Latest from OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, based on information received as of 19:30hrs, 17 January 2016
This report is for media and the general public. Whilst areas at and around Donetsk airport remained largely calm, the SMM continued to note ceasefire violations elsewhere, in particular in areas north-east of Mariupol, and around Horlivka. An SMM patrol came under small-arms fire in Marinka. The Mission experienced multiple freedom-of-movement...
U.S. Probing Kremlin’s ‘Infiltration’ of European Political Parties
Washington said to believe Moscow has been funding anti-establishment parties in a bid to destabilize NATO. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
OSCE Monitors Come Under Fire in East Ukraine
The incident comes nine days after monitors were held at gunpoint by rebel forces, and follows a fresh attempt at a lasting ceasefire. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Russian Officials Deny Burning ‘Undesirable’ Books
Mining college says it removed Soros Foundation books from its library but none were burned. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
ISDS Arbitration Upholds Australia’s Plain Packaging Laws
Tobacco giant Philip Morris has lost a major international legal battle to reverse Australia’s plain packaging laws by using the Australia–Hong Kong Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (IPPA) of 1993. On 17 December 2015, a three-member arbitral tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that Philip Morris had no...
OSCE Principal Deputy Chief Monitor in Ukraine to visit Stanytsia Luhanska tomorrow
KYIV, 15 January 2016 – Alexander Hug, the Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) will tomorrow visit Stanytsia Luhanska with OSCE monitors to assess the general security situation and open a new SMM Forward Patrol Base in the village. Journalists are invited to attend Hug’s briefings at the...
Poroshenko Pledges to Regain Lost Territory
Peace process foresees return of rebel territory to Kyiv’s control, but Russia is not likely to give up Crimea. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
OSCE to serve as a platform for real and honest dialogue on today’s security challenges, says Steinmeier, as Germany formally assumes 2016 OSCE Chairmanship
VIENNA, 14 January 2016 – Germany, as this year’s Chair of the OSCE, aims to steer the Organization as a platform for real and honest dialogue, said Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in his first address as OSCE Chairperson-in-Office to the Permanent Council in Vienna today. Presenting the programme of Germany’s...
Crimean parliament asks to designate Ukraine’s actions as genocide
The Legislative Assembly of the Crimean Republic has passed an address to the United Nations to recognize the ongoing “energy blockade” of the peninsula on the part of Ukraine as violation of basic Human Rights and genocide. Lawmakers asked the Russian Foreign Ministry to assist them in forwarding this document to the General Assembly and […]...
Why Brookings Institution and Establishment Love Wars
Washington’s public relations operations for the military contracting firms that surround the US Capitol aren’t by for-profit PR firms, so much as they’re by “non-profit” foundations and think tanks, which present that “non-profit” cover for their sales-promotion campaigns on behalf of the real...
