Posts Tagged ‘lavrov’
No notification regarding Magnitsky list from London – Russian FM
Russia has not received an official notification from the UK authorities on banning Russian officials on the US Magnitsky List from entering the UK, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.
“We have not received any official notifications to this effect from the UK authorities,” he said at a joint news conference following his talks with Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean.
Lavrov added that “the UK authorities have said more than once that they do not intend to compile similar lists.”
“A provocation cannot be ruled out, because there are many high-profile issues in the European and global media space from which some people would like to create a diversion,” the Russian Foreign Minister said.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the UK Home Office has banned 60 Russian officials allegedly involved in the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 from entering the UK.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Britain Bans Entry to Russian Officials Linked to Magnitsky Case
Britain has banned entry to 60 Russian officials implicated in the Sergei Magnitsky case, The Daily Telegraph reported.
A list drafted by the U.S. Helsinki Commission, chaired by Senator Benjamin Cardin, contained the names of officials suspected of being involved in a $230 million tax fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for investment fund Hermitage Capital, or in Magnitsky’s death in prison in 2009.
The Magnitsky law was passed by the Senate in December and requires the White House to publish the names of those suspected of human rights violations, including those linked to the fraud uncovered by Magnitsky or to his death.
In April, the U.S. Treasury Department published a list 18 officials who are subject to visa bans and asset freezes in the United States.
The Home Office’s ban was contained in a previously unreported Parliamentary response in April to a written question from Dominic Raab.
Mr Raab, the Conservative MP for Esher & Walton, asked the Home Office if any of the 60 Russians named on the draft list had visited the UK in the last year.
In response, immigration minister Mark Harper said: “The Home Office Special Cases Directorate is already aware of the individuals on the list and has taken the necessary measures to prevent them being issued visas for travel to the UK.”
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russia Bans Americans in Tit-for-Tat Reprisal
Russia banned 18 Americans from entering its territory over the weekend, responding to a list published Friday by the Obama administration that barred the same number of Russians from the U.S. for their alleged involvement in the death of a whistle-blowing tax attorney in a Moscow jail.
The diplomatic row heightens discord ahead of a meeting Monday between U.S. National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Relations between the two global powers have grown tense, even as the White House tries to revive a “reset” in hopes of gaining the Kremlin’s support in dealings with North Korea, Syria and Iran.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry divided the list of banned current and former U.S. officials into two categories: four former U.S. officials that it alleges were involved in legalizing or authorizing torture at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and 14 U.S. officials that it alleges were involved in “violating the human rights and freedoms of Russian citizens abroad.”
The Guantanamo Bay list includes two former commanders of the detention center and former Bush Administration officials David Addington and John Yoo. The other list includes U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, as well as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara and seven current and former officials from his office. It also includes four Drug Enforcement Administration officials and a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent.
“I have rarely received such an honor,” Mr. Rakoff said in response to a query from The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
Mr. Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Justice Department official known for writing a series of controversial legal memos on enhanced interrogation techniques, said he has never been to Russia and has no plans to go. “But there goes the Black Sea vacation home for the wife,” he wrote in an email.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russia may be coming in from cold after talks with Hague
Britain signalled that it was ready for a thaw in the difficult relationship with the Kremlin yesterday —but not at the expense of sweeping under the carpet possible Russian involvement in the killings of the defector Alexander Litvinenko and the whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky.
A meeting in London between William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, was intended to usher in a new level of co-operation on Syria, Iran and the troop withdrawal next year from Afghanistan.
But it was held a day before Sir Robert Owen, the Assistant Deputy Coroner, was due to hold a pre-inquest hearing on Litvinenko, a former Russian secret police officer who was poisoned with polonium in 2006. Mr Hague had no choice but to raise the issue, at least behind closed doors.
“There was a full, substantive and comprehensive exchange on bilateral issues that we do not agree on including human rights and the cases of Sergei Magnitsky and Alexander Litvinenko,” a Foreign Office spokesman said. Mr Hague also emphasised the importance of the Magnitsky case in an interview with the Interfax news agency before the talks.
“I have urged my Russian counterpart to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice without further delay, and [that] measures be put in place to prevent such cases from happening again,” Mr Hague said.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
William Hague criticises Russia over Sergei Magnitsky case
Foreign Secretary William Hague has criticised Russia’s handling of the death of whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, saying the case was “of utmost concern” to the Government.
Speaking ahead of talks in London with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday, Mr Hague said the Magnitsky affair was “one of the highest profile examples of failings in Russia’s judicial and prison systems”.
“Mr Magnitsky died more than three years ago in pretrial detention, and to date there has been no meaningful progress towards establishing the circumstances surrounding his death,” the Foreign Secretary told Russian news agency Interfax. “I have urged my Russian counterpart to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice without further delay, and measures are put in place to prevent such cases from happening again.”
Mr Magnitsky, a lawyer, died of heart failure at the age of 37 in a Moscow jail in 2009 after being denied vital medical treatment for pancreatitis. He had earlier exposed a £140m tax fraud involving senior state officials and policemen, but was jailed by the same officers whom he accused.
No one was convicted over his death and Kremlin critics say a trial of the dead man for fraud – due to begin in Moscow next week – is a Kafkaesque attempt to blacken his name and dampen dissent.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Putin Aide Says U.S. Holds Key to Improving Ties
Strained U.S.-Russian ties will not improve unless Washington stops openly criticizing Moscow’s human rights record and supporting President Vladimir Putin’s foes, the top foreign policy official in the Russian parliament said.
Relations between the Cold War-era rivals took a dive after Putin’s return to the Kremlin in May, undermining a 2009 initiative by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russia’s then-president, Dmitry Medvedev, a more liberal Putin protege, to “reset” ties.
Alexei Pushkov, head of the international affairs committee in parliament’s lower chamber and a Putin ally, said the ties were “negatively stable” now and the “reset” could be considered over without an initiative on the highest political level to save it.
“The priority is political realism. Ideology matters should be secondary. I tell you, issues over ideology and values can destroy anything,” Pushkov said in an interview.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russia set to advance ban on US adoptions
Russia’s upper house of parliament was due Wednesday to vote for a bill barring Americans from adopting the country’s children, in retaliation for a new piece of human rights legislation in the US.
The highly contentious bill has inflamed tensions between the two former Cold War rivals at a time when Washington needs Moscow’s help to convince President Bashar al-Assad to quit power in Syria.
The draft legislation has already passed the three required readings in the State Duma lower house and is due to reach President Vladimir Putin’s desk before the end of the year.
The Federation Council upper chamber — comprised exclusively of Putin allies and ruling party members — is expected to overwhelmingly approve the measure after it was backed in a committee meeting on Tuesday.
“This will not lead to any infringement of international rights,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
“Russia is fully implementing the rights it has under international law,” he added in comments that reinforced speculation that Putin would sign the bill into law.
The bill also includes a provision banning Russian political organisations that receive US funding.
The legislation came after US President Barack Obama this month signed into law the Magnitsky Act — a measure paying tribute to a Russian lawyer who died in police custody in 2009 after exposing a $235 million police embezzlement scheme.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russia: Magnitsky Retaliation Bill Approved
A controversial law banning Americans from adopting Russian children has won final approval from the parliament in Moscow.
The bill – in retaliation for a US law intended to punish Russian human rights abusers – will now go to President Vladimir Putin for his signature.
Putin has strongly hinted he will sign the bill, which also outlaws some US-funded NGOs and hits back at sanctions by imposing visa bans and asset freezes on Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians.
The Federation Council, Russia’s upper parliament, voted unanimously to approve the bill, which has clouded US-Russian relations and outraged liberals who say lawmakers are playing a political game with the lives of children.
The bill has drawn unusual criticism from some government officials including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Olga Golodets, a deputy prime minister who said it may violate an international convention on children’s rights.
Putin has described it as an emotional but appropriate response to US legislation he said was poisoning relations.
US President Barack Obama this month signed off on the Magnitsky Act, which imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights violations, including those linked to the death in custody of a lawyer in 2009.
The ban on American adoptions takes Russia’s response a step further, playing into deep sensitivity among Russians – and the government in particular – over adoptions by foreigners, which skyrocketed after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
The bill is named for Dima Yakovlev – a Russian-born toddler who died of heat stroke when his adoptive American father forgot him in a car.
“It is immoral to send our children abroad to any country,” Federation Council deputy Valery Shtyrov said in a one-sided debate before the 143-0 vote.
Child rights advocates say the law, due to take effect on January 1 if signed by Putin, will deprive children of a way out of Russia’s overcrowded orphanage system.
Opposition activist Boris Nemtsov said: “This is the most vile law passed since Putin came to power. Putin is taking children hostage, like a terrorist”.
Police said they had arrested seven people protesting against the law on Wednesday outside the Federation Council.
Nevertheless, lawmaker Gennady Makin said the Magnitsky Act demanded a tough response. “He who comes to Russia with a sword dies by that sword,” he said.
The dispute adds to tension in US-Russia ties already strained over issues ranging from Syria to the Kremlin’s treatment of opponents and restrictions imposed on civil society groups since Putin, in power since 2000, began a new six-year term in May.
The Russian bill would outlaw US-funded “non-profit organisations that engage in political activity”, which Putin accuses of trying to influence Russian politics.
Russia ejected the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which funds Russian non-governmental groups, in October, and Putin has signed a law forcing many foreign-funded organisations to register as “foreign agents” – a term that evokes the Cold War. займ на карту онлайн unshaven girl https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php https://www.zp-pdl.com займы на карту срочно
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russian lawmakers back adoption ban in row with U.S.
Russia’s lower house of parliament approved a law banning Americans from adopting Russian children on Friday, in retaliation for U.S. human rights legislation which Vladimir Putin says is poisoning relations.
The State Duma overwhelmingly backed a bill which also outlaws U.S.-funded “non-profit organizations that engage in political activity”, extending what critics say is a clampdown on Putin’s opponents since he returned to the presidency in May.
The law responds to U.S. legislation known as the Magnitsky Act, passed by the U.S. Congress to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials accused of involvement in the death in custody of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.
Washington’s ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, said the Russian bill unfairly “linked the fate of orphaned children to unrelated political issues”.
Putin hinted at a news conference on Thursday that he would sign it into law once the Senate votes on it next week, describing it as an emotional but appropriate response to an unfriendly move by the United States.
“It is a myth that all children who land in American families are happy and surrounded by love,” Olga Batalina, a deputy with Putin’s ruling United Russia party, said in defense of the new measures.
In a pointed echo of the Magnitsky Act, the Russian legislation has become known as the Dima Yakovlev law, after a Russian-born toddler who died after his American adoptive father left him in locked in a sweltering car.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
