The "News" thread.

[Geo]

Internal struggle (within nations) extending to violence seems to become the new norm this generation.
Even within a politically 'stable' country like mine where disagreements between the regions were always talked over until a compromise was reached, that might become a thing of the past.

[Buster's Uncle]

I heard something on the radio about an hour ago to the effect that the stock market is very happy the Russian troops are pulling out...

[Geo]

I heard something on the radio about an hour ago to the effect that the stock market is very happy the Russian troops are pulling out...

A redrawal at night? I'd be surprised if that was true...
Haven't seen any indication that this is indeed happening in my local media.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'll be poking around for anything on that shortly when I get to looking at the news.

[Geo]

The most recent (from the region) I saw was a Russian ICBM missile test...

[Geo]

Ah, perhaps you misheard a newsflash about Russia considering abandoning the US dollar as reserve currency?

[Buster's Uncle]

Possibly.  I'm pretty hard of hearing, and I don't play the classical music station very loud at all.

[Buster's Uncle]

Talk about disappointment.  Putin gave a speech that took a softer line, and the markets reacted better than yesterday.  Clearly, I did mishear.

[Buster's Uncle]

Any thoughts, Rusty?

[Geo]

 

Just muddle through the first 22 seconds of Dutch speech, and then CNN comes in.

http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/programmas/terzake/EP_140304_Terzake?video=1.1899699

[Buster's Uncle]

She's absolutely right, and Wolf Blitzer is a little dim to miss her point about appearances.  There's a tricky journalistic ethics issue he isn't considering - she wasn't criticizing, but rather pointing out the probability of bias in the source.  Alternately, TV news is entirely capable of slanting the news by overdoing what she did, so there's that.

You know how I go on about crappy TV journalism...

(Also, I like what she's done with her hair.)

[Geo]

He didn't get a chance to tell what the Ukrainian point of view is though.

[Buster's Uncle]

That depends on which Ukrainian, which is the original problem...

[Buster's Uncle]

I probably heard right after all.  I don't know how reliable the following is, but there is a story going around:

Russian Stocks Gain as Putin Orders End to Military Exercises
By Vladimir Kuznetsov  Mar 4, 2014 2:03 AM ET



Russian stocks climbed the most since September after a report President Vladimir Putin ordered the end to military exercises.

The Micex Index (INDEXCF) gained 2.9 percent to 1,325.83 as of 10:40 a.m. in Moscow, snapping five days of declines including yesterday’s 11 percent slump. United Co. Rusal, the world’s biggest aluminum producer, and builder OAO LSR Group surged more than 12 percent.

The nation’s benchmark equities index plunged the most in more than five years yesterday after Putin ordered the deployment of troops to Crimea. Troops who took part in military exercises in Western Russia were ordered back to base, the Interfax news service reported today, citing Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“It’s more a reaction to yesterday’s decline -- after all, the plunge was very strong,” Alexei Bachurin, head of equities trading at Renaissance Capital in Moscow, said today by e-mail.

Russia’s equities have the cheapest valuations among 21 developing countries monitored by Bloomberg, with shares on the Micex trading at 4.8 times projected 12-month earnings, compared with a multiple of 10.1 for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-04/russian-stocks-gain-as-putin-orders-end-to-military-exercises.html?cmpid=yhoo

[JarlWolf]

I can give some clarification to this;

Russian troops are withdrawing from Ukraine, however we are keeping sentries within the Crimea to ensure Russian citizens and that region is safeguarded- and plus, you also have to remember we do have a military base stationed there to begin with, even before all of this.

Looks like things are settling down... somewhat. There is still lots of unstable conditions and Putin's decisions have been killing his support here..