Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Kasparov Leaves Chess For Politics

11 March 2005 -- Former chess world champion Garry Kasparov has announced that he is retiring from professional chess.

TEXT SIZE - +

March 11, 2005

Kasparov made the announcement after winning a tournament yesterday in the southern Spanish town of Linares.

The 41-year-old Kasparov is quoted as saying he now plans to devote himself to politics and writing books. Kasparov is a member of a Russian liberal political grouping known as Committee 2008.

Kasparov said he will continue to play chess, because he likes it, but will no longer play professionally.

Kasparov is said he decided to quit competitive chess because of the enormous pressure he has been under in recent years.

The Azerbaijan-born Kasparov lost his world title to Russian grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik in 2000, but Kasparov is still ranked as the world's top player by the World Chess Federation.

(Reuters/AFP)

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More