El régimen sirio está en sus últimos capítulos. Bachar Al Asad confió en que la comunidad internacional –y la oposición siria– acabarían abandonando la resistencia.

A Spanish translation of Ambassador Noreiga's "Sinister forces at work in Venezeula power struggle"

May Day provides a good chance tocatch up on the history of the communist movement.

The significance of this sudden discovery of a soft spot for Mr Putin lies in the Bush administration's plan for a missile defence system and the burial of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

This is not a plea for help, but a warning about what we'e going to have to deal with soon. The patience of the Russian people is wearing thin. With whom will the West side in this coming battle, the Russian people or the KGB?

Bush's five-day trip is centered on the May 9 commemoration in Moscow's Red Square of the end of World War II in Europe with Russian President Vladimir Putin playing host to more than 50 heads of state. In the background will be U.S. criticism of Putin's moves to centralize his authority and Bush's support of democratic movements in former Soviet republics.

Six decades after the defeat of fascist despotism in Europe, Russia's own civil liberties, political freedoms, rule of law, and democratic institutions are extremely weak and fragile, to the extent that they exist at all. Indeed, it is highly ironic that one of Europe"s least democratic and most repressive regimes today will be hosting an assembly of global leaders of free countries to celebrate the continent"s liberation.

The Georgian province of Abkhazia is a possible flashpoint for a new war with Russia.