A French Open Title and a Career Grand Slam for Sharapova

PARIS — Ever since shoulder surgery nearly forced Maria Sharapovainto early retirement, she occupied an odd space in both tennis and the wider world of sports. She remained among the most marketable female athletes on the planet, tall and blond and famous, a superstar in every sense except the most important one.

The gap between her game and her fame closed considerably Saturday, closed by virtue of another one-sided affair that left her knees down and crying on the clay, then bounding into the stands, where she hugged her entourage and kissed not one but two babies. After Sharapova dismantled Sara Errani of Italy, 6-3, 6-2, she held aloft the silver French Openchampionship trophy, for her the most elusive of the major championships.

Euro 2012: Racist Abuse of Dutch Players in Poland Clouds Soccer Tournament

After a visit to Auschwitz, the Dutch soccer team experiences racist jeering from local Polish fans. But will Euro 2012's organizers really crack down on bigotry at Europe's most high profile tournament?

Dutch captain Mark Van Bommel was appalled: Just one day after he and his players had made an emotional pilgrimage to Auschwitz, they were targeted by the same vile racism that the Nazi death camp’s architects used to rationalize their crimes—the dehumanizing people they deemed the “other.” As Holland’s players jogged out for a training session in front of 25,000 people in a stadium at Wroclaw on Thursday, black players like fullback Gregory van der Wiel and midfield enforcer Nigel De Jong were targeted by a section of the crowd making monkey noises — a signature gesture of racists populating Europe’s stadiums.
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Needless to say, UEFA would rather the problem would go away and not spoil its showcase. But there have been sufficient indications that racist and neo-Nazi fans plan to make themselves heard that the European federation has had to plan for the probability of having to deal with incidents of racism in the crowd.

Russia and China eye role in Afghanistan and Pakistan

As United States troops prepare to leave Afghanistan in 2014, a major regional shift is underway.

With the prospect of a decline in US influence in the region in sight, Russia and China are reaching out to Pakistan and Afghanistan in a bid to improve economic ties and to secure their southern borders against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism.

The presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari, are in Beijing this week for the summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is led by China and Russia.
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Both China and Russia will be happy to see US troops leave Afghanistan, but they are equally worried about the Taliban and other extremist groups penetrating Xinjiang province in southern China and the Central Asian republics, whose national security is very much in the hands of Russia.
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Russia's envoy Zamir Kabulov, who has long experience with the Pakistani military's backing of Islamic fundamentalist groups (he served in the Soviet embassy in Kabul in the 1980s), raised this issue with the Pakistani government.

Russia sees itself as the guardian of the Central Asian republics and although it is anxious to see an end to US bases in that region, its resumption of the sole security role in Central Asia will depend on how Pakistan deals with such extremist groups.

If Pakistan can take steps against home-grown extremism, it will do much to convince Russia and China that it deserves help to move out of the American orbit.

Global arms spending flat in 2011

World military spending failed to rise last year for the first time since 1998 in what could herald a major trend break, but the global nuclear threat remains strong, think tank SIPRI said Monday.

As the global economic crisis cuts into defence spending, conflicts around the world are also becoming smaller, shorter and less deadly, and the number of wars between states are at historically low levels, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said.
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World military expenditure in 2011 was essentially flat at $1.73 trillion -- an increase of just 0.3 percent from 2010 -- representing 2.5 percent of global gross domestic product or $249 per person, SIPRI said in a report.

"However, it is still too early to say whether this means that world military expenditure has finally peaked," the think tank wrote.

Nuclear arsenals declined last year, the report said, as the United States and Russia further reduced their inventories of strategic nuclear weapons.

At the start of 2012, eight countries -- Britain, China, India, Israel, France, Pakistan, Russia and the United States -- held some 19,000 nuclear warheads, compared to 20,530 at the start of 2011, it said.

However, long-term modernisation programmes under way in nuclear states "suggest that nuclear weapons are still a currency of international status and power," SIPRI researcher Shannon Kile said.
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"We have witnessed the practical disappearance of wars between states -- with numbers at a historically low level," armed conflict researcher Neil Melvin told AFP.

Nowadays, "violence emerges within states, escalating from political opposition to civil wars," as in Libya and "it seems we are reaching that point with Syria," Melvin said.

Finally, the think tank said the Arab Spring demonstrated the growing complexity of armed conflict.

Several Civilians Wounded in NATO Attack on Northern Kosovo

Troops Attacked Civilian Protesters 'in Self-Defense' Officials Insist

by Jason Ditz, June 01, 2012

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At least five ethnic Serbian civilians and two NATO soldiers were wounded today when NATO forces moved against protesters who had set up a roadblock in northern Kosovo. NATO started with tear gas and rubber bullets, and eventually resorted to live rounds against the protesters, who responded with pistol fire.

The roadblocks issue has been going on since last fall, when the Kosovo government banned all trade with neighboring Serbia and sent NATO troops to the border to ensure that ethnic Serbs were no longer able to ship goods out of the nation. The Serbs responded with roadblocks along the supply routes in protest, and have rebuilt as fast as NATO could destroy them.

This has apparently convinced NATO that instead of simply removing the roadblocks, they also have to attack any protests they see, and officials insisted that today’s attack was “in self-defense,” adding that they “have the authority to use deadly force on anyone who throws a stone.”

Kosovar Serbs have overwhelmingly rejected the NATO-backed regime, and have sought to rejoin Serbia. NATO has insisted that they will never allow this, and that Kosovo, which they carved out of Serbia in an invasion, would retain its “territorial ondependece.

Russian Church Is a Strong Voice Opposing Intervention in Syria

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But Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the patriarchate’s department of external church relations, did not ask for money. The issue of “Christianophobia” shot to the top of the church’s agenda a year ago, with a statement warning that “they are killing our brothers and sisters, driving them from their homes, separating them from their near and dear, stripping them of the right to confess their religious beliefs.” The metropolitan asked Mr. Putin to promise to protect Christian minorities in the Middle East.

“So it will be,” Mr. Putin said. “There is no doubt at all.”

Uncertain World: Will Russia Become Part of the West?
Fyodor Lukyanov

Let’s put questions of diplomatic routine aside and confront the fundamental question here: will Russia ever become part of the West? This was the dream of the first generation of Russian reformers and liberals at the dawn of the 1990s, and it was what Putin sought (in a quite different way) in the early 2000s. It is generally believed that this is and has always been Moscow’s choice. The doors are open for at least a close partnership, if not full-scale membership in the EU and NATO on the basis of common values. Debates always focused on Russia’s willingness. Can Russia truly adopt the Western worldview? Does Russia meet the high standards for membership?

But while Russia was weighing answers to these questions, the West was embarking on a surprising metamorphosis. The West has essentially begun to disappear as a coherent political entity, an ideological and moral yardstick and an economic model to emulate. And now the question is less whether the West is prepared to accept Russia with all its shortcomings, but whether Russia should enter this community of states that has failed to cope with the burden of its historic victory in the Cold War. Moreover, the center of global politics and the global economy has already shifted to Asia.

That being said, both questions should be answered in the affirmative. Russia simply has no alternative to the West. Culturally, psychologically and historically it has always been part of the Western world, despite its many unique features. Nobody in Asia thinks of Russia as an Asian power, even though three quarters of its territory are located in Asia (but three quarters of Russia’s population live in its European part). The development of the Russian Far East and Siberia, which is critical for the country, is impossible unless these regions closely integrate with the rapidly growing Asian economy. But this can only be achieved if Russia maintains and consolidates its European identity.
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Obstacles on the way toward integration that have been mentioned in the past 20 years are disappearing on their own. The EU, whose tough rules and standards prevented it from drawing closer to Russia, is falling apart. It will have to change drastically, revise its principles of coexistence and even its integration model. This creates an opportunity for cooperation with Russia. Previously, Moscow was merely offered the chance to adopt an enormous code of rules. This did not suit Russia, as it was used to the status of a sovereign great power.

But these are all assumptions based on the expectation that political players will follow rational considerations and act expediently. However, modern politics is full of examples of leading players making colossal blunders – either out of arrogance, complexes, dogma or misunderstanding one’s own interests.

The unpredictable, rapid changes that characterize global politics in the 21st century are accompanied by the unexpected reawakening of instincts from a distant past, in which relations between countries can backslide into old-fashioned realpolitik and considerations of prestige can override all else.

The defining characteristic of the transitional period in which we live is uncertainty. We know not where we are headed – forward, to a new political morality, or backward, to ossified principles enforced by high-tech weapons. Anything is possible at this point.