British store pulls “ethnic cleansing” T-shirt

Via AP:

One of Britain’s largest menswear stores has pulled a T-shirt off its racks after realizing it bore a slogan similar to those used by Russian right-wing groups to promote ethnic cleansing, the company said Saturday.

Burton stores stopped selling the T-shirts on Friday in response to concerns raised by a Russian-speaking staff member, a week after 6,000 of the shirts went on sale, a spokeswoman said.

The slogan written in Cyrillic script translates to “We will cleanse Russia of all non-Russians!” The company said it thought the slogan meant “Be proud of Russia!”

Russian bombers approach British airspace

On May 10, the Times reported that

The Cold War has made a surprise return in the form of two Russian Bear bombers. The aircraft flew towards British airspace during an exercise off Scotland to snoop on Royal Navy warships.

RAF sources said yesterday that it was such a rare occurrence that two Tornado F3 air defence aircraft were scrambled to see the aircraft off.

During the Cold War, Soviet Bear and Bison bombers regularly flew close to British airspace to test out Britain’s defence systems. RAF aircraft had to scramble every week to force the pilots to turn away.

However, the habit had largely died out since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The two Bears were spotted on radar heading towards the Outer Hebrides during Exercise Neptune Warrior, which took place between April 22 and May 3.

The exercise involved multinational warships, submarines and aircraft and included live firing.

Accomplishing the impossible

Today, May 12, is the tenth anniversary of the signing by Presidents Yeltsin and Maskhadov of the treaty “on peace and the principles of Russian-Chechen relations” that was meant to bring an end to the 1994-96 war and preclude a resumption of armed conflict.  RFE/RL’s Liz Fuller looks at The Turning Point that Wasn’t.

Discussing Chechnya

At the website of London’s Frontline Club, a video of Tony Wood and Tom de Waal discussing Wood’s new book on Chechnya and the Chechen conflict with Tom Fenton.