaysia-based carriers, concluding with the disappearance of...
How Good Is the CIA?
The unstated question that runs through the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA torture is: How good is the CIA at doing intelligence work? This formulation consolidates two questions: How good is it at operations? How good is it at analysis? There has been an institutional tensions between the agencies’ two wings since the...
Ukraine drops its nonaligned status
Using a news conference to sign the legislation, which parliament had adopted last week, Petro Poroshenko vowed to reform Ukraine’s economy and military forces to meet European Union and NATO standards. While public support for joining the alliance has swelled after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March and...
Analysts: Ukraine’s Challenges Are Also Russia’s
Ukraine’s pro-European revolution succeeded this year in replacing its Russia-backed president with leaders favoring European integration. But the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea, and support for pro-Russia rebels in east Ukraine, has many worried the country will remain unstable or conditions will deteriorate into all-out war....
AirAsia’s flamboyant CEO Tony Fernandes: ‘This is my nightmare’
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — His airline empire began, Tony Fernandes likes to say, with the purchase of a bankrupt company for less than a dollar. Now, after years of growth that made him the king of Asian budget travel, the flamboyant Malaysian businessman is facing the horror of the disappearance of an AirAsia jet with 162 people on board....
Putin Set to Meet With Ukrainian Counterpart and EU Leaders In New Year
Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko will meet the leaders of Russia, France and Germany in January in the Kazakh capital of Astana to discuss the ceasefire in the Ukraine’s east between pro-EU and pro-Russian forces, he told press on Monday. “My diplomatic year will start on January 15 in Astana with Normandy-style talks,”...
Amal Clooney to Represent Armenia in European Court
Here is a surprising news item being disclosed in this column — Amal Ramzi Alamuddin, wife of prominent actor and human rights activist George Clooney, will be one of the attorneys representing Armenia next month at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Some readers may wonder how a woman described by Elle magazine as having...
A Good Season To Bury Bad News
From shock resignations to military offensives to crackdowns, bad news often strikes in late December while much of the world is busy ringing in the holidays. So far, Russia leads the trend. …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...
Ukraine president signs law abolishing neutral, non-aligned status
JC FinleyKIEV, Ukraine, Dec. 29 (UPI) — Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has signed a law to abolish the country’s non-aligned status, and commented on the possibility of future NATO membership. …read more Source: United Press...
