Tuesday, Jan.10

Position: Attorney General

• Nominee: Senator Jeff Sessions
• Background: Alabama Republican Congressman
• Committee: Senate Judiciary
• Confirmation Hearings: Jan.10 and 11.

Position: Homeland Security Secretary

The United States has 170 embassies and 11 missions other than an Embassy headed by a chief of mission (OSCE, UNVIE, USOAS, USOECD, USEU, USUN, USNATO, USUN Geneva, USAU, ASEAN, and US Mission to Somalia). About 30 percent of these posts are encumbered by political/noncareer appointees (about 50 ambassadors), while the remaining 70 percent are filled by career diplomats.

Author : Michael McFaul, Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Professor of Political Science, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council (2009-2012), and later U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

Text has been edited

Authors: Graham T. Allison, Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans; Dimitri K. Simes, Publisher and CEO of the National Interest, President of the Center for the National Interest

Original Text has been edited

Platine (Platinum) 41

A shift is coming to the European order: toward accommodating, rather than countering Russia. Since the end of World War II, European leaders have maintained their ever-growing alliance as a bulwark against Russian power. Through decades of ups and downs in Russian-European relations, in periods of estrangement or reconciliation, their balance of power has kept the continent stable.

Source : Doru Frantescu, Co-Founder and CEO of VoteWatch Europe

Building on the European Council’s Strategic Guidelines and the 10 priorities the European Parliament  gave the Juncker Commission a mandate to deliver, the Presidents of the three institutions agreed on a number of proposals they will give priority treatment to in the legislative process.  This will ensure that the EU delivers concrete results for its citizens and addresses the most urgent challenges Europe faces today.

1. Extension of the duration of the European Fund for Strategic Investments as well as the introduction of technical enhancements for the Fund and the European Advisory Hub.
2. Protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Community.
3. Protection against subsidized imports from countries not members of the European Community
4. End-of-life vehicles on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators.
5. Waste.
6. Landfill of waste.
7. Packaging and packaging waste.

Rachel Tausendfreund, Editorial Director: " Europe will not be able to solve any of its other crises until the underlying instability surrounding the euro crisis is properly fixed. Italy and Greece  start the new year fiscally unsound and with new warnings of failing banks, while increasing numbers of refugees and migrants are landing on their shores. Germany, the indispensable country for a fix to the euro crisis, faces an election year that will leave it unable to render further aid until September and likely weakened thereafter. Plus there is still Brexit.”