December 15:
After what appeared to be a thaw in the long-running Russo-Japanese dispute over the Northern Kuril islands, the Kremlin is hardening its stance once again. Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov has visited Kunashiri and Etorofu, two of the four contested islands, to tour a number of infrastructure projects now under construction. Shuvalov expressed his satisfaction over the progress of work begun some three years ago, and announced the Russian government’s determination “to accomplish much more by the end of 2015.” The visit, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reports, “should be seen as a show again of Russia’s firm intention to perpetuate its rule over the disputed islands.”
December 16:
Authorities in Russia’s capital have arrested more than 1,000 protesters following the shooting of a soccer enthusiast by a Muslim suspect a day earlier. According to the Agence France Presse, the massive city-wide sweep was carried out by Moscow police ahead of ethnic riots that were reportedly being planned by activists online and slated to take place in the city’s Kievsky metro station. The crackdown follows a weekend rally outside the Kremlin, and rumors of an armed counter-protest by Russian Muslims.
December 17:
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has used his most recent televised address to double down on the Kremlin’s support for Russia’s security services. In his annual televised question-and-answer session, Putin defended the Kremlin’s use of the country’s extensive security forces to maintain central control and enforce order in response to ethnic unrest. “These bodies of power carry out the state’s most important function,” Putin said in comments carried by the New York Times. “Otherwise, our liberal intelligentsia will have to shave off their goatees and put on helmets themselves and go out to the square to fight radicals themselves.”
During the same televised address, Putin made no secret of his views about jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then awaiting sentencing in his second trial on corruption and fraud charges. “I believe that a thief must be in prison,” Gulf Today reports the Prime Minister as saying. “We must operate based on the fact that Mr. Khodorkovsky’s guilt has been proven in court.”
December 19:
The Russian government’s efforts to streamline the number of time zones across the country are running into popular disapproval. The Agence France Presse reports that the Kremlin plan, announced in 2008, calls for the reduction of time zones in Russia from eleven to just six as a means of improving cooperation across Russia’s 83 regions. Earlier in 2009, that number fell to nine, with further reductions planned in the near future. But in Russia’s Primorye region, on the Pacific, the initiative is generating discontent among citizens who stand to lose hours of daylight and prompted a petition among residents.
December 21:
Russia has launched the world’s first nuclear fuel bank of low-enriched uranium, Zimbabwe’s Herald newspaper reports. The reserve, established in coordination with the International Atomic Energy Agency, is intended to provide a supply of fuel for the nuclear reactors of aspiring atomic states – thereby obviating the need for those countries to develop indigenous uranium enrichment capabilities of their own. Headquartered in the Siberian city of Angarsk, the project is seen by international observers as a key nonproliferation tool, and one aimed at “facilitating the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”
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