Whistleblower Tackles Russian Police Corruption
(CBS)
Tired of working amid corruption, a 32 year old Russian police officer made an unthinkable video appeal directly to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He says he now fears for his life, but thinks this whistle had to be blown.
"Vladimir Vladimirovich, I am appealing directly to you," says Major Alexei Dymovsky in his video (at left), referring to Putin's by his traditional name. "You have been talking about corruption – you have been saying that not only should corruption constitute a crime, you said it should also be unseemly to engage in corrupt practices. But this is not the case in this country."
The words were more likely to come from a human rights activist or an opposition politician. But this rare outpouring of emotion came from within the Russian power structure, from Dymovsky, a cop in the city of Novorossiysk.
"I want you to know how we live – ordinary officers, ordinary policemen – those who solve and untangle (crimes) and detain (criminals), those who do the real work," Dymovsky said in his recorded speech, during which he looked visibly nervous and stumbled at times.
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"Textbook" Terrorism Comes to Russia
This story was filed by CBS News reporter Alexsei Kuznetsov in Moscow.
At least 20 people were killed and more than a hundred were wounded when a suicide bomber drove a minibus packed with more than 400 pounds of explosives through the gates of a police station in the center of Nazran, the largest city in Ingushetia, in Russia's North Caucasus.
The police officers had just lined up for their morning check and operations briefing. Seconds before the yellow minibus rammed through the gates, the police commander instructed his officers that the vehicle had been reported stolen and was on the wanted list. "He was just reading out to us about this vehicle, when we saw it speeding into the courtyard," Vasanbek Pogorov, a wounded policeman, told Channel One television from his hospital bed.
The explosion was so powerful that nearby residential buildings had almost all their window panes smashed. The minibus driven by the terrorist was literally pulverized. The attack was one of the deadliest acts of terror in Russia in years.
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(AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)
The police officers had just lined up for their morning check and operations briefing. Seconds before the yellow minibus rammed through the gates, the police commander instructed his officers that the vehicle had been reported stolen and was on the wanted list. "He was just reading out to us about this vehicle, when we saw it speeding into the courtyard," Vasanbek Pogorov, a wounded policeman, told Channel One television from his hospital bed.
The explosion was so powerful that nearby residential buildings had almost all their window panes smashed. The minibus driven by the terrorist was literally pulverized. The attack was one of the deadliest acts of terror in Russia in years.
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Tackling the Summit in Moscow
Hoping to revive the cooperative spirit of the early 1990s, Americans are coming to Russia to end a decade of mistrust.
President Barack Obama is expected in Moscow next week to discuss a wide range of issues with his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and personally press the "reset" button on U.S.-Russia relations.
Hopes for a breakthrough are running high. Both sides have been unhappy about how low relations sank during the Putin-Bush era. Now, the two young presidents need to prove that cooperation on global issues is more than just words.
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President Barack Obama is expected in Moscow next week to discuss a wide range of issues with his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and personally press the "reset" button on U.S.-Russia relations.
Hopes for a breakthrough are running high. Both sides have been unhappy about how low relations sank during the Putin-Bush era. Now, the two young presidents need to prove that cooperation on global issues is more than just words.
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Sick Of Talk Of The Recession? Ban It
(AP Photo)
Meet Vladimir Laptev, the head of the Noginsk district in the Moscow region. This month, the Noginsk administration published Laptev's decree, banning local government officials from using the phrase "financial crisis" in their public speeches and statements. The decree also recommends that CEOs of locally-based companies – both private and government-owned – "rethink their decadent sentiments and spirits and continue working towards stimulating production."
Russia's mass media which are mostly controlled by the state did not play up Laptev's decree. But the Russian blogosphere immediately exploded with sarcastic comments. "I had thought that such astonishing idiots exist only in fairy tales," wrote one blogger. "It is the same thing as censoring a report on a tornado: "A light summer breeze devastated twenty households and smashed thirty cars," another one remarked.
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Putin Erupts In Struggling Russian Town
(NTV)
The solution was promptly offered by Russia's Prime Minister. Vladimir Putin arrived on an emergency visit in this company town and blamed the town's woes on local officials and delinquent private owners of the Pikalyovo industrial enterprises.
"Why did you start running around like cockroaches only on the eve of my arrival here? Why wasn't there anyone capable of making the right decisions well before that?" Premier Putin asked, sternly eyeing a group of businessmen and officials.
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Sorry, Kids: Russia Says "Be Home By 10"
"It's 10 pm. Are your children home?"
From now on, millions of Russian parents should keep in mind that this is more than just a public service TV ad.
The Russian government has recently made it illegal for minors under the age of 18 to leave their homes between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. without an adult.
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From now on, millions of Russian parents should keep in mind that this is more than just a public service TV ad.
The Russian government has recently made it illegal for minors under the age of 18 to leave their homes between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. without an adult.
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Russian City Strategic Choice For Summit
(CBS)
Russia hosted a summit with its E.U. partners in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, right on the border with China. And the message it had to deliver was pretty straightforward and pragmatic.
"If Europe continues to treat Russia and Russian initiatives as skeptically as it has been treating them, Russia could always turn in the other direction and diversify," Alexei Makarkin, Vice President of the Center for Political Technologies, a Moscow-based think-tank, told CBS News. "The E.U. leaders got a chance to see with their own eyes that it would not be a problem for Russia to stop giving preferential treatment to Europe and turn to its Asian clients."
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Historic Opportunity For U.S.-Russia Relations
The upcoming G20 summit in London, and the first face-to-face meeting between the U.S. and Russian presidents, will become Dmitry Medvedev's most important foreign policy event yet, reports CBS News Associate Producer Alexsei Kuznetsov.
The Russian president is full of determination to pursue a wide diplomatic agenda – from coping with the global financial crisis to mending fences with the new us administration.
Medvedev's summit with Barack Obama is expected to provide a historic opportunity for the U.S. and Russia to re-establish trust and work toward a genuine strategic partnership on thorny issues like missile defense, non-proliferation and the war in Afghanistan.
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The Russian president is full of determination to pursue a wide diplomatic agenda – from coping with the global financial crisis to mending fences with the new us administration.
(CBS)
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Russia's Burning Problem
Unable to move unaided, 23 people died in a devastating fire that completely destroyed a government nursing home in the northern Russian town of Podyelsk.
(AP Photo/KomiOnline)
The exact cause of the blaze in Podyelsk hasn't yet been announced, but it's clear already that at least some of the blame lies with the local authorities who ran the facility.
According to Russia's Emergency Situations ministry, the nursing home's manager had been fined a number of times in the past for neglecting fire safety rules, and nurses would go home for the night, leaving the elderly patients unattended.
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Russian, Cuban Presidents Meet Over A Nice Plate Of Lard
(AP PHOTO)
Castro and Medvedev have an extensive agenda on their hands – humanitarian relief supplies, a $20 million loan, and stepping up mutual cooperation in the spheres of trade, science, technology and culture.
But it seemed something else was on Castro's mind when he arrived at the Russian president's residence in Zavidovo, 75 miles northwest of Moscow – something of a gastronomic nature.
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Many Russians Believe Obama Will Warm Moscow-Washington Relations
(CBS)
Today may really be the day of the big change – with Barack Obama taking office in the White House. Many Russians believe that under President Obama, U.S.-Russia relations which have reached their post-Cold War low should pick up.
"After Barack Obama becomes president, he should establish better contacts and improve ties with Russia," says Maxim, a young boy from the Russian city of Yaroslavl, carrying a McDonald's paper bag shortly before visiting Red Square. "Maybe he should come to Russia and do some sightseeing – so that he would fall in love with my country."
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Russian Missile Test A Dud
A very important test launch of the naval-based Bulava intercontinental missile failed Monday night. The test was the final exam before the missile would have been commissioned by the Russian Navy. Regrettably for the military, the third stage of the missile misfired and the missile self-destructed. The failure calls into question the future of one of the newest and advanced Russian ICBMs – Bulava has had quite a long record of faulty launches which has made it impossible to put it into service even despite the support of such Russian political heavyweights as vice premier and former defense minister Sergei Ivanov. More tests will be held in 2009.
End Of Cheap Gas?
President Putin has pulled out his favorite bugaboo Tuesday - high energy prices. The era of cheap natural gas is over, Russian prime minister said in Moscow. As prospecting and extraction costs rise, natural gas will become more expensive to customers, he said. According to Putin, gas-extracting countries should pursue a coordinated policy in order to make the gas market more predictable. To that end, Putin proposed the creation of a permanent body – like a gas OPEC – with its headquarters in St. Petersburg. (Where else?) Russia will finance the daily operation of the headquarters and will grant it a diplomatic status, Putin said.
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End Of Cheap Gas?
President Putin has pulled out his favorite bugaboo Tuesday - high energy prices. The era of cheap natural gas is over, Russian prime minister said in Moscow. As prospecting and extraction costs rise, natural gas will become more expensive to customers, he said. According to Putin, gas-extracting countries should pursue a coordinated policy in order to make the gas market more predictable. To that end, Putin proposed the creation of a permanent body – like a gas OPEC – with its headquarters in St. Petersburg. (Where else?) Russia will finance the daily operation of the headquarters and will grant it a diplomatic status, Putin said.
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Russia Looks To Revise Missile Defense Response
(AP)
"If the Americans abandon plans to deploy the Third Positioning region and other elements of strategic missile defense, then we will undoubtedly respond appropriately," Solovtsov said, adding that in that case Russia will not need to finance a number of "highly expensive programs."
Although the message appears to be political, analysts in Russia believe that the underlying motive for the statement is largely financial. "Most likely, the commander's statement is closely linked with Russia's current financial problems, Alexander Khramchikhin, a senior analyst with the Moscow-based Institute for Political and Military Analysis told CBS News. "Russia is going through a serious financial crisis and would very much prefer to shelve quite a few military programs of its own simply because it does not have enough money to finance them."
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