<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><description>Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA['Offensive' Art]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35728-2005Apr7.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35728-2005Apr7.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  IN JANUARY 2003 vandals entered an art exhibition in Moscow and used spray paint to destroy many of the "offensive" paintings. It's not the first such incident in the annals of modern art, but this time the story had several peculiarly Russian twists. The gallery was part of the Andrei Sakharov Museum, set up in 1994 to preserve the legacy of Russia's best-known human rights activist. The exhibition, titled "Caution! Religion," was intended, the curators explained, to get people to focus on the danger of religious fanaticism and prejudice in a country where only Russian Orthodoxy has any firm legal status. The vandals were acolytes of the Russian Orthodox Church. After a brief investigation, charges against them were dropped on the grounds that the exhibition was indeed offensive. Instead, museum administrators were put on trial. Last week a judge found the museum's executive director, Yuri Samodurov, guilty of "inciting hatred"; also convicted were a colleague and  an exhibiting artist. All were fined.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Crooked Orbit]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32737-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32737-2005Apr6.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  "IT'S AS IF LEWIS and Clark had got all the way to the Rocky Mountains, and then turned around and headed home," says one scientist involved in the project. Even if that isn't a perfect metaphor for the planned termination of the Voyager spacecraft  --  which has been traveling 28 years through the solar system and is just about to enter the little-known realm of interstellar space  --  it does give some indication of the gloom felt by the scientists involved with Voyager since its launch nearly three decades ago. The news that NASA may cut the funding for continued monitoring of the twin Voyager probes should also cause Congress to ask, once again, whether the space agency really has its priorities straight.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chechnya's Disappeared]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23869-2005Apr3.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23869-2005Apr3.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   WHEN RUSSIAN forces killed Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov last month, they also eliminated the best remaining hope for a negotiated settlement between Russia and Chechen separatist forces. The strongest surviving Chechen leader, Shamil Basayev, is a terrorist who favors the slaughter of Russian civilians and with whom negotiations are unthinkable. Mr. Maskhadov, by contrast, the elected leader of the breakaway region in Russia's south, was a secular Muslim who repeatedly called for a political solution to the grinding conflict  --  and who was just as repeatedly rebuffed by President Vladimir Putin.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[From Revolt to Democracy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8370-2005Mar28.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8370-2005Mar28.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IT'S NOT YET CLEAR how the latest revolution in the former Soviet Union will end. As in Georgia and Ukraine, a rebellion was touched off in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan last week by popular outrage over an unfair election. But the revolt succeeded so quickly  --  after almost 15 years in power, President Askar Akayev was toppled in five days  --  that it left even opposition leaders breathless and confused. For a time over the weekend two rival parliaments were meeting in the Kyrgyz capital and newly installed ministers, including one recently freed from prison, were issuing contradictory directives. Mr. Akayev, meanwhile, apparently had taken refuge in Russia and refused to resign. It won't be easy to sort out this political mess: Kyrgyzstan's leaders will need lots of help to do it democratically.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Maskhadov's Death]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25589-2005Mar10.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25589-2005Mar10.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[IF, IN THE 1980s, the South African apartheid regime had killed Nelson Mandela, it  would have committed the same kind of blunder that Russian special forces committed this week when they killed the Chechen separatist leader, Aslan Maskhadov. This is not because Mr. Maskhadov was in any way similar to Mr. Mandela in personality, values or stature; he was not. But he represented, in Chechnya, the same kind of relative moderation. The South African regime knew that if Mr. Mandela and his allies were not made part of a democratic settlement, it would be left to deal with a younger, more violent and more radical generation of activists later on.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Soft on Mr. Putin]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54746-2005Feb25.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54746-2005Feb25.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE LOW POINT of President Bush's generally successful tour of Europe came at his news conference Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fresh from a private discussion in which he said he raised such issues as the rule of law, free press and respect for political opposition, Mr. Bush issued what sounded like an endorsement of Mr. Putin's handling of "a country that is in transformation." Lauding the Russian ruler as a man who means what he says, Mr. Bush declared that "the most important statement . . . was the president's statement when he declared his absolute support for democracy in Russia."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Counterrevolution]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62095-2005Feb3.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62095-2005Feb3.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   PRESIDENT BUSH and other Western leaders are still celebrating the democratic revolution in Ukraine, but in other former republics of the Soviet Union an entirely different response is underway. Post-Soviet leaders who, like Ukraine's former regime, have lived by corruption, rigged elections and thuggish repression are frantically seeking to head off a repeat of the popular "orange revolution," or the earlier "rose revolution" in Georgia. In recent weeks they have banned opposition parties, thrown their most plausible democratic challengers in jail and cracked down on Western pro-democracy organizations. They have also sought help from a familiar address: the Kremlin of Russian President Vladimir Putin.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A New Democracy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29570-2005Jan22.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29570-2005Jan22.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   TODAY ONE OF Europe's largest nations will make the transition from corrupt police state to fledgling democracy. In a ceremony in Kiev, Viktor Yushchenko is due to be inaugurated as president of Ukraine, just under a month after his decisive victory in a free and fair election -- and two months after a Russian-sponsored attempt to install a new authoritarian regime by fraud backfired. Mr. Yushchenko will begin his presidency with an open-air address in Independence Square, headquarters of the popular "Orange Revolution" that forced the retreat of the thuggish clique that governed Ukraine for the past decade. Then he will begin the difficult task of finding a place for his transformed country between a bitter Vladimir Putin and the democracies of the West. The danger is that Ukraine will be stranded between them.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Venezuela's 'Revolution']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8088-2005Jan13.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8088-2005Jan13.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   LAST SUNDAY hundreds of heavily armed Venezuelan troops invaded one of the country's largest and most productive cattle ranches, launching what President Hugo Chavez describes as his "war against the estates." The next day Mr. Chavez signed a decree under which authorities are expected to seize scores of other farms in the coming weeks. This assault on private property is merely the latest step in what has been a rapidly escalating "revolution" by Venezuela's president that is undermining the foundations of democracy and free enterprise in that oil-producing country. The response of Venezuela's democratic neighbors, and the United States, ranges from passivity to tacit encouragement.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Excusing Mr. Putin]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15142-2004Dec20.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15142-2004Dec20.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  ON SUNDAY Russian authorities staged an event that bizarrely but eloquently conveyed President Vladimir Putin's contempt for international financial and legal norms. At a government-run Moscow auction, one of the world's largest oil production companies was "sold" for  $9.3 billion -- about half its estimated worth -- to a previously unknown firm of undisclosed ownership that had  appeared three days before. The new petroleum giant gave as its address a building in a provincial town housing a cafe and a cell phone store. In this way Mr. Putin and the circle of former KGB operatives around him seized the prime asset of Yukos Oil Co., which until last year was emerging as Russia's most dynamic private company and the firm that had gone  furthest to adopt Western standards of accountability. In doing so they ignored not only Russian law but the legal rights of Yukos's Western investors and creditors -- whose claims they apparently seek to dodge through the creation of the front company.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A New Ukraine]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53720-2004Dec9.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53720-2004Dec9.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  UKRAINE'S POLITICAL leadership has taken a major step toward resolving the country's political crisis in a way that makes possible the liberal democracy that the popular "orange revolution" has demanded during the past two weeks. The ratification by parliament Wednesday of a compromise package of laws and constitutional amendments agreed upon by the government and opposition should greatly improve the chances that the rerun of the presidential election later this month will be free and fair. At the same time, reforms to take effect late next year will inhibit any return to authoritarian rule in Ukraine by shifting some powers from the president to the parliament and local governments. These changes may, as the corrupt outgoing government no doubt hopes, dilute a victory in the new presidential election for opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko. But the amendments, and the decision by both sides to accept a peaceful compromise, could also confirm Ukraine as a genuinely democratic country -- which is, after all, what this struggle has really been about.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Controlling Diamonds]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18821-2004Nov28.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18821-2004Nov28.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   AT THE START of 2003, an impressive effort to govern globalization got underway: The international diamond trade, which had fueled civil wars and international crime, became subject to a regulatory system backed by the United Nations and known as the Kimberley Process. An unlikely alliance of governments, the diamond industry and constructive nongovernmental organizations united behind two simple ideas: Freshly mined diamonds should be sealed in registered containers that certify their country of origin, and diamond importers should not accept unregistered gems that might profit insurgents or criminals. Diamonds from conflict areas have sustained guerrillas in Liberia, Congo, Angola and Sierra Leone; they are thought to form part of terrorist financial networks.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ukraine's Crisis]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11910-2004Nov25.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11910-2004Nov25.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  FACED WITH extraordinary demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of citizens demanding democracy, Ukraine's corrupt and thuggish government wavered this week, hinting that it might be willing to negotiate about the outcome of the presidential election that took place Sunday. Yet yesterday its official electoral commission ratified the fraudulent result that brought those crowds into the streets of the capital: It declared that Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had won despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell rightly responded that the United States "cannot accept this result as legitimate" and "stands with the people of Ukraine and their effort to ensure their democratic choice." In the coming days the United States and its European allies must follow up on those words by demanding that the Ukrainian authorities -- and their backers in Moscow -- listen to, rather than repress, the majority that now seeks to prevent their country from becoming an authoritarian state.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Radio Liberty]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8895-2004Nov23.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8895-2004Nov23.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   RADIO LIBERTY, the U.S.-funded Russian-language broadcaster, is not so much a radio station as an institution. For decades, Russians twiddled the dials of shortwave radios in the middle of the night, when the signal was strongest, trying to hear news that could not be broadcast on Soviet radio. Since the Soviet Union broke up, Radio Liberty has retained devoted followers, most of whom would say it is needed now more than ever: The media  are once again not free in Russia, the hand of the government is growing heavier, and anti-Americanism is rampant. The strong emotions Radio Liberty has  stirred over its half-century existence, among those who work there and those who listen, help explain why a move to "revamp" the station has recently caused so much distress.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Heroes of Press Freedom]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6033-2004Nov22.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6033-2004Nov22.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   WHEN THE Committee to Protect Journalists holds its annual awards ceremony tonight in Manhattan, three of the winners will not be present. Aung Pwint and Thaung Tun, Burmese writers and documentary filmmakers, have been in prison since 1999, in Aung Pwint's case for "illegal possession of a fax machine." The third winner, Paul Klebnikov, is being recognized posthumously; in July he became the 11th journalist to be assassinated in Vladimir Putin's Russia for doing his job. Mr. Klebnikov was  American, while the other  10 victims were Russian, but they have in common their stubborn courage. According to the CPJ's executive director, Ann Cooper, their cases have something else in common: No one has been brought to justice in any of the killings.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Kyoto Ratification]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29459-2004Nov5.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29459-2004Nov5.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  FOLLOWING RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin's long-awaited signature yesterday, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change will finally go into effect.  Mr. Putin has not decided to ratify the treaty because his compatriots suddenly saw the light and decided to become environmentalists, although some will try to portray it that way. In fact, the Russians bargained hard, winning European endorsement for World Trade Organization membership in exchange for their signature. Moreover, Russia will gain financially from the treaty, because it is based on a requirement that signatories reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels. Russia's industrial output has collapsed since then, along with greenhouse gas emissions. No regulation, taxes or pollution controls are necessary.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ukraine's Crucial Election]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12745-2004Oct30.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12745-2004Oct30.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THIS IS NOT a good weekend to hold a presidential election if you are not American and would like to have the attention of the United States and its major allies. Nevertheless, Ukrainians are due to go to the polls today for a presidential vote of enormous importance not only for their own country but for the future of Europe. One of the leading candidates in this nation of 50 million proposes that Ukraine align itself with the capitalist democracies of the European Union and NATO. The other would lead the country toward renewed integration with Russia under the neo-authoritarian politics of Vladimir Putin. The result will likely determine whether Ukraine preserves its fragile democracy and independence; it may also govern whether Europe slips toward a new divide between a democratic West and a Russian imperium.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Pass on Nukes]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10788-2004Oct29.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10788-2004Oct29.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) recently gave the Bush administration a passing grade on preventing nuclear terrorism [op-ed, Oct. 23]. Hard as it is to disagree with one of the most farsighted advocates for American security, I nonetheless found his case unpersuasive. Lugar accurately described what has been done, but he neglected to mention the more critical work left undone.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Paul Nitze]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50009-2004Oct20.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50009-2004Oct20.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[HALF A CENTURY ago, as the United States grappled with how to fight and win a global war of a kind it had never before experienced, the chief of policy planning at the State Department produced a paper laying out a blueprint that would guide American policy for decades. Paul H. Nitze argued that only a multifaceted and global effort would succeed in containing the expansionist Soviet Union: He called for "a rapid and sustained buildup of the political, economic and military strength of the free world."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Truth on Russia]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1931-2004Oct1.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1931-2004Oct1.html?nav=rss_world/europe/easterneurope/russia/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:18 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   "THE LEADERS of the West must recognize that our current strategy towards Russia is failing." So bluntly begins an open letter released this week by 115 European and American leaders, ranging from former presidents and prime ministers to sitting Republican and Democratic senators. At a time when Western governments are responding slowly, if at all, to the growing authoritarianism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the letter offers a wake-up call -- one that ought to get the attention both of those governments and of Mr. Putin.]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>
