Soviet Russian president Vladimir Ilyich Paranoid just couldn't help himself yesterday. Discussing his missile defense brain fart, Putie opined that, "In this case, there will be no need to build a radar in the Czech Republic and deploy missile interceptors in Poland," Putin said. "They could be deployed in the south — I'm speaking hypothetically since it's necessary to conduct talks with relevant nations — possibly in U.S. NATO allies, such as Turkey."
"Or it could be Iraq — what they have waged the war for? There would be at least some benefit coming out of it," Putin added on a sarcastic note.
How about somewhere in northern Afghanistan, Putie? Didn't you fight a ten-year war to bring peace and stability to the Afghan people? Shouldn't you get at least some benefit from those glory days?
And wouldn't it be better to have a facility where it could keep an eye on both Iran and Pakistan?
Screw your idea about Iraq, Putie. A radar and interceptor base in northern Afghanistan makes much more sense.
Especially if each were heavily staffed with former members of the Northern Alliance.
During an interview in Prague with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves discussed the problems with the Soviets Russia and Vladimir Paranoid. RFE/RL: Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday gave an interview to "Corriere della Sera," an Italian newspaper, in which he was asked his reaction to the missile-defense system that the United States is seeking to install here and in Poland. And, of course, he said that Russia would react. And they asked him, "Does that mean you'll be pointing missiles at European cities?" And he said, "Yes, naturally." Given those kinds of comments and some of the comments and actions that have happened in Estonia, how do you react to that?
Ilves: I gave a long talk on that last night. Briefly, democracies don't go to war with each other. Democracies don't make warlike threats against each other. Either that truism is false or the notion of a G8 of the industrialized democracies getting together is based on a false premise. I mean, democracies don't behave like that. [It's] one or the other. Either we chuck out the premise, or we have to rethink what the G8 stands for. Which is not to mean that anyone's going to throw the Russians out of the G8.
RFE/RL: Some people are calling for that.
Ilves: That's true, but...if you're not a member of the G8, it's not difficult to call for anyone to be thrown out. But I certainly wouldn't call it the organization of industrialized democracies anymore.
RFE/RL: What would you call it?
Ilves: Seven industrial democracies and one country brought in for reasons that have lost their relevance.
Chalk up another one for New Europe.
Read the entire interview. You won't be disappointed.
Once again, a voice from New Europe provides analysis of Europe's dilemma.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said Thursday that plans to place missile defense bases in the Czech Republic and Poland will test Europe's willingness to defend itself.
The U.S. made a formal request in January to place a radar base in a military area southwest of Prague and 10 interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland as part of plans for a missile defense shield that Washington says would protect against a potential threat from Iran.
The U.S. plans, however, have raised concerns throughout much of Europe that placing bases in former Warsaw Pact countries could spark a new arms race with Russia. Moscow has strongly opposed the plans.
"It's not primarily about a radar and 10 interceptors, it's mainly about expressing the willingness to defend ourselves," Topolanek told a conference in Prague Thursday.
President Klaus and Prime Minister Topolanek will be meeting with President Bush during his visit to Prague prior to his attending the G-8 summit in Germany.
This one of the more bizarre news items coming from the Soviets Russians.The Russian Federal Customs Service (FTS) has shut down the export from the country of all human medical biological materials, from hair to blood samples. According to information obtained by Kommersant, the decision by the FTS was prompted by a report submitted to Vladimir Putin by the FSB that focuses on bioterrorism and the alleged development by the West of "genetically engineered biological weapons."
As of May 28, the export of materials for clinical research and analyses is forbidden until further notice.
OK, Putie and his KGB cronies are a bit paranoid. Not that there's anything wrong with being paranoid or anything.This move could threaten the lives of dozens of patients in the country and completely paralyze clinical research trials being conducted by Western pharmaceutical companies in Russia, a business that is estimated to be worth $100-150 million annually
.
Representatives of the pharmaceutical industry told Kommersant yesterday that two courier firms, DHL and TNT Express, informed their clients yesterday that as of May 29, a decision by the FTS prohibits the sending of biological materials out of Russia. DHL referred to an "internal directive" from the FTS and suggested to clients that they contact the Russian Consumer Protection Oversight Agency (Rospotrebnadzor) for an explanation of the decree.
But this is just abject fear of some unknown boogeyman.Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) spokesman Alexei Brevnov told Kommersant yesterday that "this decree will be a serious blow to our nation's health – it will set it back years. It makes conducting clinical trials in Russia much more difficult." According to Mr. Brevnov, GSK recently had an similar run-in with the Russian authorities over a pediatric vaccine trial in a private clinic in Volgograd: the local prosecutor's office sued the company, alleging that the study was illegal, and pressed criminal charges against three doctors.
In Russia, clinical trials are an obligatory step in the approval of any new drug for introduction into the Russian market.
Yesterday no one from either the FTS or the Russian Ministry of Health was able to explain the precise reasons behind the ban on the export of biological materials, a move that will have grave consequences for research and clinical analyses for patients in Russian hospitals.
Of course they were unable to explain it. I doubt that Putie could explain it without coming off like a certifiable nut. According to the source, the report thus characterizes the situation in the market for clinical trials: several large Western medical centers that receive shipments of biological materials from Russia are said to be involved in the development of "genetically engineered biological weapons" for use against the Russian population. The list of organizations purportedly working on the project includes the Harvard School of Public Health, the American International Health Alliance, the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the US Department of Justice, the Swedish Karolinska Institute and Agency for International Development, and the Indian Genome Institute. Kommersant's source reported that the report contains a wealth of fantastical details about the development of "ethnically oriented" biological weapons capable of rendering Russia's population sterile and even killing it off.
Tinfoil helmet and Death Ray Deflector Vest™ anybody?
Not only over in
Russia, either.
It is becoming increasingly dangerous to be a critic of Vladimir Putin, the elected dictator of Russia. That is, as KGB thugs like Mr. Putin used to say during the Soviet era, "no accident, comrade."
The most recent authority on the subject of Mr. Putin's increasingly ominous behavior at home and abroad to have met an unpleasant fate is Paul Joyal. He is an internationally renowned expert on the former Soviet Union who had the temerity last week to accuse the Russian government on the NBC TV program "Dateline" of murdering Alexander Litvinenko.
Litvinenko was himself a former Soviet intelligence agent who worked with and then turned against Mr. Putin. He had blamed the Putin regime for killing another Putin critic, the courageous Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, in Moscow last year. Litvinenko wound up dead in London from poisoning with an exotic, highly radioactive element called Polonium 210, widely believed to have come from Russia.
Of the Litvinenko murder, Mr. Joyal told "Dateline": "A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: 'If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you, and we will silence you -- in the most horrible way possible.' " His words appear to have been eerily prophetic.
On Thursday, two unidentified men attacked Mr. Joyal in the driveway of his home, in a way seemingly meant to send its own message: By shooting him once in the groin. Thanks to quick action by his wife, a nurse, he did not bleed to death on the spot and is recovering from his wound.
Mr. Joyal did not live in Moscow, or even some other foreign capital. His home is in Adelphi, Md., a quiet suburban community roughly 12 miles outside Washington, D.C.
The Kremlin's apparent willingness brazenly now to strike at its foes wherever they may be is all too reminiscent of past, ruthless measures taken by Russian and Soviet rulers to crush internal and external dissent. Unfortunately, it is but one piece of the reprise Vladimir Putin seems to have in mind for his country.
Read the rest.
He is not our ally.
UPDATE:
Russia journalist worked on weapons story. (Hat tip: Jim K.)
A journalist who fell to his death from a fifth-story window had received threats while gathering material for a report claiming Russia planned to provide sophisticated weapons to Syria and Iran, his newspaper said Tuesday.
Prosecutors have opened an inquest into the death of Ivan Safronov, a military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant who died Friday in what some media said could have been murder.
Kommersant reported that Safronov told his editors he would write a story about Russian plans to sell weapons to Iran and Syria via Belarus, but they said he had not yet submitted the article.
