Page 6 - bneMag bne_December 2020_20201201

6 I The Month That Was bne December 2020
Politics
Eastern Europe
Russia’s Supreme Court has ordered most of the restrictions on US
fund manager Michael Calvey
and his colleagues from Baring Vostok be lifted. Calvey and several
of his colleagues were arrested on embezzlement charges in February 2019.
The Russian government changed
the Criminal Code, to ban cartels and market collusion including six year prison sentences for deals worth RUB500mn ($6.48mn) of revenues or more.
The Russian government underwent a mini-reshuffle that resulted in new leaders for five of its 21 ministries. The last of the Medvedev appointees were swept away in the government of PM Mikhail Mishustin. The new appointees are largely technocratic.
Half of all foreign investors into Ukraine think that the country has become less attractive for investment under Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to a poll conducted by the European Business Association in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s ruling Servant of the
People (SOTP) would come in third if parliamentary elections were held this Sunday but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would still win a presidential election, according to a study by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
small in comparison to the previous demonstrations. As the crowds get smaller the police have ramped up their brutality, bludgeoning one protester to death in broad daylight in November.
Central Europe
Polish women told the government to “f*** off” in mass protests against a new law that effectively bans abortions. Thousands of Polish women and men marched across Warsaw, and other cities for more than a week to protest against the new law.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban proposed constitutional amendments that would ban adoption by same-sex couples. Orban is using emergency powers to push through more anti-gay laws.
Belarus’ new nuclear power plant was turned off in its first week
of operation after the explosions
of several voltage transformers. Neighbours in the Baltics have been pushing for the plant to be closed over safety concerns.
Latvia’s Constitutional Court announced a judgment on the right of a same-sex couple to parental leave on November 12. The court
had received an appeal from a mother whose female partner was unable to take the ten-day leave which, according to Labour Act, is to be granted to the child's father.
Southeast Europe
Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak unexpectedly handed in his resignation one day after the early morning firing by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of central bank governor Murat Uysal. The crisis- stricken Turkish lira (TRY) quickly soared in value as a result.
Turkey’s Competition Board has fined Google Turkish lira (TRY) 200mn ($26mn) for “abusing its market dominance”. Google was previously
in February hit with a fine of around TRY100mn by the regulator. The fines are part of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on social media.
The six Western Balkan states committed to the green agenda and to set up a regional market in two declarations signed during a summit in Sofia on November 10, which is part of the Berlin Process initiative.
Eurasia
Several thousand protesters defied martial law to gather in central Yerevan and demand the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashainian for “traitorous actions” after he conceded defeat in the six week
war with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno- Karabakh enclave.
A court in Almaty on November 16 sentenced former Kazakh banker Zhomart Ertayev to 11 years in prison after he was convicted of stealing $334mn from RBK Bank. Ertaev was an RBK co-chairman and also previously served in senior positions at multiple Kazakh banks throughout the 2000s.
Authorities in Kazakhstan’s Almaty have granted an unregistered party permission to hold a protest rally on November 14 ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections. Kazakhstan is usually very intolerant of protests.
Iran has announced it will tap €200mn from its National Development Fund to compensate the families of victims of the January tragedy in which
a Ukraine International Airlines aircraft was shot down in error just outside Tehran.
23.
The Belarusian protests reached their 100th day on November 15, but the traditional Sunday mass rally, dubbed the March of Brave People, was again
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