Free Republic

He walks with a cane and is a bit hard of hearing. Yet Boris Chertok, 95, a former deputy chief designer in the Soviet bureau that put the first Sputnik satellite into orbit 50 years ago, still has strong opinions on the evolution of the country's space program. Chertok says the free-market changes instituted by President Boris Yeltsin after the Soviet Union fell apart were disastrous for Russian science. "We need to restore what we have lost over 15 years of destructive reforms," said Chertok, whose very name was once a state secret. "The market economy is incapable of fulfilling...

LONDON -- Controversial powerbroker Boris Berezovsky emerged Wednesday from extradition hearings in London's Bow Street Magistrates Court wearing a satirical mask of Putin in defiance of the regime he claims is seeking to muzzle and even kill him for his opposition stance. The court agreed to a request to adjourn the hearings made by Berezovsky's defense for more time to put together a case to show the fraud charges forwarded by the Russian authorities against him and his close associate Yuly Dubov are politically motivated. It set the next hearing for May 13. Under British extradition law, the accused cannot...