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Judging by his record, the presumptive next president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, can be expected to pursue a concerted liberalization of politics as the next logical stage in the country's evolution. He aims to make business in Russia the most profitable in the world. And in foreign policy, the likely leitmotif is that security will be enhanced when countries share risk - that is, the West and Russia should cooperate. - Nicolai N Petro (Feb 29, '08)
Although the Chechen war started as a nationalistic exploit, with the desire to liberate Chechens from Russia and build an independent state, it has transformed itself into a jihadi movement with global appeal. - Dmitry Shlapentokh (Feb 29, '08)
Thaksin Shinawatra's return to Thailand on Thursday marks the first time an elected prime minister who has been deposed from power has come back with politically active support and with the party in power backing him. All the same, Thaksin says it's sport he'll be playing, not politics. And fighting law suits. (Feb 29, '08)
The Taliban's abduction last year of 23 South Korean Christian volunteers shocked their country and prompted the leader of the missionaries' church to say there would be no more work in Afghanistan. Now, he's singing a different hymn and plans to send more people to the same area once his government lifts a travel ban. - Sunny Lee (Feb 29, '08)
From university sweethearts married in Paris to kingpins in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, 82-year-old Ieng Sary and his wife Khieu Thirith, 75, now bide their time in detention awaiting trial for crimes against humanity. They're in separate cells, and Sary has requested conjugal visits. While the two await an answer, they could reflect on one of the Khmer Rouge's practices - separation of man and wife. (Feb 29, '08)
The US government might yet pull the economy out of the jaws of recession through the short-term fix of raising spending on the military or the related disaster capitalism complex. But one way or another, the forces making for long-term global stagnation are now too heavy to be shaken off by the equivalent of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. - Walden Bello
The fear that an American downturn will significantly hurt Asian corporate earnings seems to have been at least temporarily overcome. Yet the future of structured investment vehicles remains a threatening shadow that can engender yet another crisis with incalculable effects far from the US.
R M Cutler runs his eye over the ups and downs in the week's markets.
It's bad enough that fewer than a third of workers aged 36 to 43 have any pension plan coverage. Now folk who have coverage are bankrupting their retirements to keep up payments on a house that they couldn't afford in the first place, that they can't afford now, and is worth less than they owe! And it's going to get worse!
Pakistan's efforts to prevent its citizens from viewing a YouTube video affected the Internet far beyond its borders. No less worrying, the country's censors indicate they have no inclination to prevent a repeat of the global blackout. Martin J Young surveys the week's developments in computing, gaming and gizmos.
With US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Beijing and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in New Delhi, the US's evolving Asian strategy is on display. Washington is out to convince China and India that each is a privileged partner of the US's global strategies, a part of which is containing a resurgent Russia. Beijing has welcomed the US "invitation", but Delhi is convinced the US is building up Indian capabilities just to make it a counterweight to China. - M K Bhadrakumar (Feb 29, '08)
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