#1
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy at Boston University

HEADLINES,
Friday, December 14, 2001

- Heavy snowfall in Moscow has brought traffic throughout the city to a standstill. Temperatures dropped all over Europe, and the first major snowstorms in years have hit Italy. In the Far East a powerful cyclone has paralyzed air and sea transport; lessons have been cancelled in all schools.

- Air traffic controllers are not allowed to strike by stopping work, so the dispatchers are going on a hunger strike to protest the new Labor Code, which they claim impinges on the rights of the labor unions. The air traffic controllers also want their salaries increased. Most currently earn 6,000 to 8,000 rubles a month [$200 to $267].

- Federal service troops continue a special operation in the Chechen settlement of Argun. Twelve fighters have been killed and several dozen men suspected of belonging to illegal armed formations have been detained.

- The Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology is 50 years old today. Many renowned alumni -- from scientists and economists to actors and politicians -- gathered to celebrate.

- Salman Raduev and his accomplices were given an opportunity to address the court for the final time today. Raduev said that he was not surprised at General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov's demand of a life sentence, and asserted that the only thing he disagrees with is the accusation that he planned the explosion at the railroad station in Pyatigorsk. Raduev claims that Vakha Dzhafarov, who is no longer alive, planned the terrorist action.

- Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Kharkov to meet with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and discuss bilateral relations. The presidents also visited the state aviation enterprise that produces AN vehicles. President Putin noted that one of the common goals for Russia and Ukraine is membership in the World Trade Organization.

- December 14th is the Day of Memory for Andrei Sakharov -- Nobel Prize winner, creator of the hydrogen bomb, and preeminent human rights activist.

- Yevgeni Primakov has been unanimously elected President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the Chamber's forum, in which 500 delegates representing all of Russia's regions and over 20,000 enterprises and organizations of the Russian Federation met.

- Two more bodies have been found in the third section of the Kursk nuclear submarine, bringing the total up to 80.

- A convoy of 18 Russian trucks carrying about 100 tons of humanitarian aid has traversed 700 kilometers of winding mountain roads and arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan.

- Russian State Duma deputies are reacting strongly to the decision of the US administration to leave the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The committee on international affairs may be entrusted with preparing a draft resolution to support President Putin's position and express the negative reaction of the State Duma to the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty.

- The State Duma has accepted the 2002 federal budget by a vote of 280 to 106 with 3 abstentions. The review of the Labor Code draft has been postponed.

- Russian computer programmer Dmitry Sklyarov has been cleared of all charges of violating copyright laws. Sklyarov will return to Russia shortly, but he will have to telephone the California courts once a month for the next year. The responsibility for the copyright violations will now be transferred to his employer: ElkomSoft.

- The Fourth All-National Ecological Russian Forum is meeting in the Moscow suburb of Dubna to develop an Ecological Doctrine for the Russian Federation.