October 28, 2009 By Citizen M

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Oct 28, 2009

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TODAY: Putin protest achieves results; Medvedev on election fraud; academic publishing rules to come into force; CIS in a mess; court case brought against human rights activist Orlov; AIDS epidemic, Stalin PR, and a bizarre gift for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Unpaid Russian workers from bankrupt KD Avia staged a protest in Kaliningrad to coincide with a visit by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday, which supposedly stirred Putin to order the region’s governor to pay compensation.  President Dmitry Medvedev has more clearly acknowledged ‘irregularities‘ and ‘problems‘ with this month’s election results, and instructed Central Elections Commission chief Vladimir Churov to review the issues and make sure that any complaints were heard in court, although reports suggest that these apparent concessions will affect only future elections, and not the recent election results.  Click here for the Kremlin-approved meeting notes.  St. Petersburg professors are worried that a new rule about academic publishing ‘could be applied selectively to penalize faculty members […] whose work was critical of the Russian government.‘  RFE/RL writes on the possible motives behind the conflicting agendas of Vladislav Surkov.