By Wikipedia January 17, 2011 marks 66 years since a historic injustice was done to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, a man designated by Israel as a Righteous…
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Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 –23 April 2007) was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Boris Yeltsin came to power with a wave of high expectations. On 12 June 1991 he was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with 57% of the vote, becoming the first popularly elected president. However, Yeltsin never recovered his popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Yeltsin, vowing to transform Russia's socialist command economy into a free market economy, endorsed price liberalization and privatization programs. Due to the method of privatization, a good deal of the national wealth fell into the hands of a relatively small group of people. In August 1991, Yeltsin won international plaudits for casting himself as a democrat and defying the August coup attempt of 1991 by the members of Soviet government opposed to perestroika. The Yeltsin era was marked by widespread corruption, economic collapse, and enormous political and social problems. He either acted as his own prime minister (until June 1992) or appointed men of his choice, regardless of parliament. His confrontations with parliament climaxed in the October 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, when Yeltsin called in soldiers to retake Russian White House, after his opponents had taken over the building. Later in 1993, Yeltsin imposed a new constitution with strong presidential powers, which was approved by referendum in December. He left office widely unpopular with the Russian population as an ineffectual and ailing autocrat. By some estimates, his approval ratings when leaving office were two percent. Just hours before the first day of 2000, Yeltsin made a surprise announcement of his resignation, leaving the presidency in the hands of Vladimir Putin.
