Chicago Tribune (July 18)
“The nuclear arms control edifice that was built up over half a century is in danger of coming apart” as the Trump administration withdraws from the INF Treaty and does not seek to extend New START. “After more than 50 years of U.S.-Russian arms control negotiations and agreements, there is scope for thinking anew about how best to reduce nuclear dangers. But abandoning long-standing agreements and conditioning any new negotiations on including China are not the best way to do that.”
Tags: Agreements, Arms control, China, INF Treaty, Negotiations, New Start, Nuclear, Russia, Trump administration, U.S.
WARC (May 28)
“In eight major markets, including the three largest, internet advertising already takes the majority of media dollars. The $107.5 billion spent on internet ads in America made it the dominant medium for the first time last year, while the balance tipped in China and the UK during 2016.” By the end of this year, “internet is expected to account for over half [52.7%] of media spend for the first time this year” in the key markets of “Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US.”
Tags: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Dominant medium, France, Germany, India, Internet advertising, Italy, Japan, Major markets, Media dollars, Russia, the UK U.S.
New York Times (May 2)
“What the Venezuelan opposition boldly proclaimed on Tuesday as a ‘final phase’ in the opposition’s three-month campaign to oust the Venezuelan strongman, Nicolás Maduro, fizzled out by Wednesday, leaving behind murky claims of secret talks gone wrong, defectors who didn’t defect and Russian and Cuban meddling. What comes next was even less clear than before.”
Tags: Cuba, Defectors, Final phase, Fizzled, Maduro, Meddling, Murky, Opposition, Russia, Strongman, Venezuela
Financial Times (April 16)
“More than a third of Russians cannot afford to buy two pairs of shoes a year, and 12 per cent use an outdoor or communal toilet at home,” according to Russias statistics agency, Rosstat. These and other findings underscore “deepening economic gloom as tepid growth, five years of falling real incomes, high inflation, rising taxes and cuts to social handouts squeeze people.”
Tags: Afford, Economic gloom, Handouts, Inflation, Real incomes, Russia, Shoes, Statistics, Taxes, Tepid growth, Toilet
Newsweek (March 29)
“As a master of misdirection, Donald Trump is exceedingly good at shifting our attention away from things that matter. With a single tweet, he can magically shift the news narrative in an entirely new direction….President Trump’s greatest rhetorical magic trick, however, has been to create the illusion that he won the Presidency of the United States without the aid of the Russian government.
Tags: Attention, Illusion, Magic trick, Misdirection, Presidency, Rhetorical, Russia, Shifting, Trump, Tweet, U.S.
New York Times (February 11)
“Before the fear of being blown up on a plane, or a train, or a sidewalk gave millions of people sleepless nights, before the threat of global climate disaster stirred dread, nuclear annihilation was the stuff of nightmares.” Then the U.S. and Russia took a step back. With the end of the INF Treaty and the Start Treaty set to expire, the nightmares may return. They shouldn’t. “Outspending Russia on a nuclear arms race, as Mr. Trump has bragged he would do, or abandoning an arms control regime that has helped forestall nuclear war for decades, is a foolish game of chicken, with no possible winners.”
Tags: Climate disaster, Fear, INF, Nightmares, Nuclear annihilation, Plane, Russia, Sleepless nights, Start, Threat, Train, Trump, U.S.
Reuters (February 8)
“With his ratings down and state funds needed to hedge against new Western sanctions and raise living standards, Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot afford to get sucked into a costly nuclear arms race with the United States.” The tell could be seen after Donald Trump pulled out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Putin indicated Russia would do the same thing, but he “did not up the ante.”
Bloomberg (December 28)
“Who is the most important and disruptive leader in the world today? Most Americans would probably answer, Donald Trump—with Russia’s Vladimir Putin running a close second.” There is, however “a strong case that China’s Xi Jinping may deserve the title.”
Washington Post (December 17)
It’s not clear “the country has fully comprehended the damage being done by a president who misbehaves so frequently…. Globally, the United States has lost its power, its aura of seriousness and decisiveness that once made autocrats hesitate before crossing us. Now we are a country that can’t seem to stand up to a ruler who orders the murder and dismemberment of a dissident who was a legal U.S. resident or call out Russia’s intrusion into America’s democratic process…. A child occupies the White House, and the world knows it.”
Tags: Aura, Child, Damage, Decisiveness Dismemberment, Misbehaves, Power, President, Russia, Seriousness, U.S.
BBC (October 21)
“Concern about Russia’s development and deployment of a missile system that breaches the INF treaty predates the Trump administration.” Still, Trump’s “decision to walk away from the agreement marks a significant setback for arms control. Many experts believe that negotiations should have continued to try to bring the Russians back into compliance.” Instead, the move may prove part of a “wider unravelling of the whole system of arms control treaties.”
Tags: Arms control, Compliance, Experts, INF, Missile system, Negotiations, Russia, Setback, Treaties, Treaty, Trump
