By Boris Kagarlitsky - March 13, 2010

The [Russian] Duma has passed another law that will deliver a big blow to culture, education and public health. The struggle against those sectors has been going on for years, but it appears that this time the deputies are determined to finish them off for good. The law clearly demonstrates the intention of the state to release itself from any remaining social responsibility that it still has toward the people...If the law goes into force, most educational and public health institutions will be removed from the federal budget as of Jan. 1, 2011.

haiti
In the past 24 hours Russian doctors have performed surgery on 12 patients at the hospital that this country’s Emergencies Ministry has established in Haiti’s quake-stricken capital city Port-au-Prince. Over the period the Russian doctors have provided medical aid for a total of 57 patients, including 17 children. The Russian air-borne hospital started operation on the 15th of this month. It boasts all the equipment needed.

SchNEWS - Friday 14th August 2009

Since the collapse of the USSR, and the resultant political and social free-for-all that followed, there has been a steady escalation of violence...The harsh new realities of everyday life for ordinary Russians discovering that the great new 'democratic', 'capitalist' future was an even bigger stinking lie than communism, have led to an increase in disaffected youth forming extremist groups - and others mobilising to confront them or defend themselves from their persecutory actions.

At stake is nothing less than who holds the future highground in the competition for the world's energy resources.

By Doug Ireland - May 23, 2009

For the fourth year in a row, an attempt to have a Moscow Gay Pride March was violently broken up by police on Saturday, May 16, and 40 [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered] activists were arrested...The Pride March had been banned by Moscow's homophobic authoritarian Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has called such marches "Satanic" and recently dubbed gays "weapons of mass destruction."

Russia's ambassador to Nato, Dimitri Rogozin proposes using the NATO-Russia Council to establish a security order stretching 'from Vancouver to Vladivostok'. "Perhaps Nato could develop into PATO, a Pacific-Atlantic alliance..."

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ - New York Times

MOSCOW — The police in Moscow are investigating the ghastly murder of a Central Asian migrant worker, who was stabbed several times and decapitated in an apparent attack by ultranationalists...Investigators say the victim and another Tajik migrant worker were attacked last Saturday after they left work at a food warehouse just south of Moscow.

By Boris Kagarlitsky - November 11, 2008

...[F]ormer enemies are ready to express solidarity with each other. Unfortunately, it is too late...The situation will resemble an old Soviet joke. There will be no war, but there will be such a struggle for peace that everything will be razed to the ground.

By Edward S. Herman - October 3, 2008

If the Russians (or Chinese) had entered into a military alliance with Mexico, supplied it with arms and military advisors, used a Russian or Chinese version of the "National Endowment for Democracy" and other agents to bring about political change in Mexico (recall that Mexico has had a series of elections won by fraud), and perhaps put some ABMs in place to protect Mexico against a possible threat from Colombia, can you imagine the frenzy of U.S. politicos and the "free press?"

By Henry Meyer - September 18, 2008

Russia is playing its most active role in [Latin America] since the Soviet era, in a challenge to the U.S. in its traditional backyard..."We're increasing our presence in Latin America -- the countries in the region themselves want this," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov. "There's a big power in the north. They need a counterweight," he said...referring to the U.S.

By NOAM CHOMSKY - September 11, 2008

...[A] new cold war seems unlikely. To evaluate the prospect, we should begin with clarity about the old cold war. Fevered rhetoric aside, in practice the cold war was a tacit compact in which each of the contestants was largely free to resort to violence and subversion to control its own domains: for Russia, its Eastern neighbors; for the global superpower, most of the world. Human society need not endure – and might not survive – a resurrection of anything like that.

by Mark Franchetti in Moscow - September 7, 2008

Russia is considering increasing its assistance to Iran’s nuclear programme in response to America’s calls for Nato expansion eastwards and the presence of US Navy vessels in the Black Sea delivering aid to Georgia...The Kremlin is discussing sending teams of Russian nuclear experts to Tehran and inviting Iranian nuclear scientists to Moscow for training, according to sources close to the Russian military.

By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr. - September 1, 2008

...I think [war between the US and Russia] less likely to occur. However, one must not underestimate the stupidity of imperialists, if war does break out then I think the Russians will have a clearer view of how to proceed, and this will mean painful losses for the US, its allies and enablers.

From www.albasrah.net

First and before all, I would like to transmit to you the best regards and the sincere greetings of the people of Iraq and its courageous vanguard, the Patriotic Iraqi Resistance, and its solidarity with you while confronting the US colonialist attempts to weaken Russia and encroach on its strategic interests. We, the people of Iraq, the greatest victim of the US all through its criminal unprecedented history, after the genocide of more than 112 million red Indian[s], we declare without the slightest hesitation that we stand with you strongly against...NATO attempts to expand eastward...