Leonid Bershidsky

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EuropaUnión EuropeaEconomía

As someone who sides with Germany in the matter of Greek debt, I often hear that creditors should be held culpable for driving deadbeats like Greece to the brink of bankruptcy. That's true to an extent, but not when the debtor is a government. Nation-states have confiscatory powers that allow them to do to their creditors what medieval kings did to their Jews. It's a big mistake to pretend that a country like Greece is more vulnerable than it really is.

Nobel prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz eloquently described the concept of lenders' fault in a recent column:

Debts are contracts -- that is, voluntary agreements -- so creditors are just as responsible for them as debtors.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaPolítica Exterior, , ,

If German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande had a Ukraine peace plan acceptable to Russian President Vladimir Putin, they would have flown to Moscow first, not to Kiev. Talks between the three leaders are taking place as I write, and they might even emerge with some sort of agreement. But I'm pretty sure they won't end the crisis, because the Europeans have not made up their mind about their role in it. As long as they don't, the war in Ukraine will grind on.

There are only two ways European Union leaders can influence the course of events.…  Seguir leyendo »

Support for a split. Photographer: Pau Barrena/Bloomberg

EspañaModelo de EstadoModelo Territorial

Spanish Justice Minister Rafael Catala may have grounds to declare that yesterday’s nonbinding independence vote in Catalonia was “an act of pure propaganda that only served to exacerbate divisions among Catalans.” Yet in the face of such open contempt from the Madrid government, support for Catalan independence keeps growing.

The outcome of the poll was ambiguous for secessionists. Some 2.24 million people voted, 80.7 percent of them for full independence, another 10 percent for considering Catalonia a state but within Spain, and 4.5 percent against even the idea of statehood. That puts the number of secession supporters at only a third of the 5.4 million people estimated (by the Catalan government) to be eligible to vote.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaModelo de EstadoModelo Territorial,

Catalonia's determination to go ahead with a symbolic vote on independence from Spain on Sunday -- despite being banned by the nation's constitutional court -- now has an additional layer of legitimacy. Spain's ruling People's Party, which scuppered the Catalan version of "devo-max" four years ago, has turned out to be so sickeningly corrupt that it has no right to tell anyone what to do.

The legal arguments for and against Catalan independence can be kicked around endlessly. They are part of the dead-end debate about two mutually contradictory principles embedded in the United Nations Charter: territorial integrity and self-determination. Legal opinions on cases of unilateral secession -- Kosovo, Transnistria, Somaliland, the "assisted secession" of Crimea -- stress that international law calls for self-determination within the framework of existing states, except in cases when a "people" (whatever that may be) suffers from major rights violations inflicted by the state.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaMedios de Comunicación,

Perhaps the most intriguing question about the "Google tax" introduced in Spain is whether there is a workable way to limit or tax the spread of information on the Internet. I suspect there isn't, and Spaniards are about to find that out the hard way, as some Germans and Belgians did before them.

According to Spain's new copyright law, services that post links to news articles or excerpts from them will have to pay a fee to the Association of Editors of Spanish Dailies, a group that represents the country's news industry, or face a 600,000-euro ($751,000) fine. Previous experience shows the law will probably be short-lived because the newspapers demanding the change will hate it when Google applies it.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, , ,

A strange thing is happening in Crimea: Armed people wearing camouflage without insignia are quietly taking control of buildings and airports, and then saying they are not authorized to negotiate with anyone. This happened at the Crimean parliament and government buildings in the early hours of Feb. 27 and then again the following night at two airports, Belbek and Simferopol. Could it be a cynical, undeclared Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory?

Ukraine's new interior minister, Arsen Avakov, a politician and movie producer without any police experience, thinks it is. "I consider these activities as an armed invasion and an occupation, violating all international treaties and norms," Avakov wrote in a Facebook post, using all capital letters.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

The Sochi Winter Olympics may have cost seven times as much as the Vancouver ones four years ago, but they are achieving President Vladimir Putin's goal: Russians, including many of his fiercest opponents, have united in a powerful upsurge of patriotism.

Skepticism about the mammoth effort was widespread before the games started, with many Russians re-posting the scathing comments of Western journalists on Sochi's lack of preparedness. The tide started to turn just as the Olympics were about to open. "The mass Facebook masochism about the shamefulness, absurdity and nastiness of how everything is organized in Sochi is suddenly terribly irritating," novelist Boris Akunin, one of Putin's most vocal opponents, wrote on Facebook.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Russians had considered their country immune to the kind of school violence that the U.S. has suffered in incidents such as the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings and the Columbine High School massacre. Now, 15-year-old Sergei Gordeyev has disabused them of that notion, killing a teacher and a cop at his school in northern Moscow.

News of the shooting, which occurred around midday Monday, immediately prompted comparisons to the U.S. "Have we caught the American disease?" user Tanya Morozova wrote on the Russian social network Vkontakte. "It's all about American movies and cartoons", user Nadir Kuramshin tweeted. "Kids ought to be brought up on Soviet or Russian ones so they do not seize schools like they do in America".…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

When children released white doves on St. Peter's Square as part of Pope Francis's prayer for peace in Ukraine on Sunday, the birds were immediately attacked by a crow and a seagull. Facile as the symbolism may seem, it's an appropriate reflection of how dire the situation has become: The rising hostility between radical protesters and President Viktor Yanukovych is threatening to turn a nation of 46 million into another Yugoslavia.

Angered by the deaths of three protesters last week, Ukrainians hostile to Yanukovich have seized local government buildings throughout the nation. As of Jan. 27, the rebels controlled administrative buildings throughout western Ukraine, in three central regions and in the capital, Kiev, according to a map published by the web site Inspired.com.ua.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Russia's efforts to ensure security at the Winter Olympics in Sochi are threatening to turn a celebration of sport into a grueling experience for all involved.

Security has been a special concern since July 2013, when Doku Umarov, a Chechen separatist field commander who now calls himself the Emir of the Caucasus, called on the "mujahideen" to "prevent the Olympic revelries upon the bones of Caucasus people killed by Russians". In his final big interview before the opening ceremony, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that the most expensive sporting event in world history would not see a repeat of the horrors of Munich '72.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

The official homophobia of President Vladimir Putin's third term in power is threatening to backfire on the Russian Orthodox Church, in whose name the anti-gay campaign began in 2012.

Andrei Kuraev, a widely-known Orthodox theologian and proselytizer, is using social networks to expose a "gay system" within the church, fanning a scandal not unlike the one that occurred in the Roman Catholic church shortly before Pope Benedict XVI's surprise abdication last year.

Deacon Kuraev, 50, a fiery missionary and a protege of the previous Russian Orthodox Patriarch, Alexis II, is a controversial figure. Known for anti-Semitic statements denouncing the country's oligarchs as a Jewish clique, he penned an apologetic article, explaining, "I don't consider the Jewish people in any way worse than Russians or any other people.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, ,

Ahead of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, President Vladimir Putin is playing a game of his own: making his autocratic regime more palatable to world leaders wondering whether they should show up at all.

Putin’s efforts might benefit a few political prisoners, such as former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and members of the punk-performance group Pussy Riot. But they won’t change the lot of Russians as a whole, including the gays whose persecution is worrying the international community.

The list of world leaders joining a soft boycott of the Winter Olympics in Sochi gets longer every day. German President Joachim Gauck, French President Francois Hollande, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Moldovan President Nicolae Timofti, Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, and the U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

The the night-time release and swift transfer to Germany of Russia's best-known political prisoner, former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky are being compared by some to the ex-Soviet Union's treatment of dissidents such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vladimir Bukovsky.

After 10 years behind bars, Khodorkovsky's further activities will probably be similar to theirs too: less than earth-shaking for the ruling regime. He says he doesn't plan to enter politics, go back to business or even live in Russia.

At the time of his arrest in 2003, Forbes magazine ranked Khodorkovsky as the world's 26th richest man, with an $8 billion fortune. He served an 8-year sentence for tax evasion, grand larceny and embezzlement and had 10 months left to serve of a second prison term, which was imposed for the preposterous charge of stealing oil from the subsidiaries of his holding company, Yukos.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Whether or not the throngs of protesters in Kiev succeed in ousting Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, they have proven one thing: Their civic sensibility is in many ways more mature than that of the political establishment.

Demonstrators occupying the city center have created what is possibly the largest self-organizing, self-sustaining revolutionary commune the world has seen since the 1968 riots in Paris. The Euromaidan -- as the protesters' camp in Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, is known -- is increasingly looking like a nation within a nation.

The protests began on Nov. 21 after the Ukrainian government backpedaled from signing an association and free trade deal with the European Union.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaAmpliación

With the European Union afflicted by financial troubles and rising nationalism, it's particularly impressive that the people of one country -- Ukraine -- still want in. Unfortunately, their leadership is moving in the opposite direction.

Over the weekend in central Kiev, tens of thousands of demonstrators braved the November chill and even tear gas to protest their leaders' sudden decision to scuttle an EU trade deal. As recently as last week, the pact had seemed on track to be signed at a Nov. 29 summit in Vilnius. Stefan Fule, the EU commissioner for enlargement, had praised the "determination" of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to push through the required legislation, which included a law allowing Yanukovych's political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, to leave prison and go to Germany for medical treatment.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Russia's dismal air-safety record made the news again this weekend, when a 23-year-old Boeing 737-500 crashed and exploded at the Kazan airport 450 miles east of Moscow, killing all 44 passengers and six crew.

The tragedy caused much anger and speculation, and highlighted the unaccountable risk of flying in Russia these days. Center-left politician Dmitri Gudkov wrote on his LiveJournal blog that about 75 million air tickets a year are sold in Russia, compared with close to 1 billion in the U.S. Despite the relatively small passenger volumes, Russia is second in the world in fatal plane crashes after the U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny probably won’t become the next mayor of Moscow. But thanks in part to what he learned from the likes of Barack Obama and Kevin Spacey, he's treating Russians to something they haven’t seen in a long time: a true grassroots political campaign.

In a country that has become accustomed to predetermined electoral outcomes, Navalny is a rare case of a candidate who has something to fight for. Sometime around the Sept. 8 election date, an appellate court will decide whether to send him to prison for five years on trumped-up charges of stealing lumber from a state-owned company.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

A week in Moscow was enough for Edward Snowden to change his plans completely. No one has seen the National Security Agency leaker since he landed at Sheremetyevo Terminal E on June 23, intending to go on to Ecuador, where he had requested political asylum. Now he isn’t going there: On July 1, the Russian consul at Sheremetyevo reported that the night before, Snowden asked for asylum in Russia.

Dithering by the Ecuadorean authorities and, apparently, some prompting from the Russian special services have transformed the former NSA contractor full of romantic notions about Internet privacy and information freedom into a modern-day Kim Philby, destined to live out his life in a country waging a cold war against his homeland.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaMundoCáucasoInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, ,

As the U.S. tries to process the news that the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing had ties to the Russian republic of Chechnya, Russians and Chechens know what it means for them: trouble.

Little is known in Russia about the brothers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokar Tsarnaev. Apparently, the family moved to the U.S. more than a decade ago to seek refuge from Chechnya, which had a long and brutal secessionist conflict with Russia. Relations between ethnic Russians and Chechens remain fraught, and Chechen nationalists and religious fanatics have carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Russian soil.

The initial Russian reactions were incredulous: What do Chechens want with Boston?…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa,

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts at comedy have never been particularly endearing. Lately, they’ve been bad enough to turn the country into a pariah state.

This week, Putin embarked on a European image offensive against a background of creeping repression at home, as government agencies started implementing a law requiring nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign money to register as “foreign agents.” Amnesty International and 42 other organizations received visits from law-enforcement officials. One group -- Golos, known for its efforts to expose electoral fraud -- was charged with violating the law.

The crackdown, which Golos head Grigory Melkonyants called a “political contract hit,” prompted the aging rocker Mark Knopfler, founder of the group Dire Straits and an Amnesty International supporter, to cancel upcoming concerts in Moscow and St.…  Seguir leyendo »