Posts Tagged ‘browder’
The Khodorkovsky Verdict: Scaring Off Investment in Russia
It must have been an awkward meeting for Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. On Dec. 29, he convened a session with his economic aides to talk about attracting talented businessmen to Moscow. No one mentioned that across the river from where they were sitting, a judge was reading out the guilty verdict of one of Russia’s most successful businessmen, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose case has scared off a lot of capital from the country. But when the subject turned to Russia’s appeal for investors, Medvedev’s tone became forlorn: “The investment climate in our country is bad. It’s very bad.” And everyone understood why.
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Russia defies EU diplomacy on Khodorkovsky sentence
Experts have warned that polite diplomacy alone will have zero impact on an increasingly wayward Russia as EU leaders lined up to criticise the jailing of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Thursday.
“There’s nothing anyone can say outside of Russia that has any effect on the Russians. They just laugh as we condemn their actions,” Bill Browder, the CEO of US venture capitalist firm Hermitage Capital, whose lawyer, Sergey Magnitsky, died in suspicious circumstances in a Russian prison last year, told this website shortly after the Khodorkovsky sentence.
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Fatal odyssey of a Russian prisoner tells a dark tale; Above the law
International Herald Tribune
More than a year ago the members of an obscure oversight panel filed into Butyrskaya Prison to look into the death of a prisoner. They were hardly an intimidating bunch: mostly retired women, scribbling their observations in notebooks, regarded by the prison staff as a minor irritant, like fleas.
In a country whose law enforcement wields enormous power, it is easy enough to ignore civilian watchdog groups. But this day was different. When the doctors were led in and told to take a seat, the panel’s leader, a veteran human rights activist named Valery V. Borshchev, felt something unfamiliar in the air.
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After Russian Death, Inquiry Doors Open and Shut
The New York Times
by Ellen Barry
It was more than a year ago when six members of an obscure oversight panel filed into Butyrskaya Prison to look into the death of a prisoner. They were hardly an intimidating bunch: retired women in hats, mostly, scribbling their observations in notebooks, regarded by the prison staff as a minor irritant, like fleas.
In a country whose law enforcement structures wield enormous power, it is easy enough to ignore civilian watchdog groups. But this day was different. When the doctors were led in and told to take a seat, the panel’s leader, a veteran human rights activist named Valery V. Borshchev, felt something unfamiliar in the air.
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Sergei Magnitsky: European Parliament recommends tough sanctions on Russian officials
The European Parliament has recommended hard-hitting sanctions be taken against 60 Russian officials accused of involvement or dereliction of duty in the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. In a vote that caused friction with Moscow, the parliament backed a resolution that opens the door for EU member states, including Britain, to introduce a visa ban and freeze the bank accounts of the officials.
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Legal proceedings test whether Russia will move closer to West
Two separate legal proceedings this week are freighted with significance for Russia, helping determine whether the country will move closer to the West or remain an arm’s-length acquaintance, widely regarded with suspicion.
The second trial of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky resumes in Moscow on Wednesday, with the judge expected to begin rendering his verdict, a process that could take days. And Thursday, the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on a proposal to ban visas and seize assets of Russian officials linked to the death in custody of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who was arrested after uncovering a $230 million fraud scheme.
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Battle against corruption is an uphill struggle
Economist Intelligence Unit
SUMMARY
Corruption has become arguably Russia’s biggest problem, hampering its ability to recover from the 2008-09 economic crisis and preventing meaningful diversification of the economy away from natural resources. The crisis hit Russia hard, and its economy would also be likely to fare badly in any future global downturn. There are signs that the president, Dmitry Medvedev, is gradually moving against bribery, graft and outright pilfering of national resources by corrupt bureaucrats. However, this is a major challenge, and there is a high risk that progress will be insufficient to tackle this major obstacle to Russia’s economic development.
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Mother of ‘tortured’ Russian targeted
The Express on Sunday
THE mother of an anti-corruption lawyer allegedly tortured to death in a Moscow jail has been harassed at her home by Kremlinfriendly journalists. The claim was made last week by Jamison Firestone, the former business partner of late father-of-two Sergei Magnitsky.
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An American in Exile From Moscow – Browder’s tale is a warning to the West.
Had you asked Stalin about Earl Browder, he would have snorted in derision. Ask Putin about Bill Browder, and the reaction will be the same. The Browder family’s tortured relationship with Russian leaders is worthy of a Ken Follett novel.
Earl Browder was the leader of the Communist Party USA in the 1930s and during World War II. A Stalin worshiper, he wielded immense influence in the trade-union movement, which grew in power as America’s war machine sucked in millions of industrial workers. During the years of the Hitler-Stalin pact, Browder was a class warrior opposing the “imperialist” war between Britain and Germany. With the Soviet and American entry into the war in 1941, he used his communist machine to lash U.S. workers into heroic feats of output. But as the wartime love-in between Stalin and Roosevelt turned into U.S.-Soviet rivalry and the Cold War, Browder was dismissed by Stalin for not understanding quickly enough the change in line. Instead he and his son, Felix, a brilliant mathematician, fell victim to McCarthyism, living shrunken lives in the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950s.
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