Posts Tagged ‘khodorkovsky’
Russia’s Economic Prospects
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Russia’s economy grew by close to 4 percent in 2010. Compared with developed economies, this was a robust achievement, given the uncertainties faced by the global economy and the continuing debt crises in some small European economies. These economies could still endanger the stability of the European economy more widely, and thus cast a shadow on the prospects of Russia’s major trading partner.
Still, Russia’s growth was about 1 percentage point lower than was generally expected a year ago. Inflation was slightly higher. These differences can be explained largely by the extreme summer weather and numerous forest fires that plagued the country. As a result, Russia’s grain harvest was about 25 percent below the recent average. While Russia has emerged as a major exporter of grain—especially of feed wheat—in past years, it banned grain exports last August; the ban remains in effect until this summer.
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From oil tycoon to imprisoned muse
Directors and writers have turned their eyes to former oligarch and longtime inmate Mikhail Khordokovsky as a subject, inspiration, and more recently, colleague. During the first few moments of the movie “Khodorkovsky,” the screen remains black. Then a narrow blue band widens from the top edge of the inky darkness, as if the viewer is peering out at the clear sky from some dark chamber. The vista grows, revealing two oil pumps swinging up and down in the middle of a snowy desert in Siberia. They look like the hands of a huge clock, ticking off the inevitable minutes.
The film, which was a sleeper hit warmly received at last month’s Berlin Film Festival, got much bigger play after it was stolen from the director’s office before a small screening, causing an even greater sensation for the film.
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A Year Before Elections, What About Russia’s Corruption Fight?
The highly publicized cases of Sergei Magnitsky — a 37-year-old lawyer who died in pretrial detention in November 2009 after exposing a multimillion-dollar fraud against the Russian taxpayer — and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed business magnate who was sentenced at the end of 2010 to remain in prison through 2017, have again put the international spotlight on corruption in the Russian state.
By the time of his death, the ailing Magnitsky had been complaining for weeks that he was being denied adequate medical treatment for acute stomach pain. The subsequent inquiry into his demise represented a serious miscarriage of justice. Khodorkovsky’s latest case gained notoriety for the brazenly irregular manner in which he was charged and convicted of embezzling his own company’s oil, apparently with the predetermined goal of keeping him behind bars at all costs.
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Bereaved sons and mothers urge Barroso to be brave with Putin
With Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the EU’s Jose Manuel Barroso to spend one hour in a man-to-man talk in Brussels on Thursday (24 February), close relatives of Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Magnitsky, Alexander Litvinenko and Mikhail Khodorkovsky told EUobserver what Mr Barroso should be asking.
Ilia Politkovsky, the son of Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist shot in the head outside her home on Mr Putin’s birthday in 2006, wants to know why the crime has not been solved.
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Medvedev to Face Khodorkovsky and Magnitsky in Davos
President Dmitry Medvedev will arrive late for the 41st annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he is scheduled to give the Wednesday keynote speech.
The announcement of Medvedev’s delayed departure from Moscow was made on Monday as he dealt with the aftermath of the explosion at Domodedovo Airport — but his trip has not been canceled.
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Davos Man and Khodorkovsky
The Russian phrase for it is pryamoi razgovor, and it’s rare to hear from Russia’s political elite: straight talk. But that’s what a senior adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev delivered last week about the latest show trial of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Mr. Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man until he earned the ire of Vladimir Putin by supporting liberal political causes and attempting to open his oil company to the West. Imprisoned in 2003 on charges of tax evasion, he was set to go free this year. But he was retried last year for different crimes and sentenced to six more years in Siberian prison.
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Pro-Kremlin party leader calls MEP’s suggestions in Khodorkovsky’s case attempt to put pressure on Russia
Suggestions made by some European Parliament members in the case of Russian ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev are an attempt to put pressure on Russia, Russia’s ruling party leader Boris Gryzlov said.
Members of the European Parliament led by Estonian Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe deputy Kristiina Ojuland moved to impose economic sanctions and travel restrictions on Russian officials involved in ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s trial and conviction.
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Russian commentary calls for Western sanctions over Yukos trial
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
“Rescuing the drowning: Weakness of our civil society makes the state of rights and freedoms in Russia highly dependent on West’s influence”
One of the important factors in the second Yukos case was the reaction of Western countries to the trial in the Khamovnicheskiy court. Russian human rights activists who followed the case closely were hoping that the influence of the G7 leaders would be a limiter on judicial tyranny.
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Russian “Justice”
The new, Republican-majority Congress is starting its work with a jaundiced eye on what’s going on in Russia. Just a week ago Moscow convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky for crimes most legal experts believe he did not commit. Former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov is in jail, albeit only for two weeks, for demonstrating in support of freedom of assembly. But it is the fourteen-year sentence meted out against Khodorkovsky which is particularly telling. It reflects not guilt on the part of the ex-chairman of Russia’s Yukos oil company, but the animus against the man by Russia’s rulers. Even if American companies want to do business in Russia, the verdict and the arrests don’t help.
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