March 7:
The New York Times reports that Viktor Bout, a Russian businessman viewed by U.S. authorities as one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers, has been arrested in Thailand as part of a U.S.-led sting operation and charged in the U.S. with conspiracy for trying to smuggle missiles and rocket launchers to Colombia’s FARC rebels. Bout is suspected of supplying weapons to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and using his own private air fleet to supply arms to various African civil wars.
March 8:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel that his successor Dmitry Medvedev will defend Russia’s interests as aggressively as he has, Bloomberg News reports. Medvedev “will be free to demonstrate his liberal views, but he isn’t any less of a Russian nationalist, in the positive sense of the word, than I am,” Putin said in a press conference he and Merkel held after meeting at the presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow. Following her talks with Putin, Merkel met with Medvedev.
March 11:
President Putin has suggested chopping off corrupt officials’ hands, Agence France-Presse reports. “It would be good to cut off the hand, as they used to in the Middle Ages,” Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying during a meeting with parliamentary leaders. According to AFP, Putin made the comment while responding to one of the meeting’s attendees, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who complained that “just to build 100 apartments you have to run around for 24 hours looking for permits and greasing hands.” Putin responded that “all you’d have to do” is cut off a corrupt official’s hand and “that hand would immediately stop reaching for bribes.”
"Yabloko" leader Grigory Yavlinsky has held a one-on-one meeting with President Putin in the Kremlin and asked him to help secure the release of Maxim Reznik, the leader of "Yabloko’s" St. Petersburg chapter who was arrested on March 2nd for allegedly insulting and striking a policeman. Radio Free Europe's Russian service, citing "Yabloko’s" press service, reports that Yavlinsky questioned the charges against Reznik and Putin promised to look into the situation. Human rights activists and "Yabloko" members say the case against Reznik was fabricated and have been picketing prosecutor’s offices in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has warned that putting Georgia on track to join the alliance would deepen the divides within Georgia and bolster the bids of two of its separatist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, for international recognition. “Russia is trying to persuade the NATO members, first of all the Americans, that they shouldn't joke around — not just with Georgia but with the whole perspective for the future of NATO,” Rogozin told the Associated Press. “The question is whether they hear us or not.” According to the news agency, NATO is expected to consider next month offering Georgia an official route to alliance membership.
March 12:
Russia has condemned “double standards” in the U.S. State Department’s annual human rights report. According to Reuters, the report details abuses in Russia in 2007, including the harassment of media and alleged killings and torture by security forces, and criticizes the Kremlin for centralizing power and restricting opposition parties. “It is obvious the human rights issue is being distributed for external and internal consumption,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “How else can one explain the fact that the United States, having de facto legalized torture and handing capital punishment to minors, denying responsibility for war crimes and massive human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan... gives a distorted interpretation of the situation in other countries?”
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