Slow news day

The Moscow Times has several items today which are unintentionally amusing (the best kind of amusing), at least to me, in various ways:

1) Among the "News in Brief":

Moldova Lashes Out

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) -- Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin said Russian troops are stationed illegally in his country and that Moscow's explanations for failing to meet a deadline to withdraw were not credible.

Voronin, in an interview with ORT-Moldova television aired Tuesday, also dismissed as "silly" Moscow's claims that separatists in the Russian-speaking breakaway province of Transdnestr were preventing their withdrawal. He said Russia has great influence over Transdnestr.

On this one, I think just the headline is amusing enough. Can you imagine Moldova actually trying to lash out?I have been planning a longer post on Moldova for some time now, because I think it's interesting how concerned pundits were about Ukraine being split in two when so little has been done to resolve Moldova having been split in two for over a decade. And now there is talk (granted, in the case of that link, by people with a clear bias) that Moldova will be the site of the next in the series of themed ("Rose," "Orange"...) revolutions.

Maybe these statements are Voronin's attempt to innoculate himself against the (valid) accusation that he tilts toward Russia. More on this later, hopefully, though not tonight for sure. Why do I care? My wife is from Moldova, I spent a summer there studying (that's when we met) five years ago, we've been back there once a year for at least two weeks ever since and have lots of friends there. So I care. And no jokes about gypsies (if you're a Russian) or trafficked women (if you're from Western Europe). Moldova gets a bad rap.

2) a two-fer - amusing that the paper would publish the fascinating but somewhat rambling (and the original in Vedomosti was longer?!) remarks of the undisputed "man of the year" - МБХ, or Khodorkovsky, of course - on the opinion page and a front-page article about the fact that his thoughts appeared in Vedomosti, which quoted entire sentences of those same remarks.

3) "Adoptees Bring Unique Problems" - I saw this headline and assumed I was looking at the usually lame and thankfully not daily "Community" page, which typically has expat-themed lifestyle-type articles. Nope, the page was headed "News." Since when is it news that it can be problematic to adopt an infant from an underfunded orphanage in a country with epidemic alcoholism and a burgeoning AIDS crisis? Poignant story, yes. News, no. Slow news week, I am telling ya.