Mikhail Gorbachev: A hero in the West
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who became the new Soviet leader following the death of President Constantin Chernenko, studies papers in his Kremlin office on May 1985. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died on Aug. 30, 2022, at a Moscow hospital at age 91.
In the waning days of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev’s visions of perestroika and glasnost won him accolades in the West and changed the course of world events. But in Russia, he was blamed for bringing about economic collapse, political upheaval and the implosion of the Soviet Union. And, as Europe looks to the Arctic for energy, the Indigenous Sami people say they don’t want the massive wind farms that are planned on their shrinking lands because the turbines interfere with their reindeer herds and livelihoods. Also, over 50 South Korean adoptees in Denmark have cosigned an application to South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate abuses in the country’s adoption system going back to the 1960s. Plus, Afrobeats is growing in popularity around the world.
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