Posts Tagged ‘olympics’

11
January 2012

Exposed: the ugly face of Putin’s Russia

Progress Online

In a powerful documentary on Putin’s Russia made by Norma Percy to be shown on BBC2 on 19 January there is an extraordinary moment when the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky confronts the recently elected President Putin. On film he tells him that Russia is so corrupt up that to 10 per cent of national wealth is disappearing into the hands of the post-Soviet bureaucracy. So much so that all the best and brightest graduates leaving college want to be tax police. That’s where the money is to be made, complains the owner of Yukos, as tax shakedowns were the most common form of getting rich quick.

At the time, in 2002, the sleek, jowly Khodorkovsky was still Russia’s top oligarch. As he confronts Putin the Russian leader’s eyes narrow and he taps his pencil with irritation on the table as he rebukes the oligarch at a business leaders’ council held in the Kremlin which was filmed and remains an electrifying moment in the documentary. Stalin also used a pencil rather than a pen to initial or tick lists to be sent to the Gulag. Khodorkovsky today finds himself in prison where those business leaders who did not pay their dues to the Putinocracy have found themselves if they did not flee to exile in time.

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11
January 2012

UK ‘should tell Vladimir Putin he is not welcome at Olympics’

The Guardian

MPs call for Russian prime minister to be told he is not wanted at London games unless Russia improves human rights record.

Britain should tell Vladimir Putin that he is not welcome at the London Olympics unless Russia makes meaningful efforts to improve its human rights record, MPs will say.

In a move likely to infuriate the Kremlin, Labour’s former Europe minister Denis MacShane will make a parliamentary call for the government to make it clear that Putin is not wanted at the games.

Dozens of heads of state are expected to attend the opening ceremony on 27 July. The Queen will preside over the ceremony, with each national team – including Russia – taking part in a parade.

Putin, currently the prime minister, is certain to win Russia’s presidential election in March despite public discontent and huge protests against election fraud last month. He will be back in the Kremlin and on the international stage from May.

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