He was speaking ahead of the 20th anniversary of a hard-line coup in 1991 that briefly ousted him and precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The scathing attack came as Putin and Medvedev met this week for a fishing trip on the Volga River, taking time to adopt trademark tough-guy poses for the cameras.

Russia’s two top leaders are believed to be close to a decision on which of them will run for president, and the fishing trip on the Volga River formed part of a rare day-long private meeting.

The pair also went for a walk on the river bank in the Astrakhan region in southern Russia and went on a boat trip to take underwater pictures.

The meeting on the Volga was not announced in advance. Putin arrived from Moscow, where he was meeting his Belarussian counterpart on Monday, while Medvedev flew in from the Black Sea resort of Sochi where he is spending his summer holiday.

One picture posted on the Kremlin website www.kremlin.ru showed Medvedev posing in a wetsuit with an underwater camera, another holding a half-metre long pike fish with Putin in the background and a third in which he was steering a motorboat.

Putin, a keen fisherman who himself donned a wetsuit last week to dive at an underwater archaeological in the Black Sea, was captured struggling to take a much smaller fish off the hook.

Both Medvedev and Putin have hinted that one of them, but not both, will run in the March 2012 presidential election and are expected to make a decision soon.

However, Gorbachev thinks it’s time for Putin to step down. ‘I’m unhappy,’ he said.

He said Russia needs to restore direct elections of governors and of individual seats in parliament, which were abolished during Putin’s presidency.

‘Honest elections are needed: single-ballot elections, elections of governors,’ Gorbachev said. ‘People must have a feeling that something depends on them.’

He dismissed the Popular Front, an umbrella group of public organizations, professional associations and unions created with Putin’s blessing.

‘They invent some unnecessary groups, some fronts,’ Gorbachev said, adding that government spin doctors might just as well invent something like ’10 Putin Strikes’ – a sardonic reference to ’10 Stalin Strikes,’ a term used by Soviet propaganda to describe the Red Army’s offensives during World War II.

The front’s creation has been seen as an attempt by Putin to strengthen his support base ahead of parliamentary elections in December and a presidential vote in March.

Putin, who shifted into the prime minister’s job in 2008 because of a two-term constitutional limit, is widely expected to reclaim the presidency.

Putin watched the first public flight of the fifth-generation T-50 fighter at the MAKS airshow outside Moscow, as well as flights of mid-size regional plane Sukhoi Superjet.

‘The state has supported and will support Russia’s aerospace industry. It is a strategic priority for us,’ Putin told officials and industry executives in a speech, stressing that the government invested $9.5billion in the industry in 2009-11.

Russia is pinning its hopes on the Superjet, a plane designed to compete with Embraer and Bombardier  and T-50 fighter, which will rival the F-22 ‘Raptor’ made by Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Another Russian-made passenger aircraft, the MS-21, is due to be ready for delivery in 2017 and is intended to replace the country’s ageing TU-154 planes.

Putin’s government aims to diversify Russia’s economy away from energy, which represents about half of budget revenues, and is keen to develop technology-heavy sectors such as aerospace and the auto industry.

Putin is also keen to show the success of his government in replicating Soviet-era achievements in technology and defence ahead of a presidential election in March 2012 in which he says he may take part.

Marc Mayrand, Canada’s chief electoral officer, says he will be seeking approval to test internet voting in a federal byelection held in 2013.

In his report on the May 2 federal election, Mayrand said Canadians have made it clear they want to making voting easier — and it doesn’t get much easier than voting on your home computer.

Canadians “live in a world replete with electronic services and increasingly expect a range of options that provide them with more flexibility and accommodate their busy schedules,” he said.

About 62 per cent of Canadians voted in the last federal election, a slight uptick from the 2008 election. However, that is still down significantly from the 70 per cent mark that used to be the norm before the 1990s. In 1958, 79.4 per cent of Canadians voted.

“Three factors stop electors from voting: apathy, inconvenience and administrative barriers. Apathy is a societal issue largely beyond Elections Canada’s control,” the report said.

More Canadians than ever voted at advance polls this May.

“They appear to regard advance voting days as simply additional days to vote, no different from election day,” said the report.

The report also strongly suggested the Elections Canada Act should be revised to incorporate the impact modern communication tools such as Facebook and Twitter have on the election.

Currently, the Elections Canada Act does not allow the premature reporting of election results in one part of the country to another part. However, because of social networking that rule is no longer easily enforced.

“The growing use of social media puts in question not only the practical enforceability of the rule, but also its very intelligibility and usefulness in a world where the distinction between private communication and public transmission is quickly eroding. The time has come for Parliament to consider revoking the current rule,” the report said.

Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo said Rousseff, who took office on Jan. 1, was the likely candidate “if she has the desire to run.” But he said she would first need to discuss the matter with Lula, who remains extremely popular.

“I don’t see that question being resolved without a conversation between the two of them. It’s very early still,” Bernardo said in an interview published on the website of newspaper Folha de S.Paulo.

A government official told Reuters last week that Rousseff has often floated the idea of not running again in private conversations, although the assumption in the presidential palace remains that she will. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The comments by Bernardo, who is close to both Rousseff and Lula, come as Rousseff deals with a political crisis in her allied base in Congress and an economy that is showing clear signs of a slowdown after a boom in recent years.

Rousseff remains popular among most Brazilians but has struggled to hold together her ruling coalition in Congress.

Lula, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, was forbidden by law from running for a third consecutive term. His support for Rousseff, who was chief of staff in his government, was critical to her winning last year’s election.

Lula has repeatedly said in recent months that Rousseff will be his party’s candidate in 2014.

BUENOS AIRES – President Cristina Fernandez said yesterday that keeping Argentina’s economy growing despite the global consumption slowdown is her top priority as she looks forward to what seems like a certain reelection in October.

Boosted by rising commodity prices and insulated somewhat from world debt markets, the country’s GDP is growing about 6.5 percent this year.

Kyrgyzstan’s Central Election Commission says 83 people have registered to run in the country’s presidential election at the end of October.

The commission said Tuesday that 16 candidates received nominations from political parties and 67 are running as independents.

The candidates are now required to collect at least 30,000 signatures, submit an electoral deposit of more than $2,000, and pass a Kyrgyz language test by September 25 in order to be considered as a presidential contender.

The most prominent candidates to run are Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev, who heads up the Social Democratic Party, and Kamchybek Tashiyev, who leads the nationalist Ata-Zhurt party.

Presidential elections are due to be held on October 30.

It will be the first presidential election since the deadly uprising in April 2010 that led to the ousting of the former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who fled the country during violent protests sparked by discontent over government corruption.

Since the uprising, Kyrgyzstan has struggled with political instability and deadly ethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks.

The country’s current leader, President Roza Otunbayeva, led the interim government that took power after President Bakiyev stepped down. She is not eligible to run for election.

Turnout is believed to be close to 70%. There are 566 candidates contesting 165 seats in the Irish parliament.

The ballot was called a few months after the ruling coalition negotiated an 85bn-euro (£72bn) EU/IMF loan package. Divisions had emerged in the ruling coalition between Fianna Fail and the Green Party.

The first results are expected early on Saturday afternoon.

The turnout in this election is believed to have been significantly higher than the 62% that voted in the 2007 general election.

Large numbers of voters in urban and rural areas turned out since polling stations opened at 0700 GMT on Friday.

Voting in one polling station in Salthill in Galway city was disrupted briefly when part of the floor in the assembly hall of St Enda’s National school began to buckle.

EU/IMF bail-out

The polling booths were moved into individual classrooms, and voting continued.

It is the first general election since the country was bailed out by the European Union and the IMF in November.

There are 566 candidates fighting in 43 constituencies for 165 seats in the Irish parliament, Dail Eireann.

The speaker of the Irish parliament (Ceann Comhairle) is automatically returned.

While a record 233 independents, including those in smaller parties, are standing, only 85 female candidates (15% of those contesting the election) are seeking seats in the 31st Dail.

The Irish use the system of proportional representation to elect members of parliament rather than the first-past-the-post method.

Ballot boxes from the 6,000 or so polling stations will be stored securely overnight.

Two days

The counting of votes will get under way at 0900 GMT on Saturday in 35 count centres and trends should become clear in the early afternoon before declarations are formally made.

It will take two days to count the votes but all the indications are that Fianna Fail who have have been power for the past 14 years will be heavily defeated .

Every opinion poll in the run-up to the election suggested the new government would be led by the main opposition party, Fine Gael.

And the party is confident of victory.

Their leader, Enda Kenny, has said that if he becomes the next Irish prime minister, he will try to re-negotiate the terms of Ireland’s international bail-out.

He has also said he would welcome a first visit to the Republic of Ireland by the Queen.

The country’s election commission said preliminary results indicated Kagame would win more than 90 percent of Monday’s vote. While Kagame faced three opponents on the ballot, analysts said none of the three presented any real competition.

Human rights groups and other critics also had decried the arrest of several opposition figures in the lead-up to Monday’s election, and noted that several others were killed or attacked under suspicious circumstances. The Rwandan government has denied any involvement in those attacks.

Tens of thousands of supporters celebrated Kagame’s victory at the national sports stadium late Monday and early Tuesday. Kagame joined in the festivities, dancing on stage as bands belted out music. Preliminarily results were announced around 4 a.m. local time.

Monday’s presidential election was Rwanda’s second since the 1994 genocide, when at least half a million people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were killed.

Much of the sharpest criticism has come from ethnic Hutus against Kagame’s Tutsi-led government. One Hutu political leader, Victoire Ingabire, who was arrested earlier this year on charges of genocide ideology and was not allowed to run, said that if Kagame’s regime continues its repression, the country could spiral into chaos.

Kagame has been credited with stabilizing Rwanda and for its post-genocide economic growth. Kagame has tried to downplay the role of ethnicity in post-genocide Rwanda, and people in the country rarely refer to themselves as Hutu or Tutsi and can face charges for speaking publicly about ethnicity.

In the U.S., State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday that the U.S. was encouraged by what appeared to be a peaceful election.

“We have expressed concerns in the run-up to these elections regarding what appeared to be attempts by the government of Rwanda to limit freedom of expression, but we’ll await the results of the elections before commenting further,” Crowley said.

One village an hour outside of Kigali visited by an Associated Press reporter showed what appeared to be voting irregularities. Two leaders in the village said they had woken people up in the middle of the night to force them to vote before polls opened at 6 a.m.. Three villagers told AP they had voted before 5 a.m., and one as early as 3 a.m.

Karangwa denied that any votes were cast before polls opened. He did however say that voting concluded by 9:30 a.m. in some locations. The villagers would not give their names for fear of reprisals and asked the AP not to identify the village by name. Results from one station in the village showed that more than 98 percent of ballots were cast for Kagame.

The run-up to the campaign was marred by a series of attacks on outspoken critics of Kagame’s government. Rwanda’s government has denied any involvement.

The vice president of an opposition party that couldn’t get registered was killed in mid-July. In June, former army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa was shot and wounded outside his home in South Africa.

Five days after the shooting in South Africa, Jean-Leonard Rugambage, a journalist at a critical newspaper in the capital, was shot dead outside his home in Kigali hours after publishing an online article linking Rwandan intelligence to the attack.

Preliminary results from the National Electoral Commission showed that in 11 out of a total 30 districts Kagame had won 1,610,422 votes out of 1,734,671 votes cast.

Kagame won the last election in 2003, the first since the 1994 genocide, with 95 percent of the vote.

Analysts said the easy victory for Kagame indicated by the first results was unsurprising, partly because of the economic growth and stability he has delivered during his decade in power and also because of a crackdown on rivals and critics.

Kagame’s three registered rivals are weak and linked closely to his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), they said. Three would-be candidates accused the government of preventing them from registering to contest the election.

Though land-locked and poor in resources, Rwanda is a rising star in Africa for donors and investors and Kagame has been feted as a visionary leader and African icon.

The first results have been declared but counting has been very slow in some areas.

Jo O’Brien reports from the Solomon Islands capital, Honiara.

“Before the election, the Commission said it expected allt eh results in by sunday, except in two small areas where the voting was delayed by the late arrival of election officials and supplies. But now its chair, Sir Peter Kenilorea, says he doubts that will be the case. He says the counting system is contributing to delays as each box contains votes for all the candidates, and all boxes have to be brought to provincial headquarters before counting can begin. He says counting is also slower in some constituencies in Honiara where there are many candidates. Several constituencies have been able to return results relatively quickly, with sitting MPs Job Dudley Tausinga returned in North New Georgia and Seth Gukuna in Rennell-Bellona. Sir Peter is also calling for reform of voter registration after some people could not vote because they were not on the electoral list.”

“I congratulate the people of Kenya on their historic referendum which has approved a new constitution for the country and for the peaceful and open manner in which it was conducted,” said Hague.

“This is a landmark decision that raises hopes for a new era of stability, accountability and prosperity in Kenya.”

The constitution received 67 percent approval in the vote, according to Kenya’s electoral commission, and defied fears of a repeat of the bloodshed unleashed by the country’s 2007 presidential election.

Kenya’s first new constitution since its 1963 independence will place checks on the president, remove the post of prime minister, devolve some degree of power to counties and generally consolidate democracy and human rights.

“I hope that this result will encourage Kenya’s government and people to continue to strive for further reform and development,” said Hague in a statement.

The foreign minister added Britain, the former colonial ruler of Kenya, would be “a staunch friend throughout this process”.