Posts Tagged ‘APEC’
Obama and Putin May Meet at APEC Summit
President Vladimir Putin could meet U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of an economic summit in Indonesia on Monday to discuss a range of topics including Syria, a Putin aide said Thursday.
“This was our proposal, which was taken up immediately by the American side,” Yury Ushakov said at a news briefing, Interfax reported. “We think the meeting will take place.”
The meeting would take place in Bali at a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, forum,
which is aimed at developing trade and economic cooperation within a group of 21 countries from the Asia-Pacific region. Apart from Russia and the U.S., group members include China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Canada.
The two leaders plan to discuss the “development of agreements and the prospects of working together on Syria,” Ushakov said, among other issues.
Despite last week’s United Nations Security Council agreement on the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons that codified an earlier deal brokered by Russia and the U.S., bilateral relations between the countries have been deteriorating since Putin returned to the presidency last year.
The U.S. Senate passed the Magnitsky Act in December, banning entry to the U.S. for Russian officials suspected of involvement in the 2009 death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and other suspected human rights violators. Russia retaliated with the Dima Yakovlev law, which prohibited U.S. adoptions of Russian children and banned entry to certain U.S. officials implicated in human rights abuses.
Last September, Obama skipped the APEC summit in Vladivostok, which some saw as a response to Putin backing out of last May’s Group of Eight meeting at Camp David near Washington, D.C. payday loan unshaven girl https://zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php займы на карту без отказа
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Clinton Tells Russia That Sanctions Will Soon End
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged Saturday that the United States would soon lift cold-war-era trade sanctions on Russia, but she did not address human rights legislation in Congress that has so far stalled passage, infuriated the Kremlin and become an unexpected issue in the American presidential race.
Attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting here in place of the campaigning President Obama, Mrs. Clinton welcomed Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization last month. And she said that the United States must now normalize trade relations so that American businesses can reap the benefits of Russia’s membership, including lower tariffs for American products.
Although the sanctions included in the 1974 law known as Jackson-Vanik are waived each year and have no practical effect, they violate W.T.O. rules, which could allow Russia to retaliate against American businesses.
The effort to grant Russia normal trade status, however, has become entangled in legislation that would punish Russian officials accused of abusing human rights, denying them visas and freezing their assets. That has raised doubts that any agreement on lifting the Jackson-Vanik provisions can be reached before the November election.
The human rights bill, which has bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in prison in 2009 after being prosecuted on charges that his supporters argue were manufactured to cover up official corruption.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential challenger, injected the issue into the campaign last week by issuing a statement saying that, as president, he would normalize trade with Russia only if the Magnitsky bill were enacted. The Obama administration, by contrast, has opposed the bill as too expansive and lobbied against mixing it with the trade issue, while expressing support for addressing rights abuses in Russia in some way.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Clinton sees Congress moving on Russia trade measure
The U.S. Congress may move this month to upgrade trade relations with Russia, a key part of the Obama administration’s effort to bolster sometimes strained ties with Moscow and open the Russian market to more U.S. companies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday.
Clinton, addressing the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) meeting in Vladivostok, said the Obama administration was working closely with Congress on lifting the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, Cold War-era legislation which has blocked normal trade privileges for Russia.
“To make sure our companies get to compete here in Russia, we are working closely with the United States congress to terminate the application to Jackson-Vanik to Russia and grant Russia permanent normalized trade relations,” Clinton said.
“We hope that the Congress will act on this important piece of legislation this month.”
Congress is under pressure to approve the permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) bill because of Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) last month, a move the United States strongly supported.
U.S. business groups hope the House of Representatives and Senate will pass the legislation in September before lawmakers return home to campaign. Businesses worry that without it U.S. firms may not get access to newly opened services markets and be subject to potential arbitrary Russian trade reprisals.
But with concerns in Congress about Moscow’s support for Iran and Syria, as well as its broader human rights record, the timing of a vote remains unclear.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
APEC and Pussy Riot
At first sight, there should be no reason to mention the APEC summit in Vladivostok and the Pussy Riot trial in the same sentence, let alone suggest that one could affect the other.
Yet, bizarrely, that is exactly what is happening.
While there is acknowledgement by Russia’s international partners that the workings of the country’s judicial system are a sovereign matter, in today’s highly globalized economy, no country is ever completely an island when it comes to applying the rule of law.
Whatever one thinks of the rights and wrongs of the Pussy Riot protest, the case has troubled leading domestic and international business figures alike – precisely because it has presented Russian courts as subject to pressure from the authorities.
While staging a punk protest in a place of worship would likely lead to prosecution and minor charges in many countries, the severity of the punishment meted out to these three young women is clearly due to the political overtones of the case – no matter what the prosecutors may say about its strictly “anti-religious” nature.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
