Russian Journalists Quit Over Censorship

A state-controlled broadcast center in Russia has just seen the result of censorship restrictions imposed by the Kremlin. In a rare show of protest a group of journalists all resigned stating that they could no longer work under the harsh restrictions imposed by the state. "Artyom Khan, one of the reporters who resigned, said restrictions were introduced when new management was imported last month from Channel One, the state television station that documents Mr Putin's every move."

no new cold war

[circletimessquare]

if anything, europe is way more agitated than the usa. this is because the eu expanded into old soviet bloc countries and a russian awakening from its post cold war hangover is feeling rather nationalistic about it's old sphere of influence. witness the latest conflagration in estonia over just a world war ii statue of a russian soldier being moved

plus the recent summit in samara resulted in nothing but serious discord [spiegel.de]

so russia and europe are seriously butting heads right now, but the usa? not so much

the cold war was characterized by an ideology which directly threatened the usa. communism was dead set on taking over the world. so it was a real global struggle. now, russia is just a garden variety autocracy. if russia went into chile or peru or bolivia in the cold war, the usa would get agitated: communism spreading. but russia could go over now and give tanks and kalishnikovs to these countries and it would be no big deal: there is no ideological oomph behind the gesture, no real threat in terms of ideas. communism has died, lost its lustre, no one seriously believes in it anymore

and today? today we have islamic fundamentalists who are dead set on putting large swaths of the world under sharia law. and the meddling usa is a prime enemy of that effort, so it will be targetted big time. in some ways this new world is less dangerous, because massive world war of huge armies and scary war machinery won't be unleashed at the slightest gaffe or bravado. but in other ways, the threat of fundamentalist terrorism is more dangerous, since if someone sets a nuke off in times square, there is no clear line of accountability. if russia nuked times square, red square would cease to exist too. if times square gets nuked today, who can you blame?

Death of Independent Journalism in Russia

[reporter]

The "International Herald Tribune" has just published a report [iht.com] summarizing the state of independent journalism in Russia. The Kremlin is trying to seize the offices of the Russian Union of Journalists, which is the largest organization of independent journalists. Meanwhile, the Russian government uses its satellites to transmit "Russia Today", a government-funded pro-Kremlin program, to audiences in foreign countries like the USA and Germany. Also, Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian News Service (RNS) to broadcast pro-Kremlin news. One Russian listener of RNS commented on the new format by writing, on the RNS web site, " Down with Kremlin censorship! Yesterday elevators were discussed. Today, buckwheat. Are not there any other topics? "