Section: Time (USA)
The Oil Weapon
The best leverage the West has over Russia doesn’t come from Washington or Brussels or Kiev, but from the West Texas city of Midland, where the oil business is booming. On a reporting trip to Midland last year, I saw countless drilling rigs piercing the scrubland, tanker trucks clogging the highways and full tables of oil executives at the...
Never Mind the Elgin Marbles — Give Us Back Amal Alamuddin
Amal Clooney, lawyer, is reported to be at the epicenter of “the west’s longest-running cultural row”. The Guardian, which coined the phrase, meant the two-century-long tussle between Athens and London over the rightful home of marble sculptures removed from the Parthenon between 1801 and 1805 by the English aristocrat Lord Elgin and later...
Crimea’s Gay Community Moves Out as Russian Homophobia Sets In
The Qbar was always an awkward fit in the nightlife of Sevastopol. It was the only place in the Ukrainian city to host the occasional drag show, and certainly the only place where the all-male waitstaff wore booty shorts beneath their aprons. In other parts of Europe, and even many cities in mainland Ukraine, the camp décor would have raised few...
Clashes Erupt Outside Ukraine’s Parliament in Kiev
(KIEV, Ukraine) — Clashes broke out Tuesday between demonstrators and police in front of Ukraine’s parliament in Kiev as deputies inside repeatedly voted down proposals to recognize a contentious World War II-era Ukrainian partisan group as national heroes. Thousands of Svoboda nationalist party supporters rallied earlier in the capital in...
Putin Orders Troops Away From Ukraine Border
(MOSCOW) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered thousands of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border to return to their usual bases, according to his spokesman. Dmitry Peskov told Russian news outlets late Saturday in Sochi that Putin had ordered approximately 17,600 troops to return home from Rostov, a southern region that borders east...
Latvia and U.S. Play War Games as Tensions with Russia Grow
Over the sandbanks and marshes of northern Latvia, battle cries rang out late last month as U.S. and Latvian troops stormed a mock-up urban street, a training exercise one officer described as a “Stalingrad-type scenario” for soldiers more used to peace-keeping or fighting rural insurgents. After an €80,000 anti-tank missile and a volley of...
Prosecutors: 1 MH17 Passenger Had Oxygen Mask On
(THE HAGUE, Netherlands) — Dutch prosecutors say the body of one passenger of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was found wearing an oxygen mask, raising questions about how much those on board knew about their fate when the plane plunged out of the sky above Eastern Ukraine in July. Prosecution spokesman Wim de Bruin says the passenger, an Australian,...
U.N. Says Hundreds Killed During Ukraine Cease-Fire
(KIEV, Ukraine) — At least 331 deaths have been reported in eastern Ukraine since last month’s cease-fire deal between Russian-backed separatists and government troops, the United Nations said Wednesday. Hostilities are persisting in the main rebel-held city of Donetsk, as well as around the towns of Debaltseve and Schastye. Donetsk...
Why Nobody Wants to Host the 2022 Winter Olympics
Nobody wants to let the games begin. On October 1, Oslo withdrew its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, making it the fourth city—after Stockholm, Lviv, and Krakow—to have second thoughts about hosting the games. With only Beijing and the Kazakhstan city of Almaty left in the running, the International Olympic Committee now faces the difficult...
Latvia Wary of its Ethnic Russians as Tensions with Moscow Rise
For a woman Latvian intelligence services have named as a potential anti-state organizer, 29-year-old Margarita Dragile seems more worried about dinner than being a menace to society as she arrives at a Riga café for an interview with TIME this week. Devouring her salmon and potato pancakes, Dragile wonders when she would have had time to plot...
