Russia/Iran: Odd Couple In Tehran?
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posted by zaina19 on October, 2007 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 10/18/2007 1:42 AM Tuesday, October 16, 2007 Russia/Iran: Odd Couple In Tehran? By Jeremy Bransten Iran -- President Mahmud Ahmadinejad (R) with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in tehran, 16Oct2007 Presidents Vladimir Putin and Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Tehran (MEHR) October 16, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad met for talks in Tehran today during the first visit to the Iranian capital by a Kremlin leader in more than four decades. Historically, Russia and Iran have long been rivals, and the last trip to Tehran by a Kremlin leader came in 1963 by Leonid Brezhnev. But Moscow finds itself in a different role these days, for its own pragmatic reasons. The bilateral talks followed a regional summit of Caspian Sea states. As expected, Putin reaffirmed Russia’s support for Iran’s development of nuclear energy in a statement at the end of the summit. "All the Caspian countries reiterate their commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty on condition that each of our countries has the ... >> full
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Washington Voices Worry About Latvia's Democracy
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 10/18/2007 2:35 AM Thursday, October 18, 2007 Washington Voices Worry About Latvia's Democracy Reuters RIGA, Latvia -- The U.S. ambassador to Latvia has expressed worries about the future of democracy in the Baltic state after a series of recent scandals and warned of the danger of a slide into corruption if nothing was done. Using unusually strong terms for a NATO ally, U.S. Ambassador Catherine Todd Bailey said it was up to Latvians themselves to stand up for their own freedoms. "We have seen a pattern of events that appear to be inconsistent with our shared values," Bailey, head of the U.S. mission in Riga since February 2005, said in a speech Tuesday at the University of Latvia. While she was not specific, her words were a clear reference to several recent controversies. These included an attempt by Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis to give the government more power to oversee the security services, which caused a standoff with a former president. Another recent scandal involved alleged secretly taped ... >> full
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 10/19/2007 8:04 PM The Russia Problem October 16, 2007 2028 GMT By Peter Zeihan For the past several days, high-level Russian and American policymakers, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Russian President Vladimir Putin's right-hand man, Sergei Ivanov, have been meeting in Moscow to discuss the grand scope of U.S.-Russian relations. These talks would be of critical importance to both countries under any circumstances, as they center on the network of treaties that have governed Europe since the closing days of the Cold War. Against the backdrop of the Iraq war, however, they have taken on far greater significance. Both Russia and the United States are attempting to rewire the security paradigms of key regions, with Washington taking aim at the Middle East and Russia more concerned about its former imperial territory. The two countries' visions are mutually incompatible, and American preoccupation with Iraq is allowing Moscow to overturn the geopolitics of its backyard. The Iraqi Preoccupation After years ... >> full
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A Foreigner's Nightmare in Dubrovka
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 10/22/2007 2:56 AM Monday, October 22, 2007 A Foreigner's Nightmare in Dubrovka By Svetlana Osadchuk Staff Writer Igor Tabakov / MT A government sniper targeting the front entrance to the Dubrokva theater from a nearby building on Oct. 24, 2002. When Svetlana Gubareva woke up in the intensive care ward of a Moscow hospital, one of the first things she heard was President Vladimir Putin offering condolences to the families of the 129 hostages who died in the Dubrovka theater. Gubareva wondered what had happened to her fiance, a U.S. citizen, and 13-year-old daughter, who like herself was from Kazakhstan. But Putin did not utter a word about the foreign victims of the 56-hour stand-off, which began five years ago this Tuesday when 42 Chechen rebels stormed the theater in southeastern Moscow during a performance of the "Nord Ost" musical. The omission would have been insignificant if it were not for the fact that it encapsulates the way that authorities have blithely ignored the foreigners taken hostage ... >> full
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Recommend Message 1 of 1 in Discussion From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 10/22/2007 3:19 AM October 19 - 25, 2007 Young Stalin By Simon Sebag Montefiore Alfred A. Knopf 480 pages. $30 Becoming Stalin Vengeance came naturally to Stalin, writes Simon Sebag Montefiore in his portrait of the dictator as a young man. By Walter G. Moss Published: October 19, 2007 Controversy about Josef Stalin and about how historians should depict his years in power continues to divide Russians. Simon Sebag Montefiore's new book "Young Stalin" does not deal directly with Stalin's reign -- his previous book, "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar," did that -- but it does provide new insights into how Stalin became the man he was by the end of 1917, still a decade before he ousted Leon Trotsky in the battle for post-Leninist leadership. Montefiore was a journalist and novelist before writing his first major historical work, "Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin." In writing it and his first Stalin biography, he made ... >> full
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