March 1, 2009 — Contents

SUNDAY MARCH 1 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  An Open Letter to Gordon Brown

(2) Russian Courts Destroy Rights rather than Protect Them

(3)  How Putin is Ruining his Country

(4)  Standing up to the Kremlin’s Murderous Thugs

(5)  Russia Enters a Massive Recession

EDITORIAL: An Open Letter to Gordon Brown

EDITORIAL

An Open Letter to Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown
Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
10 Downing Street
London, England

Dear Prime Minister Brown,

If you don’t mind our asking, Sir, just what the !#@*&? do you think you are doing?

Are you, perhaps, trying to cement your status as this century’s Neville Chamberlain and the worst ruler of Britain in half a century?  Do you actually want to encourage more murders by Russian special forces on British soil like the killing of Alexander Litvinenko by making the Russians think England is their supplicant?   If so, we sincerely hope the good people of Great Britain will have the wisdom to put you in prison at their earliest opportunity.

Let us explain.

Russian Courts are Obliterating Human Rights rather than Protecting them

Human Rights First reports:

Human Rights First is deeply concerned by the Saint Petersburg City Court’s ruling against the leading Russian human rights organization Memorial today. The decision allows the authorities to remain in possession of all materials confiscated from their St. Petersburg offices during a police raid in December 2008.

Vladimir Putin: acting tough, thinking short-term and keeping his country behind the West

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune Business Forum:

Since he came to power in 2000, Vladimir Putin has launched a campaign to recover Russian pride, prestige and influence lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Early on, he decided that Russian’s gas and oil supply would finance both the country’s economic recovery and its return as a global power. Even after stepping aside as president in 2008, Putin continues to make the idea of Russia’s comeback his personal project. His successor, President Dimitry Medvedev, has, by all accounts, identical aims.

Standing up to the Kremlin’s Murderous Thugs

Johann Hari, writing in The Independent, says that “we can’t allow Russia’s dissidents to be killed on Europe’s streets.”

The critics of Vladimir Putin – Russia’s Prime Minister and former KGB agent – have a strange habit of being found shot or stabbed or poisoned. This week, I met a man who is half-expecting an assassin’s bullet – here, in London. He is not alone. Ahmed Zakayev – a big, broad man with a grey beard and grief-soaked eyes – says: “I remember holding a press conference near here with my dear friends Alexander Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya. Now they are murdered and I am the only one left. But I have no right to sit in a hole and shake. I have to speak.”

Russia Enters a Massive Recession

Streetwise Professsor reports:

RIA Novosti reports that the Russian economy contracted 8.8 percent year-on-year in January.  That’s pretty bad, but in fact understates the steepness and intensity of the drop.