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| Saturday, 13-Nov-2010 01:59 |
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Pearl Jewelry - The Story of Pearl Hunters
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As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in farms.
That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down.
Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents. Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world. The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times the only pearls available to the consumer.
There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from pollution.
It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.
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| Saturday, 13-Nov-2010 01:52 |
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Buying Pearl Jewelry Without Being Ripped Off
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Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
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| Monday, 8-Nov-2010 02:28 |
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Pearl Jewelry - The Story of Pearl Hunters
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As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a
highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times
however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to
a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in
display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in
farms.
That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods
used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more
than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in
lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The
unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and
lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would
sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of
air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the
divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down.
Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or
the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents.
Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world.
The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times
the only pearls available to the consumer.
There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old
art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come
from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to
retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In
fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned
from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an
active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from
pollution.
It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers
around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's
been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.
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| Monday, 8-Nov-2010 02:25 |
Email | Share | | Bookmark |
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Buying Pearl Jewelry Without Being Ripped Off
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Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
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| Tuesday, 27-Oct-2009 09:16 |
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Action urged in TB fight
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Russia needs to take decisive measures if it is to stem an epidemic of tuberculosis sweeping the country, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report that ranked Russia 11th among the worst 22 TB-crisis countries. The WHO "Global Tuberculosis Control Report 2000" said that in 1999, Russia saw an additional 124,000 people contract TB, with 29,000 dying of the disease — a figure 2.5 times above that for 1990.
Last week, in an effort to try to find the necessary financing, the WHO and Russian government convened a donors meeting in Moscow.
"We have no time to
pearl jewelry waste. The international community, both the public and private sectors, must provide any support possible," said Arata Kochi, director of the WHO's Stop TB Initiative.
Russian specialists are also stressing both the urgency and magnitude of the problem. "Every day, 80 people are dying of tuberculosis in Russia now. We are concerned about the growth of the TB mortality rate," said Vladislav Yerokhin, director of the Russian Medical Science Academy's Central Tuberculosis Research Institute.
Organizations such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Soros Open Society Institute and the U.K. Department for International Development have already given money to help fight TB in Russia.
However, currently such donations are only enough to finance TB control programs in 13 oblasts.
The Finnish government has donated money to fight TB in the Karelia Republic and the city of Murmansk, capital of Murmansk Oblast, both adjacent to
freshwater pearl jewlelry Finland. The Norwegian government has sponsored a TB program in the Arkhangelsk oblast, while the German government sponsored a TB program in Altai Republic and Novosibirsk.
According to specialists, one of the major concerns highlighted in the report is the increase in drug-resistant forms of TB in Russia. These are developing as a result of non-standardized treatment or no treatment at all.
The WHO survey revealed that 8.9 percent of new cases in the Ivanovo oblast and 16.7 percent of new cases in Siberian prisons (in the Kemerovo oblast) were drug-resistant. While the treatment course for regular active TB form costs up to $40 a patient, treatment for drug-resistant strains can cost up to $5,200.
Traditionally, Russian prisons are seen as the "hotbed of infection" for the disease. Of the 375,000 active TB cases in Russia, about 96,000 are prisoners. However, participants in the Moscow meeting stressed that prisons were not the sole source of the problem – the whole country's economic situation is to wholesale pearl jewelry blame.
"The penitentiary system is not a closed system and without common action there will be no change," said Anatoly Vialkov, first deputy health minister.
Alexander Kononets, Ministry of Justice medical department chief and deputy chief of correctional facilities said that rather than most prisoners contracting the disease in jail, a significant number of active TB cases came from those entering the penitentiary system.
"There are about 50,000 active TB cases that enter the system yearly and 78 percent of those were not aware that pearl jewelry wholesale they were sick," Kononets said, adding that that the correctional system was already massively overcrowded. "The prisons were built with a capacity of 700,000 inmates; there are 1 million prisoners now."
The organizers said they were pleased with the results of the meeting, saying that potential donors had discussed grants amounting to $3 million. No details were provided, however.
It is known, though, that the World Bank has elaborated a TB control project, which envisions the provision of $100 million in funding.
The Russian government, which last year allocated $40 million for TB control programs, has asked the WHO to also supervise World Bank money to help implement its TB control strategy in the country.
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| Tuesday, 27-Oct-2009 09:14 |
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Activists protest Dzerzhinsky statue plan
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MOSCOW - A towering statue of the founder of the dreaded Soviet secret police could soon be rescued from a grassy park where it has idled with other fallen Soviet leaders for a decade - sparking protests from activists who consider it a symbol of terror.
Liberal lawmakers and human rights activists warned Monday that returning the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky to the front of the former KGB headquarters would insult the memory of victims of the mass repressions of the communist era that claimed tens of millions of lives.
"Dzerzhinsky was a butcher who along with his henchmen killed millions of Russians," lawmaker Boris Nemtsov, leader of the liberal Union of Right Forces parliament faction, said Monday in Lubyanka Square, where the Dzerzhinsky statue stood in front of KGB headquarters until 1991. The building now houses a KGB successor agency.
Dzerzhinsky, a Polish noble who abandoned his roots and pearl jewelry wholesale embraced the communist cause, became head of the Cheka secret police shortly after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. He presided over a wave of terror that earned him the nickname "Iron Felix." The organization's name changed several times and it eventually became the KGB.
The Dzerzhinsky statue was torn down by pro-democracy demonstrators after the defeat of the hard-line communist coup in August 1991. It is currently in a Moscow sculpture garden alongside other discarded statues of Soviet-era leaders.
Russian officials have said they believe more than 20 million people were victims of communist purges before Soviet leader Josef Stalin's death in 1953. More than 10 million died.
Alexander Yakovlev, once a close adviser to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and a veteran reformer who led the government's commission for rehabilitation of political repression victims, said Dzerzhinsky personally ordered mass killings and tortures. "He is the shame of Russia," Yakovlev said.
Nemtsov said Monday his party and other liberal groups would try to collect 1 million signatures to prevent the return of the statue.
Several dozen liberal politicians and human rights activists who gathered on Lubyanka Square on Monday near a monument to victims of Soviet-era repressions said the resurrection of Dzerzhinsky's statue would herald the government's approval of the communist terror.
"We have joined the international coalition against terror, so
freshwater pearl necklace how can we restore the statue of Dzerzhinsky, the symbol of Red Terror against the country's citizens?" asked Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a leading human rights organization.
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov called Friday for the return of the Dzerzhinsky statue, praising the 14-ton bronze monument as a "flawless" work of art. He said that despite his role in repressions, Dzerzhinsky must be given credit for taking care of homeless children and helping rebuild the national economy.
Sergei Yushenkov, a leader of the Liberal Russia party, speculated that Luzhkov was merely trying to
gemstone necklace please President Vladimir Putin, a KGB veteran who turns 50 next month - a theory shared by some Russian media. Luzhkov "thought the restoration of this statue would be the best present for Putin's birthday," Yushenkov said.
The proposal was a stunning about-face for Luzhkov, who in 1998 rejected communist lawmakers' demand to restore the statue.
Putin has spoken with pride about his 16-year KGB career, but hasn't commented on Luzhkov's proposal to restore the statue.
In sharp contrast with his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, who abhorred all symbols of communism, Putin endorsed the Russian parliament's move to reinstate the music of the old Soviet anthem, albeit with different words, in 2000.
Putin dismissed liberal protests, saying the combination of the Soviet-era anthem and Russia's post-Soviet tricolor flag and the state coat of arms with the czarist double-headed eagle would help end dancing pearl divisions in society.
"Restoration of the Stalinist anthem was a test for the nation, and the proposal to bring Dzerzhinsky's statue back is yet another one," said liberal lawmaker Nikolai Travkin. "A decade ago, we couldn't imagine that even in a nightmare."
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| Tuesday, 27-Oct-2009 09:14 |
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Abuse of mail-order brides prompts bill
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NEW YORK - Motivated by the murder of a mail-order bride, members of Congress are drafting a bill that would enable foreign women seeking American husbands to learn the criminal background of men courting them through matchmaking agencies.
The legislation, expected to be introduced this month in the House and Senate, represents the most serious effort yet to impose federal oversight over a loosely regulated, Internet-based industry.
The measure's prime sponsors are Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Rick Larsen, both Democrats from Washington state - where 20-year-old Anastasia King, a mail-order bride from Kyrgyzstan, was killed in September 2000.
Her husband, Indle King Jr., was convicted last year of first-degree murder. He had divorced a previous foreign bride and was seeking a third before the killing.
Larsen anticipates bipartisan support for the measure, though he is unsure how matchmaking services will respond.
"Cases like Anastasia King's have given the mail-order bride industry a bad name," he said. "I'd think they would support any steps to ensure they're looked at more favorably."
The legislation would require international marriage brokers to freshwater pearl necklace ask clients about any criminal record, including protective orders issued because of domestic violence allegations. Indle King's first wife had obtained a protective order against him in 1995.
The client's information would be provided to women contemplating marriage with him. If the man then applied for a U.S. visa for a prospective bride, he would undergo a criminal background check by federal officials.
No firm statistics exist on the extent of abuse suffered by mail-order brides, or even the numbers of such women. In the most recent attempt to quantify the industry, immigration officials said in 1999 that more than 200 international matchmaking services operated in the United States, arranging 4,000 to 6,000 marriages annually between American men and foreign women, mostly from the Philippines and former Soviet Union.
Leslye Orloff, director of the NOW Legal Defense Fund's Immigrant Women's Project, said some mail-order marriages work out well, but others are "a recipe for disaster" because the man is seeking a submissive wife.
"The industry markets stereotypes on both sides," Orloff said. "They market to the women the image of wealthy American men and a better life. They market to the American men the image of docile women they can control."
Such a pitch is offered by the Chance for Love matchmaking service. "The Russian woman has not been exposed to gemstone necklace the world of rampant feminism that asserts its rights in America," its Web site says. "She is the weaker gender and knows it."
Fees paid by male clients to the matchmaker services vary widely; costs can climb into five figures when the men go on organized trips to such destinations as Ukraine or Russia.
Encounters International, a Bethesda, Maryland-based service, charges men $1,850 for access to addresses and phone numbers of several hundred women in the former Soviet Union whose photos are posted on the Internet.
The agency's founder, Russian-born Natasha Spivack, said she had no objection to mandatory background checks, but predicted abusive men would still find ways to get a foreign wife.
Spivack contended that male clients, not the women, are the most likely to be victimized in mail-order marriages. Some women, she said, enter such marriages solely to gain U.S. citizenship, then falsely complain of physical abuse as a ploy to wholesale pearl jewelry remain in America despite divorce.
"Some of these women are sharks," she said.
Since 1993, Spivack says she has helped arrange 300 marriages, roughly 90 percent them still intact. Among the contented couples are Frank Hardy and his Ukraine-born wife, Svetlana, who married in 1998 and now raise two sons in Bear, Delaware.
Svetlana said she knows of several women from the former Soviet Union whose brokered marriages failed because of personal differences but none who were physically abused. Her husband, a twice-divorced pilot, said he assumed some foreign brides are mistreated but doubted the problem is widespread.
"A guy is not going to grab a young woman in Russia to bring here just to beat up," he said. "He's got a lot of money tied up in it."
Advocates for immigrant women's rights acknowledge that statistics are scarce on abuse of mail-order brides, but they're convinced the problem is growing.
"We called legal service providers that help battered immigrant women - half of these organizations said they have women coming through their doors who were married through international marriage brokers," said Layli Miller-Muro, executive director the Tahirih Justice Center in Falls Church, Virginia.
The justice center has been deeply involved in work on the upcoming federal legislation. It also is assisting a Ukrainian woman who has sued Encounters International, claiming the agency falsely suggested she would be deported if she left her abusive husband.
"Our goal is not to shut the marriage agencies down - it's to
pearl jewelry protect women," Miller-Muro said. "When someone is marketing relationships that by design involve a dominant party and subservient party, the likelihood of violence is greater."
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| Tuesday, 27-Oct-2009 09:11 |
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[url=http://www.gpearl.com]freshwater pearl earrings[/url]
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MURMANSK – In this bleak Far North city of crumbling buildings and rusting industry, locals will tell you that "winter lasts 10 months and the rest is autumn" – an environment that makes daily life a strain and emotions run high.
Perhaps that’s why initial optimism among the public that the Kursk crew would be rescued quickly turned to bitter disappointment and anger when it became clear that all had perished – and why locals were not shy about saying exactly what they thought.
"I believe that what happened is a shame on the authorities," said Tonya, a teenager sitting in a city square surrounded by peeling Soviet-era buildings. "[President Vladimir] Putin promised to
freshwater pearl earrings restore the might of Russia’s military fleet ... and what has happened is his fault."
"The whole course of events proved that the authorities did not do enough to save the crew because they didn’t want to," added Sergei, a middle-aged fisherman sitting on a bench drinking a lunchtime beer.
Once a relatively prosperous port city, Murmansk has experienced a severe economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with unemployment rocketing. Many residents talk about leaving, and those with any possibilities for life elsewhere are deserting in droves.
But despite the bleak conditions, just a couple of days before the announcement that the crew had been lost, there was still hope among the public that someone might be saved.
Even Sunday morning, eight days after the accident and a day before the official announcement that all the sailors had perished, people gathered at the small, newly built church of St. Nicholas near the city center for a special prayer service for the Kursk crew.
"What happened to them is so unfortunate, and we set our hopes in God," said Tatyana, attending the service with her teenage daughter, Snezhana. Others concurred that God was with those sailors who had already died, but that there was still hope for the remainder.
"Any serviceman who swears to dancing pearl his motherland is ready to give his life to his neighbor," said Father Andrei Amelin, the church priest. "Many sins are forgiven through a martyr's death. Those who may be dead already are in heaven, I’m sure."
The clergy at an old wooden Murmansk church traveled Sunday morning to the village of Vidyaevo – next to the naval base where the Kursk was stationed and from which it departed on its final voyage – to comfort the family members arriving from across Russia and the CIS. Mass prayers were conducted nonstop since the crisis began.
• Long journeys
The families, many of whom took the long and arduous journey to Murmansk by train, were met at the railway station by naval officers.
"This is a very unusual task for me," said Capt. Alexander Fedosov. "I would prefer that I never have to carry out such a task again."
The naval officers accompanied the family members of the Kursk crew – running the gauntlet of journalists at the station wanting to question them – to buses waiting to take them to Vidyaevo. Few families, having traveled vast distances and consumed by worry and grief, wanted to speak to the media.
One new arrival, Irina, the wife of the Kursk's sonar operator Senior Lt. Korobkov, clutching her 3-year-old daughter Lena in her arms, told journalists that "the government was incapable of doing what was needed to save the men on board," before breaking down in tears. She was one of only a few able to
gemstone necklace briefly keep her composure to make a statement.
But there were also some examples of the triumph of the human spirit outside the railway station.
•Overwhelmed
One unidentified woman, who, overwhelmed by grief, had rushed past the media, sat waiting in the bus to be transported to Vidyaevo. Not long after she entered the bus, a weather-beaten babushka came to the door clutching about 50 rubles and began knocking.
The babushka wouldn't talk to journalists, but the naval officers allowed her onto the bus and later said she gave the family member the money, which the naval officers later said was "all the money she had."
Capt. Fedosov, escorting the relatives, was in 1992 a crewmember on a Russian submarine that collided with the U.S. Baton Rouge submarine. But he declined to talk about the incident, saying it bore no relevance to the present situation. Fedosov also rebutted the possibility that poor training of the Kursk personnel might have triggered the catastrophe, saying that, in fact, it was one of the best crews of the Northern Fleet.
The salaries of naval officers of the Northern Fleet range from $50 to $100 a month, and though they enjoy some privileges, rumors had been circulating, they said, that the perks – such as cheaper rent and free public transport – were soon to freshwater pearl necklace be curtailed or canceled. Indeed, it is the terrible financial conditions and lack of attention from the government, Navy officers said, that was more likely to drive people from the fleet than the Kursk catastrophe.
Capt. Anatoly Shamanyuk, another officer meeting relatives at the train station, was philosophical when asked if he feared serving on an under-financed and ill-equipped Northern Fleet.
"Someone has to defend the motherland," he said. "It’s not our country’s fault that it ended up in such conditions. Everything is done by people, politics is done by people."
That was Sunday. On Monday came word that the entire crew of the Kursk had perished.
The following day, Murmansk residents were back to the daily grind of surviving in the impoverished city. But feelings were still running high. Although many had their own theories and explanations on what happened to the submarine, two emotions were at the forefront – sympathy for the crew; and anger at the Navy and government for their handling of the tragedy.
"Although it didn’t concern me directly, the tragedy brought me to tears," said Nina Andreyevna, a pensioner sitting on a bench in a small park in downtown Murmansk.
"It’s a shocking event. Personally, I believe that there was a decision taken not to save them [the crew]," said Yulia, a blond, attractive young woman from Vidyaevo. "They [local Navy officials] must have been covering up something. They could have saved them."
• Rumors circulate
She added that one of the rumors circulating around the Navy base had it that some civilians, including a high-ranking officer’s son, were on board the Kursk as day guests.
"I knew there was a catastrophe the first day it happened," said Alexei, a taxi driver. "We taxi drivers learn everything from our customers. On the same day [Saturday, when the Kursk sank] an order for a consignment of zinc coffins was placed."
At the same time, Murmansk residents reacted unenthusiastically to the news that Putin had arrived at the base Tuesday to pearl jewelry wholesale speak with the relatives of crewmembers.
"What can he do for them? Retrieve the bodies?" asked Katya, a teenager taking a walk in a small park with her friend.
"He should have been here on the very first day because I think a lot depended upon him," said Lena, a young mother walking her child in a baby carriage. "He must not have had all the information he needed. There has been too much lying in this case. We will probably never learn what actually happened."
"It’s OK for him to come to express sympathy with the families. If I were allowed to go to Vidyaevo, I would, too," said Lyudmila, an elderly woman walking her dog. She said that even if Putin had arrived earlier, it would not have done any good.
But most believed the president should have come to the scene of the disaster much sooner and that there was more that freshwater pearl necklace could have been done.
"He should have come the first day instead of vacationing in Sochi, acting as if the whole thing didn’t concern him," said pensioner, Raisa Alexeyevna. "If our military had not been destroyed, we would have had our own divers."
"We condemn his actions," chimed in her younger companion, Valentina. "He should have accepted foreign aid as soon as it was offered."
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| Tuesday, 27-Oct-2009 08:58 |
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A time for imitation
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This year is parliamentary election year. During Boris Yeltsin's presidency, election periods like this meant the government produced only a minimum of activity, giving way instead to primitive populist campaigns about the need to pay wage arrears and pensions. No one ever gave a thought to pushing through market reforms during these times. With the opposition causing Yeltsin serious problems, all unpopular measures came to an end whenever elections were due. Today, the Kremlin has far more clout, the opposition is weak and there is no obvious tension in the economy, so how will the authorities behave this year?
There won't be any primitive populism, it seems. But the government is also unlikely topearl jewelry take the energetic measures needed to resolve the most difficult economic and political problems.
This is clearly illustrated by the government's economic policy. The economic outcome for 2002 was modest – GDP growth of 4 percent. But the government calls this a success and has forecast a similar rate of growth for 2003. The calculation is psychologically sound: Russians are willing to see any growth as an achievement. After all, the stagnation persisted right through the 1970s-1980s and was followed by a decade of uninterrupted decline accompanied by high inflation and repeated losses of personal savings. After this experience, four years of growth and no economic upheavals seems like a real blessing.
But economists know that four years of growth after 30 years of stagnation and recession aren't enough to resolve any of the country's persistent problems. It's also clear that lasting but slow growth isn't enough to really improve the social climate. Essentially, Russia has to repeat China's feat of achieving annual GDP growth of 8-10 percent for more than 20 years.
The problem is that, as an older industrial country, Russia no longer has a huge pool of labor in the villages eager to pearl jewelry wholesale head into the cities. Instead of copying the Chinese model, Russia has to find its own sources of growth. Above all, it has to bring down taxes on manufacturers.
Everyone agrees with this, it seems. From time to time the president calls on the government to be more ambitious in its economic objectives, and the government talks about the need to reduce taxes. But rather than dramatic tax cuts, what we see is an imitation of tax reform. It's not hard to understand why this is, given that tax cuts mean cuts in state spending, which in turn inevitably affects the interests of various political forces.
A similar imitation of activity is going on in foreign policy. At first glance, Russia has strengthened its positions in the developed world, becoming a full-fledged member of the G8, gaining official recognition as a country with a market economy and getting close to joining the World Trade Organization.
But at the same time, Russia still hasn't solved any of its strategic problems. This is true to the west, where Russia hasn't yet obtained an acceptable solution to the Kaliningrad issue, and to the south, where the country has been losing ground in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is also true to the east, as can be seen by the Japanese prime minister's recent visit to Moscow during which intensive negotiations on a peace treaty and resolution of the territorial dispute between the two countries made no headway at all.
The imitation of action in solving the most complicated and dangerous problem of Chechnya has been particularly futile. The Kremlin has declared its desire for peace and really does need the war to end, it says it wants a political rather than a military solution and that it is willing to hold negotiations. But the surprising thing is that it doesn't know who to negotiate with, as if it doesn't know who exactly it is fighting.
It's obvious that the military operation, having become a guerilla war, means the federal forces are fighting the Chechen population. Logically then, negotiations must be held with this same population, that is, with whomever it has elected as its representative.
It's well known that most of the population considers its representative to be Aslan Maskhadov, the president it elected lawfully and with Moscow's approval. But the Kremlin doesn't want to talk to
freshwater pearl earrings Maskhadov.
Indeed, Moscow has found a way of overturning the argument that Maskhadov is the lawfully elected president by preparing a referendum on a new Chechen constitution and new presidential elections, which Akhmad Kadyrov, appointed head of the Chechen Administration by the Kremlin, hopes to win. Of course, Moscow can organize a referendum and elections under the gun barrels of the 100,000-strong federal force in Chechnya, but how will this bring the end of the guerilla war any closer?
The current government has benefited from exceptionally favorable economic and political circumstances that have enabled it to achieve some more or less acceptable results merely through making an imitation of activity, but these circumstances, starting with high oil prices, will not last forever. Genuine far-reaching economic and political change is needed if the country is to be ready to handle well whatever challenges the future will bring. Above all, this means completing the market reforms that have yet to be fully implemented and ending the war in Chechnya.
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