Margaret Warner (The News Hour) is doing a good job of setting the scene for President Obama’s visit to Russia next week. Talking in Moscow with a cross-section of media, government spokesmen, activists and Kremlin-watchers, Warner’s reports this week paint a fairly nuanced picture. Stability but arbitrary authority. Economic growth (until last year) but great […]
After intense diplomatic pressure by the United States, including a letter from President Obama, the Kyrgyz Republic has decided to allow US troops to use the Manas air base as a transit stop for the mission in Afghanistan. The US will have to pay $60 million dollars a year, up from $17 million it has […]
For his birthday on Friday, Russia’s most famous prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky held an online Q&A with readers of Gazeta.ru, a popular online daily. In it he defends himself against allegations of robber-baronism and asset stripping, and says: “I decided to take the risk and have never felt sorry for that”. But much more interesting than […]
“What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers”, wrote two men much wiser and more bearded than I. “But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons: the proletarians”. It looks as though […]
Just days after American military officials stated their readiness to logistically remove their presence from the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan, it appears they can unpack their bags, or at least the ones without weapons. The Kyrgyz parliament has approved a more limited American presence in the country and has received a hefty raise on […]
“It might seem impolitic to embrace what many regard as a looming global catastrophe. But this has not stopped the Russians”. So begins an article in the Abu Dhabi based National about the future of my arctic hometown of Murmansk in the age of global warming. Feted in Soviet times as the largest populated point […]
Most English-speaking readers didn’t know about Ingushetia until this morning, when its president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov miraculously and barely survived a massive suicide bomb that nearly levelled a whole city block (lending added weight, if any were needed, to Russian officials’ traffic aversion). The headline grabbing stunt, on the anniversary of a bloody 2004 raid on […]
Amidst all the media intoxication with the Iran protests, you can count on Russia to deliver a well-advised downer. Sean at Sean’s Russia Blog helpfully provides a digested read of the press reactions to the post-election unrest. “Iran”, Sean writes, “only highlights the nadir of political change in Russia. “Perhaps,” Kolesnikov writes, “one of the […]
Check out this Council on Foreign Relations report on Winning the Information War in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The work analyzes both American and Taliban/Al Qaeda media usage and effectiveness. Here’s an Exerpt: With overwhelming firepower, Western armies rarely lose in combat to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. But in the communications battle, the militants appear to […]
First off, my friends at Rising Powers beat me to a SCO Summit report. In the shadow of the Iranian election drama and the first real BRIC get together, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Don’t know what the SCO is?) held their annual Heads of State Summit in the Russian Ural city of Yekaterinburg. The Heads […]
Check out my review of the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia over at FPA’s Central Asia blog. I’m not cheating on you Afghanistan, I just think we should see other regions once in a while.
Amidst the economic collapse, something is blooming in Russia: Potatoes! In yet another unmissable tidbit of post-Soviet life from Laurie Taylor’s excellent Thinking Allowed show on BBC Radio 4, he interviews a Syracuse university professor who claims that a boom in potato cultivation since 1991 reflects Russia’s spiralling poverty and social stratification since the collapse […]
Why would a shrewd Russian oligarch want to buy two notoriously loss making English newspapers? According to billionaire Alexander Lebedev, it was his fond memories of scouring the London dailies for information as a young Soviet spy, as well as being a “good way to waste money”. But really he just wanted to hang out […]
Quick little round up… McKiernan officially out, McChrystal officially in as the top US and overall commander of forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal, known for his special ops strategic strikes in Iraq, has been hammering the point that protecting Afghan civilians is what will bring a change in the conflict’s direction. He is already reviewing troop […]
A couple days ago, my US State Department daily feeder cooked me up this press conference by US Afghan/Pakistan Envoy Richard Holbrooke. The Q & A, though centered on Holbrooke’s most recent trip to Pakistan and the Gulf States, held several interesting items regarding Afghanistan and the nascent Obama administration strategy for the region. Right […]