Global News Post: Opinion

Vladimir Putin: The Man, the State, the Destiny

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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Marc Bennetts for RIA Novosti<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2dWZvdv8sP2RrBPcwa0T4d5GEYw_h7DD1dFjmxMwpi5YxI7GGePhSvaVTQflzSq-GYlo9rOukn_97rYnz7F7rir49KXinU62vfNH3PszZQh4wUZK1wrCffagtT7z-WCU1Ute_-9WwfA0/s1600/valdimirputincc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2dWZvdv8sP2RrBPcwa0T4d5GEYw_h7DD1dFjmxMwpi5YxI7GGePhSvaVTQflzSq-GYlo9rOukn_97rYnz7F7rir49KXinU62vfNH3PszZQh4wUZK1wrCffagtT7z-WCU1Ute_-9WwfA0/s320/valdimirputincc.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="direction: ltr; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Valdimir Putin <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="direction: ltr; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Photo:</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: #555555; font-size: 9.0pt;"> </span></i></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/3488885680/sizes/z/in/photostream/"><i><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;">flickr.com/worldeconomicforum</span></i></a></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 6.5pt;"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was a handover of power more unexpected than most and one that would shape Russia’s destiny for the next decade and beyond. On the evening of December 31, 1999, an ageing and clearly ailing President Boris Yeltsin stepped down in favor of his then largely unknown and young Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin. As the Kremlin clock ticked down to the new millennium, Putin addressed Russians as national leader for the first time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Like you, I intended this evening to listen to the New Year greetings of President Boris Yeltsin,” Putin told an audience of millions. “But things turned out otherwise.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fate had thrown the one-time KGB officer and ex-head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) a spectacular hand. But few, if any, would have suspected then that Putin would remain the country’s dominant politician for the next twelve years.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">And as Putin, 59, prepares to return to the Kremlin after spending four years as prime minister, almost as many uncertainties surround him today as they did when the question “Who is Mr. Putin?” was first posed all those years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Survivor and Secrecy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Born in 1952 in the Soviet Union’s northern port and pre-Bolshevik Revolution capital of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Putin was, as he himself admitted in the biography “First Person,” a childhood “hooligan.” He took up martial arts while at school to, as he revealed in a recent German documentary, “assert my position in the pack.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">His instinct for survival, which would serve him well in the years to come, may have been inherited from his paternal grandfather, Spiridon Putin, a cook for both Lenin and, later, Stalin.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Not many people who were around Stalin all the time managed to escape unscathed,” Putin said shortly after becoming president. “But my grandfather did.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">After university, Putin joined the KGB, fulfilling in the process a childhood dream born of Soviet-era films that glamorized the world of the socialist secret agent. But he was no Slavic James Bond, performing what he has called “ordinary intelligence” work in Dresden, East Germany – his only foreign posting.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was while he was in East Germany that the Soviet Union began to fall apart, Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms leading to what Putin would later emotionally describe as the “greatest geo-political catastrophe of the century.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Upon his return to Russia, Putin found work in what was now St. Petersburg with one of his previous law lecturers, city mayor Anatoly Sobchak. As president, Putin would draw on the friendships and acquaintances he made at City Hall when appointing senior officials, with fellow St Petersburgers such as future Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and – most famously of all – his hand-picked Kremlin successor Dmitry Medvedev, following him to Moscow.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In 1996, Putin was brought into the Kremlin as deputy head of the property management department and rose quickly through the ranks before being appointed FSB chief in July 1998. He would remain Russia’s security supremo until Yeltsin named him prime minister a year later.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But Russians say “there is no such thing as a former KGB agent” and analysts believe Putin’s time in the security services irrevocably shaped his world view.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“He doesn’t believe that people can act independently, that they are all agents of someone or another,” Moscow-based security analyst Andrei Soldatov said he added. “This suspicious approach was most likely formed during his time in the KGB.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Securing Power<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Putin’s sudden ascent to power was sealed at the March 2000 presidential polls, when he gained just over fifty percent of the vote. Initial low approval ratings had risen after he oversaw the return of Russian forces to Chechnya in September 1999, which had enjoyed semi-autonomy since the end of the first conflict there three years previously.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But a series of apartment explosions in Moscow and other cities, blamed on but never claimed by Chechen militants, in the autumn of 1999 had left over 300 dead and boosted support for another war in the North Caucasus.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“We will waste them in the outhouse,” Putin said of Chechen separatists, the first in a series of earthy remarks that would cement his image as a tough-talking, tough-acting leader.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Secure in the Kremlin, Putin spent the subsequent years consolidating his power, neutering the mass media, in particular national television. His critics also maintain that he has removed serious political rivals by underhand means, with supporters of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky alleging that the ex-Yukos CEO was jailed on trumped up fraud charges for financing support for Russia’s opposition. Putin has denied the accusation, saying “a thief belongs behind bars” and insists he has had no personal involvement in the case.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“He’s consistently eviscerated all other centers of power," said analyst Masha Lipman at the Moscow Carnegie Center think-tank. “He’s suppressed and or taken under his control parliament, political parties, regional governors, big business and major media. Plus he’s effectively secured the political arena from any other unwanted players.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But Putin said actions like the scrapping of direct elections for regional governors were aimed at strengthening security and halting Russia’s “epidemic of collapse,” which he partially blamed for the horrors of the 2004 Beslan school siege in the North Caucasus. The siege, which ended when special forces stormed the building where Chechen militants were holding over 1,000 people hostage, claimed the lives of 334 people, more than half of them children.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">World Stage<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Putin was, as the Kremlin frequently reminded the international community in subsequent years, the first world leader to call the White House to express his condolences after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. And when Washington responded to that assault by launching a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Putin readily gave his blessing to the stationing of NATO troops in former Soviet Central Asian republics that Russia considered part of its own “sphere” and where Russian troops were also based.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But relations would not remain as warm for long. With oil prices sky-high, Putin oversaw the perceived restoration of Russia’s global standing, with Moscow regularly defying the West over what Putin would dub at a famous speech in Munich in 2007 “the uncontained hyper-use of military force in international relations.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Putin’s nod to mainly US military forces moving into Central Asia was followed soon thereafter – and unexpectedly, Russia says – by formal NATO enlargement to include Moscow’s previous allies in eastern Europe. And the so-called color revolutions that swept through the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia in 2003-2004 also did much to increase Putin’s antipathy toward Western powers, whose hand he saw behind the uprisings.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Last December, Putin said Washington had encouraged the protests that followed that month’s disputed parliamentary polls in Russia. "We will never let others impose their will on us," he said. He has also regularly expressed scorn for opposition activists calling them in 2007 “jackals” who “count on the support of foreign funds and governments, but not the support of their own people.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Putin is not generally well-disposed to the US. He is always touchy and distrustful on relations,” said Fiona Hill, director of the Centre on the United States and Europe at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “Forging a relationship with Putin will be difficult for [US President Barack] Obama, as well as for whoever else might come next in the US presidency.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But while Putin has been vilified in the West, his stance on what he has called a US “cult of violence” has won him plaudits elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Russia has been at the forefront of quarrelling with Western ambitions…and for this Putin has been heralded by Indians, Arabs and the Chinese,” said Alexander Rahr, director of the Berlin-based Berthold Beitz Center for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“There has also been a demonization of Putin in the West because he has been building a strong Russia,” he added. “They want Russia to become integrated with the West, but only as a junior partner – they are not prepared to accept it on its own terms, and as a country with its own traditions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Stability and New Demands<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Russians have had no sense of stability for the past ten years,” Putin told state television in a wide-ranging interview less than two months after taking over from Yeltsin. “We hope to return this feeling.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">And it is this “stability” that Putin and his supporters have trumpeted as one of, if not the, major achievements of his reign, contrasting it favorably with what has become known here as the “wild 1990s.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Putin stabilized the country and he gave the people back some dignity,” said Rahr. “There have also been economic improvements in Russia during his rule.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Despite Putin’s pledge in that debut New Year Eve’s speech to protect “The freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the freedom of the media and property rights,” however, Russians in the 2000s entered into an unspoken agreement with the Kremlin to exchange active engagement in shaping the country’ political agenda for material comforts. But as the nascent middle class began to enjoy the fruits of the deal, a fundamental change came about.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“It’s obvious that, yes, Putin brought stability. He ended the war in Chechnya, put a stop to the widespread street crime of the 1990s and increased the quality of life,” explained analyst Sergey Mikheyev of the Moscow-based Center for Political Assessment.</span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span dir="LTR"></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span dir="LTR"></span>“But all this led to a different set of demands,” he added. “If in the 1990s, people were simply concerned with what they were going to eat, now they want to enjoy the kind of lives they see that people in Europe and the US lead.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Many here, though, see no viable alternative to the man who has ruled Russia in one form or another since 2000 and fear for the immediate future of the country if the protest slogan of “Russia without Putin!” is realized.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Right now, Russia’s political system is structured in such as way that there really is no alternative to Putin,” said Savlin. “I don’t see any other options but the return of Putin to the Kremlin.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“If he were to satisfy opposition demands for him to step down, Russia would be faced with real chaos,” he added.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Popularity and Protests<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">After the frequently inebriated Yeltsin, the inauguration of the teetotaler, straight-speaking Putin as president in May 2000 was welcomed by the vast majority of Russians.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Putin was also lauded at home for returning a sense of national pride to a former superpower traumatized by Yeltsin-era poverty and impotence in the international arena.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">His ratings soaring, Putin faced almost no opposition when he successfully ran for re-election in 2004, with the leaders of major opposition parties all deciding a challenge was senseless. Putin was re-elected with a landslide, gaining almost 72 percent of the vote.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But as the end of his second term of office approached, Putin was compelled to leave the Kremlin by the Constitution, which stated that no president could serve more than “two, consecutive terms.” Amid speculation that he would seek to amend Russia’s basic law to allow him to stand again, Putin confounded the experts by announcing that he would back First Deputy Prime Minister Medvedev to succeed him.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Medvedev’s victory assured by his powerful patron, Putin accepted the new president’s proposal to become prime minister after the March 2008 polls. But there was little doubt, neither at home nor abroad, that Putin was the dominant partner in the ruling tandem, and he was memorably described as “Batman to Medvedev’s Robin” in a leaked US embassy memo in 2011.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">He also remained its most popular, with few indications of public dissent until he attended a no-holds barred bout featuring Russian heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko in Moscow in the autumn of 2011. The fight came just two months after Medvedev and Putin had announced that they would seek to swap jobs after the March 4 presidential polls, a move that alienated many urban, educated Russians.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Still, it was the kind of event Putin should have been in his element at, yet another chance to bolster his tough guy image and demonstrate his pride at Russian victory. But as he began to speak, to laud Emelianenko’s triumph over his American opponent, the catcalls and booing began. Putin paused for a moment before raising his voice to continue.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">State television later edited out the jeers and Putin supporters claimed the booing had been directed at the losing U.S. fighter. But whatever the truth, video of the incident went viral on the Russian internet and emboldened Putin’s opponents. Alexei Navalny, the blogger and opposition activist who would soon become the most visible thorn in Putin’s side, called it “the end of an era.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But it was the December 2011 parliamentary elections that triggered the largest demonstrations against Putin’s rule, as tens of thousands of people packed downtown Moscow on four separate occasions in the months that followed to demand fair elections and, increasingly, the removal of Putin himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Putin is in a Catch-22 situation,” said Fraser Cameron, director of the Brussels-based EU-Russia think-tank. “Basically Russia has to change at some point. But if he opens up the system, his whole power structure that he has built up will be in jeopardy and he could fall.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“But if he doesn’t open up, there will be more demonstrations, which could be quite bloody at some point, and that could also lead to his downfall,” he added.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Change to Survive?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">And even among those who praise Putin’s achievements during his twelve years in power, there is an awareness that he “must change” to survive.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Putin stabilized the country and he gave the people back some dignity,” said German analyst Rahr. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“But the Russian people have changed a lot since 2000 and he needs to change as well.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I think it’s more likely he will remain in power for six years, but even these six years will be the most difficult for him,” he added. ‘The Russian people don’t want to see democracy as a farce and if Putin wants to remain the national leader, he must understand this.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But, analysts say, there is little indication that Putin is prepared to make these changes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Putin now seems to see himself almost as the embodiment of the state,” said Fiona Hill, director of the Centre on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. “He is running for president purely on the basis of his personal achievements, attributes and popularity, and how Russia has progressed under him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Putin and his supporters have responded in kind to the unprecedented protests that have rocked Moscow and other cities, staging mass counter rallies across the country. But critics have claimed that government employees have been coerced into attending these superbly orchestrated shows of support. Putin has admitted this may have been true in some cases, but said the effect on numbers should not be “exaggerated.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But the man who has - for better or for worse - come to represent modern Russia was in typically defiant mood at a mass rally at a Moscow stadium in late February.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">“The battle for Russia goes on!” he told the crowd at the cavernous Luzhniki sports arena, his hand reaching up and swiftly down as if to snatch victory from the chill Moscow air. “And we will win!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">As Putin strode off the stage, the crowd responded with sustained cheers. The opposition later claimed the applause had been pre-recorded. It was a controversy that neatly encapsulated the increasingly heated debate around Putin’s tenure as Russia’s leader.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div></div>

Vladimir Putin: The Man, the State, the Destiny

By Marc Bennetts for RIA Novosti Valdimir Putin Photo: flickr.com/worldeconomicforum It was a handover of power more unexpected than...

Homeless People in India – A Case Study of Chennai City

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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><o:p>  </o:p></span></div><h3 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><b>By<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.groundreport.com/syedalimujtaba"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;">SYED ALI MUJTABA SYED</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12.6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><br clear="all" /> <br />
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</span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 16.0pt; margin-bottom: 2.4pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">‘Oh think twice, it's another day for you and me in paradise,’ sang Phil Collins in the memorable song on the homeless people. I am sure many of us have seen such people in our daily lives. Some of us may have pity on them, others indifferent towards them, and some may have done acts of mercy towards them.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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Notwithstanding the facts, the truth is, homeless people are part and parcel of every metropolitan city life. Any one who sleeps without shelter on the streets, on railway platform, under flyovers, in parks or in any place not meant for human habitation and anyone who sleeps in night shelter are considered as homeless people.<br />
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The problem of homeless people is engulfing many metropolitan cities of the world. They provide the ugly face of the glamorous side of these supposedly beautiful cities. In <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region> too all the mega cities <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delhi</st1:place></st1:city>, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai the problem of homeless people are growing many fold.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The moral dilemma in handling the problems of homeless people is whether to absorb them in the bosom of the city or push them out of the city limits. It’s a call of the conscience and it’s a difficult call that remains unresolved.<br />
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There are many government schemes to address the problems of the street people and some non governmental organization too are chipping in their efforts to improve their lot.  <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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It is with these objectives, some Chennai based Non Governmental Organization has started two community based programmes for the welfare of homeless people in this southern metropolis of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
One is the legal aid training programme, other is career guidance training program. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The NGOs also offers special program for 0-5 age group, the most vulnerable group among the entire street population. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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There are 40,533 homeless people in the Chennai city, comprising 11,000 families. Out of them, 9,298 people live together on the streets under the open sky. Many of them have been homeless for more than three generations.<br />
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In Zone II, V, VI and VII of Chennai Municipal Corporation, 57 percent of homeless people are concentrated. This is because these zones predominantly accommodate unorganized labour related to wholesale business and other commercial activities. In zone VII the homeless people are predominantly construction and daily wage workers<br />
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As part of the community capacity building activities, the NGOs organizes legal aid training for the homeless community. The homeless community is been trained on capacity building, skill building, basic human rights and RTI provisions. It ensure the homeless community in securing access to mainstream education, health services, legal aid, affordable shelters and livelihoods for all homeless people in the city.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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Legal aid training provides information with regards to the housing rights, women rights and legal measures for them to know at the time of need. Legal Aid implies giving free legal services to the poor and needy who cannot afford the services of a lawyer for the conduct of a case or a legal proceeding in any court, tribunal or before an authority.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The Supreme Court has given guidelines that include food, identity cards, protection for the most vulnerable groups among the homeless, health, education, and livelihood, shelter and legal aid for the homeless community in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The NGOs legal aid training programme for the homeless community helps them to know their basic rights and the legal aid services pertaining to the poor and the marginalized community in Chennai.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The NGO’s has started career guidance training program that help young homeless generation to choose a career, gain competencies required for it, make decisions, set goals and then take an action which will improve their standard of living.<br />
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Of 40,533 homeless people in the Chennai, 21 percent are children below 14 years of whom 48 percent are girls. The children aged below 14 years form an extremely vulnerable group. They form 21 percent of the homeless population of Chennai.<br />
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About 85 percent of children below 14 years have never accessed to school education. It is to be noted the drop out rate of children of the ages 6-14 is 13 per cent, with the rate being higher among girls.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The story of the children below 18 years is still grim. The population of children between 15 and 18 years is 9 percent. The male- female sex ratio in this age group is nearly equal. More than 83 percent of the children do not have access to mainstream formal education.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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There is a heavy decline in the number of children between the ages of 15 to18 years enrolling for higher education. The drop out rate has reached an alarming figure of 75 per cent.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The drop out rates among the homeless children is high especially after their high school because of lack of knowledge and opportunity on their higher education. Hence there is an increase in the drop out rates when they are 15 and above.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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Choosing a career is a difficult matter, in the best of times. Add to this, opinions of friends and parents, and the young person is caught up in a confusing situation where making a decision is almost impossible.<br />
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Career Guidance refers to programmes and services intended to assist individuals of any age and at any point throughout their lives, to make education, training and occupational choices and to manage their careers. Choosing a career is a multi-step process. It involves gathering information on a number of things, the first being themselves.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The NGOs career guidance training program direct the homeless children in the right path and to make right choices which will in turn reduce the drop out rates, ensure higher education and choose a better career for their life.<br />
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The most challenging of the problems of street children are those faced by age group of 0-5 age as they are very vulnerable. There are 3574 street children aged below 5 years forming 9 percent of the population. They need physical, psychological, emotional, social, and economic support. It is very difficult for the shelter less people to provide this support to their children because they themselves are denied of the same being confined in the streets.<br />
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The children between 0-5 are required to avail facilities like the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) that ensures the nutrition, health and education needs. However, there is lack of these facilities to the children in the streets. As they grow up on the streets, they are exposed to multiple vulnerabilities caused by health complications and under nourishment. As a result, there is high amount of infant mortality among this segment of population. The NGOs with their special programmes are trying to address the issues of this vulnerable group.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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Chennai is leading in addressing the issues of the population living on the street. ‘Chennai Pavement Dwellers Federation’ is formed to bring the homeless dwellers together and voice their concerns.<br />
This attempt is to make people aware of their rights and get them to utilize those government schemes available to them. The federation also agitates for the right to shelter and changes in governmental policy towards them.<br />
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The homeless people are at the bottom of the pyramid and are engaged in menial jobs. They are migrants from rural areas, in search of better economic opportunities.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The dilemma that the cities face today is; whether absorb the migrants, as bonafide residents, and provide them with all the facilities of urban life, or temporarily accommodated in the city but encourage them to leave the urban space.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The problem if these people are given permanent shelters they will settle down eventually leading to overcrowding of the city and magnifying the problems of the urban habitat.<br />
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However, there is other fact of this issue as well. The migrant who constitute the homeless people contribute to the city’s well being as they perform various vital jobs and no city can run without them.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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It’s a chicken and egg kind of syndrome and it’s a difficult choice to make. The fact is unless the rural habitats are made conducive for habitation, migration to the cities may continue unabated.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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The symptoms are glaring in the census figures of 2011. It reveals that for the first time, the urban population in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> is in access to its rural population. Here lie the problems of homeless people as its part of the emerging pattern in the country. <a href="http://www.groundreport.com/Opinion/Homeless-People-in-India-A-Case-Study-of-Chennai-C/2941773"><span style="text-decoration: none;">---Ground Report  </span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>  <span class="apple-converted-space"> <span id="article_date"> </span><br />
<br />
--</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba@yahoo.com<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></i></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.0pt; margin-bottom: 2.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><o:p>  </o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"></span><o:p></o:p></div></div>

Homeless People in India – A Case Study of Chennai City

By SYED ALI MUJTABA SYED ‘Oh think twice, it's another day for you and me in paradise,’ sang Phil Collins in the memorabl...

The new, aging face of al Qaeda

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Yelena Suponina for RIA Novosti<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's longtime No. 2, has been chosen as the new leader of the global terrorist organization, according to postings on Jihadist websites. Zawahiri, a former doctor from Egypt, has been hiding from U.S. special services for nearly a decade. He will turn 60 on June 19.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Islamists are not known to make lavish presents to their superiors, and birthdays are less of an occasion in the Middle East than in the West. Muslims honor Allah, not his servants. It was a coincidence that Zawahiri's elevation came only a few days before his birthday. But still, there is something symbolic in the move.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A leader from the old guard<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It would be even more symbolic if the U.S. were able to dispatch the new al Qaeda leader this year, better still before the 10-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. It is believed that Zawahiri was as deeply involved in the operation as his boss Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan on May 2.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The U.S. has offered $25 million for information leading up to the capture or killing of Zawahiri. The price may go up following his promotion. The reward for bin Laden was $50 million, but it is unclear if anyone has received any part of that sum.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Zawahiri's appointment is good news for counterterrorism officials, as it is always easier to fight an enemy you know. Zawahiri's name was mentioned in the media as a possible replacement for bin Laden immediately upon news of his death.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However, one Western political analyst who presumably has close ties with extremists said there is a rift between al Qaeda's old and young members. He said the al Qaeda youth had put forward Egyptian Saif al-Adel as an interim leader of the organization but to no avail.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fading symbol of jihad<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It appears there was never any question among the jihadists that the new leader of al Qaeda should be Zawahiri, who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. The decision of the mysterious "general command" of al Qaeda to elevate Zawahiri was met with acceptance on extremist websites. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said about Zawahiri: "Yes, this man can be the organization's leader." Western political analysts showed much more interest in the news.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Zawahiri will be a nominal leader because most experts say that al Qaeda is not a vertically structured organization with centralized leadership. Its regional affiliates in North Africa, the Caucasus, the Arabian Peninsula and other regions have a common ideology but operate independently. Moreover, other terrorist groups often falsely claim to be al Qaeda affiliates.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Al Qaeda, the symbol of radical jihad, has been overshadowed by popular unrest in Arab countries. Zawahiri is the aging face of a fading organization, which may be good for the organization's enemies. Al Qaeda's time is almost up, and it may now be easier to deal with it, although new enemies may soon take its place.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Osama bin Laden, who ruled his organization via infrequent messages from his hiding place in Pakistan, could not have been remained the leader for years. But while he and his closest associates hid from U.S. forces, a tidal wave of revolutions was brewing in the Middle East.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The young fruit vendor who sparked the revolution in Tunisia did not blow himself up in a crown of unsuspecting people, like an al-Qaeda terrorist, but set fire to himself in protest after his stand was confiscated. And the impact of his act was much greater than any terrorist attack.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Zawahiri will be focused on his survival<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity that Zawahiri will have to think more of his own survival than plotting terrorist attacks.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However, the new leader of al Qaeda obviously had enough time to ponder the future of his religion and country, hoping to use the wave of popular unrest to reinforce his organization's popularity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He said in his 28-minute video address posted on the Internet last week that it is not individuals but whole nations that have risen against America. Zawahiri, the mastermind behind many of al Qaeda's terrorist attacks, called on Arabs to carry on the revolutions against the despotic regimes forced on them by the West.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He spoke about Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria and Morocco, adding that not an inch of the Palestinian land must be left to the U.S. henchman, Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the past, al Qaeda leaders hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan formulated global objectives and sought to achieve them through terrorist attacks. But Zawahiri's attempt to usurp the Arab revolts and cast himself in the role of coordinator will fail. This aging, gun-toting militant can't keep up with the young revolutionaries whose weapons are anti-government slogans and a bunch of jasmine flowers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Arab revolts were not inspired by al Qaeda, which has proved unable even to find itself a more compelling leader than Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al Qaeda has lost its ability to captivate, praise be to Allah.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Yelena Suponina is a political commentator for The Moscow News and Middle East expert.<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">The views expressed in this article are the author's and may not necessarily represent those of Global News Post or the news agency RIA Novosti.</span></i></span></div></div>

The new, aging face of al Qaeda

Yelena Suponina for RIA Novosti Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's longtime No. 2, has been chosen as the new leader of the global terrori...

Russian foreign policy: double headed eagle

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<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><i>Topic: International sanctions against Gaddafi regime</i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Tai Adelaja for RIA Novosti</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Russia's foreign policy arena is starting to look like a battlefield of its own as the country's top officials give seemingly conflicting signals about where Moscow stands amid the upheaval sweeping the Arab world, experts say.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As unrest in the region continues to produce stunning political shifts, Russian leaders have been working to forge responses that are both relevant to peoples in the Middle East and also serve Moscow's larger strategic goals in the region.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But in the process, apparent policy divergences, usually kept under wraps by the Kremlin, seem to be seeping into public view, with some policymakers favoring closer diplomatic alignment with the West, and others pushing for Russia to ignore Western pressure and be assertive in protecting its own interests.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This week alone, Mikhail Margelov, the Russian President's Special Representative for Africa, just back from jaunt in Libya, described Libyan opposition leaders as "serious and responsible people" who harbor no extremist ideas and support the idea of Russian mediation in Libya.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He reinforced such views on Friday, saying that that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi "has lost a moral right to stay in power" after shooting and bombarding his own people.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This appears to contradict the views held by top officials in the country's foreign policy department.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said several times that a March 17 UN Security Council Resolution that imposes a no-fly zone over Libya does not provide a mandate for ground operations or a regime change in Libya.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He warned that the NATO operation in Libya was "sliding toward" a land campaign, a prospect he said Moscow viewed as "deplorable."</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"We know that France and Britain intend to use military helicopters. We have given our view of NATO's actions," Lavrov said. "We consider that what is going on is either consciously or unconsciously sliding towards a land operation. That would be deplorable."</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In a surprise move last month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev joined Western powers in urging Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to give up power at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in the northern French seaside town of Deauville.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A month earlier, in a rare rebuke, Medvedev criticized a biting comment by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the UN resolution resembled "medieval calls for crusades." The president warned that such remarks were "unacceptable" and could lead to a "clash of civilizations."</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The duality of approach, like the double-headed eagle emblazoned on the country's coat of arms, has prompted political analysts to regard recent public utterances as symptomatic of a wider division in the Russia tandem.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"There are signs that there are two separate decision-making centers in the country - one in the Kremlin and the other in the White House," Tatiana Stonavaya, a political analyst at Russian Center for Political Technologies, said in a telephone interview from Paris. "The change is reflected in all areas - from foreign and domestic policy to economic and personnel matters. The reason this is more noticeable in foreign policy is that the Russian president has more leverage over foreign policy than he does over domestic policy."</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Stonavaya says the split originated as a disagreement over tactical issues, but later President Medvedev appeared to become more and more irritated with the system of control and management that he inherited from his predecessor.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"There is no doubt that there is an on-going competition between the two leaders as well as between their teams," Stonavaya said. "What is still in doubt is how this will play out going into 2012."</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">However, other political observers saw the latest divergence of opinions as little more than political theater, designed to distract the Russian electorate ahead of December's parliamentary elections.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"There is neither a difference of opinion between Medvedev and Putin nor any disagreements between Lavrov and Margelov," Sergei Markov, a United Russia lawmaker and political pundit, said. "What we are observing is a tactical maneuver between the political challenges facing the Kremlin and the need to pacify Russian public opinion."</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Markov believes that the Kremlin has, for tactical reasons, pitched its camp with Western leaders who are clamoring for democratic changes in Africa and the Middle East.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">However, he said that Russian public opinion is much more hostile toward pro-Western leanings in the Kremlin. He said Prime Minister Putin, as a former KGB officer, knows the workings of foreign political institutions and is, like the Russian public, suspicious of their motives.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"Whether we are talking about the bombing of Libya, Yugoslavia or Iraq, Russia's public opinion is highly suspicious of Western motives," Markov said. "As the head of the United Russia party which is facing elections in December, Vladimir Putin is much more sensitive to public opinion and has been eager to be protective of Russian interests."</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Whatever the differences in opinions, both leaders have publicly stated that foreign policy remains the exclusive preserve of the Russian president.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"We should not lose sight of the fact that [Deputy Prime Minister] Sergei Ivanov, Lavrov and the Interior Minister [Rashid Nurgaliyev] are members of what we call the 'presidential ministerial block,'" Markov said.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Political observers have also suggested that Putin and Medvedev have privately agreed on more issues than they cared to reflect in their public utterances. After all, the idea of a tandem is to maintain a public decorum indicating the constitutional delineation of power.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">"Openly, Putin tries to underscore the fact that foreign policy is the responsibility of the president. That explains why he said that he was just expressing a personal opinion when he made his now famous remarks about the bombing of Libya," Markov said. "I think Putin wants to remain a popular leader, but he also wants Medvedev to look deeply in the eyes of public opinion."</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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Russian foreign policy: double headed eagle

Topic: International sanctions against Gaddafi regime Tai Adelaja for RIA Novosti Russia's foreign policy arena is starting to look l...