What Andrei Sakharov Might Have Done
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posted by zaina19 on January, 2006 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 1/23/2006 1:14 AM Monday, January 23, 2006 What Andrei Sakharov Might Have Done By Richard Lourie On Dec. 14, my day's e-mail included a Jacquie Lawson animated greeting card. To view it, all I needed to do was click on the link. Expecting a season's greeting somewhere between cutesy and kitschy, I was startled by the message commemorating the 16th anniversary of Andrei Sakharov's death. I immediately recalled the day -- the drained, stricken faces of the family, the inability to discuss anything but the most basic logistics, the vastness of his absence. The anniversary made me wonder what Sakharov would make of his country now. I did have some clues to his mentality, having translated his memoirs into English. He wrote them while in exile in Gorky, and they were smuggled out in small batches and delivered to me in Boston, always with the same joke -- Top Secret, burn before reading. And I had written the first biography of Sakharov and had spent ... >> full
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Opinion: Germany's Foreign Policy Shift
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
23.01.2006 Opinion: Germany's Foreign Policy Shift The popularity queen is making ripples in German foreign policy Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The popularity queen is making ripples in German foreign policy German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been in office but two months and she's already outrun her predecessors in the popularity stakes. Klaus Dahmann believes that could have something to do with her foreign policy. During the federal election campaign last year, Merkel was the subject of superficial criticism from the German press for such misdemeanors as an old-fashioned hair cut and lips which turn down making her smiles appear forced. Who would have believed that this very same woman would so quickly run rings around her predecessor, media-savvy Gerhard Schröder in terms of popularity? And who could have imagined that her foreign policy would be so convincing? In Washington, the Chancellor proved that criticism and friendship are not mutually exclusive. Doubtless, she was able to take advantage of the undiplomatic manner in which Schröder rejected the Iraq war and ... >> full
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 1/2/2006 1:38 PM December 13, 2005 GERMAN PAPERS Schröder's New Job Stinks Less than a month out of office, Gerhard Schröder finds himself defending a job offer from his old friend Vladimir Putin. Schröder's technically free to take any job he wants but the German papers catch a whiff of corruption. type=text/javascript> </SCRIPT> Unstatesmanlike behavior? Zoom DPA Unstatesmanlike behavior? Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is tired of being the media's whipping boy. For four days now, he has been the target of ever-more-biting criticism from commentators and politicians alike for his apparent decision to join Gazprom, Russia's state-run natural gas concern. The decision, coming just two weeks after he vacated the chancellery to make room for Chancellor Angela Merkel, has led many to wrinkle their noses in distaste. On Tuesday, Schröder fought back on the front page of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. There is "a lot of nonsense being spread by politicians and the media," he said. He also denied that a salary has been fixed (some papers have estimated an ... >> full
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Russia: Bully or just applying the rules?
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 1/5/2006 4:41 AM Tuesday, 3 January 2006, 18:45 GMT BBC NEWS Russia: Bully or just applying the rules? Analysis By Paul Reynolds World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website Russia might not be, as Churchill once described it, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" but it is still a hard place to understand. In the West it is regarded these days as something of a rogue bear, not content with stamping its authority on its own territory but roaming around its neighbours' as well. The row with Ukraine over gas is, according to this interpretation, part of President Putin's authoritarian approach, under which he has sought to re-establish state control over Russian institutions and is now using the power of Russia's energy resources to browbeat a country which turned its back on Russia during the Orange Revolution in late 2004. The case against Russia "Putin is not a democrat," says Margot Light of the London School of Economics. "He has a view of strong government and he wants ... >> full
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Craig Murray says UK lied on torture evidence
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 1/8/2006 12:56 PM News story for your website: Craig Murray says UK lied on torture evidence The British government has been accused of lying over its connivance at the use of torture by one of its own ambassadors. Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, posted on his personal website on December 30 a series of documents that the British government sought to suppress and that appear to buttress his charges. The documents also include a formal memo to his superiors at the Foreign Office in which Murray states the reason why the British continued to accept intelligence from Uzbekistan that had been acquired as a result of torturing detainees. Murray decided to publish the material on his website because the Foreign Office was withholding permission to cite them in a book he has written. In one of the confidential reports dated September 16, 2002, and marked ‘Confidential’, it says: "Between 7,000 and 10,000 political and religious prisoners are currently detained, many after trials before kangaroo ... >> full
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