Professor emeritus, University of Glasgow Michael Kirkwood continues with a series of articles about the life and works of the brilliant post war Russian philosopher, author, and dissident, Alexander Zinoviev.

lllustrations are by Zinoviev himself, provided to RI by his family.

The book Homo Sovieticus was published in English translation by Victor Gollancz in 1985, the original Russian version having appeared in 1982 (L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne).

It reflects Zinoviev's earliest experience as an émigré and provides a snapshot of East-West relations at a point near the end of what might be termed "classical Soviet Communism". It is a scathing account of Soviet behavior abroad and of the West's inability to comprehend the true nature of Soviet foreign policy with respect to the West.

The book centres on a group of Soviet émigrés living in a Pension in Germany, each seeking his or her own way to establish a niche in the West. As in The Yawning Heights, they have labels rather than names ('Cynic', 'Enthusiast', 'Whiner', etc.)

When I predicted the economic apocalypse would begin for the US this month, I said the stock market would rise euphorically after the Fed raised its interest target. Rise it did. Steeply, too. I also said it would fall shortly after. Fall it did. Quickly, too. Now I'm saying the Epocalypse is here.

Just as I stated that "the rate at which the market goes up now is a measurement of pure euphoria," by the same token, how quickly that euphoria falls off indicates just how far down the downside is. If you have ever floated in the ocean and felt yourself unexpectedly drop way down with the water, you know that means a huge wave is coming up right behind you.

"Particularly watch out," I warned, "if the euphoria cools quickly because, after more than a year of concern over what would happen when stimulus ended, there is a lot of relief the bulls would like to celebrate. If the euphoria cools quickly, it's likely to mean things are ready to go down hard and fast."

While I said in my last article, "Their party could last for days or end tomorrow," I actually anticipated the euphoric rise in the stock market would last several days, given how long investors feared what might happen when the Fed raised rates and how relieved they'd be that the sky didn't fall that day ... and how persistent they have been in taking bad news as good news.

Tourists visiting Beijing in the hope of seeing the city's famous landmarks will be lucky to see anything at all at the moment as the Chinese capital struggles with a particularly acute episode of air pollution. In fact, it's so bad that officials have in recent days been forced to issue their first ever "red alert" warnings.

And for residents who have to endure severely toxic air sometimes several times a year, the situation must surely be a whole lot grimmer.

Helping to provide Beijing citizens with some much-needed respite from the suffocating smog, and possibly make a few bucks in the process, a Canadian startup has started selling fresh air - yes, air - to customers there.

The company, Vitality Air, told CNN that its first batch of 500 canisters sold out in less than two weeks when it went on sale on a Chinese e-commerce site last month.

First and foremost my heart goes out to the families of the doctors in this piece.

I haven't reported on any doctors found dead in some time and was so happy and relieved not to do any more stories. Many of these physicians were people we knew personally, so it's never easy writing about them.

My only criteria I had for the last "unintended series" of doctor deaths (this link has a long recap at the bottom) was that they be unexplained (as several still are), and not accidental. Several were confirmed murders and nearly a half dozen alleged suicides within a few months. There were 13 so far that fell into those categories.

There were probably another 13 or who were in accidents - which ranged from holistic doctors who died in accidents in recent months - (one just six blocks from where I live) to even more , some "freak accidents" according to mainstream news. We also has the famous ABC News holistic MD who allegedly slipped and hid her head in Hawaii and was carried out to sea. She had been about to partner with well known MD Deepak Chopra, just before she died.

A hearing impaired woman says that a Washington DC Metro cop shot her service dog for no reason. The off-duty officer shot "Cleo" and never even identified herself as law enforcement when she did it. The woman, LaToya Plummer, is now calling for prosecutors to press animal cruelty charges against the unidentified officer.

DC Metro is currently protecting the trigger-happy cop. All that the department will say is that the off-duty cop alleges that the dog "bared its teeth in an aggressive manner" making the officer fear "her safety." Greenbelt Police say that they are independently investigating the incident since it happened in their jurisdication and not in Washington DC proper.

George Matthews of Greenbelt Police told Photography Is Not a Crime the following:

The victim, an off-duty Metropolitan Police Officer, advised that she was walking her dog when a dog she described as a large pit bull aggressively ran towards her and her dog. Fearing for her safety, the victim produced her handgun and fired a shot at the dog.

The owner was still inside the dog park with two other dogs. When the victim approached her and stated that she was contacting the police, the suspect took all of her dogs, including the possibly injured dog, and left the scene. It was later discovered that the suspect was hearing impaired and thought that her dog had been involved in a fight. She was told the dog had been shot.

The dog was taken to a veterinarian for treatment.

They call it Europe's Galapagos. Lake Ohrid in Macedonia is the most biodiverse lake of its size in the world, home to more than 350 species found nowhere else and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site based on its natural value. It is also Europe's oldest lake, having survived for more than a million years.

But none of that may save it.

For a tourist boom is coming to Ohrid, the town on its shores. From April, British holidaymakers can take a cheap flight with Wizz Air from Luton to holiday in Ohrid. To meet their needs, the lake's most critical ecosystem is set to be concreted over to make space for apartments and a marina.

"Lake Ohrid is a Holy Grail for biologists from all over the world," says Christian Albrecht of the University of Giessen in Germany. "But it faces a biodiversity crisis."

Authorities have identified the woman who drove into a crowd of people on the Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday night, killing one and injuring more than thirty. The Oregon resident was charged with murder, fleeing the crime scene, and child abuse.

Video evidence showed Lakeisha N. Holloway, 24, of Portland, Oregon repeatedly and deliberately driving into a crowd on the sidewalk outside the Paris Hotel, Clark County officials said at a press conference Monday morning. Investigators are still working to discover the motive behind Holloway's rampage and have not ruled out the possibility of terrorism, said Sheriff Joseph Lombardo.

Airbnb are being sued after a woman found a secret camera recording her and her partner in a rental property in Irvine, California that had been booked through the website.

Yvonne Schumacher, who is from Germany, and her partner Kevin Stockton had booked the property from December 16, 2013, through January 12, 2014. The Christmas break did not go as planned, however.

If you've been listening to various police agencies and their supporters, then you know what the future holds: anarchy is coming -- and it's all the fault of activists.

In May, a Wall Street Journal op-ed warned of a "new nationwide crime wave" thanks to "intense agitation against American police departments" over the previous year. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went further. Talking recently with the host of CBS's Face the Nation, the Republican presidential hopeful asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement wasn't about reform but something far more sinister. "They've been chanting in the streets for the murder of police officers," he insisted. Even the nation's top cop, FBI Director James Comey, weighed in at the University of Chicago Law School, speaking of "a chill wind that has blown through American law enforcement over the last year."

According to these figures and others like them, lawlessness has been sweeping the nation as the so-called Ferguson effect spreads. Criminals have been emboldened as police officers are forced to think twice about doing their jobs for fear of the infamy of starring in the next viral video. The police have supposedly become the targets of assassins intoxicated by "anti-cop rhetoric," just as departments are being stripped of the kind of high-powered equipment they need to protect officers and communities. Even their funding streams have, it's claimed, come under attack as anti-cop bias has infected Washington, D.C. Senator Ted Cruz caught the spirit of that critique by convening a Senate subcommittee hearing to which he gave the title, "The War on Police: How the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement." According to him, the federal government, including the president and attorney general, has been vilifying the police, who are now being treated as if they, not the criminals, were the enemy.

Beyond the storm of commentary and criticism, however, quite a different reality presents itself. In the simplest terms, there is no war on the police. Violent attacks against police officers remain at historic lows, even though approximately 1,000 people have been killed by the police this year nationwide. In just the past few weeks, videos have been released of problematic fatal police shootings in San Francisco and Chicago.

Three explosions shook the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, near key ministries, embassies and residences, officials have told local media. The attack comes a week after a suicide bombing in the area, and amidst a surge in Taliban violence.

Local police told Reuters one of the missiles hit Massoud Square, adjacent to the well-fortified US embassy, and another landed in Shirpur Square, close to the sprawling presidential complex. A third rocket detonated further away from the heart of the city.