Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Russia

U.S. Urges Russia To Convert Some Missiles

August 28, 2006 -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he favors replacing the nuclear warheads on some U.S. long-range ballistic missiles with conventional weapons for potential use against terrorist targets anywhere in the world.

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August 28, 2006

Rumsfeld spoke after holding talks August 27 in Fairbanks, Alaska, with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Rumsfeld said he hoped Russia would consider converting some of its intercontinental ballistic missiles for the same purpose, but Ivanov appeared to indicate opposition, saying Rumsfeld's plans raise Russian concerns.

(Reuters, AP)

Russia And The West

(epa)

COOPERATION, CONFLICT, CONFRONTATION: Relations between Russia and the West are notoriously volatile. "To see the kind of relationship that presidents Bush and Putin have developed and to see Russia firmly anchored in the West, that's really a dream of 300 years, not just of the post-Cold War era," then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in May 2002.
But observers have increasingly called into question the extent of the shared values between Russia and the West, particularly on issues relating to the transformations going on in other former Soviet countries.

Silent Diplomacy Versus Public Criticism

Analysts Say New Arms Race Unlikely

Moscow 'Unhappy' With Outcome Of CFE Conference

Moscow And Washington Spar Over WTO Membership

Gazprom Stares Down The West

Russia Gears Up To Improve Its Image Abroad

Experts Urge U.S. To Rethink Relations With Russia

U.S. Official Says Russian NGO Law Part Of Antidemocratic Trend

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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

Protesters gather behind a banner reading "Honest Elections" during a demonstration in Moscow on February 4.

How To Rig An Election

A whistle-blower in Samara explains how the authorities fixed the Duma elections in December -- and plan to do the same in the presidential vote in March. More