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| "Shaolin munks in training", Steve McCurry |
Day after day, week upon week we have heard and seen the news of how the Syrian regime is slaughtering it own people by the hundreds each day and denying the The Red Crescent/The Red Cross permission to go into the Homs area to help the 100 000s that are wounded and lack medical care. All this continues while the world is watching, blocked from any action by the vetoes of the Russian Federation and the Peoples Republic of China.
In Russia we can also follow the maneuverings of the present Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, once and hopeful future president, as he tries to regain the presidency by blatant lies and scare tactics.
About a week ago we saw a staged pro-Putin demonstration in Moscow of 150 000 people, only to hear hours later that the people taking part had either been offered 300 rubles or under threat from their employers that they would lose bonuses or other benefits if they did not take part. Yesterday we were told that an attempt by Chechnyan terrorists to murder Putin had been revealed. Amazingly this attempt had been revealed early in January 2012 but the news did not break until 6 days before the upcoming presidential election.
Don´t we all recognize these actions from not so distant Russian history? Putin is more and more growing into his role of the new "little father" of the Russian people or the new Stalin.
Still there are wonderful things in the world, like shaolin monks, love, music, snowdrops (I saw the first ones today) and SecondLife and many, many other things. I and we must always try to remember that.
