Eastern European Forum

2012-01-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

Russian Liberals Growing Uneasy With Alliances

MOSCOW — About two and a half hours into a recent strategy session of Russia’s new protest movement, someone raised the question that could tear apart the crazy-quilt alliance opposing Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s power.

“I’d like to ask on what basis extreme nationalists and ultra-right-wing groups are allowed to participate in this civic movement,” said Aleksandr Bikbov, a mop-haired and bespectacled sociologist. “Especially,” he added, “if they shout antidemocratic slogans like ‘Russia for ethnic Russians’ from the stage.”

Before he could make his case, Mr. Bikbov was drowned out by a mixture of applause and boos, prompting the moderator to remove his question from the discussion. One audience member called him a “liberal fascist.”
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How much influence nationalists will come to exert on the new protest movement is unclear. In their balaclavas and combat boots, they were clearly the black sheep at two huge anti-Kremlin protests in December, where their vocal denunciations of immigrants and calls for ethnic purity were often drowned out by chants of “Fascism will not pass!”

But it is clear that they have become a force in Russia that is politically perilous to ignore. Long before protests became fashionable among members of Russia’s urban middle class, who turned out in droves for the December demonstrations, nationalists had the monopoly on street theater, organizing protests that drew thousands.

Moreover, their ideas have a following that extends beyond the office buildings and hipster cafes of Moscow and into the more conservative Russian heartland, where the success or failure of the protest movement could be decided.

2012-01-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

ACTA protests erupt in Poland

It’s not every day parliamentary members identify themselves with a subversive Internet group. But that’s just what happened in Poland when lawmakers from the leftist party Palikot’s Movement covered their faces with Guy Fawkes masks, the look that has become shorthand for Anonymous. A contentious fight broke out in parliament — and in the streets — over Poland's plans to sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

ACTA is meant to set international standards for violations of intellectual-property laws, but opponents fear it could lead to censorship online. The United States signed the agreement last year, along with Canada and South Korea. For the past week, the agreement has stirred a battle online after the European Union started to consider joining.

On Thursday, Poland and 21 other European Union members signed the treaty. The Internet group Anonymous attacked Polish government Web sites, protesters marched in the streets and lawmakers donned the masks.

2012-01-26T10:13:00.000-08:00

Across the World, Leaders Brace for Discontent and Upheaval

DAVOS, Switzerland — Protesters in Moscow and Cairo fill public squares to demand representative government. Yet on the streets of Madrid and New York — or of Athens, which gave us the very word for democracy — discontent is almost as rampant.

The only consistent messages seem to be that leaders around the world are failing to deliver on their citizens’ expectations and that Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools allow crowds to coalesce at will to let them know it. This is not a comforting picture for the 40 heads of state or leaders of governments who are attending the World Economic Forum here, including such disparate leaders as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany’s multiparty democracy or Meles Zenawi, the prime minister of the authoritarian state of Ethiopia.
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No one can predict with confidence what kind of societies will emerge from the turmoil. The superiority of American and European democracy no longer seems as clear-cut as it did a decade ago. Political views in the United States are polarized, and public confidence in Congress is at a low level. The euro zone debt crisis drags on as European leaders quarrel endlessly about how to solve it.
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Hungary, in fact, is an example of how fragile democracy can be, even in the middle of Europe. A symbol of resistance to Soviet dominance after its 1956 revolt, Hungary was one of the first former Communist countries to join the European Union.

Now Prime Minister Viktor Orban faces accusations that he has used his majority in Parliament to mute criticism by the news media, weaken rival centers of power like the courts and the central bank and perpetuate his party’s dominance by rewriting the Constitution.

2012-01-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

Russia gives WikiLeaks' Julian Assange a TV platform

WikiLeaks founder and controversy magnet Julian Assange has been driven off the Internet, deprived of funding and placed under house arrest. Now he will get his chance to strike back, courtesy of the Kremlin.

Starting in March, Mr. Assange will host a 10-part series of interview programs with "key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries" on Russia Today (RT), a state-funded English-language satellite news network which claims to reach more than 85 million viewers in the US alone.

According to a statement on his website, the new Assange series will explore the "upheavals and revolutions" that are shaking the Middle East and expose how "the deterioration of the rule of law has demonstrated the bankruptcy of once leading political institutions and ideologies" in the West.
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"We liked a lot of the WikiLeaks revelations. It was very much in sync with what Russia Today has been reporting about the Arab Spring, and about the duplicitous policies of the US and its allies all along," says Peter Lavelle, a senior journalist with RT and host of its Cross Talk public affairs program.

"I think the Russian government will be pleased [to see Assange working on RT]. It's a soft power coup for Russia," he adds.

Poland fears U.S. defense cuts make it vulnerable to Russia

2012-01-25T09:20:00.000-08:00

By Gabriela Baczynska – Tue Jan 24, 12:12 pm ET
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland fears planned defense cuts by the United States may stall the development of an anti-missile system on Polish soil and leave it more vulnerable to Russia, a senior government source said.
U.S. President Barack Obama's drive to cut nearly half a trillion dollars in defense spending over the next 10 years means Washington is reviewing already announced programs to reflect a stronger focus on Asia.
This review covers a planned U.S. missile shield endorsed by NATO. Missile interceptors are planned to be deployed in Poland from 2018 but the plan is vehemently opposed by its neighbor Russia, which regards the shield as a threat to its security.
"From Poland's point of view, the worst-case scenario is that Russia, sensitive to this issue, as a retaliation places various elements in Kaliningrad while the missile shield, now reviewed by Americans, never comes true," the source said under condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

CEC Registers Billionaire Prokhorov as Presidential Candidate

2012-01-25T09:18:00.000-08:00

Russia’s election authorities on Wednesday officially registered tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov to run in the presidential elections in March.
The billionaire has now become one of five campaign hopefuls. The four other registered candidates are Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, moderate social democratic leader Sergei Mironov, populist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky and communist leader Gennady Zyuganov.
The signatures collected by Prokhorov satisfy all requirements, the Central Election Committee (CEC) said. The checking of signature sheets in support of Prokhorov revealed 4.38 percent were invalid, which is under the legal 5 percent threshold.

2012-01-24T19:03:00.000-08:00

NATO hails 2011 successes in Afghanistan

KABUL — NATO-led forces in Afghanistan on Tuesday gave themselves an upbeat report card for 2011, claiming successes on the battlefield, in the classroom and in preparing to hand over to Afghan forces.

In a "remarkably successful" year, Taliban insurgents had been forced onto the back foot in their southern stronghold, said International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson.

"The success has been so great that insurgents have largely lost control of the area and now rely on IEDs (improvised-explosive devices) as their primary method of attack," he said.

And in the east, troops "significantly disrupted the Haqqani network through Operations Shamshir and Knife Edge, where coalition forces captured or eliminated over 500 insurgent leaders and fighters last fall".
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His remarks came in stark contrast to perceptions that security has worsened in the Afghan capital over the last 12 months with a series of spectacular attacks on Western targets, such as the US embassy siege.

The United Nations has also disagreed with NATO assessments, saying in September that the number of security incidents was up 39 percent on the first eight months of 2010, while ISAF said they were down two percent.

2012-01-23T09:13:00.000-08:00

Russia hands over nuclear-powered attack submarine to India

MOSCOW: Russia on Monday handed over the much-awaited Nerpa nuclear-powered attack submarine to India on a 10-year lease at a cost of over USD 900 million, boosting the Indian navy's fire-power.

The K-152 submarine was handed over to the Indian navy at a ceremony in the far eastern port of Primorye, making India the sixth operator of such subs in the world.

Indian ambassador to Russia, Ajai Malhotra, walked along the line of guards of honour of the Russian Pacific Fleet and Indian seamen in the port town of Bolshoi Kamen in Russia's Far Eastern Primorye Territory, Itar-Tass news agency quoted Rossiiskaya Gazeta as saying.

After national anthems of the two countries were played, a cloth hiding the submarine's new name was taken off and the Indian flag was unfurled.
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The acquisition of the submarine will make Indian navy only the sixth country in the world after the US, Russia, China, the UK and France to operate nuclear underwater vessels.

After Croatia, who is next in the EU queue?

2012-01-22T12:03:00.000-08:00

Voters in Croatia, part of the former Yugoslavia, go to the polls this weekend to decide whether or not to join the European Union.

8:35PM GMT 21 Jan 2012

If they vote Yes – as seems likely, since polls show 60 per cent favour membership – they will be on course to become the 28th member of the bloc on July 1 next year.
Many countries around the Mediterranean and further east on the fringes of the former Soviet Union would like to be considered for membership as well.

But right now, after the rapid expansion of the EU over the past decade, most of them are ruled out. Instead seven countries closer to hand are on a path to eventual membership. Turkey, officially regarded as a candidate since 1987, has been waiting longest. But Montenegro is on course to join far sooner, Iceland's negotiations are well under way, and Macedonia may not be far behind.
Serbia and Albania have both applied for membership, and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, two more remnants of Yugoslavia, are hoping to begin their talks soon.

Yet in Hungary:

"We want nothing else than for the people of Europe and the United States to understand that we want to live in freedom, within the framework of democracy, by respecting others.
"We democrats believe in our nation's independence, we believe in its future and its present."

Serbs, Croats “have most similar DNA”

2012-01-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

SKOPJE -- A six-year long DNA research of the Balkan peoples conducted by Skopje Forensics Medicine Institute has showed remarkable resemblance among them.
“The analysis of the data has showed that residents of Macedonia have the most similar DNA with Bulgarians and Serbs, Croats with Bosnian and Serbian population while Kosovo Albanians have the fewest similarities with the others,” says Forensics Medicine Institute’s Dr Zlatko Jakovski.
The Macedonian scientists received samples and data from most of the Balkan countries, except from Greece, who refused to take part in the project. All the other countries sent DNA analyses of the victims who had died in their territory to Skopje.   “By using sophisticated computer technology we have compared the data from Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Kosovo,” Jakovski explained.   The research has been published in the leading world forensics magazines and the results will be used in criminal investigations in cases when victims are from the Balkans.

2012-01-21T23:57:00.000-08:00

Something Strange Happened on the way to the Revolution: Putin's Popularity is Increasing

No Putin isn’t nearly back to the stratospheric ratings he enjoyed during the boom years, but neither is his popularity caught in a downward spiral:

“A respected polling agency connected to the Russian government announced Friday that the popularity of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had reversed its slow decline, rising above 50 percent for the first time in weeks. The news comes just over a month before presidential elections that Mr. Putin is widely expected to win. The polling agency, VTsIOM, put Mr. Putin’s rating at 52 percent as of Jan. 14."

Even a Levada poll conducted from December 16-20 (that is during the height of the post-election turbulence when public anger over vote fraud was freshest and most raw) showed that Putin would get 36% of the votes. 36% doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you consider that the runner-up was the buffoonish Vladimir Zhirinovsky who was supported by a mere 7% of likely voters. It is true that 22% of the poll’s respondents were undecided, so it’s entirely possible that Putin’s margin over his next-closest rival wouldn’t be nearly as impressive as the poll suggests at first glance, but I think the poll is helpful because it shows that a very large portion of Russian society (at least 40% since 3% of the poll’s respondents said they would vote for Medvedev) is basically supportive of the current regime.
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This is very strange . An objective analysis of the political situation suggests that main danger facing the anti-Putin movement isn’t that it will storm to victory too quickly but that it has already lost momentum as evidenced by the fact that Putin’s popularity has stabilized and is starting to slowly creep upward. In such a situation the very worst thing that the opposition can do is act as if it has already won and that Putin’s departure is only a matter of time.

Berezovsky to Sue Family of Former Partner

2012-01-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

London court has said it would consider a new suit brought by Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky against the family of his deceased business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili for the reimbursement of $3 billion, reports the Russian news portal Gazeta.ru, citing The Times of London.

2012-01-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

Nato's Afghan alliance unhinged by growing mutual mistrust

Mutual mistrust and contempt between local and foreign forces in Afghanistan that often borders on hatred is one of the main reasons why Afghan troops increasingly turn their guns on their Nato comrades, a damning report has found.

The research, commissioned by the US military, said American soldiers enrage their Afghan colleagues with what the report describes as extreme arrogance, bullying and "crude behaviour".

It also heavily criticised as "profoundly intellectually dishonest" the Nato claims that the killing of alliance troops by Afghan soldiers is extremely rare.

The data suggests incidents such as the killing on Friday of four French soldiers "reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between 'allies' in modern military history)".
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Without a decent security force the collapse of the current Afghan state after the drawdown of the vast majority of Nato forces by the end of 2014 would be inevitable.

2012-01-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

NATO Says Russian Missile Plan on Baltic Sea Is ‘Waste of Money’

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russian proposals to bolster military forces in its Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad would be “a waste of money.”

The Russian government has warned it may respond to the U.S.-led plan to position parts of a missile shield in eastern Europe by stationing its own strike missiles on its southern and western flanks, including Iskander rockets in Kaliningrad, located between NATO and European Union members Poland and Lithuania.

“These Russian statements are a matter of concern for NATO allies,” Rasmussen told a news conference in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, today. “It is a complete waste of Russian financial resources because it is a build-up of offensive military capacity directed against an artificial enemy. An enemy that doesn’t exist, because NATO has no intention whatsoever to attack Russia.”

Russia should instead invest its resources in economic development and the creation of jobs, he said.

“I would encourage the Russians to face the new reality,” Rasmussen said. “We’re not enemies, we’re not adversaries, we should be partners. It would be of mutual benefit if we developed peaceful cooperation.”

2012-01-18T21:11:00.000-08:00

Perry Slammed by Turkey for Saying Nation Led by Terrorists

Turkey’s government condemned Republican presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry for saying the country is ruled by “Islamic terrorists” and should possibly be kicked out of NATO.
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“Many would perceive” Turkey to be run by Islamic terrorists, Perry said in the first of two Republican Party primary debates in South Carolina yesterday. Some view Turkey’s leadership as terrorist because of their support for Hamas and the Gaza flotilla, Perry advisor Victoria Coates said, according to ABC television.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan drew criticism from U.S. Republicans in 2010 after supporting an attempt to break Israel’s sea blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nine Turkish activists were killed by Israeli soldiers. He also hosted leaders of Palestinian group Hamas, recognized as terrorists by the U.S. and European Union. Erdogan, whose party is rooted in an Islamic movement ousted from power by a military-led campaign in 1997, says he is seeking to boost democracy in Turkey, including religious freedoms, as the country pursues membership of the EU.

2012-01-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

As European Union Beckons, Allure Fades for Wary Croatia

Much has changed in the decade since Croatia first applied to join the European Union. What was once seen as a rich man’s club — which Croatia was eager to join — no longer looks like such a clear ticket to prosperity. Today’s European Union is mired in a crippling debt crisis, which has pushed some of its members to the brink of bankruptcy and threatened its very essence.
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Critics go much further. They say that recent events have proved that Germany and France make the big decisions and that a country the size of Croatia, with a population of just 4.5 million, will have little say.

They worry also about joining just in time to pay the bill for Greece and other debt-laden countries. And they worry that Croatia, with a long Adriatic coastline, will find itself confronting a flood of immigrants, as Spain, Italy and Greece have.

“In the European Parliament, we would be 12 members out of more than 740; in the Council of Ministers, 7 votes out of more than 350,” said Marjan Bosnjak, secretary of the Council for Croatia, an association opposing European Union membership. “We will be a statistical error. Who will give a damn about what Croatians think?”
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The reach of the European Union is often underestimated, as it tries to create an even playing field among its members. Take the egg business. No detail seems overlooked. The union’s rules say that the chicken cages must allow at least 750 square centimeters per hen and contain a nest, litter, perch and “clawing board.” These requirements are amusing to Mr. Sluga, the farmer. “The chickens have more rights than humans in the E.U.,” he joked.

Vote on Russian Language in Latvia an ‘Incitement’ - Berzins

2012-01-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

RIGA, January 17 (RIA Novosti)
A possible referendum in Latvia on whether to make Russian a second state language is a “deliberate incitement,” Latvian President Andris Berzins said on Tuesday.
“Some political groups are currently using the media to turn the issue of the referendum into the main event in Latvia. I cannot and do not want to agree with such a stance as the referendum is a deliberate incitement and its result will not settle any of the important problems for the nation,” Berzins told journalists.
Russian-speakers make up 44% of Latvia's 2.3-million population. Latvian is the official state language and Russian is treated as a foreign language.

2012-01-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

Kremlin Walks a High Wire on Iran's Nuclear Program

As tensions rise between the West and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program, Russia is trying to play a highwire balancing act.

Pyotr Topychkanov studies nuclear non-proliferation for Carnegie Moscow Center. “Russia does not want Iran with a nuclear weapon,” said Topychkanov.

He said a nuclear-armed Iran would start a regional arms race, starting with the Sunni Muslim Gulf monarchies that ship their oil to the outside world through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, a Shi'ite Muslim nation, has threatened to close the strait, if pushed too hard on the nuclear issue.

Closer to home, the Kremlin worries that if Iran gets a nuclear bomb, Russia’s historic southern rival, Turkey, will race to get its own nuclear weapon.

Evgeny Satanovsky runs the Near East Institute in Moscow. He speaks of Russia’s new worry about Turkey and its increasingly aggressive prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“We have in Turkey the new Ottoman Empire. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a man with a very dangerous ambition, and he looks at himself a new Ottoman Sultan,” he said.

Satanovsky says good relations with Turkey and Iran are essential for keeping the peace in Russia’s Muslim south. A century ago, the inhabitants of Russia’s Southern Caucasus were called “mountain Turks.” Today, they still resent rule by Moscow. In Dagestan, a low-level insurgency take lives almost daily.

Satanovsky worries that an angry Iran would strike back at Moscow by bankrolling Muslim extremist groups in Russia’s Caucasus.

“Don’t touch them too aggressively, because they can destabilize the Northern Caucasus, the Russian Dagestan or some other territories for a few months," he said.
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Topychanov at Carnegie says Russia is less a player and more a bystander in events to its south. “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia does not have the resources to play an active role even in this region,” he said.

What People are saying about SERBIA: Faces & Places

2012-01-15T23:41:00.000-08:00

"...an iconically important historical document which will change the minds of people who have only known Serbia through recent media reporting."

"There are books inspired by malice and hatred. The book Serbia: Faces & Places was inspired by love. The love for a nation slandered and vilified by misinformation. Love for innocent victims, and, above all, love for the truth."

Link for more information about the book.

From an email message I received this morning:

"For more than 20 years I have promoted the Serbian side of the Civil Wars in former Yugoslavia, many times spending my retirement savings to utilize my publishing skills. I have never asked for reimbursement for this effort. But having spent the past 20 years defending the Serbian cause I now ask that you help me promote my new book Serbia: Faces & Places that does not promote war, or take sides, but promotes Serbia in the most positive light to counter acts by the partisan press that have demonized the Serbian people with collective guilt. A process that continues 15 years after the wars ended to dismember former Yugoslavia."

...

"I have never made such an appeal to my fellow Serbs for any of the 8 other books that I have written and published on Balkan history, but it is time to challenge the conscience of every Serb in the United States to step forward and put your money where your mouth is. $25 dollars is not a large amount of money, but if Serbs had the vision that this book should be in every library and in every collage library in the United States it can repair the damage done to us as an ethnic group. My request is therefore not asking too much. Short of that success, asking me to put my life at risk by continuing to write and speak out in defense of my fellow Serbs and expose my identity to our enemies is asking a bit too much, I will therefore withdraw from my public defense of Serbia."

Bill Dorich, Publisher/author

2012-01-15T23:12:00.000-08:00

Lenin impersonators thrive under Russian capitalism

MOSCOW • Lenin and the czar were ready. There were no cops in sight, and the sunny weather had brought out a swarm of tourists on this early winter afternoon.

Adjusting the worker's cloth cap on his bald head, Lenin set off at a brisk pace across the dark-gray cobblestones of Red Square, trailed by Nicholas II, who shouldered a flag emblazoned with the double-headed eagle, the emblem of Russia's emperors.

"Lenin," came voices, some amused, others astonished. "It's Lenin."

"The czar is back."

The dvoiniki, or impersonators of historical figures, got down to business. Price of a souvenir snapshot with them: 100 rubles, or about $3. Demand was brisk, but the costumed entrepreneurs had to keep an eye out for the police. Lenin, portrayed by Sergei Solovyov, had 20,000 rubles, or about $630, in fines pending against him for unlicensed peddling.
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By some counts, as many as five Lenins compete for the tourist trade in Red Square (known among themselves as "Tall Lenin," "Drunk Lenin," and so on). There's also a Putin, a Brezhnev and a Stalin. There was a Karl Marx as well, but he died.

2012-01-14T22:14:00.000-08:00

Kosovo gypsies living in 'toxic' camps

Brooklyn, New York (VICE.COM) -- While the average American's understanding of the conflict in Kosovo is a simple, two-sided Sneetch-battle between the mountainous region's dominant Serbian minority and oppressed Albanian majority, the reality is a lot more convoluted than a Wikipedia page or morning radio parody of the Beach Boys' "Kokomo" can accurately convey. In addition to the Serbs in the north and Albanians in the south, Kosovo is host to a pizza pie of smaller ethnic groups like Gorans, Illyrians, and Roma scattered in enclaves throughout the entire country.

During the 1998-1999 war, as the Serbian Yugoslav Army and NATO-backed Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army vied with each other to see who could rack up the most atrocities, these sub-minorities were victims of a disproportionate amount of collateral brutality. Especially the Kosovo Roma, more widely known as "gypsies." Of the 250,000 people displaced from their homes by the fighting, an estimated 90,000 were Roma, a figure which is a little more jarring when you realize the region's total Romani population is just a little north of 100,000.
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"The UN were having gypsies running into schoolhouses seeking shelter from the Albanians who were chasing them out of their homes," says Polansky from his house in Southern Serbia. "And so they opened a few Internally Displaced People camps, but they didn't know how to work with the gypsies, so they needed an expert to actually move into the camps to live with them and advise them. That's what they brought me to Kosovo to do."

Polansky was immediately unimpressed by the conditions at the camp he moved into an old French army barracks called Osterode.

"There were about 1,800 tents put up by the 23rd Pioneer Regiment of the British Army. They were put on toxic wasteland. The land itself was lower than the road coming into the camp and so when it rained there was water in all the tents. The only food they were given was flour and beans. They needed water to cook with but there was no water for cooking, no water for cleaning, and when I complained to the UN they said, 'Well, these are gypsies, they know how to look after themselves.' It was a constant fight just to get them to deliver water. We were not guaranteed any security. The Albanians were attacking the camp. We had children die because UN police refused to take them to hospital"

"In 1999, some Danish soldiers on patrol in Mitroviza had shown symptoms of lead poisoning," Polansky told us. "So their blood was taken, and it came back they had extremely high levels of lead poisoning. So in the summer of 2000, a UN medical team took blood tests all over Mitrovica. They found the highest lead levels were in the gypsy camps because they had been built on the tailings stands of the mines and the pollution from the smelter drifted right over their camp. Their blood samples were sent to a lab in Belgium and it was found that the children in these camps had the highest lead levels in medical literature."

2012-01-13T10:46:00.000-08:00

The west still looks at Russia through a prism of stereotypes

Respectable international media are still unwilling to delve deep into the specifics of Russia’s reality, which often leads them to ridiculous conclusions. This perception is due not to bias, but to banal intellectual laziness.

As expected, last December’s events caused yet another sporadic outburst of attempts by the foreign press to comprehend what’s happening in Russia. For several days, I was interrogated by virtually all the Francophone media, which, to my growing surprise, paid attention mostly to secondary issues without even trying to get to the heart of the unprecedented manifestation of civil activity in Russian society.
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Despite the current openness of Russian society, the West still sees the country through a prism of clichés – positive, negative and neutral, but clichés nonetheless – without ever trying to move away from the familiar set of memorized ideas: sturgeon caviar, Dostoyevsky, the balalaika, the mysterious Russian soul, vodka, dissidents, the demonic KGB, oligarchs, matryoshka dolls and revolutionary sailors. This intellectual lethargy, colored by a carefully concealed superiority complex, already prevented the West from identifying the real reason behind the fall of the Soviet Union, resulting in its absolutely irrelevant disappointment with the events that followed. These pragmatic observers are making the same mistake again, trying to convince themselves that globalization processes will sooner or later bring humankind to some universal democratic common denominator.

You must be living in Neverland if you truly believe that Garry Kasparov enjoys “global recognition” as the leader of the Russian opposition, therefore completely ignoring the fact that most Russians do not care about the recognition of their politicians “in international circles.”

If the West and especially Europe really want to see the emergence of a civilized Russia in the foreseeable future, they should painstakingly and responsibly broaden their knowledge of Russian society, abandoning their clichéd pictures and the whimpers of our “micro-liberals.”

They simply have to stop being lazy and start scrutinizing Russia’s social processes, which are growing increasingly complex.

The most important thing is for them to understand that for obvious reasons, what is currently going on in Russia cannot fit into their own historical patterns, to which they constantly refer in order to justify their reluctance to look into the sources of the “exotic whims” of our mentality and social evolution.

2012-01-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

Gevork Vartanian dies at 87; Soviet spy helped derail plot to kill Allied leaders

Gevork Vartanian, a former Soviet intelligence agent who helped derail a Nazi plot to assassinate allied leaders at a 1943 conference in Tehran, has died. He was 87.
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The Foreign Intelligence Service said Vartanian, whose father was a Soviet intelligence agent in Tehran posing as a merchant, began working for Soviet intelligence when he turned 16. He played a role in foiling a Nazi plot to assassinate Soviet leader Josef Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill when they held a conference in Tehran in November 1943.

Adolf Hitler ordered operation Long Jump after Nazi intelligence learned of the conference. Vartanian's group shadowed an advance team of Nazi agents, who arrived to set the ground for the mission, helping uncover the plot.

The Foreign Intelligence Service, which goes under its Russian acronym SVR, said that acting on orders from Moscow, Vartanian also joined a British intelligence school in Tehran and obtained information about its graduates sent to the Soviet Union, allowing Soviet authorities to catch them.

The SVR said Vartanian and his wife worked as intelligence agents in several countries between the 1950s and 1986, but didn't name them. They got married several times in different places as part of their cover. The ITAR-Tass news agency said they worked in Iran, Italy, France and Greece among other nations.

After retiring in 1992, Vartanian helped train young intelligence agents, the SVR said.

Spy v. Spy

2012-01-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

On a lighter note,

Russian spies used to study Michael Caine's movies and marvel at the cleverness of his characters.

The British actor was flattered when he learned Russian leader Vladimir Putin used to watch his Harry Palmer films in the late 1960s with his comrades in the KGB.

Dangerous Cargo

2012-01-11T22:41:00.000-08:00

A Russian ship apparently laden with arms for Syria was under way again Wednesday after being detained in Cyprus, only now its destination is supposed to be Turkey.

The incident signals apparently signals Russia's continued military support for the Syrian regime, according to The Guardian newspaper of London. The regime is under a European Union embargo for President Bashar Assad's crackdown on an uprising that has left at least 5,000 dead over the past 10 months.

2012-01-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

How threat of loose Soviet nukes was avoided

MOSCOW (AP) — The doomsday scenario of Soviet nukes falling into the hands of rogue states or terrorists has, as far as is known, remained fiction, thanks to a massive U.S.-Russian effort to lock the weaponry up safely after the Soviet Union fell apart.

The vast nuclear arsenal, scattered among several newly independent nations, was secured because Russian military officers acted with professionalism and honesty, Moscow and Washington shared clear priorities, and the U.S. taxpayer coughed up billions of dollars, former top officials who dealt with the Soviet nuclear legacy say.
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The economic meltdown of the early 1990s forced many officers of the once-proud Soviet Army to moonlight as security guards or even cab drivers And with the wars and ethnic clashes triggered by the Soviet collapse came strong incentives to steal weapons for the black market.

The immediate task for the Russian military was to quickly remove thousands of battlefield weapons such as nuclear artillery shells and land mines from other Soviet nations. These relatively compact arms posed the biggest proliferation risk and often were stored close to areas of conflict.

"The military officers who did the job were the unknown heroes," said Alexander Golts, a Russian independent analyst. "It's hard to imagine what might have happened if the tactical nuclear weapons had remained on the territories of the states involved in military conflicts."
.....
Building on their cooperation in securing the Soviet nuclear arsenals, Moscow and Washington moved later to reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by both sides, most recently with the New START deal signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev that took effect last year.

2012-01-10T08:32:00.000-08:00

Russia hints at foul play in its space failures

MOSCOW — The head of Russia's beleaguered space programme hinted on Tuesday that foreign powers may be behind the string of failures that struck his agency in the past year.

Roskosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin told the Izvestia daily he could not understand why several launches went awry at precisely the moment the spacecraft were travelling through areas invisible to Russian radar.

"It is unclear why our setbacks often occur when the vessels are travelling through what for Russia is the 'dark' side of the Earth -- in areas where we do not see the craft and do not receive its telemetry readings," he said.

"I do not want to blame anyone, but today there are some very powerful countermeasures that can be used against spacecraft whose use we cannot exclude," Popovkin told the daily.

One of Russia's most high-profile recent failures involved the November launch of a Mars probe called Phobos-Grunt that got stuck in a low Earth orbit and whose fragments are now expected to crash back down on Sunday.

Popovkin said there was "no clarity" as to why the 13.5-tonne probe's booster rocket failed to fire on schedule.

But he admitted the mission was risky to begin with because it involved an underfunded project whose original designs went back to Soviet times.

2012-01-09T10:51:00.000-08:00

Kosovo man charged in Islamist plot to attack Tampa nightclubs

Sami Osmakac, a naturalised US citizen from Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia, has been charged with one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He is due to appear in court on Monday.
.....
On December 21, Osmakac met with the undercover agent and allegedly told the agent that he wanted to buy an AK-47-style machine gun, Uzi submachine guns, high capacity magazines, grenades and explosive belt. During a later meeting, Osmakac gave the agent a $500 down payment for the items.

"According to the complaint, Osmakac also asked the undercover employee whether he/she could build bombs that could be placed in three different vehicles and detonated remotely, near where Osmakac would conduct a follow-up attack using the other weapons he requested," a government press release said.
....
"According to the complaint, Osmakac immediately shook his head in the negative and stated, 'We all have to die, so why not die the Islamic way?' " the press release stated.

2012-01-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Tanker plows toward cut-off Alaska city

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A Coast Guard icebreaker is cutting a path through icy seas for a Russian tanker carrying much-needed fuel for the iced-in Alaska city of Nome.

The 370-foot tanker Renda, hauling more than 1.3 million gallons of fuel, is scheduled to arrive later Monday or Tuesday. It was less than 190 miles away on Saturday.

Video and still photo images released by the Coast Guard show the two vessels moving steadily through ice jammed seas.

The city of about 3,500 people on the western Alaska coastline did not get its last pre-winter fuel delivery because of a massive storm. If the delivery of diesel fuel and unleaded gasoline is not made, the city likely will run short of fuel supplies before another barge delivery can be made in spring.
.....
The Renda left Russia in mid-December after the barge delivery of 1.6 million gallons of fuel failed and Nome became iced-in for the winter.

Serbian president's convoy stoned in Kosovo

2012-01-07T09:50:00.000-08:00

(Reuters) - Kosovo Albanian protesters hurled stones at an armored motorcade carrying Serbian President Boris Tadic Friday as he marked Orthodox Christmas in the former Serbian province, where Serb-Albanian tensions have resurfaced.
Kosovo's population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, and it became the last state to emerge from the remains of federal Yugoslavia when it declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Tadic traditionally visits the 14th century marble monastery in Decani to mark Serbian Orthodox Christmas on January 7.

2012-01-06T16:18:00.000-08:00

Britain warns US not to forget Russia

As the United States pivots its military might toward Asia, Washington and its allies should not forget that Russia remains an unpredictable global player, Britain's defence minister has cautioned.

Calling it "perhaps the single most important strategic challenge" facing Europe, British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond voiced concern about Russia shortly before President Barack Obama announced a major realignment of US strategy.

Driven by plans for a $US487 billion ($A471 billion) cut in American defence spending over the next decade, the new strategy will cut back US ground forces and shift military resources to meet a rising China, continuing a trend of de-emphasising Europe.

"If the US is going to see its focus drawn increasingly to the Asia Pacific region, how does it secure the backyard?" Hammond asked an audience at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, on Thursday.

"How does it ensure that Russia is locked into a system of global governance and collaboration, which means we can coexist peacefully and resolve our differences through structures that do not lead to conflict?
.....
"We should not forget that although the threat of Soviet Communism has passed, Russia as a nation still exists," Hammond said. "It is still an important global player, the intentions of which are not entirely clear or predictable at this stage."

"Certainly some of our NATO allies, the Baltic states, would urge us not to take our eye off of that potential set of future challenges as we reconfigure our security and defence posture to deal with challenges we are immediately facing," he said.

2012-01-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

Could the Russian Elite Turn Against Putin?

Analytically, Russia's elite is split along multiple cross-cutting lines--the lines between politics and business; the federal, regional and local levels; pro-government forces, the "approved" systemic opposition (who oppose Putin but currently operate within the rules he has established), and the nonsystemic opposition (who oppose Putin and the rules he has established); those inside the security services and those outside; and Putin's senior political lieutenants, principal business dependents and everyone else.

Those in the nonsystemic opposition--leaders like Nikolai Ryzhkov and Boris Nemtsov--have already chosen sides. Thus some of their calculations are already evident; this segment of the elite is already opposing Putin and the governing structures he created. What is not known is whether these individuals would support extraconstitutional measures if Russia faces a real political crisis or widespread violence. Doing so could carry significant risks for people who oppose the system but are currently generally tolerated by Russia's regime.

The systemic opposition also might confront this choice if Russia's political system comes apart. More immediately, however, politicians like Communist Party head Gennadi Zyuganov, Just Russia leaders Sergei Mironov or nationalist eccentric Vladimir Zhirinovsky might see an opportunity to redefine the rules in their favor after December 4 State Duma elections that substantially increased their collective representation in the parliament and handed United Russia a symbolic defeat. While some have been more independent of Putin than others, and there are questions about the seriousness of oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov's possible candidacy, a few in this group might even see an opportunity for an opposition leader to win the presidency. The natural response would be tentative but escalating tests of the boundaries, accelerated by the pressures of the looming March 4 election.

President Dmitri Medvedev's former supporters comprise a separate group that is not quite opposition but also not quite pro-government -- their reason for existence was precisely to replace Putin and to change some government policies (though not the system as a whole; there was no indication that Medvedev would strive to run free and fair elections). Further, having been surprised by Medvedev's announcement that he would support Putin, it is not certain that they are now prepared to back either leader.

Middle- and lower-level federal officials, as well as a number of regional and local officials, have completely different incentives and disincentives. On one hand, most are heavily dependent on Prime Minister Putin, who can remove them relatively easily if affronted. On the other hand, most are also sufficiently removed from Putin personally to avoid the risks in going down with a sinking ship. In the absence of specific threats to individual interests, this segment of the elite -- the largest in number -- is thus strongly motivated to do enough to help the prime minister to win the presidency so as to avoid blame while simultaneously waiting with a collective finger in the wind for the election outcome.

Russia's top officials (including top security officials) and major business leaders confront the most difficult dilemmas. They also depend overwhelmingly on Putin and the current political system and are most vulnerable to changes -- particularly changes that include investigations and prosecutions or (worse) mob justice. At the same time, their outward conduct is under close scrutiny. As a result, their calculations are likely to be the most complex and least visible.

Kremlin reshuffle may signal Putin's tougher campaign style: analysts

2012-01-04T12:37:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti, Maria Kuchma)
The ongoing shifts in the Russian presidential administration and the government reflect a short-term mobilization of Russia’s top establishment to guarantee a victory for Vladimir Putin in the upcoming presidential elections, analysts say.
The reshuffles, they say, will make the style of Russia’s domestic politics more straightforward over the next two months, while the Kremlin’s future policies will largely depend on how Putin will perform in the March polls.
“By replacing the key official responsible for domestic politics two months before the vote, Putin primarily cares about how his presidential campaign will be organized,” Nikolai Petrov from the Carnegie Moscow Center said.

2012-01-04T09:26:00.000-08:00

Hungary's Currency Hits New Lows Amid More Signs Of Upheaval

The Hungarian forint weakened to its lowest value against the euro since last month—near its lowest level ever—at 319.4 amid worries that the political situation there is becoming untenable.

Increasing attention is being paid to the small Eastern European country, at the center of Europe's other debt crisis.

The Hungarian government is running short on cash after it passed a law last week that could compromise the independence of its central bank. That law flaunted guidance from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, who provided the troubled country with €20 billion ($26 billion) a bailout back in 2008.
.....
Domestic turbulence is complicating matters, with protestors taking to the street to protest the government's new constitution (which includes that controversial central bank law). According to the BBC, protests are focusing on three major issues:

A clause that defends the "intellectual and spiritual unity of the nation," which opponents argue could result in repression of intellectual freedoms

Inclusion of social issues like the right of the unborn child and the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman

Changes to the electoral system which could empower the leading Fidesz party at the expense of the opposition

Popular support for the Fidesz party hit 18% in a December opinion poll cited by the BBC, although it still leads other parties.

If the Hungarian government were unable to pay its bills, it could wreck the Austrian banking system, which has an estimated $226 billion in exposure to Eastern Europe and €1.14 trillion ($1.6 trillion) of assets held in the region.

December 2011: Information War against Russia

2011-12-30T23:00:00.000-08:00

A dirty media campaign against Russia was unleashed in August 2008, spearheaded by American and British news networks. The events of December 2011 are very similar to those of August 2008. Only this time, media manipulation of public opinion is much more subtle and sophisticated, wherein the mudslingers smartly take advantage of the Russian government’s actual mistakes, as well as the government’s inaptitude in online media campaigning......

It is hardly a coincidence that many of the participants of Moscow’s two opposition rallies were holding up signs in English, which were broadcast with close-ups by British and American TV stations. One is bound to get the impression that there is some truth to the notion that Russian opposition rallies are covertly encouraged by the American and British governments – after all, there is a US government grant for “Russia’s civil society development” ($190 million went towards that cause in 2011).

2011-12-30T11:33:00.000-08:00

Putin: Russia, US can achieve a lot if they maintain equal dialogue

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in his New Year's greetings to U.S. President Barack Obama that achievements of this year should help improve Russian-U.S. cooperation.

"Putin said with satisfaction in his letter of greeting to U.S. President Barack Obama that relations between Russia and the U.S. have seen further development in the outgoing year, and the two countries have managed to attain important results in a number of areas by combining their efforts, including the enactment of the New START treaty and the completion of the negotiating process on Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization," the Russian government press service said in a statement.

"In the Russian prime minister's view, the positive groundwork that has been laid enables [the two countries] to continue their work on expanding Russian-American interaction in all areas," it says.

"I am convinced that we can achieve a lot if our dialogue is based on equality and real respect for each other's interests," Putin said.

Putin also sent his Christmas and New Year's greetings to British Prime Minister David Cameron. "Putin expressed the hope that Russian-British interaction will be strengthening in 2012 in all areas, i.e. politics and economy, trade and investments, science and high technology, education and culture," it says.

In his letter of greeting to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin mentioned the start of a number of large-scale joint projects, including the first phase of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. He said he was sure that the upcoming year will open up more opportunities for productive joint work, which should be further promoted by a year of Russia in Germany and a year of Germany in Russia.

2011-12-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

Huge broom fight between priests at church said to be the birthplace of Jesus

Sorry this is somewhat off topic — unless fighting with brooms in a church becomes a sport (your move, ESPN Deportes). It all happened in Bethlehem, two days after Christmas, as groups of rival priests attacked each other with brooms during the traditional cleaning of the Church of the Nativity. That’s the church in the West Bank that is said to be on the site where Jesus was born. Rival groups of Armenian and Greek Orthodox clergymen had a dispute over territorial boundaries in the church, and decided to throw down. Yep. Things got so raucous that Palestinian police — which I’m pretty sure have better things to do — were called in to quell the riot.

Ukrainian climbers to mark Euro 2012 with football game on Everest

2011-12-28T12:19:00.001-08:00

Mountaineers from Ukraine’s Donetsk Region will play a game of soccer on Mount Everest to mark the start of the Euro 2012 football championship, which is being jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine next year, said Sergei Kovaloyov, president of Donetsk Region Alpinism Federation.
“A team of Donetsk climbers plan to play a game of football on Everest in honor of Euro 2012. Let Ukraine score its first goal from the world’s highest mountain – from Everest,” Kovalyov said.
There have been concerns that Ukraine was in no state to host Europe’s top football competition after it was hit hard by the global economic crisis.
However, in late September the chief of European football’s governing body, Michel Platini, said Ukraine’s four host cities would be ready for Euro 2012.

2011-12-27T20:45:00.000-08:00

Architect of Russia’s Political System Under Putin Is Reassigned

MOSCOW — The Kremlin on Tuesday announced the reassignment of Vladislav Y. Surkov, the architect of the highly centralized political system that has come under waves of protest from middle-class Muscovites over the last month.

.....
Mr. Surkov, a former advertising prodigy, coined the term “sovereign democracy” to describe his system, which preserved the electoral process but hollowed out institutions capable of challenging the Kremlin’s power. He created an array of political tools — the youth movement Nashi, the United Russia party and the overwhelming force of fully controlled television — that helped Vladimir V. Putin consolidate his authority during his first two presidential terms.

The last several months have exposed many of those tools as outdated, and Mr. Surkov had become a lightning rod for a rising generation of Russians raised on the Internet, who are calling for an end to the manipulations.

Aleksei L. Kudrin, a former finance minister, called Mr. Surkov’s transfer a “serious bid to renew the political system,” and said it had been agreed upon by both President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Mr. Putin, the prime minister.
.....
Mr. Surkov’s low profile and extraordinary clout have earned him the title “gray cardinal,” an object of fascination and occasional loathing in the capital. Asked by a journalist from Interfax on Tuesday why he was leaving, Mr. Surkov first answered, “Stabilization devours its own children.”

Then he laughed, and said he had overstayed the job and had requested a reassignment. Asked whether he would take a role in settling down the protests, Mr. Surkov said no.

“I am too odious for this brave new world,” he said. He then summed up his achievements at the reporter’s request.

“I was among the people who helped President Yeltsin realize a peaceful transfer of power,” he said. “I was among those who helped President Putin stabilize the political system. I was among those who helped President Medvedev liberalize it.” He added, “I hope I did not undermine my employers and my colleagues.”

The news prompted discussion among an array of political players who have all found themselves dealing with Mr. Surkov over the years. Many said he was serving as a symbolic sacrifice to the growing ranks of protesters.

“We forget, sometimes, that in Europe, a person can come to an institution and assume its form,” Marat Guelman, a longtime political operative, wrote on the Web site of Ekho Moskvy radio. “Here, it’s the opposite: the institution takes the form of the person. And the departure of Surkov from the president’s administration is a sign that the president’s administration will stop handling domestic politics.”

2011-12-27T08:55:00.000-08:00

Azerbaijan doesn’t allow NATO’s AWACS planes to use its airspace

According to the report, NATO has recently addressed Azerbaijan and Georgia and asked for the use of their airspaces during the flight of AWACS planes to Afghanistan. Though Georgia officially allowed it, Azerbaijan didn’t allow the AWACS aircrafts to pass through the air space.

“Azerbaijan allowed the cargo flights to Afghanistan through its air space. But it is impossible to grant such permission because the AWACS aircrafts are the military intelligence aircrafts”, the source underlined.

The similar incident occurred one year ago. The German plane returning from Afghanistan to Europe wasn’t allowed to land in Baku.

AWACS planes, which are supplied with the latest technologies, and considered as “flying radars”, can detect the friendly and enemy planes from up to 400 km away. US-based AWACS aircrafts can show the place, height, speed of about 2000 planes and follow them.

2011-12-26T18:13:00.000-08:00

Western Media bias and Russian demonstrations

So, there are a few people demonstrating on Russia's streets, shouting Russia without Putin (Rossiya bez Putina), among other things, a soundbite picked up on by a western press hungry for catch-phrases against the Kremlin. Interesting. Maybe the USA and their allies would like to see the second most voted party, the Communist Party, in power? Now that would be a turn-up for the books wouldn't it?

It would, because the party of Vladimir Putin, United Russia, or Edinaya Rossiya, won 52% of the seats in the recent elections for the Parliament Lower House (DUMA) while the Communist Party won just over 20%. The ones on the streets are not the "population of Russia", but a handful of the members of the opposition parties. This is not a united movement, but rather representatives from all the parties which lost the elections, from the right wing, to the Russian nationalists, from the liberals, to the far left.

In statistical terms one in every one thousand four hundred people turned up in Saturday's demonstration, the largest to date, if we admit that there were 100,000 people on the streets. Let us compare that with the show of support for Muammar al-Qathafi's Jamahiriya Government in Libya against NATO and the terrorists it supported, namely one in every 5 people in the country, and we see the difference. One in 1,400 against one in 5.
.....
Let us be honest here...if Russians did not like Putin, then why did they vote for him? As for the opposition...learn how to lose with dignity. One thing is to come on the streets cavorting with western journalists, but these are the representatives of those who seek to destroy Russia through subversion and agents provocateurs. Supporting those who seek to destroy the State is an act of treachery.

“Protester” is NOT “person of the year”

2011-12-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

A quote from the Serbian newspaper ( translation)

The list of the true “persons of the year” is a bit long. On this list are those who gambled with our destiny: financial moguls, who have created the notion that there is more money then there was in reality and the financial activity is more valuable than the production. Politicians who were going in debt on our account and using that money to artificially maintaini the peace. They maintained the image that we are worth more than we deserve. The company managers who were solving their the failures by firing the work force. The company bosses who were stuffing their own pockets at the expense of the national income. The criminals who were finding ways to decriminalize their illegal actions. The lone givers whose aim was to indebt people to the maximum and than take their possessions. The engineers of war expeditions who broke international rules. The leader who were ignoring the minimal doses of sympathy toward others, and the economists who failed in estimating true effects of globalization.

Putin “still has majority support” in Russia

2011-12-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW -- PM Vladimir Putin still has support of the majority in Russia, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP Sunday after the biggest opposition protest yet against him.
"As a politician and a presidential candidate, Putin still has the support of a majority,” said Peskov after a mass opposition protest held in Moscow on Saturday.
"As far as their demands are concerned, their opinion is being heard and their opinion is being respected. Those people who came out onto the streets -- they are a very important part of society. But they are a minority," the spokesman stressed.   According to police, around 30,000 people rallied in downtown Moscow on Saturday but organizers say 120,000 people attended the protest.

Get Tired! Leave!

2011-12-25T00:16:00.000-08:00

Seems that calls for Putin's resignation are coming from the streets as well, but I have to think that much of this is being orchestrated by rival political parties not by a major groundswell of disdain for his administration. This is Zuganov and Zhirinovsky trying to cash in on the frustration in the country that reforms haven't gone far enough in the past 12 years. But, what would they do?

Putin opend up a can of worms by announcing his intention to return as President, but I wonder if those in the West have really paused to consider the ascension of one of these bozos to prime minister or god forbid president? Probably not. Too caught up in another set of street protests capturing the headlines. My brother-in-law was recently in Moscow and said the protests were pretty tame and likewise felt the alternatives far worse than the current situation.

Moscow Meeting 24 December 2011

2011-12-24T19:15:00.000-08:00

Left caption: 16 April, Prospect Sakharov. Anti-corruption rally of the movement "Nashi" [Kremlin-financed youth movement] gathered more than 50,000 persons, according to GUVD [Moscow police department].
Right caption: 24 December, Prospect Sakharov. About 29,000 persons came to the meeting for honest elections, according to GUVD.

An aerial view of yesterday's meeting:
Click on the link for 360-degree panorama view of the meeting at 2:50 pm yesterday afternoon. The meeting ran from 2:00 pm until the announced end at 5:30 pm. Between 5:30 and 6:00 pm, recorded music was played over the sound system while people were leaving. I enjoyed a cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," in particular, the line "'There must be some way out of here,' said the Joker to the Thief." There must have been at least a few in the crowd that understood the English and appreciated the choice.

2011-12-24T11:45:00.000-08:00

Mikhail Gorbachev urges Vladimir Putin to step down as thousands attend demo in Moscow

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev tonight called on prime minister Vladimir Putin to step down.

Mr Gorbachev spoke after a demonstration against Mr Putin drew tens of thousands in Moscow.
.....
Mr Gorbachev said if Mr Putin stepped down now he would be remembered for the positive things he did during his 12 years in power.

The 80-year-old Mr Gorbachev carries little weight in Russia today.

And while many Russians have grown weary with Mr Putin's rule, his opponents are split among numerous groups.

Today's protest against election fraud was as big as the one two weeks ago, although rallies in other cities in the far east and Siberia earlier today drew much smaller crowds.

Siberian man miraculously unharmed as satellite piece crashes through roof

2011-12-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

NOVOSIBIRSK, December 24 (RIA Novosti)
A Siberian resident miraculously escaped serious injury or even death when a fragment of a Russian communication satellite crashed through the roof of his house.
A Meridian satellite that was launched on Friday from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia on board a Soyuz-2 carrier rocket crashed near the Siberian city of Tobolsk minutes after liftoff.
Eight satellite fragments were found in an area some 100 kilometers from the city of Novosibirsk.
One, a titanium ball of about five kilograms, fell on to the roof of a village house in the Ordyn district.
The house owner, Andrei Krivorukov, had gone out to the yard to fetch firewood minutes before the crash.

2011-12-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

Cloud making UFO brings Russian city to standstill, video

A cloud emitting UFO has brought an entire Russian city to a standstill, overshadowing Christmas and New Year celebration and leaving residents perplexed and seeking answers from local politicians (see video below). The event took place yesterday in the southern city of Trekhgorny, located in the Chelyabinsk region near the Khazakstan border. It has been reported that nervous community leaders have already relayed messages to Moscow's Science Ministry asking for clarification as to the nature of the UFO witnessed and filmed. The event is significant in that Trekhgorny, created under Soviet rule, is a closed city and non-residents are forbidden entry unless in possession of a formal invitation from friends or family, approved by local authorities.

Trekhgorny's status as a closed city is due to the fact that its main industry is the production of nuclear reactors. Consequently some are suggesting that it is possible that alien technology might be currently being reversed engineered in its midst. Ample research has been done on the topic of the high incidence of UFO and alien activity in the vicinity of nuclear reactors. Strong evidence suggests that aliens are extremely concerned with human plans to make use of nuclear energy in space. Some commentators are suggesting that with this very public showing aliens are sending a very clear message to Moscow regarding their concerns. Alien activity in Russia reached a peak in 2011. Strong evidence suggests that Russia is in communion with a number of alien races and although UFO bases exist in Siberia, relations are between Russia and these visitors are shaky.

Euroskepticism increases in Serbia

2011-12-23T09:27:00.000-08:00

The main reasons for the sudden decline in support to the EU are long EU accession process, economic crisis in Europe and fear that the EU candidacy would mean giving up on Kosovo, analysts told daily Press.
According to polls, the situation regarding citizens’ support to the EU has significantly changed since 2006. More than two thirds of the citizens supported the country’s EU accession five years ago, but the support dropped to 50 percent in June 2011.   Brussels’ decision not to grant Serbia the EU candidate status has additionally decreased the citizens’ support to only 28 percent, a poll conducted by Partner Consulting show

2011-12-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

Turkey and France in growing confrontation over French ‘genocide bill’

The French National Assembly today passed a controversial bill penalizing anyone who denies the Armenian genocide by Ottoman forces almost a century ago.
.....
"As of now, we are canceling bilateral level political, economic and military activities," Mr. Erdogan said. "We are suspending all kinds of political consultations with France" and "bilateral military cooperation, joint maneuvers are canceled as of now," he added.

Erdogan said that he will annul any permissions given to French military vessels to dock at Turkish ports and would consider on a case-by-case basis requests for military overflights and landings. The Turkish prime minister said that "This decision is cause for concern not only for France where there are efforts to make gains through enmity toward Turks and Turkey, and in general terms, through Islamophobia, but also for Europe and principles defended by Europe."

The French bill requires a prison term of up to one year and a fine of $58,000 (45,000 euros) to anyone who publicly denies the mass killings of the Armenians during World War I. In 2001, France officially recognized the ‘Armenian genocide’ but a subsequent parliamentary effort to criminalize it was dropped by the Senate.

2011-12-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

Why we have finally fallen out of love with Europe

Russia no longer sees itself as part of modern Europe. The idea of creating a common European space from Vladivostok to Brest has failed. The ongoing rapid change of the European model prompts Moscow to take any long-term projects involving Europe with a big pinch of salt.
.....
The weakening of Europe and its creeping self-liquidation as an independent international policy player makes Moscow focus more on what is happening in Washington. Such a strategy clearly goes against the grain with some countries that are Russia’s traditional partners in Europe. But at the end of the day, constrained as they are by European discipline, they are unable to offer Russia anything. The only project on which Russia and Europe could be strategic partners for decades to come is the European missile defence system. However, under US pressure the Europeans have refused to co-operate with Moscow on that issue.
.....
Agreements on a European missile defence system may be a key decision capable of restoring Russia’s trust in the new-look European Union. Moscow believes that the West’s refusal to give legally binding security safeguards when deploying anti-ballistic missiles threatens its strategic interests. If, during the Nato summit in Chicago in 2012, the Europeans agree with the US administration on safeguards for Moscow, or at least adopt a roadmap for implementing safeguards, that could represent the starting point for other joint projects between Europe and Russia.

Another positive step is Europe’s desire for help from Russia in solving the EU’s economic problems. One way forward could be to revive the “European troika”, with Russia, France and Germany taking part.

Finally, Europe will need to renounce the artificially fomented wartime fears that “the Russians are coming”. The integration of Russia into the economy of a renewed European Union will enable both sides to overcome their mutual mistrust and will greatly increase the number of issues on which Moscow and Brussels will be able to co-operate successfully in the future.

Yevgeny Shestakov is editor of the international politics desk at Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

New crew on course for space station

2011-12-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

The Russian Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft carrying a new crew to the International Space Station separated from the Soyuz-FG rocket and entered an intermediary orbit on Wednesday, a Federal Space Agency official said.
The spacecraft, which lifted off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan at 5:16 p.m. Moscow time, is to dock with the ISS on Friday.

The new crew - NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers - will increase the ISS crew to six and will spend 147 days aboard the station.
They will carry out about 40 scientific experiments in orbit.

2011-12-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

Russia Economic Growth Bodes Well For Putin Election

The Russian economy continues to perform in line with market expectations. The country’s GDP is up nearly 5% year over year ending September, Rosstat reported on Tuesday, making it easier for presidential candidate Vladimir Putin to state his case that Russian livelihoods are safe in his hands.

The key indicator to watch going forward will be corporate investment. The latest figure of 7.7% year over year shows companies have started investing again after investments collapsed in late 2010.

Support for the consumer sector comes from several sides. Wages have improved and unemployment has dropped to 6.3% from 6.5%, with incomes rising more in the last month than they have all year. November wages rose 7.1% higher after inflation. Inflation is also falling, now at 6.8% in November and likely to end the year below 6.5%, according to Barclays Capital’s estimates.

Russia’s GDP is growing faster than Brazil’s, one of the big four emerging markets. As voters look around at their neighbors to the West and see one economic crisis after another, Putin’s chances of becoming president of Russia again are greatly improved. Putin, currently Prime Minister, is running for President instead of Dmitry Medvedev, a one-term leader in Moscow. Despite a knock on Putin’s popularity this month following protests by opposition party voters in response to alleged voting fraud during the Dec. 4 Parliamentary elections, Putin’s United Russia party is still seen as the one most aligned with mainstream Russians, according to the Levada Center, a private polling firm in the country.

Russia works on 100-ton monster ballistic missile

2011-12-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/19-12-2011/120016-russia_monster_ballistic_missile-0/

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Russia's state-of-the-art ballistic missiles have the shortest boost phase of the flight - this phase is much shorter than it was with older missiles. "At this short part of the flight the missiles perform active maneuvers, which makes it impossible for interceptors to plan the attack.

2011-12-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

Vaclav Havel, Czech leader of '89 'Velvet Revolution,' dead at 75

Of all the heroes of the anti-Communist struggles in Eastern Europe, Havel most successfully navigated the political challenges of democracy and free markets, remaining at the peak of political influence for more than a decade. He was president of Czechoslovakia from December 1989 until July 1992. After the nation split in two and Slovakia went its own way, he served as president of the Czech Republic from 1993 until 2003, just months before the two nations joined the European Union.

Romantic idealism, often expressed in deep philosophical terms, colored his career, whether he was ridiculing communism in his plays or searching for the meaning of life during his time in prison as well as during his presidency.

"The [Communist] past has left us spiritually impoverished," he declared in pledging as president to focus on "the ethical, moral aspects of society, on creating space for dialogue, agreement and tolerance."
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As president, Havel sought to guide his country away from its Communist past while avoiding witch hunts against former rulers.

"The transformation of the totalitarian system into a democratic one is not only a matter of several parties replacing one ruling party and the introduction of some democratic mechanisms," Havel said in a 1994 interview with The Times. "It is also a matter of a great transformation of thinking because people must learn again to be citizens, to rediscover the civic responsibility which the totalitarian regime did not demand from them because it required mere obedience."
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"The demons that have so fatally tormented European history—most disastrously of all in the 20th century—are merely biding their time," Havel once warned, stressing that Europe's prosperous West and formerly Communist East must seek unity. "Just as one-half of a room cannot remain forever warm while the other half is cold, it is equally unthinkable that two different Europes could forever live side by side without detriment to both."

Poll protest in downtown Moscow gathers over 3,000

2011-12-18T10:24:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW, December 18 (RIA Novosti)
Over 3,000 supporters of Russia's Communist Party gathered in the center of Moscow on Sunday to protest against the alleged mass election fraud at the December 4 parliamentary elections.
"The rally organized by the Communist Party was attended by about 3,300 people, including media representatives," the Moscow police press office said, adding that the action was held without any incidents.
The protesters demanded a re-run of the parliamentary elections, the sacking of Central Election Commission chief Vladimir Churov and the replacement of the political elite.

Medvedev tells off Obama over U.S. criticism of Russian polls

2011-12-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

GORKI (Moscow region), December 17 (RIA Novosti)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a Friday’s telephone conversation with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama said that Washington’s comments over Russia’s allegedly rigged parliamentary polls were inadmissible, Russian president said on Saturday.

“When on the next or the second day [after the elections]… there are rebukes in the worst traditions of the Cold War, it is inadmissible. It is not a reset at all,” Medvedev said. “The Department of State is not a Russian office.”

2011-12-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

Russian team trying to top K2 — in winter

ISLAMABAD — Reaching the summit of K2 in summer is one of mountaineering's most deadly and difficult challenges.

Now, a team of Russians is attempting what no other has yet achieved — scaling the world's second highest peak in winter.

The 15 climbers will endure temperatures plunging more than 50 below zero and winds of up to 70 kilometers an hour (40 miles per hour) as they inch up the stunning giant pyramid that straddles Pakistan and China. The assault is expected to take 2 1/2 months.

"This is only possible for a Russian team," said Victor Kozlov, the affable leader of the expedition, whose members put up a new route on K2 in 2007. "God willing, we can make it," he said this week in the Pakistani capital, ahead of his journey to the Karakoram range in the far north of the country.
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Elite mountaineers thrive on first ascents, new routes on established peaks and climbing in the "purest style" possible. That typically means no porter assistance high up on the slopes, no oxygen bottles or no reliance on fixed ropes left by other parties.

The Russians, who start their ascent around Christmas, are not using oxygen and will have porters at base camp only. Their gear and food — including three freshly slaughtered yaks and, according to Kozlov, a little vodka — is being flown in by Pakistani army helicopters charging more than $7,000 an hour.

Winter climbing means less daylight and temperatures around twice as cold as summer, making frostbite more of a danger. Living conditions at base camp are more miserable, winds are more vicious, there is more snow, greater avalanche risk and climbers need more food and equipment to stay alive.
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A Polish team was first up an "eight-thousander" in winter, topping out on Everest in February 1980. The triumph set the stage for a decade of other successful expeditions, mostly by a group of Polish climbers nicknamed "The Ice Warriors."

Russia becomes WTO member after 18 years of talks

2011-12-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

Russia has finally joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) at a ceremony in Switzerland on Friday, after 18 years negotiating its membership.
The Swiss brokered a deal between Russia and Georgia earlier this year that removed the last obstacle to Russia's accession.
Georgia had tried to block Russia's WTO entry since the two countries fought a short war in 2008.
However, the agreement may still face a hurdle in the US, where existing legislation left over from the Cold War era blocks favourable trading relations with Russia.

Resolution 1244 is "only basis for solution" MOSCOW -- Serbia and Russia’s FMs Vuk Jeremić and Sergei Lavrov agreed Friday that UN SC Resolution 1244

2011-12-16T09:20:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW -- Serbia and Russia’s FMs Vuk Jeremić and Sergei Lavrov agreed Friday that UN SC Resolution 1244 remained the only legal basis for solutions to the Kosovo issue.
The two ministers agree that UN SC Resolution 1244 is the only basis for seeking solutions within the Belgrade-Priština dialogue or any other forum.
After a meeting with Lavrov on the sidelines of an Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) ministerial meeting, Jeremić said Russia's position on Kosovo was unchanged.   "When it comes to Kosovo, Russia's position is unchanged and is an impermeable wall before all attempts to establish the so-called statehood of Kosovo," the Serbian foreign minister stressed.

2011-12-15T09:40:00.000-08:00

Uncertain World: Russia and EU vie for title of most unpredictable

Fyodor Lukyanov

The latest Russia-EU summit in Brussels took place in unusual circumstances. President Dmitry Medvedev was in attendance as the outgoing head of state and the whole world was talking about how Russia has changed in the wake of the recent parliamentary elections and how the usual political stability has given way to uncharted territory.

It is even harder to understand what is going on in Europe. It would have been considered alarmist to talk about the collapse of the euro and even the EU itself not long ago, whereas now even this could happen. In fact, it’s now used to scare European leaders into taking aggressive measures and adopting a more responsible attitude.
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Russia is a major EU trade and economic partner and the EU is Russia’s biggest partner. Russia is now thinking about how it may be impacted by the integration crisis. Obviously, the sudden collapse of the entire structure, the euro and the EU itself in the worst case, would hurl the world into recession. This will affect everything, including hydrocarbon prices, which are critical for Russia.

If we assume that the worst-case scenario will be averted, and this is in the vital interests of major EU countries, Russia may stand to gain from the transformation of the EU. In any case, greater sovereignty will lead member states to independently build their relations with major states, such as Russia, once they are no longer able to rely on the EU as their foreign agent. The EU will not disappear as an instrument of pursuing coordinated interests. Gazprom, which recently has been an object of coordinated pressure under the pretext of anti-monopoly measures, has no cause to hope for a better position. When interests coincide, different countries will willingly utilize centralized institutions. However, there are spheres in which different countries have different ideas about their interests in Russia, which creates more freedom to maneuver.
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The context of Russia-EU relations is changing. Before Russia was seen as the unpredictable party but now the Europeans are catching up in this respect. The intrigue continues to grow.

Aid convoy to “cross administrative line on Friday”

2011-12-15T09:38:00.001-08:00

JARINJE -- The Russian aid convoy will continue toward Kosovska Mitrovica tomorrow morning, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandr Konuzin says.

“The situation was discussed at the Summit in Brussels and the EU gave a compromise proposal. We have been working on the proposals with Moscow, Belgrade, northern Kosovo Serb representatives and the EU representatives during the day,” Konuzin told reporters.  

“We gave our consent to EULEX to have the humanitarian aid escorted by three SUVs because we did not want to politicize the issue anymore, because we believe that it has been politicized enough. We do not want to stop the aid from reaching those who need it the most because we believe that there are large numbers of people in northern Kosovo and in the entire Kosovo and Metohija who are living off welfare and humanitarian aid,” he explained.

2011-12-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

East Europe balks at helping indebted richer West

Of all the twists in Europe's debt crisis one of the oddest must be this: Poles, Czechs and other eastern Europeans, long the recipients of massive amounts of Western aid, are being asked to contribute to an emergency fund for indebted Western European states.

That plan, decided at Friday's European Union summit, is sparking resistance - and some outrage - from eastern Europeans who see a huge injustice in being asked to sacrifice for countries that still enjoy much greater wealth, even with mountains of state debt.

Czech and Slovak leaders have spoken out against the plan - sentiment also being voiced in more emotional language by people across the region.

"This must be some kind of bad joke," said Jonas Vaicys, a math teacher in Lithuania, an ex-Soviet state still recovering from a huge hit during the financial crisis of 2008-09. "Lithuania itself is on the verge of asking for international help, not donating money to some fund."
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Hungary and Romania won't contribute because they are still paying the IMF back for past bailouts. And Bulgaria - the EU's poorest member - says it has nothing to offer.

"Bulgaria did not cause the crisis in the eurozone, nor will it be the one to take the zone out of the crisis," Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov said during a lively debate in parliament on Wednesday.
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The mood is different in Poland, where the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the central bank favor contributing. Leaders in Warsaw hope to adopt the euro one day, and argue that the survival of the eurozone - a source of large EU subsidies and a key trade partner - is crucial to Poland's own continued growth and modernization.

"A collapse of the eurozone would be an economic disaster for us," central bank president Marek Belka said Tuesday.

Poland, the largest of the new EU members, is also trying to establish itself as a leading European power - and therefore simply wants to be in the game.

The popular view is different, however.

Poland's leading tabloid, Fakt, has tried to stir up a sense of outrage over what it depicts as an absurd injustice. It carried front-page stories Tuesday and Wednesday that compare the low wages in Poland - which it put at 1,400 zlotys ($410) a month for minimum wage work - with salaries two or three times as high in Greece and Italy.

"And we are supposed to pay for their luxuries?" the paper asked in big letters across its front page Tuesday.

Humanitarian aid still at administrative crossing

2011-12-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

The Russian ambassador was told by EULEX that the trucks could not proceed without EULEX’s escort and that they could cross at the Merdare crossing. Konuzin refused to accept both conditions.   Ambassador Konzin today conferred via video link with Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu, who said the humanitarian convoy was blocked without any official explanation.

 At the same time, Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin reacted to describe the case as "humanitarian crime", and add that Moscow cannot negotiate about it with the unrecognized state in Kosovo.   "We do not recognize those authorities as authorities of an independent state. We will continue negotiations exclusively with international representatives of NATO and the EU. The recognition of Kosovo is a matter for their conscience, as well as the recognition of gangsters of the former Kosovo army (KLA), who have now formed their own police units," said the ambassador.

2011-12-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

Putin hero of Kosovo Serb defiance

Images of the Russian prime minister are plastered all over the walls in Serb-run northern Kosovo as Russian flags flutter in the wind. Tens of thousands of Serbs in the region have recently sought Russian citizenship.

Banners reading "Russia Help!" or displaying Putin's portrait with the message "He's Watching After You" hang across the streets of Mitrovica, the divided northern Kosovo town that has been the center of recent tensions between Serbs and majority Albanians.

Moscow has become the champion of the Serb defiance against Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia. The local Serbs are frustrated by Belgrade's refusal to use force to save them from ethnic Albanian rule.

The Kosovo Serbs have been desperately courting Moscow to press their sense of abandonment over Belgrade's enthusiastic pursuit of European Union membership, which could lead to Serbia dropping its designs on a territory it considers its spiritual homeland.

"These traitors in Belgrade will trade us for EU membership," said Milorad Jovanovic, a Serb from Mitrovica. "Only Putin and mother Russia and can save us from extermination."
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Russia's ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandr Konuzin, was escorting the Russian aid convoy Tuesday. He hugged Serbs manning the barricades in apparent support of their continued defiance. Associated Press video showed Konuzin meeting Krstimir Pantic, a Kosovo Serb leader, close to the border crossing.

2011-12-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

Russia and the United States in the 21st Century

Alexis de Toqueville's famous prediction in 1835 that America and Russia, two great continental powers, would someday play leading roles in the world was predated by Russian exploration of the Western American continent as far south as today's California and thereafter qualified by the landing of a small U.S. expeditionary force in Siberia during the Russian Revolution. But throughout the Cold War, de Toqueville seemed prescient indeed.

The shared global leadership between America and Russia ended two decades ago. The 74 year Russian detour into communism can be viewed only as if rapidly retreating in a rear-view mirror. But the end of the Cold War revealed a curious anomaly in U.S. foreign policy thought. Much to the surprise of Russians and many Americans, including myself, instead of rushing to embrace Russia and drawing it closely into Western economic, political, and security circles, we have resorted to reliance on personal relationships between American and Russian presidents as the basis for our bilateral relationships. And we continue to hold Russia suspiciously at arm's length.

There has been little, if any, explanation of this suspicion toward Russia and its roots in the American mind, or at least in the minds of certain foreign policy experts. Arguably, we have better relations with China than Russia and spend a great deal more effort in tending to that relationship. In gauging how close or how distant to remain regarding another nation or power, the measure ought to be whether there are more interests in common than in opposition. By that measure, our relationship to Russia ought to be among our closest.
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For myself, it is sufficient to prophesy, even with little tangible evidence, that sometime in this century, sooner rather than later, the United States and Russia will identify a common destiny that requires a degree of mutual understanding and cooperation seen only by de Toqueville almost two centuries ago. We spent a half-century army-to-army and missile-to-missile. The time will come, and none too soon, when it will be beneficial to both of us to stand shoulder to shoulder.

Gary Hart, chairman of the American Security Project, represented Colorado in the U.S. Senate from 1975 to 1987. He is a professor at the University of Colorado at Denver and was co-chairman of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century.

Billionaire and Ex-Minister to Oppose Putin in Russian Presidential Election

2011-12-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW — Amid a crescendo of complaints from Russians fed up with the country’s tightly controlled political system, two prominent figures — a billionaire industrialist and the recently ousted finance minister — sought to fill a void in the opposition leadership on Monday.
The billionaire, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, who owns shares in a major gold mining company and an array of other ventures in Russia as well as the New Jersey Nets basketball franchise in the United States, said he would run for president, challenging Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

Ambassador: EU decision "might be moving Serbia in the wrong direction"

2011-12-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

Amid all the other chaos engulfing the EU today, the body also made a surprising decision regarding it's possible future members in the Balkans. Croatia was granted an accession treaty, putting it on the path to EU membership in 2013, but a decision on Serbia's membership was delayed until March.

Have the current troubles in the EU and the financial crisis changed how Serbians see Europe? Are you still as enthusiastic about EU membership?
Serbian ambassador:

We're one of the rare countries that are still very enthusiastic about EU membership. We look at the EU not just as an economic union, but as a European peace treaty. The problems in Europe have been going on for centuries. Now you have a situation where centuries-old enemies are together, like Germany and France. We feel that for the Balkans to turn a page and move on from the terrible times of the 90s, that everyone in the Balkans should be part of the EU. Borders are not going to be as important anymore and we're going to work together for a brighter future. It's not just economic thing for us, it's a political peace process.

On Russian TV, a Straightforward Account Is Startling

2011-12-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: December 10, 2011
The three main government-controlled channels each led their evening broadcasts on Saturday with reports about the protests. They showed the huge crowds and their anti-Kremlin posters. In interviews, people at the rallies complained about their votes having been stolen and expressed their desire for new elections. Each of the channels also broadcast calls for the ouster of Vladimir Y. Churov, the leader of Russia’s Central Election Commission, an ominous signal about his future employment.
Some reporters even seemed surprised that so many people could gather in one place peacefully.
“Today’s protest was a lesson for everyone,” said Andrei Medvedev in the evening broadcast of Rossia 1. “It turns out that, to express your dissatisfaction with the authorities, it is possible to gather on a square after getting permission from those same authorities. And to keep order, all you really have to do is give a polite admonition.”

2011-12-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

Russian Spring? Don't Hold Your Breath

Of course it is spiritually refreshing to see the Russian leader and his arrogant coterie taken down a peg. Ilya Yashin, a young leader of the ad hoc protest movement Solidarity described the moral victory succinctly in a jail house interview after a 15-day detention earned at one of the Moscow rallies: “It suddenly turns out that we are a people, not a herd.” Putin, as he tends to do, quickly dug his public relations hole deeper by blaming the street manifestations on Hillary Clinton.

Yet the picture of righteous democratic rage boiling over onto the squares of Russia has at least one thing very wrong with it: completely ignoring who actually gained from United Russia’s losses. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation was the big winner, picking up 35 Duma seats at the Putinistas’ expense. A Just Russia, a United Russia spin-off that is a bit more tilted toward big state social spending, gained 24. The spectacularly misnamed Liberal-Democratic Party, which ran on a platform of “Russia for the Russians,” added 18 deputies.

None of these parties will prove big favorites with Western think-tankers. The one more or less free-market Westernizing party on the ballot, known as Yabloko, inched up to 3% of the popular vote from 2% in 2007. That still missed the threshold for getting any seats in the legislature.

This dismal performance caps a 20-year history of liberal ideas, or at least liberal organizations, failing to gain any popular traction in Russia. That is understandable. Communism and the Liberal-Democrats’ brand of xenophobic nationalism were well known ideologies in the Soviet Union. Market liberalism was an exotic import, which was promptly tarnished by the buccaneering capitalism and widespread suffering of the 1990s. Nationalism is the real dry tinder of Russian politics, as even educated urban voters cling to crude stereotypes of ethnic minorities from the Caucasus mountain region, and are easily stirred to resentment at their perceived economic success in Moscow and other cities.
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The irony is that an electorate suited to the liberal parties has quietly developed as younger people come of age without a Soviet education, and the perception of private enterprise gradually transcends its demi-criminal oligarch roots. This should be a Westernizer’s moment right now, as a broad swathe of Russian society clearly wants to express its revulsion with the oppressive Putin kleptocracy. But the mechanisms for seizing the moment do not exist, except maybe in the hands of people we would like still less than Putin. One need only look to the real Arab Spring in Egypt, where allegedly moderate and avowedly radical Islamists are duking it out for power, to see that sometimes its worth dealing with the devil you know.

Five demands of the 10 December Moscow protest meeting

2011-12-11T05:07:00.000-08:00

The New York Times story listed the five demands endorsed by the crowd at the end of the meeting on Bolotnaya Ploshchad (Swamp or Bog Square in English):

"The protest’s organizers have made several demands: the immediate release of prisoners arrested last week in connection with the protests; the scheduling of new parliamentary elections; the ouster of Vladimir Y. Churov, who runs the Central Election Commission; an investigation of election violations; and the registration of so-called nonsystem opposition parties, ones that have been unable to win seats in Parliament or put forward presidential candidates. "

2011-12-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

Peaceful protest makes a statement

Although between 30,000 and 50,000 people turned out on Dec. 10 to protest against the 2011 State Duma elections, the gatherings were not marked by large-scale arrests and clashes with police officers.

The Dec. 10 demonstrations at Bolotnaya Square failed to turn into revolution-inducing public unrest with mass detentions and fighting with police officers. Despite the large scale, the protests against the authorities and the results of the 2011 State Duma elections were comparably peaceful. Although the protest had originally been scheduled for Revolution Square and some participants started a protest there, eventually they joined more than 40,000 protestors gathered in the officially sanctioned location, Bolotnaya Square. Many participants wore white ribbons, symbolizing honesty and transparency. Others brought white balloons and flowers.

Despite predictions that the Russian authorities might take tougher measures to prevent the protests, almost no one was taken into custody and there were no clashes with police. Members of far-right groups chanting nationalist slogans tried to provoke a fight, but most protestors were not interested in a battle – they attended the meeting simply to express their frustration.

“Love Bridge” unexpectedly dominates news from anti-Putin protests

2011-12-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW, December 10 (RIA Novosti)

As protests against the alleged violations during Sunday’s Duma polls continue in Moscow, media reports have focused on the fate of a pedestrian bridge across the Moskva River leading to the protest venue.
Built in 1994 during the tenure of ousted mayor Yury Luzhkov and known as “the love bridge,” the Luzhkov Bridge remained a major security concern of the day that had been expected to dominate headlines with riots and high-profile police arrests.
Police said the bridge could collapse any minute as about 1,000 protesters moving toward the Bolotnaya Square, the site of an authorized rally against the elections that brought Premier Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party the slim majority in the lower house.

2011-12-09T08:09:00.000-08:00

Europe’s Debt Crisis Brings Two Former Foes Closer Than Ever

BERLIN — In the battle over how to save the euro, Germany has plenty of leverage but not many friends. Among its staunchest supporters is also one of the most surprising, its historic enemy, Poland.

For all the damage wrought by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, it has brought even greater harmony to the fraught and often bloody historical relationship between Poland and Germany. In the midst of discord, the former foes find themselves closer than ever, perhaps paving the way to a new axis of Paris, Berlin and Warsaw that could eventually form the core of a more deeply integrated Europe.

Poland is a crucial supporting player in the euro drama that is reaching a crossroads with the summit meeting Thursday and Friday in Brussels. It represents a scarce commodity — a growing economy with enthusiasm for European integration — and even plans to eventually join the euro zone.

“There is no Plan B for Poland other than Europe: stronger Europe, more active Europe, economically but also politically,” said Eugeniusz Smolar, a foreign policy expert at the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, supports Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in her push for full treaty changes to mandate tighter budget rules and oversight, rather than a deal between the countries that use the euro. And in the wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to reach agreement in Brussels, Poland has several advantages.

It has close ties to former Soviet bloc countries as well as northern European countries like Sweden that do not use the euro. Poland occupies a special place as the leader among the nations that are not in the euro zone but have not officially opted out, and it has voluntarily joined the Euro Plus Pact to improve fiscal strength and competitiveness. It even stands to displace Britain’s waning influence, depending on how events turn.

2011-12-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

Inside Romania's secret CIA prison

WASHINGTON — One of the CIA's most important secrets in the war on terrorism was hiding in plain sight, on a leafy residential street along a busy set of train tracks in Romania's capital. There, tucked in the basement of a government building, the CIA ran a clandestine prison, former U.S. intelligence officials said.

For years, the building — codenamed Bright Light — housed some of the CIA's most important terror suspects, including Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11. Even after the detainees were shipped off to Guantanamo Bay in 2006 and reports about the prison began to surface, the Romanian government repeatedly denied any knowledge of its existence.

A joint investigation by The Associated Press and German public television, ARD Panorama, however, located the former prison and unearthed details of the facility where harsh interrogation tactics were carried out.

The Romanian prison was part of a network of so-called black sites that the CIA operated and controlled overseas in Thailand, Lithuania and Poland. All the prisons were closed by May 2006, and the CIA's detention and interrogation program ended in 2009.
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Shuttling detainees into the facility without being seen was relatively easy. After flying into Bucharest, the detainees were brought to the site in vans. CIA operatives then drove down a side road and entered the compound through a rear gate that led to the actual prison.

The detainees could then be unloaded and whisked into the ground floor of the prison and into the basement.

The basement consisted of six prefabricated cells, each with a clock and arrow pointing to Mecca, the officials said. The cells were on springs, keeping them slightly off balance and causing disorientation among some detainees.
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Human rights activists have urged the eastern European countries to investigate the roles their governments played in hosting the prisons in which interrogation techniques such as waterboarding were used. Officials from these countries continue to deny these prisons ever existed.

2011-12-08T08:15:00.000-08:00

Putin slams Clinton for encouraging protesters

By describing Russia's parliamentary election as rigged, Putin said Clinton "gave a signal" to his opponents.

"They heard this signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began their active work," Putin said in televised remarks. He said the United States is spending "hundreds of millions" of dollars to influence Russian politics with the aim of weakening a rival nuclear power.

Putin's tough words show the deep cracks in U.S.-Russian ties despite President Barack Obama's efforts to "reset" relations with the Kremlin. Ahead of the election, President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to deploy missiles to target the U.S. missile shield in Europe if Washington failed to assuage Moscow's concerns about its plans.
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He accused the U.S. State Department of spending "hundreds of millions" of dollars in Russia and his government has to "work out ways to protect our sovereignty from outside interference."

"We are the largest nuclear power," Putin said, addressing supporters during a televised meeting. "And our partners have certain concerns and shake us so that we don't forget who is the master of this planet, so that we remain obedient and feel that they have leverage to influence us within our own country."

He said "especially unacceptable is the infusion of foreign money into the electoral process."

2011-12-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

Russia sends humanitarian aid to Kosovo

The situation in Northern Kosovo deteriorated in the middle of September, when the Albanian authorities of the self-proclaimed state assumed control over the Jarinje and Brnjak checkpoints on the administrative border with Serbia. Kosovo Serbs have since started building barricades to protest the move. They say that if Albanian checkpoints are to be located there, they will lose the last ties with Serbia.

Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Irina Adrianova has told the Voice of Russia that this is the second shipment of humanitarian aid:

"The 40-truck convoy will deliver 500 tons of blankets, power generators, furniture, tableware and food supplies to Serbs residing in the northern parts of Kosovo. In November, an emergencies ministry’s cargo plane delivered the first shipment of humanitarian aid for Kosovo Serbs which included food, mobile ovens and tableware. The total weight of the first shipment amounted to 36 tons."

Earlier over 50 thousand Kosovo Serbs, almost 73 percent of the whole Serbian population in the region, applied for Russian citizenship. Russia turned down the request but still promised to lend a hand.

Nadezhda Arbatova, a member of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, is confident that further interference in the Serbia-Kosovo affairs may lead to a political confrontation:

"Russia has no right to grant citizenship to Kosovo Serbs. This would lead to serious tensions in Russia’s relations with Serbia and the European Union. Nonetheless, Russia is able to draw attention to the situation in the region, as the problem of Kosovo has not been resolved yet."

Box with living tiger found in Moscow’s southeast

2011-12-07T11:13:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

A box containing a live tiger was discovered in Moscow’s southeastern Pechatniki District, a source in the Russian capital’s environmental department said on Wednesday.
“Yesterday, we received a call from residents who had discovered a box containing a tiger in wasteland in the Pechatniki district of Moscow,” the source said.
Department inspectors and animal center experts arrived at the site.
“The tiger has been transported to an animal shelter. Tests will be carried out soon to define its age and health. We think the tiger is about eight months old,” the source said, adding that the tiger’s future will be determined after consultations with Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry.

2011-12-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

Deploying arms in Kaliningrad is legal – FM

Russia is not violating its international obligations by stationing advanced weapon systems in its westernmost exclave, Kaliningrad, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking at a media conference in Vilnius, Lavrov stressed that Kaliningrad is a sovereign territory of the Russian Federation. “We are not abusing any international commitments,” the minister underlined, as cited by Itar-Tass.
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On Thursday, Sergey Lavrov will discuss the tricky missile defense issue in Brussels, at a Russia-NATO Council meeting of foreign ministers.

Moscow’s permanent representative to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin, told Itar-Tass that in light of President Medvedev’s recent statement, the talks are expected to be “rather serious”.

“Our NATO colleagues will have to answer why they, while calling Moscow their partner, create potentials which might pose a threat to our country’s security,” he said.

Lavrov was speaking in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, where he was attending a meeting of foreign ministers from Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) member states.

Speaking at the gathering a day earlier, the Russian diplomat called for a profound reform of the organization. Without it, he said, the OSCE would eventually lose its role. Lavrov reiterated his stance at a media briefing on Wednesday.

The Russian Foreign Minister said that, apparently, the West prefers to keep the organization in a “messy state” since that way it is easier to manipulate it, cites Interfax.

He described work procedures at the meeting as “funny,” saying that ministers are not very involved in decision-making. They do take part in discussions, but most decisions are made by experts. It is “disappointing,” but Russia is trying to change the situation.

Lavrov noted that Moscow, together with its partners from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), has been pushing for OSCE reform for several years. However, Western partners have shown only muted enthusiasm for the idea.

2011-12-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

NATO allies meet amid tensions with Russia, Pakistan

BRUSSELS: Nato allies are due to meet on Wednesday hoping to calm Russian fears over their missile shield project but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angered Moscow by criticising its parliamentary elections.

Clinton is joining her 27 alliance counterparts in Brussels for two days of talks that will also touch on the Afghan war amid tensions with Pakistan after a Nato air strike on the Afghan border last month killed 24 Pakistani troops.

They will then meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to tell him the missile shield will go ahead but that Nato still wants to negotiate a cooperation deal with Moscow, alliance diplomats said.

A diplomat said Nato wants to “calm things down” after Russia activated a radar warning system in its exclave of Kaliningrad on the EU’s borders last week, days after President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to deploy missiles there.
.....
Nato and the United States have sought to improve ties with Russia since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

But Clinton irked Russia by voicing “serious concerns” about the parliamentary elections and calling for allegations of fraud and vote-rigging to be investigated.

“As we have seen in many places, and most recently in the Duma elections in Russia, elections that are neither free nor fair have the same effect,” Clinton said in Lithuania on Tuesday.

The Russian foreign ministry described Clinton’s comments as “unacceptable” while Medvedev said it was “none of their business” what Russia’s political system looked like.
.....
Despite lingering suspicions between the former Cold War foes, Russia has allowed the alliance to use its territory to send vital supplies to troops in Afghanistan.

The transit route through Russia has become all the more important since Pakistan shut down supply lines in anger at last month’s deadly air strike on the Afghan border. Nato has launched an investigation into the raid.

“We have every interest to make sure that we get back to a better relationship again and that is what we are trying to achieve in the near future,” said a senior Nato official.

2011-12-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

Putin May Co-opt Growing Duma Opposition to Smooth Kremlin Bid

Russian Premier Vladimir Putin may co-opt his strengthened parliamentary opposition on issues from foreign policy to taxes, smoothing his return to the presidency next year, policy makers and political scientists said.

The Communists, the nationalist Liberal Democrats and the Just Russia party won a combined 212 seats in the 450-member State Duma, the lower house of parliament, as discontent with stalling wage growth and the government’s shortcomings in tackling corruption eroded the support of Putin’s United Russia.

Putin, 59, who wants to return to the Kremlin in March, may seek to broaden his support in the legislature as he works to shore up his backing after United Russia’s biggest election setback since it was created a decade ago. The Duma opposition’s ties with the government may guarantee their cooperation, said Kirill Rogov, an economist who works for the premier.
.....
As the Communists, who got 19.2 percent of the vote and Just Russia, which won 13.2 percent, campaign for increased social spending, the Kremlin may have to compromise on some budget measures to win their support, said Yevgeny Volk, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation research group in Moscow.

The opposition’s “lobbying capability increases when it comes to concrete economic policy.” Rogov said. “They will compete in populism on the economic field.”

After balancing this year’s budget, Russia will probably run a 2012 deficit of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product, Putin said Nov. 16. The country, which posted budget surpluses between 2000 and 2008, faces deficits of as much as 3 percent through 2014 as oil prices fall, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said in June.

The Communists are proposing nationalizing natural resources and oppose state asset sales. Just Russia, which was set up with Kremlin support before feuding with the government, campaigned for increased social spending. The Liberal Democrats have also criticized state asset sales as “the complete theft of state property.”

U.S. comments about Russian polls ‘unacceptable’ – Foreign Ministry

2011-12-06T11:01:00.000-08:00

“Comments by the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the Russian parliamentary elections, as well as those of other representatives of the White House and the U.S. Department of State are unacceptable,” the ministry said in a statement.
“We expect the U.S. side to refrain from unfriendly statements running counter to the general positive vector of our bilateral relations,” the statement reads.

2011-12-06T10:29:00.000-08:00

Russia: State Duma speaker Gryzlov compares McCain with March Hare from Alice in Wonderland

The Russian State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov compared U.S. senator John McCain to the March Hare from "Alice in Wonderland" on Tuesday, after McCain predicted an "Arab Spring" for Russia.

"McCain more and more reminds me of the cowardly March Hare. It's December already and he is still thinking of spring," Gryzlov, one of the leaders of Russia's ruling United Russia party, said in his Twitter micro blog.

Earlier, McCain, known for his staunch criticism of Russia, tweeted a message saying, "Dear Vlad (Vladimir Putin), The Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you."

The senator added a link from his Twitter comment to a Wall Street Journal article which states that "widespread evidence of voter fraud" will sour Russia's relations with Western capitals "in the coming days."

2011-12-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton Says Parliamentary Election In Russia Was Rigged

VILNIUS, Lithuania — Issuing new warnings to two U.S. partners Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Russia for a parliamentary election she said was rigged and said election gains by Islamist parties must not set back Egypt's push toward democracy after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak this year.

She acknowledged the success of Islamist parties in Egyptian parliamentary voting that the U.S. has praised as fair. But many of the winners are not friendly to the United States or U.S. ally Israel, and some secular political activists in Egypt are worried that their revolution is being hijacked. Islamist parties are among the better-known and better-organized in Egypt, and while they were expected to do well in last week's first round voting, a hardline bloc scored surprisingly large gains.
......
Speaking to the election-monitoring Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Clinton repeated criticism of Russia's weekend elections, in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party won the largest share of parliament seats. Opposition politicians and election monitors say the result was inflated because of ballot-box stuffing and other vote fraud.

"Russian voters deserve a full investigation of electoral fraud and manipulation," Clinton said. Russia's top diplomat was present at the meeting in the Lithuanian capital, but the two did not plan to meet separately.
.....
Speaking at a museum dedicated to the lost Jewish culture and history of Lithuania, Clinton again criticized Russia.

"Regardless of where you live, citizenship requires holding your government accountable," she said. Efforts to bar election monitoring by a Russian organization have undermined public faith, she said.

2011-12-05T19:36:00.000-08:00

Communists pull in protest vote as Putin suffers setback

ONLY 20 years ago, they seemed consigned to the dustbin of history. Yet in Sunday’s parliamentary polls, Russia’s Communists drew students, intellectuals, even some businessmen in forging an opposition to Vladimir Putin’s wounded United Russia party.

The Communist Party for most Russians evokes images of bemedalled war veterans and the elderly poor deprived of pensions and left behind in a “New Russia” of consumerist indulgence.

Large parts of society had appeared beyond the reach of the red flag and hammer and sickle.Until Sunday.

Not that the Communist Party’s doubling of its vote to about 20 per cent presages any imminent assault on power. The memories of repression in the old Communist Soviet Union, the labour camps and the regimentation are still too fresh for many. But vote for the party they did, if perhaps with gritted teeth.
.....
At the Communist Party headquarters – hung with portraits of Lenin and heavy gold-on-red velvet hammer-and-sickle banners – party leader Gennady Zyuganov complained of fraud and described the election as “theft on an especially grand scale”. He said: “Despite their efforts to break public opinion, the country has refused to support United Russia.”

Croatia's ruling party suffers defeat

2011-12-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: TANJUG
ZAGREB -- The Kukuriku Coalition gained a convincing win in Croatia's parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) Zoran Milanović will be the country's next prime minister. Besides SDP, the coalition includes the Croatian People's Party, Istrian Democratic Assembly and Croatian Party of Pensioners.

The Gap is Closing

2011-12-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

Is the Putin star fading? These exit polls show that the United Russia Party will hold power, but with less than 50% of the seats in the Duma. Quite a come down from the 64% support in 2007.

Here's more

2011-12-03T17:16:00.000-08:00

In Turkey to Strengthen Ties, Biden Refuses to Ignore a Host’s Economic Boast

Ali Babacan, a deputy prime minister of Turkey who oversees the economy, delivered a confident address about Turkey’s future and its status as a model Muslim democracy. He attributed Europe’s spiraling debt problems to its lack of political leadership.

“If they had a strong government like we have in Turkey,” he said, “they would be able to solve their problems.”

Mr. Babacan said that with 7.5 percent economic growth projected this year, Turkey, not the larger but troubled economies of the United States and Europe, was poised to win in the 21st century. “The fast fish, not the big fish, eats the small fish,” he said.

Mr. Biden then got up to speak, and after declaring that he did not plan to talk about the American economy, he did just that. First he took issue with Mr. Babacan’s competitive tone, saying, “I am going to suggest that we, all nations, are in this together.” Then, even as he was acknowledging economic difficulties, he pointedly reminded the audience that in a sea of young sharks, the United States was still the whale.

Serbia strikes border deal with Kosovo in EU-brokered talks

2011-12-03T12:59:00.000-08:00

Brussels - Serbia struck a deal with Kosovo on the controversial issue of border management late Friday, European Union mediators said after the third consecutive day of negotiations in Brussels.
In a statement, the EU said Serbia and Kosovo agreed to joint management of their border points, but indicated that the deal 'will be gradually implemented as soon as practically possible.'

• * * * *

BRUSSELS -- Belgrade team chief Borislav Stefanović confirmed Saturday that agreement on integrated control of administrative crossings in Kosovo had been reached.

Ukraine without Tymoshenko

2011-12-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

An old (00:35 12/10/2011) article by Kost Bondarenko for RIA Novosti.

A few selected excerpts:

According to a poll released by Rating Group on September 29, 46% of respondents see the charges against Tymoshenko as justified, while 34% think that the trial is politically motivated. Only 13% were prepared to protest in support of Tymoshenko, far less than the number of supporters of Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party.

The trial is a kind of symbolic end of primitive capital accumulation in Ukraine.

The Tymoshenko trial also marks the end of the Orange Revolution, which was not really a revolution at all, as it produced no systemic changes or tectonic shifts in Ukrainian politics.

The Tymoshenko trial has also put an end to the wicked tradition of political protection. ... Over the last year and a half, criminal charges were brought against 78 members of the former government; and more than 500 criminal cases have been opened against sitting officials.

Tymoshenko is simply the most prominent of all the VIPs brought to trial...

The Tymoshenko case is creating a precedent in Ukrainian public life. There will be no more untouchables; service to the state and popularity will not absolve officials of future wrongdoing.

The verdict is also a signal to Yanukovych’s inner circle: there will be no free reign. According to available information, the main sponsors of his Party of Regions are fretting over Tymoshenko’s fate. No one feels above the law. While this is may not be the triumph of the rule of law in Ukraine, it is certainly a first step.

(Read the full article)

2011-12-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

Second month of contraction in German factories signals recession

GERMANY’s manufacturing sector suffered a second month of contraction last month and activity fell at its steepest rate since mid-2009, data show — the latest sign that Europe’s bulwark economy is set for a sharp slowdown as global demand falters.

A gauge of factory output released yesterday, based on a survey by Markit Economics and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Manufacturing, showed activity was contracting across Europe and most of Asia.

Analysts said the figures suggested that Europe had already entered another recession.

British manufacturing contracted last month at the fastest pace in two years.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King yesterday urged UK banks to enhance efforts to bolster their defences against the euro zone’s debt turmoil, which now looked like a "systemic crisis".

"An erosion of confidence, lower asset prices and tighter credit conditions are further damaging the prospects for economic activity and will affect the ability of companies, households and governments to repay their debts, threatening banks’ balance sheets," Sir Mervyn told a news conference in London.

"This spiral is characteristic of a systemic crisis."

Putin confirms Medvedev to be PM given election win

2011-12-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin confirmed on Thursday that he would switch posts with outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev if voters support the pro-Kremlin United Russia party and Putin's candidacy in upcoming elections.
"I would like to once again stress that if the voters trust us with forming the government, that is they vote for United Russia and me as the Russian president, Dmitry Anatolyevich would undoubtedly head the government," Putin said at a meeting with voters.
He said that Russia must pursue modernization in all areas, "end its dependence on oil and gas and perform a transition to the innovative development model."
Medvedev, in his turn, said that he and Putin would continue their frequent trips across Russia if elected to the posts.

2011-11-30T22:25:00.000-08:00

Moscow slams NATO power games in Kosovo

Russia is concerned with the exacerbation of the situation in northern Kosovo, where NATO forces are pursuing their power politics targeted against Serbs, Russian envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin is convinced.

Violence could have been prevented, the diplomat said during a Security Council meeting devoted to the Kosovo settlement, if “KFOR focused on providing security of the region’s residents, as stipulated in their mandate, rather than on eliminating Serbian barricades, which are a response to Pristina’s attempts to take under control the administrative border with Serbia.”

The Russian diplomat also said that Moscow has supported Serbian government’s appeal to the UN secretary-general to thoroughly investigate an incident on September 27, when KFOR resorted to force, leading to a number of civilian casualties. Russia also insists on full and objective probe into cases of human organ trafficking revealed by member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Dick Marty.

The process of the return to Kosovo of displaced people, most of whom are Serbs, is unsatisfactory, Vitaly Churkin went on to say. And one of the main reasons for this is that those people are not confident of their security. In addition, “incidents of looting and theft of Kosovo Serbs’ property remain unpunished.”

Russia activates radar aimed at Europe

2011-11-30T14:00:00.001-08:00

Acting in response to U.S. missile shield plans in Europe, Russia has activated a Voronezh-class missile attack early warning radar station.
President Dmitry Medvedev attended the station's opening in Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost region bordering on the EU, on Tuesday. It is officially announced that the radar warning station is not aimed against the West, but included in the system of measures to provide an asymmetric response to the unilateral deployment of U.S. ballistic missile defense systems in Europe.
"I hope the radar system will work efficiently and properly fulfill its purpose," the president said after congratulating the station's crew on entering combat duty.

Women Confront NATO

2011-11-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

This is according to an article in the Thursday edition of the Belgrade-based daily Danas.
Before this request is made, assemblies of the four Serb municipalities in the north will convene and take a stand on Tadić's call, made on Tuesday, urging Serbs to abandon their barricades.

2011-11-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

Untermensch - the Movie

Well, I guess it was bound to happen... a movie about me.

Determined to Bring Out the Truth in Kosovo

2011-11-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from the New York Times story:

In the spring of 2009, Ms. Xharra received death threats, openly published in the pro-government daily Infopress. No prosecutors would take up her case, Ms. Xharra said, because they, too, feared reprisals.

Only this past August, more than two years later, did prosecutors from the European Union’s Rule of Law mission in Kosovo, or Eulex, file criminal charges over the threats. Ms. Xharra said they could not make any other charges stick against the person who had threatened her.

The case illustrates the enormous challenge of trying to establish equality before the law in Kosovo. Ms. Xharra blames the international community, which plays a large role. While international officials insist that they are doing everything they can to bring fair government to Kosovo, she asserts that “the internationals” don’t care what the Kosovo government does, as long as they do not disturb the semblance of stability by antagonizing the Serb minority.

“The message is: the government can do whatever they want with the local population, including stealing public funds and intimidating media critics and political opponents,” Ms. Xharra said in an interview.

Russia activates missile early warning radar system

2011-11-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

BBC:

Russia has turned on a new incoming missile early warning system in its westernmost region in response to US plans for a missile shield in Europe.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the system to be activated on a visit to the radar unit in Kaliningrad, a Baltic region bordering EU countries.
The unit is equipped with the new Voronezh-DM radar system.
Mr Medvedev has warned Russian missiles could be deployed on the EU's borders if the shield is installed.

( See the Russian report: http://en.rian.ru/video/20111129/169150845.html )

2011-11-28T22:19:00.000-08:00

China's first aircraft carrier starts second trial

BEIJING — China's first aircraft carrier began its second sea trial on Tuesday after undergoing refurbishment and testing, the government said, amid heightened regional tensions over maritime territorial disputes.

The 300-metre (990-foot) ship, a refitted former Soviet carrier called the Varyag, underwent five days of trials in August that sparked international concern about China's widening naval reach.

"China's aircraft carrier platform, after successfully completing its first sea trial in August, returned to the shipyard as planned for further refitting and testing," the defence ministry said.

"The work has been carried out and it set sail again on November 29 to carry out relevant scientific and research experiments."

The announcement comes against a background of growing tensions over maritime disputes in the Asia-Pacific region.

China has become increasingly assertive in its claims over the East China Sea and South China Sea, most of which it views as its maritime territory, but where several other Asian nations have competing claims.

Last week Beijing said it would conduct "routine" naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean, following a major diplomatic campaign by US President Barack Obama to assert the United States as a Pacific power.

2011-11-27T22:41:00.000-08:00

In Russia, Evidence of Misstep by Putin

It is now clear that instead of restoring public confidence in the political system, the announcement that Mr. Putin and President Dmitri A. Medvedev would switch jobs annoyed many Russians. Mr. Putin’s approval rating briefly dipped to 61 percent this month, high by international standards but lower than at any point in a decade.

Meanwhile, the governing party, United Russia, has had to scale back its expectations for next Sunday’s parliamentary elections, when it is likely to lose the two-thirds majority it has held since 2007.
.....
Party officials seemed to hope that Mr. Putin would infuse the party with some of his own popularity by accepting its nomination, something he has never done before, preferring to run as an independent. His September announcement, intended to lay the groundwork for an easy campaign season, achieved nothing of the kind.

The backlash began within hours, when Finance Minister Aleksei L. Kudrin told reporters he would leave the government rather than report to Mr. Medvedev, whom Mr. Putin promised to install as prime minister. United Russia’s approval ratings, already in decline, began to fall faster, possibly because Mr. Putin’s name, long atop the party list, had been abruptly replaced by Mr. Medvedev’s.

And Mr. Putin, whose robust popularity is a cornerstone of his government’s claim on legitimacy, seems to be taking a hit himself. This has never been more apparent than it was a week ago, when mixed martial arts fans booed Mr. Putin when he climbed into the ring after a match to congratulate the victor, an incident that seemed to puncture some protective membrane around the prime minister.

Three days later, when Mr. Putin addressed Parliament, a number of opposition lawmakers remained seated, an unusual show of rebellion.