Amelia Andersdotter - Ryssland

The Russian Files II

Amelia Andersdotter — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:23:03 +0000

Språk Engelska

I recently made a visit in Moscow with the International Trades Committee of the European Parliament to investigate the views of various Russian stakeholders on the Russian World Trade Organisation accession. We were able to meet members of the Duma, the Russian parliament. That was interesting.

The European deputies all were not able to understand how the Russians could be skeptical of the WTO. They were very concerned with live-stock imports and gas. The Russians responded that in Europe we subsidize our agricultural sector with 40% of our total budget, in Russia the equivalent subsidy level is only 2%. There can be no fair competition between two such completely different approaches of subsidies, they said. Apparently one of the more problematic aspects for Russia with the WTO accession is also the TRIPs implementations needed. We didn't detail on this during our meetings, but I want to remember the TRIPs negotiations with Russia having been exceptionally hard a few years ago.

I met also, outside of the delegation, with Mr Ilya Ponomarev, a social-democrat deputy of the DUMA who is in the opposition and has also made himself known as an opponent to Putin. He said that he had never had as many problems collaborating with Medvedev and that the dividing line for him always was whether or not the political leader of Russia was honest with their intentions or not.

The open source implementations in Russia are going forward. Public procurement for proprietary software is no longer allowed since public money must go into public things. However, the procurement capacity to foster a domestic industry doesn't quite exist in Russia. The political climate changes fast, budgets change, and there is some level of arbitrariness in the system which makes it difficult to engage in longer-term developing projects. Public servants are still allowed, basically, to bring their own copies of proprietary software to work if they desperately want to, but they cannot use public financial resources to achieve this. This creates security problems, since it is difficult to make a security strategy for institutions where you can basically not be sure what software is being run or how.

Nevertheless, there are very successful research and technical parks in Novosibirsk, Yakutsk(!) and Tartarstan. The current minister of finance is very young (30 years old) and made his political career on the tangible achievement of very well-developed eGovernment services in Tartarstan (healthcare, applying for passport, etc, everything *except* e-voting).

There were no mentions of special educational efforts in place to help the public sector with the software switch. In schools, Russian children get to learn at least both platforms (Windows and open source) so as to not become uncompetitive, but normally open source softwares are used.

The Russian Files I

Amelia Andersdotter — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:09:14 +0000

Språk Engelska

During a recent visit in Moscow with the International Trades Committee of the European Parliament to investigate the views of various Russian stakeholders on the Russian WTO accession, I took the liberty of meeting up with other people who are not normally so affiliated with the parliament activities neither in Europe nor in Russia.

And so I came to find out about promodj.ru (for artists, listeners, agents), InstAgent (to put agents and artists in touch), ivi.ru (film distribution) and dreamindustries.ru (content distribution for users, readers, educators and listeners). Less obvious in terms of end-users is mobile phone company IMMO which makes integrated services for operators to provide to their end-consumers (B2B or business-to-business sales), but which also facilitates new distribution models for particularly music.

Dreamindustries do educational services, music distribution and book distribution. They have contracts with all mayor book publishers in Russia, and they are in contact with music distributors.

The reasons they have successfully obtained contracts with distributors, they say, is that in Russia, because of the distances, physical distribution is simply too difficult (relating to books) and the incomes have been dropping so fast that the industry is in a position where they have to compromise. Also, the domestic industry (that is, non-foreign owned enterprises) is not in a good position always to get help from the government, which means that there is no one aggressively defending them when they don't try new distribution models as has been the case in Europe and the US.

This contrasts of course with the AllofMP3 case, where the US government directly intervened on behalf of its rights-holders in the abroad. In terms of the WTO accesssion one could also ask what the impact is of Russia not so far having been subject to the WTO dispute settlement panel IMRO-case, covered by Ruth Okediji and P.B. Hugenholtz here and which provides an almost infinite power to copyright holders to block any advancements in music distribution.

Intermediary liability is however seemingly very strict in Russia. This means most of their services, even while being able to legally distribute their content in Russia, always run a risk of getting caught distributing content illegaly. Reporting does not have to be done by the rightsholders themselves, and therefore anyone looking to obstruct a particular service could frame it on an infringement charge. Most of the above services therefore have servers outside of Russian territory, if I understand things correctly.

Those Russians...

Amelia Andersdotter — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:39:35 +0000

Språk Svenska

I'm reading the book The Rasputin File by Edvard Radzinsky, this mythical man made eternal by Boney M and the October Revolution.

Apparently it's the "remarkable biography of the mystical monk and bizarre philanderer whose role in the demise of the [last of the] Romanov [tsars]" whose blessings of the only son of Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna of Hesse led him into a power position where "in all affairs of state he was the man to please".

Edvard Radzinsky does give a more nuanced picture. He points to Tsarina Alix's will to believe, her subsequent joining a monastery together with her daughters, and how not only Grigory Rasputin but also people around her manipulated her and her powerful position by, well, essentially sucking up.

Of course, Grigory Rasputin's role in the demise of the Russian Tsar's Autocracy seems marginal in comparison with the Russian 1905 Uprising which scared the Tsar into signing a new constitution, essentially giving up the autocratic Russian rule against the will of the Orthodox Church and the Tsarina (which is weird since the Tsarina had a "distaste for Russian culture, whether it was the food or the manner of dancing").

Grigory Rasputin did make a big fuss about being treated well in the Russian Court at a time where the Russian Court was intensely disliked by everyone who was in or around it. Aristocrats are probably by nature conspiring and petty individuals, ref. the murder of Erik XIV or the Grand Vizier of Aladdin, Jafar, and especially in a time of turmoil, like vultures they immediately fly over the assets they believe they can pillage from the crumbling houses of wealth (for example bank bosses unless there is a public outcry and threats of a customer boycott of the bailed-out bank.). But he was also from a poor farmer's village and family. Poor farmers do not make outcries and apart from in the Duma the tsar wasn't actually much disliked, just a rather distant character who didn't affect them much. Father Grigory's comrades in religious arms, Russian Orthodox Bishops, have outfits like the one on the left. A by no means luxurious or particularly note-worthy outfit. On the contrary, quite humble and en par with the wealth of the population at large. At the time, Russian farmers lived in inland, sub-arctic climate without central heating (for reference, Belgium has coastal climate with central heating and it's still pretty cold here in the winter).

When Grigory Rasputin came to Moscow he made attempts at writing down his thoughts and teachings. Edvard Radzinsky points out several times that he was only semi-literature and that his hand-writing was wretched. Wretched is a word I would normally associate with old crones and I realise I am stingy about this but he was aspiring to be a cultural man of literacy and handwriting and has been villified for trying to remain in a position and environment where he had the opportunities to achieve as much. Because on the Russian countryside, in the beginning of the 20th century, this was not a luxury awarded to farmers. And there was absolutely no way in which Grigory Rasputin could have figured the Bolsheviks would have made education compulsory only 15-20 years later, and even then he would have been well into his 50s and older people don't get educated since apparently you can't teach old dogs how to sit.

I wouldn't make any claims as to his handwriting being particularly aesthetic, or his poetic skills particularly refined, but it's unfair to call it wretched, and it's unfair to not appreciate that aspiration. Regardless of his assumed sectism (which may or may not have been inspired by the khlysts: "They believed in a possibility of direct communication with the Holy Spirit and of His embodiment in living people [and] practiced the attainment of divine grace for sin in ecstatic rituals" apparently reasoning that forgiveness can't be sought by the virtuous, and forgiveness and repentence is that which marks a true believer) I cannot help but sympathise. The Russians were converted to a Christian belief when the powers that be decided it would be convenient, and Khlystian secterism is one aspect of defiance against forced conversions. For other forced conversions, read about Hernán Cortés, this grateful, Christian saviour of Aztecs who in his quest for their moral salvation was very sałvage, or, and I hate to bring up the dark past of the Crusades but there I did.

Anyway, deep down we all want to believe in sinning.

Of course, you can see it in his photos the intensity of his eyes, these alluring, hypnotic eyes that so intrigued the ladies in a way we would never want to achieve in the 21st century by means of L'Oreal Mascara Triple Brush. .

I am a post-mortem converted follower. I think he is treated unfair by historians, he was mocked for his cultural aspirations by the aristocracy of Moscow who saw him as naught but a quaint, religious wanderer, he is still mocked by historians and artists and is considered to have cause the demise of an aristocracy that was already crumbling under itself and an insane Tsarina. GOOD ON YOU, HISTORIANS.

Put'em on a pole

Amelia Andersdotter — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:13:49 +0000

Språk Svenska

[Courtesy of sandb]: The post has been given a substantial plastic surgery. There is nothing as weird as Vlad III the Impaler going on.

Apart from having become more civilized, why don't we hang pirates anymore? Well. It's cruel, of course. There are many good reasons for why not to hang people, and at that, many good reasons for not having a death penalty at all.

In 2008 the issue of what to do with, or how to punish, pirates caught in the Red Sea was, according to WSJ, uncertain. ~~Now, they shall die! Horribly!~~ They shall now be put in American prisons. For a life time. ~~By American hands!~~ That is certainly [a very] certain [sentence].

South Korea applies very capital measures against pirates. Which may or may not be worse, of course.

put'em on a pole

India, gracefully, just arrests 61 of them. A Seychelle courts has sent some to jail. European countries, it appears, also sentence pirates to jail.

Pirates have previously been sent to neighbouring country Kenya for trials. Kenya is now over-crowded with piracy cases and El País notes that talks of international courts in the UN Security Council are at the same time accompanied by criticism of calling this a war on piracy. They are wrong. Wars are very trendy.

Not only can you impose on Somalis capital measures. You can also capitalise on Somalis.

With recent American measures against African conmen, I wonder quietly what will happen with the Nigerian 410 scammers recently caught in Californa. Although they seem to have ran their operations from the US.

My hearts are extended to the losses for Pirate Families.

Med liv i skottlinjen längs gasledningen

Amelia Andersdotter — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Språk Svenska

Det finns ett uppenbart sätt man kan ha ihjäl människor på vid en gasledning: att spränga den. Det orsakar stor skada, och förhindrar leverans av gas till människor som troligtvis behöver den. Sådana attentat har bland annat varit vardagsmat i Irak sedan flera år tillbaka.

Ett annat sätt är att stoppa gasleveranser, så som ryska Gazprom har gjort efter flertalet dispyter med Ukraina, både på bolags- och nationsnivå. EU kan inte längre stå likgiltiga inför konflikten som drabbar gaskonsumenter i Polen, Tyskland, Bulgarien och Rumänien. Europakommissionen ska nu skicka observatörer, på Gazproms begäran, för att förhindra att Gazproms ukrainska motpart Naftogaz stjäl gasleveranser som är ämnade för de europeiska konsumenterna.

Bakgrunden till anklagelserna om stöld är den tidigare stormen, och fortsatta bitterheten, över att Ryssland 2006 kraftigt minskade prissubventionerna på gasleveranser till Ukraina. Smakar det så kostar det, sa Ryssland som tagit klivet in i marknadsekonomin. Det var bättre för Ukraina när Ryssland var solidariskt.

Det vore också bättre för Bulgarien om Ryssland var solidariskt. Deras brist på gas kommer eventuellt hota människoliv när sjukhusen inte längre kan ta hand om sina patienter. I Ukraina dog 2006 över hundra människor som resultat av den plötsliga prishöjningen.

Samtidigt som Ryssland absolut inte kan klandras för att bedriva handel på världsmarknadens villkor - det måste t ex Ukraina inse att Ryssland måste göra om de ska överleva som marknadsaktör - är förlusten av människoliv i ett land som Bulgarien, bara indirekt inblandat, högst beklaglig och oförsvarbar.

Andra liv som gått förlorade och förmodligen kommer fortsätta gå förlorade de senaste dagarna är det stigande antalet döda i Gaza under Israels besinningslösa attacker. De hårdast drabbade är kvinnor och barn. Dels dör de, dels dör deras män och söner som också är deras försörjare. I Israel, USA och EU odlas en beklaglig syn på självförsvar som innebär övermåttligt våld och tusentals oskyldiga döda varje år. Knappast försvarbart, och jag hoppas så innerligt att någon undertecknande tjänsteman med makt att sanktionera sånt här vansinne för eller senare vaknar med dödlig halskrupp och avlider i plågor.

Man kan demonstrera mot attackerna i Gaza på flertalet ställen i Skåne på lördag 10 januari 2009.

Update: Hurra!: "Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Czech counterpart Mirek Topolanek agreed Thursday on the conditions for deploying gas monitors in Ukraine, the Czech EU presidency said.