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igotthisguitar

Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 3:19 am Post subject: Russia To Close Rights Group |
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Russia To Close Rights Group
Human rights activists have held protests against the new law
The Russian government is seeking the closure of one of the country's oldest human rights groups, reports say.
The justice ministry has asked a Moscow court to order that the Russian Human Rights Research Centre be shut down.
The authorities say the move is in response to the NGO's failure to register any information about its activities for the last five years.
Staff at the centre say they are being targeted as part of a crackdown on groups critical of the Kremlin.
Registration required
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4658026.stm |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Location: Next to a River
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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I read a book written in the 1970's where a prediction/prophecy was made that the cold war would end and the iron curtain would come down. Freedom for christians etc in Russia would improve for a short time and then the iron curtain would go back up harder and stronger than prior the coming down of the Iron curtain.
I watched the fall of the iron curtain with interest, but have waited to see if the following prediction of the iron curtain going back up would occur. There are signs that it may in fact be going back up, it will be interesting to watch and see what the future of Russia will be and what impact that will have on the rest of Europe and those states that were previously satelite states of russia. |
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igotthisguitar

Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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Wrench
Joined: 07 Apr 2005
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Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 4:36 am Post subject: |
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Russia is a pit. They deserve everthing that happens to them. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:52 am Post subject: |
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Summer Wine wrote: |
I read a book written in the 1970's where a prediction/prophecy was made that the cold war would end and the iron curtain would come down. Freedom for christians etc in Russia would improve for a short time and then the iron curtain would go back up harder and stronger than prior the coming down of the Iron curtain.
I watched the fall of the iron curtain with interest, but have waited to see if the following prediction of the iron curtain going back up would occur. There are signs that it may in fact be going back up, it will be interesting to watch and see what the future of Russia will be and what impact that will have on the rest of Europe and those states that were previously satelite states of russia. |
Thats not really an act of prophecy. Its drawing conclusions from history. The Iron Curtain had to fall. It couldnt survive. Russia has never been a democracy and its difficult to expect them to become one.
As far as the satelites, they are now EU members and Russia will have to go to war to get control of them. With Russia's population taking a sharp nosedive in the next few decades (tens of millions of people are expected to die and not be replaced) and their weak economy, that seems unlikely. Russia's only real weapon is gas. Turning supplies off to pressure countries as they did with Ukraine for example. |
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igotthisguitar

Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 5:44 am Post subject: |
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Foreigners Live in Fear of Russian Skinheads
By Oliver Bullough
Wed Feb 15, 8:16 AM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's small Cameroonian community was shocked and saddened, but not surprised, when fellow citizen Kanhem Leon was murdered by racists. They know the danger of violence is ever present.
Simon Samba Samba, the Cameroon Embassy's second secretary, says he always advises new arrivals not to walk around on their own and to avoid places where skinheads hunt foreigners.
"When people came here to study in communist times, it was not like this. But now people are poor and drunk. Maybe they are not happy and they attack our lads on the street," he said.
A series of random racist murders, like that of 28-year-old Leon late last year and other foreign students in Moscow and elsewhere, have forced the issue into the headlines.
Last month, a man shouting "Heil Hitler" wounded eight people in a knife attack on a Moscow synagogue, and attacks on immigrants are so common that they rarely make the press.
President Vladimir Putin has responded by calling racism an "infection" and ordered police to take steps to crush it. But experts say its roots are deep in demoralized post-Soviet society and will not be easy to pull out.
The skinheads, they say, are like a mixture of neo-Nazis and soccer hooligans grafted onto the casual racism that the Soviet Union concealed under its communist rhetoric.
"Our ideology is racism above all. We don't like Tajiks, Armenians, Jews -- we don't like anyone of a different race," said one self-declared skinhead in an interview with Reuters.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060215/lf_nm/russia_skinheads_dc;_ylt=AgzdRlflJbKCy8kmj52VeIcDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Location: Next to a River
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:28 am Post subject: |
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Quote: |
Thats not really an act of prophecy. Its drawing conclusions from history. The Iron Curtain had to fall. It couldnt survive. |
Find me 5 statements from political figures at that same period who would make a similar claim. |
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jinju
Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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Summer Wine wrote: |
Quote: |
Thats not really an act of prophecy. Its drawing conclusions from history. The Iron Curtain had to fall. It couldnt survive. |
Find me 5 statements from political figures at that same period who would make a similar claim. |
Well, "experts" are usually blind to the reality. Communism was not going to last in Poland. It would have either come down to a civil war or what it came down to. In any case, Poland was already slipping and it would have rejected communism within 5 years of 1989 anyway. The mood there was so much against the system that it was inevitable. Once the first domino went, the curtain was going to come down quick. And as we saw, Poland was indeed the first domino and the process was very quick. |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Location: Next to a River
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 2:22 am Post subject: |
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1970's Russia wasn't actually seen as being in decline. The US was seen to have fallen flat at that time period. Maybe its just the way info is viewed I guess  |
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