Posts Tagged ‘joe biden’
Sergei Magnitsky and the Rule of Law
In November 2009, Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow detention facility, just short of a year after his arrest on alleged tax evasion charges while defending an investment company on tax fraud and evasion complaints brought by the Russian government. Magnitsky publicly implicated certain Russian officials in an embezzlement scheme and misappropriation of funds from the Russian Treasury and assets of his client.
Magnitsky was tortured because he blew the whistle on a massive government-organized conspiracy to steal $230 million that he discovered and in which he testified against the corrupt officials. He was tortured to drop his testimony and sign a false confession stating that he committed the crime that he discovered. His imprisonment for “tax evasion” was a pretense to retaliate on his whistle blowing. His death has generated significant outcry in the international community, with allegations of torture and detention without trial or other procedural rights, and the denial of critical medical treatment that led to his death.
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Russia raps U.S. state dept human rights report
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that last week’s U.S. State Department report, criticizing Moscow’s human rights record, reflected double standards and was politicized.
“As before, the document has unfortunately become obvious evidence of the use of “double standards” and the politicization of human rights issues by the United States,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its website www.mid.ru.
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US leans towards Medvedev
No US official has explicitly backed President Dmitry Medvedev for re-election in 2012, but US Vice President Joe Biden came within a hair’s breadth of giving Medvedev his endorsement in preference to Vladimir Putin in a series of blunt messages during his visit to Moscow last week.
Biden, who met with both the president and prime minister, reportedly suggested to a group of opposition leaders that Putin – who many believe still wields the reins of power after stepping down in 2008 – should not run for a third term.
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The Next Steps in the U.S.-Russia Reset
When we came into office two years ago, our relationship with Russia had reached a low point. The war between Russia and Georgia played a role in that decline, but even before that conflict erupted in August 2008, a dangerous drift was under way.
While we no longer considered each other enemies, you couldn’t always tell that from the rhetoric flying back and forth. Ironically, this came at a time when American and Russian security interests, as well as economic interests, were more closely aligned than ever.
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Joe Biden attacks Russia’s political system
Joe Biden, the US vice president, has warned Russia is being held back by corruption and the Kremlin’s reluctance to embrace democracy.
In a speech that is likely to anger Russia’s leaders who hate being criticised by their former Cold War foe, Mr Biden warned that attempts to modernise Russia’s economy without political reform were likely to fail.
“Do not compromise on the basic tenets of democracy,” he told an audience at Moscow State University. “You need not make that Faustian bargain.”
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Biden Lukewarm on Putin’s Visa Idea
In his final public appearance in Moscow, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday chose to ignore a stunning proposal to cancel visas between his country and Russia and instead stressed how rule of law could attract investors.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin voiced the idea of visa-free travel during talks just hours before Biden’s speech at Moscow State University to U.S. and Russian business people, State Duma lawmakers and students.
Moscow had never before brought up the issue of abolishing visas with Washington, at least at such a high level.
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Plain Speaking From Biden in Moscow Speech
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who two years ago introduced the idea of a thaw between the United States and Russia, used a speech at Moscow State University to criticize Russia’s legal and political systems, a move likely to irritate the country’s leaders.
Russians, he said, “want to be able to choose their national and local leaders in competitive elections. They want to be able to assemble freely, and they want the media to be independent of the state. And they want to live in a country that fights corruption.
“That’s democracy,” he said. “I urge all you students here: Don’t compromise on the basic elements of democracy. You need not make that Faustian bargain.”
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In Moscow, Biden gets specific on corruption
Vice President Biden heaped praise on Russia on Thursday, calling it a nation of great creativity, great culture and great engineering, but he said it would have to get its legal house in order if it expected to attract more foreign business and investment.
In a formal speech at Moscow State University, Biden mentioned two of Russia’s most notorious recent cases involving business and the courts – those of imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and lawyer and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail cell in 2009 – and then said that “no amount of cheerleading” would lure back “wronged and nervous investors.”
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Biden Decries Russian Corruption During Visit
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told a university audience here Thursday that “only bold and genuine change” on corruption, the rule of law and democracy in Russia will guarantee improved economic relations between the former Cold War superpowers.
Speaking at Moscow State University on a weeklong European swing, he addressed what he called impediments to business investment, citing the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who was arrested and died in custody in 2009 after accusing the police of corruption; demonstrators who were beaten and detained last year while advocating for the right to peacefully assemble; and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch whose second trial on new charges of embezzlement and money laundering was clouded with allegations of misconduct.
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