Bringing Russia's President In From The Cold | Leaders Gather to Honor D-Day Normandy Landing - 06/06/14 13:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks

June 06, 2014

France’s President Franςois Hollande, flanked by President Obama, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margrethe II and Vladimir Putin, spoke during a lunch at Chateau de Benouville on Friday.Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Leaders Gather to Honor D-Day Normandy Landing
Friday June 6th, 2014 at 12:30 PM

BÉNOUVILLE, France — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia held private talks with President Obama and with the newly elected leader of Ukraine on Friday as both sides in the violent conflict in Eastern Europe tried to ease a geopolitical showdown that has shaken the post-Cold War order.

Mr. Putin, invited here as part of a commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, sat down for 15 minutes with Petro O. Poroshenko, who will be inaugurated as Ukraine’s president on Saturday, their first such session since the May 25 elections. Mr. Putin also had an informal conversation with Mr. Obama on the sidelines of the commemoration.

French officials told reporters that Mr. Putin and Mr. Poroshenko had agreed to open more formal talks with the hope of negotiating a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have been waging a fierce insurgency that European and American officials say has been fomented by Moscow.

Dmitry S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, confirmed the meeting in an interview and said both sides had agreed that they needed a political solution to de-escalate the crisis. He said that the conversation had been cordial and brief and that there were no immediate plans for another meeting. “They agreed on the need to stop the violence,” Mr. Peskov said. “It is a positive step – a very humble one, but it is positive.”

President François Hollande of France and President Obama spoke to veterans at the Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing.

Publish Date June 6, 2014

Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

A White House official separately confirmed the discussion between Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin but did not immediately give details of the content. “It was an informal conversation, not a formal bilateral meeting,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser.

The conversation came after an awkward pas de deux between Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin, who initially seemed to be going out of their way not to acknowledge each other’s presence amid the world leaders gathered here. During the few minutes that they were before international journalists, Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin did not speak to each other, did not shake hands and in fact seemed eager not to encounter each other, much like divorced parents at a child’s graduation.

Mr. Obama had refused to meet with Mr. Putin during his four-day trip to Europe, even though his French, German and British counterparts all scheduled individual meetings with the Russian leader here in France. Still, aides had not ruled out the possibility of an informal conversation much like the one that evidently took place out of the public eye on the sidelines of the ceremonial luncheon.

The two were first seen together behind the chateau here as leaders from around Europe and elsewhere gathered to take a group photograph. President Franςois Hollande of France stood in the middle with Queen Elizabeth II to his right and Mr. Obama to her right. To Mr. Hollande’s left was Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and to her left was Mr. Putin.

Thus separated by three people, Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin busied themselves talking with others. Mr. Obama jovially greeted Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, kissing her on both cheeks. When the photograph was taken and the group began wandering into the chateau for lunch, Mr. Obama lingered behind, making sure that Queen Elizabeth, who was moving gingerly, got up the stairs and path all right.

At one point as the crowd moved slowly toward the building, Mr. Obama was right behind Mr. Putin and could have tapped him on the shoulder if he wanted to but instead focused his attention elsewhere, as if not noticing who was there. Inside the chateau, the leaders had lunch around a horseshoe table, seated in the same order as in the photograph, with Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin separated by the same three people.

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· · ·

Leaders Gather to Honor D-Day Normandy Landingby By PETER BAKER
Friday June 6th, 2014 at 12:15 PM

NYT > World

Ukraine's President-elect Petro Poroshenko passed Russian President Vladimir V. Putin at the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day
in Ouistreham, France, on Friday.

Op-Ed Contributor: The Once and Future Kingsby By MIGUEL-ANXO MURADO
Friday June 6th, 2014 at 12:15 PM

NYT > World

Felipe will have to build a constituency among a Spanish public that has lost trust in all national institutions.

The 10 best recordings of poets by Andrew Motion
Friday June 6th, 2014 at 12:15 PM

Network Front | The Guardian

From Alfred Lord Tennyson to Alice Oswald, Andrew Motion chooses his
favourite recordings of poems read aloud by those who wrote them

Hear and download all of the recordings at poetryarchive.org, and nominate
your favourite in the comments below Continue reading...

World War II: How it happened - YouTube
Friday June 6th, 2014 at 12:07 PM

Published on Jun 6, 2014

CNN's Max Foster takes you on a 'virtual room' history lesson of key World War II events from the beginning to end.

A timeline of World War II by CNNInternational
Friday June 6th, 2014 at 12:02 PM

Uploads By CNNInternational

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Page 2

'Drones' Examines Complexities of Remote-control Warfareby webdesk@voanews.com (Penelope Poulou)
Friday June 6th, 2014 at 12:01 PM

Voice Of America

In his drama Drones, filmmaker Rick Rosenthal poses complex security, political and ethical questions about drone attacks in the ongoing war against global terrorism. Rosenthal builds a tense character drama inside a windowless control room at a Nevada airbase, where two pilots have a close up look at the innocent people they will have to kill in order to eliminate the terrorist amongst them. One pilot faces court-martial for refusing to obey her orders. Her father, an Air Force...

The Queen is greeted by Francois Hollande as she arrives in Paris
Friday June 6th, 2014 at 4:39 AM

News | Mail Online

The Queen was welcomed to Paris by France's President Hollande this afternoon with a ceremony held in front of the Arc de Triomphe.

Europe Still Can’t Break Its Addiction to Russian Energyby Simon Shuster
Thursday June 5th, 2014 at 8:41 PM

TIME » Time Sections » World

Russians have a colorful term for the notion of energy dependence. “The oil-and-gas needle,” which evokes the image of a heroin syringe filled with crude, is used to describe the twin addictions of the European energy market. Russia’s economy depends on the sale of energy to Europe just as Europe depends on Russia for its fuel supplies, and neither side seems capable of weaning itself off the habit. On Thursday Europe pledged once again to try, though history suggestsit has no chance of going cold turkey.

At a summit of the G7 club of wealthy nations in Brussels, the U.S. pledged to work with its European allies to end its energy dependency on Russia, in the hope of preventing the Kremlin from using oil and gas as tools of political influence. “The use of energy supplies as a means of political coercion or as a threat to security is unacceptable,” the forum, attended by U.S. President Barack Obama, said in its final declaration. “The crisis in Ukraine makes plain that energy security must be at the center of our collective agenda.”

The West has said all this before. Over the past decade, Russia has cut off or sharply reduced the flow of natural gas to Ukraine several times, often as a form of political pressure. Because more than half of all Russian gas supplies to Europe flow through Ukrainian pipelines, these disruptions have also left European states without enough fuel to power their factories or keep their citizens warm. The worst incident came around New Year’s Eve 2009, when a price dispute between Russia and Ukraine resulted in fuel shortages in 18 European countries in the dead of winter.

The worst hit nations that year were the most dependent ones, particularly in Eastern Europe, where consumers rely on Russia for practically all of their natural gas. The European Union as a whole gets nearly a third of its oil and gas from Russia, and after the crisis of 2009, it realized more clearly than ever that it needed to make a change. “It was utterly unacceptable that European gas consumers were held hostage to this dispute between Russia and Ukraine,” Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, said at the time.

So the G7 declaration on Thursday, with its invocation of the “unacceptable,” sounded very familiar. Its proposals also offered nothing new. Just as the E.U. did five years ago, the members of the G7 promised to find alternative sources of energy, to expand the use of renewable power like wind and solar, and to draw up emergency plans for the next time Russia shuts off the taps. But none of those pledges stopped Russia’s share of the European gas market from climbing to 30% as of last year, compared to less than a quarter in 2009. (Russia is also the main supplier of both coal and uranium for fueling Europe’s power plants.)

“That’s not going to change any time soon,” says Mikhail Korchemkin, the director of Eastern European Gas Analysis, a U.S.-based energy consultancy. “Russia will remain Europe’s main energy supplier for years to come.” Even if the West implements all of the G7 proposals, Russia’s share of the European energy market will drop at best from a third to a quarter, Kochemkin says. “The gas taps will still be a weapon at Russia’s disposal. If it doesn’t like the way Bulgaria is behaving, it can cut the supplies. And the same thing goes for Germany.”

That level of control over the European fuel market has been at the core of Russia’s state energy strategy for years. “Russian pipelines will become an integral part of the energy bridge between Europe and Asia,” states the version of the strategy adopted in 2009. “And Russia will be the key center for its control.” As part of that mission, Russia has been building vast new gas pipelines to Europe and has been buying up existing energy assets inside the E.U.

The U.S. could, at least in the long term, help counter Russia’s dominance on the European market, and E.U. leaders have started lobbying Obama to allow American companies to export more gas to Europe. The president has remained non-committal, not least of all because exporting gas would raise prices in the U.S. by taking supplies away from the home market. But even if the U.S. did begin shipping more gas to Europe, it wouldn’t do much to change the equation. “We’d never approach what the Russians have been,” says Keith Crane, an energy expert at the RAND Corporation. “We’d still be a marginal supplier.”

And there is nothing in the G7 declaration to suggest that Europe has come up with any breakthroughs in quitting its addiction to Russian gas. Its best hope seems to lie in a revival of the political will to seek alternative sources of energy, which will take years if not decades to shift the balance of European consumption away from Russia. In that timeframe, the sense of urgency that has emerged from the latest crisis in Ukraine is likely to fade, just as it did after the previous crisis in 2009, and the one before that in 2006. So the dependence on Russian gas may be unacceptable to Europeans, but kicking the habit will likely remain an elusive goal.

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· · · · ·

Bringing Russia's President In From The Cold
Thursday June 5th, 2014 at 8:37 PM

World News - Breaking International News And Headlines | Sky News

Vladimir Putin and David Cameron's face-to-face meeting in Paris was seen as "a window of opportunity" before "being frozen out".

G7 Leaders Urge Russia to Seize Chance for Peace
Thursday June 5th, 2014 at 8:37 PM

Voice Of America

U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders of the G-7 group of industrialized democracies are calling on Russia to seize the chance to make peace as Ukraine prepares to swear in its new president, Petro Poroshenko. VOA White House correspondent Luis Ramirez is traveling with the president and has this report from Brussels.

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» Leaders Gather to Honor D-Day Normandy Landing
06/06/14 13:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. Ukraine's President-elect Petro Poroshenko passed Russian President Vladimir V. Putin at the commemoration of The two leaders talked after initially appearing to ignore each others at a gat...

» Op-Ed Contributor: The Once and Future Kings
06/06/14 13:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. Felipe will have to build a constituency among a Spanish public that has lost trust in all national institutions.

» The 10 best recordings of poets
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06/06/14 13:07 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Published on Jun 6, 2014 CNN's Max Foster takes you on a 'virtual room' history lesson of key World War II events from the beginning to end.

» A timeline of World War II
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mikenova shared this story from Uploads by CNNInternational. A timeline of World War II CNN's Max Foster takes you on a 'virtual room' history lesson of key World War II events from the beginning to end. From: CNNInternational Views: 0 0...

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» Bringing Russia's President In From The Cold
05/06/14 21:37 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. Vladimir Putin and David Cameron's face-to-face meeting in Paris was seen as "a window of opportunity" before "being frozen out".

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