Am I the only one wawke at 0430? Yeltsin resigns...

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1. Gee, it's nice to have this site back, isn't it? Thanks to all for their efforts!

2. As you probably have heard by now, Yeltsin just resigned, effective immediately. His close ally (and chosen successor, if/when the next elections are held) Putin, will serve until elections are held in 90 days. The talking heads say it was because Unca Boris and his family (daughter, I think) are in deep doodoo for corruption/laundering/kickbacks, etc. and he finally got the deal he wanted for immunity for himself (which they'd already promised) and for his family (which had been the sticking point).

It's thought that Putin, although the ex-head of the KGB) is a centrist kinda guy the West can work with.

It's reminding me how little I'd kept up w/ the dramitis personae of Russia. Can anyone remind me of whop is the wacko, hard-right general (or something) that hovers around? How far is he from any position of power?

Kirimati, Chatham Islands down, NZ coming up in 2 minutes...

Good luck to us all - stay out of the stores and hunker down!

Hugh

-- Hugh Wiggins (hewiggins@mindspring.com), December 31, 1999

Answers

Nope. It's 6:00 here, and I'm still up. But not for long. I need a z or 2... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), December 31, 1999.

Your probably thinking of a guy named Lebed.

-- Mike (anon@not.a.chance), December 31, 1999.

Putin it is rumored is a blood thirsty psycho. Rough road.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), December 31, 1999.

"Putin it is rumored is a blood thirsty psycho. Rough road. "

you must have some pretty screwy sources.

-- not all (that@worried.com), December 31, 1999.


http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html? s=asia/headlines/991231/world/afp/Putin_rocked_Russians_with_ruthlessn ess.html

Friday, December 31 6:28 PM SGT

Putin rocked Russians with ruthlessness MOSCOW, Dec 31 (AFP) - Vladimir Putin, the poker-faced ex-KGB spy, once tried to westernize a crumbling Soviet Union but has since galvanized a new Russia and is vowing to annihilate the rebels of Chechnya.

"We'll get them anywhere -- if we find terrorists sitting in the outhouse, then we will piss on them there. That's it. The matter is settled," barked Putin shortly after Russia launched its Chechen war in September.

Such talk could have cost his predecessors their job. But it boosted Putin's career.

He became acting president Friday when Boris Yeltsin suddenly announced he was stepping down, and is likely to retain the Kremlin hot seat for years to come.

Yeltsin, ailing and being edged out of power by his closest advisers, named the then virtually unknown security chief as prime minister last August.

He had been running the secretive but omnipotent Security Council.

He has since turned into one of the most admired figures Russia has seen this decade, even his opponents singing his praises.

"Putin has enchanted Russia," wrote Vyacheslav Kostikov, a former Kremlin spokesman and current board member of a Media-MOST empire that has campaigned heavily against the government.

"I honestly believe that Putin is capable of heroic deeds in the name of our humiliated Russia," Kostikov said.

Yet the 47-year-old prime minister and acting president remains a political enigma.

He helped found a new party, Unity, which rode into the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) on the back of his popularity in December 19 elections.

The party is described as "centrist." But the respected Moscow Times said in an editorial: "There is no particular reason to believe that Unity is 'centrist,' unless 'centrist' is another word for 'unknown.'"

The English-language newspaper added: "But what seems clear is that the Kremlin has been dealt a winning hand -- or the Kremlin has dealt itself a winning hand, depending on one's point of view."

What can be gleamed from Putin's bare biography suggests that he is intelligent and cunning, trusted enough by peers to be handed some of the most sensitive assignments.

Putin "was shaped by the single greatest mission in the history of the KGB," wrote the US-based private global intelligence firm Stratfor.

That mission was the "systematic restructuring of the Soviet economy, Soviet society and Soviet relations with the West in the hope of preserving the state and the regime."

Putin spent the 1980s in Berlin, where intelligence observers believe he slipped into West Germany to learn trade secrets of such companies as US computer giant IBM.

Observers believe KGB officers knew the Soviet Union was in ruins and could be preserved only by revolutionising its lagging technology and attracting investors from the West.

It remains unclear how successful Putin was. But he became the chief liaison for foreign investors after joining the pro-reform team of Saint Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sabchak in 1994.

Local journalists report that it was impossible to make foreign investments in Russia's second city without first contacting Putin.

He then also became a trusted ally of economics chief Anatoly Chubais, who brought Putin to Moscow in 1996 and made him responsible for monitoring regional leaders who were seeking greater independence from Moscow.

One political analyst reported that Putin was told to collect so- called "compromising material" on governors which could then be used as an "incentive" for them to toe the Kremlin line.

Analysts suggest the Kremlin is now repaying Putin by making him the star of a well orchestrated media public relations campaign, one which has put his presidential rating at an unheralded 46 percent.

The latest Public Opinion Foundation poll said Russians were three times as likely to vote for Putin in presidential election due in June than his nearest rival, Communist Party boss Gennady Zyuganov.

"Russia was and will remain a great country," Putin wrote in a 14- page essay entitled "Russia on the Threshold of a New Millenium" published this week on the government's Internet web site.

The message, at once an outline of policy objectives and a philosophical expose, was striking both in its relaxed tone and a novel content that mixed Western democratic and market ideals with traditional Russian mores.

"Russia is never going to be another USA or England, where liberal values have deep historic roots," Putin asserted.

"It is a fact that in Russia the attraction to a collective way of life has always been stronger than the desire for individualism."

At the same time, though, the country and its people understand better than many the dangers that a government -- particularly an executive branch -- endowed with excessive power can pose to people's freedom, he said.

"The global experience prompts the conclusion that the main threat to human rights and freedoms, to democracy as such, emanates from the executive authority," Putin wrote.

"The state must be where and as needed; freedom must be where and as required."



-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), December 31, 1999.



I'm still up,puttin in the last of the water,beer and misc. to do's.Z's may not be possible tonight,maybe I'll go watch/shop down at the Krogers or Walmart,I think I still have $10.00 left.

-- capnfun (yo7@bellsouth.net), December 31, 1999.

And how do you get "blood thirsty" out of that? I get a guy who is not taking any crap.

You can also check out http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/AC/setguestcookie.cgi?section=News&host =www%2Enewsunlimited%2Eco%2Euk&uri=%2Fyeltsin%2FStory%2F0%2C2763%2C725 04%2C00%2Ehtml&userid=4G9Dbb01

This was written on August 9th, so not real probable it was spun by the current skirmish or Yeltsin's resigination.

-- not all (that@worried.com), December 31, 1999.


You're correct Hugh, Yeltsin has had this planned for quite some time as a way to protect his own interests, as stated in this article from back in August. I think he was also pressured to do it now because he is too sick and incompetent to continue any longer without making Russia the joke of the world.

******

Monday August 9 9:55 AM ET

Yeltsin Wants Putin As President In 2000

By Martin Nesirky

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Boris Yeltsin stunned Russia Monday by sacking his entire government and then naming his newly appointed acting premier, ex-KGB spy Vladimir Putin, as the man he wants to succeed him as president next year.

``He will be able to unite those who will renew the great Russia in the 21st century,'' the 68-year-old Kremlin chief said in a televised address, saying Putin would guarantee the future of reforms in the world's largest country if elected president.

It was a dramatic move -- the first time Yeltsin has so clearly named a preferred heir and the fifth time he has chosen a new premier in 17 months -- and the rouble fell immediately. Russian shares dropped before bargain hunters boosted prices.

Yet major world markets steered seemingly unperturbed through the latest political twists and foreign governments pledged to stay on track with Russia.

Opposition leaders said the move was lunacy and more about protecting his entourage than the nation's interests. Political analysts more charitably pointed to the emergence of Moscow Mayor -- and Yeltsin rival -- Yuri Luzhkov's new political alliance last week as the catalyst. Muscovites were cynical.

``What do you expect from an ill president and his troop of clowns,'' said Marina, sheltering in a doorway from rain.

In his address just hours after sacking Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin's cabinet and naming Putin as premier, the ailing Yeltsin said he had set December 19 as the date for an election to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

``The start has now been given for the elections marathon,'' Yeltsin said, reminding Russians that in mid-2000 a presidential vote would be held. By law, Yeltsin must step down next year.

``Now I have decided to name a man who in my opinion is capable of uniting society, based on the broadest political forces, to ensure the continuation of reforms in Russia,'' said the bespectacled president in slow, deliberate tones.

``He is Security Council secretary and director of the Federal Security Service Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.''

``I have confidence in him,'' he said. ``I want those who will go to the polls next July to have confidence in him as well.''

Putin said he would definitely stand.

Despite central bank support, the official rouble rate fell three percent to 25.29 to the dollar in response to the news on Putin and the government's dismissal. The main RTS1-Interfax index was 5.98 percent off at 96.98 by 1200 GMT, a recovery from an initial drop and a sign bargain hunters had stepped in.

Yeltsin has not said so clearly before whom he would prefer to succeed him, although he has alluded to others in the past and there had been persistent speculation in Moscow that pointed to the 47-year- old Putin as a possible choice.

The president is known to be keen to make sure his successor is from his camp and will guarantee immunity from prosecution for him and his entourage, known as ``The Family.''

Putin worked as a KGB spy in Germany and then for the city administration in St Petersburg, where he earned the nickname ''The Grey Cardinal'' for his dour behind-the-scenes style.

He is seen as close to reformer Anatoly Chubais, architect of Russia's controversial privatization program. Chubais is widely regarded as having close links with the ``The Family.''

Putin is Yeltsin's fifth prime ministerial candidate in just 17 months. Yeltsin has asked the Duma to confirm him. Interfax news agency said Putin did not plan big changes in the government.

Ministers stay on in a caretaker role for now.

The Duma, in summer recess, has a week to consider the nomination, and is likely to do so Friday, Interfax said.

It was not clear what Putin's chances were. Some political analysts thought he would not get through on the first of three possible votes, after which Yeltsin must dissolve the Duma.

Few think he will fail altogether. Even if he did, the election commission said the Duma election date would stand.

Rumors had been swirling in Moscow for several days that the president had grown jealous of Stepashin's warm welcome on recent foreign trips.

Stepashin's failure to halt an alliance between regional governors and Luzhkov doubtless grated.

It was not clear whether an outbreak of fighting in Russia's North Caucasus over the weekend had colored Yeltsin's judgement.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), December 31, 1999.


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