Heart of Darkness revisited: per kajak dwars door Congo — Twee maanden lang en 1.700 kilometer ver peddelde avonturier-journalist Marc Hoogsteyns in een kajak door het hart van Congo. Hij is net terug uit de brousse, en wat hij daar zag, heeft hem diep geraakt: een volk dat totaal aan zijn lot wordt overgelaten en geen kant meer uit kan.

Avigdor Lieberman, the new Israeli foreign minister, emigrated from the former Soviet Union years ago. He recently returned to Russia, receiving a "notably warm reception" from Putin's government, which has displayed, we are told, none of the Obama team's "squeamishness" on Israel's hard line.

Russia, as we've known for a long time, wants to be seen as a serious great power in the Middle East.

Lieberman is romancing the Russians like no Israeli official before.

JUST after Iran’s rigged elections last week, with hundreds of thousands of protesters taking to the streets, it looked as if a new revolution was in the offing. Five days later, the uprising is little more than a symbolic protest, crushed by the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Meanwhile, the real revolution has gone unnoticed: the guard has effected a silent coup d’état.