Perhaps some Assange-bashers are envious. Despite his legal problems, he’s the host, director, and producer of a program that makes us care about his predicament—even if you’re not a full-fledged fan. We’re finally getting a chance to know this guy, through the questions he asks and the way he asks them Julian Assange prepares…
A literary festival in St-Malo, France, Russian writer Zahar Prilepin and I spoke on a panel about Russia’s war in Chechnya. The audience was fired up with anti-Russian sentiment, having just seen a documentary on the devastation of Grozny by Russian forces in 2000. Prilepin—muscular, silent—sank sullenly in his chair as the…
Rocky barriers to Russo-Japanese peace By Kosuke Takahashi TOKYO – Unnecessary provocations by Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are being blamed for the reawakening of a decades-old island feud between the countries, with both leaders accused of pandering to nationalism ahead of key elections. Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara landed…
‘Khodorkovsky’ director wary of showing film in Russia German film director Cyril Tuschi reads a newspaper as he sits in a porch swing in his office in Berlin on February 3. The maker of a twice-stolen documentary on jailed Russian former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the hottest ticket at the Berlin film festival, is wary…
As U.S. officials struggle to control damage from the secret cables, Russia is planning to block a similar dump about the Kremlin. And Putin will be ruthless.
Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, lends its help to shady weapons merchants in Moscow in return for a slice of the proceeds . Viktor Bout, the alleged arms dealer who was extradited to the US on Tuesday, could shed an embarrassing light on those connections if he testifies in court.