The Inconsistent Effectiveness Of The UN Security Council

The Syrian political crisis has escalated rapidly in the last few years with Bashar al-Assad’s government employing chemical weapons against its own civilians. Even though Syria committed to destroying its chemical stockpile ...
by Thom Almeida
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International Political Forum

Why Assad Will Not Lose: The Unspoken Consensus On Syria

Commentary on the situation in Syria generally revolves around a handful of well worn subjects; the regime’s use of chemical weapons, how the West finds the regime abhorrent, the fact that Russia and China are supporting such...
by Michael Brown
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International Political Forum

WATCH: Introducing the flesh eating “zombie” drug [WARNING: Graphic Footage]

Over the last year, two men in Duncan, Oklahoma have fallen victim to a kind of moonshine heroin called desomorphine, dubbed “krokodil” due to it’s horrific side-effects. It has also spread to other states, including Ariz...
by Ozlem Unat
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WATCH: The Crowd In The Machine

What shall we make of the flood of images and voices coursing through the Internet, and how shall we process it? In our minds, the details of so much material overlap and overwhelm. On the Internet, we say, our attention is get...
by Ivan Sigal
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New Russia, Old Rules

9 October marks the start of the appeal trial of Alexei Navalny. The opposition politician and activist, who publicly proclaimed President Vladimir Putin and his party United Russia a “party of crooks and thieves”, was co...
by Olga Bondarenko
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How Russians Read Putin’s NYT Op-Ed on Syria

It’s not every day that the Russian President pens an opinion piece in the New York Times, but it happened yesterday, and the American blogosphere promptly lost it collective marbles, as tweeting journalists and surprised o...
by Kevin Rothrock
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Presidents, Oligarchs and Potash: Russia’s Trade War With Belarus

At first glance, there are no truer friends than Russia and Belarus. The two states are united by a common history and have strong ethnic and linguistic links. Russia has long subsidized her neighbor with cheap oil and gas, wh...
by Daniel Kennedy
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“In Damascus All is Quiet”: Russians Report from Syria

In Russia, support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime cuts across political lines. Deep suspicions of Western motives for military intervention, combined with a domestic history of Islamist rebel groups, lead even the staunches...
by Andrey Tselikov
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International Political Forum

Why Russia Continues to Support Assad

Despite the current political climate in Moscow with its own unrest in the south, and concern over its “sphere of influence,” President Putin appears dedicated to supporting the Assad regime. Yet Russia, as well as the Unit...
by Virginia Winslow
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