RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – April 30, 2010
TODAY: Stalin posters still a bone of contention; Russia to demand greater powers over adoptees in the U.S.; mayor taken hostage; smiles found lacking; Freedom House; metro militant killed?; Lavrov sounds threatening over Iran; Ukraine partnering up with Russia?; suspect joggers.
Initial talks over Russia-U.S. adoptions indicate that Russia wants greater powers to protect the rights of its overseas adoptees, including the right to file charges against adoptive parents for neglect. The two sides have scheduled further discussions for May 12, and adoption agreements with Europe are being drawn up in the mean time. This case of dropped bribery charges looks like foul play to the Communist Party. A ‘drunken Siberian‘ briefly took a local mayor hostage yesterday, apparently for ‘not reacting to complaints‘. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov may not have been given official approval for his V-Day Stalin posters, but plenty of veterans are planning to make their own, reports RFE/RL. ‘The controversy over the posters, like all discussion of Stalin’s role in history, exposes a deep rift in Russian society.‘