Plus, St. Petersburg pols mull gay "propaganda" ban and crafty Kazakh president calls snap elections.

You have reached a premium content area of TOL. To read this entire article please login if you are already a TOL subscriber.

Not a subscriber?

Annual membership costs only $55 per year for individuals ($33 for students) and organizational subscriptions start at $141 per year.

Subscribe today for access to:
Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles).

You can subscribe here to gain access to the entire website.