Oct

29

MI6 Bitch

October 29, 2007 | 73 Comments

So there you have it. Sounds like Andrei Lugovoi was right after all. The London Daily Mail revealed today that Alexandr Litvinenko was indeed a paid MI6 agent. Says the Mail:

Alexander Litvinenko was receiving a retainer of around £2,000 a month from the British security services at the time he was […]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Oct

27

Dictatorship of the ‘Stache

October 27, 2007 | 7 Comments

Is there a link between dictators’ brutality and facial hair?  This is the question Rich Cohen explores in his article “Becoming Adolf” in this month’s Vanity Fair.   And come to find out, the “Hitler mustache” as we now know and love it was not always the property of the world’s most renowned murderer.  Nor was […]

Popularity: 3% [?]

Oct

24

Managerial Chaos?

October 24, 2007 | 3 Comments

I was going through Russia’s Great Reforms, 1855-1881 the other day looking for information on Alexander II’s judicial reforms of 1864. I was particularly interested in the creation of jury trials in local courts. The book is a wonderful collection of articles in its own right. Sadly, its one of the few that […]

Popularity: 3% [?]

Oct

23

Spy vs. Spy

October 23, 2007 | 11 Comments

If you want to understand what is happening among the political elite in Russia and why Putin making the moves he’s making, read Mark Ames’ “The Kremlin’s Clan Warfare: The Putin Era Ends“. Here is an excerpt:
What is happening?
I’ll repeat: It’s the End of the Putin Era as we know it. The struggle […]

Popularity: 3% [?]

Oct

22

Top 10 Commentators on SRB

October 22, 2007 | 119 Comments

I haven’t had the time to write anything substantial about Russia thanks to my chapter deadline (which is tomorrow). In a moment of boredom, I decided to add the “Top Commentators” widget to the site. The widget displays the top ten commentators since I started the site in October 2004.
And the winner […]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Oct

20

The Putin Proposal?

October 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Last week, the New York Times wrote:

Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, proposed a new way to help resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program during an extraordinary meeting with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the country’s chief nuclear negotiator on Wednesday.
The negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters that Mr. Putin, who was granted an […]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Oct

18

Putin in Iran

October 18, 2007 | 201 Comments

I don’t have time to write extensively on Putin’s historic trip to Iran.  Plus there are many others who are more versed in Russian-Iranian relations and the geopolitical significance of Putin’s trip.  So with that in mind and a dissertation chapter deadline hanging over my head, I offer Juan Cole’s take on it.  His post […]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Oct

18

Russia Mauls England’s Lions in Moscow

October 18, 2007 | 24 Comments

By Ger Clancy , the Irishman
On the road from Sheremetyevo-2 to Moscow, a strange-looking monument sits awkwardly among the advertising hoardings and petrol stations. A huge lump of concrete with enormous spikes protruding, the anti-tank ‘Yozh’ (hedgehog) marks the closest the Germans got to Moscow in December 1941. It’s a symbol of not only […]

Popularity: 3% [?]

Oct

16

“Russia is not progressing”

October 16, 2007 | 20 Comments

Number 144. That’s what Reporters sans frontieres ranks Russia in its new annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index. According to RSF, the index is complied from questionnaires sent to 15 freedom of expression organizations and a network of 130 correspondents, journalists, researchers, jurists, and human rights activists around the world. The index ranks […]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Oct

13

Secret Desires

October 13, 2007 | 40 Comments

This just came from the Associated Press via CNN.  Today, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said of Russia:

“In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,” Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.
“I think there is too much concentration of […]

Popularity: 3% [?]

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