June 24, 2008 By Citizen M

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – June 24, 2008

240608.jpgTODAY: Amendments to pretrial detention could see prisoners released; “financial attacks” on successful companies; pastor’s sentence suspended; EU summit this week to focus on Georgia; Russian army to be cut to 1 million by 2013. Vedomosti has reported on new amendments to pretrial detention put forward by the chairman of the legislative committee that, if approved, could see Mikhail Khodorkovsky freed within a year. The amendments would count pretrial detention as part of a prisoner’s sentence, and could see the release of 50,000 prisoners. An article from the UK’s Guardian newspaper looks at the “financial attacks” made on successful companies in Russia. Yabloko’s new leadership could make it “more open to the idea of uniting all the liberal democratic forces into one potent force capable of capturing the 10% to 15% of voters who share their values.” The Moscow City Court has suspended the sentence of Phillip Miles, the US pastor convicted of smuggling rifle ammunition into the country.