They are taking cheap shots at China, and when you want to start WWIII you need to make sure the 'murkn public thinks those guys are bad.
The Moscow Mayor:
"Moscow mayor fired after clash" by New York Times | September 29, 2010
MOSCOW — The mayor of Moscow, Yuri M. Luzhkov, a dominant figure in Russia in the two decades since the Soviet Union’s collapse, was dismissed yesterday by President Dmitry A. Medvedev after questioning the president’s fitness and thus rattling the tightly controlled government here.
The conflict turned into a highly unusual spectacle because such defiance of the country’s leadership by a senior official rarely occurs in public.
As opposed to AmerikA?
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"After mayor ousted, gay rights activists stage sanctioned protest in Moscow" by Associated Press | October 2, 2010
MOSCOW — Moscow police yesterday detained several gay rights opponents at the first sanctioned gay rights protest in years, marking a sharp reversal of policy after last week’s dismissal of the city’s mayor.
Mayor Yuri Luzhkov had compared gay people to the devil, and gay rights rallies were forbidden....
I really don't care anymore.
Two dozen activists protested yesterday outside Swiss International Air Lines’ Moscow office against the carrier’s alleged role in the kidnapping of the leader of Russia’s gay rights movement, which sparked concern in Western Europe....
Police arrested at least four people trying to sabotage their rally.
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"Court condemns Moscow gay pride bans" by Associated Press / October 22, 2010
STRASBOURG, France — The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia yesterday for letting Moscow ban gay pride marches simply because the city’s mayor — who famously compared gays to the devil — and other officials disapproved of them.
The binding ruling means that Russia must ensure gay parades are freely held in its cities and requires the country to pay organizers of gay pride events $41,300 for damages and court costs stemming from bans from 2006 to 2008.
The court is an arm of the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog....
How are those wars going these days?
Also yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, Sergei Sobyanin, was named mayor of Moscow.
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Related: Students create racy calendar for Putin
An emperor with literally no clothes?
Tycoon Trial:
"Trial of Russian oil tycoon nears end" by Associated Press | October 15, 2010
MOSCOW — Prosecutors said oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s own testimony has proved his guilt, as closing arguments got underway yesterday in his 20-month-old fraud trial.
Khodorkovsky is serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and is on trial in a second case on charges of fraud and embezzling $25 billion in crude oil....
He denies all charges in the politically driven legal onslaught. The criminal cases and the bankruptcy of his Yukos oil company are viewed as punishment for challenging the power of Vladimir Putin, who has led Russia since 2000, first as president and now as prime minister....
Putin’s successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, has pledged to overhaul Russia’s judicial system, which suffers from endemic corruption and is subject to political influence. Khodorkovsky’s ability to receive a fair trial has been viewed as a test of Medvedev’s willingness to break with Putin’s policies.
In recent months Putin has responded angrily to questions about the former Yukos chief executive, suggesting he deserves no leniency because he “has blood on his hands.’’ This is a reference to the former Yukos security chief and a former business partner who have been accused of organizing contract killings.
Yeah, good thing AmeriKa never does things like that.
The verdict is not expected for several weeks.
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"14-year sentence urged for oil magnate" by Associated Press | October 23, 2010
MOSCOW — Russian prosecutors asked yesterday for a 14-year prison sentence for former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in his second trial, which is seen as a test of President Dmitry Medvedev’s commitment to the rule of law.
Khodorkovsky, once the country’s richest man, has already served seven years of an eight-year sentence for tax evasion. With early release, sometimes granted in Russia, he could be out as soon as 2012, the year of the next presidential elections.
Before he was first arrested at gunpoint by commandos on the tarmac of a Siberian airport, Khodorkovsky had bankrolled political parties and media critical of then-President Vladimir Putin. Rights activists accuse Putin of making an example out of Khodorkovsky....
Observers say Medvedev’s hands may be tied as it is Putin who still calls the shots....
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Hey, I'm not defending the Russian government. Turns out all governments suck.
I'm just POINTING OUT the AmeriKan media's HYPOCRISY on such things!
"Russian bank explains hiring of ex-spy" by Associated Press / October 12, 2010
MOSCOW — Russian spy Anna Chapman, who the FBI says used her Internet savvy for her undercover work in New York, has found a new use for her skills at a Moscow bank....
The only good bank is a Zionist-controlled AmeriKan bank.
With her flaming red hair and penchant for posting sultry photos of herself on social networking sites, the 28-year-old Chapman was the pin-up girl among 10 sleeper spies who were arrested in the United States this summer and then sent back to Russia in a spy swap.
>Red-Hot!
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Stupid Spy Stories
Also see: The Boston Sunday Globe Writes a Russian Spy Story
It is ALL STAGED and SCRIPTED, folks!
She has avoided the media since her return, so when she showed up at the launch site late Thursday it caused a sensation. She was wearing a bright red pea coat, which proved less than ideal attire for slipping through the crowd unnoticed.
Chapman refused to answer any questions, but a photograph of her in her scarlet coat made the front page of Russia’s best-selling newspaper....
We usually get sports photos from the Globe.
Anna Chapman was among 10 spies arrested in the US.
WOW! She could torture me anytime!
I'll do whatever you want!
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"Russia honors spies deported by US" by Associated Press / October 19, 2010
MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday bestowed the country’s highest state honor on the Russian sleeper agents deported from the United States in the countries’ biggest spy swap since the Cold War, Interfax news reported.
Doesn't that make you mad, America? Israel does the same thing; however, no big deal.
The awards were handed out at a Kremlin ceremony less than four months after the exchange, the agency quoted Medvedev spokeswoman Natalya Timakova as saying. No other details on the ceremony were available and Kremlin spokespeople were not immediately reachable....
The spies received a hero’s welcome in Russia, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, himself a former spy in East Germany, leading them in a patriotic singalong in July.
He's a bad guy! I mean, he IS, but I'm working in the context of war propaganda here.
The most famous of the agents, Anna Chapman, visited the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan this month for the launch of a Russian spaceship, fueling her celebrity in Russia and abroad. She was in Baikonur ostensibly as the new celebrity face of a Moscow bank.
She can foreclose on me anytime!
FondServisBank, which works with Russian companies in the aerospace industry, said it had hired Chapman to bring innovation to its information technologies.
It did not escape Russians’ attention that the initials of the bank, FSB, are the same as Russia’s main spy agency.
We have CIA fronts and NOC cover, they have FSB fronts and NOC cover.
Despite the honors reportedly bestowed at the Kremlin, the US court complaint against the flame-haired Chapman and her alleged cohorts described their many spying blunders, leading to some embarrassing coverage for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service in the Western press.
Ever notice our gravest enemies(?) are SO 'TOO-PID?!?!
The "terrorists" can't make a bomb that works, and the spies never get any good information (unless they are working for Israel).
Russia and the United States have said that the spy scandal would not interfere with the improving tone in their relations.
Yup, much ado about nothing!
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That's why it gets a full article:
"Russian officer aided in spy case; Intelligence agent subject of report" by Jim Heinz, Associated Press / November 12, 2010
MOSCOW — A Russian legislator specializing in national security confirmed a newspaper report yesterday that a top intelligence official helped the United States arrest 10 Russian spies this summer, including a couple in Cambridge, Mass....
The daily Kommersant cited unnamed sources as identifying the Russian official only as Colonel Shcherbakov, who it said headed the American section of a Foreign Intelligence Service division specializing in sleeper agents. Gennady Gudkov, a member of the Russian Parliament’s national security committee, later said: “Shcherbakov turned over our agents in the U.S.A. . . . I knew of this long before the publication today in Kommersant.’’
************
The newspaper cited a source in the Kremlin as saying that Shcherbakov’s whereabouts were known and that a “Mercader’’ had been sent for him, referring to Rámon Mercader, the Soviet agent who killed Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940.
The foreign intelligence service and Russia’s Foreign Ministry declined comment on the report, as did the US Justice Department, FBI, and CIA.
According to the newspaper, Shcherbakov, who reportedly has a daughter living in the United States, went to America three days before Medvedev’s visit. The newspaper said the sources characterized him as fleeing, but it was unclear how they knew the trip was not simply a personal or professional visit.
After the arrest of the 10 Russian spies, a US prosecutor said they had been under surveillance for years. The extent of Shcherbakov’s alleged aid in the arrests was not clear from the Kommersant account.
The newspaper cited....
I'm not up for obfuscation today.
“It’s all a mystery to me.’’
And I'm putting down the book.
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Corruption Like Us:
"Corruption in Russia worsens, report says" by Washington Post | October 27, 2010
MOSCOW — Corruption in Russia has grown even more blatant over the past year, according to a report issued yesterday by Transparency International, and the country has fallen from 146th place to 154th on the organization’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
They have banks ripping them off, too?
Russia tied with Tajikistan, Papua New Guinea, and several African countries, and was ranked most corrupt among the G-20 nations.
For the first time since the activist group Transparency International began issuing its annual list 15 years ago, the United States dropped out of the top 20 least-corrupt nations, because of financial scandals it has endured. The United States fell from 19th place to 22d, behind Chile.
Some example we are!
Nothing about the WAR-PROFITEERING, 'eh?
Denmark, New Zealand, and Singapore topped the list as least corrupt, and Somalia was ranked the worst, with Afghanistan and Burma nearly as bad.
At the same time, Moscow is moving closer to joining the World Trade Organization, and President Dmitry Medvedev hopes to foster a new high-tech industry that would make Russia a digital leader.
Corruption must be a requirement.
“How can a country claiming to be a world leader, claiming to be a major energy power, be in such a position?’’ asked Yelena Panfilova, director of the Moscow office of Transparency International. “It’s a situation of national shame.’’
I think he answered his own question.
Our shame is the mass-murder and torture of Muslims over lies, America.
There is, she said, a “catastrophic gap’’ between civil society and “state sabotage.’’
Same with AmeriKa.
Corruption is everywhere — in hospitals, schools, utilities, and in the corps of traffic police — but Panfilova said Russia is falling ever more deeply down the international list because of a sense of immunity in the higher levels of the government.
Same with AmeriKa.
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Bad Press
"Journalist in coma after being attacked
MOSCOW — A reporter for Kommersant, a major Russian newspaper, was left in a coma yesterday after two men smashed his head, legs, and fingers in an attack that prosecutors believe was linked to his work. Two unidentified attackers were waiting for Oleg Kashin, 30, when he returned to his apartment in central Moscow just after midnight, neighbors and prosecutors said. The beating was the latest in a wave of attacks on journalists and activists in Russia. Since 2000, at least 18 killings of journalists have gone unsolved, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. (AP)."
I'm not approving of the violence at all, especially against writers; however, AmeriKa has killed ten times that since 2003 with its invasions and occupations.
Part of a a pattern, right?
"Beaten Russian reporter convicted of slander" by Associated Press / November 11, 2010
STARBEYEVO, Russia — A muckraking Russian reporter left handicapped by a 2008 beating was convicted yesterday of defaming an official he criticized when writing about corruption and the destruction of the Khimki forest near Moscow.
Anything to shut up critics.
Mikhail Beketov’s supporters said the verdict was another sign of media freedom degradation.
Beketov, a reporter for the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper, irked authorities with his articles about corruption involving the Khimki forest, part of which officials have torn down to make way for a highway.
Related: Who Started the Russian Fires?
>
Cui Bono?
Beketov now uses a wheelchair and is unable to speak after a beating his supporters contend was retaliation for the articles.
One of the officials Beketov criticized was Vladimir Strelchenko, the mayor of Khimki. In a 2007 TV interview, Beketov accused Strelchenko of being involved in blowing up his car.
Strelchenko sued for slander, and the court in Khimki issued a $160 fine yesterday.
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And why is all this important?
"Obama turns focus to relations with Russia as Asia trip ends; Tells Medvedev ratifying nuclear treaty is priority
YOKOHAMA, Japan — President Obama, capping a far-flung Asian trip of mixed results, assured President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia today that getting the Senate to ratify the new START treaty is a “top priority’’ of his administration.
“I reiterated my commitment to getting the START treaty done during the lame-duck session,’’ Obama said, noting that Congress returns this week for its postelection session....
This is when I notice the entire article has been rewritten.
It's all there if you want it, readers.
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An Invisible Ink that never appeared in my paper:
"Obama offers GOP a deal on arms treaty" by Associated Press / November 13, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is offering to add billions of dollars in funding for the US nuclear stockpile in a deal that it hopes will win enough Republican support for approval of a nuclear-arms-control treaty with Russia.
Yup, we DO HAVE BILLIONS for BRIBES to BUY VOTES!
Related: Russia's Cheat and Retreat
All for a scrap of paper that don't mean s***!!
It's nothing but a POLITICAL ASS WIPE!!!
White House officials outlined the proposal to Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, who is seen as the key to winning enough support to ratify the New START treaty, according to a congressional aide briefed on the proposal yesterday. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.
The offer was for a boost of $4.1 billion in funding between 2012-2016 for the nuclear-weapons complex that will go to maintaining and modernizing the arsenal and the laboratories that oversee that effort.
Is it WORTH IT to be so HYPOCRITICAL to the world, Americans?
An additional $1 billion would cover a deficit in the pension fund for the agency in charge of the stockpile and laboratories.
Oh, and a PENSION BAILOUT of a BILLION BUCKS to BOOT!!
The additional money comes on top of a boost of $10 million that the administration had already agreed to over 10 years....
Yup, PLENTY of MONEY for WEAPONS of WAR in AmeriKa!!!
The administration is scrambling to get enough Republican support in the Senate to ratify the treaty before the Democrats’ majority shrinks by six in January. In a sign of the urgency of the administration’s pitch, White House aides traveled to Kyl’s home state of Arizona to brief him on the proposal, the aide said.
What was the CARBON FOOTPRINT on that?
Officials also briefed Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a Republican.
And HOW BIG was the BRIBE to BUY OFF Bob?
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