Blogging the democratic revolution
Deep sea oil rig, Gulf of Mexico Source: National Aeronautics & Space Administration Today, a quiet revolutionary time bomb was presented to Hugo Chavez. He has no idea what it is or what it means. But this gift means it’s all over for the brutal Venezuelan tyrant in the next few years. He won’t be bothering us anymore. He won’t be bothering anyone anymore. He’s finished. Treasure was discovered in America’s Gulf of Mexico waters today, black gold so vast and so deep and so surprising and so recoverable that overnight, America’s energy reserves have just increased as much as…
The shocking news was reported by RIA Novosti on August 30th that Russia????????s most prominent and well-respected newspaper, Kommersant (???????the Merchant???????), had been sold to Alisher Usmanov (pictured below), the owner of the Metalloinvest and Gazprominvestholding holding companies, the latter a subsidiary of Kremlin-controlled Gazprom. Usmanov is an Uzbek-born oligarch who has served six years in prison for fraud. RIA also reported that ???????Gazprom Media, the division of the state-owned energy giant, has in recent years taken control of once independent television station NTV, its satellite division NTV+, regional broadcaster TNT, Echo of Moscow (Ekho Moskvy) radio station, broadsheet Izvestia…
Another domino falls. Another symbol, if not the representative of Russian independent media, has been scooped up by a Kremlin ally. The business daily, Kommsersant was sold this week for $300 million to Alisher Usmanov. Usmanov is the owner of Owner of Oskol Steel Mill, the Ural Steel industrial complex, the Lebedinsky Iron Ore Mining and Processing Facility, and Mikhailovsky GOK (he and his partner Vasiliy Anisimov acquired the latter in the beginner of 2005. Ranked the 25th richest man in Russia and the 278th in the world by Forbes with a net worth of $2.6 billion, the 52 year…
RIA Novosti reported on August 30th that “Russia’s GDP growth of 5.5% in the first quarter of 2006 was the highest among the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations for the period.” Relying on data from the IMF, Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service “said real year-on-year GDP growth in Russia during the first quarter reached 5.5%, compared to 3.7%, 3.4% and 3.3% in the United States, Japan and Canada, respectively. The rate was 2.3% in Great Britain, 1.7% in Germany, and 1.5% in France and Italy.” To its credit, RIA also reported that “Russia’s GDP still falls well behind other…
One of the first things I did when I arrived in Kiev was take the subway to Maidan, the setting of Ukraine????????s Orange Revolution in which over one million people camped out and protested against phony elections. It is now a scene of perpetual nostalgia for those cold days and nights when the one thing keeping them warm was the feeling that, for once, good things were going to happen. There would be free and fair elections, the criminals in government would get their due, and the corruption that plagues everything from multi-billion dollar deals to traffic tickets would be…
One of the most ominous questions hovering over democratic politics in the world today is how harsh an anti-democratic crackdown Russian dictator Vladimir Putin would be prepared to support in order to maintain control over the Russian population in the event of an economic downturn. Recently, Putin has been recording 70+% approval in public opinion surveys, owing largely to the perception that under his stewardship the Russian economy has become much more vibrant. Leave aside the fact that this perception is wholly inaccurate, since virtually all of Russia’s economic growth is attributable to rising world energy prices that Putin had…
Ruins of a Russian jet crash which killed 170, Aug. 22, 2006 Source: Associated Press, via Yahoo! News On Tuesday morning (August 22) it was reported by the Associated Press and Reuters that a Russian passenger jet, a Pulkova Airlines TU-154 airliner bound from the Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg, crashed in Ukraine with 171 people on board. This comes after a July crash in the Russian city of Irkutsk of a Russian A-310, operated by the Russian carrier S7, killing 124 passengers and crew, and it is the third crash the region this year. In May,…
Next week will mark 15 years since the August Putsch. On August 19, 1991 a group of Soviet politicians calling themselves the State Executive Committee (Gosudarstvennyi Komitet po Chezvychainomu polozheniiu, GKChP) attempted to seize power in Moscow. The ???????putsch??????? took a very Soviet form. The Committee announced that Gorbachev was ill and was relieved of his position while he was on vacation in Sochi. Soviet Vice-President Gennady Yanayev was named in his place. The precedent for removing GenSeks while on vacation was set with Khrushchev????????s sacking in 1964. The real reason for the move was that Gorbachev and his counterparts…
In January of this year, Gazprom ???????turned-off???????? the gas to Ukraine. The reason? Some say it was economically motivated ???????? Ukraine pays substantially less than the fair market price. So, Gazprom was merely acting as any other economically driven company would. However, perhaps the more frequent explanation for the gas crisis is that it was politically motivated. The common answer under this heading is that Russia used Gazprom as a foreign policy tool/weapon to punish Ukraine????????s new found Western focus. Yet there is a third explanation which I believe is closer to the truth: Russia and Gazprom believe that Ukraine…
Note to readers – due to technical issues, I couldn’t post the image described in graf one but will do so later -Mora The image above shows a corpulent former Russian President Boris Yeltsin bedecked in toga and driving the ???????young farm girl??????? and ???????young factory fellow??????? from a famous Soviet monument like horses before his chariot. The caption reads: ???????Corruption: An impediment to progress.??????? Will Russia fall as Rome did, it seems to ask? Yeltsin was justly criticized during his reign for personal and systemic corruption but in fairness we must ask: Was it any difference before or since…
Hey everyone, You’ll have to excuse the lack of posting for the last couple of days. I’ve been in the Czech Republic and have just arrived in Kiev after a 36 hour train ride. The weather has been absolutely Soviet. We’re just hanging out in an internet cafe at Maidan right now, organizing things and preparing to get our visas for Belarus. I will be interviewing many people here in Ukraine as well as in Belarus about democratization activities and political progress over the next week. Tons of video, audio, and pictures to come, though I can’t say how much…
We have previously documented on these pages the horrifying explosion of race-based violence in Vladimir Putin????????s Russia. As ghastly as those developments are, though, something even more sinister is underway in Russia these days, something that makes it seem that Russia would better be referred to as the Neo-Soviet Union: It????????s an attack on democracy itself. Just as it was Britain, by means of Winston Churchill????????s famous ???????Iron Curtain??????? speech, which warned the West about the rise of the original USSR, it is today British journalism that sounds the clarion call that warns of USSR redux. Three major pieces of…
In the early hours this morning, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko accepted the nomination of Viktor Yanukovich for prime minister. Mr. Yanukovich was the 2004 presidential candidate who fraudulently won the first round of elections which sparked the ‘Orange Revolution.’ Though an embarrassing blow to Yushchenko and his one time ally Yulia Tymoshenko, this development was widely expected. The ‘Orange’ forces made several missteps over the past year and the backlash was to be expected. So, it would seem that the pro-democracy government has now been replaced by the corrupt, pro-Russian Yanukovich. But as with all things, the situation is far…
In January, Russia’s state-controlled natural gas company Gazprom shut off the pipelines to Ukraine, causing shortages all throughout Europe. It could have been because Ukraine didn’t want to pay higher rates for its gas, but more likely it was political pressure aimed at dislodging the new pro-Western government of Viktor Yushchenko. And it worked. Now it looks like Russia’s favored candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, may be taking the reins of power soon. But if you thought that was bad, it’s not the half of it. Russia maintains “peacekeeper” troops in places where they aren’t want. One such place is the Transdnistria…
Venezuelan and Belarusian dictators strut before lines of troops in Minsk Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! First, take a look at the top of line weaponry Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is buying from Vladimir Putin of Russia, to aim at us, just 1350 miles from our shores. This is but one step removed from another Cuban Missile Crisis. That’s a main reason for this junket to Belarus and Russia. So much for peace and friendship. What’s peace and friendship compared to advanced weaponry! Miguel Octavio at Devil’s Excrement in a brilliant essay, writes of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez’s visit with Aleksander…
Something that went unnoticed due to the international attention focused on Lebanon was the sentencing of Belarussian opposition candidate Alexander Kozulin to 5 1/2 years in prison on July 13. His crime? Leading protest marches following the obviously fraudulent presidential election last March. You’d think he murdered someone or something. What is interesting, however, is that the candidate of the united democratic forces, Alexander Milinkevich, was never arrested, jailed, or even had any of his rallies broken up at the time. What gives? The Eurasia Daily Monitor gives us a clue: Kazulin has long had close links to state structures,…
If there was any question in anyone’s mind that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez might not be a communist, that illusion was put paid to rest by Chavez’s visit today to Belarus, the last remaining dictatorship in Europe. Agencia EFE reported the Venezuelan dictator’s visit to Europe’s most oppressive regime this way: “We must make (Soviet Union founder Vladimir) Lenin’s slogan a reality regarding the unacceptability of the exploitation of man by man,” Chavez told the press. The Venezuelan leader said he had come to Minsk to “seal a unity pact and lay the first stone for future relations between Belarus…
A Romanian girl cools off during a heat wave in Bucharest. Romanian children are being targeted to serve as police informants by the secret police. Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! In the last two days the Romanian media published information????????s about the children network of the Securitate (Communist Intelligence). Till now, there have been rumors of it, but now it has been proved. Securitate adopted STASI????????s tactics and recruited children as young as 12!! Those children had to inform Securitate about the discussions of their parents, relatives, and teachers — whether they listen to Free Europe radio, or if they say…
Given the events of the past several weeks, it is easy to conclude that Ukraine????????s fragile democracy is in danger. Indeed it is. But to admit this is not the same as concluding that the Orange Revolution is over. Whether or not the Orange Revolution has ended (or is about to end) depends largely on what the goal of the Orange Revolution really was. For example, if the goal was to install a pro-West government, then, yes, the Orange Revolution is in danger. It is likely, regardless of whether new elections are called, that Viktor Yanukovich will become Prime Minister.…
Above are two images taken from Neo-Nazi websites operating in Russia. The first urges the viewer to ???????Protect your Motherland! Protect your Loved ones!??????? from the scourge of dark-skinned people. The second asks the view to remember that their ancestors refused to hand over Russia to the Germans, yet they seem to be handing over Russia to the ???????niggers??????? without even putting up a struggle. This article will review recent developments in Russia regarding the outbreak of race violence. It concludes that despite an enormous amount of evidence that Russia has a serious problem with race violence that is getting…
On Monday, Russian forces killed Shamil Basayev, the Chechen terrorist responsible for the Beslan attack, in counterinsurgent operations in Ingushetia. Ingush Deputy Prime Minister Bashir Aushev confirmed his death. “Fragments of the bodies of two militants were found on the scene of the explosion. Basayev’s body has been identified through some of the fragments, including his head,” Aushev told Interfax. Putin said that Basayev “deserved retribution” for Beslan and for taking hostages in Budyonnovsk in 1995. Chechen President Alu Alkhanov called the killing a moment where Chechnya could finally turn “one of the blackest pages in ÄitsÅ history” and that…
We can now say the the Orange Revolution is officially over. The once-orange Socialist Party has changed sides and teamed up with pro-Russia Viktor Yanukovich’s Party of Regions, along with the Communists, and forged out a new coalition agreement nominating him for the position of prime minister. And they have the votes to get it through. A year and a half later, politically Ukraine is in the same place it was before. Ukraine’s Western-leaning Orange coalition fell apart in acrimony Friday less than a month after its formation, boosting the fortunes of the pro-Russian opposition in this former Soviet republic.…
Shamil Basayev, the radical field commander who ordered the hostage-taking of Beslan schoolchildren, has been appointed vice president of the Chechen seperatist government by the new president. Which means, should President Dolu Umarov be killed, he will become the new leader of the separatist movement. In so few words, that is not good. PRAGUE, June 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) — The man who claimed responsibility for the 2004 Beslan school siege, rebel field commander Shamil Basayev, has been appointed vice president of the breakaway republic’s separatist government, putting Russia’s most-wanted man next in line to become separatist president. Basayev’s appointment, first…
Not long following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Russian government has killed its own most wanted terrorist, Chechen rebel leader Adbul-Khalim Sadulayev. PRAGUE, June 17, 2006 (RFE/RL) — Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov announced on June 17 the death during a special operation in the town of Argun, east of Grozny, of Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, who succeeded Aslan Maskhadov as Chechen president and resistance commander following Maskhadov’s killing in March 2005. Akhmad Zakayev, whom Sadulayev named foreign minister of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) on May 27, confirmed Sadulayev’s death in a telephone interview with RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service…
Pestiside is a zippy, if probably left-leaning, blog that really makes you feel like you’ve got your hand on the pulse of Hungary. It’s full of the lowdown and fun to read. On this great day that George Bush visited and honored the Hungarian Freedom Fighters of 1956, Pestiside put in a delicious item that I enjoyed reading: Pestiside writes: A big shout out to reader J. for sending us the subscription only MTI story about yesterday’s demonstration organized by Amnesty International Hungary to protest alleged abuses of suspects in the “war on terror.” (Wait – we forgot – is…