Posts Tagged ‘visa’
Russia complains of ‘Cold War’ prejudice in EU visa talks
Russia’s EU ambassador has blamed Cold-War-era prejudice in some EU countries for lack of progress in visa-free talks.
Vladimir Chizhov told EUobserver that negotiations on letting Russian officials, or “service passport” holders, enter the EU without a visa are moving forward.
He said Russia agreed to limit the number of eligible people to those with passports which have electronic security features.
But he noted: “Some ‘fears’ still persist among certain EU countries, however ridiculous and reminiscent of the times of the Cold War they may seem, thus making the rest of facilitations envisaged hostage of their past and [creating] distrust unworthy of a genuine strategic partnership that we are striving for.”
He said the Russian officials in question are “mostly … engaged in further developing Russia-EU relations.”
His thinly veiled allusion to objections by former Soviet and former Communist EU member countries comes shortly before the next EU-Russia summit, expected in December.
The twice-yearly meetings have failed to yield concrete results in recent years.
One EU source said there could be a visa deal in time for December. But two other EU contacts voiced scepticism.
Russia has a few bargaining chips up its sleeve: It could drop punitive tariffs on EU car imports in return for a visa deal, or it could threaten to re-impose passenger data transfer demands on EU airlines.
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Updated Magnitsky Act Introduced in U.S. Congress
An updated bill imposing a visa ban and asset freeze on Russian officials allegedly linked to the death in custody of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, as well as on “individuals responsible for other gross violations of human rights” in Russia has been introduced in the U.S. Congress.
Magnitsky, who worked for Hermitage Capital, a British investment fund, died in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center in Moscow in November 2009, almost a year after being arrested on tax evasion charges. He suffered from untreated pancreatitis and gallstones. Two former prison doctors have been charged with negligence in connection with his death, but a criminal case against one of them was recently dropped.
Just days before his arrest, Magnitsky claimed to have uncovered a massive fraud in which Moscow tax and police officials had allegedly embezzled $230 million in tax rebates by taking over Hermitage subsidiaries and using them to claim tax rebates. His supporters say the legal case investigators launched against him was a means for the same security officials he had accused to muzzle him and stop his activities.
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Barred Reporter Says RusAl Behind Visa Loss
An Australian-American journalist and self-declared doyen of the country’s foreign press corps has been barred entry into Russia in what he says is revenge from Oleg Deripaska’s RusAl for his “aggressive reporting” on the aluminum giant.
John Helmer, who had lived in Moscow since 1989 and briefly worked as a Moscow Times reporter in the early 1990s, said RusAl has hounded him for two years because he rejected an offer for cash payments in exchange for favorable articles.
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Russia Announces Retaliation For U.S. Magnitsky Bans
FIN Alternatives
Three months after the U.S. banned from entering the country 60 Russian officials linked to the death of hedge fund lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Russia has responded in kind.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it had barred dozens of unidentified U.S. officials. While the ministry said it was targeting officials with ties to the controversial prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the killings of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the kidnapping or abuse of Russians in the U.S., the move apparently fulfills the country’s promise in July to retaliate for the U.S. move. That month, a spokesman for Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said the country’s own bans would be “analogous to those announced by the State Dept.”
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Russia Claims Longer List Of U.S. Personae Non Gratae
Russia vowed that its tally of undesirable Americans will be longer than the corresponding list of Russians whose travel was restricted by Washington after a investment fund’s lawyer died of untreated illnesses in a Moscow jail.
“Our list will be longer,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told local newswires Tuesday, later admitting that “the names won’t be disclosed.”
Moscow last week confirmed it had put U.S. officials on a visa blacklist, a move that coincided with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to former Soviet republics in central Asia. The U.S. State Department in July had announced its own restrictions, imposed as the Senate was considering not only a travel ban, but also the freezing of U.S. assets linked to 60 officials involved in a case that led to the death of 37-year-old Sergei Magnitsky.
The Russian officials on Senator Benjamin Cardin’s list, which doesn’t necessarily correspond to the State Department’s list, include judges, prosecutors, prison workers and other officials from the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.
For its part, the Russian Foreign Ministry has indicated it may ban travel to Russia for Americans suspected of “wrongful acts against Russian nationals in the U.S.” or linked to what it called the murder of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and the detention of prisoners in Guantanamo.
Mr. Magnitsky died in 2009 after testifying in court that senior police officials took documents from an international investment fund, then used them to defraud the Russian government of tens of millions of dollars in tax refunds. Russian investigators said Mr. Magnitsky died of heart disease and hepatitis, and they recently opened probes into a doctor and prison official. Russia’s Foreign Ministry says the U.S. is “well aware of efforts by the Russian authorities to investigate” the lawyer’s death.
Although the Moscow-Washington spat could hurt President Barack Obama’s goal of “resetting” relations with Russia, the reciprocal travel bans, no matter how extensive they turn out to be, are unlikely to dent the tourism industry deeply in the two countries.
The U.S. Department of Commerce expects only 208,000 Russian travelers to visit the U.S. this year, about the same number expected from Ecuador. Meanwhile, Russia reported only 262,000 trips from U.S. citizens last year, about a third as many as from China or Lithuania. займ онлайн займы онлайн на карту срочно female wrestling https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php www.zp-pdl.com займ на карту срочно без отказа
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Russia Will Bar Some U.S. Citizens in Retaliation
Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced Saturday that it confirmed a list of American citizens it will bar from entering Russia, in a retaliatory move against the United States’ adoption of the so-called Magnitsky list, which imposes sanctions on Russian officials who have been linked to the 2009 death of the whistleblower Sergei L. Magnitsky.
Russia’s new list includes United States officials who have been implicated in crimes against Russian citizens as well as other violations of human rights, said a spokesman, Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, in comments released Saturday. Mr. Lukashevich mentioned the torture of detainees, extralegal detention at Guantánamo Bay, and the killing of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan as possible focuses.
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Russia Bans Entry To U.S. Officials In Retaliation
Russia has banned entry to dozens of U.S. officials allegedly involved in human rights violations in response to Washington’s blacklisting of Russian officials involved in the prison death of Sergei Magnitsky.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was blacklisting unspecified U.S. officials it claims were involved in the abductions of alleged terrorism suspects, the torture of inmates at Guantanamo prison, the killings of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, and abductions or abuse of Russians in the United States.
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Russia bans entry to unnamed US officials in response to US blacklist tied to Magnitsky death
Russia has banned entry to U.S. officials allegedly involved in killings and abductions, a strong response to Washington’s blacklisting of Russian officials involved in the prison death of a whistleblower.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday it was blacklisting unspecified U.S. officials it claims were involved in the abductions of alleged terrorism suspects, the torture of inmates at Guantanamo prison, the killings of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the abductions or abuse of Russians in the United States. It did not say how many U.S. officials were affected.
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EASIER RULES FOR VISAS
Blog by Cecelia Malmstron – European Union Home Affairs Commissioner
More than 13 million visas are issued every year to people wishing to visit EU countries. Applying for a visa can be a very time-consuming and cumbersome process. In part, this stems from the fact that the present system cannot handle such large quantities of applications, and because visa handling routines are based on an outdated system of stamps. The EU has, for a number of years, worked on modernising the system for visa applications (VIS), and today, the new system was finally introduced for travellers from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauretania, Morocco and Tunisia.
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