PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Good afternoon, dear colleagues.

Our agenda includes a most important question: the condition of the correctional system and approaches to its long term development in the period to 2020, in any case that is how we are formulating our plans for the development of the economy as a whole.

Naturally the development of our correctional system must take place alongside the development of those political components, of the whole political system of the country, in pursuit of the democratic and progressive development of the state on the basis of the Constitution and on the fundamental provisions which guarantee those most important human rights and freedoms to our citizens.

For a very significant length of time, for many decades of the twentieth century, our correctional system, much like the penal ...

Moscow Times
February 9, 2009
Russia's Image Takes Major Hit, Poll Finds
By Anna Malpas / Staff Writer
09 February 2009

Russia's image around the world took a dramatic dive last year, according to an opinion poll released Friday by the BBC World Service.

Forty-two percent of respondents said they had a "mainly negative" view of Russia, according to the poll, which surveyed more than 13,000 people in 21 countries in December and January.

"Attitudes about Russia have worsened dramatically in some cases over the past year," the report said.

Respondents were asked to rate each country's influence in the world. The poll was carried out by international polling firm GlobeScan, together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

In the United States, 64 percent of respondents had a negative opinion of Russia, up 28 percent compared to the previous year. In Britain, 25 percent said they had a "positive" view of Russia, down from ...

Russia's image around the world took a dramatic dive last year, according to an opinion poll released Friday by the BBC World Service.

Forty-two percent of respondents said they had a "mainly negative" view of Russia, according to the poll, which surveyed more than 13,000 people in 21 countries in December and January.

"Attitudes about Russia have worsened dramatically in some cases over the past year," the report said.

Respondents were asked to rate each country's influence in the world. The poll was carried out by international polling firm GlobeScan, together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

In the United States, 64 percent of respondents had a negative opinion of Russia, up 28 percent compared to the previous year. In Britain, 25 percent said they had a "positive" view of Russia, down from ...

Vigen Hakobyan: Crisis is in shore of Russia: death of multi-vector policy and vacuum of power

Read it in Russian

Global economic crisis, which began with the crash of American model of "capitalization air bubble ", make corrections in the global political landscape. Brownian movement is observed in the zone of Russia’s direct influence. While new US power tries to erect again the global architecture, the post-soviet republics already lost any possibility of balance in foreign policy and foreign economy.

The temporal withdraw of the USA from the post-soviet area, like an outflow, allowed to look over the deep problems of neighboring with Russia countries, including Baltic States. Majority from them showed a total absence of (sovereign) immunity and a little bit well coordinated mechanisms of crisis resistance.

It is possible to certify that only Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Belarus, among all posts-soviet republics had gained chances on relative stability since their independence. If the first three countries can bless nature which provided them with ...