September 1:
Taimuraz Chedzhemov, the lawyer for the Mothers of Beslan committee, which is seeking to prosecute Russian officials over the September 2004 Beslan school massacre, has pulled out of the case after receiving a death threat, NEWSru.com reports. Chedzhemov said he thought the threat was connected to having raised the issue of prosecuting officials who were part of the operational headquarters set up during the three-day hostage crisis. The Mothers of Beslan committee was formed by the mothers of children who were among the more than 330 people who died in the massacre.
September 2:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree designating December 2nd as the date for national elections to the State Duma, the lower house of the country’s parliament, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports. Last year, the parliamentary threshold was raised from 5 to 7 percent, meaning a party must win at least 7 percent of the total votes cast in order to win Duma representation. The requirement of a minimum voter turnout was also abolished. Given the new rules, only four parties are likely to win Duma representation: the pro-Putin United Russia and A Just Russia parties, the Communist Party and Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party.
September 3:
A campaign to stop the Gazprom gas monopoly from building a skyscraper in historic central St. Petersburg “may be one of the biggest public rebellions of Putin’s seven years as president - a period when shows of mass dissent have become rare,” Reuters reports. The news agency notes that at an anti-Kremlin rally in the city back in March, at which at least 2,000 people gathered, signs protesting the destruction of the city’s architectural heritage were almost as numerous as those alleging government repression. Besides being concerned about aesthetics and historic preservation, plan opponents worry about “state corporations which wield almost unchallenged power and a bureaucratic machine that serves the Kremlin, but often seems deaf to public opinion,” Reuters reports.
An article in Germany’s Der Spiegel claims that a case of money laundering for the Russian mafia under investigation by the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office may involve the pro-Kremlin tycoon Oleg Deripaska. According to the article, a translation of which was posted on the Inopressa.ru website, a Russian identified as Alexander A., who was arrested together with three associates in Stuttgart in August 2006 for questionable bank transfers, is head of Moscow’s Izmailovsky organized crime group, which invested eight million euros (more than $11.2 million) in Germany.
“Deripaska, the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office claims on basis of eyewitness testimony, was involved with the Izmailovsky OPG [organized crime group] in the 1990s,” Der Spiegel writes. “During the period in which the [Russian] aluminum industry was divided up, members of the crime confederation intimidated or even physically eliminated competitors of Deripaska on the oligarch’s instructions.”
Russia’s space agency, Roskosmos, plans to send a manned mission to the Moon, Agence France-Presse reports. “According to our estimates we will be ready for a manned flight to the Moon in 2025,” Roskosmos head Anatoly Perminov told reporters, adding that an “inhabited station” could be built there between 2027 and 2032.
September 6:
Former Russneft chief Mikhail Gutseriyev fled Russia via Turkey and is living in London, the Moscow Times reports, citing sources close to the wanted oil tycoon. The Moscow City Court rejected an appeal from Gutseriyev’s lawyers to withdraw an arrest warrant issued August 28th, shortly after which he was placed on an international wanted list. A source told the Moscow Times that Gutseriyev is observing 40 days of mourning for his son, Chingiskhan, who was killed in a car crash in Moscow on August 22nd.
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