Blogging the democratic revolution
Terry Rogers posts an interview with Yury Yekhanurov, chairman of the parliamentary committee on industry and entrepreneurship, about developing small and medium sized businesses. ???????Will small business develop in the current police state system? My neighbors, who work at a market, have to pay kickbacks to the police and the tax people, on top of the rent. This way you can go bankrupt in no time at all.??????? ???????This is commonplace in a state that is corrupt to the bone. Even during the elections we estimated that 5.8% of the popular vote would be stolen owing to the administrative resource.…
Georgia has been trying to get Russian military bases out for a while now, but it seems as if the situation may get worse: After a two-year interruption and ten years of futile talks, another round of Russian-Georgian negotiations on the withdrawal of Russian troops was held in vain on February 10-11 in Tbilisi. The Russian side advanced conditions that amount to a refusal to withdraw its troops from Georgia. The conditions have grown in number and in brazenness, compared to what Moscow had demanded at the preceding rounds of negotiations. The escalation of conditions is probably also designed and…
I promise I will never use such extensive alliteration again. David McDuff posts an interview translated into English with Zbigniew Religa, a professor who looks to be a promising candidate in this summer’s presidential election in Poland. He says he admires Wilson, and being the scholarly sort, he gives off that same impression. He has a good way with words. Read the whole thing.
Carlo Stagnaro suggests that the European Union is ignoring Putin’s abuses because he signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. I’d like to add that signing on to Kyoto itself is a kind of abuse. I’m not sure if Putin will ignore it or not, but it makes the perfect excuse to put into place anti-free market measures and further government control. UPDATE: Kirk posts in the comments section: I think it is important here to note the reason why Russia decided to ratify the Kyoto Treaty in the first place – the European Union agreed to support Russia’s bid to…
Check out this chart of aid going to CIS countries. Poor Belarus — quite literally.
Eurasianet offers one of the first recent interviews by new Georgia PM, Zurab Noghaideli. On another note, President Saakashvili gave his state of the nation address: Declaring Georgia “a proper state,” President Mikheil Saakashvili delivered his annual state of the nation speech to parliament on February 10. The upbeat speech was the Georgian leader????????s first detailed public statement on government policy since the death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, a leading architect of the country????????s reform program. Saakashvili asserted that the 2003 Rose Revolution that brought his administration to power had begun to accomplish its goals. “Georgia was a failed…
I wrote my senator, John McCain, about this around a month ago. Here are the results: The United States promised to cancel the Jackson-Vanik amendment for Ukraine, give Ukraine market economy status, and support Ukraine????????s entry into the WTO, a U.S. congressional delegation including Hillary Clinton and John McCain assured Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Friday. ???????We have received support and we expect Ukrainian hopes to come true,??????? Tymoshenko said. She said she hopes for larger U.S. financial support for programs of: healthcare, education, democratization, and development of small business. The Jackson-Vanik amendment was applied to Ukraine after the…
Donetsk is a highly Russian region in eastern Ukraine that was the home of whatever opposition Yanukovich could muster toward Yushchenko’s ascendency. Today, Yuschenko went over there to open dialogue about the corrupt mining industry and spur reforms to further the economy. Terry Rogers has the transcript. Here is the story.
Aussiegirl posts a writeup by BonnieBlueFlag, who has been informed that Yushchenko is coming to America and will be partying it up with the political and media elite. Well, I have an excellent source (Cindy Adams, NYP), who tells us today that Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine, is planning a March visit to the U.S. with his lovely American born wife, Kateryna. Kateryna (aka Katherine) Chumachenko was born of Ukrainian immigrants in Chicago, IL in 1961. Kateryna Yushchenko has been called Ukraine’s bridge to the West. Growing up she had to blend two worlds and cultures: American education and friends,…
When it comes to communists, at least they live up to their beliefs by working together: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said on Thursday it was troubled by Russian plans to sell Venezuela arms that U.S. officials suggest could be used to aid leftist guerrillas in Latin America. The arms pact announced last year by Venezuela’s firebrand President Hugo Chavez would give the South American OPEC member 100,000 automatic rifles and a number of helicopters. Venezuela is also evaluating Russian MiG-29 fighters as possible replacements for its F-16s. Bush administration officials have voiced increasing disquiet about the agreement in…
David McDuff is reporting: Feb 02 – Estonian European MP Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the first Vice-Chairman of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, together with four colleagues nominated Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and the Ukrainian people for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. Their letter to the Nobel Foundation says that the orange revolution in Ukraine led by Yushchenko consolidated democracy and brought freedom to thousands of people. Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the Ukrainian President would be a sign that Ukraine is becoming a modern, democratic European state, the signatories of the letter find. They said that peaceful, consistent…
Check this out! Not only is the redesign cool, but now there are many new features. You can create an account at Maidan which will allow you to post comments. But that’s not all… it also allows you to create a blog. While that may not be useful to those of us who already have our own, it will be indispensable to those in Ukraine and unfree countries who need a free and easy service to publish their thoughts. Very cool, Maidan!
Aussiegirl is reflecting on Putin post-9/11 and how he has fallen back into his old KGB ways. On November 15, 2001, President Putin visited the United States and was feted at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. He was riding high in the saddle at the time. It looked like Russia was entering the free world at last, democratizing, cooperating on the war on terror, and could easily become an ally and partner of the United States in a new post-Soviet world. This is the meeting where George Bush drove him around the ranch in his pickup truck and treated…
Andy has posted, much to my adoration, his Russia news roundup for the week. Check it out!
Discoshaman is back with another Ukraine update for today. New government policies, evil party disintegration, and the possiblity of a PORA political party. Interesting indeed!
Dan McMinn from Orange Ukraine weighs in with his thoughts on the cabinet appointments, especially the none-Our Ukraine ones.
Sergei Blagov writes on the possibly of colder relations with Russia after Zhvania’s death. Russian analysts and media outlets believe the death of Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania could have significant repercussions for bilateral relations between Russia and Georgia, as well as for stability within Georgia itself. Official statements out of the Kremlin since Zhvania????????s February 3 death have emphasized the political leader????????s moderation and responsibility. ÄFor background see the Eurasia Insight archiveÅ. Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Zhvania as a champion of “friendly and good-neighborly relations” between Russia and Georgia. Russian Transportation Minister Igor Levitin, who headed Russia????????s delegation…
Maidan is reporting staunch French opposition to the inclusion of Ukraine to the EU, despite approval by others. Poland, Germany, and France, with Lithuanian participation, are conducting intensive discussions, having received something more than cooperation within the framework of neighbourhood policy from the European Union. As reported by ProEuropa, based upon the Polish Gazeta.Pl., “the virtually completed text of the Polish-German-Lithuanian proposal for Ukraine has met opposition from France. Paris prefers that relations with Yushchenko be contained within ‘the borders of the European Union politics of neighbourhood policy and the so-called plan of action,’ developed during Viktor Yanukovych’s office.” A…
In a marathon-length press conference on February 3, Kremlin political consultant Gleb Pavlovsky laid certain Russian markers in Eurasia ahead of the George W. Bush-Vladimir Putin summit and, by the same token, seized the moment to announce a major redefinition of Russia’s policy in the “post-Soviet space.” Russia has revealed details on its new three-point foreign policy, which includes heavily interfering in neighboring states including the CIS and Baltics, and attempting to become a world power again. 1) Belarus represents an optimal model of integration with Russia, whereby the regime’s ultimate political reliability will override other issues. “We are totally…
I just noticed that the ZUBR website has available for download Gene Sharp’s “From Dictatorship to Democracy.” How cool! I love free stuff.
The Sunday Times has an article that details how Lukashenko is tightening his grip following Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. Via: Siberian Light. Andy notes that things are not about to get easier, now that Lukashenko is taking over the KGB.
Just when you think you’ve run into an information dead end, Neeka pops out all sorts of background, stories, interviews, and connections. It looks like the death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania is definitely not being heeded as coincidental on that side of the world. UPDATE: And it looks like a prominent community activist is voicing out that she thinks there should be more inquiry into the death: TBILISI, February 7 (RIA Novosti) – Irina Sarishvili-Chanturia, a prominent Georgian community activist, suspects Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania was murdered. As soon as she announced it, she was harassed with anonymous telephone…
David McDuff posts an interview dealing with the culture clashes of eastern Europe and “Old Europe.” Here’s the excerpt: The notion that Ukraine or its new president-elect are now the darlings of the EU is almost laughable. The EU would have completely ignored this crisis had it not been for the new accession states–Poland and Lithuania in particular. The EU has completely ignored the abuses of the cryto-Stalinist regime in neighboring Belarus for years. The last thing EU bigwigs want is another “eastern entanglement” especially one that will cause any unpleasantness with Russia. The European left is furious with the…
Aussiegirl found this article reporting another suspicious death in Georgia: GEORGIA was yesterday plunged into crisis after it was revealed a political associate of dead prime minister Zurab Zhvania had apparently committed suicide. There were fears of a return to the old Soviet ways of dispensing with political foes by alleged accident or suicide after the third death in the government in as many days. Zhvania, a moderating force in the Georgian government, and a colleague died apparently of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty heater last week. Georgy Khelashvili, 32, a political associate of Zhvania, was found dead…