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ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy
at Boston University
HEADLINES,
Monday, December 17, 2001
- Four centrist factions in the State Duma -- Unity, Fatherland - All Russia, People's Deputy and Russia's Regions -- are prepared to support the new Labor Code draft.
- All rooms in the Moscow State History Museum have been opened after the 15-year period of restoration during which many of the mistakes of the twentieth century were corrected.
- Theater director Aleksandr Volodin passed away last night. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to Volodin's friends and relatives.
- A State Council working group has prepared a Concept for government policy on small business. Representatives of the working group reported that the main goals of the Concept include protection of small businesses from racketeering and corrupted officials, and ensuring the transparency of small business structures.
- Structural changes are expected in the Strategic Missile Force units, which celebrated their 42nd anniversary today.
- President Putin met with representatives of Russia's Muslim Organizations -- Ravil Gainutdin, the chairman Council of Muftis, Talgat Tadzhuddin, the chairman of the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims, and Magomed Almogachiev the chairman of the North Caucasus Spiritual Administration of Muslims -- in honor of the holiday Uraza Bayram.
- President Putin has awarded the Tashukhajiev family for heroism. On 22 July, two armed men broke into the home of Saidi Tashukhajiev, a Grozny police officer, killing him and Raul Khabuseev, the head of the criminal department of the local police station. Tashukhajiev's older son, Magomed, took his father's gun and opened fire on the thugs -- killing one and wounding the other. Magomed was also wounded -- and died at the hospital three days later.
- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov declared that the decision of the US administration to leave the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is mistaken. At the same time, he said that the decision does not affect Russia's military security.
- President Putin chaired a cabinet meeting today. He discussed judicial and pension reform, noting that both were vital to the modernization of the Russian Federation as a state.
- The Vladivostok trial of military journalist Grigory Pasko is over. A decision will be made in the next few days. As per the stipulation of the Pacific Fleet Procurator's office, the trial is still a closed one. Pasko himself is studying law and writing the text of his final statement.
- A new agreement has been signed between Yakutia's ALROSA diamond company and the international corporation DeBeers.
- Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin is in a special cardiology unit at a hospital in Berlin. While on a personal visit in Germany, Yeltsin had to undergo a check-up for the operation he had five years ago. German cardiologists affirmed that the operation was of the highest quality, and that Boris Yelrsin is in good condition.
- A trial of two illegal armed groups from the command of Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev has began in the Stavropol krai. The groups participated in the 1995 attack on Budennovsk.
- Armenian President Robert Kocharian will visit Moscow on President Putin's invitation. Electricity deliveries and bilateral cooperation will be on the agenda.
- An interview with President Putin has been published in The Financial Times in anticipation of his visit to Great Britain.
- Elections have been held in a number of Russia's regions. Republic presidents were selected in Chuvashia, Komi and Altai; city oblast deputies were chosen in the Moscow, Leningrad, Tver, Tyumen, Tomsk, and Tambov oblasts and in the Stavropol Krai.
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