Foreword Russia Yesterday and Today is a brief manual or encyclopedia purporting to provide the reader with up-to-date information on personalities, political, economic, cultural and social structures, institutions, regions, and various features and phenomena that are believed to be important for understanding the current events in this country and their background. In the very nature of such publications, RY&T is fast overtaken by events, including sad ones like deaths of various personalities listed here, or political, economic and other developments, the rise and fall of institutions, etc. Needless to say every effort will be made to keep the record as relevant to the situation in the country as possible. As the reader will see, we have endeavored to be strictly factual, although some of the characteristics, especially of personalities, may be deemed more subjective than is usual in publications of this kind. The fact is that this country is in a period of rapid transition, nay, continuous upheaval, and no one writing on these subjects at such a time can pretend to be entirely above the fray. In this day and age a preeminently cautious, “objective” stance may even be seen as a sign of pusillanimity or hypocrisy. That said, every precaution has been taken here to use only those materials that have appeared in easily verifiable sources, both printed and electronic.
ABALKIN , LEONID IVANOVICH; ABDRASHITOV , VADIM YUSUPOVICH; ABDULOV , ALEXANDER GAVRILOVICH; ABKHAZIA; ABRAMOVICH , ROMAN ARKADYEVICH; ADAMOVICH , ALES; AGRO-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX; AKCHURIN , RENAT SULEIMANOVICH; AKHMADULINA , BELLA AKHATOVNA; AKSENOV , VASILY PAVLOVICH; AKUNIN , BORIS; ALCOHOLISM; ALEKPEROV , VAGIT YUSUFOVICH; ALEXY II; ALKHANOV, ALU (ALI) DADASHEVICH; ANDROPOV, YURI VLADIMIROVICH;ANPILOV , VIKTOR IVANOVICH; ANTI-SEMITISM; ANTONOVA, IRINA ALEXANDROVNA; ARMENIA; AVEN , PYOTR OLEGOVICH; 
BRODSKY, IOSIF ALEXANDROVICH; BAKLANOV, OLEG DMITRIEVICH;
CENTER; 
Based on over sixteen years of successful business in the evolving new Russia, Fred Andresen has written a book that is mandatory for all who plan to work there, make a serious visit, or just curious. Written with insight, understanding, and a rare degree of humor, he tells us about working with and enjoying the Russians.
From Afghanistan and Iraq to Europe and the United States we are engaged in one of the most heated wars of all time. In his newest book, Walid Phares shows that the most important battle is actually taking place in the hearts and minds of the world's population. This is the war of ideas, where ideology is the most powerful weapon of all. He explores the beliefs of two opposing camps, one standing for democracy and human rights, and the other rejecting the idea of an international community and calling for jihad against the West. He reveals the strategies of both sides, explaining that new technologies and the growing media savvy of the jihadists have raised the stakes in the conflict. And most urgently, he warns that the West is in danger of losing the war.
This is an indispensable book for anyone wondering what sort of changes to expect in U.S. foreign policy should the Democrats retake the White House later this year. Nye (The Paradox of American Power, etc.), now dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, was an assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. The go-it-alone approach, Nye argues, has led to an unprecedented drop in support for the U.S. abroad, which leaves us scrambling to rebuild Iraq almost singlehandedly, overstretching ourselves militarily and economically. It also hampers efforts to secure the voluntary cooperation of foreign governments essential to dismantling terrorist cells spread throughout the globe. The answer, Nye says, lies in a return to the mix of soft and hard power that cemented the Western alliance and won the Cold War.
Could it really be that the United States spent decades cultivating Islamists? And that it manipulated and double-crossed them, cynically using and misusing them as Cold War allies? And that all of this spawned a force that turned against its sponsor with a vengeance? Robert Dreyfuss argues just that in «Devil’s Game.» Like monsters imbued with artificial life, radical imams, mullahs and ayatollahs stalk the landscape, thundering not only against the United States — but against freedom of thought, against secular science, against nationalism and the left, against women’s rights. We should be mindful of that troubling history. When we now fear all those Islamists, we do well to remember just who helped spawn them. 
When President Bush declared war on terrorism, he did not, legally, put the country on a war footing. Up until now, we have never accurately named the enemy or the danger. If the government can't speak the real name and nature of the enemy, it becomes impossible to explain, or even design, a policy for victory. This is why Mr. Bush -- who has tried to talk around the problem of radical Islam -- has seemed (to his critics) foolish or deceitful, neither of which he is.
The study seeks to point out ways that a truly irenic American global strategy needs to work more diligently to resolve a number of the crucial geo-political conflicts so as to minimize the real possibility of wider regional conflicts, if not that of major power war. It is argued that homo geopoliticus is entering a "danger zone" over the next 50 years in which the risks of war will be heightened in disputes over burgeoning world energy and resource demand, shifts in technological capabilities, coupled with conflicting geostrategic, military-technological and political-economic interests, as well as considerations of state power and influence.
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12:22 PM, March 10 Iran's Bushehr NPP to be launched this year - Lavrov
12:58 PM, March 9 Russia's European security initiative should get fair hearing - Merkel
12:55 PM, March 9 Russia says ready to establish nuclear fuel bank by yearend
03:20 PM, March 8 Russia-China oil pipeline to be ready by yearend - minister
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