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Russia’s Putin Happy With Obama Reelection

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama’s re-election and said he hoped it would have a positive impact on relations with the United States.

Despite Obama’s call for a “reset” in ties with Russia, relations have been strained by differences over issues ranging from missile defense to human rights and the conflict in Syria. But Moscow had been wary of Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign remark that Russia was the United States’ top geopolitical foe.

“Overall the Kremlin welcomes the news of Barack Obama’s victory in the elections,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Interfax news agency.

“We express hope that the positive beginnings in bilateral relations and in international cooperation between Russian and the United States, in the interest of international security, will develop

and improve.”

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who was Russia’s president for much of Obama’s current term, made clear he was glad that he had defeated Romney.

Read more from this story HERE.

RT News: Russians Overwhelmingly Believe Obama Would Best Serve Their National Interests

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An overwhelming percentage of Russians said the reelection of US President Barack Obama would better serve Russia’s national interests as opposed to the presidential challenger, Mitt Romney.

With the presidential race in the United States going down to the wire among American voters, Mitt Romney must be thankful that Russian citizens are not eligible to vote in US elections.

In a nationwide poll that tracked Russians’ political attitudes, a whopping 41 per cent of respondents said they want to see President Obama voted back into the White House, while just 8 per cent expressed preference for Republican challenger Mitt Romney…

The Russian public’s extremely negative attitude towards Mitt Romney comes as little surprise since most Russians are familiar with the Republican contender only from his “anti-Russian” comments.

Earlier this year, Romney called Russia “America’s number one geopolitical foe.” For those who thought that may have been a misinformed slip of the tongue, he said at a later appearance that he would show more “backbone” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader, however, said he was “thankful” for Romney’s candor.

Read more from this story HERE. Please note that the source story is from RT News. RT News originates from Russia and has alleged connections to the Russian government.

Russia: Just Another Example of Obama Bowing East Rather Than Leading West

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As too few of us know, President Barack Obama and Russian President (and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin puppet) Dmitri Medvedev had in March this on-camera exchange:

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Nothing like our president asking for “space” from one of the two nations (Communist China being the other) that has for years been blocking at the United Nations any rational policy on any number of issues.

Our policy as a people should not be to buy time for our president after he’s (ostensibly) re-elected to deliver Russia greater “flexibility” on issues on which he alone has decided we have thus far been too rigid.

Though I’m not sure our traditional allies — like Poland and the Czech Republic — would say that this president has been all that inflexible when it comes to dealing with Putin’s playground.

Just another example of our president bowing east rather than leading west.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia Dramatically Expands Definition of “Treason,” Move Will Further Strengthen Putin’s Hand

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By Charles Clover. Russia has broadened its definition of treason, in a move prompting fears that state authorities will have a new weapon to clamp down on the press and non-governmental organisations.

The law was passed on Tuesday by the lower house of parliament, one of several pieces of legislation overseen by President Vladimir Putin and seemingly designed to clamp down on political opposition.

The changes and additions to an existing law on state secrets will make it illegal not only to pass on state secrets but also to receive, transmit or publicize them.

“It is a very worrying situation, you could become a traitor or a spy without even knowing it,” said Igor Kolyapin, head of the Nizhny Novgorod-based Committee Against Torture.

“Anyone who does not have access to state secrets does not, by definition, know what is secret and what isn’t. How thus can they thus be understood to carry responsibility for this?” Read more from this story HERE.

Comparison of New Treason Law and Law it is Replacing

By BBC. Under the proposed new law, high treason and espionage will include supporting “those seeking to damage Russia’s security”.

Those illegally obtaining secret state information could face an extended prison sentence.

The bill is expected to be swiftly passed by parliament’s upper house.

The legislation, which was voted through the Duma 375 votes to two, will then need to be signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.

Current law describes high treason as espionage or other assistance to a foreign state damaging Russia’s external security. Read more from this story HERE.

Putin Flexing Russia’s Nuclear Muscle: Multiple ICBM’s Launched, Bombers Scrambled

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President Vladimir Putin took a leading role in the latest tests of Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal, the most comprehensive since the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

The exercises, held mostly on Friday, featured prominently in news reports on state television which seemed aimed to show Russians and the world that Putin is the hands-on chief of a resurgent power.

Tests involving command systems and all three components of the nuclear “triad” – land and sea-launched long-range nuclear missiles and strategic bombers – were conducted “under the personal leadership of Vladimir Putin”, the Kremlin said.

An RS-12M Topol Intercontinental Ballistic Missile was launched from the Plesetsk site in northern Russia, and a submarine test-launched another ICBM from the Sea of Okhotsk, the Defence Ministry said. Long-range Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers fired four guided missiles that hit their targets on a testing range in the northwestern Komi region, it said.

“Exercises of the strategic nuclear forces were conducted on such a scale for the first time in the modern history of Russia,” the Kremlin statement said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pacific Rim Nations: Food Security Mounting Problem

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Photo Credit: NASA Goddard Photo & Video

Asia-Pacific leaders focused their attention on rising concern over food security on Sunday, as they prepared to wrap up their annual summit with an agreement to slash tariffs on trade in environmental goods and a call to keep markets open even in hard times.

Food security “is one of the most acute problems of our time,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in convening Sunday’s second and final “informal retreat” of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum in this far eastern Russian seaport.

“Without ensuring food security, we cannot achieve our goal of enhancing the quality of life for our people,” he said before the closed door session got under way.

The explicit focus on food security by the leaders of the 21-member APEC reflects abiding concern over the potential for food prices to surge to politically volatile levels.

Current prices are high, though they remained flat in August and are below the levels that triggered rioting and unrest in parts of the developing world in 2007-2008. Another food crisis, in 2010-2011, also caused hardships for poorer consumers, especially in countries heavily dependent on food imports.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russia joins international effort to limit Internet freedom; pushing bill with similarities to SOPA, China’s firewall

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Two months after Vladimir Putin once again assumed the post of Russian president, the long-feared crackdown on his critics appears to have begun. The internet bill due to be considered by parliament on Wednesday is, say activists, the latest sign of growing repression of civil freedom in Russia.

The bill calls for the creation of a federal website “nolist”. Internet providers and site owners would be forced to shut down any websites on this list. According to Wikipedia authors on Tuesday, the bill will “lead to the creation of a Russian analogue to China’s great firewall”.

The bill’s backers in Putin’s United Russia party argue that the amendments to the country’s information legislation are aimed at child pornography and sites that promote drug use and teen suicide.

But critics, including the Russian-language Wikipedia, say the legislation could be used to boost government censorship over the internet.

In protest, the Russian-language Wikipedia site shut down for 24 hours on Tuesday. The Wikipedia logo was crossed out with a black rectangle, and the words “imagine a world without free knowledge” appeared underneath.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Russia’s Putin: US, the West is on the Decline

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President Vladimir Putin said on Monday the West’s influence was waning as its economy declines but warned Russian diplomats to be on their guard against a backlash from Moscow’s former Cold War enemies.

In a biennial speech to Russian ambassadors, Putin also took a shot at the West by condemning any unilateral actions to solve international disputes and underlined the importance of resolving such conflicts through the United Nations.

His remarks suggested that Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, would keep on defending ally Syria at the United Nations over its military crackdown on an popular uprising that has evolved into an armed insurgency.

“Domestic socio-economic problems that have become worse in industrialized countries as a result of the (economic) crisis are weakening the dominant role of the so-called historical West,” Putin told a meeting of Russian ambassadors from across the world.

He told the envoys, gathered in Moscow, that they should try to influence events where Russian interests were at stake.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: World Economic Forum