Daragoi Daragoi Mockba (Expensive Expensive Moscow)

Russia's capital Moscow has been named as the world's most expensive city for expatriate staff to live for the second year in a row. London climbed three places to second in Mercer Human Resource Consulting's 2007 Cost of Living study. Asian cities Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong completed the top five. Paraguay's capital Asuncion was the cheapest.The report measures the cost of 200 items such as housing, clothing and food in 143 cities on six continents.

The high cost of accommodation and a favourable exchange rate against the US dollar were the key factors behind Moscow's continued dominance of the annual cost-of-living survey.

"Don't touch our flag!"

The Latvian police asked judges to prosecute two Spanish and two Portuguese citizens accused of desecrating the Latvian flag, officials confirmed in May.

The incident dates to May 16th, when seven tourists reportedly tore down and stamped on a Latvian flag in Riga, security police spokeswoman Kristine Apse-Krumina told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Police subsequently detained the two Spaniards and five Portuguese on a bridge. Local media reported that they were carrying several Latvian flags, and that more were floating in the river, having apparently been jettisoned when the group saw the police.

The seven said that they had not intended to insult the Latvian flag, but had merely wanted to take souvenirs home, the Leta news agency reported. An initial investigation of the incident concluded that three of the seven had not been involved in the flag-stealing.

Baltic Times reported:

Police in Riga have detained seven foreigners, Spanish and Portuguese nationals, for damaging Latvia's national flag, a police representative said. Police spokesman Aigars Berzins said the foreigners were trampling on the Latvian flag in the Old City and were held later in Pardaugava on the left bank of the Daugava River, not far from a suspension bridge. The men were visibly drunk, and officers found more damaged Latvian flags on them, but the vandals had managed to throw some of the flags in the river. The young men have been taken to a police station, and are facing criminal prosecution for desecrating a national symbol. Two of the detained are Spanish nationals, aged 25 and 24, while five are Portuguese, aged 25 to 36. If found guilty they may face up to three-year jail terms, community work or fines of up to 50 minimum wages.

Under Latvia's criminal code, the maximum penalty for such an offence is up to 3 years in jail or a fine of up to 6,000 lats (8,537 euro, 11,494 dollars).

Latvia has seen a boom in tourism since it joined the EU in 2004. However, its reputation for cheap alcohol and beautiful women has made it a favourite destination for all-male groups whose behaviour has in some cases caused great offence. In the most outstanding incident, a British tourist was prosecuted last November for urinating on the national Freedom Monument on Remembrance Day.

The British embassy in Riga launched a campaign this spring to urge travellers to behave responsibly. Other embassies are studying the campaign with a view to possibly taking similar action.

Narva, Estonia's third largest city, is now at the centre of geopolitical tensions not seen in the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago. Some analysts are calling it 'the new Cold War'. The concern spreads far beyond Narva and the frontier. Estonia has been hit by riots linked to the tensions. New disputes pit states that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union throughout much of Eastern Europe against their former overlords.

The internet warfare broke out on April 27th, amid a furious row between Estonia and Russia over the removal of a Soviet war monument from the centre of the capital, Tallinn, to a military cemetery. Estonia's prime minister, Andrus Ansip, first raised the issue for party advantage. He wanted his Reform party, founded by zealously free-market ex-communists, to pinch some patriotic votes from other centre-right parties in the March parliamentary elections. His country is now paying a colossal political, social and diplomatic price.



Stonians are blaming Russia for stoking riots in Tallinn last month in which one died and 153 were injured, for the roughing up of Estonian diplomats in Moscow and for a massive 'cyber-attack' on the infrastructure of the small Baltic state, as The Observer publishes:

According to Andres Kasekamp, director of Tallinn's Foreign Policy Institute, the Russian government is mounting a deliberate attempt to destabilise former Soviet republics. 'This strategy is intensifying as Moscow's attitude to the US, the UK and the EU becomes more aggressive and assertive,' Kasekamp said. 'They are seeing how far they can push us, the European Union, Nato, the Americans, everybody.' Some Estonians even fear Moscow may be searching for a casus belli. At the international level the Russian testing last week of an inter-continental ballistic missile led to an extraordinary diplomatic spat between the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice - who deplored Moscow's 'missile diplomacy' - and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who attacked American 'imperialism'.

Then there are profound disagreements over the future of Kosovo and policy on Iran, a row over the rights of major British commercial investors to parts of the massive Siberian gasfields, harassment of British officials and diplomats in Moscow, and a series of apparently state-encouraged propaganda pieces in the Russian media against the West. Analysts are talking of relations between Moscow and London being at a 25-year low.

The Economist is more critic

Ignoring the looting, media there claim that “anti-fascist schoolchildren” trying to stop Estonians “demolishing” the memorial were “tortured” by the “inhuman” police. Russia's foreign minister said Estonia was behaving “disgustingly”. A delegation of Russian politicians, invited to see that the monument had been moved, not demolished, called for the government's resignation before setting off. On arrival, they repeatedly insulted their hosts, while demanding that “political prisoners” be freed.

This has scary echoes for Estonians. In 1940 a Soviet delegation issued similarly phrased demands. Weeks later, Estonia was wiped off the map. The protests also sit oddly with the ruthless way that entirely peaceful and purely political protests are squashed in Russia, as well as with the often casual treatment of war memorials there.

The turning towards the west is repeated in almost every field. The ruling coalition in Estonia, returned to power after elections in March, has continued the fiercely Thatcherite-Reaganite economics of its recent predecessors. A single flat income tax of 22 per cent, low business taxes and cheap, weak welfare provision have, government supporters claim, led to a spectacular annual economic growth of more than 10 per cent and negligible unemployment - outside the poorer industrial and agricultural areas. Money is coming from the West too.

But why Russia is behaving in this way? For The Observer domestic factors are also important: "With parliamentary and presidential elections within the next year, Putin is playing to the crowd and strengthening the position of his possible successor, the Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov. 'To an extent it's theatre,' said one UK-based diplomat. 'And it is logical that Estonia has a key role."

But, even if there was some outside interference, the demonstrations around the memorial and the riots were a powerful reminder to Estonia's government not to forget the country's ethnic Russian minority.

Say what you want about Yeltsin – and you are probably right.

Who was Boris Yeltsin? Westerners see Yeltsin as the defiant reformer with the thick thatch of white hair and the growl for a voice who stood atop a tank in 1991 to help bring down the Soviet Union. Russians, however, remember the flaccid face of Yeltsin's second presidential term, the slurred speech, the extended absences and a tenure stained by bloodshed, corruption and widespread economic hardship.
Yeltsin was the first Russian politician whose legitimacy rested on the genuine popular support of the masses, and he brought public politics to a country where for centuries politics had been confined to the czars' court intrigues and Politburo fights behind the curtain. But many people feel that he oversaw the terrible economic crisis in Russia in the late 1990s and started a very unpopular war in Chechnya, a mistake that has been a failure for Putin.

Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times, was correspondent in Moscow from 1986 to 1991 and remembers Yeltsin as a "talented politician" like Gorbachev. But Yeltsin understood that the party should be abandoned somehow, and Gorbi wanted to fix it. Hear the audio and the slideshow here.

He entered in the spotlight in 1991, when he climbed to the top a tank to rally Muscovites to put down a right-wing coup against Mr. Gorbachev, a heroic moment etched in the minds of the Russian people and television viewers around the world; it ended with his electrifying resignation speech on New Year’s Eve 1999.

His kedy-dates:

1. July 1990: Resigns from Communist Party
2. June 1991: Elected president of Russian republic (in USSR)
3. August 1991: Rallies citizens against anti-Gorbachev coup, bans Russian Communist party
4. December 1991: Takes over from Mikhail Gorbachev as head of state
5. 1992: Lifts price controls, launches privatisation
6. October 1993: Russia on brink of civil war, Yeltsin orders tanks to fire at parliament
7. December 1994: Sends tanks into Chechnya
8. June 1996: Re-elected as Russian president, suffers heart attack during campaign
9. 1998: Financial crisis, rouble loses 75% of its value
10. December 1999: Resigns, appoints Vladimir Putin successor

In office less than nine years, beginning with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and plagued by severe health problems and alcoholism, Yeltsin added a final chapter to his historical record when, in 1999, he stunned Russians and the world by announcing his resignation, becoming the first Russian leader to give up power on his own in accordance with constitutional processes.

For The New YorkTimes, his relationship with the United States was a complicated one. President Clinton seized on the fall of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to advance American interests, and he and Mr. Yeltsin maintained a strikingly good rapport. In his dealings with Mr. Yeltsin, Mr. Clinton was protective, careful not to tempt old-line Communists to try to turn the clock back to dictatorship. There was some success between the two countries on nuclear issues, the removal of Soviet troops from the Baltic states and Moscow’s cooperation with NATO as it expanded toward the borders of Russia itself.

Like Peter Rutland wrote in Transitions Online, say what you want about Yeltsin – and you’re probably right. The former president's legacy remains controversial in today's Russia.

A good source of documentation about his excinting existence is Midnight Diaries, by Boris Yeltsin. Public Affairs, 12 October 2000. 336 pages, in English. Translated from Russian. I bought it in St. Petersbourg in 2005, and even if it is too partial, stills useful to understand the character. For Elena Chinyaeva, he embodied Russia in its troubled years: large, imposing, unpredictable, thirsty for change, riddled with problems, highly temperamental, exhausted, and totally lacking of nicely measured, decent manners.

Boris Yeltsin is a man who once escaped his enemies within the Communist Party in a military airplane, hugging a cannon. He mounted a tank calling for the nation to embrace democracy. He fell off a bridge during a dubious night rendezvous. He slept at Shannon Airport, snoring, while the Irish prime minister stood by, waiting in vain. Drunk, and looking like a true Russian bear, he directed an orchestra in Berlin during a ceremony devoted to the Russian army leaving Germany. He started a bloody Chechen war. He danced, clumsily and enthusiastically, through his presidential campaign, despite two heart attacks.

Unlike his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev and his successor, Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin was able to overcome his Soviet background, writes Masha Lipman in The Washington Post.

After rising to a high-ranking position in the Communist Party, he reformed into a staunch anti-communist and associated himself with Russia's liberals and Westernizers, including prominent Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. Yeltsin was a statesman with a clear vision and a strong sense of purpose: he committed himself to ridding Russia of communism and attaining freedom for his country, whose people had always lived in fear of the state.

Yeltsin achieved both goals: He made his victory over communism irreversible, and he turned Russia into a free nation. The coup in 1991 was above all a revolution -- even if it proved short-lived -- of public attitudes. The Russian people overcame their fear, they came to believe in freedom and in themselves, and they united to change the country's direction.

Mistakes? Many. During the rule of his successor, the phrase "the chaos of the '90s" has been firmly tied to Yeltsin's tenure. But he was running against time: The and turmoil of the early post-communist years left the Russian people frustrated and disillusioned, and they came to hate him as fiercely as they had loved him only a few years earlier. His compatriots, having no experience with freedom, failed to use their newfound options to make their lives better; they expected him to be their benefactor, and when he failed to deliver they resented and condemned him.

He was a drunk, but after all a modernizer. Even in his death: Yeltsin's funeral was the first for a head of state sanctioned by the Church since Tsar Alexander III's in 1894, helping to restore the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the life of the country and its people. Al least that is what Church spokesman Metropolitan Kirill said. Read what russian newspapers said on his death in Sean's Russia Blog

Writing on RIA Novsoti, political commentator Vladimir Simonov claims that the Sinatra song My Way best described Yeltsin.

So, final courtain for him.

Do svidanja, Boris Yeltsin

He destroyed the Soviet framework that kept the satellite states of Eastern Europe under eroding, but determined, Kremlin control, effectively dismantling the geopolitical structure that had fueled the Cold War for four decades. It was perhaps the most significant political change in modern history.

But he also sent tanks into the Russian streets to ensure his own power when it was threatened by old-line Communists in 1993. He unleashed a futile, brutal and, many would argue, immoral war against separatists in Chechnya in 1994 that leveled towns and villages and killed noncombatants in the thousands.

As a popular Russian joke in the late '90s had it, “Mikhail Gorbachev took us to the edge of the abyss, and Yeltsin took us one step further.”

Chernobyl at home

A report published this week has suggested that air pollution in big cities ould be as damaging to our health as the radiation Chernobyl survivors were exposed to. But short of moving to the countryside, what can city dwellers do? Quite a lot, actually. Leo Hickman offers in The Guardian 10 tips on how to breathe more easily

"Take a deep breath. If you live in an urban environment, which four out of five of us now do, then you are exposing yourself to a cocktail of airborne pollutants that could be seriously damaging your health". And all becasue the air pollution you suck into your lungs each day could be shortening your life expectancy even more than the radiation exposure suffered by survivors of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Meanwhile the World Health Organisation reports that transport-related air pollution — which now causes the vast majority of urban air pollution — causes a wide range of health problems including "cancer, adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes, and lowering of male fertility". In 2004, a report said that a pedestrian walking down Marylebone Road in London would draw in the equivalent pollution of one cigarette in just 48 minutes. But other than moving to the countryside, what practical steps can city dwellers take to reduce their exposure to urban air pollution? Quite a lot, it turns out.

1 Watch where you walk

One of the best ways to reduce your exposure to air pollution, says Dr Roy Colvile, a senior lecturer in air-quality management at Imperial College London, is to avoid walking along busy streets and thoroughfares, instead choosing side streets and parks. Carefully choosing your route has a "dramatic" effect, he says, because pollution levels can fall by a factor of 10 just by moving a few metres away from the main source of the pollution — exhaust fumes. "Just by being one block away makes a massive difference as the high pollution levels are generally restricted to fairly small areas within a city," he says. Also, try to avoid walking down "street can yons" (where tall buildings hug tightly to the sides of streets, creating valleys in which pollutants build up), don't walk behind smokers, and walk on the windward side of the street where exposure to pollutants can be 50% less than on the leeward side.

2 Pavement sense

When you're crossing a road, stand well back from the kerb while you wait for the lights to change or for a gap in the traffic. Every metre really does count when you are in close proximity to traffic, according to Colvile. "Do all you can to avoid getting stuck for too long on a central reservation," he adds. As the traffic moves off from a standstill, the fumes can dissipate in just a few seconds, particularly if the wind is up, which means holding your breath during this momentary period can make a difference, silly as that might sound. Also, don't dawdle: cross the road as quickly as possible. And once you're over, continue along the pavement as far away from the kerb as possible.

3 Avoid pollution spikes

Predictably, there are large spikes in pollution during times of high traffic congestion — ie, the morning and late-afternoon rush hours. Pollution levels generally fall during the night-time. The time of year can also make a big difference. Pollution levels tend to be at their lowest during the spring and autumn when winds are at their "freshest"; the trapping effect of extreme cold and hot spells tend to exacerbate the build-up of pollutants.

Venturing outside when there is less pollution obviously makes sense, but of course that's not always realistic. In fact, the hottest part of a summer's day — the time when most office workers go outside during their lunchbreak — is a particularly bad time to head out, according to Noel Nelson, one of the authors of the Royal Commission report. Walking in the rain, conversely, is a good way of avoiding the worse excesses of air pollution, he adds, as the rain "cleans" the air both by washing out the pollutants and bringing with it fresher air.

4 Wear a mask

Masks can be a good thing, but they only make a difference if they fit tightly and are cleaned regularly. Even the slightest gap to allow you to breathe more easily will cancel out any benefits. Worse, if you fail to clean or change the mask regularly there is a danger of allowing oily organic compounds to build up on the filter. Build-up can make the air you breathe dirtier rather than cleaner. As for looking like Michael Jackson while you go about your daily business . . . only you can decide how high a price you're willing to pay for clean lungs.

5 Pushchairs

According to the Royal Commission report, several recent studies indicate that "children living close to busy roads have an approximate 50% increased risk of experiencing respiratory illness, including asthma". Children are smaller than adults and therefore that much closer to the source of pollution when walking besides roads. They also have a faster metabolic rate and breathe more rapidly, and tend to inhale more pollution, proportionate to their size, than adults. One small step that can be taken is not to push them along in a buggy too close to traffic. Colvile advises positioning the buggy alongside you, instead of in front of you, when waiting to cross the road.

6 Beware of exercising in traffic

Cycling or jogging disproportionately expose you to air pollution — you inhale three times as much as if you were walking, according to Colvile — for the simple reason that your lungs are gasping for more air than the people you're speeding past on the pavement. The best times of day to exercise, thus avoiding the worst excesses of air pollution, are early morning or in the evening. Alternatively, exercise indoors or in a park. Cyclists — for whom the exhaust of a car should be seen as being as much of a hazard as the front bumper — should stick to side-roads where possible.

7 Where to sit on the bus

Buses are cleaner in terms of their emissions than even just a decade ago, particularly London's fleet, but they still emit pollutants worth avoiding. Intriguingly, Colvile says that his own research shows that sitting on the driver's side of a bus can increase your exposure by 10% compared with sitting on the side nearest to the pavement. And sitting upstairs on a double-decker can reduce your exposure too. He says it's difficult to say whether travelling on an undergound train, if you have that option, is better or worse than taking the buses, but he does say that the air pollution on underground trains tends to be less toxic by weight than that found at street level because the pollution is principally made up of minute iron particles thrown up by the wheels travelling along the rails as opposed to the mixture of pollutants found in diesel and petrol fumes.

8 Protect yourself indoors too

We spend about 90% of our time indoors, on average, and two-thirds of that time is spent at home; more perhaps for some of the most vulnerable groups such as the elderly and children. And indoor pollution can actually be more of an issue than that found outdoors, it seems: studies by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests that pollution levels can be two to five times higher indoors than out — and this can rapidly rise depending on what activity you are doing at home. It tends to be a different soup of chemical pollutants from the ones we encounter outside, and if anything, less is known about how they affect us. Our centrally-heated, carpeted, airtight homes only act to aggravate the situation.

Ventilating your home is therefore an important step to take in reducing risk — hopefully with air that's not full of air pollutants from the outside — as is using a good doormat to help prevent outdoor pollutants from the pavement being walked into your home. (The EPA has raised doubts about the claims made by some "ozone generating" indoor air purifiers, by the way.)

Feeling smug about the fact that you live high up in a flat away from outside air pollution? Well, unless you live in a penthouse at the top of a very tall skyscraper, then height doesn't seem to offer significant sanctuary. A study by Hong Kong's City University used laser measurements to show that pollution levels in the city remain constant up to heights of 700m. Living in the suburbs, away from major roads, seems the best way to avoid the worse excesses of urban air pollution. But that then means you are statistically far more likely to be a car owner and are therefore only exacerbating the situation.

9 Don't drive

The best thing you can do, both for yourself and for your fellow citizens, is to get out of the car. Fuel choice is also important: diesel may produce less carbon dioxide compared with petrol, which is good news in terms of climate change, but it produces more ground-level pollutants. While urban air-pollution levels today, compared with the "pea-soupers" of the mid-20th century, could be said to be vastly improved — healthy young men don't tend to drop down dead in the street now from air pollution as they did then, says Colvile — we are now exposed to a form of pollution that can much more readily enter our bloodstream. A particle of pollution today tends to be 100 times smaller than a particle of coal soot and therefore it can pass into the blood stream via the lungs as opposed to being caught in the bronchial passage. The full health implications of this shift in pollution type have yet to become fully apparent.

10 Get out of town!

As long as you go by public transport so as not to create yet more pollution, lifting yourself up and out of the urban mire offers at least a temporary escape. But don't head to the south-east corner of England. Colvile speaks of a "sheet of pollution from Europe", thick with sulphates, nitrates and ozone, that now regularly reaches across the Channel and can affect the counties south of London. For example, the air over the idyllically rural South Downs is only two to three times cleaner compared with the air over central London. Better instead to head to the nation's extremities, preferably facing into the winds blowing off the Atlantic

So breath normaly and leave forever.

Kasparov versus Deep Putin

This weekend russian opposition activist Garry Kasparov was among about 170 people arrested as police moved against a banned anti-Kremlin rally in Moscow. The former chess champion was freed several hours later after being fined for public order offences. Kasparov's passion for politics is so strong that in 2005 he retired from chess to focus his efforts on defeating President Vladimir Putin. Fron the very first moment, when he first appeared on the world stage in the 1980s, he quickly became known for his defiance of the Soviet authorities and - while dominating at the chess board - has been a leading figure in Russia's reformist movement since the collapse of the USSR.

Garry Kimovich Kasparov (Га́рри Ки́мович Каспа́ров; born April in 1963, in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR) political life started in the 1980s. He joined the CPSU in 1984, was elected to the Central Committee of Komsomol, the youg communists. In 1990 he parted from CPSU. In May 1990 Kasparov took part in the creation of the Democratic Party of Russia.
In June 1993 he participated in the creation of the bloc of parties called Choice of Russia. And many people dont know that in 1996 Kasparov took part in the election campaign of Boris Yeltsin! Which, by the way, took Putin to power....

His first duel was against Karpov. But between Karpov and Putin there was a machine. In May 1997, an updated version of Deep Blue , a computer made by IBM, defeated Kasparov in Deep Blue - Kasparov, 1997, Game 6, in a highly publicised six-game match. This was the first time a computer had ever defeated a world champion in match play. A documentary film was made about this famous match-up entitled Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine. IBM keeps a web site of the event.

Kasparov claimed that several factors weighed against him in this match. In particular, he was denied access to Deep Blue's recent games, in contrast to the computer's team that could study hundreds of Kasparov's.After the loss, Kasparov said that he sometimes saw deep intelligence and creativity in the machine's moves, suggesting that during the second game, human chess players, in contravention of the rules, intervened. IBM denied that it cheated, saying the only human intervention occurred between games. The rules provided for the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they said they used to shore up weaknesses in the computer's play revealed during the course of the match.

His frustrations with world chess were a major factor in his retirement two years ago, when he admitted he no longer had the same passion for the game, says the BBC. But his decision was also influenced by events in Russia, which he believed had been creeping towards authoritarianism since Putin took charge, and in Ukraine, which had just undergone the Orange Revolution:

The Other Russia combines elements of the now weakened and fragmented democratic movement with some of their bitterest former enemies - like the National Bolshevik Party, famous for its audacious anti-government stunts and quasi-Nazi symbols, or the far-left Workers' Russia, led by old-style communist firebrand Viktor Anpilov.

Now is Kasparov against Deep Putin. Looks like a bitter combat.

Another turn! German-Russian Gas Pipeline Heads for Estonia

A controversial pipeline to carry Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany could run through Estonian waters, an official from the consortium behind the project said on Friday, DPA reports. The pipeline has been the subject of bitter dispute in the Baltic region ever since it was first proposed in 2005. Many of the states bordering the Baltic have argued that it could disturb stores of chemical weapons dumped in the sea after World War Two.
But the planned pipeline could equally meet with political opposition. If completed, it would create separate routes for Russia to supply gas to Eastern and Western Europe.
As a result, the EU's Eastern European member states have complained that it would allow Russia to cut off their gas supplies - as it did to Ukraine in January 2006 - without affecting supplies to its richer Western clients.
The fact that the project - owned by Russian gas giant Gazprom and German firms E.ON and BASF - was negotiated by the two states without consulting the countries between them created great ill-will in former Soviet satellites such as Poland and the Baltics.
The Ukrainian gas crisis heightened fears that Moscow would be willing to use its energy resources to exert political pressure in any disputes with its former satellites.

Русская жизнь - в исламской НОРМE / Russian life with islamic RULES

Muslims emerged on Russia's territory far earlier than Christianity did. And now the muslim population of Russia is rising even as the country's overall population falls. A Muslim power? It sounds bizarre. But Russia has more Muslims than any other European state (bar Turkey); and the Muslim share of the population is rising fast. The 2002 census found that Russia's Muslims numbered 14.5m, 10% of its total of 145m. In 2005 the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, put the number of Muslims at 20m.

Demographers predict that by 2020 one out of five Russians will be Muslim. But the question is: How Muslim will they be?

The country's Muslim community is extremely diverse. A large part Muslims in Russia adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam. About 10% are Shi'a Muslims. In a few areas, notably Chechnya, there is a tradition of Sufism, a mystical variety of Islam that stresses the individual's search for union with God.

For The Economist, Russia's fastest-growing religious group is not like their counterparts in other countries. Is clear the emergence within Russia of an active but ultimately loyal Muslim community. Muslims want a fair deal and growing influence to match their rising numbers.

Aside from the Caucasus, there are now two concentrations of Muslims in Russia. One is in Moscow, swollen by labour migration, where they may number 2m. The other is in the faith's old bastions: Bashkortostan and, above all, Tatarstan, where a revival of the faith has been overseen successfully by regional president, Mintimer Shaimiev.

Since no political force in Russia has much hope if it stands in open opposition to Mr Putin, these Muscovite Muslims tend to flex their muscles by being (even) more critical of the West than the Russian norm. Shamil Sultanov, a Muslim legislator who is close to the new movement, praises Mr Putin for “standing up to America” and its nefarious plans. Such talk meshes easily with a strand of Russian nationalism that looks to Islam as an anti-Western ally.

The Kremlin saw the political potentiality of Russian Islam a long time ago. Can be United States the only super power in the world, even when including China and Russia, Islam alliance?

70 years of communism have bulldozed most religious and ethnic traditions in Russia, so do not be surprised when you hear imans saying it is all right that most Muslims do not even attend the mosque. "It is not obligatory," Mr Alyautdinov, the then 31-year-old imam of the Moscow Memorial mosque, said to BBC in 2005. "Life is very fast these days, so people don't have time to go to mosque." In other words: Русская жизнь - в исламской НОРМE: (Russian life with islamic rules).

"If people wear tight jeans or skirts and speak slang, it does not mean they have veered from the path of true Islam."

Russian Islam goes its own way.

Kadyrov, Kadyrov and more Kadyrov

Here he is. The widely feared strongman Ramzan A. Kadyrov was inaugurated as the new president of Chechnya with a blessing from the Kremlin, which has relied on him to stabilize the region after more than a decade of separatist fighting. Human rights groups say that security forces under Mr. Kadyrov’s control abduct and torture civilians suspected of ties to Chechnya’s separatist rebels. Some suggest that he was tied to the murder last year of the journalist Anna Politkovskay who made her name as a critic of the Kremlin and its policies in Chechnya. But Kadyrov, only 30, is credited with a reconstruction boom that he administered as the region’s prime minister, under which the capital, Grozny, is being transformed from a moonscape of rubble and shattered buildings, as Rodrigo Fernández writes in El País from the zone. “My main goal is to make Chechnya prosperous and peaceful,” he said at the inauguration ceremony in Gudermes, east of Grozny. But the cult of personality and deification of one man will not do anything good for the republic or its society.

Vilnius 1936, magic images

By 1931, the polish city of Vilnius had 195,000 inhabitants, making it the fifth largest city in Poland. Some Lithuanians, however, dispute this picture of economic growth and point out that the standard of living in Vilnius at this time was considerably lower compared to that in other parts of contemporary Lithuania.
Following the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, on September 19, 1939, Vilnius was seized and annexed by the Soviet Union. On October 10, 1939, after a Soviet ultimatum, the Lithuanian government accepted the presence of Soviet military bases in various parts of the country in exchange for restoring the city to Lithuania. Though the process of transferring the capital from Kaunas to Vilnius started soon after, the whole of Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in June of 1940, before the transfer was completed. A new Communist government was installed, with Vilnius as the capital of the newly created Lithuanian SSR.

Knock, knock. "The plumber!"

The image of the appealing young Polish plumber, toolbag slung across his shoulders, coming to offer his services in France, sowed panic during the referendum on the European constitution in May 2005. But France needs bricklayers and concrete pourers, boiler-makers and sheet-metal workers, travelling salesmen and maintenance agents.

France is allowing members of the eight EU states that joined in 2004 (Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia) to work in 62 occupations identified as suffering from a labour shortage. This right was also granted to the Bulgarians and Romanians as soon as they joined the EU, in January, whereas the Poles, Hungarians and Czechs had to wait two years.

The challenge for France over the coming months remains that of taking in European job seekers without causing anger among French nationals.

Great Britain - after opening its arms to several million Eastern European workers over recent years - is seeking to stem the flow of new arrivals, France is opening up a previously very protected labour market writes Marie-Christine Tabet in Le Figaro, (wich by the way has a very atractive and useful version in english)

In the United Kingdom, the mass arrival of Poles is causing tension. Many questions remain unanswered. Arriving in the middle of a housing crisis, will they find housing or swell the ranks of the homeless?

After the enlargment of 2004, 565,000 people went to live to UK for at least a year during the course of 2005, said the Office for National Statistics to AP.

From UK (!) 50 reasons to love the European Union

As the EU celebrates its anniversary, The Independent looks at 50 benefits it has brought, and asks: "What has Europe done for us?"

Inside there is a very good article asking The Question: "So, what has Europe ever done for us?" Apart from...

1. The end of war between European nations

While rows between England, France and Germany have been a feature of EU summits, war between Europe's major powers is now unthinkable. The fact that the two world wars that shaped the last century now seem so remote is, in itself, tribute to a visionary project that has permanently changed the landscape. As the EU celebrates the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome it is clear that while the detailed topography will always be difficult to agree, it is an extraordinary achievement that we are standing on common ground.

2. Democracy is flourishing in 27 countries

Spain, Portugal, Greece, and the EU's 10 ex-Communist countries are parliamentary democracies. None of these nations were truly free in the decades following the Second World War. Each is now a democracy anchored within the EU and is unlikely to change course.

3. Once poor countries like Ireland, Greece and Portugal prospering

EU subsidies well spent have been crucial to the lift-off of the Irish economy. Once firmly in Britain's economic shadow, the Celtic tiger has emerged. Gross domestic product per capita in Ireland in 2005 was 137.1 per cent of the EU average, compared to 116.8 per cent in the UK.

4. The creation of the world's largest internal trading market

The 27-nation EU now around 500m people making it the world's largest economic trading bloc. By comparison the US has a population of around 300m. The old EU 25 had 19.2 per cent of the World's exports as compared with 14.4 per cent from the US. This gap is set to grow following the last enlargement in January to 27 member states.

5. Shopping without frontiers has given consumers more power

European consumers can buy goods for their own use in whichever EU country they choose - in person, on the internet, over the telephone, or by mail order - without paying additional taxes. This competition is driving down prices and increasing quality

6. Co-operation on continent-wide immigration policy

Though EU countries set immigration levels the EU is increasingly active in the fight against illegal migration and in trying to match the labour needs of European countries to the supply of migrants. On the downside, the EU is increasingly an impregnable fortress and many lose their lives trying to get here by boat from Africa

7. Crime-busting co-operation, through Europol

This provides a clearing house for EU police forces. The police in EU member states can now use an EU arrest warrant to get suspects moved from one country to another where they will face serious charges without lengthy extradition procedures.

8. Laws which make it easier for British people to buy property in Europe

It may not be good for the environment but access to second homes a short-haul flight away has fulfilled the dreams of millions of Britons. Retirement or regular holidays from the south of Spain to the east of Bulgaria has become a reality for many and a legally safeguarded one at that.

9. Cleaner beaches and rivers throughout Europe

EU law and peer pressure - including annual reports - have forced the UK to clean up its act, for example bringing the once-dirty waters off Blackpool beach up to standard. The first EU legislation was passed in 1976 with two more pieces in 2002 and 2006. Now you can monitor the quality of bathing water by checking on a website.

10. Four weeks statutory paid holiday a year for workers in Europe

The EU Working Time Directive ensures that all Europeans get at least four weeks of paid holiday per year. In the US many workers get a fortnight. The same directive provides for 11 hours rest in every 24 and one day of rest per week plus a rest break if the working day is longer than six hours. Minimum standards are set for paid maternity and paternity leave.

11. No death penalty (incompatible with EU membership)

No EU member state has the death penalty and reintroduction of capital punishment would not be compatible with EU membership. Even countries outside the EU are having to review their policies if they want to be considered for membership of the club, most notably Turkey.

12. Competition means cheaper phone calls

Since the liberalisation of telecommunications in the 1980s loosened the grip of the monopolies, prices have plummeted. The European Commission says the cost of international calls in the EU has fallen by 80 per cent since 1984.

13. Small EU bureaucracy (24,000 employees, fewer than the BBC)

Despite the eurosceptic claims, the number of EU officials is surprisingly small. After the scandal of 1999 when the Brussels based European Commission resigned, strict new rules were imposed on spending.

14. Making the French eat British beef again

When the BSE crisis subsided and British meat was judged safe, the European Court of Justice ordered France to resume imports. France contested the ruling but had no alternative in the end. By contrast, the US retains an embargo.

15. Minority languages, like Irish, Welsh and Catalan recognised and protected

Minority languages are gaining recognition. Be it Irish, Welsh or Catalan, minority languages are getting a greater role thanks to the EU which even has a Commissioner for Multilingualism. Irish became an official language of the EU this year. Catalans have lesser language rights because their tongue is official only in one part of Spain, their member states. The EU - with 23 official languages - is doing more to keep lesser tongues alive than some individual member states.

16. Europe is helping to save the planet with regulatory cuts in CO2

The EU has announced the most ambitious targets for curbing carbon emissions, promising a cut of at least one-fifth on 1990 levels by 2020. Other parts of the world are being challenged to follow suit. The EU also has blazed a trail with its carbon emissions trading system which, despite teething troubles, is still a model for other parts of the world.

17. One currency from Bantry to Berlin (but not Britain)

The Euro is now the only real alternative to the dollar on the international stage. You can travel throughout 13 countries and use one currency. Slovenia became the 13th and latest nation to join the single currency this year. Several more nations have yet to meet the necessary criteria.

18. Europe wide bans on tyrants like Robert Mugabe

Smart sanctions on the Zimbabwean President and his cronies have been negotiated through the EU and prevent those on a list from visiting all 27 nations. Though countries differ in the way they believe the EU should treat the government in Harare, they all agreed to renew the sanctions for another year.

19. The EU gives twice as much aid to developing countries as the US

The European Union and its member states paid out more than €43bn in 2005 in public aid to developing countries. This is the equivalent of 0.34 per cent of GNP of the 25 member states, and is higher than the per capita aid levels of the United States at around 0.2 per cent. More than €7bn is channelled through the EU.

20. Strict safety standards for aircraft

Airlines deemed to be unsafe are now banned from travelling into any EU country. Recently some of Pakistan's national carrier were barred because of safety fears.

21. Free medical help for tourists

Any citizen of a European country is entitled to free medical treatment if he or she is taken ill or suffers an accident in another member state. So long as you carry the correct form from your national health service, no questions will be asked.

22. EU peace-keepers operate throughout the world

The EU is building its crisis intervention force and has taken over operations in Bosnia from Nato. EU forces have also been in action in Africa helping avert humanitarian crises. In addition the EU has a big policing project.

23. easyJet and Ryanair can fly anywhere without national rules protecting high cost flag carriers due to liberalisation of air travel

easyJet and Ryanair can fly anywhere without the national rules protecting high-cost flag carriers due to liberalisation of air travel. Any airlines granted a licence in an EU country - meeting safety standards and other conditions - can operate services anywhere within the EU. Between 1992 and 2000 prices at the cheaper end of the market fell by 40 per cent.

24. Introduction of pet passports

Since 2004 travelling across borders with pets has been easier. In addition to pet passports with a vaccination certificate pets require permanent identification which can be either a tattooed code on the skin or a microchip which can be read by a special machine. In the future the microchip is likely to be obligatory.

25. It will soon take only two hours from London to Paris by Eurostar

The Channel Tunnel, and high-speed lines in France and now Britain are not, properly speaking, EU projects. However, the tunnel was built partly as a means of reducing the mental barriers between Britain and the Continent. With the opening of the final section of Britain's fast line to St Pancras this year, trains will travel to Paris in two hours.

26. Prospect of EU membership has forced modernisation on Turkey

The presence of an affluent and stable bloc to its west has given the modernisers in Turkey the ally they needed to create a democratic constituency for change. That change has been pushed through with the promise of a European future.

27. Unparalleled rights for European consumers

Any consumer can send back a product if it breaks down within two years of purchase. Manufacturers often claim that they offer only a 12 month guarantee, but EU law states otherwise and consumers are demanding their rights.

28. Study programmes and cheap travel means greater mobility for Europe's youth

Through the Erasmus programme, in the 2003-4 academic year, 7,500 UK students spent between three and 12 months at a university in one of the other member states.

29. Food labelling is much clearer

All ingredients used in food products must be listed. Any GM ingredients must be mentioned as must colouring, preservatives and other chemical additives.

30. End of the road for border crossings (apart from in the UK)

Frontier posts have been abandoned between the 15 countries that have implemented the Schengen accords. This agreement means that EU nationals crossing most borders in continental western Europe do not need to show passports. The newer nations plan to join in soon.

31. Compensation for air delays

Passengers must get immediate help if their flight is delayed by more than a few hours, cancelled without notice or if they are denied boarding because the plane is overbooked. The carrier must make alternative travel arrangements unless the passenger asks for their money back instead. Depending on the length of the delay they must provide food and refreshments and accommodation if necessary.

32. Strict ban on animal testing for the cosmetic industry

Since November 2004 the EU has banned animal testing on finished cosmetic products entirely. Remaining safety testing on animals of ingredients for cosmetics will be ended.

33. Greater protection for Europe's wildlife

Tough European laws protect birds, flora and fauna, although the EU bird directive is widely flouted in southern Europe, particularly in Malta where 2m migratory birds are shot each year, including 80 protected species which are shot or trapped by hunters.

34. Regional development fund has aided the deprived parts of Britain

Some of the UK's poorest regions have benefited from massive handouts from the EU which has been used to regenerate some of the country's most run-down areas. Scotland's Highland and Islands have benefited enormously as have the Welsh mining valleys, Cornwall and deprived inner cities like Liverpool.

35. European driving licences recognised

Driving licences issued in one EU country are valid in any other, providing they are modern, EU-standard, ones with a photo identity. This means that the old days of having to gain translations for a UK permit to drive in Italy are over.

36. Britons now feel a lot less insular

A famous newspaper headline (perhaps apocryphal) once read "Fog in Channel; Continent Cut Off". Remember the 1960s, when Ostend seemed like an exotic destination? EU membership has not dried up the English Channel but is has helped to remove the psychological barriers between Britain and the continent.

37. Europe's bananas remain bent, despite sceptics' fears

The suggestion that the EU wanted to impose straight bananas, or blue bananas, or ban all but Caribbean bananas, is one of the oldest of Euro-myths. Obsessive euro-harmonisation of rules is a thing of the past.

38. Strong economic growth - greater than the US last year

The EU's ambition to overtake America economically by 2010 has been ridiculed. The German economy has picked up with the UK and Nordic nations are performing strongly. Even Italy, thought to be in dire straits last year, is clocking up reasonable growth. The European Commission said it expects the economy of the 27-nation European Union to grow 2.7 per cent this year, ahead of the US's estimated 2.5 per cent

39. Single market has brought the best continental footballers to Britain

The Bosman ruling, based on European law, and other decisions, have freed up football transfers. From Eric Cantona to Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo, British fans have been enjoying watching Europe's finest talent for the past 15 years.

40. Human rights legislation has protected the rights of the individual

The introduction of the Human Rights Acts has provided a legal framework to prevent abuses of power.

41. European parliament provides democratic checks on all EU laws

The European Parliament, directly elected since 1979, has been given increased powers over the years. The parliament has made a significant impact in areas ranging from the environment to animal rights.

42. EU gives more, not less, sovereignty to nation states

Switzerland and Norway, two independent countries have little or no negotiating leverage when they deal with the EU. In fact they have less sovereignty than member states who decide the policy. Britons are more able to control their own destiny - in areas from international trade, to environmental protection, to consumer rights - because they are part of a 27 nation, democratic bloc. Real sovereignty, rather than theoretical sovereignty, is enhanced by EU membership.

43. Maturing EU is a proper counterweight to the power of US and China

As it develops common foreign and defence policies, the EU is finding its voice. Europe's interests and those of America and the emerging powers, such as China and India, will sometimes coincide, sometimes conflict. Could Britain's interests be protected if we stood alone or if we became a junior partner of the US?

44. European immigration has boosted the British economy

Hundreds of thousands of Poles commute between Poland and Britain. More surprisingly the economies of both countries are booming. The UK economy has benefited from a surge of well-qualified, highly motivated workers.

45. EU common research programme

Job opportunities and Europe-wide access to education mean there really are Europeans now who see the need to speak at least three modern languages.

46. Europe has set Britain an example how properly to fund a national health service

Some continental countries have health funding problems but several, the Dutch in particular, provide quality care while keeping down costs. It took the EU to rule that British patients had a right to seek care abroad.

47. British restaurants now much more cosmopolitan because of European influences

Britain has become - let us admit it - a more continental country in the last 34 years. We now care about what we eat. Nowhere has this been more marked than in the quality and variety of food being offered in our restaurants.

48. Mobility for career professionals throughout Europe

Professionals from doctors to architects now have a right to have their national qualifications recognised across the EU. Language and cultural barriers will always remain a problem for professionals but there are can no longer be purely protectionist obstacles to a career in another EU country.

49. Europe has revolutionised British attitudes to food and cooking

Despite major drawbacks, the bloated Common Agricultural Policy has enabled small family farmers to flourish in Europe. Its support has led to the birth of the Slow Food movement and arrival in British towns of farmers markets, growing with quality organics produce. Bon appetit!

50. Lists like this drive Eurosceptics mad

In the Daily Mail-Sun universe, the EU can never do any good. Brussels is an insane bureaucracy, which secretly plots to have all donkeys painted blue (with yellow stars). The 50th birthday of the European project is a time to celebrate the many positive things which the EU has brought us.

As John Peet writes in The Economist, the mistrust of the union is perhaps most pronounced in Britain, but the regular opinion polls taken by Eurobarometer reveal high dissatisfaction with the union in other countries as well. In many of them, voters seem strongly opposed to further enlargement. The French and Dutch “no” to the constitution reflected this bleak mood. The new members are more enthusiastic about the union than the old ones, but even in them it is not hard to discover Eurosceptics.

But we still have The Independent.

Saint Patrick... Patrikas, Patryka, Patrica...

Today is St Patrick's Day, wich means shamrocks, costumes, green hats and red hair, parades and long hours in the pub with Guinness beer flowing all night long. But Ireland has seen an influx of citizens from countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in the aftermath of the European Union enlargement. This year, Irish cities and towns reflect the country's growing multiculturalism with a strong emphasis on eastern Europe, writes Maximilian Bettzuege, from DPA agency.

Is observed by Irish people Irish citizens Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox (St. Patrick lived prior to the Great Schism). In fact, is celebrated in Moscow each year, Wikipedia says.

On 15th March 1992, thousands of Muscovites lined the Novy Arbat to witness the first St. Patrick's Day Parade in the Russian capital's history. Yuri Luzhkov — the then and current — Mayor of Moscow - and Aer Rianta Chief Executive Derek Keogh were on the reviewing stand as a police escort led the way for — rather bizarrely — Russian marching bands, Cossack horsemen, and fifteen floats representing many Russian companies. The parade, which was the brainchild of Derek Keogh, was a big success, and ensured a repeat performance the following year.Each year the floats have become more numerous and sophisticated and the range of international and Russian participants and sponsors more wide-ranging such as Pepsi and Guinness. The local Irish bars of Moscow contribute their own floats and Muscovites reveal their own homegrown Irish Wolfhounds, which are nearly as big as the floats themselves.

The Moscow parade continued to be an annual event until 1998. After a three year lapse The St Patrick's Society of Russia managed to re-establish the St Patrick's Day parade with the co-operation of the Moscow City Government, The Moscow police, various government bodies, The Irish Embassy and the Irish Community in Moscow.

Legend portrays him as the one who drove the snakes out of Ireland: he brought Christianity to the island, defeating paganism which was usually symbolized by snakes. Was born, probably in Roman Britain, about AD 385, and was originally called Maewyn.

At the age of 16, he was sold into slavery by a group of Irish marauders that raided his village. Having been a pagan before, he became closer to Christianity during his captivity.

He escaped from slavery after six years and went to Gaul where he studied in the monastery under St. Germain, bishop of Auxerre for a period of twelve years. During his training he became aware that his calling was to convert the pagans to Christianity.

St Patrick, the story goes, plucked a shamrock from the ground and explained to the druids and High King Laoghaire, that the plant had three leaves in the same way in which the Christian God had three personas - the father, the son and the Holy Ghost. Impressed, the king chose to accept Christianity.

Mabye EU needs a saint like this working full time.

Baltic economic slowdown?

Can the euro project go wrong? In the Baltics seems it can. The Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia must quickly stem inflation or risk an economic slowdown and an investor pullout, emerging market economists said.

The three tiny former Soviet states have been forced to delay adoption of the euro because inflation soared and current account deficits were jumping.

Two credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor's and Fitch, as well as private sector economists, have drawn attention to economic overheating in Latvia and urged the government to take drastic action. Fitch warned last week that a severe correction in Latvia could trigger "psychological contagion" across the three fast growing Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, possibly spreading further across eastern Europe, Financial Times reported.

Latvia has the fastest-growing economy in the European Union, at 11.7% in the Q4, compared with 3.3% in the 13 nations that share the euro. Estonia's GDP grew 10.9% in the period, while Lithuania's growth was 6.9%.

Much of the region's growth is being driven by mortgage lending. Property prices in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius are more expensive per square meter than in Copenhagen, Stockholm, or Berlin, while in the Latvian capital of Riga, prices outpace Vienna or Frankfurt.

Lithuanian central bank Governor Reinoldijus Sarkinas agreed with Finance Minister Zigmantas Balcytis that warnings of a meltdown may be too severe. "There are signs of warming up, but, all in all, no overheating," Sarkinas said in an interview quoted by several agencies.

Demand for real estate and borrowing in Lithuania slowed in the second half of 2006 after the country's attempt to adopt the euro was rebuffed. Latvia's real estate market "doesn't show any signs of stabilizing," analyst of Nordea said in its report in January. There have been rumours in the market that the country's currency, the Lat, may have to be devalued. It has been trading at a record low within the band at which it is pegged to the euro.

Finally, Latvia's central bank increased interest rates by 50 basis points to 5.5 per cent on Thursday in an attempt to take some of the steam out of the country's overheating economy. International analysts on Wednesday welcomed this package of inflation-cutting measures (balancing the budget, taxing real estate transactions and regulating bank lending, and so on), but warned that the efforts may be "too little too late" and that the fastest-growing economy in the European Union still risked a hard landing, AP reports.

Are you innocent? Prove it to Mr.Kaczynski

Spanish newspaper El País publishes today a two-pages report about the new law of the Kaczynski brothers ruling in Poland. Is by far the largest coverage I have seen in spanish press about Poland in a very long time. Only El Mundo published a long interview with current polish president last october.

The law is part of a push by Poland's president and prime minister, former Solidarity activists Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who are identical twins, to purge from public life those who collaborated with the communist intelligence agencies. The rule takes effect today Thursday 15th requiring as many as 700,000 people in public positions including journalists and teachers , to be screened for Soviet-era collaboration.

Public sector workers caught lying would be banned from office for 10 years, while in the private sector, employers would decide but they have the right to do what they want with the traitor. Critics warn that the law threatens to implicate the innocent given that the secret police files that courts rely on to pass judgment sometimes contain incomplete or ambiguous information, even lies fabricated by agents to win points with superiors.

The law has already stirred much controversy among various political and professional quarters in Poland. Some people are calling for civil disobedience.

A day like today. Lithuania, 1990

This day in history, in 1990, Lithuania proclaimed its independence from the USSR, the first Soviet republic to do so. The Soviet government responded by imposing an oil embargo and economic blockade against the Baltic republic, and later sent troops.

Lithuanians have lived along the Nemen River and the Baltic Sea for some 3,000 years, and during the medieval period Lithuania was one of the largest states in Europe, stretching from present-day European Russia to as far as the Black Sea. In the late 14th century, Lithuania united with Poland in forming a commonwealth, and with the third partition of Poland in 1795, Lithuania was absorbed into Russia.

In the 19th century, a Lithuanian linguistic and cultural revival began, and with the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany in 1918, Lithuania achieved independence. For the next two decades, however, Poland, Germany, and the USSR all interfered with Lithuania's affairs. In 1940, Soviet forces occupied the country, but in 1941 the Nazis replaced them. During World War II, many Lithuanians fought alongside the Germans against the Soviet Union, but by 1944 the country was liberated and a pro-Soviet communist regime was installed.

In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, or "openness," led Lithuania to reassert its identity, and on March 11, 1990, formal independence was proclaimed. Sajudis, a non-communist coalition established in 1988, subsequently won control of the Lithuanian parliament and Vytautas Landsbergis became Lithuania's first post-Soviet head of state. In January 1991, Soviet paratroopers and tanks invaded Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, beginning a standoff that lasted until September 6, 1991, when the crumbling Soviet Union agreed to grant independence to Lithuania and the other Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia.

Lithuania's independence was quickly recognized by major European and other nations, including the United States. The Soviet Union finally recognized the independence of the Baltic states on Sept. 6, 1991. UN admittance followed on Sept. 17, 1991. Successful implementation of structural and legislative reforms in Lithuania attracted greater direct foreign investments by the mid-1990s.

In late 2002, Lithuania was accepted for membership in the EU and NATO, and it joined both in 2004. In Jan. 2003 Rolandas Paksas defeated the incumbent, Valdas Adamkus, in the presidential election. It was a surprising upset, given that Adamkus had helped bring about his country's entry into NATO and the European Union. In April 2004, President Paksas was removed from office after his conviction for dealings with Russian mobsters. It was Lithuania's worst political crisis since independence from the Soviet Union. In July 2004, Valdas Adamkus was again elected president.

Is still a country of gently rolling hills, many forests, rivers and streams, and lakes.

Bratia PutinShenkove (Brothers Puti-Shenko)

There are indeed some striking family resemblances. Both have irascible authoritarian presidents—Russia's Vladimir Putin and Belarus's brutal Alyaksandr Lukashenko—and both are inclined to risky diplomatic brinkmanship. This week that similarity propelled them over the brink and into an unfraternal trade dispute. Brief though it may have been, it had important implications for Russia's energy dealings with Europe, and perhaps also for the future of benighted Belarus. Like in Bothers Karamazov (Bratia Karamazove, in Russian) similarities are not so close.

It is all clear in the blog by Dmitry Babich. He explains several false ideas about Belaurs and Russia.

Stereotype number one: Lukashenko’s regime strives to reestablish some form of the old Soviet Union by merging Belarus with Russia.

Lukashenko went out of his way to assert the opposite. “Sovereignty and independence are sacred words; in fact, they are as sacred as some dogmas of Christianity,” Lukashenko said on Jan. 7 after a church service on Orthodox Easter. “I never said we should make Belarus a part of some other state. I just always supported the idea of a union of states, especially the ones where our brothers live.” This “union of states,” however, is not the old Soviet Union, but a strange economic centaur, where the bigger reformed partner (Russia) subsidizes the economy of a smaller unreformed one (Belarus). Thanks to the cheap energy from Russia, the old-fashioned Soviet plants in Belarus could continue operating and their workers could continue getting their salaries. The Soviet Union was partially recreated, but on a smaller scale, in a single small country named Belarus.

Stereotype number two: The Belarussian regime is dependent on Russia; it abhors Belarussian patriotism and gears its policy to Moscow.

Again, this is not completely true. Russia is often criticized on Belarussian state-controlled mass media as a “traitor” to the old Soviet (or, in modern newspeak, Slavic) cause. The media even summons up the notion of “good people – bad czar,” so familiar to Western readers. However, if the Western media preaches about “Putin’s backsliding on democracy,” Belarusian state-owned television lectures on “Russia ruled by oligarchs and corrupt politicians,” who prevent it from “backsliding on democracy” completely and becoming a true heir of the Soviet Union, as Belarus has already done.

Stereotype number three: the Belarusian regime’s power is based solely on fear, it has no public support either in Belarus or Russia. Meanwhile, Putin’s regime is “bullying” its neighbors and disregarding public opinion.

In reality, both Lukashenko’s regime and Putin’s tough new policy towards the former Soviet countries are based on certain sentiments shared by Russian and Belarusian public opinion. One of them, which Lukashenko used often during his reign, is the nostalgia for the Soviet Union. The other was best summarized by Valery Fyodorov, the director of VTsIOM, a Moscow-based think tank specializing in public opinion studies. “One section of Russians prefers isolationism, while the other one is nostalgic about the Soviet Union, despite the utter impossibility of the latter’s recreation,” Fyodorov wrote in his article for the book Integration in Eurasia. “There is a certain mistaken dualism here: either give us back the USSR in its entirety or we don’t need any integration at all, especially if it requires a payment.”While Lukashenko promises a return of the USSR in a country of 10 million people, Putin accuses Lukashenko of sabotaging a union state and imposes added payments on gas and other Russian resources. Both enjoy the support of large sections of their respective constituencies.

The two countries' tactics may be similar, but their muscle is not. Mr Putin talked of cutting oil production and rerouting supplies. The Russians also threatened duties on all Belarusian goods, many of which would struggle to find markets elsewhere. On January 10th, after the presidents talked on the telephone, Mr Lukashenko blinked; the transit fee was lifted; and oil began to flow again before Europe was seriously affected. Nevertheless, the short but nasty spat has telling lessons.

The most important lesson for Europe, however, is once again that over-reliance on Russian energy is dangerous, writes The Economist.

Russian Crude Stops Flowing to Europe. Who turned off the tap?

Russian crude oil stopped flowing to Western Europe through a major pipeline across Belarus this week. Who turned off the tap? Russia has raised its prices for oil and gas to market levels, after decades of giving Belarus and other former republics of the Soviet Union deep discounts compared with Western European customers.

But a prolonged disruption could be worrisome, writes Steven Lee Myers in The New York Times. The pipeline is one of the larest in the world. Its name, Druzhba, means friendship but the cut affected supplies of crude oil headed to Poland, Germany and Ukraine. Now the European Union has to hold talks with Russia and Belarus in a bid to resolve a row which has led to a cut in oil supplies to much of Europe.

The shutdown of Druzhba, one of the world’s largest oil pipelines, came a week after Russia and Belarus negotiated a last-minute agreement on supplies of natural gas to Belarus and their prices. Minutes before midnight on New Year's Eve, Lukashenka's regime was forced into a humiliating climbdown in its pricing dispute with Russia's state-controlled natural-gas monopoly Gazprom. This time Minsk says Russia has not been paying a transit tax for moving oil through Belarus, imposed after Russia doubled the price it charges Belarus for gas.

BBC economics correspondent Andrew Walker says the suspension is an uncomfortable reminder to Europe of the large and growing role that Russia has in meeting its energy needs.

The European Commission said it was investigating whether the Russian move would have an impact on another branch of the pipeline, which runs to Slovakia and south-east Europe.

The decision to shut down the Druzhba pipeline is the latest twist in an energy row between Belarus and Moscow that began when Russian energy giant Gazprom forced Belarus to accept a huge increase in the price of Russian gas.

For Blog finanza seems a deja vu from the first montho of last year. But this time the cut is not is not against the orange rebels in Ucraine, but against Belaurs, "la più stretta alleata di Mosca".

In Russia lies are well paid

Media corruption is part of the pervasive graft in Russia. In its 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking countries from least to most corrupt, Transparency International placed Russia 121st, out of 163 countries. Many newspapers just keep repeating the key arguments of the politicians almost word for word.

Anna Severnova, the public relations director for the St. Petersburg office of a Western European political organization, spends a lot of time rejecting corrupt proposals from Russian journalists, writes Galina Stolyarova, a reporter for English-language newspaper The St. Petersburg Times in Transitions online.

"Last time it happened was just a couple of weeks ago. An imposing-looking woman approached me at a reception, wondering if our office would be interested in a favorable article," Severnova recalled. “ 'You know what I mean,' she added with a wink. She was confident, assured, not at all embarrassed. We didn't get to discussing the price because I said I was definitely not interested."

Some offers are more sophisticated. For instance, an official from the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, the local parliament, suggested that Severnova's office hire him as a media consultant, at a handsome monthly wage of $1,000. " 'It's simple,' he told me. 'You tell me what you need a report about, I send a fax to the right place, the journalist writes the report, and you send them on a weekend press trip to Finland or Sweden. That will get the local press raving about you guys,' " Severnova recalled him saying. "He was very businesslike and straightforward."

In a 2001 survey of 100 St. Petersburg journalists by the Russian Academy of Sciences, 12 percent admitted that they regularly produce stories involving hidden advertising. A further 18 percent said they produce such stories occasionally, and 37 percent said they had done so more than once.



Diferences are big. While Putin travels around with a contingent of reporters just as Bush does, the Kremlin press pool is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin's rules of the game. Helpful questions are often planted. Unwelcome questions are not allowed. And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool.

Is what in the Washington Post analyst Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center called "the illusion of democracy."

Since he took office in 2000, Putin has taken steps to centralize power and eliminated democratic checks and balances, writes Maria Danilova, journalist from Associated Press.
He has created an obedient parliament, abolished direct gubernatorial elections, tightened restrictions on rights groups and presided over the elimination of most opposition voices from the media, especially the television networks.

And some others, paid it with their lives. Like Anna Politkovskaya, the prominent Russian journalist who was famous for her critical coverage of the war in Chechnya and was discovered dead in Moscow. She was found dead in an elevator in a Moscow apartment building by a duty officer at a central Moscow police station. She had been shot to death, and a pistol and four bullets were found nearby. Politkovskaya was working on when she was murdered at the weekend, giving a grisly account of alleged torture by Chechen officials, was published in her newspaper today. The story in Novaya Gazeta included written testimony from a Chechen man extradited from Ukraine to a Chechen government office in Grozny.