WHAT'S IT LIKE LIVING IN RUSSIA TODAY?

How is the populace reacting to the bird flu scare that is encircling the globe?

'Racist' Russian TV advert investigated

Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Thursday November 10, 2005

Guardian

Russian prosecutors are investigating a TV advert produced by a Kremlin-linked political party which suggests that dark-skinned Caucasians should be purged from Moscow's streets. The ad was produced by Rodina, an ultra-nationalist party set up by President Vladimir Putin's allies two years ago to leach votes from the Communist party.
In the advert two party members approach a small group of swarthy men who are eating melon in a park. The rinds that the men discard foul the wheels of a pram pushed by a slavic-looking Russian woman. The Rodina leader, Dmitry Rogozin, demands the men - who are played by actors - pick up their litter, but he receives no reply. His sidekick then claps a hand on the shoulder of one man and asks, "Do you understand Russian?" Finally, a slogan appears on the screen saying: "Let's clean our city of rubbish!"

The advert plays on strong anti-immigrant feeling in the capital, ahead of city parliament elections next month. Melon sellers in Moscow are often from Azerbaijan or Russia's southern republics.

The Moscow prosecutor's office said yesterday it was launching an investigation into whether the advert incited violence against ethnic minorities.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

Now, one question for my Russian friends:

Geographically, 75% Russia lies in Asia but why then politically its considered more of Europe?

Russians call themselves Europeans, isn't it?

When Myskina won the French Open, would she have been the first asian to do it?

Court rules jailed tycoon's solitary confinement was illegal

Wednesday April 19, 2006
The Guardian

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's most high-profile inmate, was illegally put into solitary confinement by prison authorities, a Siberian court ruled yesterday, in a rare victory for the former oil magnate. Khodorkovsky, 42, spent five days in solitary confinement in the prison colony where he is serving an eight-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion.

The prison claimed he was caught with a justice ministry book outlining the code of conduct for prisoners, which they said inmates were not allowed to have. A court in Krasnokamensk, home to the colony in Russia's far east, ruled that his five days in the "isolator" were illegal. "Decrees of the justice ministry are not classified documents and were earlier published in the media," Judge Larisa Zhukova said, according to the Interfax news agency. [..]

On Friday Khodorkovsky needed two stitches after his nose was cut in a knife attack in his cell. A fellow inmate, named as "Kuchma" and aged 22, has since been moved to another wing. Alexander Sidorov, a prison service spokesman, said yesterday that Mr Khodorkovsky would be put in a separate cell while the attack was investigated. "It's so we can guarantee his security," he added. "It's not punishment." [..]

Yuri Schmidt, a lawyer for Khodorkovsky in Moscow, said his client's life remained in danger from attacks that he claimed were organised by the government.

Russian media loyal to the state have portrayed the assault as a tiff between two lovers. The director of the prison service, Yuri Kalinin, told Interfax yesterday that Khodorkovsky "himself provoked that situation to an extent. One shouldn't get too close and friendly with young convicts." The report quoted an anonymous source saying that Kuchma had accused Khodorkovsky of sexually harassing him. [..]

Since the arrest of Khodorkovsky - founder of the Yukos oil firm - in 2003, Yukos has been slowly dismantled by a series of court rulings and bailiff auctions.