Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Putin Signs Law On Russian Base In Tajikistan

(RFE/RL)

5 November 2005 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin today signed
the law proving the legal basis for stationing Russian troops in
Tajikistan.

TEXT SIZE - +

November 05, 2005

The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, and the Federation Council, the upper house, passed the law earlier this year.

The agreement specifies the number of troops and the structure of a Russian military base on Tajik territory. Russian troops remained in Tajikistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, but without a formal legal agreement.

The Russian and Tajik governments have been negotiating the terms to establish a Russian base in Tajikistan since 1991.

(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