Russia 090813 Basic Political Developments

Russia's Medvedev approves Ingush president's return to work

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090813/155799420.html

MAGAS, August 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday signed a decree reinstating Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who survived an assassination attempt in June and was discharged from a Moscow hospital this week.

While Yevkurov was receiving medical treatment in Moscow, Rashid Gaisanov, was appointed acting president of the Russian southern republic of Ingushetia.

Yevkurov underwent a series of operations in Moscow after sustaining head and internal injuries when a car bomb exploded as his motorcade passed by on June 22.

Though Yevkurov has resumed his post, he is expected to return to the North Caucasus republic by the end of August.

"I can't name the exact date because it hasn't yet been determined. We expect [Yevkurov] back in Ingushetia by the end of this month," Ingush presidential secretary Kaloi Akhilgov told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

The secretary also said that a large meeting is due to be held with city and regional heads when Yevkurov returns to give him an opportunity to get up to speed with the current situation in the republic.

"On arrival in the republic, I will hold an extended governmental session to receive reports on how work has progressed," Yevkurov told government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Tuesday.

Russia's mainly Muslim North Caucasus regions have seen a rise in violence in recent months. Attacks on police, officials and troops have been reported almost daily in Ingushetia and Dagestan that border Chechnya, which saw two separatist wars in the late 1990s-early 2000s.

A group led by notorious Chechen warlord Doku Umarov has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which also killed two people accompanying the president. Umarov is a former underground president of Chechnya and now the self-proclaimed leader of the North Caucasus, or the "Caucasus emirate."

A series of high-profile killings in Ingushetia and Dagestan followed the attack on Yevkurov.

Ingushetia's forensics chief died in July in a shooting, and the republic's Supreme Court judge and Dagestan's interior minister were assassinated in June. And more recently in a daring daylight attack the Ingush construction minister was gunned down in his office on Wednesday.

In neighboring Chechnya, a number of attacks have been carried out against human rights activists, which have been condemned by the international community and Dmitry Medvedev.

Respected human rights activist, Natalya Estemirova, was abducted and killed last month. And in a similar attack Zarema Sadulayeva, the head of a children's charity in Chechnya, and her husband, Alik Dzhabrailov, were kidnapped on Monday and found dead in the trunk of their car Tuesday. All three had been shot in the head and chest.

Population census postponed

http://www.barentsobserver.com/population-census-postponed.4617953-16174.html
2009-08-12

The planned 2010 Russian population census will probably be postponed until 2012. The reason is the economic crisis.

- We are preparing to postpone the population census from October 2010 to October 2012, Deputy Head of the State Statistic Service Aleksandr Surinov told Prime-TASS. The reason for this is the ongoing world economic crisis.

A population census will cost no less than 10 billion RUB. 17 billion RUB have been earmarked for preparation and implementation of the census in the federal budget.

The census cannot be conducted in 2011, because it is an election year with large federal expenses. According to Russian law, a population census should be held at least once every 10th year. The last census was held in 2002.

The next Russian population census might reveal that the population is much larger than accounted for. As BarentsObserver reported, a “rehearsal” census in three regions in October 2008 showed that two percent more people were living in these areas than officially registered. In the 2002 census 1.8 million unregistered persons were found

Gryzlov: State Duma to remove Anatoly Aksakov from the National Banking Council for ruble devaluation proposal

http://www.cbonds.info/all/eng/news/index.phtml/params/id/440665
13.08.2009 - RIA NOVOSTI/ Banki.ru

At the beginning of the autumn session the State Duma intends to initiate the removal of Anatoly Aksakov, State Duma member and chairman of the Association of Regional Banks Rossiya, from the National Banking Council, speaker of the Russian parliament’s lower chamber Boris Gryzlov told the news agency Wednesday.

In his video blog on August 6 Aksakov proposed the ruble’s sharp devaluation by 30—40% in a bid “to save the national industrial sector”. United Russia members called this proposal to be “antinational”. “I gave an order to the deputy head of the United Russia faction and chairman of the State Duma’s Committee for the Financial Market Vladislav Reznik to work out the issue of making amendments to the list of State Duma members that hold office in the National Banking Council," Gryzlov said. According to him, “at issue is to dismiss Anatoly Aksakov from the NBC”.

Next morning after Aksakov voiced his proposal the ruble began to weaken on the FX market against the dollar and the euro and this trend intensified after the Bank of Russia made an assumption that the national currency will remain highly volatile.

Scientists Accuse FSB of ‘Witch Hunt’ in Letter

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/380637.htm
13 August 2009By Natalya Krainova / The Moscow Times
A group of scientists and human rights activists published an open letter to President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday, accusing the Federal Security Service of waging a witch hunt against scientists.

Several scientists have been convicted of espionage and illegally exporting technology in recent years, including TsNIIMash-Export head Igor Reshetin, physicist Valentin Danilov, weapons researcher Igor Sutyagin and Ufa-based physicist Oskar Kaibyshev.

“The fact that the scientists are behind bars because of court rulings doesn’t prove their guilt,” said the letter addressed to Medvedev, which was published Wednesday in Novaya Gazeta. “You yourself have admitted several times that courts depend on political will.”

The letter, which is the fourth time in the past two years that the signatories have written to Medvedev about their concerns, was signed by Nobel Prize laureate Vitaly Ginzburg, State Prize laureate Yury Ryzhov, Higher School of Economics professor Yevgeny Yasin, Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Glasnost Defense Foundation head Alexei Simonov and Public Committee to Protect Scientists secretary Ernst Chyorny.

According to Ryzhov, Medvedev has said he only saw the third letter.

“The president promised to deal with it, but a rather long time has passed, and we have heard nothing of it,” Ryzhov told The Moscow Times.

Prosecutors have written short replies to each of the previous letters “from which it emerges that they have not read the letters,” Chyorny said by telephone.

A Kremlin spokeswoman said it was customary practice in the administration that letters to Medvedev be sent to the “relevant state agencies for evaluation” before they go to the president.

The spokeswoman could not say whether Medvedev had seen the letters.

A request for comment faxed to the Federal Security Service went unanswered.

The scientists and activists previously addressed Medvedev about the issue in June 2008, October and May, and the letters were passed to Medvedev “in person” by Alexeyeva, Simonov and Right Cause co-leader Leonid Gozman, the latest open letter said.

Ryzhov said the signatories of the open letter had no expectations that the president would reply but hoped that the letter would “rouse” public opinion in the same way that a letter in support of former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina, which was signed by tens of thousands of people, led to her release from prison earlier this year.