Word: kremlins
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Russia has made an unofficial New Year's resolution: this year, it's time to cut down on the booze. On Jan. 1, the Kremlin adopted new minimum-price standards for vodka that will nearly double the cost of a half-liter bottle of the national spirit, from $1.69 to $3. The move, part of President Dmitri Medvedev's anti-alcoholism campaign, is designed to curb Russians' excessive drinking. With a per capita alcohol consumption twice as high as that of the U.S. and an active underground market for homemade alcohol (known as samogon), Russians aren't about to give...
...victims of Stalin's regime, President Dmitry Mevdedev said that Russia "must not allow those who destroyed their own people to be defended under the banner of restoring historical justice. ... There can be no justification for repressions." But his plea, issued in a video blog on the Kremlin website, largely fell on deaf ears. The blog posting reached nowhere near as many people as the Putin call-in show, which was broadcast on state-run TV channels across the country. Medvedev's video also got scant attention in the Russian media. (Read: "Death In The Kremlin: The Heart Stops Beating...
...going to tell his countrymen," says Alexander Brechalov, vice president of Opora, a Russian lobbying group for small businesses. "Who is going to want to come to Russia after hearing that? It's an epidemic that needs to be contained." (See pictures of Russian police breaking up an anti-Kremlin rally...
...Magnitsky's death has triggered a wave of public discussion in Russia - reaching as high as the Kremlin - about the squalid conditions in the country's jails and bureaucratic incompetence. But it has also renewed focus on an odious criminal practice that embodies what President Dmitry Medvedev describes as the "legal nihilism" pervading the country. It's known as reiderstvo, or "raiding," a term that describes an array of illegal tactics - including identity theft, forgery, bribery and physical intimidation - used by corrupt policemen, tax officials, lawyers and financiers to seize a person's business or property. (See pictures of Hillary...
...Then, on Dec. 15, came a sign that authorities may be cracking down on individuals suspected to be involved in the raid on Hermitage's assets. The Kremlin said that Medvedev had dismissed Anatoly Mikhalkin, the head of the tax crimes department of the Moscow police. Police spokeswoman Zhanna Ozhimina denied the move was linked to the Magnitsky case, saying that Mikhalkin had stepped down because of his age. But Hermitage says Mikhalkin may have been fired because he had signed off on documents used in the seizure of its subsidiaries. (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory...