Two women were arrested on suspicion of prostitution after seven rooms were found in a building close to Sretensky Monastery where sexual services were offered from 1,750 roubles (£35) per hour.
Father Tikhon, the abbot of the monastery, is said to be a religious counsellor to Mr Putin, who is a confirmed Russian Orthodox believer.
There were conflicting reports over the ownership of the brothel, found in one of a chain of mini-hotels called Podushkin.
Hmmm, $56 per hour? I imagine that services were provided by something like this:
I've found a new enemy for you to hate and terrorize.
A Russian ship carrying refurbished attack helicopters destined for Syria has weighed anchor from its Arctic port for a second time after failing to deliver the cargo last month.
A spokesman for Femco, the Russian company which owns the cargo vessel, said on Friday that it would arrive in St Petersburg two days later and may then head to the Russian Far East. Moscow has insisted it will deliver the Mi-25 helicopters in the teeth of western disapproval and it appears likely the ship's real or eventual target is Syria.
“We cannot accept anything that weakens our country or divides society,” Putin said in televised remarks. “We cannot tolerate decisions and actions capable of leading to social and economic shocks.”
Well...I guess they're not always drunk over there.
A Playboy playmate has been elected as one of Vladimir Putin’s MPs in the Russian parliament, giving him some cheer after all the recent protests against election fraud by his party.
Maria Kozhevnikova, 27, an actress, posed nude for the Russian edition of the magazine two years ago soon after breaking up from a boyfriend.
Putin doesn't seem to concerned about the recent protests in Russia. When asked a question about the white ribbon adopted by protesters as their symbol...
“I have to say honestly,” he said, “when I saw on television several people wearing these things on their chests, I know it’s indecent, but anyway, I thought it was some kind of propaganda in the fight against AIDS, as if they put a condom there, and tied it for some reason.”
And take that comment in context with President Medvedev's tweet just last week when he refferred to a protest blocker as a "stupid coc*sucking sheep".
Doesn't sound like the two of them are all that worried about change in Russia.
I like to remind folks that the Russian military still sucks and that it is still a nation where corruption permeates every level. Don't get me wrong, Russia is still dangerous, but it's still Russia.
Russian Interior Ministry troops were fed dog food earlier this year to save money, a former officer in the ministry said on Thursday.
A rare whistleblower in Russia's expansive security forces, ex-Major Igor Matveyev said officers tried to cover up the scandal and other alleged wrongdoing at the Interior Ministry troops base where he served in the far east city of Vladivostok.
"It's embarrassing to say but soldiers here were fed dog food. It was fed to them as stew," Matveyev said in an interview with Reuters, adding that dog food labels were covered up with labels reading premium quality beef.
First, why is Obama writing "secret" letters? I thought this was to be the most transparent administration ever. Second, just what does the letter say? Russia, says it's a quid pro quo offer to abandon the missile defense system if Russia cooperates on Iranian nukes. If this is true, this shows an astounding lack of comprehension of Russia's involvement in Iran. To think they would forgo their petrol alliance with Iran for the removal of an unproven missile defense system is nothing short of idiotic. Besides, what leverage does Obama have? He's already on record as not favoring the missile defense system. Russia already knows he doesn't support it. Does he think they're inexperienced and misguided as he is?
President Obama wrote Russia's president suggesting the U.S. would scrap a missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow helps stop Iran from building nukes and missiles, it was reported Monday.
The letter to Dmitry Medvedev was hand-delivered about three weeks after Obama took office, said The New York Times.
Officials who knew what was in it said Obama told Medvedev the U.S. wouldn't need to go ahead with the interceptor system if Tehran stopped developing long-range weapons.
Russia has opposed the system since it was proposed during the Bush administration.
Here is a report from Russia that makes it clear that they're not going to trade their petrol investments in Iran for anything related to the missile defense system.
Did you catch that? Obama is exchanging emails with Russian President Medvedev. And we haven't seen them. I'm calling BS on all this transparency fluff. Obama is proving to be a dangerously ignorant human being.
While we're on the topic of Obama' complete lack of understanding of Russia's motivation, there is this very alarming story from the Kyiv Post:
Georgia's defence minister appealed to the West to halt what he said was a continuing Russian military buildup in two breakaway Georgian regions, adding that a fresh Russian attack "cannot be ruled out".
The Kremlin recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states in the wake of last year's five-day war between Russia and Georgia, when Moscow smashed a Georgian assault on South Ossetia.
Defence Minister David Sikharulidze told Reuters in an interview late on Monday that Russia's war aim had been "regime change", but it had failed. Moscow's continued military buildup in the absence of international monitoring meant the situation "remains fragile", he said.
The minister said Tbilisi had observed activity at the site of a proposed Russian naval base in the breakaway Black Sea territory of Abkhazia and understood that a Soviet-era military base near the Abkhaz resort town of Gudauta was "fully operational" and under Russian control.
What are the odds that Obama would hang Georgia out to dry? Pretty good if his past track record is any indication.
New Delhi: Ten people reportedly sneaked into Mumbai via the sea route from Karachi and carried out a pre-planned and well-orchestrated strike in India under the aegis of the dreaded Lashkar-e-Taiba militant outfit.
A report on Times Now quoted intelligence agencies as saying that the timing of the terror attack coincided with efforts at peace talks between the newly elected regime in Pakistan and the authorities in India.
The militants reportedly used speed-boats to get from the coast of Karachi to Mumbai and then spread out into the southern part of the city and spread mayhem around the central business district by storming two major hotels and opening indiscriminate fire at several places.
The report quoted the intelligence agencies as saying that this information came from one of the captured terrorists after last night's heist in India's financial capital that saw more than 87 people lose their lives and 200 being injured with a few hostage dramas continuing for nearly 12 hours.
The report also said that there was no group called the Deccan Mujahideen and the e-mail has been traced back to a fictitious IP address in Russia. It said that the hawkish elements in Pakistan stage-managed this terror attacks to coincide with the visit of Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who was to visit Chandigarh today in the company of his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee, a trip that has since been cancelled.
In the annual Presidential address to the nation - an address that, interestingly, is traditionally given in October but which was postponed to November 5th - Russian President Dmitri Medvedev gave shockingly aggressive and anti-American speech. Besides the rhetoric blaming the United States for the August war against Georgia, he announced the deployment of modern, mobile, and nuclear-warhead-capable missiles to the Kaliningrad enclave - a region that had been largely demilitarized via European security agreements, and Russia's only present piece that borders on Poland. (I would bet my bottom dollar that there were two versions of his address ready to go, with the choice being determined by the election outcome here. Hopefully, the "alternative" one was filed away somewhere and will be found by future historians.)
So what's going on here? Why are the Russians so charged up to move, and to move quickly - literally taking only hours after the election results to get moving?
Here's the key thing you have to understand about Russia.
Russia is weak, and Russia is dying - literally.
Putin isn't a neo-Stalin. If he sees himself as anything, it's as a neo-Peter-the-Great - "Great" because he made Russia into a strong and dominant nation-state. That's what drives Putin. In Putin's view, Russia is suffering all that it is now suffering - both socially and economically - because it is no longer great. If Russia can re-assert itself and become great again, then all its ills will disappear. That's the "new" Russia that we have to understand - and handle. Russian cantankerousness is intentional - they've been looking for ways to be cantankerous as a vehicle for asserting their importance. Rational cooperation is not an option.
This probably would have been a manageable problem, but for the events of this past Tuesday. Suddenly, Russian nationalists see their chance - that they can just roll a weak President-to-be. But the bottom line is - they're in a hurry because they have to be in a hurry. Russia will die if they don't make Russia great again - and soon.
Mikhail Beketov, the editor of a newspaper in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, was found unconscious and covered in blood near his home on Nov. 13. He had multiple fractures.
Doctors have amputated one of his legs and have had to delay another operation at Moscow's main emergency hospital, the Sklifosovsky Institute, because his condition is so serious.
"This is what happens when you oppose certain people," Fedotova said. "If they finish me off then you can write a story about that too. I am no longer scared."
"Violence against journalists continues to be very much in the news in Russia... This cycle of violence must stop."
Reporters in Russia risk beatings and even death if they delve into the murky world where Russian politics and business overlap. Attackers are rarely convicted and journalists say they regularly receive threats.
Herman Simm, 61, an Estonian defence ministry official who was arrested in September, was responsible for handling all of his country's classified information at Nato, giving him access to every top-secret graded document from other alliance countries.
He was recruited by the Russians in the late 1980s and has been charged in Estonia with supplying information to a foreign power.
Several investigation teams from both the EU and Nato, under the supervision of a US officer, have flown to the Estonian capital Tallinn to assess the scope of what is being seen as the most serious case of espionage against Nato since the end of the Cold War.
“The longer they work on the case, the more obvious it becomes how big the impact of the suspected treachery really is,” according to Der Spiegel magazine. A German official described the Russian penetration of Nato as a "catastrophe".
Comparisons are being drawn with the case of Aldrich Ames, the former head of the CIA counter-intelligence department who was in effect Russia's top agent in the US.
Mind you, these “protestors” are pro-Russia and anti-Georgia. They want Georgia to be subsumed by the Soviet Union Russia.
People stand while wearing gas masks as a man holds a portrait of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama in the background during an opposition rally in Tbilisi November 7, 2008. More than 10,000 Georgian opposition supporters rallied on Friday against President Mikheil Saakashvili, piling pressure on his government after its crushing military defeat by Russia.
Meanwhile, Obama refuses to comment on supporting the missile defense system in Poland and Russia is ramping up for war.
President-elect Obama has spoken to the president of Poland about relations between the two countries but didn't make a commitment on the multibillion-dollar missile defense program undertaken by the Bush administration, an Obama aide said Saturday.
Poland as part of a shield against possible missile attacks from Iran.
A missile shield set up so close to its borders has been a sore point with Russia and has served as another dent in its battered relationship with the U.S.
On Wednesday, the day after Obama's election, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to move short range nuclear missiles to Russia's borders with NATO allies even as the U.S. offered new proposals on nuclear arms reductions as well as missile defense. Allowing Russian observers at planned missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic were among them, U.S. officials said.
Sure Russia. Just wait until America shock and awes you with hope and change.
Yep. Pooty Poot smells blood in the water. He sees Obama's election as the chance for him to be a world conqueror. And frankly, do any of you think our military is prepared to rally around Obama in the world's defense? The world wanted a non-confrontational American leader and so they now have. Let us Americans who did not vote for Obama know that that works out for you.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev could resign from his post in 2009 to pave the way for Vladimir Putin to return to the Kremlin, Vedomosti newspaper reported on Thursday, citing an unidentified source close to the Kremlin.
Medvedev Wednesday proposed increasing the presidential term to six years from four years, a step the newspaper said was part of a plan drawn up by Vladislav Surkov, who serves as Medvedev's first deputy chief of staff.
Under the plan, Medvedev could implement changes to the constitution and unpopular social reforms "so that Putin could return to the Kremlin for a longer period," the newspaper said.
"Under this scenario Medvedev could resign early citing changes to the constitution and then presidential elections could take place in 2009," the newspaper said, citing the unidentified source close to the Kremlinl.
The paper said Putin, who is currently prime minister, could then rule for two six year terms, so from 2009 to 2021. The paper cited Putin's spokesman as saying he saw no reason for Putin to return to power in 2009.
And just in case you think I have no idea what I'm talking about, consider that Russia has decided to deploy missiles in the Baltic and that Venezuela has offed them a huge gold project. While tyrannical leaders who control the world's known energy sources are forming alliances, the rest of the world is running around screaming about hope and change. We are so fucked!
I sincerely apologize to our Baltic brothers and sisters for the betrayal of your trust that I am sure will be dealt to you by Barack Hussein Obama. He has no interest in honoring America's commitment to your defense. Unfortunately, you are of the wrong color, religion and your desire to be free is in direct contrast with his world view. Again, on behalf of many Americans, we are sorry.
VILNIUS: The president has said the peace plan in the Georgia-Russia conflict is not being complied to and that Russia is making a fool of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who brokered the peace deal, and the European Union. President Valdas Adamkus, who met with Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili in Vilnius on Oct. 31 told the media he intends to call this fact to the attention of the European leaders at the EU summit that is believed to feature an attempt to resume the EU-Russia talk ...
You know it's bad when the Russians see the media bias too. Frankly, I think they should monitor our election. To me, there is far more to this story than just sour grapes by the Russians. They are making it abundantly clear that they are not caught up in all this cult of personality B.S. surrounding Obama and that they have no plans on succumbing to the powers of "the One".
Andrei Nesterenko, a spokesman with Russia's Foreign Ministry, says Moscow will have eight election observers attached to a monitoring mission conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The OSCE, which has infuriated the Kremlin in the past by criticizing elections in Russia and other post-communist states, is sending 62 election observers to the United States.
In addition to visiting polling stations on Nov. 4, they will study the election campaign, media coverage and issues of voter registration, identification and voters rights.
A preliminary report prepared by the group, after studying U. S. media coverage on the NBC, CBS and ABC television networks since September, has concluded Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, has a "hidden advantage."
A preliminary report obtained by the Russian daily online newspaper Kommersant concludes the U. S. television networks devoted more time to Republican candidate John McCain, but "the material that makes up that time difference can be assessed as negative."
The Russian study also said Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential pick, has been subjected to more criticism than her Democratic counterpart, Senator Joe Biden.
It adds that when the presidential candidates' platforms are described, Mr. Obama's is described last, to make it look better, and when platforms are compared, "Obama's is presented preferable."
"Tensions are growing over the Black Sea Fleet base and with the Ukraine trying to free itself from Russian dominance by seeking EU and NATO membership, the question is, could this be the next European war?
Although Crimea was given to Ukraine in 1954, Russian is still the main language spoken here and taught in schools. But Ukraines ambitions to enhance their own identity have stirred up emoti More..ons and problems. Learning Ukranian is now mandatory and is often the only official language. The threat of ending Russia's naval base lease in 2017 means there is the lingering threat of Georgian style conflicts. Sergej Normanskij says that all this instability puts nervous imprints on the situation, so people are afraid of that date."
Russia started talks with Iceland on Tuesday on granting a 4 billion euro ($5.4 billion) loan to help the Nordic country through its financial woes, the Russian Finance Ministry said.
The delegation arrived in Moscow late on Monday for a series of meetings to agree terms for a loan that would allow Iceland's government to shore up its shaky national currency, the krona, which has lost about a quarter of its value against the euro since the start of the year.
"The delegation from Iceland is in the Finance Ministry. The negotiations are ongoing," a ministry spokesman said.
Posts
