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UkraineAlert

Dec 12, 2014

Ukraine: Suddenly, an Information Ministry Is Born

By Irena Chalupa

Poroshenko’s Team Creates a Government Agency in 60 Hours; Critics Ask if This Is the Way to Counter Kremlin Propaganda President Petro Poroshenko’s government created a Ministry of Information Policy last week in sixty hours from first proposal to parliamentary approval—and did so over the objections of pro-reform legislators, journalists, and democracy activists.

Ukraine
Defense ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, Dec. 12, 2014

NATOSource

Dec 12, 2014

Baltic and Polish Defense Ministers Agree on Joint Response to Deter Russia

By Latvian Ministry of Defense

On 11–12 December the Baltic and Polish Defence Ministers at a meeting in in Cesis (Latvia) agreed on joint response to deter Russia in the region.

NATO Northern Europe

MENASource

Dec 12, 2014

Top News: US Congressional Leaders Authorize New Powers For the US-led Anti-ISIS Fight

By MENASource

US lawmakers on Thursday passed a sweeping defense bill, including a new congressional authorization for President Barack Obama’s ongoing campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. The new war powers measure will be limited to three years and would require the administration to report on the fight against the Islamic state every sixty days.

MENASource

Dec 12, 2014

Top News: Mansoura Court Accepts Appeal on FGM Verdict

By EgyptSource

The Mansoura Misdemeanor Court has accepted the appeal submitted by prosecutors in the case in which a doctor brought to trial on charges of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was acquitted.

UkraineAlert

Dec 12, 2014

Meet Ukraine’s New Anti-Corruption Lawmakers

By New Atlanticist

Pro-Democracy Activists Join Parliament—and the Battle for Ukraine’s Future The new parliament and political leadership taking office in Ukraine includes members of an energetic, young class of leaders who have emerged from last year’s Maidan movement, with its demands for greater democracy and an end to massive political corruption. Our colleagues at the National Democratic […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Dec 12, 2014

DIRECT TRANSLATION: ‘My First Ten Days as a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament’

By Irena Chalupa

Anti-Corruption Journalist Who Ran for Office Says Poroshenko Has Stifled Dissent Within the New Government Serhiy Leshchenko, age thirty-four, is a Kyiv-based investigative journalist and blogger who has been deputy chief editor of Ukrainska Pravda, the country’s most prominent independent news website. After supporting last year’s pro-democracy Maidan movement, he opted this year to run […]

Ukraine
Polish soldiers in Ghazni, April 29, 2011

NATOSource

Dec 11, 2014

How the mission in Afghanistan changed the Polish Army

By Jacek Mutszak, Defence Global

Afghanistan is a challenge that NATO has struggled with for over twelve years. Poland was one of the member countries that sent its army there. It was the biggest test for the Polish Army since the end of World War II.

Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force
Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Brian P. McKeon

NATOSource

Dec 11, 2014

Pentagon Planning Military Counter to Russia’s Treaty-Prohibited Cruise Missiles

By Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr., DoD News

Russian violation of an arms control agreement poses a threat to U.S. and its allies’ security interests, leading the Joint Staff to conduct a military assessment of its threat, a senior defense official said here today.

Russia United States and Canada

New Atlanticist

Dec 11, 2014

Isolated from the West, President Putin Visits India

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Atlantic Council’s Bharath Gopalaswamy: ‘Russia is keen to demonstrate that it has friends in other parts of the world’ The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on December 11 sought to re-energize a relationship between two nations which had its peak during the Cold War.

India Russia

Trade in Action

Dec 11, 2014

Happy Holidays from TTIP Action

By Global Business & Economics Program

Happy Holidays from TTIP Action Dear readers, thank you so much for your attention, help, and support of TTIP Action over the course of 2014. It has been a pleasure working on this important and timely topic, and I am looking forward to continuing to help inform an educated debate about the future of TTIP […]

Economy & Business Trade and tariffs