Free Republic

When Iran sought to strengthen its relations with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization earlier this year, it found a willing friend in Imomali Rahmon. The president of Tajikistan assured his hosts on a visit to Tehran in February that Iran “had a real possibility” to become a full member of the organization. Now, Rahmon has taken that pledge one step further. Earlier this month, the Tajik president sent a letter addressed to SCO heads of state. In it, according to Iranian Ambassador to Tajikistan Ali Asghar Sherdust, the president supported Iran’s possible bid for membership at the August SCO summit in...

Reality, as good writers know, is sometimes stranger than fiction. SCO's recent performance in the U.S. District Court in Utah is a perfect example. With years to prepare, SCO executives made some remarkable statements in their attempt to show that SCO, not Novell, owns Unix's copyright. While this case is not about SCO's claims that IBM and other companies placed Unix IP (intellectual property) into Linux, Novell's attorneys decided that they would address this issue as well. One presumes that, since this may be their one and only chance to attack SCO's Linux claims in a courtroom -- what with...

Ideology matters again. The big development of recent years is the rise not only of great powers but also of the great-power autocracies of Russia and China. True realism about the international scene begins with understanding how this unanticipated shift will shape our world. Many believe that when Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in communism, they stopped believing in anything. They had become pragmatists, pursuing their own and their nation's interests. But Chinese and Russian rulers, like past rulers of autocracies, do have a set of beliefs that guide their domestic and foreign policies. They believe in the virtues...

A reinvigorated SCO Group Inc. goes to trial Tuesday to once again defend its claims to a widely used computer software code against Novell Inc. Although what's at stake in the scheduled four-day trial pales in comparison to the unresolved major claims in the case that have rattled parts of the software community for the past five years, millions of dollars are on the table in a legal battle that has been widely watched. In play in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball is as much as $37 million that Novell claims it is owed in the dispute...

Stepping up a campaign to join a Eurasian security and economic bloc dominated by Russia and China, Iran is looking for allies within the organization to back its bid, but political analysts doubt it will succeed. Late last month, Iran secured the support of one of the members of the six-country Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Tajikistan, which later this year will host the bloc's annual summit. Established in its current form in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) comprises Russia, China, and four Central Asian states -- Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Together they control a large proportion of the non-Arab...

Lindon (UT) – The SCO Group plans to emerge from Chapter 11 soon and revealed that not only will it modify its business strategy towards mobile products, it will also replace chief executive officer Darl McBride and pick up the Linux and Unix license lawsuits against IBM and Novell.   Darl McBride  The new owner of The SCO Group, investment firm Stephen Norris Capital Partners (SNCP), is planning to open a new chapter in SCO’s Linux lawsuit history, which started back in March of 2003 when the company filed a $1 billion suit against IBM. As part of its plan...

SCO has filed its 10K Annual Report for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2007. What a year it has been. They are down to 115 employees as of that date. Probably less now. They "anticipate a reduction in force as a result of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and in order to return to profitability". Uh huh. Product revenue is down 27%. They expect that to continue. They can't guarantee they'll make it out of Chapter 11. Those they owe money to could be left with nothing or almost nothing. Common shareholders are in the same boat, even if they do...

Beijing/New Delhi: The India vs China syndrome is passe? From now, the global idiom for joint collaborative action will be India-China, says India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, alluding to the growing friendship between the Asian giants. On return from a visit to China accompanying Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Nath said the engagement with Beijing was an important milestone bilaterally as the two rising economic powers set an ambitious trade target of $60 billion by 2010 - three times the goal set just five years ago. "The engagement was important in the global context as well," Nath told...

Item 3.01 Notice of Delisting or Failure to Satisfy a Continued Listing Rule or Standard; Transfer of Listing. On September 18, 2007, The SCO Group, Inc. (the “Company”) received a Nasdaq Staff Determination letter (the “Determination”) from the Listing Qualifications Department (the “Staff”) of The Nasdaq Stock Market indicating that, as a result of the Company’s having filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the Staff determined, using its discretionary authority under Nasdaq Marketplace Rules 4300 and IM-4300, that the Company’s securities would be delisted from The Nasdaq Stock Market and that trading in the Company’s...

A Chinese driver stands near his truck on the Kazakhstan-Chinese border in Khorgos, Kazakhstan, some 400 kilometers east from Almaty, Monday, Sept. 9, 2007. China's influence threatens to eclipse that of Russia in this former Soviet region. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)KHORGOS, Kazakhstan (AP) — The driver of the 18-wheel tractor-trailer from China idling at the Kazakhstan-China border said apples were the cargo he brought to Almaty, Kazakhstan's booming commercial center. For Kazakhs, there's a tart irony in the shipment. Almaty's region is where the first apple trees were found and the first apple orchards planted. The city was a center of...

York Capital Management's proposed Asset Purchase Agreement and its associated credit agreement for SCO make it clear that if the bankruptcy court lets York buy SCO, that York will be bankrolling SCO's continued lawsuits against Novell, IBM and other Linux-using companies.

Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner in the contest for the all-time best title for any document ever filed in the SCO v. the World litigations. I know that some of you have gotten attached to the Sur-Sur-Sur Replies of yore. But this tops everything. SCO has filed the following:Senior Secured Super-Priority Debtor-in-Possession Credit Agreement Teasing. It's what they call these things. It's about the "Litigation Credit Facility" mentioned in the APA, the $10 million York is willing to loan SCO to fund the "Specified Litigation". And guess which that is: "the IBM litigation and the Novell Litigation and...

The SCO Group, working to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, hopes to sell its Unix assets to York Capital Management for up to $36 million, the company said this week in regulatory and bankruptcy court filings. Through the deal, York would provide SCO with $10 million in cash; up to $10 million in credit to fund its Linux-related legal fight and to get 20 percent of revenue from that action; $10 million for a 20 percent stake in the company; and $6 million to license the Hipcheck products from SCO's Me mobile device software effort and to share revenue...

In an earlier Memorandum to the CIA this analyst explained the common Sino-Soviet long range strategy of convergence with the West and the intended exploitation for the purposes of this strategy of the new openings arising from the 'reformed' political structure of the former USSR and the emergence of the alleged 'democrats', 'non-Communists' and 'independents' who are running it.(1) The present assessment shows how, because of Western ignorance of and confusion about the strategy underlying 'Perestroika' and because of Western political and economic support for the so-called reform of the Soviet system, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has been ...

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- Discontent over Russia's continued domination of former Soviet republics soured a summit of their leaders, with Kazakhstan announcing plans to form an economic grouping without Moscow and Tbilisi refusing to sign an amended CIS treaty. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed at the summit Friday the creation of a union of Central Asian countries that would "allow the region of 50 million people to create a self-sufficient market using both economic and political means." Nazarbayev, speaking with reporters in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, also made clear his unhappiness at Russia's domination of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a...

If the corporate Grim Reaper is truly knocking on the door of The SCO Group Inc., no one apparently told the company's CEO and president, Darl C. McBride. Despite SCO's a major court loss last month in its legal case against Novell Inc., its bankruptcy reorganization filing and an ominous-sounding quarterly U.S Securities and Exchange Commission filing last week in which SCO said there is "substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern," McBride insists that no one should be lining up yet for his company's funeral parade. On the heels of all of that news,...

Losing in court, vilified on blogs and in bankruptcy proceedings, SCO Group CEO Darl McBride still says pronouncements of the death of the Utah software company are premature, if not greatly exaggerated. Within weeks, McBride said, the Lindon company that filed lawsuits against IBM and then Novell in celebrated battles over ownership and use of software code will have announcements about reorganization plans. He refused to provide details. "I can tell you that other parties are very interested in our business," McBride said in an interview this week. "We are in discussions. Again, I think our enemies who have pronounced...

A few days late, SCO finally released its financial report, Form 10-Q, on Sept. 18 for the quarter ending on July 31. The news was bad. How bad? SCO admits that "there is substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern." According to SCO's 10-Q report to the SEC (Security and Exchange Commission), SCO's losing its claims to Unix's IP (intellectual property) to Novell in the U.S. District Court on Aug. 10 and its recent court filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, make it questionable that the company will survive. Others, who have been following the case...

Boston - In the print edition of Forbes there's a great (albeit sometimes painful) tradition of doing "follow-through" articles where a reporter either takes a victory lap for making a good call or falls on his sword for making a bad one. Online publications don't typically ask for follow-throughs. But I need to write one. For four years, I've been covering a lawsuit for Forbes.com, and my early predictions on this case have turned out to be so profoundly wrong that I am writing this mea culpa. What can I say? I grew up Roman Catholic. The habit stays with...

Three and a half years after launching a high-profile legal attack on Linux, The SCO Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Lindon, Utah-based company long has maintained that it had enough money to fight its costly lawsuits against IBM, Novell, Red Hat (which sued SCO proactively), AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler. But on Friday, a month after losing on a crucial legal ruling, the company admitted a grimmer picture. "The Board of Directors of The SCO Group have unanimously determined that Chapter 11 reorganization is in the best long-term interest of SCO and its subsidiaries, as well as its...

The Honorable Dale Kimball has now ruled: there will be no jury at the trial of SCO v. Novell. He granted Novell's motion on that. He will hear it himself. Here's the ruling [PDF], which comes in response to 8 motions, and here's how the judge ruled on them: * The SCO Group, Inc.'s ("SCO") Motion for Entry of Final Judgment Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) -- No, so there will be no immediate partial appeal. * Novell's Motion to Strike Jury Demand -- Yes. No jury trial. Novell is seeking only equitable relief.

In lawsuits, as in baseball, there is no mercy rule. One side can be down by a dozen runs, but the game continues until the bitter end. So it is that SCO filed on Aug. 29 an appeal to the U.S. District Court decision that declared that Novell had never sold Unix's intellectual property to SCO. Spread the word:digg this story On Aug. 12, U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball ruled that Novell, not SCO, owns Unix's IP rights. Without Unix's IP, SCO's other cases against IBM, Red Hat and other Linux-using companies cannot be sustained. In Novell's financial earnings...

Russia and China have been holding joint military manoeuvres in the presence of both Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Hu Jintao. But a new strategic alliance between the two countries is not likely, as it is China that poses the greatest strategic threat to Russia, although many in the Kremlin seem blind to this as they rattle sabres at America and the west. China…has territorial claims on parts of Russia's far east which are often noted in Chinese school geography textbooks. This is consistent with the Chinese strategic concept of "vital space"...

The company has no interest in becoming the next SCO Group, according to a spokesman. "We're not interested in suing people over Unix," Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said. "We're not even in the Unix business any more." A US judge on Friday upheld Novell's claims to Unix copyrights that SCO has claimed to own. Those copyrights were the basis for SCO's highly controversial and ongoing Linux lawsuit against IBM. Lowry said the ruling means "the cloud has lifted over Linux." Users and distributors of the open-source OS finally can breathe a sigh of relief that they are not in violation...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A federal judge's ruling Friday may help proponents of Linux open-source software sidestep a significant legal threat. SCO Group Inc. does not own the copyright to Unix operating-system software, as it had claimed, and Novell Inc. is the proper owner, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball said in a filing in federal court in Utah. SCO Group had sued Novell in 2004 for falsely claiming ownership of Unix. In 2003, SCO Group filed a high-profile lawsuit against International Business Machines Corp. for contributing code to Linux open-source software that it said included some of SCO's Unix-related intellectual...

TEHRAN (AFP) -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday embarks on a three-nation tour of Central Asia to attend a major regional summit meeting and bolster Iran's links with neighbouring states. The president will hold talks with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Tuesday before leaving for Turkmenistan and then attending a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Kyrgyzstan. A source in the president's office said Ahmadinejad would be seeking to raise Iran's status at the SCO group -- which brings together Russia and China with other Central Asian states -- from observer to full member. "On...

A US federal court judge has ruled that Novell, and not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of copyrights covering the Unix operating system (OS), a ruling that should have a major effect on a number of lawsuits, including SCO's actions again Novell, IBM and Red Hat. The 102-page ruling by Judge Dale Kimball refuted many of SCO's claims against Novell, and seemed to remove the basis for its lawsuit against IBM. SCO had previously charged that the Linux operating system was an unauthorised derivative of Unix, which it claimed to have purchased from Novell in 1995. "The court's...

Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights! Novell has right to waive! Friday, August 10 2007 @ 04:52 PM EDT Hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling [PDF] on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here is what matters most: [T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights. That's Aaaaall, Folks! The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". That's the ball game. There are a couple of loose ends, but the big...

Russian and Chinese troops are joining forces this week in the first military exercises by an international organisation that is regarded in some quarters as a potential rival to Nato. Thousands of soldiers and 500 combat vehicles will take part in “Peace Mission 2007”, organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. Russian officials have also proposed an alliance between the SCO and a body representing most of the former Soviet republics. Scores of Russian and Chinese aircraft begin joint exercises tomorrow before a week of military manoeuvres from Thursday that will include Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan...

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will close ranks to oppose Washington’s growing influence in the Central Asia, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Kyrgyzstan earlier this week. The SCO is set to boost ties with Iran as controversy with the United States is growing. Sergey Lavrov warned that the deployment of the U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe can adversely affect the Central Asia. ”We see that consequences of the unilateral action will affect Central Asia and we should take into account not only the interests of the member states, but also the interests of the observers in this...

This is a sorry tale for those of you who think the First Amendment to the US Constitution and freedom of the press actually mean something important. It's a story that I've just learned about myself. But it's a true story. SCO tried to gag Groklaw back in 2004. It wanted Groklaw placed under a gag order, so it couldn't cover the SCO litigation any more. It also wanted Linus Torvalds, Eben Moglen, and Eric Raymond to be prevented from commenting publicly about the litigation. I just found out because IBM has just filed its opposition [PDF] to SCO's motion...

Russia and China: The Mechanics of an Anti-American Alliance Fall 2006 - Number 11 Alexandr Nemets Conventional wisdom has it that China’s expanding military capabilities, and Beijing’s growing regional ambitions, will one day soon pose a challenge to the United States in Asia. Likewise, Russia under Vladimir Putin has shed any ambiguity about its post-Cold War direction, become increasingly assertive, powerful and anti-American. Yet perhaps the greatest threat to U.S. interests and objectives in the years ahead will not come from Beijing or Moscow alone, but from the ominous alliance that is emerging between the two. It is a partnership...

It's true. Hilariously true. An eagle-eyed Groklaw ninja, sk43, has spotted an ftp site where you can get binary copies of Linux libraries needed by SCO's OpenServer and UnixWare customers who use lxrun. But you can't get the source code from that sco.com ftp site. SCO directs their customers to .... sunsite.unc.edu. Why bless my stars, sunsite.unc.edu is the old name for what is now ibiblio! So here's a headline for you, and it's absolutely accurate: SCO Relies on IBM-donated Servers to Provide Support for OpenServer/UnixWare Customers Absolutely accurate and totally misleading, just like the headlines about Groklaw. Will we...

Russia has renewed its pledge to build its strategic partnership with China, in a thinly veiled attempt to oppose what Moscow views as American unilateralism. President Vladimir Putin told visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao Monday that the positions of both countries on Iran and North Korea "either coincide or are similar." In response, Hu, whose three-day state visit to Russia ends Wednesday, hailed what he described as "strategic cooperation between China and Russia, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council." The neighbors, who share a 2,700-mile border, signed a joint statement pledging to cooperate on a variety of issues. In...

Researchers with the Rand Corporation in California say China could potentially best the United States in a military conflict over Taiwan. The global policy think tank said in a report Thursday that China could use "antiaccess" strategies to limit the ability of U.S. forces to deploy into combat zones and find locations to base operations. The scenarios examined by the researchers involved Chinese efforts to keep U.S. military operations at a distance from the conflict.

Here is the transcript of the March 7th hearing in SCO v IBM, the last of the summary judgment hearings transcripts. Thanks yet again to Chris Brown for arranging to obtain the transcripts. On this day, Kimball was quite busy. He heard several motions, all the ones left over from the first two hearings on March 1 and March 5: * IBM's Motion for Summary Judgment on its Claim for Declaratory Judgment of Non-Infringement (Tenth Counterclaim) (PDF) -- asking for a judgment that the Linux kernel does not infringe copyrights owned by SCO * IBM's Motion for Summary Judgment on...

Excerpt - For three and a half years, a blogger named Pamela Jones has led a relentless online crusade against software maker SCO Group, posting thousands of articles bashing the company for suing IBM over the Linux operating system. Now the Lindon, Utah, software company is fighting back by seeking to take a deposition from Jones. Just one problem: They can't find her. SCO tried last week to serve a subpoena to Jones at a house in Darien, Conn., where they believe she's been living, but the attempt was unsuccessful, according to a person close to the matter, who spoke...

Here's SCO 10K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2006. In it, SCO admits: IBM has filed 6 motions for summary judgment that, if granted in whole or in substantial part, could resolve our claims in IBM’s favor or substantially reduce our claims.... We can not guarantee whether our claims against IBM or Novell will be heard by a jury. What they don't tell us is how many employees they've lost since October of 2006, despite reportedly saying at the most recent conference call that they would. They provide the same figure that they gave at the conference call,...

The fate of the SCO Group's Linux-related lawsuits, as well as the Lindon software company's very future, could ride on how a federal judge interprets the word "all."    The way U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball rules on that question involving ultimate ownership of the Unix operating system could not only torpedo SCO's slander of title suit against Novell Inc., but fatally undermine its bigger, $5 billion claim against IBM. After hearing competing motions Tuesday, Kimball must decide whether SCO bought all rights to Unix in 1995 - or whether the seller, Novell, retained ownership while granting only limited licensing and...

IBM did not destroy crucial evidence in its long-running dispute with The SCO Group, a judge has ruled. SCO claimed IBM had destroyed materials last year, but the US judge has ruled that the evidence was actually provided to SCO some time ago. The decision is the latest in a long line of setbacks for SCO, which is claiming that IBM put some material from the Unix operating system into the open source Linux system. SCO owns some intellectual property rights in Unix and is suing for copyright infringement. SCO is claiming damages that it has said could reach $5bn...

The Linux Foundation is Born - Updated Monday, January 22 2007 @ 05:35 AM EST OSDL and the Free Standards Group have merged to form The Linux Foundation. If you go to osdl.org now, you arrive at The Linux Foundation. Here's the operative paragraph from the press release:For Linux to remain open and attain the greatest ubiquity possible, important services must be provided, including legal protection, standardization, promotion and collaboration. Successful proprietary software companies, for instance, do several important things well: backwards compatibility, promotion, interoperability, developer support, and more. In the voluntary and distributed world of Linux development, the...

SCO CEO Darl McBride adamantly stated on the company's fourth quarter conference call that the company is not going bankrupt. He did admit, however, that SCO's recent earnings are not very impressive, though he is encouraged by his company's prospects for 2007. SCO (Quote) reported results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended October 31, 2006 on Wednesday, and the numbers are none too pretty. SCO reported a net loss for the fourth quarter of 2006 of $3.7 million, or $0.18 per diluted common share. The quarterly loss is nine percent greater that the comparable quarter for the prior year...

In an article of their own MEMRI has brought to light two articles published in December of 2006 from the Syrian government daily: Teshreen, and the Iranian government daily: Tehran Times. The articles give evidence to Russia's global ambitions to re-establish Russia's international power by increasing Russian presence, influence, and participation in the oil rich Middle-East. The article posted at MEMRI is from January 12, 2007 and entitled: Iranian and Syrian Government Papers on Renewed Superpower Role for Russia to Counter U.S. in Middle EastThe following are selected excerpts from the two articles cited by MERMI: "We must acknowledge that...

Some activity in SCO v. Novell, and our first strong hints about what the Microsoft and Sun licenses were about, as Novell tells the court why SCO owes 95% of that money to Novell.But the big news is that in Novell's Redacted Reply to SCO's Opposition to Novell's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment or Preliminary Injunction, Novell informs the court, on page 15, that for SCO bankruptcy is inevitable and imminent:For SCO, bankruptcy is inevitable; it characterizes its assets as merely those “remaining” and does not rebut Novell’s arguments that its bankruptcy is imminent. Imminent. Inevitable. Bankruptcy. Here's the Pacer...

I barely know how to tell you this, but SCO has filed a motion for reconsideration of Judge Dale Kimball's November 29th Order in SCO v. IBM, the one affirming Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells' June 28th Order. I guess they figure things are so bad now, they have nothing to lose by trying. Here's the Notice of Conventional Filing [PDF]. Yes. Of course. It's under seal. So is the memorandum in support. Perhaps SCO will grace us with a redacted version in a bit. But in the meanwhile, we are left with our mouths open. Whatever are they thinking? Delay?...

Investors fled SCO Group’s stock on Friday, voting with their feet after a federal judge gutted its lawsuit against IBM. In mid-morning trading, SCO Group (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ) traded at $1.36, down 64 cents, or 32%. [snip] On Thursday, the judge said SCO Group had provided no evidence to support its claim that IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) took code from Unix, which SCO claims to have some copyrights, and added it to Linux. Read the rest here.

Feast your eyes on this: Judge Dale Kimball has affirmed [PDF] Judge Brooke Wells' June 28, 2006 Order. Here's the heart of it: Having thoroughly reviewed and considered the briefing related to IBM’s Motion to Limit SCO’s Claims, the briefing related to SCO’s objections, the underlying previous discovery orders, and the arguments made at the October 24 hearing, the court finds that, even under a de novo standard of review, the Magistrate Judge’s June 28, 2006 Order is correct. The court finds that SCO failed to comply with the court’s previous discovery-related Orders and Rule 26(e), that SCO acted willfully,...

The Grand Chess Masters—The Bear and the Dragon David J. Jonsson November 18, 2006 While the Iraq crisis continues, the strategy of the Grand Chess Masters—Russia the bear and China the dragon, along with their pawns the Leftists, Marxists and Islamists, continue to develop and put in place their strategy for the ultimate goal of world domination. General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East and John McCain argue about troop strengths. Many Democrats, including Carl Levin, who will become chairman of the Senate armed services committee in January, argue that the US needs to pressure the...

How ironic. On somewhat of a lark, I recently stopped by a liquidation sale at a nearby, soon-to-be-extinct, Tower Records store. On even more of a lark, I purchased a CD which content was originally recorded in late 1977 and early 1978 by the British progressive / classical rock band "Rennaissance." I was a bit tired of listening to more recent things I have and remembered that I had quite liked the album when I had a tape of it during the late 70s and early 80s (long since worn out and degraded then eventually misplaced). Little did I realize...

While interacting with a select gathering of "Russia hands" from Western academia, media and think tanks recently, President Vladimir Putin ventured onto the topic of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in terms, as he put it, that would be a "revelation ... something probably I have never said to anyone before". Putin, known for his reticence and choice of words, revealed that the Kremlin did not "plan" for the SCO's present standing, but had only set its sights on the organization's potential to resolve the "utilitarian question of settling borders" between China and its post-Soviet neighbors. SCO includes China, Russia,...