Financial Sense: Marina Kalashnikova’s Warning To The West
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posted by eagle on July, 2009 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Marina Kalashnikova’s Warning to the Westby J. R. NyquistWeekly Column Published: 07.17.2009Meet Marina Kalashnikova: a Moscow-based historian, researcher and journalist. Last August she criticized foreign "experts” for suggesting that a conflict with Moscow will not happen because Russia’s elite is too closely associated with the West. According to Kalashnikova, "The West does not care to wake from the dream of its wishful thinking, even when Moscow turns to … reanimating Stalin’s cult of personality together with the ideology of the Cheka [i.e., the secret police].” I’m afraid that Marina Kalashnikova is right. The West has been dreaming, and the West will suffer the consequences. If the Kremlin likes Stalin, then there will be trouble. If KGB officers have established a sophisticated form of dictatorship in Russia, they have done so for a reason. We should remind our politicians, with their short memories, that Stalin and his secret police did not run a Sunday school. Furthermore, the recent trail of blood and radiation leading back to the ... >> full
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Heku Zihiya: WHO OPAL OLYMPIC FLAME?
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
WHO OPAL OLYMPIC FLAME?
15.07.2009 11:39
From the conversation with the author of the publication of "The Caucasian captives" Naim Neflyashevoy I became aware that the article was edited and published in the Independent newspaper, as amended without the consent of the author. On this specially for visitors to the portal "Heku Zihiya" we publish the original article under the original title "Who opal Olympic flame? ".
In the Northern Caucasus, where the news and so reminiscent of frontal reports, formed a new knot of contradictions: Sochi Olympics in 2014 could become not only a sporting occasion and the Olympic dream, but in the Caucasus and to provoke further political problems that go far beyond the region.
Historical context
May 21, 1864 in the town Kbaada, one of the Krasnaya Polyana, which is formed around the mythology of the Russian Olympic project - 2014, upstream Mzymta was solemnly celebrated - prayer and the parade of troops - the end of the Caucasian War. After the enormous human and financial losses, ... >> full
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RFE/RL: Was Estemirova's Killing Linked To Her Most Recent Activities?
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
July 16, 2009Was Estemirova's Killing Linked To Her Most Recent Activities?
Human rights organizations worldwide have no doubt that the abduction and killing of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova was the direct consequence of her systematic investigation of human rights violations by local and federal power agencies in Chechnya.
But as she herself acknowledged, she could have been targeted for those activities at any time. So why was she killed now?
Since joining the human rights organization Memorial in 2000, Estemirova worked tirelessly to document and investigate human rights abuses -- torture, abductions, and executions -- perpetrated by Russian military and security personnel and their local counterparts in both Chechnya and Ingushetia. She also advised the victims and their relatives on how to set about seeking justice.
Those activities inevitably brought her into conflict with the pro-Moscow Chechen leadership, in particular with Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov. Memorial's Moscow-based director Oleg Orlov recalled just hours after Estemirova's death that Kadyrov had threatened her personally two years ago after she ... >> full
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Window On Eurasia: Russian Regime’s ‘Lack Of Neutrality’ An Obstacle To Integrating Muslims
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 14 – Official claims to the contrary, Moscow now faces more problems with integrating Russia’s Muslims into the broader society because no one Muslim or non-Muslim views the powers that be as neutral arbiters capable of promoting either a radically secular society like France or a multi-cultural one like Britain, according to a Moscow commentator.
In an article in today’s “Gazeta,” Boris Falikov points to the opening in Moscow and other major Russian cities of fitness centers, clinics, beauty salons, and restaurants specifically designed for Muslims as evidence of the “growing religious self-consciousness” of the followers of Islam (www.gazeta.ru/comments/2009/07/14_a_3222275.shtml).
From one point of view, he writes, everything appears not only in order but even quite positive: Russia’s Muslims “are adapting to contemporary life but at the same time they are not losing their identity.” But from another, the approach they have adopted is setting them apart from the rest ...
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Window On Eurasia: Urumchi Events Suggest Turkic Identities May Be Greater Threat To Russia than Islamic Ones, Moscow Expert Says
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, July 15 – Clashes between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Urumchi suggest that pan-Turkic identities may turn out to be a more significant threat to the Russian Federation and its interest in stability than the spread of radical Islam because “Turkic language peoples live not only in Central Asia but in Russia as well,” according to a leading Moscow specialist.
In a comment reported by “Vremya novostei” today, Yakov Berger, a senior Chinese specialist at the Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that “ethnic, social and political stability” in Xinjiang is “as it has been in the past important for Russia” lest instability spread across the border (www.vremya.ru/2009/124/5/233063.html).
Berger who has written frequently about the minorities in China added that in his view, “the problem of Xinjiang Pan-Turkism can turn out to be more important than the ...
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