Archive for March, 2009

Memorial Vindicated, Again

By Sean at 31 March, 2009, 9:31 am

When the St. Petersburg office of Memorial was raided in December last year, the international media was aghast.  Article after article saw the confiscation of Memorial’s database of archival materials and interviews of life under Stalin as proof that Stalinism was back in full force.  Why else would police bother to raid the human rights [...]

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Financial Times’ Four Primers on Capital

By Sean at 30 March, 2009, 12:00 pm

I’ve been wanting to draw attention to Paul Kennedy’s article, “Read the big four to know capital’s fate,” from the Financial Times but it slipped my mind until now.  And who are the big four Kennedy suggests who’s economic insight will shed light on capital’s latest crash and burn?  Why it’s Adam Smith, Karl [...]

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Leeching onto Success

By Sean at 30 March, 2009, 11:20 am

If Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin’s warning last week that Russia’s recent economic bump will most likely be short lived got you down, don’t fret there are some economic spheres besides McDonald’s that are going strong.  As Time reports, leech farming  is a “flourishing industry” and  “a bright spot in a Russian economy.”  That’s right, [...]

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Nemtsov “scandalizes” Nashi

By Sean at 26 March, 2009, 2:48 pm

The election circus in Sochi has some new developments.
The alleged polonium murderer Andrei Lugovoi won’t be running.  The LDPR announced that it will go with a different candidate.  According to the NY Times, the reason for the move is because Lugovoi “would have been at a disadvantage because he was not from the Sochi region, [...]

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Running from Russia to . . . Poland

By Sean at 26 March, 2009, 8:53 am

Citizens of the Russian Federation comprise of the third highest number of asylum seekers according to statistics complied by the UN Refugee Agency.
The top country of origin of asylum applicants in 2008 was Iraq (40,500, down 10 percent from 45,100 in 2007), followed by Somalia (21,800), the Russian Federation (20,500), Afghanistan (18,500) and China (17,400). [...]

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Nashi Pisses on Nemtsov

By Sean at 23 March, 2009, 8:59 am

A suspected murderer, an ex-KGB turned oligarch, and a “dissident” liberal are all part of what will prove to be a mayoral election of the year.  The three aren’t the only candidates.  Of course, every official Russian political party has thrown their hat into the race.  The aforementioned Lugovoi will run on the LDPR ticket, [...]

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