Why Russia's rich and powerful still back Putin

Why Russia's rich and powerful still back Putin - CNBC

February 13, 2015

Why Russia's rich and powerful still back Putin - CNBC
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:38 PM

Why Russia's rich and powerful still back Putin
CNBC
The segments of the Russian population that, arguably, have the best chance to dissuade President Vladimir Putin from his actions in Ukraine are business leaders and the rich. But despite having lost millions of dollars because of sanctions against ...
To Survive, Putin Is Mortgaging Russia's Energy Assets To ChinaForbes
Opinion: Why is the West subsidizing Russia?CNNMoney
Lawrence Solomon: Russia's riseFinancial Post
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Is Clinton Versus Bush a Lock for 2016?by webdesk@voanews.com (Jim Malone)
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:38 PM

Voice Of America

The early jockeying for the 2016 presidential campaign is well underway and there is a stark difference of circumstances between the two major parties. A rather large field of Republicans is taking a hard look at running for the White House next year. For the moment, that list begins with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. A recent Quinnipiac poll found Bush to be a strong contender in three crucial swing states for 2016—Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Historically, candidates who win two out of those three states become president. Bush was a clear favorite for the Republican nomination in his home state of Florida. But he was less of a clear favorite in the other two states, where he has competition from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Bush garnered 10 percent support in Ohio and 12 percent in Pennsylvania with several other contenders trailing close behind. As Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown noted, Bush is nowhere near the frontrunner that Hillary Clinton is on the Democratic side. Clinton was the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination in all three states for 2016. Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren trailed far behind. Biden has yet to announce what his plans are for 2016 while Warren has repeatedly said she is not running. There are other Democrats waiting in the wings, however, including former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Vermont’s Independent Senator, Bernie Sanders and former Virginia Senator Jim Webb. Clinton will receive some sort of challenge from within the Democratic Party. But for the moment, pollster Brown sees no major challenger emerging who would pose a genuine threat to her at this early stage of the race. “She is very popular with Democrats. She is also very well known, which has an upside and a downside. But there is no doubt that she is the overwhelming frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2016 if she chooses to run.” Alternatives to Bush On the Republican side, Jeb Bush would seem to be a strong contender along the lines of previous nominees such as his brother, George W. Bush, in 2000, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. But it’s also clear that plenty of Republicans are not intimidated by the prospect of a Bush candidacy. That includes current and former governors like Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and George Pataki. Five sitting senators have also expressed varying degrees of interest about the race: Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Two veterans of the 2012 primary campaign also seem to be preparing for a run--former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Texas Governor Rick Perry. And there are some newcomers to the national political scene who are not as well-known who may run including former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, retired surgeon Ben Carson and businesswoman Carly Fiorina. But the Republican field starts with Jeb Bush, who is already being asked to compare himself to the two former presidents in his family, his father, George H.W. Bush, and his brother, George W. Bush. Bush argues he already escaped the shadow of his better known relatives during his eight years as governor of Florida. “People knew that I wasn’t just the brother of (former President) George W. and the son of my beloved dad. I was my own person.” Bush remains a favorite of many mainstream Republicans who want to field the strongest possible candidate to counter the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. But Bush could encounter opposition from Republicans looking for a fresh face in 2016, says Republican analyst Scot Faulkner. “Jeb was an excellent governor in Florida. [But] Jeb’s got the wrong name. I mean, America fought a revolution so we don’t have dynasties.” Democrats seem split on a Bush candidacy. Some see him as the strongest possible nominee to face off against Hillary Clinton. But others, like pollster Stan Greenberg, argued that there is still a negative hangover that Jeb Bush would have to contend with stemming from his brother’s time in office. “What surprised us was how weak Jeb Bush is [in a recent poll] and as one gets into an election cycle, the prospect of a Clinton-Bush election with all that that suggests, Jeb Bush faces major problems, a shellacking perhaps.” Struggling for Visibility Among those hoping to become a fresh face for Republican voters is Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a favorite among libertarians who want to limit the role of government. “I am probably about as fiscally conservative as they come. I am a leader in the balanced budget movement. But I am also someone who believes in a strong national defense but not that every war is a good war to be involved with.” Paul’s reluctance to commit U.S. troops to fight in foreign wars sets him apart from other Republican contenders like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. They argue for a tougher U.S. line on Iran and the Islamic State and do not rule out the need for U.S. ground troops to roll back Islamic State gains in the Middle East. A preview of the 2016 Republican debates on dealing with the Islamic State will play out in the weeks ahead when the Senate takes up President Obama’s proposal for an authorization of force to expand and sustain military operations against ISIL. The Senate debate should offer voters plenty of indication as to how far the various Republican White House hopefuls would go in any military effort targeting the Islamic State. A recent poll targeting three crucial states in U.S. presidential elections—Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida—found Jeb Bush with a slight lead in the large Republican field. But Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown says it is still too early to draw many conclusions about next year’s campaign. “The tentative leader, if there is one, is probably Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida and obviously the son of one president and the brother of another. Mr. Bush is not anywhere near as strong a candidate for the Republican nomination as Mrs. Clinton is for the Democratic nomination. Mr. Bush is probably the candidate best able to compete everyplace.” Some Republicans hope to avoid a repeat of the 2012 Republican primary campaign. Mitt Romney eventually emerged as the nominee but only after he took a lot of political hits from a large field of Republican rivals. But Republican strategist Phillip Stutts says this year’s emerging crop of Republican contenders is much stronger and deserves to be heard through numerous debates. “We should put all these candidates out. Let the process play out. Let the smart guys out there talk about their policies. Let’s have a robust debate and have fun with it and see what comes out of that.” Even though no one has officially jumped into the race, the debate among Republican contenders has already begun and from all the early indications it looks to be a lengthy, difficult and exciting battle for the Republican nomination well into next year.

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Ash Carter is right: Russia doesn't deserve a sphere of influence - Hot Air
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:38 PM

Russia - Google News

Ash Carter is right: Russia doesn't deserve a sphere of influence
Hot Air
“I reject the notion that Russia should be afforded a 'sphere of influence,'” Carter wrote. “If confirmed, I will continue to encourage US partners, such as Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine, to build their security capacity and military interoperability ...

and more »

Minsk ceasefire in balance as fighting escalates in eastern Ukraine by Alec Luhn in Luhanske, eastern Ukraine
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:37 PM

Russia | The Guardian

EU leaders sceptical about ceasefire due to begin on Sunday, while Ukrainian and pro-Russia forces jostle for advantage

Intense fighting continued near two cities in eastern Ukraine on Friday, raising further doubts about whether the ceasefire deal agreed in Minsk has any chance of success.

According to the Minsk plan the ceasefire will start on Sunday but, rather than abating, the conflictappeared to escalate on Friday. The Ukrainian defence ministry said pro-Russia forces were trying to take the cities of Debaltseve and Mariupol before the truce begins. On Friday afternoon, the Guardian witnessed incoming and outgoing heavy weapons fire on the contested highway leading toDebaltseve, which was lined with burned-out trucks.

Tank Battle Reported In Donetsk As Cease-Fire Nears
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:37 PM

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

A tank battle was reportedly underway in eastern Ukraine as government forces continue to fight Russian-backed separatists ahead of an impending cease-fire.

Putin’s posture casts cloud over ceasefire
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:37 PM

Europe News

Experts question whether Russia intends to help implement the agreement signed in Minsk

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Page 2

Ukraine crisis: Merkel must keep up tireless work rate or risk losing goal of a 'united Europe'
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:37 PM

- Europe RSS Feed

As if her stock was not already high enough, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s domestic popularity soared to near euphoric levels in Germany yesterday after her apparent success in brokering a Ukraine ceasefire, and signs that she is poised for a compromise with the Greek government over its debt problems.

Ukraine crisis: At least 25 dead as rebels seize more territory ahead of ceasefire deadline
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:36 PM

- Europe RSS Feed

Russian-backed rebels launched a deadly last-minute effort to seize more Ukrainian territory yesterday, including a strategic railway hub, before a ceasefire is meant to take effect at midnight Ukraine time tonight.

Obama Cybersecurity Efforts Stir Privacy Debateby webdesk@voanews.com (Doug Bernard)
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:36 PM

Voice Of America

U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to sign an executive order Friday aimed at encouraging companies and organizations to share more information about cybersecurity threats with the government and each other. The signing will come as part of a White House-sponsored conference on cybersecurity and consumer protection at Stanford University in California. And its comes after President Obama earlier this year unveiled several new initiatives, totaling $14 billion, intended to tighten security and expand privacy initiatives. And it includes the creation of a so-caller Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center or CTIIC. The agency would collect intelligence about cyber-threats provided by federal agencies as well as from private industry. That data in turn would be analyzed to create comprehensive threat assessments for all levels of government. The move follows high-profile hack attacks against Sony Pictures Entertainment, Anthem Health Insurance, Target, Home Depot, EBay and JPMorgan Chase. The proposal has its supporters as well as critics. VOA reached out to David Ulevitch, chief executive officer of the cybersecurity firm Open DNS and to Robert Graham, a security developer and CEO of the cybersecurity firm Errata Security to hear their thoughts on whether the Obama administration’s efforts could make the U.S. more or less secure from cyber-attacks. Q) What’s your sense of the CTIIC? Is it the right solution to the hacking problem? And if not, what would you suggest? Ulevitch: “We’re seeing renewed attention and focus on trying to create information centers of collaboration. We see the creation of a number of different programs I think to, in general, raise awareness across different levels of government in terms of what cyber-risks are out there, to raise the bar for knowledge. The announcement of the creation of CTIIC is probably a very, very positive move in the right direction. One of the things that’s difficult in government is there’s a lot of different organizations that have differing views of the world, and differing views of cyber-intelligence. It sounds like this should create a forum for collaboration and information sharing, and that’s certainly a positive thing." Graham: "It’s just bureaucracy. It’s the same thing they’re already doing over at US-CERT (“Computer Emergency Readiness Team”), over at Homeland Security, which has failed. It’s pretty much another organization with the same mission. The government has proven itself to be technically incompetent. We experts can tell that; while they might have good people at US-CERT, the whole process, the whole organization, produces crap. It’s technically laughable sometimes, and that’s what we’ll get from CTIIC as well.” Q) What are the most pressing cybersecurity risks at present, and how would you balance responsibilities between the public and private sectors? Ulevitch: "The greatest risks are to the private sector right now. The financial ramifications of a serious attack could be quite devastating, making the risks of financial loss one of the most direct threats today, in part because they have real effect in the loss of money or data, but a chilling effect in terms of how people use the Internet as well." “We’re in an interesting period here. There are many private security companies that are pushing forward in terms of threat research and intelligence, even maybe in ways the clandestine services haven’t moved to yet. Finding ways to encourage information sharing more willingly between the private and public sector is crucial, and I think CTIIC will do that.” Graham: “It depends on whether you describe risks as people or technical issues. If you’re looking at people, China is a big risk, while cyber-terrorists really aren’t so much of a problem. But if you’re speaking of technical issues, we’re not focusing on these." “The ways that Chinese hackers will pick into a government system are probably the same techniques they’ve been using for 10 years, such as SQL injection and phishing, which we just ignore. We don’t solve those issues. These are pretty straight forward – teenagers know how to exploit them and defend against them, yet we ignore them. We’re more focused on who’s doing the hacking rather than how the hacking happens.” Q) The Obama administration has expressed concerns about the growing use of encryption, which FBI Director James Comey warned could lead to “a very dark place.” How do you see the encryption debate, and should governments be given backdoors into encrypted communications? Ulevitch: "Encryption tools and techniques are being created everywhere, and most of them are open-source and available. The genie is out of the bottle, and I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad genie. The good guys benefit from the ability to protect their data the same as potential adversaries do. Encryption tools exist, and they’re only going to get better. The real question is what do you do in a world where much of the data is going to be encrypted? I think that's like any other arms race, where you just raise the bar in terms of get at what you’re looking for, for patterns in the data where it doesn’t really matter whether the data is encrypted or not." “We saw this with the clipper chip some time ago. This seems to come up every five to 10 years – the idea that there can be some safe way to allow the government to decrypt data that would never fall into the hands of adversaries. That’s a provably a wrong statement over and over again, because every backdoor has been shown to create brittleness in the overall encryption frameworks. This is just a losing proposition.“ Graham: “Well if you want to live in a police state, then by all means agree with the administration. Which is more important to you: the government or other people? We live in a free society and we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that restrict the power of government. Encryption backdoors gives way too much power to the government to eavesdrop on us. Being able to encrypt our own data is a key civil right." “In the last couple years since the [National Security Agency contractor Edward] Snowden revelations, we’ve seen that government has been doing enormous amounts of monitoring and eavesdropping on the America people. Not only did we not know about it, we still can’t know about it. And the problem with encryption backdoors is that it allows the government to monitor people without their knowledge. “ Q) Beyond the public and private sectors, what are individuals' responsibilities to addressing cyber-threats? Ulevitch: “That’s a complex question. We know in security that education has generally not been successful for most people. But there are things people can do – two-factor identification, different passwords for different services. At the end of the day, the people who are storing the data, conducting the transactions, holding their health care information, those people are responsible to secure the data. The challenge in today’s landscape to have a secure posture and it's even harder frankly to find the people who are qualified to know how to make that information secure.” Graham: “None. What’s the responsibility for people who drive? Well, don’t crash into other people. But if you run off the road yourself, the only person you hurt is you. It’s the same for cyber-security. We all make trade-offs every day. ‘Well, I have to enter this password a lot of times, so I’ll just use a short one. But if someone guesses my easy password, I’m the one that pays the price.' That’s the way it should be." “The police state mentality is that everyone must cater to what the police state says their responsibility is. If the government decrees you must have a 20 character password, you’re basically rendering the computer as unusable. “

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Even With Cease-Fire, Economy in Ukraine Is Crumblingby By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:35 PM

NYT > Europe

The costs of war and a post-Soviet history of mismanagement and corruption leave the country needing billions of dollars more than it has received.

Кто живет в квартире за 37 миллионов в центре Манхэттенаby Голос Америки
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:35 PM

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	Кто живет в квартире за 37 миллионов в центре Манхэттена По данным Нью-Йорк Таймс, более половины элитной недвижимости в Манхэттене принадлежит иностранцам Originally...	From: Голос Америки Views: 2 0 ratings
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‘American Sniper’ trial: ‘I shot them because they wouldn’t talk to me.’
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:34 PM

STEPHENVILLE, Tex. — Eddie Ray Routh, who killed former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and his friend two years ago, said later in his jail cell that he did so because they wouldn’t talk to him during a long ride to a rifle range, a witness testified Friday.

Gene Cole, who served with the Erath County Sheriff’s Department at the time, testified Friday that Routh’s comments were made from a county jail cell in June 2013, about four months after Routh killed Kyle, who inspired the recent blockbuster movie “American Sniper,” and his friend Chad Littlefield.

“I heard Mr. Routh say, ‘I shot them because they wouldn’t talk to me. I was just riding in the backseat of the truck, and nobody would talk to me. They were just taking me to the range, so I shot them. I feel bad about it, but they wouldn’t talk to me. I’m sure they’ve forgiven me,” Cole said.

The comments are perhaps the most striking of the first three days in Routh’s trial. His lawyers do not dispute that he killed Kyle and Littlefield, but say he was struggling with schizophrenia and psychosis and should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Kyle, often called the most deadly sniper in U.S. military history, and Littlefield were both shot multiple times and found dead at the Rough Creek Lodge and Resort, an 11,000-acre luxury hunting facility and vacation 90 miles southwest of Dallas.

RELATED TRIAL COVERAGE ON CHECKPOINT:
Texas Ranger recalls finding drugs in Eddie Ray Routh’s home

At least two gunshot wounds suffered by Chris Kyle were fatal

Jury shown videos of standoff, chase involving Eddie Ray Routh

Police describe high-speed chase to capture Eddie Ray Routh

Portrait emerges of Chad Littlefield, friend killed alongside Chris Kyle

Taya Kyle, wife of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, delivers tearful testimony

‘This dude is straight-up nuts’: Chris Kyle’s text message about Eddie Ray Routh

Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.

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Минские договоренности: оценки by Голос Америки
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:15 PM

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	Минские договоренности: оценки Ведущие американские газеты в пятницу дали резко негативную оценку новым договоренностям Originally published...	From: Голос Америки Views: 21 5 ratings
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No Deal to Free Ukrainian Pilot, Russia Saysby By ANDREW ROTH
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:15 PM

NYT > Europe

A spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin said the pilot, Nadiya V. Savchenko, was not covered by accords negotiated by Russia and Ukraine this week.

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Соцопрос на Украине: страх, депрессия, пессимизм. Но большинство — за войну - ИА REGNUM
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:15 PM

В Мире – Новости Google

ИА REGNUM

Соцопрос на Украине: страх, депрессия, пессимизм. Но большинство — за войну
ИА REGNUM
Группа компаний Research & Branding Group опубликовала данные результатов всеукраинских исследований общественного мнения на тему «Общественно-политическая ситуация на Украине». Опросы проводились с 26 января по 6 февраля среди граждан старше 18 лет, ...
Политолог: сторонники мира на Украине окажут поддержку Порошенко РИА Новости

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Even With Cease-Fire, Economy in Ukraine Is Crumbling
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:14 PM

KIEV, Ukraine — The Merefa Glass factory, which has manufactured bottles and jars in Ukraine since 1896 and employed more than 2,000 people, has suspended operations because its main furnace is broken and it can no longer get a crucial raw material from a supplier in Crimea that is now cut off by sanctions.

Thousands of workers at Yuzhmash, a once proud manufacturer of missiles, rockets and other high-tech machinery, are now on furlough as business with Russia — until last year the company’s main customer — has vaporized.

Creditors have moved to oust the management of Mriya Agro Holding, one of Ukraine’s largest agricultural producers, after the company failed to keep up with payments on about $1 billion in debt.

Even if a cease-fire agreement reached on Thursday succeeds in ending the war in eastern Ukraine with Russian-backed separatists, the pro-Western government in Kiev still faces a monumental challenge in building a viable state.

Burdened by the costs and chaos of war, and a post-Soviet history of mismanagement and corruption by officials in Kiev, Ukraine’s economy is disintegrating faster than Western aid can shore it up. Across the country, from the war-torn east to the Europe-focused west, factories, banks and other businesses are collapsing, putting thousands out of work.

A $17.5 billion lifeline extended last week by the International Monetary Fund still falls far short of the more than $40 billion financing gap that experts say the country faces over the next four years. And that does not include money to rebuild or replace Ukraine’s dilapidated mines and obsolete industries once sustained by contracts with Russia or kept alive by subsidies Kiev can no longer afford to pay.

The cease-fire accord offers some hope of relief, as military operations are costing the government $5 million to $10 million a day, but the country’s problems are far more extensive. Last week, the Ukrainian central bank revealed that it had burned through an additional $1.1 billion in foreign reserves in January, leaving just $6.4 billion — a 10-year low.

The currency, the hryvnia, is collapsing, and inflation is soaring, prompting the bank to increase its key interest rate to 19.5 percent.

The new infusion of aid brings total I.M.F. assistance to $22 billion, but experts warn that more will be needed. The government’s economic restructuring plans entail shuttering many inefficient, noncompetitive businesses and slashing the huge government work force, both of which would increase unemployment, at least temporarily.

The government has begun an aggressive deregulation campaign, hoping to unlock the country’s potential, especially as an agricultural powerhouse.

In interviews, several high-level officials in the Ukrainian government said the country was in a race against time to accomplish a restructuring that delivers tangible results, demanded not only by creditors, but also, more important, by voters. Still, the officials said, the country remained short of funds.

“We should show the country that we are changing Ukraine,” said Boris Lozhkin, the chief of the administration of President Petro O. Poroshenko. “But to show them, we need money.”

Mr. Lozhkin cited an op-ed article last month by the financier and philanthropist George Soros and the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy urging the West to invest in Ukraine beyond the $15 billion immediately needed. “Western powers need to make a political commitment to provide additional sums,” they wrote in The New York Times.

Critics complain that the proposed political and economic overhaul has been slow to get underway, and that the country remains hobbled by corruption and mismanagement and bureaucracy. The newcomers dismiss the accusations, saying they are moving as fast and as aggressively as they can.

The war, of course, made things worse: Trade with Russia, long Ukraine’s biggest economic partner, has shriveled by more than half. Once-thriving industries, such as machine works, in the east have gone quiet.

The country’s banks, many of them riddled with bad assets and long plagued by corruption and mismanagement, have begun to fail. Last week, for instance, Nadra Bank, the country’s 11th largest by total assets, was declared insolvent.

Expenses keep mounting. Throughout the conflict, the government has provided heat, electricity and water to the separatist-controlled regions at a cost of more than $1 billion a year, officials said, with no tax revenues being sent to Kiev. Now, as part of the truce, Kiev is to reinstate government salaries, pensions and other services in the east that it cut off last year.

For Ukrainians, who were among the poorest people in Europe even before the war, the economic woes have tempered the patriotic optimism that had been pulsing through society after the ouster of the former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, a year ago.

“People are becoming poorer and poorer,” declared Lubov I. Zherebko, a 61-year-old pensioner who was trying to sell fruit at Kiev’s Zhitny market recently. “Look, they don’t buy a thing.”

Viktor, 66, a retired mechanic who worked at the Antonov aircraft factory, was at the market buying a couple of pounds of pork, a purchase made possible because his wife had received her pension that day. Most days, he says, they have to make do with far less.

“I stopped buying beer, vodka, cigarettes,” said Viktor, who did not want to give his last name while talking about his personal finances. “Now you have to think whether to buy vodka or something to eat.”

Nearby, Slavik Moskalenko, 40, a farmer who lives outside Kiev, was playing dice with another vegetable seller. There were no customers for Mr. Moskalenko’s potatoes.

“Everything is becoming more and more expensive,” he said. “Before, fish fillet cost 39 hryvnas, and now it’s 150. And it’s hake, the cheapest fillet.” (Those prices are the equivalent now of $1.47 and $5.65.)

Western leaders, including President Obama, have pledged to support Ukraine as long as the government stays committed to its plans to cast off its corrupt past.

“The government here now understands what they need to do,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in an interview during a recent visit to Kiev. “They are putting in place policies to deal with it.”

In some cases, however, the country’s problems are clearly outpacing the prescriptions.

Last spring, for instance, the government bumped up the price of natural gas for residential customers by 50 percent. It was a deeply unpopular step but one long demanded by the International Monetary Fund as a way of reducing the exorbitant government subsidies.

But in recent months, as households absorbed the costs, the currency collapse effectively wiped out any increase in revenue to the national gas company, which pays its suppliers, including Russia, in dollars.

Other plans are just getting off the ground.

Some changes, like the creation of a anticorruption bureau, have been slowed by protracted internal bickering and debate. Another effort to decentralize the government and drive more budget authority to local governments has also hit obstacles, including a need for constitutional amendments and to consolidate some cities and towns.

At a meeting with members of the Ukrainian Parliament last week, a senior official from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development not only described Ukraine’s banking system as being in disastrous shape, but cited the urgent need for a continuing overhaul of the notoriously corrupt natural-gas sector in Ukraine, as well as for judicial reforms.

“Private sector investors, a lot of them, live in fear,” the official, Francis Malige, told the lawmakers. “They live in fear that when they have achieved something, that something will be taken away by a corporate raider.”

The country’s new finance minister, Natalie Jaresko, a Ukrainian-American, has been negotiating with the I.M.F. and urging international creditors to view Ukraine as a long-term investment.

“I don’t think the war is the true reason our international partners are coming to the table,” she said in a recent interview. “They are not financing the war. They are financing a reform program and a group of committed leaders in every branch of government that have an incredible opportunity right now to make this change, and to make Ukraine a healthy, robust and prosperous, inviting economy.”

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No Deal to Free Ukrainian Pilot, Russia Says
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:13 PM

MOSCOW — Russian officials on Friday denied there was any deal in the works to free the Ukrainian helicopter pilot Nadiya V. Savchenko from a Moscow prison, casting doubt on reports that PresidentVladimir V. Putin and President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine had agreed on her release during peace talks this week.

Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told journalists on Friday that Ms. Savchenko was not covered by a clause in the agreements negotiated in Minsk, Belarus, this week requiring the release of all war prisoners, and that she might stand trial in Russia.

“Savchenko is not a hostage, she is not illegally detained,” Mr. Peskov said.

In Washington, the State Department insisted that Ms. Savchenko’s release was provided for by the Minsk agreement. In the American view, the Kremlin’s refusal to free her would be a breach of the accord.

“We’ve called for Nadiya Savchenko’s release since she was first illegally spirited across the border and put on trial in Moscow,” said Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman. “She’s a hostage of the Russian government, and she must be released immediately.”

Ms. Savchenko’s case has become a cause célèbre among officials in Kiev, and in September was elected to Ukraine’s Parliament.

In July, she mysteriously appeared in the custody of the Russian authorities, who accused her of directing an artillery strike that killed two Russian journalists. Ms. Savchenko denied the charges, saying she was kidnapped in Ukraine by separatists before the journalists were killed and then handed her over to the Russian police.

Mr. Poroshenko announced Thursday in Minsk, the Belarussian capital, that as part of the same negotiations that produced a cease-fire agreement, Mr. Putin had agreed to free Ms. Savchenko. But the details of her release, including when and where, were left vague.

“I was informed that it will be done shortly after the medical expertise and preliminary investigation,” Mr. Poroshenko said, according to an official statement. “I insisted that it should be done immediately.”

An official briefed on the talks questioned whether Mr. Putin had committed to a deal. When Mr. Poroshenko insisted on Ms. Savchenko’s release, Mr. Putin said that her case was under Russian jurisdiction. Mr. Peskov gave a similar account of the negotiations, and said Mr. Putin had made no agreement, either formal or informal.

Ms. Savchenko’s lawyers on Friday said that Ms. Savchenko’s legal status had not changed since the negotiations. But there were informal signals that attitudes in Russia, where the state news media have vilified her, were shifting.

Ilya Novikov, one of Ms. Savchenko’s lawyers, said Ms. Savchenko was visited by three delegations of rights defenders on Friday, including Ella Pamfilova, Russia’s human rights ombudsman. All of the visits were unscheduled.

“Three delegations in one day? It is incredibly rare,” Mr. Novikov said.

Officially, the delegations were set to check on Ms. Savchenko’s health. She has been on a hunger strike for more than two months and has lost more than 35 pounds, Mr. Novikov said.

But in at least one case, visiting delegates urged Ms. Savchenko to write a letter to Mr. Putin requesting a pardon, Mr. Novikov added.

A similar appeal for mercy preceded the release in 2013 of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch jailed for tax fraud who became the country’s most famous political prisoner.

Ms. Savchenko declined to write to Mr. Putin, Mr. Novikov said. At a hearing this week, Ms. Savchenko held up a sheet of paper with an inscription in blue ink: “I was born Ukrainian, I will die Ukrainian.”

Vladimir Markin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, denied “all kinds of rumors” about Ms. Savchenko’s release, saying the investigation was dictated by “facts, and not emotions and political passions.” Mr. Markin added that the evidence that Ms. Savchenko was guilty of murder was “irrefutable.”

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· · ·

U.S. Accuses Kremlin of Joining Ukraine Rebels in Assault Ahead of Cease-Fire
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:11 PM

ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine — As fighting erupted throughout eastern Ukraine on Friday before a cease-fire at midnight on Saturday, the United States accused Russia of joining separatist rebels in an all-out attack on Ukrainian forces around the contested town of Debaltseve.

When the pact was signed with a two-day window before the truce, some last-minute jockeying for position was expected. But the intensity and scope of the violence raised concerns that the agreement signed this week, rife with ill-defined and ambiguous provisions, might prove as ineffective as the first cease-fire pact, signed in September.

Artillery shelling and gunfire reverberated in the area around Debaltseve, a strategic rail hub where rebels were said to have severed the last land route into town, leaving government forces surrounded. At least 18 people were reported to have died there.

Fighting flared in many towns. Two people were killed and six wounded in an artillery strike in the Ukrainian-controlled town of Shchastya, near rebel-held Luhansk.

A Ukrainian military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said 11 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 40 wounded in fighting after the cease-fire agreement. Mr. Lysenko said separatists had fired artillery at more than 30 towns and villages in the east.

In a sign the Ukrainian Army, too, was trying to land blows before Saturday turned to Sunday, three children were reported killed by artillery in the rebel-held town of Horlivka. Shells struck a hospital in Donetsk, a rebel spokesman said.

Some of the heaviest fighting broke out along a poorly defended, 31-mile Ukrainian supply route into Debaltseve within hours of the signing of the peace agreement.

Soldiers and medical crews interviewed at a hospital in Artemivsk say the rebels now control the road, and as evidence pointed to the ambulances and resupply trucks blown up by mines that now pepper a stretch of the route.

The Ukrainian military was reeling from the assault. Rumbling over the snowy steppe, a line of rebel tanks assaulted one Ukrainian stronghold on the road, according to soldiers interviewed on the steps of a hospital in Artemivsk.

Soldiers hunkering down in pillboxes at positions along the road were trying to hold out until Saturday, Sgt. Valeri Dedkivsky said, adding that even then he had little faith the cease-fire would take effect as scheduled.

He stood Friday morning at the last Ukrainian checkpoint and gazed over a now mined and inaccessible stretch of the supply road, watching smoke swirl up from three burning Ukrainian military trucks. “Our brothers are dying right now,” he said. “This delay was not for us.”

In Washington, the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, called the involvement of Russian troops in the attack on Debaltseve a violation of the spirit of the cease-fire agreement.

“The Russian military has deployed a large amount of artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems around Debaltseve, where it is shelling Ukrainian positions,” Ms. Psaki said, reading a prepared statement. “We are confident that these are Russian military, not separatist systems.”

Ms. Psaki said that the Russian military had moved air defense units near the town, and that the United States had reliable reports that Russia was preparing a large shipment of supplies to pro-Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

The Russians have insisted they are not assisting the separatists, and there were no first-hand reports of Russian troops engaged in battle. But in a proxy war, NATO and Western analysts say, Russian troops have consistently operated in the background, supplying, training and guiding the rebels.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President François Hollande of France joined President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine in negotiating the truce agreement reached on Thursday in Minsk, Belarus — the second in the nearly year-old eastern Ukraine war.

At the time, American officials warned the Kremlin and the separatists not to try to seize new territory before the cease-fire takes effect.

“Any effort to grab more land between now and Saturday night will seriously undercut this agreement,” a senior Obama administration official told reporters.

Another senior Obama administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told reporters at the same Thursday briefing that the United States might increase sanctions or send defensive arms to the Ukrainians if the new Minsk agreement was violated by the Russian side.

While the new cease-fire agreement is considered fragile, it was welcomed Thursday as the best hope of resolving the conflict, which has left more than 5,000 people dead. But rather than the hoped-for calm, the cease-fire appeared instead to cause a sharp escalation.

Mr. Poroshenko, said the two-day delay in ending hostilities was a concession to the Russian-backed militants and Mr. Putin.

After the overnight talks, Mr. Putin said Mr. Poroshenko refused to acknowledge that the separatist forces had surrounded up to 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers in Debaltseve, but the Russian leader said he hoped that consultations between military commanders would settle that matter.

Mr. Poroshenko, speaking after the signing, said Ukraine had tried but failed during the 16 hours of talks to hold out for an immediate cease-fire. “Unfortunately, they demanded that we give them a minimum of 70 hours before the start of the cease-fire,” he said.

As the Russian military and separatist forces have pressed the attack, Western officials have become increasingly worried that Mr. Putin is seeking to seize Debaltseve before the cease-fire begins, expose the weaknesses of Ukraine’s forces and deal a political blow to Mr. Poroshenko.

On the last point, Mr. Putin seemed to be succeeding in some quarters. Oleg Lyashko, the leader of the Radical Party, which is part of the majority coalition in Ukraine's Parliament, said that Mr. Poroshenko had made overly steep concessions to Mr. Putin that he described as a ticking ”time bomb” that would give Russia a premise for resuming hostilities in the east.

“Let them bite your finger, they will bite your whole hand, and then your head,” Mr. Lyashko told colleagues. “This is a well-known folk wisdom.”

In Artemivsk, a woman and a 7-year-old child were killed Friday afternoon when cluster munitions hit a neighborhood, exploding in rapid cadence and leaving behind piles of shattered glass, sagging electrical wires and residents standing about in horrified awe.

In the hospital courtyard, ambulance crews hurriedly wheeled about bloodied, freshly wounded soldiers. Medical helicopters buzzed in and out through the day. At a school, teachers herded children indoors when the booms of artillery started rattling windows.

“I don’t know what happened,” Alla G. Neschadym, a nurse at the Artemivsk Central Regional Hospital, said in an interview about the battle that she said began in the late afternoon Thursday. “But I saw the results. The wounded came in all night long.”

The casualties flowed in from positions along the road. Soldiers were wounded by shrapnel from mortars and rockets, from gunfire and in explosions when their vehicles hit mines.

In one explosion, one soldier suffered damage to both eyes and “will probably be blind,” Ms. Neschadym said.

From Jan. 6 until Feb. 11, she said, the hospital treated 1,004 wounded soldiers, or about 46 a day. Overnight Thursday to Friday after the cease-fire signing, doctors treated 97 wounded soldiers in a frantic, bloody scene. By Friday, most of the wounded had been evacuated to the west, but a stack of bloody stretchers remained in the hospital hallway.

In Moscow, the office of Mr. Putin endorsed the cease-fire, while trying to distance the Kremlin from enforcing it.

Dmitry S. Peskov, the spokesman for Mr. Putin, said that signing the cease-fire plan made Russia one of its guarantors, but repeated the standard Kremlin position that it could not affect developments on the ground.

“Russia is not a party which implements this set of measures,” Mr. Peskov was quoted as saying by RIA-Novosti, a state-run news agency. “We simply cannot do this physically, because Russia is not a participant in this conflict.”

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Page 4

The 5 Reasons Russia Has It Bad (But Ukraine Has It Worse) - TIME
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:11 PM

Russia - Google News

TIME

The 5 Reasons Russia Has It Bad (But Ukraine Has It Worse)
TIME
Alexander Zemlianichenko—AP German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, seen during peace talks in Minsk, Belarus on Feb. 11, 2015.
How to ensure that Russia will stick to the Ukrainian cease-fire dealWashington Post
US accuses Russia, rebels violating 'spirit' of Minsk peace deal for UkraineFox News
US Accuses Kremlin of Joining Ukraine Rebels in Assault Ahead of Cease-FireNew York Times
Newsweek
all 7,354 news articles »

Argentine Prosecutors Still Pursuing Case Against Presidentby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:10 PM

Voice Of America

An investigation into whether Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, helped Iran cover up its alleged involvement in a 1994 bombing is going forward despite last month's death of the prosecutor pursuing the case. Another state prosecutor, Gerardo Pollicita, reaffirmed the accusations against President Fernandez in a new document. Members of the president's circle, meanwhile, characterized the move as an attempt to undermine democracy. Argentina has been mired in scandal since prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead on January 18. Nisman was discovered in his bathroom with a gunshot wound to the head, hours before he was scheduled to testify before the Argentine Congress about his allegations related to the bombing of the Jewish community center. Eighty-five people were killed. Iran has denied any connection to the attack. Nisman, however, alleged that Fernandez's government helped orchestrate a bargain with Tehran: cash- strapped Argentina would get Iranian oil, Iran would get Argentine grain and meat and the bombing would remain unsolved. Nisman's death was originally categorized as a suicide, but suspicions quickly swirled about whether he might have been murdered. Even as fingers pointed in the direction of her government, President Fernandez said she believed Nisman did not kill himself. Investigators probing Nisman's death found a draft of an arrest warrant for Fernandez in a trash can at his apartment.

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· ·

Russian cinema - The Economist
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:09 PM

Russia - Google News

The Economist

Russian cinema
The Economist
TO THOSE in the know, there are two Russian trailers for “Leviathan”, Andrei Zvyagintsev's new film, which opened in Moscow earlier this month. The official version nods at the praise that has already been showered on the film at the Cannes film ...
In Russia, Oscar-nominated 'Leviathan' opens old woundsUSA TODAY
Russia's 'Leviathan' has high Oscar hopes but hits nerve at homeReuters
'Leviathan,' an Oscar Favorite, Hits Nerve in RussiaVoice of America

all 26 news articles »

UN: Mexico Must Probe Thousands of 'Disappearances'by webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:09 PM

Voice Of America

The United Nations watchdog called on Mexico on Friday to probe and prosecute alleged complicity of state forces in "disappearances," including a notorious case of 43 students believed murdered last year. Mexico's delegation told the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances at a review last week that 11,300 people were unaccounted for. Amnesty International said in a statement that more than 22,600 had gone missing in the past eight years amid "a huge problem of impunity." In their findings, the committee's 10 independent experts said they had received information that "illustrates a context of generalized disappearances in a great part of the territory [of Mexico], many of which could be qualified as enforced disappearances." "Enforced disappearances" are those linked to detention or abduction by state agents such as police or security forces, or their allies, who conceal the victim's fate. Mexico's Attorney General Jesus Murillo has said there is no doubt that the 43 students were murdered last September and their remains incinerated and dumped into a river in the nearby town of Cocula. Officials say they were abducted by corrupt police officers, who handed them over to a local drug gang. The former mayor of the southwestern town of Iguala has been arrested. Parents of the students met the U.N. panel to appeal for help in seeking justice, saying they had no faith in the government's ability to investigate the crime. "The grave case of the 43 students subjected to enforced disappearance in September 2014 in the state of Guerrero illustrates the serious challenges Mexico is facing in terms of the prevention, investigation and punishment for enforced disappearances and searching for the disappeared," the U.N. panel said. The experts voiced concern at "impunity regarding numerous cases of enforced disappearances." Committee member Rainer Huhle told a news briefing the panel had no precise numbers. "The only clear picture is that it is many, and too many," he said. "The state has informed us that in contrast to the thousands of enforced disappearances that we assume ... there are exactly six persons put to trial and sentenced for this crime," Huhle added. The panel urged Mexico to establish a special prosecutor's office to lead specialised investigations and prosecutions. Mexican authorities should step up searches for all missing, including migrants from Central America who have vanished on their way to the United States, and share DNA samples from unidentified bodies, it said.

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Currency Devaluation Baffles Shortage-plagued Venezuelansby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:08 PM

Voice Of America

Venezuelans puzzled over the impact of a complicated currency devaluation and fretted that dire product shortages in the OPEC nation's recession-hit economy would not go away. President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government this week launched a 70 percent devaluation via a new "free-floating'' currency system known as Simadi, the third of three-tier exchange controls created by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. "They're doing this because they don't have any money,'' said a man who gave his name only as Felix. "This is not going to solve the problem,'' said Felix, 83, as he stood in a senior citizens line with about 50 other people to buy rice and coffee at a Caracas supermarket. "We're going to keep waiting in line to buy anything we need.'' The Simadi system on Friday posted an exchange rate of 174 bolivars per dollar, but state officials insist most of the country's foreign exchange will be sold at two preferential rates: 6.3 for essential goods such as food staples, and 12 for other sectors. The country's central bank administers dollars at those two rates, but importers complain that allocations are limited, are often delayed and require overwhelming paperwork. Dollars on the black market fetch 190 bolivars. The two preferential rates of 6.3 and 12 can help keep prices down for food and medicine, but businesses consistently struggle to obtain dollars at the official rate, which means they cannot bring in raw materials or machine parts. As a result, there are shortages of basic consumption goods ranging from chicken to laundry detergent, leading to occasional scuffles for scarce products. Approval rating sinks The scarcities and lines have contributed to a dip in Maduro's approval rating — to 22 percent, according to one pollster — and give opponents hope of wresting control of parliament from the ruling Socialist Party in a vote later this year. Maduro says the country is a victim of an "economic war,'' and argues that Venezuelans today are generally better off and better fed than they were before Chavez took office in 1999. The devaluation is likely to ripple across the balance sheets of foreign corporations with significant exposure to Venezuela, ranging from household products maker Kimberly-Clark to oil services company Schlumberger NV. Venezuelan bonds were up Friday after the release of the exchange rate, as devaluations tend to reduce the cost of imports and free up more hard currency to pay debt. The benchmark Global 2027 was up 0.603 point to a price of 41.570 and a yield of 24.261 percent. Economists believe the benefits of devaluing are muted because the new Simadi system will receive only a small fraction of the dollars that the government sells, with the vast majority being sold at preferential rates. Essentially, those who cannot obtain dollars at the other two rates will try to get the Simadi rate. "We remain skeptical about the impact this three-tiered FX system will have on an already stagflationary economy,'' wrote UBS economists in a research note. "We believe that Simadi will, at most, remain a rather marginal FX allocation system.'' Venezuela's bonds are trading at distressed levels on concerns that the rout in oil prices could prompt a default; on average, they pay 26 percentage points more than comparable U.S. Treasury bills. Maduro dismisses default talk as ill-intentioned rumor-mongering. Few products available Unlike previous devaluations, when Venezuelans crowded electronics shops to pick up appliances before prices rose, lines were scant Friday because low inventories have left shelves largely bare. "The last televisions we sold arrived in November and were gone the same day,'' said a salesman at one popular electronics shop who asked not to be named. "If they come at the black market rate, I think people would buy them no matter the price.'' Other Venezuelans worried that inflation, already the worst in the Americas at an officially estimated 64 percent last year, would spike even further. "Everything's going to carry on being tough,'' said a 38-year-old woman, who gave her name only as Josefina, in a Caracas shopping line of about 100 people. Opposition leaders complained that Maduro had disguised the devaluation, which came via an Excel sheet on the central bank's website, and sought to distract Venezuelans by simultaneously denouncing a coup plot in the air force.

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· · ·

Russia This Week: Ultranationalists Angry over ‘Capitulation’ of Minsk Agreement by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 10:07 PM

The InterpreterThe Interpreter

In Russia This Week, you will find links to all the stories of Russia Update in the last week and to special features, plus an article following up on the news and trending topics below.

Last issue: The Guild War – How Should Journalists Treat Russian State Propagandists?

This Week’s Stories:

Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs‏.

Aleksey Ponomarev has a feature on Slon.ru about the reaction of the ultranationalist groups to the Minsk agreements — they are naturally unhappy as they see it as a sell-out by President Vladimir Putin of their cause. For months, the pro-separatist press and social media have talked about how the Kremlin might “dump” them and wind up making a compromise with Kiev instead of establishing the basis for “Novorossiya,” a realm of Russians abroad which would be forcibly established from parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus. Ever since their hero Col. Igor Strelkov, who once commanded the forces of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” was forced to retreat from Slavyansk and then was removed from power, evidently at the behest of the Russian suppliers to the militants in the Donbass, there has been growing anger at the “fifth column” of opposition and “sixth column” of government liberals whom the ultrarightists see as gaining Putin’s favor at their expense.

In the last year, Putin has made some moves to suppress the growing ultranationalist movement by firing Eurasianist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin from Moscow State Union; ensuring the arrest of Aleksandr Potkin organizer of the annual “Russian March” on charges of extremism; and sanctioning the interrogation and threat of prosecution against popular web ultranationalist web site Sputnik&Pogrom editor Yegor Prosvirnin. Many of the groups on the list of 41 banned organizations are national-socialists or other extreme-right groups or fanatical Russian Orthodox sects. Some of these groups have supplied the volunteer fighters to the Russian-backed militants in Ukraine — we know that because after the final battle for the Donetsk Airport, Sergei Kurginyan, leader of Essence of time, said three of his supporters were killed; two members of the National Liberation Movement who ran the news operation Icorpus.ru supported by Strelkov as well as Duma senator Yevgeny Fyodorov were killed in August 2014 along with Russian state journalist Andrei Stenin. Several other prominent regional ultranationalists have been reported as killed in battle or in an ambush.

It is difficult on this basis to estimate how many of the fighters were supplied from extremist Russian groups, but given their popularity on VKontakte and other social media, likely many who came from Russia were involved with these networks. The size of these movements, even taken collectively, is not great, however, as when they organize various actions and marches, they have not gained more than 2,000 to 5,000 people in attendance. They have become more visible by showing up at liberal opposition rallies such as in defense of Alexey Navalny in December and January wherea few hundred bikers, Afghan veterans and Cossacks were able to discourage peaceful demonstrators by shouting them down or in some cases beating them while police looked on passively.

While Putin may have curbed them for now, these groups remain available as networks that can be harnessed at any time as needed. They enjoy ties to more establishment nationalists and the Russian Orthodox Church as can be seen at events like the “Moscow the Third Rome” conference last year where former intelligence officer Leonid Reshetnikov, now at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies spoke with Orthodox leaders, Dugin and Konstantin Malofeyev, the businessman who is now a witness in an investigation and was reported to have been searched himself by police, which he denies.

The following is an excerpt of the materials Ponomarev has selected:

Sputnik&Pogrom

The editorial board of the nationalist web site sputnikandpogrom.com which is led by YegorProsvirnin, posted a comment on Facebook.

If we speak about conscience, then the new Minsk agreements are a betrayal of everything that the militia fought for, including some of our readers. There is no Novorossiya, no DNR, no LNR only “certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions” with a clownish, semi-autonomous status. This completely contradicts all the aims of the insurgency. So that’s how it is in general.

But it also contradicts the aims of Russian policy in Ukraine which hoped to turn the DNR and LNR into two subjects of the Ukrainian Federation which would block the decisions to enter NATO or the EU there. In its current version, the Agreements of the DNR and LNR cannot prevent Ukraine from entering NATO. They can only elect their district prosecutors.

The agreement contracts not only all the aims of the uprising but all the aims of Russian policy in Ukraine. And that means that it will not last long, if it enters into force at all.

Novoye Vremya [New Time]

In the Ukrainian publication Novoye Vremya, commentator Ivan Yakovin noted about the Minsk agreements that Moscow had essentially managed to achieve the very federalization of Ukraine that supporters of the DNR advocated when there was no war:

Although the word federalization does not appear anywhere in the document, the territories under control of the fighters will receive such broad rights that it would be difficult to call it anything else. The situation in the Donbass will be approximately like this: local authorities formed on the basis of the law “On Special Status,” their own army (the ranks of the fighters re-made into the “police”), their own courts and prosecutor’s office and their own language policy. With that, they willl have financing from Kiev and unlimited political influence from Moscow. All of this will be fixed not only in laws but in the Constitution of the country which will be extremely hard to win back.

Patriots of Novorossiya

There is no Novorossiya. There is no DNR and LNR. There are certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk region, whose “pecularities” Ukraine has graciously promised to “take into account.”

For this, essentially, tens of thousands of people died, including thousands of militia who had the misfortune to believe in this Erefiya [a pejorative term for the Russian Federation based on the initials -- The Interpreter].

Of course it’s shocking, in general. So troops had to be brought into the Donbass back in mid-August, kill the population of a small town in battles and shelling, receive several stages of international sanctions, and possibly forever ruin relations with the Western world — and not even get from Ukraine the status of official autonomy for the DNR and LNR. And even the very names of the DNR and LNR — they didn’t manage to legalize them in the documents. You’d have to be Putin in order to achieve such an impressive result. I take my hat off.

Kirill Frolov, Russian Orthodox activist and adept of the “Russian Spring” in all its manifestations, echoes Olshansky:

According to the [document] apparently supported by the “contact group,” the Dill-weed [pejorative term for Ukrainians -- The Interpreter] border guards will occupy the border of Russia and Novorossiya only when Ukraine does what they don’t intend to do — conduct constitutional reform with the “coordination of the leaders of certain districts of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions.” Thus Minsk-2 is not worth a kopeck. But the text itself looks awful, like a complete and unconditional capitulation of Novorossiya and Russia, according to which there are no DNR and LNR…

Nationalist Yegor Kholmogorov, editor-in-chief ofRusskiy Obozrevatel’, who is categorically in disagreement with Olshansky and Frolov:

The only complain that I can seriously make to Putin is a very serious complaint, and it consists of the fact that he signs these kinds of papers all the time, thus providing legal material for future accusations against himself. It is understood that Ukraine will break Minsk-2. It is understood that everyone understands this. But the West’s complaints will nevertheless be made to Putin. They’ll say, you signed this and you promised this, and then didn’t fulfill it — you are a deceiver. That, of course is a huge strategic mistake. But all this talk about “betrayal of Novorossiya” in this context is nonsense, of course.

In fact, as we pointed out in our report on the actual original Russian of the Minsk document, neither Putin nor Poroshenko signed it; it is signed by the same parties as the original Minsk agreement, which are the leaders of the DNR and LNR, the Russian ambassador to Kiev, and former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma.

Slon.ru’s journalist Ponomarev also points out that the extremists in Ukraine aren’t happy with the Minsk document. He cites Andrei Denisenko from Svoboda, an ultranationalist party that in fact did not meet the 5% threshold to get into the parliament, but does have a few single-mandate seats. Denisenko says that point 10 of the agreement regarding “disarmament of all unlawful groups” enables the DNR and LNR in fact to stay armed, as they get to form “the police” of the “certain regions” — in other words, simply to convert themselves from “militia” to “police.”

Meanwhile, groups like Right Sector, which have joined the armed battalions, will be required to disarm under this law, says Denisenko. To be sure, the Minsk agreement speaks about the “withdrawal of foreign troops” — which Europe and Ukraine understand as Russian troops. But given that Russia denies it has any troops, it means that Poroshenko’s intent to disband the volunteer battalions will still leave Russian troops mingled with the DNR untouched.

Ponomarev also cites Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin aide who fell out of favor when he counseled Putin not to switch places with Medvedev in the elections as this would anger the public. Pavlovsky was instrumental in the Kremlin’s efforts to disrupt the Orange Revolution and the democratic government that resulted from it, which ultimately ended in Viktor Yanukovych taking power. Ponomarev describes Pavlovsky as “taking a neutral position” although “fairly vague” about the Minsk agreements.

The infrastructure of the so-called “military assistance to the Donbass” has been turned into a quasi-region of the RF, tied to the border territories. The dream of the old national warriors against “Erefiya” has come true. Now this trophic ulcer on the border is trying to become a state surrogate, an alternative to Russia itself. The DNR/LNR, as an internal Ukrainian subject are not to blame for this — such is our usual means of delegating issues. However, the “delegates” will not give up to Putin their key to surrogate power which equals the back door to the Kremlin. More likely they will give up Putin himself.

Perhaps Pavlovsky’s indeed cryptic statement is better understood by seeing the image on his Facebook to go with this post. It’s a bear clawing at the car of a man wearing a cap with a red star — which apparently symbolizes Russia having to fight with some national communist elements (communists in the form of ultranationalists are the only real threat to Putin).

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Page 5

Obama administration warily eyes Ukraine-Russia cease-fire while mulling arms support
Friday February 13th, 2015 at 7:50 PM

The Obama administration said Friday that it is still weighing whether to provide U.S. weapons to

Ukraine’s military and that the success or failure of a delicate peace deal reached this week to end the nation’s conflict with Russia-backed separatists will affect the calculus of the decision.

Administration officials said they believed the Russian military was still moving “tanks and missile systems” across the border into eastern Ukraine, even as violence surged between Ukrainian forces and the separatists ahead of a Sunday morning cease-fire agreed to under this week’s deal.

“Russian units along the border with Ukraine are preparing a large shipment of supplies to pro-Russian forces fighting in eastern Ukraine,” State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki told reporters in Washington on Friday afternoon. “This is clearly not in the spirit of this week’s agreement.”

Analysts had predicted a spike in violence in eastern Ukraine Friday and Saturday as the two sides of the conflict seek to expand their lines before the shooting is supposed to stop at midnight Saturday. The Associated Press reported that clashes appear only to have increased since a peace agreement was sealed Thursday in the Belarusian capital of Minsk by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France.

Following its passage, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautiously described the cease-fire deal as “a glimmer of hope” in the conflict that has killed more than 5,000 people since last year.

In a joint statement Friday, leaders from Western powers involved in the G-7 said they “welcome” the peace deal, but are prepared to take collective action if the cease-fire fails to take hold with both Ukrainian forces and the Russia-backed separatists pulling back their weaponry from the conflict’s front lines in eastern Ukraine.

“All parties should refrain from actions in the coming days that would hinder the start of the cease-fire,” the leaders said. “The G7 stands ready to adopt appropriate measures against those who … do not observe the agreed comprehensive ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons.”

While hope for the cease-fire appeared to have been put on the back burner in what had been a growing debate within the Obama administration over whether to begin sending in American weaponry to bolster Ukraine’s military, Mrs. Psaki said Friday that possibility “remains on the table.”

“Obviously, we’ll be watching closely to see what happens over the course of the coming days,” she said.

Congress gave the administration authorization in December to begin shipping weapons to Ukraine. Domestic pressure to send U.S. drones and armor-piercing anti-tank missiles to Ukrainian troops mounted last week with the release of a report by three influential U.S. think tanks, which asserted that as many as 1,000 Russian military and intelligence officers are now operating in easternUkraine.

The report pushed by the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs — as well as by some former Obama administration officials — argued the weapons shipments would send a clear message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that “the West will not accept the use of forces to change borders in Europe.”

While Washington and the European Union have leveled economic sanctions against several Russian officials and companies, the Obama administration has resisted providing anything other than “soft” support to Ukraine’s military, sending gas masks and radar technology but no missiles or other weapons in the fight against the Moscow-backed separatists.

Pressed on the issue Friday by The Washington Times, Mrs. Psaki said the Obama administration’s “priority” is to see this week’s peace agreement implemented.

“If the cease-fire works and it’s being implemented, I think it obviously would calibrate what we would do,” she said. “But let’s talk about it and see where we are in a couple of days.”

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mikenova shared this story from Uploads by Голос Америки. Минские договоренности: оценки Ведущие американские газеты в пятницу дали резко негативную оценку новым договоренностям Originally published... From: Голос Америки Views: 21 5 0 0...

» No Deal to Free Ukrainian Pilot, Russia Says
13/02/15 21:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. A spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin said the pilot, Nadiya V. Savchenko, was not covered by accords negotiated by Russia and Ukraine this week.

» Соцопрос на Украине: страх, депрессия, пессимизм. Но большинство — за войну - ИА REGNUM
13/02/15 21:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from В мире – Новости Google. ИА REGNUM Соцопрос на Украине: страх, депрессия, пессимизм. Но большинство — за войну ИА REGNUM Группа компаний Research & Branding Group опубликовала данные результатов всеукр...

» Even With Cease-Fire, Economy in Ukraine Is Crumbling
13/02/15 21:14 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . KIEV, Ukraine — The Merefa Glass factory, which has manufactured bottles and jars in Ukraine since 1896 and employed more than 2,000 people, has suspended operations because its main furnace is broken a...

» U.S. Accuses Kremlin of Joining Ukraine Rebels in Assault Ahead of Cease-Fire
13/02/15 21:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine — As fighting erupted throughout eastern Ukraine on Friday before a cease-fire at midnight on Saturday, the United States accused Russia of joining separatist rebels in an all-out att...

» The 5 Reasons Russia Has It Bad (But Ukraine Has It Worse) - TIME
13/02/15 21:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. TIME The 5 Reasons Russia Has It Bad (But Ukraine Has It Worse) TIME Alexander Zemlianichenko—AP German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Belarusian Pres...

» Argentine Prosecutors Still Pursuing Case Against President
13/02/15 21:10 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. An investigation into whether Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, helped Iran cover up its alleged involvement in a 1994 bombing is going forward despite last month's d...

» Russian cinema - The Economist
13/02/15 21:09 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. The Economist Russian cinema The Economist TO THOSE in the know, there are two Russian trailers for “Leviathan”, Andrei Zvyagintsev's new film, which opened in Moscow earlier this mon...

» UN: Mexico Must Probe Thousands of 'Disappearances'
13/02/15 21:09 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The United Nations watchdog called on Mexico on Friday to probe and prosecute alleged complicity of state forces in "disappearances," including a notorious case of 43 students believed mu...

» Currency Devaluation Baffles Shortage-plagued Venezuelans
13/02/15 21:08 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Venezuelans puzzled over the impact of a complicated currency devaluation and fretted that dire product shortages in the OPEC nation's recession-hit economy would not go away. President N...

» Russia This Week: Ultranationalists Angry over ‘Capitulation’ of Minsk Agreement
13/02/15 21:07 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The InterpreterThe Interpreter. In Russia This Week , you will find links to all the stories of Russia Update in the last week and to special features, plus an article following up on the news and trending...

» 2,297,9612,297,9612015-02-13#Obama
13/02/15 20:03 from Mike Nova - Google+
2,297,961 2,297,961 2015-02-13 #Obama The Invisible Elephant in Minsk Negotiations Hall: US arms for Ukraine | The U.S. and NATO Must Provide Ukraine With Weapons - Opinion - NYT US arms for Ukraine - GS Obama administration warily eyes ...

» Obama administration warily eyes Ukraine-Russia cease-fire while mulling arms support
13/02/15 18:50 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . The Obama administration said Friday that it is still weighing whether to provide U.S. weapons to Ukraine ’s military and that the success or failure of a delicate peace deal reached this week to end th...

» US says Russia still deploying heavy...
13/02/15 18:45 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Google News. US says Russia still deploying heavy arms in Ukraine Economic Times - ‎8 minutes ago‎ WASHINGTON: The United States charged Friday that Russia was continuing to deploy heavy ...

» US warily eyes new peace deal for...
13/02/15 18:43 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from US arms for Ukraine - Google News. Full coverage US warily eyes new peace deal for Ukraine El Paso Inc. - ‎12 minutes ago‎ The Obama administration is taking a wary, wait-and-see approach...

» U.S. faces quandary: Will sending arms to Ukraine help or do harm?
13/02/15 18:38 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from U.S. faces quandary: Will sending arms to Ukraine help or do harm? - Los Angeles Times. President Obama says he is weighing the growing calls for U.S. military aid to badly outgunned Ukraine in its nearly ...

» The U.S. and NATO Must Provide Ukraine With Weapons
13/02/15 18:34 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Responses to Deadlier Ties to Ukraine?. Orysia Lutsevych is a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House in London. Russia is waging a war against Ukraine using military, financial,...

» Wife of man found dead in hotel tells police he had been acting normally
13/02/15 17:38 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . D.C. police release video of person of interest in Thomas Circle stabbing (1:39) D.C. police officials have identified a person of interest in the fatal stabbing of 30-year-old lawyer David Messerschmitt, who...

» FBI opens inquiry into Chapel Hill shootings; Obama calls killings ‘brutal and outrageous’
13/02/15 17:34 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . The FBI announced Thursday that it would open an inquiry into the shootings of three young Muslims in Chapel Hill, N.C., a move that followed multiple calls this week for authorities to investigate the v...

» Crusaders and appeasers - The Washington Post
13/02/15 16:10 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Charles Krauthammer: Most Recent Articles and Archives. US President Barack Obama speaks before signing the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, H.R. 203, in the East Room of the White H...

» Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should cause much more than a hiccup in relations
13/02/15 16:08 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . A local man looks at the craters from the shells at the central street of Debaltsevo, Donetsk area, Ukraine, 20 January 2015. (Anastasia Vlasova/EPA) By Editorial Board January 21 EUROPEAN FOREIGN ministers m...

» Raise the stakes for Russia to deter its aggression in Ukraine
13/02/15 16:07 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . A tank crew displays the "Republic of Donetsk" flag as they drive along the road near the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Febuary 2, 2015. (Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images) By Editorial Board February 2...

» Ukraine needs strong Western support to fend off Russia’s aggression
13/02/15 16:07 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russia's President Vladimir Putin (C) listen to French President Francois Hollande during a meeting on resolving the Ukraine crisis at the Kremlin in Moscow February 6, 201...

» The Ukraine cease-fire does little to restrain Mr. Putin
13/02/15 16:04 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday announced a new cease-fire deal with Ukraine following peace talks, but questions remained whether Ukraine and the pro-Russian rebels have agreed on the deal’...

» How to ensure that Russia will stick to the Ukrainian cease-fire deal
13/02/15 15:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Fareed Zakaria: Most Recent Articles and Archives. Russian President Vladimir Putin talks to journalists after the Ukrainian peace negotiations at the Palace of Independence in Minsk, Belarus, 12 February ...

» Making the Ukraine Cease-Fire Stick
13/02/15 14:38 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . A “glimmer of hope” but “no illusion” was the inauspicious way Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, described the Ukraine cease-fire she and President François Hollande of France...

» Fighting Escalates Ahead of Ukraine Truce, Government Forces Surrounded at Rail Hub
13/02/15 14:35 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine — Government forces trapped in a strategic railway hub in eastern Ukraine came under heavy assault on Friday as Russian-backed rebel fighters sought to exploit the window ahead of a w...

» To Reach Ukraine Accord: High Diplomacy,' Dirty Games' and Pig's Fat
13/02/15 14:33 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . MINSK — The talks lasted more than 17 hours, during which a couple of "buckets" of coffee were drunk, and took place in what Ukraine's foreign minister, with some understatement, described as a "difficu...

» Russia is Winner in Minsk Talks
13/02/15 14:23 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from In Homeland Security. By William Tucker Chief Correspondent, In Homeland Security After 17 hours of negotiations between the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, a cease-fire agreement affecting...

» Poroshenko Reprieves Seen Fleeting as Ukrainians Sour on Leader
13/02/15 14:02 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose country fought a five-day war with Russia in 2008, revealed to an audience of Ukrainians what Vladimir Putin thought of their nation. “I had 36 ...

» Germany warns of more sanctions against Russia | Europe
13/02/15 13:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World Bulletin / Europe. Germany has urged Russia to stick to the new eastern Ukraine cease-fire deal agreed in Minsk and warned of fresh sanctions if the deal is not respected. The announcement ...

» Putin Comes Out On Top In New Minsk Agreement
13/02/15 13:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Vladimir Putin was the winner of the Minsk II peace accords. Territory gained by the rebels in violation of Minsk I appears to be conceded; there is no deadline for the pulling out of Russian regular troops a...

» Arming Ukraine is the diplomatic solution
13/02/15 13:53 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from KyivPost / Independence. Community. Trust. Americans like to say that “it is hard to see the forest because of the trees”. So, in the midst of all the diplomatic shuffling and shuttling, the tu...

» Fighting persists in eastern Ukraine despite ceasefire deal | News | DW.DE
13/02/15 13:51 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Ukraine's army and pro-Russian rebels in the country's east clashed on Friday, killing at least seven civilians and 11 soldiers in the past 24 hours, Ukraine's military spokesman Andrij Lysenko told reporters...

» Ukraine ultranationalist leader rejects Minsk peace deal, reserves right 'to continue war' — RT News
13/02/15 13:47 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from RT - News. Published time: February 13, 2015 15:45 Edited time: February 13, 2015 17:32 Right Sector's leader Dmitry Yarosh (center).(Reuters / David Mdzinarishvili) Ukraine’s Right Sector leader Dmi...

» Can Ukraine Accord End Conflict?
13/02/15 12:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. LONDON— When the leaders of four major countries convene at a neutral location for high-profile talks aimed at ending a war, results are expected. It took all night ̵...

» Nobody has firm belief in success of Minsk deal – Poroshenko - aysor.am
13/02/15 11:56 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from aysor.am - Hot news from Armenia. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said Friday that the new Minsk agreements on regulating the crisis in eastern Ukraine gives hope, but he is unsure whether they will b...

» Why Is Putin Smiling About Ukraine? In Kiev, Everybody Knows - The Daily Beast
13/02/15 11:53 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Paul Hackett / Reuters KIEV — The thick carpet of snow that covers central Kiev lends the city an artificial air of calm. In Independence Square, scene of the EuroMaidan revolution last year, the caf ...

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12/02/15 23:28 from Mike Nova - Google+
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» West and Ukraine cautious about Minsk ceasefire deal
12/02/15 22:43 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by AFP news agency. West and Ukraine cautious about Minsk ceasefire deal Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warns that it would be hard to make a success of a new peace deal between Kiev and pro-...

» Ukrainians display 'downed enemy drone'
12/02/15 22:42 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by AFP news agency. Ukrainians display 'downed enemy drone' Ukrainian soldiers in the war-torn east display what they claimed to be a downed separatist drone. Duration: 00:39. From: AFP news agency...

» 'I had taken a couple of souls': Chilling words of ex-Marine accused of shooting ... - Daily Mail
12/02/15 22:42 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. Daily Mail 'I had taken a couple of souls': Chilling words of ex-Marine accused of shooting ... Daily Mail Retired Marine Eddie Routh, the man accused of murdering famed sniper C...

» Army Gives First Ever Go-Ahead on Hormone Therapy for Chelsea Manning - Sputnik International
12/02/15 22:40 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. Army Gives First Ever Go-Ahead on Hormone Therapy for Chelsea Manning Sputnik International The US military has approved hormone treatment for convicted leaker Chelsea Manning - ...

» Venezuelan Soldiers, Students Face Off at Anti-Maduro Rallies
12/02/15 22:40 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Venezuelan troops blocked students marching against President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday as pro-government supporters also rallied on the anniversary of 2014 protests that led to 43 death...

» Top Democrats call on Oregon governor to resign
12/02/15 22:40 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from AP Top Headlines At 9:34 p.m. EST. SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon's top Democrats urged Gov. John Kitzhaber to resign Thursday, saying he cannot lead the state effectively amid a growing ethics scandal involvi...

» Erdogan chides Obama for silence on Chapel Hill murders
12/02/15 22:39 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Relations appear to have deteriorated as Turkish president reveals he no longer talks directly to his US counterpart Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday critici...

» Chelsea Manning allowed to have hormone therapy
12/02/15 22:38 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Reports suggest Army will allow treatment for former analyst who is serving 35-year sentence for WikiLeaks disclosure Chelsea Manning, the US Army intelligence analyst who was...

» Report: The US military just approved hormone therapy for Chelsea Manning - Vox
12/02/15 22:38 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. Slate Magazine Report: The US military just approved hormone therapy for Chelsea Manning Vox The US military will provide hormone therapy for Chelsea Manning, the 27-year-old US ...

» Hormone treatment approved for Chelsea Manning
12/02/15 22:37 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from AP Top Headlines At 9:34 p.m. EST. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Department officials said Thursday that hormone treatment for gender reassignment has been approved for Chelsea Manning, the former intelligenc...

» los angeles ca - Google Search
12/02/15 21:32 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . CA Legislators Tout Economic, Job Benefits of Climate Bills Streetsblog Los Angeles (blog) - 5 hours ago Share Shared on Google+. Yesterday, California legislators announced a package of bills that aim to ......

» Gunman Shot After Carjacking Pursuit is Gang Member
12/02/15 21:31 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . A 29-year-old parolee and gang member was identified as the driver who carjacked a woman and led police on a high-speed chase. Gordon Tokumatsu reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015. (...

» Teen Found Dead on Road in El Monte Named
12/02/15 21:28 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . A man with what appeared to be cuts on his body and injuries to his head was found dead on a road in El Monte early Wednesday. Toni Guinyard reports for Today on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015. (Published Wednesday...

» 2,290,8242,290,824
12/02/15 19:19 from Mike Nova - Google+
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» Data From Seized Computer Fuels a Surge in U.S. Raids on Al Qaeda
12/02/15 18:36 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. After retrieving a laptop in a strike on a Qaeda leader, American and Afghan commandos increased night raids on militants, even as the United States has declared the Afghanistan war essenti...

» Ukraine ceasefire: European leaders sceptical peace plan will work
12/02/15 15:27 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Worries privately voiced about potential escalation of fighting before truce is supposed to take hold in eastern Ukraine on Sunday European leaders on Thursday praised Germany...

» European leaders cautious over ‘Minsk 2’
12/02/15 15:26 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World News. Some see ‘glimmer of hope’ — others seek weakness in Ukraine ceasefire deal

» Putin greeted with mangled song
12/02/15 15:26 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from CNN.com - World. The Egyptian military orchestra welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin with an off-key version of his country's anthem.

» Puerto Rico Lawmakers Debate Fining Parents Of Obese Children
12/02/15 15:21 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Puerto Rico Lawmakers Debate Fining Parents Of Obese Children Lawmakers in Puerto Rico are debating a controversial bill that would fine parents of obese children up to $800 if they don't make efforts to impr...

» Experts 'Appalled' by Puerto Rican Bill to Fine Parents of Obese Children
12/02/15 15:18 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from ABC News: Health. Copy Obesity researchers say a Puerto Rican bill that would fine parents of obese children up to $800 is "unbelievable" and "unfair." Puerto Rican Sen. Gilberto Rodriguez filed a bill in ...

» These Programs Are Helping Fix A Broken U.S. Prison System
12/02/15 15:17 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Latino Voices - The Huffington Post. Most experts would argue the U.S. prison system is in need of change, and a number of programs are tackling this challenge in cities nationwide. A study by the Vera Ins...

» U.S. could ease sanctions on Russia if Minsk accords carried out: Kerry
12/02/15 15:13 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday said the United States could ease sanctions imposed on Russia for supporting pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine if two accords designed to end the c...

» Kerry Says US Might Ease Sanctions Against Russia / Sputnik International
12/02/15 15:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . World (updated 21:32 12.02.2015) 129 0 0 The US and European Union countries imposed sanctions against Russia for allegedly suppporting anti-Kiev rebels in Ukraine. Russia categorically denies ...

» IMF's Quiet Bailout Tempts Ukraine As Ceasefire Starts / Sputnik International
12/02/15 15:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Andre Alessandro — On Tuesday, the leaders of Europe, Ukraine and Russia concluded a grueling 17-hour negotiation settlement, arriving at a ceasefire. The concessions by either side ...

» 2,290,8272,290,8272015-02-12The Terms of Ukraine's Cease-Fire
12/02/15 15:11 from Mike Nova - Google+
2,290,827 2,290,827 2015-02-12 The Terms of Ukraine's Cease-Fire The Terms of Ukraine's Cease-Fire Thursday February 12 th , 2015 at 3:55 PM 1 Share Following marathon talks in Minsk that lasted more than 17 hours, the leaders of Germa...

» The Terms of Ukraine's Cease-Fire
12/02/15 14:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Following marathon talks in Minsk that lasted more than 17 hours, the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement that appears to align with the Kremlin's demands. The document calls f...

» Globe In Kiev: Ceasefire deal seen as just another victory for Putin
12/02/15 14:45 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The Globe and Mail - World. On the surface, the ceasefire deal reached to calm the fighting in eastern Ukraine is a triumph of diplomacy over force, a potential stepping stone toward a fuller peace agreeme...

» Top U.S. commander says he is offering options on Afghan drawdown - YouTube
12/02/15 14:31 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Published on Feb 12, 2015 Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, General John Campbell, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) says he has provid...

» james comey - Google Search
12/02/15 13:06 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . In the news FBI Director James Comey dives into debate over race, criminal justice CBS News ‎ - 2 hours ago WASHINGTON -- FBI Director James Comey will use a speech at Georgetown University on ... ...

» UPDATE 5-Russian assets rise on Ukraine ceasefire deal
12/02/15 12:51 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Thu Feb 12, 2015 9:34am EST * Shares and bonds rise, rouble gives up gains * Brent crude up 3 pct * Rosneft repays $7 billion loan tranche (Updates prices, adds CDS) By Alexander Winning and Vladimir Abramov ...

» CBS' Bob Simon dies in NYC car crash
12/02/15 11:52 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Video Keywords Brandeis University foreign service officer tragic loss Hudson River Bronx New York Plenty of people are sad to see 'Daily Show' host Jon Stewart go, but this could mean exciting changes for la...

» Bob Simon of ’60 Minutes’ killed in car crash
12/02/15 11:39 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from | Bob Simon of ’60 Minutes’ killed in car crashNew York Post. Modal Trigger Bob Simon poses on the roof of the CBS Broadcast Center in New York on March 5, 1999. AP Simon embraces his wife, Francoise (righ...

» Bob Simon, ‘60 Minutes’ Correspondent, Dies in Manhattan Car Crash at 73
12/02/15 11:37 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Bob Simon, an award-winning CBS News correspondent whose career spanned nearly 50 years and many major world conflicts, was killed in a car crash in Manhattan on Wednesday, according to the network and the au...

» bob simon cbs - Google Search
12/02/15 11:35 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . In the news CBS News correspondent Bob Simon, 1941-2015 CBS News ‎ - 13 hours ago " Bob Simon was a giant of broadcast journalism, and a dear friend to everyone in the CBS ... Scott Pelley: Bob Si...

» Guns fall silent as marathon talks...
12/02/15 10:56 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from minsk talks - Google News. Guns fall silent as marathon talks lead to Ukraine peace deal MetroNews Canada - ‎5 minutes ago‎ MINSK , Belarus – Guns will fall silent, heavy weapons wi...

» BBC News - Ukraine crisis: Russian attitudes harden amid downturn
12/02/15 10:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from BBC News - Home. 12 February 2015 Last updated at 07:37 ET Putin loyalists seem more determined than ever to support the Russian president despite the squeeze As details are announced of a ceasefire in eas...

» Ukraine crisis: this conflict is far from over
12/02/15 10:49 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Ukraine Crisis - Latest news and developments from Ukraine and Crimea. After nearly a year of bitter fighting which has claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people and made more than a million people homel...

» 'One-sided Minsk deal on Ukraine asks nothing of Putin'
12/02/15 10:24 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Ukraine Crisis - Latest news and developments from Ukraine and Crimea. If this could be achieved, then the departure of Russian forces could be verified and they would not be able to re-enter without someo...

» Minsk agreement on Ukraine crisis: text in full
12/02/15 10:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Ukraine Crisis - Latest news and developments from Ukraine and Crimea. • This process will be assisted by OSCE with the support of the Trilateral Contact Group. • Effective monitoring and verif...

» Ukraine peace deal: what was agreed in Minsk
12/02/15 09:53 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Ukraine Crisis - Latest news and developments from Ukraine and Crimea. It was former president Viktor Yanukovych’s rejection of that agreement under Russian pressure that sparked the revolution that ...

» Marathon Ukraine talks end with peace deal, but pitfalls remain
12/02/15 08:57 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Comments on: Marathon Ukraine talks end with peace deal, but pitfalls remain. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said there was no agreement on any autonomy or federalization for eastern Ukraine. MINSK, ...

» 2,290,7582,290,7582015-02-11#Army
12/02/15 06:56 from Mike Nova - Google+
2,290,758 2,290,758 2015-02-11 #Army #Russia Russian Troops Move To Border As Catastrophic Ukrainian Army Defeat Looms by The European Union Times Russian Troops Move To Border As Catastrophic Ukrainian Army Defeat Looms by The Europea...

» US officials stress need to combat IS's use of social media
11/02/15 22:37 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by AFP news agency. US officials stress need to combat IS's use of social media US officials on Wednesday called for increased security measures to prevent violent extremism from spreading to US so...

» David Cameron branded the 'dodgy prime minister' in HSBC tax attack
11/02/15 22:36 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Ed Miliband makes accusation after PM refuses four times to say whether he discussed tax avoidance at HSBC with Stephen Green Related: Ed Miliband attacks 'dodgy' PM for failu...

» China Is the Big Winner in the Conflict Between Russia and the West
11/02/15 22:36 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from TIME. On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a joint press conference to declare solidarity in their approach to the conflict in Ukraine. “Russian aggression has on...

» Ukrainian leader Poroshenko glares at Putin as his Russian counterpart smiles during peace talks
11/02/15 22:36 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from News | Mail Online. Meeting in Minsk amid escalating conflict in eastern Ukraine, one telltale image shows Vladmir Putin (left) giving a smug smile while Petro Poroshenko (right) glares across the table him.

» Leaders hold Ukraine peace talks as fighting surges
11/02/15 22:34 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. MINSK (Reuters) - The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine held peace talks in Belarus on Wednesday, while in Ukraine pro-Moscow separatists tightened the pressure on Kiev by...

» Former Head of Inquiry Into Gaza War Says He Faced Pressure and Threats
11/02/15 22:33 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. William Schabas, who resigned last week, said his appointment to a United Nations inquiry into last summer’s Gaza conflict had been troubled from the outset.

» Towers of Secrecy: At the Time Warner Center, an Enclave of Powerful Russians
11/02/15 22:29 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. Foreign money has fueled a billionaires row of residential buildings overlooking Central Park, including the Plaza, left, and the Time Warner Center in the background.

» Bruce Jenner pictured talking on his phone while driving three days after fatal car crash
11/02/15 20:27 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from News | Mail Online. **WEB ONLY**\nEXCLUSIVE: *** PREMIUM RATES APPLY**\nBruce Jenner appears to be talking on his cell phone as he drives in Thousand Oaks, California.Photos taken 3:45pm on Tuesday.Talking...

» Strip away all the sex and it’s all about money, money, and dubious merch
11/02/15 20:27 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Two hours of wealth porn and endless chances to win a Fifty Shades mattress? Please, what’s the safe word? What a time it is to be alive! For this week of all weeks is when an...

» 2 missing after military jet crash - Irish Independent
11/02/15 20:26 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Irish Independent 2 missing after military jet crash Irish Independent A Russian military jet has crashed while trying to land and the fate of its two crew member is unknown, the Defen...

» Ex-Romanian president aide charged in Microsoft probe
11/02/15 20:20 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by AFP news agency. Ex-Romanian president aide charged in Microsoft probe An adviser and minister under former Romanian president Traian Basescu is being charged with fraud and laundering kickback ...

» U.S. to Withdraw Nearly All Troops Fighting Ebola
11/02/15 20:16 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. President Obama said Wednesday that all but about 100 American military personnel serving in West Africa would be coming home.

» DSK admits rough approach to sex
11/02/15 20:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from CNN.com - World. Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn conceded Wednesday that his approach to sex is rougher than that of most men, as he took the stand for a second day in his t...

» Russian Troops Move To Border As Catastrophic Ukrainian Army Defeat Looms
11/02/15 20:08 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The European Union Times - World News, Breaking News. A new Ministry of Defense ( MoD ) (MoD) report circulating in the Kremlin today ahead of the “last chance” peace talks on the Ukrainian crisis, schedul...

» Ukraine's PM: IMF Aid Accord Within Reach
11/02/15 20:06 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Ukraine and a team from the International Monetary Fund could reach an agreement on further financial aid for the country's war-battered economy in the next 48 hours, even though talks ar...

» Rouhani tells world: No end to Middle East strife without Iran
11/02/15 20:05 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by AFP news agency. Rouhani tells world: No end to Middle East strife without Iran Marking the 1979's Islamic revolution anniversary, President Hassan Rouhani said the world needs Iran to help stab...

» NATO planes police the skies over Baltics
11/02/15 20:04 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by AFP news agency. NATO planes police the skies over Baltics NATO military planes take part in a training mission over Lithuania as part of the Baltic air-policing mission based in Siauliai. Durat...

» Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino sentenced to 16 years in jail
11/02/15 17:18 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from News | Mail Online. Francesco Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship when it crashed into rocks off Gigilo island, Italy, in 2012 killing 32 people, has been sentenced to 16 years in jail.

» Russian Citizen Accused Of Spying By The U.S. Pleads Not Guilty
11/02/15 17:18 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. A Russian citizen accused of being part of a spy ring while working as a banker in New York City pleaded not guilty on February 11.

» Russian TV Outlines Scenario For Military Invasion Of Europe
11/02/15 17:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. After a Polish official proposes moving Victory Day celebrations from Moscow, a national Russian television network describes the ease with which the Russian military cou...

» Boris Johnson now sings Hillary Clinton's praises
11/02/15 17:14 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. London mayor, on profile-building tour of US, pleased that presidential hopeful has put his 2007 comments behind her Boris Johnson had some apologising to do when he met US pr...

» Report Warns Russia's 'Hybrid Warfare' In Ukraine Could Inspire Others
11/02/15 17:13 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. In a new report, a top defense think tank warns that Russia's destabilizing actions in Ukraine, including "sophisticated combinations of conventional and unconventional m...

» Boehner challenges Senate Democrats to 'get off their ass'
11/02/15 17:13 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from AP Top Headlines At 4 p.m. EST. WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Speaker John Boehner challenged Senate Democrats Wednesday to "get off their ass" and pass a bill to fund the Homeland Security Department and restr...

» Swiss Embassy In Baku Admits Housing Azeri Rights Defender
11/02/15 17:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Swiss public television has reported that Azerbaijani rights activist Emin Huseynov is being sheltered at the Swiss Embassy in Baku.

» Peace Talks in Minsk, Belarus - Feb. 11, 2015
11/02/15 17:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany are gathering for crucial talks in the hope of negotiating an end to fighting between Russia-backed separatist and government forces in east...

» Obama Asks Congress For Authorization To Use Force Against IS
11/02/15 17:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. U.S. President Barack Obama has asked Congress to authorize the use of force against the Islamic State (IS) group in a resolution.

» Prince Charles strikes a pose in natty cream suit and sunglasses during Saudi visit
11/02/15 17:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from News | Mail Online. The Prince of Wales visited the ancient Al-Ula site today, with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. He wore a natty cream linen suit for the trip into ...

» Boehner Implores Senate Dems to Pass Homeland Security Bill - ABC News
11/02/15 17:10 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. Sacramento Bee Boehner Implores Senate Dems to Pass Homeland Security Bill ABC News House Speaker John Boehner implored Senate Democrats today to “get off their ass” and approve ...

» Prosecutor: Ex-Marine, intoxicated, killed 'American Sniper'
11/02/15 17:10 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from AP Top Headlines At 4 p.m. EST. STEPHENVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A former Marine on trial for capital murder in the death of Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL depicted in the blockbuster "American Sniper," was n...

» 'American Sniper' Trial: Details of Fatal Shooting Revealed in Opening Statements
11/02/15 17:09 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from ABC News: U.S.. Copy Eddie Ray Routh drank whiskey and used 'wet' marijuana before killing " American Sniper " Chris Kyle and another man at a Texas gun range, then went to order a burrito at Taco Bell, a ...

» At 'American Sniper' murder trial, a psychosis defense
11/02/15 17:06 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . The late Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL and author of the book "American Sniper," poses in Midlothian, Texas, in 2013. (Photo: Paul Moseley, AP) STEPHENVILLE, Texas — The wife of American Sniper author ...

» At American Sniper murder trial, a psychosis defense - USA TODAY
11/02/15 16:50 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. CBS News At American Sniper murder trial, a psychosis defense USA TODAY The killer of American Sniper Chris Kyle used two guns to shoot Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, mor...

» Boston Buried in Near-Record Snowfall | The New York Times
11/02/15 16:49 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by The New York Times. Boston Buried in Near-Record Snowfall | The New York Times Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts deployed National Guard troops to help with snow removal as the state tried to ...

» Did you know Ukraine isn’t technically at war?
11/02/15 16:48 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from GlobalPost - Home. KYIV — But it might be soon. read more

» Obama administration weighs Afghan request to slow withdrawal of U.S. troops
11/02/15 16:45 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is considering a request from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to slow the pace of the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a senior adm...

» Darwin's Finches Reveal Role of Genes in Evolution
11/02/15 16:44 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Scientists have identified a genetic mechanism that explains how birds develop different beak shapes in response to changes in their environment, a vivid illustration of evolution work...

» Craig Stephen Hicks arrested after 3 Muslim students shot dead in Chapel Hill
11/02/15 16:41 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from News | Mail Online. Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, has been charged with three counts of murder after three Muslim students were shot dead in Meadowmont, close to the University of North Carolina campus.

» Attack is the best form of defence: the golden rules of political campaigning
11/02/15 16:40 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Come election time, the rival parties’ advertising strategies plumb new depths of dirty trickery. We trawl the archives for the most vicious, most effective campaigns ‘There a...

» More casualties in Donetsk mortar strike before peace summit
11/02/15 16:39 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by AFP news agency. More casualties in Donetsk mortar strike before peace summit In the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, in Ukraine, city officials say that eight people have been killed, including six...

» Boris Johnson plays down 'sadistic nurse' remarks about Hillary Clinton as pair ... - The Independent
11/02/15 16:39 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. The Independent Boris Johnson plays down 'sadistic nurse' remarks about Hillary Clinton as pair ... The Independent Hillary Clinton has warned during talks with Boris Johnson that the ...

» Costa Concordia Captain Guilty Of Manslaughter
11/02/15 16:39 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. The captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner has been jailed for 16 years after being found guilty of multiple manslaughter.

» Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino guilty of manslaughter
11/02/15 16:38 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Skipper of cruise ship that sank off the coast of Italy in 2012 killing 32 people has been sentenced to a total of 16 years in jail The captain of the Costa Concordia, the cru...

» Captain Schettino and the sinking of the Costa Concordia - video report
11/02/15 16:38 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World news + Video | The Guardian. In 2012 the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia sank off the coast of Tuscany claiming 32 lives. Captain Francesco Schettino was this week sentenced to 16 years in jail f...

» Captain found guilty in Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 - Fox News
11/02/15 16:37 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Fox News Captain found guilty in Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 Fox News Francesco Schettino arrives to attend his trial at the Grosseto court, Italy, Wednesday, Feb.11, 2015...

» Costa Concordia: How The Disaster Unfolded
11/02/15 16:34 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. As the captain of the cruise ship is sentenced for multiple manslaughter, Sky News takes a look at how events unfolded on board.

» Ukraine fighting rages as leaders gather for last-ditch truce talks
11/02/15 15:25 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany arrived in Minsk on Wednesday for last-ditch talks aimed at agreeing a ceasefire in the 10-month conflict in eastern Ukraine , even as fighting raged on the ...

» BBC News - Ukraine conflict: Putin shakes hands with Poroshenko as talks begin
11/02/15 14:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from BBC News - Europe. 11 February 2015 Last updated at 13:33 ET (From left) Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro ...

» Leaders Begin High-Stakes Summit on Ukraine Cease-Fire
11/02/15 13:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . European leaders began a high-stakes summit Wednesday to try to negotiate a cease-fire in the 10-month conflict in eastern Ukraine, raising hopes that Kiev and the rebels were close to hammering out some kind...

» Disconnect between diplomacy, reality in Ukraine
11/02/15 13:53 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Washington (CNN) I left Ukraine last weekend with a deep sense of foreboding. I wasn't imagining a severe deterioration of the crisis on the ground. I was hearing it from American and western diplomats, Ukrai...

» What Is the Purpose of Society?
11/02/15 13:51 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Continue reading the main story The world of food and agriculture symbolizes most of what’s gone wrong in the United States. But because food is plentiful for most people, and the damage that convention...

» World Leaders Meet in Belarus to Negotiate Cease-Fire in Ukraine
11/02/15 13:33 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . MINSK, Belarus — The leaders of Russia , Ukraine , France and Germany gathered here late Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to negotiate a peace agreement for Ukraine and quiet an escalating, year-old con...

» America must lead Europe in fight for Ukrainian sovereignty
11/02/15 13:13 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . European pressure for Russia to end the Ukrainian conflict is waning, and President Obama must be strong in encouraging partners to hold the line against Putin’s aggression. Ukrainians are reachin...

» LIVE: “Normandy format” Ukraine peace talks start in Minsk - YouTube
11/02/15 12:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Started on Feb 11, 2015 France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine hold a new round of talks on February 11 in Minsk, Belarus in order to attempt to find a political solution regarding the conflict in eastern Ukrain...

» New violence in Ukraine diminishes hopes before 4-way summit
11/02/15 12:38 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Rockets killed more than 10 civilians and soldiers deep in Ukrainian government-held territory on Tuesday and rebels pushed on with an assault on an army-held rail junction, setbacks that showed Kiev's positi...

» Fighting Rages in E. Ukraine as Leaders Gather in Minsk
11/02/15 12:34 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Deadly fighting continued Wednesday in Ukraine, as the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany prepared to hold a summit on the conflict that has killed more than 5,300 people sinc...

» US sending around 600 paratroopers to Ukraine to train troops
11/02/15 12:30 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Feb. 11, 2015: People look at burned buses hit by shelling at a central bus station in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. (AP) A battalion of around 600 American paratroopers will be heading to Ukraine next mont...

» Fighting in Ukraine continues ahead...
11/02/15 12:13 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from minsk talks - Google News. Fighting in Ukraine continues ahead of peace talks The Detroit News - ‎13 minutes ago‎ Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said sh...

» 'Normandy 4' Ukraine peace talks in Minsk LIVE UPDATES — RT News
11/02/15 12:06 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from RT - News. TheCrux I don´t call someone who only defend their homes and families and lifes, terrorists. The meaning behind the word is terror, in this view of the words meaning, the only party which c...

» Leaders gather in Minsk for Ukraine crisis summit
11/02/15 12:05 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Story highlights Ukraine's President joins leaders of France and Germany in Minsk, Belarus Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to Minsk for the meetings, the Kremlin says Separatist leaders gather wi...

» 3 admirals censured in 'Fat Leonard' scandal - Military Times
11/02/15 12:00 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. 3 admirals censured in 'Fat Leonard' scandal Military Times Three flag officers have become the highest-ranking officials thus far punished in the Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA...

» Towers of Secrecy: Mexican Political Family Has Close PRI Ties, and Homes in the U.S.
11/02/15 12:00 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. José Murat Casab, left, a former governor of Oaxaca and an influential member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Members of his immediate family have bought at least six properties i...

» Solicitor demands divorce after wife 'touted herself as lesbian prostitute on the Internet'
11/02/15 11:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from News | Mail Online. John Lindner from Bromley, London, 63, told a court his wife Sharon had ‘multiple lesbian relationships for money and kind’ after advertising her services as a prostitute on the website...

» 3 sentenced to prison in slaying of black man - Hattiesburg American
11/02/15 11:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. 3 sentenced to prison in slaying of black man Hattiesburg American JACKSON – Three young white men who admitted they were out hunting black people to attack when they beat, ran o...

» Broadway Play Explores Islamophobia, Tensions, in Post 9-11 US
11/02/15 11:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. As a novelist and playwright, Pakistani American Ayad Akhtar has focused on the cultural interplay -- and tensions -- between Islam and the West. In 2013, he became the first American pla...

» 3 Navy rear admirals reprimanded in corruption scandal - Bismarck Tribune
11/02/15 11:56 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. 3 Navy rear admirals reprimanded in corruption scandal Bismarck Tribune SAN DIEGO (AP) — The secretary of the Navy has reprimanded three rear admirals in a case linked to a massi...

» Ukraine: Obama Warns Putin Ahead Of Talks
11/02/15 11:55 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. The United States issues a warning to Russia's Vladimir Putin as leaders gather in Belarus to discuss a Ukrainian peace deal.

» Parents of Obese Children in Puerto Rico Could Face Fines of Up to $800
11/02/15 11:53 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from TIME. Parents in Puerto Rico will be fined up to $800 if their children are obese, if a bill currently being debated in the legislature is implemented. Local senator Gilberto Rodríguez Rodriguez stated tha...

» Greece and Ukraine have something in common: They could both sink the euro zone
11/02/15 11:52 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from GlobalPost - Home. LISBON, Portugal — Europe's twin nightmares have collided this week, forcing the continent's leaders into desperate efforts to head off the risk of wider conflict with Russia and a...

» Free speech or treason? Welcome to Ukraine’s information war
11/02/15 11:52 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from GlobalPost - Home. KYIV — To outside observers, Ruslan Kotsaba’s recent appeal on YouTube to boycott Ukraine’s current military call-up seemed like one man’s protest against the sys...

» Rebel attacks kill 19 Ukrainian soldiers near rail junction in east: Kiev military
11/02/15 11:51 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. KIEV (Reuters) - Nineteen Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 78 wounded in rebel attacks near the key railway town of Debaltseve, which government troops are defending, a military...

» Three Muslim family members killed near UNC-Chapel Hill
11/02/15 11:48 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NY Daily News- Top Stories. Three young members of a Muslim family were killed by their neighbor Tuesday afternoon in their home over a simmering dispute about parking near the University of North Carolina...

» Joe Lieberman: America must answer Putin now
11/02/15 11:16 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NY Daily News- Top Stories. The thoroughly unsettled world in which we now live was on display in Munich this past weekend. At the city’s annual security conference, there was much talk of both Iran&...

» Vladimir Putin Losing Control Of Insurrection He Started: Pro-Russian Rebels Ignore Russia
11/02/15 11:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from GND.com News Home Page. By Matthew McCabe Published May 18th, 2014 23 To most political and social observers of the mess in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is trying to re-establ...

» Ukraine crisis: Minsk peace talks - live
11/02/15 11:10 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Ukraine Crisis - Latest news and developments from Ukraine and Crimea. Ms Mogherini also urged Moscow to take the chance to become a "responsible actor" and help end the 10-month war between Kiev and pro-R...

» BBC News - Ukraine conflict: Death toll rises ahead of peace talks
11/02/15 10:44 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from BBC News - Europe. 11 February 2015 Last updated at 08:04 ET Footage of the burnt-out shells of vehicles in a bus shelter in Donetsk More than 20 people have died in violence in eastern Ukraine as the lead...

» Battle Rages in Ukraine Ahead of Talks
11/02/15 10:20 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Heavy fighting continued in eastern Ukraine just hours before leaders were expected to gather for a high-stakes summit to negotiate a cease-fire in the 10-month-old conflict between pr...

» Leaders due in Minsk for Ukraine peace talks as heavy fighting continues
11/02/15 10:20 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Last-ditch diplomatic push in Belarusian capital as Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany meet in attempt bid to secure ceasefire Leaders from Ukraine, Russia, France and German...

» President Obama Expected to Ask Congress for New Anti-Terror Authorization
11/02/15 10:19 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. President Barack Obama is expected to ask Congress to approve a new three-year authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) against Islamic State (IS) and other extremist groups. Th...

» Ukraine peace summit overshadowed by some of war's worst fighting
11/02/15 10:10 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - The leaders of France , Germany, Russia and Ukraine were due to attend a peace summit on Wednesday, but Ukraine's pro-Moscow separatists diminished the chance of a deal by launchi...

» Ukraine president Poroshenko to brief EU summit in Brussels
11/02/15 09:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will brief EU leaders at a summit in Brussels on Thursday, alongside the German and French leaders, on the results of Wednesda...

» Live Updates: Costa Concordia Trial Verdict
11/02/15 09:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. The cruise ship, captained by Francesco Schettino, rammed into the island of Giglio off Italy in January 2012, killing 32 people.

» Three Family Members Shot Dead Near University of North Carolina - NBCNews.com
11/02/15 09:14 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. NBCNews.com Three Family Members Shot Dead Near University of North Carolina NBCNews.com A suspected gunman has been charged with the triple murder of three family members near a...

» Costa Concordia Captain Expects To Learn Fate
11/02/15 09:14 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. Francesco Schettino is due to address a court in Italy, where he faces 26 years in jail over the disaster that killed 32 people.

» Trial Opens for Ex-Marine Accused in 'American Sniper' Death - ABC News
11/02/15 09:14 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. Sacramento Bee Trial Opens for Ex-Marine Accused in 'American Sniper' Death ABC News A Texas rodeo store has temporarily run out of baseball caps honoring Chris Kyle, the Navy SE...

» France to close embassy in Yemen over security concerns
11/02/15 09:13 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. PARIS (Reuters) - France will close its embassy in Yemen from Feb. 13 due to security concerns and has asked its citizens to leave the country as soon as possible, the embassy said on ...

» Survey Shows American Firms Feel Unwelcome and Targeted in China
11/02/15 09:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Top-level managers at some 500 American companies in China say that although their businesses are turning a profit, they increasingly feel unwelcome and targeted for scrutiny by the Beiji...

» Somebody give Twitter's chief financial officer a Twitter lesson
11/02/15 09:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. Social media company executive Anthony Noto’s account suspended after he loses account to hacker Of all the people one would expect to understand how Twitter works, the compan...

» Jeb Bush Releases Emails - But Stunt Backfires
11/02/15 09:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. The self-styled eGovernor releases emails from his time in office, complete with people's social security and phone numbers.

» Obama seeks some limits on ground troops for Islamic State fight
11/02/15 09:11 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will propose to Congress on Wednesday a new three-year authorization for the use of force against Islamic State with limits on U.S. c...

» 102,284,811102,284,8112015-02-10The long view with Russia: "What the West needs now is not merely
11/02/15 06:16 from Mike Nova - Google+
10 2,284,811 10 2,284,811 2015-02-10 The long view with Russia: "What the West needs now is not merely a military policy but a comprehensive, long-term strategy designed to reinforce Ukrainian statehood and integrate Ukraine into Europe ...

» Netanyahu Says Speech to Congress Is His Duty
11/02/15 01:25 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. Israel’s premier sought to put the roiling controversy in historical context and evoked his longstanding sense of mission regarding Iran.

» Obama to pull out Ebola troops
11/02/15 01:25 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. All but 100 of the 1,300 personnel deployed in west Africa to be recalled, says White House, as outbreak eases Barack Obama is set to bring back nearly all of the 1,300 US tro...

» Mexico detains brother of ex-governor over alleged embezzlement
11/02/15 01:24 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican authorities said on Tuesday they had detained the brother of a former governor of Mexico's restive western state of Guerrero for his role in an alleged ...

» US to Withdraw Most Troops Fighting Ebola
11/02/15 01:23 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. President Barack Obama is expected to announce plans Wednesday to withdraw most of the American troops assigned to battle the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and to declare that the U.S. m...

» Anne Applebaum: The long view with Russia
10/02/15 23:49 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Anne Applebaum: Most Recent Articles and Archives. In an ordinary year, not all that much happens at the annual Munich security conference. NATO defense ministers murmur earnest platitudes. Experts furrow ...

» The long view with Russia
10/02/15 21:56 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Anne Applebaum: Most Recent Articles and Archives. In an ordinary year, not all that much happens at the annual Munich security conference . NATO defense ministers murmur earnest platitudes. Experts furrow...

» Ukraine crisis: 'Don't arm Kiev' Russia warns US - BBC News
10/02/15 21:50 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. BBC News Ukraine crisis: 'Don't arm Kiev' Russia warns US BBC News A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has told the European Parliament that "all-out war" could result if...

» Посол Ирана: взаимопонимание с РФ ведет к результативным соглашениям - РИА Новости
10/02/15 21:50 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from В мире – Новости Google. РИА Новости Посол Ирана: взаимопонимание с РФ ведет к результативным соглашениям РИА Новости Посол Ирана в РФ Медхи Санаи отметил, что Иран придает большое значение роли России в и...

» Hundreds of Russian troops stage exercises near Ukraine - Reuters
10/02/15 21:50 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Channel News Asia Hundreds of Russian troops stage exercises near Ukraine Reuters Separately, more than 600 soldiers had started training in the southern Crimea peninsula, and in Kamc...

» Alexander Zakharchenko: Kremlin Puppet or Symbol of Ukraine Uprising?
10/02/15 21:49 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. Separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko will not be present at a summit on east Ukraine this week but his actions will help determine the success or failure of any peace deal.

» Moscow Woman Electrocuted After Dropping iPhone 4 in Bathtub
10/02/15 21:49 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. A 24-year-old woman has died in Moscow after reportedly being electrocuted by a smartphone charger after her iPhone 4 fell into the bathtub.

» Video: Circus performer mauled by lion a decade after her husband died performing same routine
10/02/15 21:49 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from - Europe RSS Feed. A terrifying video has been released showing the moment a circus lion tamer was mauled by one of her animals – a decade after her husband was killed doing the same routine.

» From Russia With Love: Vladimir Putin Gives Sissi AK-47 - ABC News
10/02/15 21:48 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. ABC News From Russia With Love: Vladimir Putin Gives Sissi AK-47 ABC News While Ukraine continues to sink deeper into chaos by the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin has skipped to...

» Putin Gives Egypt's Fattah al-Sisi 'Glorious' Kalashnikov AK-47
10/02/15 21:48 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. Russia's Vladimir Putin presented Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi with an authentic Russian-made Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle while visiting the Egyptian capital of...

» Russia attempts to silence critics of president Putin on Twitter as Kremlin cracks down on social media
10/02/15 21:48 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from - Europe RSS Feed. Russian repeatedly attempted to silence critics of Russian president Vladimir Putin on Twitter, according to data released by the social media giant.

» Fighting Intensifies in Eastern Ukraine Ahead of Peace Talks | News
10/02/15 21:45 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . SARTANA, Ukraine — Fighting in eastern Ukraine intensified Tuesday ahead of much-anticipated peace talks, with both sides claiming significant advances and the government accusing th...

» How the U.S. Struggles to Crack the Putin Code | News
10/02/15 21:42 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Alexei Nikolsky / RIA Novosti / Kremlin / Reuters Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the report claiming Putin suffers from Aspergers as “nonsense.” "Who is Mr. Putin?" The ongoing Ukr...

» Why the Ukraine Crisis Hinges On the U.S. Election | News
10/02/15 21:40 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Alexei Chernyshev / Reuters Ukrainian servicemen launch Grad rockets towards pro-Russian separatist forces outside Debaltseve, eastern Ukraine Feb. 8. The outcome of the Ukraine crisis talks in ...

» Russia Would See U.S. Moves to Arm Ukraine as Declaration of War | Business
10/02/15 21:12 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . 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 defens...

» Hundreds of Russian Troops Stage Military Drills Near Border With Ukraine | News
10/02/15 20:04 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Andrei Makhonin / Vedomosti 2,000 Russian reconnaissance troops have started exercises in southern Russia. Hundreds of Russian troops started military exercises in southern Russia near the border with Ukraine...

» Who Wants What in the Minsk Negotiations on Ukraine?
10/02/15 20:01 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine plan to hold a summit on the Ukraine crisis in the Belarussian capital of Minsk on Wednesday. Here is an outline of the side...

» Greek Finance Minister Tests EU's Ways of Winning Friends
10/02/15 19:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Greece's new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, heads to a Eurogroup finance ministers meeting on Wednesday to ask for something almost no one there wants to give - at its most basic, a ...

» Зятя Березовского объявили в международный розыск по обвинению в организации убийства - Московский комсомолец
10/02/15 19:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from В мире – Новости Google. Московский комсомолец Зятя Березовского объявили в международный розыск по обвинению в организации убийства Московский комсомолец Зять Бориса Березовского, муж его дочери Екатерины...

» Donetsk Native, Backed by Putin, Unites Ukraine Rebels
10/02/15 19:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko will not be present at a summit on east Ukraine this week but his actions will help determine the success or failure of any peace deal. While Russ...

» Greek Foreign Minister To Visit Moscow On February 11
10/02/15 19:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias will travel to Moscow on February 11 at the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

» Russia's Putin Hopes Next Round of Syria Talks Bring Resolution
10/02/15 19:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he expected that there would be a new round of talks on the Syria conflict following from a meeting of some opposition figures and the Dam...

» Kremlin Official: US Using Ukraine to Weaken Russia
10/02/15 19:32 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. A ranking Kremlin official has accused the United States of attempting to drag Russia into the Ukraine conflict with the aim of weakening Moscow and effecting regime change, according to ...

» U.S. Senate Panel Advances Carter For Defense Secretary
10/02/15 19:31 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. A U.S. Senate committee has backed President Barack Obama's pick to run the Pentagon.

» Ukraine: draft dodgers face jail as Kiev struggles to find new fighters
10/02/15 19:31 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Journalist Ruslan Kotsaba, arrested after refusing to fight in video addressed to Petro Poroshenko, is among many weary of conflict that has killed 5,000 Ruslan Kotsaba posted a vide...

» Putin and Sisi follow illiberal trend
10/02/15 19:31 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Europe News. Russian and Egyptian leaders find much to admire in each other, especially hostility to Islamism

» Shifting Focus in Ebola Countries
10/02/15 19:30 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. An organization providing medical assistance to Ebola-affected countries is expanding its operations to include other health needs. Direct Relief is taking the action as fewer new Ebola c...

» Philip Hammond: Britain not ruling out providing 'lethal force' in Ukraine
10/02/15 19:30 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news. The Foreign Secretary strongly suggests that the UK could be prepared to assist the Ukrainian government in its fight against pro-Russian forces

» Трагедия в Краматорске
10/02/15 19:30 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by Радио Свобода. Трагедия в Краматорске Главная военная прокуратура Украины возбудила уголовное дело по статье «теракт» по факту обстрела города... From: Радио Свобода Views: 301 33 206 3 ratings ...

» Leaders set for Minsk talks on Ukraine ceasefire
10/02/15 19:29 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Fighting continues in Kramatorsk and Mariupol before summit billed as last chance to prevent conflict from spiralling out of control Russian, Ukrainian, German and French officials a...

» 'House of Religions' bringing eight faiths together under one roof in Bern
10/02/15 19:28 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from - Europe RSS Feed. As the Paris attacks and anti-Islam Pegida marches in Germany have spread division and fear among followers of different faiths in Europe, a revolutionary project in Switzerland is uniti...

» Rockets hit residential area in Kramatorsk, Ukraine - video
10/02/15 19:27 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Amateur footage purports to show a rocket strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk. The video, shot from the window of a nearby house, shows a series of explosions in the d...

» Source: French Rafale Fighter Jet Sale to Egypt ‘Imminent’
10/02/15 19:27 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The sale of 24 Dassault Aviation-built Rafale fighter jets to Egypt is “imminent,” a French source said, adding that the French and Egyptian defense ministries, and Dassault were holding ...

» Депутаты фракции Ляшко предложили Раде дать добро на разрыв дипотношений с Россией - УНИАН
10/02/15 19:25 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from В мире – Новости Google. УНИАН Депутаты фракции Ляшко предложили Раде дать добро на разрыв дипотношений с Россией УНИАН В Верховной Раде зарегистрирован проект постановления о временном прекращении диплома...

» Litvinenko inquiry: suspect 'drank a lot and wanted to be porn star'
10/02/15 19:10 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Hearing told Dmitry Kovtun’s first marriage collapsed due to alcohol abuse and hanging around Hamburg’s red-light district looking to work in sex industry One of the two Russians who...

» UK government defends role in Ukraine-Russia crisis
10/02/15 19:09 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Foreign secretary Philip Hammond says Germany is best placed to hold peace negotiations with Kremlin The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has defended the government agains...

» Russia To Help Iran Attack Saudi Arabia If U.S. Arms Ukraine [REPORT] - ValueWalk
10/02/15 19:09 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. ValueWalk Russia To Help Iran Attack Saudi Arabia If U.S. Arms Ukraine [REPORT] ValueWalk President Barack Obama confirmed Monday that the U.S. was weighing the possibility of providi...

» Туск пригласил Порошенко обсудить ситуацию в Донбассе на заседании ЕС - РИА Новости
10/02/15 19:08 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from В мире – Новости Google. РИА Новости Туск пригласил Порошенко обсудить ситуацию в Донбассе на заседании ЕС РИА Новости Туск и Порошенко обсудили ситуацию на востоке страны. Порошенко выразил надежду на уре...

» President Obama Hosts Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, "One of Our Strongest Allies"
10/02/15 19:08 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from White House.gov Blog Feed. President Barack Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany participate in a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 9, 2015. (Official White House Ph...

» Remarks by President Obama and Chancellor Merkel in Joint Press Conference | The White House
10/02/15 18:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from White House.gov Blog Feed. And I just want to emphasize here once again for the benefit not just of the American people but for the German people, we are not looking for Russia to fail. We are not lo...

» Devastation in Ukraine in runup to Minsk summit – in pictures
10/02/15 18:44 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Fighting has continued in eastern Ukraine as both sides try to make gains before a possible deal in Minsk, Belarus, which is being billed as a last chance to prevent further escalati...

» Николай Патрушев: США пытаются втянуть Россию в военный конфликт - Российская Газета
10/02/15 18:44 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from В мире – Новости Google. Российская Газета Николай Патрушев: США пытаются втянуть Россию в военный конфликт Российская Газета Николай Патрушев: Для США Украина сама по себе не интересна, их цель - ослабить...

» Встреча Обама-Меркель: мнения экспертов
10/02/15 18:43 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by Голос Америки. Встреча Обама-Меркель: мнения экспертов На совместной пресс-конференции руководители обеих стран подчеркнули, что у конфликта в Украине может... From: Голос Америки Views: 1 0 0 r...

» US Embassy in Yemen Closing Due to Turmoil
10/02/15 18:40 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The United States Embassy in Yemen is closing due to deteriorating security conditions since the resignation of the country’s president. A U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anon...

» Newsweek Twitter Feed Hacked By Pro-IS Group
10/02/15 18:40 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Newsweek's Twitter account was apparently hacked, posting threatening messages toward U.S. President Barack Obama's family and in support of the militant group Islamic St...

» White House Confirms American Woman Held By IS Killed
10/02/15 18:39 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. U.S. President Barack Obama has confirmed the death of Kayla Jean Mueller, a 26-year-old American woman was held hostage in Syria by the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

» Battered Ukrainian City of Mariupol Braces for Worst as Rebels Close in Again
10/02/15 18:37 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov, has seen periodic fighting over the last year, and may now face a full assault from Russian-backed rebels.

» Ukraine: workers take cover as rockets hit soup kitchen - video
10/02/15 18:36 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Rockets slam into a soup kitchen in eastern Ukraine, forcing terrified workers to duck for cover. The building in Pervomaisk is hit by two separate rocket attacks within hours of eac...

» Egypt, Russia Sign Military, Economic and Nuclear Accords
10/02/15 18:36 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Russia and Egypt signed several agreements to reinforce military and economic ties, along with a deal to help Cairo develop nuclear power capabilities. The agreements capped a two-day vi...

» Stripped bare: Dominique Strauss-Kahn forced to reveal his sexual proclivities
10/02/15 18:36 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from - Europe RSS Feed. Dominique Strauss-Kahn could have been explaining a point to a dim world leader at a world summit.

» Putin, Sisi Discuss Nuclear Cooperation In Cairo
10/02/15 18:35 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Moscow's involvement in building atomic energy plants with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo on February 10.

» Russia's Sudden Spate of Treason Cases Are Scare Tactic, Analysts Say
10/02/15 18:35 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. As the gulf between Russia and the West continues to deepen over the Ukraine crisis, the list of Russians being charged with treason has suddenly and visibly begun to expand.

» Ukraine peace talks threatened by deadly attacks
10/02/15 18:35 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from - Europe RSS Feed. Desperate four-way peace talks planned today in Minsk appeared increasingly doomed to failure last night after fighting intensified in eastern Ukraine.

» On Ukraine Battle Fringes, Civilians Struggle for Normalcy
10/02/15 18:34 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. While battles rage daily in some parts of eastern Ukraine, not far away -- in areas the government took back from the Russian-backed rebels last summer -- people are doing their best to l...

» Russia's Space Startup Dauria Lowers Horizons Amid Crisis
10/02/15 18:34 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. Russia's first private commercial satellite company, Dauria Aerospace, has made the drastic decision to redefine itself as a space technology export firm in the face of low fu...

» Russia's Putin, Egypt's Sisi say committed to fighting terrorism - Reuters
10/02/15 18:34 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Reuters Russia's Putin, Egypt's Sisi say committed to fighting terrorism Reuters CAIRO (Reuters) - United by a deep hostility toward Islamists, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi...

» Greece threatens tilt to Russia and China unless Europe yields - Telegraph.co.uk
10/02/15 18:33 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Telegraph.co.uk Greece threatens tilt to Russia and China unless Europe yields Telegraph.co.uk Greece's radical new government has threatened to seek money from Russia and China to av...

» Ukraine crisis: Amateur video shows deadly shelling in Kramatorsk
10/02/15 18:33 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Pro-Russian separatists launched a rocket strike on the town of Kramatorsk

» Opposing Lawyer on Strauss-Kahn’s Claims
10/02/15 18:33 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. A lawyer representing some of the prostitutes in the trial of Dominique Strauss-Kahn argued that the former I.M.F. chief must have known their profession when he met them.

» Agreement on Tentative Deal for Ukraine Cease-Fire Is Reported
10/02/15 18:32 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. Negotiators meeting in Belarus were said to have reached a tentative deal on Tuesday night, setting the stage for a meeting of the leaders to sign the agreement on Wednesday.

» Carter Strikes Forceful Tone on Russia
10/02/15 18:07 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . A Pro-Russian separatist tank on Monday in Uglegorsk. (Photo: DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — The United States and NATO should reject Russian assertions that Moscow is entitled to a "sph...

» Carter Strikes Forceful Tone on Russia - DefenseNews.com
10/02/15 18:06 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. DefenseNews.com Carter Strikes Forceful Tone on Russia DefenseNews.com WASHINGTON — The United States and NATO should reject Russian assertions that Moscow is entitled to a "sphe...

» Доктрина мира или войны? - YouTube
10/02/15 17:59 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story . Published on Feb 10, 2015 Американские эксперты споряm...

» Доктрина мира или войны?
10/02/15 17:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by Голос Америки. Доктрина мира или войны? Амери...

» Нью-Йоркское метро – подземный музей искусств
10/02/15 17:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Uploads by Голос Америки. Нью-Йоркское метро – подземны...

» Is America in a Math Crisis?
10/02/15 17:58 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. It is often said mathematics is a cornerstone of learning. Communications, computer science, the arts, the Internet, space exploration - all are based on underlying mathematical concepts....

» Why Is The Death Toll Tumbling In The North Caucasus?
10/02/15 17:57 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Expert opinions differ on the reasons for a decline in the total number of people killed and wounded in the North Caucasus in clashes between the Islamic insurgency and p...

» The Guardian view on Bashar al-Assad’s BBC interview: the lies of a tyrant | Editorial
10/02/15 17:57 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. The Syrian dictator is profiting from the west’s lack of strategy, while the bloodshed he unleashes leads a country to ruin Bashar al-Assad’s BBC interview may not have broken any ne...

» Britain not ruling out providing 'lethal force' in Ukraine
10/02/15 17:57 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news. Foreign Secretary suggests UK could be prepared to assist Ukrainian government in its fight against pro-Russian forces

» Has Russia Divided the West?
10/02/15 17:56 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Home - Institute of Modern Russia. On February 6, German Chancellor Merkel, French President Hollande, and Russian President Putin spent five hours negotiating a Ukraine peace deal in Moscow. At the end, t...

» Obama Calls Putin To Urge Peaceful Solution In Ukraine
10/02/15 17:47 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The White House says U.S. President Barack Obama called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine, urging him ahead of major talks in M...

» Controversy Over Netanyahu Speech to Congress Grows
10/02/15 17:47 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Since U.S. House Speaker John Boehner invited Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress next month about nuclear talks with Iran — without first consulting the White House — the li...

» ON THE SCENE: VOA Correspondent Sees Carnage, Frightened Residents in Ukrainian City
10/02/15 17:46 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Editor's note: On the eve of planned peace talks in Minsk, at least 15 people died amid battles in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk Tuesday. Most of the victims were hit by rockets that a...