Vote under webcam scrutiny

­Igor Shchegolev – Communications Minister

Russia's upcoming presidential election will be high-tech. In a bid to prevent vote fraud, some 200,000 webcams will be put in most polling stations across the country. A live video feed will be available on the Internet, making the election more transparent than ever. The first in history, the effort will cost about half-a-billion dollars – a...

Pirate Party: Democracy for the 21st century?

­Aleksandr Shubin – Co-founder, Russian Pirate Party

The Internet today is a place where almost any media is available for free. For content providers, this is a problem. It costs money to make movies, music and games, so they want protection for their investment. The conundrum is how this can be achieved without restricting freedom of information and ideas. How can a compromise be found...

Costa Concordia disaster

­Denis Golovanov and Olga Gridneva – Costa Concordia Survivors

The catastrophe of the Costa Concordia, which was carrying over 4,000 people, has been dominating international media for more than two weeks. Some have compared it to the wreck of the Titanic that took place exactly one hundred years ago. Even now, search and rescue operations continue, as does the investigation into what...

Ethnicity issue in presidential campaign

­Tim Wall – Editor-In-Chief, The Moscow News
Kirill Koktysh – Political Analyst

Prime Minister Putin, who is running for president in March, has published a new article, seen as a part of his electoral manifesto. This time, he focuses mostly on ethnic diversity, immigration and nationalism. These are indeed very important issues in modern Russia, and they are among Putin’s biggest...

Steering through the economic storm

­Anders Aslund – Economic Advisor to Russian Government, 1991 – 1994 The World Economic Forum is kicking off in Davos.
Over the next few days leading businessmen, economists and politicians will talk over the world economy’s most pressing issues.
And there are issues a-plenty, given that nine eurozone countries had their credit rating cut earlier this month.
So what should we expect to...

An american at the Bolshoi

­The main stage of the famous Bolshoi Theater has opened again after a six-year-long renovation. And the theater’s company has changed, too. For the first time in the Bolshoi's two-century-long history, a foreigner has been hired as principal dancer. Critics say it's the beginning of a new era, others argue it's the end of the Russian ballet. So why did the Bolshoi's management take this...

Putin's election manifesto

­Evgeniy Minchenko – Political Scientist
Konstantin Simonov – Political Scientist

As the presidential election in Russia moves ever closer, the current Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin has published his manifesto. Praising the growth of the middle class and civic society, Putin pledged to diversify the economy and increase civil liberties if elected. But critics...

European science: Discerning moral values

­Felix Unger – President, European Academy of Sciences and Arts

European science is facing a hard time. As the recession goes on and unemployment rises, Europe’s qualified population escapes to the New World. Several hundred thousand scientists, engineers and graduate students have fled to the United States during the last decade. So is America really the future of European science? Or can...

Boxing for glory

­Lamon Brewster – WBO heavyweight champion, 2004

Musclemen with fast fists, girls in bikinis and bags of money to be made in the ring make boxing one of the most masculine and glamorous sports. High hopes and high stakes are often busted by a deadly hook or a tooth-grinding uppercut. And while the defeated sniffs ammonia and wipes blood from his face, the winner takes it all. The boxing...

Mysteries of the human brain

­Aleksandr Kaplan – Neurophysiologist

Russian scientists are ready to make the sci-fi dreams come true. They say a silicon brain and a plastic body are just a couple of decades away. Does that mean soon potentially deadly work in danger zones will be carried out by robots instead of people? Or the potential of science is being exaggerated? When will avatars be sold in local hardware...