Word: duma
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...power are dismantled. Regional governors and members of the upper house of parliament are no longer elected but appointed; no new political parties can exist or be started, unless endorsed by the Kremlin; it is no longer possible for independent candidates to stand in constituencies for election to the Duma. The continuing conflict in Chechnya has given rise to a slew of allegations about human-rights abuses. And there's a strong impression - real or not - that free speech is potentially dangerous once again, especially if it is used to openly criticize the President or highlight alleged abuses taking place...
...Russia's democratic institutions. The ranks of the new dissidents are swelled by unlikely recruits - men such as Alexei Kondaurov, who, as a major-general of the kgb's Fifth Main Directorate, was responsible for crushing ideological subversion in Soviet days. Kondaurov is now a member of the Duma's Communist Party faction, and campaigns tirelessly on behalf of his friend and former employer, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who once headed Yukos, Russia's biggest private oil company. Khodorkovsky is currently in jail after having been convicted on tax evasion and fraud charges that he says are bogus. "I'm amazed...
...knows his attempt to unite fractious democrats in a new liberal opposition party has failed, admits the politician, 40. Also, new rules "make it impossible to have a new political party registered, unless it is endorsed by the Kremlin," he says. He will probably lose his seat in the Duma in the next election because legislation has been introduced banning independent candidates. Still, he is proud of what he's accomplished. "Today, I'm a responsible statesman, and I do all I can to serve my constituency and my country. Tomorrow, I'll have to become a dissident...
...that way." She may be right. Last summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed restoring the state monopoly on production and distribution of ethyl alcohol. And proposals for a State Shareholding Committee ( ssc) to take over the legal alcohol market, worth some $20 billion a year, are still before the Duma. Meanwhile, the new laws have not worked as planned. To get their stocks relabeled, retailers returned their bottles to suppliers. But just a fraction of the needed new labels had been made on time. Imports, too, have been affected. During the first week of new regulations, just 1.8 million newly...
...China, even though it could sell the same oil to Europe without the subsidies, which are needed to bring down the high transportation costs. In that case, the desire to improve political ties with China outweighs commercial considerations. Yet by contrast, Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent member of the Duma, reckons that the key driver of the Ukraine conflict earlier this year was Gazprom wanting better prices - "not some willingness to revive the [Russian] empire or punish [Ukrainian President Viktor] Yushchenko." A former Russian Deputy Energy Minister, Vladimir Milov, reports that top officials from Putin down spend a lot of their...