Free Republic

Andropov realized in the early 1980s that the Soviet economy was failing and that, with economic failure, it would collapse. Andropov knew that the exploitation of Western innovation had always been vital to the Soviet economy. ... Andropov engineered a new concept. If the Soviet Union was to survive, it had to forge a new relationship with the West. ... The Andropov doctrine argued that the Soviet Union could not survive if it did not end, or at least mitigate, the Cold War. Furthermore, if it was to entice Western investment and utilize that investment efficiently, it needed to do...

LONDON (CNS) -- More people are dying from starvation and disease in Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe than are killed in the war in Iraq or the conflict in Darfur, said an African archbishop. Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, said about 3,500 people are dying each week in his country from a "unique convergence of malnutrition, poverty and AIDS." He said the world has forgotten about the plight of Zimbabweans although "hunger, illness and desperation stalk our land." "Cemeteries are filling up throughout the country, but no blood is being spilt," he told a private meeting of politicians and...

The red tide sweeping through Latin America, checked in Peru and Mexico, has achieved another memorable record this week in Ecuador. The substantial electoral victory of Rafael Correa, a clever, young, US-educated economist and former finance minister, marks a further triumph for Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his Bolivarian revolution, which has long sought to ignite Latin America's "second independence". Correa joins Chávez, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Cuba's Fidel Castro in what some have termed "an axis of hope" for the continent. He promises to call a halt to Ecuador's participation in the US-backed free trade area for the...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela must pay taxes he insists they owe, or else leave the country. "The companies must pay what they owe,'' Chavez said during his Sunday television and radio show. "If they don't pay, they must leave.'' Chavez said that many private oil companies have been evading taxes for years, and they must be charged retroactively with interest on any debts. Officials have said that many declare losses to avoid paying income tax. "It's not possible that an oil company can come here, pay 1 percent...