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Is time slipping away for Russia to restore what it sees as its special relationship with Ukraine, as Ukraine finds its own identity through its language and independent Orthodox Christian Church since 2019. This WSJ podcast report is by James Marson who lived in Kiev from 2007 to 2012, and Ryan Knutson, with the Archbishop of St Michael's cathedral in Kiev, and the editor of Elle magazine edition in Ukraine joining in.  To understand Ukraine one has to know that Russian is the language of the cities, which means people in Kiev speak Russian. People in the countryside Ukrainian. This is very unusual for a nation and it shows the condition of the country for centuries where intellectuals in cities dominated cultural and political life distant from the people in the countryside. For centuries Ukraine was dominated alternately by either Poland and Lithuania or Russia other than a period of 200 years around 1250-1400 when the Mongols were dominant. The peasants and countryside suffered greatly as in India and other parts of central Europe in the long history till the modern period in 1900.  Russians see their origins in the Kyivan Rus, a state bringing together the different ethnicities Ukrainian and Russian in the period 1000-1240 under the Byzantine Church in Constantinople. Kyiv, the modern capital of Ukraine called Kiev today being the capital of this state. This is the cultural connection that president Putin and Russians see as one they do not want to see drift away. After the Russian state drove out the Mongols in 1240 the northern provinces and Kiev became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the rest became part of a new Russian state. After 1650 Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire and by 1800 with the partition of Poland was fully made part of the Russian Empire. Russian is now after 1800 the language of the intellectual class in Kiev and the cities, and Ukrainian language persists in the countryside. In 1804 Ukrainian is banned as a language and subject of instruction in schools. The end of the Russian Empire under the Tsars in 1917 ended the ban on the Ukrainian language and a period of respect of the cultures of the different soviet republics including Ukraine ensued. Putin has strong feelings on Kyiv, or modern Kiev, as the place where Russia as a country began. He wrote a 7000 word essay says this report in WSJ in 2010 on this relationship as he sees it.  Yet the period of protests in Kiev since 2010 has resulted in Ukraine building  its own identity as a nation. Magazines in the country are required to use Ukrainian for 50% of their circulation. People in Kiev now use Ukrainian instead of Russian as the sense of national identity is being revived. During 1917-1921 Ukraine fought a war with the Bolsheviks after the Russian Empire collapsed. This history is why Russia is acting now to push for Ukraine not drift completely away. It is also what makes Ukraine different from Poland which has cultural ties to Western Europe. It is why the US or Germany is not willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, as it would over Poland. It is also why Russia may not see war as the best option as about one third of Ukrainians say they will fight to defend their country, according to this report. The situation is complex and this is why both sides want to negotiate some way out in which Russia wants the US and NATO respecting its sense of connection with Ukraine in its history with Kyiv as the place Russian state started, and Russia not going further. Russia's tangible proposal is for no to Ukraine joining NATO or the European Union. The US and Germany want something else- the right of Eastern European nations that suffered from Tsarist or Soviet domination or German Hapsburg domination to finally be able to assert their own right of self-determination as democratic countries. This would include Finland. And also Sweden. Ukraine is not another small Eastern European country. Population is 44 million and it is the second largest by area in Europe after Russia.  Russia may also see the move to bring this up at this time as a way to unify the country against what it sees as threat from NATO. As Brendan Simms of Cambridge notes in his recent book -Europe, France went through a period after 1600 when it needed external danger as a way to unify the country, as much as unity of the country to fight external danger. The economic costs after building Nordstream II pipeline are to0 great for both Russia and Germany, and for the US and Russia during the pandemic, which means there is a real need to find a way out for all sides.     ...

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Relations between Germany and the U.S. improve in the last year of the Obama administration. The low point is the NSA spying scandal. By 2015 with the Ukraine crisis and the refugee crisis, the U.S. and Germany develop closer relations. In April 2016 U.S. president Obama visits the Hannover trade fair and meets German chancellor Merkel, following a trip to Britian where he expresses support for Britain's membership in the EUropean Union. The U.S. general election campaign with less engagement of the U.S. in the world preferred by candidates Trump and Sanders, the Brexit vote in Britain, also creates a new environment and makes clear the need to support closer ties in an interconnected world.

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Experts discuss how to draw on your interests and passions for using time in the 20 some retirement years with good health.

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The U.S. Dodd-Frank legislation has a provision requiring U.S.- listed oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments to governments for access to mining and oil resources. The S.E.C. will decide how to implement this rule which goes into effect in 2012. This has a severe effect on the economies of developing countries as it siphons away significant part of revenues for the resources into the hands of government officials. From Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea in Africa, and in other parts of the world in Latin America and Asia, this is a serious problem and results in underdevelopment and retarded societies.

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Though the German public opposes a "transfer union," bailouts of EU countries, and fear a weakening of the euro, there is also support for the European Union. Most of Germany's political leaders and business elite see the euro as good for Germany. And nearly two thirds of Germans agree that Germany can only prosper inside a strong EU, according to the ARD poll. Yet the same proportion of Germans oppose bailouts of troubled countries such as Greece. This suggests that the way forward will have to be the development of mechanisms that ensure fiscal discipline throughout the EU to back up the euro currrency, and agreement on enforceable sanctions.

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The number of unemployed in Spain reaches 5.6 million people in April 2012. Finance Minister Guindos said the only bright spot was exports and a drop in the current account deficit which shows Spain's improving competitiveness: "This shows the Spanish economy is competitive, unlike some other European economies, thats the most important element of optimism for the future." The Spanish cabinet approved a Stability Program Report to be submitted to the European Union showing GDP growth of 0.2% in 2013 and 1.4% in 2014, following contraction of 1.7% in 2012, and unemployment falling slightly to 24.2% in 2013. Spain's government debt level is shown at 82.3% of GDP in 2013 declining to 81.5% in 2014.

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The Ifo Institute monthly business confidence survey shows a reading of 104.7 for November, up from 103.2 in October 2014.

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Angela Merkel's call to the Greek president calling for a referendum vote on Greece's wishes to remain in the eurozone. This is denounced by Syriza and the centre left parties. Merkel denies she made the call, but Greece's president says the call was made.

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Critics of the nuclear agreement with Iran reached in April 2015 say the verification under a UN agency will be weak, and the "snap back" of sanctions in the event of failure may not work in the real world.

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This article in the Economist describes the different perspectives on the Greece crisis in July 2015 as seen inside Germany. It cites a poll showing German 51% to 41% favoring a Greek exit from the eurozone. About 85% reject further concessions in a July 1, 2015 poll, including 68% of the supporters of The Left, a post-Communist party. Social Democrats leader Sigmar Gabriel, said of the Greece timeout from the euro proposal by finance minister Schauble- that it was the appropriate thing to consider all options. And 78% polled see Greeks not keeping their side of the deal. Some experts see stronger sentiment about Greece after the events in July 2015, and the raising of the issue of the debt haircut given to Germany in 1953, because Germans see themselves as having gone to great lengths to build a strong Europe after their own troubled history in the 20th century. If the goal was to win German support in 2015, this has come across as poor tactics and poor strategy, considering how it has changed German opinion across the spectrum of political opinion....

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Anger in Greece at the austerity measures was evident in the results of the April 2012 elections. The two major parties polled even less than the low poll numbers that they expected. The Socialist Pasok party of former premier Papandreou received only 13% of the vote and not the 15-18% expected, the New Democracy party of Antonio Samaras received only 18.8% and not the 25% expected. As a result the two main parties that have ruled Greece received less than one third of the vote combined. The second largest party after New Democracy is now the Coalition of the Radical Left or Syriza, which received 16.78% of the vote. It is led by young Alexis Tsipras, 38, who has said the bailout treaties witht the EU and the IMF were "not salvation, but a tragedy." Syriza opposes the austerity measures and prefers to exit the eurozone. A extremist far right anti-immigrant party New Dawn received 7% of the vote showing the desperate situation. New Democracy's Samaras tried hard but failed to form a government, and under the Greek constitution each party gets a few days to form a government. The outcome is likely to be new elections in June 2012 and a caretaker government appointed by the president....

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About $229 billion, three fourth of Greece's debt, is now held by the European Central Bank, the IMF and the European Commission. This is taxpayer money and the governments are making sure that they get back bailout loans in the form of interest payments. About two thirds of the $177 billion given to Greece as bailout loans since May 2010 actually came back to the ECB, IMF, and the EC, in the form of interest. The ECB is keen on recovering taxpayer money. The money route has been setup with an escrow account in Greece for bailout loans so that interest payments get paid, and this money cannot be used for any other purpose. Banking experts say this is a practice in risk management, and with Greece's poor record in finances the controls have been put in place to recover money the ECB invested in Greek bonds in an effort to calm nervous financial markets and now gets about 10% in annual interest payment. Under earlier debt restructuring for private creditors to Greece a haircut of over 50% on Greek bonds was taken, with the ECB insisting on receiving full payment. If Greece were to repudiate the loans under a new elected government losses would have to be taken by the ECB, IMF, and EC, and by private creditors. The ECB has Greek bonds in the range of $44 billion to $69 billion, and the European Financial Stability Facility $88 billion, by some estimates. Greece's exit from the euro would result in losses on these bonds .for the ECB and the EFSF, ultimately European taxpayers. It would also make the new bonds to private creditors under the restructuring of little value which is why European banks would not favor that outcome. Greece's tax receipts at some point, possibly 2013, would exceed basic operating expenses of the government, at which point a future Greek government might decide to exit the euro and stop interest payments on debt in its best interest....