A violent scuffle erupted in Ukraine's parliament Thursday evening over a bill that would allow the use of the Russian language in courts, hospitals and other institutions in the Russian-speaking regions of the country. The fight broke out between members of the pro-Western opposition who want to take Ukraine out of Russia's shadow and lawmakers from President Viktor Yanukovych's party, which bases its support in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east. Ukraine is deeply divided into the Russian-speaking east and south, which favors close ties with Moscow, and the Ukrainian-speaking west, which wants Ukraine to join the Western club. Under the Ukrainian constitution, Ukrainian is the only official state language in Ukraine. Before he was elected in 2010, President Viktor Yanukovych promised to make Russian the other official language but then did not achieve the required majority in parliament to get the bill through.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/fight-ukraine-parliament-language-bill-16423603
http://en.rian.ru/society/20120524/173657981.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm_sU5m6N08 (video)

A British court has seized Russian businessman and Lithuania's Snoras bank shareholder Vladimir Antonov's assets upon the request of the bank's bankruptcy administrator. The seized property is worth an estimated 493 million euro. In 2011, the Lithuanian government decided to nationalize the bank to rescue it from bankruptcy. Snoras then suspended its operations. Later in 2011, the Bank of Lithuania acknowledged that even a federal funds injection would not save the bank and decided to shut Snoras down. Both major Snoras shareholders - Antonov and his Lithuanian business partner Raimondas Baranauskas - have been suspected of appropriating the bank's assets and financial fraud. They were arrested in London in late November 2011 upon the Lithuanian Prosecutor General's Office's request. They were later released on bail.

http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20120523/263243765.html

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who took part in the NATO summit in Chicago, believes that Georgia is highly likely to become a full-fledged NATO member in 2014. "The next summit is due to take place in 2014 and Georgia has very good chances of becoming a full-fledged member of NATO together with the three Balkans countries. I have never been so sure of that as I am now," Saakashvili told reporters in Chicago. "I think our ill-wisher - I will not name him - will do everything to destabilize Georgia before the next NATO summit, including during the elections, and then will say that a country like Georgia can't join NATO, like they did in 2008. However, the people of Georgia are already experienced and will not make the same mistake again," Saakashvili said.

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/128030/
http://www.lenta.ru/news/2012/05/22/nato/

Russia's Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals has upheld the lower court's decision that General Motors Daewoo Auto and Technology CIS broke the law by using Olympic symbols to sell vehicles and should pay a fine of $740,000. In June 2011, the Sochi-2014 Organizing Committee claimed the company was engaged in unfair competition by using Olympic symbols to sell Chevrolet cars., in particular, by naming a car color "Olympic white." It has been held that "Olympic" is a protected verbal component of the Olympic Committee's trademark registered for several goods, including motor vehicles.

http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20120521/263222065.html

Tajikistan has decided not to screen Sacha Baron Cohen's latest spoof blockbuster, The Dictator, after authorities concluded the movie was incompatible with the nation's mentality. Turkmenistan is also unlikely to show the comedy, though it is being released in other former Soviet republics. The film features Baron Cohen as General Aladeen, the tyrannical ruler of a fictitious country. In 2006 Kazakhstan banned Borat, another Baron Cohen's comedy depicting a Kazakh journalist travels to the US to marry Pamela Anderson.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may/18/tajikistan-bans-dictator-baron-cohen
http://www.lenta.ru/news/2012/05/18/dictator/

he international rights group Amnesty International has declared Russian opposition figures Aleksei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov to be "prisoners of conscience." The head of Amnesty's office in Russia, Sergei Nikitin, said Navalny and Udaltsov "sought to realize their right to freedom of demonstrations, rallies and processions by nonviolent, peaceful methods, but they were detained and subsequently placed behind bars." Navalny and Udaltsov were detained at a rally in Moscow, accused of refusing to obey orders from law-enforcement officers and ultimately were sentenced to 15 days in jail each.

http://www.rferl.org/content/amnesty-navalny-udaltsov-prisoners-of-conscience/24584838.html

A controlling stockholder of Yandex, Russia's biggest Internet search engine, has filed a petition with the United States District Court for the Northern Districtof California to dismiss a lawsuit claiming Yandex's breach of intellectual property rights. Perfect 10, an American erotic photo publisher, and the owner of an adult site, filed a motion against Yandex in late March for the violation of copyright law. Perfect 10 maintains that registered Yandex NV domain names yandex.com, yandex.ru, yandex.st, yandex.net publish pictures belonging to Perfect 10's core business. The defendant, however, claims to dismiss the motion on the grounds that this Court lacks personal jurisdiction over Yandex.

http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20120516/263161941.html

President Barack Obama will skip an Asia-Pacific summit in Russia hosted by President Vladimir Putin in early September, the White House said on Monday. The White House announcement followed Putin's decision, after his return to the Kremlin last week, to pull out of a summit of the Group of Eight major industrialized nations to be hosted this weekend by Obama at the Camp David presidential retreat. Both countries have denied using summit decisions to snub the other.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/14/us-obama-russia-idUSBRE84D0VG20120514

Investigators will question the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft workers involved in developing the Sukhoi Superjet-100 that crashed yesterday in Indonesia, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said. The SuperJet-100 crashed on May 9 during a promo flight. The aircraft carried passengers from five countries, including eight Russians when it crashed on Mount Salak at a height of 5,200 feet. "I would like to stress that law enforcement agencies will investigate the case not only at the scene of the crash in Indonesia, but also in Russia where they will question the technical staff involved in preparing the aircraft for the flight, as well as the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft representatives responsible for developing and commissioning aircraft," Markin said.

A riot police officer has been charged with beating an allegedly pregnant female protester during an anti-Putin rally in Moscow last week, a senior police official said on Friday. The policeman, whose name was not given, is accused of abusing his position, Investigative Committe spokesman Vladimir Markin told RIA Novosti. The committee acted after pledging on Thursday to "study " video footage which shows the helmeted officer kicking the woman in the stomach as she was being dragged along the street during the May 6 March of Millions rally on the eve of Vladimir Putin's presidential inauguration. The clip, posted on video sharing site YouTube, has sparked outrage in the independent media and blogosphere. More than 400 people were detained and dozens injured in the worst violence in the city since anti-Putin protests began in December.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120511/173386101.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNDoql_Svx4 (video)