POLITICS
State Duma deputies are expected to grant regions the right to cancel direct elections of governors. The Duma committee on constitutional legislation hopes a bill allowing regions to nominate their heads will be adopted in the first reading at a plenary session on Wednesday.
(Kommersant)
Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney and other officials, deemed by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to be responsible for Guantanamo torture; those deemed responsible for criminal prosecution of Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko; the authors and lobbyists of the Magnitsky Act and those guilty of adopted child abuse will not be able to enter Russia.
(Vedomosti)
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
The Cayman Islands may lose the status of a tax haven. The area's financial regulator plans to oblige all companies and funds registered in its jurisdiction to publish the names of directors and managers.
(Kommersant)
Government ministers were offered a free crash course in WTO rules after one of the country's most senior financiers savaged officials for failing to understand the organization Russia finally joined last year. Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization, said the group would be willing to provide a course of study for Russian officials and experts who are not yet up to speed with the rules of the global trade body, which now has 157 member countries.
(The Moscow Times)
SOCIETY
Crime boss Aslan “Gramps Khasan” Usoyan was buried in Moscow on Sunday.
(Kommersant)
Two opposition figures saw their legal troubles mount as investigators pressed ahead with an embezzlement charge against protest leader Alexei Navalny and opened a criminal case into allegations that leftist activist Leonid Razvozzhayev falsely maligned them.
(The Moscow Times)
The initiative to relocate the Supreme and Supreme Arbitration courts from Moscow to St. Petersburg has turned into a political scandal over the authorities’ plans to oust a hospital with a unique child oncology department in order to provide space for a clinic for judges instead.
(Kommersant)
In his first comments since a horrific acid attack, Bolshoi Theater artistic director Sergei Filin described how he tried to flee but was overpowered by an attacker who splashed the acid in his face. Filin underwent emergency surgery on his eyes at City Hospital No. 36. Doctors said that he would not be left blind, although any permanent injuries would not be clear until next month.
(The Moscow Times)
IT
The infrastructure for introduction of universal electronic cards replacing driver’s licenses, pension certificates, insurance policies and other documents is not ready yet. The first batch of 50,000 such cards is to be issued this year.
(Vedomosti)
Websites where users will be able to lend money to each other bypassing banks will appear in Russia.
(Vedomosti)
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