RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – July 13, 2009
TODAY: Medvedev suggests another turnaround on WTO?; reserve currency symbolically showcased. FBI to be in on Klebnikov investigation; knock-on effects of Cherkizovsky market closure
President Medvedev has announced at a post-G8 press conference his belief that it would be ‘simpler and more realistic’ for Russia to join the WTO unilaterally. The President also defended the utility of international bodies such as the G8, with aide Sergei Prikhodko saying, ‘it’s too early to bury the G8. We need to continue the collective analysis’. On the issue of a reserve currency, Medvedev put his money where his mouth is, and produced a coin of the ‘United Future World Currency’, also known as ‘eurodollars‘ in an attempt to demonstrate the potential benefits of a new reserve currency. He also returned to a tough stance on US missile defense, calling it ‘harmful’ and ‘threatening’ and maintaining that should a missile shield be used, Russia would deploy rockets in the Kaliningrad exclave near Poland. He also acknowledged that he shares more common points and views with Barack Obama than with his predecessor, George Bush.
Following the closure of the Cherkizovsky Market, not only is joblessness an issue, with 100,000 people reportedly unemployed, but fears are mounting that a crime wave may ensue as a result of redundancies among migrants who now see desperate times ahead. The BBC reports on whether dissimulation regarding their background is necessary for Roma people to achieve assimilation into Russian society. St. Petersburg’s Civil Commission for Human Rights has said that last month over 20 patients in a psychiatric asylum died due to negligence and human rights abuses.
One of the most popular historical websites in Russia has been shut down for publishing Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’. To read about the mentalities behind Nashi activism, look here. The European Court of Human Rights has accepted a lawsuit filed by the family of Magomed Yevloyev, owner of the opposition web site Ingushetiya.ru, who was killed in police custody in 2008. The FBI looks set to have access to the investigation of the murder of Paul Klebnikov. The New York Times reports on the case through the eyes of one of the case’s jurors, who remains deeply troubled by its outcome.
PHOTO: President Dmitry Medvedev showing reporters a sample gold coin of a possible global currency at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, on July 10, 2009. (Mikhail Klimentyev / RIA-Novosti / AP)
