The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov

The Moscow Times

Moscow Sends More Convoys Into Ukraine as Cease-fire Collapses
TIME
Ukraine A driver parks a truck of a Russian humanitarian aid convoy at a warehouse in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 31, 2014. Dmitry Lovetsky—AP. NATO's Supreme Commander says ceasefire now exists in “name only”. Russian officials ...
Ukraine tensions: OSCE warns real "risk of further escalation"BBC News
Bloomberg Businessweek: VimpelCom quarterly earnings drop as Russia ...Kyiv Post

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China scores big at Apec summit - Times of India
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 10:01 AM

World - Google News

Toronto Star

China scores big at Apec summit
Times of India
BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged stronger after the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which was known to have been dominated by the United States in the recent past. APEC accepted two important proposals that ...
Xi urges faster talks on China-backed free trade areaThe News International
President Aquino of Philippines Meets China's Xi in APEC Ice-BreakerNBCNews.com
Apec starts drive for free-trade pactIndependent Online
Wall Street Journal (blog)-BBC News -Global Times
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Shelling rocks rebel stronghold Donetsk in east Ukraine - Reuters
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 10:00 AM

World - Google News

Shelling rocks rebel stronghold Donetsk in east Ukraine
Reuters
DONETSK Ukraine (Reuters) - New shelling rocked the pro-Russian rebel stronghold of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday despite a fragile ceasefire. A Reuters correspondent in the heart of the city, once eastern Ukraine's industrial hub, heard loud ...

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British and US Regulators Fine Big Banks $3.16 Billion in Foreign Exchange ... - New York Times
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 10:00 AM

messenger-inquirer

British and US Regulators Fine Big Banks $3.16 Billion in Foreign Exchange ...
New York Times
Credit Aaron Byrd/The New York Times. LONDON–British and American regulators fined five of the world's biggest banks a combined $3.16 billion on Wednesday for conspiring to manipulate the foreign currency market, the latest scandal to hit an industry ...
Regulators Fine Global Banks in Currency ProbeABC News
UK, US and Swiss regulators fine banks $3.2 billion in foreign currency probemessenger-inquirer
US regulators fine five banks over forex riggingHong Kong Standard

all 17 news articles »

G20 to consider pandemic fighting fund plan
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:57 AM

World News

World leaders warned of threats to global economy from future outbreaks

Prisoners write the inside story by Guardian Staff
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:57 AM

Two of this years entries to the Prison Reform Trusts annual writing competition, on prison libraries and being a mother in jail, are published here

A competition run by the Prison Reform Trust which gives prisoners the opportunity to write about their experiences of jail, received more than 600 entries this year. They included comments, short stories and lyrics that shine a light on a range of issues that concern prisoners, from the right for prisoners to vote to the impact of drugs behind bars and the notion of rehabilitation.

Judged by former MP Chris Mullin, Guardian writer Erwin James, who served 20 years of a life sentence in prison, authors Michael Morpurgo and Rachel Billington, rapper Kingslee Akala Daley and actor Femi Oyeniran, the annual competition is supported by the Guardian.

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Page 2

U.S. to Revise Bush Policy on Treatment of Prisonersby By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:56 AM

NYT > World

The Obama administration will tell the United Nations that it will observe a treaty to restrict cruel treatment of detainees in some places abroad.

Russia to build two more nuclear reactors in Iranby The Associated Press in Moscow
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:56 AM

Deal reflects Moscows intention to deepen ties with Tehran before possible relaxing of western sanctions against Iran

Russia has struck a deal to build two more nuclear reactors in Iran to be possibly followed by another six, a move intended to cement closer ties between the two countries.

The deal comes less than two weeks before the 24 November deadline for Tehran to sign an agreement on its nuclear programme with six world powers. Tuesdays contract has no immediate relation to the talks that involve Russia and the US, but it reflects Moscows intention to deepen its links with Tehran before possible softening of western sanctions against Iran.

Russia optimistic over deal at nuclear talks with Iran
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:55 AM

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia believes there is a good chance of world powers reaching a deal with Iran on its nuclear program by a Nov. 24 deadline, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday.

Brazilian police kill six people a day, says reportby The Associated Press in Sao Paulo
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:55 AM

Brazilian police make abusive use of lethal force to respond to crime and violence, says study by public safety NGO

Brazilian police killed more than 11,000 people between 2009 and 2013 an average of six killings a day according to a study.

The study by the Sao Paulo-based non-governmental organisation the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety says police killed 11,197 people over the past five years, while law enforcement agents in the US were responsible for the deaths of 11,090 people over the past 30 years.

Drone kills seven suspected al Qaeda militants in Yemen: military sources
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:54 AM

DUBAI (Reuters) - At least seven suspected al Qaeda militants were killed on Wednesday in a U.S. drone strike on a vehicle they were driving in southern Yemen, military sources said.

Young Afghans go online to find friendship and love
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:54 AM

KABUL (Reuters) - Frustrated by strict social rules, young and educated Afghans are quickly learning that taboos can be sidestepped at the tap of a mobile phone.

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Page 3

Man dies in Tokyo after setting himself on fire in protest against defence policy by Reuters in Tokyo
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:53 AM

Dead man left letter to Japans prime minister, Shinzo Abe, protesting against countrys shift away from pacifism

A Japanese man died after setting himself on fire in a Tokyo park in an apparent protest against the countrys shift away from postwar pacifism under Shinzo Abe, NHK national television said.

Abes cabinet in July freed up constraints that had kept the military from fighting abroad, in a huge political victory, although one widely opposed by voters.

Californians arrive home after Russian detention - MiamiHerald.com
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:53 AM

Californians arrive home after Russian detention
MiamiHerald.com
Four students returned home to smiles and hugs from family and friends in the U.S. Tuesday after being briefly detained in Russia during a student leadership conference. The students were held for several hours Thursday in St. Petersburg. They were ...

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Foreign exchange fines: banks handed £2bn in penalties for market rigging by Jill Treanor
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:52 AM

World News - Breaking International News And Headlines | Sky News

Regulators in US and UK mete out record fines after finding a free for all culture on currency trading floors at RBS, HSBC, Citibank, JP Morgan and UBS

The corruption of the worlds biggest currency dealers was laid bare on Wednesday when regulators imposed £2bn of fines on five major banks for rigging the £3.5tn-a-day foreign exchange markets.

Regulators said they had found a free for all culture rife on their trading floors which allowed the markets to be rigged for five years, from January 2008 to October 2013.

Afghan Elections Cited as Factor in Record Levels of Opium Production by By ROD NORDLAND
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:52 AM

NYT > World

United Nations officials blamed at least part of the increase on politicians’ need for campaign cash during the protracted election season.

US And China Sign 'Historic' Emissions Deal
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:52 AM

The move has been hailed by scientists but President Obama faces an uphill struggle to win the backing of the US Congress.

Philae Comet Lander Separates From Rosetta
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:44 AM

World News - Breaking International News And Headlines | Sky News

The Philae lander has separated from the Rosetta spacecraft and is now descending as it prepares to land on a speeding comet.

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Page 4

German police arrest suspected IS supporters, raid properties
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:44 AM

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police arrested several men suspected of supporting militant groups, including Islamic State, and raided numerous properties in a large operation against alleged radicals, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Comet Probe Successfully Separates from Rosetta
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:44 AM

WSJ.Com: World News

Scientists at the European Space Agency said a probe has successfully separated from the craft Rosetta and was on its way on a mission to becoming the first to ever survive a landing on a comet.

'I Want To Wage Jihad But I Don't Have A Thing To Wear' -- Western IS Wannabes Ask Burning Questions
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:42 AM

World News - Breaking International News And Headlines | Sky News

Life inside the world's most notorious terror organization isn't all murder and mayhem. Veteran members of Islamic State are using a social-networking website to answer more mundane questions from militant wannabes, who want to know the answers to such prosaic questions as what to wear, how cold it gets, if they have to buy their own weapons, whether there's Wi-Fi, and if they have to clean up after themselves.

Experts Are Skeptical Over the U.S.-China Emissions Dealby perliljas
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:41 AM

TIME

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled a breakthrough deal on Wednesday, aimed at reducing both nations’ colossal carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels.

During a press conference in Beijing, President Obama lauded the pact as a “historic breakthrough.” Likewise, in an editorial published in the New York Times, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the U.S. and China were “determined to make lasting progress on an unprecedented global challenge.”

But now comes the hard part.

Under the deal, the U.S. must slash carbon emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025, and China must start reigning in its release of greenhouse gases nationwide. Based on the initiative, China needs to hit peak CO2 emissions by 2030.

In addition, China, which has long relied on coal to fuel its unprecedented economic growth, also promised to rapidly increase the country’s reliance on nonfossil fuels in primary energy consumption. By 2030, Beijing is aiming to have 20% of the country’s energy needs supplied by zero-emission sources.

But to hit these targets, experts argue that both nations must now draw up and enforce unprecedented policies.

As Sam Roggeveen, of the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, pointed out in a blog postpublished on Wednesday, the U.S. will have to “double the pace of its carbon pollution reduction to meet the new target.” Domestic politics could easily put a brake on that.

In China, Roggeveen writes, “an additional 800-1,000 gigawatts of nuclear, wind, solar and other zero emission generation capacity” must be deployed by 2030 — more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today. Otherwise the goal can’t be met.

Even if the central government had an all-consuming drive to achieve this, economists say it must provide the proper economic incentives to local bureaucrats who are pivotal to executing policies on the ground.

“The feasibility of doing [this] depends on the local bureaucrats, so if the local bureaucrats resist then nothing can be done,” Xu Chenggang, professor who is a specialist in China’s economic development at the University of Hong Kong, tells TIME. “[It doesn’t] matter how strong the leader is, to get things done really depends on incentives.”

Xu explains that China’s three decades of robust economic expansion were only possible because local officials were able to profit from the country’s rapid transformation into an industrial powerhouse. However, questions remain over whether there will be as much money to go around during a transition to a greener economy.

“In turns out it’s very, very difficult to find a scheme which is going to give local bureaucrats sufficient incentives to take care of their environment,” says Xu.

And even then, activists say the world’s two largest emitters of CO2 have yet to commit to the types of policies needed to reverse the effects of climate change.

“There is a clear expectation of more ambition from these two economies whose emissions trajectories define the global response to climate change,” says Li Shuo, a senior climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia in Beijing. “Today’s announcements should only be the floor and not the ceiling of enhanced actions.”

Still, others are hopeful that the historic announcement today will at the very least inject some momentum into the push to lower greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide.

“This is an important development, not so much because of the details,” explains Jim Falk, a visiting fellow at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability in Tokyo. “It states a desire by US and Chinese leaders to add serious momentum to a global agenda to cap and reduce

greenhouse-gas emissions.”— With

reporting by Per Liljas and Helen Regan

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· · ·

SEAL Thought He Would Die In Bin Laden Raid
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:41 AM

Robert O'Neill says he still has to figure out whether killing the terror mastermind was the best or worst thing he has done.

APNewsBreak: GOP Promises Cassidy a Committee Seat - ABC News
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:28 AM

World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post

APNewsBreak: GOP Promises Cassidy a Committee Seat
ABC News
Republicans have promised Bill Cassidy a seat on the Senate's energy committee if he defeats Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana's runoff election next month, potentially undercutting one of her main arguments for re-election. Landrieu has ...

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Page 5

A tale of U.S.-China contrasts: Obama sounds conciliatory, Xi sounds competitive by David Nakamura
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:27 AM

BEIJING — After days of behind-the-scenes lobbying by U.S. officials, Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed, as a gesture of diplomacy, to take a question at a news conference with President Obama. His answers, after being put on the spot Wednesday, were anything but diplomatic.

Read full article >>

U.S. and China reach historic climate change agreement
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:26 AM

CNN.Com - World

In a historic climate change deal, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced both countries will curb their greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades.

AP Exclusive: Drone sightings up dramaticallyby By JOAN LOWY
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:25 AM

AP Top Headlines At 6:32 A.M. EST

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is getting near-daily reports - and sometimes two or three a day - of drones flying near airplanes and helicopters or close to airports without permission, federal and industry officials tell The Associated Press. It's a sharp increase from just two years ago when such reports were still unusual....

Want your privacy back? First, curb your own enthusiasm for snooping by James Ball
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:24 AM

If we film everyone, all the time, thats not merely a threat to trust in our society its the end of it

We start this opinion piece with some late-breaking news: sometimes hotel staff take a peek at your stuff. Well have the full story, reaction and analysis over the next 12 hours. But first, a final plea for some small measure of sanity.

Our story starts in a hotel room at some undisclosed city in the US where one guest decided to leave a camera filming the goings-on in his unoccupied room. His footage luckily for him proved interesting, as the hotel cleaner riffled through his possessions, took a look at his videogames and tinkered with his computer.

Ukraine violence flare
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:24 AM

CNN.Com - World

Gunfire crackles and flames scar battlefields in eastern Ukraine -- signs, officials warn, of a crumbling ceasefire in the volatile region.

Special Report: The fighters of Iraq who answer to Iran
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:20 AM

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Among the thousands of militia fighters who flocked to northern Iraq to battle militant group Islamic State over the summer was Qais al-Khazali.

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Page 6

Afghanistan sees increase in poppy cultivation - STLtoday.com
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:19 AM

Afghanistan sees increase in poppy cultivation
STLtoday.com
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The United Nations says opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan his risen by seven percent this year, hitting a record high despite costly U.S.-led efforts to cut production. In a report released Wednesday, the U.N.'s Office on Drugs ...

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Netanyahu Warns Against Nuclear Deal With Iran
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:16 AM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned world powers against concluding a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear program.

Afghan opium crop set for record highby May Jeong in Kabul and agencies
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:16 AM

Helmand province remains countrys top opium-cultivating province, with drug money financing Taliban operations

The opium crop in Afghanistan will hit a new high this year, the United Nations has said, presenting a challenge to the country in tackling the trade that fuels the Taliban-led insurgency.

Opium cultivation has risen 7% year on year to 224,000 hectares, and production in 2014 may reach 6,400 tonnes a 17% increase according to a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

US-led strikes have killed 865 people in Syria, 50 civilians: monitor - The Globe and Mail
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 9:15 AM

World News - Breaking International News And Headlines | Sky News

Reuters

US-led strikes have killed 865 people in Syria, 50 civilians: monitor
The Globe and Mail
Air strikes by U.S.-led forces in Syria have killed 865 people, including 50 civilians, since the start of the campaign in late September against Islamic State militants, a group monitoring the war said on Wednesday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for ...
Airstrikes kill 865 people in Syria, including 50 civilians, since late Sept ...The Daily Star
Activists: US-led Syria strikes kill at least 860WCHS-TV8

all 13 news articles »

Amazon Wins Right To Sell .Book Domain Names
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 8:58 AM

A worker lifts a box at Amazon's new fulfilment centre after it was opened by Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond in Dunfermline, Scotland,

Stephen Fry narrates foul-mouthed paean to children's dinnertime - video by Guardian Staff
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 8:57 AM

AP Top Headlines At 6:32 A.M. EST

The bedtime book for frazzled parents is followed by a venture into the jungle of family dinnertime

The book that dare not speak its name gets a followup this week, with the publication of a sequel to the sleeper hit of 2011, Go the F*ck To Sleep.

The tongue-in-cheek bedtime book for parents was picked up by UK publisher Canongate after soaring to the top of Amazons bestseller chart a month before it was due to be published by the small US press Akashic Books.

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Page 7

Global banks fined billions in currency probeby By DANICA KIRKA and MARCY GORDON
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 8:57 AM

LONDON (AP) -- U.S., British and Swiss regulators have fined five global banks $3.4 billion for attempting to manipulate foreign exchange markets - the latest penalties for an industry previously criticized for rigging interest rates and for their role in triggering the global financial crisis....

Iran says centrifuge testing, but no violation of atom deal with powers
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 8:56 AM

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has confirmed it tested a new centrifuge that could speed up its enrichment of uranium but dismissed suggestions the move may have violated last year's nuclear deal with world powers, as suggested by a U.S. think-tank.

Moldovan Detained In Transdniester Begins Hunger Strikeby noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 8:55 AM

World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post

A Moldovan detained in the country's breakaway Transdniester region has begun a hunger strike.

Obama lands in Burma amid criticism over country’s human rights abuses by David Nakamura, Steven Mufson
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 8:54 AM

BEIJING — Before President Obama left for Asia this week, his top advisers met privately in Washington with human rights activists to discuss concerns over government abuses in Burma and Hong Kong, hoping to head off criticism of the president’s visit.

Read full article >>

Kazakh Authorities Say Prisoners Maimed Themselvesby noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL's Kazakh Service)
Wednesday November 12th, 2014 at 8:54 AM