Perhaps we have had too optimistic view of the world, thinking that the Soviet Union was the cause of all sorts of problems.

Perhaps it was, but many more issues pre-date the USSR and frankly the Soviet dictators kept a lot of stuff in check.

Anyway:

IOC: ATTACK ON PUSSY RIOT WAS `UNSETTLING’

The International Olympic Committee says images of the attack on the Pussy Riot punk group in Sochi are “very unsettling.”

IOC spokesman Mark Adams says the governor of the Krasnodar region has apologized for the attack and is investigating.

[…]

On Wednesday, Cossack militia attacked the group with horsewhips as they tried to perform under a sign advertising the Sochi Olympics.

Adams says the IOC wants to know more details but called it “largely an issue for” the Russian government.

[…]

Meanwhile, political discontent in Kyrgyzstan is reviewed with an important little tidbit buried in a paragraph:

There is one more feature to the portrait of a new “oppositionist”. Quite an ugly incidents occurred in the office of 24.kg news agency on May 14, 2011, when about 15 uninvited people headed by Salmoorbek Dyikanov shamelessly came and raised a scandal. They insulted journalists and employees, including offenses on ethnic line, threatened that “will find addresses of 24.kg news agency administration and burn down their houses,” the representatives of non-title nation were recalled that “Russia is for Russians”, and “Kyrgyzstan id for Kyrgyz.” Then they entirely accused all workers of 24.kg news agency of espionage. Employees of law enforcement bodies arrived at the scene quickly, but couldn’t cool Asaba’s ardor. The insulted workers wrote an application to police and the General Prosecutor’s Office.

Ethnic identity and resulting conflicts are bubbling up all over the place. Whatever the 21st century is becoming, it does not appear to be a sea of peace and brotherhood among all men.