Very interesting

Putin’s plans

Putin announced in September that he would seek to return to the Russian presidency in 2012, and he has started laying out his goals for his new reign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He said Russia would formalize its relationship with former Soviet states by creating a Eurasia Union (EuU); other former Soviet states proposed the concept nearly a decade ago, but Russia is now in a position in which it can begin implementing it. Russia will begin this new iteration of a Russian empire by creating a union with former Soviet states based on Moscow’s current associations, such as the Customs Union, the Union State and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. This will allow the EuU to strategically encompass both the economic and security spheres. read more

Dear Mr Putin and your “friend” Mr Kudrin. On what Planet do you live?

 

“Thank God … we do not print the reserve currency. But what are they stirring up? They are simply acting like hooligans,” Putin told the audience which included his veteran finance minister, Alexei Kudrin.

“They turn on the printing presses and fling them (dollars) over the entire world to resolve their immediate tasks. They say monopolies are bad but only if they are foreign — their own are good. So they use their monopoly on printing money to the full.”

read more here..

How low can one fall?

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ/New York Times

Published: July 9, 2011

HAMADONI DISTRICT, Tajikistan – Using a raft made of scrap wood and the
inner tube of a truck tire, four armed men recently crossed the river from
Afghanistan to a tiny, nameless border settlement here and kidnapped the two
adolescent sons of a local army recruiter.

With their hostages, they then crossed back into Afghanistan and called the
recruiter, demanding $55,000. They threatened to kill his sons and sell
their organs on the black market if he refused.

Such kidnappings, along with murders, armed clashes and other violence, have
become persistent features of life along Tajikistan’s extensive border with
Afghanistan. A largely unprotected expanse of severe peaks and dusty plains,
the border is practically all that separates the former Soviet republics of
Central Asia and beyond from the chaos of one of the world’s most
war-ravaged countries.

Securing it and the smaller borders with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan has
taken on greater urgency as American forces prepare to withdraw from
Afghanistan.
read more from New York Times

KHODORKOVSKY SLAMS COURTS

APPEAL DENIED – KHODORKOVSKY SLAMS COURTS FOR DESTRUCTION OF LAW AND TREASON AGAINST RUSSIAN PEOPLE

Moscow, May 24, 2011 – Today the Moscow City Court rejected the appeal of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky and Platon L. Lebedev against the December 27, 2010 Khamovnichesky Court verdict which condemned them for allegedly embezzling the entire production of the Yukos Oil Company from 1998 to 2003 and laundering the proceeds. With the rejection of their appeal their scheduled release has been pushed from 2011 to 2016.

Khodorkovsky, who entered the courtroom to applause, spoke at today’s hearing about the verdict, asking:

“…in what dusty cellar did they dig up that poisonous Stalinist spider who wrote this drivel? What kind of long-term investments can one talk about with such justice? No modernization will succeed without a purging of these cellars.”

“There is no way to correct this verdict,” he said. “That means, – either overturn and terminate this shamefulness, or join ranks with the criminals, who spit on the law. I have nothing to talk about with criminals, even those in a judge’s robe. And indeed there is no reason for me to. I do not need mercy from criminals.”

Khodorkovsky said his fate was already determined but called for an end to the authorities provoking the Russian people:

“You know, what attitude many Muscovites today have towards your court. Yet the courts with their decisions, their attitude towards people, seem intentionally to provoke: saying it is not you who appointed us, we spit on you.”

“And so, you should not scorn us. We’ve had enough. We’ve had enough of arbitrariness, we’ve had enough of lying. We’ve had enough of bribe-takers and swindlers in power for whom anything goes and who don’t recognize any rules or authority!”

“There is no such thing as a rule-of-law state without an honest judiciary. Our people have already paid for the absence of a rule-of-law state with millions of lives. Enough! The destruction of law – this is the annihilation of the country’s future. This is treason. And there is no pardon for treason.”read more

Russias way to next year of a new President???

Random Thoughts from Moscow (1) markgaleotti | May 21, 2011 at 1:34 pm | Categories: Military – Russia, MVD, Organized Crime – Russia, Police, Police Reform | URL: http://wp.me/pjjTl-5S

Having recently returned from my first trip back to Moscow for a while, it is interesting to see how much has changed and what has not. With no particular order or claims to special wisdom, here are an initial couple of thoughts…

Police reform will take a long time. The new uniforms may be on their way and I saw the first handful of trucks and Fiat vans with Politsiya instead of Militsiya on the side, but there is little evidence of a more professional, public-service attitude, even amongst the myriad cadets deployed through Moscow around the Victory Day celebrations. Furthermore, for all the regular toll of senior officers sacked, tales abound of bribes being demanded precisely to ensure that officers get a clean bill of health and keep their jobs as well as the use of this process as a handy tool to purge officers seen as too close to local interests. To a considerable extent this is a purge to re-assert central control more than a cull of the egregiously incompetent or corrupt (although to be fair, a goodly number of greedy and stupid officers are being trimmed). Whereas security in Sheremetevo was much more efficient and punctilious than I had expected and was actually pretty impressive, elsewhere the usual Russian vice of form over function was too often in evidence: trios of cops in metro stations doing nothing but chat, metal detectors at entrance points to central Moscow but no one paying attention when they went off (maybe if I had looked more North Caucasian then someone might have bothered?), guards who feel that photographing government buildings is a greater threat than battered cars abandoned haphazardly on their corner (presumably the prospect of my photographic the GenProkuratura building was more alarming than a possible car bomb?)…

Corruption is alive and well. No one seems to have anything positive to say about the new rhetoric on fighting corruption, and certainly no one says that it is having any kind of impact. The opposition — such as it is — really misses a trick by concentrating on Putin and co, rather than the extent to which the level of institutionalized corruption is contributing to the high prices you pay for almost anything in Moscow. Grumble at the cost of a (rather nice, admittedly) hot chocolate and bliny at Shokoladnitsa? Think about how many rubles of that cover price go into keeping all kinds of bureaucrats and predators as sweet as the drinks.

How do you live in Moscow? It is ridiculously expensive in the main, and while there is a distinct class of ultra-rich (I’ve never seen so many Bentleys) as well as a growing well-to-do upper-middle class, it does raise the question of how ‘ordinary’ Muscovites cope. One answer is that they don’t eat out, shop a lot and the like, but to be honest there seemed to be a fairly democratic spread of conspicuous consumption, and even heading out into the working-class suburbs revealed crumbling apartment blocks but also consumer goods stores and cafes. Another, I suppose, is that they live with parents and take bribes. That’s the same irony as drove the underground economy in later Soviet times: to get anything you wanted you needed blat (personal connections and favors) and/or lots of cash, ideally hard currency. So you exploited the goods, services or access at your disposal for income to be able to afford to live; in the process you forced others to pay bribes, and they in turn had to make money from their positions to be able to afford that, forcing their clients/victims to play the same games, and so on…

But for all that, Moscow is more liveable now than ever. It’s expensive, it’s corrupt, it still has a raw edge that is very Moscow and driving still seems a competitive martial art, but nonetheless the city feels a lot more happy, more comfortable with itself than ever in my memory. There are green spaces and even a few benches, there are hipsterish loft-and-art-bar developments like the Red October factory make-over, and although it may reflect a Den Pobedy clear-out, there seemed fewer beggars and homeless bomzhy than in the past. It may be an artificial boom driven by hydrocarbons, a still-burstable bubble (how many of those massive new skyscrapers are occupied?), an anomaly or the result of Muscovites spending while they can and not worrying about the future when those oil prices fall, but regardless, it felt a lot more fun and welcoming than in the past.

http://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/random-thoughts-from-moscow-1/

The question is whether Russia has a military force in the world? Read the article in the Wall Street Journal

VOLGOGRAD, Russia—Sergei Fetisov, a 23-year-old welder, signed on for one of the most ambitious projects in Vladimir Putin’s Russia: rebuilding the remains of the once-mighty Soviet Red Army.

A cornerstone of that effort was the creation of special combat-ready units staffed entirely by professional soldiers, not conscripts. Mr. Fetisov volunteered to be one of them. He enlisted for a renewable three-year stint, enticed by higher pay and the chance to learn new skills.

View Full Image

Yuri Kozyrev for the Wall Street JournalSergei Fetisov quit the army as soon as his commitment ended.

One of his first tasks, he recalls, was toiling past midnight shoveling snow and ice from a football-field-size parade ground. The work that followed was menial, humiliating and of little practical use, he says. Combat training consisted of two firing exercises a year, he says, and a chunk of his paycheck was routinely withheld by corrupt officers.

Wall Streat Journal

Demonstranter under en förbjuden demonstration i huvudstaden Baku tidigare i april. Foto: Ilkin Huseynov/AP

Svenskt tv-team greps i Azerbajdzjan

TV-produktionsbolaget Pampas produktion befinner sig just nu i Azerbajdzjan för att göra en dokumentär om yttrandefrihet. I samband med en demonstration greps tre av teamets medlemmar och de kommer nu att deporteras från landet.
- Det formella skälet är att det är någon form av visumfråga, säger Anders Jörle på UD.

Fotografen Zsolt Czinkoczky befinner sig tillsammans med tre svenska kollegor i Azerbajdzjans huvudstad Baku för att göra en dokumentär om yttrandefrihet. På lördagseftermiddagen skulle de dokumentera en demonstration i staden arrangerad av oppositionen.

- Vi var på plats några timmar innan demonstrationen skulle börja. Helt plötsligt kom polisen till platsen och började föra bort människor. De tog mina kollegor och när jag frågade varför sade polisen att det berodde på att de inte hade något filmningstillstånd.

Minneskorten raderade

Men mina kollegor skulle inte filma, det är ju jag som är fotografen, säger Zsolt Czinkoczky.
De tre svenskarna togs till närmaste polisstation. De har inte fått några brottsmisstankar presenterade mot sig, men polisen har raderat deras minneskort.
- Det senaste jag hört är att de körts ut bakvägen från polishuset och tvingats in i en polispiket. De ska nu befinna sig på någon form av migrationskontor, men jag vet inte säkert, säger Zsolt Czinkoczky som lyckades filma hela förloppet.
- Jag fick hjälp av en kvinna från radiostationen Radio Free Europe som tog mig till deras lokaler och lät mig använda deras utrustning för att skicka i väg mitt material.
Svenska UD bekräftar att tre svenska medborgare gripits. De kommer nu att deporteras ut landet.
- De exakta omständigheterna vet vi ännu inte, men det formella skälet till att de frihetsberövades ska vara att det var någon form av visumproblem, säger Anders Jörle.

Expressen artikel

Azerbaijan opposition

Already for the third time, yesterday a group of young people held protest action in front of Azerbaijan Popular Front Party Chairman Ali Karimli’s house. Action so-called participants accused Karimli in cooperation with radical Islamic forces, Al-Qaeda, with Western powers and demonstrated insult actions for his personality. This so called protest action takes place in the background of Azerbaijan’s major oppositional Public Chamber activism for radical democratic changes in Azerbaijan. Oppositional Public Chamber already held a April 2-nd rally and prepares to hold another rally on 17 April at 16.00.
The rallies organized by the oppositional Public Chamber has very much concerned the incumbent regime in Azerbaijan and they selected a way of insult and radical critics toward oppositional leaders.
Mr. Ali Karimli has been facing insults since 2000 and nowadays the framework of the insult bent all the boundaries toward him. Witnesses say, the fabricated made up protest action is ruled by the youth organization of the ruling party (Yeni Azerbaijani Party). Some politically awkward figures were noticed among the protesters, who are said to be assistant to Mr. Ali Ahmadov, head of the ruling party’s administration and also an MP, brother of Mr. Siyavush Novruzov, deputy of Mr. Ali Ahmadov and an MP, assistants and relatives of some University rectors, ministers and other governmental officials. Mr. Ali Karimli is believed that the ill-inspired protest actions are coordinated by the ruling party. Interesting fact is that the police always comes to disperse the protesters at the last moment, whereas, the oppositional minded youth groups cannot even come some hundred meters closer to his house for support action.

Musavat party and its leader Mr. Isa Gambar is also targeted by the same centre. Several times youth groups came to its headquarter and also insulted Mr. Isa Gambar and the party of Musavat. Isa Gambar and Ali Karimli are being accused in everything bad that happens locally and internationally as from taking money from Al Qaeda to Western Powers. It is interesting fact that Al Qaeda and Western powers are paralleled. Today, Musavat Party headquarter was also targeted  as if by the displaced persons and refugees.

International community should react accordingly and do everything to defend the opposition in Azerbaijan.

Sincerely,

Razi Nurullayev
Deputy-chairman, Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan
————————————————————
Sincerely,

Razi Nurullayev
Chairman, “REGION” International Analytical Center (RIAC)
Coordinator, Civil Society Coalition of Azerbaijani NGOs

Address: Baku, Binagadi district, 30/12 Z.Bunyadov, bld. 5A, apt.02
Tel: (+994 12) 436 18 40
Mobile: (+994 55) 210 2520
E-mail: razi_nurullayev@yahoo.co.uk
http://civil-soc.org/blog
http://blog.razinurullayev.com
http://www.facebook.com/razi.nurullayev
http://www.facebook.com/razinur (My Facebook page)

Khodorkovsky

Russia has problem

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

MOSCOW – Agence France-Presse

Russia’s latest census has revealed a bleak demographic trend of people fleeing ever shrinking towns and villages for urban centers, as the population continues to decline alarmingly, experts said.

The first results of Russia’s 2010 census have shown that the country’s population has shrunk by another 2.2 million people since 2002 and is now at 142.9 million. While experts called the results predictable, they also described the trend of systematic redistribution of people around the two largest cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg as very worrying.

“The number of villages with no population has grown” from 13,000 to 19,400 in the past eight years, said the head of Russia’s state statistics office Rosstat, Alexander Surinov. He said that 36,200 villages had a population of less than 10 people, a figure that has also grown since the last census. “This is not a very good trend” despite government pledges to develop rural villages, he said.

Not only villages but small and medium towns are a dying phenomenon according to the census, as people flee depressed single-industry towns where no alternative was created after local Soviet-era factories had to close down.

Monotowns, as the government has termed them, emerged as a problem especially during the latest economic crisis, when inefficient Soviet industries were unable to pay salaries and laid off workers.

Some of such towns, notably Pikalyovo in the northwestern Leningrad region, attracted national attention after their disgruntled populace blocked a major highway. “Solutions to problems of these single-industry towns have not been found,” said Sergei Zakharov, deputy director of the Institute of Demography at Moscow’s Higher School of Economy.

People will continue to leave even the mid-size towns of 100,000 to 200,000, since “they have nothing but problems and lack of even theoretical solutions”, he said. In the next 20 years, Russia will have to find a way to deal with immense Soviet infrastructure left in increasingly depopulated locales. “Both keeping it and removing it would require colossal expenditures,” Zakharov said.

The census is also indicating continued economic discrepancies between Moscow and the rest of the country, said Tatiana Maleva, head of the Independent Institute of Social Policy. Since 2002, Russia mostly was experiencing economic growth, which is “supposed to improve regional discrepancies, but we already see that this was not the case”, Maleva said.

From 2002 and 2010, Moscow had the highest population growth of 10.9 percent, according to census figures. Russia’s predominantly Muslim North Caucasus regions also registered an impressive average growth of 6.3 percent.

However the vast majority of the country saw the population decrease. The Far Eastern part of Russia decreased by six percent, with the harshest northern regions like Magadan shrinking by a record 14 percent.

About 3.6 million people were not covered by the census, of which a million refused to participate and the rest could not be located at their registered address, said Surinov. “There was a protest element to it,” said Maleva. “There is increased apathy in society as people unhappy with the current politics believed the census will not make any difference and refused to put in their effort.”

The Russian government has announced a plan to stabilize the population at 142-143 million by 2015 and increase it to 145 million by 2025. To reach that goal, Russian women need to have on average 2.14 children in 2025 because of the overall ageing population. In 2010 this figure was a mere 1.28, according to official statistics.

President Dmitry Medvedev has made demography one of the key concerns of his presidency, and called in his latest national address for more investment in children’s hospitals and supporting families with three or more children. Experts said it remains to be seen whether policies directed at stimulating birth rates have helped, since data on age and the number of households has not yet been analyzed. Migration and nationality data will also be released by the end of the year, said Surinov.