November 2012

Use of Force by US Cannot Solve Problems - Russia

2012/11/30

MOSCOW, December 1 (RIA Novosti) - Resolving world problems by force as the US is trying to do does not work, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday in an opening speech to the 20th session of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council.

"The line of conducting democracy by iron and blood does not work," Lavrov said. This is clear in the case of Iraq and other states, he added.

"No-one knows in the end what will happen in the Middle East," including Syria, he said.

Lavrov recalled the fate of previous attempts to use force by circumventing the UN Security Council, and expressed anxiety that some states were trying to make the "Libyan model a precedent."

Speaking about the future world order, Lavrov said "in future, not all rules which are used in world politics now, will exist in future."

"We can expect that in the next 20 years, the world order will be more complex," he added.

Migrant Workers Start Russian Language Tests

2012/11/30

MOSCOW, December 1 (RIA Novosti) - Migrant workers arriving in Russia to find employment face tests of their knowledge of the local language from today, as a new law comes into force.

All foreigners working in housing maintenance services, retail stores or public services are required to demonstrate a basic knowledge of Russian, and will be tested on it when getting work permits.

Most of the workers arriving in Russia to work in such trades are from the former Soviet Republics, particularly Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Similar practices exist in many other countries, said Federal Migration Service (FMS) head Konstantin Romanovsky.

"Knowledge of Russian will give labor migrants more security and comfort," he said. "Without knowledge of Russian, its impossible for foreign citizens to integrate properly in our society."

Foreign citizens from states where Russian is the official state language - currently only Belarus and the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, recognized as independent by Russia - will not be required to take the language test.

The Migration Service expects 140,000 workers to take the test in 2012-13. Taking the test will cost 5,000 rubles (around $160), but may be cheaper in future, the FMS says.

Migration is a contentious issue for Russia, with widespread disquiet in some sectors of society about the increasing numbers of foreign workers coming to Russia to live. The government is aware, however, of the need for cheap labor in many sectors, as the economy is dogged by low productivity and many sectors such as construction are heavily reliant on guest workers.

Russia Assumes G20 Presidency

2012/11/30

MOSCOW, December 1 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Federation on Saturday takes over the presidency of the Group of Twenty major economies from Mexico.

The Group of Twenty (G20) is a forum of the world’s largest economies consisting of 19 countries and the European Union. It was established as an instrument of global crisis management following the 2008 economic crisis.

G20 members, namely Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Canada, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Turkey, France, South Africa, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the EU, account for 90 percent of the global GDP and 80 percent of world trade.

The northwestern Russian city of St. Petersburg will host a G20 summit in September 2013.

Old Moscow Photo Collection

2012/11/30

Last week we showed you a nice set of pictures of the Russian capital before the revolution. Today it is turn of color photographs of old capital. The previous photo collection can be found here.

This is traffic police.

It reads “the four millionth car”.

It reads “the three millionth car”.

People are at the market.

It’s the young hipster of those years.

This is the view of Moscow from the plane.

“Forgive us, Crucified Russia!”

It used to be the golden time!

via zyalt

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Russian Opposition Activists ‘Trained’ Abroad, Investigators Say

2012/11/30

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian opposition activists who allegedly orchestrated Russian anti-Kremlin riots were "trained"’ abroad, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.

Markin said the opposition activists were “specially trained outside Russia to organize and carry out mass riots aimed at overthrowing the regime as happened with 'color revolutions' in other countries.”

In October, Leonid Razvozzhayev, an ally of Russian Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, confessed to organizing mass disorder together with other opposition members, and said the effort was bankrolled by Georgian politician Givi Targamadze.

The charges against Razvozzhayev, an aide to opposition lawmaker Ilya Ponomaryov, stem from grainy footage aired by the pro-Kremlin television channel NTV in early October.

The channel said the footage also showed Udaltsov, one of the leaders of the anti-Putin protest movement, Razvozzhayev, and another activist from the socialist group, Konstantin Lebedev, discussing the plot with an influential Georgian politician.

All three men have been charged and deny the accusations. Lebedev has been in custody since early last month, while Udaltsov has been ordered not to leave Moscow

Markin said investigators have other evidence, besides the video, proving that the suspects had repeatedly turned to foreign nationals, including Targamadze, to organize the riots.

The materials will be unveiled after more checks are carried out, he said.

Pussy Riot Member Appeals ‘Extremist’ Video Ban

2012/11/30

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - Yekaterina Samutsevich, a member of the female punk group Pussy Riot, has appealed a court ruling that the group’s videos are extremist and the decision to ban access to them, the RAPSI news service reported Friday.

“Though Samutsevich is not involved in the litigation, she submitted a cassation appeal against the November 29 court ruling,” said Yevgenia Pazukhina, a spokeswoman for Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky Court.

The judge earlier refused to grant Samutsevich’s request to consider her an interested party in the extremism case.

The court ruled on Thursday that four Pussy Riot videos, including the “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, were extremist on Thursday.

Three Pussy Riot members were jailed shortly after the incident in February 2012 and sentenced last August to two years in prison for hooliganism for their performance in Moscow's main cathedral. Their trial made international headlines and sparked criticism of the Putin administration from civil rights activists and support from outraged social conservatives.

Samutsevich was released in October with a suspended sentence after a court ruled that she had not technically participated in the action.

Russian ‘Pensioner Killer’ Gets Life Sentence

2012/11/30

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian man who murdered and robbed five pensioners near Saratov has been sentenced to life in prison, the Investigative Committee said on Friday.

A Volga Federal District court found Nikolai Zorin, 40, guilty of killing two elderly couples and a 76-year-old woman in the remote village of Rovnoye in Saratov region, between January and October 2011.

The elderly villagers were stabbed to death in their homes. After killing them, Zorin took what money they had and other property, including irons and blood pressure monitors.

“Senior citizens are ideal victims. They are not strong enough to struggle and they all have some money saved up to cover the cost of their funerals,” Komsomolskaya Pravda daily quoted Zorin as saying.

Meanwhile, a 40-year-old man in Bashkortostan, also part of Volga Federal District, was sentenced on Friday to 19 years in jail for killing two prostitutes, the local Investigative Committee said.

Ivan Kotkov killed the women, a 34-year-old and a 45-year-old, in two separate incidents in 2010 and 2011. Kotkov lured his victims to a deserted spot before killing them and taking their money.

Khimki highway debate

2012/11/30

The construction of the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway through the Khimki forest, part of Moscow's so-called greenbelt, began in 2006, sparking public protests against the destruction of a section of the centuries-old forest.

Man Jailed Over Russia Eco-Activist Attack

2012/11/30

KRASNOGORSK, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - A Moscow Region court sentenced a man on Friday to four years in prison after finding him guilty of organizing the savage beating of an environmental protester, allegedly on the orders of a local administration official.

Andrei Kashirin was found guilty of arranging the November 4, 2010 attack on Konstantin Fetisov, an activist protesting government plans to chop down woodland in the Moscow Region town of Khimki to make way for a multi-lane motorway linking Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Fetisov's attacker was armed with a wooden baseball bat, which mercifully shattered the second time Fetisov was hit in the head with it, according to news reports.

Announcing the verdict, the judge said Kashirin was the go-between who organized the attack.

An ex-official with Khimki's municipal administration, Andrei Chernyshov, faces charges on suspicions he ordered Kashirin to organize the attack, according to prosecutors.

Fetisov had organized protests and written articles critical of the highway construction project that embarrassed local officials.

The attack on Fetisov came two days before Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin, who also criticized the Moscow-St.Petersburg highway project, was severely beaten by two men outside his home in Moscow.

Tensions over the controversial Moscow-St. Petersburg road have turned violent in recent years, with a number of brutal assaults on opposition journalists and eco-activists in Khimki. Opponents of the highway also resorted to force when dozens of masked people attacked the city’s main administration building in July 2010.

The construction of the billion-dollar highway was suspended by order of then President Dmitry Medvedev in August 2010, but has since resumed.

Ten Hurt in Siberia Blast

2012/11/30

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - At least 10 people, including two children, were injured by a blast and fire in an apartment building in Russia’s West Siberian city of Tomsk on Friday.

The blast on the eighth floor of a high-rise destroyed a wall and caused a fire in two apartments on the upper floors.

The Emergencies and Civil Defense Ministry’s local administration said the blast was caused by a faulty gas canister used during apartment renovation.

However, the Investigative Committee Tomsk Region Directorate said only one person was injured when a gas supply system malfunctioned.

Every Parcel Brings Some Happiness!

2012/11/29

“Russian Post” is the main postage service company. It often happens that many clients of the “Russian Post” are not satisfied with how they work.

This time some worker of the company has downloaded these two photos in the Internet. The video was added by someone else a bit later.

The company refuted and tried to explain the situation but many people refused to believe.

“Russian Post” – each letter brings happiness!

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Russia's Envoy Warns Against NATO Missiles in Turkey

2012/11/29

BRUSSELS, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - Planned deployment of Patriot air defense systems at the Turkish-Syrian border will mean NATO’s involvement in the Syrian conflict, Russia’s envoy said on Friday.

Alexander Grushko, newly-appointed envoy to NATO, said he reiterated Russia’s concerns over the deployment plan at a meeting with the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels.

“This involvement can become might accelerate and irrevocable in case of an incident or provocation,” Grushko told reporters on Friday. “Previously, the alliance officials have repeatedly said that Syria is not Libya, and NATO doesn’t have a role in the Syrian conflict,” he said, referring to last year’s multi-state military intervention in Libya.

Russia insists that the Syrian conflict can’t be resolved with the use of military force, Grushko said.

Turkey, a NATO member, has requested the deployment of Patriot missiles on its territory, saying the anti-missile system is necessary to protect its 900-km border with conflict-torn Syria.

NATO officials have maintained that the missiles systems won’t not be used to establish a no-fly zone or to conduct offensive operations. But Russia criticized the intention saying that it may lead to further escalation of the conflict. This week NATO officials have started surveying sites along the Turkey-Syria border.

The ongoing civil war in Syria is expected to be discussed during the NATO-Russia Council meeting of foreign ministers scheduled for Tuesday, December 4.

The UN has estimated that nearly 40,000 have died since the fighting began in March 2011.

Sarcophagus For the Exclusion Zone

2012/11/29

A huge sarcophagus is being built at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. When the work is finished in 2015, the great arch structure will be taken to the existing “Shelter” on rails and fixed over it. During the first stage of assembly works about 5000 tons of steel was lifted at the height of twenty two meters (72 ft).

When fully assembled the sarcophagus dimensions are 257 x 164 x 110 meters (843 x 538 x 361 ft). Its total weigh is going to be about 20 000 tons.