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Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/readout-vice-president-biden-s-call-georgian-president-saakashvili Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Vice President For Immediate Release November 19, 2009 Readout of Vice President Biden’s Call to Georgian President Saakashvili Vice President Biden called Georgian President Saakashvili on November 18, 2009, to discuss democratic reform in Georgia and to reiterate the United States’ strong support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Vice President underscored the importance of sustaining the commitment to democratic reform to fulfill the promise of the Rose Revolution. He also emphasized that all parties should live...

Most foreign investors have been focused on Central Asia’s vast hydrocarbon resources and the extractive industries of energy and Minerals. But water is an issue of rising concern throughout the region as after years of soviet mismanagement geopolitical tensions are running high. These regional problems present outside companies willing to think outside the box with an incredible opportunity and a guaranteed red carpet welcome. Simply put, the region’s scarce water resources were misused to satisfy the autarchic needs of the entire USSR, whose breakup in 1991 completely disrupted inter-republic trade patterns, leaving the Stans with the remnants of a centrally...

A Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Daniel Sysoyev, who carried out missionary work among immigrants from ex-Soviet republics, many of them Muslims, received over a dozen death threats before his murder on Thursday, a Russian paper said. Fr. Daniel of St. Thomas Church in Moscow foresaw his death, writing in his internet diary that he had received telephone threats from Muslims. Fr. Daniel’s evening ‘talks’ for inquirers included several especially designed for Muslims.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A masked gunman entered a church and murdered a Russian Orthodox priest who had received death threats for converting Muslims to Christianity and criticizing Islam, prosecutors and church officials said Friday. The killing could threaten delicate relations between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country's growing Muslim minority of about 20 million. The gunman approached priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in St Thomas Church in southern Moscow Thursday night, checked his name and then opened fire with a pistol, a spokesman for the investigating committee of the Prosecutor-General's office...

The diaries of a British reporter who risked his reputation to expose the horrors of Stalin's murderous famine in Ukraine were put on public display for the first time Friday. Welsh journalist Gareth Jones sneaked into Ukraine in March of 1933, at the height of a famine engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Millions of people starved to death between 1932 and 1933 as the Soviet secret police emptied the countryside of grain and livestock as part of a campaign to force peasants into collective farms.Jones' reporting was one of the first attempts to bring the disaster to the world's...

We Love Russia!!

Russia's KBM has been briefing Middle East and other militaries on the Igla man-portable air defense system. The Igla-S, an enhanced version of Igla-9K38, was touted as effective against fighter-jets, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles. Iran and Syria have received a legacy variant of Igla-S. The Igla-S has been touted as capable of downing a range of U.S. UAVs deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It also has night-firing capability," KBM said. "Igla-S MANPADS is a new-generation system featuring considerably extended firing range and enhanced kill probability against aerial targets and possessing a new quality for this class of...

Russia has provided an "unprecedented" 970 billion roubles (22.6 billion euros, 33.8 billion dollars) to its defence industry this year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday. State support for the sector had helped it grow by 3.8 percent since the start of the year despite the economic downturn, Putin said in comments reported by Russian news agencies. "During the recession we have allocated enough money to the military-industrial sector, which is a priority for government support. In 2009 funding reached an unprecedented level for our country: almost 970 billion roubles," Putin said. State aid had taken the form of reduced-rate...

BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - NATO countries voiced concern on Wednesday at Russian and Belarusian exercises held near the Polish border in September, saying they were at odds with improved relations with Moscow. Ambassadors from the 28 NATO states meeting in Brussels expressed concerns about the large scale of the exercises and a scenario that envisioned an attack from the West, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said. "There was the general sense that the political message of the exercise was incongruous with the general improvement in political relations and practical cooperation which is under way between NATO and Russia," Appathurai said....

This is the third article to appear on these pages from an IBD subscriber who lived in the Soviet Union until 1980. Click here to read the previous two articlesWhenever I speak about my experiences living in the USSR, my American friends respond that such things can never happen in a democracy like the United States. They don't understand why I am repulsed when I hear the president talk about "sacrificing for the collective good," which sounds so compassionate, as opposed to greedy capitalism. "Sacrifice for the collective good" is one of the founding principles of socialism, where the collective,...

Fifteen years ago, my family and I arrived in the United States, having fought for two decades to escape the dictatorship of the Soviet Union. We left behind a tyrannical system, determined to control every aspect of its subjects’ lives. Now, the same forces appear to be at the forefront of our national debate on health care. At the heart of this debate lies a very simple question: will we preserve the freedom of every individual to determine his or her best interests, or will government seize for itself control over the health care of every American? Having experienced and...

The Great Geopolitical Battle Over Energy Transit Routes As we all live in the present, it is very hard to fully assess the future implications of decisions supported or made by political and business leaders. An extraordinary game of geo-strategy is under way to lock in long-term agreements, notably in the energy sector. At a global level, the transit routes of future oil & gas pipelines become the object of a power struggle involving not only the suppliers and end-users but also the transit countries. Intensive courtships are under way where a ménage à trois, or more, may be the...

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has often described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest tragedy” of the 20th century, has now said that the “reunification” of Georgia has “already been decided,” a suggestion some of his listeners believe was a call for restoring Moscow’s control over Georgia and even the former USSR as a whole. In an intriguing commentary published in yesterday’s “Gazeta,” Bozhena Rynska describes both the celebration of the 80th birthday of longtime Soviet and Russian official Yevgeny Primakov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s two very different toasts on that occasion (www.gazeta.ru/column/rynska/3287611.shtml). The celebration took...

Russia is to build up its navy over the coming decade, President Dmitry Medvedev announced on Monday, as he visited a Russian guided missile cruiser in Singapore. Speaking to sailors on board the Russian Pacific Fleet's Varyag, Medvedev said around half of Russia's military hardware would have to be renewed by 2020. "Yes, an expansion of our naval presence is planned. Russia can only consider itself a full naval power if it has a full fleet that carries out training and combat tasks," he said, according to official Russian news agencies. The Varyag, built in the 1980s under the Soviet...

A posh palace is being built on the bank of Istrin water reservoir in the Moscow region. It’s a mansion looking like a huge 18th century palace, which is already informally named “Istrin mansion�. Its appearance, quick development and approximate cost were recently debated in Russian blogs. But still having some guesses about who could own such a luxury, no one has an official confirmation on who the lucky man really is. The thing is that this building together with its adjacent lands was earlier presented in Google Maps, but now there are no any marks of it. To be...

Increasingly irate over a delayed arms deal, Iran has threatened to manufacture an advanced missile system itself if Russia does not deliver it to Tehran soon. The warning, sounded by Alaeddin Bouroujerdi, a senior Iranian lawmaker, was the latest in a series of threats by Iranian officials angered at Russia for delaying delivery a much-vaunted missile sales agreement. "Iran is not a country to come to a halt in the face of non-cooperation of other countries," Bouroujerdi was quoted as saying in a local newspaper. "Naturally, and in light of Iran's capabilities, it will be able to produce missile defense...

It’s not necessarily much but it’s something. Russia has announced today that it will not activate Iran’s first nuclear power plant by the end of the year as planned. This comes on top of the joint call by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, and Barack Obama for Iran to agree an international deal over its nuclear programme. Russia is also postponing delivery of air defence missiles to Iran, a move that makes any Israeli air strike on Iran that much easier to pull off. Barack Obama has taken a lot of criticism for his wideranging, open-armed engagement with all sorts of...

SUSPECTED cannibals killed a young man, ATE part of him and then sold other bits to a KEBAB house. Cops also believe the 25-year-old victim's body parts may have been used to fill PIES too. The trio of homeless men were arrested in Russia - accused of murdering the man with knives and a hammer. Prosecutors revealed: "After carrying out the crime, the corpse was divided up - part of it was eaten and part of it was sold to a kiosk selling kebabs and pies." Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2730715/Butchered-man-used-for-kebabs.html#ixzz0WxueLNEc

Homeless in kebab cannibal inquiry Published Date: 15 November 2009 By Guy Faulconbridge RUSSIAN police have arrested three homeless people who are suspected of eating a 25-year-old man they had butchered and then selling bits of the corpse to a local kebab house. Suspicions were raised when dismembered parts of a human body were found near a bus stop in the outskirts of the Russian city of Perm, 720 miles east of Moscow. Three homeless men with prior criminal convictions have been arrested on suspicion of setting upon him with knives and a hammer. The victim died in the onslaught...

SINGAPORE: A major pact within tantalizing reach, President Barack Obama aims to nudge forward an arms-control deal in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum brought Obama to Singapore, but he is focusing on individual meetings Sunday with Medvedev and with Indonesia's Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of the world's largest Muslim nation and Obama's home as a boy. The US-Russia meeting takes place as the nations seek a successor to a Cold War-era agreement. Obama planned another milestone: joining a larger meeting that includes the leader of military-ruled Myanmar. Obama is sure to face criticism...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, never shy with a photo opportunity, took his man-of-the-people act to the hip-hop dancefloor, where he used a rap music competition to deliver an anti-drugs message. "Graffiti is becoming a true art, fine and delicate," Mr Putin, clad in a beige turtleneck and grey sports jacket, told a young crowd at the "Respect" rap contest. "And breakdance is something peculiar," he said. "This really is propaganda for a healthy lifestyle because it is hard to imagine breakdancing having anything to do with drinking and dope," Mr Putin said. The powerful Russian president-turned-Prime Minister praised the...

In a U-turn that appears to put penny-pinching before the health of the defenders of the motherland, the army said it would keep giving the cigarettes for another two years. This reversed a decision earlier this year to halt the controversial policy. "Everyone can choose to spoil or not spoil their health," Andrei Zezin, the officer in charge of the army's catering corps, told a Moscow radio station. "We have the cigarettes in our warehouses and therefore we are going to keep handing them out until there are no more left. Realistically, we can meet demand for two years." The...

Russia should honor a contract to sell a missile defense system to Iran and not bend to outside pressure, the Islamic Republic's defense minister said in remarks published on Thursday. Russia, which is under Western pressure to distance itself from Iran, has not followed through on proposals to supply high-grade S-300 air defense missiles. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Russia last month for not providing the arms to Iran, which is at odds with the West over its nuclear and missile programs. Israel says the S-300 systems could be used to defend Iranian nuclear facilities against potential air strikes....

Russia's army will get new missiles and nuclear submarines from 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, stressing the need to replace the ageing military arsenal. "Next year, the army will get 30 ballistic missiles...five Iskander (missile) systems, some 300 new armoured vehicles, 30 helicopters, 28 fighter planes, three nuclear submarines, a ship, as well as 11 spacecraft," Medvedev said in his annual address to the nation. "These measures will allow our armed forces and our allies to deal with any threat," he told officials in a speech at the Kremlin. Much of Russia's military equipment dates back to Soviet...

MOSCOW, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Russian soldiers in World War II Soviet uniform and other historical military costumes, accompanied by two famed T-34 tanks, marched through Moscow's Red Square on Saturday to mark the 68th anniversary of a legendary military parade in 1941. About 4,000 young Muscovites also participated in the parade, watched by some 6,000 spectators, including at least 45 participants of the 1941 parade. The Nov. 7, 1941 parade, which commemorated the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, was held after Russia joined World War II and aimed to raise morale as Nazi German forces approached Moscow. The troops headed straight...

From Kalingrad in Europe to Kamchatka in the Far East, the country covers 11 time zones. "We need to look at the possibility of cutting the number of time zones," Mr Medvedev said in his annual address to the nation, delivered at the Kremlin before an audience of Russia's political elite. "Of course we need to consider the consequences of such a decision," he added. In a wide-ranging speech focused almost entirely on domestic issues, Mr Medvedev also wondered aloud whether Russia really needed to continue changing the clocks twice a year for daylight saving. "Here we need to compare...

Communism is alive and well. ....Far from being dead and buried, communism remains a potent force - one that is still a threat to Western nations that value freedom and capitalism. This is because the ideological roots of communism have not been defeated. Rather than being polar opposites, fascism and Marxism are evil twins. They are both socialist ideologies that espouse one-party rule, economic collectivism and social regimentation. They are implacably opposed to capitalism, the sovereignty of the family and Judeo-Christian civilization. They are aggressively imperialist, seeking world domination. The major difference between them is that while Marxism champions the...

Mikhail Gorbachev—the man who pulled the Soviet Union's troops out of Afghanistan after a decade of stalemate—says the US should do the same.

India's plight: A carrier running out of jets; fighters without their carrier Rajat Pandit, TNN 12 November 2009, 02:33am IST NEW DELHI: Sheer lack of long-term strategic planning, coupled with a dose of bad luck, has landed India in a peculiar situation. If it did not expose a gaping hole in the country's military capabilities, the predicament would have actually been quite ludicrous. On one hand, it has an ageing but newly-refurbished aircraft carrier, INS Viraat, which is fast running out of fighters which can operate from its deck. On the other, it's soon going to induct another type of...

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY (KMOX Radio) -- Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a demonstration at Washington University against socialism was making some students uncomfortable. Students cutting across the campus on a warm fall day heard the Soviet National Anthem in the breeze, coming from loud speakers inside a makeshift prison camp complete with a high-wire fence, blood-stained inmates and goose-stepping guards in Soviet-era uniforms. Organizer Dirk Doebler of the conservative group Young Americans for Liberty says the goal was to show a "liberal-leaning" campus the ugly history of socialism.

The inventor of arguably the world's most infamous machine-gun wanted to be a poet in his youth, he has revealed. Russian celebrities and politicians have been paying tribute to Mikhail Kalashnikov, who turned 90 on Tuesday, at a Kremlin reception. Mr Kalashnikov is the inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle, beloved of guerrillas around the world. At the ceremony, President Dimitry Medvedev handed Mr Kalashnikov the prestigious Hero of Russia award. Accepting the award, he fired off a brief patriotic poem he wrote. 'Bad poet'Mr Kalashnikov is the author of six books, as well being an amateur poet. "I wrote...

Beauty: Marina Katashenko(right, age:27,) an Ukraine-born model the Beast: Alexandre Gradski(left, age:60,) a popular Russian singer-songwriter

For the last five years, satellite photos have shown continuing constructing of an underground bunker complex north of Damascus, Syria, This is believed to be the control center for the national air defense system. Progress has been slow because Syria is broke and unable to pay for the new missile systems that that the people in this underground complex would control. Earlier this year, Russia suspended its program to upgrade Syria's MiG-31 fighters. In 2007, Russia and Syria signed an agreement by which Russia would provide the country with seven MiG-31 aircraft, as well as equipment and services to upgrade...

Nicaragua's President on Monday urged Latin American peoples to unite in order to force the removal of airbases in Colombia that the U.S. military intend to use. President Daniel Orgeta, a main ally to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, announced that the greatest struggle for Latin American countries was to "make dissappear once and for all ... the military bases that threaten the sovereignty, integrity and peace of our people." Ortega denounced the recent Colombia - U.S. military agreement (which he believes to have been initiated by the George W Bush administration) as the greatest threat to Colombia and Latin American...

A Russian Tu-142M3 reconnaissance aircraft recently crashed twenty kilometers off the Pacific coast, during a training mission. The Tu-142 is an unarmed maritime patrol aircraft that, in the last few years, have resumed long range patrols. Such activity had been halted in the early 1990s. The Tu-142, which was introduced in the 1970s, is the patrol version of the Tu-95 heavy bomber. This aircraft entered service 51 years ago, and is expected to remain in service, along with the Tu-142 variant, for another three decades. But these elderly aircraft are increasingly expensive to maintain, and prone to developing unexpected problems....

As Zero Hedge speculated recently, the latest participant on the gold bandwagon is now officially Russia, which last month was said to be considering a sale of up to 25 tons of gold. That posturing did not last too long. Not only that, but Russia is now also actively participating in the dollar intervention market, buying more than $1 billion of dollars to keep the ruble low. Due to moderating inflation and a rapidly appreciating ruble, the country is now considering diversification in the same way that India and China presumable are: by shifting into dollars. Look for much more...

Posted on Nov 9, 2009 | by Staff MOSCOW (BP)--New legislation being considered by Russian lawmakers could drastically restrict missions activity if made into law. Restrictions could include requiring missionaries and Russian Christians to obtain permission to engage in missionary activity and limiting its locations and participants, such as tourists and minors. While the proposals are currently in the draft stages, language introduced by the Russian Ministry of Justice Oct. 12 indicates that if these laws are enacted they will greatly restrict religious freedom. Russian Baptist officials say they believe the new language primarily targets Roman Catholics and Protestants and...

Helen Rappaport, an acclaimed historian and author, said that books, papers and journals charting Lenin’s last years show that he contracted the sexually transmitted disease and that it ultimately claimed his life. She said Lenin showed many symptoms of syphilis and that many among the Soviet hierarchy believed he had it. But they were banned from speaking in public and threatened with death because of the embarrassment it would cause. Instead, official documents show that his death was attributed to declining health following three stokes and an assassination attempt in 1918. Central to Miss Rappaport’s case was a report written...

November 9, 2009 Tear down this wall! And save the planet There are urgent parallels between the fall of Communism and the fight to stop climate change Mikhail Gorbachev The German people, and the whole world alongside them, are today celebrating a landmark date in history: the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not many events can claim their place in the collective memory as a watershed that divides two distinct periods. The dismantling of the Berlin Wall — that stark, concrete symbol of a world divided into hostile camps — is such an event. It brought...

Last month, a Russian Il-76 transport crashed after taking off from a Siberian airport. The aircraft had just unloaded a cargo. This accident was no surprise, in general, because of growing problems with the aging Il-76 fleet. For example, a month ago, all Il-76s were grounded because the engine fell off one of them while it was preparing to takeoff. All Russian Il-76s remained grounded until recently, when it was determined that the problem was not common to all Il-76s. The recent crash led to another mass grounding, and growing unease among the many foreign nations that use the Il-76.....

Witness the brutal story of Joseph Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union with an iron hand. Even Stalin's successors viewed him as brutal, and in the years following Stalin's death they heavily toned down his crimes. But now, after the fall of Communism, people have come forward to reveal the tyranny they themselves lived in.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The Russian Ministry for Justice has proposed amendments to the law on "Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" that, if adopted, will introduce stronger restrictions on the activities of Evangelicals in the country. The community is on alert: If the proposal becomes law, among other things the evangelicals can no longer pray freely without a permit and people with a “criminal record” will not be allowed become members of their communities. The latter condition, which also concerns other religious groups because it would clear the path for state interference in the individual freedom of conscience. The document...

November 4, 2009: Russian defense officials announced that the failed Bulava ballistic missile test last July, was due to a defect in the first stage steering system. This was fixed, and another test will take place before the end of the month. So far, the Bulava has been test fired eleven times. Only one of those tests was an unqualified success, and six were absolute failures. But the Russian government insists that development will continue, and succeed. The inept development of the new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) for the new Boeri class SSBN (nuclear submarine carrying SLBMs) has...

TBILISI -- The chairman of Georgia's opposition Labor Party is in Washington to discuss Georgian-U.S.-Russian relations and the recognition of Kosovo and Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, RFE/RL's Georgian and Russian services report. Labor Party Secretary-General Joseph Shatberashvili told RFE/RL that the main goal of Shalva Natelashvili's visit to Washington is "to start a dialogue with Moscow and Washington� on Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Washington’s recognition of Kosovo. Shatberashvili says that Labor Party leaders believe that if Washington would revoke its recognition of Kosovo's independence it would cause Russia to reconsider its decision...

Russian defense officials announced that the failed Bulava ballistic missile test last July, was due to a defect in the first stage steering system. This was fixed, and another test will take place before the end of the month. So far, the Bulava has been test fired eleven times. Only one of those tests was an unqualified success, and six were absolute failures. But the Russian government insists that development will continue, and succeed. The inept development of the new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) for the new Boeri class SSBN (nuclear submarine carrying SLBMs) has become a growing...

Cold War: The White House has announced our absence at ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, Russia has been practicing a nuclear invasion of an abandoned Poland. The Berlin Wall has been a famous backdrop for American presidents sounding the battle cry of liberty in the struggle against tyranny. It was there that John F. Kennedy expressed our solidarity with the encircled residents of that outpost of freedom with his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner." And it was there that Ronald Reagan, with a defiant "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," voiced our...

The 20th anniversary of the 1989 East European revolutions has re-opened contentious debate over who won the Cold War and what caused Soviet communism to disintegrate so rapidly in its final years. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was a symbolic milestone, heralding the break-up of the Soviet Union two years later. Looking back, many people directly involved are still asking: Was Soviet communism defeated? Was it overthrown? Or did it simply collapse from within? The rapid succession of events which marked the end of the Cold War is not in dispute. Poland's historic roundtable talks between...

China interested in Russian hydrocarbons; Russia aims to reduce its dependence on European energy markets. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing earlier this month yielded commercial deals worth $3.5 billion and a sweeping framework for bilateral energy cooperation. China's interest in Russian hydrocarbons is motivated by a desire to meet growing demand and diversify import sources. Russia stands to gain from reducing its dependence on European energy markets and using exports to China to develop Russia's Far East. Oil integration. Earlier this year, the China Development Bank (CDB) provided Russian energy companies Rosneft and Transneft with a $25...

Former Israeli double agent shot dead near Putin's office Shabtai Kalmanovich, a former Israeli double agent who penetrated Golda Meir's government on behalf of the KGB, has been shot dead in Moscow. By Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem Published: 7:00AM GMT 03 Nov 2009 Kalmanovich, who later became a prominent businessman and allegedly had links with the Russian mafia, died after an unidentified gunman fired at least 20 shots into his chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz. Mr Kalmanovich's driver was seriously wounded in the incident. /snip After becoming an Israeli citizen, he joined the Israeli Labour Party, was...

Russia has provoked outrage in Poland by simulating an air and sea attack on the country during military exercises. The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country's coast. Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus. The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops. Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the "potential aggressor"....