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MOSCOW – Wars usually start with one large lie. Throwing more troops into the breach requires a great many little lies. Wars usually end when the lying can’t staunch the bleeding, and the stench. According to the wife of the David Kelly, the British Defense Ministry expert on Iraqi weapons who committed suicide last Friday […]

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By John Helmer Wars usually start with one large lie. Throwing more troops into the breach requires a great many little lies. Wars usually end when the lying can’t staunch the bleeding, and the stench. According to the wife of David Kelly, the Defence Ministry expert on Iraqi weapons, who committed suicide last Friday by […]

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MOSCOW – The most famous game of Japanese Go ever chronicled was the last match of the 64-year old master, Shusai, and his young challenger, Kitani Minoru of the Seventh Rank. This began in June 1938, and ended, 237 moves and six months later, on December 4. The master was defeated. To understand how a […]

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MOSCOW – The church is near but the road is all ice, Russian peasants used to say. The tavern is far, but I’ll walk very carefully. According to a story published recently in the Boston Globe, Andrew Okhotin is a well-meaning young American churchman with Russian origins, who was on his way to deliver donations […]

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By John Helmer in Moscow When Russians gather to drink, they often offer each other a traditional rhyming toast that can be roughly translated as: “May we have more pies and doughnuts, fewer black eyes and bruises!” It’s a formula which Russia’s most powerful businessmen have been quietly offering the advertising-starved managements of some of […]