Archive

June 15, 2009

Khodorkovsky on Judicial Reform

The Associated Press is carrying a story on the article published in the Kommersant Vlast weekly by Mikhail Khodorkovsky on judicial reform: “What we have today is a justice system of which two-thirds does the bidding of the government and t...
June 15, 2009

Iran Unrest Scuppers Diplomacy

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose re-election to the presidency is being hotly contested in Iran, will not be traveling to Yekaterinburg to meet with Dmitry Medvedev today on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, according ...
June 15, 2009

The Many Causes of Journalist Deaths

At least 20 Russian journalists are killed each year, says Oleg Panfilov, the director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations in Moscow, but many of these deaths are the result of air crashes, traffic accidents, domestic violence and r...
June 15, 2009

Russian Soft Power and Georgia

The Cicero Foundation has published a new short paper entitled “Shaping Georgia’s Future After the Russian Invasion.”  I have not given the document a careful read yet, but I have pulled the following idea from the conclusio...
June 15, 2009

From Workers’ Paradise to Totalitarian Nightmare

The Financial Times has given a pretty glowing review of “Stalin’s Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky” by Bertrand Patenaude The most damning indictment that Patenaude levels against Trotsky is his intellectual dishone...
June 15, 2009

The Milk War and the Removing of Lukashenko

Over the weekend I had read the reports about the bitter “milk war” going on between Russia and Belarus, which is actually just one of many food-related trade disputes we’ve seen in recent months (see also the confusing ban on U....
June 15, 2009

Video: The Pikalyovo Incident

Recently the Russian industrial town of Pikalyovo exploded in protests over unemployment and wage arrears – prompting Putin to fly in for a big media visit, which involved a public dressing down of Kremlin loyalist businessman Oleg Deripaska...
June 15, 2009

Energy Blast – June 15, 2009

One of the biggest paper mills in Russia has raised approximately $2.1 billion in the past six years as a reward for following the Kyoto agreement to reduce its carbon dioxide, but it has not seen a penny, says the Moscow Times.  Surgutnefteg...
June 15, 2009

Today in Russian Business – June 15, 2009

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said that he believes the dollar is in ‘good shape’ and does not need to be replaced as a global reserve currency.   Russia will not ‘significantly’ change the structure of its reserv...
June 15, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – June 15, 2009

TODAY: ‘Milk war’ steps up a notch; Lukashenko absent from security summit in Moscow; rapid reaction force agreed upon at CSTO meeting; Kremlin hopes for larger role in Afghanistan resolution; third killing in North Caucasus in week of...