Section: The Huffington Post (USA)
Trump Takes on the World
It was 1972. The flamboyant rock star Alice Cooper, not quite a household name at that point in England, was booked to play London’s Wembley Stadium. Shortly before the concert date, only a couple hundred of the 7,000 available tickets had been sold. Facing an epic failure, the redoubtable rock music promoter Shep Gordon emblazoned the side...
Russia Readies to Invade Ukraine this Fall
World attention focuses on ISIS and Iran, with its half an atomic weapon. But the biggest geopolitical issue is Vladimir Putin, backed by thousands of nuclear weapons, who is gradually conquering Ukraine, a democracy with 45 million people the size of Germany and Poland combined. In just over a year, Russia has seized 9% of Ukraine, killed 6,200,...
Estonian Man Who Says Russia Abducted Him Sentenced To 15 Years
MOSCOW/TALLINN, Aug 19 (Reuters) – An Estonian police officer who says Russia abducted him in a cross-border raid was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday, stoking tensions between Moscow and the former Soviet republic.Eston Kohver’s prison term will put further strain on relations that have deteriorated since Russia annexed...
The August Coup and the Final Days of the Soviet Union
Note: Our accounts contain the personal recollections and opinions of the individual interviewed. The views expressed should not be considered official statements of the U.S. government or the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. ADST conducts oral history interviews with retired U.S. diplomats, and uses their accounts to form...
This Programmer Is Traveling The World Using Only Bitcoins
Aug 18 (Reuters) – TEL AVIV, Israel – Felix Weis has gotten used to blank stares anytime he tries to pay for something. Since January, the 28-year-old freelance computer programmer from Luxembourg has been on a trip around the world using only bitcoin.Most store clerks, bartenders and tour operators he’s encountered have never...
Uptick In Ukraine Violence As Putin Visits Crimea
DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — A night-long artillery exchange in eastern Ukraine between government troops and Russia-backed rebels claimed nine lives on Monday, casting doubt on the already shaky cease-fire.The fighting between Russia-backed separatist rebels and Ukrainian government troops in the country’s industrial heartland eased after...
The Dark Side of Russian Sanctions: Lessons to Learn
Co-authored by William Witenberg a contemporary artist focused on abstract painting While the impact of western sanctions on Russia has been well documented, little mention has been made of the effects of the Russian embargo on western agricultural products. Russia in response to the sanctions has declared an embargo on agricultural products...
Ukrainian Diaspora Must Jettison Right Wing Tendencies
Though World War II has long since concluded, the conflict still lives on for many in Ukraine and the country’s foreign Diaspora. For Kiev, which has been locked in a deadly stalemate with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the public relations stakes are high. While Moscow has sought to exploit the fact that some Ukrainians...
How Ukraine’s Central Bank Wrecked the Country’s Nascent Economic Recovery in 2011 and Why It Should Not Do It Again.
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, central banks around the world have become the largest, most powerful, and exceedingly profitable financial institutions. And they can’t wait to get out of this predicament. Central banks are not profit centers. Their main task is to keep inflation on target, while making sure that economic...
Understanding Russia’s War on Cheese
The Paleo Diet has finally been knocked from its perch as the stupidest food trend of the twenty-first century, replaced by an even stranger phenomenon: the Russian government’s mass, televised destruction of banned imported food. On July 29, in response to American and European sanctions against the Russian Federation, President Putin...
