Will Putin run for a third term?
No he just gave himself a new title and still controls Russia. He is a modern day czar.
President Vladimir Putin, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term next year, left the door open for a return to the Kremlin in 2012, a Russian daily Kommersant reported Saturday.
Popularity: 17% [?]
June 11, 2007A Moscow court ruled on Wednesday that Forbes magazine had defamed Russia’s richest woman and ordered it to pay her about 110,000 rubles ($4,224) in compensation, the Interfax news agency reports.
Popularity: 10% [?]
March 21, 2007Russian authorities have detained Ivan Mironov, the 25-year-old history student, who had been wanted over an assassination attempt on the head of the Unified Energy Systems of Russia joint-stock company, Anatoly Chubais, RIA Novosti news agency reported December 12. Boris Mironov, father of the detainee and former Russian Federation Press Minister has also been detained in Moscow recently.
Popularity: 6% [?]
December 12, 2006Forbes Russia editor-in-chief said Monday he had withdrawn his resignation after the parties to the last week’s conflict came to term over the December issue. The issue will be printed ’in its original form,’ the magazine’s publisher said Friday, a day after lawsuit threats prompted the destruction of thousands of copies of the magazine and its editor’s resignation.
Popularity: 8% [?]
December 4, 2006A Russian lawmaker and billionaire industrialist was being treated in a hospital Monday for severe burns suffered when a sports car he was driving slammed into a tree and caught fire in southeastern France over the weekend, police said.
Popularity: 13% [?]
November 28, 2006Russian TV star Tina Kandelaki denies she was in the car with Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov when he crashed his Ferrari on the Riviera Saturday, Reuters news agency reported Tuesday.
Popularity: 27% [?]
The media holding of Russia’s state-controlled gas monopoly, Gazprom, plans to buy the country’s most widely read newspaper, “Komsomolskaya Pravda.”
Popularity: 6% [?]
November 22, 2006The Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the acquittal of three suspects in the killing of U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov, a court spokesman is quoted by the Associated Press news agency.
Popularity: 4% [?]
November 9, 2006Government authorities will ban Azerbaijan broadcasters from airing programs of the Voice of America, the BBC and Radio Liberty starting next year, the Associated Press news agency reported quoting a statement by Aziri broadcasting chief Nushirrin Maharramov.
The local broadcasters lack licenses allowing them to air programs of the foreign radio stations, said Nushirrin Maharramov, the head of National Broadcasting Council.
But opposition media denounced the move as part of a government campaign against the freedom of speech.
Pressure on independent media and attacks on opposition journalists are frequent in this oil-rich Caspian Sea state, which has been ruled with a tight grip by President Ilham Aliev since 2003, when he succeeded his long-ruling father in flawed elections.
Maharramov said that the ban would take effect Jan. 1. However, he said the British Broadcasting Corp. and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, based in Prague, Czech Republic, would be able to continue using frequencies allotted to them by Azerbaijani authorities. He said officials are willing to discuss providing a frequency to Washington-based Voice of America.
“We are ready to provide additional frequencies to foreign radio stations if necessary,†he said.
Editors of leading opposition newspapers and media freedom advocates issued a statement voicing concern, and promised to launch a campaign against what they said was increasing official pressure on freedom of speech.
Ali Kerimli, head of a leading opposition movement, said the decision reflected government attempts to “restore the Soviet-style authoritarianism.â€
Kerimli, who accused the government of trying to weaken the opposition and independent media ahead of the 2008 presidential election, said opponents were planning hunger strikes and pickets to protest the move in the oil-rich former Soviet republic.
BBC World Service said in a statement it was “watching the situation carefully†and wanted “to continue to offer our listeners in Azerbaijan independent and impartial news and information.â€
The move comes months after the Russian government curtailed the number of stations broadcasting Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America news programs, a move that drew criticism about the state of democracy under President Vladimir Putin. But Russian officials said the matter is simply one of stations’ conforming with their broadcast licenses.
Both Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are funded by the U.S. government, but with an independent editorial board.
During the Soviet era, Radio Liberty was one of the few sources of uncensored information in the region.
Popularity: 4% [?]
October 27, 2006
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