Since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have become accustomed to news of a U.S. military presence in the far reaches of the former Soviet empire -- a base in Uzbekistan, a training team in Georgia, a cooperation program with Ukraine.

Are you crazy? People have been asking me this question ever since I returned from the United States, where I defended a doctoral dissertation on the Russian bureaucracy at Harvard University and taught Russian and Soviet politics at Yale.

When I returned from a trip to Italy not long ago, I was full of stories and shared a few with my old friend Pavel.

A brief look at the stories making headlines in the Russian-language press

A recent editorial in The Washington Post conceded that the latest eruption of violence in Iraq marks ""a turn for the worse,"" but then quickly found a silver lining: ""For months it has been evident that it will be impossible to stabilize Iraq ... unless factional militias are disarmed and disbanded."" Now, ""that painful but necessary battle will go forward.""

Gazprom in Caspian ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AP) -- The head of Gazprom said Friday that the energy giant was close to agreeing with Turkmenistan on specific Caspian Sea oil fields to be developed as the countries broaden their cooperation in the energy sphere. ""We agreed that in the near future we will designate specific oil fields to be developed by Gazprom,"" Alexei Miller said after meeting Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov. Last year, Niyazov and President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement on cooperation in the energy sector that defined the terms of Gazprom operations in the Caspian. The only foreign company now operating in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian shelf is the United Arab Emirates' Dragon Oil. Floating Nuke MOSCOW (Bloomberg) -- The government is moving ahead with plans to build a floating nuclear power plant in the northern Arkhangelsk region, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified local official Friday.