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Saturday, October 01, 2005

From Russia, With Love

My Jane's email updates bring me this lovely note:

RUSSIA'S BACTERIOLOGICAL CRISIS POSES GLOBAL THREAT
Key Points * It is increasingly likely that avian flu will spread from Russia into Europe, including a strain that can infect humans. * But Russia's bacteriological threat does not end there, as its biowarfare programmes and domestic health crisis also threaten to drive instability in Moscow's near strategic area. Russia poses a potential bacteriological threat to the rest of the world because of both its avian flu and worsening AIDS/HIV health crisis, and its biowarfare programmes, reports Mark Galeotti.
[Jane's Intelligence Review - first posted to http://jir.janes.com - 8 September 2005]

Have I thanked President Putin for screwing up a perfectly good country lately? Try to defend Milosevic. Run interference for Saddam. Sell arms to Iran and China in the hopes they'll take us down a peg in combat. And now this.

Putin makes it tough to be Russia's friend. Or to even care about them at all.