*"There is a country, if not yet a world, to win."

Latest from Bolivia. Also see all the articles on Bolivia Watch - particularly interesting to see the Baynton "paired example" style analysis comparing the US view of Bolivia and Venezuela.

*"Kremlin seizes assets as state power returns to Russia"

Yukos CEO arrested and the Kremlin takes control of a large stake in the company. "In Moscow the seizure was seen as a bold step by Kremlin hardliners apparently keen to "redistribute" the state assets acquired by the oligarchs." Not a word the Carnegie Endowment likes to hear! (see below for reaction to property rights violation)

[....]

"Shortly before the seizure, the Yukos spokesman Hugo Erikssen added that the arrest of the Yukos CEO marked the "inevitable clash of two visions in Russia". [i.e. is the state the power or the shadow cast by the power?]

He said the triumphant Kremlin hardliners, known as siloviki , "do not believe in communism, but they were raised in the communist system. They believe in the pre-eminence of the state."

[....]

"Analysts and legal experts said it represented a brave new world in Russian business and the end of the Kremlin's tolerance of a powerful elite. "We are living in a new country now," said Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment. She said that the targets of this new ideology were "not only those with political aspirations, but those [companies] who want to be independent of power and bureaucracy. [ho, ho] Mr Putin has made a choice, and rejected the role of those trying to strike a balance [between big business and power]. He has chosen a strong state without political pluralism and with a corrupted economy." [sounds like some other large industrial state we know, no?]

Doesn't look like Putin "gets it" sufficiently to see what role political leaders are expected to play in neo-liberal totalitarian societies. Yeltsin certainly did and he immediately handed over state control to the oligarchs (robber barons much like the fortune 500 in the US, Murdoch etc) for them to make decisions. Putin is an old fashioned KGB guy and he wants to call the shots, shooting from the hip, imprisoning/murdering people at will (just like the good old days) and generally ruling. Maybe he should think about a more sophisticated approach to the engineering of consent and realise that neo-liberalism is about us all working together for our common interests - businessmen and policitican together hand in hand ("brothers! sisters! come together!") - you need contracts/I need kickbacks - shit! maybe a middle ground can be found...

*"Our strategy helps the terrorists - army chief warns Sharon" Israeli General announces that he suspects, although it is at yet unconfirmed, that someone may have been fucking.

"Israel's army chief has exposed deep divisions between the military and Ariel Sharon by branding the government's hardline treatment of Palestinian civilians counter-productive and saying that the policy intensifies hatred and strengthens the "terror organisations".

*Thanks to Phil for link below. Didn't work initially so searched for it, whilst looking I found this dialogue with NC. Link appears to be working again now though, and is certainly worth a look, "we may sacrifice the truth in order to secure our identity, or preserve a sense of belonging. Anything that threatens this gives rise to fear and anxiety, so we deny, cut off our feelings. The end result of this pattern is dehumanization. We become split from our own lives and feel great distance from other living beings as well. As we lose touch with our inner life, we become dependent on the shifting winds of external change for a sense of who we are, what we care about, and what we value. The fear of pain that we tried to escape becomes, in fact, our constant companion."