Former world leaders urge Western pressure on Putin over state of democracy
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Dozens of political figures including former heads of state and government have signed a letter calling on the West to toughen its stand on the state of democracy in Russia.
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Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin for limiting voters' ability to elect deputies in the wake of the Beslan school killings, saying people were losing &quot;the right of choice&quot;.
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HEILIGENDAMM, Germany  - U.S. President George W. Bush criticized Russia on democracy on Tuesday but sought to calm President Vladimir Putin's anger over U.S. missile shield plans on the eve of a G8 summit in Germany.
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The top U.S. and Russian diplomats on Sunday tried to play down concerns about a Cold War revival set off by Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Washington is fostering a global arms race.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of applying "double standards" in democratic elections, including Ukraine's presidential poll.
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More than 50 former Soviet dissidents who spent years in prisons and Siberian exile say Russia is in danger of slipping back into a police state under President Vladimir Putin and the former KGB colleagues he has brought to power.
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MOSCOW : Russia&#39;s first post-Soviet president Boris Yeltsin issued a veiled warning that President Vladimir Putin&#39;s decision to hand sweeping new powers to the Kremlin in the wake of the Beslan hostage crisis could roll back democratic freedoms.
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MOSCOW  - President Vladimir Putin sought to convince the nation Thursday that his electoral reform was not a retreat from democracy but was needed to save Russia from international terrorists and to limit the political influence of business barons. Putin said in a nationwide television interview his plan to end direct elections of regional governors and parliament deputies will help strengthen the government, which he said was being eroded by ethnic divisions and turf battles between local clans.
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Russia is backsliding on democracy and  the EU must take Moscow to task while bringing other former  Soviet republics closer to the West, the bloc's incoming  External Relations Commissioner said on Tuesday.
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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called for a new global economic framework that would emphasize regional alliances.
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Ossetian policemen with a sniffer dog search a classroom in a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia. Picture:AP. President Vladimir Putin has announced radical changes to Russia&#39;s democratic
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ST PETERSBURG, Russia  - Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Sunday for the creation of a new world economic order that gives greater clout to fast-growing emerging nations.
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Moscow, Sept. 24 (PTI): Flaying double standards in combating terrorism, Russian President Vladimir Putin, today said the world must unite to fight the menace and that the media should not be a passive observer
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Asserting that the Iraq war had hit the anti-terror campaign, visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged the new US administration to take lessons while shaping its
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Six years after they first met, and US President George W. Bush reported gazing into Russian President Vladimir Putin&#39;s soul, the two leaders face tense talks here at the G8 summit on Thursday.
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President Vladimir Putin called himself the world's only "absolute and pure democrat" in an interview published Monday, and launched scathing attacks on the U.S. and Europe ahead of this week's Group of Eight summit.
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Russia's first post-Soviet leader Boris Yeltsin issued a veiled warning that President Vladimir Putin's decision to hand sweeping new powers to the Kremlin in the wake of the Beslan hostage crisis could roll back democratic freedoms.