Word: russian
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Indeed, eight years of the Putin administration's attempts to pacify the region have not worked. Last night's bombings occurred against the backdrop of a rapidly worsening situation in the Caucasus. In Chechnya, shootouts and combat engagements between Russian forces, pro-Moscow Chechnyan authorities and Chenyan rebels opposed to Russian rule have been on the rise over the last several weeks. Just this morning, a rebel attack in the Chechen capital of Grozny left one police officer dead and another wounded. And such ethnic tensions are not confined to Chechnya. Mass violence between Russians and people from the Caucasus...
...scenes reminiscent of Britain's infamous trade of stolen gadgets in pubs, furtive traders today knock at the backdoor of upscale restaurants offering a new contraband: caviar. London's hordes of Russian oligarchs and hedge-fund yuppies have sent demand soaring for "black gold," with top varieties such as Beluga now selling for over $3,000 a kilo, whilst the rarest varieties, such as Almas ($50,000 per kilo), whose eggs are white, have a four-year waiting list. The soaring demand for sturgeon roe has created lucrative opportunities for "caviar cowboys," who sell illegally smuggled caviar to unscrupulous chefs...
...Although the Caviar House meticulously sources its eggs from specialist farms in France and the Caspian Sea in Iran, other restaurants are less picky. One upmarket restaurant manager told TIME that the growth of black market caviar threatened the trade itself: 'There is a huge black market in Russian caviar in particular," the manager said. "You get some people who come in and say 'I've got a jar of Beluga for a hundred pounds ($200)', but it's been pasteurized to preserve it. It will threaten the trade if they [are allowed to] keep fishing and fishing...
...friendly and have confidence in one another, but they'll be defending narrow national interests in the end," Moïsi comments - noting that a happy meal in Kennebunkport isn't necessarily the recipe for diplomatic miracles. "Putin had a great visit there, but that has scarcely made U.S.-Russian ties better...
PETER MACKAY, Canada's Foreign Minister (at left), on a Russian crew's planting a flag on the seabed at the North Pole in order to lay claim to any mineral deposits that might be buried below...