There is a Russian saying, lyod tronulsya, which means the winter ice on the river has cracked and begun to move, that things have begun to change deeply and significantly. This is what's happening in today's Russia.

In the ten days that have passed since Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB agent, died of radiation poisoning in London, we have learned a lot about his death--haven't we?

How a brave regulator stemmed the tide of counterfeit drugs that threatened Nigeria.

Many who vote for Obama will be motivated by his skin color, just to spite the oligarchs.

Every so often the arrest of one man involves more than the charges he may face and his fate before the court. In these rare instances, the legal proceedings are a distraction from the larger moral and strategic implications, and so they are intended to be. The arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky by Russian secret services in Siberia over the weekend is one such arrest.

Some nations view income redistribution as a sensible way to ameliorate class tension, but income equalization strategies tend to lower entrepreneurial as well as labor incentives.

I have never been so concerned about the future of this country as I am today. I don't expect the government to start rounding up dissidents, a practice stopped by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s. And I don't think they'll reactivate the gulag.

The interests of Russia's industrial leaders may not always coincide with society's, but by winning the right to promote those interests, the oligarchs can advance Russian democracy.