Putin’s “Red-Line”–Defended With “Carrier-Killers” For Syria and A Dozen Russian Warships Permanently Stationed Along the Coast

[SEE:  Syria crisis: Russia 'sends sophisticated weapons']

“Russia has sent sophisticated anti-ship missiles to Syria, US media report.

The New York Times quotes unnamed US officials as saying the missiles could be used to counter any potential future foreign military intervention in Syria.”

  Russia signed the deal to supply Syria with Yakhont missiles in 2007

VIDEO FOOTAGE OF YAKHONT LAUNCH

[SEE: The Indian/Russian Mach 3 Carrier-Killer Missile]

VIDEO FOOTAGE OF BRAHMOS LAUNCH

Yakhont…   ..Brahmos

Russia Raises Stakes in Syria

Assad Ally Bolsters Warships in Region; U.S. Sees Warning

By ADAM ENTOUS and JULIAN E. BARNES in Washington and GREGORY L. WHITE in Moscow

Russia expands its naval presence near a key base in Syria in a build-up that U.S. and European officials say appears aimed at deterring intervention in the country’s increasingly bloody civil war. Photo: Getty Images.

Russia has sent a dozen or more warships to patrol waters near its naval base in Syria, a buildup that U.S. and European officials see as a newly aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria’s bloody civil war.

Russia’s expanded presence in the eastern Mediterranean, which began attracting U.S. officials’ notice three months ago, represents one of its largest sustained naval deployments since the Cold War. While Western officials say they don’t fear an impending conflict with Russia’s aged fleet, the presence adds a new source of potential danger for miscalculation in an increasingly combustible region.

“It is a show of force. It’s muscle flexing,” a senior U.S. defense official said of the Russian deployments. “It is about demonstrating their commitment to their interests.”

The buildup is seen as Moscow’s way of trying to strengthen its hand in any talks over Syria’s future and buttress its influence in the Middle East. It also provides options for evacuating tens of thousands of Russians still in Syria.

The deployments come at a time of heightened tensions. U.S. officials said Thursday that another round of Israeli airstrikes could target a new transfer of advanced missiles, anti-ship weapons known as Yakhont missiles, in the near future. Israeli and Western intelligence services believe the missiles, which have been sold by Russia to Syria in recent years, could be transferred to the militant Hezbollah group within days. Russia has strongly protested previous Israeli strikes in Syria.

Yakhont missiles are an offensive system. Moscow has told Western diplomats it will supply only defensive weaponry to the Syrian regime. But U.S. and Israeli officials have long been worried about Syria’s existing stocks of the weapon. If transferred to Hezbollah or other militant groups, they could provide a serious threat to both Israeli and U.S. warships in the region.

Russian Navy and foreign ministry officials didn’t respond to requests for comment about the deployments of the warships.

Russia supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the U.S. has called for his removal. Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled this week that he is pushing ahead with the sale of an advanced air-defense system to Syria, according to U.S. intelligence reports, over Israeli and U.S. objections.

Hezbollah and its chief sponsor, Iran, also have rallied around Mr. Assad, sharing Russia’s interest in keeping the regime in place. Recent Israeli airstrikes inside Syria have targeted missiles believed to be bound from Tehran to Hezbollah, Western intelligence officials have alleged.

Moscow and Washington have worked publicly in recent days to assemble an international conference involving Damascus. But expectations are low that the meeting could lead to a political transition, as tensions have heightened around the region, and with the U.S. and Russia backing opposing camps.

Amid the strategic turmoil, U.S. and European defense officials say Russia appears to be trying to project power to deter outside intervention in Syria, which it sees as its foothold in the Middle East.

U.S. and European officials believe Mr. Putin wants to prevent the West from contemplating a Libya-style military operation inside Syria. President Barack Obama doesn’t want to intervene militarily, but he has said the calculation could be changed by suspected use of chemical weapons by Mr. Assad’s forces. Likewise, the Pentagon has stepped up military contingency planning in the event of spillover of fighting into neighboring Turkey and Jordan, both close U.S. allies.

Moscow’s deployments appeared designed to show that Russia intends to keep Tartus, its only remaining military outpost outside the former Soviet Union, senior U.S. officials said. Though spare by Western military standards—it consists of a pair of piers staffed by about 50 people, according to Russian data—the base provides a toehold in the region that has grown in strategic and symbolic importance for Moscow.

“It’s not really a base,” said Andrei Frolov, an analyst at CAST, a Moscow military think tank. “It’s more like a service station” that can do limited resupply and very modest repairs.

U.S. officials say, however, that Russia has drawn up plans to expand the base, which it negotiated with Mr. Assad.

Washington’s interest in the base has likewise grown—not because the U.S. sees it as a threat, but because U.S. officials believe that by assuring Russia that the base will remain under Moscow’s control in a post-Assad Syria, the U.S. has a better chance of convincing Mr. Putin to break with Mr. Assad.

Mr. Obama held out some hope Thursday that the coming conference with Russia would help the major powers reach a consensus on how to end the bloodshed in Syria.

“There’s no magic formula for dealing with an extraordinarily violent and difficult situation like Syria’s,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Washington with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “I do think that the prospect of talks in Geneva involving the Russians…may yield results.”

Moscow’s diplomacy notwithstanding, U.S. officials believe that in addition to the naval deployments, Russia is moving more quickly than previously thought to deliver S-300 surface-to-air defense systems to Syria.

U.S. officials say the S-300 system, which is capable of shooting down guided missiles and could make it more risky for any warplanes to enter Syrian airspace, could leave Russia for the port of Tartus by the end of May.

Russia’s delivery of such missiles could create a new dilemma for Israel, which has carried out what Western intelligence officials say are at least three airstrikes inside Syria in recent months against suspected weapons shipments to Hezbollah. Israel has yet to target Syrian forces directly, seeking to avoid direct conflict with Mr. Assad, say U.S. and Israeli officials.

Russian officials first announced the navy was deploying ships to the eastern Mediterranean near Syria starting in late 2012, but few details about the deployments have been made public.

In January, the Russian navy used these and other ships to conduct what it billed as some of the largest exercises in recent years in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea for a force that has had relatively low international presence since the Cold War. State media reported that as many as 21 ships and three submarines were involved, as well as planes and other forces.

Before the start of the Syrian civil war, Russian ships stopped at the port only irregularly. But in the last three months, 10 to 15 Russian ships have been near the Syrian port at any one time, U.S. and European officials say. They say Russia currently has 11 ships in the eastern Mediterranean, organized into three task forces, that include destroyers, frigates, support vessels and intelligence-collecting ships. Another three-ship group of amphibious vessels is headed to the region. But U.S. officials said they expect that group to replace one of the groups currently in the region.

“You have more and more warships” concentrated between Cyprus, Lebanon and Turkey, a senior European defense official said, adding that Russia is protecting its sphere of influence in the Middle East and “staking its claim” to Tartus.

Many of the Russian ships in the eastern Mediterranean have stopped in Syria, conducted exercises, port visits or training in the area, and then moved on to the Gulf of Aden to conduct counterpiracy missions, U.S. and European officials said. Others in the aging fleet have returned to Black Sea ports for repairs and resupply in recent weeks, Russian state media reported.

The stops in Syria, according to a U.S. official, signal that Russia wants to show it remains a naval power, even though its strength is diminished from the Soviet era and no longer matches Western capabilities.

“They are stretching their legs,” the official said. “They are very much interested in letting people know they are a blue-water navy.”

The Soviets had ships in the Mediterranean during the Cold War whose mission was to counter the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet. The Russians ended that mission in 1992. But in the last few months, the Russian navy has talked about reviving a similar mission to signal Russia’s influence in the region.

For now, senior U.S. officials said the Russian buildup “is not seen as threatening” to the U.S. Navy, which has two destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean and an aircraft carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf.

“Nobody is forecasting the battle of Midway in the eastern Med,” the senior defense official said.

Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com, Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com and Gregory L. White at greg.white@wsj.com

Russian court fines Golos NGO under ‘foreign agent’ law

Russian court fines NGO under ‘foreign agent’ law

Russian human rights advocate Lev Ponomarev (left) and Moscow Helsinki Group president Lyudmila Alexeyeva (right) Human rights advocates wait for the start of the Golos (Voice) trial in a Moscow courthouse, on April 25, 2013. The court slapped a $10,000 (7,700 euros) fine on the election monitor, in the first ruling against NGOs the government considers to be “foreign agents”.

AFP – A Russian court on Thursday slapped a $10,000 (7,700 euros) fine on the election monitor Golos, in the first ruling against NGOs the government considers to be “foreign agents”, Russian news agencies reported.

Golos (Voice), a Moscow-based organisation that monitors Russian elections for violations, received the fine for failing to register as a “foreign agent” as required after the Russian parliament passed a controversial law obliging groups with foreign funding to use the label.

 

More arrests Made in Boston bombings, FBI Allegedly eyes 12 Kazakh terror cell

More arrests in Boston bombings, FBI eyes terror cell

 

Two men believed to be from Kazakhstan were arrested Saturday in New Bedford, Mass., about an hour from Boston.

By H. Michael Vincent
The Rockford Record

Two men are in federal custody as the FBI investigates a possible terror cell that may be linked to suspected Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The men, known only as Diaz and Azmat, were arrested Saturday, April 20, in New Bedford, Mass. While the suspects are being held on immigration violations, their arrest was made after police received new information regarding a possible 12-member terror cell operating in the area.

Investigators say the group’s main focus may have been training the brothers to build compact explosives like the bombs used in the marathon attack and those thrown at police officers Thursday night during a car chase.

Tsarnaev Brothers Are Russian NOT Chechen–Father Anzor Tsarnaev, “What Chechnya. They never lived in Chechnya.”

Tamerlan

[False flag nature of Boston attack starting to come to light.  The boys were Russian, not Chechen; the youngest boy had never even attended a mosque.  The fake rumors about Chechnya surfaced almost immediately after the attacks, almost as if they were already the new narrative waiting in the wings.  It didn't matter anymore, if the strain of "al-Qaeda" came from the Middle East or Central Asia.  In fact, there had to be some new terror attack upon Americans implicating "al-Qaeda in the Stans," since the new focus was already upon the CA region as the next target region.  The Boston false flag event was clearly Obama's plot to force Putin onto his side in terror war, just as the school shootings were done to convince all good Americans that giving-up our guns was the best defense against insane or criminal killers?]

Anzor Tsarnaev: I am a supporter of Kadyrov. My sons did not tell anything about Chechnya’s independence

KAVKAZ

Father of the Tsarnaev brothers said in an interview to the Chechen Service of the American Radio Liberty that his sons were framed by security services.

“This is pure staging. Someone did that on purpose. I do not know why this is done. I know my children. How can a man who has never prayed go and blow up something?.. The older son went to a mosque. We were often visited by security services which asked on his thoughts and ideas and the stuff … And the younger never even prayed“.

Answering a question if his son spoke about the independence of Chechnya, Anzor Tsarnaev literally exploded:

“What Chechnya. They never lived in Chechnya. They never had this in the head. There is no Chechnya, what independence? Especially since I’m a supporter of Kadyrov, what independence are you talking about? … I lived for 10 years in America, returned home to die, so I was not dragged out here and there… It’s all staging…”

Meanwhile, the wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was eventually caught after many hours of confrontation in the suburbs of Boston. US authorities reported that he was injured. However, no exact information about his condition was given.

News agencies report that Obama had a telephone conversation with Putin. A statement by the White House said that Putin expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in Boston, and Obama praised the Kremlin’s ringleader for “close cooperation that the United States received from Russia on counter terrorism, including in the wake of the Boston attack”.

In turn, FBI officials told news agencies that in 2011, security forces at a request of an unnamed foreign country questioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev – the older of the two brothers. During this conversation, Tsarnaev said nothing suspicious.

Tsarnaev brothers are a product not so much of Chechnya, but rather of the Chechen diaspora, commented on the situation for the BBC News Prof. Matthew Payne at Emory University in Atlanta. The Tsarnaevs fled from “fierce Russian-Chechen wars of the 1990s and early 2000s”, he said.

Meanwhile, people who knew the brothers describe them in a positive way:

A student named Zach Boyer, who lived in the dormitory next door to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told the BBC News that he was “a pretty nice person”. “I saw him all the time. He was often in my room… He did wrestling and played soccer. He was much liked”.

BBC News also reports that “high school friends of Tamerlan describe him as nice, sociable and funny. That was in 2006. Did he change recently? What happened?”.

It is to be recalled that, according to American authorities, Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Russia and spent six months there, and then returned to America.

According to the New York Times and CBS News, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, his mother and father got US citizenship last year. Tamerlan Tsarnaev also filed an application for the US citizenship, his papers have been half filled.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

The Tajik State Duma has ratified the Tajik-Russian Agreement on Military Base

The State Duma has ratified the Tajik-Russian Agreement on Military Base

State Duma ratified the long-term agreement on the status and conditions of Russian military bases on the territory of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, said Friday Dmitry Sablin, the first deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots.

“We remember the situation in which they were created at the time. How, for example, the leadership of Kyrgyzstan, after the attack on the Republic of terrorists turned to Russia to create such a group there. In this sense, our accommodation database is fully consistent with the interests of these countries, “- he said.

“But it is quite obvious that today these databases are an important element of stability for the whole of Central Asia. They help to solve problems
associated with resistance to extremism and narco-aggression: problems, which, alas, are relevant to Russia itself. And with the approaching 2014
, when the expected reduction of the international military presence in Afghanistan, the importance of Russian bases here, obviously, only increase, “- said Sablin.

“Therefore the ratification of these agreements, of course, in the interests of both Russia and its neighbors. And that’s why they got strong support in parliament, “- he concluded.

Deputy of Tajik Islamic Revival Party Beaten To A Bloody Pulp Coming Home Last Night

Tajikistan: Investigate Attack on Opposition Leader

Mahmadali Hayit, deputy head of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan, lies in his hospital bed at the National Medical Center in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on April 20, 2013 after being beaten outside his home by unknown assailants the night before. Hayit, 56, suffered severe wounds to the head, face, eyes, ribs, back, and stomach. Hayit is well-known for his outspoken criticism of the policies and human rights record of the current Tajik government, which has been ruled by President Emomali Rahmon continuously since 1994.

(Dushanbe) – Tajik authorities should promptly and thoroughly investigate the brutal beating of an opposition leader. Mahmadali Hayit, deputy head of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), the country’s largest opposition party, was attacked in the evening of April 19, 2013, outside his home.
The investigation should be thorough and comprehensive, and Tajik authorities should ensure that members of the IRPT and other opposition parties are able to exercise their freedom of expression, association, and assembly without interference in the lead-up to the November 2013 presidential elections.
“This was a savage attack on a prominent opposition figure in an election year, which raises many concerns about the motivation,” said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Tajik authorities should take immediate action to investigate who is behind the attack on Hayit and hold them to account.”
On April 19, Hayit, 56, was returning to his home in the capital, Dushanbe, following preparations at the IRPT office for a large public event next week to mark the party’s founding. At approximately 7:40 p.m., as he made his way to the entrance to his home, two men of athletic builds approached him, dressed in sweats pants and sports clothes.
“I felt them hit my head from behind,” Hayit told Human Rights Watch in the hospital in Dushanbe. “Then they started hitting me repeatedly on the face and head. When I fell to the ground they kicked me in the head and all over my upper body.”
Relatives discovered Hayit, who had lost a lot of blood, and called an ambulance, which took him to the National Medical Center Karabolo. When Human Rights Watch visited Hayit in the hospital on April 20, four police officers were guarding the floor where he was receiving treatment. Police had questioned witnesses but had not formally opened a criminal investigation.
Hayit told Human Rights Watch he believes the attack was designed to scare the IRPT into toning down its political activities ahead of the elections. Hayit has long been the subject of government surveillance. He told Human Rights Watch that at least once a month authorities come to his home to check his passport and other identification documents, and police and unknown individuals in plain clothes come regularly to inquire about his whereabouts. Such a visit took place at approximately 10 a.m. on the day of his attack.
“Tajikistan’s international partners and outside investors will be watching closely in the run-up to the November elections,” Swerdlow said. “Tajik authorities should send a clear signal that citizens will be able to exercise their freedoms of expression, assembly, and association free of retribution and the threat of violence.”
The IRPT, the only opposition party in parliament, holds two seats in the 63-seat Majlisi Oli.
Next week, the IRPT had planned to stage a public event at its Dushanbe office, commemorating the party’s founding. “Various authorities have been visiting the site of our upcoming event all week,” Hayit told Human Rights Watch. “They have been looking for ways to shut us down.” Hayit said that various forms of government pressure have been intensifying on IRPT members and its leaders in the past year.
In January, IRPT head Muhiddin Kabiri lost a libel suit in a Dushanbe court after criticizing the mayor for cutting down too many trees and was ordered to make an apology. In July 2012, a party leader in the autonomous south-eastern region of Gorno-Badakhshan was murdered during a military operation. Another local leader from Gorno-Badakhshan is currently being tried behind closed doors in Dushanbe for organizing mass disorders during the military operation.
In recent years, citing fears of radical Islam, Tajik authorities have introduced wide-ranging restrictions on the practice of Islam outside of strict state controls, including a ban on minors attending religious institutions, and have also targeted IRPT meetings.
“The United States and the European Union should urge the Tajik government to investigate this violent attack on a well-known public figure,” Swerdlow said. “Washington and Brussels should send a strong and clear message pressing Tajik authorities to ensure an election season in which citizens’ core political and civil rights are protected.”

Moscow Times Now An Instrument of Anti-Soviet Finnish Nationalists?

source

Aatos Juho Michel Erkko (16 September 1932^[1] – 5 May 2012^[2]) was a Finnish journalist and the main owner of Sanoma Corporation and the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper.^[3]

According to Helsingin Sanomat for years on end Aatos Erkko was the wealthiest man in Finland.^[4] He controlled directly or indirectly 23.29% of the Sanoma Corporation shares,^[5]

Finnish persons linked to various societies of the global elite.

In 2005, the Moscow Times was sold to the Finnish publishing group Sanoma, owned by one of Finland’s richest men, Aatos Erkko (a regular at Bilderberg Group meetings), and members of his family; Sanoma also owns the St. Petersburg Times.

(Aatos Erkko, Chairman, Sanoma WSOY, Helsinki (1991) (He is also on this list of CIA sources…)

Putin and Obama Plan 2 Meetings to Tackle Tensions

Rogozin Says U.S. Missile Defense No Longer a Threat

The Russian-Israeli Mafia: Off-limits to FBI, US intelligence–Wayne Madsen (7/11/2008)

[SEE: Boris Berezovsky died by hanging, police say ;  Did Russian mafia kill the body-in-a-bag spy? MI6 man  found dead in holdall in London, was developing secret technology to track gangsters' laundered cash]

The Russian-Israeli Mafia: Off-limits to FBI, US intelligence

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3479.shtml

By Wayne Madsen Online Journal Contributing Writer Jul 11, 2008, 00:19

(WMR) — The same cancer that bankrupted the Soviet Union and the early Russian Federation, namely the Russian-Israeli Mafia — the global organized crime syndicate that uses Israeli government protection and passports to cover their illegal worldwide activities — has so thoroughly permeated the American political and business system that the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are virtually powerless to bring the major perpetrators to justice.

Across the United States, FBI agents have been hamstrung by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, led by two individuals, Michael Mukasey and Michael Chertoff, whose close links to the Russian-Israeli Mafia in New York and New Jersey have seen case after case involving Russian-Israeli mobsters going un-investigated and virtually ignored.

In fact, the National Security Agency (NSA), FBI, and the military intelligence services have seen their ranks of Russian linguists slashed by the Bush administration. In most cases, Russian-Israeli mobsters use their native Russian language in their telephone conversations and email communications. Only recently, perhaps owing to a shift within the Defense Department led by Robert Gates, has the NSA began re-hiring Russian linguists, although at a very slow pace.

Neo-con outlets such as The Daily Telegraph in Great Britain, which has also witnessed an infiltration of its government, law enforcement, and intelligence services by individuals linked to the Russian-Israeli mob, are now complaining that there are so many Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) agents in Britain that MI-6, MI-5, and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) are finding it difficult to battle “Islamist terrorists.” However, the FSB is primarily a law enforcement agency that has been waging battle against the Russian-Israeli Mafia, particularly its major backers like exiled Russian-Israeli oligarch Boris Berezovsky who have been granted protection by the British government while they plan subversive activities against Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

In fact, as seen in the poisoning of Russian ex-FSB and KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, there are solid links between Berezovsky, the Russian-Israeli Mafia, and Islamist guerrillas in Chechnya and abroad. However, British intelligence, which recently suffered a major blow with the strange illness that struck the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), Alex Allan, who was found in a coma and covered with blood in his Hammersmith apartment in the London suburbs, has been unable to crack down on the Russian-Israeli Mafia infiltration of Britain since the billions of pounds in dirty money has made its way into the coffers of top Labor and Conservative politicians.

Allan reportedly had plans to return to Freemantle, Australia, where he lived with his Australian-born wife before she died of cancer. Allan had been the British High Commissioner in Canberra before moving back to London to serve as JIC Chairman. As JIC Chairman, Allan coordinated the activities of MI5, MI6, and GCHQ. The last high-ranking British spy to take up residence in Australia was the late Peter Wright, whose book “Spycatcher,” detailed past secret activities of MI6 and MI5. Attempts by the Margaret Thatcher government to have the book’s publication banned in Australia were unsuccessful.

The United States is only second to Britain in infiltration by the Russian-Israeli gangsters in the highest echelons of government. The Bush administration has ignored INTERPOL arrest warrants and requests for information issued on behalf of Russia for wanted Russian-Israeli billionaires like Leonid Nevzlin, Boris Berezovsky, aka Platon Elenin (suspected by Russian authorities of links to the assassinations of Litvinenko and Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya), Arkady Gaydamak, Semyon “Sam” Kislin, Michael Chernoy, and others.

The Russian-Israeli interference in the law enforcement activities of the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have hobbled major investigations to the detriment of the national security of the United States. The FBI investigation of the assassination of retired CIA Houston station chief Roland “Tony” Carnaby, who was investigating Israeli Mossad and Russian-Israeli mob activities in the Houston area, has been relegated to a low-level and non-descript national security investigation by FBI higher ups. The DEA and FBI investigations of the activities of Israeli “art students” and “movers” in the months leading up to the 9/11 attacks were similarly stymied by the direct orders of then-FBI director Louis Freeh and Attorney General John Ashcroft, according to a major wire service journalist who covered the Justice Department. The Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), funded by wealthy Jewish American private contributors and the Israeli government, “threatened” media outlets, including the Associated Press, who continued to report on the activities of the Israeli art students and movers.

The FBI has also ignored the massive thefts of personal data of American citizens. WMR has previously reported that most of the major thefts are part of a covert operation by the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security to pick up where Iran-contra felon Admiral John Poindexter left off with his aborted Total Information Awareness (TIA) system, designed to collect the most personal details of American citizens in a massive database. A February 27, 2008, truck theft of backup data tapes from Bank of New York Mellon Corporation’s Jersey City Shareholder Services unit has the hallmarks of an organized crime heist. Shareholders of the Walt Disney Company, John Hancock Financial Services (a division of Manulife Financial Corporation), People’s United Bank of Connecticut, and the Bank of New York were informed that their stock sale transactions may have been compromised. WMR has learned that Disney stock holders were not officially informed of the theft of their data until June 13, 2008, four months later. Perhaps not coincidentally, a number of Israeli-owned computer services companies are now offering protection against data theft to potential customers. In addition, Kislin was linked to a money laundering scandal involving the Bank of New York, now Bank of New York Mellon. WMR previously reported on the Bank of New York (BONY) scandal and the Russian-Israeli mob:

“Forest Hills has been identified by the FBI as a major center for both the Russian-Israeli Mafia and Mossad and it is a place where the two interests often cooperate. In 2002, OPERATION SPIDERWEB, a joint FBI-EUROPOL operation, resulted in the arrest of 20 Russian-Israeli dual citizens on charges of money laundering. The laundering primarily involved the Bank of New York (BONY), the Russian bank Menatep, and an ‘Internet bank’ called the European Union Bank. More importantly, the money laundering network also included Benex, a firm connected to Bill Clinton-pardoned Mossad figure Marc Rich, who still resides primarily in Switzerland. . . . Benex’s office was located on Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills in the same building where Grigori Loutchansky headquartered two of his companies. Loutchansky is a Latvian-born Israeli who laundered billions through his Vienna-based NORDEX firm. National Security Agency (NSA) signals intercepts have reportedly yielded intelligence on Loutchansky’s role in the smuggling of nuclear materials. Loutchansky also was closely linked to Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign through New York real estate magnate and Democratic donor Sam Dombs. . . . Forest Hills was also the hometown of international diamond dealer Yehuda Abraham, convicted in a plot to smuggle surface-to-air missile launchers from Russia into the United States, mere four months after 9/11, and launder the proceeds from the deal through Malaysia. The network was discovered to have links with the Viktor Bout weapons smuggling network and money laundering facilities linked to ‘Al Qaeda’ Southeast Asia affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah. Abraham, an Afghan Jew, was linked not only to Mossad but to the Saudi Royal Family.”

It is now being reported that John McCain has a severe gambling addiction, evidenced by his long bouts with the craps tables in Las Vegas. There are reports that convicted GOP lobbyist and Russian-Israeli mob money launderer Jack Abramoff traded favors with McCain and Alabama Governor Bob Riley, who, through election malfeasance, cost Democratic Governor Don Siegelman his governorship in 2002 and then proceeded to engage in a criminal conspiracy to indict and convict Siegelman on trumped up charges.

A set of emails sent between Abramoff and Tom DeLay’s Communications Director in December 2002, emails that were never produced by McCain’s Indian Affairs Committee, show that Abramoff was conspiring with Riley, a casino gambling opponent, to keep gambling from the Poarch Creek Indian Reservation to benefit gambling on the Coushatta Indian Reservations in Mississippi. The email also describes efforts between Mississippi Republican Governor Haley Barbour and Maryland Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich to bring casino gambling to Indian reservations in their states. Ehrlich and his staff were targets of a federal investigation linking them to a prostitution ring involving Pamela Martin & Associates escorts and Shirlington Limousine, which ferried escorts on behalf of individuals and lobbyists linked to Abramoff in the Washington, DC and Baltimore areas. That investigation was shut down after George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004.

McCain has also been linked to Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska, another member of the Russian Mafia who has been denied an entry visa to the United States. Deripaska, unlike his Russian Jewish comrades, has maintained good links to Putin. Deripaska has also figured prominently as a supplier of aluminum to the European Airbus aircraft frames to be used in the production of the US Air Force tanker plane, a contract pushed hard by McCain and his top campaign advisers, some of whom were lobbyists for Airbus.

The Russian-Israeli mob infiltration of the McCain campaign is only the continuation of a cancerous infiltration of the American body politic that began with the takeover of the Senate office of Washington’s Henry “Scoop” Jackson by anti-Soviet Jewish “neo-conservatives” in the early 1970s and blossomed into the full scale coup witnessed in the presidential election of 2000.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report.

Boris Berezovsky died by hanging, police say

[Boris Berezovsky is typical of most of the Russian "Oligarchs," after having risen to his lofty heights after a lowly beginning in the Russian Mafia, he is the one name which links many of the super-wealthy Russian pirate capitalists with the Mob and remnants of the original KGB.  His is the latest mysterious death in London, of a former Russian mobster/Oligarch or former KGB.  Berezovsky once took credit for the bureaucratic shuffle which moved Putin into the seat of power.]

Alexander Litvinenko

  a senior FSB agent  (KGB’s successor), responsible for overseeing the fight against the Russian mafia.  He also moonlighted as one of Berezovsky’s bodyguards, along with several other agents.  Litvinenko claims that he allegedly received orders from above to assassinate Berezovsky.  Instead, Litvinenko told Berezovsky about the plot, who then, confronted Putin about it in an open letter in Kommersant on 13 November 1998.

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich,

“In March 1998, and later from URPO FSB officers – Colonel Vladimir Shabalin, lieutenant Husak, A., A. Litvinenko, Alexander Scriabin, majors Ponkina A. Kruglov VI, Yermolov, S., and G. Shcheglova Lieutenant Latyshonka K. I learned that the leaders of the major-general of the [Directorate of Analysis and Suppression of Criminal Groups] Khokholkov E., N. Stepanov, Captain 1st rank Kamyshnikov A., Colonel Enin N. et al, using his official position gave illegal orders related to the commission of acts of terrorism, murder, hostage taking, extortion of large sums of money.   November-December 1997 and Khokholkov Kamyshnikov set for subordinates the task to kill me.”

Also: 

“In 1998, in a conversation with me in the presence of Colonel Alexander Litvinenko, Colonel General Trofimov said that the murder of the Russian security services were involved Listyev, of which he has personally told predecessor N. Kovalev.”   

Vladislav Listyev, Gunned-Down, March 1, 1995, by a 5-man death squad.  Two of them were captured, one (Andrey Chelyshev) blamed the contract on an Azerbaijani businessman, the other (Aleksandr Ageikin) was found dead in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Both Berezovsky and Litvinenko soon fled to London, after confronting Putin, who publicly fired Litvinenko and his fellow FSB agents, claiming publicly that,

“I fired Litvinenko and disbanded his unit …because FSB officers should not stage press conferences. This is not their job. And they should not make internal scandals public.”

Litvinenko was the first victim in this series of unexplained London Russian deaths.  He suffered a slow death by Polonium poisoning soon after publicly accusing Putin of “ordering the October 2006 murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.” and blaming the Russian secret services for “staging the Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts in an effort to bring Vladimir Putin to power.” 

 

Litvinenko had met with two Russians in London on the day that he became sick from the Polonium.  The two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, were former guards in an elite Kremlin unit of the KGB known as the Ninth Department that protected top Communist party officials.

Another Oligarch (now deceased, February 12, 2008), Georgian tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili defended the primary suspect, describing Lugovoy as a “close friend” for thirteen years. [editor footnote:  Patarkatsishvili was born in 1955 into a devout Jewish family in Tbilisi.]

Berezovsky had filed a lawsuit against the estate and family of his late business associate Badri Patarkatsishvili, which was due to be heard in the London High Court in November.  Berezovsky settles Patarkatsishvili lawsuit--September 13, 2012

 Roman Abramovich

Berezovsky settled the Patarkatsishvili lawsuit after “losing a $6bn lawsuit against Roman Abramovich and a High Court judge gave a scathing assessment of Mr Berezovsky’s character as a witness.”

“Mrs Justice Gloster said in her ruling: “On my analysis of the entirety of the evidence, I found Mr Berezovsky an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes.

“At times the evidence which he gave was deliberately dishonest; sometimes he was clearly making his evidence up as he went along in response to the perceived difficulty in answering the questions in a manner consistent with his case; at other times, I gained the impression that he was not necessarily being deliberately dishonest, but had deluded himself into believing his own version of events.”

Berezovsky sued Abramovich for $4 billion at the London Commercial Court, charging that Abramovich was an “enforcer-type figure for Vladimir Putin.”  Only Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin are still alive.  Was either of them responsible for silencing all of these Russians?] 

Abramovich responded with a 53-page rebuttal, charging that Mr Berezovsky and “Badri” Patarkatsishvili extorted enormous sums from him, for “helping him to rise from obscurity.”

  Abramovich’s latest “legitimate” conquest is through the investment company, Zoltav Resources Inc., which he gave to his 19 year-old son, Arkadiy Abramovich.  Zoltav is currently moving in on CenGeo Holdings Ltd, a private company of another mysterious Oligarch, Valentin Bukhtoyarov, who is also co-owner of “Sibuglemet.”  Young Abramovich is moving from investment to oil and gas exploration in CenGeo’s Koltogor oil field in Western Siberia.  CenGeo also owns SibGeCo

[RUMAFIA--excellent research link on the Russian Mafia]

.

Slander Trial Begins Of Tajik Clerics

[SEE: Tajik Govt. Campaign of Religious Harassment Continues Against Beloved Turajonzoda Brothers ; Tajikistan: Could Showdown With Popular Cleric Backfire? ]

 

Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda accuses the three clerics of blaming him for igniting Tajikistan’s deadly civil war in 1990s.

By RFE/RL’s Tajik Service

 

KHUJAND, Tajikistan — The slander trial of three Tajik Muslim clerics has started in the northern city of Khujand.

Prominent religious and political figure Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda accuses the three clerics of blaming him for igniting Tajikistan’s deadly civil war in 1990s.

The remarks were allegedly made on a televised talk show a year ago.

The moderator of the show is also standing trial.

The clerics told the court on March 18 that they did not recall what they said during the television program.

The next hearing is expected in several days after they watch a video of the program.

Turajonzoda served as “qaziqalon,” the highest Muslim authority in Tajikistan, before the civil war broke in 1992.

He was appointed deputy prime minister in the power-sharing government agreed after the war in 1997.

Zionism Was A Jewish/German Conspiracy To Export Nazi Germany’s Political Problems To the Middle East

[Zionism is a corrupt pre-nazi era Germanic political philosophy, which masquerades as a religious movement, promoting a policy of war against the Palestinian People, for the purpose of exporting Europe's intractible conflicts, biases and hatred to the Middle East.  Zionism tapped into German fear and hatred, into Jewish money, power and influence, to use as political blackmail over the Western governments, for the purpose of forcing them to manufacture a completely new state out of thin air, to be built upon land already owned and occupied by Palestinian Arabs (Semitic cousins of the Sephardic Jews of the Middle East).  The considerable Jewish political and economic influence in the world economy were exerted upon the British government, forcing London to issue the Balfour Declaration in 1917.  This conjured-up a previously non-existent "Jewish right" to buy-up the land and to "return" to Palestine. 

In 1947, the same political/economic arm-twisting was used to force the United States government to create an entirely new Jewish state  in Palestine (with a ready-made army and air force), selling it as the reincarnation of the ancient, totally extinct state of "Israel."  No extinct state, nor imaginary "citizens" of that "state," have "rights" to any land, or to anything else, which is derived from an actual state, any more than "Romans" or "Macedonians," can claim such "rights."   Purported "titles" to that land, which are obtained from probable works of fiction (Old Testament), carry no legal weight, and would have been dismissed outright if such claims had been taken before any judicial authority. 

Whether or not the so-called "Israeli" Russians, who have claimed shares in these pseudo "rights," are, in fact, hereditary "Jews" (even though almost all of them are the offspring of Khazarians, not coming from refugees from the Middle East), is irrelevant to the claim that neither Britain nor the United States of America, nor the United Nations, for that matter, have any authority to create "new" nations.   Therefore, any revival of an ancient, extinct state, previously known as "Israel," which has been savagely recreated on Palestinian land is an illigitimate entity, posing as a legitimate "state."  Any lawful body which attempts to create a completely new state in place of an already existing country, for the single purpose of giving legitimacy to an existing terrorist army that is already waging war against the native population, is party to the war crimes and international acts of aggression committed by that terrorist army.  War crimes and crimes against humanity committed in an organized campaign of ethnic-cleansing de-legitimizes both the so-called "state" aggressor and the authorizing body which created it.  As long as Zionist Israel exists, world peace is impossible.  If the citizens of that country decide to drop the "Zionist" partition, making Israel/Palestine an inclusive Jewish/Arab state, then that would write a new chapter in human history, one where a happy ending for all mankind is actually possible. 

That is the cold, hard truth, which makes Erdogan absolutely correct in calling Zionism out as another "crime against humanity  (SEE: Erdogan Surprises Everybody At the UN, Calling-Out Zionism As the Crime Against Humanity That It Is)."]

US, Israel irked by Turkish PM’s remarks on Zionism

AP

ANKARA: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday joined the United States and Israel in rejecting statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who compared Zionism to fascism at a United Nations meeting aiming to promote dialogue between all faiths.

Addressing the UN Alliance of Civilizations conference in Vienna this week, Erdogan complained of prejudices against Muslims and said Islamophobia should be considered a crime against humanity ”just like Zionism, like anti-Semitism and like fascism.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply condemned the remark late Thursday calling it a ”dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world.”

In Washington, US National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor said the characterisation about Zionism, the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state, was ”offensive and wrong.”

”We encourage people of all faiths, cultures, and ideas to denounce hateful actions and to overcome the differences of our times,” he said.

Turkey is a co-sponsor, along with Spain, of the UN initiative to promote tolerance and understanding between various religions and a UN statement said: ”If the comment about Zionism was interpreted correctly, then it was not only wrong but contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based.”

The statement said Ban ”believes it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership.”

US State Secretary John Kerry is expected to raise the issue when he meets with Erdogan and other Turkish leaders in Ankara on Friday.

Turkey’s state-run news agency, Anadolu, reported Erdogan’s remarks on Wednesday but removed the reference to ”Zionism” in a correction sent out an hour later. It said the correction was ”made by the source” but gave no other explanation.

Turkey and Israel were once important allies but relations have deteriorated sharply after an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship in 2010 which killed nine pro-Palestinian activists.

Erdogan, whose ruling party has roots in Turkey’s Islamic movement, frequently criticises Israeli actions against Palestinians but rarely speaks out against Zionism. In November, he accused Israel of state terrorism and of an ”attempt at ethnic cleansing,” a euphemism used to describe how violence can be used to force a population from an area.

Tajikistan’s Sangtoudeh-II Power Plant to Open in Nowrouz as Planned

Envoy: Tajikistan’s Sangtoudeh-II Power Plant to Open in Nowrouz as Planned TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Ambassador to Dushanbe Ali Asqar She’rdoust said that the second phase of Tajikistan’s Sangtoudeh-II power plant is scheduled to come online during the upcoming Nowrouz festivities although the Tajik Electricity Company has not yet settled its overdue payments to Iran as shareholder of the power plant. Nowrouz, which coincides with the first day of spring on the solar calendar, is mostly celebrated in Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. This year March 21 coincided with the first day of Nowrouz. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rahmon will officially inaugurate Tajikistan’s Sangtoudeh-II concurrent with Nowrouz festivities. The news came while the Iranian embassy in Dushanbe last week in a letter to Tajik Electricity Company asked it to pay back its 12-milion-dollar overdue debt to Iran. Tajikistan’s Electricity Company still owes huge sums to Sangtoudeh-II power plant as it is the main user of its power output. Sangtoudeh-II power plant has the capacity to produce 220 megawatts of electricity. It will increase Tajikistan’s annual electricity output to 1bln kilowatt/hours. Iran has contributed $180bln to construction of Sangtoudeh-II and Tajikistan’s share is $40bln. The power plant’s construction work began on September 5, 2011 at the presence of the Iranian and Tajik presidents. Sangtoudeh-II is located 120 km Southeast of the Capital city of Dushanbe. Earlier this month, Iran’s Ambassador to Tajikistan Ali Asqar She’rdoust lauded the growing relations between the two brotherly countries in the last two decades. “Tehran and Dushanbe have had a good volume of cooperation in political, economic, commercial, and cultural fields and their positive results can be seen all over Tajikistan,” She’rdoust said, referring to the 20-year-long relations between Iran and Tajikistan. She’rdoust, who was addressing a ceremony to mark the 34th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Dushanbe, stressed protecting Tajikistan’s independence, security and stability is a top priority of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Also during the ceremony, Tajikistan’s Minister of Education Nuriddin Saidov lauded the growing ties and cooperation between his country and Iran, and described Tehran as a trustworthy partner of Dushanbe. Saidov said the trade ties between Iran and Tajikistan have reached $220mln in 2012, and added that the figure was $24mln in 1991, when Tajikistan had just gained independence from the former Soviet Union. He said that Iran is a Tajikistan’s trustworthy partner in economic, trade and cultural fields. Iran and Tajikistan have recently accelerated expansion of their ties and cooperation and observers believe that the good achievements gained in area of their mutual cooperation should be deemed as a result of the efforts made by the two countries’ officials.

Surprise Inspection At Russian 201st In Tajikistan Revealed Multiple Deficiencies

Vedomosti

Russian Army Not Quite Ready for Action

The General Staff has started carrying out surprise inspections to gauge the preparedness of military units for combat. The first test revealed sluggish personnel and poorly-maintained equipment.

The first surprise inspection in 20 years took place on February 17-20 and included the Central and Southern Military Districts, the Airborne Force and the Military-Transport Aviation Command. Airborne and Army officers were deemed sluggish in transmitting combat-alert signals. Many young officers and soldiers apparently don’t drive well, and can’t shoot much better. Several malfunctioning airplanes and helicopters remained grounded.

Last Friday General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov reviewed the results of the inspection during a teleconference at the Command Center of the Armed Forces. The military district commanders were not alerted to the inspection in advance. After the combat-alert signals were sounded, soldiers had to redeploy military equipment to a training center or to airlift it to another region. In all, the selective review involved 7,000 military personnel, 48 airplanes and helicopters, and several hundred surface vehicles.

Although Gerasimov said the inspection had revealed the sufficiently high combat-training standards of the military headquarters and units, almost all the duty officers had trouble relaying the combat-alert signals using the automated systems. This was particularly true of the Airborne Force and the 201st Russian Military Base in Tajikistan. The military units that were alerted received average marks (C grades) for their shooting skills.

Gerasimov said only 66 percent of the airplanes and helicopters were operational. Many defective Msta self-propelled howitzers and BMD-2 airborne infantry fighting vehicles were unable to leave their military bases. Surprise inspections will become a fact of life, the General Staff Chief said.

Combat preparedness inspections were frequent in Soviet times, and each officer was involved in these inspections at least once every two years, said Reserve Colonel Viktor Murakhovsky. These useful inspections and reviews provide the General Staff with an objective picture of real combat readiness, the military expert noted. The equipment defects can be explained by the organizational chaos evident in the past few years. Thus, the decision of the new Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, to reinstate repair and maintenance units, something that had been outsourced until now, should be implemented as soon as possible.

World Bank Regional Dir. for C.A. On Impending Release of Rogun Dam Feasibility Studies

Saroj Kumar Jha, World Bank Regional Director for Central Asia, Europe and Central Asia

Q&A with Saroj Kumar Jha, Regional Director for Central Asia, on the current status of the Rogun Assessment Studies

 

In this follow-up Q&A, Saroj Kumar Jha, World Bank Regional Director for Central Asia, describes the latest findings in the Assessment Studies for the proposed Rogun Hydropower Project and explains the importance of cooperative energy and water resource management in Central Asia.

Q1: What is the purpose of the sessions with government and civil society that were held last week?

SKJ: The purpose of the riparian information-sharing and consultation meetings is to share emerging analysis from the assessment studies on the proposed Rogun hydropower project with interested stakeholders from the Amu Darya Basin countries.  The questions and concerns expressed by participants during these meetings are vital to a robust regional dialogue on the proposed project, and to ensuring quality studies. We are committed to an open, independent, and inclusive process of information-sharing, and we will continue making efforts to get all the stakeholders at the table.

Q2: What new information was discussed during the information-sharing meetings?

SKJ: We recently posted two reports online (www.worldbank.org/eca/rogun) that contribute to understanding two of the key issues identified by stakeholders during two previous riparian consultations in May 2011 and November 2012, namely dam safety and water management.  The reports document findings on hydrology (water management) and the geological stability of the right bank of the Vakhsh River (dam safety) at the dam site.

In addition to these reports, several presentations have also been shared online and discussed at the meetings. The presentations on seismic hazard assessment and geology assessment contributed to a rich discussion on the key issues of dam and public safety, including analysis of possible earthquakes, tectonic faults, landslides, salt wedge, and other factors on the proposed project feasibility. The interim findings from the presentations, reports and feedback from the Panels of Experts are that the dam type under consideration and stability of the slopes appear to be acceptable.

On the second key riparian issue, water management, the hydrology report considers runoff, temperature, and precipitation at the proposed Rogun site and examines the existing network of hydro-meteorological monitoring stations, probable maximum floods, and climate change impacts. The interim finding, supported by independent experts, is that hydrologic data needed for project design and risk assessment is of adequate quality, and that the estimated Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) is based on international good practice (i.e., ICOLD standards) and is appropriately conservative for the benefit of dam and public safety. The hydrology report also addressed climate change impact, with the conclusion that climate change could result in increased temperature, which would modify flood regime and river flow pattern.

The hydrology report is accompanied by an additional presentation on the planned Vakhsh River Cascade simulation modelling which will enable analysis of the impact of the proposed project on flows along the Vakhsh River and the Amu Darya.  The model will reflect the Government of Tajikistan’s commitment to maintain flow patterns and consistency with the Nukus declaration and Protocol 566, which they again reiterated during the third riparian meetings.  This modeling and associated environmental and social impact assessment are critical to understanding the potential effects on countries throughout the Amu Darya Basin.

All of these assessments – seismic hazard, hydrology, cascade modeling, geology — will inform the assessment of various dam height options, as will differences in environmental and social impacts.  These various dam height options and the approach to estimating the resettlement and social infrastructure costs have also been presented and discussed during the meetings and the presentations are also available on-line. We encourage interested stakeholders to review the two reports and the additional presentations and submit comments and questions to rogunconsult@worldbank.org by March 4, 2013.

Q3: Who are the experts involved in the assessment studies?

SKJ: The Techno-Economic Assessment Study (TEAS) and the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) are being conducted by teams from Coyne & Bellier and Poyry. These international consultant firms were contracted on a competitive basis by the Government of Tajikistan and are financed through an IDA project. The World Bank has been directly involved in the selection of consultants and the Bank technical team has direct access to all studies and reports produced by the consultants. In addition, the World Bank is funding two independent Panels of Experts (PoEs): Engineering and Dam Safety Panel and an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Panel. Representatives from these panels have attended all of the information-sharing meetings and visited the proposed Rogun site and Dushanbe many times. They are ensuring due diligence and international quality standards, as well as objectivity and credibility through independent advice and guidance.

The Panels of Experts are comprised of Roger Gill, Hydropower Policy; Ljiljana  Spasic-Gril, Dam Engineering/Dam Safety/Seismic Engineering; Paul Marinos, Engineering Geology/Rock Mechanics; Ezio Todini, Hydrology; Torkil Jønch Clausen, Water Resources; Erik Helland-Hansen, Environmental planning/Hydropower; Richard Fuggle, Environment; Frederic Giovannetti, Resettlement;  and Gregory Morris, Sedimentation.  Another two members, one for electro-mechanical plant and works and the other for advice on seismicity are being inducted by the Bank. Each expert fully appreciates that a thorough, independent assessment of all aspects of Rogun is crucial to determining its viability in technical, financial, social and environmental terms. These experts are also helping to ensure public safety, assess potential and perceived downstream impacts, and identify areas that need further examination. We are pleased to have a world-class team on this.

Q4: What is the next step after the assessment studies are completed?

SKJ: These studies are a complex process that requires detailed analysis across a range of issues, drawing linkages among the components of analysis, and ensuring adequate technical review and revision.  The schedule needs to allow time for the Panels of Experts, World Bank specialists as well as riparian governments and civil society to review and comment on the study findings.  This takes time. Throughout this process we are hoping to facilitate a constructive, fact-based dialogue among all stakeholders about not only the proposed Rogun Hydropower Project, but also the development benefits of international cooperation on energy and water resources in Central Asia.

It is important to clarify that these assessment studies will decide neither whether the proposed Rogun dam will be built, nor the final design, should a project proceed. They will serve as an input to decision-making. A variety of other factors such as international agreements and financing would need to be considered before the future of the proposed Rogun project is decided. The World Bank has made no financial commitment to support construction of the proposed dam. Our role is to help establish objective, independent, and comprehensive facts for all stakeholders.

Q5: What else is the Bank doing to help improve the energy situation in Tajikistan?

SKJ: Our basic principle is that World Bank support should benefit the people of Tajikistan. So during the severe winters of 2009-11 we provided emergency funding to ensure supplies of gas.  But this is not a sustainable solution.  Hence we took a deeper analysis in our recent report titled “Tajikistan’s Winter Energy Crisis: Electricity Supply and Demand Alternatives.” It shows that Tajikistan’s electricity situation is dire and getting worse.  The Tajik people are well aware of the social toll of living with inadequate electricity – comprising 70% of the population — particularly those in rural and vulnerable households.  They also firmly believe that the Tajik electricity system can and should be financially viable and transparently operated.  We agree, which is why we have been supporting measures to reduce energy losses and increase financial accountability in Barki Tojik.

So why another report?  The purpose was to prompt technical discussions about what exactly can be done quickly to reduce the burden of winter electricity shortages for the Tajik people.  Among the proposals are steps to improve energy efficiency, including in TALCO, which our studies show can reduce its energy use through efficiency measures by about 20%.  We also proposed to revitalize regional trade, increase investments in thermal power supply, and rehabilitate aging hydropower assets. We showed it is possible, with concerted effort, to close the gap by 2020 with these measures. But the costs are significant – US$3.4 billion over the next 8 years. Given the complexity of large storage hydropower projects and the time needed to build them, those investments were not included among the proposed solutions to solve the near-term challenges. The report has been done in parallel with the Rogun assessment studies and does not prejudge the proposed Rogun project.

Implementing the recommendations from the winter energy report would require political will and international cooperation, and we are already working with the Government of Tajikistan and development partners to start the process.

Q6: How would you describe the energy and water situation in Central Asia?

SKJ: Central Asia is endowed with water and rich and varied energy resources. Water resources, which are increasingly under stress, have an important geographic and economic dimension, with downstream countries highly dependent on upstream countries for essential water for irrigation. Water and energy in Central Asia are central for poverty alleviation, food security, community livelihoods, and job creation. For example, two million households experience winter heat and power shortages. The energy-water linkages become inseparable from interests of national security, regional stability and economic growth, and need to be urgently addressed in a cooperative manner. The Bank’s approach to water and energy issues in Central Asia is based on both regional and country level programs which aim to deliver benefits to each country in the region. We also closely work with our development partners to help ensure coordinated assistance.

As part of its regional approach, the Bank – in partnership with DfID, SECO, and the European Commission – has initiated a comprehensive Central Asia Energy-Water Development Program (CAEWDP), which covers both the water and energy sectors, aims to improve analysis to support the countries of the region in well-informed decision-making, strengthen regional institutions, and stimulate investments. Among other activities, CAEWDP supports the multi-country Amu Darya Basin riparian dialogue, as well as analytical work for the proposed Central Asia – South Asia transmission line called CASA-1000.  CAEWDP is also examining the economic value of increased energy trade within Central Asia and is guiding, with direction from all five countries, investments in the knowledge base (encompassing data, modeling and information sharing), new investments in hydrometeorology, and identification of adaptation measures for climate change. The Bank is currently undertaking a comprehensive review of factors enabling and constraining water-related growth in the region.

To complement the regional work and dialogue, the Bank is supporting 32 country-specific investments in energy and water projects and a similar number of studies and advisory services in Central Asia. Many have regional significance and benefits while others deliver more localized country level benefits. Let me give you some examples of our projects in energy and water sectors in individual countries of the region.

In Kazakhstan, the Bank has funded a long-term program to improve water-based economic and environmental conditions in the northern portions of the Syr Darya River and Aral Sea. The recently completed Nura River Project helped clean up mercury pollution in this important river. In the energy sector, the Bank has helped establish a state-of-the-art power system management and dispatch center, and upgrade the transmission network throughout the country.

In Uzbekistan, the Bank has supported water management in the Ferghana Valley. An energy efficiency credit-line through Uzbek commercial banks helps achieve energy efficiency in the industrial enterprises. In the power sector, the Bank is supporting transmission system upgrades to increase supply reliability and reduce technical and commercial losses. Three quarters of our portfolio in Uzbekistan focuses on water and energy.

In the Kyrgyz Republic, the Bank has funded a project to improve irrigation service delivery through Water User Associations. The energy component of the ongoing Emergency Recovery Project is helping with essential repairs, rehabilitation, and fuel to keep the system running. In Kyrgyzstan and also in Tajikistan, the Bank is supporting a project to improve hydrometeorology services and data, with a focus on these two countries but with a component for regional coordination.

In Tajikistan, in partnership with its private sector affiliate (IFC) and the Government of Switzerland, the Bank financed the Pamir Energy Project, a public-private partnership to deliver electricity to a highly remote mountainous area in the eastern part of the country. Together with the Swiss Government, we are also financing and implementing a successful energy loss reduction program. And, as I mentioned before, our recent winter energy study identifies measures to help Tajikistan resolve its acute winter energy deficit in the near term.

Moscow Police Arrest Two IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) Recruiters

Militant Recruiter Suspects Held in Moscow Region

Militant Recruiter Suspects Held in Moscow Region

© RIA Novosti.

MOSCOW, February 19 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow Region police have detained two Uzbekistan nationals suspected of recruiting militants and sending them to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, the Russian Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.

“In 2012 alone, they sent from Moscow and Moscow region 38 Uzbek nationals and at least 18 citizens from [other] Central Asian countries, as well as Russians, to militant training camps,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

The two men are believed to be members of an international terrorist organization and have been on an international wanted list, the ministry said, without specifying which one.

It did not say when they were detained or exactly in what part of the Moscow region.

A large number of mobile phones as well as religious extremist and terrorist literature were seized from the suspects during the search, the ministry said.

The detainees will be extradited to Uzbekistan.

6 Men and Women Tortured for Their Beliefs In Turkmenistan

Six people were tortured for belonging to a religious organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses

On January 24, after the Committee of the UN Human Rights lodged a complaint regarding unfair convictions of ten members of Jehovah’s Witnesses who refused to perform military service on religious grounds, 30 police officers broke into the house of the family Nasyrlaevyh , whose head and turned a complaint to the UN, and arrested six people living there: Tahira and Abdurasul Nasyrlaevyh , Khudayarov Ismailov, Bahram Shamuradova , and husband and wife, whose names are hidden for privacy.

All were taken to the police station number 1 Dashoguz and then doshoguzskoe City Police Department. They were required to sign an acknowledgment that they were involved in “illegal religious gathering” in the house Nasyrlaevyh. All the detainees were subjected to severe beatings and abuse, the woman threatened with rape. Three detained by court fined each of 750 manat (U.S. $ 265) and after 40 hours in police released. Previously all detainees required to sign a statement that they have no complaints against the police, Norwegian human rights organization “Forum 18″. Human rights activists say that they were not able to get comments this blatant violation of human rights by officials, including the director of the Turkmen National Institute of Democracy and Human Rights Yazdursun Kurbannazarovoy , head of the institution Shemshat Atajanova , chairman of the relevant committee of the Majlis (parliament) Pirnazarov Hudaynazarova and also the Vice Chairman of the local meetings (Council on Religious Affairs under the President of Turkmenistan)Kurbanberdy Nursahatova . Victims of arbitrariness appealed to President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov , the General Prosecutor of Turkmenistan and the regional prosecutor Dashoguz, and the State Commission for rasmotreniya of citizens on the activities of law enforcement agencies, but the answers they have not received reports “Forum 18″.

If UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy Ignores Central Asian Border Fights, Then What Does It Prevent?

Why Does UN Central Asia Office Exist If Not For Kyrgyz Uzbek Border Fight?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 29 — What does the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia do?

  For example, what has it done on the border fight between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, complete with blockades of Barak and Sokh, helicopters, threats?

  UNRCCA was set up by the former chief of the UN Department of Political Affairs, Lynn Pascoe, mostly because Turkmenistan was willing to invite the UN in.

  Once every six months Miroslav Jenca, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, comes and briefs the Security Council, and a press statement is issued.

   But the briefing are always closed. And Jenca does not do stakeouts to take press questions.

   On Tuesday after the Security Council’s president for January Masood Khan came out and read the most recent Council press statement, Inner City Press asked him about the border fight between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

   Khan said things hadn’t come up in that level of detail. Then what is UNRCCA working on? What accountability ever was there for the pogrom against ethnic Uzkeks in Kyrgyzstan? You never find out from Jenca. What is the point of the Office?

Anti-Crime and Corruption Chief Murdered In Osh

Kyrgyzstan: Osh shot Head of combating organized crime and corruption

Ferghana

Catherine Ivashchenko

 

Kyrgyzstan: Osh is searching for a killer colonel of militia, drawn sketch

As Friday night became known “Fergana” in Kyrgyz city of Osh, southern killed Head of the Office for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption (UBOPiK) for the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry colonel Tolkunbek Shonoev. He left five children.

This information is a correspondent of “Fergana” confirmed a senior inspector of the press service of the Internal Affairs of Osh Zamir Sydykov. ”Yes, indeed, around 20:00 at his home was shot Tolkunbek Shonoev, which refers to the nomenclature of the Ministry of Interior.”

According to him, the murder took place in the Osh region Ak Tilek. Shonoeva shot right in the car when he drove up to his house on the official car of the brand Daewoo Nexia. Shot several times.

“Details of the incident will be in the morning. Now the crime scene investigative activities are conducted efficiently, “- said Sydykov.

International news agency “Fergana”

 

 [NOT SPOCK]

Identikit of the killer. Photos from the website MVD.kg

Press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kyrgyzstan issued a sketch of the alleged perpetrator, the suspect in the murder of the head of the Anti-Gang, assassinations and extortion of the Office for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption in the Osh and Jalal-Abad, Batken and Osh police colonel Tolkunbek Shonoeva.

Are currently being interviewed witnesses, witnesses and investigate all the circumstances of an armed attack. One of the suspects – a young man of Asian appearance at the age of 20-25 years, an oval face, dark, an increase of about 165-170 cm The second, a man about 30 years old, stocky build, wearing a camouflage jacket supposedly.

Law enforcement officers to carry out emergency search operations to identify and arrest those involved in this serious crime.

International news agency “Fergana”

Ukrainian “Neo-Nazis” Call Mila Kunis A “Jewess” and Now Commies Are Coming Out of the Woodwork

Photo: Official website of association “Borotba”

Ukrainian Marxists staged under the slogan “I’m a Jew!”

December 27 Ukrainian Marxist movement “Borotba” will hold a picket in front of the Ministry of Justice in Kiev, said “New Region”.

The action will be carried out under the slogan “I am a Jew”. Thus representatives “Borotba” intend to protest against the recent comments of the Ministry, concerning the lawfulness of the use of the word “Jew” in the Ukraine.

Debates on the subject, we recall, sparked after a newly elected MP from the nationalist party “Svoboda” Igor Miroshnichenko called the “Jewess” Mila Kunis Hollywood actress, who was born in the Ukraine. ”It is not a Ukrainian, a Jewess by birth. Proud of that, and the star of David in her arms. Only here about a country that was born – a sound, or a positive. Therefore regard it as their own – is not possible. Likes Let Me Gameriku and Israel and it should not be to mold to Ukraine, “- he wrote in a social network.

Kazakh-China Border Being Systematically Destabilized

[Kazakhstan has had a crazy amount of violent activity taking place on the Chinese border at Xinjiang, as well as the border with Kyrgyzstan, here in the East.  (All the pins on the Google map are incidents.)   In Western Kazakh, there was the recent Predator intrusion along the oil lines leading to China.  The crash in Shymkent killed 20 border guard, coming right after the recent murder rampage, which killed 14 border guard.  Before that, two posts on the Chinese border were abandoned by all of the guards.  In addition, there was the murder rampage in Ile Alatauy National Park.  In my opinion, there are Western Special Forces teams stirring-up trouble in this region.  Look for news of their attacks to be reported as the work of "Islamist militants."]

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Kazakhstan has published a list of those killed in the crash of the An-72

A shot from the crash site channel “CTC“

The National Security Committee of Kazakhstan officially confirmed that all 27 people on board crashed plane border guard were killed. As the Tengrinews, CBN has published a list of the dead.

According to some data, the aircraft were seven crew members, 19 military frontier (including the Acting Chief of the PS Turganbek Stambekova).

Also in the list of the dead was listed Saul Stambekova. According to the Central Asian News, talking about the first ladies frontier.

Among the victims of the crash were acting head of regional management “Ontustik”, head of the border troops of the office, the commander of a separate engineering battalion.

The victim Turganbek Stambekov acting chief PS from June 2012. He headed the border police after her former manager Nurzhan Myrzaliev resigned.Myrzalieva resignation, recall, followed by PE post “Arkankergen” which was committed mass murder of border guards.

The AN-72 National Security Committee of Kazakhstan border guards crashed the evening of 25 December. It was reported that he followed from Astana, Shymkent and crashed while approaching the destination. Witnesses said that the plane fell from a height of about 800 meters, while doing a turn.

In connection with recent criminal case under article “violation of flight rules and training for them.”

Cause of the accident is still unknown. It was reported that in the December 25 incident was very bad weather. At the same time there is no information as to whether the weather might have something to do PE. In a press release about the crash CBN An-72 states that the crew “consisted of experienced military pilots and specialists.”

 

Sowing the Seeds of Western Terror Threat, Reaping American Military Bases

[American terrorism, in the disguise of "Militant Islam," has one goal--to advance American foreign policy.  The goal of US foreign policy is to militarize the entire world, on the theory that the American military machine can then dominate all the minor conflicts.  This is only theoretically possible if Western conflict managers can keep all the little wars at manageable levels.  This is where America's international army of "Islamist" commandos, a.k.a., "al-Qaeda," comes in handy, for the nefarious purpose of starting small terror wars.  Small terrorist incidents and rumors of incidents have proven sufficient to justify an American military presence in every country of Central Asia, even in Eastern Russia.  In truth, there is no terror threat in Central Asia, except for that artificial threat manufactured by the Pentagon and the CIA.  Rewarding this state terrorism with any sort of American presence, military or otherwise, is totally unjustified and will ultimately prove to do to CA what the Western powers have so far done to the Middle East and North Africa.]

Situation in Central Asia stimulates militarization: Yerlan Karin

Political expert and Secretary of Nur Otan party Yerlan Karin believes that the situation in Central Asia stimulates militarization in the region and spurs military expenses.

“Escalation of terrorism threat in the world and in Central Asia indirectly promotes militarization. Foreign bases are functioning in the region already. Opening of more bases is possible at the territory of Uzbekistan, not to mention the recurring talks about transfer of a part of the military vehicles and armament to Uzbekistan after withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014,” Yerlan Karin said.

The political expert gave an example of Russia that allocated over $1 billion for maintenance of the armed forces of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. He also pointed out the sharp growth of military expenses around the world starting from mid 2000s. They have grown by almost a half.

“The global military costs made $1.7 trillion in 2011. Experts relate this growth to the escalating terrorism threat. At least, all governments justify allocation of big money with a need to counter terrorism. What we have is growth of extremist and terrorist activities and growth of military costs. We are all speaking about the economic crisis, insufficiency of resources, but overall the trend is very different,” Yerlan Karin said.

As an example he referred to the data and assessments of foreign institutes and experts that monitor terrorism problems.

“They make annual reports, make forecasts for the coming years. According to one of such institutes, British Maplecroft, in 2010 and 2011 the level of terrorism in Kazakhstan was quite low: 2 in the scale of 5. The level is also indicated in colors. Green stands for a low threat, orange is high threat and red is very high threat. There are intermediate colors, like yellow, as well,” the expert explained.

Political expert Yerlan Karin. Photo by Yaroslav Radlovskiy©

According to Karin, in the forecasts of the above British company for 2013 Kazakhstan is marked with orange color and is placed in the group of countries with high terrorism threat level.

“10 data of the U.S. Department of State shows that the total number of terrorist attacks in the world ranged from 200 to 600 attacks a year until the middle of the 2000s. Starting from 2005 their number increased dramatically. Over 10 thousand terrorist attacks happen every year. There was an especially high spike in 2007: 14 thousand terrorist attacks in the world. Last year there were 10 thousand terrorist attacks. Over 60 percent of registered attacks fall on Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Karin added.

Speaking of the planned withdrawal of coalition NATO group from Afghanistan in 2014 the political expert said that it was unclear how this would affect the situation in Central Asia.

“There are certain stereotypes: we are used to believing that the situation is unstable in Kyrgyzstan and in Tajikistan. Normally, we speak about these countries as of the weak parts of the region. In some way it is true, because Kyrgyzstan is ridden by a constant flow of revolutions and conflicts, while no new political system has been formed yet. We see similar things in Tajikistan. The incumbent leader is quite strong there, but there is resistance in some regions and a power struggle among the elite. Summer events in mountains of Badakhshan confirm this,” Yerlan Karin said.

According to him, the countries cannot be divided into stable and unstable and the regional situation has to be viewed as one integral whole.

“In a scenario that involves change of the ruling elites there is no way to predict the course of events in the other countries. The countries should not be divided into weak and stable ones in the region. Central Asian countries have a common problem: not all of these countries have built a stable regime over the 20 years of independence. Not all (regimes) have been tested yet. Kazakhstan is one of these countries to some extent,” Yerlan Karin said.

He said that Kazakhstan was introducing different mechanisms of automatic regulation, the country had formed the institutions and launched political self-regulation mechanisms.

“Speaking of the region in general we can say that the time has not yet shown which of the systems are stable and how stable they are. You know everything that has happened in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. But experts forecast that this decade will be quite a complicated one. It will reveal the extent of instability of the systems. It is hard to say right now,” Yerlan Karin said.

By Baubek Konyrov from Tengrinews.kz

Helen Thomas: The Jews Are NOT Semites.

THE MODERN STATE OF “ISRAEL” IS A FRAUD PERPETUATED UPON THE HUMAN RACE BY THE BRITISH CROWN.

Semite–A member of a group of Semitic-speaking peoples of the Near East and northern Africa, including the Arabs, Arameans, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians.  

 

Arthur Koestler, author of The Thirteenth Tribe, easily the most expansive single work on the subject, states, “The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated.” 1

This is the story of a kingdom of belligerent, warlike Caucasian nomads, having no linked ancestry with anything Israelite this side of Noah, yet adopting Talmudic Judaism and becoming the dominant — and virtually only — current force in twenty-first century international Jewry.

Where Do Jews Come From?

By EVAN R. GOLDSTEIN

This much is known: In the mid-eighth century, the ruling elite of the Khazars, a Turkic tribe in Eurasia, converted to Judaism. Their impetus was political, not spiritual. By embracing Judaism, the Khazars were able to maintain their independence from rival monotheistic states, the Muslim caliphate and the Christian Byzantine empire. Governed by a version of rabbinical law, the Khazar Jewish kingdom flourished along the Volga basin until the beginning of the second millennium, at which point it dissolved, leaving behind a mystery: Did the Khazar converts to Judaism remain Jews, and, if so, what became of them?

Enter Shlomo Sand. In a new book, “The Invention of the Jewish People,” the Tel Aviv University professor of history argues that large numbers of Khazar Jews migrated westward into Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, where they played a decisive role in the establishment of Eastern European Jewry. The implications are far-reaching: If the bulk of Eastern European Jews are the descendents of Khazars—not the ancient Israelites—then most Jews have no ancestral links to Palestine. Put differently: If most Jews are not Semites, then what justification is there for a Jewish state in the Middle East? By attempting to demonstrate the Khazar origins of Eastern European Jewry, Mr. Sand—a self-described post-Zionist who believes that Israel needs to shed its Jewish identity to become a democracy—aims to undermine the idea of a Jewish state.

Published in Hebrew last year, “The Invention of the Jewish People” was a best seller in Israel.

Russia: 3 arrested over the killing of Sufi leader

Associated Press

Muslim Suif leader Said Afandi addresses an assembly in Makhachkala, the capital of the volatile Russian province of Dagestan, December 2010. Afandi was killed by a female suicide bomber in August 2012. On Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012, police reported the arrest of three suspected Islamic militants who aided her.
© Associated Press

MAKHACHKALA, Russia — Russian police says it has arrested three suspected Islamic militants who aided a female suicide bomber that killed an influential Muslim leader in Russia’s violence-plagued province of Dagestan

Said Afandi, the powerful leader of Dagestan’s Sufi Muslim brotherhood, was killed in August along with six other people by the bomber, who approached his house disguised as a pilgrim.

Provincial police spokesman, Vyacheslav Gasanov, said the three suspects were arrested Wednesday. He said they had escorted the bomber, an ethnic Russian woman who converted to Islam after marrying an Islamist.

Afandi’s killing followed a string of attacks on moderate Muslim leaders in the southern Caucasus region who have publicly denounced the spread of radical Islamic groups known as Salafis.

Dagestan lies between Chechnya and the oil-rich Caspian.

Putin Rejects Foreign Pseudo-Democracy

Putin bristles at foreign influence, pledges to strengthen Russia’s might

Putin rejects foreign advice on democracy

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV | ASSOCIATED PRESS | Dec 12, 2012 7:08 AM CST in

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday angrily rejected what he described as attempts to enforce foreign patterns of democracy on Russia and vowed to preserve the nation’s identity against interference from abroad.

 

Putin’s speech was his first state-of-the nation address since winning a third term in March’s election despite a wave of massive protests in Moscow. Putin has pursued a tough course on dissent since his inauguration with arrests and searches of opposition activists and introduction of laws that impose heavy fines on protesters and rigid rules on civil society groups.

Speaking to lawmakers, officials and clerics who gathered in the Kremlin’s ornate St. George’s Hall, Putin said Russia would follow its own view on democracy and shrug off any “standards enforced on us from outside.”

“Direct or indirect foreign interference in our internal political processes is inadmissible,” he said. “Those who receive money from abroad for their political activities and serve alien interests shouldn’t engage in politics in Russia.”

One of the laws passed by the Kremlin-controlled parliament requires non-governmental organizations that receive foreign funding and engage in vaguely defined political activities to register as “foreign agents,” a move the groups said was aimed to intimidate them and destroy their credibility with Russians for whom “agent” is synonymous with “spy.”

Putin also pledged to support “institutions that represent traditional spiritual values,” a hint at even more state support for the Russian Orthodox Church.

In August, three members of the punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison for performing a protest song in Moscow’s main cathedral. One was released on appeal, but two others are serving their sentences despite an international protests.

Russia’s task on the global stage will be to preserve its “national and spiritual identity,” Putin said, adding that the strengthening of the nation’s military might should “guarantee its independence and security.”

He added that Russia would continue to push for “coordinated collective efforts” in dealing with global issues.

The Kremlin has said that its continuous refusal to support international sanctions against Syria’s President Bashar Assad is rooted in international law that bars interference in a sovereign country’s affairs.

The conflict in Syria has started nearly 21 months ago as an uprising against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades and it quickly morphed into a civil war, with rebels taking up arms to fight back against a bloody crackdown by the government. According to activists, more than 40,000 people have been killed since March 2011.

Putin sought to boost patriotic feelings by promising to honor heroes of World War I and restoring the historic names of old imperial regiments of the Russian army.

In a speech that focused heavily on social issues, Putin encouraged families to have more children, promised to create 25 million new jobs and develop new incentives for teachers, doctors, engineers and others.

He also made new promises to boost the fight against corruption.

Russia is considered to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world. A group that tracks global perception of the problem ranks Russia 143rd out of 183 countries.

“A sustained and visible effort to reduce corruption is one of the catalysts that could cut the current high risk premium investors apply to Russian equities,” Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Sberbank CIB investment bank said in a note to investors earlier this week

Putin called for sanctioning officials who own foreign stocks or banks accounts abroad, and said they will have to explain the source of financing for big purchases including real estate abroad.

His statements would play well with the domestic audience, which has relished in the recent ouster of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov over a military corruption scandal and investigations against other officials suspected of graft. Still, Gleb Pavlovsky, a political analyst and former Kremlin political strategist told the Intefax news agency that “Putin had failed to send a message of purging the high ranks.”

The opposition ridiculed Putin’s statements as lacking substance and novelty. “Everything will be fine soon, I promise,” opposition activist Alexei Navalny wrote sarcastically while summing up Putin’s address.

Another opposition activist, Vladimir Ryzhkov, called the speech a “manifesto of preserving political status quo.”

Putin repeated pledges to reduce the nation’s reliance on exports of oil and other mineral resources and encourage the development of high-tech industries. He also lamented a huge capital outflow and Russian companies moving abroad to avoid the uncertainties of Russian laws and courts.

Russian authorities are expecting capital outflows of up to $65 billion this year. Putin quoted analyst estimates that 9 out of 10 major deals of Russian companies are registered abroad to be governed by foreign laws. He urged the government to seek more information on Russian companies from offshore nations where they are registered.

Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed to this report.

Putin Backs Plan To Wring $1 Trillion Out of Oligarch Expatriates

Putin Backs Efforts to Compel $1 Trillion Repatriation

By Scott Rose & Ilya Arkhipov

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin threw his support behind efforts by allied lawmakers to repatriate as much as $1 trillion in capital held by companies and high ranking officials abroad.

Russia should proceed with anti-corruption legislation that would put limits on bureaucrats and politicians owning foreign bank deposits and securities, Putin said today in Moscow in his first state-of-the-nation address since returning to the presidency in May. The curbs should include all top policy makers including the president, prime minister and their families, he said.

Clawing back assets amassed by Russians in low-tax foreign jurisdictions is central to Putin’s plan to reignite and diversify the sagging economy through investment. The government this week cut its growth forecast for next year to 3.6 percent, less than the “minimum” 5 percent to 6 percent Russia needs over the next decade, Putin said.

“How can you trust an official or politician who makes bold statements about the wellbeing ofRussia, but then tries to move his funds, his cash, abroad?” Putin said. “Property abroad should be declared regardless, and officials should report its value and also the source of the income that allowed them to make that transaction.”

Fighting Graft

Putin has embarked on the most far-reaching campaign against corruption of his 12-year rule since reclaiming the Kremlin this year, ousting Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov because of graft allegations against his subordinates. Russia kept its ranking as the world’s most corrupt major economy, according to Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index published Dec. 5, placing it alongside Honduras and below Uganda and Nicaragua.

Russia could win back as much as $1 trillion in cash held abroad by offering an amnesty, Vyacheslav Lysakov, a State Duma deputy and member of the People’s Front movement that backs Putin, said in an interview before the speech today. Under the proposal, the returning funds would still be taxed, he said.

“It’s a replenishment for the state budget and also the investments we so sorely need,” Lysakov said. “This is money that’s supporting the Western economy, the Western banking system, Western companies. That’s not right.”

Fleeing Jurisdiction

The government must also move to improve Russian courts and legislation to stop what Putin said was a “flight” from the country’s jurisdiction. He ordered the government to draft proposals to bring about the “de-offshorization” of the economy, including using local exchanges for state asset sales.

“Our entrepreneurs are often criticized for being unpatriotic,” he said. “Nine out of 10 significant deals done by large Russian companies, including companies partly owned by the state, are not subject to Russian law.”

Alexei Kudrin, who served as Putin’s finance minister for 11 years, said exiting offshores “really must be done through making the Russian jurisdiction more attractive, not through compulsion,” according to a post on his Twitter Inc. account.

The Micex Index of 30 stocks has advanced 3.3 percent this year through yesterday, lagging behind a 12.9 percent advance in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The ruble-denominated benchmark was 1.4 percent higher at 1,468.52 as of 5:20 p.m. in Moscow, heading for the highest close since Oct. 22.

$12 Billion

Russians spent $12 billion on foreign property last year, compared with $5.5 billion a year in 2007 and 2008, central bank Chairman Sergei Ignatiev said April 5. Net capital outflows may reach $75 billion this year after doubling to $80.5 billion in 2011, according to the Economy Ministry.

Putin is trying to boost investment to at least 27 percent of economic output by the end of his term in 2018, from 21 percent last year. The Economy Ministry cut its growth forecast for next year this week and has urged the government to spend more of its oil revenue on roads and other infrastructure.

Hours after taking the oath of office in May, Putin signed more than a dozen orders laying out plans for the economy, foreign and social policy. In addition to boosting investment, Putin ordered the government to improve Russia’s standing in the World Bank’s Doing Business rating to 20th by 2018 and creating 25 million high-quality jobs by 2020.

The government is also trying to cut its dependence on oil and gas, which account for half of thefederal budget’s revenue. Without those resources, the budget would be in a deficit of about 10.5 percent of GDP this year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Dec. 9.

In his speech today, Putin said the central bank and government should do more to safeguard jobs and growth, noting that other monetary regulators including the U.S. Federal Reserve had an explicit mandate to ensure growth.

“We need long and cheap money to lend to the economy, further reductions in inflation and competitive bank rates,” Putin said, adding that he wasn’t calling for changes to Bank Rossii’s mandate. “I’m asking the government and central bank to think about ways to achieve those goals.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Scott Rose in Moscow at rrose10@bloomberg.net; Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net

Turkmenistan Wins Pentagon’s Northern Distribution Network Jackpot–Berdymukhammedov Denials Refuted

Turkmenistan Big Beneficiary Of Pentagon Money, While Uzbekistan Lags

by Joshua Kucera

• 

The U.S. spent about $1.3 billion in Central Asia on supplies for its troops in Afghanistan over the most recent fiscal year, including $820 million in Turkmenistan alone. The $1.3 billion represents a sevenfold increase from the previous year, according to figures provided to The Bug Pit by the Defense Logistics Agency, the Pentagon agency in charge of supplying forces. The totals for fiscal year 2012, broken down by country, were:

Kazakhstan: $137.3 million
Kyrgyzstan: $218.1 million
Tajikistan: $11.7 million
Turkmenistan: $820.5 million
Uzbekistan: $105.9 million

DLA was unable to provide any detailed numbers about what was bought in each country, but that eye-popping $820 million in Turkmenistan was certainly almost entirely fuel. In general, the money went to “bottled water, sodas, juices, pasta, bakery items, lumber, plywood, cement, concertina wire, generators, rebar, fuel drums, corrugated steel, galvanized steel coils, and feeder cable. We also support the region by purchasing fuel and paying associated transportation costs,” the DLA said in a statement.

The agency has made efforts to boost its Central Asia buying:

“DLA has conducted market research extensively in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan for a wide range of products… DLA has consistently increased procurement in the region since FY08. DLA increased local procurement in the five Central Asian States by over 700% when compared to FY11 figures. In January 2012, DLA placed a liaison officer in the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan and one in the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan to help foster increased local procurement efforts.”

The goal for the upcoming fiscal year is slightly more than this year, $1.31 billion.

This all, of course, dwarfs the roughly $40 million the U.S. has spent in Central Asia through the General Services Administration, the U.S. government agency that buys office supplies, cleaning supplies, and so on.

Other than Turkmenistan’s huge number, maybe the most striking result in that chart is the relatively small amount that the DLA buys in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan would seem to be the best source of goods in Central Asia, given that it is the largest country in the region, inherited Soviet Central Asia’s largest economy, and is now the key hub of the U.S.’s Northern Distribution Network. But Uzbekistan’s business climate is notoriously poor. In the most recent “ease of doing business” rankings, the World Bank put Uzbekistan 154th in the world, the worst in the former Soviet Union and ahead of only seven non-African countries in the entire world. The case of Russian cell phone giant MTS, which Uzbekistan’s government unceremoniously shut down earlier this year, is only the best publicized of many stories of foreign businesses coming to grief there. (EurasiaNet’s Joanna Lillis had an excellent rundown of the situation in August.)

But the State Department has been doing what it can to send business Uzbekistan’s way, including by sponsoring a much-ballyhooed business delegation from the U.S. in August. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake addressed the American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce during the delegation’s visit:

Uzbekistan has great potential for further economic development, including greater U.S. investment. The number of representatives of world-class American companies here today shows the high level of interest in doing business here in Uzbekistan.

Blake did gently refer to Uzbekistan’s poor investment climate:

In my position as Assistant Secretary, I regularly meet with U.S. investors looking for opportunities in the region, and I hear a consistent message that Uzbekistan has great potential as an investment destination; however, to reach its full economic potential, it should address persistent challenges in the business and investment climate.

We discussed yesterday that delays in currency conversion prevent manufacturers from importing the supplies they need to produce their finished goods, and the problem can be compounded by complex and uncertain customs procedures. Businesses face these issues while navigating a somewhat opaque regulatory environment.

Increased dialogue between the state, private businesses, and foreign investors would be a first step towards identifying challenges and developing and enacting reforms that allow entrepreneurs to succeed while still meeting the needs of the government. Our friends in the government of Uzbekistan welcome such a dialogue. Uzbekistan must also continue reforms to strengthen the rule of law, including IPR protection, and reduce corruption so that all businesses can operate under one transparent set of rules.

And when asked about the MTS case in an interview with the Voice of America, Blake also trod lightly:

I don’t want to speculate about the MTS case. It is just starting, and we will just have to see. Again, each of these companies make their own judgments about where they see the opportunities. Our job is to open those opportunities and to help resolve problems as they come up.

Of course, Blake is a diplomat; he shouldn’t be browbeating the Uzbeks. But why is he focusing on sending U.S. business to such a business-unfriendly climate? Some Uzbek sources (who asked to remain anonymous) told me they speculated that it’s President Islam Karimov who is pressing the Americans to try to bring more business, as a condition of allowing the Northern Distribution Network. U.S. diplomats are well aware of the grim business situation in Uzbekistan, as Wikileaked cables in Lillis’s story showed. So are they just perpetrating this face for Karimov’s sake, so that he can frame the burgeoning cooperation with the U.S. as something that will help Uzbekistan’s economy? Uzbekistan’s media almost never mentions the military cooperation between their country and the U.S., whereas the business delegation waswell publicized. (By contrast, see this story about NATO transit through Central Asia — it doesn’t mention Uzbekistan at all, and the commenters don’t seem to understand that Uzbekistan is key to this whole enterprise: “Through Kyrgyzstan? How is that possible by land? Kyrgyzstan doesn’t border Afghanistan?” asks one. “Agreed. Most likely by air,” said another.)

So why the focus on Uzbekistan? Asked which other Central Asian countries Blake had led business delegations, a State Department spokesperson said they were unable to say precisely, but provided this statement to The Bug Pit:

As part of our Economic Statecraft agenda to use economics to strengthen our diplomacy abroad and our economy at home, the United States supports our businesses exploring opportunities in Central Asia. In Washington and in the region we regularly bring together government and business representatives to discuss those opportunities and ways to improve the investment climate in Central Asia. In the summer of 2012 alone we helped welcome 25 U.S. businesses to Tashkent in for the U.S.-Uzbekistan Business Forum, and also co-hosted the second U.S. Business Exhibition in Turkmenistan with over 100 companies participating.

Anyway, as DLA’s figures showed, even the Pentagon is having trouble doing business in Uzbekistan. The GSA, too: only nine percent of its Central Asia-bought goods come from there, and the agency’s regional director placed some of the blame on the country’s difficult business environment. So we probably shouldn’t expect anything very different for private American companies, no matter what Karimov may want.

China rapidly becoming primary player in post-war Central Asia

 

Illustration: Liu Rui

By Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen

China is on its way to becoming the most consequential actor in Central Asia. This isn’t a critical or a negative statement, but rather a reflection of a reality on the ground.

The heavy investments in Central Asian infrastructure and natural resources, the push to develop the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and China’s focus on developing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization into an economic player are slowly reorienting Central Asia toward China. None of this means that China is aiming to become a regional hegemon, but unless it is willing to write off considerable regional investment, it is going to find itself needing to engage in regional affairs in a more focused manner.

And these actions are likely to be interpreted regionally as hegemonic. A potentially very prosperous corner of the world, Central Asia, is in an early stage of development that could easily be pushed by instability in a wrong direction. China needs to prepare herself to step in and help resolve matters.

First among the potential storm clouds on the horizon is 2014 and the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan. The forces left behind will have a very limited and focused mandate. Their duty will be to protect diplomatic and aid communities and to focus on ensuring that groups like Al Qaeda cannot reform in Afghanistan and pose a threat to US or European interests. Their focus will not be on what the Taliban are doing in general or the instability that they might foster regionally. After over a decade of war, the Western public is tired of Afghanistan and has little appetite for war.

This casts a question over what is going to happen in Afghanistan post-2014, right on China’s border. China played a limited role in Afghanistan in the early years after the US invasion, but it has now invested considerable resources into the country that it will have to protect. It is also likely that instability in Afghanistan will have a knock-on effect into Central Asia, where China has even more investments. And all of this will end up having some sort of impact directly on Xinjiang, China’s long underdeveloped border region.

The US is in a very different position. It has security concerns from Central Asia and Afghanistan, but these will be addressed by the forces left behind. Some US companies have investments in Central Asia, but these are nowhere near as crucial as those made by Chinese firms.

As former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski put it, the US is “too distant to be dominant in this part of Eurasia.” The reality is that the Pamir mountains are too high and the steppe too far away for the US to focus on the region.

China’s ascendant investments in Central Asia are something that also stands in contrast to Russia’s declining ones. This is a more complex picture, as Russia, for many of the same reasons as China, has a clear strategic interest in Central Asia. But it is no longer the regional hegemon that it once was.

Russia’s power has been diluted by growing Chinese interest and Western attention paid to the region as a strategic launching pad into Afghanistan.

On the one hand, Russia realizes that it has to do something about security post-2014 and so is investing military loans to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. But at the same time, its regional security organization, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, has lost one of its most important members, Uzbekistan.

Even more significant in some ways is the recent statement by Russian energy giant Gazprom that it needed to evaluate its position in Central Asia as it had noticed that the region’s producers were “reorienting themselves toward China.”

And while it is clear that Russia still has influence regionally, it is not Russian firms that are putting up buildings, laying down roads and rail or investing in rebuilding the underdeveloped region.

Russia may still exert considerable diplomatic influence and soft power in the region, but it is clearly not investing a huge amount in the region.

Instead, seen from the ground, the scope and range of Chinese investments is clear, and China is increasingly shaping itself to be the most consequential power in the region.

This reality may be unpalatable to China, but it is something that it cannot avoid.

China is increasingly reshaping Central Asia to becoming its backyard rather than Russia’s and this will bring with it some regional responsibilities that China has not yet figured out how to address. China needs to formulate a proper strategy for Central Asia.

Raffaello Pantucci is a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and Alexandros Petersen is the author of The World Island: Eurasian Geopolitics and the Fate of the West (Praeger, 2011).opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Another Irish Activist Charged for Agitating the Masses In Central Asia

[What is with Irish Socialists, can't they leave anything alone?  Why is it that suddenly two different Irish activists make the news for meddling in Central Asia, Conor Prasad in Kyrgyzstan and Paul Murphy in Kazakhstan (SEE:  Busybody Irish Socialist MP Still Meddling In Kazakh Labor Disputes)?]

Irish researcher in Kyrgyzstan accused of fomenting unrest in ethnically riven town

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Security services in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan on Thursday accused an Irish researcher with a respected international think-tank of inciting tensions in the ethnically riven southern city of Osh.

The State Committee for National Security said that literature seized from Conor Prasad, who works for the International Crisis Group, contained material that could provoke public unrest. He was detained in Osh but has since been released and is now in the capital, Bishkek.

Southern Kyrgyzstan was ravaged in June 2010 by a wave of clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks in the cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad in which at least 470 people were killed.

ICG spokesman Andrew Stroehlein said the accusations against Prasad were unfounded and that a complaint has been filed with the government.

Security services said in a statement that Prasad was engaged in collating information on the violation of rights of the Uzbek community in Osh. They did not specify what allegedly provocative material he had in his possession, but said he was urging Uzbeks to adopt an “active civic position.”

They added that they are still considering what action to take against Prasad.

Although the bulk of those killed in 2010 were Uzbeks, it is also Uzbeks who have faced the most criminal prosecutions related to the unrest.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in October that flawed investigations and trials have undermined efforts at reconciliation.

Kyrgyz authorities remain intensely sensitive over the events in the south and routinely hamper advocacy work by international organizations working in the area.

ICG, which has been present in Kyrgyzstan for more than a decade, draws its funding from Western governments and charitable donors. It compiles reports on security and humanitarian hotspots.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Irish+researcher+Kyrgyzstan+accused+fomenting+unrest/7594464/story.html#ixzz2CyO3oiXK

Official from Russian Arms Mfg. Cited By Istanbul for “Illegal Arms Shipments” After Turkish Force Down of Syrian Air Plane

[I will be very curious to see whether the Kremlin manages to connect this murder to the Turkish secret police, in the major investigation which is sure to follow this tragedy.  Konstruktorskoye Buro Priborostroyeniye’s (KBP) deputy manager, 58-year-old Vyacheslav Trukhachev was murdered on the streets of Tula, near Moscow.  His company was recently in the news for being named as one of the suppliers of military spare parts which were allegedly seized by Turkish authorities from "Syrian Arab Airlines Airbus A320-200, registration YK-AKE performing flight RB-442 from Moscow Vnukovo (Russia) to Aleppo (Syria) with 37 people on board."]

“The Russian press reported the intercepted plane carried electronic spare parts for Russian-made radar and anti-aircraft systems, used by the Syrian military. The KBP (Konstruktorskoye Buro Priborostroyenia), based in Tula south of Moscow, was specifically mentioned as a possible source of the confiscated cargo. The KBP has been supplying Pantsir 1S anti-aircraft systems to Syria as well as guided long-range Kornet anti-tank missiles (Kommersant, October 13).”–Jamestown Found.

Official at Russian supplier of arms to Syria assassinated

 

The deputy manager of a Russian defense equipment factory that exports goods to Syria has been assassinated in Tula close to Moscow.

Konstruktorskoye Buro Priborostroyeniye’s (KBP) deputy manager, 58-year-old Vyacheslav Trukhachev, was shot dead on one of the biggest streets in Tula.

Police have launched an investigation while his colleagues have called the event unexpected and mysterious.

KBP is one of the main defense industry producers of short- and medium-range arms in Russia.

Unidentified material seized by Turkish authorities from a Damascus-bound jet forced to land in Ankara on Oct. 10 was produced in the factory.  Turkey forced down the passenger Syrian jet, which was en route from Moscow to the Syrian capital, on suspicion that it was carrying military material.

Hurriyet Daily News

The Unfolding of Saakashvili’s Worst Nightmare

A Georgian nightmare unfolds

Molly Corso in Tbilisi November 20, 2012 The growing number of arrests of former ruling party elites since the Georgian Dream coalition won the election on October 1 is leaving many to conclude that the incoming government is using its new powers to settle old political scores. And the return to Georgia and subsequent arrest of former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili on November 20 could prove the most dangerous for President Mikheil Saakashvili’s circle, as the testimony of the former close ally and top-ranking official of the previous regime is sure to lead to more arrests. The international pressure on the government to stop arresting former high ranking officials appears to have fallen on deaf ears. The arrest of Okruashvili, who is expected to go on trial on December 3 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government and extortion, follows fresh charges the day before against Brigadier General Giorgi Kalandadze, the former head of the Georgian Joint Chiefs of Staff, despite international pressure on the government to stop arresting former high-ranking officials. Kalandadze was charged with unlawful detainment, a crime that carries a life sentence. Former defense minister Bacho Akhalaia (who also once served as prison minister and minister of internal affairs) is currently facing similar charges. Philip Dimitrov, the EU’s Ambassador to Georgia, stressed at a press conference on November 20 it is “important that there is no impression that justice is linked with political causes.” But there is little indication that either Ivanishvili or his cabinet are heeding those concerns. The speed and volume of arrests have prompted wide speculation about which Saakashvili ally could be next. Both Data Akhalaia, the brother of Bacho Akhalaia, and Giorgi Baramidze, a former defense minister, have been named as the targets of new investigations. Over the past week, a dozen former officials from the internal affairs ministry – Georgia’s umbrella policing body – have been detained on charges ranging from abuse of power to using malware to spy and discredit the opposition. Allies of former prime minister Vano Merabishvili were included in the round-up, including Shota Khizanishvili, a deputy mayor of Tbilisi at the time of his arrest November 16 on charges of illegal surveillance, who served as a deputy minister under Merabishvili when he was the interior affairs minister. Eleven other former officials from policing structures – including the powerful Department of Constitutional Security (the successor to the KGB) – were also arrested on similar charges. The alleged crimes stem from allegations that the men planted malware in computers at the Georgian Dream headquarters to spy on the opposition prior to the elections. Charges released by the Prosecutor’s Office indicate that the surveillance was used to leak incriminating audio recordings to the media in the days before the October 1 parliamentary election. Other charges include deliberately destroying property at Cartu Bank, the Georgian bank founded by Ivanishvili that was the targeted by the Georgian government last year after Ivanishvili announced his plans to enter politics. Pot, kettle, black Saakashvili supporters and members of his United National Movement (UNM) have blasted the arrests as being politically motivated. Merabishvili, now the head of the UNM party, told journalists that his allies are being targeted as part of a special campaign to scare him and other former officials. “Bidzina Ivanishvili should have no hope that by such steps he will stir fear or anxiety among us. On the contrary, it will make us stronger.” Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava, another powerful figure in the UNM, has also spoken up against the arrests. After Khizanishvili was refused bail on November 18, Ugulava said the charges were “obviously” politically motivated. Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani, however, defended the arrests, asserting that cases are being made based on crimes committed, not on political alliances. On November 19, she also hinted that investigations are underway that could lead to Ugulava’s arrest. Tsulukiani told journalists that “many questions” remain about Ugulava’s activities, but there is not enough evidence yet to arrest him. Ugulava, once considered the UNM’s likely candidate for president in the 2013 elections, is a strong Saakashvili ally and powerful figure in the party. He has served as the elected mayor of Tbilisi since 2010 so his position was not affected by Ivanishvili’s win at the October 1 polls. The efforts of the new government are not restricted to arrests: both the Justice Ministry and the new parliament are also working hard to meet pre-election promises to release prisoners. The prison ministry has released 300 prisoners it deemed were ready to return to society. In addition, on November 19 the human rights committee in the parliament, together with a working group of non-government organizations, proposed a list of 148 prisoners and Georgians in exile who would be exonerated as political prisoners. The list, which is not final, includes members of coalition political parties who were arrested over the past eight years on a variety of charges, as well as former parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze’s husband Badri Bitsadze who fled the country in 2011 after he implicated in accidental deaths during the May 26, 2011 protest.