Rosh/ Russia Playing HardBall

[Christina]

The Foreign Office today angrily rejected a Kremlin demand that the British Council close down all its operations in Russia except for those of its headquarters in Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry said this morning that the Council, which promotes British culture and offers English language lessons through its 15 regional offices in Russia, had no legal basis for its operations and should close down its regional offices by the new year. The move was seen as a retaliation for the expulsion of four Russian diplomats from Britain in July, in a continuing row over the murder in London last year of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. British prosecutors have named Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB agent, as the prime suspect in the murder, but Moscow has refused to extradite him. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said that the activities of the Council were compliant with both international and Russian law under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and a bilateral cultural agreement from 1994. "It is a cultural, not a political institution and we strongly reject any attempt to link it to Russia’s failure to co-operate with our efforts to bring the murder of Alexander Litvinenko to justice." The Council itself said that it had no plans to close down its offices in St Petersburg and Ekaterinburg, and was backed by Gordon Brown, whose official spokesman told reporters: "We, the Council and its Russian partner organisations have every intention that its programme will continue." A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said that a new bilateral agreement to regulate the Council's activities, drawn up after the diplomatic expulsions from the UK in July, had not been signed. He also accused the Council, a registered charity, of violating Russian tax laws. Tony Halpin, the Times's Moscow correspondent, said that the move appeared to be a diplomatic flexing of muscles by Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, who cemented his grip on power after anointing his successor this week. Mr Putin recommended on Monday that Dmitri Medvedev, his 42-year-old protege, should be the next President, and Mr Medvedev then indicated that Mr Putin should be the next Prime Minister of Russia, keeping the immensely popular head of state at the heart of power in the Kremlin. "What is really behind this is another effort to squeeze British interests, in the row the began over Litvinenko," said Halpin. "It is election season now, and Mr Putin thinks he is completely invulnerable and can do what he likes. Relations between Britain and Russia are very, very strained, so squeezing out the British Council is a way of demonstrating how bad those relations have become. "Moscow has never been very happy with the fact that the British Council gives English lessons and runs exams - they see it as a contamination with unwelcome ideas. "The Kremlin has always been terrified of a repeat of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which it has seen as having been fomented by foreign NGOs using foreign money. "The British Council is a very high profile organisation, one of the best-known organisations in the world, and if Moscow can wage war on the council then it sends a powerful message to all the other foreign NGOs."

 

[Christina]

Russia walks away from CFE arms treaty12 hours agoMOSCOW (AFP) — Russia on Wednesday walked out of a key Cold War treaty setting limits on troops and weapons across Europe, but promised there were no immediate plans for a major military build-up.Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty was suspended from midnight in Moscow (2100 GMT Tuesday), the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement."Such a step has been caused by the exceptional circumstances connected to the content of the treaty which concern the security of Russia and demand that we take immediate measures," the ministry statement said.Signed in 1990 and modified in 1999, the CFE places precise limits on the stationing of troops and heavy weapons from the Atlantic coast to Russia's Ural mountains -- a mammoth agreement that helped resolve the Cold War standoff.President Vladimir Putin, who has made a priority of restoring Russian military might, signed a decree ordering Moscow's suspension of the treaty last month.Suspension means troops can now be moved around the country without notifying NATO.The foreign ministry said that Russia was no longer "constrained by the limitations placed on arms deployments on its flanks." However, the ministry added a reassuring note, saying: "We have no current plans to accumulate massive armaments on our neighbours' borders."In theory, Russia can return to the treaty at any time, but analysts say that is unlikely, given mounting East-West tensions.The demise of the CFE comes on top of Moscow's threat to leave the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty, as well as tensions around US plans to install a missile-defence shield in NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic.At the heart of Russia's complaints on the CFE is NATO's failure to ratify the amended 1999 version of the treaty, taking into account the huge changes wrought by the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.NATO countries say they cannot ratify the 1999 version because Russian troop presence in ex-Soviet Georgia and Moldova violates the treaty, a charge Moscow rejects.In addition, Moscow has been pushing for changes to CFE limits on moving troops to the European, western flank of the vast country. "Imagine that President (George W.) Bush cannot move his forces from California to the New York region," Antonov said. "It's ridiculous."Russia also wants Baltic countries such as Estonia, once part of the Soviet Union and thus of the Warsaw Pact, to join the CFE.Observers said the long list of problems made the CFE unlikely to get back on track. "The treaty is dead," military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said.Last week Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko gave a mixed message about possible changes in troop levels."Russia has no plans to raise its military presence in Europe, obviously, that is, if there is not an attempt to raise the military presence by NATO countries," he said.According to Felgenhauer "it is practically inevitable that Russia will begin moving weapons west, primarily to borders of Baltic states.""It makes a lot of economic sense to move forces from Siberia to Leningrad district, because it's two or three times more expensive to keep them in Siberia. It will also send a powerful signal to the West. It's a win-win situation for Russia."

 

[Wakka]

This is not good

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[For Life]

I wouldn't be too alarmed just yet. They don't want an arms race again anymore than we do. The results of the last one have to be still fresh in their minds, I hope.

 

[Christina]

Well do be to sure they want pwer and got the oil money now to bavck them up according to scripture they will make a move