seems like a good way to bankrupt an already struggling economy..

Reports now say the woman was the nanny to the 4 year old girl. She waited for the parents to go out before beheading the child and setting the flat ablaze. 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/12177508/Woman-detained-in-Moscow-carrying-severed-childs-head-latest.html

 rotekz wrote:  https://www.rt.com/news/333928-woman-severed-head-metro/

There is currently a Muslim woman walking around a Moscow station area shouting Allah Akbah whilst waving around a child's severed head. For real.

Update: She's been arrested. The rest of the child's body has been located in a burnt out flat. It was not the woman's own child.

 RichardPrins wrote: 

Sounds bout right to me.

Forget all our other troubles – the Russians are coming! — RT Op-Edge

(...) As I’ve noted before there is a real disconnect between establishment views on Russia and the views of ordinary people. Compare the bog standard “Putin is a threat to us all” comment pieces and the views of ordinary members of the public in the letters pages.

The most honest assessment of the situation I’ve read was by a letter-writer to the Daily Express newspaper, one Terence Matthews from London, who said “Putin is neither mad nor bad; he is looking after the rights of his people, just as I would expect my government to do…. The US does not want a strong Russia and is paranoid about it.. Let’s get the truth out and not lies”.

In fact if you want the truth on Russia in Britain, you’re generally much better off reading the letters pages, and below-the-line comments than you are reading the opinions of puffed-up pundits in ‘serious’ newspapers and journals who try and outdo one another in their Russophobia.

Laughing at the preposterous “The Russians are coming” brigade really is the best response. Refuse to stand to attention and deferentially tug your forelock when a neo-con or faux-leftist starts to lecture you on “the Russian threat”: Establishment Russophobes hate it when they’re not being taken seriously. And make sure that when you do come across a “The Russians are coming” scaremonger, check out what that person was saying about the Iraqi WMDs ‘threat’ in 2003. It’s usually quite revealing.

We are playing a dangerous game here, the neocons have taken over it seems and are imo completely misreading, underestimating maybe intentionally the Russian government and her people.  All I can say is that in regards to Ukraine, all is not as we are being told from the Western press. I am also wondering whether the pivot to Cuba is part of the overall strategy to bait Russia along with what Saudi America is doing with oil. We are backing Russia into a corner leaving them no recourse.  This is not 1941 and Russia is not imperial Japan:

Obama signs Russia sanctions bill, no plans to use it for now

Russian Paper Apologizes for MH17

They are probably not going to be in business long.

Russia Sues McDonald’s, Questioning Quality of the Food - NYTimes.com

We all know it's really because they hate your freedom fries...

KGB Files Open to All in Cambridge Library | The Moscow Times

KGB files from the famous Mitrokhin archive — described by the FBI as "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source" — are now open to the public for the first time. From 1972 to 1984, Major Vasily Mitrokhin was a senior archivist in the KGB's foreign intelligence archive, with unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of files from a global network of spies and intelligence-gathering operations.

At the same time, having grown disillusioned with the brutal oppression of the Soviet regime, he was taking secret handwritten notes of the material and smuggling them out of the building each evening. In 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he, his family and his archive were exfiltrated by Britain's Secret Intelligence Service.

Now, more than 20 years after his defection to Britain, Mitrokhin's files are being opened by the Churchill Archives Center, where they sit alongside the personal papers of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Professor Christopher Andrew, the only historian to date allowed access to the archive, and author of two global bestsellers with Mitrokhin, said: "There are only two places in the world where you will find material like this. One is the KBG archive — which is not open and very difficult to get into — and the other is here at Churchill College where Mitrokhin's own typescript notes are today being opened for all the world to see.

"Mitrokhin dreamed of making this material public from 1972 until his death; it is now happening in 2014. The inner workings of the KGB, its foreign intelligence operations and the foreign policy of Soviet-era Russia all lie within this extraordinary collection; the scale and nature of which gives unprecedented insight into the KGB's activities throughout much of the Cold War." (...)

Inside the Soviet Union's Secret Erotica Collection | News | The Moscow Times

Russian Law Bans Profanity In Arts And Media

As if America’s right wing doesn’t want to tongue-kiss Putin already, now he’s signed a law banning profanity in the arts.

via BBC News – Russian law bans swearing in arts and media. (...)

The ‘How Are You?’ Culture Clash - NYTimes.com

Pussy Riot's jailing is just the latest chapter as Russia's church and state entwine
Russia's twin powers have a history of co-dependence and are moving forward together on a pre-ordained imperial mission

 Umberdog wrote: 
  It still looks like the Chinese are still relying on the Russian design institutes for the basic design work on their materiel, but are getting more and more involved in producing the guns, planes, aircraft carriers etc. on their own.

The scary part to me is that the Chinese are still interested in making sure that all of their weapons systems can interoperate with the Russian ones.  That says to me that the still hard-core totalitarian Chinese government is planning on bringing Russia and maybe other former Soviet countries back into the fold, and reignite the East vs. West hostilities.  Although Russia isn't the great empire that it was before, they could reclaim most of the old USSR states, especially with Chinese help.  Notice how Russia is the perpetual backer of nutjob crazy Muslim regimes like Iran and Syria, keeping the UN or western forces from getting involved, even with humanitarian aid.  Likewise, China is propping up North Korea.  It's like they're longing for the "good old days" of the Cold War, not unlike how the RNC was a gigantic ad for fictitious "good old days" in the US.

Predictions for what's in style for 2013:

For the US—
Breeder reactors
Duck 'n' Cover
Tailfins
Men wearing hats and thin black ties

For the China—
A new, revised edition of "The Little Red Book"
Mao uniforms
ICBMs

For Russia—
May Day Parades
Gulags
ZiL limousines

 RichardPrins wrote:
So what do we have?  A world stuck in a prolonged economic depression, with populations looking towards strongman leaders with their jingoism and promises of war.    Gee, I wonder how this story will end?

 Servo wrote: 
Russia (or whatever they call them these days) must hire the same contractors as we do. Did someone say the Chinese?

 Servo wrote:
They want to be "job creators" too, while at the same time boosting nationalism...

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Maybe a little of both.  With Putin and presumably a whole cadre of old school (read "Soviet") political allies firmly in power now, and a new generations of Russians with no firsthand knowledge of how bad life in the Soviet Union really was, we might see Russia's future in its totalitarian past.

Then there's this:

Moscow to spend over $720 bln on new military aircraft

  I think they're only trying to keep up with the Chinese, but still...

EDIT:  Now that the GOP convention has all but declared war on Russia, they have a valid reason to be on the defensive.

If Romney gains control of the "red button", we'll be wistfully remembering the "good old days" of George W. Bush's insane foreign policies.