New Freedom House ratings

[2952-0-0]

Strange that Venezuela was not downgraded this year...I thought when the president gives himself the right to rule by decree the political rights score should go up. Somalia changed from 7,7, possibly due to the Islamists taking over Mogadishu last year. Sri Lanka is no surprise, since violence has been brewing there since last March or so, what with air strikes, massacres, and bombings. South Africa moved from 1,2 to 2,2, though I don't know what happened there. And of course Iraq. Perhaps the most shocking change was Thailand, which was 2,3 in 2004, 3,3 in 2005 and is now 7,4 after the September coup. Overall it was probably the most depressing year for freedom in the past decade or so.

Though of course there were improvements, like Nepal, which is now 5,4 (I guess the King agreeing to a government including communists caused this).

[2952-0-0]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Not really. Yeltsin was as authoritarian as Putin is, as we can see by his supressions during his first term, however by Yeltsin's second term his health was failing and his underlings were struggling to place themselves in the position to be Yeltsin's hand picked successor so he was not able to dominate the scene as much as Putin is. Yeltsin also had to deal with general discontent from the Russian people due to poor economic management whereas Russia under Putin has seen strong economic numbers stemming from high oil and natural gas prices.

Yeltsin was not authoritarian, compared to all of Russian History and Putin as well. I don't know why Russians act as if the 90's were so terrible compared to today. They may have more money now but they live in a fascist state.

As if that has never ever happened in Russia .