I feel that I’m in Russia at an inflection point in history. Although I’m a close follower of Russian news even when in the United States, I have rarely been as distressed as I was on Thursday, July 29, 2010. That is the day that President Dmitry Medvedev signed a law that expands the powers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) by allowing it to issue warnings to people it deems are preparing to commit crimes.
Sure, this is not the first case in Russia of stifling free speech and freedom of assembly in the name of combating terrorism and what is vaguely called “an extremist crime.” What really bothers me is that Medvedev took credit for initiating the bill.
Russia has a tradition of “the good tsar.” When bad things happen, the blame falls on the people around the tsar, not on the tsar himself. And Medvedev has looked like a good tsar. He wants modernization and an end to corruption, yadda yadda yadda.
A news report said, “President Dmitry Medvedev curtly warned foreign countries against meddling in Russia's domestic security issues Thursday, referring to the bill aimed at expanding the powers of the Federal Security Service.” The report quoted Medvedev after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel right here in Ekaterinburg. "The law on the FSB is our domestic bill,” he said testily. “Every country has a right to improve its legislation, including related to the special services."
As originally written, presumably with Medvedev’s concurrence, the legislation would have allowed the imprisonment and fining of people who ignored FSB summons and warnings. The new law has more elegant cruelty without that provision. International publicity about imprisoning someone the FSB thought might possibly commit a crime would damage Russia’s reputation. Now a visit by the FSB will have the chilling effect of stopping opposition protests before they start, through self-censorship. If you are told the FSB would charge you with a crime if you proceed, you know you would be convicted, because the courts invariably side with the prosecutors. (Actually, the conviction rate is about 90%, I believe. You do have a small chance to escape jail.)
As this bill was working its way through the Duma, it got little publicity in Russia. I heard about it on BBC radio on Thursday, a day when I was having tea with a friend. My friend was surprised and understood the dark consequences of this legislation. She didn’t expect much coverage in the Russian media, because there is little room for criticizing the administration. The vise is tightening.
There is one group that persists in demonstrating, even without permits. On the 31st of months that have 31 days, there are small groups in big cities that turn out for Marches of Dissent, protesting the lack of freedom of assembly that is supposedly guaranteed by Article 31 of the Russian constitution. These protests don’t have much resonance with the Russian people. I’ve heard from more than one source the feeling that the leaders of this movement are simply grandstanding, out for personal publicity.
Slava thinks that I’m making too big a deal out of all of this. Actually, I hope he’s right. I hope that the government uses its newly expanded powers only to go after truly bad guys. Some times I’d rather be wrong than right.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Wheat Crop
Bad Russian wheat harvest boosts US farmers Network News
By NATALIYA VASILYEVA
The Associated Press
Monday, August 2, 2010; 8:26 PM
MOSCOW -- A severe drought destroyed one-fifth of the wheat crop in Russia, one of the world's largest exporters, and now wildfires are sweeping in to finish off some of the fields that remained.
Expectations that Russia will slash exports by at least 30 percent have sent wheat prices soaring and this is good news for farmers in the world's largest wheat exporter - the United States.
The higher wheat prices may mean that Americans and Europeans pay slightly more for bread, but the bigger burden will fall on people in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia, analysts say.
The Russian Grain Union said Monday that it expects exports to decline to 15 million tons, down from 21.4 million tons in 2009, while the SovEcon consultancy sees them at 12 million tons and other analysts at even less.
"Russia has become the price-maker on the market," said Dmitry Rylko, director general of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, who says he expects minimal exports.
Russian farmers have little incentive to export. Even though grain prices are rising on world markets, with further gains on Monday, they are growing even faster in Russia, so many farmers are holding on to their harvested grain in the hopes of still higher profits.
The majority of the damage to Russia's wheat crop has been caused by the drought, one of the worst in decades as much of the country suffers through the hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago. But in recent days, wildfires raging through much of western Russia have spread into farmland and there are fears that more fields will be lost.
The director of a small state farm outside Moscow said fire destroyed its entire wheat crop one night before they planned to harvest.
"The fruits of the year's labor of the farm went up in smoke - this is very painful," said Pavel Grudinin, director of the Lenin State Farm, said Monday on Russian television. He said a woman who worked as a horticulturist at the farm was weeping in his office.
State farms have been marginalized since the fall of the Soviet Union and most of Russian grain production comes from big, often multinational companies. After years of stagnation, Russian agriculture has been on the upswing as Russian firms and foreign investment funds have started to buy up land and upgrade production.
Wheat prices on the Chicago Board of Trade surged in July by 42 percent, the biggest monthly gain in more than a half century, and are now the highest they have been in nearly two years. With no immediate end in sight for the drought in Russia, analysts expect prices to continue to rally.
Wheat futures rose more than 5 percent Monday to $6.975.
George Lee, who manages the agriculture fund at Eclectica Asset Management in London, said the United States and other exporters, principally Argentina and Australia, are set to be "big gainers," Lee said, while Canada and the European Union are not looking at their best harvests.
He said the high wheat prices will hit hardest in the Middle East, Africa and parts of east Asia - or anywhere where governments subsidize the cost of food.
"The big losers will be consumers where the diets are more pure," Lee said. In Yemen, for instance, the price of bread tracks closely with the price of flour, whereas in Europe and the U.S. the commodity costs represent only part of a mix that includes packaging, marketing, etc.
By NATALIYA VASILYEVA
The Associated Press
Monday, August 2, 2010; 8:26 PM
MOSCOW -- A severe drought destroyed one-fifth of the wheat crop in Russia, one of the world's largest exporters, and now wildfires are sweeping in to finish off some of the fields that remained.
Expectations that Russia will slash exports by at least 30 percent have sent wheat prices soaring and this is good news for farmers in the world's largest wheat exporter - the United States.
The higher wheat prices may mean that Americans and Europeans pay slightly more for bread, but the bigger burden will fall on people in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia, analysts say.
The Russian Grain Union said Monday that it expects exports to decline to 15 million tons, down from 21.4 million tons in 2009, while the SovEcon consultancy sees them at 12 million tons and other analysts at even less.
"Russia has become the price-maker on the market," said Dmitry Rylko, director general of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, who says he expects minimal exports.
Russian farmers have little incentive to export. Even though grain prices are rising on world markets, with further gains on Monday, they are growing even faster in Russia, so many farmers are holding on to their harvested grain in the hopes of still higher profits.
The majority of the damage to Russia's wheat crop has been caused by the drought, one of the worst in decades as much of the country suffers through the hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago. But in recent days, wildfires raging through much of western Russia have spread into farmland and there are fears that more fields will be lost.
The director of a small state farm outside Moscow said fire destroyed its entire wheat crop one night before they planned to harvest.
"The fruits of the year's labor of the farm went up in smoke - this is very painful," said Pavel Grudinin, director of the Lenin State Farm, said Monday on Russian television. He said a woman who worked as a horticulturist at the farm was weeping in his office.
State farms have been marginalized since the fall of the Soviet Union and most of Russian grain production comes from big, often multinational companies. After years of stagnation, Russian agriculture has been on the upswing as Russian firms and foreign investment funds have started to buy up land and upgrade production.
Wheat prices on the Chicago Board of Trade surged in July by 42 percent, the biggest monthly gain in more than a half century, and are now the highest they have been in nearly two years. With no immediate end in sight for the drought in Russia, analysts expect prices to continue to rally.
Wheat futures rose more than 5 percent Monday to $6.975.
George Lee, who manages the agriculture fund at Eclectica Asset Management in London, said the United States and other exporters, principally Argentina and Australia, are set to be "big gainers," Lee said, while Canada and the European Union are not looking at their best harvests.
He said the high wheat prices will hit hardest in the Middle East, Africa and parts of east Asia - or anywhere where governments subsidize the cost of food.
"The big losers will be consumers where the diets are more pure," Lee said. In Yemen, for instance, the price of bread tracks closely with the price of flour, whereas in Europe and the U.S. the commodity costs represent only part of a mix that includes packaging, marketing, etc.
Conspiracy Theories
Russians show U.S. conspiracy theorists a thing or two
In case you were worried, the past few weeks in Russia have proven that American exceptionalism doesn’t mean that Americans are exceptionally illogical.
First, there was the episode last month in which the operators of a failing adventure sports business in southern Russia attached a donkey to a parachute and forced the braying animal to go parasailing, putting it “in obvious distress” and causing children to cry on the beach below. That’s some Darwin Award-worthy ingenuity at work, though, in this case, it was the donkey who suffered most, after the parachute dragged it along the ground for “several meters.”
Now there’s this: a Russian political scientist speculates that America might be using “climate-change weapons” against Russia, as Moscow endures extreme temperatures. It couldn’t, of course, be the tilt of the Earth, since Stalin corrected that back in the ’30s.
As Muscovites suffer record high temperatures this summer, a Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries.
In a recent article, Andrei Areshev, deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote, "At the moment, climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to provoke droughts, erase crops, and induce various anomalous phenomena in certain countries."…
In the article, Areshev voiced suspicions about the High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP), funded by the U.S. Defense Department and the University of Alaska.
HAARP, which has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, analyzes the ionosphere and seeks to develop technologies to improve radio communications, surveillance, and missile detection.
Areshev writes, however, that its true aim is to create new weapons of mass destruction "in order to destabilize environmental and agricultural systems in local countries."
Areshev's article also references an unmanned spacecraft X-37B, an orbital test vehicle the Pentagon launched in April 2010. The Pentagon calls X-37B a prototype for a new "space plane" that could take people and equipment to and from space stations. Areshev, however, alleges that the X-378 carries "laser weaponry" and could be a key component in the Pentagon's climate-change arsenal.
There are many in Russia who believe to the point of pathology that Russo-American rivalry still inspires America’s foreign policy establishment and the citizens it serves. In fact, while that may be true for many in the former Soviet Union and for some quarters in Washington, most Americans think all too little about their former enemy. I suppose, though, that could simply stoke the obsession -- the feeling that you’re being backed into a corner by an indifferent opponent.
Whatever the explanation, this sort of thing makes you think about how America isn’t the only place where wacky conspiracy theorists -- from the Thirteenth Amendment people to the U.N.-phobes to the fringey parts of the Tea Party -- get dangerous amounts of attention, even respect. One might argue that the Areshev episode is worse, since a government-operated journal republished it, lending it credence. The Tea Party, after all, isn’t formally connected to the U.S. government… right?
No, the truth is that outrageous conspiracy theory is practiced all over the world. Which is all the more reason to worry about it.
By Stephen Stromberg | August 2, 2010; 6:56 PM ET
In case you were worried, the past few weeks in Russia have proven that American exceptionalism doesn’t mean that Americans are exceptionally illogical.
First, there was the episode last month in which the operators of a failing adventure sports business in southern Russia attached a donkey to a parachute and forced the braying animal to go parasailing, putting it “in obvious distress” and causing children to cry on the beach below. That’s some Darwin Award-worthy ingenuity at work, though, in this case, it was the donkey who suffered most, after the parachute dragged it along the ground for “several meters.”
Now there’s this: a Russian political scientist speculates that America might be using “climate-change weapons” against Russia, as Moscow endures extreme temperatures. It couldn’t, of course, be the tilt of the Earth, since Stalin corrected that back in the ’30s.
As Muscovites suffer record high temperatures this summer, a Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries.
In a recent article, Andrei Areshev, deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote, "At the moment, climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to provoke droughts, erase crops, and induce various anomalous phenomena in certain countries."…
In the article, Areshev voiced suspicions about the High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP), funded by the U.S. Defense Department and the University of Alaska.
HAARP, which has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, analyzes the ionosphere and seeks to develop technologies to improve radio communications, surveillance, and missile detection.
Areshev writes, however, that its true aim is to create new weapons of mass destruction "in order to destabilize environmental and agricultural systems in local countries."
Areshev's article also references an unmanned spacecraft X-37B, an orbital test vehicle the Pentagon launched in April 2010. The Pentagon calls X-37B a prototype for a new "space plane" that could take people and equipment to and from space stations. Areshev, however, alleges that the X-378 carries "laser weaponry" and could be a key component in the Pentagon's climate-change arsenal.
There are many in Russia who believe to the point of pathology that Russo-American rivalry still inspires America’s foreign policy establishment and the citizens it serves. In fact, while that may be true for many in the former Soviet Union and for some quarters in Washington, most Americans think all too little about their former enemy. I suppose, though, that could simply stoke the obsession -- the feeling that you’re being backed into a corner by an indifferent opponent.
Whatever the explanation, this sort of thing makes you think about how America isn’t the only place where wacky conspiracy theorists -- from the Thirteenth Amendment people to the U.N.-phobes to the fringey parts of the Tea Party -- get dangerous amounts of attention, even respect. One might argue that the Areshev episode is worse, since a government-operated journal republished it, lending it credence. The Tea Party, after all, isn’t formally connected to the U.S. government… right?
No, the truth is that outrageous conspiracy theory is practiced all over the world. Which is all the more reason to worry about it.
By Stephen Stromberg | August 2, 2010; 6:56 PM ET
Global Warming Doubts
Will Russia's Heat Wave End Its Global-Warming Doubts?
By Simon Shuster / Moscow Monday, Aug. 02, 2010 Time.com
Russians are not used to heat waves. When the high temperatures that have overwhelmed Russia over the past six weeks first arrived in June, some 1,200 Russians drowned at the country's beaches. "The majority of those who drowned were drunk," the Emergencies Ministry concluded in mid-July, citing the Russian habit of taking vodka to cool off by the sea. But while overconsumption of vodka is a familiar scourge in Russia, extreme heat is not, and as the worst heat wave on record spawns wildfires that are destroying entire villages, Russian officials have made what for them is a startling admission: global warming is very real.
At a meeting of international sporting officials in Moscow on July 30, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced that in 14 regions of the country, "practically everything is burning. The weather is anomalously hot." Then, as TV cameras zoomed in on the perspiration shining on his forehead, Medvedev announced, "What's happening with the planet's climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us, meaning all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes to the climate."
(See pictures of Medvedev and Vladimir Putin on vacation.)
For Medvedev, such sentiments mark a striking about-face. Only last year, he announced that Russia, the world's third largest polluter after China and the U.S., would be spewing 30% more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere by 2020. "We will not cut our development potential," he said during the summer of 2009 (an unusually mild one), just a few months before attending the Copenhagen climate summit, which in December failed to reach a substantial agreement on how to limit carbon emissions.
But even that pronouncement, grim as it seemed to the organizers of the Copenhagen talks, was mild compared with the broader Russian campaign against the idea that global warming is taking place. Two months before Copenhagen, state-owned Channel One television aired a documentary called The History of a Deception: Global Warming, which argued that the notion of man-made climate change was the result of an international media conspiracy. A month later, hackers sparked the so-called Climategate scandal by stealing e-mails from European climate researchers. The hacked e-mails, which were then used to support the arguments of global-warming skeptics, appeared to have been distributed through a server in the Siberian oil town of Tomsk, raising suspicion among some environmental activists of Russia's involvement in the leak.
(See TIME's Ecocentric blog for more on Climategate.)
"Broadly speaking, the Russian position has always been that climate change is an invention of the West to try to bring Russia to its knees," says Vladimir Chuprov, director of the Greenpeace energy department in Moscow. Case in point: when Medvedev visited Tomsk last winter, he called the global-warming debate "some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects." That was two months after the Copenhagen talks. But Medvedev's climate-sensitive comments on Friday, Chuprov says, could finally mark the start of a policy shift. "You don't just throw comments like that around when you are the leader of the nation, and if you look at what is happening with this heat wave, it's horrible. It's clearly enough to shake people out of their delusions about global warming."
The heat wave first started alarming authorities in June, when local officials recorded abnormally high fatalities on Russia's beaches. At the same time, a devastating drought was withering Russia's crops. As of July 30, some 25 million acres (about 10 million hectares) of grain had been lost, an area roughly the size of Kentucky — and growing. Then last week, fires that had been ignored for days by local officials began spreading out of control. By Aug. 2, they had scorched more than 300,000 acres (121,000 hectares) and destroyed 1,500 homes in more than a dozen regions, some of which declared a state of emergency. Scores of people have been killed in the fires, and in the outskirts of Moscow, burning fields of peat, a kind of fuel made of decayed vegetation, periodically covered the city in a cloud of noxious smoke, making it painful to breathe in parts of the Russian capital.
Medvedev has not been the only person in Russia to link the ongoing heat wave to climate change. Alexei Lyakhov, head of Moscow's meteorological center, tells TIME it is "clearly part of a global phenomenon" that is hitting Russia. "We have to start taking systemic measures of adaptation. It's obvious now. Just like human beings at one point took steps to adapt to the Ice Age, we now have to adapt to this," he says, citing cuts to carbon emissions as one of the necessary adaptations.
Now that Medvedev is also acknowledging the effects of climate change, Russia's official line on the subject could start to change, Chuprov says. But he warns that convincing the public of the threat from global warming may be difficult. "The status quo can change quickly in the minds of bureaucrats if the leadership gives the signal. But in the minds of the people, myths are much more difficult to uproot," he says. As if to prove the point, Russia's largest circulation newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, ran a headline on July 31 that asked, "Is the Russian heat wave the result of the USA testing its climate weapon?" The daily's answer was "Yes, probably."
(See pictures of Russians celebrating Victory Day.)
But if Medvedev stands by his pronouncements, there may turn out to be a bright side to Russia's devastating weather: one of the nations most responsible for driving climate change may finally start trying to do something about it.
"the Russian position has always been that climate change is an invention of the West to try to bring Russia to its knees," says Vladimir Chuprov, director of the Greenpeace energy department in Moscow.
There is a strong, strong belief in Russia that win-win situations aren't possible. If someone is "winning," then someone else is losing. And Russians frequently feel like losers, making them resent winners. They see Americans as the primary winners, hence America must be the source of Russian problems...
By Simon Shuster / Moscow Monday, Aug. 02, 2010 Time.com
Russians are not used to heat waves. When the high temperatures that have overwhelmed Russia over the past six weeks first arrived in June, some 1,200 Russians drowned at the country's beaches. "The majority of those who drowned were drunk," the Emergencies Ministry concluded in mid-July, citing the Russian habit of taking vodka to cool off by the sea. But while overconsumption of vodka is a familiar scourge in Russia, extreme heat is not, and as the worst heat wave on record spawns wildfires that are destroying entire villages, Russian officials have made what for them is a startling admission: global warming is very real.
At a meeting of international sporting officials in Moscow on July 30, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced that in 14 regions of the country, "practically everything is burning. The weather is anomalously hot." Then, as TV cameras zoomed in on the perspiration shining on his forehead, Medvedev announced, "What's happening with the planet's climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us, meaning all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes to the climate."
(See pictures of Medvedev and Vladimir Putin on vacation.)
For Medvedev, such sentiments mark a striking about-face. Only last year, he announced that Russia, the world's third largest polluter after China and the U.S., would be spewing 30% more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere by 2020. "We will not cut our development potential," he said during the summer of 2009 (an unusually mild one), just a few months before attending the Copenhagen climate summit, which in December failed to reach a substantial agreement on how to limit carbon emissions.
But even that pronouncement, grim as it seemed to the organizers of the Copenhagen talks, was mild compared with the broader Russian campaign against the idea that global warming is taking place. Two months before Copenhagen, state-owned Channel One television aired a documentary called The History of a Deception: Global Warming, which argued that the notion of man-made climate change was the result of an international media conspiracy. A month later, hackers sparked the so-called Climategate scandal by stealing e-mails from European climate researchers. The hacked e-mails, which were then used to support the arguments of global-warming skeptics, appeared to have been distributed through a server in the Siberian oil town of Tomsk, raising suspicion among some environmental activists of Russia's involvement in the leak.
(See TIME's Ecocentric blog for more on Climategate.)
"Broadly speaking, the Russian position has always been that climate change is an invention of the West to try to bring Russia to its knees," says Vladimir Chuprov, director of the Greenpeace energy department in Moscow. Case in point: when Medvedev visited Tomsk last winter, he called the global-warming debate "some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects." That was two months after the Copenhagen talks. But Medvedev's climate-sensitive comments on Friday, Chuprov says, could finally mark the start of a policy shift. "You don't just throw comments like that around when you are the leader of the nation, and if you look at what is happening with this heat wave, it's horrible. It's clearly enough to shake people out of their delusions about global warming."
The heat wave first started alarming authorities in June, when local officials recorded abnormally high fatalities on Russia's beaches. At the same time, a devastating drought was withering Russia's crops. As of July 30, some 25 million acres (about 10 million hectares) of grain had been lost, an area roughly the size of Kentucky — and growing. Then last week, fires that had been ignored for days by local officials began spreading out of control. By Aug. 2, they had scorched more than 300,000 acres (121,000 hectares) and destroyed 1,500 homes in more than a dozen regions, some of which declared a state of emergency. Scores of people have been killed in the fires, and in the outskirts of Moscow, burning fields of peat, a kind of fuel made of decayed vegetation, periodically covered the city in a cloud of noxious smoke, making it painful to breathe in parts of the Russian capital.
Medvedev has not been the only person in Russia to link the ongoing heat wave to climate change. Alexei Lyakhov, head of Moscow's meteorological center, tells TIME it is "clearly part of a global phenomenon" that is hitting Russia. "We have to start taking systemic measures of adaptation. It's obvious now. Just like human beings at one point took steps to adapt to the Ice Age, we now have to adapt to this," he says, citing cuts to carbon emissions as one of the necessary adaptations.
Now that Medvedev is also acknowledging the effects of climate change, Russia's official line on the subject could start to change, Chuprov says. But he warns that convincing the public of the threat from global warming may be difficult. "The status quo can change quickly in the minds of bureaucrats if the leadership gives the signal. But in the minds of the people, myths are much more difficult to uproot," he says. As if to prove the point, Russia's largest circulation newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, ran a headline on July 31 that asked, "Is the Russian heat wave the result of the USA testing its climate weapon?" The daily's answer was "Yes, probably."
(See pictures of Russians celebrating Victory Day.)
But if Medvedev stands by his pronouncements, there may turn out to be a bright side to Russia's devastating weather: one of the nations most responsible for driving climate change may finally start trying to do something about it.
"the Russian position has always been that climate change is an invention of the West to try to bring Russia to its knees," says Vladimir Chuprov, director of the Greenpeace energy department in Moscow.
There is a strong, strong belief in Russia that win-win situations aren't possible. If someone is "winning," then someone else is losing. And Russians frequently feel like losers, making them resent winners. They see Americans as the primary winners, hence America must be the source of Russian problems...
Putin Campaigns for Plant Safety
Putin Campaigns for Plant Safety
03 August 2010
The Moscow Times
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered his deputy Igor Sechin and all government agencies to beef up security at key infrastructure points after the terrorist attack on the Baksan hydropower station last month, Interfax reported.
Putin's orders came as Ogonyok magazine said Monday that its reporter was able to easily enter a hydropower plant despite lacking security clearance. It did not identify the plant, but Newsru.com said it was the Skhodnenskaya station in the Moscow region.
Sechin criticized the journalist, saying such investigations were “provocations” that might result in trouble for the journalists, Prime-Tass reported.
The July 21 attack on the Baksan station in Kabardino-Balkaria killed two people and destroyed two of its three generators.
03 August 2010
The Moscow Times
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered his deputy Igor Sechin and all government agencies to beef up security at key infrastructure points after the terrorist attack on the Baksan hydropower station last month, Interfax reported.
Putin's orders came as Ogonyok magazine said Monday that its reporter was able to easily enter a hydropower plant despite lacking security clearance. It did not identify the plant, but Newsru.com said it was the Skhodnenskaya station in the Moscow region.
Sechin criticized the journalist, saying such investigations were “provocations” that might result in trouble for the journalists, Prime-Tass reported.
The July 21 attack on the Baksan station in Kabardino-Balkaria killed two people and destroyed two of its three generators.
Fire, Fire!
FIRE, FIRE
The government has pledged to pay 3 million rubles ($100,000) to owners whose houses burned down in the wildfires. Putin said Monday that those who lost any other property would receive 200,000 rubles ($6,630) as compensation.
Some rural residents in the Voronezh and Vladimir regions have let the fires burn their houses in hope of getting new ones, Ekho Moskvy radio reported Monday.
Costs of damages nationwide reached 6.5 billion rubles ($215 million), Regional Development Minister Viktor Basargin said Monday, Itar-Tass reported.
At least 1,862 houses were damaged by fires as of Sunday, the Regional Development Ministry said. Medvedev said Monday that more than 2,000 people have been left homeless.
About 155,000 people were fighting fires on Monday, and another 81,000 were waiting in reserve in case the situation got worse, the Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement. Also deployed were 25,000 firefighting vehicles and 20 aircraft.
Meanwhile, the Federal Security Service opened an inquiry into a shortage of fuel for firefighting helicopters, Lifenews.ru reported, citing an unidentified source at the Emergency Situations Ministry.
"Now it has turned out that there is hardly any fuel left for the aircraft fighting fires in the Moscow region," the source was quoted as saying.
The report did not elaborate on what had caused the fuel shortage.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said Russians should seek to stop sinning in order to end a record drought that has stoked the fires.
"One shouldn't think that the drought will pass if we just pray to God and then forget and fall into sin," Kirill said during a visit to the town of Lukoyanov in the Novgorod region, Interfax reported.
He cited an Old Testament story about a drought sent on the Jews for worshipping a pagan god and said Russians should turn into "a different people" by abandoning their sins.
The government has pledged to pay 3 million rubles ($100,000) to owners whose houses burned down in the wildfires. Putin said Monday that those who lost any other property would receive 200,000 rubles ($6,630) as compensation.
Some rural residents in the Voronezh and Vladimir regions have let the fires burn their houses in hope of getting new ones, Ekho Moskvy radio reported Monday.
Costs of damages nationwide reached 6.5 billion rubles ($215 million), Regional Development Minister Viktor Basargin said Monday, Itar-Tass reported.
At least 1,862 houses were damaged by fires as of Sunday, the Regional Development Ministry said. Medvedev said Monday that more than 2,000 people have been left homeless.
About 155,000 people were fighting fires on Monday, and another 81,000 were waiting in reserve in case the situation got worse, the Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement. Also deployed were 25,000 firefighting vehicles and 20 aircraft.
Meanwhile, the Federal Security Service opened an inquiry into a shortage of fuel for firefighting helicopters, Lifenews.ru reported, citing an unidentified source at the Emergency Situations Ministry.
"Now it has turned out that there is hardly any fuel left for the aircraft fighting fires in the Moscow region," the source was quoted as saying.
The report did not elaborate on what had caused the fuel shortage.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said Russians should seek to stop sinning in order to end a record drought that has stoked the fires.
"One shouldn't think that the drought will pass if we just pray to God and then forget and fall into sin," Kirill said during a visit to the town of Lukoyanov in the Novgorod region, Interfax reported.
He cited an Old Testament story about a drought sent on the Jews for worshipping a pagan god and said Russians should turn into "a different people" by abandoning their sins.
Fighting HIV
Fight HIV With Empathy
02 August 2010
By Bertrand Bainvel
Russia has an estimated 1 million people who are HIV-positive, and the number is growing at an 8 percent rate annually. The country cannot ignore this ticking time bomb.
Beyond any doubt, Russia can pride itself for having halved the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child and bringing care and treatment to almost every child born with the virus.
But as the epidemic continues to grow, maintaining such coverage means supporting more women and children exposed to the virus. This includes providing support and services to drug-dependent pregnant women. The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, makes it clear in its report “Blame and Banishment: The Underground HIV Epidemic Affecting Children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia” that it is the young who pay the highest price.
In Russia, 70 percent of those infected were diagnosed between the ages of 15 to 30. More than 43 percent of new HIV cases in 2008 and 2009 were registered among women of childbearing age.
Over the past two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic transition has exposed many families to financial hardship, unemployment and crumbling social safety nets. These pressures, combined with widespread alcohol or drug abuse, made it difficult for many families to make ends meet.
As a result, it has become increasingly difficult for many families to protect their children. The number of children separated from their biological parents has not significantly decreased, leveling off at more than 710,000 over the last five years.
Most of these children will be deprived of the love, care and support essential throughout childhood to allow them to reach their own full potential — and later to lead a productive life as adults.
In Russia, there are an estimated 1.8 million people who take drugs intravenously, and a large proportion of these drug users started this habit in their teenage years.
HIV-affected children — whether they are living with HIV, or are HIV-negative and living with HIV-positive parents — are often rejected from kindergartens and schools, despite legislation that prohibits this. Judgmental attitudes among health and social workers often discourage adolescents from seeking information about preventing HIV or how the disease is treated.
In most people’s minds, the stigma and discrimination from others would be the worst consequence of contracting HIV — even worse than the medical complications.
Many Russian HIV programs try to bring integrated support to families, children and adolescents vulnerable to the epidemic. In partnership with the Health and Social Development Ministry and the Foundation for Children in Difficult Circumstances, UNICEF has developed planning tools and guidance for regions to help them provide better and timely support to families in difficult situations. This will help reduce child separation and abandonment. With the Health and Social Development Ministry and the St. Petersburg State University, more than 100 youth-friendly services have been opened across the country. The St. Petersburg Clinical Hospital of Infectious Diseases, headed by Dr. Yevgeny Voronin, has seen half of its abandoned HIV-positive children adopted over the past two years.
But the success of these and other initiatives will remain limited if we do not break from the past. It will be critical to ensure that adequate resources are allocated to fund programs that work on effective prevention of HIV. These programs must integrate HIV prevention activities with ongoing support for vulnerable families and programs for high-risk sectors, such as intravenous drug users.
We do not need policies, services and a society discriminating against vulnerable families, their children and people living with HIV. Those would further drive the epidemic underground and make it increasingly more difficult to control.
To reverse the HIV epidemic, we must have the courage to face realities and to care, respect and protect the most vulnerable people in the country.
02 August 2010
By Bertrand Bainvel
Russia has an estimated 1 million people who are HIV-positive, and the number is growing at an 8 percent rate annually. The country cannot ignore this ticking time bomb.
Beyond any doubt, Russia can pride itself for having halved the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child and bringing care and treatment to almost every child born with the virus.
But as the epidemic continues to grow, maintaining such coverage means supporting more women and children exposed to the virus. This includes providing support and services to drug-dependent pregnant women. The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, makes it clear in its report “Blame and Banishment: The Underground HIV Epidemic Affecting Children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia” that it is the young who pay the highest price.
In Russia, 70 percent of those infected were diagnosed between the ages of 15 to 30. More than 43 percent of new HIV cases in 2008 and 2009 were registered among women of childbearing age.
Over the past two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic transition has exposed many families to financial hardship, unemployment and crumbling social safety nets. These pressures, combined with widespread alcohol or drug abuse, made it difficult for many families to make ends meet.
As a result, it has become increasingly difficult for many families to protect their children. The number of children separated from their biological parents has not significantly decreased, leveling off at more than 710,000 over the last five years.
Most of these children will be deprived of the love, care and support essential throughout childhood to allow them to reach their own full potential — and later to lead a productive life as adults.
In Russia, there are an estimated 1.8 million people who take drugs intravenously, and a large proportion of these drug users started this habit in their teenage years.
HIV-affected children — whether they are living with HIV, or are HIV-negative and living with HIV-positive parents — are often rejected from kindergartens and schools, despite legislation that prohibits this. Judgmental attitudes among health and social workers often discourage adolescents from seeking information about preventing HIV or how the disease is treated.
In most people’s minds, the stigma and discrimination from others would be the worst consequence of contracting HIV — even worse than the medical complications.
Many Russian HIV programs try to bring integrated support to families, children and adolescents vulnerable to the epidemic. In partnership with the Health and Social Development Ministry and the Foundation for Children in Difficult Circumstances, UNICEF has developed planning tools and guidance for regions to help them provide better and timely support to families in difficult situations. This will help reduce child separation and abandonment. With the Health and Social Development Ministry and the St. Petersburg State University, more than 100 youth-friendly services have been opened across the country. The St. Petersburg Clinical Hospital of Infectious Diseases, headed by Dr. Yevgeny Voronin, has seen half of its abandoned HIV-positive children adopted over the past two years.
But the success of these and other initiatives will remain limited if we do not break from the past. It will be critical to ensure that adequate resources are allocated to fund programs that work on effective prevention of HIV. These programs must integrate HIV prevention activities with ongoing support for vulnerable families and programs for high-risk sectors, such as intravenous drug users.
We do not need policies, services and a society discriminating against vulnerable families, their children and people living with HIV. Those would further drive the epidemic underground and make it increasingly more difficult to control.
To reverse the HIV epidemic, we must have the courage to face realities and to care, respect and protect the most vulnerable people in the country.
Stavropol
Stavropol Territory is located in the central Caucasian foothills and on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus (Mt. Dombai-Ulgen, elevation 4046 m; Mt. Elbrus, elevation 5642 m) and covers an area of 66 500 km2. It is bounded by many neighbors, including the Republic of North Ossetia, Karbarda-Balkar Republic, and Georgia in the south; Krasnodar Territory in the southwest, west, and northwest; Rostov Region in the north; the Republic of Kalmykia in the north and northeast; the Republic of Dagestan in the east; and the Chechen and Ingush republics in the southeast.
The Stavropol Territory is famous for medical mineral springs. This area houses a world famous recreational complex which is called Kavkazskie Mineralny Waters. The cities of Pyatigorsk, Zheleznovodsk, Lermontov, Essentuki, Mineralnye Vody, and other centers known for their mineral springs are located in this area. The base of Dzhinal Ridge has been turned a resort park with a variety of local tree and shrub species, guided trails, and recreation centers.
There are huge numbers of ancient settlement sites, barrows (kurgans), and burial grounds in the valleys of the Egorlyk, Kuma, Tomuzlovka, and Tashla rivers and their tributaries; the areas of Kislovodsk Basin and Caucasian Mineral Waters are also considered special archeological sites. The Golden Horde city of Madjar, the capital of the North Caucasus in those days, was located on the site of Budennovsk.
Today, 3 theaters, 3 concert organizations, 644 clubs, 9 cultural and recreational parks, 37 museums operate in Stavropol Territory. There are 1185 cultural monuments in the region, including 115 of federal significance.
The Uspenskaya and Andreevskaya churches, a chapel in Pyatigorsk`s old cemetery, a Catholic church in Pyatigorsk, a mosque in Stavropol, and other religious buildings are protected by the government.
Griboedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Alyabiev, Balakirev (both 19th century Russian composers), and Vereshchagin (Russian artist of the late 19th century) all visited Stavropol in their time and contributed enormously to the city`s cultural development. The first Russian theater in the Caucasus was founded here in 1845. The Stavropol Botanical Gardens founded in 1959 are also of great significance.
Kislovodsk. Abundant sunshine and greenery, medicinal water, natural and historical monuments, and high mountain peaks attract tourists and vacationers to Kislovodsk, Russia`s oldest resort. Kislovodsk Resort Park is unique and beautiful with pines, towering silvery firs, larches, and giant beeches and hornbeams. An aerial cableway operates in the park, with a marvelous view of the city and the Caucasus Mountains from its upper station. There are 70 km of walking trails leading through groves and lanes, with numerous cafes, bars, and pavilions along the way for your enjoyment. Besides the resort park, you can relax in the City Park of Culture and Rest, and if you want to swim or suntan, you can go to the old or new lakes. The regional museum, the dacha of the singer Chaliapin, the museum house of the artist Yaroshenko, and tours of the city will help acquaint you with the city and its celebrities. If you like to travel and sit by a campfire, you have a choice of horseback-riding and hiking trails in the Caucasus Mountains.
Stavropol was founded in 1777 as a military encampment and designated as a city in 1785. The city has one the biggest and best city parks in Russia. In September of 2000 a Stone Cross was erected on the Fortified Hill “Krepostnaya Gora” to commemorate the foundation of the city and in honour of the third millennium. In 2002 Stavropol marked its 225-yh anniversary. A new square with a monument of angel the Savior was built in honour of this important event.
The Stavropol Territory is famous for medical mineral springs. This area houses a world famous recreational complex which is called Kavkazskie Mineralny Waters. The cities of Pyatigorsk, Zheleznovodsk, Lermontov, Essentuki, Mineralnye Vody, and other centers known for their mineral springs are located in this area. The base of Dzhinal Ridge has been turned a resort park with a variety of local tree and shrub species, guided trails, and recreation centers.
There are huge numbers of ancient settlement sites, barrows (kurgans), and burial grounds in the valleys of the Egorlyk, Kuma, Tomuzlovka, and Tashla rivers and their tributaries; the areas of Kislovodsk Basin and Caucasian Mineral Waters are also considered special archeological sites. The Golden Horde city of Madjar, the capital of the North Caucasus in those days, was located on the site of Budennovsk.
Today, 3 theaters, 3 concert organizations, 644 clubs, 9 cultural and recreational parks, 37 museums operate in Stavropol Territory. There are 1185 cultural monuments in the region, including 115 of federal significance.
The Uspenskaya and Andreevskaya churches, a chapel in Pyatigorsk`s old cemetery, a Catholic church in Pyatigorsk, a mosque in Stavropol, and other religious buildings are protected by the government.
Griboedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Alyabiev, Balakirev (both 19th century Russian composers), and Vereshchagin (Russian artist of the late 19th century) all visited Stavropol in their time and contributed enormously to the city`s cultural development. The first Russian theater in the Caucasus was founded here in 1845. The Stavropol Botanical Gardens founded in 1959 are also of great significance.
Kislovodsk. Abundant sunshine and greenery, medicinal water, natural and historical monuments, and high mountain peaks attract tourists and vacationers to Kislovodsk, Russia`s oldest resort. Kislovodsk Resort Park is unique and beautiful with pines, towering silvery firs, larches, and giant beeches and hornbeams. An aerial cableway operates in the park, with a marvelous view of the city and the Caucasus Mountains from its upper station. There are 70 km of walking trails leading through groves and lanes, with numerous cafes, bars, and pavilions along the way for your enjoyment. Besides the resort park, you can relax in the City Park of Culture and Rest, and if you want to swim or suntan, you can go to the old or new lakes. The regional museum, the dacha of the singer Chaliapin, the museum house of the artist Yaroshenko, and tours of the city will help acquaint you with the city and its celebrities. If you like to travel and sit by a campfire, you have a choice of horseback-riding and hiking trails in the Caucasus Mountains.
Stavropol was founded in 1777 as a military encampment and designated as a city in 1785. The city has one the biggest and best city parks in Russia. In September of 2000 a Stone Cross was erected on the Fortified Hill “Krepostnaya Gora” to commemorate the foundation of the city and in honour of the third millennium. In 2002 Stavropol marked its 225-yh anniversary. A new square with a monument of angel the Savior was built in honour of this important event.
Graffiti on the side of our building. Graffiti appears wherever there is a freshly painted surface. Although a boombox is evident in the picture, Slava can't figure out the rest of it. Sometimes there are obscenities, but most of the time I think the writing is obscure. Another part of our building has BBC written on it several times. The radio frequency for BBC, as assigned by Russia, is 666, which of course is a number associated with the devil. So that may be the connection in the graffiti.
My Nook
I was semi-correct when I thought it would be a nice idea to have an e-book for my journey to Russia.
For a number of reasons I selected the Barnes & Noble Nook over the Amazon Kindle or other e-books. I’m almost happy with my choice.
Barnes & Noble offers more than a million e-books. Most of them are about half the price of a hardback, or even less. Some are just $1.99. A few are free (classics without copyright issues). I can download more than 1,000 books, magazines, and newspapers onto the Nook. So carrying something the weight of a paperback can provide me with virtually unlimited reading material.
There were two features in particular that I wanted on an e-book. The first was Wi-Fi connectivity. The second was an ability to download e-books from the public library, in addition to buying books online.
The Nook does allow a user to connect to the web, and I don’t mind its limitations for us early adopters. However, I do expect that my Nook will seem dated quite soon unless there are software updates. I can do a Google search and a quick look-up, but it’s not convenient to browse around the web.
Figuring out how to download e-books from Fairfax County Library while at home was more complicated than I expected. People at Barnes & Noble were no help; they just read books in the store. But with perseverance I got Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” David Halbertam’s “The Coldest Winter,” and the game theory study “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” These e-books are treated like print books, with due dates. Only what happens to an e-book is that it becomes unreadable on the due date. It stays like junk in My Library until I use Adobe Digital Editions towipe my e-shelf clean.
So far I’ve bought just a few e-books from Barnes & Noble, each for less than $15. One is the last book by Stieg Larssen, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” Another was Leningrad-based “City of Thieves,” by David Benioff (while traveling I love being immersed in the atmospherics of a novel about that place). My other e-book purchase was a classic I haven’t returned to since college: de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.” That one was 99 cents.
Barnes & Noble touts its “Lend Me” technology. Just like when you buy print books, you can lend out e-books – subject to restrictions. You can lend a book once and only once, and for just 14 days. So any of you who want Larssen’s hot new book, or Benioff’s critically acclaimed novel, be the first person to contact me and you’ll get it.
The Nook allows me to bookmark pages, highlight sections, and use a Find feature for key words. I can also change the font size, which is particularly useful depending on whether I have good lighting or dim contrast. It can go 10 days without needing a recharge.
Although Nook software can be downloaded to smartphones and the I-Pad, I think that extensive reading on a backlit screen would be tiring for the eyes. E-books have e-inks. You read them with reflected light, just like reading a print book. But current products don’t have enough contrast, in my opinion. And small screens require several click-throughs to cover the equivalent of a print page.
In addition to the reading surface, the Nook has a color touch-screen with that has pretty icons and a teeny tiny keyboard that is not pressure-sensitive. It's skin-contact and motion-sensitive. It will not respond to being touched by fingernails, and if you have fat fingers (apparently I do) then it’s wise to get a stylus like one made for Apple products such as the iPhone.
Would I be happier with the Kindle? Maybe, because Kindle users always come across as enthusiastic. There’s one thing of which I’m very sure: E-books readers are going to go way, way down in price. Amazon is intensely interested in having you buy a Kindle. Barnes & Noble really wants you to have a Nook. Buy either one and you can store more than 1,500 books on your device. The companies drool over having you as a frequent buyer of books at say, $10 a copy.
I predict that there will be a price war between Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It’s worth it to the companies to subsidize the hardware cost. E-books that don’t have this subsidy had better be worth a higher price.
I think I’ll hang on to my early edition Nook for a few years, and then donate it to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It will be appropriate one day for the exhibit of obsolete technologies, such as the electric typewriter.
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