Written by Mahina Shodizoda There are not many netizens in Tajikistan that have remained silent about a recent car crash in Dushanbe involving a relative of President Emomali Rahmon. The incident has demonstrated once again that powerful and well-connected individuals are above the law in the country. But it has also shown that simple technological […]
Russia: Interpretation of Putin’s NYT Op-Ed on Syria
Written by Kevin Rothrock It’s not every day that the Russian President pens an opinion piece in the New York Times, but it happened yesterday, and the American blogosphere promptly lost its collective marbles, as tweeting journalists and surprised ordinary Internet users stumbled over each other to react. In the aftermath of local and regional […]
Estonian Residence Permit Scandal: 5 Years After
Residence permits in first-class countries have always been a hot product for wealthy Russians. They crave legal protection for their assets and in case things go too wrong in their home country – an ability to flee somewhere where they would at least have a day in proper court if extradition is requested. Those reasons […]
Russian arms manufacturers new export contracts this year total over $7.5 billion
On November 5, 2014 President Vladimir Putin held a meeting of the Commission for Military Technology Cooperation with Foreign States. A partial transcript of the meeting is as follows: PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, colleagues. Today, we will examine a number of issues related to making our military technology cooperation with foreign countries […]
How to defeat NSA snooping and protect classified information the old fashion way!
I recently met with a “security expert” in the private sector to discuss ways he could advise his client on how to secure classified information in the digital age in light of Edward Snowden’s revelations of National Security Agency (NSA) snooping and meta data collection techniques. I think l shocked him when l began suggesting […]
Russia rumored to have deployed Iskander short range ballistic missiles near Lithuania
The German newspaper ‘Bild’ published information that indicates the Russian military has stationed Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region near Lithuania. The newspaper says that it received the information from “unnamed security sources” and from “secret satellite images” that portray several missiles close to the EU borders. The newspaper has, however refused to make public […]