Eesti uudistes
Estonian News
May 15, 2008
BBC News: Estonian cyber defence hub set up
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7401260.stm
May 14, 2008
The Moscow Times - Tanks Roll Over Russia's Image
The Moscow Times - Tanks Roll Over Russia's Image
Who was the EstonianKarl Kasmann?An intriguing story in post-independence Ceylon
Who was Karl Kasmann?
Estonia hosts NATO E War center
http://www.topnews.in/nato-turns-its-smallest-newcomer-learn-web-warfare-241052
Letters from Estonia: THE FINNISH INVASION
Letters from Estonia: THE FINNISH INVASION
May 13, 2008
Molotov cocktailMay 8th 2008
From Economist.com
The end of eastern Europe’s honeymoon
SEEN from a German point of view, eastern Europe's disenchantment with
the European Union (EU) is both untrue and fantastically offensive.
How can the countries of eastern Europe feel betrayed by Germany when
it was German pressure that got them into the EU (far too early, in
the view of some existing members)? Germany is a huge investor in the
region, a guarantee of stability, and a strong advocate for the
ex-communist countries: that, at least, is the prevailing view in Berlin.
Yet the bleak assessment of senior policy-makers in eastern Europe is
rather different. „The EU is broken. So is NATO. The only thing left
is America” says one.
The reason for their gloom is the feeling that Germany now prizes its
relations with Russia far above the interests of the countries in
between. Germany's support for the North Stream gas pipeline on the
Baltic seabed, bypassing Poland, was a harbinger of this. Germany's
role at the NATO summit in Bucharest, where it blocked American plans
to give Ukraine and Georgia clear pathways to membership of the
alliance, reinforced this impression.
Few see a sinister meeting of minds between Russia and Germany.
Instead, they blame money. „The Germans have made their decision: tens
of billions of euros in business in exchange for friendship with the
regime,” says another top east European diplomat. American officials
echo these worries, albeit more cautiously.
The result is to cast doubt, at least in some eyes, on Germany's role
in both the EU and NATO. Suppose, for example, that Russia were to
provoke a confrontation with Lithuania over transit to its Kaliningrad
enclave, or over language and citizenship laws in Estonia and Latvia,
countries where tens of thousands of people have Russian citizenship?
(Such scenarios are highly unlikely, but not impossible: it is the
presence of Russian citizens in Abkhazia that gives a partial
justification for the Kremlin's intervention there.)
How would NATO then respond to a request for assistance under Article
V of the Atlantic Charter? Imagine the meeting of the North Atlantic
Council as it considered the matter: would it stand unequivocally by
its new members? Or would Germany call for calm, and suggest that the
parties settle their dispute elsewhere?
German officials find such notions preposterous. The best way to avoid
confrontation with Russia is engagement, they say. The bigger and
better the trade and investment relationship with the West, the less
likely the Kremlin is to play geopolitical games. The ex-communist
countries should stop whinging and follow the example of Germany and
many other west European countries in building solid and sensible ties
with Russia.
Perhaps they should. Most new member states of the EU and NATO are now
determinedly non-confrontational, at least publicly, in their dealings
with Russia. „When we joined the EU, we really thought it meant that
we could stand up to them. Now we realise that we have to do deals
like everyone else,” says a Baltic parliamentarian.
The main exception is Lithuania, which is vetoing the start of EU
talks with Russia on a new partnership and co-operation agreement in
the hope of toughening the negotiating mandate. That position looks
remarkably isolated, though for a country which 18 years ago shocked
the world and defied the Kremlin by declaring the restoration of its
pre-war independence, isolation is a relative concept.
It may be right, and it is certainly easy, for big rich countries like
Germany to do deals with Russia. For smaller and poorer countries that
were once part of the Soviet empire, it will never be quite the same.
That is something that policymakers in Berlin seem to have some
difficulty grasping.
Moscow Times
May 8, 2008
Remembering Victory Day in a Different Way
By David Marples
David Marples, a professor of Russian history at the University of Alberta, Canada, is the author of "The Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991."
May 9 marks the 63rd anniversary of Victory Day, the day that Stalin set aside to commemorate the end of the World War II in Europe. The fighting had ended by May 5, and the Western allies accepted Germany's surrender three days later. But the Soviet Union opted to recognize the following day. Victory Day, as its name suggests, was intended originally to celebrate the Soviet victory over fascism. Today, it is used to remember those who took part in the greatest conflict in history and those who sacrificed their lives in the Red Army. Very few of them remain alive today.
Though the government of former President Vladimir Putin has continued to incorporate the war into national consciousness -- and presumably President Dmitry Medvedev will continue the practice -- propaganda has always taken precedence over any quest for historical accuracy. The only difference is that the official number of Soviet dead has risen -- from Nikita Khrushchev's original estimate of 20 million to about 32 million combined civilian and military deaths, which is roughly equivalent to the current population of Canada.
But the official narrative in the Soviet era contained several distortions and even glaring omissions, some of which were continued during the Putin era.
First, the term coined by the Soviet leadership of "Great Patriotic War" denotes the beginning of the conflict on June 22, 1941, when the German Wehrmacht, with more than 3 million troops, invaded the Soviet Union. But World War II broke out on Sept. 1, 1939, when Hitler's troops attacked Poland. Stalin watched the conflict for 16 days before sending in his own troops to occupy the eastern regions of the Polish state, ostensibly to liberate Ukrainians and Belarussians living there. The subsequent Soviet annexation of eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Bessarabia (located in modern-day Moldova) and northern Bukovina (located in western Ukraine along the border with Romania) had been carefully elaborated in a secret protocol, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, between the two dictators. From late 1939 to the summer of 1941, the new Soviet rulers deported some 400,000 Poles, Ukrainians and Belarussians from their homeland on various pretexts.
Stalin was shocked by Hitler's decision to break the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and this was evident not only from his lack of preparation and refusal to listen to warnings from Winston Churchill and his own spies about the forthcoming German assault, but also from official propaganda that referred to a "treacherous attack" by Hitler. It could only have been considered treachery if the Soviet Union were attacked by its own ally. The Soviet Union thus bears some responsibility for allowing Hitler a free hand in Western Europe, though some historians argue that he had little choice given the reluctance of the British and French to form an alliance with the Soviet side.
Both Stalin and his chief general, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, were always prepared to sacrifice troops for territorial gains. Stalin was never interested in hearing casualty lists. Rather, in the early part of the war he ordered armies to remain firm as they were being encircled by the German Blitzkrieg operations resulting in the capture of more than 5.5 million prisoners of war, many of whom died in captivity. Front commanders who retreated were shot. By 1942, more than 77,000 Soviet citizens had been executed by the NKVD for "cowardice" and "treachery."
These tactics were put into legal form with two decrees: Order 270, issued on Aug. 16, 1941, made it a criminal offense for any soldier to surrender; and Order 227, applied on July 28, 1942, declared that any commander retreating without express permission would be tried before a military tribunal. This policy was known informally as "Not a step backward!" To ensure that such demands were met, the NKVD dug trenches behind Soviet armies, filled with sharpshooters who would dispense summary justice to any soldiers who might feel inclined to flee from the Germans.
As the defeats turned to victories after the Battle of Stalingrad (from August 1942 to Feb. 2, 1943), Stalin's generals ordered rapid advances even during spring flooding, and they sent troops en masse across major rivers. Hundreds drowned crossing the Dnepr River to recapture Kiev. No one ever explained to Soviet citizens why their army lost three times more than the Germans. In 1945, Stalin ordered his front commanders Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev to race for Berlin, while Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky's troops advanced to the north of the city.
Berlin was duly captured, but the losses were extraordinarily high. The Soviet army, with Stalin's encouragement, went on the rampage in former German and Austrian territories, raping, pilfering and murdering. In the Soviet Union's western borderlands, new wars broke out with local insurgents that lasted into the 1950s in Ukraine and the Baltic states.
Though Soviet writings focused constantly on German atrocities in the postwar period, there was never any specific information about Germany's execution of the Holocaust on Soviet territory. Rather, official Soviet reports focused on prisoners liberated from Nazi camps without specifying the Jewish identity of the victims. By the late 1940s, Stalin had begun his own campaign of anti-Semitism. He had no wish to turn his new Jewish enemies into victims; in fact, members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist League were the first to be targeted.
The Soviet Union also consistently denied the NKVD's execution of some 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn, Tver (Kalinin) and Kharkov in 1940. It never explained satisfactorily why, after encouraging the Polish resistance movement, which was called the Polish Home Army, to mount an uprising in Warsaw at the start of August 1944, it allowed the First Belarussian Front of Rokossovsky to observe the battle from the east bank of the Vistula without offering any aid. Stalin even refused Allied planes the right to land and refuel on Soviet territory in order to assist the Poles. The Germans not only crushed the insurgents, but they destroyed Warsaw afterward.
The Soviet Union emerged from the war as a superpower. But this doesn't excuse the fact that official Soviet propaganda ignored the crucial role that Western aid to the Soviet Union, such as lend-lease, or the opening of the Western front -- albeit somewhat delayed -- played in the Soviet and Allied victory. Stalin was given the benefit of the doubt by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt -- even to the extent of allowing the Soviets to enter Berlin first. This, one could argue, precipitated the Cold War. Stalin outmaneuvered Roosevelt and Churchill at the Yalta conference in February 1945 and gained control over East European states. Over the next three years, Stalin imposed Communist regimes that would last for four decades.
These events render May 9 a mixed blessing. The sacrifice of the Soviet people in defeating Hitler and fascism should never be forgotten. At the same time, however, the current Russian leaders should not forget or gloss over the callousness and cruelty of the regime that ruled their country during the war years.
Nationwide trash cleanup in ESTONIA
May 12, 2008
Terrible truth: NATO cannot protect Estonia from Russia
Estonian foreign policy makers are doing everything to hide the fact that NATO
Baltimoresun.com - "The land of the free.."- an Estonian's perspective
The land of the free gives way to a nation of crushing uniformity -- -- baltimoresun.com
Blog - AIDS in Estonia
Heaven in a tourniquet: How to avoid AIDS in Estonia?
May 11, 2008
Taavo Somer - New York Magazine
How Freemans and Rusty Knot Proprietor Taavo Somer Developed His Downtown Anti-Style -- New York Magazine
Estonian farmers face flatulence tax on cattle
TALLINN, May 8 (RIA Novosti) - Estonian farmers have received tax notices for methane emissions from their cattle, the country's opposition party, the People's Union of Estonia, said on Thursday.
Ruminants produce large quantities of methane gas through belching and flatulence when they digest grass, which accounts for about 15-25% of overall gas emissions, according to different estimates.
A single cow produces on average 350 liters of methane and 1,500 liters of carbon dioxide per day.
"For Copa-Cogeca, an organization that unites farmers of the European Union, the information received from Estonian farmers came as a huge surprise, and they could not recall a similar precedent in any EU country," said the party's spokesman, Jaanus Marrandi.
No other EU country imposes a flatulence tax on farmers.
A year after joining the Kyoto protocol, authorities in New Zealand proposed introducing a flatulence tax saying that New Zealand cattle are responsible for 90% of the country's methane emissions and 43% of greenhouse gas emissions.
See what freedom from the Soviet Union has done for Estonians.
Al Gore must have had some influence over the Estonian politicians who thought of this.
Friday, May 9, 2008 Estonia imposes flat-ulence tax
Estonia is taxing farmers based on methane emissions from their cattle, according to RIA Novosti, Russia's state-run news agency.
Here's more on the overall impact that beef and dairy cows have on the environment.
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