February 2012 |
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“Salam!” from Tehran, where I’m writing this week’s column. Iranian officials say I’m the first British journalist here since the U.K. embassy was stormed last November. They didn’t give me a badge or anything though, but I have had some fairly quizzical looks.
When he heard about this, Russia’s former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov tweeted bitterly: “Khodorkovsky and I suggested this. His reaction: I was sacked, Khodorkovsky sent jail.” But will Vladimir Putin try to heal one of the deepest wounds of the post-Soviet Russian psycho?1
Learn English! It will lead to better employment opportunities! It will aid you on your travels! It will help you appreciate works of art and countless internet memes! It will make your teeth straighter and your butt firmer!1
There has been an uptick in anti-American sentiment in the Russian blogosphere recently. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission – far from the only Russian space mishap in recent years – could have been caused by emissions from an American radar station. The response was powerful – we knew they were to blame!
Whenever something major happens in Russia, I wish it were a lot easier to get over there and witness conditions on the ground. For instance when Boris Yeltsin died, I really wanted to visit his corpse as it lay in state in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior to see for myself how people were reacting to this man who had caused so much chaos in his 8-year rule.
Are men hunters no more? Is it up to women nowadays to make the first move?
Russia’s chief doctor was right. Going to a protest rally in near-Arctic like conditions is bad for your health. Especially if you were already ill. As I was when I joined some 120,000 people on Saturday at an anti-Putin march that ended up within shouting distance from the Kremlin.1
Following recent street protests in Russia, international attention has been focused on the country’s political scene.
The bitter cold that has gripped the European part of Russia these last few weeks is certainly a case for concern as people come out for political rallies but there is another group of people who don’t get as much press, yet their lives literally hang in the balance when the weather gets extreme.1
Those who hoped that the IAEA visit to Iran would open the door to resuming talks on Tehran’s nuclear programs must be disappointed. Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency spent three days in Iran, whose news agency published only a few short notices about their visit.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili finally got what he couldn’t get for several years: an official visit to the White House.
Whether there were eight or fourteen thousand of them (figures differ even in official reports), the massive rally held in Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Urals region, in support of “stability” (read – PM Vladimir Putin) was an impressive affair, especially by Russia's provincial standards.1
The European Union (EU) has decided to ban the import of Iranian oil, but not for another six months. Iran however, looks like they are about to call the EU’s bluff and ban exports to Europe with immediate effect.4
Watching Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky do nothing is an edifying experience and infinitely more interesting, I’d wager, than watching any of his rivals do pretty much anything at all.
An amusing macro recently made its way around the Russian blogosphere - it showed a group of students lying down on the quad of some stereotypical Western university, and saying the following: “We are the children of Russian bureaucrats. And you all are agents of the [U.S.] State Department, traitors to that faraway [Russian] land.”
Recently I was browsing in a used book store when I stumbled upon a soldier’s Japanese phrasebook from World War II. Between faded orange covers I found a treasure trove of fascinating words and phrases- certainly it’s the most useful text published by the U.S1
Russia has announced the signing of yet another contract with Syria – this time for the delivery of Yak-130 training aircraft. The move caused an uproar in the West and the Arab world against the backdrop of mounting political tensions around Damascus.
A few of weeks ago at a dinner party in one of the Western embassies in Moscow I had a very interesting conversation with the ambassador of an important Arab country...2
During my recent trip to Asia, I observed a rather peculiar scene on the newly built Bangkok subway.