Creative class accounting

It was American economist Richard Florida, who coined the term “creative class”. He described the phenomenon in his “Rise of the Creative Class”. Strategy-2020 by Vladimir Putin has introduced the term to Russian political science and economics. According to authors, it is the creative class that bears the innovative thinking and the entrepreneurship spirit. The hopes for the timely modernization are still pinned to it — deprived of that, Russia is destined to become yet another “third world” country.

What is to befall barrel and us?

Annual economic forum in St. Petersburg — pretentiously dubbed the “Russian Davos” — has come to an end. Neither its significance for the global economics, nor the ranks of the guests, nor the announced goals can match the Swiss ones, but peculiar aspects of it are crucial for our country.

RUSSIAN MARCH IN THE MIDDLE OF WARSAW?

Our glorious advance across the planet

Is dazzling, while noticed from afar

And Russian scriptures flaring on a granite

All over lavatory in Paris are

V. Vysotsky

EACH OF US IS A GREEK JEW

“Responding to the election of neo-Nazi MPs to the Greek parliament we proclaim in solidarity: ‘Each of us is a Greek Jew!’” We cannot reconcile with the fact that in Greece or any other country of our continent Gypsies or those of African descent have to fear for their very lives because of the sheer fact of being themselves”, — says the letter of European intellectuals,  published by several European newspapers. An occasion for such precaution was the Greek parliament elections, which took place on the May 6, this year. For the first time in the history an orthodox national-socialist party of Greece (Hrisi Avgi, which means Golden Dawn) got into the parliament with a result of 6.97%. Party holds Mein Kampf for the ideology, its logo looks suspiciously like swastika, party member greet each other with a notorious “Sieg”, only “Aryans by blood and Greeks by nationality” may be its members — and there goes all the appropriate Nazi bric-a-brac.

"CHURCH TITHE" IN EUROPE

27 May 2012, 06:25

Recent proposal by Vsevolod Chaplin to impose a “church tithe” in Russia caused more smiles than to protests, which have become the natural reaction to the initiatives of the Russian Orthodox Church chief PR-executive of late. Comments regarding the occasion may be reduced to a simple thesis that “we are about to find out the real number of true believers in Russia”. Having smiled with everyone else, I decided to peek at our European neighbors in order to understand how the educated European Union funds its churches (of which there are aplenty). Here I would like to share the results of my research with the progressive public.   

HUNGARY ON THE CURVE: WILL THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION «STRONGARM» ORBAN?

Sheer amount of reforms, which the current Hungarian government is engaged into, and, most of all, the volume of reformed economic and political institutions is unprecedented. Apart from Prime Minister Viktor Orban, no one, not even the members of his own government, seem to be aware of the complicated situation, which Hungary fetched itself in. The government is under tremendous pressure exerted by the international institutions. Orban awaits the IMF decision regarding the loan for Hungary with the strained attention — this loan may give the markets a positive signal.

QATAR: INFORMATION VACCUM AROUND THE «INFORMATION STATE»

About a week ago timid rumors about a failed coup in one of the most outstanding Arab states — Qatar — leaked to the outskirts of global information space. Its population is of match to a population of Udmurt Republic (federal subject of Russia) and makes about 1.700.000, but of late it has been laying claims for leadership within the renovated Gulf Cooperation Council, ousting the authority of Saudi Arabia.

Shariah rule in the United States

Despite the paradoxical nature and the sheer absurdity of the headline, these four words are the naked truth. One of the best legal systems in the world — the American one — is subjected to a tremendous pressure from the anti-constitutional (as Americans view it) religiously-legislative system of Islam. For now, Shariah rule advances locally and the process is imperceptible at a federal level, yet the situation in certain states is clearly about to spiral out of control.

ROMNEY VS OBAMA: «THE RUSSIAN CARD» HAS BEEN PLAYED

Mitt Romney took a hardball foreign-policy stance. He has already claimed the “perishing Russia” to be American enemy #1, has called to toughen up the political interaction with Iran, the DPRK and other “outcast states” (as they are known in Washington). According to Romney, Obama is too indecisive when it comes to foreign policy — a quality that does not befit the leader of such a great power as the USA — and basically just a naïve simpleton, double-crossed by crafty Russians and Chinese.

SECRET PRISONS OF CIA IN EASTERN EUROPE: POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES

It all started with Dana Priest’s article in Washington Post on Nov 2, 2005, which was entitled “CIA holds terror suspects in secret prisons”. The states, where the prisons itself were located were dubbed “Eastern European”, without disclosing the specific names at the White House request.

Secret CIA prison in Poland

Szczytno-Szymany airport, where the CIA planes used to land

Sudden twist took place in the criminal case of secret CIA prison in Poland. Prominent activist of the neo-Communist SLD party Zbigniew Siemiątkowski was charged. Ex-Prime Minister Leszek Miller and ex-President Aleksander Kwasniewski are about to face the State Tribunal. The prefix “ex-” before the titles of the said statesmen by no means diminishes the importance of that political scandal or political consequences for acting politicians (and the country itself). Significance of the case for international politics is yet to be estimated.

Muslim Brotherhood in the White House?

Muslim Brotherhood — precursor of Al-Qaeda — is taking the lead both in Egyptian politics and in Washington.

Arab Spring is far from being over, but we may already conclude that radical Islamic groups (especially the famous Muslim Brotherhood) has profiteered the most on it. Rapidly building up influence of the Brotherhood in such countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Jordan is no longer a secret. However, its penetration into the so-called countries of well-established democracy is not that obvious for the masses. Former FBI special agent John Guandolo believes that “their goal is to manipulate and collect information”. According to him, their henchmen have found backdoors even to Washington corridors of power.

The word and deed of foreign affairs — in the beginning was the Word

Analysis of reasons and circumstances that triggered the geopolitical conflict around Iran inevitably suggested the role of diplomacy in foreign policy. Without doubt, any international relations student is aware that diplomacy is an extension of politics. Alas, modern foreign policy bodies of several countries have apparently forgotten this common truth.

HEAD OF THE BRITISH INDEPENDENT PARTY AGAINST FBI

Nigel Farage is a renowned European politician. He heads the UKPIT (United Kingdom Independent Party), holds a seat in the European Parliament and is a staunch euroskeptic. He criticizes the EU leadership, has a short-fused temperament and champions truly British values. Lately he has flung these qualities of his to protect his old buddy, businessman Christopher Tappin, who awaits his extradition to the USA that accuses him of arranging a criminal group for illegal supply of HAWK missiles batteries to Iran (transferring them through Netherlands and all the way from America).

PRESIDENT WITH A LICENSE TO KILL

On Sep 30, 2010 American drone attacked a car in the south of Yemen with four Al-Qaeda members inside — Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Mohsen al-Marabi, Samir al-Maruani and Samir Jan. The car was destroyed with Hellfire missiles. All four passengers have been killed. Whichever casual such news from the fronts of announced American wars are, this time they’ve triggered quite a scandal. The reason was that two passengers were actually American citizens. Elimination of one of them — Anwar al-Awlaki — was authorized personally by the U.S. President Barack Obama.

DEMOCRATIZATION OF IRAQ OR THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS THAT DEVOUR CHILDREN OF OTHERS

Famous Danton’s phrase, exclaimed right before his execution, has long ago become a platitude. Arab revolutions that still shake the Middle East do not only devour its own children, i.e. revolutionaries themselves. They literally take the lives of other kids. This is not only applied to Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, where the crowds of revolutionaries had driven the centennial dictators out of their palaces. Even Iraq, where the revolution was brought at the bayonets of American SEALs (with democratization of the country being their prime goal), shared that grievous lot.

Iranian nuclear program and the international legislation

Lately Iran, its nuclear program, capacity for creating nuclear weapons and the surmised attack of Israel and the USA have been in the thick of the global politics. Discussion of these essential points has become a kind of a betting shop, where venturesome political analysts place their bets for the sheer timing of attack. It is weird that at the same time no one analyzes the legal aspect of Iranian nuclear weapon and the threat of using military force against it.

OPERATION NORTHWOODS: HAVE CIA AND PENTAGON BEEN CONSPIRING TERRORIST ATTACKS AT THE U.S. TERRITORY?

Nowadays it is difficult to believe in what I say. Records of the abandoned operation Northwoods, which were published according to the 50-years declassification term set by American legislation, might either shock or bring a mistrustful smile to your face. Exactly 50 years ago the CIA along with the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff planned an attack against their own country. On the March 13, 1962 U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara presented the plan of operation for presidential approval of John Kennedy.

Price of an oil terror

Fears regarding the shrinking oil supplies from the Middle East triggered by a possibility of a military conflict with Iran are the main factor that boosts the petrol prices up. That’s what Barack Obama said on TV yesterday. According to him, vain conversations about the possible war in the Middle East (backed by certain experts and politicians) should be stopped.

From Gibraltar to Peshawar

« The Army's story

 Is guns and glory

From Gibraltar to Peshawar[1].

 When they are at a loss

And chance to come across

New and unruly races

With brown or yellow faces

They chop them into little bits

of beefsteak tartare!»

Bertolt Brecht

«The Threepenny Opera»

«From the Mediterranean Sea to Hindu Kush» is how the well-known American agency STRATFOR entitled its brand-new strategic forecast for the uneasy region. It is written by the Stratfor CEO himself, Dr. George Friedman. It’s hard to say whether Dr. Friedman is familiar with the works of a great German 20^th century playwright Bertolt Brecht, but the name of his article sounds suspiciously similar to one the main songs of Brecht’s play that was written in 1928.

Oil, blood and hypocrisy

Everyone, who looks through the newspaper headlines every now and then, is certainly aware that today the world stands at the threshold of new major armed conflict that is about to grow into a full-scale war featuring nuclear states. Centre of the conflict lies at the heart of Middle and Near East, covering a part of Central Asia, too. Why the scent of war is so strong in the air of that region?