Air crash families lose appeals
A Swiss court rejected on 25 February most of the appeals to increase compensation
payments for relatives of Russian victims of a 2002 airline crash. The Federal
Administrative Court dismissed appeals by 121 Russians who lost family members when a
Bashkirian Airlines plane collided with a DHL cargo jet over southern Germany, killing 71
people. Four appeals for higher compensation were granted.
The tragedy occurred when the only air traffic controller on duty at the time was
distracted in the absence of colleagues. Four employees of Swiss air traffic control
company Skyguide, which was responsible for air traffic in the area of the crash, were
eventually found guilty in 2007 of negligent homicide.
Two years after the crash the only air traffic controller on duty was stabbed to death in
2004 by a Russian who had lost his wife and children.MPs upset
by dismal Olympic performance
On 18 February, five days into the Winter Olympics, MPs were calling for top sports
officials to be sanctioned for the national team's dismal showing so far.
The nationalist Liberal Democratic Party called on Russian Olympic Committee chief Leonid
Tyagachyov to resign immediately. In its statement the party said Vitaly Mutko, the
sports, tourism and youth politics minister, should also step down if the Russian team
"does not start winning".
at the end of the fifth day Russia was in 11th place in the medals table, with 3 medals,
one of each gold, silver and bronze. At the time the United States had a total of 13 and
Germany 10.
"The current state of Russian sports elicits bitterness and offence among all Russian
citizens," said the statement, signed by Igor Lebedev, head of the party's faction in
the State Duma (parliament). Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, of the ruling United Russia
party, said the Vancouver Olympics would be considered a failure if Russia placed anywhere
below fourth in the medals table.
Before the Games opened the newspaper Izvestia had reported that top Russian
sports officials were counting on a total of 30 medals, including seven to 11 golds.
But a deputy speaker in the Duma with United Russia, Svetlana Zhurova, previously an
Olympic speed skating champion, said nothing would change if top officials Tyagachyov and
Mutko were forced to step down. It was, she said, the sports federations who were
responsible for success and failure at the highest levels and they were independent of the
Olympic management team. "We can't separate sports federations and break them off
from other social organizations. But they're totally on their own now, and no one can tell
them what to do — the sports ministry has no way of exerting its influence,"
Zhurova said.
Russian migrant wins gold and silver medals for
Slovakia
Human rights abuse report termed "confrontational"
The government has urged the United Nations’ top human rights body to suppress a report
on secret detention centres that includes allegations about Russian prisons in the
Caucasus. Vladimir Zheglov, a Russian official, said the 226-page study by a group of
independent UN-appointed human rights experts should not be published by the UN as an
official document. He said the report was “confrontational” and should be removed from
a UN web site, where it had been available since January.
European and United States delegates said on 18 February that they wanted the report
discussed in the Geneva-based council next month. The United States and Britain were also
among the countries criticised in the study.
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Federal investigators accused of taking
$15 million bribe
Late on 17 February Andrei Grivtsov, a senior federal investigator who had been indicted
for allegedly extorting $15 million from a local businessman, was released from detention
and allowed to return to work. Grivtsov, in charge of high-priority cases with the
Investigative Committee, was detained a mont h earlier accused of soliciting an enormous
bribe from Vladimir Palikhata, head of Rosenergomash, a leading electrical engineering
manufacturer.
A suspected accomplice, Sergei Karimov, was detained on 14 January while collecting at
Interkommertsbank $8 million – said to be a first instalment of the bribe.
Investigators have accused Grivtsov of demanding the bribe in exchange for not opening a
criminal case against Palikhata. It was suggested that Grivtsov had conspired with several
former and current law enforcement officials, but these had not yet been arrested.
The Basmanny District Court in Moscow had issued the warrant for the arrest of the two
men, but the Moscow City Court ruled on 17 February that investigators had insufficient
evidence to hold the two men in custody. The Basmanny court must now make a new
determination on whether to place the two suspects under arrest. Arms
sales a major contribution to Russian economy
The volume of Russian arms exports has doubled during the last ten years. In 2000, Russia’s
exported arms in the amount of $3.7 billion, whereas the nation’s arms shipments abroad
in 2009 had reached $8.6 billion. Russia is involved in military and technical
co-operation with 85 countries of the world.
The statistics came up on 15 February during the meeting between Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin, Minister for Trade Viktor Khristenko and the head of the Federal Service for
Military and Technical Co-operation Mikhail Dmitriyev.
Vladimir Putin’s comment was that “it means that we maintain a considerable number of
jobs with the help of foreign economic activity. It also provides very good opportunities
for modernisation and development.”
The products of the Russian defence industry suffer from a number of problems in the world
market for arms. Putin said “There are a lot of questions in this field, with a struggle
against counterfeit products – we have to defend our interests on the world market. It
involves the organisation of technical servicing, supply of spare parts, and so on. All
these problems are connected with the organisation of the work of the national defence
network in general. I hope that we will be working on these questions not only in the home
market, but in the international arena too.”
Russia has entered a number of new arms markets during the last 10 years. The commitment
goes beyond shipments of military hardware. A contract to sell a batch of Russian fighter
jets to a foreign country, for example, stipulates a number of additional contracts to
service the planes, conduct scheduled repairs, organise pilot training programmes, etc. An
example came in Venezuela, when reatiions with the United States deteriorated and its US
F-16 fighter jets had to be replaced with Russian MiG-29s.
Deepest winter in Red Square
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