Several Chechens associated with Kadyrov, the lord of Chechnya, have been accused of killing Boris Nemtsov.

Kadyrov has total power in Chechnya, but does so as a vassal of Putin. His henchmen would not kill someone in Moscow without orders from him, and he wouldn't give such orders without clearing it with Putin. If indeed his henchmen killed Nemtsov, Putin must have ordered it.

Apparently the plan is to claim they did it from Islamist fanaticism. But why pick Nemtsov, of all people, as their victim? It does not make sense.

NATO misrepresented what Gorbachev said about extending NATO to eastern Europe.

Proposing to include Ukraine in NATO was a foolish provocation of Russia.

Under Republican global heating denialist governor Scott, Florida's Department of Environmental Protection ordered employees from using the terms "global warming" and "climate change".

Also forbidden are "sea-level rise" and "sustainability".

Ironically, the term "climate change" was imposed by Republicans under the orders of Bush II, instead of "global warming", so as to downplay the danger.

I think that neither term does justice to the disaster we are causing, so I call it "global heating". Please join me.

Putin admits ordering the military conquest of the Crimea. This conquest was disguised as a rebellion, but that was only a flimsy excuse for supporters to fool themselves. Some of the population may well have wanted union with Russia, though the Putinesque "election" gives us no real information about how many they were. But that doesn't change the fact that it was an invasion.

The "rebellion" in eastern Ukraine has some real supporters, but that too is an invasion.

UN: Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers amounts to torture.

Abbott's response: tell Australians to blame the UN for "lecturing." The last thing Australians should do is think about substantive issue.