“If the USA is entitled to create a limited ABM system which will protect them from unsanctioned missile launches, including launches from unpredictable states, Russia and Europe have the right to create such a system too,” stated Yavlinsky.

After the first round of the elections for head of Artyom city (Maritime Territory) held on January 28, 2001, the leader is Vladimir Novikov, member of the Yabloko party and acting mayor of the city. He obtained 34.8% of the vote. His main rival, communist Kozin received 22.9%. T he second round is scheduled for February 11, 2001. The elections in Artyom are being held owing to the early resignation of the mayor of the city due to the energy crisis.

The criminal proceedings against Gitin were launched by the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Krasnoyarsk Area on March 24, 2000. Gitin was arrested in Moscow and brought to a remand prison in Krasnoyarsk. In April he was indicted on charges of taking a bribe of excessive proportions. Between April and July 2000, Gitin was kept under arrest, before being released under guarantees from his colleagues in the Yabloko party and the State Duma. During the investigation, Gitin suffered two heart attacks.

“The deputies of pro-governmental factions propose considerable reductions in the number of mass media employees recognised as journalists with all the attenuating consequences for their professional activity.”This was Sergei Ivanenko’s assessment of the amendments to the law “On the Mass Media” proposed by a group of deputies from the “Unity” and LDPR factions and the “People’s deputy” group.

On January 27 Yavlinsky will be a special guest and one of the moderators of the discussion on general European problems. On the same day he is invited to a meeting of the Council of Leaders of Foreign Business on relationships with Russia.

According to Ivanenko, the Prime Minister noted that contradictory statements from representatives of the executive authorities (about debt payments to the Paris Club) had damaged Russia's reputation. Ivanenko also said that Kasyanov had confirmed that Russia believes in the need to conduct negotiations with Russia's foreign creditors.

The detention of in the USA of Pavel Borodin, who headed the Kremlin property administration under Yeltsin and is currently the Secretary-General of the Union of Russia and Belarus, at the request of the law-enforcement agencies of Switzerland, should serve as a “lesson that we should tackle corruption ourselves, at home”, said Sergei Ivanenko, Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction in the State Duma.

The Forum will discuss ways of reforming the EU in view of the decisions of the summit of the heads of the EU member states held at the end of 2000. The summit passed a decision to admit 12 new member-states into the EU, which will almost double the number of EU member-states.

The agenda of the Central Council includes discussion of the socio-economic situation in the country, Yabloko’s political strategy, the results of the election campaign in autumn-winter 2000 and the report of the Bureau of the Central Council and the executive body of the Yabloko Association – the Secretariat.

At present, taking into account the past elections, 258 members of Yabloko became deputies at different levels, including 44 deputies of representative state authorities in federation subjects, six – chairs and deputy chairs in the representative authorities and nine – mayors and heads of local governments.

In April 2000 the Central Council of Yabloko proposed to all the democratic organisations of Russia to create a permanent body for the development of a common position on key political issues. “The decisions of the Democratic Conference should be adopted on a consensus basis rather than by majority vote: it may be chaired in turn by the representatives of all the organisations-participants,” said Grigory Yavlinsky. He also stressed that participation in the Conference of non-political civil organisations and organisations defending human rights is extremely important.

The invitation forwarded to Grigory Yavlinsky by Yelena Bonner (Ed. widow of Academician Andrei Sakharov), who is Honourable Chairperson of the Congress, states that the Congress should adopt a concept of the movement for the protection of human rights, as well as the programme of actions.

The Yabloko faction has its own variant of the law prepared by an expert group headed by Alexander Shishlov which is an alternative to the presidential one. However, the Yabloko faction thinks that if it is decided to submit Yabloko’s draft, this step should only be regarded as a tactic, as the Duma’s support for the presidential draft is already a foregone conclusion.