Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Russian Prime Minister In China

Mikhail Fradkov (file photo) (AFP)

3 November 2005 -- Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov was scheduled to hold talks today in Beijing with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

TEXT SIZE - +

November 03, 2005

According to ITAR-TASS, discussions will likely focus on trade between Russia and China and ways to increase it. According to the agency, Russian officials would like to see trade with China reach $60 billion to $80 billion by 2010.

In the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised the growing economic ties between Beijing and Moscow.

The two leaders have grown closer to counter what they see as U.S. dominance on the world stage.

Last summer, China and Russia held their first-ever joint military exercises. Both countries are also key members and backers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security grouping that also includes some Central Asian states.

(ITAR-TASS)

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