Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Says CIS 'Ineffective'

Borys Tarasyuk, Ukraine's foreign minister (file photo) (epa)

April 21, 2006 -- Ukraine's foreign minister today described the 12-member Commonwealth of Independent Republics (CIS) as "ineffective."

TEXT SIZE - +

April 21, 2006

Borys Tarasyuk told a meeting of CIS foreign ministers in Moscow that "dozens, hundreds of its decisions are not being carried out."

Earlier today, the ministers declined to put on their agenda a Ukrainian request to recognize the 1930s famine as genocide.

Tarasyuk said the request was rejected by Russia and four other countries (Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan), while Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan supported it. The others -- Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan -- abstained.

He said this showed that Russia is seeking to assume the mantle of the Soviet Union, while avoiding responsibility for Soviet-era crimes.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the famine was a matter for historians, not politicians.

(ITAR-TASS, Interfax, AP)

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