He was always a heavy drinker, but until his health problems got bad in the mid-1990s he could usually hold his liquor. The real problem was that he was a man of action who didn’t have an idea in his head.

The authorities of Russia are planning, under pretext of getting ready for possible 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, large-scale construction projects in the immediate proximity to the borders of a World Heritage Object – the “West Caucasus” reserve – and in its buffer zone.

The Iranian government’s last-minute decision to ration monthly fuel allotments, as well as increase the price of gas, triggered protests and riots — a rarity in the Islamic republic — according to Iranian media reports.