Unable to put up with Russia’s slap in the face, the European Parliament has retaliated with a special resolution to Russia’s refusal to extend the mandate of the OSCE’s mission in Chechnya. However, the Europarliament revolt against Russia is more a combination of polite outrage, humility and humble readiness to accept and to yield to key principals of Russia’s policy towards Chechnya.
In its preamble, the Europarliament’s resolution has “taken into account” four times, “taken into consideration” five times, “expressed concern” three times, “disappointment” two times, and only one time has become “worried”. In its resolutive part, the Europarliament mostly tends to urge, to regret, to believe, and one time to welcome (its own self, in fact) and to strongly denounce (naturally, not Russia, but Chechen militants for an explosion at the House of Government in Grozny).
Not to bother the readership with our own comments, we are giving below the full text of the January 16 resolution of the European Parliament. Full Story...
On January 21 an election campaign took off in Armenia. Yet again, on February 19, Armenians will go to polls to elect president. Now there are only eleven contenders left for the presidential seat, while at the beginning there were fifteen. Three of them, Paruir Airikian, Arshak Sadoyan and Petros Makeian, have already dropped out of the race without even beginning to gather signatures in their support. The fourth rejected candidate, Raffi Oganesian, failed to obtain registration by the Central Election Commission. And there is something quite interesting behind it all. Full Story...
The main Turkmen statistics organ, Turkmenmillikhasabad institute, has summed up the past year and made the country’s population happy, along with the rest of the world, with the new achievements of the national economy under the wise guidance of the great Saparmurat Turkmenbashi. If one were to take at face value the analytical data supplied by the institute, the achievements are truly amazing. For example, country’s gross domestic product was more than 63,8 trillion manats ($12 billion) and since 2001 has increased by 21.2%. Full Story...
On January, 14 the Russian press has stirred up: "Basayev is threatening with new terrorist acts". "From Interpol sources we have received the information that one of the leaders of illegal militant groups Basaev threatens to organise another terrorist act in Moscow", said Victor Zakharov, head of Federal Security Service Administration for Moscow and Moscow Region during the sitting of Moscow Government. In London, six terrorists have been arrested who prepared a strong poison ricin at home. And immediately, as if by a wave of a magic wand, they found the same kind of terrorists in Chechnya. That is to say, not exactly found, but announced through the lips of the most truthful man in Russia, Sergey Yastrzhembskiy, that the instructions on how to prepare ricin were found on the body of one of the recently killed militants. Naturally, as a result of a carefully planned operation by the Russian special services. Full Story...
On December 31, Valentin Moiseyev, former deputy director of the foreign ministry’s first department for Asia, was released from prison. He had served 4,5 years for “state treason in the form of espionage”. PRIMA’s correspondent Azgar ISHKILDIN met with the ex-diplomat and asked him to tell more about the legal action against him. Full Story...
A German journalist Gunther Walraff was sent back home from Moscow Sheremetyevo airport on January, 8. He arrived to Russia on a tourist visa obtained in a proper way. The journalist turned out to be too talkative to his own misfortune. Full Story...
Throughout the entire last year Cuban authorities had enthusiastically jailed dissidents who planned street actions of protest. Behind bars were put demonstrators marking the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, protesters against political repression, people who wanted to commemorate the air pilots shot down over the Gulf of Mexico on February 24, 1996, and organizers of a human rights seminar. “The message is clear: the Cuban government does not want the dissidents on the street, and that is very serious,” Martha Beatriz Roque, leader of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society in Cuba — the biggest dissident coalition in the country — told a press conference in Havana, reviewing the past year. Full Story...
Prior to his death in 1989, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of Islamic fundamentalism and a most notorious obscurant of the 20th century, had written a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev. In it he stressed that Russia should not follow in footsteps of the West but should seek another way of development. Knowing what kind of man Khomeini was, it’s easy to guess what he had in mind. Though Gorbachev had not taken his advice, the Ayatollah’s ghost suddenly emerged in our country at the end of last year. To be more specific, his ghost was “spotted” at the Russian ministry of education. Full Story...
The explosion on 27 December in Bishkek’s largest market place, the Dordoy Market, was caused by the use of explosives, and not fireworks, as stated earlier, said Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Minister of the Interior, Keneshbek Duishebayev, at a press conference on 2 January. Meanwhile the blasts in Bishkek continue: on 5 January there was an explosion in a cafe in the centre of town, situated in Beta Storez, a huge Turkish shopping centre. Full Story...
Another unusual solution for the famous dilemma of having it both ways has been found in Russia. On one hand, Colonel Budanov cannot be punished because he is one of us; on the other hand he cannot be pardoned because he is a self-confessed murderer. But we can now forget about the dilemma altogether. On December 31 North Caucuses Military District Court recognised Budanov as mentally ill, irresponsible for his actions and relieved him of the criminal charges. So thus was the justice the Russian way — sly, made to measure, openly opportunistic. It is even clear why the decision was announced on the New Year’s Eve: the press are on holiday, people are good humoured and longing for festivities, and public response is minimal. Full Story...