The rapid increase in oil prices and the rise in metal and mineral demand worldwide have made the Russians overconfident. Their annual cash income in the last four years has grown fourfold. The economic crunch of the 1990s is behind them. Thus the Russians have become somewhat politically belligerent, visible in the opposition they have [...]

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The BP chairman suggested that the tactics adopted by the AAR consortium were a return to the 1990s, a lawless period when many of Russia’s biggest fortunes were amassed by a small group of individuals, often referred to as oligarchs.
Mr Sutherland also pointed a finger at the Kremlin and asked why the Russian government had [...]

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“The big story is productivity in China,” he asserts, noting it is an incredible 9%, or three times the level of productivity in the US during its 1990s peak. Admiral Owens attributes this to the country’s high-quality infrastructure. It will allow the Chinese economy to soon become the second-largest in the world, with a GDP [...]

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Since the late 1990s, there has been a flood of research on natural resources and civil war. This article reviews 14 recent cross-national econometric studies, and many qualitative studies, that cast light on the relationship between natural resources and civil war. It suggests that collectively they imply four underlying regularities: first, oil increases the likelihood [...]

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The “moment of truth” has come for Europe to resist hardliners in Russia who are bent on stopping the spread of democracy in the former Soviet Union, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on Thursday.
Moscow has sparked an international crisis by ordering extra troops and equipment to Abkhazia, a Black Sea province which threw off [...]

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The underpopulation crisis unlimited abortions has caused in Russia is so bad, that the nation will likely need to import large numbers of foreign workers because of labor shortages. U.S. CIA director Michael Hayden says he’s concerned that will lead to racial unrest in a nation with numerous nuclear missiles.
Abortion has been used as a [...]

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Russia’s defence ministry is sending extra peacekeeping troops to two Georgian separatist regions in response to what it calls aggressive moves by Georgia.
“Analysis of the structure of the armed forces in this region leads to the conclusion that a bridgehead is being prepared… for military operations against Abkhazia,” the ministry said.
Russia maintains a peacekeeping force [...]

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