RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – March 20, 2008
TODAY: EU makes provisions for Russia talks; US agrees to let Russia monitor its missile defense system. Other Russia calls for anti-Kremlin coalition; Medvedev talks about holding the government to account; priests advised to carry firearms to deter looters. The Other Russia movement has called on Russian opposition forces this week to form a coalition, but opposition parties expressed doubts such a grouping would be viable. Dmitry Medvedev says that Russian civil society groups should have a bigger role in forming policy and holding the government to account. “At 77, Gorbachev is the most senior ex-communist leader to show an interest in God.” Police in towns on the outskirts of Moscow have advised priests to apply for firearms licences and carry guns. Prosecutors have refused to meet a request for international legal assistance in the Mikhail Khodorkovsky-Platon Lebedev case that was submitted more than three years ago by then Russia’s Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov.