In a last ditch effort to shake off the Internet moniker plaguing Russia’s ruling party, a United Russia deputy has actually tried to co-opt it by calling on Russians to “vote for the party of thieves and swindlers” at State Duma elections on December 4. United Russia deputy Robert Shlegel on December 5 posted a [...]
Tag: Government
December 2, 2011
September 27, 2011
Finance Minister Kudrin’s resignation
President Dmitry Medvedev fired Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin on Monday for his comments that he did not want to work in a future government headed by Medvedev after March presidential elections.
June 30, 2011
EU’s Largest New Member, Poland, Takes Over Presidency
BRUSSELS/WARSAW — After centuries as Europe’s stomping ground and years as its prickly gadfly, Poland is now poised to lead the continent. Poland, a member since 2004, takes over the European Union’s six-month rotating presidency amid high hopes. “Europe’s foundations are threatened” and strong leadership is needed, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said recently, in [...]
June 30, 2011
Christine Lagarde takes IMF reigns
Christine Lagarde has been elected by the IMF’s Executive Board to be the fund’s new managing director, filling the vacancy created by the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. France’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Finances and Industry and a former synchronized swimmer, Lagarde will lead the global rainy day fund for the next five years. As the [...]
June 30, 2011
No place for emotions in Russia-Belarus relations
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that emotions should not interfere with Russia-Belarus relations. Lavrov was speaking as Belarus paid off its $21.16-million debt to Russian energy export monopoly Inter RAO, a day after Moscow cut electricity supplies to the country. “It is in our interests that any emotional outbursts should be removed from [...]
June 30, 2011
Competition watchdog demands Russian oil majors cut fuel prices
Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has ordered major Russian oil companies to bring wholesale fuel prices down in line with market prices and warned that it may launch new investigations into price fixing, the competition watchdog said on Thursday. “FAS considers it necessary that the oil companies should cut wholesale prices for oil products in [...]
June 30, 2011
Putin drops possible election hint
Vladimir Putin gave a cryptic hint as to his possible participation in the 2012 presidential polls on Thursday, saying that he would need to “wash” himself after the elections. “I shall go and have a wash, in the hygienic sense of the word, but also in the political sense,” Putin said at a regional conference [...]
June 30, 2011
Tymoshenko Goes on Trial
Yulia Tymoshenko kissing a supporter outside a Kiev court on Wednesday. KIEV — Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko went on trial on Wednesday on charges of abuse of power in a case that has raised Western concerns over President Viktor Yanukovych’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law. Western reaction is important since Ukraine, a major grain and steel exporter, badly needs outside investment and is [...]
June 30, 2011
North Korea, Russia Abandon Plans for Kim Meeting
Protesters rallying against North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, pictured with a firing target, in Seoul on Wednesday. The leaders of North Korea and Russia appeared on Wednesday to have canceled plans for a summit in the Far East when the Kremlin said President Dmitry Medvedev had no meetings scheduled with Kim Jong Il. Authorities in Vladivostok, 130 kilometers from the North Korean border, had [...]
June 30, 2011
Russia Forces Belarus to Pay Power Bill
Cars driving past electricity pylons in Minsk on Wednesday. Inter RAO says it halted power supplies at midnight. Russia cut electricity supplies to Belarus on Wednesday and forced the country, which faces one of the worst economic crises of President Alexander Lukashenko’s 17-year rule, to pay millions of dollars of overdue power bills. Belarus, struggling [...]
June 30, 2011
In Tit-for-Tat, Russia Wants to Blacklist Foreigners
With the United States considering sanctions on Russian officials implicated in the prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the Foreign Ministry has turned to the State Duma with a blacklist of its own. But instead of punishing other countries for human rights abuses against their own citizens, the ministry would blacklist foreigners deemed to have violated the rights of Russian citizens. Under a bill submitted to the Duma on Tuesday, blacklisted foreigners [...]
June 29, 2011
An Odd Polish Primer On The Upcoming EU Presidency
It was a rather bizarre video-conference in the European Parliament today with Polish opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, chairman of the Law and Justice Party. In a direct link from Warsaw, the former prime minister was supposed to talk about his views of Poland’s upcoming EU Presidency, which starts on July 1. But in fact, it [...]
June 29, 2011
Washington: Russia Is ‘No Obstacle’ To U.S.-Armenian Military Ties
YEREVAN — A senior U.S. military official says close defense ties with Russia do not impede Armenia’s growing military cooperation with NATO and the United States in particular, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reports. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander called cooperation between Washington and Yerevan “very effective” as she ended a two-day visit [...]
June 29, 2011
Russian President Urges State Assets Sell-Off
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev today ordered his cabinet to prepare a schedule to sell its controlling stakes in some key state companies. Medvedev made the call in a budgetary address, saying the sell-off of state assets must be one of the government’s priorities in the coming years. “The role of the state in managing economic [...]