Time out!
Most students in the USA won't be paying much attention today or for the next couple weeks.
So, I'll take a break here.
If you're planning for next semester, you can search the previous entries here using country names or topics. There are nearly 3400 entries. Granted that the oldest ones are less likely to be relevant, but look at the newer ones.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Labels: searching topics
Grass roots politics in an Iranian bread line
Allowing for the differences between "first world problems" and those in a much poorer country, the conversation around me at the coffee shop this morning isn't much different from what
The Guardian reporter heard in front of a Tehran bakery.
Any clues here about the future of Iranian politics?
Iran Standard Time: a day in the bread line
Ali, a 60 year-old man wearing a navy blue coat and a neatly trimmed beard, stands in a bread line near north Tehran’s Tajrish square. “This is the hundredth time,” he says, reacting to news of the latest multi-billion dollar embezzlement scandal within state-run banking, which led to the arrest of12 people.
“A million cases like this never come to light. What’s worse, they’re selling off all the oil for their own benefit.”…
 |
| Inside an Iranian bakery |
Such conversations are common in Iran’s bakeries, where people from all walks of life spend long periods of time crushed close together in long, tight lines. The intimate surroundings offer a rare opportunity to vent political frustrations and exchange rumors with strangers… [and] sift through the disinformation to find grains of truth about the way the nation’s secretive power structures function.
“During Ahmadinejad’s time, we were saying there would be some thieving. It will keep happening,” Ali says… Now we have to bring someone in from the outside who can fix up the country… [N]ow that the mullahs run things, [who can] stop the son of Khamenei or Rafsanjani from doing whatever he wants?”…
A man who has made it to the end of the line and bought his bread makes his way out of the bakery, passing underneath the large metal racks used for cooling and cutting sangak bread. Under his breath, he grumbles about the bakery skimping on sesame seeds.
A 55-year-old woman speaks up. “Everyone up there does whatever they want. They raised the price of bread from 800 to 1000 tomans, they made the portions smaller, and now they’re being stingy with the sesame seeds too. Prices up, portions down. If you say anything they tell you sarcastically to go make a formal complaint. Who’s going to listen to these complaints? Should we spend a year in the courts trying to convince a judge to arrest a baker for spreading too few sesame seeds on his bread?”…
The same cynicism emanates from conversations in a much more crowded bakery in Bahman Square, in the old south Tehran neighborhood of Naazy Abad. Women easily outnumber men here…
[A] elderly man… chimes in: “It’s safer now that the Revolutionary Guards are there, in Iraq. Airspace security there is basically Iran’s responsibility now.
The conversation drifts toward the recent rise in prices. A woman of around 30 blames Ahmadinejad: “He tricked the people with his subsidies,” she says. “Everything got a hundred times more expensive and even after three years, subsidies haven’t increased whatsoever. All of this was set in motion before Rouhani.”
“Ahmadinejad set us back 100 years,” the elderly man interjects in agreement. “And we already need 400 years to make real progress. That makes 700 altogether. Forget about it, it’s a total loss.”
“They’ve ruined everyone,” another middle-aged man chimes in. “These bread lines used to be so joyful and full of energy. People would talk and laugh with each other, but now people are so preoccupied with surviving that no one talks.”
“But this is just what the government wants - for people to give up,” quips the woman who blamed Ahmadinejad. “They want people to be so concerned with just getting by that they don’t have the time or energy to worry about what’s going on up above…
“For 60 years it’s been like this, madam,” the elderly man says to the teacher. “Both in the Shah’s time and now, there are few jobs, high unemployment, all the prices go up, and people’s heads get so caught up in the day-to-day that the politicians just go about their business. At the end of the day, both old men like me and teachers like you have to worry about the price of bread.”
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Surprise your AP student!
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Labels: economics, Iran, political culture, politics
Apparent oxymoron
How does a regime promote loyalty and patriotism?
China bans its own national anthem
China’s national anthem can no longer be performed at weddings, funerals, balls or other non-political functions and should only be performed at certain dignified events, state media said on Friday.
The rule is to “standardise proper etiquette for the national anthem, which reflects national independence and liberation, a prosperous, strong country and the affluence of the people”, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The March of the Volunteers may, however, be played at the start of important celebrations or public political gatherings, formal diplomatic occasions or significant international gatherings, it added, citing a Communist party statement.
The anthem can also be performed when Chinese athletes win medals and “at arenas where national dignity should be fought for and safeguarded”…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
A complete supplement to your class and textbook.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Labels: China, nationalism, political culture
Mapping Nigeria's war
Thanks again to
Ken Halla for catching a valuable article I missed.
There are a couple maps here that dramatically show the territiory, the towns, the roads, and the battlefields of the Boko Haram's Islamic war on Nigeria.
Boko Haram:
The Other Islamic State
While much of the world has been focused on the rise of the Islamic State, another proto-Islamic state has been waging a campaign of terror while dreaming of a caliphate in Nigeria. Since the public execution of Boko Haram's founder in 2009 by Nigerian security forces, a hard-line militant, Abubakar Shekau, has led this makeshift army of Islamist fighters through years of escalating attacks on government personnel, religious leaders, young students, crowded mosques and marketplaces.
 |
| Borno and neighboring states |
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Need some teaching ideas?
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: cleavages, conflict, Nigeria
Another analysis Scotland's independence movement
Mark Porubcansky, Foreign Editor of the
Los Angeles Times, offers this bit of analysis.
How Scotland's independence movement is changing the UK
This isn’t exactly the solid, stable old Britain that Americans love.
After throwing a scare into the country’s political elite, Scots voted in September against independence. So a political union that predates the American revolution will stay in place — at least a while longer.
But by seriously considering breaking up the country, Scotland has helped launch a debate that may fundamentally change how America’s closest ally functions.
Think of the issue as a British version of the U.S. struggle to define where Washington’s power ends and state authority takes over…
Many Scots have felt increasingly at odds with the UK’s national government for decades. While “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher was popular enough to become Britain’s longest-serving prime minister of the 20th century, her policies were widely detested in Scotland. And Scots see little more than a continuation of them in the quarter of a century since she left office…
In late November, the so-called Smith Commission return its report on Scottish autonomy. Among its recommendations: that Scots be given the power to set income tax rates and retain the money raised by it; that they be able to decide whether to extend the right to vote to 16-year-olds; and that the Scottish parliament be free to create new benefits.
Cameron said he was “delighted” with it. The Scottish National Party was disappointed, saying that the authority over the vast majority of revenue and spending would remain in London…
BBC political editor Nick Robinson said, “If you think today’s constitutional changes are only about Scotland, think again,” he said. “If you think they will end the debate about Scottish independence, think again. If you think they mark the end of a process of change, think again.”
Now, mayors of major cities across England said they should be given the same powers as the Scots…
The Scottish National Party's, former First Minister Alex Salmond, widely recognized as one of Britain’s wiliest politicians, resigned as the head of Scotland’s government… But he hasn’t left the scene. He stirred the pot on Sunday by announcing that he would run for a seat in parliament in London.
With his party gaining in the polls, Salmond is setting himself up to be a national power broker. Cameron’s foes in the Labor Party can’t beat him outright without a strong showing in Scotland. The Scottish National Party says it will never support the Conservatives. But it might be willing to back a Labor government, for a price. And that price would be likely to take Britain back to the future — an intensified debate over autonomy (for Scots and others, as well) and possibly another vote on Scottish independence.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
A surprise academic gift for your favorite AP Comparative student.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Labels: devolution, politics, Scotland, UK
Not as simple as supposed
Comparative textbooks regularly point out that the UK has a titled aristocracy, class differences in education and language, and a social welfare system that acts to bridge the class cleavages. Be careful about those generalizations. Reality is usually more complex.
British Noses, Firmly in the Air
 |
| Mellor |
David Mellor, a former Conservative Party minister who resigned over a largely forgotten scandal in 1992, forced himself back into the headlines the other day.
A taxi driver recorded an extraordinarily vicious and elaborate outburst from Mr. Mellor, so full of snobbery and self-regard as to seem a comedy skit. “Shut up! You sweaty, stupid little git!” Mr. Mellor yelled, in a dispute over the route. “I’ve been in the cabinet, I’m an award-winning broadcaster, I’m a Queen’s Counsel! You think your experiences are anything compared to mine? You shut up for Christ’s sake.”…
 |
| Mitchell |
Andrew Mitchell, a former Conservative Party whip, who last week was found by a judge to have insulted a policeman at the gates of 10 Downing Street, calling him “a pleb” in a harangue about what route to take to leave on his bicycle…
 |
| Thornberry |
And all of this was combined with an ill-advised tweet late last month, by the Labour Party’s shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry… which was considered to be sufficiently mocking and snobby about the working class as to force the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, to ask her to resign…
Snootiness, William Langley in The Telegraph, concluded, has always been with us, “but these days there is either more of it going on, or it is a lot easier to get caught.”
This is a Britain ever more unequal but uneasy about snobbery and “poshness,” where to be middle class of a certain sort (actually upper class but graciously self-deprecating) seems the ideal…
The elite, of course, do their best not to appear so, even if they dominate the country. As Toby Young warned in The Spectator magazine, “being perceived as upper class in contemporary Britain is the kiss of death, and not just in politics.”
The more unequal Britain becomes, he said, “the less we want to talk about it.” Britain is a nation of “inverted snobs,” because to claim one cares about class “is, in itself, a low-class indicator.”…
“Only in Britain,” wrote Hadley Freeman in The Guardian, “is there this kind of paralyzing myopia where a person is defined eternally by where their parents sent them to school, where snobbery and inverse snobbery clash with equal force and explode into a fiery ball of angry arguments involving such seemingly random — but actually deeply significant — things like grammar schools… "
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is a great guide to the AP course and the concepts and facts you have to master.
Get a copy now for review or guidance as you study next semester.
Labels: cleavages, social class, UK
Another step downward for Zhou Yongkang
Zhou's name has appeared occasionally in this blog since 2007. (Search for Zhou in the search box to the right of the blog.) A few months ago, he was under investigation. Now, he's been expelled from the Communist Party and arrested.
China Arrests Ex-Security Chief, Zhou Yongkang, in Corruption Case
 |
| Zhou Yongkang |
Zhou Yongkang, the once-feared head of China’s domestic security, has been expelled from the Communist Party and arrested, the official state news agency announced early Saturday, disclosing a barrage of charges that included bribetaking, helping family members and cronies plunder government assets, and leaking official secrets.
The announcement signaled the biggest move so far in President Xi Jinping’s two-year campaign to curb graft and malfeasance in the party hierarchy…
[T]he charges now revealed against Mr. Zhou also appear likely to alarm people, because they suggest that China’s police and other domestic security agencies were controlled by a deeply corrupt politician.
The investigators found that Mr. Zhou “exploited his position to obtain unlawful gains for multiple people, and directly or indirectly through his family took massive bribes,” the Xinhua report said.
In addition, the report said, Mr. Zhou “exploited his powers to help relatives, mistresses and friends make massive earnings through their business activities, creating massive losses for state-owned assets.”
Mr. Zhou also disclosed party and state secrets and traded favors and money for sex with multiple women, the report said…
An investigation by The New York Times documented that Mr. Zhou’s son, a sister-in-law and his son’s mother-in-law held assets worth about 1 billion renminbi, or $160 million, much of it in the oil and gas industries.
In China, criminal investigations of officials on corruption charges usually only start after party investigators have finished their inquiry. Mr. Zhou is now exceedingly unlikely to escape trial, conviction and a heavy prison sentence.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Looking for ideas for teaching next semester?
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: China, corruption, leadership, politics
Transparency International and corruption
Transparency International was founded in 1993. A few individuals decided to take a stance against corruption. Now present in more than 100 countries, the movement works relentlessly to stir the world’s collective conscience and bring about change.
Every year since 1995, TI researchers have asked over 3,000 people involved in international businesses about the levels of corruption they have observed in countries around the world. The result is a Corruptions Perceptions Index. Each country is assigned a number to indicate the level of corruption observed in that country.
What does a number mean? Each year TI scores countries on how corrupt their public sectors are seen to be. The Corruption Perceptions Index sends a powerful message and governments have been forced to take notice and act.
The 2014 index was just published.
The 2014 corruption perceptions index measures the perceived levels of
public sector corruption in 175 countries and territories
- Denmark Score: 92 (rank: 1st)
- New Zealand Score: 91 (rank 2nd)
- UK Score: 78 (rank 14th)
- China Score: 36 (rank 100)
- Mexico Score 35 (rank 103rd)
- Russia Score: 27 (rank 136th)
- Nigeria Score: 27 (rank 136th)
- Iran Score: 27 (rank 136th)
- Somalia Score 8 (rank 174th)
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Do you know someone who has just finished the AP course or who is about to begin it (or who is half way through it)? This little book could be a handy guide to review or study. It would be an unexpected gift.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Labels: corruption
Presidential popularity in Mexico and the USA
Pena Nieto's popularity numbers seem similar to Obama's. How do those rankings affect politics in each country?
Mexico president's approval plunges over scandals, missing students
Two years after assuming office, and as protesting Mexicans again took to the streets Monday, President Enrique Peña Nieto has the lowest approval rating of any Mexican chief executive in nearly two decades…
The survey, published Monday by the prominent Reforma newspaper, indicated Peña Nieto's popularity had fallen 11 percentage points in the last four months to an all-time low of 39%… Another poll in the newspaper El Universal showed a smaller plummet but still put the president's approval rating at 41%; it was nearly 70% when he was inaugurated.
Although opinion polls are notoriously unreliable in Mexico, the results seemed to jibe with a generalized air of anger in the country…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Planning for next semester? Here is some good help.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Labels: leadership, Mexico, politics
Big ado about nothing?
Comparative textbooks all seem to emphasize the near absence of ethnic cleavages in China. That seems to be true in a comparative context, but if ethnic cleavages are absent, why does the Beijing government spend so much money and energy dealing with minority groups?
Q. and A.: James Leibold on Ethnic Policies in China
James Leibold is a senior lecturer in politics and Asian studies at La Trobe University in Australia… His research has focused on the Chinese government’s policies toward ethnic minorities and their effects on people’s daily lives. He recently returned from a trip to the western region of Xinjiang, the nominally autonomous homeland of China’s ethnic Uighurs, a mostly Sunni Muslim, Turkic-speaking people…
Q.
When did China begin classifying people according to ethnicity?
A. The distinction of groups by language and culture started in the imperial era… The system that runs today is… based on ethnic patronage. “We’ll recognize you as ethnic minorities and, if you’ll play by the rules of the game, we’ll reward you with certain benefits. But if you resist, the boot awaits.”…
Q. And we see this in current policy, right?
A. Recently, the party has pushed a “mass line” campaign aimed at embedding officials in grass-roots communities… The Xinjiang one was initiated in March of this year. It’s going to send 200,000 officials down over three years. This year nearly 75,000 party members in teams of five to seven were dispatched, with one-third going into rural villages in southern Xinjiang, where they will stay for a year. They’re meant to be the eyes and ears of the party and ensure policy implementation at a local level.
Q. How do you judge the effectiveness of this kind of policy?
A. You’d need a good anthropologist to go to these villages and live there and see what’s going on…
In China, the party launches these campaigns and puts up glossy posters announcing various “strike hard” targets, but often officials go through the motions and try to serve their time or pay off someone to get back to Urumqi…
Q. How does the party view the non-Han cadres it has?
A. In the 1980s, there was a lot of promotion of ethnic cadres. Then under [former President] Jiang Zemin more people entered the party. Now the Communist Party has six million ethnic minority members. But in the eyes of Beijing, many probably haven’t been carrying out policy adequately.
For example, there’s been a lot of discussion lately about rooting out religious belief among party members. I think there’s a growing realization that, while in the 1980s and 1990s there were party representatives in the frontier regions, they weren’t carrying out party rules…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
For a head start, get your copy now, before the holiday rush and before the new semester begins.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: China, cleavages, policy, politics
Devolution proposal in the UK
UK leaders promised. Scotland did not approve independence. Now come the promised reforms.
Panel Details Plan to Give Scotland More Powers
Scotland was promised sweeping powers over taxation and welfare spending…
The groundbreaking proposals have the backing of major political leaders in both England and Scotland, but a final vote on legislation to enact the changes is not expected until next year…
Under [these] proposals, the Scottish Parliament would have the power to set income tax rates, and some of the revenues from sales taxes raised in Scotland would go toward the Scottish budget. The Scottish government would also be able to control the duties imposed on passengers traveling through Scottish airports.
In addition, Scotland would gain significant control over welfare spending. Scotland generally leans more to the left than England and one of the main goals of many of those who pushed for secession was to be able to spend more liberally on social programs…
Legislation on the recommendations is expected to be drafted early next year and put in place by the government that will be formed after a general election in May…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Don't forget it all while you wait for the exam. Review a bit every day with the help of
Just The Facts!,
a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Labels: devolution, regime, rule of law, Scotland, UK
Music for leadership
A few years ago, Vladimir Putin was "honored" with a pop song ("I want a man like Putin") extolling his virtues as a political leader.
Now, the Chinese president is getting a similar "honor."
I Want a Man Like Putin (2010)
Musical Ode to Xi Jinping and His Wife Goes Viral
A musical homage to President Xi Jinping of China and his wife, Peng Liyuan, has circulated widely online in recent days, a sign of how the public face of Chinese leadership has changed since Mr. Xi took office two years ago.
The song, “Xi Dada Loves Peng Mama,” was created by a group of musicians in the central province of Henan…
“This song fermented for a long time, but it was created in almost one breath,” the lyricist, Song Zhigang told the newspaper. “It’s an expression of my true inner feelings.”…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Great for review or as a study guide or as an unexpected holiday gift.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Help for planning how to teach the course next semester.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
A great review guide and a great supplement to your textbook.
Labels: China, leadership, political culture
Primary evidence for student research
Looking for an accessible primary source? Construct a research assignment and send you students to these statistics on thw 2014 EU elections.
Free book on European parliamentary elections by country experts available online
Early last summer, I wrote about a new resource for country-by-country election reports on the European Union parliamentary elections. At the time, the analysis was only available for most countries in Italian, but now English language versions of all of the articles have been gathered together and published as a single free e-book available here…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Labels: elections, EU, politics
"Watergate" in Nigeria?
If only the system of rule of law had a better reputation in Nigeria.
Nigerian opposition APC condemns Lagos office raid
Nigeria's main opposition party has condemned a… raid of its Lagos offices by state security agents.
"We call for an independent commission of inquiry to ascertain the reasons why armed officers raided our office," the All Progressive Congress (APC) deputy chairman Lawal Shuaibu told the BBC.
The party said computers were destroyed and documents seized during the raid.
The State Security Service said it was investigating alleged cloning of voter cards, ahead of elections in February…
[T]he APC said the incident was "another one in the string of attacks and illegal actions of the administration"…
APC spokesman Lai Mohammed compared the raid to the Watergate scandal in the United States, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.
"Just like the Watergate scandal in the USA, the state-sponsored security operatives apparently acting at the behest of the ruling PDP [People's Democratic Party] government turned the office upside down, and pulled out and vandalised everything in sight," he told the AFP news agency…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Planning for next semester's class? Here's a helping hand.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Labels: corruption, elections, Nigeria, rule of law
Russian economic problems
The economy might be Putin's downfall. At least the editors of
The Economist think so. Do you agree?
The end of the line: For more than a decade oil income and consumer spending have delivered growth to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Not any more
Russia’s economy is teetering on the verge of recession… The rouble has lost 30% of its value since the start of the year… Banks have been cut off from Western capital markets, and the price of oil… has fallen hard.
While the overall mood is clearly depressed, it is a long way from panic. Russia’s total foreign debt is just 35% of GDP…
Russian economists are now debating how long before the economy faces collapse. Most think it can totter on for two years or so. But there is a real chance things could get a lot worse a lot sooner…
This does not mean that Russia is anywhere close to a sovereign default like that of 1998. Then government debt was 50% of GDP and reserves just 5% of GDP. Today Russia is still running a current-account surplus of about $50 billion because it is importing less…
The Kremlin distributes oil rent via state banks to firms and projects which it selects on the basis of their political importance and their pro-Putin stance. Most of the contractors for the Sochi Olympics… were firms run by Mr Putin’s friends…
During the fat years, Mr Putin had an easy job satisfying all. Now he will face a tough decision whether to support the inefficient energy sector and the military-industrial complex with public money or rely on the more dynamic flexible small and medium-sized companies to pull Russia out of the crisis…
Protests driven by economic and also social issues have already started. Even in Moscow where the mood for protest is low, teachers and doctors have come out onto the streets to protest against pay cuts and restructuring…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Finishing the course this semester or beginning it next semester? This book is a great review AND a great guide to the AP Comparative Government and Politics course.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: economics, politics, Russia
