Dmitry Medvedev has checked up on the way that Government Ministers and regional Governors execute his orders, writes the Noviye Izvestia newspaper in an article. The Russian leader has held a videoconference to find out how his last year’s orders have been executed. It has transpired that some functionaries and regional heads have done far from everything they were told to do. The President said the functionaries had exceeded all possible time limits. He said that to boost implementation standards, he would call this kind of conference once every three months, rather than once a year, as was the case before.
Accoridng to the Vremya Novostei newspaper, the Russian and Belarusian Prime Ministers have discussed further development of the two countries’ Union State. Vladimir Putin and Sergei Sidorsky have taken up action on the plan for Moscow’s and Minsk’s joint moves to minimize the financial crisis aftermath, develop the Customs Union and balance the fuel and energy resources for this year. The Russian Prime Minister outlined the objective of switching over from agreements on paper to actual implementation of these agreements.
The scandal around last Saturday’s broadcast by the “Imedi” Georgian TV channel is picking up steam. On Monday the news media obtained the audio recording of a conversation between the “Imedi” director-general Georgi Arveladze and his woman colleague. It follows from the recording that the broadcast of an alleged Russian act of aggression went on the air without an explanatory creeping line, because of President Mikhail Saakashvili’s request. The Moscow-based Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily has turned to former Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli for comment. He says he is certain that it is President Saakashvili, who is behind the scandalous TV broadcast. Nogaideli also said that the western countries’ ambassadors in Georgia were concerned about the development.
This week it is Spain that is the focal point of fighting international crime. According to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta periodical, it is from Spain that the police operation Java has been coordinated to wipe out a ramified criminal group, comprising dozens of criminals from the former Soviet republics. 69 people have been put behind bars as a result of the operation. They were arrested in Spain, Austria, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland.
The unofficial memorial day of the Waffen SS Latvian legion has again been marked in Riga, writes the Moscow daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. Few old-age legionnaires and young people from the various radical-nationalist groups marched through the city to commemorate SS. A group of anti-fascists chanted “Shame!” and “Nazism Shall Not Pass!”. The Latvian leaders will now again have to explain to the rest of the world why Nazism continues to energetically rear its ugly head in Latvia of all their countries. The more so since the legionnaires’ march looks especially cynical on the 65th anniversary of Victory Day. In May the entire world will mark the defeat of Nazi Germany back in 1945.
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