...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...said that since the beginning, Russia supported the efforts of UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...to settle the crisis in Syria, and that it intends to continue to support them in the future.
During his talks with Annan at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Putin said "since the beginning and since your first steps as a special envoy for the United Nations
...an organization whose definition of
human rightsis interesting, to say the least...
to Syria, we provided support, and now we support your efforts to restore civil peace in Syria."
He pointed out that Annan's visit to Moscow is taking place on the background of tragic events in Syria, stressing that Annan is known to Moscow as a man with integrity who has popularity and trust.
For his part, Annan said that the situation in Syria has reached a turning point and is currently in a critical moment.