Russia’s population is expected to decline sharply in the next few decades, something that will greatly affect its economy and Moscow’s ability to project power abroad. Emigration of young, educated professionals is one of main causes. A Gallup poll this year found one-fifth of Russians would leave the country if they could, a three-fold increase from five years ago. VOA’s Igor Tsikhanenka traveled to Perm, known as Russia’s last city in Europe because of its location at the Ural mountains.
 
…

your ad here

One month after then-President Boris Yeltsin plucked a security agency official named Vladimir Putin from obscurity and made him prime minister, an explosion leveled a nine-story apartment building on Moscow’s outskirts.The predawn blast on Sept. 9, 1999, reduced the building to a smoking pile of rubble, killing more than 100 people. A second building, less than 6 kilometers away, was rocked by an explosion on Sept. 13, killing 119.Days earlier, a car bomb exploded in a small town bordering the war-ravaged region of Chechnya, where reignited fighting was already spilling into neighboring regions. That blast, outside the apartment building in the town of Buynaksk, killed dozens.It was followed seven days later by a truck bomb that destroyed a nine-story building in another southern city, Volgodonsk, killing 17.On Sept. 23, Putin asserted terrorists in Chechnya were to blame and ordered a massive air campaign within the North Caucasus region. When asked a day later about the campaign targeting what he called terrorists, Putin responded with the phrase that inaugurated his rise to preeminence.”We will pursue them everywhere,” he said, using a crude slang expression. “Excuse me for saying so: We’ll catch them in the toilet. We’ll wipe them out in the outhouse.”The statement became a Putin catchphrase, and set the tone for the 20 years of rule that followed.”Yes, it’s one of Putin’s original sins,” said Sergei Kovalyov, a former lawmaker and rights activist who headed a commission that investigated the bombings in the early 2000s.The bombings, and the fear they provoked, “were advantageous,” he told RFE/RL. “At the time, it was advantageous for him to take control of the country, and to introduce force into the Caucasus, in Chechnya in particular.”Yeltsin and his officials had already endorsed Putin, who was tapped a year earlier to head the country’s main security and intelligence agency, the FSB, and also served as secretary of the Security Council.FILE – Rescuers and firefighters work at the site of a massive explosion that destroyed a nine-story apartment building in the southeastern part of Moscow in September 1999.In announcing he was elevating a relatively obscure FSB officer to be his head of government, Yeltsin also endorsed him for the presidency, just months ahead of the election.”I have decided to now name the person who is, in my opinion, able to consolidate society and, drawing support from the broadest political forces, to ensure the continuation of reforms in Russia,” Yeltsin said in a televised speech on Aug. 9, 1999. “He will be able to unite around himself those who are to renew Great Russia in the new 21st century.”On Dec. 31, 1999, Yeltsin had resigned and named Putin acting president.By then, the second war to ravage Chechnya in a decade was raging.Highly qualified partnerRussia under Yeltsin was reeling.A year prior to Putin’s ascendance, the country had defaulted on its debts, sending the value of the ruble plummeting and wiping out bank balance sheets and international confidence in Yeltsin’s fiscal policies, not to mention the savings of many Russians — for the second time in a decade.Yeltsin’s health was increasingly precarious, with reports of his heavy drinking and having undergone at least one round of heart surgery. His family, including his daughter and son-in-law, were dogged by corruption allegations. Yeltsin advisers feared that declining popularity would hurt his allies in December parliamentary elections, never mind the presidential election the following July.And in Chechnya, five years after the end of the first full-scale war, the region was all but lawless, and a growing number of radicalized fighters from abroad were traveling there to join the fighting.On Aug. 7, a group of fighters, led by the notorious Chechen commander Shamil Basayev and a Jordanian radical named Ibn Khattab, crossed from Chechnya into neighboring Daghestan and declared holy war. Regional police units, and local villagers, led the response, with little help from better-equipped federal forces; refugees flooded neighboring regions.Two days later, Yeltsin sacked his government and named Putin prime minister — the fourth prime minister of Yeltsin’s tenure.Putin, who was a KGB officer stationed in East Germany at the time of the Soviet collapse, had served as a mid-level official in the St. Petersburg city government in the early 1990s. He had scant government or leadership experience, no national profile, and no real constituency or base of support among Russians.In a phone call weeks later with then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, with whom he was on good terms, Yeltsin gave personal assurances.”I am sure you will find him to be a highly qualified partner,” Yeltsin said, according to transcripts released by Clinton’s official presidential library.On Sept. 4, with fighting escalating in Daghestan and along the border with Chechnya, the first of four explosions targeting apartment buildings went off: a car bomb outside a five-story building housing relatives of Russian military personnel in Buynaksk, Daghestan. Sixty-two people died.The bombing — the first of its sort in post-Soviet Russia — drew wide attention. But for many Russians, it was seen as merely a spillover of the violence already afflicting a distant region.FILE – Acting President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with workers during his visit to an oil and gas field in Surgut, western Siberia, Russia, March 3, 2000.Five days later, just after midnight, an explosion rocked a nine-story building located along a leafy bend in the Moscow River just a 30-minute drive from the Kremlin. More than 100 apartments were destroyed. In all, 106 people were killed.Russians were stunned. Yeltsin ordered a search of thousands of apartments buildings in the city for other possible explosive devices.Putin declared Sept. 13 a day of national mourning. At around 5 a.m. that same day, another explosion went off in the basement of a brick, eight-story apartment building on Moscow’s Kashirskoye Highway, about 6 kilometers south of the previous blast. A total of 119 people were killed.Three days later, a fourth apartment building was flattened when a truck bomb exploded before dawn in the southern city of Volgodonsk. Seventeen people died.Together, the bombings panicked the country, and added to further doubts about Yeltsin’s leadership. A growing number of Russian security officials publicly accused Chechen terrorists.On Sept. 23, during a trip to the Kazakh capital of Astana, Putin vowed to take an unflinching line against what he called “bandits” — even when they were in the toilet.’Sugar sacks’ in basementThe day before Putin’s “outhouse” comment, on Sept. 22, another incident occurred at an apartment building in the western city of Ryazan.Two men driving a car with Moscow license plates were spotted carrying sacks into the basement of the building. Police and bomb-disposal experts swarmed the area, discovering they contained a military-grade explosive, and had a detonator and a timer set for 5:30 a.m.Putin that evening praised the work of investigators for thwarting what appeared to be another bombing attempt.The next day, three FSB officers were arrested by police in Ryazan and held on suspicion of planting the sacks. But Putin’s successor at the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, declared that the Ryazan incident had, in fact, been a training exercise, and he apologized for scaring an already edgy populace.”It was not an explosion somebody foiled; it was a security training exercise. The sacks contained only sugar. There were no explosives inside,” Patrushev said.A week later, Putin announced plans for a land invasion of Chechnya using Russian Army units. Russia’s air force began using fuel-air bombs — highly destructive weaponry that rights activists say are often used indiscriminately, killing civilians and fighters alike.By Feb. 2, just over a month after Putin became acting president, and nearly five months after being named prime minister, the Russian Army entered the Chechen capital, Grozny.The following month, Putin won 53 percent of the vote in the snap presidential election, his first electoral victory.The official government investigation into the bombings, concluded in 2002, blamed Chechen militants for the attacks.Independent journalists, researchers, even lawmakers conducted their own investigations and found holes in official statements, including what Kovalyov said was the FSB’s shifting explanations for different evidence that emerged.The fact that the Putin government never allowed a thorough and public investigation, which fully debunked the suspicions surrounding the bombings, was itself problematic, he said.”A competent, conscientious government should conduct a wide and public investigation in a case like this, with such serious suspicions,” Kovalyov said. “In this case, there’s been nothing of the sort.”Kovalyov’s own commission was stymied in its efforts, when Russian security agents began harassing staff members. Its chief investigator, lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, was arrested and convicted by a military court for allegedly revealing state secrets. He spent four years in prison. Reporter Yury Shchekochikhin, who also worked for the commission, died after what his relatives believed was a poisoning.Another investigation was conducted by Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former FSB officer, who worked with historian Yury Felshtinsky and published their initial conclusions in 2001, in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.Funded by the exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, the findings were compiled into a book called Blowing Up Russia, published in English in 2007, the year after Litvinenko died in London after being poisoned with a highly radioactive substance.Felshtinsky, who now lives much of the time in the United States, said he believed the bombings were engineered by Russian security agencies to justify a new war in Chechnya, and to help bolster Putin’s credibility as a law-and-order leader.”In 2000, it was clear that the FSB blew up the buildings in order to declare war on the Chechen Republic, and this would result with Vladimir Putin being elected a tough leader,” he told RFE/RL.”After 20 years, nothing has come out that has gone against the narrative,” Felshtinsky said. “Nothing has come out that actually goes against this theory. And a lot has come out that, in fact, supports the theory.”John Dunlop, a scholar with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of a 2012 book about the bombings, agreed that Putin’s rise was cemented by the bombings, and set the tone for his leadership: steely, sober, decisive.”That narrative, of course, serves to glorify Putin,” he said. “And he is, of course, still in power.”
…

your ad here

FILE – In this Wednesday, June 26, 2019 file photo, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, center left, arrives to NATO headquarters in Brussels. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar had threatened an attack earlier if a safe zone agreement feel through.The joint statement by the Turkish Defense Ministry and the U.S. Embassy in Turkey said that the measures would be implemented promptly “to address Turkey’s security concerns,” but did not specify whether the Kurdish fighters would be cleared from northeastern Syria.The move could bring tensions to a breaking point.Kurdish leader Padran Jia Kurd told the Reuters news agency Wednesday, “We want a political solution and dialogue, but if these regional and international efforts are exhausted, then we will be in total, grave military confrontation.”In a separate statement, 11 Kurdish groups condemned what they called a Turkish “occupation” of Kurd-controlled land, accusing the government in Ankara of “amassing” troops and establishing outposts along the border, and “making calculations for a permanent occupation.” The statement was released by news agency Arbil Kurdistan, which is thought to have ties to the Kurdish regional government.U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper briefs the media at a press conference following annual bilateral ministerial talks in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 4, 2019.U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this week it would be “unacceptable” if Turkey did begin clearing Syrian Kurdish troops, but he did not guarantee them protection.The Syrian civil war has been raging for more than eight years, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing more than 13 million people in and outside the country. Government forces announced this week that the army would restart an offensive on the northwestern Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold. Three months of airstrikes and shelling have killed more than 2,000 people on both sides and displaced an additional 400,000. 
…

your ad here

They are seen as the shock troops of a burgeoning direct-action environmental movement. Earlier this year, members of Extinction Rebellion brought the center of London and some other major British towns to a standstill by barricading bridges, standing on top of trains, and blocking major thoroughfares and crossroads. Extinction Rebellion (XR), a campaign of civil disobedience born in Britain and aiming to address a worldwide climate crisis, has been endorsed by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, the teenage poster child of environmentalism. XR has pledged to cause more disruption, arguing that governments are not doing enough to stop the “climate emergency.” The group, which is spawning similar campaigns in the United States and Australia, says climate activists have no choice but to take matters into their own hands. It demands that governments prevent further biodiversity loss and commit to producing net-zero greenhouse gases by 2025. Otherwise, XR says, there will be a mass extinction of life forms on the planet within the lifetimes of the demonstrators themselves.The group’s next target is next month’s star-studded London Fashion Week. Activists have promised to shut down the five-day runway event in a bid to raise awareness of the environmental damage caused by the fashion industry.FILE – Extinction Rebellion climate activists raise a mast on their boat during a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Britain, July 15, 2019.”We need to change our culture around consumption,” said climate activist Bel Jacobs. “People have no idea how environmentally destructive fashion is.”Greenhouse gas emissions from making textiles was estimated at 1.2 billion tons of CO2-equivalent in 2015, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a British environmental charity.’Cultish nature’XR’s actions have been applauded by many environmentalists, who say the only way to make governments, people and corporations sit up and take climate action is to shock them into it. But the radical philosophy underpinning the group, which includes wanting to set up citizens’ assemblies that could overrule parliament, is drawing increasing criticism from foes, who compare the group to a millenarian sect. “The cultish nature of XR’s activities is a little spooky,” said Austin Williams, director of the Future Cities Project, a group that focuses on urban planning and futurist technological solutions.Sympathizers acknowledge that XR hasn’t helped itself with some of the remarks made by its leaders. Co-founder Gail Bradbrook said her realization that humanity was on the brink of extinction came from taking huge doses of psychedelic drugs, which “rewired” her brain and gave her the “codes of social change.”Roger Hallam, another co-founder, has said, “We are going to force the governments to act. And if they don’t, we will bring them down and create a democracy fit for purpose. And yes, some may die in the process.”FILE – Police remove a climate change demonstrator during a march supported by Extinction Rebellion in London, Britain. May 24, 2019.Hallam is not a scientist but has a track record as a political activist, and holds a Ph.D. on “digitally enhanced political resistance and empowerment strategies.”BirthStrikersSeveral leading XR adherents have announced they’ve decided not to procreate in response to the coming “climate breakdown and civilization collapse,” arguing the world is too horrible a place to bring children into it. The BirthStrikers, as they are nicknamed, received some endorsement earlier this year from U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said the climate emergency “does lead young people to have a legitimate question — ‘Is it OK still to have children?'”XR critics have compared the BirthStrikers to the Cathars, a medieval religious sect that encouraged celibacy and discouraged marriage on the grounds that every person born was just another poor soul trapped by the devil in a body.DefectionsXR has also seen defections. Sherrie Yeomans, coordinator of XR blockades in the English city of Bristol, left the group, saying, “I can no longer surround myself with the toxic, manipulative Extinction Rebellion cult.”Johan Norberg, a Swedish author, historian and XR critic, worries that the group is fueling anxiety while not being practical about the possible solutions to global warming. “I guess it depends on your definition of cult,” he said. “But I think it is a growing, but very radical, sentiment that I fear plays a part in giving people anxiety about their life choices, and also leads us to thinking about these things in the wrong way,” he told VOA. On the BirthStrikers he said: “The bizarre thing is that they just think of another human being as a burden, a mouth to feed. But they also come along with a brain to think, and hands to work. I don’t know what scientific insight and which technology will save us from not just global warming but also the many other problems that will affect us — the next pandemic, natural disaster and so on — but I know that the chance that we’ll find it is greater if we have more people alive, who live longer lives than ever, get a longer education than ever, and are more free to make use of the accumulated knowledge and technology of mankind to take on those problems.”FILE – Protesters from the group Extinction Rebellion walk to Hyde Park in London, April 25, 2019.Norberg points to a future of “electric cars and, soon, planes,” and biofuels made from algae and extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere. He worries about the economic consequences if the abrupt zero-growth goals of XR were adopted. “It would result in a reversal of the amazing economic development that has resulted in the fastest reduction of poverty in history. A lack of growth and international trade would result in human tragedies on a massive scale,” he said.XR responseXR’s co-founders say Norberg’s formula won’t halt climate change and stop extinction. They defended themselves against critics’ cult charges, arguing recently in an article in a British newspaper, “We’ve made many mistakes, but now is the time for collective action, not recriminations.”  “Extinction Rebellion is humbly following in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King,” Hallam said. “After covering basic material needs, human beings are not made happier through consuming more stuff.”Bradbrook told reporters in London, “We oppose a system that generates huge wealth through astonishing innovation but is fatally unable to distribute fairly and provide universal access to its spoils. … We need a ‘revolution’ in consciousness to overturn the system.” 
…

your ad here

The U.K. food industry is asking the government to set aside competition rules so companies can coordinate supply decisions to combat shortages in the event Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement on future trade relations.The Food and Drink Federation said Wednesday it has asked the government to direct the Competition and Markets Authority to relax rules that prevent such coordination. It hasn’t yet received a response.Britain’s decision to delay Brexit until Oct. 31 from the original date in March is likely to make it more difficult for supermarkets to keep shelves filled because normal stockpiling for the Christmas season means there is less warehouse space available in the autumn, the group said.“If the government wants the food supply chain to work together to tackle likely shortages – to decide where to prioritize shipments – they will have to provide cast-iron written reassurances that competition law will not be strictly applied to those discussions,” Tim Rycroft, the federation’s chief operating officer, said in a statement. “Without such assurances, any such collaboration would risk incurring large fines from the CMA.”Christopher Haskins, a former chairman of Northern Foods, one of the country’s largest suppliers of package foods, said panic buying is possible.“We could be in a sort of wartime situation of a limited amount of food rationing,” he told the BBC. “Those who can remember the war, that took a long time to put into place and it was pretty haphazard and pretty unfair.”“I don’t think we’ll get to that, but I’m very concerned about the groups who aren’t in the supermarket chain, how they will deal with things.”
…

your ad here

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he has spoken with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, after four Ukrainian soldiers were killed in shelling in eastern Ukraine.”I called him urgently. I told him that this brings us no closer to peace,” Zelenskiy said during a news briefing in Kyiv, adding that he had urged Putin to ask the Moscow-backed separatists to “stop killing our people.”He also said Putin had promised him something, details of which would be disclosed later.The Kremlin has not commented on the phone call.Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on August 6 that the separatists had opened fire at Ukrainian military positions in the Donetsk region earlier that day, using grenade-launchers, machine guns, and assault rifles.”As a result of the enemy’s attacks today, according to the information in our possession, four of our heroes sustained injuries, to which they succumbed,” the statement said.It was the highest daily casualty toll in the Ukrainian conflict since a truce was agreed nearly three weeks ago.Since April 2014, more than 13,000 people have been killed in the conflict.A cease-fire agreement, involving Russia and Ukraine and brokered by France and Germany, ended major conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2015, although regular small-scale clashes have continued to cost lives.
…

your ad here