Free Republic

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran. That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today — the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah. As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it, “In the power struggle in the Middle East, there are...

It's necessary now to put both the word "former" and the word "president" in quotation marks when referring to Vladimir Putin. He stands accused of rigging his elections (both by purging the ballot form and stuffing the ballot box) and therefore can't be considered a properly chosen "president," and rather than leaving government after his term as "president" ended he chose to assume the position of prime minister, vastly expanding the powers of that office. Thus, he's still ruling Russia, and by no means as a freely chosen president but rather as a conspiratorial dictator. The New York Times reported...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Wednesday on the top UN powers to give Iran security guarantees to help resolve the crisis over Tehran's nuclear programme, Russian news agencies reported. Lavrov said that international powers negotiating with Iran "could put concrete proposals on the table guaranteeing the security of Iran and ensuring Iran a worthy, equal place in talks on resolving all problems in the near and Middle East," the agencies reported. "Unfortunately not all members of the 'six' are prepared for this, but I am convinced that this is an effective way to remove the tension...

Dmitry Medvedev may be Russia's president but Vladimir Putin has kept his place in the Kremlin. When Putin came to his old office in the Kremlin on Monday to propose the names of ministers for his government, the former president made for his customary seat on the left of the desk. But he paused before sitting down and told President Medvedev: "Now this is your place," Russia's Kommersant daily reported. "Oh, what's the difference?" Medvedev answered and immediately sat on the right of the desk, where Putin's guests traditionally perched for the eight years of his presidency.

You do not really know what arrogance is until you have seen tanks come snarling down your street. The sight does something to the heart and the mind that nothing else has the power to do. I know this because tanks did come down my Moscow street with evil intent one bright August morning in 1991, the spearhead of a KGB putsch that nobody then knew would fail. We - my Russian neighbours and I - stood unspeaking in helpless knots at the side of the road as the monsters, barrels slanting romantically in the sun, tore up the road...

"Russia's air force chief on Saturday accused NATO fighters escorting Russian bombers on patrol flights over neutral waters of violating safety rules. Air Force chief Col.-Gen. Alexander Zelin said NATO aircraft were approaching Russian bombers too closely and too often, creating risky situations."

KIEV: A gloomy Vladimir Putin wears a Czarist crown, clutching a bag full of dollars and a miniature television tower. Filipp Pishchik says this and similar cartoons, depicting the former president as a corrupt leader who stifles free speech, got him in trouble with authorities and forced him to leave Moscow last year for neighboring Ukraine. "Ukraine is just great," said Pishchik, 37, a designer and architect. "Here there is hope." Since the 2004 Orange Revolution ushered in a vigorous, sometimes chaotic democracy, Ukraine has become an island of freedom and tolerance in an ex-Soviet bloc still dominated by authoritarian...

BELGRADE, May 9 (Itar-Tass) -- The Serbian government has unanimously approved the oil and gas agreement with Russia and recommended the parliament to ratify it, the government press office said on Friday. The agreement will now be submitted for ratification to the new parliament, as the current parliament is dismissed to order of the national president. A protocol to the Serbian-Russian Intergovernmental Agreement on Oil and Gas Cooperation says that the agreement must be ratified by May 25. Russia has done that, and the delayed ratification in Serbia, which was caused by the breakdown of the ruling coalition, is immaterial....

Caption photos of soldiers at Kremlin's Red Square.

From Cold War to cold meats... sailors from the US and Russian navies have tested their culinary skills in a sandwich-making competition. The contest was held during a visit by the US destroyer Stethem to the eastern Russian port of Vladivostok to mark Victory Day. Officers also joined in. A Russian cook took the prize for best-tasting sandwich while an American came top for most original presentation. Sandwiches topped with cucumber sails were among the Russian offerings. The ingredients included peppers, smoked ham, lettuce, cheese, mayonnaise, olives, cherry tomatoes and gherkins. The US winner in the individual contest got a...

Russia showcased its military might and youthful new president to the world Friday, as heavy tanks and missile launchers rumbled across Red Square in a Victory In a nationally broadcast speech two days after his inauguration, President Dmitry Medvedev avoided the bellicose rhetoric of his mentor and predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who drew parallels between United States and Nazi Germany during last year's parade. However, in his speech marking victory over Adolf Hitler's Germany, the 42-year-old Medvedev said the history of World War II demonstrated that military conflicts are rooted in "irresponsible ambitions which prevail over interests of nations and entire...

"Nuclear missiles and tanks paraded Friday across Red Square for the first time since the Soviet era but new President Dmitry Medvedev warned other nations against "irresponsible ambitions" that he said could start wars. Marching bands and 8,000 troops goose-stepped across the square, followed by a huge display of heavy weapons including Topol-M ballistic missiles and T-90 tanks, and a fly-by of warplanes. Reviewing his first parade as commander in chief, Medvedev warned against "irresponsible ambitions" that he said could spark war across entire continents. In an apparent attack on US foreign policy and Western backing for Kosovo's independence, Medvedev...

Over the weekend, Foreign Ministry official Valery Kenyaikin cautioned Georgia against using NATO forces to resolve the territorial conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, saying Moscow would take "all possible measures to protect its citizens if fighting broke out" in these areas. It seems as though Russia is preparing for war with Georgia. A few days ago I returned from Chechnya, where I observed the swift, bloodless routing of the Vostok regiment by military groups loyal to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. Vostok is a local military unit in Khankala, Chechnya, composed of ethnic Chechens that is formally a part of...

MOSCOW (AP) — When Boris Yeltsin left the Kremlin eight years ago, he gave Vladimir Putin the pen he had used to sign important documents and decrees, a gesture symbolizing the transfer of power to Russia's new president. When Putin left the Kremlin, he took the pen with him. Putin, who became prime minister Thursday, has signaled that he intends to remain Russia's principal leader, at least in the short term — and possibly much longer. He is keeping the trappings of his presidency and many of its powers as well. It was not always meant to be this way....

Russia has ordered the expulsion of two military attaches from the American embassy in Moscow, US officials say. The US state department said it would comply with the order although it objected to it. Two Russians have been expelled from Washington in recent months, one in November and the second on 22 April. The news comes as Russia conducts a transition of power with Vladimir Putin becoming prime minister and Dmitry Medvedev president. 'Separate incidents' The expulsion order was given some days ago but was only revealed by the state department on Thursday. An official there confirmed to Reuters news...

SHORTLY AFTER being sworn in as Russian president yesterday, Dmitry Medvedev declared that "my most important task is to further develop civil and economic freedoms." Above all, said the 42-year-old former law professor, "we must achieve true respect for the law and end the legal nihilism that is seriously hindering modern development." That was a remarkable statement under the circumstances. Mr. Medvedev, after all, owes his position to the "legal nihilism" of outgoing president Vladimir Putin, who grossly abused both the letter and the spirit of Russia's nominally democratic constitution to install a handpicked successor. Mr. Putin, who takes over...

Mikhail Gorbachev has accused the United States of mounting an imperialist conspiracy against Russia that could push the world into a new Cold War. With Dmitry Medvedev due to be inaugurated today as Russian president, the Soviet Union's last leader said that the White House's claims of peaceful intentions towards its former superpower rival could no longer be trusted. Delivering one of his most scathing attacks on the US, Mr Gorbachev told The Daily Telegraph that a US military build-up was under way to contain a resurgent Russia. From Nato's expansion plans in the former Soviet Union to Washington's proposals...

In 10 years, Russia's national defense spending has risen by more than 965 percent as its military renews strategic air patrols, reasserts its interests throughout the former Soviet space, and actively pushes back against competing security interests from the U.S. and Europe. Last year, Russian national defense spending surpassed $32 billion, compared with less than $3 billion in 1998. Looking forward, Russian defense spending is expected to trend upward; however, Moscow's strategic bandwidth may be constrained by a confluence of defense economic factors.

Silvio Berlusconi's re-election as Italy's Prime Minister is more promising and more important for Italy and the United States, and for trans-Atlantic relations generally, than most commentators have admitted. Although the Bush Administration has just nine months left in office, significant progress is both possible and desirable in enhancing ties between America and Europe. President Bush's critics have been quick to assign him blame for weakened trans-Atlantic relations, particularly because of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. They argue that public opinion polls show European popular sentiments turning against the United States. They gloat that two of Bush's staunchest personal and...

Oil prices threaten to hit $200 a barrel in a final "super-spike" over coming months as producers fail to keep pace with blistering demand from China and the Middle East, according to a controversial report by Goldman Sachs. An oil rig extracting petroleum in California: Oil could hit $200 in 'super-spike' US crude prices rose to a new high of $122.35 a barrel yesterday "We believe the current energy crisis may be coming to a head. A 'super-spike' end game may be in the early stages of playing out," said Arjun Murti, the bank's energy strategist. Goldman Sachs said a...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close", a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday. Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the "foreign minister" of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia. "We literally have to avert war," Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels. Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close," a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday. Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the "foreign minister" of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia. "We literally have to avert war," Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels. Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians...

Russia's display of heavy weapons in this year's Victory Day parade in Moscow is "not sabre-rattling", President Vladimir Putin insists. Tanks and intercontinental missiles are to be paraded for the first time since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The outgoing Russian leader said that Friday's parade to mark the end of World War II would demonstrate Russia's growing defence capabilities. "We do not threaten anyone and do not intend to do so," he said. A dress rehearsal for the parade was conducted on Monday. Mr Putin is stepping down as president on 7 May to be replaced...

Could Russia be divested of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, which have been awarded to its southern city of Sochi? For several reasons, it’s becoming a distinct possibility. And Russia might be better off if it happened. At a press conference in Moscow on April 10, timed to coincide with the Kremlin’s first formal progress report to the International Olympic Committee, a coalition of anti-Kremlin activists, including Garry Kasparov, warned that several of the Kremlin’s planned construction sites have become infeasible due to the unforeseen height of the water table. The IOC, in an unusual move, granted the games to...

Garry Kasparov criticizes Western countries for providing the autocratic regime in Russia with much needed legitimacy and for ignoring violations of basic human rights in Russia ("Russia's Pre-Olympic Nightmare," op-ed, April 26). Mr. Kasparov ignores the truth that there is only so much that other countries can do to encourage Russia to be freer and less autocratic. It is the job of Mr. Kasparov and other leaders of the Russian opposition to invent and promote a social and economic model that combines freedom and governability. They need a model that combines Russian traditions deeply rooted in the country's autocratic history...

MOSCOW (AFP) — Georgia has called on the United Nations to send more observers to the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia to check on the increase in Russian troops there, a parliamentary spokesman said Saturday. "We have serious suspicions that there have been violations," said Nika Sturoua the vice-president of the defence and security committee, the Interfax news agency reported. Sturova said they believed that Moscow had exceeded the quota of troops allowed for its contingent in the pro-Russian province and that "illegal weapons" had been deployed there. Sturovas said that the UN was going to send extra observers to...

In August, Russia planted a flag 2 1/2 miles below sea level at the actual North Pole, laying claim to what it says are vast quantities of oil and gas. Some experts estimate that a quarter of the planet's undiscovered energy resources are buried at the top of the planet.

MOSCOW: World powers have proposed Iran cease uranium enrichment during international talks with Tehran on its nuclear programme; Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s foreign minister as saying on Saturday. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking after his return from a London meeting of major powers on Iran, said uranium enrichment would have to be suspended for the talks. “Our first condition is the freezing, suspension of uranium enrichment,” Lavrov was quoted as saying in Moscow by Interfax.” The view of the six (powers) is that Iran must cease enrichment of uranium only for the period in which talks last.” “It is...

MOSCOW -- Throats slashed and bodies dumped, three slain Uzbek immigrants were discovered in the Moscow region, police announced Wednesday as racial violence continued to climb starkly in Russia's streets. This year has seen a dramatic increase in skinhead and neo-Nazi attacks, human rights groups say, many of them aimed at Caucasian and Central Asian immigrants from hardscrabble former Soviet republics who flock to Russia to eke out a living. The bodies turn up beaten, bruised and stabbed, sometimes mutilated or bearing signs of torture.

TBILISI, May 1 (Reuters) - The "moment of truth" has come for Europe to resist hardliners in Russia who are bent on stopping the spread of democracy in the former Soviet Union, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on Thursday. Moscow has sparked an international crisis by ordering extra troops and equipment to Abkhazia, a Black Sea province which threw off Georgian rule in the 1990s. It says the forces are needed as peacekeepers because Tbilisi plans an invasion. NATO has dismissed the invasion claim and Washington says Russia's action risks destabilising the whole Caucasus region, a key transit route for...

Ideology matters again. The big development of recent years is the rise not only of great powers but also of the great-power autocracies of Russia and China. True realism about the international scene begins with understanding how this unanticipated shift will shape our world. Many believe that when Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in communism, they stopped believing in anything. They had become pragmatists, pursuing their own and their nation's interests. But Chinese and Russian rulers, like past rulers of autocracies, do have a set of beliefs that guide their domestic and foreign policies. They believe in the virtues...

Cannot post article, see link below:: THIS IS HUGE NEWS BECAUSE THE ENTIRE WORLD USES DOLLARS TO BUY OIL. IF DOLLARS ARE NOT USED, THEN THERE WILL BE NO NEED FOR DOLLARS IN THESE NATIONS BANKS, AND THESE COUNTRIES WILL HAVE SPARE DOLLARS THAT WILL NEED TO BE CHANGED TO EUROS, MAKING THE DOLLAR MUCH LESS USEFULL. FOREIGN COUNTRIES THAT ARE INVESTING IN AMERICAN TREASURY BILLS WILL EXPERIENCE LOWER INTEREST RATES, SIMILAR TO THE FED DROPPING INTEREST RATES YESTERDAY, ONLY INSTEAD OF DOMESTIC RATES GOING DOWN, THE COLLAPSE OF THE DOLLAR WORLD WIDE MEANS FOREIGN INVESTMENT WILL SHUT DOWN, COUNTRIES...

Venezuela’s Chavez plans to bury old empire of USA Front page / World / Americas 25.04.2008 Source: Pravda.Ru Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez harshly criticized the US administration again after the unauthorized passing of the USS George Washington along the coast of the Latin American country. Chavez promised to bury the USA in the 21st century. “When Americans appear near our shores with their navy, the George Washington aircraft carrier, one should not forget that it happens at the time when we together with Brazil are creating the Defense Council of South America,” Chavez said in a speech that was broadcast...

BERLIN: Russia's decision to send 1,000 extra troops to Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia is part of the Kremlin's policy to thwart the ambitions of the small Caucasus country to join NATO, according to Georgia's foreign minister. Foreign Minister David Bakradze, who last week started a major diplomatic offensive among NATO capitals in Europe, warned his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, last Friday about Russia's actions in Georgia. Bakradze said Russia would do everything possible to stop his country from being offered a NATO membership action plan, or MAP, which would put the country on a fast track toward joining the...

With the fall of communism and the rise of globalisation in the 1990s, the West believed democracy had won. How wrong it was, says the neocon and foreign policy adviser to John McCain. He warns the forces of freedom are losing ground as the autocracies of Russia and China reassert themselves as world powers In recent years, as the great autocracies of Russia and China have risen and the radical Islamists have waged their struggle, the liberal world has been divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. The great democracies have squabbled and jostled for the moral high...

On March 26, McCain gave a speech on foreign policy in Los Angeles that was billed as his most comprehensive statement on the subject. It contained within it the most radical idea put forward by a major candidate for the presidency in 25 years. Yet almost no one noticed. In his speech McCain proposed that the United States expel Russia from the G8, the group of advanced industrial countries. Moscow was included in this body in the 1990s to recognize and reward it for peacefully ending the cold war on Western terms, dismantling the Soviet empire and withdrawing from large...

"The steps that have been taken (by Russia) and the rhetoric that has been used concerning the threat of force have increased tensions and have undermined Georgia's territorial integrity," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said. "The allies are unanimous in supporting, endorsing Georgia's territorial integrity and will not recognise or support steps that undermine that sovereignty," he said. NATO announced at a summit early this month that Georgia would one day become a member of the 26-nation military alliance, in the face of fierce Russian opposition. Russia objects to NATO moving closer to its borders and is deeply concerned that the...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has endured years of criticism over its human rights record but now it is hitting back by setting up watchdogs in New York and Paris to challenge the West over its own rights record. Natalya Narochnitskaya, one of the leaders of the project, said the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation will offer a fresh perspective on human rights that is not hostage to the political agenda of Western governments. "American policy under the flag of democracy and human rights in actual fact is a Trotskyist permanent revolution which serves the aim of giving them (political) mastery,"...

MOSCOW, April 26, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com)- The Moscow City government has made it clear that it will not tolerate the public promotion of sodomy during Labor Day celebrations on May 1st. "The city authorities will act decisively, just as they have in years past, to impede those actions," said Serguéi Tsoy, a spokesman for Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov. "The absolute majority in society rejects those demonstrations, as well as the gay lifestyle and philosophy," Luzhkov added, and warned that if homosexuals took to the streets they could be injured by attackers, according to Interfax. "Homosexuals intend to create disharmony to obstruct...

Russia has said that Georgia is preparing to invade the breakaway region of Abkhazia. A statement from the Russian foreign ministry said that "a bridgehead is being prepared for the start of military operations against Abkhazia". Russia accuses Georgia of amassing 1,500 soldiers and police near the rebel areas of the upper Kodori Gorge. But Georgian officials denied intending to attack Abkhazia, which broke away from Georgia in the 1990s.

Why Does Ahmadinejad Want Russian Troops in Iran? 25/04/2008 By Amir Taheri Why is the leadership in Tehran anxious to give Russia the right to land troops in Iran? The question is not fanciful. The Islamic Republic is conducting a devious campaign to prepare public opinion for that eventuality. The message is relayed through deliberately vague terms that diplomats understand immediately while the general public does not. The device is to revive two treaties that most students of Iranian history thought were dead and buried long ago. The first is the 1921 Treaty that the government of Sayyed Ziauddin Tabatabai,...

Air is crucial to human life, and the absence of a breathable atmosphere is one of the main obstacles to discovering other planets. Russian scientists have reproduced a gas mixture that human beings may breathe on the way to Mars and when on the Red Planet. Staff at the Moscow Biomedical Problems Institute have constructed an experimental capsule and reproduced within it the conditions that might be encountered during a mission to Mars. The gas inside accounts for only one per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere but there’s plenty of it on Mars as the gas inside is argon. Mixed...

Russia's greatest living novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is working feverishly to complete his collected works and is writing every day despite failing health, a missing vertebra and being unable to walk, his wife, Natalia, revealed yesterday.

VILNIUS (AFP) - Lithuania on Friday threatened to block the start of EU talks with Russia, highlighting a series of disputes it has with its former Soviet overlord. "We looked at the proposal of the Slovenian presidency (of the EU) and we cannot accept it without reservations," Violeta Gaizauskaite, spokeswoman for Lithuania's foreign ministry, told AFP Friday. "We believe that not all our remarks were taken into account, so negotiations have to continue" within the 27-nation EU before Lithuania can approve talks with Russia, she said. "We cannot accept this proposal". Any EU member state can block talks between the...

Iran has demanded that Azerbaijan deliver a Russian shipment of nuclear equipment that it blocked at its border with Iran almost three weeks ago. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini says his country has asked the Azerbaijani ambassador in Iran to get his government to deliver the shipment as soon as possible. He spoke Sunday at his weekly press briefing. The shipment is headed to a nuclear reactor the Russians have helped build in the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr. Azerbaijan has said it was seeking more information about the shipment due to fears that it might violate...

Russia is a European country, and its population patterns are unmistakably European in a number of respects, e.g. low birth rates, rising illegitimacy ratios and immigration tensions, and an aging population. But its demographic profile and future prospects differs in two important respects that bode ill for Russia's long-term economic outlook – to say nothing of the Kremlin's ambitious goal of becoming the world's fifth-largest economy by the year 2020. First, Russia's health and mortality situation is vastly worse than Western Europe's. Life expectancy for Russian men is astonishingly low, well below current levels in either Pakistan or Bangladesh. Trends...

According to the AIVD, the Dutch secret service, the terrorist threat from radical Islamic quarters is increasing, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the world. In its annual report for 2007 the AIVD also confirms what other intelligence sources have said previously: al-Qaeda is gaining influence after being effectively out of action for years. Each year the secret service presents a central theme in its annual report. This year it's international cooperation and the exchange of information between intelligence services. The AIVD explains that such cooperation might be necessary but it isn't without its complications. The identities of intelligence...

MOSCOW: Russia has threatened to sue China for copying its Sukhoi Su-27SK fighters and its pirate production for export to Pakistan and other Third World countries at much cheaper prices, a leading Russian daily reported on Tuesday. "Russia has officially notified China that the production of J11 (fighters), a copy of Russian Su-27SK, violates inter-governmental agreements. Moscow has vowed to launch legal procedures for the protection of its intellectual property," Nezavisimaya Gazeta said. Under the 1996 agreement, China had the right to assemble 200 Su-27SK fighters under the local brand J11. However, after receiving 95 kits and 180 AL31F engines,...

A Moscow court on Monday convicted an American pastor of smuggling hunting ammunition into Russia and sentenced him to three years and two months in prison. Phillip Miles, pastor of Christ Community Church in Conway, S.C., part of an evangelical fellowship, has been in custody since his arrest Feb. 3, several days after arriving in Moscow. Miles has said he brought the .300-caliber cartridges for a friend who had recently bought a Winchester rifle -- a gun rarely found in Russia. He said he did not know bringing such ammunition into Russia was illegal. "I'm very disappointed. It's a strange...

Azerbaijan halted a Russian shipment of equipment intended for Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, demanding more information for fear of violating United Nations sanctions, officials said Monday. The Russian state-run company Atomstroiexport said one or two trucks carrying the equipment were stopped two weeks ago at the town of Astara, on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border. Agency spokeswoman Irina Yesipova said officials were holding talks with both Azerbaijan and Iran. She said the shipment contained "heat-isolating equipment" essential to the plant's operation and that the holdup was not likely to delay the start-up of the plant, which Russia is building in the...