Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been so lampooned for using staged heroics to boost his He-Man (Master-of-the-Universe) reputation that you’d think he would seize any opportunity to display a genuine human touch and, no less important, a self-deprecating sense of humor. An ideal opportunity presented itself in February 2012 when his thought police arrested three… Read more.
Much is being made of a Russian proposal to resolve the “Crisis in Syria.” In sum, it calls for Syria to turn over its chemical weapons arsenal to international demolition experts and sign the international convention against their use to avoid military strikes by the United States. Notwithstanding understandable skepticism … on both sides, a fearful… Read more.
Yesterday virtually all major newspapers around the world featured one of two stories about Russia – both of which suggest that the recent restoration of Vladimir Putin as president marked the beginning of political repression at home and cold-war aggression abroad that are eerily reminiscent of Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror. In other words, where… Read more.
Saturday’s announcement of the scheme to restore Vladimir Putin as president of Russia was about as surprising as April’s announcement of the campaign to reelect Barack Obama as president of the United States. Actually, the only thing noteworthy about Putin’s announcement is the stupefaction pundits around the world are expressing about the way Russia’s incumbent president, Dmitry Medvedev,… Read more.
Putin to rule for life Last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi chose an ominous way to bond. During a joint press conference in Moscow, Berlusconi announced funding for research that will extend life expectancy to 120. Putin quipped: So we will be prime ministers [or president in Putin’s case] until at least the age of… Read more.
Jean Gregoire Sagbo gives new meaning to the term, Black Russian. Because henceforth when that term is uttered, the reference might be as much to him, the first black to be elected to political office in Russia, as to the eponymous drink. Granted, his election is more akin to the first black being admitted to… Read more.
As great a celebrity as President Obama has become, I really did not expect coverage of his Moscow summit to compete with the obsessive, predatory and wholly redundant coverage of (plans for) today’s Michael Jackson Memorial. But nothing demonstrates the tabloidization of the news media quite like the fact that even coverage of Sarah… Read more.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko an offer he could not refuse: he told Yushchenko that if Ukraine’s 47 million “orange revolutionaries” wanted to continue receiving gas from Russia to cook their food, heat their homes and drive their cars, they would have to pay four times as much for it. When… Read more.
As much as I would like to comment on the latest feats of athleticism at the Beijing Olympics, I cannot in light of ongoing developments in Georgia. And nothing troubles my conscience and geopolitical consciousness more in this respect than the prevailing ignorance I find amongst so many American colleagues and friends about the origins… Read more.
[T]he US and EU have been effectively checkmated. Because, despite Saakashvili’s bellicose rhetoric about dire consequences if Putin does not retreat from his “large-scale military aggression” in Georgia, he knows that neither he nor his Western allies dares lift a finger to back up their words with action. And this fact is only reinforced by the U.S.… Read more.
