Word: vladimires
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...over before it began: Dmitry Medvedev will be Russia's next President. Only two things can stop him. One would be a serious medical emergency. This is unlikely, since the man looks as fit as a flea; it has been centuries since any Kremlin ruler - except for the incumbent, Vladimir Putin - has looked in ruder health. The second snag would be any change of mind by Putin. Medvedev owes his projected elevation to the favor of just one man. Such is Putin's dominance that Medvedev has immediately begged him to serve as his Prime Minister after the elections...
...people before he's shown such deferential treatment. Critics also contend Gaddafi isn't the only suspect foreign leader Sarkozy has offered such friendly approbation to. Earlier this month, for instance, Sarkozy placed what media reports have described as "a warm telephone call" to Russia's authoritarian President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on victorious parliamentary elections that many observers describe as tainted by fraud. No other European leader followed his example. It's doubtful they'll be picking up their phones to place a call to Gaddafi either...
...Afterword to Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov wrote that one of the subjects taboo to American publishers was that of "the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106." New Line, having invested something like $180 million in The Golden Compass, is similarly scared of its antireligious content. The company that boldly greenlighted Peter Jackson's $300 million Hobbit ambitions before a frame of the first movie was shot, and made billions from riding that risk, hasn't said yes to films two and three of the Pullman books - although...
...landslide Dec. 2 victory posted by President Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party set off a small chorus of Western criticism. Germany's spokesman said the process was "neither free, fair nor democratic." The U.S. called for any irregularities to be investigated. But by waiting until election day to draw attention to scattered reports of ballot-stuffing or voter intimidation, the West came across a bit like Captain Renault in Casablanca: suddenly it was shocked--shocked!--to find electoral shenanigans in Russia...
...warily by citizens of those countries, and with outright hostility by the Russians who see it as aimed at blunting their own missile capability in the event of a showdown with the U.S. The plan has helped freeze U.S.-Russia ties to Cold War levels of enmity, with President Vladimir Putin just last week suspending Russia's participation in 1990s Conventional Forces in Europe treaty...