Animaux partout !, 1947 > La République des animaux, 1964 > La Ferme des animaux, 1981), Napoleon was renamed César.
The grand-grandsons of Napoleon’s mutts took over Animal Farm. And they are rich.
Let's face it and stop being naive: the Caucasus is Russia's backyard. The whole region holds an immense economical and geostrategical value for the ex/new/never ceased to be superpower. In the old times, when the vetuste, archaic Soviet Union exported almost nothing, we still could think that the problem was most of all ideological. But not anymore. It's about money.
Were the Americans really expecting that the Russians would let Tbilisi regain total control of the region? No, they weren't. They were just trying to stir things up a little, maybe to test Medvedev's strength, and at the end it's up to Europe to try to calm things down and pick up the pieces (one quarter of our energy depends on it) . And up to the Georgians and the Ossetians to bury their dead. It's "those Washington bullets again". Or Moscow bullets.
(In a country where L'Essentiel is such a success, it was very plesant to find a decent defying article about this subject here. It's the online edition of the Woxx, l'autre hebdomadaire.)
London Mayor Boris Johnson scrapped not only the £25 planned congestion charge for gas guzzlers (see post and comments here), but also the exemption for cleaner cars emitting less than 120g/km of CO2. Which means that everyone is going to pay the same £8. Hybrids and electric vehicles will still be congestion charge-exempt. I don't agree with Johnson's arguments, but I'm happy with the ditching of a predictable small "breath-my-particles-before-they-empoison-the-environment" diesels frenzy.
