President Dmitry Medvedev conferred state decorations on Russian athletes on Monday for their achievements at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Vremya Novostei daily reports. An award ceremony surprisingly saw no top sports officials in attendance, the newspaper says, specifically citing the Russian Sports Minister and the Russian Olympic Committee head. The event was attended by the Russian Olympians’ relatives, spouses and even fiancées, Vremya Novostei concludes.
The Noviye Izvestia newspaper quotes the Russian Foreign Ministry as voicing hope that both the international community and Georgia-based European observers give “a fundamental assessment” of Tbilisi’s bogus TV news report of a fresh war between Russia and Georgia. For her part, Irma Inashvili, chairwoman of the Georgian Union of Journalists, pointed the finger at President Mikhail Saakashvili and his Western allies, who she said orchestrated the move. According to Inashvili, it took the Georgian leader several weeks to personally make corrections to the report.
The recruitment of army chaplains continues in Russia, the Rossiiskaya Gazeta reports. Demand for chaplains has long been overdue but the actual number of priests serving in the Armed Forces is still fairly small. The military say these matters should be approached delicately. Chaplains who have worked in garrisons de facto for years have now been granted an official status.
The majority of Russians support the government’s initiative to prohibit the sale of strong alcohol after 9:00 p.m. Both the older generation and youth have welcomed the new anti-alcohol campaign, the RBK-daily writes.
The son of Inga Rantala, a Russian citizen married to a Finn, has run away from the children’s asylum where he was placed by Finnish guardianship authorities, the Komsomolskaya Pravda says. After a long break, the boy was allowed to go to school. He seized the opportunity to run to his parents. Earlier, the authorities brought a lawsuit against the Rantalas demanding that both parents be stripped of their parental rights for smacking their son. But could things have really been as bad as the authorities had claimed, if the boy ran home at the first opportunity? The Russian President’s Ombudsman for Children Pavel Astakhov is heading for Finland to sort out the matter.
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