Andrey Voznesensky, the Russian-Soviet poet who died yesterday, spent his life in a no-man’s land between poetry and politics, ‘left’ and ‘right’, East and West. Along with Bulat Okudzhava, Bella Akhmadulina and Yevgeny Yevtushenko, he formed the core of the Soviet ‘beat poets’ of the post-Stalin thaw. And unlike the likes of Joseph Brodksy and […]
Hijab is the Arabic word for “Curtain, or Cover”. It is taken from Hajb meaning to cover, to veil, to shelter. Muslim women wear the Hijab for different reasons. Some wear the Hijab to delight their God- in reference to holy Quran. Some to please their families and some to obey the Islamic law. Afghanistan is […]
A day before here in the United States we honor all of those men and women who have fought for our armed services, I came across this tragic event that occurred in Khost, Afghanistan just yesterday: There was violence as well in the southeastern province of Khost, where a barely completed high school, built with […]
Chechnya, recently overtaken by its Caucasus neighours North Ossetia and Ingushetia in the terrorism headlines, is back in the news for the most tragic of reasons. A bomb killed six women on Wednesday night outside of a theatre in Stavropol, a city not far from the restive region, moments before the start of a performance […]
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/KuTar3QcCbI” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] When asked what face Moscow should present to the outside world, President Medvedev replied: The one that I have now: a smiling face… We must not bare our teeth at anyone, get angry, sulk or feel offended, pushed into a corner… I would like to see Russia smiling and […]
I’m back already, well kind of. Below is a must-read article by the Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt about the disappearance of debate and discussion about America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Like I, he sees this as a detriment to our policy making process and a disservice to all our servicemen in harm’s way. Here […]
Few things in Russia are ever as they seem. Take this week’s unprecedented measure to provide each widow of the mine explosion victims with police protection to ward off attacks from organised criminals after their compensation payouts. After one of the victims’ relatives went to the authorities complaining of blackmail from a notorious local gang, […]
Just want to let everyone know I’ll be posting sporadically for the next week as I’ll be taking care of my newly born baby daughter.
That is the grim milestone of American deaths in Afghanistan since the war began in late 2001. Though it can be argued exactly what the real total may be (some say 970, while others over 1,060) the toll our American servicemen and women have given in this fight cannot. Sadly and tellingly, American deaths have […]
Everyone knows that the physicist turned human rights crusader Andrei Sakharov was a dissident, but what about oligarch turned oppositionist Khodorkovsky? Foreign Policy magazine seems to think so. Yet the article’s simplistic title (‘Khodorkovsky – the Billionaire Dissident’) obscures an admirable level of nuance achieved by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, who write: The idea […]
A leaked foreign policy document proclaims detente, Lada eyes a return to British roads, corruption soars, Sakharov is back in vogue and Russian hockey back on a winning streak: is Russia channeling the 1970s? Yes, but with a decidedly 21st century twist, according to the BBC’s Russia Business Report released this weekend. In the USSR, […]
The BBC reports that Friday May 14th, there were clashes in the southern city of Jalalabad between supporters of ousted president Bakiyev and supporters of the interim government. 2 people were killed and 60 injured as nearly 2,000 of Bakiyev’s supporters attempted to re-gain control of government buildings. The interim government now says the situation […]
Sean Patrick Murphy of FPA’s Global Film Review blog has done a review of National Geographic’s ‘Inside Guantanamo‘ documentary. Check out Sean’s review in its entirety at this blog and here’s the intro: The fact that people of all political stripes take issue with this movie goes a long way to revealing its even handedness. […]
It wasn’t long ago I wrote a piece titled ‘Obama-Karzai: Fighting Alone in a Locked Room‘ and now look at where we are….hugs and kisses of the political flavor are all the rage. The Obama administration has literally and figuratively rolled out the red carpet for Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his entourage and relations […]
As Nadia Petrova threw Serena Williams out of the Madrid Open, President Medvedev made his own powerplay in the Middle East by delivering landmark nuclear pacts with Turkey and Syria. As a result, Russia may begin building nuclear power plants in the two countries. Certainly, America is feeling diplomatically outflanked, but is there any real […]