Sophia in ‘t Veld added that “Tchaikovsky and Constantinovich must be rolling over in their graves.”

“There is a proposal from the secretary-general of the Arab League to form a joint mission for Syria in coordination with the United Nations, and it will be presented before the planned Arab foreign ministers’ meeting on Sunday in Cairo,” the Arab League’s deputy head, Ahmed Ben Helli, told reporters today.

The upcoming ministerial meeting in Cairo may also issue a statement on China and Russia’s veto of a U.N. Security Council Resolution last Saturday, reports Reuters. The resolution was based on an Arab peace plan that had the support of the rest of the Security Council but China and Russia’s veto brought criticism from both Western and Arab nations.

The ongoing artillery bombardment of Homs, a recently leaked report detailing the failures of an Arab League observer mission, and the Russian and Chinese veto have left the Arab League and the United Nations looking for new strategies to halt the bloodshed.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby announced this week that a new mission would need international backing, better equipment and more observers than the Arab League mission. Yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon confirmed that Elaraby had proposed a joint mission.

Consultations will be held with the Arab League and Security Council members “before fleshing out the details,” said the U.N. chief. But Western powers offered a lukewarm response to the proposal. Agence France-Presse reports that France said there would have to be “guarantees” for the mission and Germany called it a “very serious” idea but emphasized that conditions would have to be met before such an effort could be launched.

While diplomats discuss what steps to take next, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Syrian government to stop shelling residential areas of Homs. “Those responsible for such horrific attacks will have to answer for them,” HRW’s Anna Neistat in a statement earlier today.

Rights groups estimate that more than 6,000 people have died since protests began eleven months ago.

During the debate, United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov accused the “liberal opposition” of seeking to destroy the country and disregarding the well-being of children. He claimed that liberalism has increased the city’s “tolerance for drug use, and, in his opinion, the same can not be allowed in respect of sexual perversion.” The measure would fine groups or individuals who promote homosexuality, pedophilia, or transgenderism to minors. The version approved today includes fines that are 10 times higher than when the bill was first brought before the city’s legislature in November. The text:

“Under the public actions aimed at promoting sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender minors, in this article should be understood as a purposeful activity, and uncontrolled dissemination of public information, manner, able to harm the health, moral and spiritual development minors, including the form they have misconceptions about the social equivalence of traditional and nontraditional marriage. ” Under the promotion of pedophilia, the bill requires to understand “purposeful activity and uncontrolled dissemination of public information, manner, carried out in order to create a society of distorted notions of conformity to social norms of intimate relationships between adults and minors. “

The anti-gay legislation has been condemned by the international community and is in violation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention for Human Rights, the Council of Europe Recommendations and other decrees. Lawmakers in Moscow are said to be considering similar bans.

The Wall Street Journal’s Alan Cullison reports that the Kremlin is falling back on anti-Americanism as a useful tool to both smear opponents as “puppets of the U.S.’s CIA and State Department” and bolster Putin’s images as a fierce nationalist. A degree of hostility to the U.S. has always been a staple of Putin’s leadership but the new campaign has gone further, branding his political opponents as American puppets.

A documentary titled “Foreigners Will Help Them,” aired on Russian television last week. The film features supposed secret tapes of opposition leaders accepting instructions from U.S. officials in Moscow and Washington.

On Saturday, Russia’s veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at ending the 11-month Syrian uprising drew harsh words from Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton characterized that veto as “a travesty” during a visit to Bulgaria this weekend — but Russian obstinance at the U.N. may serve Putin domestically as evidence that he is unafraid to stand up to the U.S. and the West.

News this morning that Putin will send proxies to represent him in upcoming presidential election debates came as a surprise since he had explicitly told journalists on December 28 that he would debate his challengers. Putin, speaking to the journalists, slammed his political opponents, telling them that “the point is that the opposition doesn’t carry out practical work and it always demands the impossible, and then usually nothing is implemented.” He continued, “[Dialogue is required,] and I will decide what form it will take exactly.”

A picture of their sign is below, which says, “Children have the right to know. Great people have also been gay and gay people can also become great” and lists prominent Russian gay people. It concludes: “Homosexual, it’s natural and normal”:

Even for someone who believes firmly in interrogating the trivial, the actual details of the plot by a nuclear megalomaniac to bring about world peace through the shock of a nuclear attack are rather silly (for one thing, he doesn’t think blowing up much of the Kremlin might do it?). But there’s enough enjoyment to be gained from just going with it that it’s worth not bogging yourself down in the details. And it gets a larger point correct: in a post-Cold War, the risk may not be that superpowers will go to war on their own, but that non-state actors can cause a great deal of trouble by aggravating them. The more villains we get like Kurt Hendricks, the freelance scientist and nuclear terrorist in this movie, or Le Chiffre, the terrorist financier in Casino Royale, the closer our movies will be to understanding the new world order. It’s not a matter of who’s got the launch codes now: it’s who can goad that person into making poor use of them.

In that vein, I thought the movie was wise to pull in industry actors as well as state ones. Anil Kapoor’s Indian media mogul is on screen for all too little time — some day his mugging may be irritating, but we have not yet reached that moment. But as access to media, to energy, to food, to water, to resources of all kinds become more critical, and given the ongoing role of markets in guaranteeing or undermining the stability of regimes, economic actors should be the supervillains of today and tomorrow. The Bond movies, until Casino Royale, tended to go rather over the top, focusing on bushy eyebrows and arcane plots rather than the actual drama of business, but there’s a lot of room to do better.

And while we’re focusing on the individual, is there a more appealing action star than Simon Pegg working right now? That might seem an odd question to ask about an actor whose resume includes playing a hideously obnoxious journalist and a star turn in a movie called Run, Fatboy, Run, and who often appears in action movies as a geek pressganged into a situation above his pay grade. But he’s a marvelous audience surrogate, alive to the true wonder of any situation. As Scotty in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, he declared of the Enterprise, “I like this ship! You know, it’s exciting!” By the end of Hot Fuzz, he’s got sunglasses, Point Break moves, and has finally nailed the bad jokes his office specializes in. And in Mission Impossible 4, he carries forth one of the franchise’s most noble traditions, asking at one point in the leadup to an action setpiece in a Dubai hotel, “Are you sure I shouldn’t wear a mask? Because I’m not exactly Omar Sharif. I’ll play it French.” It’s all well and good for Tom Cruise to slug it out to the point of insensibility with the Russians, but gosh, someone ought to enjoy these international jaunts, sharp suits, and snazzy toys.

And it’s nice that Jeremy Renner shares some of that self-aware humor without winking too broadly at the audience. “Next time,” he grumbles after a hairy jaunt into a satellite room, “I get to seduce the rich guy.” A new world needs new spies, willing to do new things.

Security sources told the U.K’s Guardian that 80,000 people showed up to protest in Moscow — the largest demonstration since the collapse of the Soviet Union — to demonstrate against what they contend was a fraudulent parliamentary election. Here’s a photograph of the crowds in Moscow on Saturday:

In the first days of the protests, U.S. Secretary of State HIllary Clinton said the elections were a “fraud,” drawing criticism from Putin.

Thousands also demonstrated in St. Petersburg, one of Russia’s largest cities and a financial and cultural capital. The U.K. telegraph paper carried a video report from the protest.

Putin’s position also suffered political blows as major figures, including a former Soviet Premier, called for him to step down and challenged his position. Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister whom Putin recently referred to as an ally, joined the Moscow crowds and urgently called for new elections and political reforms:

We need to create a platform for a dialogue with the authorities. Otherwise, we’ll face a revolution and we’ll miss the chance for a peaceful transition and for creating trust, which is needed for the new power.

While Kudrin stayed away from directly criticizing Putin, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev pointedly called for Putin to follow his own example and give up his hold on power. Gorbachev relinquished his authority after presiding over the dissolution of the Soviet Union. “I’m happy that I have lived to see the people waking up. This raises big hopes,” said Gorbechev, who is 80 years old.

Protesters today chanted “Russia will be free” and “Russia without Putin,” and one held a sign with Munch’s painting “The Scream” that read “Putin? Not again.”

January 14: Tunisia’s president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after weeks of mass protests. On June 20, Ben Ali and his wife were tried and convicted in absentia on theft charges and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Saudi Arabia has refused to extradite. Tunisians went to the polls in October to elect a new government in voting that international observers are calling remarkably free and fair.

February 11: Egyptian pro-democracy demonstrations ousted President Hosni Mubarak after weeks of protests inspired by the events in Tunisia. While Egypt faces new rounds of violent turmoil after recent parliamentary elections, the next session of Mubarak’s trial is set for this month.

April 11: Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo was forced from power after refusing to relinquish the presidency after losing an election in November 2010. Gbagbo has been transferred to the International Criminal court where he faces four charges of crimes against humanity.

October 20: Libyans joined the Arab Spring fervor in mid-February. NATO-assisted rebels took the capital Tripoli in August, and the forces of Libya’s new government captured and killed former leader Muammar Qaddafi in what the ICC recently said could be considered a war crime. Elections are expected to be conducted next year.

November 23: After months of Arab Spring inspired protests, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed a deal in which he would step down and “transfer his powers to his deputy ahead of an early election and in return will get immunity from prosecution.”

December 17: Exactly one year after a Tunisian vendor set himself on fire, sparking a wave of fallen autocracies throughout the region, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il dies. However, there are currently no hopes for transfer to a democratic system in the communist country as Kim Jong-Il’s son, Kim Jong Un is expected to take over leadership.

Of course, while not technically considered a “dictator” or the leader of any particular country, it wasn’t a great year for al Qaeda No. 1 Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on May 1.

So if 2011 wasn’t exactly the year of the despot, will the trend continue in 2012? A near civil war in Syria threatens President Bashar al-Assad’s rule there; mass backlash against rigged elections in Russia is getting larger; and in Iran, the Green Movement hasn’t entirely disappeared.