“Party of Cold War” resist Russia-NATO rapprochement – envoy:Russia’s permanent envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin has been “astonished” by reports in the US media that the alliance has allegedly rejected Moscow’s proposals for a joint missile defense project.
Winter Moscow: opening of skating rink on Red Square:Winter has finally come to Moscow. The thermometers plunged to minus 15 degrees Celsius and Muscovites started preparing for the New Year holidays. On Sunday, a skating rink opened on Red Square. Photo: the first visitors skate on the open skating rink on Red Square…
WikiLeaks revelations not worth comment – Kremlin:The documents relating to Russia released on Monday by the WikiLeaks whistle blowing website do not merit comment, the Russian president’s press secretary Natalia Timakova said on Monday…
Investigators finalize suspect list in Krasnodar mass murderThe names of ten suspects have been released by the investigation team working on a horrific mass murder case in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, in which 12 people were killed, including four children…
Restaurant chain in McTrouble over rights of young staff:Prosecutors are to fine Russian branches of McDonald’s after inspections revealed “numerous violations of labor regulations and the rights of underage employees”…
Moldova torn between East and West seeks to end stalemate:Communists are leading in Moldova’s third parliamentary election in two years which is yet another attempt to break a political stalemate that has kept the former Soviet republic with only an interim president for over…
US embassy knew Georgians “moved forces” to South Ossetian border – WikiLeaksUS diplomats in Georgia knew Tbilisi concentrated military force prior to the war over South Ossetia in 2008, the classified documents exposed by WikiLeaks show… Over 300 reporters to cover Medvedev’s state-of-the-nation address:More than 300 reporters from Russia and other countries will cover President Dmitry Medvedev’s annual state-of-the-nation address to the Federal Assembly on Tuesday. According to the president’s blog on Twitter, in his speech he will pay special attention to the problem of birth rates in Russia…
Russia produces more, imports less meat:
Russia increased its meat production by 12 percent and reduced meat imports by 20 percent in 2010, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov told PM Vladimir Putin on Monday in Moscow. He also noted that meat prices are stable and haven’t risen.
Last Russian czar family items to be auctioned in SwitzerlandA unique collection belonged to the members of the last Russian Czar family will be auctioned in Switzerland on December 6. The collection includes 1,000 letters, 4,000 telegrams, about 200 postcards and 150 photos as well as silver, porcelain items and paintings…
I have downloaded the diplomatic cables that Wikileaks has posted and have spent hours reading them. The word appalling is not strong enough…
As long as the Wikileaks site survives the attacks it is getting, you can receive the data here at the link above. I understand that news agencies all over the East are planning on posting the information themselves. So killing the messenger is too late…
The Eastern and now Western press is tearing them apart and the articles are flying about all the things that have been said…
Now I see the western press has made some hard decisions and put there lives on the line over this. To be honest I am proud of them for doing this…
As the New York Times says: But the more important reason to publish these articles is that the cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money. They shed light on the motivations — and, in some cases, duplicity — of allies on the receiving end of American courtship and foreign aid. They illuminate the diplomacy surrounding two current wars and several countries, like Pakistan and Yemen, where American military involvement is growing. As daunting as it is to publish such material over official objections, it would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name. Read More >>>
‘Cablegate’ embarrasses US diplomats (theage.com.au)
In an event that is no less than a political meltdown for United States foreign policy, reporting on 251,287 leaked American diplomatic cables, many classified as secret or confidential, will be published this Monday in Germany by SPIEGEL and SPIEGEL ONLINE. Read More >>>
My grandma would have said to me several times in my life as I grew up: Never say something behind someones back that you would never say to their face. Only cowards do such things!
Looks like America got caught saying a lot of things behind our backs…
Pochep (Russian: Почеп) is a town in Bryansk Oblast of Russia, 84 km south-west of Bryansk. Population: 17,064. According to information Pochep is not a very exciting spot on the earth. The previous claim to fame is the Church of the Resurrection, built to a confident Baroque design by Antonio Rinaldi in the 1750’s…
Well another little said claim to fame has just come forward into the worlds eyes. Pochep has been put on the map now. I personally would wish for a better way to be put on the map…
Russia who is the proud owner of the worlds largest stockpile of chemical weapons and for that matter the largest stockpile of WMD’s. (weapons of mass destruction) Has opened a new plant designed to destroy the country’s large collection of cold war era chemical weapons…
Having signed on to The International Chemical Weapons Convention, Russia rendered almost half of its chemical weapons useless or destroyed. Russia is now facing a deadline in the year 2012 to have all of its chemical weapons disbanded and destroyed. So Pochep, which is the storage site to a vast amount of nerve agent about 7,500 tons or 20% of all the chemical weapons to be destroyed has been given the honors of a new facility to get rid of the weapons…
If Russia still has the worlds largest collection of chemical weapons and they have destroyed half. Could you imagine the vast quantity that they had before they destroyed the first half?
When I think about what I know about the American arsenal and then the more that I find out about the Russian (Soviet) side of the situation. I really do believe in miracles…
It is a miracle that we still have a planet to live on…
As you enjoy the food, drink and football games on this day of remembrance in America…
This will tell you what Wikipedia has to say about the holiday for America… (Link)
So to the whole world, whether you celebrate the holiday or not. Windows to Russia wants you to stop and think about what we all have to be thankful for…
Took a walk with the dog. As I walked I was thinking about what the reason would be that Russia Today would bring up the subject of America and bomb shelters? So I walked and did some thinking’s…
When I got home. I got my morning cup of coffee and sat down at the computer to look over what the world has been doing. I found that, what with South Korea instigating (also admitting that they did), the North Koreans into a mini war! That in Russia’s eyes is more than a little serious. It is a situation that has set off alarm bells in the Kremlin…
Then I was struck with the remembrance of an article that took off like hotcakes and set records for viewers on Windows to Russia…
America and the world became infatuated with the article called:
So then it made sense after the millions of views that the Russia Today video got slammed with. That they would expound on the subject of bomb shelters. It seems that Russia is in a heated frenzy to build said “Bomb Shelters”. So now they ask America – Are You Ready!
Lets jump back to the video and think about the era that it was made from. That is the era that I have mentioned numerous times on Windows to Russia. The era of the Cold War, The Soviet Evil Empire, Death from the sky and on and on and on. The video has some great actual clips from many videos that they have put together and created a 4 minute video that will make you think. Sometimes I question Russia Today’s anti American motives but I never question their purpose and reasons for what they print…
Russia Today prints the facts of life as the Kremlin sees it and I use that to my advantage to help me understand what is happening in the whole world. Because what they put out has meaning from a very powerful source…
Let me touch upon an interesting subject. (At least for me it is interesting) The last few times that I have been in the metro of Moscow. I have seen that they are working on the huge nuclear blast doors that seal all entrances to the Metro. These are very thick steel and concrete doors that are hydraulically operated to close after everyone gets in to safety…
I have seen fresh grease on hinges. I have seen several doors being partially tested. I have seen the removal of cover plates that hide the old doors and the installation of movable cover-plates to allow the doors to operate again or better. Every station that I have seen, has these doors and from what I can tell they are being maintained…
So as the Russia Today article asks: Are Americans prepared for a nuclear strike?
You have to wonder is this a chess move from an enemy to cause issues in America or is this a sincere question of concern, that comes from an ally who may see a reason for protection anew on such a “Cold War” level again…
President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Dear friends, Over the past two years we have been gradually implementing our program to transform the Russian political system. The goals of this transformation are clear; I have talked about them repeatedly. What do we want to achieve? We simply want to make our political system more fair, more flexible, more dynamic, and more open to renewal and development. It must enjoy the confidence of our electorate.
It is no secret that for some time now signs of stagnation have begun to appear in our political life and stability has threatened to turn into stagnation. And such stagnation is equally damaging for both the ruling party and opposition forces. If the opposition has no chance at all of winning a fair fight then it degrades and becomes marginal. If the ruling party never loses a single election, it is just coasting. Ultimately, it too degrades, like any living organism which remains static.
For these reasons it has become necessary to raise the degree of political competition. But our main task, the task of any democracy, is to improve the quality of popular representation, make sure that the political majority is not just static, or rather that it does not become a majority consisting of actors and dummies. The task is to make sure that the ruling party has both rights and responsibilities, and does not simply act as a supplement to executive power, that it plays a full part in shaping this very executive power. This is not required merely for the ruling party to feel good about itself. A party is a means, a political tool for ensuring popular representation. Every party represents its electorate, but in the case of a ruling party, it represents the majority of voters, hence the exercise of their rights and respect for their opinions is a fundamental principle of democracy.
No less important – and even more difficult – is the task of ensuring the rights of minorities. This is another fundamental democratic principle. Whatever its specifics, a political system must be so designed that the views of all, including the very smallest social groups, can be heard and taken into account. Ideally, the voice of every single person should be heard. In this regard the system must be transparent, responsive to everybody.
Everyone should know that he or she has kindred spirits in representative bodies. This, by the way, is the essence of representative democracy, when someone represents the interests of a significant number of people. There are people with similar beliefs, views, and interests; there are those who are not indifferent to what happens. So, these minority representatives have the opportunity to criticize the ruling majority, convey the opinions and suggestions of minorities to the officials and to the public.
Finally, I believe that political reforms should not result in chaos and the paralysis of democratic institutions; as I have stressed on numerous occasions, they must strengthen, not destroy, democracy. Therefore in the article Go Russia!, which I wrote last year, I described the method and style of these reforms: reforms must be gradual, but steady. Today I can say that over the past two years we have gradually – but nevertheless steadily – advanced towards that goal. As I see it, we have made decent progress.
At the beginning of the current autumn session of the State Duma we finally completed the adoption of a package of bills that I submitted to the Duma in 2009 and, accordingly, in 2010. I explained the need for such laws in my addresses to the Federal Assembly. In 2009, laws which provided for major amendments to multiparty electoral systems on a national scale, at the federal level, entered into force.
This year, similar changes were extended to the regional level. I have talked about this so I will not bore you by listing all the laws we have adopted, even though it is interesting from a professional point of view. There are many of them and their names are quite cumbersome, but their essence – or as lawyers say, their subject matter – should be clear to every voter and citizen. Let me list the key things.
The first thing we did was minimize the risks of election manipulation. During elections fraud is not permissible and we understand that. To this end we normalized early voting procedures and the use of absentee ballots (representatives of our opposition parties repeatedly drew my attention to the subject); for such illegal manipulations with absentee ballots criminal penalties have been introduced. The most flagrant violations occurred in this very field.
Besides, we reduced the human factor in vote counting, and we will reduce it further. Already this year, electronic devices will be installed in approximately five percent of polling locations (it is an expensive undertaking), by 2012 the figure will be 15 percent and in 2015, 100 percent – but it will bring our electoral system up-to-date. The result of our efforts is worth the money spent. I hope that, ultimately, all taxpayers will appreciate this.
Second. All parties are now guaranteed equal access to state-run media at both the federal and regional levels, which was another regular request to me by representatives of opposition parties. Electoral commissions must monitor the implementation of these guarantees. More so, equality should not be a mere declaration, as it used to be, but real, as measured in hours, minutes and even seconds of airtime. Parties should also benefit from equal rights to use various premises for meetings and campaigning. These rights have also been much debated.
Third. Parties that win a majority in regional parliaments now have the exclusive right to propose candidates for governors – that is, for heads of regions, territories or republics – to the President. In this way, the majority of the electorate has the opportunity to participate in the formation of executive power in its region via the party it supports. Ultimately, it is the party for which you vote that proposes a gubernatorial candidate to the President. Therefore, the rights of the majority of the population have received concrete substance, consisting in the right to form local executive authorities.
Fourth. A number of measures to protect minority rights have been taken, too. In addition to the equal media access that I just mentioned, the opposition is guaranteed certain senior positions in regional parliaments. The number of signatures of party supporters required for registering to participate in elections has been reduced.
In practice, the threshold for allowing party representatives into all levels of parliament has been lowered to five percent. In general votes should not be wasted – those parties who scored more than five but less than seven percent must be represented. And we shall not stop there, but rather continue to improve this institution and expand these opportunities.
Fifth. Our regions were ordered to harmonize the proportional numbers of their representative bodies, because in Russia one region, a small region for example, might have one deputy representing 10,000 people while in another region one deputy represents 300,000 voters. This is not proportional. In addition, too many deputies are too expensive for local budgets. But too few deputies means that it is very difficult to take into account the different views of voters. I hope that we have found a balance at present.
We changed the principles of regional representation in the Federation Council. Now a member of the upper house must be a deputy who has been elected to regional or local bodies, in other words, a member of our upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, must be a person elected by local residents who know who he is, know him well, while he, in turn, knows their needs and their problems.
I hope that our political system has been improved quite significantly as a result of these adjustments. I am absolutely sure that it has become more open and flexible because of them. Ultimately, it has also become more fair. Regional elections that were held in October proved that complaints were far less than, say, six months ago. Both the public and opposition parties were more composed and more calm in their evaluation of the election results.
Of course, we heard some criticisms and that’s fine, it’s as it should be. Still, there was less criticism and this is encouraging.
And one more point I made not long ago. Our democracy is imperfect and we are absolutely aware of this. But we are still at the beginning of the road. The most important thing is that we are not standing still: we are going forward.
Windows to Russia!
Our democracy is not perfect but we continue to move forward – Medvedev (rt.com)
Medvedev: it is necessary to raise the degree of political competition (rt.com)
Moscow mayor joins ruling party’s supreme council bureau (rt.com)
For twenty years the SOA rally has been away for Americans to express themselves about a cause that is dear to heart for more than just a few…
It has been a rally of ups and downs but this time with out warning News Personnel were arrested and given only options of paying a bribe whoops I mean a fine ($5,500) or stay in jail for awhile… (That is a hell of a fine…)
Taken from Russia Today: An RT crew, including correspondent Kaelyn Forde and cameraman Jon Conway, has been released after detention by US police while filming protests near the Fort Benning military base in Georgia.
They were taken into custody despite complying with the police demand not to come close to the gates of the base. RT is now trying to find out the details of the incident.
The journalists were detained after the demonstration was over and everybody, including correspondents, was leaving the site. The arrest was very rough, RT Washington bureau informs, with hard plastic hand cuffs injuring Kaelyn Forde’s wrists. This type of handcuffs is commonly used by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the footage she can be seen yelling, “We are press, why are you arresting me?”
The RT correspondents, as well as the demonstrators, were charged with insubordination to the authorities, taking part in unlawful assembly and failure to disperse.
All those detained were transported to a jail, their private possessions, clothes and, in the men’s case, underwear were confiscated. They received prison jumpsuits with the tag “Muscogee County Jail”. The arrested were put in the same cells with convicted criminals serving their sentences. Kaelyn Forde managed to make a call from the prison.
After 24 hours of detention, all the arrested were brought before a judge.
After a six-hour interrogation of the arrested, and the policemen who detained them, the judge kept most of the charges in place.
In particular, the RT correspondent and a cameraman were facing the dilemma of admitting their guilt of “participation in unlawful assembly” and paying a fine, or going back to jail.
The decision was made to pay the fine.
Another charge, “insubordination to the authorities”, will require further investigative measures.
Eventually, at midnight Georgian time, 32 hours after the arrest, the correspondents were released.
Activists from a protest movement claim that this year’s crowd dispersal was the toughest and most irrational. One of the organizers of the rally, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed that it was done on purpose in order to intimidate the protesters, with the message that, if the government can take such rough measures against the press, it can behave even worse to the activists…
Looks like RT is stepping on some toes in America. I have been watching their aggressive reporting all over America and I really think we will see a lot more of this type of censorship. Russia Today is not under the media control of the USA. Like the rest of the Large media in America. Hence the reason that you do not see Western press spouting about this story and if you do it is a quiet article on the inside page…
The Chinese Foreign Exchange Trade System signed up the first yuan/ruble trading on Monday. The deal requires that it equals or exceeds 1 million yuan with a rate of 4.67 rubles for one (1) yuan. So this is definitely an exchange for the wealthy to start with…
The ruble is now the seventh currency to be officially traded in China. The yuan/ruble trading was agreed upon last spring between Russia and China…
The Russian MICEX says, 50 plus Russian banks are interested in yuan/ruble trading…
Not a peep so far out of the Western Press. So where is the Western Press? Where is the screaming articles about this video? The whole Russia Today crew was arrested. What about the other news agencies?
An RT crew, including correspondent Kaelyn Forde and cameraman Jon Conway, has been detained by US police while filming protests near the Fort Benning military base in Georgia.
They were taken into custody despite complying with the police demand not to come close to the gates of the base. Kaelyn Forde managed to make a call from the prison in Muskogee to which they have been transported. RT is now trying to find out the details of the incident.
Each year human rights activists gather at the gates of Fort Benning, which houses the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation (former the School of the Americas), demanding its closure. The institute has been training police and military personnel from Latin American countries, many of whom are said to have been allegedly involved in crimes against civil citizens and killings of foreigners.
Police have also detained a dozen protesters on the grounds of taking part in an unauthorized mass protest.
Watch the videos of the detention posted by Media4Movement and RT above!
Watch your back! It is starting to look like what the Western press spouts about Russia is happening around America also…
Update: When the rally participants tried to leave the vigil area, the police blocked off all exit points. After a few minutes, the police allowed people to leave on the sidewalk, only to follow them, indiscriminately arresting people who had neither committed any crimes nor engaged in civil disobedience. Among those arrested were journalists, who were filming the police misconduct and bystanders. All arrestees are currently being held in the Muscogee County Jail for up to a $5,500 bond.
The weather outside is just plain nasty and that cup of coffee is just plain good this morning. So while I was sipping that wonderful coffee. I was doing some thinking’s…
I was thinking about several things and least of which is not that Sveta has flown out early this morning from Moscow and headed to Belgium. Sveta who is an IBM AS/400 or iSeries computer specialist has a MIMIX 7, brain crushing week ahead…
So Boza and I have the flat to ourselves for a whole week and we are going to try real hard not to get in trouble… 🙂 (I said try!)
When I met Sveta I knew she was into computers but I had know idea that she was a software/programmer specialist and to top that off she is the IBM Server Specialist for the Gazprombank in Russia. Gazprombank is (in Russian: Газпромбанк) is the largest Russian non-state owned bank, which is among the three largest banks in Russia…
I am very proud of her…
Next on the thinking list was the traffic in Moscow!
Yesterday Sveta and I ran some errands. We had to go to the car market for some parts, mail a package to America, go to the shopping mall, go to Svet’s mothers and go to a movie…
Now that seems to be a reasonable list of things to do. It was Saturday and we had all day to do it. Up early and on the road was the plan and get home to go to the movies. Oops – It did not happen! We accomplished the first two items and that was all accomplished in about 13 hours. By the time we finally made it home, the movie was vetoed by us both…
Sometimes trying to drive through Moscow is on the verge of being akin to driving through a landmine field in a Volkswagen beetle. Just ain’t gonna happen and if you try it. You will be in bad shape…
We started out going to the auto parts market. It took us 1 ½ hours to get 5 km to the market. We were at the market itself about 5 minutes.
Now starts the hell:
Then we had to drive into the Moscow center and go to a UPS to mail a box of goodies for a person in America…
After watching and passing no less than a dozen wrecks and another dozen broken down trucks, we succeeded in reaching the nearest Mail Boxes Etc. shipping places. We had erased 7 ½ hours of our day already… 🙁
After 1½ hours to get a package packed and shipped. We started home. 4 hours later we found a parking space (miracles do happen) and collapsed in our flat. To be fair though the drive home was much better than the drive to the center of Moscow and we stopped at McDonald’s and had some of those great Fish Wraps that they have now… 🙂 (Only 3 wrecks on the way home to look at!)
So you may consider that yesterday was a failure? Not so! Sveta and I consider it an adventure. The one thing about Russia is, that nothing is easy and smooth. If it was, it would not be Russia. I really think that Murphy’s Law was founded in Russia… (No it was not. The first form of Murphy’s law goes back as far as 1877 out of Britain it seems… )
“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”
That is why I love Russia and never wish for it to be any other way…
“Party of Cold War” resist Russia-NATO rapprochement – envoy:Russia’s permanent envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin has been “astonished” by reports in the US media that the alliance has allegedly rejected Moscow’s proposals for a joint missile defense project.