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Russia and Ukraine could hold a new round of peace talks as soon as Monday, according to Ukrainian authorities — with US officials crediting the crippling economic sanctions against the Kremlin for the move. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Sunday that both parties are working with mediators from Israel and Turkey to sort out potential topics of discussion — including a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Russian troops — and where and when the talks would be held.

In a hopeful sign of de-escalation, Ukrainian officials said they will meet Russian counterparts at the Belarus border, shortly after Vladimir Putin said he is putting Russia’s nuclear forces on higher alert. In a Facebook post, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Ukraine has agreed to talks with Russia on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. “We have agreed that the Ukrainian delegation will meet with Russian without prior conditions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, in the area of the Pripyat River,” Zelenskiy said. A delegation has already left Kyiv, Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of Zelenskiy’s party, said in televised comments. The Ukraine foreign minister...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged to remain in the capital even as Russian troops fought to enter Kyiv, Zelensky said, "The enemy identifies me as the number one target." "They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state," Zelensky told Ukrainians in a video during early hours of Friday. His family was the No. 2 target, he said, but also remained in Ukraine. "My family is not traitors, but citizens of Ukraine. But I have no right to say where they are now." Zelensky said he was staying "with everyone who is needed for the work of...

Russia upped the ante Monday in its dangerous standoff with Ukraine, openly warning of military action if President Biden and America’s NATO allies ignore a list of demands Moscow announced late last week — a far-reaching list that some key U.S. lawmakers have dubbed a “pretext to war.” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said his country is fully prepared to respond through “military-technical means” if Western powers fail to address those demands. He said NATO must not expand to include Ukraine or Georgia and the U.S. must not base additional military assets in former Soviet republics in Central Asia....

The Lower Manhattan Community School racially segregated its students this week to grapple with the question, “How do our racial identities influence our experiences?” according to the New York Post. “On November 23rd and 24th, 7th and 8th graders will explore the question ‘How do our racial identities influence our experiences?’ in affinity groups,” Principal Shanna Douglas wrote in an email sent to parents. “An affinity group is a group formed around a shared interest.”

Talks of longtime Democrat representative and Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) retiring are starting to grow as other prominent committee chairman announce retirement and the party is losing momentum to keep their House majority in the midterms

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will head to Washington, DC, later this month and has scheduled in talks with President Joe Biden. The Times reports Johnson will be traveling to the United States to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York, set down for Sept. 21. The trip will last four days, during which bilateral talks are slated to be held with Biden.

President Biden spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday, where they discussed competing national interests — but didn’t get around to discussing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to a readout from the White House. The US administration said the leaders of the world’s two preeminent global powers “had a broad, strategic discussion in which they discussed areas where our interests converge, and areas where our interests, values, and perspectives diverge. “They agreed to engage on both sets of issues openly and straightforwardly,” the White House statement went on. The readout later added that Biden “underscored the United States’ enduring interest...

Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, recorded a temperature as low as -18 degrees Celsius (nearly zero degrees Fahrenheit) in the early morning. A two-day high-level talk between the United States and China has just ended in this frigid place. The high pitch of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “wolf warriors” howl and the weak U.S. response, in contrast, are really worrying.In short, the U.S. side fell into four traps set ingeniously by the CCP during the talks.First, the holding of high-level talks between the United States and China is itself a CCP trap.After Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Anthony...

Germany’s Angela Merkel has rejected Boris Johnson’s pleas for face-to-face talks to help secure an 11th-hour Brexit deal, with a source saying she is “determined to make Britain crawl across broken glass” for an agreement. With December 13th becoming the latest “final” deadline for the talks to be pushed back yesterday — the first was in the summer — Boris Johnson has been trying desperately for a breakthrough, flying to Brussels to talk directly to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and offering to do the same for high-profile national leaders such as Chancellor Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron.

Yeah, funny how all talk about the stimulus to help people just suddenly ended. The media is not talking about it either. NO ONE at the top cares about any of us. We are so stupid for worrying about who is in office anywhere and start doing something about all of this. Really.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday vowed to continue developing his country’s nuclear deterrent and introduce a “new strategic weapon” in 2020. In his annual New Year’s address, Kim said there was “no ground” for Pyongyang to maintain the moratorium on missile tests, with the country set to continue developing strategic weapons unless the US gave up its hostile approach. He also threatened that the US would "suffer helplessly" if there continued to be delays in talks aimed at dismantling his country’s nuclear and missile programs. Kim’s comments came after the US missed his deadline of December 31...

A woman walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer. She says she's going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The bank officer tells her that the bank will need some kind of security for such a loan, so the woman hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce that's parked on the street in front of the bank. Everything checks out, and the bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan. An employee drives the Rolls Royce into the bank's underground garage and...

Link Only: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-16/china-to-send-group-to-u-s-for-first-trade-talks-since-june

The Syrian government and its closest military ally - Russia - have intensified their bombing campaign Thursday in the southern province of Deraa, after ceasefire deal between rebels and Russians broke down. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said that had airstrikes intensified on Thursday as government troops advanced steadily to recapture lost territory. “The relative lull in the fighting has now been shattered following the collapse of peace talks. Syrian government and Russian planes have been targeting a number of rebel-held towns in the province,” Khodr said. “Dozens of airstrikes were reported by activists, mainly targeting the towns...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held rare talks with King Abdullah II of Jordan during an unannounced visit to Amman on Monday, official sources in the two countries said. The two leaders discussed the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, the Jordanian royal court said in a statement. Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab countries to have peace treaties with Israel, and Monday’s visit was Netanyahu’s first to the kingdom since 2014. “The king and the prime minister discussed regional developments as well as advancing the peace process and bilateral relations,” the Israeli leader’s spokesman Ofir Gendelman...

Very impressive interview. obama wouldn't blew Rodman off. Trump listened.

My, but two hundred years pass by quickly. After Donald Trump announced a new round of sanctions on Friday morning at CPAC, North Korean state media declared that it might take two centuries until the Kim regime would be willing to talk with the US. Forty-eight hours later, South Korea president Moon Jae-in announced that Pyongyang wants to talk now — and Moon is pressing for a meeting ASAP: In a possible diplomatic breakthrough, North Korea says it is willing to hold talks with the U.S. The message came through South Korean President Moon Jae In, who also met...

YPJ spokeswoman and commander Nesrin Abdullah is in Stockholm for diplomatic talks. Speaking at a press conference in the Swedish parliament, Nesrin Abdullah, spokeswoman and commander for the Women's Defense Units (YPJ) in Rojava, drew attention to the Turkish regime's intention to carry out a genocide on the population in Afrin with jihadist militias. Nesrin Abdullah explained to numerous journalists that in Afrin so far, a peaceful coexistence of different ethnic groups and faiths has taken place. "For 20 days, the NATO member Turkey has been attacking Afrin in front of the world public. These attacks are contrary to international...

RIO GRANDE CITY, Tex. — Caught quite literally in the middle of the international debate over the way the United States trades with its southern neighbor are two Texans named Sam. Sam Vale and Sam Sparks Jr. own two bridges that stretch across the Rio Grande, connecting farmers on either side with markets on the other, and linking communities in South Texas and northern Mexico that sometimes meet in the middle. Major retailers and manufacturers are mobilizing to keep the deal alive and to protest rules that could make it more expensive to bring parts and products in from Mexico....