1 US and EU mull new Russia sanctions (BBC) The US and EU
are discussing "deeper sanctions" against Russia if there are
"further incursions into Ukraine". US President Barack Obama said
"energy is obviously a central focus of our efforts", acknowledging
it "will have some impact on the global economy". He said Russians
"will recognise that they cannot achieve security, prosperity and
status... through brute force".
Tensions
are high between the West and Russia after Ukraine's southern peninsula of
Crimea was annexed by Russian forces earlier this month after a referendum
which Kiev and its Western allies considered illegal. Mr Obama, along with EU
Council President Herman Van Rompuy and EU Commission President Jose Manuel
Barosso, stressed EU and US unity on the issue of Ukraine.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26746106
2 Why employers will stop offering health insurance
(Robb Mandelbaum in The New York Times) Here’s a prediction: By 2025, “fewer
than 20 percent of workers in the private sector will receive traditional
employer-sponsored health insurance.” The source of this claim? Dr. Ezekiel J.
Emanuel, in his just-published book, "Reinventing American Health
Care".
In it,
Mr. Emanuel argues that in the next two or three years, “a few big, blue-chip
companies will announce their intention to stop providing health insurance.
Instead, they will raise salaries substantially or offer large, defined
contributions to their workers. Then the floodgates will open.” He says that
few small businesses will join the SHOP exchanges set up for them and that most
of those that offer coverage are even more likely than big companies to drop
it, since those who employ fewer than 50 workers face no mandate to offer it in
the first place, which Mr. Emanuel thinks is fine.
Mr.
Emanuel acknowledges that the fact that workers don’t pay taxes on the premium
benefit from their employers is a big obstacle to this vision — the tax break
is the second-biggest deduction in the tax code, and employees won’t be eager
to give it up. But, he argues, the so-called Cadillac tax on especially
generous health plans, set to take effect in 2018, will help pave the way by
discouraging companies from offering those plans.
http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/why-employers-will-stop-offering-health-insurance/?module=BlogPost-ReadMore&version=Blog%20Main&action=Click&contentCollection=The%20Agenda&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
At least 778 executions were known to have been carried out globally in 2013, 538 of them in Iran and Iraq alone, showed the 62-page report. It was up from 682 executions in 2012. Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary general, said "The long-term trend is clear – the death penalty is becoming a thing of the past. We urge all governments who still kill in the name of justice to impose a moratorium on the death penalty immediately, with a view to abolishing it."
China is believed to have executed several thousand people – more than the rest of the world together – but exact figures are unavailable as Beijing authorities classify execution statistics as a state secret. Saudi Arabia practiced beheading as a method of execution, while the US used electrocution. Hanging was used in a wide-range of countries such as Afghanistan, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia and India. Iran was among the countries that carried out public executions, drawing much international condemnation. Lethal injection (in China and the US) and firing squad (in Somalia and Yemen) were among other methods.
More than 23,000 people were on death row by the end of last year and nearly 2,000 people were given death sentences in 57 countries in 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/27/iran-iraq-global-rise-capital-punishment
Pakistanis form one of the largest contingents of foreign combatants in Syria and their number is likely to rise with the growing Saudi influence in this country. Meanwhile, the Afghan front is also heating up with the approach of the 2014 deadline for withdrawal of the US-led foreign forces, attracting a greater number of militants for what is described as the most critical phase of the battle for Afghanistan.
There’s a long history of Pakistani holy warriors fighting foreign wars from Afghanistan to Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, even getting involved in Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region in Azerbaijan. But the avenue for external jihad shrank after 9/11, with Pakistan pulling back from its policy of using militancy as a tool of regional policy. Outraged by this change of tack, militant groups turned to internal jihad by declaring war on the Pakistani state.
A Pakistani Taliban fighter in Syria was quoted by a foreign news agency as saying that there was a higher reward from God for fighting evil at home as well as outside. All these groups have close ideological links with Al Qaeda and are most likely to be fighting along groups like Al Nusra. The most dangerous scenario presents itself once these fighters return to Pakistan.
A highly volatile situation in the Middle East calls for a more prudent policy approach by the government and for maintaining strict neutrality on the widening sectarian war. Instead, the prime minister has decided to take sides, with extremely grave consequences for the country. That gives a huge boost to the jihadis. The resurgence of Jihad Inc. and the increasing involvement of Pakistani militants in foreign conflicts presents a grave challenge to the country’s stability and security.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1095640/resurgence-of-jihad-inc
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