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-- Time Man of the Year is PUTIN WTF!!!!
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Time Man of the Year is PUTIN WTF!!!!
Ok I dont know if you are all surprised by this, but this guy gets Man of the Year, he is the new dictator of Russia. He supresses the media, squeezes off the opposition, controls the media, this is a TOTAL FARCE! Write a letter to the Chief Editor and inform him of how you feel about this... lets make them do a new Man of the Year. Shit maybe they will throw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran in there or George Bush even! Total Bullshit!
the "award" is irrelevant. it isn't something that is inherently good or bad, it is merely a recognition of someone that was important (for good or for ill) during the period in question.
everyone complaining about it forgets that fact.
yeah, wasnt Hitler man of the year one time?
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt yeah, wasnt Hitler man of the year one time? |
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt yeah, wasnt Hitler man of the year one time? |
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| Person of the Year is an annual issue of United States (U.S.) newsmagazine Time that features a profile on the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year." Time's Person of the Year 2001 � immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks � was New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, although the rules of selection ("the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news") made Osama bin Laden a more likely choice. |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r 1938 Adolf Hitler (Not the Time cover but the only one I could find atm) |
wasn't Stalin man of the year as well? Stop your complaining this award means nothing.
My understanding is that they gave it to him because he brought stability to a very chaotic and country. It was kind of a utilitarian award and they didn't really give him any honours for the way he brought the stability.
I don't see a problem giveing props for being part of a solution while bearing in mind that Putin has not given a full solution.
I wouldnt say he broght stability at the right price, think about how many reporters havent been able to tell there stories or how many people he has killed or threatened. He shouldnt be the person of the year, it should be someone else really, His ways of uniting the russian people are one thing, but watch out world, becuase this is only the beginning possably of a new much harder coldwar like you cannot imagine. It has only begun, he will be the PM and then he will be president again for life. Watch and see!
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| Originally posted by Chryz707 I wouldnt say he broght stability at the right price, think about how many reporters havent been able to tell there stories or how many people he has killed or threatened. He shouldnt be the person of the year, it should be someone else really, His ways of uniting the russian people are one thing, but watch out world, becuase this is only the beginning possably of a new much harder coldwar like you cannot imagine. It has only begun, he will be the PM and then he will be president again for life. Watch and see! |
What??? all these posts and no happy jumping up and down in lap dog joy from Magnetonium???? OH, sorry. He must be all worn out from jumping in joy and fapping since announcement was made.
Long live Tzar Puta, erm, Putin! 
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| Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007 Putin and TIME: The View From Russia By Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow "How could you take part in this outrage?" The first such call came from a friend on Wednesday, close to midnight, just after I had stopped surfing Russian TV newscasts, all full of proud reports that TIME had named Russian President Vladimir Putin its Person of the Year. "Is this the Moscow correspondent of the U.S. magazine most loyal to Putin?" wondered the next caller. A friend in the U.S. e-mailed me: "Putin's Time's POY? Well...But we still love you." All these old friends � intellectuals and members of the social elite, for the most part � were teasing me. But not entirely. "Every joke contains a bit of the truth," one of them remarked in passing. As we discussed Russian TV's positive though shrill initial reactions to TIME's announcement, I realized that Putin was not all that far from the truth when he told the magazine's editors at the Person of the Year interview that Russian TV, however state-controlled, was free. Most commentators freely hailed Putin's achievment of putting Russia back on the world map and just as freely pruned TIME's analysis of what happened on his road to achieving it: the suppression of democratic freedoms. "How do you think this coverage will affect the ordinary people?" asked a friend that night. "Those who will never enter TIME.com or read TIME's print version?" He believed they would stay brainwashed into thinking that TIME magazine endorsed and promoted Putin and his politics. Then, I received a call from Echo Moskvi, the last liberal Moscow Radio station, which is something of an on-air Hyde Park for limited numbers of intellectuals, a small arena for them to spout off, not unlike the old Soviet-era Literaturnaya Gazeta. I explained as briefly as I could: it's not an endorsement or a distinction. Hitler and Stalin were Men of the Year, because they left indelible imprints on their respective years' events, which were to influence history. TIME journalists are like investigators who explore, gather and present facts on the assigned case as thoroughly and conscientiously as possible, allowing our audience to make decisions and pass independent verdicts on whether a given person has made such an impact for better or worse. In Putin's case, I told the radio interviewer, it was crucial to the Person of the Year decision that he had revived Russia, returning it once again to its integral role in international politics and the global economy. But Putin had accomplished this by suppressing the freedoms, however frail and imperfect, that Russians enjoyed in the 1980s and '90s. The majority of the Russian people supported Putin in his policy of swapping freedoms and democracy for stability and order � or, in the eyes of critics like myself, for the illusion of stability and order. Ordinary Russians believe Putin's impact is for the better. I told Echo Moskvi that I thought his impact was for worse. Only time (and TIME) will tell. They thanked me and cut off. After hearing my views on the air, other friends called to express appreciation. One peculiarity of my almost 20 years experience as the only Russian citizen among the select corps of TIME correspondents is that I often enough fail to see Russian matters eye-to-eye with my friends and colleagues at the magazine. Not that I always prove right. Still, I believe I'm right about this: Putin's formal emergence as the only viable national leader, and his tacit acceptance of the role, mark for Russia a point of no return in its slide into a new authoritarianism, the shape and nature of which cannot yet be fully defined. I'm sure that the period of Putin's rule � which I predict will be long � will once again put the country in the situation described by the great Russian historian Vasili Klyuchevsky almost a century ago: "The state was swelling up, the people were withering." Nor do I agree with the view, espoused by some of my American colleagues, that this regime is dangerous for Russia only: the export of corruption, merged with the state machinery, is no better than the export of revolution. And that is why I believe that Putin was the correct choice as Person of the Year � because no other person this year made a deeper or more fateful impact on history, present and yet to come. As I walked outside my dacha gate this morning, my friend Volodya was fiddling with his car. I asked what he thought of the coverage the Russian electronic media had been giving Putin as the magazine's choice. "What's that all about?," he asked, while fixing something in the engine compartment. "I was busy all day yesterday � first work, then picking up my kid from his nursery school, then running my wife's errands." I told him that the Russian President had been picked by TIME as the Person who made the deepest impact on this year's events. "I dunno," said Volodya. "I'm just making my living. And who cares, anyway?" |
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| Originally posted by atbell My understanding is that they gave it to him because he brought stability to a very chaotic and country. It was kind of a utilitarian award and they didn't really give him any honours for the way he brought the stability. I don't see a problem giveing props for being part of a solution while bearing in mind that Putin has not given a full solution. |
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| Originally posted by paranormal-real You don't live in Russia.... |
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| Originally posted by venomX Do you? |
For the next two years yes.
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| Originally posted by paranormal-real You don't live in Russia.... |
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| ...(Putin) had revived Russia, returning it once again to its integral role in international politics and the global economy. But Putin had accomplished this by suppressing the freedoms, however frail and imperfect, that Russians enjoyed in the 1980s and '90s. The majority of the Russian people supported Putin in his policy of swapping freedoms and democracy for stability and order � or, in the eyes of critics like myself, for the illusion of stability and order. Ordinary Russians believe Putin's impact is for the better. |
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| Originally posted by emc^2 source: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0...1697072,00.html |
???
watch out Buffet.
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| Putin, the Kremlin power struggle and the $40bn fortune Luke Harding in Moscow Friday December 21, 2007  Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose alleged accumulated wealth of $40bn would make him Europe's richest man. Photograph: Maxim Marmur/AP An unprecedented battle is taking place inside the Kremlin in advance of Vladimir Putin's departure from office, the Guardian has learned, with claims that the president presides over a secret multibillion-dollar fortune. Rival clans inside the Kremlin are embroiled in a struggle for the control of assets as Putin prepares to transfer power to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in May, well-placed political observers and other sources have revealed. At stake are billions of dollars in assets belonging to Russian state-run corporations. Additionally, details of Putin's own personal fortune, reportedly hidden in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, are being discussed for the first time. The claims over the president's assets surfaced last month when the Russian political expert Stanislav Belkovsky gave an interview to the German newspaper Die Welt. They have since been repeated in the Washington Post and the Moscow Times, with speculation over the fortune appearing on the internet. Citing sources inside the president's administration, Belkovsky claims that after eight years in power Putin has secretly accumulated more than $40bn (�20bn). The sum would make him Russia's - and Europe's - richest man. In an interview with the Guardian, Belkovsky repeated his claims that Putin owns vast holdings in three Russian oil and gas companies, concealed behind a "non-transparent network of offshore trusts". Putin "effectively" controls 37% of the shares of Surgutneftegaz, an oil exploration company and Russia's third biggest oil producer, worth $20bn, he says. He also owns 4.5% of Gazprom, and "at least 75%" of Gunvor, a mysterious Swiss-based oil trader, founded by Gennady Timchenko, a friend of the president's, Belkovsky alleges. Asked how much Putin was worth, Belkovsky said: "At least $40bn. Maximum we cannot know. I suspect there are some businesses I know nothing about." He added: "It may be more. It may be much more. "Putin's name doesn't appear on any shareholders' register, of course. There is a non-transparent scheme of successive ownership of offshore companies and funds. The final point is in Zug [in Switzerland] and Liechtenstein. Vladimir Putin should be the beneficiary owner." Putin has not commented on Belkovsky's claims. The Guardian put the allegations to the Kremlin but was told Putin's chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was not available. Discussion of Putin's wealth has previously been taboo. But the claims have leaked out against the backdrop of a fight inside the Kremlin between a group led by Igor Sechin, Putin's influential deputy chief of staff, and a "liberal" clan that includes Medvedev. The Sechin group is made up of siloviki - Kremlin officials with security/military backgrounds. It is said to include Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia's KGB successor agency, his deputy Alexander Bortnikov, and Putin's aide Viktor Ivanov. Those associated with the liberal camp include Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch and owner of Chelsea football club who is close to Putin and the Yeltsin family. Other members are Viktor Cherkesov, the head of the federal drug control service, and Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born billionaire. Insiders say the struggle has little to do with ideology. They characterise it as a war between business competitors. Putin's decision to endorse as president Medvedev - who has no links with the secret services - dealt a severe blow to the hardline Sechin clan, they add. Some analysts have said Putin would like to retire but has been forced to carry on to shield Medvedev from siloviki plotting. Others disagree and say Putin wants to stay in power. On Monday Putin confirmed he intends next year to become Russia's prime minister. "The siloviki are not at all nice," Yulia Latynina, a Russian political commentator said. Latynina, who hosts a political talkshow on the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy, was one of the first journalists to draw attention last month to Putin's reported links with Gunvor. The company is based in Zug, a picturesque Swiss canton known as a bolthole for publicity-shy international businessmen. Gunvor has neither a website nor a Moscow office - but in 2007 posted profits of $8bn on a turnover of $43bn, an astronomic figure, according to industry experts. Like Putin, its reclusive owner, Timchenko, worked in the KGB's foreign affairs directorate. He is said to have met Russia's president in the late 1980s through KGB circles. Gunvor, which has its head office in Geneva, failed to comment. Critics say the wave of renationalisations under Putin has transformed Putin's associates into multimillionaires. The dilemma now facing the Kremlin's elite is how to hang on to its wealth if Putin leaves power, experts say. Most of its money is located in the west, they add. The pressing problem is how to protect these funds from any future administration that may seek to reclaim them. "There's no point in having all this money if you can't travel to the Maldives or Paris and spend it," Elena Panfilova, the director of Transparency International in Russia said. The first hints of the intra-clan warfare gripping the Kremlin emerged last month, when the FSB arrested General Alexander Bulbov, the deputy head of the federal drug agency, and part of the liberal group. His arrest saw a surreal standoff, with his bodyguards and FSB agents pointing machine guns at each other. Earlier this month Russia's deputy finance minister, Sergei Storchak - another "liberal" - was also arrested and charged with embezzling $43.4m. He is currently in prison. His boss, Russia's finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, part of the liberal clan, says he is innocent. But the liberal group - one of several competing factions inside the Kremlin - has struck back. Earlier this month Oleg Shvartsman, a previously obscure businessman, gave an interview to Kommersant newspaper claiming he secretly managed the finances of a group of FSB officers. Their assets were worth �1.6bn, he revealed. The officers were involved in "velvet reprivatisations", Shvartsman, a fund manager, said - in effect forcibly acquiring private companies at below-market value and transforming them into state-owned firms. These assets were redistributed via offshore companies, he said. According to Panfilova, the "randomised" corruption of the 1990s has given way to the "systemic and institutionalised corruption" of the Putin era. Members of Putin's cabinet personally control the most important sectors of the economy - oil, gas and defence. Medvedev is chairman of Gazprom; Sechin runs Rosneft; other ministers are chairmen of Russian railways, Aeroflot, a nuclear fuel giant and an energy transport enterprise. Putin has created a new, more streamlined oligarchy, his critics say. "The crown jewels of the country's wealth have ended up in the hands of Putin's inner circle," Vladimir Rzyhkov - a former independent MP - wrote in Monday's Moscow Times. Belkovsky - who published a book about Putin's finances last year, and who is the director of the National Strategic Institute, a Moscow thinktank - claims he is confident of his assessment of Putin's hidden wealth. "It's not a secret among the elites,' he said. "But please pay attention that Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] has never sued me." Belkovsky adds that the west has misunderstood Putin and has been distracted by his "neo-Soviet" image. Putin, Belkovsky claims, is ultimately a "classic" businessman who believes money can solve any problem, and whose psychology was shaped by his experiences working in the St Petersburg mayor's office in Russia's crime-ridden early 1990s. "He is quite sure of this. A problem that can't be resolved with $1bn can be resolved with $10bn, and if not with $10bn then $20bn, and so on," Belkovsky said. In an interview on Wednesday with Time magazine, which named Putin its person of the year, the president vehemently denied that those inside the Kremlin were corrupt. Asked whether "some of the people closest to you are getting rich", Putin said: "Then you know who and how. Write to us, to the foreign ministry, if you are so confident. I presume you know the names, you know the systems and the tools. "I can assure you and everyone who would listen to us, watch us and read us, that the reaction would be swift, immediate, [and] within the prevailing law." >LINK< |
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| Originally posted by Chryz707 As we discussed Russian TV's positive though shrill initial reactions to TIME's announcement, I realized that Putin was not all that far from the truth when he told the magazine's editors at the Person of the Year interview that Russian TV, however state-controlled, was free. Most commentators freely hailed Putin's achievment of putting Russia back on the world map and just as freely pruned TIME's analysis of what happened on his road to achieving it: the suppression of democratic freedoms. State controlled and Free, are opposites, if its controlled its not free. Its like Fat-Free Butter ??? |
Magnetonium should suck on this:
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| Putin $46bn asset claim embroils Kremlin Luke Harding, Moscow December 22, 2007 AN UNPRECEDENTED battle is taking place inside the Kremlin in advance of Vladimir Putin's departure from office, with claims that the Russian President presides over a secret multibillion-dollar fortune. Rival clans are embroiled in a struggle for the control of assets as Mr Putin prepares to transfer power to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in May, well-placed political observers and other sources have revealed. At stake are billions of dollars in assets belonging to state-run corporations. Additionally, details of Mr Putin's personal fortune, reportedly hidden in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, are being discussed for the first time. The claims surfaced last month when the Russian political expert Stanislav Belkovsky gave an interview to the German newspaper Die Welt. They have been repeated in The Washington Post and the Moscow Times. Citing sources inside the President's administration, Mr Belkovsky claims that after eight years in power Mr Putin has secretly accumulated more than $US40 billion ($A46 billion). The sum would make him Russia's � and Europe's � richest man. In an interview, Mr Belkovsky repeated his claims that Mr Putin owns vast holdings in three Russian oil and gas companies, concealed behind a "network of offshore trusts". Mr Putin "effectively" controls 37% of the shares of Surgutneftegaz, an oil exploration company and Russia's third biggest oil producer, worth $20 billion, he says. He also owns 4.5% of Gazprom, and "at least 75%" of Gunvor, a mysterious Swiss-based oil trader, founded by Gennady Timchenko, a friend of the President's, Mr Belkovsky alleges. "Putin's name doesn't appear on any shareholders' register," he said. "There is a non-transparent scheme of successive ownership of offshore companies and funds. The final point is in Zug (in Switzerland) and Liechtenstein. Vladimir Putin should be the beneficiary owner." Mr Putin has not commented on Mr Belkovsky's claims. Discussion of Mr Putin's wealth has previously been taboo. But the claims have leaked out against the backdrop of a fight inside the Kremlin between a group led by Igor Sechin, Mr Putin's influential deputy chief of staff, and a "liberal" clan that includes Mr Medvedev. The Sechin group is made up of siloviki � Kremlin officials with security/military backgrounds. It is said to include Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service, Russia's KGB successor agency, his deputy Alexander Bortnikov and Mr Putin's aide Viktor Ivanov. Those associated with the liberal camp include Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch and owner of Chelsea football club who is close to Mr Putin and the Yeltsin family. Other members are Viktor Cherkesov, the head of the federal drug control service, and Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born billionaire. Insiders say the struggle has little to do with ideology. They characterise it as a war between business competitors. Mr Putin's decision to endorse as president Mr Medvedev � who has no links with the secret services � dealt a severe blow to the hardline Sechin clan, they add. Some analysts have said Mr Putin would like to retire but has been forced to carry on to shield Mr Medvedev from siloviki plotting. Others disagree and say Mr Putin wants to stay in power. On Monday Mr Putin confirmed he intends next year to become Russia's prime minister. Critics say the wave of renationalisations under Mr Putin transformed associates into multimillionaires. The dilemma for the elite is how to hang on to its wealth if Mr Putin leaves power, experts say. Most of its money is in the West, they add. The problem is how to protect this money from an administration that may seek to reclaim it. "There's no point in having all this money if you can't travel to the Maldives or Paris and spend it," Elena Panfilova, the director of Transparency International in Russia said. Mr Belkovsky, who published a book about Mr Putin's finances last year, says he is confident of his assessment and that Mr Putin had never sued him. GUARDIAN |
Putin is just an honest guy, making an honest living at an estimated $150K yearly salary... Right, chap? 
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| Originally posted by emc^2 Magnetonium should suck on this: source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world...ge#contentSwap1 Magnetonium, sorry mate, what were you saying about "big and bad corrupt Yeltsin", who was bad for Russia and squandered away Russian fortunes? Putin is just an honest guy, making an honest living at an estimated $150K yearly salary... Right, chap? |
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Not to worry. I imagine the response will be that it's unproven allegations at this time. And, of course, until the reporters and witnesses disappear or die of mysterious illnesses, it will remain as unproven allegations. After their disappearances and mysterious deaths, well, it will just be one of those unsolved mysteries...... |
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| Originally posted by paranormal-real ? So the US administration current and past didn't launder money into offshore acounts? I don't believe Putin has that money. |
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt yeah, wasnt Hitler man of the year one time? |
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