Word: sovietizers
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...Washington's Heritage Foundation and a former deputy chief for the Koreas in the CIA's analysis section, "the talk in both capitals about the other has often been pretty scathing." Even during the Cold War, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father, would routinely play the Soviet Union and China off each other. But while China and North Korea have never been as close as the propaganda would have it, the two countries do have shared interests. It's how much weight to give those interests, relative to the costs of supporting Pyongyang internationally, that vexes China...
When the going gets tough, Latvians ... go blonde. Saddled with a troubled economy that is expected to shrink as much as 18% this year, the former Soviet nation enlisted the help of more than 500 towheaded beauties to lead a "Go Blonde" weekend on May 30-31. The feel-good extravaganza included sporting events, fashion shows and a parade through the capital, Riga, where rioting erupted in February over rising unemployment...
...While much of the focus of the U.S.-led war on terror now surrounds that theater of operations the Obama administration terms "Af-Pak," the post-Soviet 'Stans to the north present their own strategic quagmire. The tactical support of governments in the region is becoming increasingly vital for U.S. plans to bring stability to Afghanistan. Central Asian countries also sit atop a significant chunk of the world's untapped oil and natural gas reserves, assets that are eyed covetously by both neighboring Russia and China, as well as the West. Yet the region - dominated by corrupt and repressive regimes...
...Borat or an exotic waypoint of horse markets and mutton skewers, the region has been cast off as a dysfunctional Russian annex, easily manipulated by a Kremlin that still views these young republics as satellite states. From Ashgabat to Astana, the ruling elites are all holdovers from the Soviet era, and sometimes more fluent in Russian than their national tongues. "Their regimes operate," says Eric McGlinchey, a Central Asia specialist and professor of politics and government at George Mason University, "along almost pathological networks of patronage" - and ones that Moscow knows how to navigate. That close working relationship has been...
...That translates into a somewhat depressing reality for the over 50 million people living in the region. The world's "freedom rankings" compiled by Freedom House, a Washington D.C.-based human rights NGO, place all five of the post-Soviet 'Stans near the bottom. Independent media is almost non-existent. Human rights activists are frequently detained and tortured, and many others live in exile. Even in Kyrgyzstan, where a so-called "velvet" revolution toppled the ruling president in 2005, the subsequent government has done little to distinguish itself from the past. "Central Asians tolerate an awful lot," says Roberts. "They...