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Belgrade, July 30, 2012
BELGRADE, July 29 (Tanjug) - Serbia's new Foreign Minister Ivan Mrkic said Sunday there would be no change of course in the country's foreign policy.
Mrkic explained that preservation of territorial integrity and sovereignty would remain the basis of Serbia's foreign policy, and fullfledged EU membership its priority. "The essence of our foreign policy is known to all, as are its foundations the interests of our country. Territorial integrity, sovereignty these are the foundations. We know what the pillars and the priorities are, and among these we single out, much like our predecessors, our path toward full EU accession, and we will continue in this manner," Mrkic said in an interview for Tanjug, his first since taking over the office.
According to Mrkic, major changes in foreign policy are not customary in stable democracies such as Serbia. "For the most part, we will continue with the same foreign policy. It is also clear from the statements of President Tomislav Nikolic and Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, when they spoke about foreign policy, that there is no change in course," he said.
"There will certainly be some minor modifications due to the fact we have a new president, a new parliament and a new government," Mrkic said.
Asked about his view of the current relations with Moscow and Washington and what he would insist on in the future, Mrkic said Serbia had "extremely good relations" with Russia, and wanted to further and deepen its existing solid partnership with Washington. "We are in a strategic partnership and Russia is an important partner and ally to Serbia, which helps us preserve our territorial integrity," said Mrkic.
At the same time, Belgrade will endeavor to make its relationship with the United States "as wellthought out, diverse and fruitful as possible for both sides." "We will have a better idea of ways to further our relations after we meet with U.S. officials, and we will know more specifics in the coming days and weeks," said Mrkic.
Talking about future contacts with EU officials aimed at accelerating Serbia's EU integration, Mrkic recalled that "there is intensive communication with all representatives and allies from Europe." "There will be meetings with senior officials in Brussels, the arrangements are being made and we will have communication as intensive as our predecessors did, if not more so," he added, unwilling to reveal when his first meeting with a Brussels official could take place.
BELGRADE, July 27 (Tanjug) - Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic has recalled several ambassadors, including those in Vatican and Spain, it was published in the Official Gazette.
With a decree dated July 20, the president recalled Serbia's Ambassador to the Holy See Vladeta Jankovic and Ambassador to Spain Jela Bacovic. He also recalled Ambassador to Angola Danilo Milic.
Ambassador to Indonesia Zoran Kazazovic, who also served as a nonresident ambassador to Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore and the Philippines, was also recalled.
He has been replaced by Jovan Jovanovic, according to the Official Gazette.
Dragan Bisenic has been appointed the new nonresident ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, with a seat in Cairo.
The new nonresident ambassador to the Kingdom of Bhutan, with a seat in New Delhi, is Jovan Mirilovic.
LONDON, July 29 (Tanjug) - Serbia's Ambassador in London Dejan Popovic hosted a reception Saturday night for the country's Olympic athletes and members of the diaspora and the diplomatic corps, who were greeted by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic and President of the Olympic Committee of Serbia Vlade Divac.
Serbia's first medalist in London, Andrija Zlatic, who took the bronze in the 10m Air Rifle on Saturday, got a huge applause, while Nikolic was especially encouraging of the women's volleyball team, which lost its opening match to China. "It is a great pleasure and honor to wave the Serbian flag in the stands. There are no whistles for our country, our athletes are feared, they are a target and a goal. We will have to invest a lot more in these young people and all those who compete in knowledge, skills and sport, because we owe that to our children, especially the best ones," said the president.
He urged the volleyball team not to give up. "Keep your heads up. Some won and some lost today. When Serbia wins, all our defeats will seem insignificant. I wish you all the best and long live Serbia!"
BANJA LUKA, July 29 (Tanjug) - Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Rasim Ljajic said Sunday the new government would continue pursuing normalization of relations with the countries in the region and furthering economic cooperation, while respecting the territorial integrity of all countries created after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
He added the new government would continue the job former president Boris Tadic had been doing until now. "It is in Serbia's interest to support in every way the preservation of Bosnia Herzegovina's integrity, because in doing this it also protects its own integrity, which is now threatened because of Kosovo. Only a principled policy can produce results," Ljajic told the press in Sarajevo.
Ljajic said the priorities of the new government were fighting the economic crisis and solving the country's two biggest problems unemployment and cash flow insolvency of the domestic economy.
"We are extremely dedicated to getting a starting date for accession talks with the EU by the end of the year. In order for this to happen, we need to implement all agreements reached in the technical dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina," said Ljajic, who is also the minister of foreign and domestic trade and telecommunications.
BELGRADE, July 27 (Tanjug) - Serbia's Prime Minister Ivica Dacic informed on Friday EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton that Serbia was steady on its European path and prepared to continue reforms in accordance with European values.
There is a broad support for it from the voters and parliament members, which is why getting the start date for the accession talks would be recognition of Serbia's efforts so far, Dacic told Ashton over the phone.
He said he had met with a large number of international and regional leaders and told them all Serbia would continue to be a reliable partner and a pillar of peace and stability in the region. "He also expressed a firm intention by the Serbian government to implement the agreements reached so far in the talks between Belgrade and Pristina and continue the dialogue on a political level in order to get to practical and sustainable solutions that lead to a normal life for the ordinary people in Kosovo, both Serbs and ethnic Albanians," the statement says.
Ashton welcomed the formation of the new government in Serbia, congratulated the new prime minister with wishes of continuing the existing good level of cooperation and stated her personal commitment towards a better European future for the people of Serbia.
The new government faces difficult tasks, and the EU is willing to support Serbia in tackling them, she noted, stressing the importance of regional cooperation and the necessity to continue the talks between Belgrade and Pristina as soon as possible, with support and involvement of the EU.
The two agreed to meet right after the summer holiday break in EU institutions in order to continue cooperation and agree on Serbia's future important steps towards the EU.
BRUSSELS, July 27 (Tanjug) - EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fuele Friday welcomed the formation of the new Serbian government and called for the continuation of reforms and the promotion of regional cooperation.
Ashton welcomes the formation of the government and congratulates the Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for the high representative, told Tanjug.
She pointed to the numerous challenges ahead of Serbia, which is why it is important to continue the necessary reforms.
The high representative expects Serbia to continue with reforms and with a wide agenda of European integration, Kocijancic said.
Moreover, the EU expects from Serbia further work to develop regional cooperation and continuation of the reconciliation process, which includes the continuation of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, as well as the implementation of agreements reached so far, Ashton's spokeswoman said.
Ashton congratulated Dacic in person by telephone Friday after the parliament session at which the government was voted in.
Fuele joined Ashton's congratulations in a written statement.
WASHINGTON, July 27 (Tanjug) - Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on Friday that the new Serbian government would have to prove its European credentials by its future actions.
"New government in Serbia today. It will have to prove its European credentials by its actions. Words are good but deeds are what counts," Bildt posted on his Twitter.
LONDON, July 29 (Tanjug) - President Tomislav Nikolic has told a British newspaper in an interview that Serbs in Kosovo are living under the threat of genocide. Any attempt to impose the Priština government's authority could lead to their exodus, he noted.
"What if the Serbs move out. Who will accept the results of such genocide? That is one of the definitions of genocide: when you expel 40,000 people, regardless of whether they are women, men, (civilians or) soldiers, and when you change the ethnic composition of the territory. That is genocide."
Nikolic, who is currently in London, also told the Guardian newspaper in an interview that "there is a danger that Priština would be prepared to go that far", and added: The only armed force there, apart from the international community, is (ethnic) Albanian. I am convinced they wouldn't mind doing that immediately."
According to Nikolic, "the only thing preventing such action was the presence of NATO troops".
He was speaking about the northern, majority Serb part of Kosovo that does not recognize the authority of the Kosovo Albanian government in Priština, and rejects the ethnic Albanian unilateral declaration of independence made in early 2008.
According to the report, he also "signaled that he would take a tougher stance" in the ongoing Belgrade Priština talks, saying that so far, concessions were required to be made only by Belgrade, and that now similar requirements should be put before Priština:
"What compromise has been done by Priština up to now? None. All the talks have been on things Serbia will accept. Serbia hasn't set any conditions," he said. "It's not a compromise if Serbia is always backtracking step by step. It's not a compromise if Priština says its independence is recognized and that it will realize its independence on our territory."
Nikolic "underlined an earlier declaration that he would never exercise power in Priština", writes the daily. He also called on Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga to admit she would never govern in northern Kosovska Mitrovica.
Asked whether that implied the partition of Kosovo, he replied: "I don't know, because if you told me 20 years ago there would be no Yugoslavia, I wouldn't have believed you. If you told me Serbia and Montenegro would split, I would have also told you that was impossible. I would also have said that Germany would never reunite, but life brings us surprises. I can't run policy by imagining things."
The Guardian also stressed that Nikolic used to be a prominent member of the Serb Radicals (SRS), a party led by Vojislav Šešelj, who is on trial in The Hague.
"I have committed no crime. And I am not ashamed of anything I have done since 1990 to today... These socalled paramilitary units were in line with the then Constitution of Yugoslavia. In that time, I was aware that everybody must do everything he can to defend his people and country... All peoples from the former Yugoslav took part in the war. Some of them to gain states; the Serbs to save a state. But the Serbs did not manage to accomplish their task."
According to the interview, the president "claimed the fact that the Serbs lost the war explained why there were more Serbs than other ethnicities facing charges at the war crimes tribunal, and not that it was Serbs under Slobodan Miloševic who committed the majority of atrocities."
He refused to confirm whether he would have handed over Bosnian Serb was crimes suspects Radovan Karadžic or Ratko Mladic as his predecessor Boris Tadic had done.
Nikolic also "repeated his denial", writes the daily, "that the mass killings of Muslims from the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995 constituted genocide".
"I cannot go further than the Serbian parliament," he said, in reference to the parliament resolution adopted in 2010, which condemned the war crime.
Nikolic was also quoted as saying that "his greatest challenge was to fill the estimated USD 3bn hole in the budget". He asked for international assistance and claimed his country's needs were small in comparison with the scale of the eurozone crisis, but warned creditors against making their help conditional on Serbia making concessions over Kosovo:
"Maybe someone thought we were ready to make various concessions if we were poor. But we expect the international community and our friends to help us to recover the economy in line with their duties and obligations. We don't want be treated like country cousins."
SMEDEREVSKA PALANKA, July 29 (Tanjug) - Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic warned Sunday that the statement of former UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari that Serbia should not be allowed into the EU before it recognizes Kosovo was counterproductive and that Brussels needed to react to it.
"There is no need for any harsh reactions. I expect the EU to react before anyone else, because Ahtisaari is certainly not speaking on their behalf," Dacic told reporters while visiting the village of Ratari in the central Serbian municipality of Smederevska Palanka.
Ahtisaari's statement is especially counterproductive in light of the fact Belgrade and Pristina are trying to resolve their issues through talks, said Dacic.
"He should advocate the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which he was involved in writing, and he should be aware that the Security Council did not accept his plan for Kosovo," said Dacic.
Ahtisaari, a Finnish diplomat and former UN envoy in the talks on the status of Kosovo, believes that Serbia should not be allowed to join the EU before it recognizes Kosovo.
Serbia has long since lost its right to Kosovo. It has treated Kosovars badly for years, Ahtisaari told the Zagrebbased Vecernji List.
BELGRADE, July 28 (Tanjug) - Aleksandar Vulin, the head of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo, said Sunday that the statement of former UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari that Serbia should not be allowed into the EU before it recognizes Kosovo was him paying off a debt to Albanian lobbyists, but that Serbia did not owe him anything and would abide by its Constitution.
PRISTINA, July 27 (Tanjug) - German Ambassador to Pristina Ernst Reichel said on Friday that the model of the two Germanys could be a solution for the Belgrade Pristina relations, underlining that Germany did not demand from Serbia to recognize Kosovo.
Germany, as one of the leaders of the EU, is not demanding from Serbia to recognize Kosovo, but only to establish bilateral relations that could be realized without the full international recognition of Kosovo, Reichel said in an interview for the Pristinabased daily Koha Ditore.
The German ambassador said that the talks should start immediately after the formation of the new Serbian government, and voiced opinion that the dialogue should not address only the issue of northern Kosovo, but rather a wide range of topics.
We should go beyond that, and talk about all open issues between Pristina and Belgrade, so as to find solutions for all disagreements, at the technical, but also political level, Reichel said.


text:
At this point, you have been working on this topic for quite awhile. You've shared it on your blog, written a booklet, done podcasts & more. Now it's time to share it with a live audience.
Whether you speak to your audience in person or on the internet with a webinar, you need to be certain your message is ready to share. You can always go back & edit everything you have done up to this point. You can't edit what you said during a live presentation once that presentation is over. You CAN record each presentation, FORCE yourself to listen to it & discover ways to improve either the material or presentation of that material.
Never Rush It
I know it's easy to jump into doing a live presentation right away. We all over the thought of adoring fans hanging on our every word. This ego boost is what gets most people over their fear of public speaking. You must, however, wait until your message is finely tuned before you share it with a live audience.
Keynote or Workshop
How do you know whether your message should be a keynote or a workshop? I always look at keynotes as being inspirational. They may encourage you to take action, may even offer you steps to help you TAKE that action. During a keynote, people tend to listen more than write. During a workshop, people take notes. A workshop is a how-to session, teaching people ways to take specific action in a step-by-step presentation. You can use the same material for both.
About Keynotes
The keynote needs to be a trimmed down version of your material. It should encourage your audience to begin the process outlined in your material. It should offer people enough information that they might put your advice to work, even if on a limited basis. For those wanting more information, your keynote should encourage them to purchase your book without sounding like an infomercial. In other words, leave them wanting more!
About Workshops
Your workshop should also leave them wanting more. While it is more detailed than a keynote, you don't need to share EVERYTHING that's in your book. Find helpful ways to point out the additional information that can be found on your blog, podcast & books.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
In my last blog I introduced you to this mystery:
A yacht skipper at anchor in a river on the NE end of Baie de Prony (at SE end of New Caledonia) last Wednesday morning noticed his barometer jump up 3 hPa in an hour and then down in the next hour, and once again. These jumps were superimposed upon the normal semi-diurnal atmospheric tide that the barometer was recording as a series of bumps that look line Sine waves. The STRANGE thing is that nothing happened to the wind or cloud in the area (usually a change of this magnitude is associated with an incoming gale or a nearby squall). Nothing.
Later he found out that another boat anchored 10 miles further south observed much the same thing.
Here is the weather at the time, Black lines are isobars. Shading is the rain, and green lines are swell height. Wind barbs are coloured code for speed. Baie de Prony is in the trade wind belt.
Here is a screen shot of the barometer readings – Diurnal variations show up as the gentle bumps, and I asked you all for an explanation of the strange up-down barometer behavior.
I received two replies :
1) Rich West said if there are power supply inconsistencies or electrical noise, it can cause this. The green line I've drawn might be the normal diurnal variation. Noise would cause part of it to not be recorded at the correct level, thus the spikes. Another clue to this is at the blue arrow. Here, there seems to have been a power interruption. If power is interrupted to the unit, when it's repowered, it picks up at a new level, thus the inconsistency at the blue arrow.
It could be a bad connection to the barometer or it might be RF noise from an HF radio that causes this. I sure see this when I'm messing with my electrical system and interrupt power.
This is worthy of consideration, but in this case we can probably rule it out because another vessel 10 miles away measured the same signal .
The other reply was from Nicolas Remy who observed much the same trace from his anchorage in Noumea:
2) We are moored in Nouméa and following your message I checked our barometer recording, which has the exact same hickups as those mentioned. I include a screenshot of the reading and the raw data (times are UTC, I excluded the 1hr tendency on the graph and the yellow line is temperature, but the sensor is inside the boat and is clearly not normalised).
Around 8 local time, there is a first bump, then returning to normal, and a second peak around 10 local time, with slopes of up to 1 hPa in 10 minutes ! In fact it even has got a dip later on, late in the evening, with pressure dropping 1 hPa in 5 minutes at some point, and then shooting right up again. I notice the picture of your correspondent's barometer has the same dip as well.
Some kind of small mobile ridge ? A shock wave due to something ? The barometer was clearly more bouncy during these 24 hours than before and after…
What made me think about a shock wave was the fact that it took some time for the atmosphere to settle back into a normal behavior, but I'm also unable to account for some other aspects. I thought about a volcanic eruption*, but since there was none known close by, it would need to be quite big, so would be heard of, and furthermore other stations would have recorded the shock wave in the whole of the South Pacific.
Any data from Norfolk Island, or from Vanuatu available ? Has anything been recorded in NZ or Australia ? Now we could also think about a smaller scale event.
I found that the meteorite blast over Russia a year ago or so circled the planet twice and that some waves had periods up to 100 minutes.
What do you think about the idea that a very much smaller meteorite than that could have exploded somewhere over the ocean where no one would have witnessed it ? It could account for the period and amplitude of the wave. However, one thing that does not change : it would have to be recorded elsewhere as well. So readings in the region would be most interesting (Fiji ?)
* The event above occurred on Wednesday 24 Sep so has nothing to do with the Volcanic eruption of Mount Ontake in Japan last weekend.
I like the explanation of it possibly being the shock wave of an (unreported) meteor. So I have searched for some nearby barographs:
For example Noumea Airport data for last week is plotted by Wunderground at
This trace is based on METAR reports that round the pressure DOWN to the nearest hPa, and thus tends to give a jagged step pattern to the barograph. However I think you'll agree we can see the same pattern in the barograph between Tuesday and Wednesday ( dates are UTC , we need to add 11 hours to UTC to get Noumea local time , so late Tuesday UTC= Wednesday morning Noumea time).
Below are the observations from Fiji, with only a slight possible trace of the blip, closer to "Wednesday" so this suggests the phenomenon was best observed to the New Caledonia area.
There was no detectable signal in data from Vila, Brisbane or northern NZ. Below are the observations from Norfolk Island , and yes, they did record a weak signal :
(By the way: One thing I like about this Norfolk Island trace is how the barograph portrays a passing anticyclone, with a slow rise and fall, and also the semi-diurnal atmospheric tide) .
SO data around the region tends to confirm that the shock wave seemed to have a period of around 100 minutes and, around Noumea, an amplitude of around 2 to 3 hPa. This sort of low period atmospheric "wave" is consistent with the shock wave given by an exploding meteor, but in this case we haven't received any reports of the meteor itself.
My compliments to the observers who spotted this. It reminds us all to watch our barographs with always a quizzical brain, like Sherlock Holmes.
Bob McDavitt for MetBob


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02, 2000
This Date's Issues: 4488
Johnson's Russia List
2 September 2000
[Note from David Johnson:
1. Financial Times (UK): Andrew Jack, Kremlin 'exerted pressure'
in Russia elections.
2. Moscow Times EDITORIAL: 'Economics' Is Too Easy An Excuse.
3. The Russia Journal: Vera Kuznetsova, Not what the spin doctor
ordered. The differences between Putin and Yeltsin PR.
4. Reuters: Russia hails U.S. decision to put NMD on hold.
5. Interfax: RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER PREVIEWS RUSSIA'S AGENDA AT
7. AP: Putin Names State Council Members.
8. The Guardian: Ian Traynor, Southern promise brightens Moscow's
darkest summer.
9. The Russia Journal: Andrei Piontkovsky, Who wants to wail?
10. AFP: New director appointed to world-famous Bolshoi theatre.
11. The Times (UK): Alice Lagnado, Impostor musicians sound a sour note.
12. Moscow Times: Ana Uzelac, The Kursk Media Legacy.]
Financial Times (UK)
1 September 2000
Kremlin 'exerted pressure' in Russia elections
By ANDREW JACK
The Russian government exerted undue influence during the country's recent
election campaigns and "cast a dark cloud over the democratic process,"
according to an independent analysis of its most recent campaigns.
Federal, regional and local authorities together with ministries, companies
and military leaders exerted pressure on election commissions, courts,
parties and the mass media, the International Foundation for Election
Systems said in its report on Russia's 1999 parliamentary and 2000
presidential elections.
The report stressed that "solid progress" had been made and that there were
fewer problems than in previous elections, while adding that "there are
many important areas where shortcomings exist and where significant
improvements could be made".
It said there was "much evidence of a manipulation of the levers of state
infrastructure", and highlighted the very strong showing for Vladimir Putin
in the presidential race in regions with "questionable electoral
reputations". These included Ingushetia and Dagestan, which only three
months earlier had granted more votes to the anti-Putin Fatherland-OVR party.
The report said that complex laws governing elections risked uneven
implementation around the country, and recommended the introduction of a
single, simplified electoral code.
It argued that the media should create its own self-regulatory mechanism in
place of the large number of restrictions and regulations which limited
coverage of the campaign.
A proposal that candidates, rather than editors, should be the ones
penalised if there were breaches in the legal allocations of free or paid
time was also included.
The report criticised the unclear definition of "political advertising",
which had led to many journalists being reprimanded for writing anything
other than paraphrases of the statements of candidates and parties.
It called for higher campaign spending limits, which the foundation said
were among the lowest in the world, taking into account the size of the
voting population and the length of the race and even adjusting for gross
domestic product.
Clearer rules on the disclosure of financial contributions to candidates,
and the introduction of a sliding scale of penalties from fines through to
disqualification for false declarations were also proposed.
Moscow Times
September 2, 2000
EDITORIAL: 'Economics' Is Too Easy An Excuse
The fire at the Ostankino television tower "shows the shape of our vital
installations" and underscores the need for "bold economic reform." f
Vladimir Putin speaking Monday at a Cabinet meeting.
President Putin says he sees economic forces behind the tragic television
tower fire, and also behind the sinking of the Kursk submarine.
But what's most interesting about the economics underpinning both of these
catastrophes is that both the tower and the submarine were victims of a
many-year drought of public investment into public goods. Would President
Putin, then, advocate a national program of public investments f a la
Franklin D. Roosevelt? (Or, if you prefer, a la Yury Luzhkov?) If so, he
would have to look beyond the so-called German Gref program, which offers no
such thing.
Many would shrug at such talk (and bridle at anything smacking of praise for
the mayor of a truly corrupt City Hall) and counter there is no money for
public investment.
True enough, there isn't.
After all, look at St. Petersburg f where the Sobchak-Putin administration
decided, in its final days in power, to take out massive short-term loans
from commercial banks to help fund Mayor Anatoly Sobchak's failed bid for
re-election (Putin was his campaign chief).
By election day, June 1996, St. Petersburg had debts of 3.5 trillion rubles
(then about $580 million) f including 1.5 trillion in high-interest 90-day
"In June, July, August, September and October, if you had taken all of the
city's income and spent it on nothing but paying off these due debts f not on
health, not on schools, just on the debts f then it still would not have been
enough," said Igor Artyemev, Yabloko's top man in St. Petersburg, in an
interview this winter.
As financial chief of the post-Sobchak administration, Artyemev had to clean
up the mess. He remembers cornering key figures in the Sobchak City Hall (he
did not say who) to vent his indignation:
"I asked them: 'What were you thinking?!' They said, 'We'd have prolonged the
credit.' 'But at what cost?' I asked."
Nationally, the Boris Yeltsin election was simply the St. Petersburg practice
writ large. There were enormous German commercial loans brokered by "friend
Helmut," there were strange Xerox paper boxes filled with dollars floating
about the grounds of the Russian White House ţ and through it all, Ostankino
and the Kursk and a million other key objects of infrastructure aged in
neglect. So if the Yeltsin-Putin crowd wants to see the "economic forces"
behind these tragedies, it has only to look into a mirror.
The Russia Journal
September 2-8, 2000
Not what the spin doctor ordered
The differences between Putin and Yeltsin PR
By VERA KUZNETSOVA
Kremlin public-relations team withers under new president.
Under Boris Yeltsin, the Kremlin lacked a strong president, but now
Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir Putin, has taken on that dynamic role. And no
matter what his detractors say, his rating is still fairly high.
Yeltsin's Russia saw a Kremlin that was unable to adequately consolidate
the country's political forces. Now, political consolidation around Putin
has gone so far as to look indecent from the point of view of classical
democracy, and it has become hard to see any opposition on the political
Under Yeltsin, the country was shaken by economic crises. But with Putin's
arrival, the situation has smoothed out, even pensions are being raised and
an effort is being made to pay budget-sector workers' wages on time.
With Yeltsin in charge, the country lived with the threat of revolution.
But no one overthrew the tsar, because his PR kept things running. In fact,
it was this PR machine that took an inexperienced politician, Putin, and
pushed him all the way to the presidency.
These days, PR is virtually nonexistent in the Kremlin. That's just the way
things have turned out. Well-known PR people like Sergei Zverev (now of
Vladimir Gusinsky's MOST group), Igor Malashenko (MOST) and Igor
Shabdurasulov (adviser to Boris Berezovsky) have all left the Kremlin.
The new, young information people in the Kremlin haven't got the necessary
experience yet. PR specialist Gleb Pavlovsky drops by now and then to give
a word of advice to Putin or to Presidential Administration head Alexander
Voloshin, but not on a regular basis.
Inside the Kremlin, PR expert and deputy head of the administration
Vladislav Surkov has stopped working on the president's image. He is busy
now with bigger things such as managing the State Duma lower house of
parliament and Federation Council upper house. Surkov now has under his
heel the country's legislative branch and practically all the oligarchs,
who not so long before had tried to take Putin by storm at their
roundtable. But Surkov didn't let it happen.
So it was that Putin ended up protected on all flanks political,
administrative and economic but was left completely exposed to public
opinion. The Kremlin admits as much, too. The problem is that with
Yeltsin's departure, top Kremlin officials began to show a far more casual
attitude to PR or related things like etiquette and norms of social behavior.
The logic seems to be that previously, PR was essential because it had to
cover for an ailing president. But younger, healthier Putin doesn't need
any cover, and the public will take him as he is.
So it is that Putin, trailing all the baggage of his background, finds
himself facing the public day in, day out. In Sochi, while disaster hit a
sub in the Barents Sea, Putin was unable to come up with the most basic
"I'm cutting short my holiday." And when the Ostankino TV tower burned,
Putin's way of calming the people was to say "our whole country's in this
state" i.e., everything is about to fall apart.
It's no easy task getting it through to Putin that there are some rituals
in life that politicians and ordinary citizens alike sometimes have to
follow, just as one is sometimes expected to attend weddings and funerals.
It's not that he doesn't listen, just that he has a strong personality and
a mentality similar to that of military men, which is somewhat cold and
devoid of political instinct.
This is the biggest difference between Putin and Yeltsin, who used his
strong instincts to drag his way out of the most rotten-looking political
crises. Observers say that so far, Putin has been sent a series of signs
that public opinion will stay patient only so long.
The first such sign came with the arrest of Radio Liberty journalist Andrei
Babitsky, the second was the arrest of Media-MOST head Vladimir Gusinsky
and the third was the tragic loss of the Kursk submarine.
Putin's inappropriate reactions have made both the political elite and
ordinary citizens wary. Of course, the Kremlin can continue to try not to
pay much attention. The problem is that the growing irritation visible in
both Putin and Voloshin and among their team could become a boomerang that
comes back in their faces in the form of opposition public opinion.
(Vera Kuznetsova is a member of the governmental and presidential press
pools and a long-time observer of the Russian political scene.)
Russia hails U.S. decision to put NMD on hold
By Oleg Shchedrov
MOSCOW, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed a
decision by U.S. President Bill Clinton to delay development of a national
missile defence system, the Kremlin said in a statement received by Reuters
on Saturday.
``U.S. President B. Clinton's decision not to take obligations to deploy the
system of national anti-missile defence is seen in Russia as a well-thought
and responsible step,'' the statement quoted Putin as saying.
``There is no doubt this step will lead to strengthening strategic stability
and security in the whole world, and will strengthen the authority of the
United States in the eyes of the international community,'' Putin said.
Clinton, speaking at Georgetown University on Friday, effectively left to his
successor a decision on the system, which is vehemently opposed by both
Russia and China, saying more time is needed for testing. Clinton leaves
office in January.
Russia strongly opposes U.S. plans to deploy a national missile defence
system (NMD) aimed at protecting the country from a possible threat posed by
what it has dubbed ``rogue states'' like Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Russia says the NMD would breach the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile
(ABM) treaty, which limits such systems and is seen in Moscow as a keystone
for all subsequent nuclear disarmament deals.
Russia rejects U.S. proposals to amend the ABM treaty and has threatened to
reconsider its obligations under other disarmament deals if Washington goes
ahead with the system.
But earlier this year Putin said he understood U.S. concerns about potential
new nuclear threats and proposed setting up an international non-strategic
system to deal with them. Putin's proposals have so far failed to impress
Russian media, which commented on Clinton's statement with apparent relief,
said that Putin's staunch opposition and the concern of NATO countries played
an important role in prompting Washington to delay the decision on NMD.
``The turn of the events may be described as Russia's major foreign policy
success,'' Kommersant daily newspaper wrote.
``Although Russia has neither power, nor resources to resume confrontation
with the United States, Moscow has managed to persuade Western Europe that
such a scenario was possible,'' it said referring to Moscow's threats.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on Saturday that Russia
persisted in its opposition to any changes in the ABM treaty, and would press
ahead with its own initiative.
The ministry said ways of maintaining strategic stability would be high on
the agenda of Putin's visit to Japan starting on Sunday, and of his talks
with Clinton on the fringes of the U.N. Millennium Summit in New York next
In Washington, White House National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said on
Friday he felt it was still possible to reach an agreement with Russia to
amend the ABM treaty despite Russian opposition.
``I do not believe that we have yet exhausted the possibilities for reaching
such an agreement,'' Berger said.
Moscow, 1st September: Russia will defend the idea of a fair, democratic
world order in which it occupies a worthy place at the upcoming United
Nations Millennium Summit in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
has said.
"Russia is going to the United Nations Millennium Summit with a
considerable load of ideas calling for the formation of a fair, democratic
world order in which Russia occupies a worthy, authoritative place," Ivanov
said on Friday [1st September] addressing the students and faculty of the
International State Institute for Foreign Relations in Moscow.
"The international community has turned out to be poorly prepared for new
challenges such as terrorism," Ivanov said. Special attention will be given
to these new challenges at the September UN Millennium Summit in New York,
he noted.
Speaking about Russia's foreign policy, Ivanov said that today it "is
entering a new stage" connected to the democratic reforms in the country.
"The developmental stage of Russia's modern foreign policy has for the most
part been completed," Ivanov said.
The essence of the new Russian foreign policy concept approved by President
Vladimir Putin this summer is that "foreign policy must be more
specifically oriented towards the realization of the country's national
interests," he said.
Russia's national interests on the international arena "will be defended
consistently, and when necessary, cruelly," Ivanov said, adding that "such
an approach has nothing to do with confrontation".
No matter what problems Russia may have in its relations with other
countries, "Russia's foreign policy will be based on an aspiration for
partnership and the search for mutually acceptable solutions", he said.
Russia's new foreign policy concept presupposes "rejection of the global
presence ideology," the foreign minister pointed out. "We will weigh all
the pros and cons when considering whether to join various global
projects," he said.
"The degree to which Russia is involved in such projects will depend on the
concrete benefit to our domestic priorities," he said.
At the same time, "this does not mean that Russia's foreign policy will
become more narrow", Ivanov said. "Russia will pursue an active,
multivector policy on the international arena," he said.
Source: Russia TV, Moscow, in Russian 0700 gmt 1 Sep 00
Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1st September visited a village school
in Samara Region to congratulate its teachers and pupils on the start of
the school year. He said that village schools accounted for the majority of
primary and secondary education establishments in the country. Putin also
promised that village schools would be provided with computers. The
following are excerpts from report by Russia TV, shown on 1st September:
[Presenter Anastasiya Melnikova] Many Russian politicians today
congratulated school teachers and their pupils on the festive event [the
start of the school year].
For example, [President] Vladimir Putin already visited a village school in
Samara Region. We will learn the details of this trip in a live linkup with
our correspondent, Andrey Ruminates, who is in Samara Region.
Hello, Andrey. Please tell us about the start of this happy day in Samara
[Correspondent] Hello, Anastasiya. I would like to start by saying that it
took a lot of time to select a school for Vladimir Putin to visit on the
occasion of the day of 1st September. The first suggestion was that he
visit a school in Samara itself, the capital of the Region. Schools on the
outskirts of the city were also suggested. We have information that four
schools underwent repairs for Putin's visit.
However, quite unexpectedly, on the day when Vladimir Putin arrived in
Samara, it turned out that he had chosen an ordinary rural school, the one
in the village Kuzkino. This is where we are at the moment. The president
himself left the village about 40 minutes ago.
I would like to tell you about the events. Vladimir Putin arrived at 0900
Moscow time [0500 gmt]. There were not many bodyguards. The main point is
that there was nothing ostentatious about the event itself.
The only special thing was that a new fence was erected around the school.
As for the rest, things happened as they usually happen in an ordinary
village school.
Vladimir Putin came to the front entrance. He made a brief but interesting
speech. He said that two-thirds of all schools in Russia were village
schools and this was why he decided to visit one of them.
After this, Vladimir Putin was literally overloaded with gifts of flowers.
He then went inside. In total, there are 85 school pupils in Kuzkino. Only
four children are starting primary school this year. A special lesson was
arranged for Vladimir Putin to attend - for both the first and the second
school grade [pupils], so that there were more people in the room.
After Vladimir Putin had his photograph taken together with the pupils, he
went outside. We would like to show you what the president spoke about when
visiting this ordinary secondary school...
[Putin] Our village schools - all across the country - need only 40,000
computers. Even given Russia's many other problems, this is a manageable
task. Before coming here, we held consultations with the leadership of our
country's government and decided that no less than R1bn would be allocated
for this programme and that the problem should be resolved this year, in
cooperation with the regions' leadership.
Every second computer will be bought at the expense of the federal budget,
at the expense of the Russian government.
[Correspondent] Naturally, after saying this, Vladimir Putin congratulated
the school teachers, the pupils and everyone who gathered near the village
school on the day of knowledge [marked on 1st September] and wished them
academic achievements.
He then went to where we are standing now. One hour ago, there were many
people here - several dozen people, most of them elderly people. They all
wanted to talk to the president. The president did approach them.
A rather interesting incident took place. One woman shouted out an
invitation to Vladimir Putin. She invited him to taste her home-cooked
mushrooms. The thing is that on his way here Putin spoke with Samara Region
governor Konstantin Titov and asked him if this was a good year for
It turned out this is a good year for mushrooms. The woman just invited
Putin to come to her house and try them. She did have everything ready for
the visit. There were pickled and fried mushrooms on the table. Vladimir
Putin did try everything. He was even offered the usual drink, to mark the
festive occasion. However, by that moment, the film crew was no longer
Putin then left the house and gave the women a warm embrace. He then left
the village. This is what this day was like for Vladimir Putin...
Putin Names State Council Members
September 2, 2000
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin on Saturday appointed the presidium
of the newly created State Council, an advisory body that will give regional
leaders a voice in the Kremlin after they lose their seats in parliament.
Putin named seven regional leaders from around Russia to the State Council's
presidium, including Mintimer Shaimiyev, president of the republic of
Tatarstan and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
The council, to be chaired by Putin, will discuss the budget and government
relations, but its functions are vague. The body won't be able to pass laws
and some regional leaders have said it will achieve little.
In July, Putin won parliamentary approval to remove the regional leaders from
the Federation Council, or upper house, and replace them with appointed
legislators by early 2002.
The move was seen as part of Putin's plan to strengthen central authority in
Russia and scale back the widespread autonomy regional leaders gained under
former President Boris Yeltsin.
The Guardian
September 2, 2000
Southern promise brightens Moscow's darkest summer
By Ian Traynor in Moscow
Moscow's annual melon invasion is in full swing. In shades of green and
orange, white and yellow, the fruits of central Asia have migrated north for
a few brief weeks, colonising streets and parks, occupying markets, taking
over railway stations, and brightening the dark days of Russia's black
The invaders are a bewilderingly disparate bunch. Honeydew and cantaloupe,
galia and whopping great watermelons, plus many more that have never seen the
inside of a Sainsbury's. They range from grapefruit-size to the formidable
15lb marvels shaped like ballooning rugby balls.
The latter are perfection - crisp, sweet, perfumed water, though a prize
specimen might set you back Ł7, more than a day's wages for many.
They arrive by the lorryload. The hawkers set up giant cages to confine the
big balloons and dole them out by the kilo.
Isaac Babel raved about the melons in his stories of childhood in
fin-de-sičcle Odessa. Saparmurad Niyazov, the eternal president of
Turkmenistan, has just declared a new national holiday in tribute to an
export that keeps his clan in clover. From now on, Turkmens are best advised
to celebrate national melon day.
The invasion is a happy hangover from the days of empire when all Soviet
roads led to Moscow for the finest fruits of the 15 republics.
What the melon has in common with most other things which make life in this
ramshackle, dirty metropolis more bearable - sturgeon kebabs, Azerbaijani
apricots, Rima the landlady - is that it has come up to the northern city
from the south.
Take the south out of Moscow and you're stuck with a city that is a drab
dullard. Thanks to the input from the roughly 2m Armenians, Georgians,
Chechens , Tajiks, and scores of others, the dullness is kept at bay.
Not that the Moscow authorities see it that way. The police are endemically
racist towards the southerners. City hall imposes stringent registration
procedures for Moscow residence rights, regularly deporting "undesirables"
who are rarely ethnic Russians but almost invariably Russian citizens.
Rima, a raven-haired Armenian, has lived in the city since childhood. She's
middle-aged, middle-class, a self-assured businesswoman of precisely the type
that Russia needs. Last week she was hauled off a train by the police on some
bureaucratic pretext and escorted under protest to the station.
"I don't like blacks," the officer hissed at her. "You're in the wrong job
then, aren't you," Rima spat back.
Just another routine case of racism. The Chechen war and the recent bomb in
Moscow give the authorities apparent carte blanche to harass and take bribes
from the southerners.
Without them, the retail trade, markets and the catering business would
collapse. To wander around the fruit and vegetable markets is to witness a
clash of cultures pitting northern matriarchy against southern macho.
With few exceptions, the Russian country women (always women) selling fruit
and vegetables offer the tedious European diet of insipid Dutch tomatoes,
Israeli avocados and Spanish oranges. Some proper local mushrooms or
raspberries might break the monotony. The prices are fixed. The sales pitch
is a take-it-or-leave-it shrug.
By contrast, the Georgian and Armenian men (always men) in the market offer a
riot of plants and potions from fresh pomegranate juice to serrated red
leaves they call basil but which taste like aniseed. Then there are the big
gnarled scarlet tomatoes to put the Dutch ones to shame. "Uzbek", the men
whisper with a conspiratorial wink as though tomatoes are their best-kept
To get to these goodies you have to run a gauntlet of jousting, strutting
males and waste more time than you would like in haggling over the price.
It's an obligatory ritual, but a contest you can never win.
They say there are half a million illegal southerners in Moscow, as well as
half of Yerevan and half of Tbilisi. The melons won't be here for long, but
mercifully the others are here to stay.
The Russia Journal
September 2-8, 2000
SEASON OF DISCONTENT: Who wants to wail?
By Andrei Piontkovski
Kursk tragedy gave Putin chance to play father and savior.
Boris Berezovsky once said that if he wanted, he could get a monkey elected
president of Russia he has the money and he has the PR resources. Well,
he should know. But let's take a look at just who the Berezovskys,
Abramovichs, Yumashevs and Dyachenkos elected with their money and
resources on March 26, 2000.
The tragic sinking of the Kursk has opened the eyes of many whose
perception had been dulled by the Kremlin's propaganda machine, which took
a retired lieutenant-colonel and fashioned him into the Father of the
Nation and Savior of the Fatherland. During these days of disaster, the
president was able to play precisely this role that of Father and Savior
to the full.
"If he had come to us without his guards, we would have torn him to
pieces," mothers and widows of the dead sailors shouted at the cameras. But
that would have been in vain, for they would have only been sent a
replacement instead, just as much elected by the people as the last.
Vladimir Putin is neither hero nor villain, he is an ordinary bureaucratic
mediocrity who suffers from the inherited birth defect common to power in
Russia moral idiocy. And this can't be cured by hanging a cross
"sanctified in Palestine" around one's neck.
"Power is as repulsive as a barber's hands." It's been a long time since it
has been as repulsive as over recent days. On the fourth day after disaster
struck, when the last sounds made by survivors fell silent, a couple of
dozen self-important men in short-sleeved shirts burped in smiling
satisfaction after a hearty meal at a Black Sea resort and jostled each
other before the cameras, trying to get closer to the man Himself. Himself
solemnly informed of how effectively the rescue operation was being carried
out and how the Navy placed under his command had the most modern rescue
equipment in the world. Most likely, he already knew by then that all the
sailors had died.
Only after facing what, for them, was an unexpected explosion of public
outrage, the overfed mug designers and political PR big shots belatedly
realized that something was wrong with their most august client's precious
image. And they suddenly stopped their bootlicking gushing over the
sporting achievements of the commander in chief "Putin spent two days
learning new sports: water-skiing and water-motorcycling. He launched off
straight into third gear, giving the Black Sea fish a fright and obliging
his guards to race after him."
Instead, they pulled masks of mourning over their own and their client's
faces, brought in some priests and icons, and for some reason suddenly
remembered the oligarchs with their Mediterranean villas. (The same
oligarchs, incidentally, who at those same villas, reached an agreement
last summer to bring Putin to power).
But it was too late. The disaster of Khodynka, where 1,200 died in a
stampede at Tsar Nicholas II's coronation, did not blacken the tsar's
entire reign, it was the fact that no one cancelled the ball held the
evening after Khodynka.
Someone among the Pavlovskys and kin is no doubt proud of the words "I want
to wail," placed with success in the president's mouth and uttered by him
with well-rehearsed expressiveness.
But why did he not wail while frightening Black Sea fish with his
motorcycle as the submariners slowly died of suffocation? Why did he not
wail as thousands of civilians Chechens and Russians, old people, women
and children died under a hail of artillery fire? Why does he not wail
when every week, hundreds of his soldiers are killed and wounded in a war
begun to get him elected?
Or did he really feel like wailing only when he felt for the first time a
threat to his rating and launched into primitive and indecent attacks on
the press, baring his professional instincts?
Indeed, it's enough to want to wail looking at the hopelessness and
helplessness of a society run by cruel and inhuman, lying and cowardly,
greedy and incompetent leaders who take Russia from disaster to disaster.
(Andrei Piontkovsky is director of the Center of Strategic Research.)
New director appointed to world-famous Bolshoi theatre
MOSCOW, Sept 2 (AFP) -
Russia's world-famous Bolshoi theatre, struggling to maintain its prestige,
got a new director Saturday after a dramatic week in which the previous
incumbent had been sacked "Soviet-style" by presidential decree.
Anatoly Iksanov, head of the Kultura television channel and formerly in
charge of the Grand Theatre in St Petersburg, will replace the ousted
Vladimir Vasilyev, Russian deputy prime minister Valentina Matvienko was
quoted as saying by Interfax.
She made the announcement during a meeting of the Bolshoi theatre committee
held at the landmark opera house in Moscow's Teatralnaya Square.
The theatre, which opened in 1780, houses the famed Bolshoi ballet troupe and
an opera company but has struggled to achieve artistic and commercial success
in recent years.
In contrast, Valery Gergiyev, the dynamic 47-year-old artistic director of St
Petersburg's Mariinsky theatre, also known as the Kirov, has won accolades
worldwide for his innovative productions.
Iksanov had "an impeccable reputation in the theatre world," Culture Minister
Mikhail Shvydkoi was quoted as saying by Interfax.
But he was also the right person for the Bolshoi post because he had "a lot
of experience working as a director of a theatre that has experienced
financial problems."
Earlier this week the daily Kommersant newspaper criticised the sacking of
Vasilyev which, it said, was performed "in the best traditions of the secret
Shvydkoi has promised the culture ministry, to which the decree entrusted
future responsibility for the Bolshoi, will not oversee the Bolshoi Theater
"in the Soviet sense of the word."
Matvienko also announced Saturday the appointment of conductor Gennady
Rozhdestvensky as the Bolshoi's artistic director, and Alexander Voroshilo as
assistant general director.
On August 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree sacking
Vasilyev, 60, a former Bolshoi star who had held the high-profile post for
five years. The decree also fired executive director Vladimir Kokonin.
In addition to its widely-publicised travails at board-room level, the
Bolshoi is in the middle of an ambitious redevelopment programme.
Construction of the opera house's new wing should be completed by January 1,
2002, while in the summer of 2002 the wholesale reconstruction of the main
building is planned to start.
The Times (UK)
2 September 2000
Impostor musicians sound a sour note
A GROUP of unemployed Russian musicians masqueraded as the Moscow
Philharmonic Orchestra when they toured Hong Kong, it was revealed yesterday.
An orchestra calling itself the Moscow Philharmonic played in Hong Kong
between August 7 and 13. Thousands of people paid up to $31 each (Ł19) to see
what was in fact a collection of out-of-work musicians and players
moonlighting from other orchestras.
The scandal provoked outrage within Moscow's musical elite, one of the last
bastions of the Russian intelligentsia, which is split into those who want to
sell music like any other product and those dedicated to their art.
Dmitri Yablonsky, principal guest conductor with the real Moscow
Philharmonic, said: "It is a huge scandal, very upsetting." He said that
those responsible knew exactly what they were doing.
Aleksandr Mashkovich, the director of the Moscow Philharmonic, one of
Russia's top five orchestras, was disappointed but not surprised. He told The
Times: "We suffer from this both in a creative and material sense. We cannot
go to Hong Kong for the next two years. In the creative sense they play very
badly. This is very simple to organise. You can register an orchestra, call
it the Outer Space orchestra, the Galactic Orchestra, whatever. You find some
musicians - there are plenty looking for a job in Moscow - do one tour or CD
and close down again."
Mr Mashkovich, 51, said that "fake" orchestras were a growing problem in
Russia where musicians get an average of just Ł240 for an 11-day tour -
playing every night - and so are desperate to go on any extra tours they can.
State orchestras are funded by a government budget that allocates only 0.5
per cent to the arts.
Posters advertising the phoney orchestras are a giveaway to Russian
musicians, but hard to spot for the casual concert-goer. "In one country I
saw a poster advertising a White Army folk troupe with soloists from the
Bolshoi Theatre. That's hilarious to any Russian who has an idea about these
things," he said. Mr Mashkovich said that he was not sure whether the
orchestra would sue, but that he intended to write to the Hong Kong Cultural
Centre, where the concert was held, to complain.
"We will be morally satisfied if the press reveals what really happened, so
we can keep our honest name. It will be a good lesson for others who want to
do the same," he said.
He did not condemn the musicians who moonlighted from his orchestra to join
the fake performers, as they receive wages so small that they struggle to eat
on tours abroad. Last November another Russian orchestra, the National
Philharmonic, was forced to play Brahms outside a McDonald's restaurant in
London because their meagre funds had run out. The 86 musicians were living
on bread and cheese and living ten to a room in hostels. London businesses
took pity on the musicians and paid their travel bills for the rest of the
Despite difficulties that make the much-bemoaned life of London orchestras
look positively luxurious, Russia has a reputation for rigorous classical
training and still turns out musical stars such as Mikhail Pletnev, the
pianist, and Maxim Vengerov, the violinist, who now commands fees of Ł14,000
for a London appearance. He played with the English Chamber Orchestra in the
current BBC Proms season to rave reviews.
Two years ago the New Names charity, based in Moscow, introduced gifted young
Russians to a stunned Barbican audience left wondering why Britain is unable
to produce so many geniuses. The only comfort for Russian musicians who are
struggling to make ends meet are the enormously appreciative audiences in
their home country.
Concerts are attended by everyone from small children to teenagers. Russians
will queue long for tickets and demand encore after encore.
Moscow Times
September 2, 2000
The Kursk Media Legacy
By Ana Uzelac
Staff Writer
More than a Russian military disaster, the sinking of the Kursk nuclear
submarine last month was all the nation could talk about for 10 horrible
days. An angry and anguished nation spoke out, blasting its government and
military brass, while the media raced to record often conflicting reports of
the tragic events. Ana Uzelac examined the 10 extraordinary days of the Kursk
media coverage, from the moment the sinking of the sub was first made public,
to the president's meeting with the grieving relatives of the 118 sailors
lostat sea.
It is a picture Russia will remember for a long time to come. After days of
unsuccessful rescue efforts, the hand of a Norwegian deep-sea diver opened
the emergency hatch on the sunken Kursk nuclear submarine, discovering
nothing but water.
Minutes later, a familiar face filled screens all over the country. After
days of hourly reports from the disaster zone, RTR's Arkady Mamontov broke
the bad news to a nation glued to their television sets: The path to the
sub's escape hatch was flooded and so, more than likely, was the rest of the
submarine. All hope that any of the lives of the 118 men aboard could be
saved was gone.
It seemed only natural that the news should come from Mamontov. He, after
all, had been the one standing on the deck of the navy's Peter the Great all
week, offering television viewers unprecedented live coverage from the
Barents Sea of the biggest Russian military disaster in the last decade.
It was an amazing picture: a television crew on board a military cruiser, its
cameras pointed toward the ships of the Northern Fleet, its correspondent
reporting live. For a few moments it seemed as if freedom of the press had
reached Russian waters f if not its shores.
But on dry land, everything was different. For hundreds of Mamontov's
colleagues, covering the Kursk tragedy boiled down to evading hostile
military checkpoints and dragging out bits and pieces of information from the
Northern Fleet's reticent press service. The only thing that united Mamontov
and his less-privileged colleagues was the mishmash of lies, evasions and
half-truths issued by officials who were overwhelmed by a crisis beyond their
The list of falsehoods grew longer with every passing day. It started on
Monday, Aug. 14, when the navy reported the disaster occurred a day later
than it really had. Officials said at first they had been in radio contact
with the crew and then changed the story to say the crew had been heard
tapping on the submarine's hull. Later still, they admitted contact had been
lost from the very start. Even President Vladimir Putin tried to convince the
sailors' distraught relatives that Russia had accepted foreign offers to help
rescue the ship at least 24 hours earlier than it actually had.
"They [state officials] were lying, deceiving and hushing-up just like they
did in Soviet times," said Oleg Panfilov, head of the Moscow-based media
watchdog the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. "What made it
absurd is the fact that everything around them has changed. The country is
different and so is its media."
Indeed, the central newspapers that are so bitterly divided over many
political and economic issues suddenly found a united voice. They all
demanded answers from the military and political leadership to the same
questions: Why weren't offers of foreign help accepted immediately? Why was
the navy unequipped to conduct the rescue operation? And why did the
president choose to stay on vacation in Sochi instead of taking charge of the
rescue mission?
In a banner headline above a picture of Putin in a navy cap, the usually
pro-Kremlin Izvestia daily wrote: "False information about the tragedy of the
Kursk is Sinking the Military's Reputation," and that story warned that "The
Admiral's Helplessness is Suffocating the Kursk Crew."
The twice-weekly Novaya Gazeta published the same photo with another bitter
headline: "Putin, it turns out, was overboard on the days of our national
tragedy." And Moskovsky Komsomolets published three photos, one of a tanned
Putin in Sochi, another of Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev playing billiards
and one of Vladimir Korayedov with the caption: "They don't sink."
"Reading [the papers], I had a feeling I was back in the early '90s," said
Panfilov. "The press was criticizing the government openly and without fear.
After years of bowing to different political interest groups, they remembered
they still knew how to be free."
The papers published everything they could lay their hands on f analyses,
pictures of submarines, comments from retired naval officers, portraits of
the sailors' families and acerbic editorials scorning both the military and
the president. But the greatest coup within the press corps came in the form
of a simple list. On the fifth day of the tragedy, Komsomolskaya Pravda
printed the names of the 118 sailors trapped inside the submarine, explaining
that the paper had bought the list from a naval officer for 18,000 rubles
"From the very first day, we tried to get hold of the list of sailors on
board. If a ship sinks, we should know who is on it. And they wouldn't even
phone the families and tell them their relatives were there," said Igor Kots,
Komsomolskaya Pravda's deputy editor. "They simply refused to give out the
information. So we stopped asking questions and filing requests and did what
you do in this country f we bought it for 18,000 rubles."
For days to come, this list was the only source of information for the
relatives of the sailors on board. "In Russia, everything is upside down,"
Kots said. "Instead of being informed by the government in the first hours
after the disaster, the relatives had to find out their close ones were on
the ship days later and from the media."
What Komsomolskaya Pravda did was "heroic," said Panfilov. "It said more
about this country than all the other reports together."
But it was largely the print media, which has much less influence than
broadcasters, that acted so "heroically."
"Only television has the power to convey or influence public opinion in
Russia," said Panfilov. "They were the ones put on a real test."
And according to Alexei Pankin, editor of the Sreda monthly, which reports on
the media, none of Russia's three main television stations f state controlled
RTR, public television ORT and the commercial channel NTV f passed this test.
"None of them spoke with the public interest in mind," he said. "They didn't
try to open a public discussion on the key issues. As always, they tried to
achieve their own goals f that is to say the goals of their owners. And this
was also the case with the Kursk. For the majority, this was an attempt to
take their revenge on Putin, who had offended them before.
"This is the wrong way to serve the public interest," Pankin added. "It's
cynical when the media accuse the military while they are is a part of the
problem. They don't pay taxes, so the state has no money to maintain the
infrastructure. And they don't send their sons to the army, so there are less
and less educated, intelligent soldiers who would prevent mistakes from being
Panfilov agreed in part with this assessment, but said there was a slight
difference. For RTR and ORT, the public interest came third after their own
corporate interests and those of the state. For NTV, he says, it came second
f after their corporate interests but before the state's.
"You could say that NTV was still closer to their public than any other
television station," Panfilov said. "Only there you could hear both the
official point of view and the criticism."
Indeed, NTV did have some corporate motives in mind while they were covering
the Kursk tragedy. More than once, they reminded viewers that government
officials refused to give them access to vital information. "It was the most
difficult posting in my whole carrier," said NTV's seasoned war reporter
Yevgeny Kirichenko of his seven days in Murmansk. "We were banging our heads
against the wall all the time."
"We were allowed only four to five hours a day recording sessions in Vidyaevo
[where the officers' families lived]," he said. "My crew was officially
accredited and accompanied by the lower-ranking naval officers, but we were
still constantly stopped at every corner, our accreditation checked and
rechecked millions of times."
On the day the president visited Vidyayevo and met with the sailors'
families, the NTV crew was barred from entering the base without any
explanation. "We had all our papers in order and nobody even questioned their
validi ty. The soldier at the checkpoint at the entrance to the base simply
said f 'Today I have orders not to let you through.' And that was it,"
Kirichenko said.
As a result, RTR's camera crew not only had exclusive access to report from
the rescue scene, but also was the only crew allowed to shoot Putin's meeting
with the families of the sailors killed in the accident. The footage of the
meeting shown on RTR lasted only a few minutes and gave the picture of a
tense, but basically friendly meeting between distraught families and a
consoling president. This was quite a different picture from what actually
took place, according to transcripts published later by Andrei Kolesnikov in
the Kommersant-Vlast weekly. This excerpt shows the atmosphere was heated,
with relatives shouting and demanding to know why foreign help was not
accepted immediately, when the bodies will be recovered, and why the
president waited so long to come and talk to them.
But a technical glitch on the part of RTR helped outside journalists see the
censorship process in action. Since the station did not have a satellite
transmitter in Vidyayevo to feed material back to Moscow, the RTR crew had to
employ the help of their German colleagues from RTL television. That crew got
a glimpse of what happened in the meeting and what was shown on television.
"There was practically no press in the hall where the meeting took place,"
explained RTL Moscow bureau chief Christoph Sagurna and his colleague
Cristoph Wanner of the Deuitsche Welle radio.
"The only camera that was there belonged to RTR. At the same time, the head
of the state broadcasting company, Oleg Dobrodeyev, was personally sitting in
the RTL transmission van, controlling every frame that was sent to Moscow,"
the German correspondents said.
"He was sitting in our van looking for the pictures where the atmosphere was
more or less calm," Sagurna said. Earlier, he told NTV they had witnessed
moments of agitation among the relatives on the tapes Dobrodeyev was
But RTR's Mamontov, who was also present at the meeting, denies that the
coverage of the meeting and his live reporting from the navy ship were
censored. "It's nonsense! There was no censorship on the boat. It was live
coverage f everything that was said into the camera was immediately
transmitted. And I never got orders not to ask tricky questions," he said,
adding that the meeting between the sailors' families and the president was
accurately represented by his station.
And although Dobrodeyev has denied repeatedly that he struck a deal for
exclusive footage with the presidential administration and the military
concerning the contents of the Kursk coverage, media watchers are more
"Mamontov was alone there. He was given information by officers whose only
task was to hide the truth," Panfilov summed up. "He was simply channeling
the state-controlled information. The only exclusive right he got was to show
the surface of the Barents Sea from different angles."
For Kommersant's Kolesnikov, who has co-authored a book about Putin, the
behavior of the state officials came as no surprise.
"They made news pools the Russian way," he said. "RTR was the only station
that made a deal with the government. The others refused to do it, so they
were not allowed on the ship."
As for the other major networks, their critical approach to covering the
crisis inspired the ire of Putin. Disregarding the idea the press might have
been working in the public's interest, the president accused them of
political blackmail. He also accused their owners of "destroying the country
and the army" by tax evasion.
"The pattern of their work and their logic is simple," Putin explained to the
relatives of the dead soldiers during their meeting in Vidyayevo, using a
vocabulary disturbingly like the one his ex-colleagues from the KGB used
throughout the Communist regime. "They want to influence the masses and show
the army and the political leadership of the country that we need them, that
they had us hooked, that we should be afraid of them, that we should listen
to them and let them plunder the country, the army and the fleet. That is
their real aim.
"Unfortunately we cannot order them to stop," the president complained.
"Although that would be the right thing to do."
Russian public opinion does not seem to share the bitterness of
media-watchers or that of the president. According to the latest opinion poll
conducted by the All-Russia Center for Public Opinion Research, or VTsIOM, 53
percent of population thinks the media "played a positive role" during the
Kursk crisis. However, this does not necessarily reflect poorly on the
president. As many as 40 percent believe Putin also played a positive role,
in spite of the fact that he was harshly criticized for remaining on vacation
after the submarine sank.
"It would have been even less had he not gone to Vidyayevo to see the
relatives," VTsIOM director Yury Levada said. "As it was, he softened them up
a bit."
Levada believes that the public's approval of the media is very well
grounded. "They don't praise them for nothing," he smiles. "They did very
good work that can have some important consequences."
The most immediate of these, Levada said, was forcing the government to
accept offers of foreign aid to rescue the sub. Later, they were pressed into
recovering the bodies. "The atmosphere the media created forced the
government to invite foreign help [to recover the bodies]. That surely
wouldn't have happened without them," Levada said.
But whether or not the media's outcry during the Kursk disaster has a longer
lasting effect is of some debate among experts. Levada believes that it will
have a positive, long-term effect. "The media caught state officials in quite
a few lies and that's very useful. They reminded the people that they
shouldn't trust the government blindly. And they've been trusting it in the
past year far more than is healthy."
But other media-experts and journalists fear another consequence of the
openly critical Kursk coverage. "I'm expecting only further pressure against
a media that dares to criticize the government," said Panfilov. "Putin truly
believes that it was the press that complicated matters with Kursk f it made
too much noise, put him in an unpleasant situation, spoiled his image. So he
will take his revenge."
Almost as if in grim confirmation of Panfilov's words, one week after the
Kursk tragedy the tax police visited the offices of Ekho Moskvy radio
station, which belongs to the same media group as NTV and is often very
critical of the government.
Kommersant's Kolesnikov, who was one of the few journalists attending Putin's
meeting with the sailors' relatives, agreed with Panfilov. "I saw Putin after
the meeting in Vidyayevo, and he was furious," said Kolesnikov. "I was
stupefied by the words he used to describe his attitude toward the media. His
opinion of them changed for the worse and he will not treat them kindly.
Freedom of the press will surely not benefit from that."
Web page for CDI Russia Weekly:
Archive for JRL (under construction):


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The Vesha Valentine Story Revealed!
The Vesha Valentine Story Revealed!
New Art/Story Book Tells Life Story of Fictional Bombshell.
The Vesha Valentine Story by UK artist Des Taylor, tells the story of this fictional bombshell who rockets to stardom on the strength of her beauty, charm and talents. Begun by Taylor as an art book, The Vesha Valentine Story began to take shape in his mind when he was commissioned to use the character in a series of displays for Theo Fennell's (the UK's jeweler to the stars) Christmas Window display in 2009. It was from there that Taylor's thoughts began to veer towards a more story-driven project for the cartoon beauty.
"I began to imagine her doing very complex and sexy dance routines, something that would have (back in the 60's) that would have held people in awe while creating a storm from certain people." The sexy innocence of the character is reflected in her story in a nostalgic way as her movies are all giant set pieces with hundreds of dancers that seemed almost commonplace thirty years ago.
The Vesha Valentine Story will be coming from SLG Publishing in February 2011. Presented in full color will be priced at $12.95 with an isbn of 978-1-59362-207-7 and available through Amazon.com and at better book stores and comics shops. A preview and free download of the first 22 pages of the comic are available at the publishers website at www.slgcomic.com.


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Brand Label: Bernardo
ITEM MOVED TO ARCHIVE: On December 1, 2017 8:41 pm, Fashion Stylist Online noted this item may be out of stock at Anthropologie because it was not referenced in their latest online catalog. If this item is out of stock at Anthropologie, you may be able to find similar fashions sold there or elsewhere on our Bernardo Designer Brand Directory.
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Two entrepreneurial sisters have brought a 200-year-old Heath and Reach pub back to life, with the help of a commercial mortgage from their bank.
Jo Carter and Sarah Smith have purchased the freehold for their pub, restaurant and B&B, The Dukes, after securing £455,000 of funding from NatWest.
The pair first became aware of the venue when they attended a christening party at what was then a Thai restaurant. The restaurant closed in 2014 and was lying derelict before the sisters took on the task of bringing the Grade II-listed building back to life.
Using their own capital to fully refurbish the building, they were helped by the local community who donated their time to help restore the 18th century former church. Since opening The Dukes in April 2016, the sisters have created jobs for nine local people and supported an apprentice.
Jo said: "It was Sarah's idea to start the pub and when she asked me to get involved I immediately said yes.
"The whole village was excited at the re-opening of The Dukes and it was a great feeling to let them know we will be sticking around after purchasing the property.
"We invested a lot of our own time and money when we first took on the leasehold but now, thanks to NatWest, we've been able to secure the funding we need to actually own the whole building – making all the blood, sweat and tears worth it!"


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Guiding you to complete health and happiness for body and soul!
Taken from Vol. 5 of the Healthy Home Cookin' Cookbook Series.
A creamy coleslaw for those hot summer days. Colorful, flavorful, and gluten free.
2 cups green cabbage
2 cups red cabbage
1 to 2 cups grated carrots
2 cups Savoy cabbage (or more green cabbage)
1/2 to 1 cup Mayo (or other)
Shred and chop cabbage. Be sure to chop the red cabbage finely as it is not as tender. Grate carrots and top with Mayo. Stir well and serve. Will keep in fridge 2 to 3 days.
Serves 4
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Ready in: 10 minutes
Nutrition (per serving): 69.4 calories; 0.3g total fat; 0mg cholesterol; 229.4mg sodium; 421.8mg potassium; 15.7g carbs; 4.1g fiber; 5.8g sugar; 5.0g protein.
Back to Vegetarian & Vegan Recipes
Copyright 2018 - Higher Path - Body Mind Health


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A mysterious woman with oriental charm, her style and movements accompanied by a train of thought. She is waiting for a man. In the background, a luxurious hotel with bygone allure and the mild Los Angeles spring. This is not the latest film by a Hollywood director but a short film with a strong fashion flavour. And it is, in fact, how the young Roman designer Caterina Gatta has decided to present her collection. Because the idea of not presenting creations in runway shows, but through methods and features that take their cues from other worlds, like the cinema, in this case, is increasingly common among new fashion talent.
We asked Caterina to tell us something about her style and her passion for fashion. A passion that has grown over the years, nurtured by great determination and an unusual creative flair.
Caterina, where did you get the idea of a short film? Do you think the runway show is a thing of the past?
For us young designers, choices are dictated above all by our budget. Not everyone has the funds necessary to guarantee runway shows every season …They are so expensive! A short film or a flash mob not only cost less, but instantly engage with a much larger public. I think the best thing is, with time, being able to do both.
When did you decide that fashion could be your career?
I have always had a love of fashion, since I was a child, and I used to leaf through my mother's old magazines. But until I was 20, cinema was more important.
My love for fashion grew with experience, knowledge of the sector and above all during my studies at university (Ed. Caterina graduated in Costume Design and Fashion).
I decided it should be my job when I saw it was how I could really express myself, something I could not do, for example, in acting courses, from which I would flee in tears because I never felt comfortable.
If you had to define your style and creativity, how would you describe it? Where did you get the idea to re-use vintage printed cloth for your creations?
It is a timeless, tongue-in-cheek and precious style. My creative side is rather neurotic. There is never one single nuance in the collection; there is always a mix of opposites, like romantic and dark. I got the idea in 2009 when I found a piece of cloth with Irene Galitzine branded on the selvage. I later decided to look for others, and I soon collected over 30 prints by over 15 famous designers. The idea began just out of curiosity and passion, and became something serious only after "Vogue Talents Corner" in Palazzo Morando in 2011. Before I also worked on other projects.
You have travelled a lot, you have had experiences abroad, yet you returned to Italy, why? Do you think that compared to other countries and other situations, Italy is still the place where you can express your talent?
I came back to Italy only for practical and financial reasons. While I was looking for fabrics around Italy, I was working in Rome and I built my collection in my own free time with the seamstresses in the city. It would have been impossible to do that abroad ... It is the same thing now with Castor as my manufacturer. I need to travel to Mantua very often to meet suppliers, and then I have appointments in Milan almost every week. It would be so much more complicated from abroad, especially for me with my fear of flying! In Italy, in reality, I have always felt restricted ... But I've been lucky enough to have travelled almost all over the world. I began when I was small, by spending holidays in Costa Rica, the Philippines, New Caledonia, Australia and New Zealand, which gave me a very open mind and enabled me to feel at home almost everywhere.
The best advice you have been given in your career and that you feel like sharing?
"Do whatever you please!"