TODAY: Youtube policeman faces slander investigation; Omsk students threatened with expulsion; Committee to Protect Journalists urge global attention to threats against media in Russia. Merkel thanks Gorbachev; Medvedev approves new military bill; advocates abolition of death penalty. Delay for Gazprom eyesore?; Nobel Prize winning physicist dies; Kalashnikov goes on; gangsters' idea of cemetery chic. Corruption-highlighting policeman Alexei Dymovsky is now facing three investigations after posting a video address to Putin lamenting the state of the police, including an Investigative Committee examination of whether the policeman's accusations hold any truth; another investigation is against Dymovsky himself, for slander.  Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev has already ordered an investigation into the Novorossiisk police force and suspended Dymovsky ...

Outcry over the election results continues.  Sergei Mitrokhin, chairman of the Yabloko party, has an impassioned piece in the Moscow Times regarding the alleged vote-rigging in the October 11 election.  Numerous practices to impede opposition candidates were highlighted both in the run up to and following the elections, and Mitrokhin gives a full overview of these hurdles.  He refers to a number of techniques: the 'carousel system',  the 'dead souls' who boost the number of United Russia supporters, the 'house calls' made by social workers to 'help' the elderly to vote, votes which then may be 'corrected'.  It seems as if an entire vocabulary of pseudos and 'so-calleds' has developed to describe this ersatz polling procedure.  None of which are doing much to promote the notion of Russian 'democracy'.  From the Moscow Times:One exception to the falsification was the polling station where ...

Recently at the House of Journalists in Moscow a book launch event was held by Igor Sutyagin - who is well known not only as a fellow of the USA and Canada Institute, but also as one of Russia's most famous political prisoners, after getting a 15-year jail sentence on a fabricated case by the FSB.  There were a lot of people there, with majority of them being human rights advocates. There were practically no journalists, which isn't really surprising: once a person is sitting in jail in the name of the FSB, then in a state that is all FSB through and through, and to whom practically all the mass information media belong, there is

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TODAY: Russia keeps its voting rights in Council of Europe; Lavrov says Russia wants unbiased discussions about human rights; French Foreign Minister argues Russia flouting ceasefire; Israeli diplomat makes swift exit; UK Foreign Secretary visit to ease tensions?; Scientology 1- Russia nil.At a meeting with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Sergei Lavrov has asserted that the Kremlin has not avoided discussing human rights issues with other European states, 'but that dialogue should not be politicized, it should be concrete'.  According to Bloomberg, Kouchner has said that Russia is not honoring the terms of the 'Sarkozy-Medvedev' ceasefire agreement.   Ex-Georgian parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze has blamed President Mikheil Saakashvili for last year's conflict with Russia and has affirmed ...

The Associated Press is running a story on some comments made by President Medvedev during a television address following meetings with Yabloko party representatives.  Considering the elements that Medvedev and other liberal reformers are up against in the Kremlin, he is telling the truth here - these are significant steps toward democracy, even if democracy is still a long, long ways away.  Also, this news makes zero sense next to that other report from United Russia...  This government appears to be split on message - either you are working toward democracy, or you are arguing that you don't need it.  Despite shortcomings and the whole words-vs.-actions thing, it is positive to hear the Russian president make these comments.President Medvedev, as quoted by AP:...

TODAY: Russia back firm but cautious stance on North Korea; Russia-NATO council meeting on level of ambassadors; Russia-Georgia discuss border reopening; Kremlin seeks extradition of Yukos' Spanish head; Putin tries his hand at journalismVitaly Churkin, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has said that Russia will back a 'strong resolution' on North Korea.  According to other sources, Russia believes that a blockade should not be imposed, 'in any case it is counterproductive to raise the question of the DPRK's international isolation. The path to dialogue should not be disrupted, and the problem can be solved only in political and diplomatic ways'.  An article in the Moscow Times explains why Russia has the most to lose from North Korea's nuclear ambitions.  'One of ...

The following is a translation from the website of Marieluise Beck, a German Member of Parliament who made herself available to attend hearings of the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky as an observer.  This memo summarizes her impressions of the process.

Khodorkovsky on trial: Impressions of a show trial

Marieluise Beck (Member of Parliament, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) travelled to Moscow to observe the second trial against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former principal shareholder of the oil company Yukos, and his business partner Platon Lebedev. Each was sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment in 2005 in a trial that on no account complied with constitutional standards and was obviously politically motivated. The second trial is on the verge of taking a similar course, particularly because the charge has absurd proportions

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The Financial Times quotes some reactions to the early parole of Svetlana Bakhmina:

"I think this decision is political," Sergei Mitrokhin, head of the liberal Yabloko party, told Reuters.

"It could be one of the signals given by the president to society about some kind of 'humanisation'. This must be hailed."

But a Bakhmina lawyer warned against drawing hasty and over-optimistic conclusions.

"It is self-evident that Bakhmina's case had been long overdue for revision because it had reached a stage when the cruelty of her further custody was just becoming outrageous," Semyon Aria told Reuters after the court's ruling.

"But this (ruling) cannot serve as an indicator of the authorities' changed attitude to Yukos, because Khodorkovsky's new case is still being heard ... This ruling (on Bakhmina) cannot be viewed as a symptom of something bigger."

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An article by Sergei Balashov over at Russia Profile finds it suspicious that the Kremlin only paroled Svetlana Bakhmin instead of granting her pardon ... meaning that perhaps there are a few more tricks left up their sleeves to continue this ravaging streak of legal nihilism against anybody remotely related to Yukos or Mikhail Khodorkovsky.  Keep in mind that this being Russia Profile, with its affiliation to state-controlled RIA Novosti, has to write these article pretending as though there is some sort of regularity to these show trial proceedings ... which is really a bit absurd at this point in the game.At the same time, it appears that Bakhmina's premature release was not merely an act of good will toward a mother of three on the president's behalf. The circumstances in which she was granted parole make it appear that a possible ...

The news of this court ruling allowing Rosneft and Gunvor to remain opaque about their commercial relations is a prime example of Russia's state capture. It's no wonder that so many speculate that Gunvor is the biggest siloviki piggy bank. A Russian court left a veil of secrecy over oil trader Gunvor on Wednesday, rejecting a private shareholder's lawsuit demanding state oil company Rosneft disclose dealings with the firm. Moscow Arbitration Court Judge Alexei Manenkov ruled disclosure of the information to shareholders was not required under Russian corporate law. Rosneft had said its dealings with Gunvor were a commercial secret. Gunvor handles a third of Russian oil exports and has repeatedly won rights to export a large share of Rosneft's Urals blend crude in regular tenders by the state owned company, Russia's largest producer of crude. The company's co-owner, Gennady Timchenko, has rejected speculations he enjoyed special ties with former president ...