Link Banana

Speaking of international figures doing unexpected things, Demitry Medvedev has a video blog.

(via Passport)

It’s worth considering the fact that Paul Krugman is wrong. But it’s also worth considering his point that the Georgia-Russia conflict may be the dawn of a new era:

But as I was reading the latest bad news, I found myself wondering whether this war is an omen — a sign that the second great age of globalization may share the fate of the first.

It’s a momentous date for number of reasons. The three most prominent:

1. The Olympics begin. That’s a link to a Big Picture post.
2. Russia and Georgia are in the midst of an “undeclared war” over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. This had been speculated about for a while — The Economist even ran an analysis piece on their website today about what trouble such a conflict would cause. Passport has a wrap-up.
3. It’s the 20th anniversary of the biggest pro-democracy demonstration in Burmese history. That one, like the recent “Saffron Revolution”, was pretty handily suppressed. (Link goes to The Irradday’s special issue, via Passport.)

Andy Baio points out that Garry Kasparov was recently “griefed,” while giving a speech, by a flying phallus. A similar event occured in the alternate reality of Second Life a few years ago.

The Economist’s Europe.view column mourns the not-quite-total passing of the organization for lack of funding. Some interesting details are discussed, as are feasible alternatives for those interested in the former Soviet Republics. A snippet:

The invaluable “Tatar-Bashkir Daily Report”, for example, covering what 90 years ago was the briefly independent state of Idel-Ural, stopped publication in November 2005. Though the vernacular-language broadcasts remain, it is hard to see how they will maintain their quality as the main brains of the organisation disperse.

A sign of how much the bad guys dislike the radios’ work came only last month, with a big cyberattack that temporarily brought down the website of the Belarusian-language service, probably to stop people reading it on the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. That recalled the Soviet-era practice of jamming, at vast expense, foreign short-wave radio broadcasts.

In addition to getting a new president today, more than a few people are beginning to fear that Russia planning to go to war with Georgia. Passport quotes a Russian journalist saying:

Nobody wants war, but both sides are doing everything to spark a military conflict. This is not the first time this situation has arisen. Recall how World War I began. States wanted only to protect their national pride and frighten their opponents. But at some point, the tensions escalated sharply and, coupled with mass mobilizations of their armies, the conflict in the Balkans spun out of control with tragic consequences for the entire world. This scenario could be repeated in the Caucasus.

For Slate, Anne Applebaum said roughly the same thing.

A BBC corespondent recently visited Chechnya (the site of a long-time separatist war against controlling Russia) and made an eerily familiar conclusion:

“The locals are idiots,” fumed one Muscovite as the spring sun became comfortably warm and the delay continued. He did not know that the Chechen next to him had just said the same to me about Russians.

I did not feel that the north Caucasus was about to explode again. People are exhausted and the rebels are now thought to number only a few hundred.

But the missing and the dead have relatives and Chechnya has a long tradition of blood feuds.

There are countless unemployed young men.

Moscow must persuade them and their younger brothers that they have a future. If not, joining the militants may appeal more than joining the police.

A new generation of fighters may yet challenge the Kremlin’s control over Russia’s southern edge.

(via Passport)

Just a small chart to scare the pants off of those who recently found out that the “BRIC” countries are serious about growing. And that the United States is, well, not growing as fast as them. More embarrassingly, because the recession the US is also forecast to grow slower than Japan or the Euro area.

Megan Stack has an interesting story in today’s LA Times about Shabtai von Kalmanovic, a Russia oligarch who’s spending a lot of money to get underpaid WNBA players to play for a team and a league that no one seems to care about. [Insert obvious crack about the WNBA here.]

Nobody is making money off Spartak. On the contrary, it’s better described as an extravagance than a business: Kalmanovic has to pay Russian television to air the games, and they often end up being broadcast in the middle of the night. Nobody even bothers to sell tickets to the games. Too much bureaucracy, Kalmanovic says. The spectators are mostly schoolchildren, soldiers and locals looking for a free night of entertainment.

(via brijit)

Lawrence Sheets has an interesting story in this month’s Atlantic about how highly enriched uranium (that’s the bomb kind) moves in the former Soviet Union.

The [Russian] FSB later sent their Georgian counterparts a brief report on the results. On page five of the letter, which I ultimately obtained from other sources in the Georgian government, the Russians confirmed that Khintsagov’s cache was indeed HEU. The FSB put the level of enrichment at 89.38 percent, just below the initial American assessment. Yet the letter went on to [make the erroneous claim] that because the material had been produced more than 10 years ago, its origins were impossible to determine.

I was to post this yesterday (that being Easter), but never got around to it. But it turns out the last Soviet premier is and was a Christian.

Mr Gorbachev’s surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

EDIT (3/29/2008): A different report says that Mr. Gorbachev is an atheist. I don’t know what to believe. (via AS)

Foreign Policy’s Passport examines the recent violence in Chechnya.

Russia has maintained order in Chechnya largely by arming [Chechnyan President Ramzan] Kadyrov and his fellow ex-rebels, an approach not unlike the U.S.’s “Anbar awakening” strategy in Iraq. According to Reuters, Russian military analysts now worry that they may have created a force they can’t control if Kadyrov’s loyalties shift. Kadyrov is a staunch Putinist (he even delivered a dubious 99.5 percent voter turnout for the ruling party in parliamentary elections), but could he turn against his bosses in Moscow with Medvedev in power? Bernstein doesn’t see this as likely. In fact, Kadyrov is probably quite satisfied with Putin’s choic.

Serge Schmemann, after an entertaining riff on mispronunciations, explains how to say the name of the new Russian President in a way even I can understand.

With time, we will learn to cope with Medvedev. We overcame Khrushchev, adopted Rostropovich and cheer hockey players, ballerinas and tennis stars. Medvedev is as elemental as “medved,” Russian for bear. So: Launch with “med” as in “he’s off his med”; put the accent on the “VEH” as in “venomous,” and trail off with a lazy “dev” with just a hint of “z” and “i”: “dziev.” Altogether now: “Med-VEH-dziev.” Whatever.

Viktor Bout, subject of Merchant of Death and inspiration for Lord of War, was caught by the U.S.’s DEA in Bangkok. Perhaps the most interesting part is that they’re seeking to prosecute him, even though many American defense contractors have used his services in the past.

(via UN Dispatch)

In light of the Russian election, Andrew Meier’s profile of the charismatic — and odd — dissident Edward Limonov is both topical and entertaining.

Limonov has helped to import a new word from English into the Russian political vernacular: luzer. As a politician, he is, to put it charitably, feckless. “He has no hope of gaining state power,” says Alexei Venediktov, the director of Ekho Moskvy and one of Russia’s sharpest political journalists. “But that’s not what motivates him. Limonov loves the street, and like any fighter he needs an arena.”

The Economist, like most Western observers, has some strong words about the election of Dmitry Medvedev earlier today.

The polling station, and the country, have been hijacked by security men who do not even pretend to follow the law. The location of this incident, a busy shopping area, was also symbolic. Overwhelmed by the cornucopia of foreign goods, Russian consumers have so far been distracted from the Kremlin’s shenanigans.

The Christian Science Monitor sees some interesting demographics within Russia — and goes some small way toward explaining Putin’s popularity:

They are the Putin generation: young, often worldly, optimistic about their country’s future, and enthusiastic about a democracy they see as having more to do with higher living standards than checks and balances or freedom of speech. Acquainted only through history with the Soviet Union’s oppressive grip, but distinctly aware of their parents’ challenges during the tumultuous 1990s, they live in a Russia of unprecedented opportunities – ones shaped profoundly by Putin’s strong hand over the past eight years.

The American make a pretty interesting comparison between the price of oil and Vladimir Putin’s aggression abroad.

We found that as the price of oil rose, the aggressiveness index increased: that is, the more valuable oil became, the more hostile Russian foreign policy became. The reverse was also true: when oil prices dropped in 2001 and 2002, so did Russia’s aggression. The relationship proved strongest at the annual level: a $1.48 increase in oil prices yearly correlated with an additional “point” increase in Russian aggression.

The Economist’s Europe.view column takes a stance that sounds nearly pro-Serbian or pro-Russian on the issue of Kosovo’s independence. Regardless (or perhaps because) of that fact, it makes a number of worthy points.

What the EU will not say, but thinks privately, is this: We are supporting Kosovo’s independence because of the chance that it will become more like us, and hence a better neighbour. We oppose independence for Transdniestria et al because it would make them more like Russia, and therefore worse for Europe.

The Economist has an odd story about a conspicuously popular television documentary in Russia.

The film’s usage of modern words and imagery is so conspicuous that the moral cannot escape a Russian viewer. Instead of sticking to its traditions, Byzantium tried to reform and modernise, as the West demanded, and it paid the price. Worst of all, the West infiltrated Byzantium with harmful, individualistic ideas, which destroyed the core values of the empire—so the people lost faith in their rulers.