8.6.2005 15:02 MSK Rally at Lubyanka set for 12 June RUSSIA, Moscow. A rally and a concert in support of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and all political prisoners will take place between 2 and 3 p.m. by the Solovki Rock monument in the park in Moscow’s Lubyanskaya square on 12 June — the day of the Declaration of Independence of the new Russia.
The event will be joined by author and TV presenter Victor Shenderovich and his programme Plavleny Syrok (Processed Cheese), singer and song writer Timour Shaov, Belamors rock band and other well-known artists, arts and culture personalities, journalists and politicians.
The rally has no affiliation to any political party. The authorities gave the permission to hold the event. Organizers invite "all free people" to attend; their actions are coordinated by journalist Yevgheniya Albats.
Translated by Olga Sharp PRIMA-News Agency [2005-06-07-Rus-18] http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/news/2005/6/8/32550.html
Speak Out? Are You Crazy? Publication time: 3 June 2006, 20:39
In a throwback to Soviet times, Russians who cross the powerful are increasingly hustled into mental asylums, rights activists say.
CHEBOKSARY, Russia - Albert Imendayev collected the signatures he needed to run for the legislature last fall in this city on the banks of the Volga River. He met with supporters, prepared his campaign material. He would have made the ballot had it not been for one thing: He was hauled off to a mental asylum.
Only days before he was required to appear at the local election commission to finalize his candidacy, an investigator from the prosecutor's office met Imendayev at the courthouse with three police officers. They kept him locked up until a judge could be found to sign the order committing him for a psychiatric evaluation.
"The hearing took place, and I was taken straight off to the asylum," said the ... >>full
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice / photo: AFP U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice / photo: AFP Russia Remains on U.S. Trafficking Watch List
06.06.2006
MosNews The U.S. State Department has kept Russia on the list of 32 countries whose governments are not doing enough in the fight against trafficking in human beings, an annual report said.
Russia has been placed on Tier 2 Watch List in the Annual Trafficking in Persons Report “for a third consecutive year for its continued failure to show evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking, particularly in the area of victim protection and assistance.”
“The [Russian] government made uneven progress during the reporting period [2005],” says the report, presented Monday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Fifty three criminal prosecutions were launched in human-trafficking cases in Russia in 2005, up from 11 in 2004, and the country’s courts convicted at least nine traffickers and sentenced six to time in prison, the ... >>full
Boris Berezovsky / Photo: Damian Kudryavtsev Boris Berezovsky / Photo: Damian Kudryavtsev British Court Rejects Russia’s Request to Extradite Berezovsky
06.06.2006
MosNews
A British court rejected a Russian extradition request for billionaire tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who is wanted in his homeland for allegedly plotting a coup. District Judge Timothy Workman, sitting at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, central London, said extradition proceedings would be “futile” and incur “great expense to the British taxpayer”, the AFP news agency reported.
In comments quoted by the British Press Association, the judge said that as Berezovsky had been granted asylum in 2003 “it would be impossible for the secretary of state to order his extradition to the Russian Federation”.
Russia’s public prosecutor’s office opened legal proceedings against the tycoon in April and the Russian parliament formally requested his extradition in March.
Members of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, have said in a resolution that Berezovsky continued “activities undermining Russian security” ... >>full
Irresistible rise of the dictators' club Simon Tisdall Tuesday June 6, 2006 The Guardian
Tony Blair's promotion of shared global values and inclusive institutions in his Georgetown speech last month took little account of the rise and rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Few may yet have heard of it. But out of the east comes a radically different paradigm for 21st-century international organisation, short on idealism and long on hard-headed self-interest. The "universal" principles of "liberty, democracy and justice" lauded by Mr Blair are hardly its driving force.
Founded by China, the five-year-old SCO groups together like-minded authoritarian leaderships in Russia and four central Asian republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Pakistan, Mongolia and India are observer members. So too is Iran.
In terms of total population, area and resources, the SCO is far bigger than Nato or the EU. It dwarfs older regional organisations. It is not yet a mutual defence pact but ... >>full
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