Canada’s Largest Newspaper Opens 2016 With a Biased Salvo Against Russia
By Roger Annis, January 15, 2016 After a hiatus from the Ukraine and Russia file for much of 2015, the editor of Canada’s largest daily newspaper has opened the year 2016 with sharp words for Russia, notably the “lightning annexation of Crimea” and the “Moscow-backed separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine” which Russia is said to have sprung on the world in early 2014. Olivia Ward pens an article in the January 10, 2016 edition of the Toronto Star loaded with grim predictions for Russia’s economy in 2016 and of “swelling grassroots outrage” against the rule of President Vladimir Putin. The Star editor explains, “In 2014, Russia’s lightning takeover of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula was a shock that reverberated around the world. Within a month, a Moscow-backed separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine convinced western leaders that the Russian bear was on the prowl, and its appetite for territory was growing.” Looking forward, Ms Ward writes, “In 2016, the question is not how much Putin’s geopolitical ambitions might expand, but how long it will be before they are …