RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Oct. 23, 2007

By Citizen M | Published: October 23, 2007

The food industry and the government have agreed to freeze prices on a range of basic foodstuffs in Russia. The freeze is expected to ease discontent over recent sharp increases in prices, caused by inflation. The “Conception for Long-Term Socio-Economic Development to 2020”, developed by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, signals that the […]

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The Challenge from the Bear and the Dragon

By James Kimer | Published: October 22, 2007

Gideon Rachman of the FT asks some good questions in his new article “Russia and China’s challenge for the west” Dmitry Peskov, official spokesman for the Russian president, likes a joke. Visitors to his Kremlin office last week noticed that the screensaver on his computer is a series of revolving quotes from George Orwell’s Nineteen […]

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Video: Garry Kasparov Interviewed by Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert

By James Kimer | Published:

Everyone would agree that Garry Kasparov receives rather kind treatment from the U.S. press – be it for his previous fame as a chess champion, his sense of humor, or even for his integrity in defense of democratic principles. Those are difficult qualities to argue with (despite the hostile reception he receives from many in […]

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Traveling the Sphere of Influence

By James Kimer | Published:

Image: Economist The BBC Euroblogger Mark Mardell is taking a close look at EU-Russia relations from the perspective of former Soviet states traditionally considered within Moscow’s “sphere of influence.” The first article in this three-part series has already been posted, focusing on traffic congestion, bureaucracy, and difficult trade politics at the Russia-Latvia border: “It’s a […]

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RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Oct. 22, 2007

By Citizen M | Published:

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev speaks in Moscow. Gorbachev founded a new political movement aimed at fighting democratic abuses in Russia, but not at challenging President Vladimir Putin’s rule.(AFP/Alexey Sazonov) The leader of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has founded a new political movement. At the founding congress of the Union of Social-Democrats, which […]

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Hack Heaven in Russia

By Robert Amsterdam | Published: October 21, 2007

The cyber-attack on Estonia during the Bronze Solider fiasco was not an aberration – thanks to a few legal loopholes, much of the world’s hackers, spammers, and scammers depend upon front companies in St. Petersburg and Moscow: PERHAPS the most famous con artist of the Soviet era was a fast-talking, eye-winking, nimble-fingered, double-dealing journeyman named […]

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Stay Out of the Caspian

By James Kimer | Published: October 19, 2007

Illustration by Kevin Kallaugher, Economist Independent: Putin warns of Caspian Sea ‘interference’

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Democracy and Russia’s DNA

By James Kimer | Published:

The Washington Post asks why President Bush has given up on Russia: But at a White House news conference Wednesday, Mr. Bush questioned “whether or not it’s possible to reprogram the kind of basic Russian DNA, which is a centralized authority.” In so doing, he echoed the laziest thinking of cultural determinists — those who […]

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Aslund: “The oil market has been stalemated”

By James Kimer | Published:

The Council on Foreign Relations has published an updated backgrounder of the global oil market, which makes mention of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Russia. Russia. The world’s second-largest producer and exporter of oil, Russia employs less than 1 percent of its workforce in the oil and gas sector, despite the fact its energy industry comprises roughly […]

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Tom Nicholls: Iraq making progress, says deputy prime minister

By Citizen M | Published:

Iraqi politics are in a mess and the handling of the oil industry has been a disaster, but there are reasons for optimism, says deputy prime minister Barham Salih By Tom Nicholls, journalist “Success is possible in Iraq – difficult, but possible,” Barham Salih, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, said in London this week. “Failure is […]

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