Special Extra: Australian MPs Vote to deny Yellowcake to Russia!

Chalk up yet another foreign policy disaster for the Putin regime!  Yesterday, the Australian Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties voted to recommend against ratification of the uranium export agreement signed by Prime Minsiter John Howard and Vladimir Putin last September. Howard’s replacement, Kevin Rudd, stated: “If you look back over the last 20 years or so, what has happened in the last couple of months or so in relations to the West’s engagement with the Russian federation, I fear that we are at one of these turning points.”  Russia does not have enough yellowcake uranium for its nuclear reactors and must import it from abroad, giving the West massive leverage. We have previously urged Australia not to sell yellowcake to Russia as long as it is governed by a KGB regime whose word means nothing and which could easily devote the material to weapons production. Australia has 40% of the world’s supply of yellowcake.

Special Extra: Potemkin Russia, Gone Haywire

It’s hard to say which bit of news is more revolting — that the venal, spineless terrorist who broke into Sarah Palin’s e-mail and published messages from and pictures of her children is the son of an important Democratic politician (and the Obama campaign is silent about the atrocity), or that the horizontal line on the RTS index from Wednesday and Thursday has turned into a vertical line today, as shown in the above chart.