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MOSCOW At the high-profile St. Petersburg International Economic Forum earlier this month, the head of Moscow State University s Center for the National Intellectual Reserve, Katerina Tikhonova, gave a six-minute speech by video link about using breakthrough technologies to boost investment.
On the sidelines of the same event, genetics researcher Maria Vorontsova gave a 13-minute interview on rare diseases that was broadcast on national television:
Both events would have slipped by unremarked in the crowded program of the three-day forum, except for the fact that the two women are reported to be the daughters of authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin.
RFE/RL: Putin s hidden daughters take the stage at St Petersburg forum | KyivPost kyivpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kyivpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Porosity of Tajik-Afghan Border Making Beijing’s Involvement in Region More Ominous
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 18 Issue: 24
Bridge spanning the Afghan-Tajikistani border (Source: Aga Khan Foundation)
In most parts of the world, the lines on maps separating countries are true borders. That is, they are controlled by the governments on one or both sides. But in some places, they remain the quasi-open frontiers they were in the past or have reemerged as such because of recent political changes; those borders are highly porous zones, where people and goods can move more or less freely in one or both directions without much regard to the powers that be. Such situations invite outside involvement that can ramp up quickly and disturb preexisting international arrangements. One poignant example is the adjoining border area shared by Tajikistan and Afghanistan. In recent years, that frontier has attracted attention because of the danger that Islamist militants from Afghan