With a stroke of a pen on Friday evening Russia joins the World Trade Organisation, something that’s been a long time coming. Experts agree the end of the eighteen year courtship with the WTO will not bring immediate results for Russian economy. Immediately it will seriously hit a number of uncompetitive industries, such as agriculture [...]
Tag: state
December 16, 2011
December 12, 2011
Kremlin Offers Minor Concessions To Protesters
MOSCOW — In the days since Russia witnessed the largest antigovernment demonstrations since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin has made what appear to be a series of conciliatory gestures. On December 10, as tens of thousands took to the streets to protest electoral fraud, state media surprised viewers by airing full, straightforward, [...]
December 11, 2011
South Ossetian Opposition Leader Offers Compromise Solution To Standoff
Caucasus Report Opposition leader Alla Dzhioyeva has offered to call off the protests if she is named interim president until the repeat election. December 09, 2011 With support for outgoing de facto South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity crumbling, Alla Dzhioyeva, the apparent winner of the election to choose his successor, has proposed a solution to [...]
December 11, 2011
Top Russian Health Inspector: Demonstrators Will Catch The Flu
The Kremlin spin machine was firing on all cylinders on December 9 as top state doctor Gennady Onishchenko warned that protesters set to rally across dozens of Russian towns on December 10 should stay at home – or else risk catching the flu. It was unclear whether Onishchenko’s advice had struck a chord with the [...]
December 11, 2011
Moscow Protesters Demand New Elections
MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered at a Moscow square to protest last week’s legislative elections, which gave a slim majority to the ruling United Russia party. Police have estimated that 25,000 people assembled at Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square, while other estimates say this figure was as high as 70,000. Moscow authorities earlier [...]
December 8, 2011
Vladimir Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of encouraging Russian protests
Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has accused the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, of inciting protests. Link to this video Vladimir Putin has reacted to an increasingly vociferous opposition movement in Russia by accusing Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, of fomenting protest inside the country. He accused Clinton of giving “the signal” [...]
December 8, 2011
Demolition commission 2.0 to protect Moscow’s heritage
The Russian capital’s architectural preservation committee, known as the “demolition commission,” has finally undergone a major revamp. The state body charged with deciding the fates of old buildings in the capital has repeatedly been criticized for actions that allowed developers to demolish dozens of historic buildings. Aiming to put an end to such practices, the [...]
December 8, 2011
Putin says U.S. encouraging Russian opposition
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. authorities on Thursday of sponsoring the opposition in Russia and urged harsher punishments for those acting on orders from “foreign states.” His remarks followed comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior Washington officials about the outcome of Russia’s parliamentary elections, in which the [...]
December 8, 2011
December 8, 2011
Putin Accuses U.S. Of Inciting Russian Voter Unrest
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of encouraging protests over Russia’s recent parliamentary elections that have resulted in hundreds of arrests in major cities. In his first public remarks about daily demonstrations by protesters alleging the December 4 vote was fraudulent and unfair, Putin said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [...]
December 8, 2011
Russian star meets famous seducer
Some men say women talk too much, so they never listen. But when the hottest soprano in the world opens her mouth, even heads of state turn. Russian diva Anna Netrebko was met with a 10-minute standing ovation as she opened the season at La Scala. The premiere of one of the world’s most-performed operas – [...]
December 7, 2011
Russian arms trader to raise exports by 11% in 2011
Russian state arms trader Rosoboronexport will increase arms exports by 11% year-on-year to $9.7 billion in 2011, a deputy head of the company said on Wednesday. “The figures will rise by about $1 billion compared to 2010,” said Viktor Komardin, who is also heading a Russian delegation to the LIMA-2011 arms show in Malaysia. He [...]
December 6, 2011
For millions of Russians, this was simply a vote against | Yevgenia Albats
Russia‘s election day started badly. Early in the morning, three hours before the polls opened, the website of my newspaper went down after it was subjected to a distributed denial-of-service attack by unknown hackers. An hour later, hackers attacked the site of Echo Moscow radio and a succession of other sites followed. “God, how scared [...]
December 6, 2011
Russia election descends into violence as riot police clash with protesters
Anger over a Russian election marred by widespread violations and the shadow of Vladimir Putin‘s likely return to the presidency broke into violence late on Monday, as thousands of people took to the streets of Moscow in protest. Several thousand people, mainly young men, filled a park in central Moscow to listen to liberal opposition [...]