The prime minister and president could swap roles in the Kremlin from next year
Tag: Prime minister
September 25, 2011
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
Gazprom prioritizes Yamal, Arctic shelf as Russia’s major gas projects
Gazprom will prioritize development of its gas field projects on the Yamal Peninsula and the Arctic shelf, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Thursday. “In actual fact, we are creating another Gazprom. The creation of a new gas production center on Yamal and on the Arctic shelf is comparable with the development of the giant [...]
June 30, 2011
Irate WWII vet moves into refurbished house instead of new home
A Russian World War II veteran who made headlines by mailing his war medals to the prime minister demanding a new house, on Thursday agreed to move into his old house after it was completely refurbished. The authorities in the central Russian Voronezh region said they were unable to provide 87-year-old veteran Vasily Zasorin with [...]
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
Putin speaks out against compulsory drug treatment
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke out against compulsory drug addiction and alcohol treatment on Thursday. “It is necessary to persuade a person, to bring up his inner motivation to overcome this ordeal,” Putin told a regional conference of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party in Yekaterinburg. The premier stressed the importance of the state’s role [...]
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
Video Catches Medvedev in Driving Gaffe
Memo to President Dmitry Medvedev: Next time you plunge into a crowd, don’t forget to park your car first. Medvedev took his “Go, Russia!” motto a bit too far in an incident captured on video, stepping from the driver’s seat of an SUV and then frantically trying to hold the vehicle back as it kept moving toward a group of people waiting to greet him. Burly bodyguards swiftly came [...]
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
Putin arrives in Yekaterinburg to attend United Russia conference
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has arrived in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, where he is expected to attend a regional conference of the ruling United Russia party. The forum that opened on Wednesday is dedicated to working out a development strategy for the Urals Federal District for the next ten years. The event will [...]
June 30, 2011
Russian Press at a Glance, Thursday, June 30, 2011
POLITICS The Yabloko opposition party proposed that all registered parties sign a memorandum on joint election monitoring. (Kommersant) Schools in Bashkortostan voiced plans to join Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s new movement, the All-Russia People’s Front; an entire street joined the association in Vladimir. All new members say they made the decision to join on their [...]
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
Graft and Unrest Put Kyrgyz Gold Rush on Ice
The Kumtor mine. With 100 sizable gold fields mapped but never tapped, Kyrgyzstan is ripe for a mining boom. 1 of 2 BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — The bus loaded with supporters of a planned $100 million mine had just left its remote Kyrgyz village when a mob on horseback blocked the road. What happened next was a warning to foreign mining companies who [...]