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Few world leaders have cut a more consequential but ultimately tragic figure than Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, whose death at the age of 91 has been announced by Russian state media. In a way, it was fitting that as the last leader of the USSR, Gorbachev was probably its only truly humane one. And it’s equally sobering that Gorbachev has passed away at a time when political repression in his native Russia has become stifling once more, and the specter of conflict in Europe which long overshadowed the region during the Cold War has become reality. These were outcomes Gorbachev strived...

He said the Russian leader had paid his respects at the Moscow hospital where Gorbachev died on Tuesday, aged 91. Gorbachev's reforms helped end the Cold War, but saw the demise of the Soviet Union, which Mr Putin has lamented

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the funeral of Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday, citing scheduling conflicts, but he paid tribute to the last Soviet leader Thursday, the Kremlin said. In a call with reporters, Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the president paid his final respects by laying a wreath at Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital, where Gorbachev died on Tuesday at age 91. “Unfortunately, the president’s work schedule will not allow him to do this on Sept. 3, so he decided to do it today,” Peskov said. Russian state television showed Putin walking to Gorbachev’s open coffin and placing...

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whose rise to power in the Soviet Union set in motion a series of revolutionary changes that transformed the map of Europe and ended the Cold War that had threatened the world with nuclear annihilation, has died in Moscow. [A classic New York Times eulogy. VERY long, but an excellent political history of the USSR from the 1930s to the late 1990s. No NYT pay wall. MSN.com publishes all of it.]

Let me take you back in time, ladies and gentlemen. It's 1987. I am at the time working at KFBK in Sacramento, California and I have created this term, invented this term "Gorbasm", to describe the reaction of various people, primarily in America, but around the world, to the prospect that nuclear holocaust is at hand because Ronald Reagan is in the White House, but only Mikhail Gorbachev can save the day, can save the world, can save the planet! He's reasonable. Reagan has an itchy trigger finger, right there poised above that button. Now all the time previous, from...

Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, has died at the age of 92, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying on Tuesday.

RUSSIAN troops have reportedly shelled an old people's home in Ukraine, killing 56 people. A tank allegedly fired at the residential home in what Ukrainian authorities branded a "cynical" and "deliberate" attack.

An update on mask-muzzle orders in the US... This video from Schweinfurt, Germany tonight of a police attack on a protester opposing mandatory vaccination...A 50 year old man reported injured. Hundreds protested without wearing masks causing police to use force resulting in conflict with the protesters. The video of a four year old child being treated after a pepper spray attack... The DPA News Agency in Germany reports a number of arrests and 44 citations issued against protesters in Schweinfurt tonight.. Thousands protesting against compulsory vaccination in Austria's capital Vienna... "Millions of Israelis are without one; you're leaving out millions...

The Koch brothers might be part of buying Time magazine, and a former Time science editor is so panicked he wrote an article for the leftist magazine The Nation titled "Don't Let the Koch Brothers Buy Time Magazine." Charles Alexander wrote about how his life’s work of screaming environmental bias may be about to go down the drain: Can you imagine what it would be like to see your life’s work suddenly go down the drain? I can—right now. As a former Time editor who spent 13 years editing the magazine’s coverage of environmental issues, I am in despair over...

WASHINGTON, April 15, 1986 (UPI) -- The blistering U.S. airstrike against Libya was a victory in the global battle against terrorism, President Reagan said Tuesday, warning the United States is ready to repeat its message ''in the only language Khadafy seems to understand.'' As Reagan pledged he will not relent in his campaign to ''eradicate the scourge of terror in the modern world,'' reports from the Libyan capital of Tripoli said that Moammar Khadafy's 15-month-old adopted daughter was killed in the bombing and two of the Libyan leaders's sons were seriously hurt. After night fell in Tripoli Tuesday, the thud...

It’s long overdue. A statue of former President Ronald Reagan was unveiled and dedicated on Friday at the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany. The seven-foot statue overlooks the site of the Berlin Wall. In an unforgettable speech for those old enough to remember it, on June 12, 1987, President Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and delivered this demand of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” He was calling for Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall which had separated West and East Berline since 1961. Reagan’s speechwriter, and current Hoover Institution fellow Peter Robinson noted...

The newly revealed exploits of spies who operated in underground tunnels The CIA dug a tunnel under the Kremlin and installed a hi-tech bugging system to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union's most senior figures, according to the former US intelligence officer who executed the plan. The device was put in by a US agent who had to wear a protective suit and was guided by satellite and sonar images of Moscow's underground. The bugging formed part of audacious operations to rescue a key defector, a KGB officer with responsibility for eavesdropping, and to alert Boris Yeltsin to the attempted coup...

Turning the California Presidio over to Mikhail Gorbachev, who would use being on American soil to convert American military bases to "global centers for sustainability," Is Russian Collusion 101. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will continue to harass President Donald Trump as a Russian Agent—even after the release of the Mueller Report is calling for no more indictments. By urging a full release of the report with their demand that Attorney General William Barr not give President Trump or his lawyers a ‘Sneak Preview’, Pelosi and Schumer want the public to believe that...

The leaders of four nations are talking about Syria in Istanbul, Turkey today..... US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told a security meeting in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain that Russia is no replacement for the US in the Middle East.... In Germany, voters go to the polls in the state of Hesse tomorrow with anti-mass immigration Alternative for Germany set to make its entry into that state's parliament for the first time.... Turkish President Erdogan has urged the Saudi government to reveal the location of Jamal Khashoggi's body..... The fiance of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is declining a...

To Ronald Reagan and his entourage, the summit meeting in Iceland looked like the perfect photo opportunity. Three weeks before the midterm elections, Reagan would be pictured shaking hands with the smiling Russian in his Fifties fedora. The president would be portrayed in the media as an earnest peacemaker, diligently searching for ways to end the nuclear-arms race. This time, though, the photos turned out badly. When he emerged from his bargaining sessions with Mikhail Gorbachev, the president looked stung, like a small boy who had burned his fingers playing with a light socket. Reagan came home empty-handed from Iceland,...

In Part 1, I introduced you to GS1. A United Nations sanctioned not for profit organization with an intent to tag every thing with RFID technology. In this article I will expand on GS1, as well as introduce you to pilot projects, organizations, and people working to implement this agenda. This article will give readers a introduction to the cashless society, as well as the groups and people behind it...... ....a brief review of some history is necessary. Many reading this will be familiar with the Earth Charter. This document more than any other helped lay the foundation of the...

...Speaking on Echo of Moscow radio, I said I considered Vladimir Putin’s decision to run for a third presidential term to be a mistake. A regular changeover, a periodical renewal of the political establishment was essential and Putin could have set an example. “New people would appear who could move the process on. He would be leaving a legacy with much that was positive.” Oh, dear, that put the cat among the pigeons! United Russia stalwarts, rancorous Internet trolls, professional political fixers, the whole motley crew took as one to berating Gorbachev, as if I had said something subversive and...

Everyone says President Obama is a feckless commander, weak in statecraft, especially compared to the great leaders of the Western world, such as Reagan and Churchill. I believe this does Obama a great injustice. It's so easy to react the way a great leader would. Sure, Obama could have left a small contingent of American troops in Iraq, preserved America's victory, and prevented the entire region from collapsing into chaos and terror. He could have refrained from issuing empty "red line" threats to Syria. He could call ISIS "Islamic." But anybody could do that -- even ISIS calls itself "Islamic."...

Reports of a potential “Russian” submarine found near England and Sweden have once again become common, and now the United States is being asked by Great Britain to help in the search for this mysterious underwater object. In a related report by the Inquisitr, Vladimir Putin recently signed and enacted a new military doctrine which proposes that Russian nuclear weapons defense systems near Europe will be expanded based upon joint defense projects with China, India, and other countries. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev also warns that the Ukraine crisis may transform into World War 3, claiming that a nuclear war...

"A war of this kind would unavoidably lead to a nuclear war," the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner told Der Spiegel news magazine, according to excerpts released on Friday. "We won't survive the coming years if someone loses their nerve in this overheated situation," added Gorbachev, 83. "This is not something I'm saying thoughtlessly. I am extremely concerned."