Friday, April 18, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Recession Not Over for Poor: Families Stretch Food to Last – NBC
By Miranda Leitsinger
First published April 18 2014

After Jaime Grimes found out in January that her monthly food stamps would be cut again, this time by $40, the single mother of four broke down into sobs — then she took action.

The former high school teacher made a plan to stretch her family’s meager food stores even further. She used oatmeal and ground beans as filler in meatloaf and tacos. She watered down juice and low-fat milk to make it last longer. And she limited herself to one meal a day so her kids — ages 3, 4, 13, and 16 — would have enough to eat.
“I just want my kids to be fed," said Grimes, 38, of Lincoln, Neb., who suffers from chronic back problems, arthritis and muscle pain that make it difficult for her to stand. She is applying for disability but in the meantime has $950 a month — $500 in child support and $450 in food stamps — to feed and house her family. "I just want my kids to have the basics of life that, unfortunately, I can't give them right now," she added.

Grimes and her children are among the estimated 49 million Americans who have limited — or uncertain — access to enough food to meet their daily needs. The numbers of people living in such hardship initially spiked during the Great Recession to around 15 percent of Americans, and has hovered there, failing to return to pre-recession figures of 11- to 12-percent though the economic slump ended nearly five years ago in June 2009, according to a new report by Feeding America, a national hunger relief charity.

Olivia Grimes, 3, watches a food line volunteer hand a turkey to her mother Jaime in Lincoln, Nebraska. “It takes a lot of time and effort to be poor,” said Jaime Grimes. “It’s harder for me as a mom to put my pride aside and then my kids have to do it too. I just want to tell my children we’re going to be better people for it."
“Nothing is getting better,” said Craig Gundersen, lead researcher of the report, “Map the Meal Gap 2014,” and an expert in food insecurity and food aid programs.

“Let’s stop talking about the end of the Great Recession until we can make sure that we get food insecurity rates down to a more reasonable level,” he added. “We’re still in the throes of the Great Recession, from my perspective.”

The report quantifies people's ability to buy or access food, including whether through charity or government aid, in the nation’s 3,143 counties — which all have individuals like Grimes struggling to put meals on the table. Using 2012 data — the most recent available — from various federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and the Agriculture Department, some of the key findings were:
Counties with the highest rates of food insecurity were more likely to be in rural areas than in metropolitan regions;

Eighteen counties in the top 10 percent for highest food-insecurity rates and highest cost per meal have more than 20 percent of their population living in hunger;
Minorities are facing serious hunger issues. Ninety-three percent of counties with a majority African-American population fall within the top 10 percent of food-insecure counties, while 60 percent of majority American Indian counties fall in that category;

The state with the highest rate of food insecurity is Mississippi at 22.3 percent, while New Mexico has the highest rate of child food insecurity at 29 percent;
Low-income Americans said they needed to spend 10 percent more dollars a week in 2012 than in 2011 to provide their families three meals a day.

The emerging hunger problem is “startling” and “extreme,” said Jeremy Everett, director of Baylor University’s Texas Hunger Initiative, which uses Feeding America’s data to pinpoint areas facing food challenges statewide.

“The recession has subsided for most Americans but it still hasn’t subsided for low-income Americans. Their situation just has not improved,” he said, adding that it was “probably worse now” because a temporary funding boost in 2009 to the key government food aid program known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) was allowed to lapse by Congress last year.

“It seems like we are stacking the deck against” low-income people, said Everett, who was recently named to the congressional National Commission on Hunger. “We’re missing rungs at the bottom of the (economic) ladder to be able to help people to get to the top.”

Feeding America’s data was pretty consistent with figures that advocates have seen in recent years after the recession began, including figures released by the Agriculture Department last fall, said Christine Ashley, a policy analyst at Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group.

“We haven’t really seen increases in food insecurity (since the recession) which is a good thing,” she said. “The downside of that is there are still way too many food insecure people.”

One number that struck her in the report, though, was that nearly 30 percent of the people facing hunger issues were working — and their incomes put them just above the threshold to qualify for federal food aid.

“They’re clearly working low-wage jobs and aren’t able to make ends meet,” Ashley said. It helps to understand “why we have such a problem with food insecurity despite lower unemployment rates,” she added.

Gundersen said some of the factors keeping many Americans in food trouble could be that the economic recovery was anemic and the recession was having a lingering impact. Everett, of the Texas group, said if more — and better — economic opportunities weren’t soon provided, the level of Americans living in such food difficulties “will be the new norm.”

For the Grimes family, the national economic issues have taken their toll: they were hit by the government’s cut last year to food stamps (which were reduced yet again, to $50 overall, when Grimes got more child support. She only gets child support for two of her children).

Grimes landed in poverty, she said, after she left her husband three years ago because of irreconcilable problems in their relationship.

She and her kids live in an apartment without amenities many people enjoy, like Internet, cable or a television. Grimes goes to every food pantry she can and only buys food on sale. Her oldest two children — Maggie, 16, and Kevin, 12 — collect backpacks of donated food from school each Friday. If they don’t get the bags, “there isn’t going to be enough food,” Maggie said.

Last year, they were given free land and seeds at a community garden to grow their own vegetables. Kevin undertook the challenge, going every day to water, weed and till the soil. Grimes said her son knew that it wasn’t some “fun experiment” but for the family’s survival. She later canned the leftover bounty — such as tomatoes, peppers and eggplant — for another day.

“I try not to think about it because it’s hard,” Kevin, an 8th grader who also volunteers at a food pantry, said of their food challenges. “We’re a good family. We’re poor, but that doesn’t stop us.”



Jaime Grimes, a former high school teacher, is applying for disability but meanwhile her food stamps payment was reduced by $40.00. She is one of 15% of Americans – or 45.8 million – who are in this position, up from 11-12% before the Great Recession. The recession supposedly ended in 2009, but many people simply have not caught up, or are underemployed if they have any job.

“It takes a lot of time and effort to be poor,” said Jaime Grimes. “It’s harder for me as a mom to put my pride aside and then my kids have to do it too. I just want to tell my children we’re going to be better people for it." Her son Kevin said “We’re a good family. We’re poor, but that doesn’t stop us.” This attitude is a key to success – yes, poor people have some “successes” if they are lucky. The skill of doing the very best we can with the cards we are dealt is a very important one.

I personally grew up in a Lower Middle Class home, but since Mother didn't work and we were a family of five, we had money problems. I am familiar with being very careful not to throw away leftovers unless they went bad. Luckily my father grew up on a farm and absolutely loved to garden. Along with fishing and occasional hunting (which also provided tasty food) it was his passion. We had 3/4 of an acre filled with tomatoes, squash, bell peppers, hot peppers, collards, okra, turnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green pole beans, sweet peas, and the occasional odd item like Jerusalem artichokes and strawberries that Daddy put in for their interest value.

Mother canned many jars of vegetables every year, and knew how to cook any and all of the vegetables since she grew up on a farm, too. We had about a dozen hens, a very productive Bartlett pear tree, two black walnut trees and six fig bushes. We did not starve and our food was nutritious, unlike too much of what is sold in grocery stores today. We lived in a low-income neighborhood in a small factory city where a flock of chickens was not uncommon or illegal, and almost nobody had much money, so we didn't really feel guilty or ashamed because we were “poor.” People who live in places where they can't garden or raise hens are at a serious disadvantage. One of the things that is helping Grimes make do is that she has access to a city lot for gardening.

Craig Gundersen, lead researcher of the report, “Map the Meal Gap 2014,” said “We’re still in the throes of the Great Recession, from my perspective.” The truth is that poverty and joblessness had already been high for at least a decade when the Great Recession hit. These are not just minorities or undereducated people who are depressingly poor nowadays. Grimes was a high school teacher. Of course teachers have been notoriously underpaid for as long as I can remember.

“According to Christine Ashley of Bread for the World nearly 30 percent of the people facing hunger issues were working — and their incomes put them just above the threshold to qualify for federal food aid.” This is a very common problem in our country since the minimum wage is still stuck at $7.25 an hour. Luckily some states, such as Florida, have raised their minimum wage, but it still isn't much. Florida's new minimum wage is $7.93 an hour. This comes in addition to the fact that the price of living hasn't gone down correspondingly, as it did in the 1930's Great Depression. Daddy used to say of those times “You could buy a lot with a dime if you had a dime.” That was bitter humor, but an active sense of humor was one thing he had. We all enjoyed his and Mothers tales from the days when they were young. It was interesting and I learned a lot about how to cope with having little money. That is one of the great gifts that my parents gave me. Enough on this subject. It is, however, an important subject as it affects millions of Americans here in this “wealthy” nation.





Who Is Behind Letters Ordering Jews in East Ukraine to Register? – NBC
By Jim Maceda
Reuters contributed to this report
First published April 18 2014


DONETSK, Ukraine - Masked men handed out leaflets telling Jews to register with pro-Russian separatists who had taken over a government office in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, a witness told NBC News on Friday.

"There were about 100 of us outside the synagogue after Passover eve prayers [on Wednesday] when we saw three masked men in the crowd who started to hand out letters," Yosef Gurevitz said. "One of them tried to tape one on the synagogue door. Then they quickly left. When I read the letter I was in shock."

A leaflet was distributed in Donetsk, Ukraine calling for all Jews over 16 years old to register as Jews. It was not clear who was behind the leaflets and NBC News could not independently confirm Gurevitz's account.

The letters said Jews must register with a "commissar" at the regional government headquarters by May 3, according to a Reuters translation.

"It's very worrying," said Gurevitz, who is a Brooklyn native visiting Ukraine with his family. "We're hoping its just a provocation but I always thought the days that Jews would become scapegoats for whatever reason were long over."

The letters were purported to be the work of a pro-Russian group that took over public buildings and wants to end rule by the new Ukrainian government in Kiev.

Kirill Rudenko, a spokesman for the pro-Russian People's Republic of Donbass, told Reuters the leaflet was "complete rubbish" and "we made no such demands on Jews."
On Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry condemned suggestions that Jews had been ordered to register.

Once home to a large Jewish population devastated by the Holocaust, Ukraine has seen a rise in attacks on Jews in recent months. Everyone interviewed by NBC News said they had never before witnessed anti-Semitic behavior in Donetsk.

Since Ukraine's pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that he's worried about rising anti-Semitic forces in the region.




Yosef Gurevitz, who is a Brooklyn native visiting Ukraine with his family, “I always thought the days that Jews would become scapegoats for whatever reason were long over."

Of the leaflets, Kirill Rudenko, a spokesman for the pro-Russian People's Republic of Donbass, claimed that “the leaflet was "complete rubbish" and "we made no such demands on Jews." The men were masked, like the pro-Russian “militia” have been throughout these events, and interestingly they were afraid of being beaten or unmasked, because they quickly ran away. When they come in large groups they are bold, but when they are facing 100 angry Jews, not so much!

“Once home to a large Jewish population devastated by the Holocaust, Ukraine has seen a rise in attacks on Jews in recent months. Everyone interviewed by NBC News said they had never before witnessed anti-Semitic behavior in Donetsk.” According to Putin, the anti-Jewish trend is “rising.” It seems likely, though, that while putting out other propaganda to stir up trouble he would be likely to try this, too. Divide and conquer, as they say.




Florida School Board Member Wants Dress Code for Parents
— Elisha Fieldstadt
First published April 18 2014

Saggy pants, short shorts. The attire around one Florida school district has prompted a school board member to call for a stricter dress code — for parents.

Broward County Public School Board member Dr. Rosalind Osgood said she has seen too many parents visit the district's schools in pajamas, hair curlers and drooping drawers.

“There’s a dress for inside the house and there’s a dress for outside the house," Osgood said.

“If we’re going to address student conduct, we have to lead by example as adults,” she said at a recent baord meeting in Fort Lauderdale.

She told MSNBC’s News Nation on Friday she wants parents to consider their garb before they show up at school.

“What I’m trying to do is create a culture where as adults, we think about our behavior," Osgood said. “We have to understand that everything we do has an impact on children.”

Not everyone is on board. While Broward County school board has no plans to pen an official dress code for parents, district spokeswoman Tracy Clark told NBC News, the idea of school officials mandating or even recommending what parents can or cannot wear to school has sparked backlash.

Eve Vawter, editor-in-chief of parenting blog Mommyish.com, responded with a post dismissing the notion.

“It seems a bit nitpicky the school board wants to dictate what parents can and can't wear, especially considering a lot of times parents are contacted to pick up their child or come to the school on an immediate basis,” Vawter told NBC News.

“If young dads are involved in their kid's education and are going to the school for whatever reason, let's not shoo them off for what they are wearing.”




Dr. Rosalind Osgood is voicing outrage over the disrespect of some parents for the school system. She said she has seen them come to speak to teachers in “pajamas, hair curlers and drooping drawers.” She said parents need to lead their children by setting a good example. Clearly if kids are growing up under that kind of thing they will be learning that anything goes, and it doesn't – not now and never.

Tracy Clark the county's spokeswoman said that the mere fact Osgood had voiced this opinion has stirred up a “backlash.” Eve Vawter of Mommyish.com, a blog, accuses Osgood of nit-picking and states that the parents have often been called to show up at the school “immediately,” and they may have been unable to change clothes. I do remember Michael Jackson showing up at a trial date in his pajamas. Of course, that was a deliberate provocation on his part. Hair curlers, bra showing and droopy drawers are signs of very bad breeding, above all, and it won't make the teacher be kinder to their kids if parents show what a bad influence they are in such crude ways.




Depp Impact: The Science Behind 'Transcendence'
By Keith Wagstaff
First published April 18 2014

In the new science-fiction thriller “Transcendence,” Johnny Depp uploads his mind to a powerful computer, melding his consciousness with artificial intelligence in a scenario many refer to as “the singularity.”

Far-fetched? Yes, but so is the idea of a brooding Depp as an awkward neuroscientist. That doesn’t mean people are not trying to make it happen in real life, including Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov, who makes “immortality” an explicit goal of his 2045 Initiative.

Two researchers who consulted on “Transcendence,” both professors of electrical engineering and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, are not sure that is an attainable goal, but that does not mean it’s not worth pursuing.

“Will what we see in the movie be happening in 30 years? I would have to say no, because we don’t even understand what consciousness is,” Jose Carmena told NBC News.
“To upload the mind, you would have to build technology that would let you interface with the brain,” added his colleague, Michel Maharbiz. “The race to do try and do that could motivate a lot of technology along the way, and that could potentially help a lot of people.”

In other words, before we get a virtual Johnny Depp, we are going to need to really understand how the brain works — a goal that a lot of people have put a lot of money behind.

In April 2013, President Barack Obama announced the BRAIN Initiative, a $232 million collaboration between the government and private companies to map the human brain.
People with disabilities could benefit the most from this kind of research. Zac Vawter, a Seattle-area man who lost his lower right leg in a motorcycle accident, made headlines when he was outfitted with a prosthetic leg that he could control with signals from his brain.

Other scientists are looking into whether people like Stephen Hawking could communicate with the outside world without moving a muscle — something made easier with technology that can measure brain activity without the need to connect electrodes to someone’s scalp. That same type of technology has also been used for the less noble cause of wriggling robotic cat ears.

Carmena and Maha1rbiz spent 10 hours in Los Angeles, followed by two more visits, going over the science in the script with "Transcendence" director Wally Pfister. This being Hollywood, plenty of the scenes include a bit of creative license, including one (spoiler alert!) involving a popular science-fiction trope called “grey goo,” a mass of self-replicating nanobots that can heal people and create matter out of nothing in a matter of seconds.

While that might be impossible, nanotechnology in general, which extends to the fields of chemistry, biology, physics, materials science and engineering, is thriving in labs across the country.

“It’s progressing fairly rapidly,” Maharbiz said. “The ability to engineer incredibly small machines down at the nanoscale is being pursued very aggressively by lots of people.”

The hope is that eventually nanobots could be made to attack cancer and other diseases. It's an ambitious goal, much like mapping the billions of neurons in the human brain. But it could result in much greater things than a fun night out at the movies.

“In 50 years, the landscape will be very different, and you will see very advanced ways of connecting to the brain,” said Maharbiz. “That is the primary benefit from people who have science-fiction goals in mind.”


Machine Intelligence Research Institute
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The technological singularity, or simply the singularity, is a hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature.[1] Because the capabilities of such an intelligence may be difficult for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is often seen as an occurrence (akin to a gravitational singularity) beyond which the future course of human history is unpredictable or even unfathomable.

The first use of the term "singularity" in this context was by mathematician John von Neumann. In 1958, regarding a summary of a conversation with von Neumann, Stanislaw Ulam described "ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.”

The term was popularized by science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, who argues that artificial intelligence, human biological enhancement, or brain-computer interfaces could be possible causes of the singularity.[3] Futurist Ray Kurzweil cited von Neumann's use of the term in a foreword to von Neumann's classic The Computer and the Brain.

Proponents of the singularity typically postulate an "intelligence explosion",[4][5] where superintelligences design successive generations of increasingly powerful minds, that might occur very quickly and might not stop until the agent's cognitive abilities greatly surpass that of any human.

Kurzweil predicts the singularity to occur around 2045[6] whereas Vinge predicts some time before 2030.[7] At the 2012 Singularity Summit, Stuart Armstrong did a study of artificial generalized intelligence (AGI) predictions by experts and found a wide range of predicted dates, with a median value of 2040. His own prediction on reviewing the data is that there is an 80% probability that the singularity will occur between 2017 and 2112.[8]




“... we don’t even understand what consciousness is,” said Jose Carmena. President Obama's BRAIN Initiative should make some headway on finding that out. It has already happened that people with disabilities have been helped by this kind of research. Zac Vawter has been given a prosthetic leg that he can activate with his brain. I would like to know how that was done. How do our nerves interact with electronic devices in a way that each recognizes the other?

I'm considering seeing this movie. After all it has both Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman in it, and modern science is actually exploring such areas as artificial intelligence now. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of “the singuarity” occurring. That has every potential of being a nightmare. I don't want machines that can dominate humans or worse still, replace them!




Diplomats agree on steps to ease tensions in Ukraine
CBS/AP April 17, 2014

GENEVA -- Top diplomats from the United States, European Union, Russia and Ukraine reached agreement after marathon talks Thursday on immediate steps to ease the crisis in Ukraine.

The tentative agreement puts on hold - for now at least - additional economic sanctions the West had prepared to impose on Russia if the talks were fruitless. And that will ease international pressure both on Moscow and nervous European Union nations that depend on Russia for their energy.

Reached after seven hours of negotiation in Geneva, the agreement requires all sides to refrain from violence, intimidation or provocative actions. It calls for the disarming of all illegally armed groups and for control of buildings seized by pro-Russian separatists to be turned back to authorities.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters that in one eastern Ukrainian city notices were sent to Jewish people saying that they had to identify themselves as Jews "or suffer the consequences."

"In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable; it's grotesque," said Kerry. "It is beyond unacceptable, and any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities - from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of - there is no place for that."

Jewish community leaders in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk told the Washington-based National Conference Supporting Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia that the flyers were "a provocation" and that "all authorities have denied any connection to the flyers."

Kerry also said that members of the Russian Orthodox Church in eastern Ukraine were recently threatened that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church "was somehow going to attack them."

"That kind of behavior, that kind of threat, has no place," Kerry said.
Kerry called the deal the result of a "good day's work" but emphasized that the words on paper must be followed by concrete actions. He said he had warned Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Moscow would soon feel the brunt of new sanctions should it not follow through on its commitments under the agreement.

"It is important that these words are translated immediately into actions," Kerry said at a news briefing. "None of us leaves here with a sense that the job is done because of words on a paper."

He added that if Moscow does not abide by the agreement, something that would be clear in the coming days, "we will have no choice but to impose further costs on Russia."

In Washington, President Obama conveyed skepticism about Russia's promises and said the United States and its allies are ready to impose fresh sanctions.

"My hope is we do see follow through," Mr. Obama said at an impromptu news conference at the White House.

"The question now becomes, Will they use the influence they have used in a disruptive way so that Ukrainians ... can start back on the road to prosperity and democracy," the president said.

Mr. Obama did not say what additional sanctions might be in the offing if commitments made by Lavrov do not materialize.

On Wednesday, the president expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with CBS News.

"Each time Russia takes these kinds of steps that are designed to destabilize Ukraine and violate their sovereignty, there are going to be consequences," Mr. Obama told CBS News chief White House correspondent Major Garrett before referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Mr. Putin's decisions aren't just bad for Ukraine. Over the long term, they're going to be bad for Russia."

The agreement also gives amnesty to protesters who comply with the demands, except those found guilty of capital crimes.

Monitors with the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe will be tasked with helping Ukraine authorities and local communities comply with the requirements outlined in the agreement.

It said Kiev's plans to reform its constitution and transfer more power from the central government to regional authorities must be inclusive, transparent and accountable - including through the creation of a broad national dialogue.
Speaking at a separate news conference, Lavrov said the OSCE mission "should play a leading role" moving forward.

Earlier, Putin criticized the U.S. and its European allies for having what he called a double standard concerning Ukraine and said he hoped he would not have to deploy troops to Ukraine.

But he also seemed to keep the door open for Russia to recognize Ukraine's presidential election set for May 25, softening his previous demand that it must be postponed until the fall and preceded by a referendum on broader powers for the regions.

Andrii Deshchytsia, Ukraine's foreign minister, said the "joint efforts to launch the de-escalation ... will be a test for Russia to show that it is really willing to have stability in this region."

Ukraine was hoping to use the Geneva talks - the first of their kind over the crisis that threatens the new government in Kiev - to placate Russia and calm hostilities with its neighbor even as the U.S. prepared a new round of sanctions to punish Moscow for what it regards as fomenting unrest.

Meanwhile, Russia was honing a strategy of its own: Push the West as far as possible without provoking crippling sanctions against its own financial and energy sectors or a military confrontation with NATO.

In a television appearance in Moscow on Thursday, Putin denied claims that Russian special forces were provoking unrest in eastern Ukraine. He called the Ukrainian government's effort to quash the unrest a "crime."

In Washington, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the U.S. would send non-lethal assistance to Ukraine's military in light of what he called Russia's ongoing destabilizing actions there. He told a Pentagon news conference that the military assistance to Ukraine will include medical supplies, helmets, water purification units and power generators.

Ukraine has asked for military assistance from the U.S., a request that was believed to include lethal aid such as weapons and ammunition. Obama administration officials have said they were not actively considering lethal assistance for fear it could escalate an already tense situation.

The U.S. has already sent Ukraine other assistance, such as pre-packaged meals for its military.

In Brussels, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the military alliance would increase its presence in Eastern Europe, including flying more sorties over the Baltic region west of Ukraine and deploying allied warships to the Baltic Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. NATO's supreme commander in Europe, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, told reporters that ground forces also could be involved at some point, but he gave no details.



THIS IS WORTH REPEATING:

"In the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey of history, this is not just intolerable; it's grotesque," said Kerry. "It is beyond unacceptable, and any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities - from whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of - there is no place for that."

Thank you, Mr. Kerry!

This too needs scrutiny:

“Earlier, Putin criticized the U.S. and its European allies for having what he called a double standard concerning Ukraine and said he hoped he would not have to deploy troops to Ukraine.” What??

This is a summary on the points that were agreed upon on Thursday:

A hold is placed on further economic sanctions for this time
All parties are to forgo all violence, intimidation or provocation
All illegally armed groups are to disarm
All seized buildings are to be returned to Ukrainian control
Amnesty to all protesters who comply unless guilty of capital crimes
International monitors will aid Ukraine, Russia and local governments in complying with the agreement
Ukrainian government will reform its constitution and transfer more power from the central government to regional authorities
There will be developed “a broad national dialogue”

NATO meanwhile has promised to increase its presence in the Baltic area militarily and US Air Force General Philip Breedlove stated that “at some point” ground troops may be sent.

Time will tell how well the two sides will work together on this. An article from today's CBS website included several complaints already about the agreement from both Kiev and the pro-Russian separatists. When the OSCE international monitors arrive it will almost certainly help. They should be very active in reporting abuses, however, and the NATO and EU powers should respond to the situation effectively when they do occur.

On May 25 the Ukrainians will hold their election and some issues may be ironed out. The separatists are presently refusing to acknowledge the interim government in Kiev. Maybe they will like the newly elected officials better.