Month: October 2008

October 25, 2008

On the Karinna Moskalenko Situation

I have been receiving questions from several friends, colleagues, and a few reporters regarding the situation of Karinna Moskalenko. As many of you recall, Karinna discovered what looked like mercury pellets in her car on Sunday, Oct. 12. That wee...
October 25, 2008

WSJ: Putin’s Prisoner

From the Wall Street Journal editorial page: Putin’s Prisoner Khodorkovsky dared entertain political ambition. Five years to the day after his arrest and incarceration in a Siberian prison camp, former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky might ha...
October 25, 2008

Letter to the Telegraph: Democracy in Singapore

Robert Amsterdam has a letter published in today’s Telegraph on the Singapore case. Democracy in Singapore Sir – This week, the Singaporean opposition party leader Dr Chee Soon Juan and 17 others are standing trial on unlawful assembly charg...
October 24, 2008

Gazprom’s Failure to Pay for a Theft

RA is quoted by the AmLaw Daily blog with regard to the break up of the TNK-BP and Gazprom deal to acquire a share in the Kovykta field. “It’s apparent that BP made a vast miscalculation in dealing with the Kremlin,” says Robert ...
October 24, 2008

Singapore’s Hero of Free Speech

As noted, the Singaporean opposition leader Dr. Chee Soon Juan is appearing before court this week to fight preposterously trumped up charges of having participated in a protest without a permit – only the latest in a series of ruinous lawsu...
October 24, 2008

Something We Would Never Hear from Putin

The headlines are awash today with the dramatic quotes from the former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan, who in simple and unequivocal language directly assumed some responsibility for the current financial crisis: “I made a mist...
October 24, 2008

Oleg Kozlovsky in New York

Last night I attended the Human Rights First 30th annual award dinner in New York City, where I had the opportunity to meet with the admirable Russian civil society leader Oleg Kozlovsky – a brave young man who is well known to my regular re...
October 24, 2008

Indict Stalin

It would be immeasurably beneficial to Russia’s future, painful though it may be, if they could ever get around to doing something like this.
October 24, 2008

Putin’s Reality Check

It was another rough day for Russian markets, as the RTS slumped 14 percent to 549.43 and the Micex down to to 513.62, which is the tenth consecutive weekly decline. Our devaluation prediction from Sunday did not pan out, but it certainly feels cl...
October 24, 2008

Sanctions on Rosoboronexport

It’s a scary situation when after oil and gas, a country’s top export is arms. Somehow I just don’t see that really helping the world. Although India and China are traditionally the largest buyers, Russia has been ambitiously exp...