Month: September 2009

September 20, 2009

Putin’s Disability

Better late than never, Princeton University Fellow Alexander Etkind writes about Vladimir Putin’s Gazeta Wyborcza article on RCW: That article reflects the deep, unresolved problems of Putin’s era: the inability to distinguish between...
September 20, 2009

Grigory Pasko: A Week in Almaty, Part 3

In the famous film Borat, Kazakhstan is shown, to put it mildly, as a strange state. However, the government of Kazakhstan, extremely irritated by the film at the beginning, now, as they are reporting, has replaced wrath with kindness – it h...
September 20, 2009

Grigory Pasko: A Week in Almaty, Part 2

[Click here to read Part 1 of this travelogue.] Who is Zhovtis? In recent days, the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan met in a yurt in Orenburg. Three questions particularly worried Nazarbayev: about join control of the state border between the ...
September 18, 2009

Of course it’s a deal

Meir Javedanfar at the Guardian has an article entitled “Did the US do a deal with Russia?”  Duh.   I wonder when Israel sends a wry thank you letter to Poland and the Czech Republic. Should Russia desert Iran’s si...
September 18, 2009

Energy Blast – September 18, 2009

The New York Times suggests that antagonism regarding issues of sovereignty over Arctic waters has had a deleterious effect on the RUSALCA Arctic Sea mission.  Bloomberg reports that BG Group will seek to recover at least $700 million in expo...
September 18, 2009

Today in Russian Business – September 18, 2009

Economic aide Arkady Dvorkovich has complained that G20 nations are not abstaining from protectionism as promised at the April summit.  Anti-crisis measures will be upheld, Dvorkovich added, apparently contradicting the Central Bank chairman ...
September 18, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – September 18, 2009

TODAY: US missile defense in Eastern Europe plans officially scrapped in favor of ‘more efficient’ new program.  A matter of concession or conviction on Obama’s part?  Mixed reaction from former would-be host countries ...
September 18, 2009

Jailing the Competition

The Economist blows up the difficult-to-ignore gap between Dmitry Medvedev’s epic tome on reform and democracy published on Gazeta.ru and the shortcomings of any action to do something about all these problems. Mr Medvedev’s article ev...
September 18, 2009

The Return of “Nigeria with Rockets”

A comment piece by Robert Manning on Atlantic Council takes a look at Russia’s economic difficulties, concluding that it is misleading to list the market about the BRIC economies. We are still having summits, and Russia is still in decline, ...