KHARTOUM (AFP) — Sudanese men can now get a haircut and a shave at a tiny barber shop named Barack Obama in tribute to the man being sworn in as US president on Tuesday, despite strained ties between Khartoum and Washington.
A huge portrait of Obama with his name written in Arabic has been propped up [...]
Russian Orthodox Epiphany in Rostov. Photo by Sergey Ponomarev/AP.
From “Russians Strengthen Their Faith and a Tradition With an Icy Water Plunge” in today’s NYT:
Galina Burasvetova, a 50-year-old hairdresser in a red bikini, said she had first taken part in the ritual during an agonizing period in her life, when she was raising three children on [...]
From the indomitable Chris Weafer, a.k.a., “The Weaf,” former Alfa Bank strategist, current UralSib chief strategist, former and current heavyweight champion commentator to Western journalists on the nexus of oil and gas business and politics in Russia and the CIS, a clean, sober analysis of the winners and losers of the most recent Russian-Ukrainian gas [...]