Russian authorities crack down on opposition

A correspondent of the Chicago Tribune reported today that opposition demonstrations are being repressed, and that Gary Kasparov, the former chess champion, is among those arrested.

First off, I'm glad to see a foreign correspondent reporting this, it's feeling pretty rare to have more than AP stories. As far as the story itself, my impression is that it would be difficult to write. There's a lot going on and deciding which aspects to focus on, and which to ignore, is a challenge. On one side you have Putin leading his party for another election, you have repression of all opposition parties except the Communists who have a sort of alliance with Putin's right-wing party, you have elections coming up next week, you have Putin's party accusing the West of interfering in Russian politics and you have leaders of all these parties being jailed. That's a lot for one story.

The writer, of course, does a great job of condensing all that information, as well as putting it into a chronology that eases the reader into the depths of the story.

It begins with the current crackdown. Paragraph tow gives details. Paragraph three explains what the "pro-democracy" group that is being repressed is. Paragraphs seven and eight explain the Russian electoral system. The closing paragraphs describe Putin's accusations that the West is behind all civil unrest. It closes with an creepy, communist-era (or Chicago '68) quote from the police accusing the demonstrators of disorder.