The world has started to respect Russia and take Russia’s opinion into consideration. This is Russia’s major achievement in 2008. The future of 2009 is rather vague because of the financial crisis, which has all chances to develop into a global political crisis. There are two things which identify Russia's international results in 2008. The first one of them is the conflict in South Ossetia. It was the first time in the post-Soviet history of the world, when Russia stood up against the US will

The military exercise of Russian and Venezuelan navies attracted a lot of media attention in the West. The majority of respectable Western newspapers wrote about the event with derision claiming that it could not pose a threat to the United States. Others drew a parallel with the Cold War and the Caribbean crisis of 1962. ‘The Russians return to the Western Hemisphere,’ ‘Moscow challenges the West’ – these were typical headlines about the joint naval exercise

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is currently on an official visit to Peru, received the highest award of this nation, the Order of the Sun of Peru, from the hands of its president. Peru’s President Alan Garcia thanked Medvedev for making an official visit to Peru and pinned a large diamond-encrusted cross to Medvedev’s jacket. Afterwards, Garcia put a wide vinous ribbon on his Russian counterpart and hugged Medvedev three times

The US-led invasion of Iraq has been criticized from the very beginning even by those who supported the invasion. Some of the U.S. military with hands-on knowledge of combat operations strategy also leveled their harshest criticism at the government. More critical voices could be heard as the congressional midterm election was drawing near

The USA made a mistake with its strategy of development. The world population is certain that there can be no unipolar world order created on the planet. The USA's current domination in the world will be minimized and then brought to nothing in the future. However, people do not think that there will be a balance of forces established instead

The idea of nationalism is not much compatible with a “union of nations,” though that is, in fact, what Poland achieved in uniting with Lithuania in the sixteenth century. And now Poland and Ukraine are poised to unite as “brother nations,” as the presidents of each nation have addressed each other recently on several occasions

Russia has become world's largest exporter of weapons during 2000-2004. Russia has considerably increased the sales of its weaponry abroad and even managed to leave the USA behind

There is only one time zone in China. The exchange rate of national currency, the yuan, is the same across the country. It currently stands at about eight yuan for one American dollar. Bicycle is still the main means of transport. Every day nine million cyclists roll about the capital of China. Soaring gasoline prices mean nothing to an average Chinese

Old cemeteries continue to exist till people who come to see them are alive. When nobody else comes there, these cemeteries are ploughed up again and the ground is once again ready to become a new cemetery. Many of martial cemeteries in Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland and Czechia are razed to the ground. Instead, more parks and residential areas appeared where cemeteries used to stand

U.S. companies would really like to see Russian nuclear fuel and services gain open access to the U.S. market. The Russia-U.S. cooperation for the development of atomic power industry is not a commodity.