Free Republic

He is the former president of one the largest Communist countries in history. But Mikhail Gorbachev now has an unlikely new job - In an ad that will appear in magazines worldwide later this year, Gorbachev is shown in the backseat of a car riding through Berlin, with one of the luxury brand's bags at his side. The fee he received for the fashion shoot – estimated at several hundred thousand dollars – will go toward supporting programmes at the Gorbachev fund, according to The International Herald Tribune.

A former Russian official blames the threat of famine, not Gorbachev's reform policies. Crude oil prices last week were flirting with a record high. It's great news – for the Russians. Low oil prices contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In Russia today, high oil and natural gas prices are, to a large degree, the reason for an economic boom. In the first quarter of this year, Russia's economy steamed along at a level 7.9 percent above the same three months of 2006.

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev critized the United States, and current President George W. Bush in particular, on Friday for sowing disorder across the world by seeking to build an empire. Gorbachev, who presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union, said Washington had sought to build an empire after the Cold War ended but had failed to understand the changing world. "The Americans then gave birth to the idea of a new empire, world leadership by a single power, and what followed?" Gorbachev asked reporters at a news conference in Moscow. "What has followed are unilateral actions, what has...

Once again, and engaging in perfect Soviet styled historical revisionism, our glorious MSM presents the "truth" of how failed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was really the one who "helped" the U.S. win the Cold War. AP claims Gorby brought about the fall of the Soviet Union but this "ushered in an era of U.S. imperialism," which the AP claims is responsible for "many of the world's gravest problems." So, according to the AP Gorby helped the U.S. win the Cold War, but his good deed is now the cause of all the world's ills? How losing the game can equate...

MOSCOW - Former President Mikhail Gorbachev said Friday that the fall of the Soviet Union, which he helped bring about, ushered in an era of U.S. imperialism responsible for many of the world's gravest problems. Gorbachev is lauded in the West for ushering in democratic reforms but widely despised in Russia for paving the way to the economic free-for-all of the 1990s, which brought fabulous wealth for a well-connected few while plunging much of the country into humiliating poverty. He has since became a supporter of President Vladimir Putin's assertive foreign policy and resistance to American power — calling occasional...

MOSCOW - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev criticized the United States, and President Bush in particular, on Friday for sowing disorder across the world by seeking to build an empire. Gorbachev, who presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union, said Washington had sought to build an empire after the Cold War ended but had failed to understand the changing world. “The Americans then gave birth to the idea of a new empire, world leadership by a single power, and what followed?” Gorbachev asked reporters at a news conference in Moscow. “What has followed are unilateral actions, what has followed...

In April 1987, when I was assigned to write the speech, the celebrations for the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin were already under way. Queen Elizabeth had already visited the city. Mikhail Gorbachev was due in a matter of days... I was told only that the President would be speaking at the Berlin Wall, that he was likely to draw an audience of about 10,000, and that, given the setting, he probably ought to talk about foreign policy...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Global warming poses a "serious threat to America's national security" and the U.S. likely will be dragged into fights over water and other shortages, top retired military leaders warn in a new report. The report says that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. "The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism," the 35-page report predicts. "Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations," former U.S. Army chief of staff...

Western leaders searching for a long-term strategy to defend our civilization from fundamentalist Islam ought to reread the speech President Reagan delivered at the Berlin Wall 20 years ago this month. It was neither democracy nor capitalism Reagan foresaw bringing down the wall. It was Christianity. Reagan's demand that Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the wall was the defining sound-bite of that speech, but it was another passage that defined the core meaning of the Cold War. Pondering what sustained Berliners, surrounded as they were by the Soviet menace, Reagan concluded: "Perhaps this gets to the root of the...

BERLIN - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday she led a congressional delegation to Greenland, where lawmakers saw "firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality," and she hoped the Bush administration would consider a new path on the issue. After meeting with German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Pelosi praised Berlin for its leadership on the issue. Her trip comes ahead of next week's Group of Eight summit and a climate change meeting next month involving the leading industrialized nations and during a time of increased debate over what should succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that caps...

MOSCOW: Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Thursday criticized Washington's plans to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, saying it could threaten international security. The United States plans to place a radar base in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland as part of a missile defense shield it says would protect against a potential threat from Iran. Moscow does not trust Washington's claims, saying the shield or its technology could be used to spy on Russia or pre-empt a strategic missile launch. In comments on Ekho Moskvy radio, Gorbachev echoed remarks made by President...

With $20 billion per annum in public funding the modern earth cult can easily spend some nickels to attract cult members. I can well imagine that soon, on prime time TV, [or a gay sitcom], will be the tax-payer funded eco-cult recruitment, 'You must join us' advert. It will show a wide expanse of meadow populated by masses of automatons with arms outstretched resembling a fuehrer cult rally. Their laconic voices will repeat the intonation, 'save the earth goddess...save the earth goddess...' The camera will sweep in and out showing mindless, fixated faces with dilated pupils staring upwards, saliva seeping...

May 11, 2007 Unmasking Global Warming: The Case of Mikhail Gorbachev By Vasko Kohlmayer | View comments It is as paradoxical as it is revealing that the man who now parades as an angel of ecological salvation is by virtue of his actions at Chernobyl and elsewhere responsible for more environmental destruction than any other person alive. The most remarkable aspect of the man-made global warming claim is the lack of solid scientific evidence for it. Yet there are those whose apparent goal it is to advance this theory at all costs. Blatant in their disregard of the facts, they...

Boris Yeltsin, who died on April 23, was a towering figure in Russian political history. But was he, as so many US obituaries and editorials have described him, the "Father of Russian Democracy"? As though a wave of historical amnesia had swept over the media, few commentators seemed to remember that it was Mikhail Gorbachev, upon becoming Soviet leader in 1985, who launched the democratic reforms of "perestroika" and "glasnost"--ending censorship, permitting, even encouraging, opposition rallies and demonstrations, beginning market reforms and holding the first free, multi-candidate elections. (Indeed, Yeltsin was the chief beneficiary of those reforms.) [...] After August...

MOSCOW, April 17 (RIA Novosti) - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, now head of a socioeconomic and political think tank, said opposition marches in Russia only undermined stability in the country. Opposition protests, March of Dissent, were held in Russia's two largest cities over the weekend. Rights groups, oppositionists and journalists have accused Russian police of abusing their power in dispersing the unsanctioned opposition demonstrations. A total of 250 and 170 people were detained respectively. "Somebody wants to complicate the situation in the country and push for instability," Gorbachev told a RIA Novosti news conference. "We must learn our lesson, and...

KALININGRAD - Deployment of U.S. missile-defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic is an attempt by the U.S. to control Europe, the former Soviet president said Thursday. "It is all about influence and domination in Europe," Mikhail Gorbachev said. "I believe it is wrong that America did not even bother to consult its NATO allies." Russia, which has been anxious about NATO bases that have appeared in former Communist-bloc countries and ex-Soviet republics, has blasted the plans to deploy anti-missile systems in Central Europe as a national security threat and a destabilizing factor for Europe...

It is the belief of Donald McAlvany, who publishes the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, that the coup was a hoax. Only a minimal number of troops participated in the coup, the internal or international lines of communication were not cut, the press was not controlled, and the airports were not closed. A very strange "coup" indeed.

Gorbachev asks Gates to spare teacher By Our Foreign Staff Last Updated: 2:09am GMT 06/02/2007 Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, yesterday asked Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder, to intervene on behalf of a headmaster who faces jail in Siberia for using pirated software in his school. In an open letter, Mr Gorbachev said Alexander Ponosov, from a village in the Urals, should be shown mercy because he did not know he was committing a crime by using unlicensed copies of Microsoft software. "A teacher, who has dedicated his life to the education of children and who receives a modest salary...

MOSCOW - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is recovering after undergoing surgery in Germany on a key artery in the neck that supplies blood to the brain, his foundation said Wednesday. Gorbachev, 75, had surgery on his carotid artery at a clinic in Munich on Tuesday after being hospitalized there Sunday, the Gorbachev Foundation said in a statement posted on its Web site. "The post-operation phase is proceeding normally," it said. Gorbachev has not had any major health problems in the past. Gorbachev went to a Moscow hospital 10 days ago feeling tired and somewhat unwell after a busy year,...

[snip] I have known Mr. Gates for almost two decades and I can tell you whose guy Mr. Gates was originally. From that point on, I watched Mr. Gates with especial interest and dined with him from time to time. Anyone who thinks Mr. Gates lacks grit or an independent mind is mistaken. He was clear-headed on the Soviets and will be clear-headed on the Islamofascists. I well remember when he was drafting a speech in late 1989 or 1990 in which he presciently expressed doubt as to the effectiveness of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. Though the content of...