Civil society

The doubters of global warming are emboldened by their new ability - as in the “climategate” affair - to put climate researchers on the defensive. But the experience of comparable assaults on the discipline of peace studies in the 1980s suggests that hostile scrutiny can have longer-term benefits for the target.

Olga Kudeshkina made headlines in 2004 as the first Russian judge to flag up political interference in the judicial system. Dismissed for her resistance, she took her case to the European Court of Human Rights and won. Kudeshkina outlines the continued political pressure felt by the judiciary and the barriers in the way of President Medvedev’s intentions to reform.

Downtown Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, is ablaze with lights and full of chic shops now. But the paralysing fear remains. Human Rights Watch’s Tanya Lokshina and her Memorial colleagues tell a rare visitor from the West about the kidnappings, about the relatives too fearful to complain...

While bullying (see our Soldier’s Tales) is common to all armies, the aberration that is dedovshchina in Russia’s army has a specific history and causes, argues Rodric Braithwaite. Military reform is needed to root it out.

In his final letter home from the army our conscript Tolya “finds” a mobile phone, is pursued by a mad officer and wonders what kind of man the army’s made of him

One of Britain's best blogs is re-organising and so is OurKingdom

“Peace processes are bad men talking to bad government and other bad men.....women in civil society are doing tremendous work on the ground, but they are not heard, they are not respected, and above all they are not funded.” Mary Robinson speaking at the UNCSW....

The session on Sexual and Reproductive Health rights in Africa, held by the Amanitare Sexual Rights Network opened with the blunt observation by Dr Lesley Ann Foster, director of masimanyane, that just as violence against women is global, so too is the failure of every government in the world to met their obligations in international, national and regional law to protect women. For all the advances in our understanding of the problem she said “ what we cannot claim, is that we have changed the culture of impunity.“

In 2004, some local journalists in Oryol founded an independent newspaper ‘for those who want the truth’. Although it sold well, members of staff were subject to threats, bribes, attacks and arson. Still, it lasted four years.

Jane Esuantsiwa Goldsmith was a member of the UK delegation to Beijing in 1995, extracts from her diary capture the ‘mood, the madness and the magnificence’ of that event - on the eve of this year’s CSW which meets to review what’s happened since then

Sunila Abeysekera lists the achievements of Beijing’95, and argues now that the priority for women’s movements worldwide should be to build a cohesive platform for action to confront and combat the common challenges as we move forward from the CSW Beijing +15.

With the Amur tiger population facing extinction, organisations from Russia and abroad have been working to save them. They don’t always agree as to how this should be done. Then there are the politics, Mumin Shakirov observes. Perhaps the Year of the Tiger will be auspicious for the Amur big cats…

Russia’s drugs problem has reached crisis point in Orenburg Region. It borders on Central Asia and is used as a transit point. Government measures against trafficking and addiction are hampered by lack of money and official attitudes

The focus of dialogue with Beijing about human rights should shift from enforcing universal laws towards building a shared moral identity, says William A Callahan.

Our conscript Tolya continues his study of violence in his airborne division of the Russian army

As Shelley Anderson suggests, war and gender are intimately related. Gender lies at war’s heart and the conduct and impact of war are equally gendered. Although conflict transformation is based on values traditionally regarded as ‘feminine,’ it struggles to implement them in a world shaped by masculinity.

IKEA, which has publicly railed against corruption in Russia, has itself been caught paying bribes there. Could President Medvedev's anti-corruption campaign really turn Russia into a place where foreigners can do business, wonders Jesse Heath?

The emotional and psychological impact on children of the political crisis in Iran is an important and neglected issue, say S Deghati & Linda Herrera.