Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Court may reject Platon Lebedev’s parole plea
The Velsk District Court will hear the parole appeal filed by lawyers for former Menatep head Platon Lebedev. The court has received an appeal backing Lebedev’s parole plea signed by over 1,000 local residents. But sources in the Federal Penitentiary Service’s regional department said on condition of anonymity that the administration at the prison where Lebedev is being held issued a negative character report on him. This may influence the court’s decision.
Judge Roman Raspopov is expected to rule within two days, although it may take longer. Lebedev was sent to the Velsk facility from the Matrosskaya Tishina detention center in Moscow in mid-June.
This is not the first time Lebedev’s lawyers have appealed for parole. In late May, the Preobrazhensky District Court in Moscow rejected a similar appeal on the grounds that the prisoner had been transferred to the Arkhangelsk Region.
Signatures supporting his parole bid were collected by the Vazhsky Krai interregional democratic movement and the newspaper Velsk-Info. Members of the public and local party activists plan to picket the court during the hearing. The liberal party Yabloko also plans to hold a pro-Lebedev protest.
Under Russian law, release on parole is possible only after prisoners have served part of their sentence, have shown that they are at least in part reformed characters, and provided the prison administration voices no objection.
In considering the appeal, the court takes these last two factors into account but takes its lead from the opinion of the prison administration. The administration at the Velsk prison, where Lebedev has only served seven weeks, is reportedly dissatisfied with his conduct.
The Matrosskaya Tishina administration issued a positive character reference about Lebedev on his transfer to Velsk in late May. It noted that he had not been disciplined during his three years there and is obviously improving, “maintains appropriate relations with his cellmates, does not enter into conflicts with them, has a proper attitude to educational work, and is always polite with staff.”
Maxim Dbar, who heads the Khodorkovsky and Lebedev press center, said the court requests the character report from the inmate’s current detention location, so it may not see the Matrosskaya Tishina report. He said rumors about the prison administration having a negative attitude to Lebedev could have been leaked to influence the court.
Lebedev’s lawyers will ask the court to call character witnesses, but, like the prison administration’s report, this is subjective opinion while the court must take an objective decision. Importantly, prison administration can only provide character reports after holding a prisoner for six months, but Lebedev has spent only seven weeks in Velsk.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
Gorbachev criticizes top leaders, draws United Russia ire
A senior United Russia official responds to Gorbachev’s criticism of the party and the Russian Popular Front.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the first President of the Soviet Union, has once again launched a scathing attack on Russia’s leaders. He said the United Russia Party and the Russian Popular Front were dragging Russia backward, instead of pushing it forward. United Russia gave a highly charged response to his criticism.
“I do not think United Russia can be relied on, it is dragging us backward, which is why it suits Vladimir Putin: he wants to preserve the status quo and retain power, not solve the glaring problems that we face,” Gorbachev said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station. “Putin has set his mind to making his party flourish, but it just isn’t working out. The front that Vladimir Putin has established is dragging us back together with United Russia. And I will not help them in this,” Gorbachev noted.
Gorbachev believes that hopes pinned on the tandem, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, were not justified. He said that Medvedev was a “capable, erudite person and, importantly, a good lawyer” but added that he lacked character.
Despite all this, Gorbachev seemed confident that the crisis Russia is currently facing could be rectified within five or six years, but only if new people appear on the political arena, a new coalition, and if State Duma elections are held in a free and fair manner.
United Russia did not like Gorbachev’s criticism. Sergei Neverov, Acting Secretary of United Russia’s Presidium, issued a prompt reply: “Let’s remember what Mikhail Gorbachev’s years in power and his decisions were like, what they caused… We lost that country that used to be called the Soviet Union. And then, when the economic crisis broke and hundreds of thousands of enterprises were shut down nationwide, when people didn’t get paid for months, when attempts were made to tear the state apart: we nearly lost Russia. The survival of this state was only possible thanks to the tough stance and policies that Vladimir Putin began to implement, which were continued by the tandem Dmitry Medvedev – Vladimir Putin.”
Moskovskiye Novosti
Russian shipping unlikely to fly the home flag soon
Panama has refused to follow UN rules placing carbon gas emissions limits on ships. Its move dealt a serious blow at efforts to reduce global warming on the seas and upset Russia’s plans.
The Central American republic has declined to observe the cap recently introduced by the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) on greenhouse discharges by seafaring vessels. Panama has one-fifth of global shipping on its registers and its defiance is a telling setback to the anti-greenhouse gas program.
Panama will let the owners of vessels registered there delay implementing the rules for gas emissions adopted by the IMO on July 15, until 2019 said Gilberto Arias, Panama’s ambassador to London and IMO representative.
The IMO ruled that from 2013 these new standards are to be gradually adopted, becoming fully enforceable from 2015. By 2030, the merchant ships’ carbon dioxide emissions will have been cut by 25% to 30%.
Panama’s position is a grave threat because over 20% of the world’s merchant fleet (in total tons) operates under Panama’s “flag of convenience.”
The IMO program can be summed up as follows: In 2009, the organization came to the conclusion that international merchant shipping was responsible for 2.7% of global carbon dioxide emissions. As part of global efforts to cut emissions, the organization adopted the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI), a set of rules mandatory across the board. Under the EEDI, all new vessels, primarily their engines, must meet certain technical requirements which are to become effective in 2015. The program, however, does not aim to achieve an overall cut. If the intensity of international merchant shipping traffic increases, the amount of pollutants released into the environment will not necessarily fall.
Nevertheless shipbuilders and ship owners will need additional investment to improve their vessels’ energy efficiency.
Several countries found the request too demanding: China, Brazil, South Africa and Saudi Arabia all demanded an extended deadline of 2019.
But Panama’s calls were the loudest. This is because Panama is considered the most popular “flag of convenience” state. Its registration fees are simpler and lower than the average in the rest of the world.
This all combines to make Panama’s shipping register very attractive to foreign ship owners, complicating things for the Russian transport authorities, among others. For two decades Russia has been trying to persuade the fleet operated by Russian ship owners, 65% of which flies the “flag of convenience” to come home.
The Russian International Shipping Register was established in December 2005. But it did not prove as appealing to ship owners as remote tropical jurisdictions, and this process of homecoming is making only slow headway.
If Russia, one of the 40 countries on the IMO board, now adopts the new limits on greenhouse gases, its register will obviously lose out to countries that are free of any such limitations.
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