Russia furiously preparing for Sochi Games

The rest of the world might still be thinking warm thoughts, but for the organizers of the next Olympic Games - the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics - there is a massive project underway to build a resort city on the Black Sea almost from scratch, and with it, the center of the universe for sports played on ice and snow.

"We are building an Olympic structure in the middle of nowhere," said Dmitry Chernyshenko, president of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee. "It's like a painter with a blank canvas painting a masterpiece. We are building a new city with more than 100,000 hotel beds. It's the biggest construction project in the world."

There's nothing quite like trying to build an all-new Olympic site at break-neck speed in the midst of a bad economy in a volatile part of the world. Sochi is right next to Russia's border with Georgia, nearer to Turkey than it is to Moscow.
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Sochi will have a compact Games - far different than the far-flung London Olympics, for instance - with two venue clusters linked by high-speed trains, one by the Black Sea and the other in the mountains, just 22 miles away. Unburdened by having to use existing structures, organizers have been able to create a city built specifically for the Olympics.

Construction is almost complete. Officials report that all the "mountain cluster" venues held pre-Olympic test events during the last winter sports season. All the other venues - the "coastal cluster" - will be tested by the end of 2012. The only venue to be completed in 2013 is the stadium that will host the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
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"It's like Cannes and Davos all in one," Chernyshenko said. "A Mediterranean climate with palm trees, but you drive 30 minutes and you are in the mountains. It's really a unique location. We are building the Olympic site, but the future of the city is to be a year-round resort. "

Pussy Riot's Closing Statement

The trial for three members of Pussy Riot, a Russian punk band that got in a lot of trouble for a prank/protest event where they crashed the altar of Moscow's largest Orthodox Church to play a single anti-Putin song, concluded this week. The members gave closing statements, which they used to reassert their objections to the authoritarian state and the way that religious faith is being hijacked to garner support for government oppression. Business Insider ran a video and a translation of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's closing statement, where she clearly laid out the case for breaking the back of all oppressive institutions and linked her ordeal with that of many historical figures who have faced similar censorship efforts from social and governmental authorities.

"Essentially, it is not three singers from Pussy Riot who are on trial here. If that were the case, what’s happening would be totally insignificant. It is the entire state system of the Russian Federation which is on trial and which, unfortunately for itself, thoroughly enjoys quoting its cruelty towards human beings, its indifference to their honor and dignity, the very worst that has happened in Russian history to date. To my deepest regret, this mock trial is close to the standards of the Stalinist troikas. Thus, we have our investigator, lawyer and judge. And then, what’s more, what all three of them do and say and decide is determined by a political demand for repression. Who is to blame for the performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and for our being put on trial after the concert? The authoritarian political system is to blame. What Pussy Riot does is oppositional art or politics that draws upon the forms art has established. In any event, it is a form of civil action in circumstances where basic human rights, civil and political freedoms are suppressed by the corporate state system."

Pussy Riot set out to draw attention to the link between sexist, corporate, religious, and state oppression. Whether or not these three women go to jail, it can safely be said that they succeeded in their mission. As Jos Truitt of Feministing, who was raised Russian Orthodox, explained, decades of being stifled under the Soviets can make it easy for some of the faithful to convince themselves these women were doing something oppressive themselves by holding a harmless protest, but the way that everything has played out has made it all too clear that the church authorities pushing for punishment are drunk on their own power.

Litvinenko inquest: Judge appointed to oversee inquest

9 August 2012 Last updated at 10:12 ET

A High Court judge has been appointed to hold the inquest into the death of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London in 2006.

Mr Litvinenko, 43, is thought to have been poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 after having tea with two Russians at a hotel in November 2006.

Former KGB agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun returned to Moscow.

High Court Judge Sir Robert Owen will hold a pre-inquest review in public on 20 September.

Sir Robert, who has been appointed an Assistant Deputy Coroner, wants to hold the review so he can give "directions as to the conduct of the inquest".

Earlier this year the justice secretary wrote to Deputy Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe, who was then in charge of the inquest, to ask for clarification about 

Europe: The Resurgence of Nationalism!

Even if you’ve only caught 10 minutes of the Olympics, you’ve surely noticed the omnipresence of the flag. London is covered in flags of every size and color, from the national flags of Guam and the Solomon Islands, to Old Glory, to the Union Jack. National flags are painted on the faces of tourists, emblazoned on jerseys, shirts and backpacks, fluttering in stadiums, on cars, and on the backs of beaming medalists. Every European country is represented, from mighty Germany all the way down to Macedonia and Albania. Every European flag, that is, except for the national emblem of the entity that is supposed to unite them all: the European Union.

The photo of Robert Harting captures the essence of the Olympics: that it’s one giant, all-consuming, once-every-four-years celebration of patriotism, of national pride, of the love on one’s own nation.

More than any other event, the Olympic Games is a celebration of pure, untarnished, unchecked, nationalism.
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There’s no mistaking the reversion to nationalism, warned foreign-policy analyst Ulrich Speck. “Narratives about the euro crisis remain strikingly national, and they are worryingly diverging,” he wrote recently, “Euroskepticism is on the rise. It looks rather as if the limits of integration have been reached.” Last September, George Friedman, ceo of Stratfor, wrote an article in which he explained how the vision of European unity is fast vanishing. He wrote, “[W]hat was inconceivable—the primacy of the traditional nation-state—is now commonly discussed, and steps to devolve Europe in part or in whole (such as ejecting Greece form the eurozone) are being contemplated.”

Putin Vows Sport ‘Changes’ After Olympics

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Wednesday the government would make “changes” to Russian sport after the Olympics.

Russia is now fifth in the medals table with ten gold medals after a slow start that saw the country win just three golds in the first eight days and prompted a bout of soul-searching in the Russian media.

“We’ll analyze the results a bit later and we’ll make relevant changes,” Putin said, adding that he congratulated Russian athletes on their success.
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The Russian government proposed a change to the law last month that would give the state the power to hire and fire the leadership of sports federation that receive more than half their income from the government.

Once-powerful Russia far behind in gold medal race

LONDON (AP) — After a miserable first week in the gold medal stakes, traditional powerhouse Russia is showing signs of a revival — though not enough to avoid its lowest Olympic finish in 60 years.

While some of Russia’s strongest events are still to come, the team is set to wind up outside the top three in golds for the first time since the Soviet Union began competing at the games in 1952.

It’s a worrying sign for a country that will host the next Olympics, the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, and follows Russia’s worst-ever performance at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
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Russia’s recent decline has coincided with China’s rise as an Olympic superpower and continued dominance by the United States.

The Russian daily Sports Express said in a front page commentary Monday that Russian sports was ‘‘frozen’’ between the Chinese and American systems. It blamed a shortage of state funding and lack of oversight and control over national sports federations.

‘‘It’s very far from China, where the watchful Communist Party is eyeing the selection process starting from the kindergarten stage, builds giant sports arenas and finances powerful medical research — and harshly demands results,’’ the paper said. ‘‘We must admit that we stand even further from the American model, and the distance keeps growing. Because it would be deadly if we end state involvement in sports as they did. Sports industries that will feed themselves are simply absent in our country.’’

Pussy Riot: Russia prosecutors seek three years' jail

Russian prosecutors have asked for three years' in prison for three women musicians accused of inciting religious hatred during a protest in a cathedral.

The three members of the punk band Pussy Riot played a song attacking Russian leader Vladimir Putin in front of an altar on 21 February.

They told the court their performance was a political act, not aimed at hurting the feelings of believers.

Concern about the case has been voiced by the EU and others.

Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, could have faced a maximum sentence of seven years.

They said their performance of the "punk prayer" was a reaction to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, publicly backing Mr Putin in elections.