If the Kyrgyzstan uprising proved anything, it’s that Russia still has major dominance of the Eurasia region. Barack Obama may have declared the start of a new era for US-Russian relations, but this is vintage Russian power play.
Russia
Adoption: it’s (not always) for life
When children older than seven are adopted — often from orphanages overseas, suffering severe emotional or physical trauma — adoption failure rates are about 15%. But it’s not fair to blame the families, writes Susan Scarf Merrell.
Warsaw mourns by the blaze of thousands of candles
The past two days in Poland have been a lesson in private and public mourning, as sirens wail and the street fill with thousands of candles, writes Vince Chadwick and Paulina Olszanka from Warsaw.
Could the Polish Presidential plane crash actually help Russian relations?
Poland’s leaders were on their way to commemorate the 1940 massacre of Polish soldiers by the Soviet Union, when their plane crashed in Russia on Saturday. But historians say the tragedy may help the two countries finally move on.
Don’t reset the Doomsday Clock just yet
Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have signed a historic treaty to cut nuclear weapons. But former presidential speechwriter Daniel McGroarty explains how its written to sound a lot more impressive than it actually is. The Doomsday Clock is still ticking.
Why are Chechen women so dangerous?
Over 40% of Chechen suicide bombers over the past decade have been women, almost all of them from the Caucases. This isn’t about global jihad, say a team of Chicago University researchers — it’s women hitting back against the occupation of their land and slaughter of their families.
The hunt for Russia’s black widows
Russia believes the women who blew themselves up on Moscow trains on Monday were part of a 30-person “black widow” cell of suicide bombers. Nine are dead — so where are the other 21 waiting? And when will they strike?
www.jihad.ru: Russia’s internet mujahideen
Terrorism in Russia’s North Caucasus has “gone viral”, says Foreign Policy, with Muslim extremists becoming online celebrities. Yesterday’s Moscow bombings may be just he start of this deadly internet meme.
Gorbachev: Old Russia has returned
Twenty-five years after the Soviet Union’s perestroika reforms, Mikhail Gorbachev reflects on the repercussions of the social and economic policies he implemented and how the country has become stagnant again.
The new global middle class: they’re not like “us”
Developing countries are developing their own middle classes — but they’re not “liberal, democratic, market-friendly bastions not only of Western-style consumerism but also of political liberty” “we” might like them to be, says Newsweek.
Why no one wants to party with Russia
Russia is no longer cool, declares the Moscow Times: and it’s all Putin’s fault. Once known as a “wild, fun-loving and anything-goes” party town, it is now seen as “dreary, corrupt, uncouth and threatening”.
Space: the final frontier of industry
Forget the moon race of half a century ago: the new space race is to lead the space industry, designing, making and selling space ships and cleaning up space junk, says Ben Sandilands.
How McDonald’s conquered Moscow
How did one of the most iconic symbols of Western capitalism win over the birthplace of Bolshevism? The home-spun strategies behind the unlikely success of Maccas in post-Soviet Russia.
Death of a Russian reformer
Yegor Gaidar, the former Russian finance minister who brought a market economy to Russia, died this week. How did a politician with his unpopularity get to die a natural death in his own country, asks Charles Richardson.
Hamilton at Copenhagen: Lulu’s back in town
The Australian delegation in Copenhagen should not be surprised if the rest of the world takes a jaundiced view of any arguments it advances for the treatment of land-based emissions, based on our past Kyoto behaviour.
Russian missiles in Norway? The truth is out there…
No-one has come up with an explanation for a very strange sight over northern Norwegian skies early yesterday morning, with some suggesting Russian missiles or lasers, while others have another explanation… Ben Sandilands investigates.
President Putin… again?
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin seems to be missing his old job, and says he hasn’t ruled out having another crack at the Presidency in 2012. Given his popularity rating is 11 points above that of the country’s actual president, it may not be a crazy suggestion.
Russian police officer exposes corruption via YouTube
A Russian police officer has been sacked after posting a video on YouTube exposing police corruption. Given what happens to many investigative journos in the country, we’d say he got off lightly.
Why the fall of the Berlin Wall didn’t really matter
Forget the fall of the Wall in 1989, says Niall Ferguson, the truly revolutionary, world-changing events took place a decade earlier: the USSR invaded Afghanistan, the UK elected Thatcher, China began opening up to the West, and Iran became an Islamic Republic.
Russia’s latest rigged election takes an unexpected turn
Russians expected the country’s latest local elections to be “engineered” by the Kremlin as usual — and of course they were — but no-one expected a mass walkout by federal politicians in protest. Are Russians finally tiring of the country’s democratic farce?
PHOTO GALLERY: Early 1900s Russia in full colour
Amazing images of Russia from 1909-1915 from by chemist and photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who used his skills to create color photographs well before the rest of the photographic field.
No snow for Moscow: fighter planes on cloud killing spree
The Mayor of Moscow has turned into Mother Nature, with the Russian Air Force to be used to blast snow clouds from the Moscow sky in an effort to save an estimated A$11m on snow removal.
Has the US agreed to stop criticising Russia’s human rights abuses?
According to Russian newspaper Kommersant, the White House has agreed to stop mentioning Russia’s shabby human rights record, and ease up on the “democracy” evangalising, in return for better relations with the country.
revealed 
The Middle East’s secret plan to bring down the dollar
Arab states, along with China, Japan, Russia and France, have been holding secret meetings to plot a move from doing oil deals in US dollars, instead moving to a mix of the yen, yuan, euro, gold and a new, unified Arab currency.
