#9
Trud
December 31, 2002
POLITICAL ARITHMETIC
TRUD'S LIST OF 10 GOOD AND 10 BAD RUSSIAN NEWS ITEMS OF 2002
Author: Vyacheslav Nikonov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
AN UPDATE ON GOOD AND BAD PIECES OF NEWS.
Good news
1. Unusually good demographic tendencies. Birth rate grew by 10%, death rate
by 5%.
2. Russia has demonstrated stable economic growth, particularly noticeable
against the background of the Western economic recession.
3. Russia was recognized as a country with a market economy by the United States
first, and by the European Union later.
4. Symbolically, Russia has become a major grain exporter.
5. The G-7 has officially become G-8.
6. Control over strategic arms as such was preserved.
7. Actions over Iraq were coordinated.
8. The Russia-NATO Council of Twenty has been formed.
9. Russia won the Davis Cup.
10. Land reform has been initiated. Bad news
1. The Nord-Ost tragedy is the leader.
2. The war in Chechnya continues.
3. The series of catastrophes and emergencies.
4. Washington's withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty.
5. NATO expansion.
6. Deterioration of Russian-Georgian relations.
7. The Slavneft auction and the impression it left.
8. The failure to defend a position of visa-free transit to the Kaliningrad
region.
9. Oil problems with Iraq.
10. Certain reforms, the talk of year by year, have never begun.
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