Daily Archives: May 10, 2007

Amnesty International has released a report charging Russia with illegally shipping arms to Sudan despite a UN embargo. In response the Russia Foreign Ministry issued a statement deny the charges. “No Russian weapons have been shipped to Darfur. . . Russia‘s military and technical cooperation with other countries is in line with international rules and norms. Russia has fully abided by the provisions of resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, which ban arms shipments to Darfur.” In addition to Russia, China, Iran, Belarus, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait have shipped heavy weapons, small arms, or other dual use and military support materials to Sudan. Russia and China are the most egregious in terms of dollar amount and the fact that both countries are members of the UN Security Council.

Amnesty says different. According to the report, “Sudan: arms continuing ..read more

Is there any difference between European and Russian social movements? Boris Kagarlitsky thinks the gulf is vast. I found his evaluation of the riots in Estonia and the “Other Russia” marches worth pondering. He writes in his latest column, “Bronze Soldier Takes a Shot”:

Here in Russia we have nothing to do but to follow the events in Tallinn with envy and astonishment, for our own oppositionists have repeatedly failed to make people hit the street. The liberal press has to focus on police atrocities against the participants of all sorts of “Dissenter’s Marches”, for the marches themselves are inconsiderable in number and can hardly make big news. So far, the most successful march in St. Petersburg managed to gather about four thousand people, other actions can hardly be called mass protests at all, but for the massive presence of OMON (Russian SWAT), FSB, ..read more