Unemployment Couldn't Be Lower, and Won't
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posted by zaina19 on December, 2007 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 12/6/2007 1:48 AM Open Gallery... Dec. 06, 2007 Unemployment Couldn't Be Lower, and Won't Registered unemployment in Russia dropped 10 percent this year to 1.5 million people, announced Maxim Topilin, head of the Federal Labor and Employment Service (Rostrud), yesterday. Rostrud acknowledges that that pace will not continue in 2008. The level of unemployment in Russia – 2 percent according to Rostrud, 6 percent by the calculation method of the International Labor Organization – is the practical limit. Topilin credits “activization of economic processes” that created new job for the situation, saying that the number of vacant positions has grown from 1 million to 1.5 million this year. He named the restoration of benefits of mothers with small children as another reason for the reduction in the unemployed. About 100,000 people, 5-10 percent of the women seeking employment, were doing so out of need for benefits without an desire to work. Unemployment benefits in Russia range from 720-770 to 2880-3080 rubles per ... >> full
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Why the Vote Was Not Fair
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 12/6/2007 2:23 AM Thursday, December 6, 2007 Why the Vote Was Not Fair By Klas Bergman On election day, with snow covering the street in Moscow, over 60 percent of voters went to the polls at well-organized and efficient polling stations and in a mostly calm and friendly atmosphere. From St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, election observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the Nordic Council were generally well received by election officials. Why did the international monitors declare that the elections were "not fair" and that they "failed to meet many OSCE and PACE commitments and standards for democratic elections"? The Foreign Ministry has expressed bewilderment at our statement, claiming that it was filled with political bias and preconceptions. But we believe that our assessment is based on an impartial and balanced analysis. For the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly staff based in Copenhagen, the preparations for the Dec. 2 elections started ... >> full
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How Nemtsov's Arrest Differs From Anya's
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 12/6/2007 2:28 AM Wednesday, December 5, 2007 How Nemtsov's Arrest Differs From Anya's By Yulia Latynina Last week I heard the most optimistic news that an inveterate pessimist like me could have possibly imagined. No, I'm not referring to the recent State Duma elections. That isn't news. The word "news" implies something unexpected, and there was nothing unexpected about the results of these elections. It wasn't the elections that made news, but the arrests of prominent opposition figures prior to the elections: Boris Nemtsov of the liberal Union of Right Forces party, former world chess champion and opposition leader Garry Kasparov and liberal activist and satirist Viktor Shenderovich. But even more surprising than their arrests was what happened while they were in custody. I called all three of the detainees while they were behind bars. First on my list was Nemtsov, who told me that the police officers at the station asked him for his autograph and for a group photograph. Next I called Shenderovich, ... >> full
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Dubai on the Moscow River
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 12/6/2007 2:34 AM Monday, December 3, 2007 Dubai on the Moscow River By Alexei Bayer Writing in the Nov. 22 issue of The New York Review of Books, former Soviet dissident Sergei Kovalyov analyzed the reasons for President Vladimir Putin's remarkable popularity. A consistent critic of Putin's neo-Soviet policies, Kovalyov nevertheless recognized that Putin's skillful revival of certain Soviet myths gave the people what many of them craved -- a national narrative and a sense of continuity. Kovalyov wrote the article before the worshiping of Putin reached its grotesque crescendo in the weeks preceding Sunday's State Duma elections. He might have changed his mind about continuity in Russia. A friend of mine, a renowned food critic, visited Moscow this fall for the first time in five years. She was impressed with the world-class restaurants popping up all around the capital but also dismayed by the sense of disconnect that pervades the city. She said it reminded her of Dubai, a showcase of petrodollar glamour that ... >> full
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 12/6/2007 2:42 AM Monday, November 26, 2007 Putin's True Face By Richard Lourie Richard Lourie I was a bit shocked by the photograph of President Vladimir Putin that the Financial Times ran on the front page of its Oct. 21 edition. The photograph showed Putin with a contemptuous sneer on his face. It was no doubt chosen out of the many available, a selection having clear editorial intent that might not be immediately obvious to the paper's readers. A photograph can have the illusion of objectivity, but a caricature never can. The one of Putin in the Nov. 22 New York Review of Books, which accompanied the article "Why Putin Wins" by long-time human rights activist Sergei Kovalyov, depicts a lugubrious tsar with bear-like claws for hands and a missile for a scepter. For some reason, Putin's nose is bulbous and dark like an alcoholic's and would seem rather to belong on the face of Boris Yeltsin, the W.C. Fields of Russian rulers. Thus, ... >> full
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