Word: russian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Stalin once declared. "No man, no problem." While Stalin may be history, his management style remains in vogue. Indeed, in the latest government-sanctioned high-school history text, Stalin is described as someone who used "terror as a pragmatic means of resolving social and economic problems." And so contemporary Russian society has learned to see individual murder as a means of management as well...
...Chechen war for Vladimir Putin when it sided with him against Shamil Basayev's terrorists and their radical Wahhabi allies. The Yamadayevs, however, ran afoul of Ramzan Kadyrov, the man Putin installed as ruler of Chechnya. And so Yamadayev, a hero of Russia, a colonel of the Russian Army and, until recently, a member of the Duma, was dismissed as the Chechen regional head of Putin's United Russia Party. His brother Sulim, also a hero of Russia and a Lieut. Colonel of the Russian Army (and until recently commander of the Spetsnaz Vostok battalion in Chechnya), was stripped...
...escape burning buildings. On February 2, 1912, in much the same spirit, 35-year-old Frederick Law jumped off the Statue of Liberty's observation platform. He and his 100-pound parachute landed with a thud on Liberty Island's stone coping, a few yards from the water. A Russian man named Vladimir Ossovski performed a similar stunt a year later when he jumped from a bridge in Rouen, France into the river Seine. In 1975, a member of the CN Tower's construction crew parachuted off the building - at 1,815 feet (553 m), the world's tallest free...
...From an economic perspective, however, Russian problems seem miniscule compared to those faced by its newfound Latin American ally. In an electoral year, Chavez is eager to regain popular support, but the oil-producing country has contracted its growth forecasts due to lack of investment. As inflation reaches over 30 percent per year, the government has increased public sector salaries, a populist move that will only worsen inflationary pressures. Despite the sky-high oil prices, Venezuela is not able to grow its production because the government has used all the money for clientelist programs, rather than securing future investment. Unsurprisingly...
...threatening sound of this partnership for U.S. interests, it is clear that these unlikely allies came together out of fear: Whereas the Kremlin fears diplomatic isolation, Chavez fears his end may be fast approaching. What we should all fear is what a populist like Chavez will do with Russian weaponry at a time when he is desperate to remain in control...