Ahhh! That's better!
NOW FOR THE RUSSIA NEWS ROUNDUP!
1) Not to gloat or anything, but it seems the Brookings Institution has finally started reading FPA Russia Blog. Only a few days after we exposed the absurdity of Anders Aslund's disingenuous insinuation that Russia's economic downturn was somehow caused by the Georgia war, their Clifford G Gaddy has pronounced the definitive word on the matter, blasting Aslund out of the water. Good job!
2) Russia is everywhere in the headlines!
The BBC's Bridget Kendall delves into the “Machiavellian power struggles, dark paranoia of security chiefs and long fingers of corruption” to explore the strange co-leadership of Putin and Medvedev.
3) Guardian hack Luke Harding asks whether, after Ossetia and Abkhazia, Ukrainian penninsula of Crimea is next. This is very, very unlikely.
4. Very interesting article in the Washington Post by Philip Pan, about how Putin admonished Ekho Moskvy, one of the last remaining liberal indepenent media outlets, for alleged pro-Georgian bias in the reporting. This has got them all very worried. Hopefully it will not result in their shut down.
5. Speaking of media bias: is CNN about to be kicked out of Russia?
Exiledonline has an equally disturbing story about how CNN taped a long exclusive interview with Putin, but only aired a few seconds worth of clips. The reason? Putin came across as too reasonable, says author Yasha Levine, and this wouldn't have gelled with the Putin-as-Bad Guy construct over at Time Warner. And now, he's apparently so pissed at this ‘censorship’ that he is considering kicking the whole channel out of his country. Totally un-ironically, too!
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