Israel supplies Georgia with all kinds of scary techno toys, including tactical missile systems, anti-aircraft systems, automatic turrets for armored vehicles, electronic equipment and remotely piloted aircraft. … Oh, and by the way, the Times doesn’t put its most idiotic leaders on the net, where they might be easily rubbished and dissected, although this headline is front page on UK newstands.

You’re going to have to read a lot of independents and between a lot of lines to get a handle on this one. Even the UN Security Council can’t agree three lines of text.
While it might not be world war on the ground, international media is locked in ‘moral’ combat while foreign ministers on [...]

Since my previous post on the expat exodus from Russia, I received some mail and insight into the phenomenon. I don’t use the word phenomenon lightly.
To add hard numbers, HVS, a global recruitment and consulting firm, recently completed its 2008 survey of managerial staff in Russia. The comparison with 2007 is dramatic.
In the hotel and [...]

Just a couple of weeks after The Exile crew was reportedly run out of town, BP has withdrawn the last of its foreign staff.

… Leaving BP’s particular problems aside for a moment, there have been two significant developments in the last two years.

I am reminded that it’s time for the Fistful of Euros Satin Pyjamas Awards. When I worked in advertising, I used to promote the Haze Homeful Of Freshness Awards, which was a real mouthful too. But if you squirted your house daily with Haze, so that your eyes were red and streaming with CFCs when [...]

Here’s another article that rather debunks the latest round of attacks on Russia for using the ‘energy weapon’.
It seems that reports in the press - even from Reuters - are exaggerated.
This article is not from anything like ‘The Socialist Worker’. It’s from a rather dry independent trade journal. What follows is a quick precis, [...]

A couple of weeks ago, Stanislovas Jucius went missing in Kaliningrad. One fine morning, when his driver came to pick him up, he wasn’t there.
Jucius has a name like a Roman emperor, befitting a Lithuanian Tycoon. He’s President of the Lithuanian Business Club. CEO of a slew of companies too.
This week the investigation was [...]

If you want a completely different take on Russian affairs, this site is a must-click. Forget about so-called East-analysts like Sean Guillory or Charles Ganske. This is where it’s at.
Let me share with you some of the top stories.
‘In trains of distant following there will be six-seater compartments’
‘Russians love smartfony’
‘The equation with two not [...]

Kaliningrad 1910

Kaliningrad 1969

Kaliningrad 2010
There are plans in Kaliningrad to rebuild the old Prussian castle.
Firebombed by the RAF in 1944, it was then levelled in 1969 to build the ill-conceived ‘House Of Soviets‘. Known locally is the ‘Monster’, this concrete egg-box has never been quite finished or occupied. Finally the blot on the landscape has to [...]

Russia has spoken out against a Caspian pipeline which would bypass Russia. ‘Any gas or oil pipelines across the floor of the Caspian Sea would be environmentally unacceptable’, says the Russian Natural Resources Ministry.
‘Double standards’ says everyone else, as Russia builds a pipeline on the Baltic floor to bypass Poland.
As it happens, the Baltic isn’t [...]