Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Abramovich Gets New Term As Russian Governor

Roman Abramovich (epa)

21 October 2005 -- Wealthy Russian businessman Roman Abramovich has been selected for a second term as governor of Russia's Chukotka region in northeast Siberia.

TEXT SIZE - +

October 21, 2005

Lawmakers in Chukotka's 13-member legislature today backed Abramovich to head the region, located 7,000 kilometers east of Moscow, for another five-year term.

Abramovich, who's 38, recently sold his interest in the Sibneft oil firm to Russian gas monopoly Gazprom for a reported $13 billion. He has also won an international profile for his ownership of the British soccer club Chelsea.

President Vladimir Putin's envoy to the Far East Federal District, Konstantin Pulikovskii, extended congratulations from Putin and praised what he called Abramovich's high professional qualities and competence.

Chukotka, which lies across the Bering Strait from Alaska, is bigger than France but has a population of just 55,000.

(ITAR-TASS/AFP/Reuters)

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

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