Russia is ready to head an anti-drug coalition. A statement to that effect was made by the Director of the Federal Drug Control Service Victor Ivanov in the run-up to an international conference on the Afghan drug threat which is slated to take place in Moscow on June 9th and 10th. At present, Afghanistan produces twice as much heroin as the entire world produced 10 years ago. Consumption of opiates in the EU topped all last year, and drugs kill 10 thousand people in Europe annually.  Russia sits second on the “black” list of drug consumers, but the number of drug victims in Russia is more than in Europe. According to Victor Ivanov, 30 thousand people, most of them young, are killed by drugs every year. It’s up to Russia then, the main victim to Afghan drug production, to stand at the head of a global movement for the eradication of the drug threat. This threat, without exaggeration, has become one of the major challenges of the 21st century, as serious as the Second World War in the 20th.

June 8, 2010   Russia’s Duma to consider START ratification

Russia's State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee will consider the ratification  of the new Russian-U.S. Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty July 8. This came from the Committee’s head Konstantin Kosachev. The procedure will follow working meetings featuring Russia’s Defense and Foreign Ministries. The Committee members will meet the group of Wise men comprising diplomats who dealt with disarmament July 5 

June 8, 2010   War in Afghanistan longer then Vietnam (Russia Today, 08.06.2010)

Unlike Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan has relied on a volunteer army instead of a drafted one, and the death toll in Afghanistan is far below that of Vietnam. The financial cost, however, has been much higher in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan has remained out of focus in the media because it has balanced its time with the war in Iraq, which is still an ongoing conflict. Both wars are likely to remain out of focus. “In the decades since the Vietnam era, we’ve expanded our presence around the world, so it’s become almost routine to have a major military presence in most countries around the world, and Iraq and Afghanistan are on their way to becoming just another two of those” 

June 8, 2010   NATO's bloodiest year in Afghanistan

Monday June 7th has become the bloodiest day for the multinational coalition forces in Afghanistan. Twelve foreign soldiers were killed in separate attacks, which is the heaviest toll NATO suffered in a single day this year. Five Americans and two Australians died in Monday blasts in southern Afghanistan, a French officer was killed in a missile strike in the northeastern province of Kapisa, and in another incident an American police trainer and a Nepalese security guard were the victims of suicide bombers in the city of Kandahar. Afghan civilians are getting increasingly concerned over the worsening security situation in the country 

June 8, 2010   Afghan drug problem poses global threat - Putin

The problem of drug production and drugs trafficking has ceased to become a regional problem and is posing a global threat, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. He was speaking at the third summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Istanbul, Turkey. In his speech the Russian Prime Minister referred to the UN estimations under which the Afghan opium and heroin had killed almost one million people. The problem is so serious that it requires consideration by the UN Security Council, Putin said 

June 7, 2010   Russian diplomat on Arctic current events

“Actually, the situation in the region is a model of civilized relations,” Anton Vasiliev responded to the question about his opinion on the issue. “Last year the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf approved claims by Norway for an additional area in the Arctic Ocean. The situation was peacefully and professionally settled, in particular as related to neighboring Russia, which has always inviolately observed the Yellowstone declaration,” Anton Vasiliev emphasized. Supervised by the Arctic Council and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, the situation in the region is developing positively, for the most part. Both organizations were established after the end of the Cold War to effectively tackle all related issues 

June 7, 2010   Kosovo: drugs for Europe

Kosovo has become a transit point for drugs, channelled from Asia to Europe. A Serbian military analyst and an authoritative expert on the situation in Kosovo, Milovan Drecun says that, according to the Europol and Interpol, the largest amount of heroin is delivered to Europe from Afghanistan via Kosovo. According to some estimates, some 65% of all the world’s heroin is channeled through the former Serbian province; while 90% of all drugs that reach Europe are shipped via Kosovo. According to the Canadian detective Stewart Kellock, the Albanian drug mafia operates with the connivance of the United States. Mr. Kellock said in an interview that US diplomats prevent the detention in Kosovo of notorious drug traffickers 

June 7, 2010   NATO may use military force against hackers

NATO may use military force against hackers who launch cyber attacks against its member states. The alliance is alarmed after a series of Chinese hacking attacks against NATO members. According to the Sunday Times newspaper, response to cyber attacks will be on the agenda of NATO’s November summit 

June 7, 2010   Russia urges NATO to fight Afghan drug trafficking

Insurgents and international mafia groups are earning billions of dollars "from smuggling the drugs - which we call 'white death' - to Europe, Asia and America," Ivanov told an Asia-Pacific security summit hosted by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies think tank. Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world's opium, the main ingredient of heroin, and is also the leading global supplier of hashish. According to the United Nations, the Taliban earn about $300 million a year from the opium trade 

June 4, 2010   President Dmitry Medvedev hopes for early ratification of START

Speaking at a ceremony to hand over credentials to the new ambassadors of a number of countries in Moscow on Thursday, President Dmitry Medvedev specifically expressed hope that the new START Treaty will be ratified in the near future. "Both Russia and the United States are already grappling with the issue", President Medvedev said, recalling that, signed in Prague on April 8th, the updated START pact stipulates a 30-percent reduction of the two countries’ nuclear arsenals. "The document also envisages a link between offensive and defensive weapons, separately warning against deploying strategic arms on the territory of third countries", President Medvedev explained 

June 2, 2010   NATO lacks competence in missile defence problems – Rogozin

NATO lacks competence in some security problems, specifically in missile defences, says Russia’s ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance Dmitry Rogozin in an interview with the BALTCOM Latvian radio station. He specified that the world’s only two nations with well-developed missile defence systems are Russia and the United States. Rogozin is attending a Riga-held session of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly. He spoke generally positively of NATO’S Secretary-General’s attitude for cooperation with Russia 

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