Watch live: Barack Obama and Angela Merkel's press conference on Ukraine by Telegraph Video | ДНР: "Дебальцевский котел" замкнут - Правда.Ру | U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine Would Be Declaration of Proxy War - Analysts by By Matthew Bodner | Obama and Merkel Express Unity in Seeking Diplomatic Solution to Russia ... - New York Times | Over 30 Romanian TV presenters and models arrested by police investigating prostitution ring
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US Northeast Hit Again by Snowstormby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The Northeast United States was being hit Monday with the third major snowstorm in two weeks. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued winter storm warnings from central New York state through northern Connecticut, Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. In Boston, in the East Coast state of Massachusetts, residents woke up to as much as a foot of new snow. As of Monday, Boston had received about 1.7 meters (66 inches) of snow this winter, the vast majority in the past two...
The Northeast United States was being hit Monday with the third major snowstorm in two weeks. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued winter storm warnings from central New York state through northern Connecticut, Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. In Boston, in the East Coast state of Massachusetts, residents woke up to as much as a foot of new snow. As of Monday, Boston had received about 1.7 meters (66 inches) of snow this winter, the vast majority in the past two...
Watch live: Barack Obama and Angela Merkel's press conference on Ukraine by Telegraph Video
 The Guardian |
Angela Merkel assailed from all sides in drive to pacify Russia and US on Ukraine
The Guardian In part through her dozens of one-to-one telephone conversations with Russia's bellicose president, in part because of Germany's unmatched trade and energy ties with the country and in part because others have failed to step up, Merkel has come to be ... Russia Investors On 'War Watch' WednesdayForbes Britain says Russia's Putin acting like 'tyrant' over UkraineReuters Ukraine conflict: Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France agree to Minsk meeting ...ABC Online Irish Times -The Inquisitr all 6,533 news articles » |
 velonews.competitor.com |
Tinkov on Russia's struggling economy: 'Don't believe the propaganda'
velonews.competitor.com DOHA, Qatar (VN) — Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov brushed off concerns that the economic troubles at home could force him to abandon his Tinkoff-Saxo team with stars Alberto Contador and Peter Sagan. “Why would I suffer? What you see in the news is ... and more » |
 The Independent |
'Russia's growing threat': The West faces a very dangerous crisis – and it's ...
The Independent The problem with Russia now is not its strength, but its weakness. The massive energy revenues of the good times were not invested in modernizing Russia, but either squandered at home or shipped abroad by the Oligarchs to buy yachts and London ... Russia Sends Nuclear Submarine Troops on Arctic ExerciseNewsweek all 63 news articles » |
 Huffington Post |
Russia's Monroe Doctrine
Huffington Post The fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is, at best, progressing slowly; the war in Syria shows no signs of abating; Houthi rebels in Yemen have gained serious ground; the war in Ukraine has raised tensions with Russia ... Anti-Western Sentiment at Record Levels in Russia: PollsterNDTV Anti-American Sentiment Reaches 25-Year High in RussiaThe Moscow Times Russia: Anti-West sentiment hits all-time highInSerbia News TheStreet.com all 9 news articles » |
Probe of Suspended USAID Contractor Deepensby webdesk@voanews.com (Jeffrey Young)
One of its biggest contractors tied to the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID] faces increasing troubles amid allegations of mismanagement and impropriety. USAID last month suspended its association with International Relief and Development [IRD] and the action means the group will not be given any new USAID contracts. The suspension came after years of reports questioning IRD’s performance and cost claims. In 2012, then-Deputy USAID Inspector General Michael Carroll testified before a Congressional committee on IRD shortcomings in Iraq. “Auditors determined that projects completed under the program did not target identified, prioritized needs of Iraqi communities,” he said. “Of the 146 completed projects we surveyed, 34 percent did not match any needs identified by the corresponding community, and an additional 31 percent did not match the needs communities identified as top priorities,” said Carroll. Questions abound Investigations turned up other questionable items involving IRD and its contracts. In an October 2014 audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction [SIGAR], IG John Sopko “identified 14 material weaknesses and significant deficiencies in internal controls and 12 instances of material noncompliance with the cooperative agreement terms.” IG Sopko’s report also said an outside auditor, Crowe Horwath, identified $1.8 million in questionable costs. The Washington area aid group has received more than $2.4 billion in contracts and cooperative agreements through USAID since 2007. Last July, Sopko raised another issue with IRD: its confidentiality agreements signed by departing employees. Sopko wrote IRD that “I remain concerned that IRD is acting improperly to limit the rights of potential whistleblowers to report instances of waste, fraud, and abuse.” Medical supplies The latest USAID Inspector General’s report, covering April to September 2014, cited the NGO’s February 2014 distribution of US$12.2 million in drugs and medical supplies to seven Afghan Ministry of Public Health hospitals. The OIG report says that in reality, orders were given that the aid should be distributed to non-government community health clinics. International Relief and Development was created in 1998 by Arthur B. Keys and his wife, Jasna Basaric-Keys. The group’s website describes IRD as “a nonprofit humanitarian and development organization.” While IRD enjoys the tax breaks allowed for non-profit organization, the NGO has been profitable to Arthur and Jasna Keys, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper reported that between 2007 and 2013, IRD’s revenue was slightly more than $3 billion - with just over three quarters of that coming from USAID. The Post also reported that from 2008 to 2012, the Keys were paid more than $5.9 million. During the same period, their daughter, and a brother of Jasna Keys received $1.3 million. In 2013, a new management team and board decided to reduce the Keys’ compensation - and the couple reportedly gave back some $1.7 million. The Keys retired from IRD in 2014. IRD did not respond to requests for comment from Voice of America. But in a statement last month, IRD said it “is cooperating fully with USAID, remains in close and continuous dialogue with the agency regarding these issues, and is committed to addressing them comprehensively.” Ongoing probe IRD’s Chief Executive Officer, Roger Ervin, said in that statement “it is clear from the suspension notice that USAID has determined that much more remains to be done in certain areas. We are working on a response to USAID that will directly address the agency’s concerns, and re-establish confidence that federal taxpayer funds are being prudently managed by IRD to accomplish USAID’s critical missions.” Meanwhile, USAID continues to probe the contractor. “Depending on the results of USAID’s ongoing review of IRD’s document submissions and management controls, and, if further information is obtained by the Agency (USAID) as the result of the OIG’s investigation, the suspension could lead to debarment,” a senior USAID official who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly, told VOA.
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A video shared on Russian-language pro-Islamic State (IS) social networks this week features an address by a group of Chechen IS militants outside a palace of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Tikrit.
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The ministers decided not to act until after a possible meeting this week of the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine on ways to halt fighting.
Watch live as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama hold a press conference at the White House where they are expected to discuss the Ukraine crisis
 Правда.Ру |
На Черноморском флоте разоблачили очередного шпиона
Правда.Ру Российские спецслужбы пресекли деятельность предполагаемогошпиона на Черноморском флоте РФ - члена экипажа танкера "Койда" Сергея Минакова. "В отношении Минакова возбуждено уголовное дело, ему предъявлено официальное обвинение в шпионаже. Он служил на танкере ... Служащего Черноморского флота арестовали по обвинению в шпионажеРБК Моряк Черноморского флота арестован за шпионажРадиостанция ЭХО МОСКВЫ Суд заключил в СИЗО обвиняемого в шпионаже Сергея МинаковаBFM.Ru ИА REGNUM -ТАСС -Общественное телевидение России Все похожие статьи: 91 » |
 РИА Новости |
СМИ: премьер-министр Канады назначил новых глав минобороны и МИД
РИА Новости Пост руководителя МИД займет Роб Николсон - экс-министр обороны. Новым министром обороны станет Джейсон Кенни - бывший министр по вопросам занятости. Флаг Канады. Архивное фото. © РИА Новости. Александр Алпаткин. МОСКВА, 9 фев — РИА Новости. Премьер-министр ... и другие » |
Как обществу остановить Путина? by Радио Свобода
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Могут ли предлагаемая "Яблоком" Коалиция политической альтернативы и антивоенные марши предотвратить...
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From: Радио Свобода
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Staunton, February 9 – Aleksandr Sytin, a former researcher at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies (RISI), a think-tank which was set up by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), advises the Kremlin and pushed for Moscow to seize Crimea and intervene in the Donbass, says that “a Ukrainian scenario” is “impossible” in the Baltic countries.
(For background on Sytin and RISI, see my “Russian Think Tank that Pushed for Invasion of Ukraine Wants Moscow to Overthrow Lukashenka,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 27.I.15.)
Sytin told Novy Region 2’s Kseniya Kirillova that “there are no objective bases for the realization of a ‘Donbass’ scenario in the Baltic countries” and that talk about “’the infringement’ of the rights of Russian speakers there “is to a significant degree invented” and artificial.
What the Baltic countries do face, he continues, is the impact of Russian propaganda on those Russian speakers. “The majority [of them] watch Russian television, and in certain regions as a result have been created two parallel information spaces. It is quite hard to solve this problem because if these countries try to limit broadcasting, Gazprom will increase the price of gas.”
What Moscow did in Crimea and is doing in the Donbass, Sytin says, is no precedent for Latvia’s Latgale. Although there is “a not small percent of nationalists and people who love the USSR, especially among military retirees and their descendants,” their numbers aren’t so large as to be in a position to “destabilize” the situation.
Moscow’s complaints about the status of non-citizens in Latvia and Estonia are also misplaced, Sytin argues. It is true that those two countries did not give automatic citizenship to people who had been moved in during the Soviet occupation, but with time and especially after the two joined the EU, they adopted state naturalization programs intended to end this status.
These programs have had the result of a continuing decline in the number of people without citizenship because now anyone can become a citizen who speaks the national language, expresses a desire to obtain citizenship and passes an examination on the history and constitution” of the respective countries.
At present, there are 282,876 non-citizens in Latvia (13 percent of the population) and 87,833 non-citizens in Estonia (6.5 percent). Those numbers may not fall in the future as fast as in the past, Sytin says, because today, many non-citizens see that status as an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
Unlike the citizens of these two countries, non-citizens from them can travel to Russia without a visa; and unlike Russian citizens, they can travel to the European Union without restriction. As a result, “many prefer to remain without citizenship for strictly pragmatic (including business) reasons.” It is thus not the problem many in Moscow believe it is.
Another non-issue, Sytin says, is that of the status of the Russian language. “Officially Russian in the Baltic countries is a foreign language,” and “the sphere of its use continues to decline.” But despite Moscow media reportage, it is not banned and “there is in Latvia no obligatory requirement to speak only Latvian.”
Nonetheless, Russian continues to be widely used. There is a lively Russian-language media; Russian books, published in the Baltic countries and in Russia, are widely available; Russian television is available everywhere, and there are Russian theaters. And because many businesses are linked to the Russian market, there is a demand for Russian speakers.
That has led to the following interesting development, he says. Because there are fewer opportunities to learn Russian in state educational institutions, there has been a growth in the number of private institutions offering Russian language instruction – and the governments are in no way restricting this.
But what is more important is this: many Russian speakers in the Baltic countries “consider themselves patriots” of those countries and “the majority of Russian speakers there do not feel any nostalgia for the Soviet past.” Like Estonians and Latvians around them, they can’t imagine that they would have the opportunities they do had they remained inside the USSR.
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 Правда.Ру |
ДНР: "Дебальцевский котел" замкнут
Правда.Ру Сегодня заместитель командующего армией ДНР Эдуард Басурин сообщил, что ополченцам удалось замкнуть так называемый котел вокруг города областного значения Дебальцево. "Дебальцевский котел" замкнут... В настоящее время идет ожесточенный бой на восточной окраине ... Штаб ДНР: "дебальцевский котел" замкнутРИА Новости В ДНР вновь заявили об окружении украинских военных под ДебальцевоИнтерфакс В ДНР заявили об окружении украинской армии в ДебальцевоПолит.ру Московский комсомолец -СЕГОДНЯ -Биржевой лидер Все похожие статьи: 243 » |
 Deutsche Welle |
Chart: Anti-Americanism is exploding in Russia
Vox However bad you thought attitudes toward the US were in Russia, you're probably underestimating the severity and suddenness of rising anti-Americanism there. Just over 80 percent of Russians now see the US negatively — an astounding and apparently ... Anti-US, anti-EU sentiment swells in RussiaDeutsche Welle Russia's Monroe DoctrineHuffington Post Anti-American Sentiment Reaches 25-Year High in RussiaThe Moscow Times Pravda -NDTV all 16 news articles » |
Why the Ukraine Crisis Hinges On the U.S. Electionby By Ivan Nechepurenko
The outcome of the Ukraine crisis talks in Minsk on Wednesday depends on whether the United States is prepared to exert enough influence on the divergent power elites in Kiev to accept the deal.
U.S. provision of military aid to Ukraine would be seen by Moscow as a declaration of war and spark a global escalation of Ukraine's separatist conflict, Russian defense analysts said.
Russia Sanctions on Hold as EU Waits for Peace Talksby webdesk@voanews.com (Lisa Bryant)
European Union foreign ministers agreed Monday to postpone further sanctions against Russia for a week to give time to a peace push to defuse the crisis in Ukraine. EU ministers meeting in Brussels made it clear their decision to delay new sanctions against Russia did not mean repealing them. In remarks to reporters following the talks on Monday, Foreign Policy Chief Frederica Mogherini said the move aimed to "give a space" for a hoped-for summit on Wednesday in Minsk. What counted, she said, were results. "Our point, our priority, is to have the situation on the ground improving. That is the starting point," she stressed. "The situation on the ground has to improve, the cease-fire has to not only be agreed but put in place, implemented…. And when I refer to Ukrainian sovereignty, I also mean that it's in the hands of the Ukrainian authorities - legitimate authorities - to decide to what extent the negotiations can go in all the points that were listed in the Minsk agreement." The EU ministers are waiting to see the outcome of a summit they hope will take place on Wednesday in the Belarusian capital among heads of state from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany. The Europeans hope that will lead to a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis. But previous cease-fire agreements have all but collapsed and skepticism is high among EU members like Britain. "Until we see Russia complying on the ground, withdrawing troops, closing the border, stopping the flow of weapons, we can't relieve the pressure in any way," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said. "We need to keep that pressure up, until we see - not just words on paper but deeds on the ground." Even before Monday's meeting, the EU had already decided to add more names to its list of people targeted for sanctions, in retaliation against Moscow's alleged backing of Ukrainian rebels. Moscow denies claims it has sent troops and weapons to support the rebellion. Some observers say the sanctions against Russia have not been terribly effective, since the standoff over Ukraine continues. Meanwhile, Spain says the sanctions have cost the EU nearly $24 billion.
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 New York Times |
Obama and Merkel Express Unity in Seeking Diplomatic Solution to Russia ...
New York Times “The prospect for a military solution to this problem has always been low,” Mr. Obama said, given the extraordinarily powerful military that is at the disposal of President Vladimir V. Putin ofRussia, and the length of Russia's border with Ukraine ... The long view with RussiaWashington Post Obama confirms arming Ukraine on the table if diplomacy with Russia failsFox News Obama: Not ready to send arms to Ukraine...yetCNBC The Guardian -ABC News all 6,854 news articles » |
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 НТВ.ru |
Президенты России и Египта посетили Каирскую оперу
Утро.Ru Сегодня начался двухдневный официальный визит президента России Владимира Путина в Египет. В честь приезда главы российского государства в Каирской опере состоялся гала-концерт, который посетили Путин и его египетский коллега Абдельфаттах Сиси. Оркестр оперы ... Владимир Путин прибыл в Египет с двухдневным официальным визитомПервый канал Путин прилетел в Египет в гости к другуКомсомольская правда Свет египетскийЭксперт Online Московский комсомолец -ТАСС Все похожие статьи: 243 » |
CBS Local |
Mass. Gas Prices Jump 11 Cents A Gallon In A Week
CBS Local BOSTON (AP) — After months of steep drops, Massachusetts gas prices are on the rise again. AAA Northeast reports Monday that self-serve, regular has risen 11 cents per gallon the past week to an average of $2.17. Find: Best Gas Prices. It's the first weekly ... Gas Prices On the Rise, Up 11 Cents This WeekPatch.com Roseville Gas Prices Jump: Find Best DealsRocklin and Roseville Today Gas prices on the rise again in San Jose1590 KLIV Silicon Valley News 10TV -Foster's Daily Democrat -WABI all 348 news articles » |
Did you know that the US owes Kazakhstan $35.1 billion?
MILLERSVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- The boyfriend of a student found dead in a Pennsylvania university dormitory room was covered in blood and performing CPR when campus police arrived, according to an arrest affidavit....
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Ministers and central bankers from the world's top 20 economies gathered in Istanbul on Monday to discuss solutions to the debt crisis in Greece and ways to push forward faltering global growth....
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From: AFP news agency
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| Time: 01:11 | More in News & Politics |
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States has derailed a proposal to toughen nuclear safety standards by amending a global atomic treaty, diplomats said, with opponents of the move arguing it would get mired in lengthy parliamentary ratification.
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Prosecutors in Bucharest say 33 women, some of them big household names, such as Daniela Crudu, pictured. are being investigated over their part in an alleged prostitution ring.
 Telegraph.co.uk |
Ukraine crisis: Obama 'may supply weapons to Ukraine' - latest
Telegraph.co.uk ... • New sanctions suspended until after Weds Minsk summit • Don't threaten Putin with ultimatums, warns Kremlin • US officials compare peace efforts to appeasing Hitler • Civilians continue to be killed despite diplomatic efforts • Putin: a brilliant strategist, ... Ukraine Cease-Fire Talks to Open Wednesday in BelarusVoice of America First Draft | Key Points From the Obama-Merkel News ConferenceNew York Times Obama Says He Might Send Weapons to UkraineABC News Reuters-The Globe and Mail-Irish Times all 6,764 news articles » |
Ruble’s Fall Tests Governor of Russia’s Central Bankby By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Elvira S. Nabiullina, the governor of Russia’s central bank, with President Vladimir V. Putin last year. Ms. Nabiullina is a staunch believer in the benefits of a flexible exchange rate and a weak currency, if market forces dictate.
 New York Daily News |
Third straight Monday storm hits NYC with freezing rain
New York Daily News Three straight Mondays, three straight winter storms. New England and New York woke up to a freezing rain and snow on Monday morning — just like they did the last two Mondays. The storm disrupted morning commutes in hard-hit Boston: Some travelers ... Epic three-day snowstorm wallops winter-weary NortheastChristian Science Monitor Latest snowstorm creates conundrum: Where to put it all?Washington Post Watch Live: Boston Mayor Hold Briefing on Snowstorm - 3p ETNBCNews.com Dorchester Reporter -FOX6 WBRC - MyFoxAL.com all 1,406 news articles » |
TIME |
Jeb Bush says his life is "totally focused" on exploring presidential run
CBS News Jeb Bush told supporters on a conference call "my life is totally focused on this"--his consideration of a run for the presidency, according to the Tampa Bay Times. He also said he would release emails from his time as Florida governor Tuesday, along with the ... Bush set to release e-book, emails ahead of likely '16 bidSTLtoday.com Jeb Bush Set to Release E-Book, Emails Ahead of Likely '16 BidNBC 6 South Florida Jeb Bush to release e-mails from his tenure as Florida governorWashington Post (blog) MSNBC all 88 news articles » |
Toronto Star |
Report: 16-year-old murder suspect took selfie with body, posted it on social media
Q13 FOX PITTSBURGH — A 16-year-old teen is accused of shooting a friend in the face, taking a selfie with the body and sending the photo out on the social media app Snapchat, the Tribune-Review of Pittsburgh reports. According to the newspaper, Maxwell Marion ... Teen shot and killed classmate in the face, posts selfie on SnapChatNews Every day Teen charged as an adult in Snapchat selfie homicideToronto Star Teen Charged After Snapchatting Pic of Murder VictimNew York Magazine WTOV Steubenville all 296 news articles » |
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 ABC News |
Measles Outbreak Swells to 121 Cases This Year, CDC Says
ABC News The measles outbreak continues to grow with an additional 19 confirmed cases in the last week, bringing the total number of measles cases to 121 since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began tracking the outbreak on Jan. 1. The outbreak ... 83% Say Measles Vaccine Is Safe for Healthy ChildrenPew Research Center for the People and the Press 11 Things Every Parent Needs to Know About VaccinationsIJ Review Measles in Georgia, officials sayThe Augusta Chronicle Monthly Prescribing Reference -Deseret News -WALB-TV all 253 news articles » |
with high treason and espionage for the United States
US Northeast Hit Again by Snowstormby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The Northeast United States was being hit Monday with the third major snowstorm in two weeks. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued winter storm warnings from central New York state through northern Connecticut, Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. In Boston, in the East Coast state of Massachusetts, residents woke up to as much as a foot of new snow. As of Monday, Boston had received about 1.7 meters (66 inches) of snow this winter, the vast majority in the past two...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid a swirl of diplomatic maneuvering, President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel huddled at the White House Monday to evaluate the prospects of reviving an elusive peace plan to end the conflict between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists....
Putin Visiting Egyptby webdesk@voanews.com (Edward Yeranian)
Russian President Vladimir Putin is starting a two-day state visit to Egypt at a time of major challenges and uncertainties for both Moscow and Cairo. Putin's visit to Egypt comes at a time of strong political turbulence for both nations. Commentators in Moscow and Cairo are talking about a political, economic, and military rapprochement reminiscent of an earlier era. The former Soviet Union, which built Egypt's Aswan High Dam, had strong ties with Cairo during the 1950s and...
Published on Feb 9, 2015
Решение о проведении встречи так называемой "нормандской четверки" окончательно еще не принято. Об этом в понедельник сообщил глава МИД ФРГ Франк-Вальтер Штайнмайер. Но, по его словам, подготовка продолжается.
Другие видео DW на сайте http://dw.de/russian или на канале DW (на русском) в YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/user/deutschew...
Другие видео DW на сайте http://dw.de/russian или на канале DW (на русском) в YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/user/deutschew...
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Published on Feb 9, 2015
A Swedish office block is offering workers the opportunity to have a microchip implanted under the skin of their hands. The radio frequency identification (RFID) chip, about the size of a grain of rice, lets users open doors, swap contact details or use the photocopier, all at the wave of a hand. Matthew Stock reports.
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Published on Feb 9, 2015
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U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel back diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis for now; Obama says no decision yet on arming Ukraine. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.
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More Breaking News: http://smarturl.it/BreakingNews
U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel back diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis for now; Obama says no decision yet on arming Ukraine. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.
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More Breaking News: http://smarturl.it/BreakingNews
- Obama: ‘Russia’s isolation will only worsen’ if it continues aggression
- German chancellor and president hold urgent Ukraine talks
- Counter-terrorism and Iran nuclear negotiations also up for discussion
On Ukraine, Merkel says the “inviolability of territorial integrity” is a founding principle of Europe.
If we give up this principle, the idea of a peaceful Europe crumbles, she says
On to security issues, Merkel notes it is the 25th anniversary of German reunification.
“IT is well worth the effort to stand by one’s values for decades, to pursue those goals.
Merkel is speaking. She agrees with Obama that the conclusion of a free trade agreement would boost European growth. Germany will come out “forcefully” in favor of an EU-US trade deal, she says.
She previews the G-7 summit agenda: Health issues, including the lessons of the Ebola epidemic. The international reply has to be quicker, she says.
Obama moves on to the fight against the Islamic State fighters, saying Germany would help train counter-terror forces in Irbil and stop travel of foreign fighters through Europe and Turkey to Syria.
“We agreed that sanctions on Russia need to remain fully in force until Russia complies,” Obama says.
“We are making it clear again today that if Russia continues on its current course.. Russia’s isolation will only worsen, both politically and economically.”
Two issues in particular dominated: Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the international fight against Isil.
“It’s clear that they’ve violated just about every commitment they made in the Misnk agreement,” Obama says. He says Russia has sent more arms, tanks and artillery into eastern Ukraine.
Obama calls for progress on a new trans-Altantic trade partnership this year. He says he looks forward to hearing Merkel’s plans for Greece and promoting growth in Europe. He says over lunch the two will talk about climate change.
This morning the pair discussed global security, he says. The countries will work together to train Afghan security forces. They will hold the Iran sanctions regime in place.
Obama congratulates “Angela and Germany” on their fourth World Cup title. But the US team“continues to get better with each World Cup, so watch out.”
There they are, on the CSPAN feed, if not yet on the White House feed above. Obama welcomes “my close friend and partner, Angela Merkel, back to the White House.”
Two-minute warning before Obama and Merkel appear.
Additional sanctions on Russia or Russian interests has been floated as an alternative or possible complement to arming Ukrainian forces. Such sanctions could further damage a Russian economy already struggling with low oil prices, which have fallen by about half in the last six months.
The chart below, via the World Economic Forum, shows the top 15 countries that exported fuel in 2012:
What #data tells us about the impact of falling #oil prices http://t.co/yzeOVIWmkVpic.twitter.com/M3RAahxnIN
Michael McFaul is former US ambassador to Russia. He’s a professor now, as his Twitter feed might suggest:
"Realists" please note: Putin does not want Ukraine to be a neutral buffer state. Putin wants Ukraine to be a failed state. Big difference.
Im no IR theorist but wouldn't arming Ukraine be a classic recommendation of realist "offshore balancing"? @stephenWalt @dandrezner
Didn’t realists advocate arming Iraq to balance offshore Iran back in the 1980s? Or is my memory failing me?
Not actually the dialogue.
Finally got details of Putin peace plan proposal. pic.twitter.com/lyU5stWe3g
We’ve embedded a video player that will carry a live feed of the conference atop the blog. Should be about 10 minutes now.
Here’s the photo op before the talks before the news conference before lunch:
President Obama and Chancellor Merkel posing for photographers before a meeting in the Oval Office #Russia #Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/ipmanPkdnW
Pace the louder voices on the American side, McCain at the lead, Merkel has said the crisis in Ukraine will not be solved by military means, and that the peace agreement struck last September needs to be implemented. From our report at the weekend:
Speaking at the Munich security conference on Saturday, the German chancellor said she wanted to secure peace in Europe with Russia and not against it.
Germany has opposed aiding Ukrainian troops for fear of worsening the conflict, which has already cost more than 5,000 lives, but the idea has many supporters in Washington.
The United States first stepped up its joint training with Nato forces in Poland and eastern Europealmost a year ago. That training continues.
US Marines prepare for the tank mechanized assault course during Integrated Training Exercise.@USMC pic.twitter.com/Kzm5YUbqTP
Guardian Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts (@robertsdan) measures the appetite within the Obama administration for arming Ukraine. The secretary of state has raised the prospect of “additional assistance” and the incoming secretary of defense has gone further:
“[Vladimir Putin] is leaving the global community with no choice but to continue to either put more sanctions in place or to provide additional assistance to Ukraine,” US secretary of state John Kerry said in an interview aired on Sunday. “Hopefully he will come to a point where he realises the damage he is doing is not just to the global order, but he is doing enormous damage to Russia itself.”
Incoming US defense secretary Ash Carter went further last week, telling lawmakers he “very much incline[s]” towards arming the Ukrainian government, and questioned whether the administration was “in fact doing enough” to deter Russia from attacking the US Baltic allies in Nato.
Egypt says Russian President Vladimir Putin will arrive soon in Cairo for meetings with his Egyptian counterpart, the Associated Press reports.
Putin was to meet with European and Ukrainian counterparts in Belarus on Wednesday to address the Ukraine crisis, if diplomats can confirm preliminary terms.
It added that both leaders would attend a ceremony Tuesday where several agreements would be signed, although it did not elaborate on the nature of the agreements.
Putin last visited Egypt in 2005, when long-term autocrat Hosni Mubarak was still in power. Mubarak was toppled in 2011.
Hello and welcome to our live blog coverage of a joint news conference at the White House with German chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama.
The two leaders are meeting in an attempt, most urgently, to form a united front against Russian aggression in Ukraine. Other areas of bilateral conversation are to include counter-terrorism, the Iran nuclear negotiations, climate change and Germany’s plans for hosting the G7 summit in June.
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President Obama has said that Russia cannot redraw the borders in Ukraine behind the "barrel of a gun".
The huge blast turned the night's sky orange over Donetsk and was so powerful that it could be heard four miles away, sparking fears that it could have been a nuclear explosion.
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Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau vows that the group will defeat the regional armed forces. In a second of the latest videos, images of the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,...
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From: AFP news agency
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US presidents admits to possible tactical differences with Europe
Critics warn that issuing of tasers to every uniformed frontline officer to counter terror threat would change face of British policing
The Police Federation has voted for all frontline uniformed officers to be offered a Taser to protect against the threat of terrorist assassination.
The vote on Monday puts pressure on police chiefs, some of whom have voiced their opposition, and the Home Office to arm officers.
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Obama says the U.S. is encouraging a diplomatic agreement in Ukraine and agrees sanctions against Russia must stay in force.
MiamiHerald.com |
EU puts off new Russia sanctions, awaits Minsk peace talks
MiamiHerald.com The European Union decided Monday to temporarily hold off slapping sanctions on more Ukrainian separatists and Russians pending the outcome of possible peace talks this week. With the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine due to hold ... EU holds off on new Russian sanctions to buy time for peace planThe Globe and Mail Obama and Merkel Express Unity in Seeking Diplomatic Solution to Russia ...New York Times Russia sanctions have cost EU 21 bn euros: SpainDaily Times Xinhua -Washington Post all 332 news articles » |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday extending the March deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran would not be useful if Iran does not agree to a basic framework.
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Video provided by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shows Pro-Russian separatists firing rockets from the town of Vuhlehirsk. . Report by Sarah Kerr.
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Francesco Schettino arrived in court ahead of his defense's closing arguments in Grosseto, Italy, on Monday in a dark wool scarf after fighting off a weekend flu that kept him out of court last week.
Ukrainian government forces fire Grad multiple rocket launchers at pro-Russian separatist targets near the eastern town of Debaltseve. Hundreds of people have fled Debaltseve since intense fighting began in the area. In nearby Donetsk, civilians despair as an apartment building is set on fire from what residents say is government shelling. Continue reading...
Obama Says Russia Has Clearly Violated Agreement On Ukraine by noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
U.S. President Barack Obama said after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington that it is clear Russia has violated a previous agreement on Ukraine.
The West must not threaten Vladimir Putin over a solution to the Ukrainian crisis, the Kremlin warned today as it was accused of deploying new troops and military hardware there.
British Prime Minister David Cameron held a special meeting with senior officials to discuss contingency plans for possible Greek scenarios including the country’s withdrawal from the euro zone.
Health care records make fertile field for cyber crimeby By TOM MURPHY and BRANDON BAILEY
Those seemingly harmless medical forms everyone fills out before seeing a doctor can lead to identity theft if they get into the wrong hands....
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In his 2007 book The Audacity of Hope, then-Sen. Barack Obama laid out his theory of America's political and policy problems as it stood on the eve of his first presidential campaign. He worried, he said, about "the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics."
On January 23, he sat down with Vox for a wide-ranging interview about his theory of America's political and policy problems as it stands at the beginning of the seventh year of his presidency. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the first part of the conversation, which focused on domestic policy and politics. You can find the second half, which focuses on America's role in the world, here.
Ezra Klein
The economy is growing. We have very high corporate profits. We have a record stock market. And yet for decades now, we've not been seeing significant wage increases for the American people. How have we gotten to a point where businesses can be doing so well but workers don't necessarily share in that prosperity? 1
Barack Obama
Well, this has been at least a three-decade-long trend. And this was a major topic in my State of the Union address. We obviously came in at a time of enormous crisis, and the first task was making sure we didn't have a complete global economic meltdown. The steps we took, whether making sure the financial system was functioning — saving the auto industry, encouraging state and local spending — all those things made a difference in buoying the economy. And then it's been a hard but steady slog to the point where now we're growing at a robust pace and unemployment has come down faster than any time in the last 30 years.
Obama on why income inequality has skyrocketed
In some ways we're now back to the position where we can focus on what is this longer-term trend, and that is a larger and larger share of wealth and income going to the very top, and the middle class or folks trying to get into the middle class feeling increasingly squeezed because their wages have stagnated.
Now, there are a whole bunch of reasons for that. Some of it has to do with technology and entire job sectors being eliminated — travel agents, bank tellers, a lot of middle management — because of efficiencies with the internet and a paperless office. A lot of it has to do with globalization and the rest of the world catching up. Post-World War II, we just had some enormous structural advantages because our competitors had been devastated by war, and we had also made investments that put us ahead of the curve, whether in education or infrastructure or research and development.
And around the '70s and '80s and then accelerating beyond that, those advantages went away at the same time as, because of technology, companies are getting a lot more efficient. One last component of this is that workers increasingly had less leverage because of changes in labor laws and the ability for capital to move and labor not to move. 2 You combine all that stuff, and it's put workers in a tougher position. So our job now is to create additional tools that, number one, make sure that everybody's got a baseline of support to be able to succeed in a constantly moving economy. Whether it's health care that survives job loss. Whether it is making sure we have child care that allows a two-working-household family to prosper while still caring for their kids. Having a certain baseline in terms of wages, through the minimum wage. 3 So that's one set of issues.
3 Because of inflation, today's federal minimum wage of $7.25 is worth significantly less than the minimum wage in the '70s. The Obama administration has proposed raising it to $10.10.
A second set of issues then becomes: how do we make sure that everybody has the tools to succeed in an economy where they constantly have to adapt? And how do they move up the value chain, essentially because they can work in higher-wage, higher-skill professions, and were able to compete for those jobs internationally?
Then the third thing is making sure that we have an economy that's productive. Now, if we do all those things, then what I'm confident about is that we can continue to lower the unemployment rate, increase the participation rate, and continue to grow and increase productivity. We're still going to have a broader, longer-term, global question, and that is: how do we make sure that the folks at the very top are doing enough of their fair share? The winner-take-all aspect of this modern economy means that you've got some people who just control enormous amounts of wealth. We don't really resent their success; on the other hand, just as a practical matter, if we're going to pay for schools, roads, et cetera, and you've got, you know, 50 people or 80 people having as much wealth as 3 billion, you know you're going to have problems making sure that we're investing enough in the common good to be able to move forward. 4 So that's a long-term question. But right now, there's some very specific things we can do that can make a difference and help middle-class families. And that's why I called it middle-class economics.
4 It's worth noting that this statistic is as much a reflection of global indebtedness as global wealth.
Ezra Klein
To focus a bit on that long-term question, does that put us in a place where redistribution becomes, in a sense, a positive good in and of itself? Do we need the government playing the role not of powering the growth engine — which is a lot of what had to be done after the financial crisis — but of making sure that while that growth engine is running, it is ensuring that enough of the gains and prosperity is shared so that the political support for that fundamental economic model remains strong?
Barack Obama
That's always been the case. I don't think that's entirely new. The fact of the matter is that relative to our post-war history, taxes now are not particularly high or particularly progressive compared to what they were, say, in the late '50s or the '60s. 5 And there's always been this notion that for a country to thrive there are some things, as Lincoln says, that we can do better together than we can do for ourselves. And whether that's building roads, or setting up effective power grids, or making sure that we've got high-quality public education — that teachers are paid enough — the market will not cover those things. And we've got to do them together. Basic research falls in that category. So that's always been true.
I think that part of what's changed is that a lot of that burden for making sure that the pie was broadly shared took place before government even got involved. 6 If you had stronger unions, you had higher wages. If you had a corporate culture that felt a sense of place and commitment so that the CEO was in Pittsburgh or was in Detroit and felt obliged, partly because of social pressure but partly because they felt a real affinity toward the community, to re-invest in that community and to be seen as a good corporate citizen. Today what you have is quarterly earning reports, compensation levels for CEOs that are tied directly to those quarterly earnings. You've got international capital that is demanding maximizing short-term profits. And so what happens is that a lot of the distributional questions that used to be handled in the marketplace through decent wages or health care or defined benefit pension plans — those things all are eliminated. And the average employee, the average worker, doesn't feel any benefit.
6 What Obama is talking about here is the difference between pre-tax and post-tax inequality. It's possible to have low inequality either because the market itself spreads gains widely, or because the government intervenes at tax time to spread gains widely. Germany and Britain have higher pre-tax inequality than the US, but lower actual inequality because the government does so much through taxes and transfers.
So part of our job is, what can government do directly through tax policy? What we've proposed, for example, in terms of capital gains — that would make a big difference in our capacity to give a tax break to a working mom for child care. And that's smart policy, and there's no evidence that would hurt the incentives of folks at Google or Microsoft or Uber not to invent what they invent or not to provide services they provide. It just means that instead of $20 billion, maybe they've got 18, right? But it does mean that Mom can go to work without worrying that her kid's not in a safe place.
We also still have to focus on the front end. Which is even before taxes are paid, are there ways that we can increase the bargaining power: making sure that an employee has some measurable increases in their incomes and their wealth and their security as a consequence of an economy that's improving. And that's where issues like labor laws make a difference. That's where say in shareholder meetings and trying to change the culture in terms of compensation at the corporate level could make a difference. And there's been some interesting conversations globally around issues like inclusive capitalism and how we can make it work for everybody.
Ezra Klein
When you drill into that pre-tax portion, one thing you can find in wages is health-care costs.
Barack Obama
Yeah.
Ezra Klein
And when you drill deeper into the health-care costs, one thing you find is that a major piece of why Americans pay so much more is that when we go to a hospital, an MRI, or an appendectomy, or even a bottle of cholesterol drugs just costs much more for an American to buy than it does in Germany, in Japan, in Canada, in Great Britain. Why do you think Americans pay so much higher health-care prices than folks in other countries? 7
Barack Obama
Well, you know there are a lot of theories about this. But I think the evidence points to a couple of key factors. One is that we've got a third-party system. Mostly we've got a system where everybody gets their health insurance through their employers. Obviously the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, helps to cover the gap for those who aren't in that system. But for those of us who have an insurer, we don't track it. And the market then becomes really opaque and really hard to penetrate. Health providers are able to, I think, charge without much fear that somebody's looking over their shoulders and asking, well, why does this cost that much?
That's one of the reasons [that with] the Affordable Care Act, a lot of the attention's been on making sure that the uninsured have peace of mind, and people who currently have insurance but at some point might lose it or have pre-existing conditions are going to have it. That's obviously the moral basis for what we did. But people haven't been paying as much attention to the delivery-system reforms that we're trying to institute through the Affordable Care Act as well.
I can't take credit for all four years of the lowest health-care inflation in the last 50 that we've seen since the Affordable Care Act passed. 8 Some of the trends, I think, were already on their way. But we are accelerating a lot of reforms. For example, what do we do to make sure that instead of paying a doctor in a hospital for just providing a service, let's make sure that they're being rewarded for a good outcome? Which may mean in some cases fewer tests or a less expensive generic drug, or just making sure that all your employees are washing your hands so that you're cutting the infection rate, or making sure that hospitals are reimbursed when there's a lower readmissions rate, as opposed to when they're doing more stuff. And using Medicare as a lever, I think, is creating an environment in the health-care field where we can start getting better outcomes and lower costs at the same time. 9There are still going to be those who argue that unless you get a single-payer system, you're never going to get all the efficiencies. There's certain areas like drugs, where the fact that Congress — and the Republican Party in particular — has been resistant to letting drug makers and Medicare negotiate for the lowest price. It results in us paying a lot more than we should. But if we're paying 4, 5, 6, 8 percent more than other countries for the same outcomes, I'd be pretty happy where we're only paying 2 or 3 percent more. Because that represents hundreds of billions of dollars, and means we can do a lot with that money.
9 The White House is proposing tying 85 percent of all Medicare payments to outcomes by the end of 2016 — rising to 90 percent by 2018.
Ezra Klein
When you talk about Medicare as a lever, Medicare tends to pay a lot less per service than private insurers by a margin. Before single-payer there's also this idea you hear occasionally of letting private insurers band together with Medicare, with Medicaid, to jointly negotiate prices. 10 Do you think that's a good idea?
Barack Obama
You know, I think that moving in the direction where consumers and others can have more power in the marketplace, particularly when it comes to drugs, makes a lot of sense. Now, you'll hear from the drug companies that part of the reason other countries pay less for drugs is they don't innovate; we, essentially through our system, subsidize the innovation, and other countries are free riders. There's probably a little bit of truth to that, but when you look at the number of breakthrough drugs and the amount of money that drug companies now are putting into research and where they're putting it, a whole lot of it is actually in redesigning, modestly, existing drugs so they can renew patents and maintain higher prices and higher profits. That's not entirely true, but there's some of that. So there is a lot of savings that could be achieved while still making sure that our drug industry is the best in the world, and will still be making a healthy profit.
Obama on why he’s such a polarizing president
Ezra Klein
To turn a bit towards politics, at this point, according to the polls, you are the most polarizing president really since we began polling. 11 But before you, the record was set by George W. Bush, and before George W. Bush the record was set by Bill Clinton. It seems that there's something structural happening there in terms of party polarization and the way it affects approval ratings and cooperation with presidents. In your State of the Union, you struck back at critics who say that the idea of healing some of these divisions is naïve or impossible. So when you welcome your successor into office, what would you tell them is worth trying that you think can still work, that would reduce the polarization?
Barack Obama
Well, there are a couple of things that in my mind, at least, contribute to our politics being more polarized than people actually are. And I think most people just sense this in their daily lives. Everybody's got a family member or a really good friend from high school who is on the complete opposite side of the political spectrum. And yet, we still love them, right? Everybody goes to a soccer game, or watching their kids, coaching, and they see parents who they think are wonderful people, and then if they made a comment about politics, suddenly they'd go, "I can't believe you think that!" But a lot of it has to do with the fact that a) the balkanization of the media means that we just don't have a common place where we get common facts and a common worldview the way we did 20, 30 years ago. And that just keeps on accelerating, you know. And I'm not the first to observe this, but you've got the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh folks and then you've got the MSNBC folks and the — I don't know where Vox falls into that, but you guys are, I guess, for the brainiac-nerd types. But the point is that technology which brings the world to us also allows us to narrow our point of view. That's contributed to it.
Gerrymandering contributes to it. 12 There's no incentive for most members of Congress, on the House side at least, in congressional districts, to even bother trying to appeal. And a lot of it has to do with just unlimited money. So people are absorbing an entirely different reality when it comes to politics, even though the way they're living their lives and interacting with each other isn't that polarizing. So my advice to a future president is increasingly try to bypass the traditional venues that create divisions and try to find new venues within this new media that are quirkier, less predictable.
You know, yesterday I did three interviews with YouTube stars that generally don't spend a lot of time talking about politics. And the reason we did it is because they're reaching viewers who don't want to be put in some particular camp. On the other hand, when you talk to them very specifically about college costs or about health care or about any of the other things that touch on their individual lives, it turns out that you can probably build a pretty good consensus.
Now, that doesn't ignore the fact that I would love to see some constitutional process that would allow us to actually regulate campaign spending the way we used to, and maybe even improve it. I'd love to see changes at the state level that reduce political gerrymandering. So there's all kinds of structural things that I'd like to see that I think would improve this but, you know, there've been periods in the past where we've been pretty polarized. I think there just wasn't polling around. As I recall, there was a whole civil war — that was a good example of polarization that took place.
Ezra Klein
Do you think if we don't get some of those structural reforms, and more to the point, if we continue along this path, in terms of where the parties are in Congress, are there ways to govern with polarization? It occurs to me that [this was] your argument when you came to office. But before you, Bush was a "uniter not a divider," and before him Clinton, who was going to moderate and change the Democratic party with his sort of Third Way approach. The last couple of presidents have come to office promising the way they would get things done is to reduce polarization. Is there an argument or an approach that can be made to govern amidst polarization?
Barack Obama
A couple observations. Number one is that in American history — even during the so-called golden age where, you know, you had liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats and there was deal-cutting going on in Congress — generally speaking, big stuff didn't get done unless there was a major crisis and/or you had big majorities of one party controlling the Congress and a president of the same party. I mean, that's just been the history. There have been exceptions, but that's often been the case in terms of big-muscle movements in the political system. And you know, my first two years in office when I had a Democratic majority and Democratic House and Democratic Senate, we were as productive as any time since Lyndon Johnson. And when the majority went away, stuff got blocked.
Probably the one thing that we could change without a constitutional amendment that would make a difference here would be the elimination of the routine use of the filibuster in the Senate. 13 Because I think that does, in an era in which the parties are more polarized, it almost ensures greater gridlock and less clarity in terms of the positions of the parties. There's nothing in the Constitution that requires it. The framers were pretty good about designing a House, a Senate, two years versus six-year terms, every state getting two senators. There were a whole bunch of things in there to assure that a majority didn't just run rampant. The filibuster in this modern age probably just torques it too far in the direction of a majority party not being able to govern effectively and move forward its platform. And I think that's an area where we can make some improvement.
Ezra Klein
One of the powerful things that's happened as polarization has increased politically is it's begun structuring people's other identities. The one I'm particularly interested in here is race. If you look back at polling around the OJ Simpson verdict or the Bernhard Goetz shooting in New York, Republicans and Democrats — you basically couldn't tell them apart. Now you look at the Zimmerman verdict or you look at what's going on in Ferguson, and opinion on racial issues is very sharply split by party. 14 Do you worry about the merging of racial and partisan identity?
Barack Obama
I don't worry about that, because I don't think that's going to last. I worry very much about the immediate consequences of mistrust between police and minority communities. I think there are things we can do to train our police force and make sure that everybody is being treated fairly. And the task force that I assigned after the Ferguson and New York cases is intended to produce very specific tools for us to deal with it.
But over the long term, I'm pretty optimistic, and the reason is because this country just becomes more and more of a hodgepodge of folks. Again, this is an example where things seem very polarized at the national level and media spotlight, but you go into communities — you know, one of the great things about being president is you travel through the entire country, and you go to Tennessee and it turns out that you've got this huge Kurdish community. And you go to some little town in Iowa and you see some Hasidic Jewish community, and then you see a bunch of interracial black and white couples running around with their kids. 15 And this is in these little farm communities, and you've got Latinos in the classroom when you visit the schools there. So people are getting more and more comfortable with the diversity of this country, much more sophisticated about both the cultural differences but more importantly, the basic commonality that we have. And, you know, the key is to make sure that our politics and our politicians are tapping into that better set of impulses rather than our baser fears.
15 Specifically you see this in Postville, Iowa, where a Lubavitcher family's purchase of a meat-processing plant in the late 1980s has led to the migration of a small community of Hasidim to the area.
And my gut tells me, and I've seen it in my own career and you see it generally, a politician who plays on those fears in America, I don't think is going to over time get a lot of traction. Even, you know, it's not a perfect analogy, but if you think about how rapidly the whole issue of the LGBT community and discrimination against gays and lesbians has shifted. The Republican party, even the most conservative, they have much less ability, I think, to express discriminatory views than they did even 10 years ago. 16 And that's a source of optimism. It makes me hopeful.
Ezra Klein
On Obamacare, something that members of your administration have always said, and I think you may have said: there's been a lot of language about it being a good start, a platform to begin building. It's full of experiments. The idea is that there will be learning, and there will be change. Now we're in the second year of open enrollment. What would you like to see, if Congress were able to take up a bill, to tweak, to improve, to change, to build on that platform? What specifically from what you wanted in there originally or what we've learned since it's actually been in operation? How would you like to see it improved?
Barack Obama
Well, I'm not sure, Ezra, that we've got enough years of it being in place to know perfectly what needs to be improved, where there's still gaps. It's been a year. So far the verdict is that this thing's working for a lot of people. You've got 10 million people who've been enrolled, you've got more folks who've been signed up for the expanded Medicaid coverage, you've seen health-care inflation stay low or actually be significantly lower than before the ACA was passed, satisfaction with the insurance seems to be high. We haven't seen major disruptions to the medical system that a lot of people had predicted. So, there's a lot of stuff that's working.
Over time, I think seeing if we can do more on delivery-system reform, making sure that we fill the gaps in those states that haven't expanded Medicaid. The big problem we have right now with Obamacare is that it was designed to make sure that some subset of people qualified for Medicaid, and that's how they were going to get coverage, and others were going to go into the exchanges because they had slightly higher incomes. And because of the decision of the Roberts court — that we couldn't incentivize states to expand Medicaid the way we had originally intended — you've got a lot of really big states, you've got tens of millions of people who aren't able to get their Medicaid coverage. And so there's this gap. And that's probably the biggest challenge for us.
The good news is in dribs and drabs. Much as was true with the original Medicaid program, you're starting to see Republican governors and Republican state legislatures realize that we're cutting off our nose to spite our face. We've got an ideological objection to us helping our own constituencies and our own health-care systems. And to their credit, you've got folks like John Kasich in Ohio and Snyder in Michigan and now, most recently the governor up in Alaska, and others who are saying, "You know what? This is the right thing to do. Let's go ahead and expand it." So until that kind of settles, I don't think we'll fully know where there's still gaps in coverage, what more we still need to do. But I think that so far, at least, the performance of the plan itself, not the website in the first three months but the performance of the actual plan, you know, has at least met and perhaps exceeded a lot of people's expectations. The website, by the way, works great now.
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