Word: kremlins
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...Russia has a choice to make ... None of us believes Russia is fated to become an enemy." VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY, in the Bush Administration's strongest public criticism yet of Vladimir Putin's Russia, rebuking the Kremlin for restricting citizens' rights and using oil resources as "tools of blackmail and intimidation...
President Vladimir Putin is reaping the benefit of the soaring economy. His approval rating is a rock-solid 70%. That support has allowed Putin to brush off his critics in the West, where the Russian President is often painted as a throwback to autocracy. The Kremlin has tightened its grip on society in recent years, cracked down on nongovernmental organizations and maneuvered to take control of natural resources and other industries it deems strategic. The Bush Administration, which has grown uneasy about Russian assertiveness beyond its borders, issued an unusually harsh indictment last week when Vice President Dick Cheney said...
...boom times last? Russia has set aside a portion of its oil revenues in a so-called stabilization fund that tops $55 billion, and Moscow is running a budget surplus equal to 7% of GDP. But economists are worried that the Kremlin hasn't used the fat years to cut back on the remnants of Soviet-era bureaucracy, modernize Russian industry or improve the overall investment climate. "Russia will continue to be hooked on oil revenue for the foreseeable future," says Ivan Szegvari, a Russian-economy specialist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London. Retailing is booming...
...barely pay the rising rent and utility bills, which eat up about $75 of his $95 monthly pension. On a good day, he can earn $8 from sales of his hardware, but that's not enough. Putin this year has promised to boost spending on social services, and the Kremlin has raised some state pensions. But in the market's food section, Gulfara Shakhulovna, 59, isn't impressed. She's worried about the health of her husband, a carpenter who retired but went back to work to make ends meet. Pensions may be going up, she says, "but that...
...count on our checkbooks. Iran might be the most sensitive issue, but it is not the only one. With oil at $70 a barrel, Russian egos have become as inflated as their reserve surplus, which now amounts to almost $60 billion last year. With part of that money, the Kremlin is contributing aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, even when the Palestinians miserably failed to condemn the suicide attack in Israel during Passover. This approach (also favored, alas, by Iran) actively undermines the Western funding freeze designed to force Hamas to reject violence and recognize Israel. At the same...