Russia

Mon, Feb 13 2012 4:27 IST | 4 Views | Add your comment SHARE: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has proposed a set of measures aimed to increase the country's population from 142 million to 154 million people. Putin said creating enough places in state kindergartens is a top-priority task for the country’s leadership. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the majority of state kindergartens were closed and their buildings sold to private owners. Over the last decades...Read Full Story

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday vowed to reverse Russia’s demographic decline and boost its population to 154 million, as he ramped up his re-election campaign in the face of protests. In a new campaign article addressing his core constituency including employees of state companies and blue-collar workers, Putin also promised salary hikes to teachers and doctors and pledged to create a more just state. Putin reeled off a list of social policies that he said could reverse a demographic...Read Full Story

On March 4 th , less than a month from now, the Russian presidential election takes place.  Following the December 4 th parliamentary elections and allegations of fraud and ballot-stuffing when Putin’s United Russia party took over 50% of the vote, huge demonstrations broke out within the week.  It’s clear that the people want change, but how they’re going to get it is another matter. The five candidates running include:  Vladimir Putin of United Russia, Gennady Zyuganov of the Communist...Read Full Story

Image via Wikipedia An engineer at Russia’s Plesetsk space station has been jailed for 13 years after being convicted of selling missile test data to the CIA. Lt-Col Vladimir Nesterets, a senior test engineer at the station, was convicted of treason, Russia’s FSB secret police announced. He admitted passing on information about tests involving Russia’s latest strategic missiles, it said. Russia’s missile programme has recently been hit by apparent design faults. Plesetsk, a base in...Read Full Story

Presidential candidate Vladimir Putin has promised to make the protection of repressed Christians in foreign countries one of his foreign policy priorities if he becomes president again. When Putin met with the representatives of Russia’s traditional confessions in Moscow’s main cathedral on Wednesday, the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church told him that Christians are facing repressions all over the world. The head of External Church Relations, Metropolitan Illarion, said that...Read Full Story