This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 30 Mar 2008, by someone privately.
-
21 May 08
-
Russia's revival is changing the course of the modern world. After decades of slumbering underachievement, the Bear is back. Its billionaires now play on the global stage, buying up property, sports franchises, places at élite schools. Moscow exerts international influence not just with arms but also with a new arsenal of weapons: oil, gas, timber.
-
To achieve stability, Putin and his administration have dramatically curtailed freedoms. His government has shut down TV stations and newspapers, jailed businessmen whose wealth and influence challenged the Kremlin's hold on power, defanged opposition political parties and arrested those who confront his rule. Yet this grand bargain—of freedom for security—appeals to his Russian subjects, who had grown cynical over earlier regimes' promises of the magical fruits of Western-style democracy. Putin's popularity ratings are routinely around 70%.
-
Now that Putin has solidified his grip on power, he no longer seems overly concerned with courting Western approval. Despite a chorus of disapproving clucks from the West, Putin has shackled the press, muted the opposition, jailed tycoons who don't pledge fealty. In Russia this has been a terrible time to be a democrat, a journalist, an independent businessman. Just ask Garry Kasparov. The chess grandmaster—the highest-rated player of all time—is a far cry from stereotypically dysfunctional champions like Bobby Fischer. Kasparov has a keen political mind and a lively sense of humor. For years he has fought an increasingly lonely struggle as a democratic activist facing an uncompromising state. On Nov. 24, while holding a political rally in Moscow, he was arrested on a technicality and spent five days at Moscow's Petrovka 38 jail.
-
Putin's administration has blocked democrats like Kasparov from participating effectively in politics by making it all but impossible for them to meet the entry requirements. The President, in our discussion, routinely suggests that Kasparov is a stooge of the West because he spoke to the foreign press in English after his arrest. "If you aspire to be a leader of your own country, you must speak your own language, for God's sake," he says. Kasparov recently gave up his long-shot race for President.
-
Dmitri Muratov also knows the difficulties of life in the Putin era. A softspoken, heavyset man whose neatly trimmed beard is turning gray, Muratov is the editor in chief of Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow newspaper, published twice a week, with a reputation for pursuing tough investigative pieces. In the past seven years, three of his journalists have been murdered; all were looking into corruption and wrongdoing. After the third murder, Muratov decided to close the 14-year-old paper to avoid putting any other journalist at risk. But his staff talked him out of it. The paper is perpetually harassed by officials around the country, but, Muratov notes with a weary smile, "we're still alive."
The last of Muratov's journalists to die, Anna Politkovskaya, was shot in the elevator of her apartment building last year on Oct. 7. Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer turned government critic living in London, accused Putin of sanctioning the killing. Within weeks, Litvinenko himself was dead too, killed by radiation poisoning from a mysterious dose of polonium 210. (Britain wants to charge a former KGB officer, Andre Lugovoy, who has just been elected to Russia's parliament, with the killing. He denies it, and Russian law prevents the extradition of Russian citizens.)
Muratov, for his part, doesn't know who ordered his journalists' killings. He says only that he blames "corruption," which has flourished during Putin's eight years.
-
-
25 Dec 07
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.