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While Vladimir Putin's actions in Crimea are worthy of international censure, a more imminent threat to world peace is impasse over Iran. There has been a sense in recent days that this was no ordinary week in the life of the planet. Our already bloodstained 21st-century history — unfolding once again in uncertain and threatening ways — seemed to be opening a new chapter. Two events last Tuesday in world capitals more than 2,000 kilometres apart best symbolized this. But which of these events do you think poses the greatest potential danger to world peace? In Moscow, a preening, self-satisfied...

Tony Blair is celebrating another multi-million pound contract after his charity secured a key deal with the US government. This time, the former prime minister’s Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) has won a £3.3 million contract to play a key role in Barack Obama’s flagship African aid programme.… It is thought to be the third grant obtained by Mr Blair’s charity from USAID. The body was, until last February, overseen by Hillary Clinton, who, along with her husband Bill, the former US president, is a close friend of Mr Blair and his wife, Cherie.

Back in July a North Korean ship trying to sneak military contraband through the Panama Canal after leaving Havana was stopped on a tip by Panamanian authorities. Well, wha-da-ya know?! The ship, named the Chon-Chon Gang, was found to be crammed with missiles and mucho military contraband from terror-sponsoring Cuba. Nuke-rattling North Korea has been under a UN arms embargo since 2006, by the way. At first, Cuban terror-sponsoring dictator Raul Castro tried threatening the Panamanian authorities behind the scenes to keep the issue mum, or at least parrot their version of the scam. But Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli scoffed...

Vladimir Putin seems to have lost touch with reality, Angela Merkel reportedly told Barack Obama after speaking with the Russian president. He is "in another world." "I agree with what Angela Merkel said ... that he is in another world," said Madeleine Albright, "It doesn't make any sense." John Kerry made his contribution to the bonkers theory by implying that Putin was channeling Napoleon: "You don't just, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext." Now that Putin has taken Crimea without firing a shot, and 95 percent of a...

KIEV, Ukraine— Obama on Monday imposed sanctions on 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials blamed for Russia's military incursion into Crimea, including two top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The sanctions were the most visible sign of U.S. anger at Russia's attempt to absorb the Crimea region of southern Ukraine, reflecting the deepest plunge in U.S.-Russian relations since the Cold War. The sanctions came in an executive order signed by Obama a day after a Crimea referendum on Sunday aimed at allowing Russia to annex the autonomous region, a vote that the United States says was illegal and would never...

Sen. John McCain blasted the "timidity" of the Obama administration’s sanctions on Russian officials Monday, saying that the White House needs a "fundamental reassessment" of the relationship between the United States and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "This president’s response – I don’t know how it could have been weaker, besides doing nothing," McCain said during an appearance on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports. The Arizona Republican said that Putin is likely "encouraged by the absolute timidity" of the U.S. reaction to Russia's incursion into Crimea. "I don’t know when the president and his advisers are going to wake up to what...

On the heels of yet another multi-hour meeting with Russian foreign minister Lavrov, John Kerry takes to the podium to explain next steps... Live feed at link...

Ukraine: Two weeks after Russian troops covertly slipped into Crimea and took over, the consequences of U.S. passivity are clear: some 80,000 Russian troops amassing on Ukraine's border, three hours from Kiev. It's no surprise that they should be: The lack of leadership seen from the U.S. and the European Union in these lost days has been read as a green light for Russia to make a final grab for Ukraine.

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s acting government issued an arrest warrant Monday for President Viktor Yanukovych, accusing him of mass crimes against the protesters who stood up for months against his rule. Russia sharply questioned its authority, calling it an “armed mutiny.” Yanukovych himself has reportedly fled to the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, a pro-Russian area in Ukraine. Calls are mounting in Ukraine to put Yanukovych on trial, after a tumultuous presidency in which he amassed powers, enriched his allies and family and cracked down on protesters.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the U.S. government is prepared to provide support to Ukraine, under certain conditions, as the country tries to emerge from a bloody power struggle that is still in flux. Carney spoke after Ukraine's acting government issued an arrest warrant for President Viktor Yanukovych, accusing him of mass crimes against the protesters who stood up for months against his rule. Carney said that at this point, Yanukovych's whereabouts have not been confirmed but he is not "actively leading the country."

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Former Vice President Al Gore raised eyebrows last week when he suggested that “fertility management” was the key to fighting global warming and promoting economic development in poor countries. Gore’s comments drew criticism from free-marketeers who said his remarks amount to “eco-imperialism.” “Gore’s agenda for saving the world from global warming has always included population control,” Myron Ebell, director of global warming and international environmental policy at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Advocating population control specifically for Africa is just another form of imperialism. Gore’s eco-imperialism is uncomfortably close to the original racist goals...

MARK LEVIN: And you see folks, they all look at this poll, this NBC poll, and this has been all over FOX News today. And unfortunately nobody there reads PJ Media or listens to talk radio or reads the internet, because the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is a fraud, an absolute fraud. Bryan Preston, he points it out. A sharp reader caught a statistical problem with that much-cited NBC/WSJ poll that shows Republicans are getting whooped in the shutdown. One-in-five respondents work for the federal government, twenty-percent of those polled. And yet in real life, eight-percent work for the federal...

Megan Kelly is off to a rocky start, pulling Fox hard to left, challenging Senator Ted Cruz in much the same way Candy Crowley did at CNN. So far she has quoted polls by Politico and PPP.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Monday that President Obama is putting the economy at risk by refusing to negotiate with Republicans over spending and the debt ceiling. "The president's refusal to negotiate is hurting our economy and putting our country at risk," Boehner said on the House floor. Boehner expressed disbelief at reports that Obama would rather see a debt default than talk to Republicans. "This morning, a senior White House official this morning said that the president would rather default than to sit down and negotiate," he said. "Really?" "The American people expect when their leaders have differences, and...

Lest you mistakenly thought that Amnesty had faded away, no it hasn’t. Marxists and illegal aliens across the US are still pushing it — hard. With the help of Progressives on both sides of the Aisle, from Nancy Pelosi on the Left to Paul Ryan on the Right: Thousands of supporters of an immigration overhaul held rallies on Saturday at more than 150 sites in 40 states, trying to pressure Congress, despite the partisan turmoil in Washington, to focus on passing a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants here illegally. Hoping to display the wide reach of their movement,...

Veteran National Post columnist Diane Francis has written 10 books. Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country is easily her most ambitious. Perhaps a little too ambitious, many readers might conclude. It is also, in a way, her most personal. As an American-born dual citizen, Ms. Francis writes passionately about the many historical and cultural ties that bind her ancestral and adopted countries. Merger of the Century makes the case for erasing the formal distinction between the two entirely. “After all, we’re both melting-pot societies,” she says. So why not turn the whole continent north...

In a development unreported by news media, the State Department’s lead Benghazi investigator, Thomas Pickering, apparently leaked important classified information at a House hearing last week on the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack. Pickering revealed there is evidence that an Egyptian organization was behind the attack on the U.S. mission that killed U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. He further refused to deny there was a plan to kidnap Stevens. Pickering was the author of the State Department’s 39-page Accountability Review Board report, or ARB, which largely absolved then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top State officials...

And they should. CBS reoprts that NSA Director Keith Alexander made an “emergency visit” to Capitol Hill to head off a potentially embarrassing vote to defund his agency’s trawling of phone and Internet records. House Republican leaders allowed a vote on an amendment by Rep. Justin Amash to use the power of the purse to rein in the NSA, and the panic shows that the effort might well succeed in the Senate when the budget comes to the upper chamber: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO With a high-stakes showdown vote looming in the House, White House press secretary Jay...

But a court could still hold him accountable for the death. Two options, however, are available: A civil suit, or a civil rights suit. The NAACP is pushing the U.S. Department of Justice to file a civil rights suit. The Rev. Jesse Jackson told CNN's "New Day" on Sunday that his Rainbow PUSH Coalition also wants the Justice Department to look into possible civil rights violations in the case.