Former independent State Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov was one of the last liberals to remain in the State Duma, but the fate of his career as a parliamentary deputy was sealed in March 2007, when Russia’s Supreme Court liquidated his small Republican Party of Russia,... MORE

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Washington’s favorite Latin American bete noir after Fidel Castro, unsettled Washington again last year by negotiating a $1 billion deal with Moscow to purchase a number of 636-model Varshavianka-class (NATO designation “Kilo”) diesel electric submarines (Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostei, April 4). Various... MORE

At his press conference following his address to the session of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged in a lengthy indictment of NATO policies across the board (www.kremlin.ru, Interfax, April 4, 5). Predictably criticizing the alliance’s open door to former Soviet-controlled countries,... MORE

Last week Russia's foreign policy transformed, at least in tone and spirit. The atmosphere of confrontation that has dominated official Russian statements and the state-controlled propaganda machine has been diluted by offers of friendship and cooperation. Vladimir Putin did not act as a lame-duck president... MORE

General Muhammad Abdullah al-Shahwani, head of Iraq’s intelligence service, released a statement on February 27 accusing the Iranian intelligence services of planning to sabotage the largely Sunni tribal-based Awakening Councils that have formed in Iraq to combat al-Qaeda. The statement was placed on the formal... MORE

President-elect Dmitriy Medvedev continued to sound liberal themes last week, telling an a forum devoted to the Internet held in Gorky-10 outside Moscow on April 3 that the answer to “the delicate question of the relationship between freedom of speech and responsibility” in cyberspace “is... MORE