Moves to separate Crimea from Ukraine do not meet that standard. The rest of Ukraine has not given its consent to transferring Crimea to Russian sovereignty. Hence Russia’s humiliating defeat in the UN Security Council on 16 March. Not one Security Council member voted on Russia’s side. No state wants to see new precedents that call into question its own control of its own territory.President Putin’s bluntly (or brazenly) opened by asserting that international law was on his side.

An environmental organization with a $350 million war chest, a giant protest vessel, 28 activists and a rubber raft have succeeded in drawing Russian President Vladimir V. Putin into a very public global dispute. Attention is now focused on the Greenpeace activists who were arrested last month by Coast Guard agents for trying to hang a protest banner on an Arctic Ocean oil platform and whether they will languish in prison for up to 15 years each on dubious piracy charges.

Rowhani’s intent for reform, his popularity and the widespread desire for change in Iran provide the new leader with a unique opportunity to contribute positively to the Syrian crisis and to Iran’s relations with the West. And despite doubts about the limited power of Iran’s president – the office is subordinate to that of the nation’s Spiritual Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- several analysts argue Khamenei may be less able to control a popularly elected figure like Rowhani. 

I am 23. I have worked in the press in the city of Vladivostok for seven years. I live in Vladimir Putin’s Age. Sometimes I ask myself: “What will I tell my grandkids about these times?” I will tell them that in 2006, when I had just turned 18, the famous Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in full daylight. And her death sent a clear message to all independent media in Russia. “Stop writing for newspapers. Find another job. Journalists are being killed in Russia.” That’s what my relatives and friends who remember life in the former Soviet Union and what it was like to criticize the authorities often tell me.

From New America Media: The Russian archbishop who tried to malign the Indian sacred text, the Bhagavad Gita, should have known that hell hath no fury like 885 million Hindus scorned. That fury has been unleashed worldwide this week over remarks by Archbishop Nikon of the Russian Orthodox Church branding Krishna, the protagonist in the Bhagavad Gita, an “evil demon.” State prosecutors in the Siberian city of Tomsk successfully sought help from the courts to ban the scripture for its “extremist” views and accused it of insulting non-believers, according to Russian media.

Moscow or St. Petersburg? If you’ve ever found yourself a foreigner in Russia, chances are you’ve been asked this question. After taking in the perfectly proportioned boulevards and neoclassical facades of St. Petersburg and the congested highways and architectural indecision of Moscow, you may have even attempted to answer it. In this country of “two capitals,” an outsider’s opinion provides valuable justification for a city-dweller’s pride.