Ukraine Economic Woes Could Hold Key To Peace

Uniformed troops believed to be Russian stand guard outside a Ukrainian military base in Crimea. Is there a peaceful resolution to this crisis? [Credit: Business Insider]

Uni­formed troops believed to be Russ­ian stand guard out­side a Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary base in Crimea. Is there a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to this cri­sis? [Cred­it: Busi­ness Insider]

Ukraine’s inter­im gov­ern­ment, whose part the Admin­is­tra­tion has tak­en in the Crimea cri­sis, includes a promi­nent polit­i­cal leader who has in the past urged his coun­try­men to fight the “Mus­covite-Jew­ish mafia” and called on his gov­ern­ment to halt the “crim­i­nal activ­i­ties” of “orga­nized Jewry.”

The author of this calum­ny, Oleh Tyah­ny­bok, is a leader of Ukraine’s Svo­bo­da (“free­dom”) par­ty, who in Decem­ber 2012 was named Per­son of the Year by read­ers of the coun­try’s lead­ing news mag­a­zine, Kor­re­spon­dent.

Such are the com­plex­i­ties that lurk not far beneath the sur­face in the ongo­ing cri­sis over Russia’s incur­sion into Crimea. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

How’s That Cyprus “Bail-In” Working Out?

The Cyprus "bail-in" is no more popular today than when it was hatched last spring. [Credit: CNNMoney.com]

The Cyprus “bail-in” is no more pop­u­lar today than when it was hatched last spring. [Cred­it: CNNMoney.com]

You may remem­ber Cyprus, the Mediter­ranean island that grabbed inter­na­tion­al head­lines last March when its gov­ern­ment was com­pelled by Euro­pean author­i­ties to seize mon­ey that indi­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es had deposit­ed in the country’s two largest banks.

The “bail-in” of Cypri­ot banks, so called because it requires peo­ple who have deposit­ed their mon­ey in fail­ing banks to help save those banks by for­feit­ing some of their deposits, is a por­tent of bank res­cues to come.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Cyprus: Euro Saved! But things are not so good for Cypriots who saved euros

CyprusDid you cash a check today?  Or with­draw mon­ey from your sav­ings account?  Or use your deb­it card to buy a sand­wich?  If so, many Cypri­ots wish they were you. Con­tin­ue read­ing →