May 20:
A bill introduced in the State Duma aimed at reducing the number of crimes connected to the theft of cellular phones would allow law-enforcement and other agencies to ask mobile phone service providers for information about customers, including their phones’ IMEI numbers, which are unique to every mobile phone. According to Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the legislation proposes giving the authorities the right to demand that cellular phone providers cut off service in cases of threats to the life or health of citizens or to the Russian Federation’s state, military, economic or ecological security. “You must admit that this is a very general and highly degraded formulation, under which anything can be put,” the state-owned newspaper writes.
May 21:
The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel is closely following meetings in Moscow between a high-level Syrian military delegation and Russian Defense Ministry officials. According to Russian media, the delegation, led by Syrian Air Force commander Gen. Akhmad al-Ratyb, will meet with Russian Defense Ministry and Air Force officials, as well as visit several military bases and units. The talks reportedly will focus on arms sales - including submarines, anti-aircraft missiles, the latest model MiG fighters and advanced surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. Israel is particularly concerned with a Syrian request for long-range S-300 surface-to-air missiles that could threaten Israeli jets flying on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
Prices in Russia have increased 7.2 percent since the start of the year, Polit.ru reports. According to the Federal State Statistics Service (Goskomstat), inflation over May 13th-19th was 0.8 percent, with the biggest rise taking place in the price of sugar (2.4 percent). The website notes that while the chairman of the government has changed – a reference to Vladimir Putin replacing Viktor Zubkov as prime minister – it “has not managed to cope with rising prices.”
May 22:
President Medvedev has held talks with the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. Medvedev called on Kazakhstan to keep exporting most of its oil through Russian pipelines while Nazarbayev said relations with Russia remain the highest priority in Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. According to the BBC, Kazakhstan, which is central Asia’s biggest oil producer, is gradually trying to break Russia’s stranglehold over Kazakh energy export routes, while Russia wants Kazakhstan to sign up to a long-term deal to export oil through the pipeline leading from Baku, Azerbaijan, to the Russian port of Novorossiysk.
Activists with several major Russian human rights groups have sent an open letter to President Medvedev urging him to pardon 15 individuals serving long prison terms resulting from what they say is political persecution, the Voice of America reports. According to the activists, the imprisoned individuals represent only a portion of the 100, and perhaps many more political prisoners in today’s Russia. Among them are scientists charged with espionage, Muslims accused of terrorism and businessmen charged with economic crimes, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky, founder of the Yukos oil company.
May 23:
Dmitry Medvedev, who is in China on his first foreign trip as Russian president, has issued a joint statement with Chinese President Hu Jintao condemning U.S. missile defense plans, the Associated Press reports. Without naming the United States, the two leaders said that “the creation of global missile defense systems and their deployment in some regions of the world... does not help to maintain strategic balance and stability and hampers international efforts in arms control and nuclear nonproliferation.” In another apparent reference to the United States, Medvedev and Hu said they stand “for the peaceful use of space and against the deployment of weapons in space and arms race in space.”
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