President Again, Putin to skip G-8 Summit & Obama
Re-invigorated, Putin Appoints Medvedev Prime Minister.
Various Facets of Putin Persona
Few in Indian media gave much importance to Vladimir Putin's inauguration as the newly elected president of Russia with a thumping majority, which was telecast in grand style by Russian TV, now available in India (It is a good antidote to western spins and outright lies of BBC and other Western channels .Arab Al Jazeera too has joined the western gang)
There are signs that the post WWII institutions and arrangements by which WE and the West exercised political and economic control and power, arrogantly, are getting undermined for a new order to emerge.
Just some years ago, West appeared to be doing Russia a favor to let it into basically an exclusive western club (plus Japan) which laid down the economic law and ground rules for the world to obey. China and India are outside this group, at a time when most Western nations are bankrupt and into recession and surviving on stimulus which exists only on computer screens.
The G-8 forum originated with a 1975 summit hosted by Paris that brought together representatives of six governments: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, giving it the name Group of Six or G6. The summit became known as G7 the following year with the addition of Canada. In 1997, Russia was added making it the G8.
Putin to Skip G8Summit and Meeting with Obama
Putin to Skip G8Summit and Meeting with Obama
But Russia's newly-inaugurated President Vladimir Putin has pulled out of the G-8 summit on May 18-19 at Camp David, Maryland, US, and his ice-breaker talks with US President Barack Obama next week.
Instead, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will attend the summit. Putin, who took the oath as the new Russian leader last week, informed Obama of his decision during a telephone call and his need to stay in Moscow to finalize cabinet appointments in the new Russian government. The White House said, that Obama and Putin agreed to meet on the margins of the G20 summit in late June in Mexico. This attitude raises some questions about Moscow-Washington ties. Putin was expected at Camp David to hold talks with Obama in a first test of whether the "reset" policy between the Kremlin and the White House.
Putin's decision not to attend the meeting comes a week after Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said that talks between the United States and Russia over the US-backed European missile system have reached a dead-end.
Moscow has repeatedly objected to the move, saying the deployment undermines Russia's sovereignty. Russia has called for sharing control of the missile system, a request rejected by the Washington.
Putin's decision not to attend the meeting comes a week after Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said that talks between the United States and Russia over the US-backed European missile system have reached a dead-end.
Moscow has repeatedly objected to the move, saying the deployment undermines Russia's sovereignty. Russia has called for sharing control of the missile system, a request rejected by the Washington.
Washington has been trying to persuade Moscow to let USA have its way on Missile Defense , even in Europe , next door to Russia to leave the country unprotected under the non-brainer excuse that it was to guard against rogue states like Iran and north Korea .Go and tell it to Marines !
This was the line George Bush tried to sell to Vladimir Putin in June 2001 when the former looked Putin in the eye and said he "was able to get a sense of his soul", first of many Bushisms .The White House was then apprehensive of how Putin will react to US plans .The statement was greeted with bemusement and also relief. But Bush's sudden effusiveness wasn't as sudden as it appeared. He had talked tough about Russia during the electoral campaign as remains the practice even now when Washington's hand is weak. Bush had wanted Moscow to drop its objections to his missile defense plans.
Since then Putin and other Russian leaders have objected to the US plans.
Russian Bear Growls at the West (2007)
But it at the 43rd annual International Security Conference held in Munich on 10 February, 2007 that President Putin spoke on the importance of the role of United Nations, U.S. missile defense, NATO expansion, Iran's nuclear program and the Energy Charter. He accused Washington of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions, trying to divide modern Europe and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war. The war of words has continued since then. The world will hear more of it in coming days.
President Ronald Reagan had hoodwinked Gorbachev by threatening Moscow with Star Wars (on which hundreds of billions of dollars have been sunk without a proved destruction of an incoming missile yet) .Obedient US corporate media flattered Gorbachev daily as a great democrat (The Russians rebuffed him when he got 0.50 % of votes against his successor Boris Yeltsin, mostly drugged or drunk, in the 1996 presidential elections for the Russian Federation)
Since the break-up of USSR it is believed that under the charade of globalization ,between $400 billion to $ one trillion wealth was transferred from Russia to the West on advice by throngs of Harvard trained and other business experts in league with complicit Russians, mostly former Communists . The Soviet Union's collapse was ruthlessly exploited by US led West .Its capitalist controlled media sang praises of economic reforms and democratization which brought economic disintegration and ruination to Russia and the worst kind of depression in modern history with economic losses more than twice those suffered by USSR in World War II. Russian GDP was trimmed to half and capital investment fell by 80 percent. People were reduced to penury and misery, death rates soared and the population shrank. According to an estimate an extra million Russians died. And in August 1998, the Russian financial system collapsed.
In what has been described as the Privatization of Russia , the plunder of its natural resources is a story of intrigue, adventure, and of the incestuous relationship between government leaders, corporate directors, and bankers. It is about insider deals, golden parachutes, corporate jets, villas in the south of France and Spain, and instant millionaire status for those who shrewdly played the game. It created seven ( six Jews) Oligarchs , half of whom have escaped or do not live in Russia and one remains jailed in Siberia for trying to take over the country on behalf of Western bankers and financiers.
WATCH THIS SPACE FOR MORE
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; Brief Bio ( Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин born 7 October 1952) has been re-elected and sworn in as the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. Putin previously served as President from 2000 to 2008 and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000, and again from 2008 to 2012. Putin also serves as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when President Boris Yeltsin resigned in a surprising move. Putin won the 2000 presidential election; in 2004 he was re-elected for a second term lasting until 7 May 2008.
Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term. After his successor Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election, Putin was nominated by Medvedev to be Russia's Prime Minister; Putin took office on 8 May 2008 .In September 2011, Putin and Medvedev agreed he should seek a third, non-consecutive term in the 2012 presidential election, which he won in the first round on 4 March 2012.
Putin has overseen a return of political stability and economic progress to Russia, ending the crisis of the 1990s During his presidency, the Russian economy grew for nine straight years, seeing GDP increase by 72% in PPP (six old in nominal), poverty decrease by more than 50%,[9] and average monthly salaries increase from $80 to $640. These achievements have been ascribed by analysts to strong macroeconomic management, important fiscal policy reforms, surging capital inflows, access to low-cost external financing and a several fold increase in price of oil and gas. The fast formation of the modern middle class in the country, the 2.3 times increase in real incomes between 2000-2011 as well as improvements in healthcare and public order allowed Russia to achieve the highest level of life expectancy in its history.
As Russia's President, Putin passed into law a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. As Prime Minister, Putin oversaw large scale military reform and police reform. His energy policy has affirmed Russia's position as an energy superpower. Putin established a number of national champions, i.e. state corporations which oversaw the restoration of high-tech industries in the country (such as nuclear and defence industry). Significant rise in foreign investments contributed to the boom in such sectors as automotive industry. Economic mega projects which Putin endorsed have included the construction of major export pipelines (notably ESPO, Nord Stream and BPS-2), the restoration of the global satellite navigation system GLONASS, and the building of infrastructure for top level international events held in Russia (2006 G8 Summit, APEC 2012, and multiple sporting events).
Putin's leadership has enjoyed considerable popularity in Russia with continuously high approval ratings, though some of his actions have been criticized by Western observers and domestic opposition as undemocratic. As Russian Prime Minister, Putin's approval rating was 52 percent in January 2012, according to the state-run pollster VTSIOM. In the media, Putin often projects an outdoor, sporting, tough guy image, demonstrating his physical capabilities and taking part in unusual or dangerous activities, such as flying jet planes, driving race cars and motorbikes, attaching satellite tags to animals and engaging in a multitude of sports; some of these publicity stunts have occasionally been criticized. A keen practitioner of martial arts and several time Champion of Leningrad in judo and samboin his youth, Putin has played a major role in development of sport in Russia, notably, helping Sochi to win the bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Will the real Vladimir Putin please stand up?
Amb(Retd) K Gajendra Singh 14 May 2012
