May 12, 2010 By Citizen M

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – May 12, 2010

BIZ-1-syria.jpgTODAY: Fears for treatment of ill businessman in prison; Strategy 31 organizers take on City Hall;  GenPlan suspicions; Russia-Ukraine spy tie; Foreign Policy report suggests tensions with the US and Great Britain remain; Obama adviser warns against missiles for Iran; Medvedev voices concern about situation in Middle East; Russian’s belief in the independence of the President

An investigation has suggested that Euroset cell phone retailer Boris Levin, who suffers from hepatitis, has not been receiving the correct medial attention whilst held in  pre-trial detention.  The company’s former CEO, Yevgeny Chichvarkin, who lives in exile, has reportedly accused 11 senior Interior Ministry officials of harassing his company and menacing his business partners.  ‘Modernizing an economy … It implies respect for property rights. It implies greater transparency. It implies respect for the rule of law as opposed to the rule of the gun’: a problem for Russia?  The organizers of Strategy 31 have asked the Prosecutor General to investigate what they believe was a pre-meditated attempt by Moscow City Hall to provoke conflict between opposition activists and pro-Kremlin youth marchers.  The Other Russia looks at the possibility of corruption within Moscow’s extensive property development project, ‘GenPlan’.  An instructor at the School of Government at Moscow State University has been hit with a set of new fraud charges.  According to the Moscow Times, the former mayor of Vladivostok has been detained in Panama and might be extradited to Russia.