Posts Tagged ‘andrew kramer’
U.S. Companies Worry About Effect of Russia Joining W.T.O.
After two decades of negotiations, Russia will finally join the World Trade Organization on Wednesday. The lower trade barriers that come along with membership will open up new opportunities for foreign companies to do business in Russia.
But American companies are guaranteed no such advantages — and may even face higher Russian tariffs than their competitors from other countries.
Because of broader policy concerns about the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissidents and its support for rogue governments, Congress has balked at the Obama administration’s request to grant Russia permanent normal trade relation status. That status is important since the W.T.O. requires that any country that seeks to benefit from it must apply the same trade rules to all member countries.
Major American exporters to Russia, like Caterpillar, Deere and General Electric, are worried about the potential impact on their business from the Congressional inaction. Across all sectors of the economy, Russia will lower import tariffs to 7 percent, from about 15 percent today, for the 155 countries in the trade organization. Although Russian officials say they do not have any immediate intention of applying discriminatory tariffs against American companies, they could legally do so at any time.
Russia was the last major economy that was not part of the trade group, and joining is expected to be a boon for Russian consumers and businesses. Exporting companies in Europe, Asia and the United States eagerly await open access to a population of 142 million people with growing incomes and an expanding middle class.
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Russian Activist Accuses Chief Investigator of Secret European Holdings
A Russian blogger and anticorruption activist who helped inspire street protests in Moscow last winter accused Russia’s chief federal investigator on Thursday of secretly owning real estate and other investments in Europe.
The allegation touched on the personal dealings of Aleksandr I. Bastrykin, a close aide to President Vladimir V. Putin and the director of the Investigative Committee, a high-level agency in the Russian government that coordinates criminal inquiries. It was apparently the most forceful retort yet by the opposition to a number of new laws strengthening the security services.
These laws, passed partly in response to the activism of the blogger, Aleksei A. Navalny, will be enforced by Mr. Bastrykin.
On his blog, Mr. Navalny provided documents indicating that Mr. Bastrykin has a residence permit and owns real estate in the Czech Republic.
Mr. Navalny wrote that the documents seemed to contradict Mr. Bastrykin’s denial of business interests abroad, which came in response to a parliamentary investigation in 2008.
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Navalny Presses for Inquiry Into Putin Deputy
Aleksei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent anticorruption activist, added to the pressure on the Russian government to investigate allegations of what he called corrupt financial practices by a senior deputy to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.
The accusations against the deputy, Igor I. Shuvalov, were initially brought to the attention of Russian prosecutors months ago, but on Friday, Mr. Navalny publicly posted the documents that form the basis of the allegations on his Web site.
At issue in the case is not their authenticity – a Moscow law firm has already confirmed they are real – but whether what is described violated laws or might be considered unacceptable, even in Russia’s political system.
Mr. Navalny said he still did not expect law enforcement to act against such a senior official. He said the publication was intended to reinforce the opposition’s message that corruption is pervasive in the Russian government.
“This is not a case of somebody in Siberia stealing pipes,” Mr. Navalny said. “It occurred within the oligarchy that lives abroad and with a Western-oriented official. It will be remembered. Now, every time the fight against corruption comes up, so will Shuvalov’s name.”
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Russia Plans to Retry Dead Lawyer in Tax Case
The police in Russia plan to resubmit for trial a tax evasion case in which the primary defendant died in detention more than two years ago, his former employer said Tuesday.
The trial of the defendant, Sergei L. Magnitsky, would be the first posthumous prosecution in Russian legal history, according to a statement by the former employer, Hermitage Capital.
The death of Mr. Magnitsky, a lawyer, in November 2009 drew international criticism over Russia’s human rights record, especially after accusations arose that he had been denied proper medical care. The State Department has barred officials linked to Mr. Magnitsky’s prosecutions from entering the United States. Parliaments in nine European countries are considering similar bans.
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As Russia arrests its richest, money takes flight
Nikolai Maksimov, one of the richest men in Russia, was sitting in a grimy jail cell in the Ural Mountains.
Through the murk, Mr. Maksimov saw his cellmate — a man, he says, who appeared ill with tuberculosis, a scourge in Russian prisons.
‘‘I had the feeling that I was put in this cell on purpose,’’ Mr. Maksimov, now free on bail, recalled recently.
Mr. Maksimov, who was arrested in February on suspicion of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars, is hardly the only Russian tycoon who has run into trouble. Among the six men who have topped the Forbes rich list here in the last decade, one, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, is in prison, and another, Boris A. Berezovsky, is in exile. They, like Mr. Maksimov, maintain their innocence.
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In Russia, Prisons for Police Thrive
New York Times
NIZHNY TAIGIL, Russia — Like a scene from a felon’s daydream, all the inmates at a prison compound here in western Russia — some 2,000 of them — are former policemen, prosecutors, tax inspectors, customs agents and judges.
Most of the day, they mill about, glum-faced, dressed in prison clothes. The only visible hints of the policemen’s former employment are the occasional buzz cuts.
Russian penitentiary authorities offered a rare tour of this specialized penal colony recently with an eye to demonstrating that these inmates receive no privileges.
In some ways, the officials proved their point. At least as far as accommodations go, the prison is as grim as most. Inside the walls of unpainted concrete slabs, barbed wire slashes the prison yards into zones for those doing hard time and minor offenders. And like the men and women they put behind bars, former police officers here live in rough-hewn brick barracks, toil in a workshop and eat boiled buckwheat and cabbage.
But the tour of the prison, Correctional Colony 13, also underscored a point that the authorities might not have intended to highlight: most of the inmates are here for work-related infractions, from accepting bribes to attacking suspects.
As Andrei V. Shumilov, a former detective, said of his conviction for beating a suspect with his fists during questioning: “I was investigating a crime, and I committed a crime myself.” By way of justification, he mumbled that the man had suffered only “damage to soft tissue.”
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