High oil prices on the world market give the oil-exporting countries an opportunity to implement reforms, but their governments tend to miss this chance since the favorable situation on the market paralyzes their will to do so.
Attempts to reduce inequality by revising the past privatization of the major industrial enterprises, or by levying a natural resource rent, will not reap any benefits. The only predictable result of these attempts will be an endless chain in the redistribution of property and its further concentration.
High oil prices on the world market give the oil-exporting countries an opportunity to implement reforms, but their governments tend to miss this chance since the favorable situation on the market paralyzes their will to do so.
Attempts to reduce inequality by revising the past privatization of the major industrial enterprises, or by levying a natural resource rent, will not reap any benefits. The only predictable result of these attempts will be an endless chain in the redistribution of property and its further concentration.
When the Baltic countries entered NATO and the European Union a couple of years ago, many thought it was the end of the centuries-old "red line." Euro-Atlantic organizations had crossed into the former Russian and Soviet empires.
In September 2004, the Russian city of Novgorod hosted an international conference entitled Russia at the Turn of the Century: Hopes and Reality. Its organizers were the RIA Novosti news agency, the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia in Global Affairs, and The Moscow Times.