JRL Table of Contents :: Johnson’s Russia List 2012-#219 – 12 December 2012
Johnson’s Russia List
2012-#219
12 December 2012
davidjohnson@starpower.net
A World Security Institute Project
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In this issue
POLITICS
1. Reuters: Population, Russian values key to our future – Putin.
2. RAPSI: Putin says Russia must abandon presumption of guilt once and for all.
3. www.russiatoday.com: Putin vows crackdown on high-profile corruption and money laundering.
4. ITAR-TASS: Putin identifies political reform guidelines, promises to go ahead with purifying authorities.
5. ITAR-TASS: Putin proposes to return mixed election system.
6. RIA Novosti: Putin Tackles Demographic ‘Crisis’ in Address.
7. Reuters: Putin needs more than rhetoric to win over weary nation.
8. Moscow Times: Experts Dismiss Population Rise as Momentary Blip.
9. Forbes.com: Mark Adomanis, Are Russia’s Demographic Improvements A “Myth?”
10. Interfax: Only 8% of Russians happy with government – poll.
11. Moscow TImes/Vedomosti: Why Russians Believe in the Apocalypse.
12. Moscow Times/BBC Monitoring: What the Papers Say, Dec. 12, 2012.
13. Vedomosti editorial: Faces Pleasant In All Respects. Instead of Feedback, Kremlin Keeps Getting Straight Line.
14. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Putin says Lenin should stay on Red Square.
15. BBC Monitoring: Russians want blood in high-profile corruption cases, says chief of popular news.
16. ITAR-TASS: RUSSIAN PRESS REVIEW. Searches in apartments of opposition members suspected of organising unrest continue.
17. Moscow News: Putin critic to remain under arrest until spring. (Leonid Razvozzhayev)
18. Interfax: Russian opposition figures deny attending subversive seminar abroad.
19. Vedomosti: NOT TO BECOME AN AGENT. THE MOSCOW HELSINKI GROUP SWAPPED FOREIGN GRANTS FOR DOMESTIC DONATIONS.
20. Moscow Times: Yulia Latynina, A Minuscule Third Estate.
21. ITAR-TASS: Polikovskaya’s family insists on usual order of trial of defendant.
22. Russia Legal Information Center (RAPSI): Russia’s legal profession: at a crossroads or a dead end?
23. RFE/RL: Brian Whitmore, License To Steal — A Bug Or A Feature?
24. Financial Times: Russian ‘civilisation’ stirs resentment.
25. New York Times: Galina Vishnevskaya, Soprano and Dissident, Dies at 86.
ECONOMY
26. Wall Street Journal: Putin Promises to Bolster Economy.
27. AFP: Putin orders end to ‘offshore-isation’ of Russian economy.
28. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Chris Weafer, Debt growth currently well below risk levels. Although Russia is most often viewed by investors as a petrostate, the reality is quite different. Almost all of the country’s economic growth since 2005 has come from the consumer sectors and the general expansion of the domestic economy.
29. Interfax: Deutsche Bank forecasts 4.2% economic growth in Russia in 2013.
30. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Ben Aris, Russia enjoys consumer lending boom. Despite fears of Europe’s economic woes spilling over toward the East, spending is at an all-time high and debt is low.
31. Bloomberg: World’s Largest Profit at Gazprom Pays for Putin’s Pipes.
32. Wall Street Journal book review: Edward Lucas, Shock Therapy’s Unsung Hero. The Soviet economy created goods and services that nobody wanted via processes that destroyed value rather than creating it.. (re Russia: A Long View by Yegor Gaidar)
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
33. RIA Novosti: Putin Slams ‘Foreign Interference’ in Russian Politics.
34. New York Times: Thomas Graham and Dmitri Trenin, Why the Reset Should Be Reset.
35. Russia Beyond the Headlines/Gazeta.ru: Will Magnitsky cause a trade war?
36. Moskovskiy Komsomolets: Pundit Sees Americans’ Self-Image As Main Driver of Adoption of Magnitskiy Act. (Sergey Samuylov)
38. US-Russia.org Experts Panel: Agenda for Obama’s upcoming visit to Russia. (with Vlad Sobell, Edward Lozansky, Sergei Roy, Peter Rutland, and Dale Herspring)
39. The National Interest: Frank Klotz, The U.S.-Russian Antarctic Thaw.
40. Moscow Times: NATO’s Volga Airport Hits Snarl.
41. RIA Novosti: Moscow Slams US Recognition of Syria Opposition.
42. AP: Experts: Russia likely to stay course on Assad.
43. Gordon Hahn: Russia and the Arab Winter: Foreign and Domestic Dilemmas.