The hoarfrost has not begun to thaw yet.

Praise to the Lord. The thaw is coming.

O that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Had to drop 'em in a frying pan to thaw 'em out, find out what we were talkin' about.

Russian (or Soviet) leaders opt for perestroika or a thaw only when forced to do so by dire conditions that threaten the regime s survival. An atmosphere of mortal fear, mutual suspicion, and hatred among the Communist elite was the catalyst for Nikita Khrushchev s post Stalin thaw.

Soon, the snow in the hills above Kathmandu will begin to melt. But Nepal's political landscape is showing no sign of a thaw.

Soon, the gulag was virtually emptied a political thaw began, spurring whispers of freedom that could not be contained. In Poland and Hungary, in particular, an underground tide burst forth demanding change.

In parts of Moldova and Georgia and in the disputed territory of Nagorny Karabakh, the OSCE is actively trying to resolve conflicts that are sometimes referred to as frozen, but which have recently started to thaw.

That first war among socialist states shattered the myth of inviolable fraternal bonds between the Soviet Union and the captive nations of Eastern Europe. But Khrushchev never envisioned the breakup of the Soviet empire as part of his thaw.

But the thaw in US Cuba relations has not been welcomed by all US politicians. Indeed, despite President Barack Obama s apparent desire to end the pointless diplomatic freeze, some right wing US politicians would, it seems, prefer a pariah to a potential partner off Florida s coast.

Of course, listeners must strain to hear the voices of reformists amidst the din of those calling for resistance to the enemy and a return to the pure sources of Islam. However, the seeds of a new wave of reform have taken root, and await an early thaw to sprout.

MOSCOW The emergence of a Kremlin leader, President Dmitri Medvedev, without a KGB background, combined with the economic crisis, has inspired talk that when Barack Obama visits Moscow, America s president will be seeing a country on the verge of a new political thaw, a revived perestroika . But pushing the re set button on US Russia relations may be harder than Obama and his team imagined.

All three parties involved will need to tread with care to make certain that the thaw in China Taiwan relations is not set back by this proposed arms deal. For, if Asia is to begin to build the type of dense institutional infrastructure that has brought Europe peace and prosperity, the flashpoint between China and Taiwan will need to be transformed into a foundation stone of regional cooperation.

Yet, within days, the word Stalinism was being expunged from a new Soviet dictionary, and three years later my grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced Stalin s cult of personality in his famous Secret Speech to the Communist Party s XXth Congress. The Khrushchev thaw that followed may have been short lived, but for the first time in Soviet history the possibility of change was opened a possibility that Mikhail Gorbachev seized upon in 1985.

Much of the worst anti Japanese bombast has disappeared from Chinese television in recent weeks, and former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is due to meet with Xi in Beijing this week. This does not yet add up to a thaw in the bilateral relationship, but it does suggest that Xi may be seeking a respite, at least until China s economy is on a more stable footing and his anti corruption campaign begins to wind down.