Putin: West is trying to 'defang' the Russian bear
Full Article Tampa Bay Online
18 Dec 2014

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin vowed Thursday to fix Russia's economic woes within two years by diversifying away from its heavy reliance on oil and gas and voiced confidence that the plummeting ruble will soon recover. He also promised never to let the West chain or defang his proud nation, evoking the symbolic Russian bear. Speaking with...

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Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a news conference in Moscow, Russia, December 18, 2014.
photo: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office

updated 24 Oct 2014; published 24 Oct 2014
3:13
‘Just like the Russian bear doesn’t ask permission, nor does the West’
updated 08 Oct 2014; published 08 Oct 2014
73:47
Dancing with a Wounded Bear: Russia and the West
updated 05 Dec 2014; published 05 Dec 2014
1:58
Putin criticizes West for Russia’s crisis
updated 04 Sep 2014; published 04 Jun 2014
46:46
Stop Poking the Bear: The West Should Engage With Putin Not Castigate Him
updated 25 Oct 2014; published 25 Oct 2014
5:39
Tough Talk: Putin's key quotes from Valdai speech
updated 18 Dec 2014; published 18 Dec 2014
0:35
Russian state media promo for Putin speech: 'The bear never asks permission'
President Obama Right To Call For Trade With Cuba: Half Century Of Failed Embargo Is Enough
Full Article Forbes
18 Dec 2014

President Barack Obama used negotiations over bringing home a couple of imprisoned Americans as an opportunity to refashion the entire U.S.-Cuba relationship. He’s aiming to reopen the embassy, relax trade and travel restrictions, and improve communication systems. Of course, sustained caterwauling began immediately from the usual...

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File - President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, convenes a National Security Council meeting on Cuba in the Situation Room of the White House, Nov. 6, 2014.
photo: White House / Pete Souza

updated 18 Dec 2014; published 18 Dec 2014
9:07
Major Shift In US-Cuba Relations - Trade, Diplomacy To Flow
updated 20 May 2014; published 20 May 2014
3:23
Has the US-Cuba trade embargo reached the end of the road? - BBC News
updated 17 Dec 2014; published 17 Dec 2014
8:33
Obama Restores Diplomatic Relations With Cuba: Greenlight To Hunt Assata Shakur
updated 17 Dec 2014; published 17 Dec 2014
1:20
Obama: U.S. to Reestablish an Embassy in Havana
updated 17 Dec 2014; published 17 Dec 2014
1:44
US to normalize relations with Cuba
updated 16 Apr 2012; published 16 Apr 2012
14:05
Latin America v. Obama: U.S. Policy Under Fire at Colombian Summit
Nigerian soldiers sentenced to death for refusing to fight Boko Haram
Full Article Mail Guardian South Africa
18 Dec 2014

A Nigerian military court on Wednesday sentenced 54 soldiers to death for mutiny after they refused to deploy for an operation against Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast, their lawyer said. “They sentenced 54 to death and acquitted five,” said prominent human rights lawyer Femi Falana, following a court martial that began on October...

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File - In this Wednesday, June, 25, 2014, file photo, a Nigerian soldier, center, walks, at the scene of an explosion in Abuja, Nigeria. Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group whose birthplace is Maiduguri, is accused of a series of recent bomb attacks
photo: AP / Olamikan Gbemiga

updated 10 Oct 2014; published 10 Oct 2014
8:26
CDS Badeh weighs in on death sentence on 12 Soldiers, Boko Haram
updated 09 Sep 2014; published 09 Sep 2014
1:15
Nigerian Army And Civilians Fleeing From Boko Haram
updated 26 Aug 2014; published 26 Aug 2014
8:58
Boko-Haram: Shock-Anger & Outrage as Nigerian Soldiers flee for their lives!
updated 16 Oct 2014; published 16 Oct 2014
1:26
Nigerian soldiers charged with mutiny over Boko Haram
updated 18 Dec 2014; published 18 Dec 2014
0:21
Nigeria soldiers face death penalty for mutiny
updated 28 Nov 2014; published 28 Nov 2014
0:34
Boko Haram seizes Mubi as Nigerian soldiers flee
Palestinian draft peace plan put before UN Security Council
Full Article BBC News
18 Dec 2014

A draft resolution setting out a Palestinian timetable for a peace deal with Israel has been submitted to the UN Security Council. The document, presented by Jordan, calls for a deal within one year and Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories by the end of 2017. Jordan has indicated it will not...

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File - A Palestinian woman looks through the rubble of her house, that was destroyed during a seven-week Israeli summer offensive, in Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 19, 2014.
photo: WN / Ahmed Deeb

updated 12 Mar 2014; published 12 Mar 2014
87:42
Is there hope for the Israel-Palestine Peace Process? - The Middle East Institute
updated 18 Dec 2014; published 18 Dec 2014
2:06
Palestinian draft peace plan put before UN Security Council
updated 18 Dec 2014; published 18 Dec 2014
2:08
Palestine sets deadline on Israeli occupation
updated 29 Nov 2014; published 29 Nov 2014
1:27
Arabs to present draft on Palestinian state to U.N. Security Council
updated 30 Nov 2014; published 30 Nov 2014
4:59
Arab countries to present Palestinian state draft resolution to UNSC
updated 16 Dec 2014; published 16 Dec 2014
1:11
Kerry to discuss Palestinian bid to end Israeli occupation
The Pope's Diplomatic Miracle: Ending the U.S.-Cuba Cold War
Full Article The Daily Beast
17 Dec 2014

As the first Latin American Pope, Francis was the power behind the historic thawing of U.S.-Cuban relations, the Vatican revealed today. Vatican City — Shortly after the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was elected as Pope Francis in March 2013, he reached out to American president Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro to...

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Pope Francis and President Barack Obama meet at the Vatican Thursday, March 27, 2014
photo: AP / Gabriel Bouys, Pool

updated 17 Dec 2014; published 17 Dec 2014
3:18
Barack Obama normalises relations with Cuba
updated 17 Dec 2014; published 17 Dec 2014
1:16
President Obama Announces Monumental Move to Repair Relationship Between U.S. and Cuba
updated 17 Dec 2014; published 17 Dec 2014
4:59
Vatican Brings Together US and Cuba - Perspectives Daily
updated 17 Dec 2014; published 17 Dec 2014
13:28
President Obama Cuba Policy FULL Speech. 12/17/14 Obama: Isolating Cuba Hasn't Worked
updated 18 Dec 2014; published 18 Dec 2014
0:31
Pope praises the diplomacy of US-Cuba accord
updated 17 Dec 2014; published 17 Dec 2014
0:53
Pope Played Crucial Role in US-Cuba Rapprochement

Open Minds Worldwide
The ill-fated schemes to upend Castro
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The Charlotte Observer
WASHINGTON For over half a century, the U.S. government's schemes to overthrow the Castro government were, if not successful, always creative: the poisonous cigars, the exploding...
Barack Obama issues 'executive orders by another name'
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The Independent
President Obama has issued a form of executive action known as the presidential memorandum more often than any other president in history — using it to take unilateral action even...
After the devastation of Gaza: ‘My son asked me: when will the next war be?’
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The Guardian
All eyes were on Gaza in the summer, as Israel subjected the Palestinian people to 51 days of siege and bombardment. What is life like there now that the war is over and the world is no longer watching? ...

Top Stories Worldwide
Russian Sailors Leave French Port While Mistral Deal Remains Uncertain
NORFOLK (Jan. 26, 2012) Sailors form the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) stand by as the French navy amphibious assault ship FS Mistral (L9013) approaches Naval Station Norfolk. Kearsarge is sponsoring Mistral during their visit to the United States
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Business Insider
Thomson ReutersRussian sailors board their Russian navy frigate Smolny at the STX Les Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard site in Saint-Nazaire See Also SAINT-NAZAIRE, France (Reuters) - A ship carrying the Russian sailors who have been training for...
photo: Creative Commons / Corbin Shea
Obama finally brings Cuba policy out of the Cold War darkness
US President Barack Obama shakes hands with Cuban President Raul Castro at the FNB Stadium in Soweto, South Africa, in the rain for a memorial service for former South African President Nelson Mandela, Tuesday Dec. 10, 2013. The handshake between the leaders of the two Cold War enemies came during a ceremony that's focused on Mandela's legacy of reconciliation. Hundreds of foreign dignitaries and world heads of states gather Tuesday with thousands of South African people to celebrate the life, and mark the death, of Nelson Mandela who has became a global symbol of reconciliation.
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The Los Angeles Times
If you are 53 or younger, you have never lived in a time when Cuba and the United States had diplomatic relations. With China, the communist giant, we’ve established normal relations. With communist Vietnam, our onetime enemy in war,...
photo: AP
Boko Haram kills 32, abducts 185 in Nigeria
Abubakar shekau
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The Siasat Daily
Lagos, December 18: Armed men suspected to be members of the deadly Boko Haram group have killed 32 people and abducted 185 others in Gumsuri village northeast Nigeria's Borno state, a security source and witnesses told Xinhua Thursday. Among those...
photo: Creative Commons / Grin160
Geert Wilders Prosecuted For 'Inciting Hatred'
Geert Wilders gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, July 15, 2010. Maverick Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders says he is launching an international "freedom alliance" to spread his anti-Islam message across the West. He said he will launch the international movement late this year, initially in five countries: the United States, Canada, Britain, France and Germany.
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Orange News
18 December 2014, 10:41 Geert Wilders Prosecuted For 'Inciting Hatred' Tweet Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders has hit out at the decision to prosecute him on charges of inciting racial hatred, calling it a "travesty". It comes after the...
photo: AP / Cynthia Boll
Colombia’s Farc guerilla group declare unilateral ceasefire
People who participate in the release operation of two police officers and a soldier, hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, are surrounded by media members as they ride an International Red Cross vehicle at a rural area of Miranda, some 210 miles southwest of Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, Feb.14, 2013.
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The Irish Times
Colombia’s largest guerrilla group declared on Wednesday it would begin an indefinite, unilateral ceasefire, in a challenge to the government to halt hostilities while the two sides continued negotiations toward an end to 50 years of war. But the...
photo: AP / Juan B. Diaz
230 bodies of Islamic State victims found in mass grave in Syria
This citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Revolution Against Assad's Regime which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows dead bodies on a street in Aleppo, Syria Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013.
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RTE
The bodies of 230 people killed by the Islamic State group have been found in a mass grave uncovered by their relatives in Syria's Deir Ezzor province, a monitoring group said. The discovery brings the number of Shaitat tribal members killed...
photo: AP / Aleppo Revolution Against Assad Regime
Poroshenko: Ukraine is a new, changing country
Vladimir Putin , Angela Merkel and Petro Poroshenko at celebrating the 70th anniversary of D-Day
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Austin American Statesman
Ukraine's president has urged Poland's politicians and business people to intensify ties with his country as it reforms to follow European standards. At the start of a two-day visit to Poland on Wednesday, President Petro Poroshenko held talks with...
photo: Creative Commons / The Presidential Press and Information Office


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