Delyagin, it turned out, has for some time resided on the so-called stop list.

Putin has been accused of plagiarizing his dissertation.

Riot police detained busloads of anti-Medvedev/Putin protesters in Moscow.

That George Dubya fella sure is one jolly joker. His winning personality always shines through with a funny quip or a Norm Crosby-style verbal gaffe - all strictly scripted of course. Ask him about the chances of Vladimir Putin staying in power past the end of his term and let the hilarity ensue:

In recent months Putin’s rhetoric against the U.S. - supported by his notion of the U.S.’s overbearing, hegemonic, influence in global affairs - has risen to a near fever pitch. Is this just good old fashioned Soviet paranoia? After all, Vladimir Putin is a product of the Soviet KGB - as an intelligence officer at the highest point of the Cold War.

As Putin’s official Presidential term of office nears its conclusion - with elections set for March of 2008 - it appears the pressures of diplomatic double-speak and the shackles of friendly innuendo have been released. President Putin took the relaxed - almost unofficial - mood of the Munich conference to lay a verbal volley of criticisms directly at the ‘hegemonic’ United States and its aspirations for ‘global domination.’