RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Sept 4, 2008
TODAY: Second journalist killed, another beaten up as police curb protests. Ukrainian government in turmoil over Russia. Georgia to receive almost $2 billion in US and IMF aid. Germany fears Russian influence; Lavrov in Poland. Putin says US agents provoked Georgia conflict. Gunmen in the Russian republic of Dagestan have shot and killed pro-Islam television journalist Abulla Alishayev, and in another Russian region, a newspaper editor was severely beaten. Police have been blocking the streets in Ingushetia to try and curb protests over the shooting of opposition leader Magomed Yevloyev. President Viktor Yushchenko has threatened to dissolve his Ukrainian government over a row with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko regarding Russia’s invasion of Georgia. The latter has refrained from criticizing Russia directly. A new poll shows that the majority of Germans fear Russia’s influence over former Soviet states. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will travel to Poland next week for talks on the plan to station parts of a US missile shield on Polish soil.
Scant progress from the EU emergency summit is still being overshadowed by ongoing violence in the Caucasus. Meanwhile the European Parliament has adopted a fresh resolution urging Russia to withdraw its troops from Georgia.In addition to a $750m loan from the International Monetary Fund to help rebuild its economy, Georgia will also receive $1 billion of (non-military) aid from the US government. Hundreds of Russian builders have been sent to South Ossetia. Russia is pushing for a peace deal with Moldova and its breakaway region of Transdniester.To back up Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s claims that US agents provoked the Georgian conflict, Moscow is claiming that Michael Lee White, an American english teacher, stirred tensions in Georgia ahead of the war. This Washington Post columnist weighs the responses of US presidential candidates to the conflict.“Medvedev” – the book. http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1009/42/370657.htmPHOTO: A Georgian refugee hangs out clothes to dry, in a refugee camp in Gori, Georgia, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008. The United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday that 4,200 people had fled their villages near South Ossetia to the nearby city of Gori because of harassment by marauding militias. (AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)
