Thursday, January 30, 2014

More than 50 Olympic athletes call on Russia to repeal anti-gay laws - From The Guardian

More than 50 Olympic athletes call on Russia to repeal anti-gay laws 

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Current and former Olympians criticise Games officials and sponsors for lack of action over anti-gay measures
On the eve of the Sochi Winter Games, more than 50 current and former Olympians have called on the Russian authorities to repeal recently introduced anti-gay laws and criticised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and multinational sponsors for not doing more to force them to do so.
Fifty-two Olympians, with dozens of medals between them and including 12 competitors in Sochi, have launched a trenchant criticism of the lack of action to force Vladimir Putin's administration to scale back laws that forbid "gay propaganda" aimed at under-18s and have led to a wave of homophobic attacks.
The signatories to the so-called "principle six" campaign – named after the clause in the Olympic charter that supposedly guarantees non-discrimination – include the American snowboarding gold medallist Seth Wescott, the Sochi-bound Canadian biathlete Rosanna Crawford and the Australian four-man bobsled team.
Other famous former Olympians who are backing the call include the tennis players Martina Navratilova and Andy Roddick, the former Leeds United footballer Robbie Rogers, and the four-time gold-medal-winning diver Greg Louganis.
"As an athlete, as an American, and as a believer in equal rights and equal opportunity for everyone, I realised I needed to speak up because that's not where we are today in sports," the American rower Esther Lofgren, a gold medallist at London 2012, told the Guardian. "The mission is to support all athletes to be themselves and be free to be athletes."
Megan Rapinoe, who won gold in the women's football in London, said she believed the IOC should have done more and made it clear that this was not a political issue but a basic question of human rights.
"I understand and respect that the Olympics are not the time nor place for political statements, but this is far beyond any kind of statement," she told the Guardian.
"People's lives and their wellbeing are in danger, and that goes far beyond anything the Olympics stand for. I think it is important to talk about it and have an ongoing conversation during these Games, and not have this issue silenced."
Nicky Symmonds, an American runner who criticised the laws in Moscow after winning a silver medal at the athletics world championships last year, said the experience persuaded him that athletes needed to speak up on the issue.
"While there, I saw video of people being shoved to the street for expressing their love and the image bothered me very much," he said. "I also spoke with members of the gay community in Russia who said they had been treated better under Soviet rule than they were currently being treated under Putin's leadership, and wanted to lend my support in any way I could."
Campaigners believe the new laws have had a chilling effect, increasing the number of homophobic attacks on Russia's gay population.
This week, when pressed by the Guardian, the IOC president, Thomas Bach, confirmed athletes would be free to call for equality in press conferences but that a ban on making political statements during competition or medal ceremonies would stand.
But even that was immediately contradicted by the Sochi 2014 chief executive, Dmitry Chernyshenko, who said athletes who wished to speak out against the anti-gay legislation would have to do so in a special "protest zone", 11 miles (18km) from the Olympic Village. "There is a lot more that could be done by the Russian government, the IOC and sponsors," said Andre Banks, the co-founder of All Out, which launched the campaign in partnership with the anti-homophobia group Athlete Ally.
"They want this story to go away and have been totally unwilling to make any real concessions regarding the law. There are precedents. In Beijing, China had to change its laws following pressure from the IOC. In London, the IOC put a lot of pressure on the Saudi Arabian government to allow women to compete."
Human rights organisations hope to increase the pressure on Russian organisers as next week's opening ceremony nears, but many national Olympic associations have prioritised the need to concentrate on the performance of their athletes and avoid distractions.
Amnesty International, which is also concerned about a wider crackdown on human rights under Putin, this week staged a protest outside the Russian embassy in London and delivered a petition signed by more than 10,000 members of the British public.
In the US, LGBT groups have forced the Olympic sponsors Coca-Cola and McDonalds to pull or amend social media advertising campaigns after hijacking them to highlight their lack of action to put pressure on the IOC and organisers. "The IOC have a responsibility to deliver the Games successfully, but they also have a responsibility to deliver the Games in line with the values of the Olympic movement," said Banks.
Putin, who has invested $51bn in making the Sochi Games a showcase for Russia, attempted to explain the law in a recent interview, insisting it was not at all discriminatory and was only meant to protect children.
"We are not forbidding anything and nobody is being grabbed off the street, and there is no punishment for such kinds of relations," said Putin. "You can feel relaxed and calm [in Russia], but leave children alone please."
The gay propaganda law was partly meant for internal consumption, though it also fits into Putin's attempt to position Russia as the last bastion of traditional values in Europe, which has become more pronounced in the past year.
But the Russian president has been surprised by the reaction that it has produced abroad and the Kremlin is irritated that so many column inches have been written about the law in the runup to Sochi.
The pronouncements of Russian officials have hardly helped calm the situation. The Sochi mayor, Anatoly Pakhomov, dismissed the concerns completely in an interview with the BBC this week, claiming that there were no gay people in Sochi.
His statement, while obviously ridiculous, shows that many Russian gay people have to lead hidden lives, and in official circles very few gay Russians are out of the closet. Not everyone is in the shadows, however, and the Sochi local Andrei Ozerny published a blogpost addressed to Pakhomov on Wednesday saying: "I would like to tell you that there are many gay people in Sochi … and I am one of them." Ozerny said Sochi had traditionally been relatively tolerant towards gay people: "Actually Sochi is one of the most tolerant cities in our hideously homophobic country. Of course, there are various unpleasant incidents, but overall the gay people that are a mythical phenomenon for you fit perfectly normally into city life."
However, he added, the increased focus on gay issues in the runup to the Olympics had led to the feeling that the community was guilty for all the negative coverage that the Sochi Games had been receiving, and had thus increased tensions.
Leading Russian gay rights groups are not planning to travel to Sochi, partly because of the expense involved in getting to the city and staying there, as well as bureaucratic hassles with getting into the wider Sochi area during the Games.
Gay pride marches and protests in support of gay rights have routinely been banned in Sochi in the past, as in all Russian cities. When activists attempt to rally anyway, they are often detained by police.


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US economy shrugs off shutdown to grow 3.2% in fourth quarter 

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Highest consumer spending levels in three years boosted growth, which had been hit by higher taxes and federal spending cuts




Security tightened at ‘fortress Sochi’

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Russia flies in law enforcement officers from cities as far-flung as Moscow and Tomsk, and creates checkpoints for all Olympic visitors

India’s Gay Community to Build Political Support to Win Rights

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India’s gay community is seeking to build political support for its rights after the Supreme Court reinstated a 153-year-old law that bans gay sex. Despite the huge blow to gay rights, activists say they have managed to bring what had been a taboo subject into the open in a country that remains largely conservative.     Forty-three-year-old gay rights activist Shaleen Rakesh recalls the time when he was growing up in New Delhi. He said homosexuality was a subject no one ever...

Opponents Call Ukraine Leader's Sick Leave Delay Tactic

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Updated Jan. 30, 2014 2:28 p.m. ET
A protester guards the barricades in front of riot police in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday. Associated Press
KIEV, Ukraine—Ukraine's president and his opponents accused one another of sabotaging efforts to end the political crisis Thursday, as an unexpected presidential sick leave further dampened hopes for compromise.
President Viktor Yanukovych's absence was quickly denounced by his opponents as a case of executive malingering in a country where politicians have in the past delayed one another in parliament by throwing eggs, padlocking the doors and body-blocking the rostrum.
The Ukrainian president's office issued a statement saying Mr. Yanukovich, 63, is taking time off from work because of a fever and respiratory illness. The statement did not indicate when he would return to work.
Mr. Yanukovych's unusual absence came amid signs the Ukrainian president is digging in against opponents who seek his ouster. An aide said power remains firmly in his hands, and he departed without signing key legislation passed by parliament this week that was designed to allay opponents by retracting laws that stiffened penalties for street protests.
Mr. Yanukovych is coming under pressure from Russia to stand up to his westward-leaning opponents, who began protests two months ago after he abruptly scuttled plans to sign an agreement that would have deepened ties with the European Union.
The Kremlin said it is holding back some of the $15 billion-aid package it offered to Ukraine last year. It said it first needed to understand the composition of Mr. Yanukovych's new cabinet, which he has moved to reshuffle in a bid to placate protesters.
But Mr. Yanukovych also appears to be facing resistance among his allies as he attempts to hold an otherwise hard line toward the protests. Mr. Yanukovych's opponents quickly called his absenteeism a delay tactic, apparently hoping that subzero temperatures in Kiev might wear down the resolve of protesters who are camped out in the center of the capital.
"The president's sickness is a political disease," the opposition party UDAR, led by boxer-turned-politician Vitali Klitschko, said. "This is a withdrawal from political crisis" that will give him a pause from "urgent decisions."
Mr. Yanukovych has at times appeared isolated as he has tried to face down a protest movement that is demanding snap elections that would almost certainly end in his political demise. Lately he has had difficulty persuading delegates of his own political party to pursue a hard line.
On Thursday, demonstrators sat near a fire at a barricade erected by antigovernment protesters near the site of clashes with riot police in Kiev. Reuters
Late Wednesday, he made a rare appearance in parliament where legislators were considering granting amnesty to protesters who have been detained since protests began. During intense discussions, he persuaded his party instead to back an amnesty that was contingent on protesters leaving buildings they occupy in Kiev and some western cities.
Opposition leaders denounced the law Thursday, and they said they had no intention of giving up control of the center of Kiev.
"We have put in far too much effort into putting up these barricades" to take them down, said Andrei Paruby, a protest leader who manages the downtown encampment, speaking to a Ukrainian news service. "On them are the icons to people who died."
Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com
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Ukraine's Yanukovych Announces Sick Leave

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President Viktor Yanukovych and his opponents accused one another of sabotaging efforts to end the political crisis, as his unexpected sick leave further dampened hopes for compromise.
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Report: Russia IDs 2 in connection with Volgograd bombing

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Russian police have identified two alleged suicide bombers believed to be responsible for the deadly Volgograd bombings and detained another two suspected accomplices, anti-terrorism officials said Thursday, according to Russian state news agency, Ria Novosti.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

The NATO chiefs of defense “talked a little bit about today, a little bit about tomorrow, and a little bit about 10 years from now,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said as he returned to Washington today from alliance meetings in Brussels

Military Chiefs Look To NATO’s Future

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By Jim Garamone
The NATO chiefs of defense “talked a little bit about today, a little bit about tomorrow, and a little bit about 10 years from now,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said as he returned to Washington today from alliance meetings in Brussels.
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey took advantage of the 170th Chiefs of Defense Meeting to not only address NATO issues, but to strengthen military-to-military relations with other nations.
The chairman’s first engagement in Brussels was a meeting with his Russian counterpart Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov. Dempsey said the session was very positive and constructive, describing U.S.- Russian relations as important “not just because of the issues that are apparent to us, but the ones that are not yet apparent,” he said. The alliance’s possible future in Afghanistan after its current mission ends this year was also discussed. At the NATO meeting itself, he said, “We reminded ourselves that while the discussions are going on about our 2015 presence, we still have some tasks at hand to accomplish,” he said.
The chiefs looked at ways to increase the pace of development of the Afghan national security forces – focusing on how to improve the institutions that build and manage them. And, they discussed what can be done to help Afghans hold a credible, transparent and fair presidential election in April.
Most of the NATO support will be peripheral, as the Afghans have the lion’s share of conducting the vote. The United States will provide some logistical support and transportation for election observers.
The chiefs also discussed how they can “preserve our options so when the political decision is made on 2015 and beyond, we’ll have a pretty clear understanding of how we will have to shift to accomplish it.”
The other main outcome of the meeting was an increased awareness of the threats and risks building on the alliance’s southern flank. The United States has long spoken about transnational threats emanating from North Africa and the Middle East. Terrorist organizations take advantage of weak governments or ungoverned spaces and use them as safe havens, Dempsey said. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Mahgreb is one of these groups and there are others.
“I am encouraged that the alliance is beginning to understand some of the risks that are building on its southern flank,” the chairman said. “Now we have reached the point of entering into conversations about what as an alliance we might do about it.”
The chiefs spoke about NATO’s nascent cyber defense capability. “It’s mostly all national level,” he said. “We’re trying to find ways to link it together to make ourselves more capable in the cyber dimension.”
The meeting in Brussels will be followed by a NATO defense ministers’ meeting next month, which will help set up a NATO Summit that will be hosted by the United Kingdom later this year.
Source: American Forces Press Service

About the author: Albany Tribune

The Albany Tribune is a free and independent online news magazine aimed at providing a bigger picture of the world, for a smaller market. Who says a local news organization has to be just focused on local news? We certainly don’t.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Why Russia Is No. 1 in Anti-Americanism - The Moscow Times

Why Russia Is No. 1 in Anti-Americanism - The Moscow Times

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The Moscow Times

Why Russia Is No. 1 in Anti-Americanism
The Moscow Times 
To be sure, anti-Americanism has always been high in post-Soviet Russia, given the lingering legacy of the Cold War. But it has never been this high. Kremlin propagandists can rejoice as they reap the dividends from their anti-U.S. campaign that has ...

The Moscow Times

Why Russia Is No. 1 in Anti-Americanism


Kremlin propagandists have good reason to be happy with the results of a recently released annual Win/Gallup International poll in which more than 67,000 residents in 65 countries were asked, “Who is the greatest threat to world peace?” Given Russia’s results, it is clear that the Kremlin’s anti-U.S. propaganda campaign is paying off handsomely.
The survey indicated that 24 percent of respondents worldwide consider the U.S. the largest threat in the world, which is not a surprise and has been consistent with results over the past decade, but a much larger 54 percent of Russians felt the same way. This means that Russia exceeded the global average by more than two times. 

The Kremlin can rejoice as it reaps the dividends from its massive anti-U.S. campaign that has relied heavily on state-controlled television.
Surprisingly, the Russians handily outdid the Iranians, of whom only 16 percent see the U.S. as the top threat — even though “Death to America!” remains a popular political slogan, rivaled only by “Death to Israel!”
Even more surprising, twice as many Russians than Iraqis and Afghans see the U.S. as a threat, despite the fact that the U.S. led the invasions of both of these countries in the past decade. Thus, while one could argue that the U.S. threat to Iraq and Afghanistan is real, the U.S. threat to Russia remains largely Kremlin-manufactured.
To be sure, anti-Americanism has always been high in post-Soviet Russia, given the lingering legacy of the Cold War. But it has never been this high.
Kremlin propagandists can rejoice as they reap the dividends from their anti-U.S. campaign that has relied heavily on state-controlled television. In ­recent years, Russian viewers have been bombarded with agitprop news reports and primitive pseudo-­documentaries with titles like “Who Rules the World?” and “Who Wants to Carve Up Russia?”
Here are some of the more ridiculous viewpoints promoted by these broadcasts:
• The U.S. financially supports Russian’s homegrown fascist and ultranationalist groups to help them gain control of the Kremlin. This will then give the U.S. a pretext to send troops into Russia, overthrow the fascists in the name of global peace, and install a pro-U.S. puppet government.
• The U.S. is using military transport planes to send tons of heroin into Russia from Afghanistan to increase the number of Russian drug users and ­increase the spread of HIV through infected intravenous needles.
• The U.S. actively supports terrorist groups from the North Caucasus with the ultimate goal of breaking up Russia into several parts.
• U.S. pharmaceutical companies, working on the CIA’s behalf, have sent deadly vaccines and other medicines to cripple and kill Russians. Hundreds of Russians have already fallen victim to this plot.
• The U.S. is propagandizing and spreading ­homosexuality in Russia to destroy the country’s traditional, Orthodox foundation, to turn a large percentage of the country’s heterosexuals into homosexuals, and to increase the level of HIV infection among Russians.
• The U.S. is undermining Russian’s strategic nuclear deterrence by deploying its Europe-based missile defense system.
• The U.S. is funding opposition groups and leaders to implement an “Orange”-style revolution in Russia. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was recruited by the CIA in 2010 when he participated in Yale University’s World Fellows Program. He agreed to work as a secret U.S. agent and to head the opposition movement to carry out a U.S. government plot to unseat Putin and install a pro-U.S. government.
• U.S. bankers, financiers, industrialists, politicians and media moguls dominate the elite Bilderberg Club, a favorite target of Russia’s conspiracy theorists. According to a recent program on REN-TV, the club “rules the world by appointing U.S. presidents, determining the price of oil and controlling the amount of dollars that are released in the global economy.” One of the Bilderberg Club’s chief goals is to turn oil-rich Russia into the West’s subservient vassal.
• The U.S. is responsible for most of Russia’s misfortunes, including: the Chernobyl accident in 1986; the Soviet collapse in 1991; the Kursk submarine tragedy in 2000; Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003; Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 and the current protests in Kiev; the Krymsk flood in 2012; the crash of a SuperJet demonstration flight in Indonesia in 2012; and the meteorite “sent by NASA” that fell near Chelyabinsk last year.
Under normal circumstances, these conspiracy theories would evoke laughter from outsiders. But when it results in Russia leading the world in terms of anti-Americanism, it shows how dangerously effective the Kremlin has become at manipulating public opinion.
And this is not the only example. A December 2012 poll by the Kremlin-friendly Public Opinion Foundation found that 56 percent of Russians supported a ban on all U.S. child adoptions. The poll followed a massive Kremlin propaganda campaign that told Russians that the overwhelming majority of U.S. parents interested in adopting Russian children are pedophiles, sadists and child abusers.
To be sure, anti-Americanism is a worldwide phenomenon. France and Germany, for example, have their share of anti-Americanism. But in these countries, crude anti-U.S. conspiracy theories are limited to fringe elements on Internet forums. In Russia, however, they have become largely mainstream thanks to state-controlled television.
On the flip side, only 2 percent of Americans in the Gallup poll think Russia is a threat to global peace, which is consistent with the global average.
Russian analysts are split over whether this 2 percent rating is good or bad. Some think that the figure confirms Russia’s positive role as a peacemaker, such as when the Kremlin brokered peace plans in Syria and Iran last year.
But others say Russia’s low result, which is on the same “fear level” as Australia, is disheartening, if not degrading. They support the Soviet-era ­notion that “If you are feared, you are respected,” and recall nostalgically how the U.S. and other countries feared the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
A “better year” for Russia was 2008, after the Kremlin sent troops into South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the Russia-Georgia war. That year, a more respectable 6 percent of those polled considered Russia a global threat.
This explains why so many conservative Russians were delighted to hear U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney call Russia the United States’ “No. 1 foe” during his 2011 campaign. (Unfortunately for them, Romney quickly realized his mistake and clarified his remarks within days, saying Iran was a much larger threat than Russia.)
At the same time, the most recent Gallup poll asked Russians another interesting question: “If there were no barriers to living in any country in the world, which country would you like to live in?”
The answer? The U.S.
This shows that even the most powerful propaganda ­machine in the world is still limited in how much it can demonize the U.S.
Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times.

© Copyright 2014. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Elton John condemns Russia's 'vicious' anti-gay legislation

Elton John condemns Russia's 'vicious' anti-gay legislation 

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Following Putin's recent comments which hailed the singer as an 'outstanding individual', Elton John has written an impassioned statement describing the disturbing impact of Russia's 'homosexual propaganda' law

• Read Elton John's full statement here 
• Elton John: why I performed in Russia 
• Alexis Petridis meets Elton John
Elton John has issued a statement condemning Russia's "vicious" anti-gay legislation and has offerered to introduce Vladimir Putin to members of his country's LGBT community.
Just one month after performing in the Russian cities of Moscow and Kazan, Sir Elton has used hiswebsite to publish a letter calling for Russia to drop its "homosexual propaganda" law and change the way it treats its gay and lesbian citizens. In what are by far his most strongly-worded comments on the matter to date, the singer recalled the stories of Russian fans who had been threatened, insulted and attacked for being gay.
"What I heard [in Russia] reinforced all the media stories that have been circling since the propaganda bill became federal law," Sir Elton wrote. "Vicious homophobia has been legitimised by this legislation and given extremists the cover to abuse people's basic human rights."
"The people I met in Moscow – gay men and lesbians in their 20s, 30s and 40s - told me stories about receiving threats from vigilante groups who would 'cure' them of homosexuality by dousing them with urine or beating them up," he went on. "One young man was stalked outside a gay club by someone posing as a taxi driver who tried to garrote him with a guitar string because he was a 'sodomite'. Everyone shared stories of verbal and physical abuse – at work, in bars and restaurants or in the street – since the legislation came into force last June. And, some of the vital work providing HIV prevention information to the gay community has been labelled 'homosexual propaganda' and shut down."
In many ways, Sir Elton's message seemed directed at Putin himself. "President Putin asserts that [these results were] not the intention [of this law], but it is undoubtedly the effect that this law has had by promoting misunderstanding and ignorance," he wrote. "Whatever the intention, ... I am absolutely clear from my own personal experience that it is proving deeply dangerous to the LGBT community and deeply divisive to Russian society. I would welcome the opportunity to introduce President Putin to some Russians who deserve to be heard, and who deserve to be treated in their own country with the same respect and warm welcome that I received on my last visit."
Although Sir Elton has discussed Russia's anti-gay legislation before, including in a statement defending his decision to perform there, his previous comments have not been as forceful. The 66-year-old did not make a speech about the issue when he appeared in Kazan, and in Moscow he took a more compassionate tone. "You've always welcomed me with warmth and open arms every time I visited [here] ... so I am deeply saddened and shocked over the current legislation that is now in place against the LGBT community," he said then. "The spirit we share tonight is what builds a future of equality, love and compassion for my children and for your children. Please don't leave it behind when you leave tonight."
In an interview last weekend, president Putin denied that Russia's LGBT community is "discriminated against in any way", using Elton John as an example of Russian tolerance. "He is an outstanding individual ... loved by millions here, sincerely so, despite his orientation," Putin said. "His orientation is not a factor in how he is perceived, especially as an outstanding musician."

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