Thursday, July 26, 2012

Russia News Review - 7/26/2012


Новый Регион

МИД Великобритании раскритиковал российский закон об НКО
Новый Регион
Лондон, Июль 26 (Новый Регион, Ольга Радько) – МИД Великобритании подверг критике новый закон о деятельности некоммерческих организаций в России. Этот документ посеет недоверие в обществе и создаст препятствия для развития гражданского общества в России, говорится в заявлении Форни-офиса.
Британский МИД раскритиковал новый закон о зарубежных НКО в РоссииРИА Новости
Правозащитники «расстроили» «Единую Россию»Воронежский портал
Граждане хотят знать "иностранных агентов" в лицоКоммерсантъ
Вести.Ru -Lenta.ru -bbcrussian.com
Все похожие статьи: 120 »


Русская Служба Новостей

Коллеги Анны Чапман готовили в шпионы своих детей
Lenta.ru
Высланные из США российские агенты, в группу которых входила Анна Чапман, намеревались в будущем использовать в шпионской деятельности своих детей. Об этом сообщает The Wall Street Journal со ссылкой на бывших и нынешних американских чиновников, имена которых не называются.
WSJ: российские шпионы в США планировали привлечь к работе своих детейРИА Новости
Российская шпионская сеть стремилась сделать агентами детейРадиостанция ЭХО МОСКВЫ
Инопресса: Дети разоблаченных в США "русских шпионов" готовились пополнить ряды агентовNEWSru.com
Взгляд -Русская Служба Новостей -INOTV
Все похожие статьи: 19 »


Биржевой лидер

Активистка FEMEN топлесс подбежала к патриарху Кириллу
bbcrussian.com
Активистка движения FEMEN с обнаженной грудью подбежала к предстоятелю РПЦ патриарху Кириллу на взлетной полосе аэропорта, где прибывший в Киев патриарх давал пресс-конференцию. Активистка прокричала "Изыди вон!", после чего была задержана - сначала одним из приближенных патриарха, ...
Десять самых эксцентричных акций движения FEMENРИА Новости
Состав преступления полуголой дамы, показавшей грудь Патриарху Кириллу, могут изменитьСЕГОДНЯ
"Судя по выражению лица, патриарх был немного ошарашен"Коммерсантъ
Росбалт.RU -Радиостанция ЭХО МОСКВЫ -Украинское национальное информагентство
Все похожие статьи: 335 »

via World - Google News on 7/26/12

The Daily Star

Russia says demands that Assad quit prolong Syrian conflict
Reuters India
| MOSCOW (Reuters) - Demands that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad quit power are blocking efforts to end the 16-month-old conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned on Thursday. Lavrov said such calls - made by the United States, ...
Russia Scoffs at Arab League ProposalsABC News
Russia ready to contribute to UN observer mission in Syria – LavrovRT
Russia to stay out of Syrian portUPI.com

all 270 news articles »

via World - Google News on 7/26/12

Turkey won't tolerate Kurdish entity in Syria
The Associated Press
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey will not tolerate the creation of a Kurdish-run region in Syria, its prime minister said Thursday following reports that Kurdish rebels and a Syrian Kurdish political party had taken control of five cities along the ...

and more »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Globe and Mail

Russia seeks to cool Assad's head
The Associated Press
Russia has been Syria's key protector throughout the 16-month uprising that evolved into a full-blown civil war, shielding Assad's regime from international sanctions and providing it with weapons despite an international outcry. And after the ...
Russia tells Syria chemical arms threat is unacceptableReuters

all 5,596 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

New Yorker

Feminist anti-Putin rockers thank supporters in letter from Russian prison
Washington Post
The three women — all members of the Pussy Riot band — were arrested after their February stunt at Moscow's main Christ the Savior cathedral two weeks before March's presidential vote, in which they asked Mother Mary to deliver Russia from Putin's ...
'Set them free': Sting calls for Pussy Riot release from 'appalling' detentionRT

all 167 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Russia seeks to cool Assad's head
Businessweek
Russia has been Syria's key protector throughout the 16-month uprising that evolved into a full-blown civil war, shielding Assad's regime from international sanctions and providing it with weapons despite an international outcry. And after the ...

and more »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Bleacher Report

PREVIEW-Olympics-Russia sets modest goal at "transition Games"
Reuters
MOSCOW, July 25 | Wed Jul 25, 2012 4:00pm EDT. MOSCOW, July 25 (Reuters) - Unlike previous years, Russia has set relatively modest goals for the 2012 Games, hoping to match its medal haul of four years ago and cling to a third-place finish in London.
Russia sets modest goal at "transition Games"Chicago Tribune
2014 Olympics: Is Sochi, Russia Ready for Winter Games?Bleacher Report
Olympic fever brings Russian glamour – and ice – to London this summerRussia Beyond The Headlines
WTAQ
all 140 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Sky News Australia

Business groups keep up pressure on to pass Russia trade bill
The Hill (blog)
Business groups are optimistic that Congress can clear legislation to normalize trade relations with Russia by next week, but intend to keep up the pressure until it's done. The Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday that ...
Interests vs. Values Is the Wrong Prism for Viewing the Reset with RussiaHuffington Post
Snyder, 13 other govs urge Congress to approve Russia tradeThe Detroit News
Statement by the U.S.-Russia Business Council on USRBC Meeting with USTR ...Sacramento Bee
Sky News Australia -Financial Times
all 134 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

OVERNIGHT MONEY: Russia bill teed up for House panel's approval
The Hill (blog)
Opening trade with Russia: The House Ways and Means Committee will mark up and, most likely, approve bipartisan legislation on Thursday to grant permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to Russia. Panel Democrats and Republicans agreed to push ...

and more »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Examiner.com

Fetuses dumped in Russia may have been intended for research
WireUpdate
YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA (BNO NEWS) -- Nearly 250 human fetuses which were discovered in the Urals region of Russia late last week may have been intended to be used for scientific research, police said on Wednesday. A criminal investigation is still ...
Russia investigates discarded fetuses found in a mountain forestCNN
Russia finds 248 human foetuses dumped in Urals forestDemocratic Underground
248 human fetuses scattered in Russia's forest, had names and numbers on themExaminer.com
RT -Pravda
all 355 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Sky News Australia

Govs support trade with Russia
The Detroit News
Washington — Rick Snyder and 13 other governors Wednesday urged Congress to approve normal trade relations with Russia — the world's ninth largest economy — to help boost exports. Russia is expected to join the World Trade Organization next month.
Business groups keep up pressure on to pass Russia trade billThe Hill (blog)
Interests vs. Values Is the Wrong Prism for Viewing the Reset with RussiaHuffington Post
Statement by the U.S.-Russia Business Council on USRBC Meeting with USTR ...Sacramento Bee
Sky News Australia -Reuters
all 128 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Russia seeks to cool Assad's head
Boston.com
Russia has been Syria's key protector throughout the 16-month uprising that evolved into a full-blown civil war, shielding Assad's regime from international sanctions and providing it with weapons despite an international outcry. And after the ...

and more »

via Russia - Google News on 7/26/12

AFP

UK's Cameron to press Russia's Putin over Syria, trade as they watch Olympic ...
Washington Post
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron says he plans to hold talks with Russia President Vladimir Putin next week at an Olympic judo match. Cameron confirmed Thursday that Putin would attend the Olympics — despite earlier doubts over whether he ...
Putin Lauds Russian Aerospace DefensesRIA Novosti
Putin pushes nuclear, space defense reformRT

all 115 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/26/12

Linguistic Future: Ukrainians Who Do Not Speak Russian?
Voice of America (blog)
Taking language politics to heart, a member Svoboda, a Ukrainian nationalist political party strong in Western Ukraine, sprays riot police with tear gas in Kyiv, Ukraine on July 4. Nationalists fought with police over a bill that would allow the use of ...

via Russia - Google News on 7/26/12

Yukos Investors Win Arbitration Award From Russia, Lawyers Say
Bloomberg
The Stockholm Chamber of Commerce's arbitration arm ruled that Russia used “illegitimate” tax bills to bankrupt and nationalize Yukos, which it valued at $60 billion, Covington & Burling LLP, which represented the Spanish investors, said in a ...
Court Orders Russia to Compensate Yukos InvestorsRIA Novosti

all 7 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Russia Raised Share of U.S. Assets, Cuts French, German Holdings
Bloomberg
Russia boosted the share of U.S. government notes in its currency reserves at the end of last year as it lowered holdings of French, German, U.K. and Danish assets, the central bank said. U.S. assets including government bonds and deposits rose to 33.8 ...



via Russia - Google News on 7/26/12

Topless protester pursues Russia church leader
The Associated Press
By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press – 1 minute ago. KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A bare-breasted feminist activist bearing a threatening message on her body tried to attack the Russian Orthodox Church's leader Thursday to protest alleged anti-Ukrainian ...

and more »

via Russia - Google News on 7/26/12

Russia's Economy Is Not in Decline
Forbes
This confuses me partially because the entire Western world is now enveloped in various kinds of slow-motion economic disaster, and partially because when you look at the actual numbers Russia's economy has actually done OK over the past couple of ...

via Russia - Google News on 7/25/12

Bleacher Report

Russia sets modest goal at "transition Games"
Chicago Tribune
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Unlike previous years, Russia has set relatively modest goals for the 2012 Games, hoping to match its medal haul of four years ago and cling to a third-place finish in London. With most of the state's attention and financial ...
2014 Olympics: Is Sochi, Russia Ready for Winter Games?Bleacher Report
Russia concerned about visas for Olympics volunteersWHTC

all 148 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/26/12

MiamiHerald.com

Russia says violence in Syria makes calls for humanitarian corridors impossible
Washington Post
MOSCOW — Russia's foreign minister says there can be no talk of humanitarian corridors in Syria and accused the West of fueling the violence by supporting the Syrian opposition. Sergey Lavrov was commenting on the Arab League's plan to seek a new ...
Russia scoffs at Arab League proposalsMiamiHerald.com

all 176 news articles »

via Russia - Google News on 7/26/12

New York Daily News

Topless protester pursues Russia church leader
New York Daily News
The incident also underlined the relative freedom and democracy of Ukrainian society compared to Russia, where three members of the feminist rock band Pussy Riot have spent months in prison and face up to 7 years in jail for performing a “punk prayer” ...
Topless Protester Pursues Russia Church...ABC News

all 159 news articles »

via Uploads by ReutersVideo by ReutersVideo on 7/25/12
July 25 - Q2 earnings are expected to reflect the deepening euro zone crisis; big names reporting include Shell, Lloyds, Santander, BASF and Siemens
Views:49
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via Uploads by ReutersVideo by ReutersVideo on 7/25/12
July 25 - StarMine's Sri Raman says the best analysts are predicting Facebook to miss estimates when it reports Q2 earnings, and points out the stock is trading well above its intrinsic value of under $10.
Views:43
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via Uploads by ReutersVideo by ReutersVideo on 7/25/12
July 25 - Deutsche Bank's capital and job-cut plans still look less punchy than peers', says Breakingviews.
Views:50
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Time:04:55More inNews & Politics

via The Guardian World News by Paul Lewis on 7/26/12
Ecuadorean diplomats seek UK assurances that WikiLeaks founder will not be extradited to US after proceedings in Sweden
The Ecuadorean government is seeking to avert the "evil" of the extradition of Julian Assange to the US, according to a senior legal adviser to the country's embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has sought sanctuary with a view to claiming asylum.
Diplomats for the small Latin American country said they had been seeking assurances from the UK that Assange would not be extradited to the US after the completion of legal proceedings in Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual assault.
Lawyers for Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorean embassy for five weeks, believe there are secret plans to extradite him to the US to face trial, possibly for conspiracy to commit espionage. If found guilty, the 40-year-old could face life imprisonment.
Two officials at the Ecuadorean embassy said it had been seeking assurances from both the UK and Sweden that Assange would not be eventually sent to the US, but had received no answer.
They said Ecuador would now formally ask the US if there were any legal proceedings against Assange or "an investigation which has identified him as a target and which may result in a later extradition request".
The senior legal adviser said: "In legal terms … the evil that Ecuador wishes to prevent is the extradition [of Assange] to the US. Now if there are ways and means of that being tied down, I think that would be a just solution."
Assange first sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy, citing the UN declaration on human rights, on 19 June. Ever since, he has been living in the ground-floor embassy in a small, square room, which friends who have recently visited estimate is around 15ft wide.
The embassy, adjacent to the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, has no courtyard, so Assange has been given exercise equipment. But he remains confined to the small room and adjoining corridor, with a window that barely opens.
Meanwhile, diplomats at the embassy have spent recent weeks seeking to negotiate a solution to the legal impasse. Assange remains on bail, after losing his last supreme court appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in connection with accusations of sexual assault and rape in Stockholm in 2010.
If he leaves the premises, he is liable to immediate arrest by the Metropolitan police, which has stationed two officers outside the building.
A political adviser to the Ecuadorean government said Assange's asylum claim had presented Ecuador with "an absolutely extraordinary case" that placed it at the centre of a global controversy involving four other countries: the UK, Sweden, the US and Australia – where Assange was born and remains a citizen.
Ecuador was seeking to be an "honest broker", he said, while meeting its international obligations. He said that on Wednesday, Ecuador formally offered the Swedish prosecutor the opportunity to interview Assange inside the London embassy. Sweden had not responded to the proposal.
Most of the discussions have focused on seeking to establish whether, once Swedish legal proceedings against Assange are resolved, there will be any attempts to extradite him to the US.
He said Ecuador was "deeply concerned" with the prospect of Assange's extradition to a country which has the death penalty.
He added: "Ecuador has also raised the point – and is very much concerned about – life sentence," he said. "According to our law, life sentence may be equally inhumane, in the sense that any person that has no prospect of leaving confinement is, in fact, as we see it, condemned to a death sentence [for] life. For us, that is equally inhumane."
Assange's US lawyer, Michael Ratner, said he was certain that Assange had already either been secretly indicted by a grand jury in Washington or would face extradition with a view to prosecution in the future. He said he believed the death penalty remained a "possibility".
"I have no doubt there is a serious investigation, which has gone on, and is continuing, into Julian Assange and WikiLeaks," he said. However Ratner said it was "highly unlikely" that the US would confirm to Ecuador or any other party that it intended to prosecute Assange.
Ever since Assange unexpectedly sought refuge at the embassy five weeks ago, diplomats have been in regular discussions with both the Swedish and UK governments.
The two officials estimated there had been more than 20 meetings – including video conferences – with the UK Foreign Office. There had also been around 10 meetings arranged between Ecuadorean and Swedish diplomats, they said.
Diplomatic discussions were said to have been "friendly and polite".
The Ecuadoreans said discussions had focused on what was likely to happen to Assange once legal proceedings in Sweden were completed.
The senior legal adviser said that under extradition law, the concept of "specialty" ensures an individual can only be extradited to one country – in the case of Assange, Sweden. Once legal proceedings in that country have been completed, the individual is given a 45-day leave, during which they are free to go where they want.
Assange should, therefore, be free to travel to any other state – including the UK, Ecuador or Australia – once legal proceedings against him are completed in Sweden.
However, specialty can be waived by the country granting the initial extradition request – in this case the UK – thereby allowing an individual to be extradited to a third country.
The senior legal adviser to the Ecuadoreans said that the home secretary, Theresa May, would need to waive specialty under section 58 of the Extradition Act 2003, before Assange could be extradited from Sweden to the US.
Despite repeated requests from Ecuador, the Foreign Office has not said whether or not May intends to exercise her powers to allow for any potential future extradition to the US. The Foreign Office did not respond to a request for comment.
"The concerns that Ecuador has in relation to that whole process is that some states – not least of which the US – have been known to hold back on their extradition requests, to a timely moment, when they can serve the process with greatest impact," the senior legal adviser said. "And so the concern would be that the US has in mind a request for extradition on the basis of WikiLeaks charges."
The officials said they did not expect a decision to be made on Assange's asylum claim until after the Olympics.

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds





UK's Cameron to press Russia's Putin over Syria, trade as they watch Olympic ... - Washington Post

UK's Cameron to press Russia's Putin over Syria, trade as they watch Olympic ... - Washington Post:

AFP



UK's Cameron to press Russia's Putin over Syria, trade as they watch Olympic ...
Washington Post
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron says he plans to hold talks with Russia President Vladimir Putin next week at an Olympic judo match. Cameron confirmed Thursday that Putin would attend the Olympics — despite earlier doubts over whether he ...
Putin Lauds Russian Aerospace DefensesRIA Novosti
Putin pushes nuclear, space defense reformRT

all 115 news articles »

Russia says demands that Assad quit prolong Syrian conflict

Russia says demands that Assad quit prolong Syrian conflict: MOSCOW (Reuters) - Demands that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad quit power are blocking efforts to end the 16-month-old conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned on Thursday. Lavrov said such calls - made by the United States, several European and Arab governments and Turkey - were fanning the flames of violence and reiterated Moscow's claim that support for Syrian rebel groups was tantamount to backing terrorism. "We propose things that would allow for an immediate ceasefire, but the other side says, 'No, either the regime capitulates or we will continue to back ... ...

Rights Advocate Lyudmila Alekseyeva is Talking and Laughing

Rights Advocate Lyudmila Alekseyeva is Talking and Laughing 


Published on Jul 26, 2012 by
Human rights activist Lyudmila Alekseyeva turned 85 on July 20. She spoke to RFE/RL's Russian Service on her birthday about her long career as a dissident and rights campaigner.

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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

PUTIN IN AN APPEARANCE

PUTIN IN AN APPEARANCE
That guy next to you at the judo competition, the one surrounded by security? Could well be Russian President Vladimir Putin. Don't mess with him; he's not only well guarded, he's also a black belt in judo.
Putin has said he plans to come to London in a private capacity and watch the judo. He's often been filmed practicing and once recorded an instructional judo DVD.
Judo at the 2012 games starts Saturday.


http://news.yahoo.com/eyes-london-cool-camera-beatle-putin-153310119--oly.html

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

RUSSIA: UP TO 900 RUSSIAN PRISONERS START HUNGER STRIKE


via Faktensucher by curi56 on 7/24/12

by Sarah Verba


  • July 23, 2012
  • 6:30 pm


Hundreds of prisoners in a southern Russian penitentiary began a hunger strike on Sunday in retaliation to the brutal beating and death of a fellow inmate. Authorities claim that only 118 men have begun the hunger strike, accompanied by about five men who slashed veins on their arms. They also claimed that the men who cut themselves were in no danger.
The story gets a little more interesting when news outlets and activists began claiming a much higher number of protesters are participating in the strike. The Moscow Times states that about 900 prisoners have joined in on the strike, refusing the food offered by the prison. In a facility that houses 1,100 inmates, that number is certainly alarming and effective.
Activists in the Public Monitoring Committee claim that they were witness to some of the brutality practiced in the prison. The Moscow Times quotes Almira Zhukova about the state of the prison and the common practice of beating prisoners there:
Then we discovered the beatings; we found proof… It was terrifying. They beat [prisoners] till they were blue. All the rooms were covered in blood.
The high security prison in Salavat houses men that are considered to be serious felons. Although officials claim that Sergei Lasko, the man whose death sparked the uprising, suffered a heart attack, activists and prisoners remain adamant that the death was caused by merciless torture and beatings.
Authorities have also attempted to downplay the severity of the prison strike, stating that only about 100 prisoners refused food prepared by the prison. Although that number represents a very conservative estimate, even 10 percent of the prison population in such a high security facility presents a serious challenge to authority and has already drawn worldwide criticism of the prison system in Russia.
The hunger strike represents just one of many recent uprisings against the judicial and penitentiary system in Russia under Vladimir Putin. Last week it was announced that members of the dissident punk group, Pussy Riot, would remain in custody into 2013 awaiting a trial that continues to be postponed. Human Rights Watch has consistently commented on the lack of human rights in the justice system in Russia.
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/up-to-900-russian-prisoners-start-hunger-strike.html#ixzz21XBpQnZD



Prisoners Strike en Masse to Protest Fellow Inmate's Death





Inmates praying at a religious service in Bashkortostan's Penal Colony No. 4.
Fsin.su
Inmates praying at a religious service in Bashkortostan's Penal Colony No. 4.

Up to 900 prisoners are refusing food, and five slashed their forearms in a high-security prison in Bashkortostan after an inmate was beaten to death, rights activists said.
The inmates took the step to draw attention to prison authorities’ refusal to grant medical assistance to Sergei Lasko, who died after a severe beating by prison employees on the night of July 17, activists from the Public Monitoring Committee, an organization that defends prisoners’ rights, told the Gulagu.ru human rights portal.
Activists said 900 of the roughly 1,100 inmates at Bashkortostan’s Prison Colony No. 4 were refusing food, while the Federal Prison Service gave a figure of 118, stressing that the inmates were only refusing food prepared on the prison’s premises.
Almira Zhukova, a member of the local branch of the Public Monitoring Committee, said activists learned about Lasko’s death and the ensuing hunger strike only by chance after a lawyer visited the prison on a separate issue.
“Then we discovered the beatings; we found proof,” Zhukova told Gulagu.ru. “It was terrifying. They beat [prisoners] till they were blue. All the rooms were covered in blood.”
An inmate told Zhukova that while Lasko was being beaten, guards played loud music over prison speakers to mask the victim’s shouts. “Whenever the music starts, we know that they are going to beat someone,” the unidentified inmate was quoted as saying.
Activists now fear that prison authorities could refuse to give up Lasko’s body for burial in order to hide the cause of his death.
Both Zhukova and Gulagu.ru head Vladimir Osechkin have written to the Investigative Committee and Federal Security Service with requests to open criminal cases into the death.
On Saturday, the Bashkortostan arm of the Federal Prison Service denied Zhukova’s comments in a statement on its website and justified prison employees’ use of force against Lasko by the severity of his conviction.
“Prison Colony No. 4 houses criminals who have committed especially grave crimes. They are repeat offenders,” the statement said, adding that the inmates on strike had behaved extremely badly over the course of their incarceration.


Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/prisoners-strike-en-masse-to-protest-fellow-inmates-death/462413.html#ixzz21XVKgNey
The Moscow Times

Forensic Psychiatry News Review - 7:35 AM 7/24/2012

http://forpn.blogspot.com/2012/07/forensic-psychiatry-news-review-735-am.html

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Russia's Putin Signs NGO 'Foreign Agents' Law | Punk Band Feels Wrath of Sterner Kremlin - NYT

From left, the punk band members Yekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina at a hearing in Moscow on Friday.
Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Punk Band Feels Wrath of Sterner Kremlin

MOSCOW — The prosecution of three women, above, who performed a crude anti-Putin song in a cathedral signals the end of chilly tolerance of the protest movement.

The New York Times

July 21, 2012

Russia's Putin Signs NGO 'Foreign Agents' Law



MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a law which will tighten controls on civil rights groups funded from abroad, the his press office said on Saturday, a step opponents say is part of a campaign to suppress dissent.
The law, which was cleared by the upper house of parliament earlier in July, will force non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaging in "political activity" to register with the Justice Ministry as "foreign agents" and to file a report to officials every quarter.
Opposition groups say Putin is trying to silence groups whose criticism of his human rights record has undercut his credibility and helped fuel seven months of protests against his rule, the biggest since he came to power in 2000.
Putin, a former KGB spy, has dominated Russia for 12 years as prime minister or president and he won another six-year stint in March.
Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department voiced "deep concern" about the NGO law - and was promptly rebuked by Moscow for "gross interference", an exchange that underlined the impact the bill has had on already strained relations.
Putin said on Thursday that laws to open up competition in Russia's political system must be implemented with care, suggesting he remains wary about reforms introduced after the wave of protests.
In April then-president Dmitry Medvedev signed off on a law that eased regulations on the registration of political parties, cutting the required number of members in a party to 500 from the previous 40,000.
The law was aimed at appeasing demonstrators who had taken to the streets after accusations of voting fraud in a parliamentary election in December which gave the Putin-supported United Russia party a slim parliamentary majority.
"It is necessary that the laws which were passed on a legislative level make their way into society correctly, peacefully and in accordance with the letter and spirit of the law," said Putin.
"But in no case (may they) allow any destructive forces to shake up the situation or moreover allow them (to do so) in a destructive-terroristic way."
(Writing by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Too much pomp and very questionable circumstance: Full Video: Vladimir Putin's presidential inauguration ceremony in Kremlin - YouTube

Too much pomp and very questionable circumstance


Full Video: Vladimir Putin's presidential inauguration ceremony in Kremlin - YouTube


Published on May 7, 2012 by
Russia's President-elect Vladimir Putin has been sworn in as the new head of state. Putin is an inauguration champion -- he has played the main role in the performance three times out of six to have taken place in modern history. The inauguration ceremony took place in the Grand Kremlin Palace.

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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Lenin’s Death Remains a Mystery for Doctors - NYTimes.com

Lenin’s Death Remains a Mystery for Doctors - NYTimes.com

May 7, 2012

Lenin’s Stroke: Doctor Has a Theory (and a Suspect)

BALTIMORE — The patient founded a totalitarian state known for its “merciless terror,” Dr. Victoria Giffi told a rapt audience of doctors and medical students on Friday afternoon. He died suddenly at 6:50 p.m. on Jan. 21, 1924, a few months before his 54th birthday. The cause of death: a massive stroke.
The man’s cerebral arteries, Dr. Giffi added, were “so calcified that when tapped with tweezers they sounded like stone.”
The occasion was a so-called clinicopathological conference, a mainstay of medical schools in which a mysterious medical case is presented to an audience of doctors and medical students. In the end, a pathologist solves the mystery with a diagnosis.
But this was a conference with a twist. The patient was long dead — he was, in fact, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The questions posed to the conference speakers: Why did he have a fatal stroke at such a young age? Was there something more to his death than history has acknowledged?
At the University of Maryland, a clinicopathological conference focused on historical figures has been an annual event for the past 19 years; attending doctors have reviewed the case records of Florence Nightingale, Alexander the Great, Mozart, Beethoven and Edgar Allan Poe. The pathologists’ conclusion that Poe died of rabies even became a final question on the “Jeopardy!” game show.
Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak, vice chairman of the university’s school of medicine and organizer of these conferences, said he later did a much more comprehensive review of Poe’s medical records and concluded that Poe’s doctor had embellished Poe’s medical history.
“Poe was a hopeless alcoholic,” Dr. Mackowiak said in a telephone interview. “He almost certainly died of delirium tremens.”
On Friday, two experts were called upon to solve the mystery of Lenin’s death: Dr. Harry Vinters, professor of neurology and neuropathology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Lev Lurie, a Russian historian in St. Petersburg.
Dr. Vinters began by telling the audience some details of Lenin’s medical and family history.
As a baby, Lenin had a head so large that he often fell over. He used to bang his head on the floor, making his mother worry that he might be mentally disabled.
As an adult, Lenin suffered diseases that were common at the time: typhoid, toothaches, influenza and a painful skin infection called erysipelas. He was under intense stress, of course, which led to insomnia, migraines and abdominal pain.
At 48, he was shot twice in an assassination attempt. One bullet lodged in his collarbone after puncturing his lung. Another got caught in the base of his neck. Both bullets remained in place for the rest of his life.
Lenin’s father died early, too, at 54. The cause of death was said to be cerebral hemorrhage, but Lenin’s father had an illness at the time of his death that may have been typhoid fever.
Most of Lenin’s seven brothers and sisters died young, two in infancy. A brother was executed at age 21 for plotting to assassinate Emperor Alexander III, and another brother died of typhoid at 19. Of the three who survived past young adulthood, a sister died of a stroke at age 71, another sister died of a heart attack at 59, and a brother died at age 69 of “stenocardia,” an archaic medical term whose meaning is no longer clear.
In the two years before he died, Lenin had three debilitating strokes. Prominent European doctors were consulted and proposed a variety of diagnoses: nervous exhaustion, chronic lead intoxication from the two bullets lodged in his body, cerebral arteriosclerosis and “endarteritis luetica.”
Dr. Vinters speculates that the last term referred to meningovascular syphilis, inflammation of the walls of blood vessels mainly around the brain, resulting in a thickening of the interior of the vessel. But there was no evidence of this on autopsy, and Lenin’s syphilis test was said to have been negative. He had been treated anyway with injections of a solution containing arsenic, the prevailing syphilis remedy.
Then, in his last hours and days of his life, Lenin experienced severe seizures.
An autopsy revealed a near total obstruction of the arteries leading to the brain, some of which were narrowed to tiny slits. But Lenin did not have some of the traditional risk factors for strokes.
He did not have untreated high blood pressure — had that been his problem, the left side of his heart would have been enlarged. He did not smoke and would not tolerate smoking in his presence. He drank only occasionally and exercised regularly. He did not have symptoms of a brain infection, nor did he have a brain tumor.
So what brought on the stroke that killed Lenin?
The clues lie in Lenin’s family history, Dr. Vinters said. The three siblings who survived beyond their 20s had evidence of cardiovascular disease, and Lenin’s father died of a disease that was described as being very much like Lenin’s. Dr. Vinters said Lenin might have inherited a tendency to develop extremely high cholesterol, causing the severe blockage of his blood vessels that led to his stroke.
Compounding that was the stress Lenin experienced, which can precipitate a stroke in someone whose blood vessels are already blocked.
But Lenin’s seizures in the hours and days before he died are a puzzle and perhaps historically significant. Severe seizures, Dr. Vinters said in an interview before the conference, are “quite unusual in a stroke patient.”
But, he added, “almost any poison can cause seizures.”
Dr. Lurie concurred on Friday, telling the conference that poison was in his opinion the most likely immediate cause of Lenin’s death. The most likely perpetrator? Stalin, who saw Lenin as his main obstacle to taking over the Soviet Union and wanted to get rid of him.
Communist Russia in the early 1920s, Dr. Lurie told the conference, was a place of “Mafia-like intrigue.”
In 1921 Lenin started complaining that he was ill. From then until his death in 1924, Lenin “began to feel worse and worse,” Dr. Lurie said.
“He complained that he couldn’t sleep and that he had terrible headaches. He could not write, he did not want to work,” Dr. Lurie said. He wrote to Alexei Maximovich Gorky, “I am so tired, I do not want to do anything at all.”
But he nonetheless was planning a political attack on Stalin, Dr. Lurie said. And Stalin, well aware of Lenin’s intentions, sent a top-secret note to the Politburo in 1923 claiming that Lenin himself asked to be put out of his misery.
The note said: “On Saturday, March 17th in the strictest secrecy Comrade Krupskaya told me of ‘Vladimir Ilyich’s request to Stalin,’ namely that I, Stalin, should take the responsibility for finding and administering to Lenin a dose of potassium cyanide. I felt it impossible to refuse him, and declared: ‘I would like Vladimir Ilyich to be reassured and to believe that when it is necessary I will fulfill his demand without hesitation.’”
Stalin added that he just could not do it: “I do not have the strength to carry out Ilyich’s request and I have to decline this mission, however humane and necessary it might be, and I therefore report this to the members of the Politburo.”
Dr. Lurie said Stalin might have poisoned Lenin despite this assurance, as Stalin was “absolutely ruthless.”
Dr. Vinters believes that sky-high cholesterol leading to a stroke was the main cause of Lenin’s death. But he said there is one other puzzling aspect of the story. Although toxicology studies were done on others in Russia, there was an order that no toxicology be done on Lenin’s tissues.
So the mystery remains.
But if Lenin had lived today, or if today’s cholesterol-lowering drugs had been available 100 years ago, might he have been spared those strokes?
“Yes,” Dr. Vinters said. “Lenin could have gone on for another 20 or 25 years, assuming he wasn’t assassinated. History would have been totally different.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 8, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated, using information provided by the University of Maryland, Vladimir Lenin’s age when he was shot twice in an assassination attempt. He was 48, not 38.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Putin's History Lesson - WSJ.com

Putin's History Lesson - WSJ.com

  • RUSSIA NEWS

  • May 4, 2012, 7:48 a.m. ET

  • Putin's History Lesson

    'Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not dismount.' --Winston Churchill

    MOSCOW—At the start of his second term as Russia's president, Vladimir Putin gathered some leading free-market policy wonks for brainstorming at his dacha. One of them, José Piñera, had been a cabinet minister in Chile during the 16-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
    Mr. Piñera's advice went beyond economics and included a warning against holding "too much power for too long." Quoting the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, he bluntly urged Mr. Putin, in a Moscow newspaper essay after the meeting, to retire after two terms: "Oh, kings, you owe your crown and writ/To Law, not nature's dispensation."
    Mr. Putin has dominated Russia ever since, as president or as prime minister. Having weathered a winter of large anti-Kremlin protests, the 59-year-old leader won a tightly controlled election in March and will start a third presidential term on Monday. He hasn't ruled out re-election in 2018 to stretch his tenure to 24 years, longer than any other Kremlin leader since Josef Stalin, but says he would step down if he lost public support.

    Masters of Longevity

    The careers of Fidel Castro, below , and other embattled autocrats hold lessons for Vladimir Putin as he starts a new presidential term in Russia.
    Associated Press
    But rulers in Mr. Putin's shoes are loath to give up power, not least because of fear their successors will turn on them. Monarchs aside, recent history offers relatively few examples of embattled autocrats who manage to die peacefully in office or step down gracefully. Consider the misfortunes of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak (now on trial) and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi (dead) in last year's Arab Spring, and the way other strongmen, from Angola to Syria, took note and dug in.
    Since the last decade of the Cold War, I've chronicled the decline of autocrats in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Northern Africa, and know the early-warning signs. Russia's winter of civic awakening felt much like the first widespread pot-banging protests against Gen. Pinochet in 1983—a noisy, unmistakable signal that Chileans had lost their fear and were turning against him, although he would hang on for another seven years.
    Foes of Mr. Putin say he, too, embodies a regime built on corruption and intimidation. Some supporters doubt that its pillars—manipulated elections, subservient courts, loyal security forces—could withstand a rising clamor for democracy.
    So what's his likely exit strategy? Whenever he contemplates one, he'll find limited options. Nowhere in the accumulated wisdom about building democracy is there a sure-fire retirement plan for autocrats, a guaranteed safe landing if they agree to step down.
    Here, though, is a short list of options and autocratic role models who could offer Mr. Putin some guidance:

    Option 1. Lead your people to democracy. Flight Lt. Jerry John Rawlings abruptly changed course in Ghana after his military dictatorship failed at socialist governance and ran out of money. He revived the economy by liberalizing, then allowed open political competition and was freely elected president twice. By embracing democracy before there was much demand for it from citizens, he gained popularity and lowered the risk of payback for prior violent excesses. He slid securely into retirement in 2001, abiding by term limits after 20 years at the helm.

    [AUTOCRAT]
    Option 2. Fireproof your exit route. Weakened by a U.S.-armed insurgency against his decade-old Sandinista regime, Daniel Ortega agreed to hold Nicaragua's first free election, in 1990, and lost. Before stepping down, he cut a deal obliging all parties to refrain from post-war retribution. The deal also kept his brother in command of the armed forces. For good measure, the outgoing ruler authorized the hurried distribution of state property worth hundreds of millions of dollars, enriching his Sandinista cohorts. (This so-called piñata included several sprawling homes on the block where I lived at the time.) Thus fortified as an opposition party, the Sandinistas remained powerful and loyal to Mr. Ortega, helping him return to the presidency in elections in 2006 and 2011.

    Option 3. Hang tough. Despite economic ruin and stiff political opposition, President Robert Mugabe seems bent on ruling Zimbabwe for life. He's been at it for 32 years, mixing limited openness with populism and, when necessary, brutal police crackdowns. His exit strategy, it appears, is not to exit. Deflecting international pressure, he accepted a power-sharing arrangement with his chief rival in 2008 but continued to harass and jail the rival's supporters. In February Mr. Mugabe celebrated his 88th birthday by stumping for re-election. One secret for staying the course: Diamond profits help cement the loyalty of his security forces and a narrow circle of cronies.

    Option 4. Build a dynasty, or a one-party state. Monarchies are one way to perpetuate iron-fisted rule; uncrowned autocrats find other means. Fidel Castro turned over dictatorial power in Cuba to his brother. Haydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan handed it off to his son. China's Communists have mastered the art of one-party rule and leadership turnover that worked smoothly for decades in Mexico and the Soviet Union. Leaders from such parties accept curbs on their personal power—China's presidents have term limits—but are less likely than personalist dictators to be overthrown, disgraced or betrayed by a successor.

    Mr. Putin's day of reckoning, his choice of an end game, may be years away, considering his many strengths. He has reasserted state control over much of Russia's oil wealth and has a loyal power base in the security services. The Kremlin controls television and portrays him as a Slavic stud, in contrast to the ailing Mr. Mubarak or the disgraced Slobodan Milošević, who lost his grip on Serbia after defeat in the Kosovo war.
    Russia's opposition is far weaker and less unified than the peaceful movements that took down Mr. Milošević in 2000 and entrenched regimes in Georgia and Ukraine a few years later, overturning rigged elections. There's no Russian counterpart yet to Velimir Ilić , a gutsy small-city mayor I met in Serbia, a man whose connections and plotting with dissident officers sparked mass police defections and undermined the regime.
    The upheavals so close to home spooked Mr. Putin into mobilizing pro-Kremlin youth gangs to counter the Russian opposition and restricting its Western funding .
    "Nobody has studied the dynamics of these revolutions in order to pre-empt them more intensively and obsessively than Putin," said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and a leading scholar of democratic transitions. "He strikes me as a skilled and adaptable autocrat."
    Would he adapt to renewed popular pressure by leading Russia to democracy (option 1) or hanging tough (option 3)? A former senior Kremlin official said Mr. Putin favors "an evolutionary approach" and would liberalize politics to the extent that people demand it.
    But Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a New York University professor who co-authored "The Dictator's Handbook," said Mr. Putin would have little incentive to ease up as long as Russia's oil revenue remained high enough to keep rewarding a narrow circle.
    "He doesn't need massive support," said Mr. Bueno de Mesquita, who is known academically for his international research on political survival. "But he'd be in trouble if he stopped paying the army and security forces."
    In other words, the professor concluded, he'd more likely take his cue from Zimbabwe's durable Mr. Mugabe. "That would be the lesson: You can cling to power an extraordinarily long time."
    That sounds improbable to Gleb Pavlovsky, an image-making consultant retained by the Kremlin for years. Sooner or later, he predicted, Mr. Putin will opt for a typically Russian exit—pick two loyalists willing to shield him from prosecution and engineer an election one of them is likely to win. Mr. Putin himself rose to power that way, as President Boris Yeltsin's anointed one, and pardoned his ailing patron's wrongdoings.
    But pitfalls abound. Mr. Putin has chosen not to build a Chinese-style ruling party capable of assuring such a transition. And as Gen. Pinochet found out, even the best laid retirement plan can go awry.
    The Chilean strongman gave up the presidency in 1990 after voters rejected him in a yes-or-no plebiscite, but he held on to his post of army commander for another eight years and after that became an unelected senator for life. With that power base, he wielded influence over elected governments and sought to remain above the law.
    He didn't count on the tenacity of jurists abroad. In 1998 he was arrested in Britain on a Spanish judge's warrant for genocide, torture and kidnapping. Sent home to Chile instead, he spent his final years fighting hundreds of lawsuits related to human rights abuse and personal enrichment.
    Gen. Pinochet, who died in 2006, all but predicted his comeuppance in a magazine interview shortly before his arrest.
    "I read a lot, especially history," he said. "And history teaches you that dictators never end up well."

    Write to Richard Boudreaux at richard.boudreaux@wsj.com

  • EUROPE NEWS

  • Updated May 7, 2012, 4:24 p.m. ET

  • Riot Police Stifle Protests as Putin Is Sworn In Again

    [putin0507]European Pressphoto Agency
    Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin takes the oath of office during his inauguration in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow on Monday.
    MOSCOW—Vladimir Putin was sworn into office for a third term as Russia's president on Monday, amid a sweeping police crackdown that left the streets of downtown Moscow eerily quiet.
    Within the Kremlin, departing President Dmitry Medvedev hailed a "reborn" Russia and promised a new stage of development. Mr. Putin told thousands of handpicked guests in the gilded throne room of the czars that he considered it "the meaning of my whole life" to serve Russia, a choice of words likely to stir speculation that he will seek another six-year presidential term in 2018.
    Riot police in Moscow put on a show of force and rounded up opposition demonstrators on Monday, the day of Vladimir Putin's inauguration. Raw footage by WSJ's Greg White. (Photo: AP)
    Mr. Putin's inauguration came as he has turned up pressure on critics, who have been demanding a rerun of tainted parliamentary and presidential elections that paved the way for his official return to the Kremlin.
    On Sunday, police beat and detained more than 400 people who held a demonstration in central Moscow and tried to march over a bridge leading to the Kremlin. More than 100 of them under age 27 were issued draft notices, the Interfax news agency reported. On Monday, police arrested at least a hundred more people as they secured the route of Mr. Putin's motorcade to the inauguration.
    Kremlin critics said the crackdown before the inauguration presages Mr. Putin's coming presidential term, which they had hoped to prevent or at least shorten with street protests. Police swept all onlookers off main thoroughfares before the ceremony began, so Mr. Putin's limousine and escort vehicles approached the Kremlin through empty streets.

    Amid Protests, Putin Sworn In

    Reuters
    Vladimir Putin entered the Kremlin ceremony at which he was sworn for another six-year term as Russia's president Monday.
    Riot police detained and pummeled potential demonstrators who were anywhere near the route of the motorcade. About 10 minutes before the inaugural ceremony began, police swarmed a cafe about 100 yards off the path, overturning tables and seizing opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who had just sat down at an outdoor table and was speaking with reporters.
    "We came out today to show there are many people who are not afraid of this man who has usurped power," said Mr. Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, just before his arrest. "But he is afraid of his own people. Look how he has fenced off the city."
    Mr. Nemtsov said later that the police clubbed him hard several times on the back and ripped his T-shirt as they dragged him from the cafe. Of the dozens of times he has been detained by police over the years, he said, this was the first time he had been beaten. "They wanted all the opposition leaders in jail for Putin's first day in the Kremlin," Mr. Nemtsov said by phone from the police station where he was being held. He was later released without charges.
    Police continued to patrol through downtown Moscow in the hours after the inaugural ceremony, detaining those whom they suspected might spark a demonstration.
    After allegations of ballot-stuffing and vote fraud in parliamentary elections in December sparked the largest opposition protests since the fall of the Soviet Union, Mr. Putin promised to loosen some control over society. But he has since backed away from those promises, and the guest list at the Kremlin ceremony was carefully vetted. While foreign heads of state weren't expected at the inauguration, some political players such as Italian former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a friend of Mr. Putin, did attend.

    Masters of Longevity

    The careers of Fidel Castro, below , and other embattled autocrats hold lessons for Vladimir Putin as he starts a new presidential term in Russia. (Putin's History Lesson)
    Associated Press
    Mr. Medvedev, a longtime protégé of Mr. Putin, is expected to take on Mr. Putin's old job as prime minister but recede largely into the shadows. Western-leaning liberals in Russia had initially hoped that Mr. Medvedev, who totes an iPad and is an avid Tweeter and blogger, would deliver on frequent promises of political and economic modernization.
    But his popularity plummeted after his announcement last year that he was stepping down from the presidency to make way for Mr. Putin's return. Many erstwhile supporters now decry him as a toady to Mr. Putin and incapable of independent action.
    Mr. Medvedev issued a farewell tweet on Monday, in which he thanked "everyone for their support over the past four years as President of Russia."
    "Our dialogue will continue," he wrote. "There is much work ahead!"
    Write to Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com and Richard Boudreaux at richard.boudreaux@wsj.com

    Monday, April 16, 2012

    ВЕДОМОСТИ - От редакции: О чем умолчал Путин

    ВЕДОМОСТИ - От редакции: О чем умолчал Путин

    Unorthodox behaviour rattles Russian church - FT.com

    Unorthodox behaviour rattles Russian church - FT.com

    High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8da92478-8573-11e1-a75a-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1sEzHnK9l

    April 13, 2012 7:30 pm

    Unorthodox behaviour rattles Russian church

    Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill©AP
    Yuri Shevchenko, a retired doctor and health minister, never imagined he would be fighting a $1m Russian lawsuit that would see his bank accounts frozen, his grown son forced to move back home and travel restrictions imposed on him so he could not travel abroad for cancer treatment.
    He also never imagined that the claimant in the suit would be a woman with such deep connections to the Russian patriarch.

    More

    On this story

    IN Europe

    Lidiya Leonova, a laywoman, claims that dust from renovation work in Mr Shevchenko’s Moscow flat wreaked Rbs26m ($900,000) worth of damage to her own flat upstairs. While Ms Leonova is registered in the flat and initiated the suit, the flat belongs to Kirill I, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
    The scandal is one of several to envelop the Russian Orthodox Church, as the institution faces increasingly serious allegations of corruption and criticism for its role in Russian politics.
    Last week bloggers discovered that a photograph of the patriarch on the church’s website had been altered to remove a $30,000 Breguet watch from the churchman’s wrist. While someone had used Photoshop to erase the offending object, they had forgotten to erase the watch’s reflection on a nearby mahogany table.
    The church has been criticised for its harsh response to Pussy Riot, the feminist punk rock group whose young members are facing seven-year jail sentences for staging an impromptu performance inside a Moscow church, and its public support for Vladimir Putin despite mass protests.
    On a more troubling scale, there is the history of Mr Shevchenko’s flat, as well as a land dispute in southern Moscow that has disadvantaged hundreds of children with severe cerebral palsy who are being treated at a local centre.
    The church argues that all the allegations are part of a smear campaign ahead of the Russian Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated this Sunday.
    Vsevolod Chaplin, the church’s spokesman, is flippant about the watch incident – he scoffs that people will take issue with the patriarch’s boots or glasses next. But he gets serious when it comes to the other allegations.
    “The church, to a greater extent, is trying to speak with its full voice on issues connected with economics, politics, culture and social life, and a lot of people don’t like this.”
    Father Andrei Kuraev, a priest who has spoken out in defence of Pussy Riot, argues that many members of the church are enjoying the soap opera nature of the allegations. “A lot of people look at the patriarch as being the same as they are and they get some kind of pleasure out of watching the mighty fall,” he says.
    While media reports have suggested that Ms Leonova might have enjoyed an inappropriate relationship with the patriarch, the church vehemently denies this. Mr Chaplin says she is the church leader’s cousin and stays there while the patriarch lives in his official residence. “There is nothing unusual in that either from the point of view of church law or secular law.”

    Troubling times

    Head of the church since January 2009, Kirill I has cut a dividing figure in his efforts to expand the church’s role in Russian society.
    Born in Leningrad, he started out as a young member of the Communist party, before joining the church, as his father and grandfather had done, and eventually rising to become the archbishop of Smolensk and Kaliningrad.
    While the recent scandals are the most serious he has faced in his career, they are not the first.
    In the 1990s, he was accused of profiteering from church tax breaks on imported alcohol and tobacco, in a scheme that was eventually killed in 1997. Separately he has also been accused of being an ex-KGB member. The patriarch has denied both allegations.
    The church leader has been a strong supporter of the Kremlin: earlier this year he referred to the Putin era as a “miracle of God”.
    Ms Leonova’s claims include Rbs7.3m to renovate her flat, Rbs2.1m to rent a similar one in Moscow during the renovation period and Rbs6.3m to replace the flat’s books alone.
    Valuing Mr Shevchenko’s flat at Rbs15m, versus the market price of Rbs50m-Rbs60m, Ms Leonova’s lawyers were able to freeze the Shevchenko family’s bank accounts and prevent the former minister from travelling abroad. Mr Shevchenko’s 39-year-old son, a lawyer, was forced to sell his St Petersburg flat to cover the costs and move in with his parents in Moscow.
    The younger Mr Shevchenko, also named Yuri, says that when the family first learnt who the owner of the upstairs flat was, their thought was: “Thank God it’s the patriarch.” But their relief has turned to horror. While the son is reluctant to say anything negative about the church ahead of Easter, he is adamant that his family has been the victim.
    “What disturbs me is not the issue with the watch or who owns the apartment. What disturbs me is that this process has driven my parents mad. My father is sick, my mother has been working on these legal processes for about three years. And the fact that this coincides with such aggressive lobbying . . . This sort of ploy has elements of sadism.”
    On Friday the family were allowed access to their flat again after they paid Ms Leonova a reduced sum of Rbs20m so that their bank cards could be unfrozen.
    For a long time, Mr Shevchenko says neither he nor his father could believe that the patriarch knew about the case. Then last week they learnt the truth. In an interview with a Kremlin-friendly journalist, the patriarch admitted he was acquainted with the proceedings. The Rbs20m would go to charity, the church leader said.
    On top of the flat scandal, the church has separately come under fire for its treatment of sick children at a cerebral palsy centre outside Moscow.
    As part of a land dispute, a Russian Orthodox monastery has restricted access to the path that connects two of the hospital’s wings, forcing the children, many of whom are in wheelchairs, to take a 1.5km-long route instead. The monastery has also laid claims to the land beneath one of the buildings, raising concerns that the hospital will be forced to pay rent to the monastery that would otherwise go towards treatment.
    Asked about the situation, Marina Tikhomirova is moved to tears. She and her daughter, Tanya, who has been living at the centre since 1998, have long looked to the church, and the monastery specifically, for solace. “For believers, for charitable people, it was ungodly, it was very offensive. The children are sick and it’s hard to talk about it without tears,” she says. “We don’t see any charity from the church in this situation.”
    While Yevgeny Lilin, the centre’s deeply religious director, says he believes that the patriarch could not know anything of their situation, Elena Kamchatnya, another mother, disagrees, noting that the chain of responsibility goes straight to the top. “[The patriarch] he sees and observes all of this with his own eyes,” she says angrily.
    Mr Chaplin maintains that the land in question is the monastery’s “by law and by fairness”. “No one is preparing to kick the children out,” he adds.

    Tuesday, April 3, 2012

    The Never-Ending Cold War via NYT > Editorials by on 3/27/12

    Obama Calls G.O.P. Budget Plan ‘Social Darwinism’

    By MARK LANDLER 12:35 PM ET

    President Obama opened a full-frontal assault Tuesday on the budget adopted by House Republicans, saying it would greatly deepen inequality in the country.

    Mike Nova's starred items

    The Never-Ending Cold War

    via NYT > Editorials by on 3/27/12

    Despite Mitt Romney’s reckless comments, the United States will have to work with Russia on missile defense.

    NATO’s Duty

    via NYT > Editorials by on 3/28/12

    A transparent inquiry on civilian casualties in Libya, with NATO’s cooperation, is needed in order to learn from and prevent future tragedies.

    Big Oil’s Bogus Campaign

    via NYT > Editorials by on 3/29/12

    As the industry spends heavily and blames President Obama for rising gas prices, Congress continues to refuse to end unnecessary tax breaks.

    The Roberts Court Defines Itself

    via NYT > Editorials by on 3/30/12

    Will its ruling in the health care case expunge judicial restraint from legal conservatism?