The new Cold War: Vladimir Putin issues new threat - Mail Online: Military chiefs have warned that Britain has entered a new Cold War with Russia, as Vladimir Putin vows to step up military modernisation with hundreds of new combat jets and missiles. | Putin the Improviser - WSJ
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Wesleyan President Michael Roth on the importance of understanding religious experience—and the difficulty teaching it.
 Salon |
Police: Suspect in Vegas road-rage killing told friends he fired 22 shots outside ...
Cache Valley Daily LAS VEGAS (AP) — Police: Suspect in Vegas road-rage killing told friends he fired 22 shots outside victim home. © 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Who is Vegas shooting suspect Erich Nowsch?WPTZ The Champlain Valley Las Vegas 'Road Rage' Shooting: How Suspect and Victim Were ConnectedABC News Teen neighbor held in road-rage killing of Vegas motherObserver-Reporter all 90 news articles » |
 TODAYonline |
Dow sets record after good news from Greece
KITV Honolulu Not even an arctic freeze on Wall Street can compete with the warmth of Greece's economic compromise. Tech stocks are on fire: How high can they go? New York Stock Exchange logo. Tech stocks are red hot this winter. Don't expect that to change any time ... Furious diplomacy in efforts to bridge Greek, German divisionKathimerini all 7,730 news articles » |
Militants Claiming ISIS Ties Say They Carried Out Libya Bombings by By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
At least 38 people were killed in the eastern town of Qubbah, the latest turn of a cycle of retaliatory killings.
 CNNMoney |
Five reasons why Venezuela may be the world's worst economy
CNNMoney A barrel of oil now costs about $51 on the global market, losing about half its value from just six months ago. That's exacerbating the economy's acute problems. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, and once flourished on its treasure ... and more » |
KYIV — Ukrainians are commemorating more than 100 people killed in clashes between police and protesters.
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 CNN |
7 ways to celebrate World Pangolin Day
CNN I'll be among the hopefully hundreds or thousands of people around the world on Saturday who will do just some little thing to honor these introverted underdogs -- and to try to help protect them by bringing them a little more celebrity. I've argued ... and more » |
Fox News |
ISIS name giving terror license to loose, growing network of offshoots
Fox News WASHINGTON – Islamic State "affiliates" seem to be emerging at an alarming rate, giving the sense of an expanding terror network with satellites all over the world. But a closer look, according to analysts, shows these ISIS offshoots are likely operating without ... Selling the 'Fantasy': Why Young Western Women Would Join ISISABC News Rumsfeld On ISIS War: U.S. Troops Needed, 'Better To' Send Them 'Sooner ...Daily Caller How to win against ISISCNN Slate Magazine (blog) -CNBC -Huffington Post all 93 news articles » |
John McCain, Lindsay Graham blast Obama for leaking ISIS attack plan
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 Haaretz |
Lieberman to PM: Begin didn't make speeches before destroying Iraq reactor
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Russia ratifies $100bn BRICS New Development Bankby The European Union Times
The Russian State Duma has ratified the $100 billion BRICS bank that’ll serve as a pool of money for infrastructure projects in Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa, and challenge the dominance of the Western-led World Bank and the IMF.
The New Development Bank is expected to start fully functioning by the end of 2015, according to the Russian Finance Ministry.
Russia has agreed to provide $2 billion dollars from the federal budget for the bank over the next seven years.
It will have three-tiers of corporate governance, with a Board of Governors, Board of Directors and a President.
The bank’s board of directors will hold its first meeting in Ufa in Russia in April. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov is likely to become the bank’s first Chairman of the Board of Governors, according to Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak talking on the Russia 24 TV channel.
The decision to establish the BRICS bank, along with a $100 billion reserve currency pool, was made in July 2014. Each of the five member countries is expected to allocate an equal share of the $50 billion startup capital that will be expanded to $100 billion.
The bank will be headquartered in Shanghai, India will serve as the first five-year rotating president, and the first Chairman of the Board of Directors will come from Brazil.
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Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded Russia’s sovereign debt rating to junk status, citing the conflict in Ukraine, low oil prices and exchange-rate issues.
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Islamic State Bombers Kill Dozens in Libyan Suicide Attacks
ABC News Islamic State militants unleashed suicide bombings Friday in eastern Libya, killing at least 40 people in what the group said was retaliation for Egyptian airstrikes against the extremists' aggressive new branch in North Africa. The bombings in the town of ... and more » |
 KMBZ |
White House, State Dept. Shrug Off FBI Director's Absence at Summit on ...
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 NBCNews.com |
Islamic State Bombers Kill Dozens in Libyan Suicide Attacks
New York Times TRIPOLI, Libya — Islamic State militants unleashed suicide bombings Friday in eastern Libya, killing at least 40 people in what the group said was retaliation for Egyptian airstrikes against the extremists' aggressive new branch in North Africa. The bombings ... 45 killed in car bombing by IS in eastern LibyaXinhua Friday's Mini-Report, 2.20.15MSNBC ISIS militants claim suicide attacks in Libya that killed 40The Daily Star Times of India -Financial Times-Daily Mail all 556 news articles » |
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President Barack Obama and others are trying to preserve U.S. historic sites and ecologically important areas so the lessons of the past can inform future generations. This week, he gave national...
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Reuters Blogs (blog) |
Greece blinked in loan battle, Putin's gaze remains steely
Reuters Blogs (blog) Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis holds a news conference after an extraordinary euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels, Feb. 20, 2015. REUTERS/Yves Herman. The European Union is now a thing of shreds and patches. Its policies and ... and more » |
Officials Declare ‘Eating Healthy’ A Mental Disorderby The European Union Times
In an attempt to curb the mass rush for food change and reform, psychiatry has green lighted a public relations push to spread awareness about their new buzzword “orthorexia nervosa,” defined as “a pathological obsession for biologically pure and healthy nutrition.” In other words, experts are saying that our demand for nutrient-dense, healthful food is a mental disorder that must be treated.
CNN, Fast Company, Popular Science, and other top outlets have all began to trumpet the talking points on cue relatively recently:
“Orthorexia nervosa is a label designated to those who are concerned about eating healthy. Characterized by disordered eating fueled by a desire for “clean” or “healthy” foods, those diagnosed with the condition are overly pre-occupied with the nutritional makeup of what they eat”.
In short, if you turn your back on low quality, corporate food containing known cancer causing toxic additives and a rich history of dishonesty rooted in a continuous “profits over people” modus operandi, then you may suffer from a mental illness. The cherry on top is that if you have the pseudo-science labeled disorder of orthorexia nervosa, you will be prescribed known toxic, pharmaceutical drugs from some of the same conglomerate corporations that you are trying to avoid by eating healthy in the first place.
Orthorexia has not yet found its way into the latest edition of the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), yet is commonly being lumped in with other eating disorders. Stepping back and looking at the ones pushing this label on us shows highly questionable motives.
Psychiatry as a whole is deeply in bed with a pharmaceutical industry that makes the drugs to “treat” every one of these “disorders.” It is often these companies that are wielding influence behind the scenes to invent more mental health categories with their toxic products as the answer. This latest media push to popularize orthorexia as a mental disorder with a goal to marginalize or derail the food revolution appears to have been dead on arrival.
The psychiatric community has even deemed creativity to be a mental illness.
As the people continue to walk away from the broken medical and agricultural/food systems like any abusive relationship, the food makers are willing to do anything to maintain their waning control. Organic and non-GMO food markets have exploded in the last 5 years, so much so that any corporation wishing to not follow the trend risks financial hardship or ruin. In addition, pharmaceutical companies are feeling the strain as less people want their toxic medications and crippling side effects.
Perhaps some people to take it too far to the point of self-harm, but the problem we face with a toxic food system is a much larger threat. In closing, let’s be aware of some of the overall BS fed to us by the pharmaceutical bankrolled industry of psychiatry. When healthy eating and creativity are mental issues, something is amiss.
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 Newsweek |
Justice Department to Seek Emergency Stay to Allow Immigration Action
Newsweek The U.S. Justice Department will seek an emergency stay to block a decision by a federal judge and allow eligible immigrants to apply for benefits granted under President Barack Obama's recent executive actions, the White House said on Friday. Immigration ... and more » |
MEXICO CITY — A Mexican director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, could win the Oscar for best director for the second year in a row.
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Yemen's political parties are close to signing a deal that could prevent the country from sliding into civil conflict, according to the U.N. special envoy to the country. There are fears...
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 The Independent |
Greek bailout: Berlin's stance during the negotiations left Greeks defiant
The Independent Weeks of uncertainty have left Greeks feeling their country is being punished by Germany for daring to look Berlin and Brussels in the eyes. The experience has humbled a country that now sees itself as a debt colony whose destiny lies in the hands of foreign ... and more » |
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moody's downgrade of Russia's sovereign rating was based on "factors of a political character," Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said early on Saturday following news that Moody's had cut the rating to below investment grade.
 Boston Globe (subscription) |
Germany, EU must help Greeks recover from austerity
Boston Globe (subscription) GERMANY HAS proved its point: Promises matter, and Greece can't simply walk away from its controversial 2012 bailout agreement, including the much-hated austerity measures that have thrown the nation into turmoil. That was the outcome of a dramatic, ... and more » |
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Copenhagen shootings: hundreds attend funeral of gunmanby Agence France-Presse
An estimated 500 people attend burial of Omar el-Hussein, the gunman who killed two people in twin shootings in Denmark
Hundreds of people attended the burial of the gunman who killed two people in twin shootings in Copenhagen last weekend.
The body of Omar el-Hussein
The Saturday Essay: The Ukraine crisis is even more alarming than it looks: Yet again, Russia’s strongman is making up his next moves on the fly.
After this week’s devastating military setbacks for the Ukrainian government, Western observers are trying urgently to get inside the head of Vladimir Putin . But the practitioners of this burgeoning cottage industry—call it Putinology—are missing one essential point: Mr. Putin has largely been improvising his way through the current crisis. That means that the Ukraine showdown is even scarier and more dangerous than you think: Mr. Putin is making it up as he goes along.
The Russian leader has routinely experimented with (and quickly jettisoned) any number of concepts, strategies and approaches, all in the name of gaining short-term advantage. Mr. Putin may be living “in another world,” as German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly suggested to President Barack Obama —but in our world, which Mr. Putin is busily remaking, he seems to think that keeping his opponents guessing and off-balance is an end in itself.
In opinion columns and books, the Putinologists have been struggling to explain the thinking of the man who, almost single-handedly, seems to be dragging much of the West into a new Cold War. Like their Kremlinologist forebears, they try to decode Moscow’s intentions through painstaking analyses of the Russian leader’s every public utterance or symbol-laden photo op; they comb through minute aspects of Mr. Putin’s career and private life; they sift for clues in the output of Russia’s sprawling state propaganda apparatus. A lucky few even get invited to come to Russia once a year to sit down over elegant meals with the man himself and other mandarins and courtiers who spin them on how things really look from Moscow.
The larger-than-life portrait of Mr. Putin that usually results from such research is trotted out to support whatever sweeping conclusions about the Ukraine crisis seem relevant at a given moment. Thus we are told that Mr. Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and confrontational stance toward the West are natural extensions of his years in the KGB, where he must have been schooled in the black arts of Soviet intelligence and steeped in feverish anti-Americanism. (Never mind that Mr. Putin’s rather undistinguished KGB career was concentrated in the unglamorous field of counterintelligence, with big chunks of time spent in backwaters such as a Dresden field station and the campus of Leningrad State University.) Mr. Putin’s public flirtations with the trappings of Russian tsarism—including its Russian Orthodox faith and imperialist, anti-Western ideology—are sometimes cited as reflections of a deep-seated desire to reestablish control over the newly independent countries that emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Similarly, Mr. Putin’s dismaying assertion of a Slobodan Milosevic-style right to “protect” ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers beyond his borders has stoked fears of bloody meddling in neighboring countries such as the Baltics and Kazakhstan.
But the most plausible explanation of Mr. Putin’s behavior is even more unnerving: He’s winging it, and when things get difficult, he tends to double down.
How did we get to this point?
Part of the answer lies in the extreme personalization of political power following Mr. Putin’s return to the Kremlin in the spring of 2012. He then dramatically centralized the Russian government’s decision-making process. Few issues were too petty to be brought before him. One political insider illustrated the point for me by suggesting that even some professional hockey trades needed his personal blessing.
As the Ukraine crisis intensified in late 2013 and early 2014, Mr. Putin narrowed his circle of advisers even further, putting the Kremlin on a de facto war footing and limiting those truly in the know to longtime associates with similar backgrounds in intelligence and military operations. In the absence of real give-and-take or the consensus-based style of decision-making that had generally prevailed during his first two terms in office, Mr. Putin’s decisions became overwhelmingly tactical—and often internally contradictory. What counted for him was loyalty and tight lips—not, say, an intimate knowledge of the global economy or a sophisticated grasp of the way Western unity would be strengthened by appalling misdeeds like the July 2014 shootdown of a civilian airliner over Donetsk, Ukraine.
ENLARGE
From left, President Putin with French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko earlier this month. Photo: Reuters
Mr. Putin’s tendency to view nearly every situation through a short-term tactical lens has been a unifying theme throughout the grinding Ukraine crisis. The seizure of Crimea is a particularly painful case in point.
Mr. Putin was blindsided last February by the violent collapse of the regime of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. For weeks, Mr. Yanukovych had resisted Kremlin demands to crack down on pro-Western protesters angered by his scuttling, under Russian pressure, of a pact that would have moved Ukraine closer to the European Union. Finally, Mr. Yanukovych unleashed his security forces; a still-unknown group of snipers killed dozens of demonstrators in Kiev’s Maidan Square. Events quickly spun out of control, and Ukraine edged toward civil war. European diplomats hurried to Kiev to negotiate a face-saving deal that would have kept Mr. Yanukovych in power until early elections in December 2014. But no sooner had the agreement been signed than the duly elected Ukrainian head of state asked his staff to start packing up his valuables so that he could flee the capital.
At this moment, Mr. Putin faced the indignity of possibly losing Ukraine for a second time. In 2004, the triumph of the pro-Western Orange Revolution had been a searing defeat for the Kremlin, which had acted heavy-handedly during a presidential campaign marred by election falsification. This time around, Mr. Putin had fallen into a similar trap, staking significant personal prestige on keeping the hapless Mr. Yanukovych in power, thanks largely to perhaps as much as $20 billion in financial support and gas-price incentives.
Mr. Putin later conveniently accused Western governments of double-crossing him and orchestrating Mr. Yanukovych’s removal. But the truth was that Mr. Putin had only himself to blame for backing a leader who simply panicked when the going got tough. (Mr. Yanukovych’s loss of nerve should not have come as a total surprise; there is a memorable video of him collapsing in a heap on the campaign train in 2004 after being hit in the chest by an egg, which he mistook for an assassin’s bullet.)
Despite the surge in popularity back home that accompanied his spur-of-the-moment seizure of Crimea, Mr. Putin’s decision to stage a sham popular referendum and formally annex the territory brought a number of headaches that no one in the Kremlin seemed to think through in advance. What was a credible rationale for the most audacious European land-grab since World War II? Why on Earth would Moscow want to take over a money pit like Crimea at a time of slowing economic growth and plunging oil prices? On the fly, Kremlin propagandists came up with a mantra that they invoke to this day: The new authorities who replaced Mr. Yanukovych in Kiev were illegitimate because they had staged a coup d’état with Western backing; Ukrainian ultranationalists were ensconced in senior government positions and running illegal armed groups; ethnic Russian citizens were in grave danger and deserved to be protected by Moscow and “patriotic volunteers.”
ENLARGE
A Russia-backed rebel gestures standing on a tank in Debaltseve, Ukraine, on Friday. Photo:Associated Press
Mr. Putin began cloaking himself with language seemingly lifted from former Serbian strongman Milosevic’s playbook; he spoke of using force to defend the safety and well-being of ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers living in neighboring countries. That turnaround could hardly have been more striking: Throughout his time as president or prime minister, Mr. Putin had consistently avoided playing to ethnic-based nationalism. He seemed well aware that ethnic chauvinism could bring havoc to the multiethnic Russian state—and could alienate prospective members of a proposed Eurasian Union that he touted as the main project for his third term in the Kremlin.
Against this backdrop, Mr. Putin’s efforts look more like a short-term tactical play than a carefully considered embrace of an ethnocentric approach to defending Russia’s declared interests in its neighborhood. Mr. Putin’s nationalist credentials have never been terribly strong. Before the Ukraine crisis, many prominent Russian nationalists openly despised him for creating a political regime in which corruption knew no limits, an inner circle that contained relatively few ethnic Russians and an expensive, unseemly co-dependency on a ruthless, violent Chechen warlord named Ramzan Kadyrov (whose countrymen seem to be playing an important supporting role in the fighting in eastern Ukraine). Just a few years ago, one of the most powerful grass roots political activities in Russia was a nationalist-led campaign entitled “Stop Feeding the Caucasus,” which had clear racial overtones.
This pattern of damn-the-consequences, trial-and-error improvisation was also vividly demonstrated in the Kremlin’s initially ill-starred efforts to sow instability and separatist sentiment in southeastern Ukraine. Early attempts to rally public support against the new, “fascist government” in Kiev were a flop. Moscow was caught off-balance by the lack of popular support in the region for the separatist cause. So Mr. Putin resorted to Plan B, which focused on seizures of government and police buildings by groups of ragtag locals aided (and, in many cases, armed and led) by facilitators with connections to the Russian intelligence and military establishment.
Mr. Putin’s pattern of winging it continues to this day. Just a few weeks ago, he quietly reached out to Ms. Merkel and French President François Hollande with a diplomatic initiative to de-escalate the dangerous situation in eastern Ukraine. After considerable shuttle diplomacy and a high-stakes summit meeting in Minsk with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Mr. Putin agreed to a new cease-fire framework that was widely seen as advantageous to Moscow.
But instead of declaring victory, Mr. Putin chose once again to escalate the conflict. The intense fighting that has followed the Minsk meeting—and the horrific reports of Ukrainian military and civilian casualties—have now thoroughly alienated precisely the European constituency that Mr. Putin has been counting on to eventually push to ease the painful sanctions on Moscow and inhibit possible Western weapons shipments to Kiev.
Mr. Putin’s highly personalized, profoundly erratic approach to governing and waging a deadly war in the heart of Europe suggests that the Ukraine crisis may be even more dangerous than most Western governments are comfortable admitting. How can the Ukrainians or dogged Western leaders such as Ms. Merkel possibly search for a diplomatic solution if they are dealing with a leader who is making it all up on the fly? As one senior Ukrainian official memorably put it at a closed-door briefing in Davos a few weeks ago, Kiev doesn’t know what Mr. Putin wants; even Mr. Putin doesn’t know what he wants.
The unexpected surge in fighting around Donetsk and Luhansk is only the latest illustration of how difficult it has been for the West to predict the direction of the Ukraine crisis. As the war drags on, so too does the risk of an escalatory spiral that no one in the West wants. Russian military aircraft, often without their transponders, are showing up more frequently in close proximity to European airspace, creating unacceptable risks of accidents and dangers to civilian airliners.
Unfortunately, it is too early to tell whether Mr. Putin’s dangerous improvisations are reaching a crescendo. He certainly isn’t the only one who’s winging it; Western responses to Russia’s brazen moves in Ukraine have been highly reactive, not the product of a comprehensive strategy to deal with the long-term threat posed by Mr. Putin’s policies. Western policy makers must grasp the harsh reality that Mr. Putin’s pattern of impulsive, reckless behavior places him in unwelcome company—namely, alongside his reviled predecessors Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev. Both men were undone by a series of blunders that destroyed their careers and reputations—and, in Mr. Gorbachev’s case, his country. The consequences of the crisis that Mr. Putin has unleashed may be no less grave.
Mr. Weiss is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment. During the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, he worked on Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council, the State Department and the Defense Department.
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Military chiefs have warned that Britain has entered a new Cold War with Russia, as Vladimir Putin vows to step up military modernisation with hundreds of new combat jets and missiles.
The direction of U.S. diplomacy with Tehran has added fuel to fears in some Arab states of a nuclear-arms race in the region, as well as reviving talk about possibly extending a U.S. nuclear umbrella to Middle East allies to counter any Iranian threat.
 Wall Street Journal |
Obama Parries Questions on Iran Deal From Arabs as Well as Israelis
Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON—Arab governments are privately expressing their concern to Washington about the emerging terms of a potential deal aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear program, according to Arab and U.S. officials involved in the deliberations. The direction of ... Kerry Heads to Geneva for Iran Nuclear TalksVoice of America Iran's Atomic Chief to Meet the US Energy SecretaryNew York Times CIA's Nuke Sting May Prompt New UN Review for Iran Nuclear ProgramSputnik International RT-Press TV all 72 news articles » |
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MARIUPOL, Ukraine — During the month-long battle between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists for the city of Debaltseve, the streets of Mariupol — about 120 miles away — were comparatively calm.Read full article >>
Vladimir Putin is a bully and the bitter lessons of history show that the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them.
The high-rise Torch tower in Dubai’s Marina district caught fire early Saturday, but there were no immediate details on casualties.
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