Daily Archives: July 18, 2006

Youth political activism in Russia is a tale of two youths. One stands in front of a line of police in riot gear in St. Petersburg, a black or red handkerchief over his nose and mouth to disguise his face. He is probably a member of Red Youth Vanguard (AKM), the National Bolshevik Party, an anarchist, or an environmentalist. He will most likely get beaten and then arrested. He will spend up to 10 days in jail or until the Russian authorities decide to release him.

In many ways he is lucky to get this far. Many activists protesting at the G8 Summit this past weekend, like St. Petersburg Natsbol leader Andrei Dmitriev and AKM leader Sergei Udal’?tsov were victims of preemptive arrests. According to Kommersant, Udal??tsov was scooped up with several other AKMtsy and taken to Moscow, where they were then released. On ..read more

Question: What prevented the United States and Russia coming to an agreement to allow the latter into the WTO?

Answer: Pork.

Yes, that is right, pork. The sweetest meat, the succulent hog, the flesh that is tasty whether barbecued, baked, smoked or fried. According to an article in Kommersant, the two powers failure to come to terms with the pig sank Putin’s WTO bid. The issue was this. The United States exports beef and pork to Russia, and Russia utilizes its right under international norms to inspect the imports. Negotiators from the Bush team wanted Russia to drop the double inspection of the meat imports because they are already inspected in the United States before shipping. The double inspection uncessessarily disrupts the free flow of goods in Washington’s reasoning. Russia wants to keep its right to make sure the meat is of good quality and ..read more

Anatoli Lieven, Senior Research Fellow at the New American Foundation, was briefly interviewed on Democracy Now! this morning. Lieven has written widely on Russia and foreign policy. In a commentary in the International Herald Tribune, he wrote this in regard to Putin and Dick Cheney, In many ways, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney are rather similar characters. Both are highly intelligent, but both see the world above all through the restrictive prisms of security and national power. Both are patriots, but like so many leaders with a tendency to see national power and their own power as one and the same thing. Both are capable of great ruthlessness in defending what they see as the vital interests of their countries. Both are publicly committed to democracy and human rights, but both have been responsible for policies that have called this commitment into question. But ..read more