International News

Some thoughts on international news tonight. Have you been paying any attention to the speculation about what Vladimir Putin will be doing when his current term as Russian President ends - and he is prevented from running for another term under the current constitution?

We got a hint of what was to come on our trip to Russia in 2005. We took a river trip from St. Petersburg to Moscow - a great experience. As part of our "entertainment" on board, we had a series of lectures by a Russian professor - a teacher of political science in both Russia and the United States. We learned a lot about Russian history and culture from him. But, to us, he was most interesting when he talked about politics.
This man described himself as a "spin doctor" for Putin's political party. Putin had just been elected for his second (and last-allowed) term. The Professor told us at that he suspected that Putin would find some creative way to legally stay in power when his term was up in 2008.

As possibilities, he mentioned that Putin might just disregard the constitution, that he was so popular the people might put up with that. He could possibly find someone to be elected as a weak, caretaker president, keeping hold of the reins from behind the scenes. Putin might get himself appointed prime minister. He might engineer a new federation with one of the old Soviet republics, i.e., Byelorussia, which would necessitate a new constitution, and Putin could then become President of the new Federation.

It's amazing to read all of this in today's paper, and know that we heard previews of this two years ago. The Professor's opinion was that Putin would somehow find a way to stay in power. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Stay tuned.....

Today's picture is a window in Durnstein, Austria.