Word: putin
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...brutal tactics in Chechnya; they increasingly reject Western values based, they say, on "materialism and atheism." A "discussion document" circulating among Chechen guerrillas singles out Afghanistan's Taliban regime as the most theologically consistent modern Islamic state. The Islamist cast of the Nalchik attackers suggests that Russian President Vladimir Putin now faces a growing threat from religious radicals determined to push the fight deeper into Russia. The siege of Nalchik started around 10 a.m. on an ordinary Thursday morning, just as shops and offices were opening. The fighters appeared out of nowhere, swarming across the city. They hit the headquarters...
...Social Democrat, will have a strong voice as well, potentially making this an area of tension for the coalition. The two parties have in recent years differed on such matters as transatlantic relations and ties with Moscow, with Schroeder cultivating a close friendship with Russia's Vladimir Putin and France's Jacques Chirac while Merkel has indicated a desire to work more closely with London and Washington. Relations between the U.S. and Germany deteriorated sharply over the Iraq war, and while Merkel did not back the war, she disapproved of Schroeder's handling of the crisis...
...Union, Lenin's body retains its place of honor in Red Square, where it has lain since 1924. Now Russia's ruling élite is exhuming an old debate: whether to move Lenin's body out of the mausoleum and bury it. Georgi Poltavchenko, an aide to President Vladimir Putin, recently called for Lenin--the cause, he said, of all of Russia's troubles in the 20th century--to be removed. That was echoed by Nikita Mikhalkov, a Soviet-era film star who bemoaned the fact that "a corpse" had been turned into a "pagan spectacle...
...Chechnya. "I hate Lenin," says human-rights activist Lev Ponomarev. "But this latest idiocy doesn't interest me. The state is rebuilding its repressive machinery, and we are discussing Lenin's body." Yet the debate also is a window on changing attitudes among the ruling élite. Since Putin came to power, a new ideology has been taking shape that blends imperial nostalgia with the occasional careful nod to the Soviet Union's greatness under Stalin. These days the Kremlin honor guard wears 1812-era uniforms, and attending Orthodox church services is a good career move. Even the Stalin...
...fortune by writing chilling verse about enemies of the people at the height of the Stalinist purges. And he composed the words to his country's national anthem--three times. In 1944 he hailed the "Great Lenin" and Stalin. In 1977 he wrote out Stalin. And in 2000, when Putin revived the anthem, Sergei Mikhalkov replaced Lenin with fields and forests...