Windows to Russia

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and remembered that I took some pictures last night when I walked the dog. I grabbed the cell phone camera to see what and if they came out.

I got a couple of good pictures out of the 20 pictures – I took. So lets see what I got.

This is 2:30 am in Moscow and the sun is finishing setting or at least the last of the day light. Boza and I took a walk and when we came back at 3:30 am to the same spot in the lower picture. That is when we found that the day was beginning again… (It just got lighter from there.) This is the same window just angled slightly different. It is all North….

Ok – I realize that it is dark, but someone like me who grew up in the country in the USA this is not dark. There is enough light to buck hay all night and not need any head lights on the tractors or trucks.

Strange feeling for this country boy from America, what we need to do is go up North even farther. They say the sun never sets…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Ivan Eland in a interview with Russia Today, is a defense policy expert from Washington’s Independent Institute, Ivan shared his views on the additional troops in Afghanistan and other issues related to the war…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Freedom House as per par, paid extra attention to Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and Venezuela again in this fine outstanding piece of verbal garbage. (Link to Report)

According expectations, America’s “human rights activists” did not say anything good about Russia. That is not what gets me riled up though. I know Russia has issues and problems with Human Rights and the President of Russia Medvedev also knows this and he is working hard on changes.

What makes me get upset is the fact that an organization disregards so many incorrigible issues that the USA does and has done. They disregard the events happening at Guantanamo, they disregard the atrocities in Iraq, they disregard the fact that very nearly everything whatsoever is the proper domain of government, they accept torture and still give exceedingly higher rating positions to the United States of America than Russia and many many other countries.

The fact that even one issue as important as Guantanamo is over looked, means that all other ratings on the world that they publish are doubtful, distrustful, dubious, and questionable.

To place America any higher on the scale than Russia is a falsification of information that borders on criminal territory. America has no more freedoms than the people in Russia. It is probable that America may have now have entered a new stage of having less Freedoms than Russia!

Granted Russia has big issues and problems that hopefully will be eradicated as they develop into a stronger unified country. But open your eyes and see that America has the same problems and big issues that they still have never ever solved!

They just “sweep them under the carpet” – That way you don’t see them…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Note of example: (Just a tiny example out of hundreds)

• Western Europe and North America: The region continues to earn the highest scores in Freedom in the World. The election of Barack Obama as U.S. president could lead to reforms of problematic counterterrorism policies. Two European countries experienced declines in 2008: Italy and Greece. The survey also voices concern about potential threats to freedom of expression in Canada and Great Britain. (Not a word mentioned about the Iraq war and war in Afghanistan?)

• Former Soviet Union/Central and Eastern Europe: Non-Baltic countries of the former Soviet Union continued their decade-long decline, now ranking below Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East on several survey indicators. Russia and Georgia, which went to war over South Ossetia, were among the region’s notable declines, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe remains strong, despite setbacks in Bulgaria and Macedonia. (But we mention the Georgian Conflict that Georgia caused and Russia ended as a major issue in decline!)

I was drinking my morning cup of coffee and thinking about what Russia is up to. It has been awhile since I have done one of these. Russia is always up to something and sometimes that something is good and sometimes not so good. It really counts on your veiwpoint…

Lets see what Russia is up to?

The big news in Russia is that Ukraine gathered the money and got the May gas bill paid ($648.8 million). That helps with keeping the gas going but it does not solve the issue of filling the underground storage tanks to insure uninterrupted supplies to Europe for the winter. Russia just takes one step at a time with Ukraine…

While the Kremlin keeps the pressure on about Ukraine and the gas situation. The Victory of Russia’s girls at the French Tennis Open this weekend pushed Svetlana Kuznetsova back into the top five of the WTA rankings where she joins two other Russians girls. This is hot news in Russia as the Russian girls destroyed the competition at the French Open…

While Russia was playing tennis all weekend and winning, the Ex Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made a statement that said, the United States needs to carry out far-reaching reforms if it is to successfully meet modern social, economic and environmental challenges. Other words – Gorbachev says that the U.S.A. needs to have its own perestroika… (Go Gorby!)

While Gorby is expressing his feelings of love for the U.S. the Orthodox Church in Russia was celebrating Pentecost, one of the main Christian feasts also called “the fiftieth day,” for 50 days after Easter if the Easter day is counted…

While Pentecost was celebrated lets talk about a global issue!

Global military spending totaled $1.464 trillion last year, a real-term increase of 45% from a decade ago and 4% rise year-on-year, a prominent political think tank said on Monday. The figures were published in the SIPRI Yearbook 2009, released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on Monday. (Link)

Has any one really stopped to think about what this paragraph is saying?

Now how about this statement: “According to SIPRI estimates, there are around 8,400 operational nuclear warheads in the world, and almost 2,000 of these can be launched within minutes.”

That’s several short minutes to the end of the Earth…

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.

Grab a cup of coffee and have a read:

This is Medvedev’s opening speech – June 6, 2009 in St Petersburg, Russia.

This forum has very historical significance to the world. It is the first World Grain Forum and is being organized by Russia.

Experts say grain consumption by 2030 will grow by 30-40% in the years to come and if the situation is not taken seriously now, that the future is bleak indeed for the people on Earth.

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV:

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, dear friends.

First and foremost, I naturally want to welcome you to St Petersburg and to thank for having come here to discuss one of the most pressing problems we face today.

I am certain that the discussions in the Forum’s various venues today will be productive, since solving the problems of the grain market is one of the most important ways of ensuring food security on our planet. And though this may sound immodest, I think it was a good idea to gather everyone together to discuss this subject. When we proposed this idea – it was at the G8 summit last year – no one anticipated that the discussion of food security issues would be taking place during a financial crisis, but that makes what we will be discussing today more important rather than less.

The grain sector of the agricultural industry is a traditional and very significant source of revenue for our country. We intend to strengthen our position in the world grain market, in both the financial and the organizational sense. In recent years Russia really has regained its status as a major grain exporter, and as far as wheat exports are concerned we are in the top three.

Our country is indeed the largest in terms of territory – it has 40 percent of the world’s black earth [black soil with a very high percentage of humus]. In total we have about 9 percent of world’s reserves of arable land, and of course this gives Russia a unique competitive advantage. We now have the opportunity to put back into operation some 20 million hectares of arable land that have not been used since the radical change in our nation’s economic life took place.

However, providing the world with grain is not simply a question of food security. It is also a very complex social issue that affects stability in various regions of the world. In addition to discussing greater international cooperation in this field, which I consider essential, the principal task of the Forum should be a profound analysis of what is currently happening in grain markets. In effect there are three crises – financial, food, and energy – that are unfortunately not only linked to one another but also capable of creating a very nasty synergistic effect.

We are all concerned about the problems of mass hunger and malnutrition. They remain one of the most difficult tests for humanity. It was this threat that occasioned one of our key Millennium Development Goals, reducing hunger in the world. Today there are a total of one billion hungry people in the world. Just think for a minute about what that figure represents! Every sixth person on the planet goes hungry. The civilized world no longer has the right to continue to ignore this situation. To put it bluntly, many of us today simply accept the fact that every five seconds a child dies of hunger on our planet. The world is increasingly concerned with revenues and profits. And that is obviously immoral.

Read More…

Medvedev has been on a roll lately. He is pushing a new world currency to replace the dollar and now pushing for Russia to become a leader in feeding the world. The agriculture business in Russia is growing leaps and bounds. It has finally started to recover from the near death blow of the Soviet Union collapsing. Russia is putting back into use, unbelievable amount of land that went dormant during the Soviet fall.

Russia’s President – Medvedev is realistic not abstract….

Windows to Russia!
comments always welcome.