Union of Right Forces Condemns Draft Law on Self-Governance
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posted by zaina19 on May, 2007 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 11/6/2006 7:01 AM 26.10.2006 13:53 MSK Union of Right Forces Condemns Draft Law on Self-Governance RUSSIA, Moscow. “The United Russia faction has introduced a draft law into the State Duma to give regional authorities the right to annul local self-governance in cities that are capitals of subjects of the federation… They want to maintain the power of the current bureaucrats at any cost,” reads a statement issued by the Union of Right Forces on October 23. ”For that purpose, they are prepared to deprive the citizens of the Russia Federation of one of their last possibilities to choose their own leaders,” the statement by the URF federal political council presidium continues. URF noted that the true motives of the authors of the draft law are especially obvious considering the recent defeat of the incumbent United Russia mayoral candidate in Samara. URF declared that the passage of the law would be a gross violation of the civil right to local self-governance, which is guaranteed by the ... >> full
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The Temptation of Vladimir Putin
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 11/15/2006 8:50 PM Image by MosNews Image by MosNews The Temptation of Vladimir Putin 03.11.2006 Deliya Melyanova MosNews Mark Antony: “... You all did see that at the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? ...” Julius Caesar Act 3 Scene II “I am grateful to the citizens who think that I can stay on and lead the country after my second term. But such a decision would undermine my inner certainty about what I was doing” Vladimir Putin, conversation with journalists in a Shanghai hotel, Saturday June 17 2006 (Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper). “Despite the fact that I like my job, the constitution doesn’t allow me to run a third time in a row,” Vladimir Putin, during a nationally televised question-and-answer session October 25 2006. The “2008 question” increasingly being put to Vladimir Putin is important not only for because it will decide who will lead Russia until 2012, but also because of its symbolic significance. Will the constitution be changed? This is a moment perhaps ... >> full
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CIS: Yeltsin Held 'Pride Of Place' In New Epoch
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 4/24/2007 2:42 AM Monday, April 23, 2007 CIS: Yeltsin Held 'Pride Of Place' In New Epoch Russia -- Former president Boris Yeltsin, at the Davis Cup tennis match in Moscow, 03Dec2006 Yeltsin in 2006 (AFP) PRAGUE, April 23, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Leaders of former Soviet states have been remembering former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the man who presided over the final days of the USSR and escorted Russia into a rocky decade of economic and political reforms. The former Russian president died of heart failure this afternoon in Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital, Kremlin officials said. He was 76 (read Yeltsin's obituary). Yeltsin had long suffered from heart problems, and his death was not unexpected. But his unique position as the overseer of the final days of the Soviet Union left many officials today remembering a man who leaves a complicated legacy. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president who saw his power quickly give way to Yeltsin's in the last days of the USSR, said the two men had ... >> full
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 5/1/2007 5:04 AM Tuesday, May 01, 2007 TOO RUSSIAN None of Russia’s leaders, apart from Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007), has asked its people for forgiveness. Yeltsin was also unique in following that up, in the same speech, with the simplest of injunctions to the people: “Be happy. You deserve happiness.” This was his farewell speech, after a sudden and voluntary resignation at the end of 1999. Vladimir Putin was his chosen successor then, having presided now over Yeltsin’s impeccably lukewarm state funeral. Alexander Solzhenitsyn had found Yeltsin “almost too Russian”. But the contrast between Yeltsin and Mr Putin is better dramatized in English, than in Russian, literature — Sir John Falstaff and Prince Hal. The impulsive, high-hearted, excessive, often drunk and publicly embarrassing old survivor, instinctively libertarian and thriving in chaotic change, yet also a blundering, wrongheaded and authoritarian statesman. That was Yeltsin, his father a peasant who spent three years in one of Stalin’s labour camps. Mr Putin, on the other hand, ... >> full
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From Russia, with regression analysis
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posted by zaina19 on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 5/1/2007 6:07 AM April 30, 2007 From Russia, with regression analysis In his new blog, Harvard economist Dani Rodrik recommends a "fascinating" paper on the rise and fall of oligarchs in post-Soviet Russia by Serguey Braguinsky, an assistant professor of economics at the State University of New York. If your idea of "fascinating" includes regression analysis aimed at coming up with quantifiably supportable observations about such things as whether or not reporting your income to the tax authorities (or whether or not you were Jewish) means you were more or less likely to be purged by Putin, then go for it. Otherwise, you'd probably be better off reading Perry Anderson's terrific analysis of the current state of Russia in the January London Review of Books. Which is not to say that Braguinsky's paper is uninteresting. His data analysis is aimed at helping to answer a key question: whether the oligarchic capitalism that replaced communism in Russia "represents a transition stage that will eventually ... >> full
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