19 April 2010 The crash on 10 April of an airliner carrying Poland’s president, Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 of the nation’s political, military and economic leaders, was a heart-rending tragedy. But for Poles, tragedy is a constant. Poland’s epic, thousand-year history has always alternated between extremes of tragedy […]
April 5, 2010 There is an old saying about the fierce Chechen tribes who inhabit southern Russia’s Caucasus mountains: `Chechen cannot ever be defeated. They can only be killed.’ Chechen are Russia’s nemesis. Even the notoriously brutal Russian mafia fears the ferocious Chechen, and for good reason. Last year, Prime […]
24 January 2005 SHANGHAI – Back in the 1930’s, Shanghai was the wickedest city on earth. Just beyond the stately buildings of the Bund, Nanjing Road, and the European Concessions lay squalid slums, armies of leprous beggars, thousands of child prostitutes, and opium dens. Shanghai teemed with gun runners, con […]
