The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov

Информационное агентство Times kz

Верховный лидер Ирана Хаменеи находится в критическом состоянии
Информационное агентство Times kz
Руководитель и духовный лидер Исламской Республики Иран аятолла Али Хаменеи находится в больнице в критическом состоянии после перенесенной им операции. Как передает в четверг издание The Jerusalem Post, у Хаменеи развился рак простаты. Официальной информации о ...

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NATO is using Ukraine crisis to rush Russian borders - Defense Ministry - RT
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 5:02 PM

NATO is using Ukraine crisis to rush Russian borders - Defense Ministry
RT
NATO is using the situation in Ukraine to push closer to Russia's border, according to theRussian deputy defense minister. He says the Alliance's activities have expanded considerably over the past years. In their push, Anatoly Antonov says Allied ...

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ЕС обсудил с генсеком ООН вопрос отправки миротворцев ООН на Украину - РБК
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 5:01 PM

The Moscow Times Top Stories

Зеркало недели

ЕС обсудил с генсеком ООН вопрос отправки миротворцев ООН на Украину
РБК
Глава европейской дипломатии Федерика Могерини обсудила с генсеком ООН Пан Ги Муном возможность отправки миротворцев ООН в Донбасс. Об этом она сказала в четверг в Хельсинки на совместной пресс-конференции с премьером Финляндии Александром Стуббом, сообщает ...
Рада вернет войну на УкраинуРоссийская Газета
СМИ: ЕС обсудил с ООН вопрос размещения миротворцев на УкраинеРИА Новости
Могерини обсудила с Пан Ги Муном перспективы отправки миротворцев ООН в УкраинуЗеркало недели
Интерфакс - Украина -Общественно-политическая газета "Трибуна"
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Kiev Says Another Soldier Killed Battling Pro-Moscow Rebels in Ukraine by Reuters
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 5:01 PM

One Ukrainian serviceman was killed and another wounded in fighting with pro-Russian separatists in the east, military spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov said Thursday.

Two Outcomes, Similar Paths: Radical Muslim and Neo-Naziby By KATRIN BENNHOLD
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 5:00 PM

NYT > Europe

Strip away ideology and what emerges are two strikingly similar tales of radicalization, militancy and, in the case of two men, deradicalization.

Islamic State Militants Target Ferghana Valley
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:51 PM

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

The Ferghana Valley in Central Asia has for years been a hotbed for drugs, smuggling, and Islamic extremism. One of the most densely populated areas of the region, it has now become fertile ground for Islamic State militants. (RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service)

Why Sanctions on Russia Will Backfire - New York Times
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:50 PM

Bloomberg

Why Sanctions on Russia Will Backfire
New York Times
First, by employing commercial and financial sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, the United States — the architect and largest beneficiary of the globalized system of trade and finance — is exploiting post-Soviet Russia's integration into ...
Russia starts large-scale military exercises in disputed territoriesReuters
Russia Launches Large-Scale Military Exercises in Disputed TerritoriesNBCNews.com
Russia Has Its Bulls, Bears and Just About Everything in BetweenBloomberg
Financial Times -BBC News
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Investors Flow Back Into Russia - Wall Street Journal (blog)
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:50 PM

Wall Street Journal (blog)

Investors Flow Back Into Russia
Wall Street Journal (blog)
Investing in Russia is not all doom and gloom. Despite sanctions, collapsing oil prices and a severe financial crisis that have roiled the country since the middle of last year, investors are still seeking exposure to Russian assets, according to ...
Investors Seek Exposure To Russia, But PMI Signals Deepening RecessionSeeking Alpha (registration)

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Hungary Helping Moscow Destabilize Ukraine from the West. Pozhivanov Says by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:50 PM

Window On Eurasia -- New Series

Paul Goble

Staunton, March 5 – Budapest has announced that it has handed out Hungarian citizenship papers to 94,000 people in Trans-Carpathia in Western Ukraine in expedited fashion (regnum.ru/news/polit/1902010.html), an action that creates yet another challenge for Kyiv and may very well have been coordinated with Moscow.

The Hungarian official responsible for nationality policy says that this is part of a broader effort to boost the size of the country’s population and points out that two-thirds of the more than 710,000 new Hungarians are from Transylvania in Romania and 17 percent are from the Voevodina in Serbia and only 14 percent are from Transcarpathia.

All three areas have been targeted by the Gabor Betlen Foundation which the Russian news agency Regnum reports, and all three are being destabilized by its actions as the Russian agency does not.

In a Ukrainian-language commentary today, however, Mikhail Pozhivanov, a former deputy in the Verhovna Rada and a former Ukrainian deputy economics minister says exactly that, adding that while “Transcarpathia is not the Donbas,” it is a place where Moscow with Budapest’s help hopes to destabilize the situation (nv.ua/opinion/pozhyvanov/vengerskaya-karta-o-separatizme-v-zakarpate--37543.html).

Hungary has been fishing in these troubled waters for some time, he writes, pointing to Hungarian support for the Transcarpathian Rusins and the fact that one of that group’s leaders, who operated under the cover of a Russian Orthodox priest, was accused of promoting separatism by the Yanukovich regime and subsequently found guilty of that.

Over the past year, Moscow commentators have suggested that Hungary should take the lead in offering citizenship to ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine and even recognizing some kind of Transcarpathian “republic” there, possibly on the model of the LNR and DNR statelets Moscow has set up in eastern Ukraine.

Budapest has not been slow to respond to that idea, but its role in the Transcarpathia has expanded dramatically since the election of Victor Orban as prime minister and the visit of Vladimir Putin to the Hungarian capital, during which the Russian president stressed the common ties and interests of Moscow and Budapest in Ukraine, according to Pozhivanov.

Budapest recognized the Russian Anschluss of Crimea, and it has been an active opponent of EU sanctions against Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. But the most dangerous thing it has done may be its stirring up of the Hungarian minority in the western part of Ukraine, something that forces Kyiv to divide its attention, the Ukrainian commentator says.

To argue that Hungary will succeed in creating a serious territorial challenge to Ukraine “would be an exaggeration,” Pozhivanov says.But to ignore the problem would also be a mistake, especially given Hungary’s actions and the all too obvious ways in which Budapest is coordinating them with Moscow.

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Польша отправит на Украину военных инструкторов - Независимая газета
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:50 PM

Комсомольская Правда в Украине

Польша отправит на Украину военных инструкторов
Независимая газета
Глава МИД Польши Гжегож Схетина подтвердил намерение Варшавы отправить на Украину военных инструкторов. Об этом он заявил сегодня на совместной пресс-конференции с германском коллегой Франком-Вальтером Штайнмайером в Берлине. "Речь идет о тренировочной ...
Глава МИДа Польши настаивает на сохранении санкций против РФРБК Украина
Министр иностранных дел Польши выступает за продление антироссийских санкцийКоммерсантъ
Польша направит несколько десятков инструкторов в украинскую армиюLenta.ru
СЕГОДНЯ-Актуальные новости - периодическое издание о событиях в мире-Газета.Ru
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In Afghan Prisons, Women And Young Children Serve Hard Time by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:49 PM

Uploads By Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

	In Afghan Prisons, Women And Young Children Serve Hard Time For hundreds of female convicts in Afghanistan, a prison sentence places a heavy burden on the entire family. Children up to the age of seven live with mothers serving terms for crimes ranging...	From: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Views: 2 0 ratings
	Time: 03:59	More in Entertainment

Lost US Airline Bags Find New Homes in Alabama
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:49 PM

Losing your luggage at the airport can be a hassle. Most U.S. flyers get them back eventually. But what happens to the bags that are never reclaimed? Some of them, and all the contents inside, end up at a store in the southern U.S. state of Alabama. In this story narrated by Adrianna Zhang. Sheand Enming Liu report that bargain hunters scoop these items up for rock-bottom prices.

US Layoffs Rise, Though Job Market Remains Healthyby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:48 PM

The number of layoffs rose in the United States last week, but the job losses are still low enough to show a healthy job market. Thursday's report from the Labor Department shows the number of Americans applying for unemployment compensation rose 7,000 to a nationwide total of 320,000. Some analysts say an unusual amount of snow and other foul winter weather may have boosted layoffs. On Friday, government experts are set to publish the current unemployment rate. Economists surveyed by the Bloomberg financial news service predict the U.S. jobless rate will decline slightly to hit 5.6 percent. They also predict the data will show the economy had a net gain of about 240,000 jobs in February, a bit less than the prior month. A separate survey of leading economists by Bankrate.com shows they expect the unemployment rate to fall to 5.2 percent over the next year.

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Кровавые будни минского перемирия by Радио Свобода
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:47 PM

Uploads By Радио Свобода

	Кровавые будни минского перемирия Украина после Минска-2. Ни мира, ни войны? Что изменилось и в какую сторону? Обсуждают общественный активист...	From: Радио Свобода Views: 0 8 ratings
	Time: 00:00	More in News & Politics

US Reportedly Warns About American Youths Seeking to Join IS by webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:46 PM

Window On Eurasia -- New Series

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have warned law enforcement agencies across the country about American youths wanting to join Islamic State militants fighting in the Middle East, CNN reported on Thursday. The network said both boys and girls have been involved in the trend. It cited a law enforcement source who said agencies are tracking "lots of cases" similar to that of a suburban Washington teenager suspected of helping a man get to the Middle East to join the radical group seeking to set up an Islamic caliphate. CNN said the joint warning from the FBI and the DHS was issued during the weekend. A 17-year-old boy was taken into custody in Woodbridge, Virginia, on Friday after more than a month of surveillance, according to the Washington Post. Sources told the newspaper investigators believe the boy used online contacts to make travel arrangements for a man to go to Syria to join Islamic State.

Where will Putin Strike Next?by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:46 PM

Paul Goble

Staunton, March 5 – The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, to suggest that old rules and old expectations no longer apply and thereby increase uncertainty and fear. That explains why someone like Kseniya Sochak has suggested that she is next on Putin’s list now that the Kremlin has killed Boris Nemtsov and why an increasing number of countries around Russia are nervous.

From the point of terrorists be they states as in this case or sub-state actors, that is one of terrorism’s great strengths because it can often achieve its ends of destabilization, confusion and appeasement even if those engaging in it carry out only a few actions and then sit back and watch while others react.

And it is also why such terrorists benefit by denying or not taking responsibility for their actions and why they don’t want to be clear about what they plan to do next because those things in and of themselves increase uncertainty and lead some of their potential victims to talk in ways that alienate rather than attract the support they need in order to counter the threat.

At present, among those who feel most threatened by Putin’s potential actions are the Baltic countries and two of Moscow’s supposed allies, Kazakhstan and Belarus. That the latter are on this list is instructive: if Putin moved only against those who were clearly his enemies, he would be less terrifying; attacking those aren’t -- or aren’t yet -- makes him more so.

Like her Estonian colleague Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Lithuanian President Dalia Gribauskaite leaves no doubt that Putin is looking at the Baltic countries, has already begun an information war against them, and forced them into a position where each must be able to fight on its own against Russian forces before NATO forces can arrive.

Speaking yesterday on the occasion of the re-introduction of compulsory military service in Lithuania, Gribauskaite said that “the threat is very real” and that threat emanates not from somewhere abstract but from Russia (ru.delfi.lt/news/politics/prezident-litvy-ugroza-realna.d?id=67341746).

Indeed, she suggested bluntly, Russia is “already attacking us. Will this grow into a conventional confrontation? No one knows. But already now be must defend ourselves from aggressive behavior like the increasing activity of Russian military units in Kaliningrad, and flights in the Baltic airspace, as well as propaganda and cyberattacks.

All this means that Lithuania and her Baltic neighbors are today “on the front line” in a new conflict.

The Lithuanian leader noted that Vilnius is very familiar with NATO procedures and that the alliance would need “little less than 72 hours” to come to the aide of its member countries in the Baltic states. Because the three are small, “we must be in a position to defend ourselves for 72 hours or perhaps longer.” And the Balts must do so in addition because it would be wrong to ask others to defend them if they were not defending themselves.

A second possible target of Putin’s attack is Kazakhstan, and Meduza.io’s Ilya Azar has provided important background on the prospects for a second Crimea among the ethnic Russians in the northern portion of that Central Asian country (meduza.io/news/2014/10/20/ust-kamenogorskaya-narodnaya-respublika).

Following Moscow’s Anschluss of Crimea, Kazakhstan’s officials from President Nursultan Nazarbayev on down were alarmed by the possibility that Moscow might try the same thing in Kazakhstan not only because of the precedent of the failed Ust-Kamenogorsk Peoples Republic of 1999 but also because Putin dismissed the idea that Kazakhstan had been a state before 1917.

Astana tightened laws about separatism, and both ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan began to talk about whether this was a real possibility or whether one or the other side was overreacting. The positions taken by each have exacerbated the feelings of the other, with Russian statements feeding into Kazakh ones and vice versa.

Ethnic Russians have noted that prior to 1900, what is northern Kazakhstan now was populated almost exclusively by Russian Cossacks, that it and indeed the rest of the republic were initially part of the RSFSR with a capital at Orenburg, and that Moscow had developed the whole region. Moreover, as late as 1989, Russians formed the majority of the population there.

Ethnic Kazakhs insist that Kazakhs lived in eastern Kazakhstan well before the Russians appeared, and they dismissed complaints about the status of the Russian language and the level of local autonomy as unwarranted given that Russian still dominates many sectors and the question of the unitary nature of the state is for Kazakhstan and not Russia to decide.

Indeed, many Kazakhs say it would be better to have more of the schools teach Kazakh, while some Russians connected with the “Russian world” idea complain that the schools in northern Kazakhstan may be in the Russian language but that “they are not Russian” because they don’t teach the same subjects with the same stress as schools in Russia do.

Ethnic Russians are leaving the region, and more are likely to given Russian expectations that “sooner or later Kazakhstan will go over to a state language,” as a result of which Russians will feel themselves “uncomfortable” and prefer to move, in the words of one, “rather than begin studying Kazakh.”

The events in Ukraine deepened this divide, with Kazakhs displaying “a palpable fear of Russia” and ethnic Russians a clear expectation that Moscow will come and include them within the Russian Federation, Azar says. Despite that relations between the two have remained relatively stable, and most doubt there is a possibility of a Crimea-type action in Kazakhstan.

But no one can dismiss it entirely given that, in the words of one Russian journalist there, “90 percent of ethnic Russians in Eastern Kazakhstan would be glad if ‘polite people’ should arrive.” That reality has changed how ethnic Kazakhs view them and of course both things are changing how ethnic Russians there view themselves.

According to one local political scientist, an ethnic Russian who doesn’t believe a Crimean scenario is likely, that changes everything: “If Putin believes that Russians in Kazakhstan are being persecuted, then he will not be against the creation of conditions for real actions” against Astana.

For the time being, however, he insists, Putin doesn’t need a “separatist” situation in Asia because that could provoke “Russian separatism in the Urals and in Siberia,” something the Kremlin leader wants to avoid at all costs.

And a third case which in many ways is the most interesting because it is the most complicated and unexpected concerns Belarus whose leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka has simultaneously been Moscow’s closest ally and among the most outspoken critics of Putin’s policies in Ukraine.

While almost everyone shares the view of former RISI analyst Aleksandr Sytin that Lukashenka has no interest in openly fighting with Russia, it is now very much unclear whether he is loyal enough given Vladimir Putin’s ever-tighter definition of what that consists of. And that is all the more clear now that Mensk is reorganizing its army to counter a hybrid war.

Indeed, as NR2 analyst Kseniya Kirillova notes, Moscow has been sending Lukashenka clear warning signs about that, and she advises in a commentary today that Mensk “should focus” on these signals and try to increase the autonomy of the Belarusian military “while there is still time” (nr2.com.ua/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/S-kem-gotovitsya-voevat-Lukashenko-91507.html).

Other post-Soviet states, most notably Georgia, are also concerned, but the last few days have brought warning signs that other countries may be at risk as well and not just from the nuclear blackmail that Putin has sought to use against Europe and the West more generally over the past weeks.

In Finland, a new book has been published documenting Russian penetration of Finland, a country that was never part of the USSR but was part of tsarist Russia, and calling on the government them to engage in lustration to limit the possibility that this penetration could presage a Moscow move against that Scandinavian country (http://lustraatio.fi/lustration/).

And even more disturbingly, one analyst has proposed what he calls a series of “gloomy scenarios” in which Moscow might seek to project power far beyond the borders of the Russian Federation or even the former USSR and demand bases and control in much of northern Europe (linkis.com/wordpress.com/v6Ooq).

One hopes and prays that there is nothing behind such suggestions, but the very nature of the kind of state terrorism Vladimir Putin is engaged in means that they cannot be dismissed out of hand and that there is a compelling need for new measures to track and then counter his actions lest they lead to one or more disasters in the future.

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Russia's Putin Makes First Public Comments on Killing of Boris Nemtsov - Wall Street Journal
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:43 PM

The Moscow Times Top Stories

Wall Street Journal

Russia's Putin Makes First Public Comments on Killing of Boris Nemtsov
Wall Street Journal
MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin told senior police officials Wednesday that they should “finally rid Russia of shame and tragedy” such as the killing of opposition activist Boris Nemtsov, his first public comments on the slaying. Mr. Nemtsov ...
The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for warThe Guardian
Nemtsov murder stirs fears of violent nationalism in Putin's RussiaAl Jazeera America
Russian Activist Vows to Publish Nemtsov's Ukraine FindingsVoice of America
ABC News -TIME
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Support for Putin Among Russian Voters Doublesby By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:43 PM

More than half of Russians would vote for President Vladimir Putin if a snap presidential election were held, a survey published Thursday showed.

Adidas to Close 200 Russian Stores as Recession Loomsby The Moscow Times
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:43 PM

The Moscow Times Top Stories

German sportswear manufacturer Adidas said Thursday it would close 200 stores in Russia in the face of rapid ruble devaluation and local consumer spending that has been curbed by an economic crisis.

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Russian police officer found guilty of spying for USby Associated Press in Moscow
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:43 PM

Russia | The Guardian

Roman Ushakov convicted of treason for handing over classified material and sentenced to 15 years in prison, in case likely to inflame US-Russian tensions

A Russian police officer has been convicted Thursday on charges of spying for the United States – using a cache disguised as a rock – and sentenced to 15 years in prison. It was the latest in a host of spy cases amid rising Russia-west tensions over Ukraine.

The Moscow city court on Thursday found Roman Ushakov guilty of treason for handing over classified information to the United States. Prosecutors produced his messages, which contained sensitive information about the interior ministry, as well as a rock-like cache with cash and a letter from the CIA, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ukraine's former finance minister is arrested near Valencia over £6m 'embezzlement'
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:42 PM

- Europe RSS Feed

Ukraine’s former finance minister, Yuri Kolobov, has become the first member of the former, pro-Russian, government in Kiev to be arrested after he was detained by Spanish police near Valencia.

Премьер-министр Финляндии видит возможность вступления в НАТО - Радио Свобода
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:42 PM

Радио Свобода

Премьер-министр Финляндии видит возможность вступления в НАТО
Радио Свобода
Премьер-министр Финляндии Александр Стубб заявил, что его страна может вступить в НАТО в ближайшие четыре года. На совместной пресс-конференции с генеральным секретарем НАТО Йенсом Столтенбергом Стубб заявил, что не исключает возможности вступления в эту ...
Премьер Финляндии заявил, что страна должна подумать о вступлении в НАТОУНИАН
Россия значительно увеличила поддержку боевиков - генсек НАТОЛІГА.net
Столтенберг: Россия значительно увеличила поддержку донбасских ополченцевРосбалт.RU
РБК -ИА REGNUM -Корреспондент.net
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A year after Russia took Crimea, stronger Ukraine military braces for long fight - McClatchy Washington Bureau
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:42 PM

McClatchy Washington Bureau

A year after Russia took Crimea, stronger Ukraine military braces for long fight
McClatchy Washington Bureau
27, 2014 – Russian troops begin to take up positions in Crimea. March 16, 2014 – A referendum is held in Crimea on proposed annexation to Russia. Pro-Russia forces declare that 97 percent voted in favor. March 18, 2014 – Russian President Vladimir ...
A year after Russia seized Crimea, Ukraine braces for a long fightMiamiHerald.com

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Boris Nemtsov was told 'I will bash in your head with a hammer', says lawyer by Tom Parfitt
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:42 PM

Russian News, All The Latest And Breaking Russia News

Death threats that stranger sent to opposition politician via social media account were allegedly ignored

Read the whole story

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Putin’s ‘Greatest Task’ Is To Become a New Stalin by Paul Goble
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:41 PM

The InterpreterThe Interpreter

Staunton, March 5 – On the 62 anniversary of his death today, Stalin continues to cast an ever darker shadow over Russia, sparking debates about how he should best be remembered.

But beyond these symbols, the influence of Stalin on the thinking of Vladimir Putin and his regime is increasingly obvious and strong, as Moscow political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky pointed out on the eve of this anniversary on Ekho Moskvy’s Osoboye mneniye program hosted by Olga Zhuravlyeva.

According to Belkovsky, “Putin’s most important task is to become in international politics a new Stalin, not in the domestic sense but in the international. That is, to move toward a second Yalta, to return to the world of Yalta and Potsdam, and to agree with the US and the EU, and in the case of the EU in the first instance with Germany, about the division of the world” with clearly “fixed zones of influence.”

Ukraine, he continues, “is only a place des armes and instrument for the solution of these tasks” and those Putin is using there are “only pawns on a chessboard,” who can be sacrificed in the name of the endgame. This is something a few of these people may already be beginning to recognize and even to fear.

But despite his suggestion that Putin is following in the footsteps of Stalin internationally rather than at home, Belkovsky also discussed some of the ways in which the Kremlin leader is copying the late dictator at home, including “the routinization” of the persecution of his enemies by use of ostensibly judicial institutions and the spread of violence throughout the country.

As a result of Putin’s actions, human life in Russia “isn’t worth anything,” and a decision to kill him is taken in terms of his “liquidation cost.” That means, Belkovsky says, that “the question to kill this or that individual or not to kill him is made” by comparing the costs of killing him against the damage the potential victim is thought to have inflicted on the regime.

The Moscow analyst says it would now cost about 5,000 US dollars to have him killed and that means that any damage he might cause above this sum would be make a strong case for the Putin regime to have him eliminated.

Killing someone else, like Boris Nemtsov, of course, would have cost much more, but the principle is the same.

Morality, truth and the values of civilization mean nothing to those making this kind of calculation. It is all about the personal comfort of the leader. Putin could have gone to Nemtsov’s funeral — that would have played well in many places — but he didn’t because to do so would have been “very uncomfortable psychologically” for the Kremlin leader.

Asked whether he believes that Putin enjoys the backing of 86 percent of Russians, Belkovsky said he “believes only in the Lord God.” As far as the 86 percent figure is concerned, he said it reflects what people know they are expected to answer on the basis of what they see on Russian television.

Boris Yeltsin didn’t get that kind of support because he did not have “total propaganda,” as Putin does.

Yeltsin despite all his shortcomings was a democrat. Those who rely on total propaganda like Putin operate under its laws: there must be only one enemy and only one point of view.

The Soviet Union began to fall apart when programs like “Vzglyad” appeared under Mikhail Gorbachev, when it became obvious that there were various points of view on many issues and when it also became clear that the United States was not Russia’s enemy. Putin remembers this and has drawn conclusions accordingly.

That is driving the Kremlin leader rather than fear of opposition or a Maidan in Russia. Unlike Yanukovich, Putin would have no difficulty ordering the use of force against the population, and in fact, under current conditions, he has no reason to believe that he must use mass force. Surgical strikes against its leaders and mass propaganda are sufficient.

But there is one positive thing to derive from the anniversary of Stalin’s death: even Putin will not live forever, and he has an obvious successor, Dmitry Medvedev, whose “only source of legitimacy” would involve “the rejection of Putinism and in the first instance the rejection of the world war” toward which Putin is moving.

That would be true of any other successor, just as it was true of Khrushchev after Stalin, Belkovsky suggests, “and we know from the example of Alexander I and Paul I that heirs often conduct a policy directly opposed to their predecessors.

“All of us are mortal,” Belkovsky points out, “including Putin” and if something suddenly happens … we know from the examples of Alexander I and Paul I that heirs frequently conduct a policy directly opposed to their predecessors,” just as more recently Nikita Khrushchev did after he succeeded Stalin.

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Germany's spymasters left red-faced after thieves break into brand new secret service HQ and steal taps
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:41 PM

- Europe RSS Feed

Germany’s spymasters did not have to look far to find the embarrassing leak that had sprung within the walls of their brand new intelligence headquarters; evidence of it literally dripped from the ceilings and poured down the soggy walls of the huge Berlin complex.

Reuters: За день до смерти Немцов оставил записку о деталях своего доклада по Донбассу - Росбалт.RU
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:40 PM

Последние новости в мире

Reuters: За день до смерти Немцов оставил записку о деталях своего доклада по Донбассу
Росбалт.RU
МОСКВА, 5 марта. Незадолго до смерти политик Борис Немцов написал записку, в которой изложены детали его готовившегося доклада. Эту записку агентству Reuters показала соратница Немцова по РПР-Парнас Ольга Шорина. По ее словам, Немцов завершал работу над докладом о ...
Reuters раскрыло детали доклада Немцова по УкраинеРБК
Помощница Немцова обнародовала записку политика об убитых российских десантникахBFM.Ru
В партии Немцова раскрыли подробности его доклада по УкраинеNEWSru.com
Ведомости -Газета.Ru -Радиостанция ЭХО МОСКВЫ
Все похожие статьи: 30 »

Киев рекомендует украинцам «оценивать риски» возможного задержания при поездках в Россию - Коммерсантъ
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:39 PM

The InterpreterThe Interpreter

Gazeta.ua

Киев рекомендует украинцам «оценивать риски» возможного задержания при поездках в Россию
Коммерсантъ
МИД Украины рекомендует своим гражданам, собирающимся совершить поездку в Россию, «оценивать риски» возможного задержания, сообщает украинское внешнеполитическое ведомство в четверг. МИД Украины отмечает, что «в последнее время в России стали нормой случаи ...
МИД не рекомендует украинцам ездить в РоссиюУНИАН
В МИД Украины призвали своих граждан задуматься о необходимости поездок в РоссиюКомсомольская правда
Киев рекомендует украинцам "оценивать риски" при поездках в РоссиюРИА Новости
Интерфакс -НТВ.ru -Украинское национальное информагентство
Все похожие статьи: 48 »

Who Will ‘Swallow Up’ the Jewish Autonomous Oblast – Khabarovsk Region or China? by Paul Goble
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:08 PM

Staunton, March 5 – Two weeks ago, Vladimir Putin named Aleksandr Levintal to head the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO) in the Russian Far East, an action that Konstantin Kalachev says has reopened talk about the future of a region rich in natural resources but which “in fact is cut off from the rest of Russia” and has “long ago lost its specific national character.”

On Slon.ru, the Russian analyst suggests that one can only understand what may happen next in Birobidzhan if one examines how it came into existence and what any change might mean for Moscow’s international reputation and control given the current economic crisis and international tensions.

As early as 1921, the Soviet leadership began discussing where they might create a Jewish region to promote agricultural settlement of Jews from other parts of the country.

Initially, most of those involved in these discussions favored northern Crimea, the Azov steppes or the Altay.

But by the end of the 1920s, Kalachev notes, “the intra-party struggle had ended with the complete triumph of Stalin, and his opponents, a large part of whom were Jews, lost influence.”

As a result, Moscow ruled out Crimea which was deemed important for other reasons, and Stalin began to consider setting up something for the Jews in the Far East.

In 1928, the Soviet government ordered that arrangements be made for Jewish “toilers” to be sent to the Far East so that they could work “the free lands in the Amur region.”

Few Jews were there already, and few were attracted by this. In that year, there were only 34,000 people in what became the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, and almost none were Jewish.

Over the next five years, 22,000 people moved into the area, but Jews did not form a majority of them.

Nonetheless, in 1934, Moscow decreed the establishment of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast directly subordinate to the central government, and four years later, the Oblast was included within the newly-formed Khabarovsk region.

Administratively, that is how things remained until 1991, Kalachev continues. At that time, the Presidium of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet decided to separate the Jewish Autonomous Oblast from Khabarovsk region and make it an independent subject of the Russian Federation. And so it continues to this day.

But despite its name and Moscow’s decision to appoint Jews to head it, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast is not Jewish. According to the 2010 census, only about one percent of the residents of the Oblast are Jews, and their numbers are in decline both as a result of departures and assimilation. Chinese is “more useful” than Yiddish or Hebrew,” Kalachev says.

In January, Yevgeny Primakov described the Jewish Autonomous Oblast as “a political anachronism” because of the fact that its “titular” nation formed such a small part of the population and suggested it should be liquidated by amalgamating it with the larger and more populous Khabarovsk region.

But others objected.

Aleksand Kynyev, a Russian analyst, said that there was no need to do anything because “the JAO isn’t bothering anyone” and because “the symbolism of liquidating the ‘Jewish’ autonomy would be received negatively and would not improve the current image of the country.”

Others agreed, but the question of whether it is “an anachronism” remains open.

“As ‘a Jewish reservation,’ it is an anachronism,” Kalachev says. But changing its status would require a referendum and real effort by the local governor and a new propaganda campaign to explain this to Jews elsewhere. Neither Moscow nor he appear ready to do that.

As to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast’s role in promoting the image of Russia, he continues, all anyone has to do now is to send someone with a camera to the region and he will return with pictures of a depressed region to which almost no one wants to go and where everyone who is there wants to leave. That would do more harm than disbanding the Oblast.

But however that may be, Kalachev argues, the autonomy is likely to continue to exist but for an entirely different reason: China.

More than 60 Chinese firms “with 100 percent Chinese capital” are there, Chinese farmers are working about a quarter of the land, and more than a quarter of all living space has been built with Chinese money.

The Oblast’s leaders as well as Moscow want to continue to develop those links, expanding them in the areas of iron ore mining and linking the two places with new rail bridges.

And both appear to have concluded that it will be easier for a Moscow-appointed official to do that if he is responsible only for the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

But while that may make sense administratively, Kalachev says, there is likely to be further “Chinese ‘colonization’” of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Any economic expansion will require them, and “the Chinese and not the Jews will define the economic future and ethnic face of this Oblast.”

Indeed, Kalachev’s piece concludes, in the not terribly distant future, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast “could become the most Chinese part of all the territory of Russia.”

Read the whole story

· · · ·

Report: Human Rights Deteriorating in Annexed Crimeaby webdesk@voanews.com (Zlatica Hoke)
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:00 PM

Human rights conditions have deteriorated in Crimea since its annexation by Russia last year, with Crimean authorities accused of discriminating against minorities, suppressing freedom of expression, and forcing residents to assume Russian citizenship or leave, according to a new report. When Russian President Vladimir Putin officially signed Crimea's annexation to the Russian Federation in March 2014, much of the world questioned what made such a brazen move possible, and in such a...

Eye for an eye: Iran blinds man who carried out acid attackby Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 4:00 PM

Other acid attackers have been sentenced to be blinded in Iran but this is the first time it has been carried out, amid condemnation from human rights groups

In a literal application of the sharia law of an eye for an eye, an Iranian man convicted of blinding another man in an acid attack has himself been blinded in one eye, marking the first time Iran has carried out such retributive punishment.

The convicted acid attacker, who has not been identified, was rendered unconscious in Rajaishahr prison in the city of Karaj on Tuesday as medics gouged out his left eye, according to the state-owned Hamshahri newspaper.

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Top US Lawman Calls for Police, Court Reform in Ferguson - Voice of America
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:59 PM

Michael Brown's family to file wrongful death lawsuitby Tom McCarthy in New York
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:59 PM

World News - Breaking International News And Headlines | Sky News

Lawyers for the family of 18-year-old killed in Ferguson said they would file a civil case, a day after DoJ said it would not bring charges against Darren Wilson

Lawyers for the family of Michael Brown, the teenager killed last summer in Ferguson, Missouri, said on Thursday they would file a wrongful death civil case on behalf of the family.

“We are officially in the process of formulating a civil case that we anticipate will be filed shortly on behalf of the family,” said Anthony Gray, an attorney for the family.

Plane Skids Off Runway At New York Airport
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:59 PM

A passenger plane has skidded off the runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York where the ground is covered in snow.

Plane skids off runway at LaGuardia, crashes through fence
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:59 PM

AP Top Headlines At 3:37 P.M. EST

NEW YORK (AP) -- Authorities say a Delta plane from Atlanta has skidded off a runway while landing at LaGuardia Airport and has crashed through a fence....

Plane skids off snowy runway at New York's LaGuardia airportby Jessica Glenza in New York
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:58 PM

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Delta plane appears to have made crash landing on day where travel woes caused by a winter storm are plaguing the US from the south-east to New England

A plane skidded off the runway at LaGuardia airport in New York on Thursday, the latest example of travel woes plaguing the US from Texas to Connecticut as a major storm stretches across the country.

Laguardia Airport: 131 passengers/crew on plane. 24 non-life-threatening injuries, 3 of whom transported at this time pic.twitter.com/UlvDtcuHUF

We just crash landed at LGA. I'm terrified. Please...

We have all been evacuated. Everyone is safe. Thank you for your prayers. God is good.

Is Another Miscarriage Of Justice Imminent In Karachayevo-Cherkessia?
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:58 PM

In many respects, Karachayevo-Cherkessia is the poster child among the republics of the North Caucasus. But one trend that mars this picture is the apparent lack of professionalism and objectivity of the republic's courts.

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Page 8

Brown Family to Sue City of Ferguson, Officerby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:58 PM

The family of the unarmed black teenager slain last summer by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, plans to file a wrongful death civil lawsuit, their lawyers said Thursday. Daryl Parks, lead attorney for the family of Michael Brown, said the suit naming the City of Ferguson and officer Darren Wilson would be filed “soon.” The announcement comes the day after the U.S. Justice Department announced it would not bring civil rights charges against Wilson. But the department also...

EU extends Yanukovich asset freeze, drops sanctions on some allies
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:57 PM

Reuters: World News

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union said on Thursday it had extended a freeze on the assets of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and 17 others suspected of stealing from the Ukrainian state.

Woman who killed son by feeding him methadone jailed for six years by Press Association
Thursday March 5th, 2015 at 3:57 PM