Al Jazeera: Moscow Against Nato-Georgia Drills
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posted by eagle on April, 2009 as Imperialism
THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2009
20:05 MECCA TIME, 17:05 GMT
Moscow against Nato-Georgia drills
 | Nato says it plans to hold military exercises in Georgia
in May [AFP] |
Russia has demanded Nato postpone plans to carry out military exercises in Georgia next month, saying they will "complicate" tensions in the region.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said on Thursday that the exercises were "unlikely to send the right signal to those sincerely wishing to achieve stability in the Caucasus". Moscow has pointed to tensions with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two Georgian breakaway regions, as well as ongoing protests against Georgia's president, as reasons to delay the exercises.
But Robert Pszczel, a Nato spokesman, said the drills, to be held from May 6 to June 1, would be essentially co-ordination exercises, involving "no heavy military equipment". "There is no controversy, no surprise and no connection with the situation in Georgia or in the region," he said. The military alliance said the exercises, which will take place just ... |
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Window On Eurasia: Russia Needs New Approach On Ethnic And Civic Identities, Tishkov Says
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 15 – One of the Russian Federation’s “unique features,” Moscow nationality expert Valery Tishkov argues, is that a non-ethnic Russian nation [“rossiiskaya natsiya”] has emerged but it has not submerged the ethnic nations be they Russians or non-Russians who are part of it.
But if that combination exists, he and other participants at a Moscow roundtable on the country’s nationality policy said, there is not in the Russian constitution or any Russian law a definition of what a “rossiyanin” or member of this civic nation is or any document which defines the identity of its members (www.azerros.ru/var/uploads/06-154-2009.pdf).
Worse, those taking part in the meeting suggested, the Russian Federation lacks a clearly defined nationality policy, something they said the country clearly needed not only in general but in particular in response to the challenges ...
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Window On Eurasia: Russian Nationalism Threatens To Destroy The Russian Federation
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 13 – The rise of ethnic Russian nationalism, of the kind characterized by the slogan “Russia for the Russians,” threatens the country both directly by promoting countervailing nationalisms among non-Russian groups and indirectly by making it more difficult for Moscow to move toward a law-based state, according to a Moscow analyst.
Even though there is some evidence that Vladimir Putin is beginning to recognize this threat and is distancing himself from the phenomenon with which he earlier played, Yevgeny Ikhlov argues in an essay posted online this week, none of the strategies he has tried so far appears likely to work (forum.msk.ru/material/politic/805565.html).
Indeed, there are many indications that if the current wave of protests grows, Putin and his representatives will seek to deflect anger from themselves by promoting the idea of “Russia for the Russians,” a ...
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Eurasian Crossroads: The Caucasus in US-NATO War Plans
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posted by circassiankama on as Imperialism
Eurasian Crossroads: The Caucasus In US-NATO War Plans More in this Category Rick Rozoff April 8, 2009 The South Caucasus is rapidly becoming a critical strategic crossroads in 21st century geopolitics, encompassing the most ambitious energy transit projects in history and the consolidation of a military corridor reaching from Western Europe to East Asia, one whose command centers are in Washington and Brussels. The culmination of eighteen years of post-Cold War Western designs is on the near horizon as oil and gas are intended to be moved from the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea to Central Europe and beyond and US and NATO troops and equipment are scheduled to be deployed from Europe and the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Nothing less is at stake than control of world energy resources and their transportation routes on one hand and the establishment of a global army under NATO auspices fanning out in South and ... >> full
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Window On Eurasia: Immigration, Economic Crisis Creating ‘Harlems’ In Moscow, Study Says
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posted by eagle on as Imperialism
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 10 – The influx of migrant workers into Moscow and the more rapid decline in housing prices in poorer neighborhoods as compared falloffs in wealthier ones are combining to produce “Harlems” in the Russian capital which native Muscovites generally try to avoid, according to Russian firm which analyses real estate values.
The MneDa company, whose conclusions were reported this week by Pavel Ogorodnikov in “Vzglyad,” says that while the economic crisis has depressed housing prices levels in every sector of the economy, it has had a greater impact on them in percentage terms in poorer neighborhoods (realty.vz.ru/article/2009/4/8/545.html).
That has meant, the company concluded, that Moscow “is finally being divided into good districts ‘for the rich’ and not so good ones ‘for the poor,’” and this socio-economic divide will continue even when the economy improves because ...
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