- TORONTO - Russian president, Vladimir Putin, capped his
visits to America's neighbors with a two-day trip to Canada, ostensibly
to woo the Canadian business investors. On Tuesday (Dec. 19), for example,
Putin addressed a luncheon attended by some 2,000 business people at Toronto's
Harbor Castle hotel, hosted by the Empire Club of Toronto and the Canadian
Club [not the drink :-) ].
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- But a TiM reader from Toronto got a lot more than he
bargained for when he greeted the Putin in Russian as the Russian leader
entered the ballroom. "He looked over and waved the three-fingered
salute to me (the three fingers we, Orthodox people, use to cross ourselves),"
said Stavros Preketes, in an exclusive report filed for TiM from Toronto.
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- Such a spontaneous response by the Russian president
at a very public and decidedly a non-religious event may put to rest the
speculation as to whether or not he is really a born-again Christian (see
"Putin's Father-confessor Fesses Up," and "Putin: Lean,
Tough, Scrupulous and Christian" Wall Street Journal, Feb. 9, 2000).
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- Once at the speaker's podium, however, Putin was all
business. He promised the investors security, low tax rates and renewed
economic growth. "Attracting foreign investment is seen by us as
a major factor for integrating Russia in the world economy," Putin
said, according to today's New York Times. "We have expanded the
legal framework to improve protection of investors' rights."
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- In what may be a dress rehearsal for a visit to the United
States next year, Putin stressed that Russia is getting its macroeconomic
house in order. He said the economy is expanding by seven percent this
year, personal income is up by 9.4 percent, a budget surplus has cut inflation
and industrial production is up by "15 to 20 percent."
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- But trade between the world's two largest countries has
dropped by half since the ruble collapsed in 1998. Last year, Canada's
trade with Russia was only $520 million, slightly more than with Rhode
Island, the Times said.
-
- Although Canada has barely one- fifth of Russia's 145
million people, Canada's gross national product of $591 billion is almost
double that of Russia's. Russia accounts for two- tenths of one percent
of Canada's foreign trade and Canada accounts for one-half of one percent
of foreign investment in Russia.
-
- Undaunted by such statistics, Putin tried to reassure
the Canadian business people by saying that "the Mafia has been taken
care of," according to the TiM correspondent at the meeting. He also
proposed cross-Arctic trade routes with Canada to facilitate growth of
larger cities in the north. The Russian president suggested that the two
nations work together to build homes that are better equipped for winter
conditions.
-
- "As Putin was leaving, I managed to shake his hand
I say to him, 'Spasibo dragi bratyi,' the TiM correspondent said. Putin
smiled and thanked our reader for coming to see him. "I found Putin
to be a most sincere man; I am glad I met him," Mr. Preketes summed
up his experience at the luncheon.
-
- Putin's visits to Cuba and Canada complete an ambitious
international agenda the new Russian leader had laid out for himself during
his first year in office. As we've already commented, such moves reflect
Russia's new assertiveness, and they confirm our New Year 2000 prediction
that Putin would be returning Russia on the world powers' scene.
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- "For the last 10 years, many (people in the Russian
government) viewed the West as the sole way to resolve Russia's problems,"
said Tariq Aziz, Iraq's foreign minister, during his Dec. 12 visit to Moscow.
"But under President Vladimir V. Putin that is beginning to change.
Now Russian authorities can feel the traditions extending over the centuries
of good relations with the East, with Iraq, the Arab world, India and China"
(see the New York Times, Dec. 13, 2000).
-
- Aziz could have also listed North Korea, Iran, Libya,
all considered as "rogue" states by the U.S.-centric New World
Order crowd.
-
- Just nine months into office, the 48- year-old Russian
president has cast Russia's relations with the world as a much broader
net than his predecessor. But in a significant step beyond the Soviet
era, Putin has launched himself like a foreign policy businessman onto
the landscape of the old Soviet bloc, the Times noted.
-
- On this old terrain, Mr. Putin has been searching for
opportunities, both for Russia's beleaguered national industries and for
a more self- assured profile for Russian foreign policy, at once more constructive
on issues of war and peace, but also more assertive when Russia's security
and trade interests are in the balance.
-
- Whatever the underlying motivation, Putin "has changed
the dynamic of U.S.-Russian relations," Michael McFaul of the Carnegie
Moscow Center told the Times. McFaul reportedly discussed Putin's foreign
policy with a number of Kremlin officials last month. "Suddenly we
are responding to him, and frankly some people don't like that."
-
- Too bad. For the NWO crowd. But the universe is unfolding
as it should. As we also predicted one year ago, the NWO monopoly on global
power is dwindling (see "Toward a New Multipolar World," TiM
GW Bulletin 99/12-6, Dec. 17, 1999).
-
- For example, Putin abrogated last month an agreement
to end Russia's conventional arms sales to Iran under an agreement signed
in 1995 between Vice President Al Gore and Viktor Chernomyrdin, who was
prime minister. Though a number of Russian foreign policy experts disagree
with Putin's reversal on Iran, they have been defending his act.
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- "Just as Russia does not consider the United States
its enemy, Iran is not our enemy either, and Iran is paying in hard currency
for all its weapons," said Aleksei Arbatov, a liberal Parliament deputy
who sits on the Defense Committee, according to the Times.
-
- Well, if no longer an outright enemy, Putin's Russia
is certainly quickly becoming a formidable global competitor to the American
"death merchants." No wonder "some people in the U.S. don't
like that," as the Times source put it. Days of easy pickings are
over. _____
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- TRUTH IN MEDIA Phoenix, Arizona e-mail: publisher@truthinmedia.org
-
- Visit the Truth in Media Web site http://www.truthinmedia.org/
for articles on geopolitical affairs.
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