PERISCOPE

RUSSIA
A Reshuffled Deck
Everyone from media pundits to savvy Western investors have been hoping that Vladimir Putin's victory this week would signal the start of real reform in Russia. The cheers that greeted the firing of his previous government were renewed last week when he reappointed liberal Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, while dumping old hacks like Communications Minister Leonid Reiman, known for playing favorites in the lucrative mobile-phone sector. Overall, the cabinet shrank from 30 ministers to 17. Putin spoke of turning a "shady government" into an "effective and modern" one. Yet already the moves look like window-dressing. A day after the president's big announcement, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov revealed that Reiman, linked to Putin's wife, Lyudmila, would in fact keep his old responsibilities but with a new title. Fradkov also reassured those lower down the food chain, saying, "It is not our goal in and of itself to reduce the number of bureaucrats."

What's going on? One theory is that Putin's attack on the bureaucracy would be popular with voters in Sunday's ballot. If so, though, why did Fradkov seem to contradict his boss? That gives rise to theory No. 2: those tens of thousands of civil servants are capable of boosting voter turnout above the 50 percent needed for a valid election. A third theory suggests Putin was only making the right noises to keep investors coming in. Take your pick.
-Frank Brown

IRAQ
Cheney's Evidence
Those skeptical of comments by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration neocons linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11 will not be heartened by their provenance. One principal source was a slide show, classified "Top Secret/Codeword," prepared by an obscure Pentagon policy unit nicknamed "Team B." The office, originally composed of two analysts (one of whom, David Wurmser, now works as a Mideast adviser to Cheney), was assigned shortly after 9/11 to pore through raw intelligence reports looking for data CIA analysts might have missed, linking foreign governments to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. After two months of research, Team B came up with an elaborate two-hour presentation, later shrank to 50 minutes, suggesting that Hizbullah and Al Qaeda jointly sponsored the 9/11 attacks with likely support from several governments, including Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Officials close to the CIA say the agency was "underwhelmed" by the show, many of whose points--including that 9/11 hijacker Muhammad Atta had met in Prague with Iraqi agents--have been discredited. Cheney's office says the VP did not see the slide show.
-MARK HOSENBALL

EUROPE
New Fat Busters
Once again, European and American regulators are moving fast in opposite directions. First it was trust-busting and genetically modified foods, now it's fast food. Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed a "cheeseburger" bill, banning lawsuits against food companies for making customers fat. California Republican David Dreir summed up the official opinion by scolding Americans for "eating themselves to death and looking for someone else to blame."

Meanwhile, Europe seems ever more ready to blame fast food for the fact that nearly 2 billion of the world's 6 billion people are overweight. The Geneva-based World Health Organization has proposed a "fat tax" on junk food and limits on vending machines in schools. Britain's Food Standard Agency last week proposed stricter rules on marketing fast food to kids. Many of the intiatives are due to take effect this summer, but fast-food companies aren't waiting. Last week McDonald's announced a healthier menu in Europe. And last month Coca-Cola started stocking healthier juices in many European schools.
-Rana Foroohar