Month: January 2009

January 26, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Jan 26th, 2009

TODAY: Putin blames Ukraine again; Rogozin to meet NATO ambassadors today; Russia ready to cooperate on Afghanistan supply routes, get involved in Darfur; Orthodox Church voting for new head; Stanislav Markelov: rights activists condemn Medvedev&#...
January 26, 2009

Mourning Markelov: The Fault, Dear Brutus, is Not in Our Stars

As last week came to its prolonged close, punctuated by the singularly disheartening farewell to slain human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, one can’t help but be struck by the feeling that Russia had hit a new low point, and the even grea...
January 25, 2009

Obstacles to Brainwashing

This is from a comment piece by Dmitri Sidorov in Forbes on the murders of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasi Baburova: The double murder of Markelov and Baburina comes as yet another dreadful confirmation that to be a human rights advocate, or an in...
January 24, 2009

A Mass for Venezuela’s Political Prisoners

Yesterday El Nuevo Herald published an article about an evening mass held in Key Biscayne, Florida by the Venezuelan expatriate to draw attention to the plight of political prisoners in the country.  Below is a flyer from the event followed b...
January 24, 2009

Russia’s Ambitions in Latin America

The following is from an interview with Charles A. Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations, republished in the New York Times.  Kupchan suggests that despite low oil prices, political unrest may lead the Kremlin to further adventures in L...
January 24, 2009

Eurasian Values

From a book review of Jeffrey Tayler’s Murderers in Masoleums published in the Washington Post. Despite enormous variations in their traditions and beliefs, all the Eurasians he encounters seem uniformly disgusted with their governments. At ...
January 23, 2009

Gazprom Booted from Brussels

Brussels is currently going through some revisions on their lobbying regulations, seeking to establish a higher standard for transparency – coincidentally losing Gazprom one of its most expensive levers of influence.  No problem, they s...
January 23, 2009

Death by Economic Shock

The Economist is running an article that evaluates a recent study, published in the British journal Lancet, of the sudden drop in the life expectancy of Russian male from 1991 to 1994.  Amazingly, the study blames ‘shock therapy’ ...
January 23, 2009

Translating Obama

Russians may have a bit of a different understanding of what Barack Obama said during his inaugural speech.  From the Moscow Times: One problem for translators was the list of American values Obama called upon Americans to return to — &...
January 23, 2009

Energy Blast – Jan 23rd, 2009

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says that the gas price of $450 per 1,000 cubic meters, agreed by Russia and Ukraine for 2009, is ‘fair‘, but a Moscow Times report suggests Tymoshenko will try to negotiate a discount on Russi...