If you got the impression recently that the Russian government was ending adoptions of Russian orphans by US citizens, you should know that that is not the case. There was understandable--if over-stated--annoyance in Russia when a young boy whose adoption had failed in Tennessee was sent back to Russia alone on a commercial plane. "Outrage" would be a better description than "annoyance", however.

At the time, there was media speculation that the Russian authorities would cancel further adoptions to Americans. Then, unfortunately, the story dropped out of the news.

However, the National Council for Adoption, a coalition of well-established adoption organizations in the United States and an able public policy advocate for adoption, pointed out a few days ago that the Russians have not stopped adoptions to the US.

Today, the New York Times describes some Western R & R for Russian orphans who have been adopted into American homes.

It helps to remind us that sensational news, especially about Russia, is often incomplete and, for that reason, misleading.

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The former president of the Seychelles Islands is in New York to warn of increased piracy in the Indian Ocean along the Horn of Africa. James R. Mancham will speak at Columbia University and later at the Discovery Institute-sponsored World Russia Forum April 25-27 in Washington, D.C.

Piracy also was also discussed in Seattle last night at an appearance by Koshin Mohamed, a Somali-American who recently returned from combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mohamed, 31, a community leader in Seattle whose childhood was spent in Somalia, said that international military aid is needed to stop the pirates and drive out the Al Shabaab (al Qaeda linked) terrorists that control 80 percent of southern Somalia. The country also needs development of economic options for youth if the opportunist crime-wave of piracy is to be stopped. As is, Mohamed said, impoverished and uneducated young men are easy prey to ideological Islamist encouragement to defy international law and raid innocent trading ships far out to sea.

Koshin Mohamed spoke at Seattle Pacific University

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In Kyrgyzstan, 78 peaceful protestors were killed by police and security of President Bakiyev who took power in 2005 by overthrowing the previous corrupt regime. It took Baikev only five years to become just as corrupt as his predecessor.

The turn of the century was a time of great promise for the USA. It witnessed the collapse of communism and of the USSR; the disappearance from the world scene of America's main geopolitical adversary; and an unconditional victory of the ideas of freedom, democracy, and free market over totalitarian regimes and planned economy dominated by ideological shibboleths. The West was euphoric; the pervading idea was that an era of universal well-being was at hand. The philosopher Francis Fukuyama encapsulated the sentiment in his famous phrase, "end of history": humanity had reached the acme of its progress, and there were no more horizons to conquer.

Actually another, no less famous philosopher, name of Karl Marx, had made similar predictions over a century earlier. He wrote that the evolution of human societies was not endless; it would reach its apogee when humankind had achieved a socioeconomic formation in which man's most profound and fundamental aspirations were satisfied. Marx referred to that form of social organization as communism. Unfortunately for Marxist philosophy and fortunately for mankind, at the end of the 20th century communism, contrary to its founder's forecast, went down the ashes of world history.

Continue reading "Color Revolutions Flopped. Where Do We Go from Here?" »

Posted by Edward Lozansky at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The death of the Polish delegation on its way to Katyn is unthinkable and unbelievable. As the shock slowly settles in, people across the world are asking one question: why was the entire Polish elite on board one jet? Regardless of the findings of the undergoing investigation, one already can conclude that so many leaders of Poland's society should not have flown together.

Small private companies and large corporations have rules for their executives to fly, drive, and even take elevators separately. One Russian senior retired military official--when talking to us--recalled the time when leading Soviet generals from Russia's Far East took one plane on their way to meetings in Moscow. The plane crashed, generals died, and the Soviet defense minister was furious that so much of the military leadership of one region took the same plane. How did the entire Poland's military leadership, the governor of the Central Bank, top parliamentarians, ministers, and the president end up on the same jet?

The Polish government owns only four planes. While all the jets are Soviet-made, they are finely tuned, tastefully designed, undergo extraordinary maintenance, and are flown by the best Polish pilots. Poland does not have resources comparable to those of the United States or Russia. One can understand that it may be hard for a small European country to come up with multiple jets for a brief private ceremony. However, officials in charge of the trip should have overstepped their pride and dialed Vladimir Putin, or whoever else in the Russian leadership. Surely the Russian government, defense ministry, or oligarchs would have been more than happy to provide two, three, 10, 20, you name it! number of planes to accommodate the Polish delegation for this historically important ceremony to honor the Polish martyrs of Katyn. We hope everyone around the world, from small companies to big governments learned a lesson from this tragic event.

We mourn with the people of Poland their tremendous loss.

Posted by Yuri Mamchur at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)