Anna Politkovskaya’s new book, "Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy." 

Once again, Politkovskaya has given the West a volume that demands attention. In her anguished voice, "Putin’s Russia" is a cri de coeur for a society hardened to the suffering of its own people, a democracy in name only that has been warped beyond recognition by a coterie of mobsters, chinovniki, New Russians and, as Politkovskaya tells the tale, by the tsar himself, Vladimir Putin.

For all the desire in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin to view Putin’s Russia through rose-colored glasses, Politkovskaya keeps tearing off the shades and forcing readers to confront the reality she sees. Depressing and discouraging, her latest book nonetheless is a must-read for anyone who does not live in Russia but hopes to get beyond the surface understanding of it that prevails in the West. Perhaps "Putin’s Russia" will be assigned reading for the Western leaders scheduled to come to St. Petersburg in July for the first G8 summit hosted by Russia.

Sadly and tellingly, however, it will not be available to Russians themselves, since no Russian publisher has dared to print and sell it inside the country.

Link: CONTEXT - This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times.

my comment : This book is highly recommended to those who wish to come here..better let u’rself prepared before u head to the "land of the long winter: and had an traumatic shock.It isnt worth it…

"The Volgograd State Medical University is
informing that "SE-TANDING CORPORATION SDN BHD" company has never been
authorized for recruiting students from Malaysia for the Volgograd
State Medical University and for running advertising campaigns on
behalf of our University."
                                                                        - quoted from www.volgmed.ru-VSMU official web site

Well, before this I heard all the talk about how some profit-pursuing companies are recruiting medical-student wannabe in Malaysia. While I dont have any true objection towards them (hey,what people do with their money isnt my business) what concern me is how they behave here. Without elaborating much, some of them didnt keep to the regular practice and behaviour of how a Malaysian medical student should…

We’ve brought this matter to the attention of the admin, and as usual, only after 2 years, they’ll start to act..and I;m glad that now they’re taking the matter seiously (thanks from the pressure by both MARA n JPA too)..Now they keep updating (with some informers of course) their list of authorized agents as to avoid any more damage both to the university and to the customer themselves.

check the link ere:
N.B! Unauthorized recruitment into VSMU

Gosh..its spreading..even to here.. Volgograd newspaper’s license withdrawn after religious cartoon

15:50 | 20/ 02/ 2006

Link: RIA Novosti - Russia - Volgograd newspaper’s license withdrawn after religious cartoon.

Just finished watching the series Nip Tuck : S3 tonight. Ud, dont worry Im not gonna ruin any plot or reveal anything. This is merely what I think of the series

Overall, Im sympathized with all and each of the character. There’s a hopeless doctor, a psychotic killer, a lost son, a denied housewife, an innocent daughter, a loyal, friend, a homophobic…

Some people said that the most frightening theme in the series is "The carver" - a psychotic who carved people face for their beauty.

But for me, apart from that the most frightening theme is HATRED itself. There’s so many hatred viewed in the series. A man hate his wife, a friend hate his colleague, a wife hate herself, a son hate his parents, xenophobias, homophobias, ..just to say a few.

If such plots will occur in real life- and perhaps it already had- I’m sure I cant hold it. A human can never live through such hatred around him. Or maybe he will live, but without a life. Im speaking for myself. I had my halves of it….

Link: Nip/Tuck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

23rd January 2006

Can today be any more significant to me? By today, I’m officially 21 years old, just pass up my Russian lang examination, got a new watch and handfull of presents, and in the midst of all that, I’m packing up for my trip to Spain tomorrow!!

This trip is somewhat a little different than last time. Especially in the number of people joining in..yup overall there’ll be 19 ..and among them girls..uh, no offense here, but I’m not a big fan when it come to travelling with girls (and soon u’ll know why)

I think I’m better prepared this time than Paris last time. I made my research, plan up my OWN schedule (yup, I exclude everyone else itinerary, cause I dont think anyone gonna follow me here n there ..and I did save up some so I can travel with more comfort than last time.

While I’m packing up my things, girls downstairs surprised me (or not) with dinner-party for my birthday. Its sort of a last-minute things, I know that..and I dont blame anyone..for God sake, its exam weeks, Im just being unlucky..yet lucky enough to have such friends..gracias to all!!

Tomorrow the flight to Moscow will be leaving at 7 a.m., so we need to depart from here at 5 a.m., and although every member of the trip said that they wont sleep for the rest of the night, it seems Im the only who up to the challenge..so the task to call the cabs automatically entitled to me…

4 a.m., I finished packing up my things, wore my gear, got my room in order, woke everyone else up, and called the cab.

4 a.m. in -32 degrees, its hard to get 4 cabs for the airport…and I’m just praying that no one will be late, and everything will went on smoothly.

5 a.m. the cab arrived, I brought all my luggage down, and stuffed it up into the cab. Everyone else turned up a lil’ bit late, but no one can match the 20 minutes delay by those two girls, which because of them , i had to freeze up my lungs waiting in the -32 degrees snow blaze.Oh no, I’m not angry… who can boil in the middle of a snow blaze?

5.30 sharp , the cabs started moving, trailing each others like a horse-cart wagon through the snowfall.

With the dim light of dawn before me, I knew the journey had begun..

Espana goes by, winter break was all past..

up and forthcoming..New Sem…

And with new sem, came new timetable, new subject, new responsibilities, new experience….but what I’m afraid of most…is new chance..

Some people see chances as something positive, but if i did learnt something in my philosophy class last sem, then it is the Ancient Greek school of think proverbs: "We can give 2 statement about everything"

and so does for chances….while theres always chances to win, theres also exist chances to lose, chances to success and to fail, chances to be happy, chances to despair, chances to be loved, and even chances to be left…..

So how do I cope up with all this chances. Of course people would like only the "good" chance, but no one can avoid the "bad" one..

The very first thing that hit me on the forthcoming sem is whether I’d get the same damn lecturer for my path phys, and while I uttered all my anger and dislike towards her, the one thing that I couldnt deny is that actually Im getting tired of her..not that Im tired of her firing up my ass, but mostly because I fail to keep up with her expectation..and so, each week last sem were chances for me to fail up to her…and again and again and again..

Ironically, I told everybody that in order to survive here, one thing u need is not to keep expectation…but among all people, I believe Im one of those who think that it is absolute insanity…

If its true that we were born to be doctors, then this ability to expect and the passion of expectation is already instilled in each and every one of us..doctors everyday expect their patients to walk out from the hospital feeling better, healing tremendously..we expect to find cure for illness, we expect to be able to tell our patients that everything gonna be allright…

and in the midst of all this, no one can deny the hurtfull truth that we cant cope up with this expectations, especially when we fail to keep up with it…

Clock tickings, and Im counting my moments for those new chances to meet me, and all the while, Im trembling deep down, wondering whether I can cope…