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VILNIUS, LITHUANIA (WaPo) May 5 — Vice President Cheney accused Russia of “unfairly and improperly” restricting the rights of its people and using oil and gas as “tools of intimidation or blackmail” against neighboring countries.
“Russia has a choice to make,” Cheney said. “And there is no question that a return to democratic reform in Russia will generate further success for its people and greater respect among fellow nations.”
US VP Dick Cheney attends a breakfast meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in Vilnius, Lithuania. Cheney took a swipe at Russia over democratic reform as EU leaders pledged to support the new democracies of former communist east Europe and vowed to bring authoritarian Belarus into the fold. AFP/Shawn Thew
Some critics, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have called on Bush to boycott the G-8 summit in protest of Putin’s suppression of dissent, but the president has rejected such a move as counterproductive. While Cheney said yesterday that the United States supports democracy “through direct aid,” Bush has cut funding for democracy groups in the former Soviet Union in half.
“We have to show some leadership,” former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) said in a speech at the Hoover Institution last week. Edwards, who helped lead a Council on Foreign Relations panel on Russia, said Bush should tell Putin that “if you want to be seen as a legitimate power in the world, a force for good, and you want to look outside and not just inward, then democratic reforms matter.”
Bush, though, wants Moscow’s help on an array of issues, including preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Putin has joined Bush in pressuring Tehran but resists U.N. sanctions. Bush called Putin to lobby him on Iran, but during the call Putin changed the subject and pressed Bush to finish negotiations allowing Russia into the World Trade Organization. Bush vowed to do so “soon.” Aides said that there was no quid pro quo but that they hope to conclude WTO talks before the summit.
Mr. President, this is our first visit to your country, and to see this beautiful part of the world with our own eyes is an experience we’ll always cherish. We’re grateful for the warm and the welcoming spirit of Lithuania. And to the citizens of this land, and to all the countries represented in the hall today, we bring friendship and good wishes from our President, George Bush, and from the people of the United States.
This conference has drawn together men and women from diverse nations and cultures, and from many different callings here today. We have elected and appointed officials, community activists, entrepreneurs, students, brave leaders of color revolutions. We’re united by common ideals, announced at the first gathering of this conference last year: to free this region from all remaining lines of division, from violations of human rights, from frozen conflicts, and to open a new era of democracy. To this place we’ve brought the hopes and the aspirations of the peoples we represent. And from this place we will bold and confidently serve the cause of freedom, security, and peace.
… As maps of Europe traced the receding of an empire and the advance of freedom, the continent left behind the days of artificial division enforced by diplomatic stand-offs and militarized borders. With the consolidation of democracy, and the expansion of NATO and the European Union, countries that once were rivals have become partners.
This progress would not have been possible without leadership — from patriots with names like Sakharov, Mindszenty, Walesa, Havel — who, in decades of striving, challenged dictators, spoke the truth without apology, and refused to compromise their liberty. Their courage and their faithfulness to principle helped tip the balance of Europe toward freedom.
continues …
● Washington Seeks to Steer Central Asian States Toward South Asian Allies
«« click to enlarge map
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GENEVA (AP) May 5 — In its 87-page report filed in January — some four years behind schedule — Washington insisted it is “unequivocally opposed” to torture and that its commitment to the ban “remains unchanged” since the U.S. Senate ratified the convention in October 1994.
But the Geneva-based committee, a panel of 10 independent experts who meet twice a year, said the United States’ legal interpretation of torture in Department of Justice memorandums in 2002 and 2004 “seems to be much more restrictive than previous United Nations standards.”
The committee is demanding the United States explain why it established secret prisons, what rules and methods of interrogation it employs, and whether the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush assumes responsibility for alleged acts of torture committed by American agents outside U.S. territory.
“In view of the numerous allegations of torture and ill-treatment of persons in detention under the jurisdiction of (the United States) and the case of the Abu Ghraib prison, what specific measures have been taken to identify and remedy problems in the command and operation of those detention facilities?” the committee has asked.
Amnesty International’s Supplementary Briefing to the UN Committee Against Torture
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(GovExec.com) Dec. 4, 2005 — According to past and present CIA officials interviewed over the past month, CIA executive director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo — whose career duties have encompassed letting CIA contracts — has had a long, close personal relationship with two contractors identified (though not explicitly named) in court papers as bribing Cunningham: Brent Wilkes of the Wilkes Corp., whose subsidiaries include defense contractor ADCS; and former ADCS consultant Mitchell Wade, until recently president of defense contractor MZM, Inc. It is a relationship, the CIA officials say (with some putting a particular emphasis on Wilkes), that has increasingly been of concern.
One current and two retired senior CIA officials told Government Executive that (as noted last week by reporter Laura Rozen in The American Prospect’s TAPPED blog) the relationship of Wilkes and Foggo — who the CIA’s Web site declares is “under cover and cannot be named at this time,” even though he is pictured and identified on a federal charity web page — has been a subject of increasing concern by some at Langley.
WASHINGTON D.C. (ABC News Exclusive) March 3, 2006 — A stunning investigation of bribery and corruption in Congress has spread to the CIA, ABC News has learned.
The CIA inspector general has opened an investigation into the spy agency’s executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, and his connections to two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and Pentagon officials.
The CIA inspector general has opened an investigation into the spy agency's executive director, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo.Odd isn’t it, just a week after Porter Goss sacked Mary McCarthy… working for the IG at the CIA!
Opening of Larry Johnson’s diary ::
The case against the CIA Intelligence Officer, Mary McCarthy, fired for her alleged role in leaking information about secret prisons to the Washington Post’s Dana Priest smells a little fishy.
● The Duke Of Hurl! :: Connections MzM Inc. ◊ by Connecticut Man1
Mon Nov 28th, 2005 at 11:12:22 PM PST
≈ Cross-posted from Larry Johnson’s diary — Why Did Goss Resign? ≈
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ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN (Trouw) May 5 — Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot has obtained a promise from Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev that Shell will be given a large oil concession, the Trouw newspaper reported.
The deal was under heavy pressure from the Americans who also wanted the concession. But Bot was one step ahead of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who will be in the Kazakh capital Astana on Friday to discuss the matter.
Shell is going to cooperate with Kazakh oil company KazMuniaGas in the Nursultan field. Bot did not want to say how big the concession is after his talks with the Kazakh president. But the deal is in accordance with Shell’s wishes. If the promise to Bot is actually carried out, it will be a great relief for the multinational energy giant. Shell has invested substantially in the Asian country for the last four years.
In return for the concession, the Netherlands has promised to support Kazakhstan in its ambition to become president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and to become a member of the World Trade Organization, said the paper.
Well, wouldn’t you know, purely coincidental of course …
ALMATY (Reuters) May 5 — Royal Dutch Shell Plc is likely to win oil exploration rights to the Nursultan block in the south of the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea after winning political backing, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said.
“Things are looking good now and we expect the deal to go ahead,” Herman van Gelderen, spokesman for Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, said after talks between Bot and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Thursday. “But of course things still have to be finalised between Shell and its counterparts in Kazakhstan.”
A source at Kazakh state oil and gas firm KazMunaiGas told Reuters that Kazakhstan planned to sign a production sharing agreement (PSA) on Nursultan by the end of May, but did not say whether Shell was in the deal.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY