Posts Tagged ‘russia’
Gays Are the New Jews
How should the West respond to the Russian government’s homophobic crusade? It is a question that has bedeviled activists and legislators in Europe and America since the Duma passed a law forbidding so-called “propaganda” of same-sex relationships to minors last summer. While the law is criticized as an assault on gay citizens, it is actually something much more pernicious: by forbidding speech that portrays homosexuality in a positive, never mind neutral, light, it is a fundamental abridgement of the freedoms of speech and conscience of all Russian citizens, gay and straight alike. Worse, it has given a green light to vigilantes who have unleashed an unprecedented wave of violence against Russian gays.
In a recent paper co-authored with Ambassador Andras Simonyi of the Center for Transatlantic Relations, I argue that the United States ought to apply the Magnitsky Act against those Russians who have committed human rights violations under cover of this law.
The Magnitsky Act compels the US government to impose visa bans and asset freezes against Russians, whether they be private individuals or officials, implicated in human rights abuses. We name names, ranging from the Duma deputy who authored the law to the leader of a Russian vigilante group, as potential additions to the Magnitsky list. This tactic, we believe, would be far more effective at curbing the Russian government’s abysmal behavior than boycotting Stolichnaya vodka or the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics, as some activists have proposed.
John Allen Gay takes issue with our proposal, arguing that gay rights should not be a central focus of American foreign policy vis a vis relations with Russia as, say, the reduction of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, and more practically, he believes that taking a harder line against Moscow’s anti-gay policies would do nothing to help Russia’s gays; in fact, he argues, it might hurt them.
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Sanctions refused against Russians
Sweden has refused to grant safety guarantees to a London-based businessman who has been lobbying Stockholm and other European capitals to impose sanctions and an asset freeze against some 60 Russian officials.
William Browder, co-founder of the investment fund Hermitage Capital, has been leading a campaign to punish the Russian officials for their part in the arrest, and death in custody in 2009 of his former associate Sergei Magnitsky.
The Russian lawyer blew the whistle on a $230 million embezzlement fraud. After his death, the Russian authorities bizarrely put Mr Magnitsky on posthumous trial and found him guilty of embezzlement. Mr Browder was also sentenced to jailed in absentia at the same trial.
Moscow promptly activated an Interpol arrest warrant against Mr Browder — hence his nervousness about travelling abroad and exposing himself to a possible extradition request. Britain has rejected Russia’s attempts to have Mr Browder brought to Moscow to serve his nine-year sentence.
“The Swedes say it is a police matter and the Government has no right to interfere,” said Mr Browder, who has been successfully persuading European Union governments to freeze the foreign assets of the Russian officials. “But this is a straightforward political decision to ensure that I don’t get arrested at Russian behest. The Germans and the Netherlands gave guarantees. This suggests that the Swedes are afraid of upsetting Russia.”
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Senator John McCain: Russians deserve better than Putin
When Pravda.ru editor, Dmitry Sudakov, offered to publish my commentary, he referred to me as “an active anti-Russian politician for many years.” I’m sure that isn’t the first time Russians have heard me characterized as their antagonist. Since my purpose here is to dispel falsehoods used by Russia’s rulers to perpetuate their power and excuse their corruption, let me begin with that untruth. I am not anti-Russian. I am pro-Russian, more pro-Russian than the regime that misrules you today.
I make that claim because I respect your dignity and your right to self-determination. I believe you should live according to the dictates of your conscience, not your government. I believe you deserve the opportunity to improve your lives in an economy that is built to last and benefits the many, not just the powerful few. You should be governed by a rule of law that is clear, consistently and impartially enforced and just. I make that claim because I believe the Russian people, no less than Americans, are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
A Russian citizen could not publish a testament like the one I just offered. President Putin and his associates do not believe in these values. They don’t respect your dignity or accept your authority over them. They punish dissent and imprison opponents. They rig your elections. They control your media. They harass, threaten, and banish organizations that defend your right to self-governance. To perpetuate their power they foster rampant corruption in your courts and your economy and terrorize and even assassinate journalists who try to expose their corruption.
They write laws to codify bigotry against people whose sexual orientation they condemn. They throw the members of a punk rock band in jail for the crime of being provocative and vulgar and for having the audacity to protest President Putin’s rule.
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How London turned into Richistan
The city with more super-rich than anywhere else proves Putin had a point when he taunted PM about losing his capital to oligarchs.
It is 3am on a warm Tuesday in Cadogan Square, Belgravia, and a £200,000 orange Maserati screeches to a halt.
The driver revs the engine for several minutes, and the car – with Arab script on its registration plate – roars off into the night. By the time the sleepless residents reach their windows to peer out, the car has long gone.
For the next month the streets of the capital will be dominated by Ferraris and Maybachs in often garish colours, driven by the over-indulged sons of the Emirates aristocracy.
Sometimes the cars come straight from the Park Lane showroom. Sometimes the playboy owners fly their favourite vehicles – heavily customised, from gold-plated interiors to velvet-covered bodywork – more than 3,000 miles for a few weeks of fun in the London traffic.
It is an annual sojourn, delayed this year by Ramadan. With temperatures reaching 110F in Kuwait, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the ruling families have flocked to the temperate if polluted air of Knightsbridge for shopping and leisure.
And for the younger men – nights of boozing and ostentatiously bad behaviour impossible back home.
Welcome to super-rich London, the city with the highest number of multi-millionaires in the world, according to the respected Wealth Insight analysis – more than 4,000 individuals with more than £20 million per head, placing London ahead of Tokyo, Singapore and New York.
Last week, speaking at the G20 Summit, Vladimir Putin described Britain as ‘a small island’. Nobody, said his spokesman, pays attention to it – except of course the Russian ‘oligarchs who have bought Chelsea’.
To that list he might have added the Khazakhs, Azerbaijanis, Malaysians, Chinese, Indians and even Greeks and Italians who are all scrambling to buy up London in ever greater numbers.
The tide of foreign wealth seems unstoppable. ‘Super-prime’ homes, usually defined as the top 5 per cent of the most valuable properties, are being sold to international buyers at a rate of almost 85 per cent, while 60 per cent of newly built property in London is bought by overseas investors, mainly from the Far East.
Greek and Italian investors are said to be buying £500 million of British property a year.
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What’s at stake for Russia in Syria
The gridlock at the UN Security Council between the U.S.and Russia is dragging on, due to a gamut of competing interests in Syria.
The Russia-Syria axis is rooted in a strong political and economic relationship that has been cultivated since the late 1950s. The bond has a deep cultural element: many Syrians go to Russia to study, while Russians go to Syria as holidaymakers, advisors or investors. Over the years, Russia has also played an essential role in restructuring the Syrian economy, and wrote off roughly 70 percent of Syria’s $13.4 billion debt in 2005.
While reliable numbers are hard to come by, The Moscow Times estimated Russian investments in Syria at $19.4 billion in 2009, covering infrastructure, energy and tourism. But with outstanding projects ranging from a nuclear power plant to oil and gas exploration, the number today may be considerably higher.
Either way, Russia’s trade with Syria is fairly insubstantial. According to Daniel Treisman, professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, Russian exports to Syria amounted to$1.93 billion in 2011, or only 0.4 percent of Russia’s total exports. That’s less than its trade with Tunisia and Estonia.
Still, what stands out is that Russia-Syria trade is concentrated in the defense and energy industries. “The vast majority of Russian exports to Syria are armaments, which makes Syria relatively more important as an export destination for the Russian defense industry,” Connolly said.
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Boxer, Murphy, Shaheen, McCain Urge Focus on Russia’s Repressive, Discriminatory Policies at G-20 Summit
For Immediate Release:
August 30, 2013
Contact: Washington D.C. Office (202) 224-3553
Boxer, Murphy, Shaheen, McCain Urge Focus on Russia’s Repressive, Discriminatory Policies at G-20 Summit – Senators Ask President Obama to Call Attention to Violations of Basic Freedoms Under Russian President, Including Jailing of Opposition Figures and Laws Targeting NGOs and the LGBT Community
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Christopher Murphy (D-CT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and John McCain (R-AZ), all members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today sent a letter to President Obama urging him to use his upcoming trip to the G-20 Leaders’ Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, as an opportunity to call attention to the Russian government’s ongoing crackdown on human rights and civil society. The Summit begins on September 5.
“The United States must not give President Putin a free pass on repression,” the Senators wrote. “We hope we can count on you to prioritize advancing human rights as a central objective of U.S. relations with Russia.”
In the letter, Senators Boxer, Murphy, Shaheen and McCain called for a renewed focus by the U.S. and its allies on Russia’s deteriorating human rights situation and the government’s assault on basic freedoms—including criminalizing peaceful speech, discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, imprisoning those who criticize President Putin or his security force allies, and harassing and intimidating lawyers who stand up for human rights defenders.
The Senators wrote, “Russia is a great power with enormous potential to help solve the world’s problems. But great powers should respect international human rights norms and uphold the rule of law both at home and abroad.”
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INTERPOL cannot be used by the Russian Federation to seek the arrest of Mr William Browder
On 24 May 2013, the Independent Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) concluded that the Russian Federation’s use of INTERPOL’s channels to seek information concerning Mr William Browder was predominantly political in nature and therefore contrary to INTERPOL’s rules and regulations. It recommended that all data relating to Russian Federation’s request concerning Mr Browder be deleted from INTERPOL’s databases.
The General Secretariat immediately implemented the CCF’s recommendation, and all INTERPOL member countries were informed of the CCF’s findings and recommendation as well as the General Secretariat’s actions.
Today, Friday 26 July, INTERPOL received another request from the National Central Bureau of Moscow concerning Mr Browder, this time seeking to locate and arrest Mr Browder with a view to his extradition on a charge of ‘qualified swindling’ as defined by the Russian Penal Code.
INTERPOL considers this charge to be covered by the previous decision of May 2013. Therefore all information related to this request for Mr Browder’s arrest has been deleted from INTERPOL’s databases and all INTERPOL member countries have been informed accordingly.
INTERPOL has taken the decision to make its decisions and actions public in response to the Russian Federation’s request, given their public statement on the matter.
INTERPOL has no further comment at this time. hairy girls микрозаймы онлайн female wrestling https://zp-pdl.com/how-to-get-fast-payday-loan-online.php https://www.zp-pdl.com unshaven girl
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Interpol Turns Down Russia’s Warrant Request for Browder
Interpol reiterated on Friday that it could not be used by the Russian Federation to seek the arrest of Hermitage Capital equity fund head William Browder, who was recently convicted in absentia by a Russian court on charges of fraud and tax evasion.
Moscow had previously requested Interpol to issue a “blue notice” for Browder, requiring all 190 member states to “collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a crime,” according to the agency’s website. But the Interpol General Secretariat rejected the request, citing “a predominantly political nature” of the case against Browder.
“Today, Friday, July 26, Interpol received another request from the National Central Bureau of Moscow concerning Mr. Browder, this time seeking to locate and arrest Mr. Browder with a view to his extradition on a charge of ‘qualified swindling’ as defined by the Russian Penal Code,” the Interpol General Secretariat said in a statement on its website.
“Interpol considers this charge to be covered by the previous decision of May 2013. Therefore all information related to this request for Mr. Browder’s arrest has been deleted from Interpol’s databases, and all Interpol member countries have been informed accordingly,” the statement said.
Browder was tried in absentia by a Moscow court in July and was sentenced to nine years in prison and banned from doing business in Russia for three years.
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Edward Snowden: Russia offers to consider asylum request
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says any appeal for asylum from whistleblower who fled US will be looked at ‘according to facts’.
Russia has offered to consider an asylum request from the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, in the Kremlin’s latest move to woo critics of the west.
Snowden fled the United States before leaking the details of a top-secret US surveillance programme to the Guardian this month. He is currently believed to be in Hong Kong, but has reportedly changed hotels to keep his location secret.
Fearing US retaliation, Snowden said at the weekend that “my predisposition is to seek asylum in a country with shared values”, citing Iceland as an example. He defended his decision to flee to Hong Kong by citing its relative freedom compared with mainland China.
Snowden is not known to have made any asylum requests, including to Russia. Yet speaking to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said: “If such an appeal is given, it will be considered. We’ll act according to facts.”
Peskov’s comments were widely carried by the Russian media, which have largely ignored Snowden’s revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) was secretly empowered with wide-reaching authority to collect information from the US mobile provider Verizon and to snoop on emails and internet communications via a data-mining programme called Prism. Russia’s feared security services are widely believed to maintain similar powers.
Peskov’s comments on potential asylum opened the floodgates on support for Snowden. Robert Shlegel, an influential MP with the ruling United Russia party, said: “That would be a good idea.”
Alexey Pushkov, head of the Duma’s international affairs committee and a vocal US critic, said on Twitter: “By promising asylum to Snowden, Moscow has taken upon itself the protection of those persecuted for political reasons. There will be hysterics in the US. They only recognise this right for themselves.”
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