Month: August 2009

August 2, 2009

Disappointing Londongrad

Writing in the Guardian, Anna Blundy is not all that impressed with the latest contribution to the oligarch literature: Londongrad by Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley The wives and girlfriends “flock” to Courchevel and “des...
August 2, 2009

Russia’s First African Candidate for Office

Interesting story from VOA: Joaquim Crima, a 37-year old native of Guinea Bissau, in West Africa, is running for district chief, in a small village in central Russia. He is likely the first black person to ever be a candidate in Russia. Joaquim Cr...
August 2, 2009

Trial Witnesses Under Pressure in Russia

In the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, we’ve seen a long record of witness harassment, threats, and intimidation – including the medical blackmail against Vasily Aleksanyan to procure false testimony, and the story of torture against An...
August 2, 2009

Gazprom’s Renege on Exxon’s Gas Exports

Craig Pirrong, who blogs at the Streetwise Professor, has a post up over at Seeking Alpha about Gazprom’s collision with ExxonMobil over Sakhlin-1 gas exports.  The Russian government’s inability to honor contracts and property ri...
August 2, 2009

Hiding Behind the Great Power Myth

Below is just a taste of a very interesting and intensely argued op/ed published in Vzglyad by author Kirill Benediktov responding to the much-ballyhooed Joe Biden comments.  The translation comes via RealClearWorld’s Compass Blog ̵...
August 1, 2009

Putin’s Jacques Cousteau Stunt

I assume that it is Vladislav Surkov who must be in charge of constantly coming up with new public media stunts for Vladimir Putin to build upon his cult of personality.  The judo demonstrations, the skiing, the topless fishing trip, the Sibe...