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<A HREF="http://babelfish.altavista.com/urltrurl?lp=ru_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Flenta.ru%2Fvojna%2F2002%2F07%2F22%2Fbritish%2F">A pretty good translation from altavista of the article</A>
The old communist countries produced a huge number of weapons. The economic extras that we spent on disco and video games, they spent on extra guns and bombs. These weapons have almost entirely disappeared. We don't know where they all went, but assumeable they have disappeared into the international arms trade underground. Scarier than just the AK-47s and such, is the nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that could be ending up in the hands of terrorists. This man evidentally was originally from Algeria, so we can all imagine some horrible terrorist link.
There is also the opposite horror. Many of these former Soviets have not accepted the freedoms that are being forced apon them. They try to invent crimes to accuse those that are trying to convert them. The Salvation Army is still banned from Moscow as a "paramilitary terrorist army". He could well be a Islamic British citizen who went to a mainly Islamic area of Russia to help teach the locals the how to be free. He could be falsely accused of a scary crime in order to get him out of the way. In the picture, he appears to have been abused.
As with many stories from half way around the world, it is hard to tell what really is happening. Many times the horrors of modern living can be the source of humor, but it is difficult to do well. I am sorry to say there there has been no effort to make this humorous.
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