Putin’s unhappy Russia

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 15 Comments

Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images

In most official democracies, citizens must wait until an election is held to find out who will be running their country. Russia is different.

Last month, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president and its supposed head of state, told a congress of the ruling United Russia party that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would run for president in March, returning to a job he held from 2000 to 2008. At the same conference, Putin proposed that Medvedev lead the United Russia party list in parliamentary elections, and assume the position of prime minister.

The announcements confirmed what many had long suspected: Putin, forbidden by Russia’s constitution from running for a third consecutive term, had simply appointed Medvedev to keep his seat warm for four years until he, Putin, could return to power. Despite claiming earlier this year that he would like to continue as president, Medvedev admitted the two had cooked up the deal “several years ago.” Putin is now clear to hold the presidency until 2024.

Someone will run against Putin, for appearances’ sake. But the election results are not in question. Putin is far and away the most liked politician in Russia. “If there were a genuinely free and fair election—which there won’t be—then Putin would win it. You can’t get around that,” says James Nixey, a research fellow at Chatham House, a British think tank. “The fact that they rig it anyway is a source of continual amazement for me.”

Putin’s popularity owes something to timing and to luck. His presidency coincided with a steep rise in global energy prices that benefited Russia and allowed it to reassert itself in the former Soviet sphere, using oil and gas as a weapon to bully countries like Ukraine and Georgia that sought closer ties to the West.

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A tunnel to Alaska?

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 1 Comment

It’s that time of the year again, when Russia announces it will build a tunnel all the way to America across the Bering Strait. The ultimate public infrastructure project “is already under way,” an official from the Russian Ministry of Economic Development recently told a local English-language TV station.

In the last couple of months, reports that the Kremlin endorsed building a $90-billion transcontinental railway line linking Siberia to Alaska appeared everywhere from Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper to the U.S.’s Business Insider blog. According to a recent opinion piece in the London Times, “the Russians, Canadians and Americans seem confident that they can muster the political will, technical know-how and massive funds to complete the project.” Washington, however, knew nothing about it, according to the U.S. State Department, and Ottawa gave no comment.

That’s hardly surprising. The Bering Strait tunnel has been a pie-in-the-sky fixture of Russia’s public debate since 1905, when Czar Nicholas II first approved a blueprint for the project. After the Cold War, then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin vowed to build the tunnel to increase transportation links to the U.S., Russia’s new-found friend. This taste for megaprojects is a residue of “the penchant for gigantism that characterized the Soviet Union,” says Aurel Braun, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. Soviet officials, he adds, loved to dazzle people with enormous public developments, such as reversing rivers, vast hydroelectric dams, or Magnitogorsk, the largest steel city in the world.

Now, as President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Russia’s top political duo, gear up for next year’s presidential election, talk of ambitious below-the-sea excavations to connect the world’s two largest continents has resurfaced. With the country drifting further and further away from democracy and the Russian public sliding into political apathy, Braun says, a newly authoritarian Moscow seems to be borrowing a page from Soviet Russia in an attempt to please the masses.

Newsmakers: August 11-18, 2011

By Colby Cosh, Richard Warnica and Alex Ballingall - Monday, August 22, 2011 at 1:05 PM - 0 Comments

Will Campbell/CP

Putin’s dive bombs

For a certain set, the phrase “jumping the shark” has come to represent the moment when a cultural product passes beyond relevance—usually by means of a desperate or deliberate stunt. “Finding the urn” may soon be the political equivalent. Last week, Vladimir Putin “discovered” ancient Greek urns during a Black Sea dive. The Russian prime minister, a novice diver, made his find in front of media at a depth of six metres in an area well picked over by archaeologists. Russian state television, on hand for the raising of the urns, praised the discovery, which came to “everyone’s utter surprise,” said Russia Today. But independent media have been a tad more skeptical. Putin’s devotion to the photo op is well-known: whether he’s shooting tigers, fishing topless or piloting a helicopter, the cameras are never far behind. But as he gears up for another possible presidential run, one wonders if the urn scoop wasn’t a photo op too far. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, meanwhile, said he would consider accepting the post of prime minister—but only if he likes the incoming president’s agenda. The owner of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, who got his business start in the ’80s selling stonewashed jeans, provoked scorn in Russia recently by suggesting the country abandon the ruble in favour of the euro. No word yet on his archaeological skills.

Runaway cow

A race is on between hunters and animal rights activists in Bavaria. A cow named Yvonne, who in May broke through an electric fence, earned a price on her head when a police car almost hit her after she roamed onto a highway. Officials said she had to be captured, dead or alive, and sent two hunters to track her down. An animal sanctuary caught wind of the hunt and dispatched volunteers to find her—armed, in their case, with tranquilizer guns. Last week, the German tabloid Bild announced a US$14,000 reward for Yvonne, and a Swiss “animal communicator” has agreed to help with the dragnet. A handsome bull named Ernst—described as the “George Clooney of breeding bulls” by a local animal sanctuary—has also been corralled into action.

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Newsmakers: July 8 – July 14, 2011

By Richard Warnica, Alex Ballingall, Emma Teitel, and Cigdem Iltan - Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:55 AM - 0 Comments

Photo by Charles William Pelletier

The incredible journey

One lucky Montreal family finally got their dog back last week after an amazing, year-long adventure that took the pup 4,500 km across the country. Pollux, a black Lab cross who escaped from her east-end Montreal home last June, turned up in Kamloops, B.C., where, last week, the SPCA found a microchip implant registered to her vet. No one is sure how exactly Pollux travelled so far, but her owner, Isabelle Robitaille, thinks she might have jumped on a train to avoid the rain, since she’s scared of water. Robitaille let her kids, who cried themselves to sleep when she disappeared, stay up way past bedtime to welcome their beloved pooch home at the airport, where she was greeted with squeals. “For them, it’s a second Christmas,” Robitaille told the Montreal Gazette. “My son spent 45 minutes just petting her. He was so happy.”

A long road to another struggle

Just two nights after tossing the ball that led to the accidental death of firefighter Shannon Stone, Texas Rangers left-fielder Josh Hamilton hit a game-winning, two-run homer against the Oakland A’s. Hamilton, who was said to be “very distraught” after the tragedy, rounded the bases with his head down only to be mobbed by his teammates at home plate as the home crowd hollered in support. After the game, Hamilton told reporters that his thoughts were with Stone’s family. The 39-year-old firefighter was at a Rangers game with his six-year-old son when Hamilton threw him a foul ball. The toss was short, and Stone fell to his death after leaning over the railing to catch it. This isn’t the first time Hamilton has faced adversity. Struggles with heroin and alcohol almost cost the all-star his career. What helps him get through it all? He’s a born-again Christian, and after Stone’s death, Hamilton stayed up all night talking with his wife, Katie.

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Wham, pow: it’s Superputin!

By Erica Alini - Friday, June 3, 2011 at 4:00 PM - 8 Comments

Superputin.ru

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger may have had his upcoming Governator comic killed after details of his marital infidelity were splattered in gossip magazines across the world. In Russia, though, the news cycle is actually helping rocket Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to the big league of cartoon superheroes. Superputin, A Man Like Any Other, an online comic strip, was released last week, and is already an Internet phenomenon—courtesy of its timing, which coincides with the run-up to the presidential election next year.

Superputin, allegedly the work of a Russian PR freelancer who received no input from the Kremlin, features a kimono-clad Putin darting to rescue a bus from an al-Qaeda bomb attack. Helping him is the cartoon version of President Dmitry Medvedev, described as a “gnome raised by bears” with an obsession for gadgets. The gentle parody of Russia’s political duo registered three million views in its first week, but has also stirred criticism for portraying the political opposition as brain-hungry zombies.

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Do it for your country

By Jenn Cutts - Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 12:30 PM - 0 Comments

What’s Vladimir Putin got on his mind ahead of next year’s elections? Babies. In a speech last month, the prime minister pledged $51 billion for “demographic projects” meant to raise the country’s birth rate by up to 30 per cent in less than five years.

Russia’s population has dropped by 2.2 million people in the last eight years, to just under 143 million. Putin calls the decline Russia’s gravest problem. The billions will fund incentives such as free land for families with three or more children, and increased child-benefit payments. It will also support existing schemes, such as one-time $13,000 payments for mothers of two or three children, and medals for women with many children (a Soviet-era practice Putin rekindled in 2007). In the past, youth roused by Putin’s message set up “sex tents” at summer camps and wore T-shirts declaring, “I want three children.”

Though Russia’s birth rate is comparable to those of many Western countries, it’s compounded by a high death rate. Drug and alcohol abuse has increased sharply since the collapse of the Soviet Union, taking a toll on men in particular.

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The dangers of being a writer in Putin’s Russia

By Anna Porter - Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 9 Comments

Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images

The London Book Fair, which ran from April 16 to 18, hardly seemed like the best place for an enthusiastic endorsement of Joseph Stalin’s star-studded achievements. Nevertheless, Russian literary firebrand Mikhail Elizarov told a crowd at a seminar called “Beyond the Headlines: Writing About Russia Today” that Winston Churchill’s murders far outweighed those of Stalin, and furthermore, were it not for Stalin we would all be speaking German. Elizarov, whose novels include Pasternak and The Librarian, was part of the Russian delegation, jointly funded by the British Council and the Academia Rossica. In answer to the question whether journalism in Russia today was a dangerous choice of professions, Elizarov scoffed: “No more so than in the United States.”

While it’s a safe bet that Elizarov belongs to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s new patriotic intelligentsia, it is hard to believe that he would imagine the U.S. is as deadly for journalists as is Putin’s Russia. The International Federation of Journalists has documented over 300 deaths among journalists in Russia, plus hundreds of abductions, disappearances and severe beatings. The 2006 brutal murder of crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and the worldwide protests that followed, have neither slowed the mayhem, nor have there been signs that the authorities are prepared to arrest and prosecute those responsible. Several of her colleagues at Novaya Gazeta have been beaten, threatened or gunned down. In November 2010, investigative journalist Oleg Kashin suffered a fractured skull, broken leg and shattered jaw. There have been no arrests.

While writing about life in Putin’s Russia is dangerous, writing sympathetically about Chechnya must surely be suicidal. The death toll in the Second Chechen War is estimated to be between 25,000 and 50,000. It was her writings about atrocities there that likely killed Politkovskaya. And if journalism is a life-threatening profession for Russians, it must be doubly so for Chechens (two months before the London Book Fair, a Chechen warlord claimed credit for the bomb that killed 37 people at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport).

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Putin the powerful

By Erica Alini - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 3 Comments

Shemetov Maxim/ITAR-TASS/AP

From China to Tajikistan, the turmoil that has roiled the Middle East in recent months is spoiling the sleep of authoritarian leaders across the world. Not that of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, though. The former president’s popularity held up through both a small war, in Georgia in 2008, and a serious recession, in 2008-2009. Now, with his personal approval rating hovering around 70 per cent, he has said he may run for the presidency in 2012.

Putin has certainly remained front and centre in Russian politics. Roughly a decade after first rising to power in 1999, he still enjoys idol status at home. Admittedly, some of his latest sightings among Hollywood’s glitzy posse may have been a little over the top, even for the Russian public—the PM’s uneasy musical rendering of Blueberry Hill before a beaming Sharon Stone and others at a charity event in St. Petersburg last year apparently didn’t sit well with the home audience. But Putin’s carefully crafted macho-man image, which has seen him hunting in Siberia wearing only green fatigues, whitewater rafting, and even demonstrating judo moves in a popular instructional video, hasn’t tired the Russian public yet.

It projects strength, health and self-discipline. And those virtues are nothing short of inspirational for a nation where a former president, Boris Yeltsin, was drunk in public, where alcoholism and addiction have spread like epidemics, and which came terrifyingly close to social and political meltdown only a decade ago, says Edward Lucas, the author of The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West. Unlike Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, whose images as nationalist heroes faded decades ago, Russia observers say Putin is still riding high on political credit for having rescued the Russia of the Yeltsin years from anarchy and near disintegration.

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Beer: it's no longer food

By Stephanie Findlay - Friday, March 4, 2011 at 10:08 AM - 2 Comments

The state Duma is taking beer to task in Russia. In the past, the beverage was regulated by a 2005 law that classified it as a foodstuff. As such, its distribution did not require state licensing, and it could be advertised at night on TV and sold 24 hours a day in kiosks and supermarkets. Last week, however, Moscow almost unanimously adopted a bill that recognizes beer as alcohol. Beginning July 1, there will be new regulations for the drink that include restricted nighttime sales, and, like vodka, making it illegal to sell at street kiosks. The size of beer bottles is also set to decrease from 500 ml to 300 ml.

The new legislation is part of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s campaign to curb alcoholism and underage drinking in the country (another proposed bill is a nationwide ban on alcohol sales from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m.). Russians are among the highest imbibers in the world: last month, a report released by the World Health Organization found that Russians drink an average of 15.7 litres of alcohol a year, compared to the world average of 6.3 litres. One in five Russian male deaths is caused by alcohol. And yet, the new beer legislation will only apply to suds stronger than five per cent—just a modest proportion of beer sales—leading some to criticize the legislation as too soft.

A mansion fit for a king

By Patricia Treble - Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 12:11 PM - 1 Comment

Dmitry Shevchenko/Environmental Watch On North Caucasus/AFP/Getty Images

The sprawling Italianate palace has breathtaking views of the Black Sea, its own casino, helipad, theatre and even an amphitheatre. And, if claims by businessman Sergei Kolesnikov are to be believed, Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, is the owner of the $1-billion, eight-million-sq.-foot mansion. In December, Kolesnikov, who says he was involved in the estate’s financing, published an open letter linking Putin to the ornate villa in the Krasnodar region. He alleged it was being built “mainly through a combination of corruption, bribery and theft.”

In January, a Russian website posted photos of the elaborate structure. It was quickly blocked. Then on Feb. 14, Novaya Gazeta published what it says are copies of a 2005 investment contract for the estate signed by the deputy of the office for presidential affairs, which would directly link the palace to Putin, who was then president. Russia’s reputation for graft earned it the 154th spot out of 178 nations on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index.

This week: Newsmakers

By Charlie Gillis, Chris Sorensen and Nicholas Köhler - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

A breath of fresh Canadian air
The usual right vs. left political jabber of American talk TV was punctuated this week by a few clear-eyed statements courtesy of Canada’s first female prime minister. On Real Time With Bill Maher, former Progressive Conservative leader Kim Campbell called Republican Jack Kingston‘s views on global warming “absolute rubbish,” pointing out to the Georgia congressman that scientists didn’t set out looking for a non-existent problem just to torture right-leaning politicians. When the conversation shifted toward the evolution vs. creation debate, Campbell asked if Kingston was concerned about the alarming rise of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms in hospitals. He squirmed. “That’s evolution,” she said to applause. Does 132 days as PM preclude Campbell from a future in politics?

Lolita’s lepidopterist
In addition to writing great novels, Vladimir Nabokov was a self-taught expert on the evolutionary biology of butterflies—though, like any amateur, the Lolita author faced skepticism from the scientific establishment. Now one of his most audacious theories has been proven right. A paper published by the Royal Society has endorsed Nabokov’s hypothesis that butterflies are not indigenous to North America, but rather arrived in a series of “waves” from Asia. The new research was made possible by gene-sequencing technology Nabokov never had. Said Naomi Pierce, a Harvard expert who co-authored the study: “It’s really quite a marvel.”

Single White Premier seeks less idiotic press
With three female premiers and a female prime minister, Julia Gillard, Australian voters seem fairly accustomed to the idea of women in politics. The media? Not so much. The country’s biggest national newspaper, the Australian, ran a front-page story about Tasmanian premier Lara Giddings‘s first day in office that zeroed in on her comments (in response to a reporter’s question) about the challenges of snaring a husband when you’re a busy politician. The headline read: “Leftist Lara still looking for Mr. Right.” Critics shook their heads. “Why on Earth was this suddenly relevant the day Giddings became Tasmania’s first female premier?” asked one Sydney Morning Herald columnist, noting Giddings was previously an unmarried treasurer and an unmarried attorney general. “It was not as if she had landed from Mars.”

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A new boss for Moscow

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Sergei Sobyanin | Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images

In his 18-year tenure as Moscow’s mayor, Yuri Luzhkov transformed the gloomy post-Soviet capital into a bustling global city—and the site of a quarter of Russia’s economic output last year. But the independent-minded mayor fell out with the Kremlin, faced allegations of corruption, and was sacked by President Dmitry Medvedev in September.

To replace him, parliament has endorsed Sergei Sobyanin, 52, an insider with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. While Sobyanin is free of corruption charges, he comes to power undemocratically: Putin abolished elections for mayors and governors while he was president (he served two terms but was constitutionally prohibited from seeking a consecutive third, and so became PM). Sobyanin has vowed to clean up the corruption and bureaucracy that “could devaluate many if not all Moscow’s competitive advantages.” He may well be the man to fix some of the problems, including notorious traffic jams. But there is a lot at stake: as a “100 per cent Putin man,”

Sobyanin’s success or failure could have an impact on Putin’s expected run for a third presidential term in 2012.

Putin for president!

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Between a string of appearances on a four-day tour across Siberia, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave his strongest indication yet that he’ll run in the 2012 presidential election. Though tight-lipped about his intentions, Putin told the newspaper Kommersant that the idea interests him “more than anyone,” although he “doesn’t make a fetish out of it.” Putin became Russia’s most popular politician during his 2000-2008 presidency, but ceded power to protege Dmitry Medvedev due to a constitutional limit on serving a third consecutive term. He is now eligible to return and serve another two consecutive terms. The 57-year-old former KGB officer’s well-documented summer exploits, from co-piloting a firefighting plane to taking part in a scientific whale expedition, have also fuelled rumours of his political intentions.

In the interview, Putin also had choice words for anti-government protesters who have been denied access to a central Moscow square since last year, saying they don’t have the right to gather illegally: “You need to get permission from the local authorities,” he said. “If you have received it, then go and demonstrate. If you have taken to the streets without the right to do so then you are going to get bashed over the head with a truncheon. That is all there is to it.”

Democracy? it's not real.

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Never one to shy away from speaking his mind, though frequently raising a few eyebrows when he does, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a scrum of French reporters recently that the Western model of democracy simply doesn’t exist.

“Can you tell me what it is—the Western model of democracy? France has one model of democracy, the U.S.A. has another one,” Putin said, then added his own perspective on the current state of American democracy. “A French politician told me once, ‘One cannot do anything at the elections in the U.S.A. without money—whether they are elections to the Senate or Congress, not to mention the presidential elections. There is nothing to do there without a sack of money.’ ”

Putin also took this opportunity to defend Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. “People died as a result of the criminal action launched by President [Mikheil] Saakashvili two years ago. Russia was forced to defend the lives of its peacemakers and the citizens of South Ossetia,” the prime minister declared. “We stopped 15 to 20 km from Tbilisi. We stopped there not because we could not enter Tbilisi—we stopped because we didn’t want to do it. We didn’t want any military action at all.”

The new breed

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, June 26, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 4 Comments

Interesting observation from the Prime Minister near the conclusion of this news conference today.

“I’ve never been at a summit where leaders seemed to more deeply feel the necessity of common action and common purpose. Why is that? Some of it may be some of the personalities around the table and the generational change that’s taken place in the G8 over the past few years.”

There is perhaps something to this.

Mr. Harper succeeded Paul Martin in 2006. Since then, in roughly this order, Nicolas Sarkozy has replaced Jacques Chirac, Dmitry Medvedev has filled the spot of Vladimir Putin, Silvio Berlusconi has returned to power in Italy, Barack Obama has succeeded George W. Bush, David Cameron has succeeded Gordon Brown and Naoto Kan has replaced Yukio Hatoyama. Of the eight leaders who attended the Prime Minister’s first G8, at St. Petersburg in 2006, only Mr. Harper and Germany’s Angela Merkel remain. And of the new arrivals, five—Harper, Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy and Medvedev—are 55 years old or younger.

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Tiny showstopper
It was Warrant Officer Russell Arsenault’s day to be honoured for service in Afghanistan, but it was his two-year-old daughter’s moment in the sun when she decided to stroll the aisle at a presentation ceremony at Rideau Hall and talk loudly to some of the assembled troops. Even the Governor General realized that young Rose Arsenault was stealing the show. So Michaëlle Jean stopped her speech, approached the little girl and asked, “Who’s your daddy?” After Rose was back in her seat, her proud papa received the Meritorious Service Medal.

And because he can see Canada from his house . . .
When Prime Minister Vladimir Putin banned the seal hunt in his native Russia, he won the heart of PETA spokesperson Pamela Anderson. After learning about his “fondness for animals,” she sent Putin an affectionate letter asking him to refuse seal-pelt imports from Canada. Meanwhile, Brooke Shields got no love from PETA after having a Danish mink coat made especially for her. A PETA blogger called her a “fur pimp,” but Shields was unapologetic: “I will wear the fur garment when I follow my children to school, when I drink coffee and when I sleep.”

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Where 88 equals 499

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 1 Comment

Getty Images

Prudent puppies come when called. The same cannot be said of the deputies in the Russian parliament, who, despite being chided as Vladimir Putin’s lapdogs, appear to have a truancy problem. As a Russian television report has revealed, a recent Duma vote, in which new drunk-driving legislation passed 449 to zero, was not as well-attended as the result suggests. According to the report, a mere 88 deputies showed up to the May 19 session. That, however, didn’t stop those in attendance from carrying on: during the 20 seconds allotted to vote, members rushed around pushing the buttons reserved for their absent colleagues. As Ren TV observed, “One physically fit deputy has time to press nine buttons.”

Absenteeism among deputies, many of whom are Russian celebrities, is nothing new. In April, President Dmitry Medvedev issued a public chastisement: “For those who don’t go,” he said, “let’s change the legislation and let them go somewhere else.” After the TV report surfaced, top-ranking United Russia party official Sergei Neverov echoed the threat. “The Duma needs to get rid of the truant deputies,” he said. A video clip of the vote, meanwhile, spread like wildfire: it attracted 180,000 views on YouTube alone. This is one dog-and-pony show, it seems, that the Russian public doesn’t want to miss.

Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 7, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

You wouldn’t want to cross either one
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin burnished his credentials as a man of action last week, while also asserting some Arctic sovereignty. He helped scientists track endangered polar bears in Franz Josef Land, an Arctic archipelago. With cameras rolling, he attached a tracking collar to a tranquilized bear. “Be well,” he said, shaking its paw. “The paw is heavy,” said Putin, one force of nature saluting another. “This is a master of the Arctic, you can feel that straight away.”

That’s how it’s done in Wawota, Sask.
Washington Capitals fans Mary Ann Wangemann and her 14-year-old daughter Lorraine were driving home from the Caps’ game-seven loss to the Montreal Canadiens when their tire was flattened by a pothole. An SUV pulled over as they stood by the side of the road in their team colours. To their amazement, out hopped Brooks Laich, the Alberta-born, Saskatchewan-raised Caps centre. He peeled off his suit jacket and spent 40 minutes, on one of the worst nights of his life, installing a spare tire for two strangers. Mary Ann asked Laich, 26, how to repay the favour. “I’m sure you’ll do something nice for someone in the future,” he said.

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Week in Pictures: April 2nd – 7th 2010

By macleans.ca - Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 3:24 PM - 0 Comments

Under Attack

By Malcolm Gray - Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Tatyana Makeyeva/ Reuters

They struck during Moscow’s morning rush hour. On Monday, two female suicide bombers—members of a team police say may have included as many as 30 people—ignited belts of explosives in two of the city’s subway stations, killing 39 and wounding at least 70 more. The double bombings amounted to the worst terrorist attack in the Russian capital in six years. And they raised fears that the blasts could be followed by similar attacks across the country by insurgents from Russia’s south.

Agents of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) had an uncomfortably close perspective; the first explosion, at 7:52 a.m., occurred at Lub­yanka station, underneath FSB headquarters. Another detonation, three stops further south along the same line, occurred 40 minutes later. Both underscored the intelligence failures of the bureau, the successor agency to the KGB. Earlier in March, the FSB did manage to find and kill Said Buryatsky, a Muslim convert who had rapidly become the chief ideologue of the persistent Islamic insurgency in Russia’s turbulent North Caucasus. But these bombings showed that the rebels could hit back, and that armed resistance to Moscow’s rule had now spread across five republics—Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, as well as Chechnya.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who built his enduring popularity in part through a military win in Chechnya, had characteristically tough words following the attacks—he promised to destroy those responsible. President Dmitry Medvedev took just as hard a line. “We’ll find them and we’ll eliminate them all—to dust,” he said. Medvedev had wanted to bring economic modernization and a campaign against corruption to the impoverished region. But those goals are now threatened by Kremlin hard-liners favouring a military solution. Also holding such views is Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed Chechen strongman who has imposed a repressive regime on his republic, and called it peace. Writing in Izvestia after the bombs went off, he said: “Terrorists must be hunted down and found in their lairs; they must be poisoned like rats, crushed and destroyed.”

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The dead spy and the oligarch

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Alastair Grant/ AP

More than four years after Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, the drama surrounding his mysterious death in Britain continues. On March 10, Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky won a libel suit in London against Russian state television, which claimed he masterminded the killing.

Berezovsky lives in Britain after being granted political asylum in 2003. He is wanted on a variety of charges by Moscow, which Kremlin opponents see as attempts to discredit and ultimately silence an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The current court case was launched after a 2007 story aired by Russia’s state TV claimed Litvinenko was murdered on orders from the billionaire because he had witnessed a drugged man make a false statement that bolstered Berezovsky’s claim for asylum.

The billionaire vehemently denied the charges, stating that, in fact, Litvinenko, a former spy turned Putin critic, had saved his life on more than one occasion. “He had helped me and I him,” Berezovsky testified. “Fundamentally, we shared the same enemy.” Litvinenko’s widow, Maria, backed Berezovsky in court: “I knew that the accusation against Boris was propaganda.” While Russian TV refused to defend itself in the libel case, several state prosecutors helped the defence of the media firm’s co-accused, Vladimir Terluk, who had claimed Berezovsky drugged him.

In the end, Justice David Eady ruled definitively for Berezovsky and awarded him $230,000. “I can say unequivocally that there is no evidence before me that Mr. Berezovsky had any part in the murder of Mr. Litvinenko,” Eady stated. “Nor, for that matter, do I see any basis for reasonable grounds to suspect him of it.”

British investigators have long since come to the same conclusion. In 2007, they requested the Kremlin extradite former Russian spy Andrei Lugovoi, a Putin ally, to stand trial for Litvinenko’s murder. Moscow refused.

Top 10 worst moments at the Vancouver Olympic Games

By macleans.ca - Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 9:00 PM - 13 Comments

The death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili is notably absent from this list. We at Maclean’s felt that such a tragic event had no place in such a lighthearted recap. Please see our magazine article, Who’s to blame, for our report on Kumaritashvili.

What are the Games without a figure skating scandal?

By Nancy Macdonald - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 7:43 PM - 17 Comments

With a column titled “The Night They Killed Figure Skating,” Canadian figure skating legend Elvis Stojko joined critics—including Russian prime-minister Vladimir Putin—in slamming Evan Lysacek’s gold, calling the decision to award Russian Evgeni Plushenko the silver, “ridiculous.”

He said Lysacek’s program was on par with a junior program, and it was no more developed than what gold-medallist Brian Boitano did in 1988.

For days, debate has been boiling away over the quadruple jump (who can do it, who can’t, whether you need to land it to take gold), and whether the new scoring system is killing the sport. The so-called Code of Points system, which replaced the old, 6.0, was brought in after the infamous judging scandal at Salt Lake; it is said to have shifted the focus away from jumping, to a more balanced program.

But Stojko says the International Skating Union has taken the risk out of figure skating, and it makes him sick.

“Figure skating gets no respect because of outcomes like this. More feathers, head-flinging and so-called step sequences done at walking speed—that’s what the system wants.” Stojko also said he was going to watch hockey where “athletes are allowed to push the envelope—a real sport.”

“Just doing nice transitions and being artistic is not enough because figure skating is a sport, not a show,” Plushenko told a Russian TV station; he too has slammed Olympic judges, and has threatened to quit the sport over the outcome in Vancouver.

That, and they look kind of silly, TV to the rescue and Semi-naked ambition

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 29, 2010 at 9:10 AM - 3 Comments

That, and they look kind of silly
Russian champion ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin wowed European judges with their program based on Australian Aboriginal music and dress, but they face an uncertain welcome at Olympic competition in Vancouver. Their costumes, dark-toned bodysuits decorated with paint, eucalyptus leaves and red loincloths, have enraged Australian Aboriginal leaders. Spokesmen for the four Olympic host First Nations in B.C. have already said they want to meet with the skaters to discuss issues of cultural sensitivity.

Dream job
The photo of sleeping Toronto Transit Commission fare collector George Robitaille has become, it must be said, the sleeper hit of the Internet. Since the picture taken by Jason Wieler was posted online and then displayed on the front of Friday’s Toronto Sun, Photoshoppers have had a field day with the “TTC Sleeper”: having him nap with Homer Simpson at the Springfield nuclear plant, inserting him into the iconic painting of the Last Supper, replacing his head with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s. Robitaille blamed medication for a heart procedure and said he was sorry if he embarrassed his fellow workers and the TTC.

Every Rose has his thorn
Has Axl Rose taken his feud with ex-bandmate Slash to a new level? The gossip site TMZ reports fans attending a Guns N’ Roses concert in Regina last Wednesday were told by security to turn Slash T-shirts inside out, and to leave his signature top hats outside. Later, Rose’s camp issued a denial that any sort of apparel was banned. Still, there’s bad blood aplenty. When Slash recently floated the idea of an earthquake relief fundraiser, an angry Rose twittered: “Pretty low n’ selfish usin’ the devastation in Haiti 2 start (false) reunion rumors.”

Lost, and found
David Idlout has a missing snowmobile and a big satellite phone bill, but odds are he won’t complain. The Inuit hunter from Resolute, Nunavut, spent almost four days on a crumbling ice floe drifting toward the Northwest Passage. He’d set out to retrieve a snowmobile that broke down while he was scouting for seals when the floe broke away from the ice pack. He used a satellite phone to reach his wife, who called search and rescue. A military plane dropped supplies, but equipment problems and bad weather delayed the rescue by a helicopter crew from CFB Greenwood, N.S., until Monday.

Tinker, Taylor, diplomat, spy
Those Austin Powers-style glasses should have been a clue. Ken Taylor, Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, was hailed as a hero for sheltering six Americans in his official residence after they avoided capture when militant students seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979. Now it turns out Taylor’s role went far beyond smuggling the Americans out of Iran in 1980 on false Canadian passports. He also spied for the Americans, gathering intelligence for a planned U.S. rescue of hostages trapped in the U.S. Embassy, according to Our Man in Tehran, a new book by Robert Wright. Taylor served “as the de facto CIA station chief in Tehran,” says Wright. “It was extremely dangerous work,” he writes.
TV to the rescue
American network medical correspondents, at least those who are also certified doctors, have pulled double duty while covering the earthquake in Haiti. Dr. Nancy Snyderman of NBC treated a man with an infection, trying to keep him alive until a necessary amputation could be performed. And CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon, treated several patients, even operating to remove debris fragments from a 12-year-old girl’s brain. “Yes, I am a reporter,” he said, “but a doctor first.” In a different vein, actor and Scientologist John Travolta, another camera-friendly face, underwrote the cost of a plane to Haiti, staffed with food, medics and 80 volunteer Scientology ministers to assist with “spiritual first aid”—and maybe administer some of those personality tests.
Maybe Don Cherry can make peace
Ron MacLean is supposed to be the reasonable half of the Hockey Night in Canada tag team. But his Jan. 16 attack on Vancouver Canuck forward Alex Burrows inspired the entire team to boycott CBC on-air interviews last Saturday night. MacLean accused Burrows of being a chronic diver to draw penalties, and discredited Burrows’s claim that referee Stéphane Auger threatened to take revenge on Burrows for making him look stupid with a previous call. MacLean declined to apologize, so when Vancouver hammered the Chicago Blackhawks 5-1 last Saturday, none of the three stars, Canucks Roberto Luongo, Henrik Sedin and Ryan Kesler, would be interviewed. It’s not clear if they’ll carry their boycott to Toronto on Saturday, when they play the Leafs as part of CBC’s Hockey Day in Canada.
A Cardinal? A Padre? Nope, a priest.
Outfielder Grant Desme was a top prospect for the Oakland Athletics, with a solid reputation as a home-run hitter despite a plague of injuries. But Desme is aiming higher than the outfield fence. Last week the 23-year-old announced he was quitting baseball to enter a Catholic seminary. He now sees his injuries as “blessings” that helped sort out his priorities. His theological studies will take about 10 years, he says. “I desire and hope I become a priest.” The sudden career change is a bit, he added, like “re-entering the minor leagues.”
Semi-naked ambition
Senator-elect Scott Brown arrived in Washington carrying the weight of Republican expectations, but perhaps not so many clothes. Brown, who toppled the Massachusetts Democrat dynasty of the late senator Ted Kennedy, famously posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine as a law student in 1982. His equally photogenic wife, Gail Huff, strutted in and out of a microscopic black bikini in a 1984 music video. The leaked images only helped his cause with voters. Also generating bipartisan interest among Americans is a skin-intensive Internet photo of Brown’s bikini-clad daughters Ayla and Arianna—though calling them “available” during his acceptance speech was a bit over the top. “I want a chastity belt on this man,” said right-wing broadcaster Glenn Beck. “I want his every move watched in Washington. This one could end with a dead intern,” he said, cryptically.
And for his 21st, a small country
Rapper Sean “Did­dy” Combs has set a scary new standard for 16-year-old birthday bashes. He rented a hot New York bar for his son Justin Dior’s party and invited 1,000 friends. Guests included cast members from Jersey Shore and performances from the likes of Lil’ Kim and Trey Songz. MTV cameras filmed the event for an episode of My Super Sweet 16. As for prezzies, they included US$10,000, and a chauffeur-driven Maybach car worth $360,000. In a classy move, Justin donated the cash to Haitian earthquake relief.
Local hero
Li Shiming was a much unloved Communist party official in Xiashuixi, China, who used corruption and hired thugs to grow rich and hold power. When he was stabbed to death in 2008, the village set off fireworks in celebration. But last Wednesday his admitted killer, Zhang Xuping, 19, was sentenced to death. Zhang was paid about $150 to do the killing by a farmer whose land was stolen by Li. A petition of 20,000 signatures asking for leniency was ignored during sentencing. Zhang’s lawyer has filed an appeal. “I wanted to kill Li myself,” said one villager, “but I was too weak.”
All the news  that fits, in a D cup
The New York Times has admitted it did Mad Men star Christina Hendricks wrong. Its fashion writer had said of the low-cut, ruffled gown Hendricks wore to the Golden Globe awards: “You don’t put a big girl in a big dress.” It compounded the sin with a photo that made her even more voluptuous than the reality. It later conceded the photo was distorted “due to an error during routine processing.” No word, though, about its swipe at the “big,” all-natural Hendricks, though several siliconed starlets escaped a similar slagging.
Vlad the paler
Russian PM Vladimir Putin may be the very image of a macho man of action, but it wasn’t always so, says Tatyana Yumasheva, the daughter of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Yumasheva, a former presidential aide, says in her increasingly popular blog that Putin was nervous and “troubled” when Yeltsin said unexpectedly he would hand over power to him on New Year’s Eve in 1999. “It was not easy for Putin to become accustomed to the thought that in two days the responsibility for the whole country would be on his shoulders,” she says. Yumasheva may be building her profile for a return to politics. She is almost certainly enraging Russia’s most powerful man.
Trouble down under
Tennis phenom and clothing designer Venus Williams came close to stepping over the line at the Australian Open this week, but it wasn’t her feet at fault. It seemed that Williams had broken the event’s prohibition against revealing clothing by playing in a low-cut outfit without underwear. Closer examination by, oh, about every male tennis fan on earth proved she was more modestly dressed than first impressions indicated. “My dress for the Australian Open has been one of my best designs ever,” she said. “It’s all about the slits and V-neck. I am wearing undershorts the same colour as my skin, so it gives the slits in my dress the full effect!” Play on.