Month: February 2009

February 12, 2009

Ballistic Bargaining Chips

The private intelligence agency Stratfor has an interesting article about how the Obama Administration may be using a planned Central European missile defense system as a bargaining chip in talks about nukes with Iran. At a February 10 press confe...
February 12, 2009

Kosovo, Serbia, and the EU

On the eve of the one year anniversary of Kosovo’s independence, Serbia’s president, Boris Tadi, has delineated his country’s position on the new republic to the European Union (which Kosovo wants to join). While Serbia recognize...
February 12, 2009

Energy Blast – Feb 12th, 2009

The state will go ahead with previous plans to construct Russia’s largest hydropower plant in Evenk, despite protests from environmentalists and locals who believe the resulting reservoir would fundamentally alter the region’s ecosyste...
February 12, 2009

Today in Russian Business – Feb 12th, 2009

A senior Russian prosecutor has accused ‘former and current deputy finance ministers’ of large-scale theft of state funds.  ‘Russia’s plan to outline a vision of a new global economic order to the Group of Seven financ...
February 12, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Feb 12th, 2009

TODAY: Putin announces no defense spending cuts; military spending to be cut; arms exports to rise. Medvedev turns his attention to prison population. Court deports US rabbi; study center predicts rise in racist attacks; Lavrov says Russia open to...
February 11, 2009

Spies Like Us

A Georgian magazine today excerpts quotes from a Russian whistleblower’s accusations about modern Kremlin spy tactics. According to Anna Bukovskaya, a 20-year-old member of the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, since 2007 the Kremlin has been i...
February 11, 2009

Go(a)t Milk?

Russian scientists are implanting goats with the human genes necessary to produce breast milk, reports The Telegraph. The goal, apparently, is to provide an alternate source of nutrition for babies whose mothers cannot breastfeed them, although sc...
February 11, 2009

Enter the Protagonist

One European policy wonk says the European Union has become “too technocratic and business-oriented” in its relations with Russia, demonstrating a “narrow, almost provincial understanding” of events like the recent Russia-U...
February 11, 2009

Energy Blast – Feb 11th, 2009

Does Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s fury about the Ukraine-Moscow gas deal have anything to do with rumors of his close ties to the intermediary RosUkrEnergo, which the new agreement sidelines?, wonders Yulia Latynina.  A start...
February 11, 2009

Today in Russian Business – Feb 11th, 2009

Russia’s designer clothing labels are in trouble.  $13 billion worth of infrastructure projects are on hold due to a current lack of private investors, and the government is to spend $350 million of state money on buying locally made ca...