MANMOHAN SINGH WILL NOT SEEK ANOTHER TERM AS INDIA'S PRIME MINISTER

AFTER TEN YEARS, 

INDIA WILL HAVE A 

NEW PRIME MINISTER 

INDIAN PRIME MINISTER 

2004-2014 (planned) 

MANMOHAN SINGH 

(second from left)  

ON THE WORLD STAGE 

at the Expanded G-8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, in July 2006, with then United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on his right, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev on his left, and then Chinese President Hu Jintao to Nazarbayev's left 

A selection of postmortems and appraisals 

here and here and here 

For a time it was "Singh Is King," and then... 

Singh the Placeholder, the loyal former Finance Minister 

Now to make way for Rahul Gandhi -- 

Except the polls do not make this look an auspicious time for the Congress Party Rahul Gandhi is meant to inherit the leadership of  

ANGELA MERKEL IS FIFTY-NINE

ANGELA MERKEL 

b. July 17, 1954 

ROMANO PRODI, 
ANGELA MERKEL, 
AND TONY BLAIR (l-r) 

G8 Summit, St. Petersburg, Russia, July 2006 

At the time, Romano Prodi was Prime Minister of Italy, and Tony Blair was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  Both have since left office.  Angela Blair, then as now, was and is Chancellor of Germany.  In seven weeks or so, she is due to head back to St. Petersburg and the Constantine Palace for this year's G20 summit, hosted by Russia. 

Angela Merkel in the news today: facing elections in September,  still "the most popular politician in the country by far...," here. 

MOHAMED ELBARADEI NAMED INTERIM PRIME MINISTER OF EGYPT TODAY -- OR NOT? *UPDATED*

EGYPT HAS A NEW 

*INTERIM* 

PRIME MINISTER 

MOHAMED ELBARADEI 

 (second from left, glasses) 

Smiling at the "Family Photograph" 

of the Expanded G8 

St. Petersburg, Russia, July 2006 

Others, from camera left, Hu Jintao (then president of China), 

Jacques Chirac (then president of France), and 

Paul Wolfowitz (then president of the World Bank) 

At the time of this G8 summit, ElBaradei was Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and 2005 co-winner, with the IAEA, of the Nobel Peace Prize. 

He was mentioned as a potential leader when Hosni Mubarek fell from power, but was passed over.  Now the interim president, Adly Mahmud Mansour, has named ElBaradei the interim prime minister.  Initial reporting and analysis can be found here and here.      

Update:  Someone's having second thoughts; see here. 

Update to the Update (July 9, 2013):  ElBaradei was appointed
"vice president in charge of foreign affairs." Question:  Is there to be another vice president, presumably in charge of domestic affairs, or will that be the job of the finally (?) appointed prime minister, Hazem el-Belawi?  Washington Post account here. 

Five weeks later: Blood on the streets, and ElBaradei resigns, today, August 14, 2013.  From the Reuters dispatch: 

Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who lent liberal political support to the ousting of Egypt's first freely elected president, resigned in dismay at the use force instead of a negotiated end to the six-week stand-off. 

"It has become difficult for me to continue bearing responsibility for decisions that I do not agree with and whose consequences I fear. I cannot bear the responsibility for one drop of blood," ElBaradei said. 

THE PUTINS ANNOUNCE ... THE END

VLADIMIR & LYUDMILA 

PUTIN 

DIVORCE 

THE PUTINS HOSTING 
THE FIRST RUSSIAN G8 SUMMIT 
St. Petersburg, July 2006 

Today the Russian President and First Lady publicly announced the end of their marriage.  They did make one -- last? -- public appearance together today, attending one act of the ballet Esmeralda, at the Kremlin Palace. 

Some discussion here and here. 

PETER THE GREAT Born 340 Years Ago

PETER THE GREAT

June 9, 1672-February 8, 1725

"THE BRONZE HORSEMAN"

Monument to Tsar Peter I ("The Great")

by E.M. Falconet

St. Petersburg, Russia

Photographed in Leningrad, USSR, 1984

A close-up of the Tsar and the horse can be found here; a view of the other side, with the snake at the Tsar's back, can be found here.

Peter the Great was in the news just now when Dmitry Trenin opined that "If Peter the Great were alive today he would relocate the capital to Vladivostok not St Petersburg" -- that is, to Asia, not closer to (Western) Europe. For, continued Trenin, "The Pacific is the equivalent of the Baltic Sea in the 18th century. It's where the action is."

Vladivostok is where Russian President Vladimir Putin (a native of Peter the Great's capital of St. Petersburg) is hosting the 2012 APEC summit.

SAMSON & THE LION

SAMSON TEARS OPEN

THE JAWS OF THE LION

THE GRAND CASCADE

PETERHOF PALACE

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

See also the Putins at Peterhof, here,

and Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush at Peterhof, here.

ST. PETERSBURG BECOMES LENINGRAD, January 24, 1924

ST. PETERSBURG

IS RE-NAMED IN HONOR OF

VLADIMIR LENIN

January 24, 1924

(Three days after the Soviet leader's death)

KAZAN CATHEDRAL

LENINGRAD, RUSSIA, USSR, 1984

Sixty years after the former capital's name was changed from St. Petersburg

&

seven years before it was changed back to St. Petersburg

A RAINY DAY IN LENINGRAD (1984)

DOM KNIGI

THE HOUSE OF BOOKS

THE FORMER SINGER BUILDING

LENINGRAD (ST. PETERSBURG)

RUSSIA, USSR, 1984

ONE LEG AT A TIME: KOIZUMI II, NAZARBAYEV II, & PUTIN & BUSH TOO MANY TIMES TO COUNT

GET READY

SET

FIND YOUR MARK

JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI

KAZAKHSTAN PRESIDENT NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN &

AMERICAN PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH (L-R)

find their marks for the Expanded Family Photograph

at the St. Petersburg, Russia, G-8 Summit (July 2006)

Only Nazarbayev is still in the same office, although Putin is running to reclaim his old post in fifty-five days' time (March 4, 2012). Another Koizumi is here (yesterday's post); another Nazarbayev here. For a sampling of the many Putin and Bush posts, see here and here (for more, please see the labels below). For one of the two of them, "Alone Together," see here.

PUTIN & THE DUMA ELECTIONS, A DOZEN YEARS ON

THE RUSSIAN

DUMA ELECTIONS

December 4, 2011

VLADIMIR PUTIN WELCOMES GEORGE W. BUSH

TO DINNER AT THE PETERHOF PALACE

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, JULY 2006

AT THE TIME OF THE G-8 SUMMIT

Hosting the G-8 summit in your native land when it is your country's turn in the rotation is one of the perks of being the president (or prime minister or chancellor) of a G-8 member. To Vladimir Putin fell the prize won for Russia by the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. Dmitry Medvedev was not so lucky as to have one on his watch. If former president Putin wins next March's election, he will be set for at least six more years in office, and so can look forward to another G-8 hosting stint.

Twelve years ago, in 1999, the Duma elections were taken as a sign of then Prime Minister Putin's potential prowess as a presidential candidate to succeed Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin resigned in his favor. Putin was duly elected.

The Duma elections held today were likewise looked to for what they said about Putin, though he was not on the ballot. The results so far seem to show a significant drop-off in popularity on the part of United Russia, the party of power, the party officially in power.

NINETY-FOUR YEARS SINCE THE GREAT OCTOBER REVOLUTION

THE BOLSHEVIKS

SEIZE

THE

WINTER PALACE

November 7, 1917

(October 25, 1917, O.S.)

THE WINTER PALACE

THE HERMITAGE

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

Photographed in Leningrad, the USSR, in 1984

Power was seized in October/November 1917 not from the Tsar; Nicholas II had been overthrown in the February Revolution earlier in 1917, and not by the Bolsheviks (their leader Lenin was absent in Switzerland at the time).

It was Premier Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government that was in the autumn of 1917 headquartered in the Winter Palace, and found itself the object of the coup the communists organized, successfully. It took a Civil War and more, but the Soviet Union founded out of this "Great October Revolution" lasted until December 1991.

BRIDGE OVER QUIET WATERS, ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

BRIDGE & CLOUDS 

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA 

PETER THE GREAT FOUNDS ST. PETERSBURG, May 27, 1703

PETER THE GREAT 

FOUNDS 

ST. PETERSBURG, 

May 27, 1703 

THE PETER AND PAUL FORTRESS, 

ON THE SITE OF 

THE FOUNDING OF ST. PETERSBURG, 

PHOTOGRAPHED FROM 

A HYDROFOIL IN 1984 

St. Petersburg (once-upon-a-time-Petrograd and once-upon-a-longer-time-Leningrad) has been known as Russia's Window on the West; it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great in the course of a war with Sweden. 

Two of St. Petersburg's native sons, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, now rule Russia. The capital remains in Moscow, although there had been talk for a time on moving it back to St. Petersburg. 

More on Peter the Great 

here 

& 

here 

More scenes from St. Petersburg 

here 

& 

here 

& 

here 

& 

here 

& 

here 

& 

here 

For more about Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, click on their names in the column to the right ("Selected Subjects") 

U.S. V.P. BIDEN IN TALKS WITH RUSSIAN PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV

RUSSIAN SUMMIT

BACKDROP

CONSTANTINE PALACE

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

As it happens, this was not the venue for today's summit between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden. They met at Medvedev's "country estate" outside Moscow. Vladimir Putin used the Constantine Palace as a backdrop for the G-8 "Family Photo" at the 2006 St. Petersburg summit.

But many of the issues are the same-old same-old; chief among them, Jackson-Vanik and Russia's (non-) entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Vice-President Biden told President Medvedev, the Washington Post reported, that he had been around Washington so long that he actually knew Senator Henry Jackson and Rep. Charles Vanik, authors of the 1974 law punishing the Soviet Union for restricting the emigration of Jews.

The Soviet Union was dissolved at the end of December, 1991.

(Former) Soviet Jews now make up a substantial (minority) fraction of Israel's population.

Jackson-Vanik is still in effect.

Biden said it was time to get rid of Jackson-Vanik, and to support Russia's entry into the WTO.

Dmitry Medvedev turned nine on September 14, 1974.

HAPPY NEW YEAR: "Ah, but a man's reach/Should exceed his grasp..."

HAPPY NEW YEAR

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for?"

-- Robert Browning

Храм Воскресения Христова

(Спас на крови)

THE CHURCH OF

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

(THE SAVIOR ON SPILLED BLOOD)

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

TARJA HALONEN b. December 24, 1943

TARJA HALONEN

PRESIDENT OF FINLAND

b. December 24, 1943

FINNISH PRESIDENT TARJA HALONEN

AND HER HUSBAND PENTTI Arajärvi

WALKING TO DINNER

AT THE PETERHOF PALACE,

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA,

AT THE TIME OF

THE 2006 G-8 SUMMIT

CONDOLEEZZA RICE b. November 14, 1954

CONDOLEEZZA RICE,

b. November 14, 1954,

HAS A BIRTHDAY AND A BOOK

CONDOLEEZZA RICE AT THE PUTIN-BUSH PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE 2006 G-8 SUMMIT, ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

Condoleezza Rice has written a personal memoir first, before tackling the hard issues of her time and performance as President George W. Bush's National Security Adviser and Secretary of State.

Rice, an erstwhile Soviet scholar, is shown above at the first, and so far only, G-8 summit to be held in Russia, talking to her counterpart, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. To her far right is Igor Ivanov, Secretary of the Russian Security Council (national security adviser); to her immediate right is Stephen Hadley, Rice's successor as U.S. National Security Adviser. Counselor to the President Dan Bartlett sits behind the Secretary of State.

A "POSTCARD" OF ST. PETERSBURG

PRETTY AS A POSTCARD

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

As "Leningrad," a Hero City of World War II, which began September 1, 1939. In Europe, in any event.

"RUSSIA REDUX"