Page 6 - bne_December 2018_20181207

6 I The Month That Was bne December 2018
Politics
Eastern Europe
Russia’s navy rammed and arrested three Ukrainian navy ships in the
Sea of Azov on November 25 in a widely condemned clash between the two navies. Russia briefly blockaded the entrance to the sea in what some called an act of war. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko imposed martial law the next day for 30 days, but promised presidential elections would go ahead as planned in March.
The US Embassy in Ukraine called upon the residents of the self- declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics to boycott the local elections scheduled for November 11. “The residents of eastern Ukraine should boycott these elections, which don’t conform neither to the Minsk Accords, nor Ukrainian legislation,” the embassy wrote on its Facebook page.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) has identified a long list of yachts, Picasso paintings, mansions, factories and other assets worth $5.5bn that were bought with the $5.5bn looted from the country’s largest bank Privatbank that was nationalised in November 2016.
Sanctioned Russian tycoons Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg, as well as the head of state-controlled bank VTB Andrei Kostin will not be invited to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos taking place in January 2019, the Financial Times reported on November 6 citing unnamed sources.
While Russians still want to see Rus- sia as a "great power", it should be conditioned first and foremost by the ability of the state to maintain the well-being of its citizens, a study by the RAN Institute of Sociology cited by Kom- mersant daily on November 7 shows. "State and military power" is no longer the priority mass narrative for Russians and since post-Crimea 2014 gave way to "Justice, state power, and democracy", according to the study.
Central Europe
Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis is reportedly considering two new candidates for the post of prime minister after the failure of a govern- ment formation exercise of the conser- vatives’ leader. The general election
in early October produced a largely fragmented parliament.
Recognising same sex marriages is “impossible” in Lithuania, the chair of the parliament’s legal affairs committee said after the issue was raised by Interior Minister Eimutis Misiunas. Committee chair Agne Širinskien said the consti- tution would have to be changed as it currently states that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Southeast Europe
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Turkey to release opposition politician Selahattin Demirtas of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) from prison. The ECHR said that behind his detention was the "ulterior purpose of stifling pluralism and limiting freedom of political debate".
Romania’s president rejected the government’s proposal for head of the anti-corruption body. President Klaus Iohannis said Adina Florea lacked necessary legal requirements to head
the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA). The government’s choice was also criticised by Romania’s magistrates' body.
Former Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski was granted asylum in Hungary. Gruevski fled Macedonia to avoid serving a prison sentence in a case concerning the purchase of a luxury Mercedes from state funds.
Kosovo imposed 10% customs tariffs on all products from Serbia and Bosnia. The decision was made due to Serbia’s "negative behaviour" towards Kosovo, the government in Pristina said,
and because Bosnia is blocking goods from the tiny Balkan country.
Eurasia
The big-spending wife of a jailed Azerbaijani banker was detained in London. Zamira Hajiyeva, married to the former boss of Azerbaijan's biggest bank, is known in the UK press as the woman who spent more than $21m in luxury London department store Har- rods over a decade.
Iran has started issuing petrol ration- ing cards following excessive smug- gling abroad of fuel made cheap by the collapse in value of the rial, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported. With the rial 65% weaker against the dollar since April, many items produced in Iran, including petrol, have been smuggled out of the country by profi- teers to Iraq, Armenia, Turkey, Azerbai- jan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
MP Damdin Khayankhyarvaa submitted a proposal for the dismissal of the Mongolian government due to allega- tions that senior government officials and parliamentarians channelled over $1mn in government money to their families and friends. Mongolia’s anti-corruption authority is investigating the allegations.
Bribing and pressuring of voters ahead of the second round of Geor- gia’s presidential elections, as well
as the wrongful use of administrative resources for electoral campaign pur- poses were identified by the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED).
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