The Devil Went Down to Georgia

TBILISI (AFP) — Georgia on Thursday launched a diplomatic offensive against Russian moves to build closer ties with two rebel regions, accusing Moscow of breaching Georgia's sovereignty and calling for a UN Security Council emergency session.

The former Soviet republic's pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili, called for "serious actions" from the international community and sent senior ministers to the US and Europe to press Georgia's case.

"We demand that Russia stop all actions which breach Georgia's sovereignty," Saakashvili told ministers at a cabinet meeting, his press office said.

On Wednesday, Russia said it would intensify cooperation with the two pro-Moscow breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in trade, culture and other areas and provide "complete protection" to Russians living there.

Saakashvili called on the international community to react, saying "we need serious actions, not only words from our partners in the next days and weeks."

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Georgia is not going to given in to Russia's attempts to breach its sovereignty. The diplomatic tactics of Russia seem to be failing. This is making Georgia very unhappy and they are getting the UN envolved.

You'll Have Me Suicidal

In Russia 15 to 20 teenagers commit suicide monthly. Surprisingly enough, a few of them do this secretly. All over Russia there are hundreds of websites that will gladly help you to lay hands on yourself. At first glance they seem to be nothing but somebody’s stupid game: more than a thousand peers of 11 to 25 years old spend hours discussing several ways to suicide themselves. This, however, is not a game: all these people are dead serious. They will not just advise you on how to die in a more sophisticated and pleasant way, they will also gladly help you to pop off.

This is the wrong place for support and psychological help. In the chat there are hundreds of questions about the better way to die. If you click on one of them, for example, you’ll see that out of 58 responses to the question “How to die painlessly” only 3 people wondered why the person actually wants to die. The rest at once offer countless ways of dying. The first responses are the most common ones: to open veins, jump from the skyscraper, or make a hole in the water. But then come really terrifying pieces of advice. Two of them are especially shocking, because they (as the adviser states) have been already successfully tested.

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Suicde is a very serious problem and teen sucide is even more serious. Russia has a very high sucide rate and this article call attention to that fact. Russia however is blaming the internet but is that the real problem? Or is there something more that the world does not know?

'Threat' to Future of Russia Oil

The future supply of Russian oil is threatened by a likely decline in production levels, one of the country's top oil executives has warned.

Lukoil's Leonid Fedun said $1 trillion would have to be spent on developing new reserves if current output levels were to be maintained.

Recent figures show Russian output fell 1% in the first quarter of 2008.

The possibility of less oil from one of the world's key suppliers will add more pressure to prices now at record highs.

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Russia needs new oil reseverves inorder to maintain there economic status. They can either make new ones or spend trillions trying to maintain the old ones. This article shows some of the future complications for Russia. It also deals with one of the major problems throughout the world today, oil.

Gotta Give a Little to Get a Little

Mr Ban deems that with Russia’s economy developing, the country will manage to boost its investments in the organization. Reuters reports that Secretary-General said he made this point during his talks with the Russian officials.

So far Mr Ban has been on a visit to Moscow, which ends on April 11. This is his first official visit to Russia since assuming office. Received by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin yesterday, Mr Ban conducted talks featuring the current activities and prospects of the UN, as well as crucial international problems.

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The UN wants Russia to increase its contributions to the organization. Russia is one of the big members of the UN. This rticle shows the diplomatic relation ship between Russia and the UN. This is important because the UN is beginning to have more influence in Europe than it has in the past.

Although We've Come to the End of the Road

The two presidents were on first name terms throughout their news conference. George Bush remarked that their meetings had always been agreeable, even when they disagreed.

But disagree they do, and on the most fundamental issues - Nato expansion and missile defence.

On the latter, Vladimir Putin emphasised that his country's opposition to American plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe went deeper than simple objections of protocol.

"This is not about language, this is not about diplomatic phrasing or wording, this is about the substance of the issue," he said. "I'd like to be very clear on this. Our fundamental attitude to the American plans has not changed."

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Since Putin is no longer president a strain will be put on the relationship of him and US president, George W. Bush. They seem to be great friends. However their friendship does not mean much whenit comesto the US's desire to set up a missile defence system. Russia refuses to participate.

Bush to Make a Dash to Russia

WASHINGTON: The US President, George Bush, will make an unexpected trip to Russia after a NATO summit next week to meet President Vladimir Putin in the hope of repairing relations that have grown strained over missile defence, Kosovo independence and NATO expansion.

The decision surprised even some US officials and set both governments scrambling to accommodate the last-minute visit and organise an agreement to justify it. For Mr Bush, the meeting represents a gamble that he can still resolve thorny disputes with Russia before Mr Putin steps down on May 7.

"I'm optimistic we can reach accord on very important matters," Mr Bush told a group of foreign journalists at the White House. "I think a lot of people in Europe would have a deep sigh of relief if we're able to reach an accord on missile defence. And hopefully we can."

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George W. Bush will be traveling to Russia to help ease tension about some of Russia's current international issues. He is doing so in hopes of coming up with some resolutions before Putin steps down from the presidential seat. The World waits in awe to see if George W. Bush can ease tension about anything. This article also provides a look into Russia's diplomatic realationship with the US.

Medvedev's Secret Weapon

There may not have been any campaigning worth speaking about before this election, but there was certainly a mammoth effort to persuade people to vote on Sunday for a new president.

From text messages to all mobile phone subscribers across the country, to presents being offered to first-time voters, every method of persuasion and seduction seems to have been employed.

In this far eastern port city, which gives Russia access to the Pacific Ocean, they were handing out baseball caps to students who made their first tentative steps inside a polling station.

In other parts of the region, it is reported that discount shopping vouchers were on offer.

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Russia coerced citizens to vote using, cheap incentives. This puts the accuracy of the elections into question. this shows some of the lengths the country is willing to go through to increase voter turnout. Is this an attempt to seem more democratic?

Is It Always Nice To Share

Russia's president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev, has insisted he will be making the key decisions in his power-sharing deal with Vladimir Putin.

Mr Medvedev won a landslide election victory this month and will replace Mr Putin, who is expected to become his prime minister, in May.

The president-elect told the Financial Times newspaper that the president and government had clearly defined roles.

He praised Mr Putin for adhering to the constitution in serving just two terms.

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Russia's new president, Medvedev, is clearly defining the roles that will be played by himself and Putin. The roles are supposedly very different. He also assure everyone that he will be the one making the important decisions. It will be inresting to see if this is really true.

Darker People Beware

Six dark-skinned people have been stabbed to death in Moscow in less than a week. In each case, the victims were male and targeted by young people who did not rob them -- attacks that bear the hallmarks of skinhead violence.Yet to hear Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin assess the situation, the killings are random acts of violence. "There is no organized skinhead movement," he said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda published Monday. This is the official position of the police chief of an ethnically diverse city that has seen 16 racially motivated murders since Jan. 1 -- half of all racist killings nationwide.

Pronin's attitude is alarming. Some experts say the police are reluctant to charge suspects with racial hatred because it is more difficult to get a conviction for these cases than for other crimes. This is difficult to believe, however, since prosecutors, not police, have to prosecute in court, and more than 99 percent of trials result in convictions.

Other experts say some police officers are closet ultranationalists or so opposed to migrants that they hope the attacks will deter potential migrants and force those living here to leave. But many victims are natives of Russia's North Caucasus, and the authorities must be aware of the backlash that the attacks could cause in the turbulent region.

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The police are ignoring the murder of dark skinned people in Russia. The large number of deaths in the past few months may be a sign of a rise in the skinhead movement. This article show some of the racial injustices occurring in Russia. Could a new Hitler be appearing in Russia?

Russia Makes A Billion

Russian news reports say Moscow has signed a $1 billion deal with India to upgrade more than 60 MIG-29 jet fighters it had previously sold to New Delhi.

The reports Tuesday quote sources in Russia's defense manufacturing sector as saying a five-year contract calls for Russia to install new radars, weapons control systems and improved engines.

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Russia will be upgrading fighter jets sold to India. The new deal will be worth a million dollars. This article shows one of the many way that Russia makes money. It also shows one of Russia's market ventures.

Russia Criticizes US Ships Off Lebanon

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that the presence of U.S. Navy warships in the Mediterranean off the coast of Lebanon was not helping resolve the political crisis in Lebanon.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said he raised the U.S. deployment at a closed council meeting on implementation of the U.N. cease-fire resolution that ended the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in August 2006.

"We pointed out the fact that basically all Lebanese political forces expressed their concern about that, including the government of Prime Minister (Fuad) Saniora, and we have said that such acts were bringing up some unwanted historical analogies," he said.

"So we did not see it as a constructive contribution to the situation in Lebanon," Churkin said.

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Russia is complaining that the presence of U.S. ships is not helping problems in Lebanon. The criticism was made to the United Nations Secrutity Council, This article gives another example of Russia international diplomatic relations. It also provides information on the happening around Russia which may influence the country.

Russia Sets Sail For a "Three Hour Tour"

While the presidential election proved entirely predictable, the transfer of power from Vladimir Putin to Dmitry Medvedev looks likely to be anything but.

This will be the first time in the country's history that a popularly elected head of state hands over power to another popularly elected head of state.

The lack of precedent is raising some curious constitutional questions over exactly how the Kremlin's impending round of musical chairs is going to work.

"There is not really any previous experience for what happens between an election and the moment the new president assumes power," said Mikhail Krasnov, an author of the Constitution.

While Medvedev is now president-elect and first deputy prime minister, Putin by law will remain president until May 7, exactly four years after his inauguration. Putin has said he will then become prime minister.

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Russia's already controversial election has become even more controversial. People are beginning to question the constitutionality of the new transfer of power. This questioning could hurt the legitimacy of Russia.

Russia Redefines Democracy

On the banks of the Moscow River, facing the Kremlin, there is a long squat grey-faced apartment block known as the House on the Embankment. It has a special place in Russia's history.

It was built by the early Bolsheviks when they moved the Russian capital back to Moscow from St Petersburg.

It housed the families - more than 500 of them - of high-ranking Kremlin officials. They were the bureaucratic elite of the world's first attempt at a socialist state. It was, in its day, the only house in all Russia to have hot running water.

A decade ago, when I lived here as the BBC's Moscow correspondent, I went to visit one of its residents. She'd lived there since 1931. More than anything she remembered the Red Terror of 1937.

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From This article we learn about some of the injustices of Russia's past. We also get an account of Stalin's secret police rampages. The House on the Embankment has played an important part in Russia's history and has witnessed alot.

Surprise! Medvedev Wins!

The West cast doubt on Russia's presidential election yesterday after Dmitry Medvedev won a landslide victory and vowed to follow the course set by outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Near-complete results gave Medvedev 70.2 percent of Sunday's vote, crushing his nearest rival, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who won 17.8 percent, the central elections commission said.

But allegations that the landslide was stage-managed by the Kremlin raised widespread criticism of the election's legitimacy.

The sole Western observer mission present for the poll, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said the poll failed to reflect Russia's "democratic potential."

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Russia's long awaited election is over. Medvedev won. Everyone is now looking to him to improve Russia's diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. Although the elections weren't too free we get to see a very important part of Russia's political system.

Ukraine Stops The Gas Flow

KIEV (Thomson Financial) - A top Ukrainian official on Friday rejected one of the terms of a gas deal this month with Russia requiring the creation of a joint venture to distribute Russian gas in Ukraine, news agencies reported.

"We think there is no need to form a joint venture to work on the internal market," Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Turchinov was quoted as saying by Interfax and RIA Novosti.

He said Ukrainian company Naftogaz was capable of working alone on the domestic market without needing to hook up with Russia's Gazprom.

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Ukrainian officals have put a stopp to Russia's gas deal. The Ukrain believes that they can accomplish the needed results by themeselves. This will make Russia very melancholy becasue they will loose money in this deal gone wrong. The aricle providedes yet another example of Russian diplomatic relations.

The Russians Revolt

The Russian Revolution of 1917 is also called the Bolshevik Revolution or the October Revolution. In 1917 there were actually two revolutions in Russia. One was the February Revolution in which the Tsar abdicated his throne and the Provisional Government took power. The other was the October Revolution in which the Provisional Government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 played a very important role in world history and also a major role in the history of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Baltic peoples also played a major role in the 1917 Revolution, particularly the Latvian Bolsheviks who comprised a key portion of the Red Guards that defended the Bolsheviks at a crucial time in its early existence.

Earlier, during the 1905 Revolution in Russia, the peasants in the Baltic took this as their cue to revolt against their rulers. At different times in history, the Estonian and Latvian peasants had been ruled by Tsarist Russia, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the Baltic German nobility; Lithuanian peasants were governed by Russia and before it, by the Kingdom of Poland (1569 to 1791). They saw this time period as an opportunity to finally take control over their destiny and to rule them selves. Though it didn't lead to independence at this time, it independence did emerge from 1918 till 1940 for the people of the Baltic States.

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This is an article outlining the important events in the Russian Revolution. The Revolution is a major part of Russia's history. History is just one of the many ways we can compare government. We can also learn about the changing of regimes.

Human Rights Watch Chief Hits Out At Russia Over Visa Refusal

The head of Human Rights Watch, the New York-based monitoring group, accused Russia yesterday of denying him a visa to visit Moscow to prevent him from presenting a highly critical report on the Kremlin's treatment of civil society groups.

Kenneth Roth, the group's executive director, said the case was the first time Russia had denied a visa to Human Rights Watch since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"It's a very disappointing shift," Mr Roth told the Financial Times from New York. "Russia is in a small class of countries that has rejected a Human Rights Watch visa. It's not something governments tend to do now."

He said he had visited countries such as China, Libya and Saudi Arabia without problems.

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Russia is back in the spotlight after they denied a Human Rights Watch representative a visia into the counrty so that he could write a report on the treatment of the Russian. This is another attempt by Russia to cover up its secrets. If they had nothing to hide, there would be no problem. Will we soon find out some the horrid truths of Russia.

The Last Tsar

Nicholas II was born on May 6, 1868, in Tsarskoe Selo. He was delivered by his mother Marie Fyodorovna Romanova, formerly Dagmar, Princess of Denmark. His father Alexander Romanov was an important member of the Russian government.

Unlike the rest of the Romanov men, Nicholas was not a very big man. The other men were always very intimidating; Nicholas however, was a mere 5' 6 tall. To make up for his lack of height, Nicholas worked out with weights and other various athletic equipment.

Nicholas was known for his regal appearance. He had lively blue eyes that people always thought were the well of his soul. He wore his brown hair parted to the left and had a thick beard. He had golden highlights throughout. Those golden highlights stayed with him throughout his life and became his signature feature.

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This is a brief article about the last Tzar of Russia. From here we can learn about Russia's past and one political leaders. Comparing politics often involves looking at the past of the nations in comparison.

Russia: "no legal basis" to recognize Kosovo independence

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Sunday that there is no legal basis for any country to recognize the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo.

There is "no legal basis for even considering the recognition of this unilateral declaration of independence," Churkin told reporters after attending an emergency session of the UN Security Council on Kosovo.

He said the council agreed that UN Security Council resolution 1244 adopted in 1999 remains in force and that the UN presence in Kosovo remains in force.

"Therefore, there can be no unilateral proclamation of independence," Churkin said, adding that this declaration should be "disregarded by the international community."

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This article shows Russia's unwillingness to give up. They are still trying to hold on to Kosovo. This loop hole may be a big break through in the fight.

Political Heir Is Less Rosy Than Putin on the State of Russia

MOSCOW — The presumptive successor to President VladimirV. Putin presented his platform for seeking Russia’shighest office on Friday, giving a speech before business leaders in Siberia in which he vowed to continue Russia’s economic revival, but also struck markedly liberal notes. Dmitri A. Medvedev met with reporters at a business forum in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk on Friday.

The speech by the candidate, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev, was a contrast to the public appearance only a day before by Mr. Putin, his sponsor. Mr. Putin was confrontational and sometimes caustic in what the Kremlin had billed as his final news conference as president.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin had sharply criticized the West and the United States, threatened to aim strategic missiles at Europe and said Russia would continue to develop its own, state-centered brand of democracy without instruction from outside.

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Could the platform of Russia's new presidential candidate be a facade? This article gives us more incite on the political workings of Russia. We also learn about Putin's hostile attitude and other poltical misleadings. The tension seems to be growing quickly.