BREAKING NEWS – MEDVEDEV HITS OUT AT US

Straits Times
Oct 21, 2008
Singapore

YEREVAN – RUSSIAN President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday hit out at the
ill-effects of US financial policies and said the era of US economic
dominance was over.

‘The era of domination by one economy and by one currency has been
relegated to the past for good,’ Mr Medvedev said on a visit to the
Armenian capital Yerevan.

Mr Medvedev went on to praise Russia’s actions to prop up its currency
and support the banking sector from the effects of the global financial
crisis, in which Russian stock markets have taken a battering.

Measures taken by Russia, such as support for the ruble and credit
provided to banks, have been ‘sufficient,’ Mr Medvedev said, adding,
‘This does not mean we will rest there.’

As part of Russian stabilisation measures, authorities on Monday
provided the equivalent of 10.9 billion euros (S$21.45 billion) in
credit to more than 80 banks to support their operations, one senior
official said.

In a move welcomed by the more liberal wing of Russia’s leadership,
authorities on Tuesday announced the release from jail of a deputy
finance minister, Sergei Storchak, who had spent 11 months behind
bars on embezzlement charges.

The charges against Mr Storchak were widely seen as a politically
motivated attack by hardliners against his boss, Finance Minister
Alexei Kudrin.

Russia’s stock markets have lost two-thirds of their value since
posting record highs in May, while the real estate market has suffered
contagion from the US subprime crisis.

Russia’s dollar-denominated RTS stock market was up 2.8 per cent close
to the close of trading on Tuesday, while the ruble-denominated MICEX
was up 3.84 per cent.