Frustrations Mount as City, Consumers Debate About What to Do About Techno-Trash

Posted on November 17, 2009 | Leave a comment

New York Daily News

Old computers, iPods, cell phones – Brian Boyd’s got ‘em all. But when Boyd, who runs a social media company, TrakVu, wanted to get rid of some of his electronics, he didn’t know what to do with the stuff.

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“I usually try to sell it on eBay, but who has the time?” Boyd said, adding that he had no idea where there might be a recycling center that would accept old electronics.

As our lives become filled with more gadgets, New Yorkers are being confronted with a growing problem: What to do with old electronics that, at least in the view of their owners, are garbage? 
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Posted in economy, environment, New York City

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Hector and Dulce: A Love Story

Posted on September 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

dulceTwenty five years in prison give a man time to think.

And that’s what Hector Martinez did after being convicted of second-degree murder, robbery and arson in 1984. He thought about the day when he made his way to a drug house in Sunset Park to buy some heroin, the blaze that he was accused of starting and the chaos that ensued.

It was not supposed to be like this. Martinez, now 55, grew up in a loving family of Puerto Rican descent, imbued by values of family, God and community. He went to church, got a job at a pharmacy and married a nice girl who spoke Spanish. But he had a double life no one knew about and it eventually caught up with him.

“The way I see it, if I would have continued, I would have ended up with AIDS or killed,” says Hector. “Even after all these years in prison, I’m not angry because this what part of God’s plan.”

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Posted in New York City

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One Factory Towns in Russia Clinging to Life

Posted on September 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

Associated Press

YASNOGORSK, Russia – Three decades ago, the Yasnogorsk Machine-Building Factory stamped out thousands of pounds of steel and iron into parts for wagons, pumps and locomotives for Russia’s mining industry.

Now two-thirds of its stamping and welding machines have been shut down. The old Soviet-era equipment is rusting, and fewer than 280 employees clock in every day — from a peak of 7,000. The factory that kept this town alive since the days of the czar is on its last breath, the victim of a global recession that has shaken Russia to the core. Read the story.

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Posted in economy, Russia

Closure of Europe’s Largest Market Viewed as Attack on Immigrants

Posted on August 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

Huffington Post

chirkIn one of the most expensive cities in the world, Chirkizovsky market was still a place where the everyman could go shopping.

Located in northeast Moscow, it was a sprawling compound of stalls, restaurants and small shops, where Chinese, Vietnamese and other immigrant vendors sold clothes, household goods and just about anything else for rock bottom prices. Until one day in late June, the metal gates of the 740 acre bazaar– the largest in Europe– slammed shut, leaving an estimated 100,000 people without work.

Authorities cited a slew of reasons, including the sale of contraband goods and the fact that Chirkizovsky vendors did not pay taxes. But the real motivation may be revenge by the Kremlin and Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov against the owner of the market, the Azerbajani-born Telman Ismailov who got too big for his britches and boasted about a new hotel he was building in Turkey.

Whatever, the reason, vendors had exactly two days to pack up their wares and shove out. Those who didn’t, lost thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, some of which is still being kept at the market. Read the story.

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Posted in economy, Karina Ioffee, Russia

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Russia Firing 200k Military Officers

Posted on August 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

Associated Press

kubinka2KUBINKA, Russia — Nikolai Kulikov, a 51-year-old Army officer, says bitterly that he gave his best years to the Russian Army.

Kulikov did a series of assignments across the Soviet Union and spent the past 10 years as head of security at the Air Force base in Kubinka, 40 miles west of Moscow.

But today, he is one of 200,000 military officers who face early retirement, as Russia conducts a sweeping reform that will eliminate the jobs of six out of every 10 members of its top-heavy officer corps. Read the story.

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Posted in Karina Ioffee, Russia

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Russia’s Obama: No, he can’t, at least not now

Posted on August 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

Associated Press

Russias ObamaSREDNYAYA AKHTUBA, Russia — An African-born farmer is making an improbable run for office in Russia, inspired by President Barack Obama and undaunted by racial attitudes that have changed little in decades.

Joaquim Crima, a 37-year-old native of Guinea Bissau who settled in southern Russia after earning a degree at a local university, is promising to battle corruption and bring development to his district on the Volga River.

In Russia, a black man running for office is so unusual that Crima is being called “the Russian Obama.”

“I like Obama as a person and as a politician because he proved to the world what everyone thought was impossible. I think I can learn some things from him,” Crima said, sitting on his shady verandah in this town of 11,000, where he lives with his wife Anait, their 10-year-old son and an extended clan of ethnic Armenian relatives.
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Posted in Karina Ioffee, Russia

Russian Jews Find Their Niche as Country Seeks to Become Global Player

Posted on July 23, 2009 | Leave a comment

Huffington Post

Kids at Nikitsaya Jewish Cultural Center celebrate Hannukah. Photo courtesy of Nikitskaya JCC.

Kids celebrate Hannukah at Nikitsaya Jewish Cultural Center in Moscow. Photo courtesy of Nikitskaya JCC.

During the Gaza war this winter, 26-year-old Olga Dukor made a couple of posters, put on her Star of David necklace and organized a group of friends on the streets of Moscow. This kind of display of Jewish pride would have been unimaginable under Communism, but nearly 20 years later, it’s thriving.

At the Nikitskaya Jewish Cultural Center in central Moscow, both preschoolers and pensioners learn Hebrew, and there are lectures, book readings and classes that fill the entire spectrum of Jewish life. Interest is so high, there’s even a waiting list for the center’s services, says director Regina Yoffe.

More than three million Jews left the Soviet Union starting in the late ’70s. But another 400,000 stayed (some say the number is as high as 2 million because of intermarriage) and many threw themselves into the Jewish community, especially after the collapse of the USSR. Read the story.

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Posted in Jewish, Russia