Tag: Poland

Public Diplomacy, Russia

President Obama, We Are Very Sorry That Hitler Had Invaded Poland Before Labor Day Weekend

Helle Dale has written two articles on how the Obama Administration is still unable to get its public diplomacy act together. I don’t think that there was a deliberate attempt to snub Poland over the 70th anniversary observances of the start of World War II, but as the Heritage Foundation scholar points out, Poland has a lot of reasons to…

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Public Diplomacy, Russia

With Putin in Poland for WWII Anniversary, Many Poles Feel Snubbed by Obama

 The New York Times correspondent in Moscow Michael Schwirtz reported that many Poles saw the low-level U.S. representation at the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II observances in Gdansk as a snub from the Obama Administration. Russia sent Prime Minister Putin, whose statement that the Hitler-Stalin Pact “can be condemned” was misleadingly reported by most international media…

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Russia

Did Putin Really Condemn the Hitler-Stalin Pact and Apologized to Poland?

The BBC, the Voice of America (VOA) and other international media reported that in in an apparent effort to defuse tensions on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “expressly condemned” the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the treaty of non-aggression between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. BBC News headline read:…

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Uncategorized

Surrogate Broadcasting 101 — Why BBG and RFE/RL Are Failing in Russia

FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog,  Commentary by Ted Lipien, September 8, 2008, San Francisco — A country like Russia either needs surrogate broadcasting or it doesn’t. Many countries, however, need balanced and objective news from the Voice of America that surrogate broadcasters living overseas are not trained to provide.  If a country also needs a genuine surrogate broadcaster — as it is the case now with…

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Religion

A New Book About Pope John Paul II and Feminism Also Deals with Cold War Spying at the Vatican and Attempts to Influence Reporting by RFE/RL and VOA

I included here more information about “Wojtyla’s Women,” my book on Pope John Paul II and feminism. In the book, I discuss at some length the attempts of the Polish communist secret police and the KGB to recruit agents among Pope John Paul II’s friends, as well as their attempts to influence the reporting of journalists working at Radio Free…

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