June 12, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY JUNE 12 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Russia is Exporting Dictatorship

(2)  EDITORIAL:  More on Russia’s Repugnant Rest Rooms

(3)  OP-ED:  Russian Nuclear Arms Hypocrisy

(4)  Putin’s Poison Pill

(5)  A Hero Risks his Life for Russia

NOTE:  A reader suggests for comic relief a YouTube of a Russian airplane trying to take off in Australia.

NOTE:  On Monday June 15th and again on Wednesday June 17th, Masha Novikova’s film “In the Holy Fire of Revolution,” documenting the Kremlin’s oppression of Garry Kasparov’s “Other Russia” reform movement, will have its US premier at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City.  Kasparov himself will be present at the opening night screening. Be there or be part of the problem. 

EDITORIAL: Russia is Exporting Dictatorship

EDITORIAL

Russia is Exporting Dictatorship

The democracy defenders at Freedom House have released a devastating new report on Russia, entitled Undermining Democracy and lumping it together with rogue nations like Iran and Venezuela, its allies, as states which are aggressively, ideologically, seeking to destroy the institution of democracy both at home and abroad.  FH had already released a report detailing how the Putin regime has continued to wipe out democracy within Russia’s borders, and now it shows, beginning with the example of Russian aggression in Georgia, that the KGB Kremlin is not satisfied with exterminating freedom within Russia’s own borders.

Brutally subtitled “Selective Capitalism and Kleptocracy,” the FH report lays bare the barabaric conduct of the Putin regime in seeking to replicate itself like a virus thoughout post-Soviet space.

EDITORIAL: Bound for Russia? Practice Crossing your Legs!

EDITORIAL

Bound for Russia? Practice Crossing your Legs!

Once you know that one-third of Russian homes lack indoor toilets and rely on outhouses, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that while Singapore has 30,000 public toilets and New York City is an international scandal because it has “only” 1,200 the city of Moscow has . . . wait for it . . . fewer than 600, less than half New York’s meager total.  Facilities for the disabled? You can forget about it.  Even Russian space travelers are victimized by this crude, uncivilized backwardness where the bathroom is concerned. And as we’ve previously reported, the conditions inside those few public toilets that do exist are barbaric, to say the least, even according to the Russian nationalists.

But even knowing all that, dear reader, wouldn’t it still suprise you to see, should you manage to find one of Moscow’s precious (albeit repugnant) facilities, to be confronted with a sign telling you that you’re not allowed to flush the toilet paper? 

OP-ED: Russian Nuclear Arms Hypocrisy

Exposing Russia’s Nuclear-Arms Hypocrisy

by “Dominic X”

Original to La Russophobe

Although the Russian media put out anti-western propaganda and disinformation on a regular basis, I thought that a particular article from RIA Novosti deserved some special analysis. The article  is dated 6th of May and is still to my knowledge a leading article and unfortunately has been linked to by USA Today and others. Wikipedia describes RIA Novosti as “one of the most authoritative and professional sources of information in Russia”, which does not say much for the rest of them.

The article is by one Yevgeny Kozhokhin, who turns out to be director of Moscow’s “Strategic Studies Institute.”  Perhaps I am cynical, but I think it is a safe bet that that institute is an arm of government, unlike its western counterparts. Incidentally, when I googled him I found the quote “in the modern world Russia’s objective of ensuring a conflict-free environment can often only be achieved by offensive means” – obviously trying to out-do the American neocons.

The article follows in ordinary print,with my comments in boldface.

Putin’s Poison Pill

Yet another crazed, self-destructive economic “idea” from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, from the Moscow Times:

When Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s helicopter touched down in Pikalyovo last week, it was clear that a remedy for the city’s pain was at hand.

It is uncertain how long the cure might last, but observers are sure that it might turn out to be poison for the government. Putin, they said, made a risky gamble by setting the precedent of doling out more than 40 million rubles ($1.3 million) to force Pikalyovo’s plants to pay their 4,000 unemployed workers.

A Russian Hero, risking his Life for his Country

The New York Times reports:

After the most recent attack on Sergei Kanev — attempted strangulation with a wire, in his apartment’s stairwell here — his editor visited him and delicately suggested that he take a six-month sabbatical from crime reporting, in America.