 RFE/RL Russia Report 11/25/2009 7:40:15 PM A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about domestic and foreign-policy developments in Russia.For more stories on Russia, please visit and bookmark our Russia page . |
 Strange Bedfellows As allegations of churlishness continue to ooze out about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a newly minted book by a call girl who claims to have bedded down with him offers a reminder of the tight relationship he has with Russia's top dawg. More  Russian Carmakers Move To Restrict Uzbek Imports An Uzbek car industry official says car exports to Russia are continuing normally despite Russian carmakers’ attempts to restrict them, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reports. More  Kremlin Orders Investigation After Jailed Lawyer's Death Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has asked the Prosecutor-General's Office and the Justice Ministry to help investigate lawyer Sergei Magnitsky's recent death in a detention center, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More Three Moscow police officers have been arrested and charged with murder after the death of an Abkhaz man, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More The Russian Interior Ministry has announced the arrest of three suspected terrorists in Moscow, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  The Music Stops On Turkey's Radioactive Waltz With Russia Energy-hungry Turkey's nuclear flirtation with Russia came to a painful end last week when the government, under pressure from many fronts, canceled a tender that awarded the contract to build and operate the country's first nuclear power plant to a consortium led by Russia's Atomstroyexport. The move hints at a recognition that energy resources are more than simply commodities. More  Three Years Later, 'Nuclear Assassination' Still Unsolved On the third anniversary of former Russian agent Aleksandr Litvinenko's poisoning from polonium-210, his widow tells RFE/RL she still hopes the suspects will be tried in London. Britain considers a Russian Duma deputy to be a prime suspect. More Big up to "Foreign Policy's" Passport for bringing this to our attention: Putin attending a rap battle. More  Twilight For The Aging Space Shuttle With just five space shuttle flights remaining, the program that has come to symbolize U.S. space superiority for the last 30 years is coming to an end, with no replacement on the near horizon. The Obama administration is considering whether it should go ahead with efforts to further explore the moon and Mars -- a plan initiated by the previous administration in 2005 -- or scale back and stay closer to Earth. More  Russia's Tabloid King Builds An Empire Tabloid journalism has flourished in Russia for a number of years. But the king of the Russian tabloids, publisher Aram Gabrelyanov, is steadily building a media empire, and even offering a new school for budding muckrakers. More  Russian Muslim Leaders Condemn Priest's Killing A spokesman for the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims in Russia's European Territories has condemned the murder of Orthodox Priest Daniil Sysoyev in Moscow, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Kadyrov’s Unlucky Day At The Races A horse owned by Ramzan Kadyrov came in third in the Melbourne Cup race earlier this month, winning $420,000 for the Chechen strongman. But the money may never make it into Kadyrov’s pockets. More  Group Takes On Russia's Extreme Nationalists Russia's antiracism youth movement, known as Antifa, has long endured violent attacks by nationalists, police harassment, and public indifference. Most recently, they suffered the murder of one of their most prominent activists. Now they are fighting back, staging their own violent assaults on known nationalist activists. More  Tatar Newspaper Editor, Nationalist Leader On Trial A Tatar opposition newspaper editor accused of propagating extremist views has gone on trial in Tatarstan, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports. More  Russia And The EU After Lisbon Although experts in the West generally agree that the Lisbon treaty won’t change the dynamic of relations between the EU and Russia, analysts in Moscow differ. The prevailing view in Russia is that the treaty could ultimately thwart Russia’s tactic of dealing with EU countries separately and of playing them against one another to promote its own interests. The biggest fear in Moscow is that EU consolidation will mean that Russia will have to play by the EU’s rules in the future. More  Antifa Strikes Back Veteran human rights activists are appealing to Russia's increasingly assertive anti-racist movement to forswear violence, even as they face increasingly lethal attacks from militant nationalist groups. More  At Least Things Aren't Getting Any Worse The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, emerged today from the 24th EU-Russia summit in the Swedish capital describing it as "one of the best meetings we have had." More  Death Spotlights Kremlin's Battle With Investment Fund The death of an attorney for Hermitage Capital in a Moscow prison has put a spotlight on the bitter fight between the investment fund and the Russian authorities. Sergei Magnitsky's colleagues say he was being pressured to give false testimony, and that pressure included denial of basic medical treatment. More  For Russian Opposition, Three’s A Crowd Several Russian opposition leaders were detained briefly on November 16 for protesting against the detention of Eduard Limonov, a leader of the Other Russia coalition. It turns out that their detentions were not a simple matter; in fact, they required a little assistance from a pair of agents provocateurs. More  Transparency Campaigner Warns Corruption Could Slow Recovery In Fragile Countries Transparency International has just released its annual index of corruption in countries across the globe. The Corruption Perceptions Index 2009 finds that high levels of corruption in some countries could slow international efforts to help them cope with, or recover, from the global economic crisis. We speak with Jana Mittermaier, head of Transparency International's Brussels office, to learn more. RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel conducts the interview. More  International PEN Marks Day Of The Imprisoned Writer International PEN -- the worldwide association of writers -- marks the Day of the Imprisoned Writer this time each year. Its aim is to recognize and support writers who resist repression of their basic human right to freedom of expression. While International PEN campaigns on behalf of hundreds of authors all year round, this November 15 the group is highlighting the cases of five authors in five countries, representing five geographical regions. The countries are Cameroon, Iran, China, Russia, and Mexico. RFE/RL correspondent Bruce Pannier spoke to Sara Wyatt, director of the writers in prison committee at International PEN, about the campaign. More  Calling Time On Russia's Time Zones It's the biggest country in the world, a sprawling landmass stretching 11 time zones from Europe to the Far East. Now experts in Russia are studying a proposal to reduce the number of time zones after a speech by President Dmitry Medvedev this week. More  Russian Free-Press Advocate Moves To Georgia The prominent Russian journalist and free-press advocate Oleg Panfilov has moved to Tbilisi. Panfilov, a longtime critic of the Russian authorities, said he had been receiving death threats. He took Georgian citizenship last year. More  Civic Activism Goes Online In Russia More than 1 million Internet users have now viewed the YouTube videos posted by a former Russian police officer denouncing corruption in his old workplace. Other former law enforcement officers have since posted videos complaining about rampant abuses. The clips highlight a growing trend of Russians taking their grievances to the Internet. More  A Few Bad Men But the problem of corrupt and abusive cops long preceded the rise of Vladimir Putin and the siloviki and it will probably not go away once they leave the scene. In fact, it was endemic throughout the supposedly liberal years of Boris Yeltsin's presidency. More |
