Window On Eurasia: Many Post-Soviet Countries Are ‘Fake’ States, Not ‘Failed’ Ones, Moscow Analyst Says
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posted by eagle on April, 2009 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 15 – Analysts in both Russia and the West are increasingly willing to describe some of the post-Soviet countries as “failed states,” but a Moscow analyst argues that while that term may become appropriate in a few cases in that region, it is more appropriate and more useful to describe the majority of them as “fake states.”
In an article in today’s “Gazeta,” Yaroslav Shimov argues that whatever their shortcomings, “it would be unjust to put Moldova, Georgia and the majority of other post-Soviet states in one rank with ‘failed states’ [because] in the final analysis, none is an Afghanistan or a Somalia” (www.gazeta.ru/comments/2009/04/15_a_2974160.shtml).
It is important to remember just what a failed state is, he continues. That term is most appropriately used for “a state which is incapable of fulfilling the basic functions of the defense of its own citizens and in the organization of the ...
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Window On Eurasia: Migrants Back from Russia Undermine Stability in Central Asia, Caucasus
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 14 – Many migrant workers who recently lost their jobs in Russia are going back to their Central Asian and Caucasian homelands, but instead of returning to their native villages, they are moving into cities and especially the capitals of their countries where, because of high unemployment in many, they becoming an additional source of instability.
Compounding the problems created by their number is the experiences many of these returnees had in Russia. Because they worked illegally there, at least some are now prepared to operate outside the legal sphere and thus become both subject to and influenced by black market firms and radical political movements.
As a result, while the departure of some Gastarbeiters from Russia may have lowered tensions in cities there, the return of such people is leading to leading in some places to “social collapse,” according to a Deutsche Welle report, even though most governments ...
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The Star: Rule Of Law Best Way To Battle Terror
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Rule of law best way to battle terror
Apr 12, 2009 04:30 AM HAROON SIDDIQUI
About 12 feet from where I write this, she sat in my office explaining patiently the tragedy of Chechnya. That was 2001. Anna Politkovskaya, fearless journalist, had just published A Dirty War, cataloguing the rape, torture and killing of 200,000 Chechens in two Russian invasions. Upon her return to Moscow, she continued reporting other atrocities under president Vladimir Putin. She was harassed, beaten, arrested. In 2004, she was poisoned on a flight to Beslan; she survived. But in 2006, they gunned her down. I thought of her the other day when another figure associated with Chechnya was shot dead in his Dubai exile. The man's brother had already been killed in Moscow. Both had been rivals of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, the Putin-picked warlord whose atrocities Anna had also exposed. Another of Kadyrov's rivals had been shot dead in Moscow in 2006, and a bodyguard in Vienna in January. In 2004, a former Chechen president was killed in Qatar. Targeted ... >> full
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CK: Olympic Construction In Sochi Lacks 3 Billion Roubles
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Olympic construction in Sochi lacks 3 billion roublesAccording to Valery Zhukov, head of Department of Highways of the Krasnodar Territory, Sochi still lacks 3 billion roubles to start building the traffic intersections, which are parts of the construction programme of Olympic objects and development of the city as a mountain-climate resort. "In 2009, we are ready to start only two crossings out of four in the plan," Mr Zhukov has noted. "Today we have 1.4 billion roubles from the federal budget and 400 million roubles from the territorial one. Prior to start we need to buy out the land, for which we need 4.78 billion for four crossings." The RBC Agency reports with the reference to the head of the Department that this year they plan to build traffic intersections named "Makarenko", "Vertodrom", "Detour of Sochi City (Thermal Power Plant)" and the multilevel crossing of Gagarina and Donskaya Streets. Valery Zhukov has emphasized that in 2009 they will probably start only two objects - "Detour ...
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Individual.com: Radio Talk Show Critical Of Putin's Anti-Crisis Plan, Russian Policy In CIS
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
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