MOSCOW, December 2 (RIA Novosti) Most Russians believe schools should offer sex education lessons, according to a new survey conducted by the independent Levada Center. Russian schools do not include sex education as a systemic part of the curriculum, whic is considered a major factor in the failure to curb the AIDS epidemic that has raged in Russia since […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 2 (Interfax) – The number of Russians fearing they may fall victim to terrorist attacks has grown after the Volgograd bus bombing while confidence in the authorities’ ability to protect the population from new terrorist acts is on decline, sociologists said. Some 70% of Russians feared becoming victims of terrorist attacks in 2012. The percentage grew to 78% […]
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[Excerpt] Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 15:32:56 -0500 From: Patrick Armstrong <gpa@magma.ca> Subject: [UTExpertsDiscGrp] RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 20131128 RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 28 November 2013 SAAKASHVILI AND RUSSIAN OPPOSITION. Remember when Moscow said a Georgian politician had secretly met with Russian oppositionists? Remember when everyone laughed? (“risible charges” details “immediately suspicious” “political”) Well, Saakashvili just admitted it. Once again, Moscow turns […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Claire Bigg – November 29, 2013) Georgian and Moldovan leaders were all smiles as they finished initialing their Association Agreements with the European Union, a key milestone in their bid for membership of the 28-nation bloc. Despite the happy faces and handshakes, however, the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, deepened fears of harsh retaliation from […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, November 28, 2013) The Moscow Patriarchate has called on Orthodox countries, including Russia, not to allow EU influence to change them as they conduct dialogue, but to suggest the EU itself change. “Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, as members of a strong and self-sufficient civilization, have a right, when they gain accession to the […]
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(Interfax – November 29, 2013) The signing of an association agreement with the EU remains Ukraine’s priority, President Viktor Yanukovych has said. The Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted him at 1122 gmt on 29 November as telling its correspondent following the EU’s Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius: “This document is a priority. However, there remain very many important conditions needed for […]
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MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) The US government will have to consider sanctions against Ukraine’s leadership after a petition to the cause gathered 100,000 signatures on White House’s website. The petition asks to ban US and EU entry for and freeze assets of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and members of the his government, as well as their families. The […]
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MINSK/MOSCOW. Nov 29 (Interfax) – Russian Federal Drug Control Service Director Viktor Ivanov said Afghanistan may stay a source of large-scale drug trafficking for years ahead. “If no serious efforts are made by the world and the UN, all conditions and preconditions have been created for the prolongation of the large-scale drug production in the coming decades, if not a […]
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KAZAN. Nov 29 (Interfax) – State Duma Chairman Sergei Naryshkin claims the West applied strong pressure on Ukraine to sign an association agreement with the European Union. “We all have witnessed unprecedented pressure on Ukraine on the part of Western countries and institutions: highest-ranking European bureaucrats in fact regularly attended not only Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada sessions but also sessions of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – November 29, 2013) For Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, it was not pressure from Russia that provoked Ukraine’s flip-flop on the association deal with the European Union. Azarov has said he bowed to the strong sentiment within the country for making up with Moscow, as exports to that key market declined. “I […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 29, 2013) Russians will have racked up 10 trillion rubles ($300 billion) in debt by the end of this year, Vedomosti reported Friday, citing the Central Bank. Increasing consumer lending in Russia this year has created concern that the market may be overheating, with officials voicing concerns over possible financial volatility if the trend […]
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SOCHI. Nov 29 (Interfax) – The Russian state is spending huge money on modernizing its armed forces, and therefore all goals that have been set must be attained, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “The overall volume of the [Defense] Ministry budget in 2003 was 600 billion rubles, and this year, following the last adjustment of the budget, the expenditures on […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 29 (Interfax) – The outflow of capital from funds focused on Russian equities continued for the fifth consecutive week and exceeded $130 million from November 21 through 27, about the same as a week earlier, Emerging Portfolio Fund Research (EPFR) reported. Exchange traded funds (ETF) focused on Russian equities lost $37 million from November 21 to November 27, […]
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MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) More than 143,000 Russians have died from HIV-related illnesses since records started being kept, a federal AIDS research center official said Thursday. Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the AIDS research and prevention center, said 20,000 people died from complications of HIV last year alone. Rampant drug addiction and lack of effort in improving sex education […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 29, 2013) The Russian Academy of Sciences, or RAN, doesn’t have ownership rights over its landmark building on Vorobyovy Gory and may lose the premises to a new federal scientific affairs agency, a news report said Friday. The State Property Agency had been looking for a building to house the newly-minted […]
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MOSCOW, November 29 (RIA Novosti) Fewer than a tenth of Russians would favor breaking up the sprawling nation by allowing the secession of one of its regions, according to a poll by the independent Levada Center posted Thursday. Just eight percent of respondents to the survey, held over November 15-18, said they felt positively about the region where they […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Iosif Sternin, special to RBTH – November 29, 2013) Iosif Sternin is the head of the Department of General Linguistics and Stylistics, Voronezh State University. Russians have a reputation for being stern, serious, unsmiling people. But actually, Russians do smile, and their smiles mean different things in different situations. For many centuries, everyday […]
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(Interfax – November 29, 2013) Missile defence is the main irritant in relations between the defence ministries of Russia and NATO member states, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoliy Antonov has said, privately-owned Russian military news agency Interfax-AVN reported on 29 November. “The prospects for cooperation between Russia and NATO are very great. If there was the political will from the […]
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MINSK. Nov 28 (Interfax) – Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) Director Viktor Ivanov says that NATO has failed to contribute to the fight against Afghan illegal drug business. “We can say that the hopes the world pinned on NATO in the suppression of Afghan drugs were crushed,” Ivanov said at a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Coordination […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) – Experts of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) see no reason to speak about the militarization or a threat of military confrontation in the Arctic region. “This is taken as part of usual measures of each state to ensure its interests, including the military element,” RIAC president Igor Ivanov told a news conference in Moscow […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – November 28, 2013) A former senior federal prosecutor has accused her one-time colleagues of illegally intervening in the probe into the 2009 death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, as well as committing legal violations in connection with other high-profile cases. Galina Tarasova, who says she was fired from the Prosecutor General’s […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Ola Cichowlas – November 28, 2013) Ola Cichowlas is a British-Polish freelance journalist. She covers Russian regional politics and the arts in provincial Russia. Russia’s industrial cities are more than a blot on the landscape. They are the source of appalling chemical pollution, a problem that neither the authorities nor the oligarch owners seem to have any interest […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 27 (Interfax) – Russian citizens are divided on the bill on the unification of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Arbitration Court and a relative majority of them do not understand the authorities’ motives, a public opinion polls show. A poll conducted by Levada Center in November shows that Russians are evenly divided on this initiative 26% of […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, November 27, 2013) The average [monthly] salary of civilian employees in federal state bodies in January-September was R81,600 [just under 2,500 dollars at the current rate of exchange], which was 34.7 per cent up on the same period in 2012, a Rosstat [Federal State Statistics Service] press release says. The administration of the Russian president remains the […]
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MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) Time magazine said Thursday that it had shortlisted Russian President Vladimir Putin as a candidate for “person of the year,” a title awarded for having done the most to influence a year’s events, “for better or for worse.” Putin, who already received the title in 2007, has this year “locked horns with the US […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) – Russians are increasingly positive about the situation in the Russian Army now that a year has passed since Sergei Shoigu’s appointment to the post of defense minister, a poll conducted by VTsIOM shows. Shoigu was appointed defense minister on November 6, 2012 after President Vladimir Putin dismissed Anatoly Serdyukov from the post. The respondents, however, […]
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[One photo here: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/navalny-publishes-photos-of-officials-suspected-luxury-real-estate/490387.html] (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 28, 2013) Opposition leader Alexei Navalny has published photographs on his blog of a luxury cottage cooperative said to be owned by top United Russia officials including deputy chief of staff Vyacheslav Volodin. On Tuesday, Navalny’s LiveJournal account published several aerial shots which show the Sosny dacha complex in the […]
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(Interfax – November 27, 2013) Some 3,600 corrupt officials at various levels were convicted in Russia in the first nine months of the year, Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka said on 27 November, as quoted by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax. “The stereotype that high-ranking officials are untouchable is being destroyed,” Chayka said, speaking at a coordination meeting of heads of Russian […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, November 27, 2013) Financial damage from corruption-related crimes increased more than sevenfold this year, Russian First Deputy Prosecutor-General Aleksandr Buksman has said. “According to prosecutors’ files, the amount o financial damage in the [first] nine months of this year exceeded R10bn [about 330m dollars], a more than sevenfold increase,” Buksman said at a coordination meeting of heads […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, November 27, 2013) Few Russians believe that the economic situation in the country will improve in the next six months or that the government is capable of improving the situation in the country. At the same time, citizens differ on the acceptability of strikes to solve urgent problems, sociologists from the [independent pollster] Levada Centre have told […]
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MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) Russia’s Economy Ministry said Thursday that the ruble could depreciate further in 2013, weakening the currency to levels not seen for more than four years. The slide has come despite high oil prices and the ongoing tax collection period, which would normally be expected to increase demand for the domestic currency as businesses pay […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 27 (Interfax) – Russia’s modest economic growth despite high oil prices means that the economy is barely growing at all, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said. “Given such high prices for energy resources, it must be acknowledged that we are not in fact growing,” Shuvalov said at a business conference on Wednesday. That circumstance makes the development […]
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(Interfax – Sochi, November 27, 2013) Whether or not Ukraine signs an association agreement with the EU is an internal matter to be addressed exclusively by Kiev, the Russian president’s press secretary, Dmitriy Peskov, said on Wednesday [27 November]. At the request of journalists, he was commenting on remarks by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who had said that during his […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 28, 2013) The stereotype of the profligate New Russian no longer applies according to a recent survey, which found that 80 percent of high-income Russians regularly save up with an eye to future purchases. These members of the economic elite try to put aside at least four rubles out of every 10 they earn, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Kristian Magnus – November 28, 2013) Two customs officers halted the truck loaded with toy bricks at the border. Two millimeters. That was the extent of the error in the documents, causing the Lego truck to run into the brick wall of Russian bureaucracy. The truck was not granted entry into Russia until the documents […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Elena Drobinina, special to RBTH – November 28, 2013) Proposed rules would require foreign investors in Russian companies considered “strategic” to disclose their shareholders, but experts say the legislation is unlikely to affect investment levels. Russia’s Federal Anti-monopoly Service (FAS) has proposed new legislation that will require foreign investors who wish to purchase […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) – Stimulus spending to promote economic growth in Russia is inadvisable, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said at a financial forum organized by business daily Vedomosti. He said world experience has shown that stimulus spending does not lead to a significant acceleration of economic growth, and has even led to problems in a number of countries. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Guennadi Moukine – November 28, 2013) PERESLAVL-ZALESSKY, Yaroslavl Region Russia is lagging five and a half years behind the U.S. in supercomputing technology and closing the gap is essential for the competitiveness of the Russian economy, an Academy of Sciences computing expert said. Supercomputers, which are ranked according to their speed of calculation measured […]
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(Moscow News – moscownews.com – Maria Stambler – November 28, 2013) Sharing, liking, posting, clicking, browsing – these actions are ubiquitous and have firmly cemented themselves into our existence with the rise of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. New forms of communication emerge every day, and there is fairly little doubt that our lives are affected by the way we use […]
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SOCHI. Nov 28 (Interfax) – The role of Russian President Vladimir Putin in global politics can go unnoticed solely by a “politically short-sighted” person, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said when commenting on rumors that Putin was in the rating of most influential people of 2013 of the Time magazine. “The year’s events were indeed abundant and one thing can […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 27 (Interfax) – Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis could meet but only after issues in the relations between the two churches are resolved, the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations said on Wednesday. The unresolved conflict between the Orthodox and Greek Catholics in Ukraine remains the main obstacle – almost all churches were taken from the Moscow […]
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MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) The last of the Greenpeace activists arrested in Russia over a September protest at an Arctic oil rig was granted bail Thursday by a St. Petersburg court. The court set bail for Colin Russell from Australia at 2 million rubles ($60,000), the same condition set for the other 29 crew members, who were all […]
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(Interfax – November 27, 2013) Pro-Kremlin United Russia MP Leonid Slutskiy has accused the EU of conducting a policy of “amputation” of post-Soviet countries from Russia-led alliances. Privately-owned Interfax news agency quoted the chairman of the State Duma committee for CIS affairs and Eurasian integration saying in reference to the EU’s Eastern Partnership policy, specifically as regards Ukraine: “The European […]
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TBILISI. Nov 27 (Interfax) – A Georgian government delegation led by President Giorgi Margvelashvili will leave for Vilnius on Wednesday to take part in the Eastern Partnership summit, where the agreement on Georgia’s association with the European Union is expected to be initialed on November 28. The agreement on Georgia’s association with the EU has 1,000 pages and clearly determines […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 2, 2013) The Russian economy’s conversion to a more competitive model will take from 7 to 15 years to achieve, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. The peak of the economic crisis is past, but systemic imbalances have still not been removed, Kudrin said, speaking at the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce, Vedomosti reported Friday. […]
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MOSCOW, December 2 (RIA Novosti) Russian naval forces are set to make the Arctic a priority region, boosting combat training and scouting lesser-known areas of the icy territory in 2014, a navy spokesman said Monday. The Northern Fleet will conduct sailing and diving expeditions in the Arctic and develop a series of ice-class patrol ships to protect the country’s […]
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(Ambassador Michael McFaul – November 29, 2013 – Valdai Discussion Club/Izvestia) Michael McFaul is U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation. November 17, 2013, marked the 80th anniversary of the U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union, when then-Soviet Foreign Minister Maksim Litvinov traveled to the U.S. to sign an agreement establishing diplomatic relations. While this is a milestone in our relationship […]
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