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ID:
088601
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
AMERICA HAS MADE its choice. The next U.S. president will be Barack Obama, Dem., a 47-year-old African American first-term senator from Illinois, who won a convincing victory in the final battle for the White House over his rival, John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona. At midday on January 20, when, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, the term of the incumbent president expires, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, and his administration's mandate will start.
The choice made by the Americans can easily be called historic. For the first time in the country's history, an Afro-American will occupy the top post in the United States. It has taken America, which gained its independence from the British crown, more than two centuries - going through the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, and decades of racial inequality - to do that. "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,'" Martin Luther King said in his speech, delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. It took U.S. society 45 years to see King's dream become reality. After all, this is precisely how millions of Afro-Americans, who presently account for more than 12% of the country's population, perceived Obama's victory. "There's not a black America and white America; there's the United States of America," Barack Obama told the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 2004, and he was obviously right. At any rate, that much is clear from the outcome of the vote. And although, according to the numerous public opinion polls, conducted shortly before the November election, there was still a certain amount of wariness on the part of white Americans with regard to their black compatriots, there is ample reason to say that in political terms, America has ceased being black and white.
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| 2 |
ID:
088609
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2009.
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EVER SINCE THE END OF COLD WAR, it was strongly felt that a multi-lateral world order must be established. With countries like Russia, India, China and Brazil, emerging as powerful economies over the last two decades, there was an urge for them to join hands to complement each other and create a multi-polar world. It was felt that such an arrangement was necessary to voice the opinion of world's four biggest countries and subsequently the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) was conceptualized. Such an alliance is not just an economic one, but an initiative to create a just world order. BRIC is an example of how countries with different cultures are able to unite to work on common initiatives, pursuing peace, multilateralism and respect for international law. The convergence that they have been able to foster, notwithstanding the plurality among our points of view, is likely to strengthen the actions we take in different multilateral forums and levels.
BRIC, an acronym coined by Goldman Sachs to define a group of large emerging economies with fast growth rates, aspires to play a significant role in reshaping the global economic and political order. On May 16 this year Brazil, Russia, India and China vowed to turn their four-way group into a powerful instrument for changing the world. At their first stand-alone meeting at Yekaterinburg, Russia, the Foreign Ministers of the four countries institutionalized BRIC, and agreed to hold regular meetings at the level of Foreign Ministers. Though the BRIC concept was articulated by the corporate sector, the four countries found it practical to adopt it as part of foreign diplomacy, especially in view of their reservations towards some of the policies being defended by the US at world bodies.
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| 3 |
ID:
088615
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
ON THE EVE of the extraordinary EU summit convened on 1 September 2008 to discuss the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict and create a single EU platform on Russia Premier of Britain Gordon Brown published an article in which he openly tied together his country's position on the conflict and the U.K. energy policy1: "No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe and the events of August," wrote the British premier, "have shown the critical importance of diversifying our energy supply as markets becoming more volatile and as more people chase fewer natural resources." And further: "...and with the states such as Russia using their energy resources as policy tools it is apparent that the security grounds for this shift are stronger as well." The British premier further said that he would press the EU leaders "for more funding to build a pipeline from the Caspian Sea carrying gas through Turkey to the West avoiding the traditional route through Russia." "I shall encourage European partners to use our collective bargaining power rather than seek separate energy deals with Russia. And because the environmental necessity is urgent, we must deliver an ambitious 2020 climate and energy package by the end of this year."
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ID:
088623
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
AS ONE BROWSES THE FLOW OF LITERATURE on the ongoing financial crisis, some old notions come up - the ones that were once taught to us and that have not as yet lost their relevance to date. I am referring to the "Kondratiev cycles" - big and small. To paraphrase Galileo, "they still exist." In a bid to overcome the crisis, state intervention in the economy is increasing, almost reverting to socialist methods. Roosevelt in the United States and Hitler in Germany pulled their economies out of a deep hole to a very large degree with the help of the levers that are used in the socialist economic model. In recent years and decades, the ultra-liberal model of economic development - the so-called Washington consensus - was characteristic of almost the entire West, and subsequently also of Russia. As a result of the ongoing crisis, it will be completely compromised. Center stage is being taken by an idea that was put forward several years ago by British, French, and German leaders - the idea of a third way that is conveniently described in the slogan: "Yes to the market economy, no to the market society." The crisis will push the economic system in both the traditional capitalist countries and in the newly independent ones, which only recently took the path of democracy and market economy, to a search for a third way. Nor am I sure that there is a way back from the increasing state intervention in market processes.
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ID:
088624
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2009.
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THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has supplied us with a good pretext to turn once more to the double standards in the international domain of human rights, something from which the world community has so far failed to extricate itself. Not infrequently the problem is described as excessively political. In this context the terms are of secondary importance: what is really important is the fact that the human rights issue is used for political rather than humanitarian purposes.
Double standards are present in domestic policies; not infrequently the media are guilty of it. The same fully applies to national and international NGOs and interstate relations. Put in a nutshell the double standards can be described as politically biased approach to the human rights issue in specific conditions.
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ID:
088629
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2009.
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THE AUGUST 2008 EVENTS in the Caucasus and an avalanche of related comments have made it imperative to look back into the past and remind the world of the circumstances under which Georgia, Abkhazia and Ossetia joined the Russian Empire. Archival documents leave no space for doubts: first, back in the 18th to the early 19th century when these states were negotiating their joining Russia they acted as independent separate persons; second, Russia met them halfway when they clearly and insistently asked for protection against the threat of physical extermination or absorption coming from neighboring states. This means that contrary to what is often asserted this was neither occupation nor annexation but an act of brotherly help and manifestation of Russia's clearly understood responsibility for the fates of the neighboring small Orthodox peoples. Here are the facts.
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| 7 |
ID:
088604
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2009.
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IN 2002, A U.S. BASED NGO released satellite imagery of Iranian territory showing uranium enrichment facilities. It demonstrated that Iran, in breach of a 1974 nuclear safeguards agreement with the IAEA, had been conducting undeclared nuclear activities on a large scale. After that information was made public, the U.S. started actively intensifying political pressure on the country, demanding that it not only completely disclose its undeclared nuclear activities but also halt all uranium enrichment operations. In response, Tehran agreed to cooperate with the IAEA in disclosing its past nuclear programs, but flatly refused to halt its uranium enrichment program. It argued that such activity is permitted under the Nonproliferation Treaty and is designed to develop a national nuclear fuel production capability. A large number of non-nuclear signatories to the treaty have such capability, including Washington's close ally Japan.The British-U.S. invasion of Iraq and the elimination of the Saddam Hussein regime in March-April 2003 changed the mood not only in Tehran but also in a number of West European capitals. The Iranian leadership, obviously spooked by the ease with which US troops had occupied Baghdad, started sending signals to the United States and Western European countries about its readiness to look for compromise around its nuclear program. Tehran signed a deal with Russia on the return of spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear power plant that is being built with Russian assistance, also voluntarily acceding to an additional protocol to a nuclear safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The agreements enabled IAEA inspectors not only to visit nuclear facilities declared by Iran but also other enterprises, where, in their opinion, unlawful nuclear activities could be conducted. Furthermore, Tehran suspended nuclear research in the military realm.
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| 8 |
ID:
088618
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN CALL for leftist ideas in Mexico. For a number of reasons, however, including the victory in 1917 of the Mexican Revolution and the coming to power of an Institutional Revolutionary Party (IRP) and very socially responsible government, these ideas did not become popular on the national scale and they attracted followers mainly among scholars and artists.
The major figures of Mexico's leftism were the painters of world fame Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jose Clemente Orozco and Frida Kahlo, who were ardent activists promoting the ideas of social equality and justice through their art, among other things. Leon Trotsky, who was granted political asylum in Mexico lived and worked there from 1936 to 1940 and founded the Fourth International, contributed to establishing leftism in that country.
Active in Mexico legitimately or otherwise for the greater part of the 20th century were the Communist and Socialist parties of Mexico, their youth organizations and all manner of left-wing groups. They can hardly be regarded as strong political entities capable of governing the country especially considering the fact that power in the country stayed for more than 70 years firmly in the hands of the Institutional Revolutionary party which, in actual fact, created a one-party model of government.
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| 9 |
ID:
088617
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
ONE OF THE MAIN OBJECTIVES of the new Russian government and president is to upgrade the system of public health services. The improvements are to be based on medical technology of the developed countries and on buying Western equipment and using European and American methods of treatment. At the same time, the experience gained by some less economically advanced countries could also prove very useful. One graphic example is once Soviet-supported Cuba, whose medical sector could surpass many countries, including Russia.
Medical Independence
THIS WRITER VISITED the most advanced hospital in Havana, the Hermanos Ameijeiras Clinical and Surgical Hospital, for the first time as a kid following a short running approach, and a rapid dive into a pool that happened to have no water in it. The black lady doctor expertly put my left arm in plaster giving a broad smile to the hapless son of a member of the Soviet Embassy in Cuba. The plaster (and most medicines they used in the island) they put at the Cuban hospital came from the USSR. This didn't surprise anyone at that time, it was 1988, and all that was needed for what was on the whole decent living was imported in big quantities from the Soviet Union (at that time 87 percent of Cuba's foreign trade was with COMECON members).
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| 10 |
ID:
088631
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
THE LAST FEW DAYS BEFORE OCTOBER 1, 1968, when the Chinese usually held a reception on the occasion of their national holiday, were marked by anxious suspense at the Soviet embassy in Hanoi.
The propaganda campaign against the course pursued by the USSR and the CPSU, which had been launched in China under the banner of "cultural revolution," and the harsh ideologically motivated polemics continued to affect our hitherto close and friendly contacts with our Chinese partners and the Chinese embassy, increasing mutual suspicion and distrust.
I personally bore witness to that mood. Like other diplomats from our embassy who went home on vacation (the only "established" route at the time was via China with an overnight stay in Beijing), I have a lasting and colorful memory of my sojourn in the capital's airport and hotel. At the airport, we were literally chased along the halls and corridors to the departure lounge by belligerent groups of Chinese with posters reading "Down with the Soviet revisionists!" and shouting hostile slogans to the beating of drums.
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| 11 |
ID:
088606
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
WRITING IN THE INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS some time ago, I attempted to estimate the degree of various political, economic and legal risks likely to confront Russian oil companies as they attempt to come to the "unpredictable" Iraqi market (see: E. Kasayev, "Baghdad 'Traps' for the Russian Oil Business," International Affairs, 2007, No. 6, pp. 43 - 51). Certain changes have cropped up in bilateral relations between Russia and Iraq since then, and some important events took place both in political life and in business.
An agreement was signed whereby the Russian side wrote off 93% of the Iraqi state debt worth 12.9 billion dollars. Later a Russian delegation led by A.V. Saltanov, Special Representative of the President of Russia for the Middle East and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, held negotiations with President Jalal Talabani of Iraq. Last spring, representatives of Russian business led by the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Russia (CCI) Academician Ye.M. Primakov came to Iraqi Kurdistan to establish closer ties with Iraq.
All these events indicate that both states are seeking to find an answer to this incisive question in current Russian-Iraqi relations: What are the chances that the Russian companies become fully-fledged "players" (along with Western companies) in the energy field of modern Iraq?
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| 12 |
ID:
088610
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| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
THE AUGUST 2008 CRISIS in the Caucasus distorted the world agenda and eclipsed for a while much of what could have caused serious international shifts. The present political construction looks less than a pyramid and more like a mobile polygon, another confirmation of the well-known dictum that variety is one of the outstanding features of human evolution and no one can claim the monopoly on truth. The new historical period suggests that the unfolding and potential global problems should be collectively analyzed to be able to stand opposed to challenges and avoid mistakes of the past.
Today we can see, among other things, a revival of the phenomenon that in the 1970s looked safely buried. In February 2007, at a press conference Vladimir Putin said that "the traditional faiths of the Russian Federation and Russia's nuclear shield are two things that strengthen Russian statehood and create the necessary conditions for ensuring the country's internal and external secu-rity."1 On 18 January 2008, speaking in front of the diplomatic corps in Paris President of France Nicolas Sarkozy described two factors - ecological and religious - as two most important challenges to the world in the 21st century. In his book Decisions: My Life in Politics former chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroder wrote that U.S. President George W. Bush had shocked him by his claims at absolute truth; he was even more shocked when the American president confided to him "I am driven with a mission from God."2 No matter how far removed these two statements are from one another they are related to one subject, namely, religion. Are they suggested by short-term considerations or do they reflect reality?
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| 13 |
ID:
088614
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
AT THE INVITATION of President Dmitry Medvedev of the Russian Federation, President Lee Myung-bak of the Republic of Korea paid an official visit to the Russian Federation on September 28-30, 2008.
The range of issues raised at the negotiations between the two heads of state, at President Lee Myung-bak's meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, at the Russia-Korea business forum and some other undertakings once again highlighted the fact that there is practically no single area of human activities, where Russia and the Republic of Korea would not be cooperating, be it international security, trade, economics, science and technology, or energy.
The parties expressed satisfaction with the dynamic progress in the multifarious Russia-Korea relations that was achieved over the last few years, confirmed their priority nature for both states, and expressed a resolve to raise bilateral interaction to the level of strategic partnership.
And this is logical because Mr. Lee Myung-bak is one of the trail-blazers in Russia-South Korea cooperation, who repeatedly visited this country even before the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1990 and has here numerous old personal friends. But on top of that, geography and history prescribe to both nations that they should jointly tackle a lot of common tasks. Both Russia and South Korea have acquired what are in many respects new capabilities that enable them to contribute to this work more importantly than 10 - 15 years ago. Russia came back to the world arena as a strong state, a state that other nations defer to and that can hold its own. Not a single international problem of any importance can now be solved without Russia or in defiance of Russia.
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| 14 |
ID:
088603
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES of a strategic relationship underlying an international treaty or agreement or a political declaration do not, as a general rule, attract much attention from the expert community. If security and arms control problems are concerned, specific agreements formalized in a particular document take center stage - the level of proposed arms cuts, the time frame, the control and verification system, and so on and so forth. As for principles as such, they are generally regarded as a kind of an addition, an accepted form of such official documents that do not always pertain to serious problems. Furthermore, some international treaties lack any reference to the principles on which they are built (for example, the 1972 SALT I Treaty). Nevertheless, "silence" does not at all mean that the signatories have given insufficient attention to this matter. It is simply that oftentimes it is impossible to harmonize these principles on the official level.
At the same time, it should be noted that the importance of the declared principles has not always been interpreted in the same way in different countries, in particular, the USSR and the U.S. in the course of their long-term strategic relationship. Thus, in drafting the SALT I Treaty (1969 - 72), the U.S. side did not attach sufficient attention to this aspect and never insisted on any one principle being used as the foundation of the agreement in question. By contrast, the Soviet Union put the emphasis on the principle of "undiminished security," demanding that all factors in the strategic balance between the two countries be taken into account in the future agreement. On the practical level, the Soviet side highlighted the need for the future agreement to provide "compensation" to the USSR for the U.S. forward-based weapon systems capable of reaching Soviet territory, as well as for the nuclear arsenals of the U.S.'s NATO allies - Great Britain and France
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| 15 |
ID:
088621
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2008.
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BOTH IN THE DISTANT PAST and especially now that globalization is a reality for practically every country, archivists around the world have been facing nearly the same problems: which documents and how many of them should be preserved, for how long and on which conditions, how to organize their keeping and reliable search for their users. The similarity of problems makes for joining forces in tackling them at least through sharing experience.
There has always been a natural and compelling interest among nations in learning about each other. Travel and ethnographic expeditions are the most basic forms of doing it. The desire to learn even more, including based on archive documents, is what also calls for international cooperation between archivists.
More often than not, there are political motives for this cooperation. While the world was far from being perfect in the past, it has yet to find a perfect model of relations between the nations and states it is composed of. Hence people often wish to make sense of the past relations between states and peoples, which is impossible to do without archives, or they want to highlight the positive facts and processes of these relations with the help of archive documents. Based on these political motives, they think of arranging cross-border publication of documents, cross-border documentary exhibits of joint publications and exhibits of documents from the archives of different countries focusing on general subjects
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| 16 |
ID:
088630
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2009.
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THERE IS A SMALL TOWN OF WEINGARTEN in southern Germany (Baden-Wurttemberg) to the north of Lake Constance (Bodensee) with a small wood nearby known as the Russian Forest among the locals for the last 200 years. There is a hill in its farther side with a platform on top of it reached by granite stairs. Those who go up can see a tall memorial stone some two meters high with an Orthodox cross and a dedication in Russian and German chiseled on it, "To the Suvorov Heroes." At the foothill there is another, smaller stone shaped like an Orthodox cross with the inscription in Russian and German "Suvorov's heroes are buried here. 1799."
How did Russian soldiers reach these parts? Why are about 2 thousand Russians and Austrians buried there? Why did the burials of the heroes who had performed the unrivaled Swiss march remain unknown to us?
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| 17 |
ID:
088626
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Throughout this period, we have been working closely with our Slovak counterparts and leaders of the Slovak Republic. We discussed this subject with Austria, Germany and Italy. I can say that the idea of a wide-gauge track to Vienna is backed by all interested countries. Russian Railways is now opening its representative office in Slovakia for more efficient cooperation with its Slovak and Austrian partners.
The visit resulted in the signing of a preliminary agreement on a long-term lease by TransContainer (a RZD subsidiary) of the Dobra interchange terminal near the town of Cierna nad Tisou on the border with Ukraine. The terminal is responsible for switching the rail cars trucks or the transfer of freight from Russian-type gauge cars into European-type gauge cars at the current rate of between 800 and 1,000 containers a year. And this number can increase by a factor of 30. The talks produced an agreement between Russian Railways and Slovakia's Tatra Wagonka on the joint development and production of new types of rolling stock for freight. We will be working together to design articulated flats for containers, container trailer flats, tank cars for acids, hoppers for cement, grain and fertilizer mounted on a formed and welded pairs of trucks with an axial load of 25 tons, and do joint research in the field of building rolling stock
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| 18 |
ID:
088619
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2009.
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THE IDEA OF A RUSSIAN WORLD first arose after the Soviet Union collapsed and millions of Russian-speaking people found themselves living as aliens in the newly independent states. The concept of a Russian world began to form in the academic literature as a certain social-cultural reality designed to form a link between Russia and its expatriates. This reality is customarily thought to be based on the Russian language, the Russian culture, and a sense of association with Russia.
Ideally, the Russian world is a global network consisting of compatriots' organizations, Russian language learning centers, and business and social associations, the fulcrum and heart of which lie in Russia.
Today it is understood that Russia's position on world arena can be strengthened by developing and consolidating this system. The Russian world as the composite of cultural, intellectual, human, and organizational potential expressed in the use of the Russian language during communication and expression of thought is capable of significantly enhancing Russia's political, economic, and cultural influence.
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| 19 |
ID:
088612
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2009.
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ENERGY POLICY IN THE 20TH CENTURY emerged as a major factor of external and internal policy of states. The trend still continues because upon it depend the state of national economies and the world economy. If we turn to our history, the Soviet Union built after the war a powerful energy system, including the system of producing and transporting oil both to COMECON countries and the West. The growing foreign currency earnings enabled the Soviet political leadership to fund imports of grain and food and allocate money for building up the military-industrial complex, designing and manufacturing space rockets and missile equipment to thus achieve nuclear-missile parity with the USA by the 1970s.
But the economy could not go on growing indefinitely in this lopsided manner. The pumping out of the country its fuel sources and minerals could not be the answer to all of the piling up economic problems, something scholars and experts were incidentally warning about. The country was going on largely thanks to petrodollars while at the same time no funds were being made available for upgrading its oil and gas industry. The Reagan administration was the first to exploit the Soviet economy's dependence on changing oil prices. After the USSR invaded Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab states in the Persian Gulf allied with the USA in this matter even despite their earlier embargo imposed on the West over the Arab-Israeli conflict. Oil prices were brought down to stay low for some period and bans were imposed on import of technological equipment into the Soviet Union. As early as the fall of 1981, Moscow faced a balance of payment crunch and was forced to cut down on exports of oil to COMECON countries. The oil production slump in 1985 reduced Soviet exports to capitalist countries. The situation was worsening. "In 1985, the grown costs of commissioning new wells and keeping up the production at the operating wells together with the lack of resources resulted in a 12-million-ton drop in the production of oil in the USSR."
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| 20 |
ID:
088607
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2009.
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IN AUGUST 2008, the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia drew far from unambiguous responses from the world community. The United States sided with the Georgian leaders and approved the use of force as a conflict settlement method. The European Union was divided while the CSTO members, on the whole, supported Russia and its resolute measures. Asian and African countries offered no opinion about the developments in the Transcaucasus, the region far removed from their continents. France, represented by President Nicholas Sarkozy, EU chairman, alone moved forward to discuss the practical measures needed to restore peace and stability in the Transcaucasus.
The meetings of 12 August and 8 September 2008 between the presidents of Russia and France laid a firm political foundation for ceasefire and charted the way toward regional security and the non-use of force by Georgia. Point 3 "International Discussions" of the joint Russian-French document of 8 September 2008 said: "International discussions, provided in the article six of Medvedev-Sarkozy plan dated August 12, 2008 will start on October 15, 2008 in Geneva. Preparatory discussions will start in September. These discussions will focus on thorough consideration of the following issues, particularly: ways of providing security and stability in the region, the issue of refugees and displaced persons on the base of internationally recognized principles and practice of post-conflict resolution, including any issue submitted with a mutual assent of the states."
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