Planet Watch
Obama pursues nuclear ‘modernization’ —not disarmament
Despite early pledges to seek a nuclear-free world, Obama is launching a "modernization" of the US arsenal that actually makes atomic war more likely.
Tag: Russia
Planet Watch
Russia files revised bid for arctic territory
Russia’s Foreign Ministry submitted a new bid claiming over 350 nautical miles of oil-rich Arctic sea shelf before the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Planet Watch
Ice Age fears: don’t believe the hype
Russia Today trumpets specious claims of a new Little Ice Age—convenient propaganda for Putin to go on exploiting Arctic oil without worrying about global warming.
Europe
Srebrenica at 20: ‘door open for a new war’?
The 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre comes just as Russia vetoed a UN resolution to designate the massacre an act of "genocide"—leading to new violence in Bosnia.
Planet Watch
Doomsday Clock: three minutes of midnight
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the hands of its iconic Doomsday Clock at three minutes to midnight—two minutes closer than in 2014.
Europe
Europe: destroying freedom to save it
At thier meeting in Paris to condemn the attack on Charlie Hebdo, European Union government ministers issued a statement calling for further restrictions on the Internet.
Planet Watch
Behind oil slump: shale boom or geopolitics?
Experts tell us the North American shale oil boom is responsible for low prices despite Middle East unrest. But the price slump serves Western aims of weakening Russia and Iran.
The Caucasus
ISIS hand in Chechnya attack?
The Russian policy establishment is hypothesizing an ISIS hand in the bloody attack by Chechen insurgents in Grozny—and implying that the West is in turn behind ISIS. (Map via La Croix International)
Central America
Nicaragua: opposition mounts to canal scheme
With work about to begin on an inter-oceanic canal through Nicaragua, campesinos who stand to be evicted for the mega-scheme pledge resistance and warn of a "massacre."
Iraq
Kurds as pawns in Turko-Russian game?
An alarming confrontation between Turkish and Russian warplanes over the Black Sea ironically comes as both Ankara and Moscow seek to divide Kurds from the Syrian rebels.
Europe
Russia serves ultimatums to Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars pledge to resist Russian demands that they register their Majlis as a "civic organization" and surrender "forbidden" Islamic literature.
Mexico
Fortune magazine ranks top five global cartels
Fortune magazine issued a list of the biggest organized crime groups in the world: elements of Japan's Yakuza, Russian mafia, two Italian syndicates and Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel.