President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Justice Ministry to investigate the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, a day after he was pressed by his human rights council on the matter.  He also ordered an investigation into the general treatment of people detained for economic crimes, and an analysis of the practice of detaining suspects after a first charge of such crimes.  ‘It would be absolutely pointless to discuss any other aspect of modernization without first addressing Magnitsky’s death,‘ writes one Russian banker, and Yulia Latynina says Magnitsky’s death proves that Russia is a ‘Third World country‘ in an article that examines some of the finer points of the Hermitage case. Medvedev has fired four top military officers for ‘criminal negligence‘ in connection with two explosions – the second occurring on the eve of a planned presidential visit – at a Ulyanovsk military depot earlier this month that left 10 people dead.  Three policemen are being held on suspicion of murder, accused of having drunkenly beaten an Abkhaz man to death in Moscow.  

Iran says it could take legal action against against Russia if it refuses to fulfill its commitment to deliver the S-300 advanced missile system which is opposed by the US and Israel.  Two of the drivers involved in this week’s ‘luxury-car race‘ and subsequent crash in Geneva were sons of ‘flamboyant‘ multimillionaire Telman Ismailov.  A third driver has not been named ‘because he is the son of a high-ranking Russian government official‘.  

What Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi apparently gets up to in his ‘Putin bed‘.  

PHOTO: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, centre right, points aside during a visit to a state-owned airplane factory in Ulyanovsk, 720 kilometers east of Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service)