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"(CNN)The U.N. Security Council is set to implement "significant" punitive measures after North Korea's nuclear test and will begin working on a new resolution "immediately," a statement released by Security Council President Elbio Rosselli says. "

Seeing as how we just finished our discussions on the EU, this article is about Russia's request to formally participate in an EU committee. Russia wants to have more of a say in Europe, and Germany seems open to the idea (note that Germany is a major European ally for Russia). Medvedev, Merkel, and Sarkozy will soon meet up to discuss the idea. Germany carries a lot of influence in the EU, but I'm curious as to how the other member states truly feel about it.

Sorry, but I just have to make the distinction (with Larkin) that Russia isn't trying to join the EU, but rather requesting to participate in an EU committee. The summit that is occurring between the 3 leaders is about strengthening the EU-Russia relationship. The NY Times article I posted was about Russia trying to join the EU political and security committee. Now that the summit has occurred, here are some more recent articles about it. Hopefully they're more clear. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/world/europe/19iht-summit.html?src=twrhp http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-10/20/c_13565527.htm

To Larkin's comment: Yes, that is very interesting, as we learned in class some countries join the EU for the fiscal benefits or the security benefits; however, they must join the entire EU and that is when we said the benefits that a niation get from the EU should outweight the things that the EU will make the country take part in that they may not want to. It's sort of funny that Russia would try to avoid the EU only in some areas.

"Iran protests: Tehran court sentences first person to death over unrest"

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are tying to do whatever they can to avert the attention from Ryan losing the Vice Presidential debate. The main area of contention is whether or not the US Embassy in Benghazi asked the American government for extra security before the attacks on September 11th that killed 4 Americans. Biden claims that he and the president were not asked to enhance security measures, while sworn testimony from the staff of the embassy said that they asked for more protection. In my opinion, there is a lot of ad-libbing in the debates, therefore to put a candidates word choice under so much scrutiny is pointless. Mitt Romney's camp seems to be jumping on biden's every word to make up for the insufficiencies in his own platform.

Its unfortunate that the campaign race has become something of a food fight of gossip and rumors. It has gotten to the point where no one can tell who is telling the truth or not. Romney seems determined to portray the President as incompetent especially his comparison between Joe Bidden and Paul Ryan.

Although I agree with both Matt and Rory, I would like to point out that the criticism of the campaign is very much focused on the Republican party. I think it's important to note that perhaps Biden did, in fact, distort the truth in the debate; saying that he didn't know about something if he did is not a simple slip of the tongue. factcheck.org put Ryan's falsehoods at 6 and Biden's at 3. Although it is clear who lied more, this is a disgusting statistic: the candidates lied NINE TIMES during their debate. Although there is a lot of information they have to cover, I think that one must hold Biden as responsible for his lies as one does Ryan.

Thousands of criminals have been killed under the Philippine president, Duterte, due to a corrupt judicial system that leads citizens to feel unsafe. Therefore, these citizens search for short-term security in terms of murder.

I thought this was an interesting article because it called into question the authority Obama really has on the decision to use armed forces in Syria. Since the United States is not directly in danger, the article points out how Obama legally needs to put the decision before the UN security council to make a decision.

I also think it's fascinating that there are parallels drawn between Obama's justification that not intervening in Syria would give the message that Syria's violation of the ban on chemical weapons is okay and Obama's willingness to violate the rule that prohibits use of military force without Security Council authorization. The question raised about which rule is more important is very thought-provoking.

Link to the article

Really cool ideas being shared on how a modern city-state can develop its economy.

Interesting to see how just the geography of a country can shape its economic growth and international trades importance. Also how improving internal infrastructures affect international trade and domestic econmies.

Check this out! How would security forces in other countries deal with the threat?

Russia is starting to open up to better relations with the West, especially a security alliance like NATO because they have common security interests. Russia has finally withdrawn its troops from Georgia, allowing the dialogue to take place. I wonder whether Russia intends apply for NATO membership within a few years.

I believe this article is highly pertinent to our discussions on globalization. Historically, there was an East-West divide, exemplified by the Iron Curtain. However, Russia's attempts to improve cooperation and communication with NATO signifies the start of deconstruction of this divide. Even if the NATO summit does not itself improve relations, I wonder if it will still serve as a precedent for future talks.

In addition to proposing four possible solutions to the United States's Social Security problems, this staff report also gives insight into the problems a newly designed system would need to foresee, such as the upcoming demographic shift, the dropping labor force participation rate amongst younger individuals, increased consumption, potentially stagnant economic growth, etc. The proposed solutions are to "1) increase payroll taxes by 6 percentage points, 2) reduce the replacement rates of the benefit formula by one-third, 3) raise the normal retirement age from sixty-six to seventy-three, or 4) means-test the benefits and reduce them one-to-one with income." Means-testing, already used in Medicaid, is the process by which the government assessing the income and assets of individuals and families to see if they could live without the government's help. In this case, only the poorest would receive benefits. The solution was first proposed by Ross Perot; however, it could lead to a social stigma around accepting pension benefits. Furthermore, each solution has its own repercussions and political obstacles. Maybe it is possible to look overseas to find more palatable solutions.

The title says it all: this document describes the nature of the US's pension problem. This document defines many important terms, visualizes many important statistics, and highlights key areas that must be improved upon and the magnitude of improvements necessary. A good (terrifying) quote, "Why must the system increase net receipts by $13.6 trillion if it is already requiring current and future workers to pay in more than they will receive? The answer relates to the system's generosity to early birth cohorts-generations of workers now either retired or deceased. Social Security paid these previous cohorts benefits that exceeded their lifetime contributions by more than $13.6 trillion. In order to finance this gap, later birth cohorts must receive benefits whose value (relative to the value of the taxes they pay in) is lower by the same amount-that is, they must pay a net tax (again, the difference between the present value of taxes and benefits) of more than $13.6 trillion. Under current law, a portion of this net tax is being levied already; in order to make the system solvent, the net tax needs to be increased by an additional $13.6 trillion." Another good quote: "There is no escaping the budget arithmetic."

sorry im late to this but the economic sanctions on my country have finally been lifted!

From this article, I learned that the U.S. push for U.N. sanctions on Iran is entirely unsupported by other members of the U.N. security council, as many members believe that the U.S. has no legal standing to push for sanctions. Reimposing U.N. sanctions on Iran was part of the "snapback provision" of the Iran nuclear deal, but Trump withdrew from the deal 2 years ago. It is because of this withdrawal that the other members believe the U.S. no longer has the legal right to enforce the provision and impose U.N. sanctions.

The U.S.' push for sanctions is interesting because sanctions could be possible if the U.S. had not pulled out of the of the 2015 Iran Nuclear agreement. However, now that President Trump wants to impose sanctions he can not because of his administration past actions. The U.S. said they are fine standing alone of this issue, but this process could have been easier, and they could have possible have built a coalition around the sanctions.

Belarus is one of the last remaining authoritarian regimes in Europe, and have begun a crackdown on opposition movements in recent years. Freedom House ranks them very low for Political Rights and Civil Liberties, and recently, the main opposition leader was arrested and hospitalized from prison after suffering serious injuries.

Maria Kalesnikava. . . . what guts! "Kalesnikava was arrested last September and taken to the border, where she was told to leave the country. Instead, she reportedly ripped up her passport, risking prison rather than going into exile." She was charged with conspiracy to seize power, calling for action to damage national security, and calling for actions damaging national security using media and the internet. At the same court hearing, the lawyer Maxim Znak, another member of the opposition council's leadership, was given a 10-year prison sentence on similar charges. He had gone on hunger strike while awaiting trial to protest against the charges against him. "We demand the immediate release of Maria and Maksim, who aren't guilty of anything," wrote Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, an opposition leader who ran for president against Lukashenko. She is based in Lithuania and cannot return to the country without facing arrest.