Posted by Sean on December 5, 2006
OpenDemocracy.net has its “Bad Democracy of the Year Award” available on its site for readers to weight in on who is the biggest abuser of democracy. See Tom Burgis’ introduction on the purpose of the award. The candidates include:
Silvio BerlusconiJohn HowardGeorge W BushMeles ZenawiAbu LabanAlexander LukashenkoLee Hsien LoongKim Jong-ilThe Israeli Defence ForcesThe G8Rupert MurdochVladimir Putin
The results so far, put the United States’ George W. Bush at the lead with 32%, followed by his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin with 19%.
Go to the site and cast your vote!
Tags: democracy|Russia|human rights|journalism|Putin
Posted by Sean on December 5, 2006
I promised myself to put commenting on the Litvinenko Affair to bed, but a friend alerted me to this interesting comment by Neil Clark. His words sum up my position on much of the rhetoric and baseless accusations against the Kremlin in regard to Litvinenko’s death.
Clark writes,
From a socialist perspective there are certainly plenty of grounds for criticising the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. He’s introduced a flat-rate income tax, which greatly benefits the wealthy, and plans the partial marketisation of Russia’s education and health systems. And while some of Russia’s notorious oligarchs, who made their fortunes from fleecing public funds in the 1990s under Yeltsin have been bought to justice, others remain free to flaunt their ill-gotten gains, in a country where the gap between rich and poor is chasmic.
Even so, those on the left who have been enthusiastically joining ..read more
Posted by Sean on December 5, 2006
The Moscow Times and Kommersant are reporting that Manana Dzhabelia, 50, a Georgian woman who was being held in a Moscow detention center for living illegally in Russia, died from a heart attack, and according to friends, was refused medical care. Dzhabelia is now the second victim of Moscow’s anti-Georgian and immigrant campaign.
As Kommersant reports,
Manana Dzhabelia was a refugee from Abkhazia, and lived in Moscow since 1990. She was seized in the process of a police raid on the Domodedovskii market on October 4—in the heat of the anti-Georgian campaign. The Nagatinskii court of Moscow made a decision about her deportation to Georgia because for expired registration. However, the state was not successful in deporting Mrs. Dzhabelia from the country—she challenged the decision in Moscow City Court, claiming that she could not get registration because her ..read more
