Dedicated to a character who SHAW (sic) made my life under communism very colourful ...
The man who put a price on my head back in 1980 is nicely captured by Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky who make it clear, it's the KGB that rules the roost in Putin's Russia A land fit only for crooks and killers
A new look in Putin's eyes Exclusive: Vlad the Impaler - What Is the World to Do with Putin
The intelligence community has its share of suck-ups, political assassins, incompetents and outright traitors.
A few months after he was sworn into office, President Bush flew to Slovenia where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The meeting was closely watched around the world because Bush had talked tough about missile defense plans and relations with Russia during his presidential campaign.
Coming out of their first meeting, Bush embarrassingly told the world, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul."
• Smiling assassin: No friend of freedom ; [Putin; The Age of Assassins: The Rise and Rise of Vladimir Putin: How Scary Are Russia's New Rulers? ]
• · The future of Russia now looks even gloomier, and The Age of Assassins provides an admirable background to what we should expect in the years ahead. SSS Assassins; In The New Cold War, Edward Lucas says the fate of Politkovskaya and Litvinenko symbolises the Kremlin's plans for the rest of the world in a new Cold War that the West is already losing, "having barely noticed that it has started". Vladimir Putin and his corporate gangsters
• · We delve into the world of corporate recruitment of the best and brightest students in Australia. In a new book journalist and former law student Lisa Pryor asks why so many of our achievers end up studying law when they mean to pursue other careers? She argues this represents a brain drain away from jobs that potentially have greater value for the public good. The pinstriped prison; Booked in
• · · Australian journalist and blogger Antony Loewenstein explains that blogging is not the sole domain of pornographers or Hollywood gossips and that a previously voiceless Saudi Arabian female can now, by blogging, explain the realities of her life and culture with readers in Sydney. The Blogging Revolution, ; Bloggers of the world, let's shop!; Internet mapping is wiping the rich geography and history of Britain off the map, Britain’s most senior cartographer warned yesterday. Web
• · · · Dangerously Addictive Addiction Memoir Thanks for the memoirs: Costello sells his story An extensive author tour; Biden's memoirs suddenly becomes a best-seller
• · · · · With the contemporary serious novel in such a mess, travel writing, like biography, offers many of the traditional pleasures of the novel: story, character, good dialogue, development, resolution. Memoirs are made of this; The crackdown on memoirs came after the publication of Sir Christopher Meyer’s book DC Confidential book. The former British ambassador to the US used his . A ban on civil servants writing 'warts and all' accounts about their time in Government is "unduly restrictive", a committee of MPs have warned. Gagging order on civil servants' 'warts and all' memoirs is too strict, MPs warn