Section: Newsweek (USA)
Hungarian PM refuses to support EU sanctions against Poland
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday flagged a veto on any possible European Union sanctions against Poland, a strong regional ally, following a recent meeting with the head of Poland’s ruling party. “The European Union should not think about applying any sort of sanctions against Poland, because that would require full unanimity...
Ukraine Set To Rename Over 900 Towns With Soviet Names
More than 900 Ukrainian towns and villages will be renamed over the course of the year, in accordance with Ukraine’s push to remove commemorations of Soviet and Communist-era figures, the head of Ukraine’s state Institute for National Memory told Channel 5 on Wednesday. Since Ukraine’s pro-European Maidan protests toppled the...
Ukraine Officials Call For Coca-Cola Boycott Following Map Blunder
Ukrainian lawmakers have called for a boycott on Coca-Cola products after the company published a map of Russia on social media that included the annexed Crimean peninsula as part of Russia’s territory. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after pro-European protesters toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian government of then...
Polish Defense Minister Wants to Almost Double Size of Army
Poland’s minister of defense says the country should increase its army to 150,000 soldiers, almost double its current size, Polish weekly military magazine Polska Zbrojna reported on Monday. Speaking about his assessment of the armed forces since stepping into the office late last year, Antoni Macierewicz said there needs to be a move to...
Ukrainians’ Outlook on Life Getting Bleaker as Uneasy Ceasefire Continues
The quality of life in Ukraine fell to a record low in 2015, according to a recent poll by U.S. survey agency Gallup. The economic crisis in Ukraine exacerbated by the still unresolved conflict in its eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions, has prompted 79 percent of Ukrainians to consider themselves “poor” in 2015, up from 62 percent in 2014. Over...
Ukraine Calls on U.N. To Send Peacekeepers to War-Torn East
Ukraine has proposed a series of measures to the U.N. for the resolution of the conflict in the country’s east, including a request to consider sending a U.N. peacekeeping mission. Vladimir Yelchenko, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the U.N. presented U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with several proposals on how the...
Restless in Russia: The Kremlin Braces for a Possible Spring of Discontent
Predicting a coming Russian revolution has been a favorite hobby of Russia watchers for years now. But since President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, the doomsaying has intensified, as plunging oil prices and Western economic sanctions wreak havoc on the Russian economy. Yet even though the ruble has lost over half its...
Ukraine’s Poroshenko Prompts Meme Craze In Russia After Twitter Gaffe
In one day Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko has transformed himself from his country’s President to the cover star of almost every major magazine, on Twitter at least. The Ukrainian leader, whose country is currently caught in an uneasy ceasefire with Russian-backed separatists in its eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions, tweeted what he...
Vladimir Putin Names U.S. Among Threats to Russia in Security Strategy
A new appraisal names the United States as one of the threats to Russia’s national security for the first time, a sign of how relations with the west have deteriorated in recent years. The document, “About the Strategy of National Security of Russian Federation”, was signed by President Vladimir Putin on New Year’s Eve. It...
In New Year Messages, Europe’s Leaders Call for Strength
The year 2015 seemed close to overwhelming Europe. Various crises hit the continent, testing its unity, security and economic stability. But, the continent seems to have survived—enough at least to head, perhaps a little unsteadily, into 2016. Greece didn’t leave the eurozone as economists thought it might back in July. The hundreds of...
