.style5 { font-family: Arial; font-size: small; color: #800000; } .style6 { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; } .style7 { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; color: #800000; } .style8 { font-size: small; } .style5 { font-family: Arial; font-size: small; color: #800000; } .style6 { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; } .style7 { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; color: #800000; } .style8 { font-size: small; } February 15:
In the wake of several recent counterterrorism successes on the part of the Kremlin, Muslim extremists in Russia are renewing their threats to expand their campaign of terror beyond the Caucasus. Reuters reports that Chechen Islamist leader Doku Umarov has threatened to carry out operations against Russia’s major cities. “Blood will no longer be limited to our (Caucasus) cities and towns,” Umarov, the self-proclaimed “Emir of the Caucasus Emirate,” has threatened in an interview with an Islamic website. “The war is coming to their cities.”
February 16:
The Medvedev government is pledging to redouble its efforts to tackle corruption in Russia’s notoriously graft-riddled criminal justice system. According to the Moscow Times, the county’s justice minister, Alexander Konovalov, is seeking significant reforms to the Russian justice system following widespread complaints of bribery and the December death of prominent lawyer Sergei Magnitsky while in prison. "The state is taking certain steps to ensure that the situation with Magnitsky will never be repeated," says Konovalov. Among the changes currently being contemplated by Russia’s justice ministry is the elimination of pretrial detention for instances of white collar crime, and the punishment of house arrest – rather than incarceration – for petty crimes.
The push for reform is not just domestically motivated, however. It follows Russia’s recent ratification of Protocol 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights – a step that now permits the European Court of Human Rights to sit in judgment of complaints of rights violations within Russia. "The standards of Russian justice should come close to the standards of European [justice]," Konovalov has stated.
As part of its efforts to remedy budgetary shortfalls and speed recovery from the global economic crisis, the Kremlin is moving to loosen its grip over the Russian economy. RIA Novosti reports that a push is underway by the Medvedev administration to privatize some of its government-controlled holdings and state-controlled companies. “Practice shows that state companies are normally less efficient than companies in private ownership,” the news agency reports Kremlin aide Arkady Dvorkovich as saying.
February 18:
Moscow has blasted NATO’s new strategy blueprint, now under development, saying that the draft plan would allow the Atlantic Alliance to project force around the world in violation of existing international norms. “This does not quite fit in with the U.N. Charter, and that naturally cannot fail to disturb us,” the Agence France Presse cites Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. For their part, Alliance officials have defended the plan, which is being worked up in Brussels in response to “out-of-theater” operations in places like Afghanistan. According to them, NATO maintains a mandate for worldwide operations, but one that “is in no way incongruous with the role of the U.N.,” NATO spokesman James Appathurai has maintained.
February 20:
Russia’s population has stopped shrinking – at least for the moment. That is the triumphant news from the Kremlin, which maintains that Russia’s population increased modestly in 2009 for the first time in nearly a decade-and-a-half, largely as a result of official efforts to arrest demographic decline. "The natural depopulation rate was down more than 30 percent as compared with the 2008 level," Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov tells Itar-TASS.
For the Urals and Siberia, 2009 was the first year since 1990 that the natural population growth was not negative. Countrywide, deaths resulting from almost all diseases fell during the period in question. And the number of deaths caused by external causes dropped significantly, with alcohol-related fatalities declining by 30 percent, and automobile accidents diminishing by 15 percent.