Germany’s turn towards green energy—its energiewende—cost consumers nearly $30 billion last year without actually making the country any greener. The Economist explains how a green energy policy has produced a browner energy landscape.

For all of its bluster and expensive green energy policies, Europe is lagging behind the United States when it comes to going green. Thanks to the shale boom, America is outpacing supposedly green-minded Europe on reducing emissions.

When Ahn Jung-geun killed Hirobumi Ito in 1909, he immediately became a lasting icon in the history of Korean resistance to Japan, and he is celebrated as a hero to this day. Ito was a four-time prime minister of Japan and was serving as the first resident-governor of Japan’s colony in Korea when he was killed. Ahn shot him dead at Harbin train station in northeast China, and it is Harbin that is the focus of a fiery diplomatic fight over Ahn’s legacy.

Somewhere, somehow, someone wasn’t keeping their eye on the ball. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general announced that Iran was now invited to the Geneva peace conference on Syria, leaving the U.S. with a bit of a mess on its hands.

If Russian intelligence was in contact with NSA leaker Edward Snowden and helped him before this martyr for freedom took up residence in the civil liberties paradise of Putin’s Russia, we’ve got problems.

Ukraine’s Victor Yanukovich is stuck between a rock and a hard place. How he responds to the latest violence could fatally deepen rifts in an already divided country.

Good evening, TAI readers! We hope you’ve had a great weekend so far. As you prepare for the week ahead, take the time to look back on what you may have missed over the past week.

Anemic economies and burgeoning immigrant populations are straining both the economic health of and political support for Europe’s welfare systems.

Inflation is rising, capital is fleeing, and strikes, looting, riots and blackouts are spreading. 2013 did not end well for Argentina, but 2014 could be even worse. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has a date with the US Supreme Court, which could deliver Kirchnerismo a knockout blow.

Russia began drilling a well in its Bazhenov shale formation in Siberia this week, tapping in to what may be the world’s largest single reserve of shale oil. Russia’s coming to the shale game very late; because Russia is already rich in conventional oil and gas, it’s felt little pressure to invest in unconventional reserves. But as its hydrocarbon production begins to stagnate, Moscow is realizing that shale energy might actually be worth looking in to. And no wonder: Russia has the world’s largest reserves of shale oil, and ninth-largest reserves of shale gas.