Russian Politics

[burnt fare]

We'll notice Gazprom if it buys any familiar gas chain or energy company AND always makes sure that public relations/advertising use the line "A GAZPROM company." Or if we are in energy business somehow, word gets around about who's moving and shaking.

[manga2read]

word gets around about who's moving and shaking.

Apt way to talk about an earthquake or achievers or people going down corporate ladders.

A good thing to keep aware of as the cold season approaches.

[CielOnTap]

The actions of the Moscow government seem to have been taken from the pages of the Beijing government book on how to force development on neighbourhoods prior to the 2008 Games. In Beijing, former residents were actively prevented from petitioning the government about the loss of their homes and businesses, despite law allowing for such petitions.

Russians Rally ’Round a Falling Enclave
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: February 1, 2010
MOSCOW — The bulldozers came at night, flanked by armor-clad riot police officers, to clear the houses of a small neighborhood here at the behest of Moscow’s mayor, forcing residents out into subzero temperatures.

Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
Interior Ministry officers stand guard while an excavator demolishes a mansion in Rechnik settlement in Moscow on Jan. 21.
The mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, said they were living on the land illegally. But as more and more homes — some stately, some mere shacks — have come tumbling down over the last week and a half, an uncharacteristically fierce backlash has broken out, challenging one of Russia’s most powerful politicians. Politicians, human rights activists, media organizations and even nationalist and anarchist groups have come to the defense of the neighborhood, called Rechnik. Legal or not, these critics say, the demolition operation has crossed the line.

“The methods used to resolve this problem were completely unacceptable,” Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s government-appointed human rights ombudsman, told the Interfax news agency on Thursday. He called on the Prosecutor General’s office to investigate what he called “gross violations” of Russian law.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/world/europe/02moscow.html?ref=global-home

I actually thought this astory took place in Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Games. There is a story posted on that concern in Sports as occurring already.

Rechnik means "dictionary," an unusual noun for a housing development name. Was the developer a fan of the written word?

[CielOnTap]

Medvedev Intervenes in Rechnik Dispute
05 February 2010
By Alexandra Odynova
President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Prosecutor General's Office to check whether the rights of Rechnik residents were violated when court marshals began demolishing the settlement two weeks ago, the Kremlin said Thursday.

"The president is informed about the situation with the Rechnik settlement," spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told Interfax.

City Hall has been pushing to raze Rechnik and several other cottage settlements on the banks of the Moscow River, arguing that residents lacked property rights for the land under their houses. The residents, most of whom inherited the plots issued to their parents for gardening purposes during the Soviet era, argue that municipal officials had been systemically blocking their attempts to register the land.

The demolition has become a major scandal in the city, with some residents evicted late at night in freezing weather. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/medvedev-intervenes-in-rechnik-dispute/399043.html

~~~~~~

Mr. Medvedev is a busy person. He has notions about Russia's presence in the 21st century and had the notions put to paper.

Medvedev's Institute Proposes Radical Reforms
04 February 2010
By Nikolaus von Twickel
Russia will join NATO and the EU, reduce its military, reintroduce gubernatorial elections and four-year presidential terms and disband its Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, according to a paper released Wednesday by a think tank close to President Dmitry Medvedev.

The essay, "21st-Century Russia: Reflections on an Attractive Tomorrow," published by the Institute of Contemporary Development, calls for drastic measures but also embraces modernization appeals formulated by Medvedev last fall in his "Go, Russia!" article and his state-of-the-nation address.

Medvedev chairs the institute's board of trustees.

Analysts cautioned that the proposals were far from realistic and most likely an attempt to rally public opinion behind Medvedev's modernization drive. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/medvedevs-institute-proposes-radical-reforms/398979.html

[CielOnTap]

Putin's been prime minister since 2008 (he was at the Beijing Summer Games, then went home to deal with the Georgian crisis). How can this be his first visit?

Vladimir Putin calls Manmohan Singh to discuss upcoming India visit
PTI
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 19:54 IST

Moscow: Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin today had a telephonic conversation with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh and discussed with him the agenda for his forthcoming India visit.

Putin, who is scheduled to visit New Delhi in March, called Singh to discuss his upcoming trip, the first as prime minister of Russia.

"Putin and Singh in their telephonic conversation expressed satisfaction at high dynamism in bilateral trade and economic relations in spite of global recession," Russian PM's spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS.http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_vladimir-putin-calls-manmohan-singh-to-discuss-upcoming-india-visit_1345612

[CielOnTap]

Police Kill 20 in North Caucasus Skirmishes
15 February 2010
Combined Reports
Police said Friday that Russian forces had killed at least 20 insurgents in intense gunbattles over the last two days.

"According to our latest figures, about 20 insurgents have been killed, but the number of dead could be higher," said a police official in Ingushetia's largest city, Nazran.

Violence is growing in the patchwork of southern republics — including Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia — that make up the North Caucasus. Islamist militancy overlaps with the activity of criminal groups and clan and ethnic rivalries.

An Ingush police officer stationed close to the site of Friday's clash said Russian forces had fired at rebel positions from helicopters during an intense battle. He added that the death toll included 10 from Thursday in an operation in a mountainous area near the border with Chechnya.http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/police-kill-20-in-north-caucasus-skirmishes/399705.html

[CielOnTap]

The destruction of homes in Rechnik remains an issue that is closely followed. Notice how domestic issues surface during the Olympics for Russia?

Top Court Marshal Defends Officers in Rechnik Scandal
18 February 2010
By Alexander Bratersky
The country's top court marshal on Wednesday defended his subordinates against criticism for their role in the demolition of cottages in the local Rechnik settlement, saying they were merely carrying out their duty to execute court orders.

Artur Parfyonchikov, head of the Federal Court Marshals Service, said his marshals committed no violations in razing 20 cottages in Rechnik and that any complaints should be addressed to the courts that issued the orders.

City authorities have come under fire from the public and officials for demolishing the homes, with even state-owned federal television channels giving ample airtime to the village's outraged residents, who deny the city's claim that their homes were built illegally. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/top-court-marshal-defends-officers-in-rechnik-scandal/400014.html

So given Mr. Parfyonchikov's remark about complaints needing to go to the courts that issued demolition orders, I anticipate that there will be a look at whether those courts relied on marshals' rationale to issue the orders or if those courts determined that criteria was met for the issuance of orders.

[CielOnTap]

Car Import Tariff Hikes Planned
31 August 2010

The government will increase import duties on foreign cars to encourage investment in local manufacturing plants and boost domestic players, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told state news channel Vesti-24 on Monday.

Speaking from behind the wheel of a locally produced yellow Lada Kalina Sport, Putin said he wanted technologically advanced overseas producers to work alongside Russian groups like Lada maker AvtoVAZ.

"Here's a timeline: In some years, we will gradually begin to raise the customs tariffs. … But we do not want to undermine your [foreign carmakers'] business in Russia — come to us and deploy production here," he said, while driving a leg of a 2,000-kilometer journey to Chita near the Chinese border.

"We're not, after all, WTO members, so we can afford to do it," he said, referring to the country's on-and-off bid to join the World Trade Organization. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/car-import-tariff-hikes-planned/414140.html

[CielOnTap]

Leading Russian reporter attacked
6 November 2010 | 13:32 | Source: BBC
MOSCOW -- A leading Russian journalist for the Kommersant newspaper has been severely beaten outside his Moscow home.
Russian media said Oleg Kashin was in hospital in an induced coma and police were treating the attack as a case of attempted murder.

"It's clear that the people who did this did not like what he says and writes," Kommersant editor Mikhail Mikhailin told Moscow radio. Mr Kashin had covered demonstrations and opposition rallies.

The Russian prosecutor general will personally oversee the case, according to Tass news agency. http://www.b92.net/eng/news/world-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=11&dd=06&nav_id=70734

[CielOnTap]

11-13-2010 22:17
Russia sent an assassin to kill 'traitor' in the US

A contract killer has been dispatched to assassinate the Russian double agent who betrayed Anna Chapman and nine other spies in the United States this spring, the British newspaper Guardian said, citing reports in Moscow.

"We know who he is and where he is," a high-ranking Kremlin source told the Russian newspaper, Kommersant, it said.

The traitor was reportedly identified as a Colonel Shcherbakov, an officer of the SVR (foreign intelligence service) who headed the S directorate of the service's U.S. department, which controlled the ring of sleeper agents, including Chapman, it said. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2010/11/182_76272.html

The Colonel made the news recently about his claims of the deep cover spies. It seems that his life is endangered, while sleeper agent Chapman recently was in the news about her new store opening.

Medvedev Confirms Mole Betrayed Spies
13 November 2010
By Alexander Bratersky

President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed on Friday that 11 Russian sleeper agents gathering intelligence on the United States had been betrayed by a mole in the Foreign Intelligence Service and said the secretive body should learn from the incident. “I knew about it the same day it happened, in full detail,” Medvedev told reporters in Seoul on Friday during his visit for a summit of the Group of 20 largest economies. He refused to provide any other details.

On Thursday, Kommersant reported that a high-ranking intelligence officer, identified only by his surname Shcherbakov, leaked information about Russian agents on U.S. soil and then fled to the United States.

Ten of the Russian agents were arrested in the United States in June, just three days after Medvedev held talks there with U.S. President Barack Obama. The 11th suspect disappeared in Cyprus. The arrested agents pleaded guilty in a U.S. court and were exchanged for four Russians serving sentences on various related charges, including high treason, in August.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Shcherbakov's name and patronymic may be Alexander Vasilyevich, citing Oleg Kalugin, a former senior KGB counterintelligence officer who settled in the United States in 1990. Kalugin said he had crossed paths with a person by that name while working in Soviet counterintelligence. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mobile/news/article/422808.html