Replies

But American media at first before the release of the interview stated that Yeltsin sounds alarm on 'rollback of rights'?

It seems that the following article's author was right and American news is being manipulated and the truth spun as described in this article:

From: The Chechens' American friends

By the same token, the BBC and other media sources are putting it about that Russian TV played down the Beslan crisis, while only western channels reported live, the implication being that Putin's Russia remains a highly controlled police state. But this view of the Russian media is precisely the opposite of the impression I gained while watching both CNN and Russian TV over the past week: the Russian channels had far better information and images from Beslan than their western competitors. This harshness towards Putin is perhaps explained by the fact that, in the US, the leading group which pleads the Chechen cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). The list of the self-styled "distinguished Americans" who are its members is a rollcall of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusastically support the "war on terror".

Doing by best Yakov Smirnoff impression:

In Russia, Chess Master Gary Kasporov is free to challenge Kremlin without fear of jail....in America Chess Master Bobby Fischer hunted down around world and is going to jail for defying State Dept travel policy.

WHAT A COUNTRY!!!

Under his plan, Putin would abolish the election of governors in Russia's 89 regions and instead appoint them himself to create what he calls a "single chain of command."

AND, regional legislators can reject Putin's choice. Until they all agree. The legislators are thrilled with their increase in power, but most media sources forget to mention that.

"The authorities must act in a tough and speedy manner" to meet "the bloody challenges thrown at us by the new enemy," Yeltsin said in a rare interview Thursday with the paper Moscow News. "But at the same time, I firmly believe that the measures that the country's leadership will undertake after Beslan will lie within the framework of the democratic freedoms that have become some of Russia's most valuable achievements over the last decade."

Leave it to the comPost to completely get this wrong.

They think that revoking the ability of the people to directly elect their governors and representatives lies "within the framework of the democratic freedoms that have become some of Russia's most valuable achievements over the last decade".

Let's see, what do the Russian people have today that they didn't have a decade or so ago?

The ability to elect their own representatives!

What is Putin going to do?

Revoke that ability!

Is Yeltsin supporting Putin on this?

Not to anyone who can read English.

"The authorities must act in a tough and speedy manner" to meet "the bloody challenges thrown at us by the new enemy," Yeltsin said in a rare interview

Boris Nikolaevich wouldn't know an enemy if it bit him in he zhopu.