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Reuters) - Billionaire financier George Soros has urged the West to step up aid to Ukraine, outlining steps towards a $50 billion (33.22 billion pounds) financing package that he said should be viewed as a bulwark against an increasingly aggressive Russia.Writing in the New York Review of Books, Soros said Europe and the United States needed to balance sanctions imposed on Russia with large-scale assistance to near-bankrupt Ukraine, which risks defaulting on debt as a result of turmoil caused by pro-Russia separatist fighting.

In a display of resolve the Obama Administration announced new sanctions, a “proportional response”, directed against the government of North Korea in response to the North Korean dictatorship’s recent reported cyber-attack involving senior executives of the SONY Corporation. In a country where the citizens have been eating dirt for years because of the communist regime’s policies, such a response by Barack Obama will clearly have no impact on the North Korean dictatorship’s behavior. Aside from the bluster of their ‘official statements’, the rogue regime simply isn’t very concerned about U.S. sanctions. They will just find ways to skirt any additional...

Frankfurt (AFP) - Tougher sanctions may destabilise the situation further in Russia and plunge the country into chaos, German deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel warned in a newspaper interview on Sunday. "The goal was never to push Russia politically and economically into chaos," Gabriel told the Bild am Sonntag. "Whoever wants that will provoke a much more dangerous situation for all of us in Europe," he said, pointing out that Russia was a nuclear power. The aim of the sanctions imposed against Russia so far was to steer the country back to the negotiating table. "Those who want to destabilise Russia...

BEIJING — North Korea on Sunday denounced new economic sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama in response to a cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment that U.S. officials have blamed on the regime. The country's official news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the new sanctions would only "harden its will and resolution to defend ... the dignity of the nation." The new penalties —which cut off access to the U.S. financial sector for 10 individuals and three government entities identified as key operatives engaged in hostile behavior, including the country's intelligence agency — add to sanctions imposed...

Hundreds of German companies active in Russia are suspending or will cancel projects due to international sanctions over Ukraine and the weakened rouble. Thirty-six percent of 200 firms polled in December by the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce expected to cancel projects due to the situation in Russia. And 58 percent said they had been hurt by the sanctions, which began in March after Moscow's annexation of Crimea and grew in response to Moscow's support for pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine. The biggest reverse shift so far for German business in Russia came last week when chemical giant BASF cancelled a...

January 02, 2015 FoxNews.comThe Obama administration on Friday imposed a wave of sanctions against members of the North Korean government, amounting to the U.S. government's first official response to the cyber-attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment. Despite lingering questions from private security analysts over whether North Korea was responsible for the hack -- as the FBI has alleged -- the White House described the new sanctions as retaliation against Pyongyang. "We take seriously North Korea's attack that aimed to create destructive financial effects on a U.S. company and to threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of restricting their right...

In his annual year end press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is in fact mentally unhinged. For three hours, by turns he demonstrated signs of schizophrenic paranoia, pathological dishonesty, deep seated passive-aggressive tendencies, woeful ignorance of world affairs and economics, and delusional confidence in Russia’s future prospects. Putin evokes the national self-image of the Russian bear. Putin’s bear is a natural hunter contentedly chasing pigs and boars, but otherwise minding his own business in his own sovereign forest. But somebody wants this bear to have a makeover, and to give up...

Now where have we previously heard Senator Rand Paul’s cliché-fest that constitutes his rebuttal to Senator Marco Rubio on Cuba sanctions? Well, from The Council on Foreign Relations to the New York Times and from Hillary Clinton to The Congressional Black Caucus—and that’s for starters. And oh, we also heard it repeatedly from every single one of the KGB-trained Cuban spies convicted by U.S. juries recently. “The embargo is Castro’s best friend,” Clinton chanted to an extremely friendly audience at the Council on Foreign Relations back in June while citing and promoting her book Hard Choices. The sanctions give “Castro...

Russia’s central bank on Wednesday launched another initiative to shore up the ruble, offering hard currency loans to help companies and banks service their debts. Stabilizing the ruble, which is one of the world’s worst-performing currencies this year following the slide in oil prices and the sanctions imposed on Russia for its involvement in Ukraine, is a priority for Russia’s monetary authorities. Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank, admitted again that it faced a run last week when the ruble was in freefall and individuals fretted over the value of their deposits. Its chairman, Alexander Torbakhov, conceded to Russian news agencies that...

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party may have run on a joint ticket with Likud in the last elections, but in a closed meeting on Tuesday he sharply attacked Prime Minister and Likud head Binyamin Netanyahu’s political management. According to Liberman, Netanyahu’s policy of placing supreme emphasis on maintaining the status quo is “failed,” reports Haaretz. […] In the meeting, which took place at Tel Aviv University, Liberman stated that Israel is not initiating any political processes and warned that without a peace agreement, Israel’s ties with the EU will be harmed and the Israeli economy will suffer serious...

Russian mid-sized lender Trust Bank is to receive up to 30 billion rubles ($530 million) from the central bank to stop it going bankrupt in the first bailout of its kind during the current rouble crisis. The central bank also said its Deposit Insurance Agency, responsible for managing crisis-hit lenders, would take over interim supervision of Trust Bank as of Monday. The measures "will make it possible for Trust to continue smooth payments operations. All the bank's clients, including depositors, can use its services as usual", the central bank said in a statement. Trust, which hired actor Bruce Willis as...

Now that Pope Francis has done his part to ensure that U.S. sanctions against the murderous regime in Cuba have been removed, the Holy See is already looking toward thawing relations with another brutal Communist regime: China. See here. Back in October, Matt Hadro, writing for the Catholic News Agency, explained that: "The state of religious freedom in China is moving from bad to worse, said U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), responding to a new report by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. 'There’s a huge gulf now' between China and the Catholic Church, Smith stated during an Oct. 9 conference...

The West shouldn’t stoke the fires engulfing Russia’s wounded economy. Talk in Washington and Brussels this week of levying further economic sanctions on Russia seems counterproductive and will only make matters worse for all parties involved. Like it or not, Russia’s economy has grown simply “too big to fail,” and its political and military might is too dangerous to ignore. The West might have better luck in advancing its goals in the region by helping, not hurting, the Russian bear in its time of need.

The Obama administration is refusing to discuss reports that emerged early Thursday claiming that the White House is considering imposing sanctions on Israel for continuing construction on Jewish homes in Jerusalem. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf dodged several questions on Thursday when confronted with reports that the administration had held secret internal meetings to discuss taking action against Israel for its ongoing building in East Jerusalem. The classified meetings were reportedly held several weeks ago and included officials from both the State Department and White House, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, which first reported on the meetings. The possibility...

BRUSSELS - Europe’s new foreign relations chief has denied the EU is in talks on Israel sanctions, despite a leaked paper on the issue. Federica Mogherini, who chaired her first foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday (17 November), told press the leaked paper is a “technical working hypothesis” which “member states requested” when her predecessor was in office. She added: “It is not at the heart of today’s discussions on how to start a positive process with the Israelis and Palestinians. There’s currently no question of sanctioning anybody. The question is rather how to motivate people to … restart...

Matt Lee @APDiploWriter Follow "Reports we might be contemplating sanctions against #Israel (re settlements) completely unfounded & without merit," per @statedeptspox. 11:06 AM - 8 Dec 2014

President Barack Obama’s administration is reportedly considering putting some muscle behind its opposition to new settlement construction by Israelis in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. According to reports, the administration is weighing the possibility of imposing sanctions on the Israeli government. “Senior Israeli officials said that White House officials held a classified discussion a few weeks ago about the possibility of taking active measures against the settlements,” Haaretz reported on Thursday. When confronted with this rumor, administration officials did not deny it. “A few senior American officials approached by Haaretz did not deny this, but refused to disclose...

Members of Congress are demanding that President Obama come clean about controversial reports that he is considering leveling sanctions on Israel, according to a letter sent Friday afternoon by lawmakers to the White House. The Obama administration has found itself engulfed in controversy since reports emerged Thursday that the White House and State Department had met in secret to strategize about imposing sanctions on Israel for its continued building of houses in contested Jerusalem neighborhoods. State Department and White House officials have continued to dodge questions from reporters on the matter, maintaining that they will neither confirm nor deny the...

For the first time in history, an American president is considering slapping sanctions on the state of Israel.  The reason?  Israel is building new housing on its own land. Washington Free Beacon: The classified meetings were reportedly held several weeks ago and included officials from both the State Department and White House, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, which first reported on the meetings. The possibility of sanctioning Israel for its ongoing construction sends a signal that the Obama administration is willing to go further in its denunciations of Israel then any previous White House. At the same time, the...

The Obama administration is refusing to discuss reports that emerged early Thursday claiming that the White House is considering imposing sanctions on Israel for continuing construction on Jewish homes in Jerusalem. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf dodged several questions on Thursday when confronted with reports that the administration had held secret internal meetings to discuss taking action against Israel for its ongoing building in East Jerusalem. The classified meetings were reportedly held several weeks ago and included officials from both the State Department and White House, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, which first reported on the meetings. The possibility...