HRW: Russia: Investigate Dagestan Arson Attack
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posted by eagle on August, 2009 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Russia: Investigate Dagestan Arson AttackUrgent Need to Protect Human Rights Groups(Moscow) - The Russian government should immediately investigate the arson attack today on the office of a human rights group in Dagestan, a republic in Russia's North Caucasus region, Human Rights Watch said. The group, the Mothers of Dagestan for Human Rights (MDHR), was formed in 2007 by mothers of young men believed to have been forcibly "disappeared." With an office in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, the group gathers information on abuse by the police and other law enforcement authorities as the government fights an Islamist insurgency, and provides legal support to victims of rights violations. "How many more blatant attacks is it going to take on human rights defenders in the North Caucasus before Russia gets serious about this situation and takes action," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch today. "We are deeply concerned for the safety of the Mothers of Dagestan staff." At approximately 9:30 on August ...
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Prague Watchdog: Suicide As A Tool Of Political Assassination – Four Theses
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Suicide as a tool of political assassination – four thesesBy Harun Sidorov, chairman of the National Organization of Russian Muslims, special to Prague Watchdog 
1. The threadbare nature of attempts to justify suicide bombings and other types of self-killing by describing them as "martyrdom operations” (istishhad), is obvious to anyone who is capable of making the slightest intellectual effort in the analysis of the tenets of Shariah law. The prohibition of suicide is clear and unambiguous. Also, the seemingly analogous precedents that have been approved by authoritative Muslim scholars and rulers are misleading, and cannot be used to justify suicide bombing. It is plain to any thinking person that there is a fundamental difference between those military operations in which a Muslim engages the superior forces of the enemy in battle and deprives himself of the possibility of retreat, and those in which he brings about his own death by his own immediate actions. In the first case, the warrior ... |
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Window On Eurasia: Russians Increasingly Ignorant Of And Indifferent To August1991 Putsch
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, August 19 – While most commentators have used this 18th anniversary of the August 1991 failed putsch to praise or condemn one or another of the sides involved, ever more Russians are ignorant of and indifferent to an event that precipitated the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
In a commentary in today’s “Gazeta,” Sergey Shelin points out that by the tenth anniversary of the failed coup attempt, some 61 percent of Russians were unable to name any of the members of the group that led the coup, and only 16 percent were able to correctly name even a single GKChP member (www.gazeta.ru/column/shelin/3237971.shtml).
The level of ignorance about this event, the Moscow commentator suggests, is almost certainly greater now. But an even more potentially disturbing trend is that fewer and fewer Russians express sympathy for one or the other sides. In 1995, four years after the event, a bare majority – 51 ...
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JRL: Surkov Writes Novel About Corruption
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Moscow Times
August 13, 2009
Surkov Writes Novel About Corruption
By Natalya Krainova / The Moscow TimesVladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s powerful first deputy chief of staff, has written a novel about corruption among senior officials under a pen name, and excerpts have been published to mixed reviews. Russky Pioner magazine, edited by Kremlin pool reporter Andrei Kolesnikov, published fragments from the novel "Okolonolya," or "Around Zero," by Natan Dubovitsky in late June. A source in Zhivi media group, which owns the magazine, said Dubovitsky was in fact Surkov, widely seen as the Kremlin’s chief ideologist, Vedomosti reported Thursday. Surkov's wife is Natalya Dubovitskaya. A Kremlin spokesman said Thursday that he could not confirm or deny Surkov's authorship. No one was available for comment at Zhivi during repeated calls to its office Thursday. When Russky Pioner published excerpts from the novel in June, Kolesnikov wrote in a commentary that the novel was written by a columnist for the magazine. In December, the magazine published an article by Surkov about Spanish painter Joan Miro. The novel ... >> full
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CNN News: Gas Pipe Deal Aims To End Russia's Monopoly
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Gas pipe deal aims to end Russia's monopoly- Nabucco pipeline would run from through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary
- Project is budgeted at &euro7.9 billion (about $11 billion)
- Russia has proposed a rival pipeline through southeastern Europe
By Ivan Watson
CNN ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- Officials from six countries gathered Monday in Turkey and signed a deal to build a U.S.-backed pipeline, aimed at breaking Russia's near-monopoly on natural gas supplies to Europe. The proposed Nabucco pipeline would run from Turkey's eastern border, through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, to a key gas terminal in Baumgarten, Austria. Germany is also a partner in the deal, which is being signed in the Turkish capital, Ankara. Russia controls the current network of pipelines that supply Europe with natural gas. To challenge the Nabucco proposal, Russia has proposed a competing natural gas pipeline to southeastern Europe. The South Stream pipeline would pass under the Black Sea and connect with Bulgaria. Russia and Italy would each control half of that pipeline.  See map of pipeline » However, Nabucco got a boost after Russia ... >> full
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