TODAY: Ingush President returns to work; concerns about dam surfaced decade ago; Georgian minister retracts comments on US aid; Medvedev in Mongolia; TB alert; anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact sees debates resurface.President Medvedev is, according to ITAR-TASS, confident that Ingushetian President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who is returning early from convalescence, will institute order in the region.  Yevkurov has expressed a desire to see an increase in the number of police following an upsurge in violence.  The Kremlin has rejected claims from a Chechen website that separatist group the 'Battalion of Martyrs' was responsible for the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydrodam disaster as part of an 'economic war' against Russia.  Apparently no explosives were found at the site.  According ...

This story of the disappearing "lumber" freighter just keeps getting stranger and stranger, as this excerpt from the Moscow Times shows.  At least we know that it wasn't a completely inside job - even though Russian officials are still acting awful cagey, NATO did assist them in tracking the ship down?  So one would assume that if the government were playing a role in a supposed arms trafficking transaction, which seems like the most plausible explanation, they probably wouldn't have to ask for help.

Yet the official version of what transpired is fraught with inconsistencies, prompting observers to suggest that Russian authorities are trying to cover up a smuggling or trafficking operation.

When Swedish police first said the ship had been hijacked near the island of Gotland on July 24, they cited the crew as saying masked men had bound and beat them before fleeing in

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Here is the beginning of Robert Amsterdam's latest contribution to Huffington Post:

It really is impressive the level of tolerance we've built up when it comes to Russia's confrontational antics. Take for example the move in early August to deploy two Akula II-class nuclear attack submarines off the East Coast of the United States. The Pentagon quickly discarded any potential threat from the stunt, which was only slightly more diplomatic than the response to the resumption of bomber patrols: "If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again, that's their decision," a State Department rep quipped back in 2007.

It's the same story with the Europeans.

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It’s been a good 22 years since I took French classes, and I was trying to remember the French word that best described the word’ Chutzpah’. Then I heard the news and the word became clear. The word is  Sarkozy.

Who does this guy think he is? According to a Ynet article: “Channel 2 reported Monday that during Netanyahu’s meeting with Sarkozy in Paris the latter said the prime minister should appoint Opposition chairwoman Tzipi Livni in Lieberman’s place. “With her and (Defense Minister Ehud) Barak you can make history”, he was quoted as saying. “I have always accepted Israeli foreign ministers, and I loved to have Tzipi Livni here at the Elysee, but with (Lieberman) I can’t,” he was reported as saying with a wave of his hand.”

Pardoner Mois! We don’t tell you how to run your foreign affairs so

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