| Bloomberg | - |
Russian
President Vladimir Putin is showing his gamesmanship on a global stage
by giving his voters what they want with the asylum granted to ex-U.
Putin Shows Global Mojo to Russians as U.S. Fumes Over Snowden
By Ilya Arkhipov & Olga Tanas -
Aug 1, 2013 4:00 PM PT
Play
U.S. Disappointed by Snowden Asylum, Carney Says
Russian President Vladimir Putin
fishing in the Tyva region on July 20, 2013 during his vacation.
Photographer: Alexey Druzhinin/AFP via Getty Images
A woman watches a footage on her
computer which shows Edward Snowden's one-year asylum permit, presented
by his lawyer at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow on August 1, 2013.
Source: AFP/Getty Images
“Domestically, he got what he can,” Pavlovsky said by phone yesterday. “His main propaganda message domestically will be that things are similar everywhere: the CIA and the FBI violate human rights just like everybody else.”
Putin, who used Russia’s oil-powered wealth accumulation to build support for his 13-year rule, is facing an economy that threatens to slide into recession. Over the past two years, he also stared down the biggest opposition rallies since he came to power and has been the target of criticism for cracking down on protest leaders.
Opposition organizer Alexey Navalny last month received a five-year prison sentence, which he is appealing while he campaigns for Moscow’s mayoral elections next month. Economist Sergei Guriev and former chess champion Garry Kasparov, critics fearing prosecution, fled Russia this year.
Three members of all-female punk group Pussy Riot were convicted last August after a protest targeting Putin. One was later freed on appeal.
Slowing Growth
The backdrop for authorities going after opposition voices is a darkening economic picture. Growth slowed to half of last year’s pace in the first six months, according to the Economy Ministry. Manufacturing unexpectedly shrank last month, HSBC Holdings Plc. (HSBA) said yesterday, citing data compiled by London-based Markit Economics.There’s a 30 percent chance of a recession next year, up from 20 percent a month ago, according to the median estimate of 13 economists in a Bloomberg survey published July 25.
While Russia lacks the economic power that China or the West wield, it strives to be treated as an equal and the Snowden affair gave Putin an opportunity to show that, according to Lilit Gevorgyan, senior analyst for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent stats at IHS Global Insight.
“Russia continues to seek a role in what it sees as a small club of world players,” she said by e-mail yesterday. Returning Snowden to the U.S. “would undermine Russia’s bid to promote globally an image of a major geopolitical player offering an alternative to the western-dominated world.”
Russian Opinion
That plays well with Putin’s domestic audience, according to a survey released by the polling company Levada Center on July 31. Forty-three percent backed giving Snowden asylum in a July 18-22 poll of 1,601 Russians, compared with 29 percent against it, according to the poll.Fifty-one percent approve of the former security contractor’s decision to reveal secret surveillance programs in the U.S., while 17 percent disapprove, it showed. The results had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
The move was “absolutely forced,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the research group Foreign and Defence Policy Council in Moscow. The U.S. refusing to allow Snowden to seek asylum in a third country left Russia with little choice, he said.
“Russia can’t give him to the U.S. for political and moral reasons,” Lukyanov said by phone yesterday. “Russia doesn’t need Snowden -- nobody knows what to do with him. But no other solution was available.”
Summit Threatened
Snowden’s presence in Russia has raised tensions with its former Cold War foe before U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to make his first visit to Russia since Putin was re-elected to a third Kremlin term in March 2012. The two leaders are due to meet in Moscow in early September during Obama’s trip to Russia for a meeting of Group of 20 nations.The one-year asylum, which ended the former U.S. contractor’s 39-day stay in the transit area of Moscow’s Shremetyevo airport, prompted Obama to weigh the cancellation of the summit.
The U.S. is evaluating the “utility” of the meeting, according to White House spokesman Jay Carney, who said the president is personally “extremely disappointed.” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment.
The tension over Snowden threatens to scupper Russia’s plans to use the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg to shore up investor confidence, according to Chris Weafer, senior partner at Macro Advisory in Moscow.
Bad Timing
“The timing couldn’t be worse,” Weafer wrote in a report yesterday. “The Kremlin had hoped to use the G-20 as a platform to try, once again, to position Russia as an attractive investment opportunity.”While Putin himself was taken hostage by the events to a certain extent and the decision to grant Snowden asylum is “absolutely irrational” from the perspective of international relations, Russia “decided to make use of Snowden” to put pressure on the U.S., Alexei Malashenko, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, said by phone yesterday.
“The pressure is to show that we weren’t born yesterday,” Malashenko said. “That’s the Russian sentiment on everything, whether it’s Iran, Syria or relations with China.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net; Olga Tanas in Moscow at otanas@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net
See realtime coverage »
first repeat quote from above:
"Fifty-one percent approve of the former security contractor’s decision to reveal secret surveillance programs in the U.S., while 17 percent disapprove, it showed. The results had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. "
2nd repeat partial quote from above article:
"That plays well with Putin’s domestic audience, according to a survey released by the polling company Levada Center on July 31. Forty-three percent backed giving Snowden asylum in a July 18-22 poll of 1,601 Russians, compared with 29 percent against it, according to the poll" end 2nd repeat quote.
What is most interesting to me is that in the U.S. 51 percent approve Snowden's releases of information for the betterment of the world and only 17 percent disapprove it. But, in contrast to that only 41 percent of Russians approve Snowden's releases whereas 29 percent disapprove. This is realy interesting.
However, Putin can benefit from the 41percent in Russia that agree with him giving Snowden Asylum in Russia for now.
I think many more of these kinds of revelations will occur in the future. It might be the only way that citizens of Earth can keep their freedoms and privacy at all. Like always "Necessity is the mother of invention". And like I said before "Globalization destroys all nations and the privacy of ALL individuals automatically." So, the real enemy of privacy and freedom now on earth is Globalization itself. As more people understand this a way forward that prevents human extinction can and will be found.
first repeat quote from above:
"Fifty-one percent approve of the former security contractor’s decision to reveal secret surveillance programs in the U.S., while 17 percent disapprove, it showed. The results had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. "
2nd repeat partial quote from above article:
"That plays well with Putin’s domestic audience, according to a survey released by the polling company Levada Center on July 31. Forty-three percent backed giving Snowden asylum in a July 18-22 poll of 1,601 Russians, compared with 29 percent against it, according to the poll" end 2nd repeat quote.
What is most interesting to me is that in the U.S. 51 percent approve Snowden's releases of information for the betterment of the world and only 17 percent disapprove it. But, in contrast to that only 41 percent of Russians approve Snowden's releases whereas 29 percent disapprove. This is realy interesting.
However, Putin can benefit from the 41percent in Russia that agree with him giving Snowden Asylum in Russia for now.
I think many more of these kinds of revelations will occur in the future. It might be the only way that citizens of Earth can keep their freedoms and privacy at all. Like always "Necessity is the mother of invention". And like I said before "Globalization destroys all nations and the privacy of ALL individuals automatically." So, the real enemy of privacy and freedom now on earth is Globalization itself. As more people understand this a way forward that prevents human extinction can and will be found.
No comments:
Post a Comment