Posts Tagged ‘Cardin’
In Russia, seeing only repression
In Moscow Russia has set off on an ever more authoritarian path as it heads toward a presidential election next year, sending ominous signals to the already weakened opposition and confronting the United States and Europe with vexing new political challenges.
President Dmitry Medvedev, who positions himself as Prime Minister Vladmir Putin’s liberal alter ego, repeatedly assures the West that just the opposite is true. At the Davos World Economic Forum this week, he said Russia was fighting corruption, developing rule of law – if slowly – and becoming increasingly democratic. “Russian citizens believe they live in a democratic state,” he said.
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The World from The Hill: Five key foreign policy issues to watch in the new year
Unresolved issues and new challenges face President Obama on the foreign policy front in 2011, including a new Republican House with lawmakers raring to confront what they see as failing policies.
Republicans can’t do much to change Obama’s direction on foreign policy, but they do hold the purse strings to fund the administration’s operations. Fresh off their midterm rout of Democrats, Republicans have expressed their intentions to use that capability.
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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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Mr. Putin’s show trial
SOMETIME IN the next two weeks, a Moscow judge is expected to announce the conviction of and new prison sentences for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, whose oil company, Yukos, was the largest private company in Russia before it was crushed and confiscated by the regime of Vladimir Putin. If that occurs, the notion that Russia might be moving toward the rule of law under Mr. Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev will no longer deserve serious consideration.
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Magnitsky Deserves Justice
VOA News.com
This month marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died from apparent medical neglect after 12 months in pre-trial detention.
In 2008, Mr. Magnitsky implicated Russian officials in what he called a massive scheme to defraud the government of $230 million. Authorities arrested Mr. Magnitsky and accused him and his client, Hermitage Capital, of evading taxes. According to Mr. Magnitsky, investigators and prison officials pressured him to withdraw his complaint and testify against Hermitage Capital. He refused to cooperate and was subsequently transferred from one Moscow prison to another with worse conditions. After being denied medical attention for pancreatic problems and enduring what human rights activists have described as torturous conditions for almost a year, Sergei Magnitsky died November 16th, 2009.
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DIFFERENT ANGLE
Are you Banking any of the 60 Russians that the EU wants to Sanction?
Kenneth Rijock
Financial Crime Consultant, for World-Check
The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has recommended to the full European Parliament, in its Human Rights Report, that it adopt sanctions against sixty Russian officials, denying them visas for the Schengen area, and freeze their assets and bank accounts within the EU. These PEPs were reportedly implicated in the illegal detention, torture and death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky last year, and the $230m tax rebate fraud involving Hermitage Capital Management.
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Russia Expresses Anger Over E.U. Visa Restrictions
New York Times
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW — Russian officials responded angrily on Thursday to a proposal that would deny European visas to a list of 60 officials who have been implicated in the death of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in pretrial detention in Moscow last year.
Konstantin I. Kosachev, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the State Duma, condemned the proposed ban as “Bolshevik tactics” and said Russia might be forced to “very harshly retaliate” if the proposal went forward.
He said such pressure “could have extremely negative consequences for the entire relationship between Russia and the European Union.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry called the move “direct interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state, and open pressure on the judicial system of the Russian Federation.”
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Documentary Commemorates Death of Sergei Magnitsky
By Marina Grushin, 24 Nov. 2010
In an unprecedented show of solidarity, lawmakers and human rights activists gathered in capital cities around the world Tuesday to condemn the rampant lawlessness and corruption in Russia.
Legislators in Washington, Ottawa, and cities across Europe hosted the events to commemorate Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison last year. On the one-year anniversary of Magnitsky’s death, his supporters premiered “Justice for Sergei,” a documentary chronicling the lawyer’s struggle against corrupt officials in Russia.
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Cardin-McCain whistleblower bill could be a threat to U.S.-Russian ties
The Hill
As the White House feverishly lobbies the Senate to approve a long-stalled nuclear-arms treaty, a bipartisan bill seeking answers in the suspicious death of a Russian attorney could escalate tensions between Washington and Moscow.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as co-sponsor, introduced the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act of 2010 just before lawmakers went home to campaign this fall. Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) has offered companion legislation in the House.
The legislation comes as the Obama administration urges senators to vote for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said last week should not be approved in the lame-duck session. The U.S.-Russia arms treaty needs 67 votes to be ratified.
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