[Dhaka Tribune] The European Union...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
has agreed on a framework for its first sanctions on Russia since the Cold War, a stronger response to the Ukraine crisis.
The move was forwarded as a mark of solidarity with Washington in the drive to make Moscow pay for seizing Crimea, reports Rooters.
US President Barack Obama
I am the change that you seek...
warned Russia it faced costs from the West unless it changed course in Ukraine, and pledged to "stand with Ukraine" as he met with the country's new prime minister in Washington.
"We will never surrender," Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk vowed as he and Obama met in a White House show of support for the embattled leader.
"Mr Putin - tear down this wall - the wall of more intimidation and military aggression," Yatseniuk told news hounds in remarks aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
and a reference to then-President Ronald Reagan's challenge to the Soviet Union in a 1987 speech at the Berlin Wall.
But Obama and Yatseniuk outlined a potential diplomatic opening that could give Russians a greater voice in the disputed Crimean region, where a referendum is scheduled for Sunday on whether it should become part of Russia.
Yatseniuk told a forum in Washington after his White House meeting that his interim government was ready to have a dialogue and negotiations with Russia about Moscow's concerns for the rights of ethnic Russians in Crimea.
The EU sanctions, outlined in a document seen by Rooters, would slap travel bans and asset freezes on an as-yet-undecided list of people and firms accused by Brussels of violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as
Mom...
said the measures would be imposed on Monday unless diplomatic progress was made.