Russia blames NATO for heroin surge from Afghanistan

In the BBC News article, Russia blames NATO for heroin surge from Afghanistan, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes discusses how Russia has placed the blame on NATO for their country's high drug problem. There are at least 30,000 heroin related deaths in Russia each year, compared to about 2,000 per year in the United States. Victor Ivanov, head of Russia's federal drug control agency stated that these high numbers are due to the Obama administration's decision to end a military drive destroying the opium fields in Afghanistan. The US pulled troops out of this operation because this practice was causing the opium farmers who had lost their jobs to join the Taliban. Ivanov said that this decision has caused a heavy flow of cheap heroin into Russia and Central Asia.


This article relates to several concepts we have discussed in Comparative Government. Russia's decision to blame the Obama administration and NATO for their country's drug problem may cause the people of Russia to question their government's legitimacy. It is impossible, based on the high numbers of heroin addicts and heroin related deaths, that this problems has arisen solely because of the Obama administration's decision to stop destroying Afghanistan's poppy fields. The real cause of this problem is probably due to the government's failure to instate stricter public policies regarding drug laws and stricter control of their borders.


Photo credit: BBC News

Russia Sentences Neo-Nazi Skinheads to Maximum Jail Time

In the BBC article, "Neo-Nazi Skinheads Jailed in Russia for Racist Killings", published on February 25th 2010, Artyom Liss reports on the conviction of a youth gang of "neo-nazis" that have been responsible for a number of brutal murders in recent months. The gang, populated mostly by teenagers, targeted people of Central Asian origin and beat them to death while filming the process on their phones and uploading the videos to the internet. However, these skinheads did not limit themselves to those who were irrefutably Central Asian. One could be eligible just by looking Slavic or speaking with the wrong accent. The gang has titled itself "The White Wolves" and they often accompany their killings with shouts of "Russia for the Russians!". Russian courts sentenced the gang leader to 23 years in prison, and 9 years for the other 8 captured gang members, the maximum legal jail time for juveniles. However, this is just one group. Skinhead gangs have been deemed responsible for over 70 deaths in 2009 alone, but this trial has served as an example and human rights activists have welcomed the sentence.

This story shows the upsurge in race related deaths in Russia as social cleavages deepen. While Russia is predominately Russian, the Soviet Union and its breakup brought many different cultures into the land. A religious cleavage has formed as well while Muslims continue to immigrate into a state that has traditionally followed the Russian Orthodox church. But the courts and government have gained a degree of legitimacy from their crackdown on skinhead killings.

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Week 5: Russia’s Version of Four Deaths Disputed

Summary: The following article, Russia’s Version of Four Deaths Disputed, was published on the 15th of February in the New York Times. Last Monday, a human rights group called Memorial, reported the death of four innocent civilians. This attack occurred in Ingushetia, a region bordered Chechnya. Ingushetia’s leader, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov apologized publicly for the four “unfortunate deaths” and gave their families compensation money. Russian authorities had said that these civilians were killed during the cross-fire of recent operations against Islamic militants in the North Caucasus region of Russia. This is not the case. These four people were found to have multiple gun shot wounds and knife wounds. The Memorial human rights group conducted several interviews with witnesses of this occurrence. The witnesses stated that those four people were abducted, tortured, and killed right in front of the witness's eyes. The Russian authorities had disputed the truth. These people were clearly not the victims of a cross-fire. The Russian authorities also disputed the accusation, made by the EU, that they had seriously violated human rights violations during the two Chechen wars. Lastly, Imram Ezhiev, a Chechen human rights activist and head of the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship, said in an interview “Forces kill civilians regularly, but it is rare for authorities to admit to it.”

Correlation: This article correlates to a few concepts learned in comparative government. Firstly, it corresponds inversely to transparency, legitimacy and corruption. Citizens are randomly being killed and the authorities won't admit it. Why is this? They don't want to become transparent and display their faults and weaknesses to the entire country. The authorities fear that admitting their mistakes will decrease the legitimacy of the government. Also, the government is displaying signs of corruption due to the fact that a country's own government is willing to blatantly lie about obvious deaths in order to protect their reputations. Lastly, this article correlates with globalization. The EU has blamed Russia for violating human rights which in turn creates a tense relationship between the EU and Russia. Russia will become less and less wanted in the EU if it continues showing signs of corruption. Due to Russian's dishonest tendencies, it will continue having difficult getting along with it's near abroads and other countries.

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Photo Credit
(The photo is of Southern Chechnya.)

Russia's Olympic Superiority Slips Away

In the New York Times article "Chill Descends Over Russia as Olympic Medals Prove Elusive", published on February 18th, 2010, Michael Schwirtz explains Russia's despair as the country watches the gold medals that were predicted to adorn its athletes, hang around the necks of others. In the first five days Russia accumulated only three medals, as opposed to the nine they amassed at the same time in Torino. One area where they seem to excel? Excuse-making. Russian athletes and coaches have blamed everything from the weather to the facilities to the humidity for their athletic follies. After an accusation of mocking the Aborigines, the Russian ice dancing duo was pressured to alter their performance. Valentin Piseev, president of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, then claimed that "they were the target of an international plot to force them to alter their performance." Russia has utilized the Olympic games one of the last arenas in which they can exert their strength, but ever since the fall of the USSR, Russia's athletics have suffered. After the breakup of the Soviet Union many coaches and athletes moved to other countries, or became citizens of the newly independent satellites, leaving the Russian sports machine in disarray. Russia was able to use Soviet trained athletes throughout the 1990s, allowing it to remain as an Olympic superpower, but those who came of age to enter the Olympics after the Soviet collapse are now being termed "the lost generation". Recently, the government as been pumping money into the rebuilding of the athletic sector, but in true Lenin fashion, it has not paid off soon enough. Now officials are calling for the firing of athletic coordinators and Putin has issued a statement "suggesting that there could be repercussions for athletic officials if Russian athletes continue to fall short in Vancouver." “'Anything under fourth place for our team will certainly be a failure, including for those who oversee athletics in our country,'” said Boris Gryzlov, a United Russia leader who is speaker of Parliament."

The Olympic games serve as on of the largest peaceful forums under which dozens of countries come together to compete in athletic events and spectate, making it a huge foreign affairs issue. A country's public image can vastly change based on its performance, and Russia is seeing the last of its superpower image slip away with each gold medal lost. Russia's economic policy has also been altered recently in order to install a bigger and better athletic program to echo the sports program seen under the Soviet Union. Plus, Putin's statement concerning repercussions largely concerns his governmental dominance and the nationalization of the Russian sports industry. If he has the capability to punish athletic coordinators based on their athletes performance in the Olympic games, it calls into question the legitimacy and transparency of the Russian government, and serves as another example of Russia's excuse-making.

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Week 4: Ukraine and Russia Trade Spying Charges

Summary:
The article called "Ukraine and Russia Trade Spying Charges" published in the New York Times by J.Levy Clifford is about a ring of Russian spies who were working together to trade and steal the Ukraine's military and state secrets. Currently, a Russian intelligence officer from the FSB (Russian Intelligence Agency) is being detained by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence Agency). The reason for this detainment? This Russian intelligence officer was accused of trying to illegally obtain Ukrainian intelligence by utilizing blackmail and threats. The current Ukrainian president,Viktor A. Yushchenko has been attempting to improve relations between the Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. This issue now serves to hurt the chances of these relations improving in the near future due to Russia and Ukraine's petulant relationship. The Ukrainian government has been exposing Russia's mistake via the media. The President's government has said that they want to make very clear to the Ukrainian people that the Russian Intelligence officers are not trustworthy. Although, the Ukrainian Intelligence officers aren't trustworthy either. Recently, Russian officials arrested an Ukrainian spy who was attempting to steal Russian intelligence. Upon arrest, this spy offered to work in cooperation with the FSB and to provide valuable information about the Ukrainian spying on Russia. The FSB rarely announces current events to the public but is doing so in this situation because they want to defend themselves against Ukraine's spies.

Correlation: This article correlates with a few different aspects of comparative government. The first aspect being that of transparency. Russia is currently informing their public about what is occurring between the FSB and the SBU. The idea of transparency is also closely linked with legitimacy because a government is bound to be found more legitimate if it regularly informs it's people about current events rather than leaving them in the dark and leaving them confused and unaware. It's also connected to globalization because this article deals with two countries who are having conflicts and spying on each other in order to have a gain on each other (rather than attempting to successfully and peacefully work together.) Lastly, this article connects with the aspect of media. These countries are both using media as a tool to defend themselves, show their side of the story, and help explain to the public exactly what happened.

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The Golden Arches Spur Russia's Economy

Andrew E. Kramer of the New York Times published the article "Russia's Evolution, Seen Through Golden Arches" on February 1, 2010. In his article he describes the influence of the McDonald's empire on the Russian food industry. McDonald's initially arrived in Russia twenty years ago, and just recently celebrated its anniversary with a buy-one-get-one-free deal and a traditional accordion band. McDonald's generally buys its food products from private businesses, but when it originally wanted to extend its chain the Soviet Union did not have the businesses to supply the outlets with the nearly 300 ingredients required, spurring McDonald's to build the McComplex just outside of Moscow, as well as invest in imports. But when McDonald's approached Viktor Semenev to buy a few boxes of lettuce for their first restaurant he jumped at the opportunity and he has cornered Russia's industry of packaged fresh vegetables. Now nearly everything, excluding processed frozen french fries, is being bought from local businesses that have sprung up as a result of McDonald's influence, allowing the fast food giant to put the McComplex up for sale. Now as western style supermarkets have moved into Russia these same businesses are able to install their goods in a whole new forum. Within the supermarkets were coolers capable of storing prepackaged salads, and Semenev immediately sprung into action. With his success Semenev has gone to serve Russia politically as he became a member of the Russian Parliament with the ruling United Russia Party. And Russia has now become McDonald's testing grounds, as shown by the development of McCafe's back in 2003. The same concept was introduced in the U.S. just last year. Currently, McDonald's is looking to invest $150 million in Russia including opening 45 new restaurants along with refurbishing the existing sites. "That is good news for the suppliers, too; those outlets will need a lot of shredded lettuce."

McDonald's has been the leader in the globalization of fast food chains, installing outlets in the majority of the world's countries. This has even led to the McDonald's theory; no country containing a McDonald's will go to war with another country containing a McDonald's. Although this correlation does not necessarily have the evidence to support itself, it shows McDonald's dominating influence on the global market. Because McDonald's came to Russia it spurred hundreds of new businesses that employ thousands of Russian citizens. The economic boost that Russia received proved to be substantial, particularly after the fall of the Soviet Union.

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Post #3- Russia Protests Broken Up By Police

Summary:
The following article, "Russia Protests Broken Up By Police", was published by BBC News on February 1st. This article was about a 10,000 person protest last Saturday about the rise of living costs in the Baltic territory of Kaliningrad. The police intervened when protests started shouting anti-government things holding up posters saying "Down with Putin!" and "Shame!" The police were forced to arrest Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov and rights activists Oleg Orlov and Lev Ponomarev.The 31st amendment in the Russian Constitution states that all citizens have the right to fight for their rights practically and peacefully. This protest last Saturday was a peaceful one and no violence was used. That is the very reason as to why Jerzy Buzek (The president of the European Parliament) has said that the Russian authorities were too harsh on these peaceful protesters. These protesters protested on the 31st of the month in defense of their right to protest. Why are these protesters resorting to these measures? It's because most of their applications to protest peacefully have been legally rejected therefore leaving them with no other choice.

Correlation: This article correlates with the concept of a democracy and civil rights and liberties. If Russia had a true democracy than the people's civil rights and liberties would be supported by legal authorities and wouldn't be over looked and rejected as they are currently in Russia. Also, this article correlates with the idea of revolution. These protests are an example of Bottom Up change because the people are the one's who would like a reform and are attempting to ask the government to satisfy their needs. Lastly, this correlates with the economic downfall this world is currently experiencing because of the fact that the living costs in Kaliningrad are rising.

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