Word: freedoms
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Dmitrievsky and others are seeking to protect and reclaim freedoms won in the final years of the Soviet Union, when Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his policy of glasnost, or greater openness. Later, in the immediate post-Soviet era, Boris Yeltsin presided over a scrappy, imperfect democratic flowering. Activists say that, since he took office in 2000, Putin has tried to bottle up the explosion of interest in human rights, free speech and democratic accountability that took place in the 1990s. Says Vladimir Ryzhkov, one of the few remaining independents in parliament: "The regime has achieved a state of total manipulation...
...time when Russia is emerging as an energy superpower and a key ally on handling Iran and North Korea, human rights and freedom of speech are no longer at the top of the West's agenda. Some, including Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, are quick to defend Putin; in his recent memoirs, Schröder described the Russian President as "a flawless democrat." "It's frustrating that some European leaders hold this view," says Grigory Pasko, a former navy captain, journalist and environmental campaigner who in 2001 was sentenced to four years in jail on treason charges...
...activists live in fear of the consequences when they openly criticize Putin. "There may no longer be shortages of groceries and long lines at every street corner," says Ludmilla Alexeyeva, the doyen of human-rights activists in Moscow, "but Russia today is still a place where human rights and freedom are in short supply...
...start your charity, the Yéle Haiti Foundation? Yéle is a word I created, a cry for freedom. I started it when I went back to Haiti with the Fugees in 1997. Smelling the air when I got off that plane, it felt like home. What if I never left and experienced the American dream...
...Western town (McCabe & Mrs. Miller), casino (California Split), reception (A Wedding), concert (Nashville), Hollywood power grab (The Player), L.A. earthquake (Short Cuts), country weekend (Gosford Park) or old-time radio show (A Prairie Home Companion) could be the setting for his artful chaos, which gave actors plenty of freedom, and writers nightmares. Receiving a Lifetime Achievement Oscar this year, Altman revealed that he'd had a heart transplant a decade ago. That borrowed heart didn't fail him any more than his corrosive wit did in a 60-year career...