FP contributor Dan Drezner, citing reliable sources in Europe, tells a brief story about Russo-German diplomacy:

Angela Merkel apparently has a fear of dogs. Vladimir Putin is aware of this fact. Therefore, whenever Putin meets with Merkel in Moscow, he makes sure his pet dogs are in the room.

Press accounts suggest this to be true. President Putin loves his dogs, and he appears to use them to intimidate Chancellor Merkel during tough negotiations. This was the initial test, in January 2006:

Putin, who already met Merkel several times when she was opposition leader of the conservative Christian Democrats, said his meeting with her had taken place "in a very good atmosphere." Earlier, Putin, who likes dogs, had given Merkel a gift of a small toy black and white dog, which had a short leash. Merkel, however, does not like dogs - she was bitten by one when she was young and has since kept her distance, according to an aide. German diplomats said they were unsure how to interpret the gift.

One year later, in January 2007, Putin brought in diplomatic reinforcements during a dust-up with Merkel over energy supplies:

Later, when Koni, Putin's black Labrador, made her domineering entrance, Merkel nervously, or perhaps wishfully, commented in Russian, "Now the dog is going to eat the journalists." [...] Kremlin critic and journalist Yulia Latynina, writing for "Yezhednevny zhurnal," said the "friendly meeting in Sochi between Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and Labrador Koni" left her bewildered.

Putin apparently told the German chancellor, "I don't think the dog will scare you. She won't do anything bad, she likes journalists."

I wonder what Vlad does to try to intimidate U.S. President George W. Bush. Show him the latest poll numbers? 

Soviet Russia was never overly concerned with nuclear waste disposal. For decades, the Soviets simply dumped radioactive materials into the Arctic Ocean or erected temporary storage facilities for such materials. Those facilities are now beginning to age, and are becoming a serious environmental problem. Frighteningly, one of these facilities may even be in danger of exploding.

AFP

Norwegian researchers have obtained an alarming report from Rosatom, the Russian nuclear agency, about a site on the Kola Peninsula, an ore-rich area near the northern border with Norway. Since 1982, 21,000 spent uranium fuel assemblies have been stored there in three concrete tanks right next to the coast. Inside the tanks, large metal pipes contain the rods. Unfortunately, the concrete has begun to leak and allow sea water in, corroding the metal tubes.

Leakage is a problem because spent rods contain many types of fissile isotopes, and salt water could cause them to disintegrate relatively quickly. Essentially, those fissile isotopes will dissolve in the water, creating a radioactive slurry inside the tubes.

This could be dangerous because, in the right conditions, enough fissile material concentrated in a small space creates a lot of heat—the same principle we exploit for nuclear power generation. Uncontrolled, this heat could cause steam to build up in the tubes, eventually leading them to explode. If concentrations of fissile material are high enough, dangerous chain reactions could occur, releasing more intense (and potentially explosive) "bursts of radiation and heat." The risk of such explosions is small— both Russian and Norwegian nuclear officials have accordingly "downplayed the danger"—but still significant given the potential for widespread fallout.

And while an actual atomic explosion is probably impossible in this situation, even steam explosions could send huge quantities of dangerously radioactive material into the environment. Rosatom claims there is no danger of that happening, but given the Russian track record on waste disposal, we should watch sites like this very carefully.

In a lengthy interview with the Times of London, Putin insists he's the only one who really 'gets' democracy:

Of course, I am a pure and absolute democrat," [Putin] said. "But you know what the problem is – not a problem, a real tragedy – that I am alone. There are no such pure democrats in the world. Since Mahatma Gandhi, there has been no one."

Matt Stroshane/Getty Images

The scientific and policy communities in Washington and elsewhere are acting as though NASA Administrator Mike Griffin's now notorious interview with NPR yesterday morning was the first time his logic has seemed a bit goofy. Come on, people. The symptoms have been around for years. Here's Griffin in 2005, just a few months after taking office, rationalizing spending hundreds of billions of taxpayers' dollars to fund the building of space camps on the Moon and Mars:

Now, you know, in the sense that a chicken is just an egg's way of laying another egg, one of our purposes is to survive and thrive and spread humankind. I think that's worth doing. There will be another mass-extinction event. If we humans want to survive for hundreds of thousands or millions of years, we must ultimately populate other planets....

I'm talking about that one day, I don't know when that day is, but there will be more human beings who live off the Earth than on it. We may well have people living on the moon. We may have people living on the moons of Jupiter and other planets. We may have people making habitats on asteroids....

And here's the best part:

To me it's important because I like the United States, and because I know -- I don't know the date -- but I know that humans will colonize the solar system and one day go beyond. And it is important for me that humans who carry -- I'll characterize it as Western values -- are there with them. You know, I think we know the kind of society we would get if you, for example, carry Soviet values. That means you want a gulag on Mars. Is that what you're looking for?

It's worth remembering that Griffin was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April of 2005. So not one U.S. senator voted against his nomination. Why are his views on global warming just coming to light now?

Does seizing private property, centralizing the economy, and jailing opposition activists mean that democracy in Russia is in trouble? Not according to Vladimir Putin. He reckons Western observers just need to adopt the famously sunny Russian disposition:

What is pure democracy? It is a question of ... whether you want to see the glass half-full or half empty."

JEFF HAYNES/AFP/Getty Images

Reporting on the Russia-Burma nuclear deal Christine covered yesterday has been somewhat inconsistent, so I'd like to clarify some details for Passport readers.

First, it is unclear what sort of uranium fuel the facility will require. Some reports say 20 percent enriched; others say under 20 percent (civilian reactors generally use 3-5 percent). Since any level of enrichment above 20 percent is usable in a weapon, this is a crucial distinction.

Second, the size of the reactor doesn't matter if Burma wants a uranium bomb—it could only serve to justify purchases of highly enriched uranium. IAEA safeguards and Russian controls on the fuel supply will be the real barriers to a Burmese nuclear weapons program.

One thing to keep in mind: Talks over the reactor are "only preliminary." As Christine said: Watch closely.

KHIN MAUNG WIN/AFP

Lost in the hubbub surrounding Condoleezza Rice's Russia visit earlier this week was some disturbing news out of Moscow. Pretty much as soon as Rice boarded her plane to return home, Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom announced that it would help build a nuclear energy research facility in Burma. The facility will have a 10MW light-water reactor, use 20 percent-enriched uranium-235, and have processes for storing nuclear waste. Russia plans on training some 300 scientists for the center. 

With such low-grade uranium, and with a relatively limited reactor, the center will not have capabilities to develop a nuclear weapons program. Also, Burma is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Moreover, Rosatom promises its activities will be supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Nevertheless, the news is troubling on many fronts. Russia has history of exporting nuclear science to regimes that the West considers sketchy. And for the past 45 years, Burma has been controlled by a military-led junta that Human Rights Watch describes as one of the most repressive in the world. Since 1996, when the United States and the EU imposed sanctions on Burma for its human rights violations, Russia has become a leading supplier of weapons to Burma's military.

According to The Irrawaddy (a Thailand-based publication about Burma that FP covered last year), Burma has been trying to develop a nuclear energy since 2000, when science and technology minister U Thaung visited Moscow to solicit support. The resulting agreement fell through when questions arose about how the impoverished Burmese would pay for Russia's assistance. But now, evidently, Burma's vast natural gas reserves have provided the necessary capital.

So far, the cost and specific location of the project has not been disclosed. And obviously, it will be some time before ground is broken, and even more time until the facility is up and running. But still, this is something to watch closely. Very closely.

Turn it into a luxury leisure complex, equipped with a hotel, shops and a spa.

At least that's what Nikolai Temerev, the general director of a company that purchased a 1950s nuclear blast-proof bunker in the heart of Moscow last year, plans to do. The Tagansky bunker was built under Stalin and was used to house the communications headquarters of the Soviet leadership and top military officials. With stores of food and medicine, as many as 3,000 people could live and work in the underground network for 90 days without assistance from the "outside world" thanks to its air recycling system and diesel generators.

Temerev's got a powerful ally in Yury Luzhkov, Moscow's mayor. Luzhkov wants to develop as much as a quarter of underground Moscow over the next ten years, up from the 8 percent that is currently being used. Temerev explains why:

There are big problems in this city—transport problems, communications problems. And these need to be resolved .... Either we can build upwards—like, say, in Japan, where they have all these overpasses. But that would mean covering the landscape with triple-level roads. The other option is to build underground. And in that way you don't change the face of Moscow, which is of historical importance to the city and to the Russian people."

And of course, who wants to be disturbed by a nuclear explosion when they're having a facial?