One of Moscow’s trendiest nightclubs recently hosted a night called “Marry a Millionaire”, which is your night of nights if you’re hip young (preferably very young) Russian “millionaire hunter”. You will probably also enjoy the event if you’re seedy cashed-up mafia boss with a taste for women half, a third or perhaps a quarter your age.

The article is a quote goldmine, but this would have to be the money shot:

“He should be smart, really handsome, tall, with a really good body, like some kind of prince. Black hair, really green eyes. He should have around $US45 million.”

Those are the words of “Vikki Kurova, 17, who drives a Porsche and whose father is in the steel business”.

The steel business? Perhaps something was lost in translation, but most Russian Porsche owners are in the “stealing business”. Perhaps for her 18th birthday Vicki could ask daddy to tell her what he really does. Wait a minute. Whats a 17 year old doing in a nightclub anyway? You’ve got to love that good old Russian sense of irony - nightclub “face control” involves looking at everything but. Especially the one on the ID card.

But lets hear a bit more Vikki wisdom:

“I spend a lot of money - in a week $US300 or $US400. I couldn’t marry a guy that’s not rich because I want to live like I live now,”

Wow, that is a lot of money, Vikki. And thinking ahead to when daddy is in jail. Good girl!

Great to see a girl who knows what she wants. But does Vicki know what her hazel-eyed prince charming may be looking for in her?

“If you want to be a millionaire’s wife, you should be young, and of course beautiful. All millionaires love young girls.”

And what do those millionaires do when those young, beautiful girls get old, Vicki? I should mention there’s a big difference between the Russian and Australian definition of “old”. Like, about a 30 year difference.

But things always balance out in this world, so for every airhead bimbo seeking a prince there’s an airhead princess out there scrubbing’s someone’s floor for attention (ok, perhaps its not exactly a one to one ratio):

Although Diana’s life was been covered in excruciating detail, [..] Brown provides details of Diana’s detachment from reality, such as telling Brown over a lunch that she thought she could solve the conflict in Northern Ireland.

“I’m very good at sorting out people’s heads,” Brown quotes her as saying.

[..]”Marks and Spencer have got these very clever little meals that you just put the timer on and press the button and it’s done for you!” Diana is quoted as telling her therapist, Simone Simmons.

[..] She would also spend the day at [her Pakistani heart surgeon boyfriend Hasnat Khan’s messy one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea, where she would vacuum, do the dishes and iron his shirts.

Alas, contrary to popular belief (in Russia, anyway) being Royalty doesn’t get you everything:

[..] but her efforts were in vain. Dr Khan’s mother had no intention of letting her son marry anyone other than a Pakistani Muslim girl.

Well, I suppose its nice to know at least someone in this world still listens to their mother.

Stratfor reporting on the case of some Russian multinational employees that were kidnapped by Nigerian militants last week (subscription only), in hope of gaining a ransom payout:

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Nigeria’s ambassador June 4 to discuss the June 3 kidnapping of six Russian employees of giant Russian aluminum producer United Company RUSAL in the Niger Delta. Thus far, the many militant groups in the Delta region have shown no regard for country of origin when kidnapping foreign residents. But this is the first time Russians have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta, and Russia is not likely to respond as other countries have to this common militant practice.

[..]

Consistent with its past dealings with armed groups that kidnap Russians, someone in the employ of either the Kremlin or RUSAL will retaliate against the individuals who participated in the kidnapping — or, should the attackers be affiliated with some larger organization, against other individuals in the organization. In September 1985, Hezbollah militants abducted four employees of the Soviet Embassy in Beirut. The KGB’s response to the kidnapping was to carry out reprisal kidnappings of several family members of the suspected Lebanese abductors and to send them back home in pieces. A few days later, the Soviets were released — unlike U.S. hostages kidnapped in Lebanon, some of whom remained in captivity for years.

Whatever the Russian response to the Niger Delta kidnappings, the desired effect will be to deter future attacks against Russian businesses and citizens. And any reprisal likely will happen after RUSAL has paid for the safe release of its employees.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere for all of us.

That page of course only has room for one… But thats later.

The geopolitical gurus at Stratfor make the following analysis of the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran (subscription only):

Iran handed over a proposal to [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan] Crocker during a brief encounter at the May 5-6 Sharm el-Sheikh summit in Egypt, but also chose to unofficially publicize its terms for Iraq through the Saudi-owned, British-based daily Al Hayat. The Iranian Foreign Ministry likely chose Al Hayat, a major Arab news outlet, to make a back-channel broadcast of what concessions it is prepared to make to allay Sunni concerns in the region.

In sum, this Iranian proposal called for a non-rushed withdrawal and relocation of U.S. troops to bases inside Iraq, a rejection of all attempts to partition Iraq, a commitment by the Sunni bloc to root out the jihadists and acknowledgement by Washington that the Iranian nuclear file cannot be uncoupled from the Iraq negotiations. In return, Iran would rein in the armed Shiite militias, revise the de-Baathification law and Iraqi Constitution to double Sunni political representation, create a policy to allow for the fair distribution of oil revenues (particularly to the Sunnis) and use its regional influence to quell crises in areas such as Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

The terms put forth by the Iranians are so close to the U.S. position on Iraq that, with little exception, they could have been printed on State Department stationary and no one would have noticed the difference. If these are the terms Washington and Tehran are in fact discussing, then we are witnessing an extraordinary turn in the Iraq war in which the U.S. and Iranian blueprints for Iraq are finally aligning. It does not surprise us, then, that Crocker said after his meeting in Baghdad that the Iranian position “was very close to our own” at the level of policy and principle.

Extraordinary indeed. So is this finally a light at the end of tunnel? Maybe, except for a few small problems. Stratfor lists the problems as follows:

• The transnational Sunni Jihadists with their dreams of an Islamic State of Iraq
• the severely and perhaps irreconcilably split Iraqi Shia who are likely to a little rough on each other sooner rather than later
• the much less splintered Iraqi Sunnis, who, although by and large online with these negotiations must be satisfied of their future safety and a slice of the pie in the Shia dominated Iraq (these guarantees are already part of the deal)
• the Iraqi Kurds, who are the Iraqi faction that stands to lose most out of the above settlement and are not about to give up what they’ve worked so hard to finally achieve in Kurdistan
• Ultraconservatives in Washington and Tehran who “can’t negotiate with those people”
• Sunni Regional Powers with that whole Shia Crescent thing on their mind
• Syria, who is feeling pretty important, if not immune right now while the Great Satan is all tied up elsewhere and they are useful to Iran
• Russia, which has really been making the best of the US and Iranian preoccupation in Iraq and would be quite unhappy to have to start caring what the Americans (and even the much closer Iranians) think again

How is that light looking now?

I haven’t seen anyone this confused since… (well, probably since that Communist hijabi the other week):

The city of Tallinn is assessing the damage after two consecutive nights of violent rioting by gangs of mostly young local Russians. The third night passed relatively quietly. Ostensibly triggered by the expected relocation of the Red Army monument (the Bronze Soldier) from downtown Tallinn, the protests turned into a rampage, with drunkenness and plunder overriding the political or ethnic motivations.

Compared to the first night of rioting, April 26-27 (see EDM, April 27), the night of April 27-28 featured even younger mobs, partly under 18 years of age, looting shops in the downtown Viru Street and Vabaduse Square, after having devastated the shops on Tatari Street the preceding night. They particularly sought out sports clothes and liquor. Rioters holding bottles of alcoholic drink became the iconic image of both nights. They also smashed windows at the Estonia Theater, the Estonian Academy of Arts, and the governing Reform Party’s offices.

In a rare political gesture, a large group of secondary-school students demonstrated outside the parliament building under the slogan, “USSR Forever.” Occasionally during both nights, rioters waved the Russian flag or shouted “Russia, Russia;” but such episodes were isolated and uncharacteristic of the events as a whole.

Youths arriving from the Russian-settled northeastern towns of Narva and Sillamae rioted in the nearby Estonian-majority town of Johvi. There they set on fire the monument to Alexander Tonisson, commander of Estonia’s successful defense against Soviet Russian forces in 1918, who was killed after the 1940 occupation by those same forces.

[..]
Russia’s state-controlled television channels misleadingly claimed that the monument had been “cut to pieces,” whereas it is actually being transferred intact to a military cemetery on the outskirts of Tallinn. The Russian channels reported very little about the vandalism and drunkenness. Instead, they blamed Estonian police for “brutality,” characterized the gangs as “Russian school pupils,” “monument defenders,” and “anti-fascists,” and ran archival footage of Soviet-era festivities around the monument. Russian TV generalized that “British MPs” disapproved of Estonia, only to produce the eccentric leftist George Galloway expressing that view.

Wouldn’t expect it any other way from good ol’ George.

Turkmenistan’s new President, Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, has finally opened his country to Internet access to the outside world. What took them so long? In a word - ‘pizza’:

[The previous President] Niyazov’s government earlier had an unhappy experience with the Internet, when in 1998 London-based NetNames persuaded him to sell top-level “.tm” Internet domain names for a percentage of the profits. NetNames argued that companies would rush to embrace the domain, as “tm” represents “trademark” in the West. After selling more than 4,000 domain names Niyazov pulled the plug on the project, as he was offended by certain registrations, such as “pizza,” which he found uncomfortably close to the Russian word for female genitalia.

That word is pizda, if you’re wondering. When I checked pizda.tm was still up for grabs, so get in there.

Undettered by the possibility of obscene connotations is North Korea’s top guy Kim Jong-Il, who had an Italian chef interrogated until the chef broke the ice by saying he spoke Russian and delivered to North Korea to make pizza for Kim. Word on the NK street is Kim was also at first confused by the p-word, having his foreign guest initially delivered into his harem, before the confused Italian was told to get back in the kitchen where he belongs. “So sorry, Great Leader, I said I’ve got some great PIZZA for you!”

No signs of confusion about the meaning of the word ‘pizza’ from NK’s nukilar-wannabe pals Iran. The Iranians know exactly what it means and where it comes from. That is why it is banned there. The blaphemous infidel word ‘pizza’ that is, not the dish. “Elastic loaves” however remain ever popular. Can someone tell these clowns what Shiite means, while I go and register shiite.tm?

Presumably following a similar logic Pakistani Shiites like to burn Pizza Huts (Elastic Loaf Huts?) because they identify them with the “American administration”. Which leads me assume Pakistani Shiites also identify KFC and gas stations with Pakistani Sunni extremists. Pakistani Sunni mobs on the other hand prefer churches, the Holiday Inn, McDonald’s, trains and Christian schools and convents. Oh, and “blasphemers”, but that goes without saying.

Not to be outdone across the border in India earlier this month mobs destroyed the residence a of poorly performing cricket star:

“An AFP reporter at the site reported that the protesters were shouting “Dhoni die, die”, burning effigies of the long-haired player, who has scored 1,958 runs in 68 one-day international matches and is counted among India’s most aggressive batsmen.”

But back to the pizza.

Under the cover of pizza: In November 2004 Dutch police arrested Morrocan Islamist who was doing reconnaissance for a terrorist operation while delivering pizza. He was described in the the Dutch paper De Telegraaf as a “radical Moroccan pizza courier”. No moderate Moroccan pizza couriers were available for comment, but rumours has it they were quite incessed about the hijacking of their scooters by the radicals.

But back to the mob attacks.

On Sunday the British embassy in Tehran was under siege from a rock and firecraker pelting mob chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Britain”. “Pizza, pizza!” came the defiant reply from inside the high security compound.

Parallels have being drawn with the 1979 seige of the US embassy in Tehran, when the Islamists adorned the building with slogans such as “This is not a struggle between the US and Iran, it is a struggle between Islam and blasphemy” and “The more we die, the stronger we become”, but there is an earlier and bloodier precedent:

When in 1979 a horde of students invaded the American embassy in Tehran and took the entire staff hostage, it was not the first time such a thing had happened in the city. In 1829, a mob had broken into the Russian legation and killed all but one of its diplomats. The unfortunate head of the Russian mission was Alexander Griboyedov, who died in the carnage.

[….]

Griboyedov’s arrival in Tehran coincided with Ashura, a festival which involved great numbers of flagellants parading in the streets to re-enact the deaths of Hassan and Hussein, the sons of the Imam Ali. The atmosphere was highly charged with religious emotion and the crowds were putty in the hands of the mullahs. Griboyedov tactlessly chose to ride a black stallion, the same colour as the stallion ridden in the plays by the murderer Yazid. Doubtless still under Yermolov’s influence, he displayed a signal lack of courtesy to the Shah, and the members of his mission, with their public drunkenness and insulting behaviour, did not endear themselves to the people of Tehran.

The atmosphere became more charged when one Mirza Yaqub sought refuge at the Russian mission. An Armenian Christian, he had been captured during the siege of Erivan, castrated, converted to Islam and eventually promoted to become the Shah’s personal treasurer.

The situation was now extremely delicate, and became more so when the palace claimed that Mirza Yaqub had absconded with a hefty part of the royal treasure. To make matters worse, Griboyedov was persuaded to take in two young Armenian girls, the property of the Shah’s son-in-law. After some days in the Russian mission, the girls began to smell and were taken to the bathhouse. The Persians assumed they were being given a ritual bath prior to a forced marriage to a Russian, and word got out that two Muslim girls were about to be violated. The next morning a huge mob gathered at the mosque. Fired by the mullahs, the mob attacked the Russian mission. All those inside, bar one, were slaughtered and everything movable was looted, including a substantial amount of bullion.

The Persian authorities were powerless to prevent it, and the rioting lasted for four days. Griboyedov’s body was sent on an ox cart back to his wife at Tiflis. Today, in the Kremlin, is displayed an 89-carat diamond, sent by the Shah to the Tsar by way of an apology.

On that occassion when the rabid mob stormed the building the Persian guards fled and soon the fanatical rioters, chanting “Allahu Akbah” were tearing through the roof of the compound and then tearing through its inhabitants, literally tearing them apart. Griboyedov’s body was recovered from the mob three days later and only recognised by a duelling scar on his hand. Another unfortunate victim had his head proudly displayed on a skewer at a nearby kebab stand. Only one person survived the attack. Griboyedov was also an outstanding playwright and his famous work “Woe from Wit” is still studied in Russian schools.

Back to modern times, and only days after the the 1979 attack on the US embassy in Tehran, the British embassy in Islamabad suffered a similar fate:

In November 1979, false rumors that the United States had participated in the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca provoked a mob attack on the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. The government’s delayed response enabled the mob to burn the embassy. Four people died, two of them U.S. nationals.

Its currently looking like another wave of pizza politics is