The Deadliest Catch

A good news story? Seriously I think more Russian journalists die every year than do Alaskan king crab fishermen. You might remember that yesterday, I mentioned the closing of legal casinos in Russia as part of the anti-vice campaign, and made this comment: "No mention in the article on whether or not the anti-vice plan considers killing journalists a vice."

Today, according to Reuters, the editor of a newspaper in southern Russia that campaigned against official corruption died late on Monday. Two months ago, he suffered head wounds from what a colleague and an opposition group said was an attempted murder. Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, 63, who ran the paper 'Korruptsia i Prestupnost' ('Corruption and Crime') in Rostov-on-Don, suffered severe skull damage in the April 30 attack outside his home. An opposition website quoted local media as saying police ruled the injuries resulted either from a brawl or a fall on stairs.

The Delightful Pleasures of an Open Society

Thanks to rules which prevent foreign governments from influencing U.S. officials with expensive presents, the WashPost has sifted through the State Department's annual list of Gifts from Foreign Officials and found a few real gems. For example, we know that Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko really took a liking to former-Vice President Dick Cheney and his family.

The list of his gifts to the Cheney family are best sung aloud to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas:

…Yushchenko gave to Cheney:

“Six plush stuffed animals” (for his grandkids),
"Three Ukrainian cookbooks,"
“Three girls' blouses,”
“Three boys' shirts,”
"Two bottles of 1940 Massandra Golden Collection Wine,"
And a "wooden toy cart with horses," which the family kept.

We sure hope Cheney brought an extra bag to haul all of that stuff home. Either way, we still think the Ukrainians might want to up their game. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, for example, gave Liz Cheney “three pairs of Dr. Scholl’s high-heeled clogs.” That's all you need to know about King Abdullah, elegant, yet oh so very practical.

Gambling Goes Underground in Russia

I'm just predicting the future with that headline. I'm assuming we're going to read about illegal gambling and an increase in crime in Russia sooner than later after this last move.

According to the New York Times, it's snake eyes for hundreds of thousands of people who held jobs in Casinos in Russia. The government is shutting down every last legal casino and slot-machine parlor, under an antivice plan promoted by Prime Minister of Kicking Ass Vlad Putin. No mention in the article on whether or not the anti-vice plan considers killing journalists a vice.

The law that started the whole process was introduced in 2006 by Mr. Putin, then the president and now the prime minister, who spoke of the perils of the blackjack tables and the one-armed bandits, of shady characters having a grip on the industry.

Yes, the shadiest characters in Russia are the men dealing cards at the legally run casinos. (Ern looks up and to the left)

Gazprom Invests in Nigaz

Please say it's a hoax.

According to the BBC, Gazprom has created a joint venture with Nigeria's state-owned NNPC gas company. "The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria."

Oh. Sweet. Lord.

Gazprom to Europe: Don't Get Kinky

Gazprom held its annual meeting today, allowing CEO Alexei Miller the chance to warn Europe that its drive to use non-Gazprom gas was turning into a fetish.

"The push for Europe to diversify suppliers is understandable but it should not turn into a fetish," said Miller.

A fetish, really? You mean that energy security is now "a form of sexual desire in which gratification depends to an abnormal degree on some object or item of clothing or part of the body." How does that work?

Or maybe Miller meant to use fetish as "a charm superstitiously believed to embody magical powers." Does Nabucco really have magical powers?

In all fairness, however, Miller probably meant to use fetish in the sense of "excessive or irrational devotion to some activity."

That would make the most sense. We certinaly agree that Bulgarians spend far too much time "irrationally devoted" to staying warm every time Gazprom shuts off their gas supplies.

Kremlin Inc: Now in the Bank Business?

Russia's state capture continues. However, this time it's the Kremlin that wants to consume vast sections of the economy. Under a new plan to "recapitalize the banking system," the Russian government intends take a massive stake in the country's largest financial institutions. Sounds familiar.

Now the catch:

FT: "Unlike the US bank bail-out, the Russian scheme would see the government take board seats and have veto rights."

So how much does it cost to place hand-picked men & women on the boards of the country's largest banks? $40 billion, according to S&P. Unfortunetly, the Kremlin doesn't actualy have $40 billion to spend at the moment, so the government will finance the whole thing with debt.

Russia's currency reserves, it seems, have gone the way of democracy and a free press.

Cruel Summer in Turkmenistan (not really)

Shamelessly ripping off, er driving more traffic to, RFERL's TransMission Blog...

I Promise To Be Good Over The Summer Vacation...

Students at Turkmen universities are being made to write a written promise that they will be "good kids" over the summer vacation, RFE/RL's Turkmen Service reports. In a special letter, they must state that they will not drive a car, visit gambling houses, go abroad, or contact foreign organizations operating in Turkmenistan. A university lecturer in Ashgabat confirmed that students have to sign such letters before starting their summer vacation. Officials at Turkmenistan's Education Ministry have refused to comment on the issue.

So what's the beef with cars? Environment? Safety? Public transportation in Turkmenistan can't be that great. Oh wait, I get it now. In that case, they should have included not boarding planes either.

20 years just FLEW by, didn't they?

I can't believe we missed this, but it turns out this month marks the 20th anniversary of Islam Karimov's selection as first secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic AND Nursultan Nazarbaev's election into the Kazakh presidency.

What have these Central Asian iron rulers accomplished in 20 years? RFE/RL tells us some tidbits.

Karimov AKA "Big Papa"
- Under his rule, Uzbekistan has emerged as the region's dominant military power.
- "If you don't have the will, give me a gun and I will shoot them in the head myself," he once famously announced to lawmakers, exhorting them to crack down on Islamic extremists.
- Early on, Karimov showed a fondness for overriding constitutional restraints in order to clean house, sacking a member of Uzbekistan's Soviet-era parliament after the country gained independence.
- And something about Andijan...you may have heard about it a massacre or something

Nazarbaev
- Before his rise to power, Nazarbaev had been a vocal critic of extended political terms, saying no leader should be allowed to stay in office for a long period of time. (a long period of time would be 80 years or so)
- Nazarbaev's critics say his political immortality has created a crisis of widespread corruption, nepotism, and suppression of the opponents in the media and political spheres.
- A number of journalists and high-profile opposition leaders have been arrested, beaten, and killed under Nazarbaev's rule.
- Still, Kazakhstan is undeniably the most prosperous and stable country in Central Asia, and has become so under Nazarbaev's rule. (so that makes eveything else okay?)

Congratulations, men!

Cruel Summer in Ingushetia

This is what you get when you outsource to Chechnya, Russia.

Um, so this is REALLY bad. According to the New York Times, Chechen leader and missing link, Ramzan A. Kadyrov said that he would exact “cruel revenge” on the organizers of a suicide bombing that nearly killed the leader of a neighboring region, Ingushetia.

There's so much to say about this, but I'd like a moment with Kadyrov. The words you were looking for were "swift justice," not "cruel revenge." I know the outcome would be the same, but for once, JUST ONCE, Kadyrov, could you pretend that your a political leader and as such should try to use political language. Just humor us.

Addendum: Are you wearing a pinky ring in this picture where you're holding a golden gun? And now that I've noticed it, I'm actually surprised you don't have a golden silencer for the golden gun.

Does anyone else feel like Kyrgyzstan is a total playa?

According to the New York Times, Kyrgyzstan’s Parliament ratified an agreement today to allow the US to maintain operations the Manas Airbase. The US will now pay $60 million annually for use of the facility, up from $17.4 million under the previous arrangement.

You might remember that Kyrgyzstan had opted to stop allowing the US to use Manas, when Russia had promised Kyrgyzstan something 80 manillion dollars and I think all of Jupiter's moons (no source available on those numbers). So how does Russia feel about this latest decision?

Russia has so far refrained from criticizing the measure, calling it Kyrgyzstan’s 'sovereign right.' But the Russian daily Kommersant quoted an unnamed Russian official as saying this week that the deal had surprised Moscow, and that an 'adequate response' would be made.

Something tells me that next year, the US might pay more than $60 million. Can we end the war on terror already, because I could really use some health care?

Go Green

Most people do it to save the planet.

Some people do it because they want to rub their "superior awareness" of environmental issues in our faces.

Apparently in Turkey people now do it to avoid punishment for domestic abuse. Yesterday, a court in the Turkish province of Agri sentenced a man to six months of tree planting after he was convicted of spousal abuse. I hate to be a gainsayer, but what exactly is this exercise going to achieve? In six months this man may have learned nothing (other than horticulture) and gained nothing (except a some young saplings probably grown just enough to be used as switches)...

Russia: Outsourcing to Chechnya?

Apparently, the Kremlin has ordered Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov (allegedly the brains behind Politkovskaya’s assassination) to transform Ingushetia into a peaceful Zen garden.

Speaking to the Reuters, Mr Kadyrov said the Russian leadership had told him to intensify operations in both Chechnya and Ingushetia. "[Medvedev] told me to intensify actions... including in Ingushetia. I will personally control the operations... and I am sure in the near future there will be good results."

We’re sure the locals in Ingushetia are going to absolutely love knowing that Kadyrov is "personally [in] control" of their territory as well. Not like President Yevkurov can do much. He remains in the hospital following an assassination attempt.

And it’s only June. Insurgency season in the Caucuses is just getting started.

You can't sell furniture for pennies AND pay bribes

It's just not good business. According to the New York Times, it seems that Ikea is pulling out of Russia, because of rampant corruption in business. In a radio interview, Ikea’s 83-year-old founder said that Ikea had decided not to solve problems by slipping money under the table.

The decision is particularly damning for Russia because Ikea runs outlets in dozens of countries around the world and is hardly thin-skinned when it comes to dealing with bureaucracies.

Yeah some other countries where Ikea operates: Italy, Kuwait, Singapore, and China. Come on, Russia.

Ataka!

If Bulgaria’s always-entertaining Boiko Borissov manages to win next month’s elections, the country will have a new prime minister. Even better, Eternal Remont will have years of new and hilarious content. Sure a Center-Right coalition of democratic parties is possible, but so is a Borissov coalition with the even-more entertaining Ataka! party.

Just how crazy is the Ataka! platform? Well for starters, the party has made “Leaving NATO” a top foreign policy priority. On the domestic front, Ataka! has stated that post-Communist privatization will be “subject to revision.” All the while, Ataka! threatens “severe sanctions” for anyone “defaming Bulgaria.”

What could possibly go wrong?

Gorby Drops an Album

No, for serious. According to Foreign Policy Passport, Mikhail Gorbachev has a debut album.

An "anonymous British philanthropist" bought what we suppose is Mikhail Gorbachev's "debut album", Songs for Raisa, in London this week, bidding $164,940 (about £100,000) at an auction to benefit the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation.

Gorby dropped it like it's hot! And those lovely people at FP Passport via Novaya Gazeta made my day by giving us access to one of the songs. Assuming there are about 10 songs on the album, you just listened to a $16,494 song.

Take the train

If you live in Lithuania, Poland, or Romania, you're really better off taking public transportation to move around. A recent study by the Brussels non-profit European Transport Safety Council indicates that the roads in those three central and east European states are the most dangerous in the EU.

Kudos to Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Lithuania for making the roads safer. I'd like to know what was up with Latvian roads in 2001, but good work on getting the numbers down so dramatically, even if it's as dangerous there as Bulgaria. Speaking of Bulgaria, what's with the increase in mortality? Poland and Romania...apparently even high profile road deaths make no difference either.

Seriously, I'm taking the train.

Literally Rewriting WWII history (Part IV)

When I wake up and find another Russian revision of World War II story, I know it's going to be a good day. Polish source disclaimer: As usual, my sources on this issue are Polish, so I encourage Russian googlers to hunt down originals, if they exist on the internet.

The latest claim aired on Sunday on the ever-truthful Russian TV, "The Molotow-Ribbentrop Pact: Historical Investigation," claims that:

• Poles admired the Nazis and the Polish Foreign Minister Jozef Beck had a photo of Hitler in his office. (Implication: Poles are fascists. Now, was Beck a nationalist who wanted to keep down minorities in Poland? Probably. But there's a wide gulf between a post-independence nationalist surge and admiration for the Nazis.)


• Poland "wanted to outfox everyone" by jointly planning an attack with Germany and Japan on the USSR. (This one just makes me laugh.)


• A secret protocol of the 1934 Polish-German Nonaggression Pact agreed to to mutual defense in the event of an attack. (Oh the magic of the secret protocol!)


• The lands the Soviet Union acquired by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact were not Polish, but actually Russian, since they had been part of the Russian empire (I know, I know, jaybird. Lithuania was not a Polish land. Also, Gazeta Wyborcza's writer at this point comments that it's a good thing that Russians choose to forget that Warsaw was once part of the Russian empire as well. )

And ER fans be heartened, it appears that there will be a lot more of this programming going on throughout the summer, leading up to the 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

Russia, Like its 1909...

One hundred years ago, Tsar Nicholas II commissioned Sergey M. Prokudin-Gorsky to document the Russian empire on film. In the process, Prokudin-Gorsky not only created a new technique for coloring black and white photographs, but recorded some of the most stunning, and haunting, images of a quiet world on the cusp of a revolutionary upheaval from which it would never retrun.

See it here and the full archive here.

...Ingushetia, Like its 1999

The President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was ambushed in Nazran over the weekend. He somehow managed to survive the high-speed collision and bomb attack with his life. While President Medvedev has called it "an act of terror," we can’t help but get that sinking feeling that its 1999 all over again.

Days since Putin declared victory in neighboring Chechnya: 66.

[You can see more video of the aftermath here.]

One step forward

a billion steps back...

In an effort to rectify "mistakes" (if that word can be considered strong enough) of the past administration, the decision was made to close Guantanamo and release and/or try detainees for their crimes in courts of law. A significant challenge in translating this policy into reality has been the task of finding countries willing to accept (or in some cases re-accept) detainees into their sovereign boundaries. I mean, even Canada said "No." This is particularly true regarding the 17 Uighur detainees. Not because China wasn't ready to take them back, but because according to these men, life in China would be worse than Gitmo, and probably shorter-lived.

Last week, 4 of the 17 Uighur detainees were relocated to Bermuda. In the midst of the goodwill this created for the U.S. abroad and at home, Representative Steve King managed to destroy it all that last week with a flippant reference to the former detainees "wasting away again in marga-uighur-ville." It might've been funny if it wasn't so crass. May I kindly suggest that representatives of the U.S. government spend more time examining human rights issues instead of begrudging their vacation spots. Bad form.