Russian whistle-blowing doctor fears dismissal (AP)

Russian whistle-blowing doctor fears dismissal
MOSCOW - A Russian cardiologist says he is facing dismissal after telling Vladimir Putin that an impressive display at his Hospital was faked for the Prime Minister's visit. Putin visited a Hospital in mid-November in the central town of Ivanovo where he saw new medical equipment and met doctors boasting about salaries of $1,000 a month. Ivan Khrenov told Putin during a live call-in show Thursday that the equipment was borrowed and the doctors were instructed to show fake pay slips and pos...

Putin 'deals blow' to release of jailed tycoon
Jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's chances of being released from Prison were dealt a blow by an uncompromising message from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Moscow Newspapers said Friday. Russia's powerful former president used a televised question and answer session Thursday to observe that a "thief must be in prison" and compare Russia's former Richest man to jailed US financier Bernard Madoff. The country's most famous Prisoner is serving the seventh year of an eight-year sentence for Fraud....

Putin looks for ways to modernize economy
KHABAROVSK, Russia, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he expects the country's Foreign Intelligence Service to help modernize Russia's economy. "At a time when we are facing a problem related to modernization of The Economy, assistance from the intelligence services is not superfluous," Putin said in an Ria Novosti report. Putin said Russia would not violate the laws of other entities to establish the goals. Putin also didn't rule out that he could lead in a pro-Kremlin...

Russia: Studying Online Mobilization of the Manezh Riots
This post is part of RuNet Echo, a Global Voices project to interpret the Russian language Internet. All posts · Learn more Recent riots on Manezhnaya Square next to the Kremlin showed that Russian Soccer fans have become a powerful community who can mobilize thousands very quickly around an event. Last week, that  event was the commemoration of Yegor Sviridov, a fan of the Moscow Soccer club “Spartak” who was murdered in during a brawl among Soccer fans on December 6. The...

Belarus votes, Lukashenko to extend 16-year rule
MINSK (Reuters) - Voting got under way on Sunday in the former Soviet republic of Belarus in an election certain to extend strongman Alexander Lukashenko's 16-year stay in power for five more years. Lukashenko won backing at the 11th hour from Moscow after being vilified on Russian television for weeks and he seemed set to continue a policy of playing off Russia against the West. The conduct of the vote, the margin of Lukashenko's victory, and his handling of opposition Protests could decide ho...

Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/18/2010
A mass of frigid Siberian air has moved south over Europe, causing heavy snow and breaking low-temperature records as far south as Tunisia. The UK has had the Coldest December on record, and Sweden hasn’t been this cold for a century. Much of Italy is covered with snow, and one enterprising skier practiced his cross-country skills along a beach on Italy’s West Coast. In other news, the Russian government has cracked down on nationalist demonstrators, arresting hundreds of them before...

Russian whistle-blowing doctor fears dismissal
MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian cardiologist says he is facing dismissal after telling Vladimir Putin that an impressive display at his Hospital was faked for the Prime Minister’s visit. Putin visited a Hospital in mid-November in the central town of Ivanovo where he saw new medical equipment and met doctors boasting about salaries of $1,000 a month. Ivan Khrenov told Putin during a live call-in show Thursday that the equipment was borrowed and the doctors were instructed to show fake pay sl...

Putin 'deals blow' to release of jailed tycoon
Jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's chances of being released from Prison were dealt a blow by an uncompromising message from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Moscow Newspapers said Friday. Russia's powerful former president used a televised question and answer session Thursday to observe that a "thief must be in prison" and compare Russia's former Richest man to jailed US financier Bernard Madoff. The country's most famous Prisoner is serving the seventh year of an eight-year sentence for frau...

Putin refers to turncoats as 'swine'
Thursday, Russian Prime Minister and ex-KGB man Vladimir Putin held his televised Q & A session with the 'people'. He referred to traitors within intelligence services as 'swine', pointing to the most recent incident which delivered on June 10, 2010 Russian agents in the United States. Putin declared that the Russian spies who were arrested in the United States this summer were betrayed by a fellow intelligence officer. He pointed to the fact that the 'traitors will croak themselves. Whateve...

Vladimir Putin Will Now Take Your Questions
In a sort of Russian-style town hall meeting, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fielded questions Thursday about his government’s policies and practices in a lengthy televised session (running time: 4 hours and 29 minutes) that included the cheeky query, “How is your puppy, Buffy?” How indeed. —KA His tone was set a few minutes into the televised program, which is an annual event. A caller said the police were not protecting members of ethnic Minorities from attacks by ethnic...

Vladimir Putin Defends Central Control in Russia
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on a television screen in an electronics shop during his annually televised question-and-answer session on Thursday. Moscow — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday said that an outburst of nationalist violence in Moscow proved that Russia could not allow its Law Enforcement bodies to weaken, despite the arguments of “our liberal intelligentsia.” In a marathon question-and-answer session that went on for four hours and 29 minut...

Corruption and Leadership in Russia
In an environment where traffic tickets often are "arranged" with the Police Officer who charged the infraction, and the former mayor of Moscow's wife "cleared" municipal building contracts, the Russian public has become inured to all forms of Corruption. It's an area of clearly different perceptions by the country's president, Dmitry Medvedev, and its Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin. It is not that one leader is for corruption and the other is against it. Rather it's a matter of how influential ...

Is Joe Biden trying to impersonate Vladimir Putin?
It’s bad enough that the Obama White House is willing to surrender to Moscow over the heavily flawed New START Treaty, but does it have to resort to impersonating Russia’s leaders too? Watch this astonishing clip (hat tip: RealClear Politics) of Vice President Joe Biden’s interview with Andrea Mitchell during a taping of Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. In the video, an angry Biden warns Republican senators Jim DeMint and Jon Kyl to “get out of the way” i

Fury at claim that doctors posed as patients for Vladimir Putin visit
A RUSSIAN cardiologist has said he fears dismissal and a beating after telling Vladimir Putin that an impressive display at his Hospital was faked for the Prime Minister's visit. Mr Putin visited a Hospital in mid-November in the central town of Ivanovo where he saw new medical equipment and met doctors boasting about salaries of $1,000 a month. The visit was televised. Ivan Khrenov told him during a live call-in show th ADVERTISEMENT at the sophisticated equipment he was shown during the visi...

Russia 'faces 4.3 pct deficit': finance minister
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Saturday the country's Deficit will be 4.3 percent of gross domestic product this year, higher than the figure announced by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "An increase in revenue this year allows us to lower our estimate of budgetary Deficit to 4.3 percent from 4.6 percent," Russian news agencies quoted Kudrin as telling Putin during a meeting. On Thursday, during his annual marathon phone-in, Putin said the Deficit would be between 3.5 to 3.8 percen...

Nationalist Uprising in Moscow has Serious Implications for the North Caucasus - The Jamestown Foundation
On December 11, the largest ever Russian nationalist riots in modern Russia broke out in Moscow. The Protesters, consisting of about 5,000 Soccer fans and members of several Russian nationalist organizations, gathered at Manezh Square, which is adjacent to the Kremlin and Red Square. They shouted “Russia for Russians,” “Moscow for Muscovites,” and expletive-filled anti-Caucasian slogans, and attacked passersby who were assumed to be from the Caucasus or of Asian origin. Mosco...

Belarus' strongman likely to win re-election
MINSK, Belarus - Few doubt that President Alexander Lukashenko — often called the last dictator in Europe — will be declared the winner of Sunday's election in Belarus. Still, the campaign has underlined his increasingly tenuous position. Lukashenko faces energized opponents who have campaigned with unusual freedom — by Belarus' repressive standards at least — and who are already planning mass Protests against what they are sure will be a falsified vote tally. A cra...

Moscow police arrest 500 as ethnic tensions linger
Moscow — Russian news agencies say Moscow police have arrested 500 people to stop them attending rival Protests over the killing of a Soccer fan and the ethnic violence that erupted after the slaying. A young Moscow man was fatally shot with rubber bullets during a fight with people from the Russia’s Caucasus region at a bus stop this month. People from the Caucasus are typically darker-skinned than northern Russians and many are Muslim. They have traditionally been Victims of ethni...

Tycoon to build $100 million school
Published: Dec. 17, 2010 at 8:23 AM According to Forbes Magazine, Suleiman Kerimov, a self made Billionaire has a New Worth of $5.5 Billion. Moscow, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- A wealthy Russian says he will build a $100 million school west of Moscow, near the high-tech hub of Skolkovo. Russian tycoon Suleiman Kerimov said he plans to build the school near his home in Zarechye, an exclusive residential area, Ria Novosti reported. The newspaper Vedomosti quoted a friend of Kerimov's as saying: "Suleiman li...

Moscow police arrest 500 as ethnic tensions linger
MOSCOW - Russian news agencies say Moscow police have arrested 500 people to stop them attending rival Protests over the killing of a Soccer fan and the ethnic violence that erupted after the slaying. A young Moscow man was fatally shot with rubber bullets during a fight with people from the Russia's Caucasus region at a bus stop this month. People from the Caucasus are typically darker-skinned than northern Russians and many are Muslim. They have traditionally been Victims of ethnic discr...

Belarus' strongman likely to win re-election
MINSK, Belarus - Few doubt that President Alexander Lukashenko — often called the last dictator in Europe — will be declared the winner of Sunday's election in Belarus. Still, the campaign has underlined his increasingly tenuous position. Lukashenko faces energized opponents who have campaigned with unusual freedom — by Belarus' repressive standards at least — and who are already planning mass Protests against what they are sure will be a falsified vote tally. A cra...

Moscow police arrest 500 as ethnic tensions linger
Russian news agencies say Moscow police have arrested 500 people to stop them attending rival Protests over the killing of a Soccer fan and the ethnic violence that erupted after the slaying. A young Moscow man was fatally shot with rubber bullets during a fight with people from the Russia's Caucasus region at a bus stop this month. People from the Caucasus are typically darker-skinned than northern Russians and many are Muslim. They have traditionally been Victims of ethnic Discrimination in Ru...

START clears hurdle in Senate
The Obama Administration on Saturday overcame a big hurdle toward the prospects for New START ratification — though the path to passage of the U.S.-Russia Arms Control pact is still unclear. The Senate voted 59-37 against an amendment sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) that would have struck Missile Defense language from the treaty’s preamble. Supporters of the U.S.-Russia Arms Control pact said the defeated amendment would have effectively killed ...

START clears one more hurdle
START cleared another hurdle Saturday as the Senate voted down an amendment that would have required re-negotiation of the U.S.-Russian Arms Control treaty, and Obama moved to reassure Republican Senators that the treaty does not limit U.S. Missile Defenses, I report: The Senate voted 59-37 against an amendment sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) that would have struck missile defense language from the treaty&rsq...;

Moscow police arrest 500 to prevent ethnic violence
By Jessica Bachman Moscow | Sat Dec 18, 2010 1:44pm EST Moscow (Reuters) - Russian police detained hundreds of people in Moscow on Saturday, including young nationalists who rallied in the north of the city, as part of a clampdown to prevent new outbreaks of ethnic violence. The arrests came a week after some 7,000 Soccer fans and nationalists chanting Racist slogans demonstrated near Red Square and attacked passers-by who appeared to be ethnic Minorities, injuring more than 30 people. Russia...