Kingston Daily Freeman on Wikileaks and the New Media Order

An interesting analysis of the import of the Wikileaks story from the Kingston (NY) Daily Freeman:

THE online release of an estimated 91,000 secret U.S. military documents on the Afghanistan war has shaken the old order.

In brief, a private group — WikiLeaks.org — obtained the records and scheduled the material for release on the Internet.

Yes, the White House, Britain and Pakistan were — and are — all up in arms at what is being called one of the largest unauthorized disclosures in military history.

But the organization also made the records available to three news organizations — The New York Times, the German magazine Der Spiegel, and the Guardian newspaper in London — about a month before the scheduled release. By doing so, WikiLeaks not only disseminated information to the displeasure of three sovereign governments, but also put three esteemed “old media” news organizations to work, effectively daring them not to publish stories on the documents.

NOT too long ago, editors at those publications would have been deciding whether and, if so, on what terms the public would receive leaked material.

In today’s world, all three organizations knew WikiLeaks was going to post the documents with or without their parallel participation.

In that way, the decision to write about the hither-to secret material was taken out of the hands of the old media editors by the distribution power of the Internet...

Or, as President Obama declared on ABC News’ Good Morning America: “...we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles.”

Document of the Week: Wikileaks Afghan War Diary

I'm reading it now, and shall comment as I figure out what's going on here. But in the meantime, here's the link to the 90,000 pages of documents posted on the web by Wikileaks, so you can read the original material:

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010.

There's also a dedicated webpage, with a number of download options:

http://wardiary.wikileaks.org.

Some preliminary thoughts:

The following statement seems to indicates that the leak may be coming from somewhere nearer the top than the bottom of the chain-of-command:

We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.

The White House reaction, so far, seems to support a view that this "leak" may have been sanctioned from the top, as indicated by this July 26th White House press conference statement by Robert Gibbs:

MR. GIBBS: Look, again, I would point you to -- as I said a minute ago, I don’t know that what is being said or what is being reported isn’t something that hasn’t been discussed fairly publicly, again, by named U.S. officials and in many news stories. I mean, The New York Times had a story on this topic in March of 2009 written by the same authors.

Likewise, National Security Advisor General James Jones' statement:

These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.

More evidence of a leak from the top can be found in today's statement from President Obama, as reported by The Guardian (UK):

Barack Obama today claimed the disclosures about the mishandling of the Afghanistan war contained in leaked US military documents justified his decision to embark on a new strategy.

If the release of 90,000 leaked messages doesn't damage US releations with Afghanistan and Pakistan, why were they classified in the first place?

I'll hazard one other comment at this point. Whatever the source, even if President Obama or Vice President Biden, a recourse to "leaks" is a symptom that the document classification system is not working properly.

At a certain point, the US government invites a climate of distrust--as it did in Vietnam--when it refuses to routinely declassify and release information that poses little danger to the war effort. In that sense, over-classification becomes a security risk, because it encourages leaks. These leaks, in turn, undermine the justification for secrecy in the first place--and lead to questions as to whether information had been properly classified by the US government.

Indeed, this article in the Christian Science Monitor discusses the problem of overclassification, in the light of the Wikileaks story.

A perceived "credibility gap" is the logical consequence of such an approach. In the end, it would tend to undermine both the war effort and the administration, despite any protests to the contrary...

Randall Terry Calls Senate Republican Leader "Spineless Chicken"

From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

In an interview yesterday, Terry called [Sen. Mitch] McConnell [R-KY] "a spineless chicken" for not leading a filibuster against Kagan.

He said he believes that Republicans can cobble together enough opposition to Kagan using her positions on abortion, gun rights and other issues to sustain a filibuster.

"Find your problem with Elena Kagan and make that your hill to die on," he said.

Frank Gaffney: Elena Kagan Has Not Come Clean About Her Shariah Past

From TownHall.com:

Which is where Elena Kagan's enabling of the penetration of Shariah into our capital markets through the Harvard Law School's Islamic Finance project comes in. The purpose of that project is, according to an excellent essay by Andy McCarthy entitled "Elena Kagan's ‘Don't Ask Don't Tell' Shariah Policy" published last week in National Review Online, "to promote Shariah compliance in the U.S. financial sector."

This is accomplished by via legal support to an industry known as "Shariah-Compliant Finance" (SCF)." It was invented in the mid-20th Century by Brotherhood operatives as a means of facilitating and underwriting the penetration of Shariah into Western societies by mainlining it into their capitalist bloodstreams.

McCarthy notes that: "Kagan and other apologists for Shariah-Compliant Finance would absolve themselves from the real-world consequences of their allegedly well-intentioned diversity fetish. But legitimizing any aspect of Shariah is the endorsement of all of it....There is no cut-and-dried separation of Shariah brutality from the tidy, white-collar world of financial transactions."

Against this backdrop another Kagan connection to Shariah looms large. As my colleague, Christine Brim, observed in a post at Andrew Breitbart's awesome new national security web portal, BigPeace.com: During her time as Harvard Law's dean, Kagan twice (once in absentia, the other time in person) awarded the school's "Medal of Freedom" to the controversial Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudry. Today, according to Brim, the thus-legitimated Chaudry is engaged in a "powergrab...to impose Shariah law across Pakistan's government."

As a new ad by the Center for Security Policy asks, "If Kagan tolerates promoting the injustice of Shariah law on the campus of Harvard, what kind of injustice will she tolerate in America during a lifetime on the Supreme Court?"

Althouse: Kagan Least Popular Supreme Court Nominee Since Bork & Miers

From Ann Althouse's blog:

 Instead, she and we got the supposedly charming Kagan, who, for some reason, is the least popular Supreme Court nominee...since Gallup started polling people, at the time of the Bork nomination. (Bork and Harriet Miers,unsuccessful nominees,  were less popular than Kagan.) 

IMHO, Kagan's a Bork of the Left; that is, an Ivy-League law professor, Solictor General, extremist on the abortion issue, political operative, lacking empathy or judicial temperament.

Full disclosure: I had an unhappy debate with Bork at the American Enterprise Institute years ago about Madonna v. Gypsy Rose Lee, when he was hawking his book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah." At the AEI event, Bork, who denounced Madonna vociferously for her lewd act, defended Gypsy Rose Lee, whom he admitted seeing perform in person, with these words: "Madonna is no Gypsy Rose Lee."

A gasp filled the room, then chuckles.

The event was reported in The New York Times by William Grimes.

Oddly enough, both Mr. Bork and Professor Berns, the strongest voices for censorship, indulged in fond reminiscence over the good old days when the strip shows they attended, on rare occasions, showed a respect for the decencies.

AEI certainly practiced what it preached when it comes to censorship: I was never invited back to speak on a public panel at AEI, after that. Later I attended a Bork debate versus C. Boyden Gray--and Gray wiped the floor with him.

Bottom Line: If the Republicans allow Kagan through, they don't deserve to win control of Congress in November...

Dr. C. Everett Koop: Stop Elena Kagan!

From the Americans United for Life website:

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop wrote an open letter urging that Senators vote against the nomination of Elena Kagan. Koop based his letter on AUL Action’s 54-page report on Kagan and partial-birth abortion. Two major national media outlets have written about the Koop letter so far.

Excerpts from a USA Today blog post on this subject today at their On Politics blog:

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is urging a no vote on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan in a letter that will be delivered today to senators who soon will be deciding to confirm her.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on sending President Obama’s second Supreme Court nominee to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote.

In the letter, Koop accuses Kagan of lobbying successfully to change the language of a 1997 statement by American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists on a controversial procedure that critics call “partial-birth abortion.”

Koop calls “unethical” and “disgraceful” Kagan’s effort to convince the medical group to describe the procedure as medically necessary.

“She was willing to replace a medical statement with a political statement that was not supported by any existing medical data,” writes Koop.

Document of the Week: TopSecretAmerica.com

The Washington Post published part one of Dana Priest's and William Arkin's three-part investigative report today into the 854,000 people with Top Secret security clearances working for approximately 3200 government and private organizations in 10,000 locations across the United States. The story revealed that in the Washington, DC area, these operations utilize about 17 million square feet of office space, publishing 50,000 intelligence reports annually.

Conclusion: "...many are routinely ignored."

IMHO, this story is the tip of the iceberg, so one hopes that the authors might have a book coming out with more information. The only question I have is: Why did the Post's editors wait until 2009?

This sort of report might have helped had it come out in 2002, 2003, or 2004--before the US started losing "big time," to use a favorite phrase of Dick Cheney. Was it fear of the Bush administration? Was it a favor to them?

Perhaps CIA Leon Panetta or Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wanted this critique to come out, now.

It would appear so, at least from reading their mentions in the article. In which case, better late than never.

In any case: here's a link to the Post website for the complete story:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america.

And here's a link to the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/TopSecretAmerica.

Galina Vromen on the Dilemmas of Israeli-Arab Friendship

My cousin has published her account of life as an Israeli in an Arab village in the current issue of the Wilson Quarterly:

Some Jews think I’m brave. Some think I’m stupid. I am an Israeli Jew who lives in an Arab Israeli town because I want to get to know the 20 percent of my compatriots who are Arabs and learn their language. No one thinks this is normal. There must be another motive. Maybe I am married to an Arab? Maybe I want to make a political statement? Maybe my work brings me here? The answer on all counts is “no.” Just curiosity? How crazy!
Once Israeli Jews get over the shock, they almost always ask: “How do people treat you? Are you accepted?” The assumption is that I am shunned at best, attacked at worst. Nothing could be further from the truth...

Patrick Doughterty's "Stickwork"

An artist friend told me about the giant stick constructions of Patrick Dougherty, who is coming to Washington, DC's Dumbarton Oaks this September...

Washington Post May Finally Have Done Something Right

By announcing this forthcoming story about intelligence contractors (I would outlaw any contracting for intelligence work, myself) on Monday (ht Drudge Report). Here's an excepft from a State Department cable about the story from Foreign Policy's website:

"The Washington Post plans to publish a website listing all agencies and contractors believed to conduct Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. Government...The website provides a graphic representation pinpointing the location of firms conducting Top Secret work, describing the type of work they perform, and identifying many facilities where such work is done..."

Themes

While we can't predict specific content, we anticipate the following themes:

The intelligence enterprise has undergone exponential growth and has become unmanageable with overlapping authorities and a heavily outsourced contractor workforce.

The IC and the DoD have wasted significant time and resources, especially in the areas of counterterrorism and counterintelligence.

The intelligence enterprise has taken its eyes off its post-9/11 mission and is spending its energy on competitive and redundant programs.

Format

The Washington Post may run a series of three articles, the first being an overview, the second focused on the large number of contractors supporting the intelligence enterprise, and the third looking at a specific community (the Fort Meade/BWI Airport area) that has expanded in part due to Intelligence Community growth.

The Washington Post is expected to work with Public Broadcasting Service's Frontline program to add a television component to this work, and will also present an interactive web site demonstrating growth of the intelligence enterprise and inviting comment and dialogue. The Post advises that "links" between individual contractors and specific agencies have been deleted, although the Post will still cite contractors and their locations.

Too bad about the links being deleted by the Post...

Earthquake Rocks US Capital!

Washington, DC was shaken up--and shaken awake--this morning by a 3.6 earthquake reportedly centered in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I felt it myself, along with someone I know, at 5 am (official reports say 5:04). Luckily, no major damage has been reported, and no casualties.

Still, unusual for Washington, DC. Someone I know had felt a small earth tremor just yesterday morning, now it seems it was a precursor of this quake. Since earthquakes come in waves, we're sitting tight, waiting for aftershocks...

WTOP news story here.

Tea Party Targets Lindsey Graham

Over Kagan's nomination. From Talking Points Memo:

Tea party activists are claiming victory over the one-week delay until Solicitor General Elena Kagan receives a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and one group is going after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as the most likely GOP "Yes" vote to confirm Kagan to the Supreme Court.

"This gives us more time and we must not fail. We must keep calling Senators and tell them to stop Kagan," Tea Party Nation wrote supporters in an email obtained by TPM Organizers misspelled Graham's name, then said he's "the most likely" to support Kagan's nomination.

We think so too, even though Graham peppered Kagan with questions during her hearings. Of course, it's not likely that tea party calls to Graham are going to change his mind, since he told the New York Times recently that the movement "will die out." So far, the Republicans who have said they are opposing Kagan are the ones with political targets on their backs.

Tony Blankley: Kagan Must Be Barred From Supreme Court

From The National Review:

The very power of the Supreme Court to exercise judicial review derives precisely from the Court’s being empowered by the pre-constitutional sovereignty of the people, who have an inalienable right to protect themselves from any undue state restraints on such sovereign rights (see Empire of Liberty, Gordon S. Wood, pages 443, 448 — 451).

And now, proposed to be intruded into that temple of justice — that last fail-safe of freedom — comes the form of Elena Kagan: cold to the very passion of our Declaration of Independence. Ignorant of its animating powers. Insentient of its still-governing force. And — thankfully — oblivious even to her need to attempt to hide her true scorn and indifference.

It is a dead certainty that, if she is admitted to the High Court, the day will come when she will cast aside — carelessly, indifferently, and without pause, and with a leering smile and a chuckle on her lips — our sacred birthrights as so much nuisance and interference with the government’s right to direct our lives as it, or she, sees fit.

She must be barred from the Court.

Forty-one filibustering senators can save the Republic this week, or all 99 will surely be condemned by history for their failure to act when they had the legal power to do so.

The senators have had their warning: Side with Abraham Lincoln and the Republic or with Elena Kagan. Which will it be?

Gun Owners of America: Elena Kagan "Not Sympathetic" to African-American Gun Owners

From Ammoland.com:

Combine all of this with the fact that in 1987 Elena Kagan told her boss, Justice Thurgood Marshall, that she was “not sympathetic” to the plight of an African-American man who wanted to own a gun for self-protection because he carried large sums of cash when depositing money for the laundromat where he worked in Washington, D.C.

Senator Lautenberg Demands BP-Libyan Pan Am 103 Bomber Deal Investigation

FoxNews.crom reports:

Megrahi originally had not been part of the prisoner transfer, but former British Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw later cited "overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom" in including Megrahi.

BP could earn as much as $20 billion from the deal with Libya, set to begin next month.

"It is shocking to even contemplate that BP is profiting from the release of a terrorist with the blood of 189 Americans on his hands," Lautenberg wrote. "The families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103 deserve to know whether justice took a back seat to commercial interests in this case."

Hmmmmm...$20 billion, where have I seen that number before? Oh, that's right, it is the same amount BP has pledged to pay victims of the Gulf oil spill. Link to read Lautenberg letter (PDF) here.

South Carolina Group Targets Lindsey Graham in Kagan Nomination Fight

The Canada Free Press (of all places) reports that Move America Forward will buy ads in South Carolina to pressure the state's senators (meaning Lindsey Graham, since Jim DeMint's position is not in doubt) to oppose Elena Kagan. The effort begins with a press conference tomorrow:

Columbia, SC – The nation’s leading grassroots military-support organization, Move America Forward, is joining the Judicial Action Group and Tea Party Express in calling on South Carolina U.S. Senators Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham to oppose the nomination of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court. The groups will be discussing why they are exerting pressure to oppose Kagan, and announcing details of a major TV ad buy.

Nikki Haley is scheduled to attend, and will give her reasons for opposing a Kagan confirmation.

Military families and their supporters are extremely displeased President Barack Obama has chosen Solicitor General Elena Kagan to join the U.S. Supreme Court, and they are urging the United States Senate to defeat her nomination.

“We are proud to be standing with Nikki Haley, a pro-troop American patriot, who from a military family, against the nomination of Elena Kagan. Military families like Nikki’s agree that Kagan is a bad choice for Supreme Court, after kicked military recruiters off the campus of Harvard Law, impeding their ability to do their jobs in service to their country.” said Danny Gonzalez, Director of Communications for the pro-troop group. Haley’s brother has served in U.S. Army for over 20 years and her own husband Michael Haley is currently employed by the Department of the Army while concurrently serving in the South Carolina National Guard.

Also appearing at Thursday’s Columbia news conference to express the organization’s opposition, will be former Navy S.E.A.L. Benjamin Smith and Paul Jauregui, representing Judicial Action Group, the organization whose name appears on the TV ad.

PRESS CONFERENCE DETAILS:

Thursday, July 15 at 10:00AM

The State House (Front Steps)
1100 Gervais St.
Columbia, SC

The groups gathering tomorrow oppose Kagan on four major premises:

*Kagan has zero experience as a judge
*At Harvard, Kagan treated terrorists’ lawyers better than our own U.S. military
*Kagan asked the Supreme Court to ignore the law and re-write it so as to impose her own “gay rights” agenda
*Kagan favors foreign law over our own U.S. Constitution

For further details, please contact Danny Gonzales at (714) 926-6189 or Danny@MoveAmericaForward.org

The reason for the campaign is clear: If Graham could be persuaded to vote against Kagan, her nomination might be killed in the Senate Judiciary Committee, without the need for a floor vote...

Armenian Lobby Fights Nomination of New US Ambassador to Azerbaijan

I received an email from the Armenian National Council of America in opposition to the nomination of Matthew Bryza as ambassador to Baku. Among the ANCA complaints was this item:

Firing of Ambassador John Evans:

Matthew Bryza served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, overseeing Armenia and the surrounding region, during the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Marshall Evans, over his truthful statements on the Armenian Genocide. He also held this position during what the Washington Post has described as the State Department’s intervention with the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) regarding the withdrawal of its award to Ambassador Evans for constructive dissent.

Mr. Bryza has yet to offer any meaningful insights into the specific justification for the firing of Ambassador Evans or to discuss his role in the termination of a distinguished 35-year diplomatic career.

The Armeniapedia.org website has posted some background on the Evans controversy:

Evans's use of the word `genocide,' which is bound to anger Turkey, was also announced and welcomed by the chairman of the Armenian Assembly of America, Anthony Barsamian. `In his public commentaries, Ambassador Evans repeatedly employed the words "Armenian Genocide" to properly characterize the attempted annihilation of our people by Ottoman Turkey,' he said in a speech in Los Angeles.

Barsamian was addressing more than 270 community leaders that gathered to pay tribute to countries that attempted to stop or recognized the genocide.

Evans thus became the first U.S. official since former President Ronald Reagan to publicly describe the mass killings and deportations of Ottoman Armenia as a genocide. Reagan did so in an April 1981 statement on the genocide committed in Cambodia in the 1970s.

Judge Orders Guantanamo Prisoner Photos Released

In response to a FOIA lawsuit, reported on FOIABlog.

Congress Investigates Defense Department's "Corrupt Practices" in Kyrgyzstan

At a CESS conference in Michigan, a few years ago, I had a debate of sorts with a US State Department official from Embassy Bishkek, who complained in her presentation about corruption in Kyrgyz education. She had described American anti-corruption efforts to stamp out the selling of grades by professors. I thought the project sounded unwise, and remarked from the audience something to the effect of, "I wish we'd stop this anti-corruption rhetoric, because I bet we are corrupting them." Needless to say, the discussion ended on a sour note. Now, I find out, I may have been more right than I knew at the time, according to Eurasianet's Diedre Tynan'a report on hearings scheduled for Thurday:

Three figures said to be associated with Red Star Enterprises Ltd. and Mina Corp have been subpoenaed by a US congressional committee that is investigating potential improper dealings concerning the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan. The trio will be expected to answer questions about the companies' business operations and relationships in Kyrgyzstan, as well as the entities' ownership structures.

Chuck Squires, the director of operations for both Red Star and Mina Corp, Erkin Bekbolotov, a Kyrgyz national, and Doug Edelman, an American entrepreneur, were subpoenaed July 1 by Edolphus Towns, a New York Democrat and the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, EurasiaNet.org has learned.

Squires, a former defense attaché at the US Embassy in Bishkek, is due to appear before the committee on July 15. Bekbolotov is scheduled for questioning on July 20 and Edelman on July 22. The testimony will be given in closed committee sessions.

The subpoenas have been formally served to Squires, Bekbolotov and Edelman, as well as to Red Star and Mina Corp's company addresses in Gibraltar, sources close to the investigation insist. A spokesman for Red Star/Mina Corp declined to comment on the development.

Investigators at the Subcommittee for National Security and Foreign Affairs are said to be frustrated by a lack of cooperation from Red Star and Mina Corp since the start of the congressional probe. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In letters dated April 12, investigators asked representatives of the two entities to provide information about the companies' structures and their respective relationships to former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, his son Maxim, and the companies Aalam Services and Manas Aerofuels, both of which are now in the process of being nationalized by the Kyrgyz provisional government.

The congressional probe is focusing on possible corrupt practices surrounding Manas fuel supplies, as well as fuel supply arrangements at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. Representatives of Red Star and Mina Corp, the previous and current holders of US government contracts to supply jet fuel to Manas, deny any wrongdoing in connection with the fulfillment of their contracts.

The Browser's Five Books

Like an internet version of the Five Books of Moses, or a print variant of the BBC's Desert Island Discs radio program, The Browser offers a Five Books feature on topics of current interest (ht Charles Crawford). What does it mean?

FiveBooks – Become an expert with FiveBooks.

Every day an eminent writer, thinker, commentator, politician, academic chooses five books on their specialist subject. From Einstein to Keynes, Iraq to the Andes, Communism to Empire. Read the interviews, share in the knowledge, buy the books.

Our site is funded by the small percentage we get from every Amazon sale made through us. So please support us by buying your books from FiveBooks, the authoritative way to become an authority.

This week, the theme is a world gone mad:

This Week on Five Books--Mad World

Sociology Professor Frank Furedi chooses books on the crisis in education and says schools have got to stop trying to solve social problems and start educating kids, stop hiding behind gimmicks and interactive white boards and start talking to young people in an intelligent way.

BTW, there's a Russian connection, in the person of the founder, Al Breach:

I’m Al Breach, am 39, and started working on what was to become The Browser with Robert in early 2008. Along with managing the set-up of the business, I’m on the board / advisor to a few companies (Vostok Nafta and Bank of Georgia) and invest actively. My home is in a village in the Swiss mountains.

I spent most of my adult life in Moscow working as an economist. I started in Moscow in mid 1996 writing a journal, before joining Goldman Sachs to become their Russia & FSU economist. After an 8 month sabbatical in Japan in 2002, I joined what was then Brunswick UBS and worked there until late 2007 heading research.

I was born and raised in London, but along with Moscow and Switzerland have lived in Beijing, Tokyo, New York and Zimbabwe. I did an MSc in Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE), studied Mathematics with Philosophy at Edinburgh University, and my secondary school was Westminster.

By sheer coincidence, I actually saw Al Breach speak a few years ago, at a panel on the Russian economy chaired by Leon Aron, at the American Enterprise Institute. If he is as knowledgable about literature as about Russian business, this site should prove to be of interest...especially since Nick Clegg also went to Westminster School--Breach's alma mater.

Another Russian connection, for editor Anna Blundy:

I am a novelist and journalist, and I studied Russian at University College, Oxford. I covered Russia’s financial crisis and Yeltsin’s demise in the late 1990s as Bureau Chief for The Times AND once interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev live in Russian on Radio Svoboda. I am the author of seven critically acclaimed novels and a memoir and have appeared as a commentator on the BBC’s Newsnight Review, Radio Four’s Midweek and Woman’s Hour among others and have written for publications such as The Spectator and Cosmopolitan. My five Faith Zanetti books feature a female war correspondent at odds with a rumbling world, and my latest novel, The Oligarch’s Wife, is published by Random House in December 2009. I wrote a single-girl column for The Times in the early 1990s and now write a regular column in The Times entitled ‘How Did I Get Here?’ about life in northern Italy. I have a masters in Psychoanalytic Theory and am currently working on a PhD thesis psychoanalysing Samuel Pepys from his diaries.

And yet another Russian connection, in the person of Browser co-founder Robert Cottrell:

My name is Robert Cottrell, and I am editor of The Browser. Which is to say, mainly, that I choose the pieces we recommend in "Best of the Moment", and I collect the fragments we publish under "Browsings".

I take suggestions gladly from all sides for pieces to recommend: my email address is robert[at]thebrowser.com. Most links come from my daily reading of RSS feeds, and, increasingly, from following other strong readers on Twitter, where I am @robertcottrell.

Until 2008 I was in print journalism as a staff writer variously for The Economist, the Financial Times, the Independent and the Far Eastern Economic Review. I also contributed to the New York Review of Books for ten years, mostly on Russian topics.

In 2004 I moved to New York as deputy editor of Economist.com. I found over time that I wanted to try building something new, rather than maintaining a large and established site. My first attempt in that direction was the creation of More Intelligent Life, a "baby" site for a re-launched Economist quarterly magazine, Intelligent Life: the site has since been taken over, and improved out of all recognition, by Emily Bobrow. I left The Economist in 2008 to form a business partnership with Al Breach, out of which The Browser has grown.

I live now in Riga, Latvia, where I have a second-hand-book shop.

In my print-journalism days the pieces I most enjoyed writing were the relatively relaxed ones done for The Economist's Christmas issues. Most of those are behind a pay barrier now—such as this one, about the art of conversation. But I see my profile of Santa Claus can still be had for nothing; and, for the time being, my piece about being foreign, in the latest Christmas issue, is also free. Most of my pieces for the New York Review of Books are behind a pay barrier, though last time I looked, one of them, on Chechnya, has remained in the wild.

I wonder if they need a Washington correspondent?