Score one for common sense in New Jersey.

Yesterday, a state parole board denied releasing Robert Matthey, who, together with his wife Brenda, has been serving time for manslaughter and child abuse in the death of a child that they adopted from Russia.

That child was a little boy named Viktor, who was adopted from the Siberian town of Svobodniy with his younger twin brothers in December 1999. Less than a year later, Viktor was dead, having been starved, beaten and locked in an unheated basement room. His death and the senselessly light sentences handed... more

There was a heartbreaking story in The Moscow Times at the end of last week, a story about Moscow's street kids and what has brought them to a life on the streets.

It is not a happy or even particularly hopeful story, though the writer does say that President Vladimir Putin is trying to draw Russia's attention to its demographic and social welfare problems. You can read it in full here, though you will need a subscription to the paper's archives, since the Moscow Times quickly moves its... more