The Daily Mail wrote:
Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp's mass wedding. "They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia".
Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.
With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.
But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.
Nashi's annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.
Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.
Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.
With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.
But this organisation - known as "Nashi", meaning "Ours" - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.
Nashi's annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.
Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.
The Chicago Tribune wrote:
Heavy sedatives keep Larisa Arap languishing in a woozy haze at a mental asylum, the victim not of a troubled mind, her family says, but of a Soviet-era practice that continues to muzzle and punish dissent in today's Russia.
Earlier this summer, Arap, an activist with former chess champion Garry Kasparov's opposition movement, co-wrote an article that alleged abusive practices at local psychiatric clinics. When Arap appeared at a Murmansk clinic to pick up a routine medical certificate July 5, a doctor called police and had her taken to a local asylum.
The doctors handling Arap's case have made it clear why they want her committed to a mental institution, says Arap's daughter, Taisiya.
"One of the doctors asked whether I thought it was normal to write such things," Taisiya Arap said. "She said, 'It's not possible to write such things. It's forbidden.'"
Earlier this summer, Arap, an activist with former chess champion Garry Kasparov's opposition movement, co-wrote an article that alleged abusive practices at local psychiatric clinics. When Arap appeared at a Murmansk clinic to pick up a routine medical certificate July 5, a doctor called police and had her taken to a local asylum.
The doctors handling Arap's case have made it clear why they want her committed to a mental institution, says Arap's daughter, Taisiya.
"One of the doctors asked whether I thought it was normal to write such things," Taisiya Arap said. "She said, 'It's not possible to write such things. It's forbidden.'"
The Trib again wrote:
Georgia claimed today that two Russian fighter jets invaded Georgian air space and fired a guided missile at a village not far from the country's capital, an allegation sure to worsen tense relations between the Kremlin and the former Soviet republic's U.S.-allied government.
Georgian radar detected the jets flying from the Russian republic of North Ossetia in the North Caucasus and over Georgia's border Monday evening, said Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, in a telephone interview as he inspected the crater from the missile, which did not explode.
A 1-ton, precision-guided missile was found buried 16 feet into the ground, about 30 yards from a house in the village of Tsitelubani, Utiashvili and other Georgian officials said. The village is about 37 miles northwest of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. No one was hurt.
Russian authorities denied the allegation and challenged Georgian officials to back their assertions with proof.
Georgian radar detected the jets flying from the Russian republic of North Ossetia in the North Caucasus and over Georgia's border Monday evening, said Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, in a telephone interview as he inspected the crater from the missile, which did not explode.
A 1-ton, precision-guided missile was found buried 16 feet into the ground, about 30 yards from a house in the village of Tsitelubani, Utiashvili and other Georgian officials said. The village is about 37 miles northwest of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. No one was hurt.
Russian authorities denied the allegation and challenged Georgian officials to back their assertions with proof.
Edited, Aug 7th 2007 12:45pm by Jophiel
