Europe Offers Putin His Eurasian Dream in Exchange for Peace in Ukraine by Simon Shuster
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Given the amount of blood still being spilled on a daily basis in the war in eastern Ukraine, it may seem premature, if not also in bad taste, to offer one of the more stubborn belligerents in the conflict a long-term path toward integration with the West. But on Thursday, that is what Russia got from some of the European leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And it was Germany leading the charge.
During her afternoon appearance at the annual confab of investors and policymakers, German Chancellor Angela Merkel began by rattling off some of her typically harsh condemnations of Russia. With the annexation of Crimea last spring and the subsequent support for a violent rebellion in Ukraine’s eastern regions, Moscow had violated the “elementary principles of the European peaceful order,” she said. “It is a clear and flagrant violation of what has made us live and coexist peacefully together in Europe” since the end of World War II, Merkel added.
But when the moderator asked how she saw the conflict playing out in the more distant future, the Chancellor brought up the geopolitical vision (some would call it a fantasy) that Russian President Vladimir Putin has long been promulgating. “Later on, in the bigger picture,” Merkel said, “we can try to explore possibilities of cooperation, and an economic area that President Putin himself called ‘from Vladivostok to Lisbon.’”
This was a reference to the proposed free trade zone that Putin envisions stretching some 14,000 kilometers one day from the western edge of Europe to the eastern edge of Russia – and conspicuously leaving the U.S. out. For years, Putin has been seeking to lay the ground for such a project, most recently with the creation of the Eurasian Union, a political and economic bloc modeled on the European Union but with Moscow at its center of gravity. Comprised so far of only four post-Soviet countries – Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia, with the impoverished nation of Kyrgyzstan next in line to join – the Eurasian Union legally came into being as of Jan. 1.
But three weeks into its existence, it seems to have found a strategic negotiating partner in the far wealthier and more powerful union to the west. Or at least that’s what some of the E.U.’s key leaders now want Putin to believe.
Apart from Merkel, the elder statesman Jose Manuel Barroso, whose ten-year term as the E.U.’s most senior official ended in October, also brought up the idea of the Eurasian and European Unions forming a brotherly bond. “Why can’t we do it with the Eurasian Union? We want to do it,” he said in Davos on Thursday, referring to Putin’s grand plan. “Can we one day have this dream? I spoke several times with President Putin about that, from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Can it happen? I believe it can happen.”
And if Putin still believes the same, these remarks would be music to his ears. Rare is the speech these days when Putin does not slip in a pointed reference to his idea of a “united space” between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In his reasoning, not only would it give Russia’s natural resources unhindered access to a practically limitless market, but it would put Moscow in a grand constellation of European capitals – finally an equal among powerful Western friends. That, along with the prospect of squeezing the U.S. off the continent, would be Putin’s greatest geopolitical triumph.
But the reason E.U. leaders seem to have suddenly warmed to this idea is not because they believe it to be in the cards nor, for that matter, because they think it particularly attractive. (It was hard enough for the E.U. economy to absorb Eastern European members like Romania and Bulgaria in recent years. Now imagine the flows of jobs and migrants if the borders between France and, say, Kyrgyzstan were to drop.) Much more likely, the West simply needed a carrot to dangle in front of Russia, and a way to coax a change in Putin’s thinking on Ukraine.
That much seemed clear from the remarks of Merkel’s deputy and coalition partner, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. During a panel discussion in Davos on Thursday, he also brought up the idea of integration with the Eurasian Union, but in a slightly different vein. “What can we offer to Russia?” he asked. “What can be an idea for a partnership after we solve the current problems?”
One answer is the fulfillment – or the chance for fulfillment – of Putin’s geopolitical pipedream. “It was Putin’s idea to have a free trade zone between Lisbon and Vladivostok. In a different world than we are in today, it would be a good idea,” Gabriel said.
The suggestion, in Gabriel’s remarks and the others’, was that Putin must first help create that different world – one in which Ukraine is restored to its previous borders and left to live in peace. Up to now, the West has used little more than sanctions to make Putin work toward that reality, but they have not been able to change the situation on the ground. On the contrary, as the slump in global oil prices multiplied the pain of those sanctions on the Russian petrostate, Moscow only increased its support to the separatist rebellion, providing a steady supply of arms, volunteers and ample political cover for the rebel militias in eastern Ukraine.
The peace deal Russia signed in September during a round of negotiations in Minsk, Belarus, has somewhat slowed the fighting but certainly not stopped it. Roughly 2,000 people have been killed in the war since then, bringing the overall death toll to some 5,000 people since April, and a new assault from the Russian-backed rebels this month gave them control of a strategic airport in the city of Donetsk. So eastern Ukraine has continued on its way, with Russia’s help, toward becoming a massive frozen conflict on the E.U.’s doorstep.
Given that context, the idea floated in Davos seems like an attempt to break the stalemate. But it relies to a large extent on Putin being naïve. For one thing, he knows that without the membership of Ukraine – the biggest and most important neighbor Russia has – his Eurasian Union is hardly an equal partner to the E.U. in any trade negotiation. It is at best a shabby incarnation of the Soviet Goliath, still with Russia at its heart but missing most of its essential limbs, not to mention its former prowess in education and technology. Even years from now, if Putin does attract (or coerce) the membership of a few other post-Soviet countries, the Eurasian Union would have a hard time competing with the E.U. even from behind a high wall of protectionist trade barriers, and it would almost certainly wither if those barriers came down between Lisbon and Vladivostok.
Underneath its idealism, then, the proposal that Merkel and her allies offered Putin in Davos on Thursday may not do much more than stoke his ego. But for the sake of peace in Ukraine, they can be forgiven for hoping he takes it.
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King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia obituary by Madawi al-Rasheed
Monarch whose reign saw the spread of division, corruption and strife, and was saved only by ‘black gold’
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who has died aged 90, promised much but accomplished little. By the time he came to the throne in 2005, he was 81 years old. And though he had gained considerable experience as acting monarch after his brother King Fahd’s stroke, he was beset by numerous difficulties – dynastic, democratic, religious, ideological, regional and global – and, with only rising oil revenues in his favour, found himself unable to address them to any significant extent.
Abdullah’s succession as Saudi Arabia’s sixth monarch resulted from his father King Abdulaziz ibn Saud’s strategy of marrying the daughters and widows of defeated enemies. It was hoped thatAbdullah’s birth in Riyadh would end the enmity between the ousted northern Hail emirate and the newly emerging Saudi kingdom. Abdullah’s mother, Fahda bint Asi al-Shuraim, was the widow of Saud ibn Rashid, who ruled over the emirate before its collapse at the hands of Saudi forces in 1921. Abdullah continued the tradition of his father and included, among his 30 or so wives, daughters of the Shaalan of Aniza, al-Fayz of Bani Sakhr, and al-Jarba of the Shammar tribe.
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who joined Washington's fight against al-Qaida and sought to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom with incremental but significant reforms, including nudging open greater opportunities for women, has died, according to Saudi state TV. He was 90....
(RIYADH, Saudi Arabia) — Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who joined Washington’s fight against al-Qaida and sought to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom with incremental but significant reforms, including nudging open greater opportunities for women, has died, according to Saudi state TV. He was 90.
More than his guarded and hidebound predecessors, Abdullah assertively threw his oil-rich nation’s weight behind trying to shape the Middle East. His priority was to counter the influence of rival, mainly Shiite Iran wherever it tried to make advances. He and fellow Sunni Arab monarchs also staunchly opposed the Middle East’s wave of pro-democracy uprisings, seeing them as a threat to stability and their own rule.
He backed Sunni Muslim factions against Tehran’s allies in several countries, but in Lebanon for example, the policy failed to stop Iranian-backed Hezbollah from gaining the upper hand. And Tehran and Riyadh’s colliding ambitions stoked proxy conflicts around the region that enflamed Sunni-Shiite hatreds — most horrifically in Syria’s civil war, where the two countries backed opposing sides. Those conflicts in turn hiked Sunni militancy that returned to threaten Saudi Arabia.
And while the king maintained the historically close alliance with Washington, there were frictions as he sought to put those relations on Saudi Arabia’s terms. He was constantly frustrated by Washington’s failure to broker a settlement to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He also pushed the Obama administration to take a tougher stand against Iran and to more strongly back the mainly Sunni rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Abdullah’s death was announced on Saudi state TV by a presenter who said the king died at 1 a.m. on Friday. His successor was announced as 79-year-old half-brother, Prince Salman, according to a Royal Court statement carried on the Saudi Press Agency. Salman was Abdullah’s crown prince and had recently taken on some of the ailing king’s responsibilities.
Abdullah was born in Riyadh in 1924, one of the dozens of sons of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. Like all Abdul-Aziz’s sons, Abdullah had only rudimentary education. Tall and heavyset, he felt more at home in the Nejd, the kingdom’s desert heartland, riding stallions and hunting with falcons. His strict upbringing was exemplified by three days he spent in prison as a young man as punishment by his father for failing to give his seat to a visitor, a violation of Bedouin hospitality.
Abdullah was selected as crown prince in 1982 on the day his half-brother Fahd ascended to the throne. The decision was challenged by a full brother of Fahd, Prince Sultan, who wanted the title for himself. But the family eventually closed ranks behind Abdullah to prevent splits.
Abdullah became de facto ruler in 1995 when a stroke incapacitated Fahd. Abdullah was believed to have long rankled at the closeness of the alliance with the United States, and as regent he pressed Washington to withdraw the troops it had deployed in the kingdom since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The U.S. finally did so in 2003.
When President George W. Bush came to office, Abdullah again showed his readiness to push against his U.S. allies.
In 2000, Abdullah convinced the Arab League to approve an unprecedented offer that all Arab states would agree to peace with Israel if it withdrew from lands it captured in 1967. The next year, he sent his ambassador in Washington to tell the Bush administration that it was too unquestioningly biased in favor of Israel and that the kingdom would from now on pursue its own interests apart from Washington’s. Alarmed by the prospect of a rift, Bush soon after advocated for the first time the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The next month, the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks took place in the United States, and Abdullah had to steer the alliance through the resulting criticism. The kingdom was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers, and many pointed out that the baseline ideology for al-Qaida and other groups stemmed from Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.
When al-Qaida militants in 2003 began a wave of violence in the kingdom aimed at toppling the monarchy, Abdullah cracked down hard. For the next three years, security forces battled militants, finally forcing them to flee to neighboring Yemen. There, they created a new al-Qaida branch, and Saudi Arabia has played a behind-the-scenes role in fighting it.
The tougher line helped affirm Abdullah’s commitment to fighting al-Qaida. He paid two visits to Bush — in 2002 and 2005 — at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
When Fahd died in 2005, Abdullah officially rose to the throne. He then began to more openly push his agenda.
His aim at home was to modernize the kingdom to face the future. One of the world’s largest oil exporters, Saudi Arabia is fabulously wealthy, but there are deep disparities in wealth and a burgeoning youth population in need of jobs, housing and education. More than half the current population of 20 million is under the age of 25. For Abdullah, that meant building a more skilled workforce and opening up greater room for women to participate. He was a strong supporter of education, building universities at home and increasing scholarships abroad for Saudi students.
Abdullah for the first time gave women seats on the Shura Council, an unelected body that advises the king and government. He promised women would be able to vote and run in 2015 elections for municipal councils, the only elections held in the country. He appointed the first female deputy minister in a 2009. Two Saudi female athletes competed in the Olympics for the first time in 2012, and a small handful of women were granted licenses to work as lawyers during his rule.
One of his most ambitious projects was a Western-style university that bears his name, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which opened in 2009. Men and women share classrooms and study together inside the campus, a major departure in a country where even small talk between the sexes in public can bring a warning from the morality police.
The changes seemed small from the outside but had a powerful resonance. Small splashes of variety opened in the kingdom — color and flash crept into the all-black abayas women must wear in public; state-run TV started playing music, forbidden for decades; book fairs opened their doors to women writers and some banned books.
But he treaded carefully in the face of the ultraconservative Wahhabi clerics who hold near total sway over society and, in return, give the Al Saud family’s rule religious legitimacy.
Senior cleric Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan warned against changes that could snap the “thread between a leader and his people.” In some cases, Abdullah pushed back: He fired one prominent government cleric who criticized the mixed-gender university. But the king balked at going too far too fast. For example, beyond allowing debate in newspapers, Abdullah did nothing to respond to demands to allow women to drive.
“He has presided over a country that has inched forward, either on its own or with his leadership,” said Karen Elliot House, author of “On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines.”
“I don’t think he’s had as much impact as one would hope on trying to create a more moderate version of Islam,” she said. “To me, it has not taken inside the country as much as one would hope.”
And any change was strictly on the royal family’s terms. After the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings in particular, Saudi Arabia clamped down on any dissent. Riot police crushed street demonstrations by Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority. Dozens of activists were detained, many of them tried under a sweeping counterterrorism law by an anti-terrorism court Abdullah created. Authorities more closely monitored social media, where anger over corruption and unemployment — and jokes about the aging monarchy — are rife.
Regionally, perhaps Abdullah’s biggest priority was to confront Iran, the Shiite powerhouse across the Gulf.
Worried about Tehran’s nuclear program, Abdullah told the United States in 2008 to consider military action to “cut off the head of the snake” and prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic memo.
In Lebanon, Abdullah backed Sunni allies against the Iranian-backed Shiite guerrilla group Hezbollah in a proxy conflict that flared repeatedly into potentially destabilizing violence. Saudi Arabia was also deeply opposed to longtime Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom it considered a tool of Iran oppressing Iraq’s Sunni Muslim minority.
In Syria, Abdullah stepped indirectly indirectly into the civil war that emerged after 2011. He supported and armed rebels battling to overthrow President Bashar Assad, Iran’s top Arab ally, and pressed the Obama administration to do the same. Iran’s allies Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias rushed to back Assad, and the resulting conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead and driven millions of Syrians from their homes.
From the multiple conflicts, Sunni-Shiite hatreds around the region took on a life of their own, fueling Sunni militancy. Syria’s war helped give birth to the Islamic State group, which burst out to take over large parts of Syria and Iraq. Fears of the growing militancy prompted Abdullah to commit Saudi airpower to a U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremists.
Toby Matthiesen, author of “Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn’t,” said Abdullah was not “particularly sectarian in a way that he hated Shiites for religious reasons. … There are other senior members of the ruling family much more sectarian.” But, he said, “Saudi Arabia plays a huge role in fueling sectarian conflict.”
Abdullah had more than 30 children from around a dozen wives.
____
Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has further reduced staff at its embassy in Yemen, U.S. officials said on Thursday amid escalating turmoil in the Arab country.
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, born the year the first motorcar bumped through the dusty streets of Riyadh, left a modernizing legacy of cautious social and economic reform.
Saudi state TV reported Friday morning, local time, that King Abdullah had died at 90. The monarch’s health was a known concern last April, when TIME took a long look at the state of affairs between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., and the relationship between the King and President Barack Obama.
Though interactions between the two nations were showing signs of stress, they still provided a window into the world of the King:
The King requires a certain amount of TLC. “This is a very personalized relationship. It’s always the King and the President,” says Elliott Abrams, a former Bush White House national-security aide who has met Abdullah many times. The special relationship between Washington and Riyadh has endured since 1945, when Franklin Roosevelt met with Abdullah’s father Abdulaziz ibn Saud and established an informal deal: the U.S. provides for the kingdom’s security in exchange for reliable oil supplies. (History buffs will note that Roosevelt saw the King on his way home from the Yalta conference, held in Crimea.)To this day, there is nothing quite like dinners with the Saudi monarch in his Riyadh palace. The King and the President are seated at the head of a massive U-shaped table, flanked by dozens of people, most of whom can’t see either leader because of the large flat-screen televisions that are placed in front of them. The King enjoys dining with his TV tuned to the news channel al-Arabiya, Abrams says.That may not be Obama’s idea of a good time. But communication with the King, now 89, comes much more easily in person than the grouchy mumbling one gets from afar. “The King doesn’t like to talk on the phone,” says a diplomat who knows Abdullah. Despite such obstacles, Obama has maintained a workmanlike, if not quite hand-holding, relationship with Abdullah. In their past meetings, says Jim Smith, Obama’s ambassador to Riyadh until last October, “Obama was deferential and respectful of the King’s age, and the King was respectful of the President’s position and his brainpower.”
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RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah died early on Friday and his brother Salman became king, the royal court in the world's top oil exporter and birthplace of Islam said in a statement carried by state television.
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Analysis: U.S. officials worry that the death of Saudi King Abdullah ushers in a period of new uncertainty in a key relationship that already was tense.
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King Salman is now ruler of Saudi Arabia after his elder half-brother, King Abdullah, died early Friday at age 90.
Salman bin Abdulaziz, who was named crown prince in June 2012, was Abdullah’s third heir to the throne after two elder brothers died in late 2011 and mid-2012. As the new King of Saudi Arabia, home to 28 million people, he will also serve as Prime Minister and Defense Minister.
A longtime governor of the capital, Riyadh, Salman has a reputation as a progressive and practical prince similar in bearing to his late brother. The transition is expected to be a smooth one, with little instability and no long-term policy changes. But the 79-year-old has reportedly been in poor health in recent years, and is perhaps unlikely to rule for as long as his elder sibling.
Unlike European monarchies that are handed down by generations, the Saudi throne has passed between the sons of King Abdulaziz, who founded modern-day Saudi Arabia in 1932. His sons Saud, Faisal, Khalid and Fahd each became king in the 20th century; Abdullah took the throne when Fahd died in 2005.
King Salman’s crown prince will be his younger brother Prince Muqrin, the youngest surviving son of King Abdulaziz, who was named deputy crown prince last year when the kingdom acted to set in stone its structure for the future. Muqrin is said, like the new King, to be committed to cautious reforms.
It was decreed by the King in 2006 that when the last of Abdulaziz’s sons passes away, a new Kingwill be chosen from among his grandsons by a council of senior Saudi princes. Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the son of a crown prince who died, is considered a leading contender after being appointed Interior Minister in 2012.
But the kingdom has never transitioned from one generation to another, and no one quite knows what will happen when it does.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- With the death of King Abdullah, the throne of Saudi Arabia passed to another son of the country's founder as it has relatively smoothly for the past six decades. But it brings the oil-rich kingdom one step closer to a question that will test the unity of its royal family: Who in the next generation will reign?...
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Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud ascended the throne after the death of his brother Abdullah on Friday amid increasing strains on the kingdom.
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Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (pictured) has died. The royal had been in hospital since December, battling pneumonia. Half-brother Salman, 79, has inherited the throne.
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U.S. President Barack Obama paid tribute to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on Friday, hailing the late monarch’s contributions to peace in the Middle East and the relationship between the two allies.
“As our countries work together to confront many challenges, I always valued King Abdullah’s perspective and appreciated our genuine and warm friendship,” Obama said in a statement. “The closeness and strength of the partnership between our two countries is part of King Abdullah’s legacy.”
Former President George H.W. Bush also released a statement calling Abdullah “a wise and reliable ally, helping our nations build a strategic relationship and enduring friendship,” according to CBS News.
Messages came in from leaders around the world, with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi both expressing regret at Abdullah’s demise. Cameron, who visited Saudi Arabia in 2012, said he was “deeply saddened” and expressed hope that the “long and deep ties between our two Kingdoms will continue,” while Modi took to Twitter to commemorate “an important voice who left a lasting impact on his country.”
Abdullah’s spearheading of the Arab Peace Initiative, which was cited by both Obama and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as one of his key achievements, was also included in U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s condolence message as “a tangible legacy that can still point the way towards peace in the Middle East.”
VP Biden will lead a Presidential delegation to Saudi Arabia to pay respect and offer condolences to King Abdullah’s family & nation.— Vice President Biden (@VP) January 23, 2015
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Saudi Arabia's elderly King Abdullah dies and is replaced by his half-brother Salman as the absolute ruler of the world's top oil exporter and the spiritual home of Islam. Duration: 01:05.
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The U.S. has decided to reduce its embassy staff in Yemen following the collapse of the nation’s government at the hands of rebel Houthi fighters.
“The safety and security of U.S. personnel is our top priority in Yemen,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement. “We are evaluating the security situation on the ground on an ongoing basis. We call on all parties to abide by their public commitments to ensure the security of the diplomatic community, including our personnel.”
The move comes four months after U.S. President Barack Obama lauded Yemen as a model for “successful” counterterrorism partnerships.
The reduction of embassy staff, mainly in response to the security situation, comes at a time when Washington is trying to secure partnerships in the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria while trying to limit Iran’s influence in the region, according to Reuters.
The situation is alarming neighboring Saudi Arabia, which sees Tehran’s military and financial support for the Shi‘ite Houthis as a sign of their growing regional clout.
Former Yemeni President Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who resigned Thursday along with a slew of government officials, was seen as a key ally in the war against jihadist groups like al-Qaeda. However, the Houthis, who now control the capital, are said to loathe al-Qaeda as much as they do the U.S., reports Reuters.
Hadi’s resignation will “absolutely” limit drone strikes and counterterrorism operations in the immediate future, a former U.S. official told the news agency.
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Obituary: Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Is Dead At 90by noreply@rferl.org (Antoine Blua)
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has died at the age of 90 after ruling the oil-rich Middle Eastern state as king for ten years.
Thousands of copies of Charlie Hebdo will go on sale in the United States beginning Friday, more than two weeks after the deadly terrorist attack on the satirical newspaper’s Paris office.
LMPI, a distributor of foreign magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and Canada, told TIME that 20,000 copies will be offered.
“New copies will be available in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles,” Martin McEwen, the company’s executive vice president of press distribution, said in a statement. “Chicago should receive copies early next week,” he added, and copies will also become available in other markets.
The new batch follows an initial and very light shipment of 300 copies that made it to New York, San Francisco and several specialized libraries.
Demand for the newspaper, which previously had a circulation of 60,000, has been unprecedented in the wake of the Jan. 7 attack, when two gunmen stormed the weekly’s Paris office and killed 12 people. Eight journalists were among the victims, including editor-in-chief Stéphane Charbonnier.
An initial printing of 1 million was quickly boosted to 3 million, and then 5 million, as it sold out. French press distributor MLP recently announced that figure would hit 7 million.
The issue released on Jan. 14, constructed by surviving staffers at a workspace offered by left-wing daily Libération, is fronted by a provocative cover drawn by Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Rénald Luzier, known as Luz. It features a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad holding a sign that reads “Je Suis Charlie,” a nod to the “I am Charlie” rallying cry in the aftermath of the attack, under the phrase Toutset Pardonné, or “All is forgiven.”
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack as the issue first hit newsstands, saying it was “vengeance for the Messenger of God,” in apparent retaliation forCharlieHebdo‘s past mocking of the Prophet and Islam. Protests over the new cover have popped up in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
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Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud has died in hospital, royal officials announce, weeks after being admitted with a lung infection. Report by Sarah Kerr.
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RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia will bury King Abdullah in an unmarked grave on Friday, hours after it moved to ensure a smooth transition by appointing a new king and crown prince to quell fears of dynastic instability at a time of regional turmoil.
Obama takes to YouTube
Philly.com WASHINGTON - President Obama picked three of the most popular YouTube content creators for an interview Thursday, hoping to reach an audience typically not tuned to the daily give-and-take of Washington. After all, these were YouTube personalities with ... and more » |
Russian media report that state news agency TASS will dismiss at least one-fifth of its staff next month and reduce salaries by 20 percent in an effort to cut costs.
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Russian Ruble Firms as Oil, Taxes and Carry Trade Supportby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
The ruble strengthened on Friday, buoyed by a bounce in global oil prices, expectations that exporters will soon convert hard currency into rubles and foreign investors taking advantage of high Russian interest rates. In the morning in Moscow, the ruble was around 0.9 percent stronger against the dollar at 63.57 and gained 1.3 percent to trade at 72.15 versus the euro. “Sentiment towards the ruble has changed, first of all due to European QE (quantitative easing), since the ruble is...
Saudis' King Abdullah Laid to Restby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
New Saudi King Salman is pledging to continue the policies of his half brother, the late King Abdullah, who was buried Friday in the capital, Riyadh. Abdullah, who died early Friday after a long illness, was laid to rest in an unmarked grave following a simple ceremony attended by the Arab and Muslim world's top leaders. One of the world's few absolute monarchs, he was believed to have been 90 and recently had been hospitalized with a lung infection. At his passing,...
Ukraine Rebel Leader Vows to Launch New Push for Territoryby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
A pro-Russian separatist leader in Ukraine said he will not push for new peace talks with the Ukrainian government, vowing instead to gain control of more territory in the east. Russian news agencies quoted rebel chief Alexander Zakharchenko, based in the eastern city of Donetsk, saying Friday that his forces are launching a new offensive to expand their territory. On Thursday in Donetsk, at least 13 people were killed when a trolley bus was hit in an apparent mortar attack, sparking...
 Daily Beast |
World Leaders React to Death of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah
ABC News The United States has lost a friend, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and theworld has lost a revered leader. King Abdullah was a man of wisdom and vision. I loved my visits with him as a senator and as secretary. Even as he battled ... King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia dies: world reactionTelegraph.co.uk Saudi King Dies, and the World ShuddersDaily Beast World pays tribute to late Saudi King AbdullahAl-Arabiya The Guardian all 3,771 news articles » |
Armenia Releases Video Of Russian Soldier Charged In Massacre by noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL's Armenian Service)
Armenia's Investigative Committee has released interrogation video of a Russian soldier charged with murdering seven members of an Armenian family on January 12.
Minna Sundberg’s illustration maps the relationships between Indo-European and Uralic languages. The creator of the webcomic Stand Still. Stay Silent, put the illustration together to show why some of the characters in her comic were able to understand each other despite speaking different languages. She wanted to show how closely related Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic were to each other, and how Finnish came from distinct linguistic roots
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 The Daily Star |
Israel's Arab parties join forces ahead of snap vote
The Daily Star This January 5, 2015 file photo shows Israeli Prime Minister and leader of the ruling rightwing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu as he flashes the sign of victory as he gives a speech during a campaign meeting for the 20th Knesset in Tel Aviv. and more » |
The kingdom’s policy results from a consensus of its leadership and energy experts, and it will not be easy to abandon, longtime observers say.
Editorial: Silencing Authors in Indiaby By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Perumal Murugan is only the latest target of the cultural vigilantes.
DONETSK, Ukraine — Russian-backed separatists in east Ukraine say 24 of their fighters have been killed in a rocket attack on the recently captured airport outside their main stronghold city of Donetsk.
Rebel defense spokesman Eduard Basurin said the terminal was targeted by Ukrainian government forces Friday with Uragan multiple rocket launchers.
The separatist seizure of the virtually obliterated airport this week after months of bitter battles was a major blow for beleaguered Ukrainian offensives in the east.
Diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met this week to thrash out a tentative dividing line from which the warring sides would pull back their heavy weapons.
Separatists have warned, however, that they intend to continue their advances and take more territory.
New Saudi King Seeks to Reassure on Succession, Policyby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Saudi King Salman pledged on Friday to maintain existing energy and foreign policies then quickly moved to appoint younger men as his heirs, settling the succession for years to come by naming a deputy crown prince from his dynasty's next generation. King Abdullah died early on Friday after a short illness. By appointing his youngest half-brother Muqrin, 69, as Crown Prince and nephew Mohammed bin Nayef, 55, as Deputy Crown Prince, Salman has swiftly quelled speculation about internal...
 RealClearPolitics |
Fretting Over the World Economy
RealClearPolitics DAVOS, Switzerland -- A sign of the concern among business and political leaders here about sluggish economic growth is that one of the World Economic Forum sessions this week was titled "Avoiding a Centennial Slump" -- meaning a downturn that lasts a ... and more » |
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