Monday, February 13, 2012

Russia

Russian Ecologists Form Green Russia Party

6 June 2005 -- Some of Russia's leading ecologists marked World Environment Day by joining to launch the Union of Greens party.

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June 06, 2005

Aleksei Yablokov, a respected nuclear safety campaigner and an adviser in the 1990s to then-president Boris Yeltsin, was elected president at the meeting in Korolyov, outside Moscow.

Yablokov, who has also campaigned for human rights in Russia, said there were hopes the Greens could unite other Russian ecological organizations and become a significant minority in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, in the 2007 elections.

Chosen as one of Yablokov's deputies was Aleksandr Nikitin, a former Soviet naval captain who was accused of treason in 1996 after preparing a report on safety problems in Russia's nuclear fleet.

Russia's Supreme Court cleared Nikitin of all charges in 2000.

(AFP/AP)

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More

Protesters gather behind a banner reading "Honest Elections" during a demonstration in Moscow on February 4.

How To Rig An Election

A whistle-blower in Samara explains how the authorities fixed the Duma elections in December -- and plan to do the same in the presidential vote in March. More