Near the end of my PPSUC stint, it transpired that Xi had become vexed by internet wags comparing him to Winnie the Pooh – so much so that a film about Pooh’s creator, A.A. Milne, called Goodbye Christopher Robin, which I’d been looking forward to seeing in Beijing, was banned. China only accepts a quota...
Tag: Other features
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Putin’s transformation into the new Stalin is now complete
Putin has always had an admiration for Stalin and under his rule, statues of the tyrant have been reappearing at a gathering pace. There are now more than a hundred of them across Russia. Although Stalingrad, now Volgograd, has yet to revert to its wartime name, last year a statue was erected to commemorate the...
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How Yulia Navalnaya could become Putin’s greatest critic
“Yulia is the rock on which Alexei stands,” Vladimir Ashurkov, one of Navalny’s closest aides, said at the time of his final arrest in 2021. “She’s got his back.” According to Yevgenia Albats, an old friend and political ally, “Navalny the politician is two people: Yulia and Alexei.” I saw the couple together on several...