Around the World in One Article: A quick rundown to keep the global reader up to date with all the h

Europe

Russia: We begin today in Eastern Europe, a hotbed of political agitation and discontent, the aggressor, and common denominator in these events being the Russian Federation. According to NATO’s chief military commander of Europe has reported that Russian troops, tanks, and air defense systems have re-entered Eastern Ukraine, specifically into the new People’s Republic of Donetsk, to aid the separatist forces (Premier Vladimir Putin has failed to comment on such accusations). While he says Russian troops are not in Ukraine, many have already died there.

The People’s Republic of Donetsk: Once a strong manufacturing region in Eastern Ukraine, the newly carved republic will be facing its first winter, and surviving it will be no small feat. Constant shelling and violence has left many of the buildings in ruin, and due to the separation, Donetsk is running low on heat, water, and medicine (which is coming from Russian money moving in with the troops). However the “Prime Minister” of Donetsk predicts that life will continue as usual and the republic will survive the winter, more than partly in thanks to the many basement-councils of “Responsible Citizens” who go around collecting data on what families need electricity, water, and which medicines.

Sweden: Sweden went into panic two weeks ago when their navy intercepted a Russian distress call coming from the Baltic Sea near Stockholm, to Kaliningrad on the opposite shore. Until recently no evidence could be found to support this claim considering this happened in 2009, and it only turned out to be a mink. However this panic “sparked a huge search and Sweden's biggest military operation in years” (I’m not kidding, that’s straight from the BBC). Russia (as per usual) denied any such submarine, but thanks to satellite imagery, Sweden’s Gen Sverker Goransson has confirmed that a small U-boat had breached Swedish waters and warned that they would stop at nothing to protect their own borders.

Africa

Nigeria: Who remembers the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign? The outrage over the 326 girls taken and the 276 still missing –taken by Boko Haram. A terrorist group in Nigeria, the name meaning “Western Education is Forbidden”. Well those girls had been taken from the relatively Christian town of Chibok. Unfortunately in the past months Boko Haram has been taking over the towns surrounding Chibok and a few days ago their forces finally converged on the town. The security forces, which had been just as ineffectual in the other towns, realized that their ammunition was pretty much spent, and ran as soon as they saw the insurgents. They did not fire back, they did not stand their ground, they ran for their lives and abandoned the town to its vigilantes and citizens. Upon conquering Chibok, the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, saying he wanted to create an Islamic State in Nigeria, declared all lands under his control a Caliphate. The only ones to step up to the plate to fight these insurgents so far are the French under PM Francois Holland and his army of ten-thousand Special Forces troops.

America: November 4th saw one of the most beautiful things about this country. The people took to the streets to overthrow the government without a single drop of blood, the power of the ballot is alive and well. The results of which lead to the Republican Party holding the majority in the House of Representatives (244:186) and took the majority in the Senate (54:43:2). This shift in political control shows the American Public’s obvious discontent with a divided, and ineffective, Congress, and have chosen the GOP over an entirely Democratic controlled Congress like the one we saw at the beginning of Barak Obama’s presidency. It also foreshadows how legislation is going to look for the next 2 years; more conservative, especially economic legislation. The only worry is that now the Legislative and Executive branches are going to refuse to work together entirely, as opposed to the House and the Senate refusing to work together. Time will tell how the government will function, it will definitely be interesting to see who rejects whom. Locally however, as an update, Massachusetts elected the republican candidate Charlie Baker as the governor, who won with a 48% to 46% over democrat Martha Coakley. We also voted to repeal the 2013 automatic gas tax increase (Prop 1), we rejected the Bottle Bill (Prop 2), did not repeal the 2011 law allowing resort Casions (Prop 3), and voted to give certain employees the right to earn and utilize paid sick days (Prop 4).

Canada: A shooting occurred in Ottawa’s Parliament building following the shooting at the Canadian Capital’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier National War Memorial. The shooter, and Islamic extremist, was shot and killed in the parliament building by Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers. Unfortunately the shooter, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, had already taken the life of one Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, who had been shot in the back standing guard at the memorial. Kevin Vickers has been honored by the Canadian government, our condolences go out to the family of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, and we thank Kevin Vickers ourselves for not allowing for more blood shed.

Australia: Tony Abbott, the London-born, conservative, Prime Minister of Australia, publicly denounced Putin before heading out to the G20 Summit which is being held in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Urging all the leaders to speak directly from the heart, and if he saw Russian Premier Vladimir Putin, who had been kicked off the G20 Summit for Russian involvement in Ukraine, he would personally grab him by the shirt and through him out himself. Doesn’t Abbot know though that Putin doesn’t wear shirts? I kind want to see it happen though. Let’s have Tony Abbot on a Kangaroo fight Vladimir Putin (shirtless) on a bear, winner gets a seat on the G20 Summit.