Russian Parliamentary Election: December 2nd, 2007

Legislative elections will be held in the Russian Federation on December 2, 2007. All of the 450 seats in the State Duma (Gosudarstvennaya Duma), the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia will be chosen.

On October 1, 2007, Putin announced he would run in first place on the United Russia (Единая Россия: Edinaya Rossiya) list and that he might consider becoming Prime Minister after the elections.

United Russia is the largest and most popular party in Russia.

Other pro-Kremlin parties einclude the new Fair Russia party led by Sergei Mironov and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, which have also been favorable towards President Putin's policies.

The largest opposition party is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The liberal democratic opposition is to be represented by the free-market Union of Right Forces, the more socially minded Yabloko, and Civilian Power representing right liberal ideology.

Chechnya will hold a constitutional referendum on the same date.

Is America Using Iran In A Dangerous Game With Russia?

On October 25, 2007, the Bush administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran. These are the harshest since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 as part of the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini. America claims that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles and is engaging in a nuclear build up.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, joined at a State Department news conference by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, said the moves against Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, an element of its defense ministry and three of its largest banks are designed to punish Tehran for weapons proliferation and alleged support of terrorist organizations in Iraq and the Middle East.

The sanctions will cut off more than 20 Iranian entities, including individuals and companies owned or controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), from the American financial system and will likely have ripple effects throughout the international banking community.

State-owned banks Bank Melli, Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat were named supporters of global terrorist groups for their activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East.

Iran's Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics were designated proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology.

The IRGC is the largest component of Iran's military and has influence in business and other spheres. The defense ministry entity is the parent organization for Iran's aerospace and ballistic missile operations.

The Revolutionary Guards organization, formed to safeguard Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, has pushed well beyond its military roots, and now owns car factories and construction firms and operates newspaper groups and oil fields.

Current and former members now hold a growing role across the country's government and economy, sometimes openly and other times in shadows.

The guards have gained a particularly big role in the country's oil and gas industry in recent years, as the national oil company has signed several contracts with a guards-operated construction company. Some have been announced publicly, including a $2 billion deal in 2006 to develop part of the important Pars gas field.

Now numbering about 125,000 members, they report directly to the supreme leader and officially handle internal security. The small Quds Force wing is thought to operate overseas, having helped to create the militant Hezbollah group in 1982 in Lebanon and to arm Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan wars.

The administration accuses the Quds Force of sending fighters and deadly roadside bombs, mortars and rockets to kill American troops in Iraq in recent years — allegations that Iran denies.

These sanctions come in the wake of a strong show of support of Iran by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia and the US are at odds over a system to defend against Iranian missile attacks. The US wants the system based in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia wants it in Azerbaijan, and does not appear to be as convinced as the US as to why it is needed. Putin has also encouraged oil producing nations such as Iran to bolster their militaries against possible US aggression.

The Kasparov Gambit

Garry Kasparov was born Garri Weinshtain in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR to an Armenian mother and a Jewish father. He first began the serious study of chess after he came across a chess problem set up by his parents and proposed a solution.

His father died when he was seven years old. At the age of twelve, he adopted his mother's Armenian surname, Kasparyan, modifying it to a more Russified version, Kasparov.

Kasparov began to study chess seriously, and developed quickly.

He became world chess champion in 1985, but then broke with the world chess organization, FIDE.

In 2005, Kasparov announced that he would be retiring from serious competitive chess. He cited as the reason a lack of personal goals in the chess world (he commented when winning the Russian championship in 2004 that it had been the last major title he had never won outright) and expressed frustration at the failure to reunify the world championship. Kasparov said he may play in some rapid chess events for fun, but intends to spend more time on his books, including both the My Great Predecessors series and a work on the links between decision-making in chess and in other areas of life, and will continue to involve himself in Russian politics, which he views as "headed down the wrong path."

Kasparov's political involvement started in the 1980s. He joined the CPSU in 1984, and in 1987 was elected to the Central Committee of Komsomol. In 1990, however, he left the party, and in May of that year took part in the creation of the Democratic Party of Russia. In June 1993, Kasparov was involved in the creation of the "Choice of Russia" bloc of parties, and in 1996 he took part in the election campaign of Boris Yeltsin.

In 2001 he voiced his support for the Russian television TV channel NTV. After his retirement from chess in 2005, Kasparov turned to politics and created the United Civil Front, a social movement whose main goal is to "work to preserve electoral democracy in Russia. Kasparov was instrumental in setting up The Other Russia, a coalition including Kasparov's United Civil Front, Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Party, Vladimir Ryzhkov's Russian Republican Party and other organizations which oppose the government of Vladimir Putin.

The Other Russia has been boycotted by the leaders of Russia's democratic opposition parties, Yabloko and Union of Right Forces as they are concerned about the inclusion of radical nationalist and left-wing groups in its ranks, such as the National Bolshevik Party and former members of the Rodina party. However, regional branches of Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces have opted to take part in the coalition.

Kasparov says that leaders of these parties are controlled by Kremlin. Kasparov helped organize the Saint Petersburg Dissenters' March on March 3, 2007 and The March of the Dissenters on March 24, 2007, both involving several thousand people rallying against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saint Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko's policies. On April 14, he was briefly arrested by the Moscow police while heading for a demonstration. He was held for some 10 hours, and then fined and released.