Author: andy

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Russia

Putin: Russia Will Give Up Nuclear Weapons*

In a statement that sounds good but never has a real chance of happening, former president and current Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that his nation would give up nuclear weapons if everybody else who had them did the same.

“If those who made the atomic bomb and used it are ready to abandon it, along with – I hope – other nuclear powers that officially or unofficially possess it, we will of course welcome and facilitate this process in every possible way,” Putin said.

Russian and American officials are currently negotiating a successor to the 1991 Start Treaty which banned its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of 1,600 ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and bombers.

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Russia

Wal-Mart Upbeat on Russia

U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart siad on thursday that they are “confident and hopeful” about entering the Russian market.

According to MarketWatch, the company set up an office in that country a year ago to study the market and explore opportunities.

Wal-Mart’s international unit covers 15 markets, from Brazil and Mexico to China and Japan in addition to Puerto Rico, generates a quarter of the company’s sales (about US$100 billion), and has been the fastest growing division of the company. In the past five years, the international unit has seen an annual sales growth rate of 17 percent.

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Cuba Legal & Regulatory

U.S. Judge Awards US$1 billion in Lawsuit against Cuba

Last Friday, a Miami-Dade Circuit judge awarded more than US$1 billion in damages against the Cuban government for the lawsuit filed by a Cuban-American man blaming them for the suicide of his father.

Gustavo Villoldo, 76, claimed that Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Fidel Castro and others were guilty for his father’s 1959 suicide in Cuba. Villoldo would later join the U.S. military and be involved with the CIA-led capture of revolutionary Che Guevara. Even though the damage award would be almost impossible to collect, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Peter Adrien said he wanted to send a signal to Cuba’s government.

Judge Adrien awarded almost US$1.2 billion; US$393 million for economic damages suffered by the family; US$393 million for pain and suffering; and US$393 million in punitive damages.

Villoldo’s attorney said the law firm search for global Cuban assets to fulfill the judgment. The Cuban government has not offered a defense to the lawsuit. In February 1959, Villoldo’s killed himself by overdosing on sleeping pills after being held by the government and tortured for days and threatened to be executed on supposed grounds that he was a U.S. agent.

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Russia

NASA Extends Contract with Russian Space Agency

NASA announced this week that it extended its contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos. With the space shuttle scheduled to retire from service next year, NASA is in need of the crew and heavy lifting capabilities that the Russian’s can provide to support the International Space Station.

According to NASA’s website, the new deal includes “comprehensive Soyuz support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, crew rescue, and landing of a long-duration mission for six individual station crew members.” The US$306 million deal will involve four launches by the Roscosmos Soyuz program.

NASA and Russia previously agreed to a US$719 million deal in 2007 that included 15 seats and 5.6 tons of cargo to be transported on Soyuz flights to the orbital site Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports.

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North Korea

North Korea Launches Missiles

A day after the test detonation of a nuclear device, North Korea test fired two short range missiles from its eastern coast South Korea’s Yonhap New Agency reports.

“The North is continuing its saber-rattling,” a South Korean official told the news agency, declining to be identified and to say whether the launches were meant as tests.

North Korea’s second nuclear bomb test reverberated around the world Monday. The U.N. Security Council condemned it as a “clear violation” of international law and its closest ally, China, said North Korea “disregarded the opposition of the international community” to conduct the test.

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Russia

Russia Set to Lose 50 Year Relationship with India Over Jets

India is about to make a break from Russia over the provision of mid-air refuellers, citing a lack of safety and technical standards to keep its fighter aircraft airborne. This breaks Russia’s 50 year monopoly over providing the Indian air force with aircraft. India’s Air Force has stated that the Russian Ilyushin-78 refuellers do not meet the required tender objectives and that it prefers the Airbus A330 MRTT a military derivative of the Airbus A330 airliner.

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Cambodia & Laos

Khmer Rouge Trials Begin

Trials began today for the first member of the former Khmer Rouge regime to face a mixed Cambodian and international criminal court on charges of genocide. Kaing Guek Eav, the former warden of S-21in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, has been indicted on charges that include crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva conventions. At least 1.7 million Cambodians died between 1975-1979 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge from execution, disease, starvation and overwork.

The news of the trial’s start made headlines in the country, and people were feeling “very numb,” Youk Chhang, head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, where about 20 members of the public had gathered to watch the televised proceedings, told CNN.

In memory of those who were lost:

As a child trying to understand the Khmer Rouge regime, I had many questions about the strange world that had overtaken my homeland. At twelve years of age, during the Khmer Rouge regime, I asked my older sister, Chea, a question in the hope of understanding our pain and the loss of those I loved. He answer became the seed of my survival, planted by a sister who I idolized.

“Chea, how come good doesn’t win over evil? Why did the Khmer Rouge win if they are bad people?”

Chea answered: “jchan baan chea preah chnae baan chea mea,” which means “Loss will be God’s, victory will be the devil’s.” When good appears to lose, it is an opportunity for one to be patient and become like God. “But not very long, p’yoon srey,” she explained, and referred to the Cambodian proverb about what happens when good and evil are thrown together into the river of life. Good is symbolized by klok, a type of squash, and evil by armbaeg, shards of broken glass. “The good will win over evil. Now, klok sinks, and broken glass floats. But armbaeg will not float long. Soon klok will float instead, and then the good will prevail.”

From “When Broken Glass Floats” by Chanrithy Him

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Cambodia & Laos

Global Crisis Greatly Impacting Cambodia

With its pillar textiles industry suffering from lack of sales abroad, and reduced tourism numbers projected for 2009, Cambodia faces dire challenges from the global financial crisis.

An annual IMF review said the crisis will potentially affect economic activity, capital inflows and the banking system in the southeast Asian country. The impact on the garment industry is already being felt. As was recently reporting by NPR, two-thirds of Cambodia’s export earnings come from the garment industry, which employs about 360,000 people — almost all of them women.

With demand for garments dropping, these workers are losing what was once thought of as a steady, good-paying job. NPR sites Whitex Garments in Phnom Penh; Six months ago, the factory had more than 500 workers in the packing department alone, manager David Teo says. Now, there are fewer than 300.

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Russia

NATO Supplies: From Russia With Love

Tanks and other military equipment will once again flow south from Russia towards Afghanistan. The difference this time is that it will be American-made armor rather than Soviet ones that will make the trip.

Hampered by Taliban attacks on convoys heading over the Khyber Pass from Pakistan, NATO asked for and was granted permission to ship military supplies via Russia to the country’s northern border. After crossing the frontier, the supplies will follow the same route that the 40th Army took when they invaded in 1979.

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Russia

Rights Lawyer Gunned Down in Moscow

In a brazen street-side killing that is remeniscent of late 1990s, when Russia’s near collapse saw a surge of Mafia-inspired violence, a masked man shot and killed on Stanislav Markelov on Monday. Markelov was a Russian human rights lawyer known for his work on abuses by the Russian military in the breakaway region of Chechnya. Anastasia Baburova, a journalist who was with Mr. Markelov, was also killed in the attack which took place not far from the Krelim in broad daylight. Officials have not identified any suspects.