Word: russias
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Moscow is, however, using its own leverage to press Tehran to be more accommodating. Last Monday, its energy minister Sergei Shmatko announced that the nuclear reactor being built by Russia at Bushehr won't go online by its December 2009 deadline. (The reactor was first scheduled to begin producing electricity in the year 2000, and has been delayed five times since then.) Moscow has further annoyed Tehran by stalling on the delivery of the sophisticated S-300 air defense system ordered by Iran, whose deployment would make life difficult for any air force to attack the Islamic Republic. (See pictures...
Turning up the heat in order to force a more cooperative attitude from Iran to the Vienna proposal, could actually stiffen Iran's resistance to the idea of shipping its uranium to Russia for reprocessing. More importantly, Iran is caught in a fierce domestic power struggle that militates against a clear and coherent strategy in the nuclear talks. Still, it recognizes that the goals of the Russians and Chinese are different from those of the U.S., France and Britain, all of whom continue to insist that Iran give up all uranium enrichment. Beijing and Moscow want to defuse the crisis...
Public antipathy toward the police runs so deep in Russia that it would seem impossible for the reputation of those paid to protect and serve to get any worse. Reports of graft, assault, fraud and even murder committed by Russian police creep across the news wires almost daily, and according to a survey by the Moscow-based Levada Center polling agency in December 2008, 40% of Russians say they do not trust police, while 28% say they actually fear the cops...
...then came the sensational police whistleblower videos on YouTube. Earlier this month, Alexei Dymovsky, a drug cop in southern Russia, posted emotional video addresses to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on his personal website, accusing his superiors of severely overworking him and pressuring him to fabricate criminal cases to improve clearance rates - a practice known in Russian police jargon as "chopping sticks." Dymovsky was fired over the videos, which have amassed more than 1.2 million views since they were reposted on YouTube. (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory...
...online grievances - a rarity in a country where law enforcers typically close ranks in the face of public criticism - come at an awkward time for Russia's police. In Siberia last month, two police officers allegedly committed separate murder-suicides, leaving a total of five people dead, including themselves. A third policeman in Tuva has been charged with using excessive force after shooting a 17-year-old boy dead in what he claims was self-defense. The slayings came just months after the arrest of a Moscow police officer accused of drunkenly shooting nine people in a supermarket, killing...