It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better.

It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better.

When considering the Islamic world, Turkey is the best example of a country where democracy irreversibly gained a foothold despite religious and cultural traditions still respected today. With some reservation, this can be said about Pakistan, too, where we can observe dynamic political processes going on [and] governments change as a result of elections. In my opinion, it is up to the ruling elite to initiate cardinal changes.

We don't have a choice. A united democratic Eurasian continent welded together by common economic interests is our only hope and contribution to stability in the world. If we fail, I fear that Russia in its present form is in for the most serious of upheavals - the outcome of which is extremely unpredictable.

I learned that fighting on the chess board could also have an impact on the political climate in the country.

I'm not paranoid, but I am cautious. I don't drink tea with strangers, I don't fly Aeroflot and I avoid certain countries with close ties to Russia.

But we must not forget the effort undertaken by the ruling elite in Russia to manipulate Western politicians, businessmen as well as journalists. That's why [Vladimir] Putin's "fifth column" is that powerful in the West.