Norway and Russia are become new best friends over oil. Norway’s Energy Minister Ola Borten Moe has decided to award Russian oil companies rights to explore on the Norwegian continental shelf for the first time. Rosneft and LUKoil were among the 29 companies that won licences in Norway’s latest bidding round.
President Vladimir Putin called the massive US surveillance programmes “generally practicable” and “the way a civilised society should go about fighting terrorism.” Putin also mentioned Occupy Wall Street, comparing it to the Russian political opposition and apparently drawing parallels between the New York City police who cleared “Occupy” protesters from Zucotti Park and Russia’s own crackdown on the opposition.
Critics of President Vladimir Putin told a US Senate panel that US should find new ways to support independent pollsters and election monitors and other NGOs that face growing hurdles in Russia. The panel included Stephen Sestanovich, an academic and former US ambassador, Boris Nemtsov, former Deputy Prime Minister and current opposition figure, Ariel Cohen and Leon Aron, conservative think-tank researchers and Frank Jannuzi of Amnesty International. Answering questions from Senators, Sestanovich said public opinion polling organisations and independent election monitoring groups were in an especially precarious situation under the new Russian law.
Here is published an article referring to President Vladimir Putin’s comments ahead of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland. Putin blamed Europe for what he calls its “dependency mentality” which contributed to the current Eurocrisis. He went on to say that many of the EU’s welfare programmes make it possible for citizens to live in a “welfare dependency state”. Putin also made a reference to cooperation on tax issues and curbing the outflow of capital to offshore zones, saying: “Russia proposes to conclude bilateral agreements with offshore and low-tax jurisdictions”.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last President of the Soviet Union, has been admitted to the Kremlin hospital in Moscow for tests, amid growing concern over his health.
Gay activists were attacked and then arrested outside Russia’s parliament as lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill that will ban “gay propaganda” aimed at under-18s. The Duma passed the bill, which outlaws the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations”, by 436 votes to zero, with one abstention.
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Mikhai Prokhorov, the oligarch and politician often referred to as “Russia’s most eligible bachelor”, has criticised the controversial “gay propaganda” law passed overwhelmingly by Russia’s parliament earlier this week.
Police have launched a criminal investigation into the embezzlement of 90m roubles (£1.8m) of state funds during the refurbishment of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre.
The actor Gérard Depardieu described France today as an “almost Bolshevik” country and rejected Western criticism of his adopted homelands Russia and Chechnya.
The controversial property tycoon Sergei Polonsky, key witness in an ongoing trial against fellow Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev, is now wanted by Russian authorities over a massive alleged fraud. Mr Polonsky, who earlier this year skipped bail in Cambodia, where he was awaiting trial for assaulting local sailors, is now also on Russia’s wanted list.
Germany has condemned a new Russian law banning homosexual “propaganda”, with Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle saying that attempts to stigmatise same-sex relationships had no place in a democracy. The strong words from Berlin reflect growing unease with Moscow’s record on human rights and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s willingness to openly criticise it, despite Russia’s vital importance as an energy exporter.
