In a new anti-corruption twist, Russia could introduce a special board of prosecutors entitled to investigate officials as high as Supreme Court judges, the prime minister or the president. A draft of the law has been submitted to the State Duma.
The new board of prosecutors, as the draft bill says, will be able to go after officials that have otherwise been immune to investigation: the country’s president and ex-presidents, the General Prosecutor, the head of the Investigative Committee, MPs and so on.
What can push the proposed board into action? “The public’s profound negative reaction,” demonstrated in streams of complaints to the president or the parliament, according to the draft. The prosecutors would then look into damage to the public’s constitutional rights and freedoms.
The bill is set to fight corruption and “political extremism based on the assumption the political elite is immune to prosecution,” notes a comment to the draft law. The board, which is to consist of independent, experienced lawyers, will convene specially for each case.
The authors of the draft say that another reason to draft such a law was public doubts over the impartiality and completeness of investigations of high-profile crimes, such as the 2004 terror act in the southern city of Beslan, which took 334 lives with 186 children among them.
The committee would be 17-strong with the following makeup: five people put forward by the president; five by the State Duma; five by the Federation Council, the upper house of Parliament; and two by the human rights ombudsman.
Critics say this is far from an independent board, and as such its ability to fairly and impartially challenge authorities seems unlikely. Others grimly add that the draft law looks like another twist in the standoff between the General Prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee.
The draft law will land in Russia’s lower chamber as soon as this autumn.
Tag Archives: Today
White House gives Homeland Security control of all communication systems
Source: Russia Today
The White House has finally responded to criticism over US President Barack Obama’s hushed signing last week of an Executive Order that allows the government to command privately-owned communication systems and acknowledges its implications.
When President Obama inked his name to the Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions Executive Order on July 6, he authorized the US Department of Homeland Security to take control of the country’s wired and wireless communications — including the Internet — in instances of emergency. The signing was accompanied with little to no acknowledgment outside of the White House, but initial reports on the order quickly caused the public to speak out over what some equated to creating an Oval Office kill switch for the Web. Now the Obama administration is addressing those complaints by calling the Executive Order a necessary implement for America’s national security.
“The [order] recognizes the creation of DHS and provides the Secretary the flexibility to organize the communications systems and functions that reside within the department as [Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano] believes will be most effective,” White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden tells the Washington Post.
Hayden insists that “The [order] does not transfer authorities between or among departments,” but the order does indeed allow the DHS to establish and implement control over even the privately owned communication systems in the country, including Internet Service Providers such as Time Warner, Verizon and Comcast, if the administration agrees that it is warranted for security’s sake.
Immediately after last week’s signing, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said the order allowed the DHS “the authority to seize private facilities when necessary, effectively shutting down or limiting civilian communications.”
Following up with the Post this week, EPIC attorney Amie Stephanovich stands by that initial explanation, agreeing that the DHS can now “seize control of telecommunications facilities, including telephone, cellular and wireless networks, in order to prioritize government communications over private ones in an emergency.”
“The previous orders did not give DHS those authorities over private and commercial networks,” adds. Stepanovich. “That’s a new authority.”
According to the order, the DHS can take charge of “commercial, government, and privately owned communications resources” to satisfy what is described as “priority communication requirements.” With little insight from outside the White House, though, what constitutes such an emergency may very well be decided on by Washington, where the country’s elected leaders are still split on all things involving the Internet.
Even still, Stepanovich says that approaching Capitol Hill for comment before rushing through an Executive Order could have caused things to come out differently, but would have also arguably brought forth a firestorm such as the one that accompanied an attempt to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act. When Congress tried to pass SOPA this year — which included provisions that were argued to grossly regulate the Internet — protests nationwide played a massive part in killing the legislation.
“This should have been done by Congress, so there could have been proper debate about it,” Stepanovich tells the Post of last week’s signing. “This is not authority that should be granted by executive order.”
White House spokesperson Hayden adds to the Post, “Mobile phones, the Internet, and social media are all now integral to the communications landscape,” concreting still the allegations that this order could be used as a kill switch to any of the millions upon millions of handheld and desktop devices across the country.
Drug giant pleads guilty, fined $3B for drug marketing
WASHINGTON–Prescription drug giant GlaxoSmithKline will plead guilty and pay $3 billion to resolve federal criminal and civil inquiries arising from the company’s illegal promotion of some of its products, its failure to report safety data and alleged false price reporting as part of the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history, the Justice Department announced Monday.
The company agreed to plead guilty to three criminal counts, including two counts of introducing misbranded drugs — Paxil and Wellbutrin — and one count of failing to report safety data about the drug Avandia to the Food and Drug Administration.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, GSK(GSK) will pay a total of $1 billion, including a criminal fine of $956,814,400. The company also will pay $2 billion to resolve civil claims under the federal government’s False Claims Act.
“Today’s multibillion-dollar settlement is unprecedented in both size and scope,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole said. “At every level, we are determined to stop practices that jeopardize patients’ health, harm taxpayers, and violate the public trust – and this historic action is a clear warning to any company that chooses to break the law.”
Prosecutors say GSK encouraged use of Paxil for children although it was not approved for anyone under 18. The company also promoted Wellbutrin for uses besides major depressive disorder, its only approved use. They say that between 2001 and 2007 GSK failed to report on two studies of the cardiovascular safety of Avandia, a diabetes drug.
Glaxo is pleading guilty to these violations of FDA regulations, which are misdemeanors. It has set aside $3.5 billion to cover the cost of the fines and other penalties related to the government’s seven-year probe of the company’s marketing practices for Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia, three of its blockbuster drugs.
The company earlier set aisde $3 billion for legal costs tied to health problems that people taking Avandia and the other medicines are at risk of suffering.
Glaxo has already paid more than $700 million to resolve patient lawsuits, alleging Avandia caused heart attacks and strokes. Many of the Avandia cases have been consolidated before a federal judge in Philadelphia.
Who says AMC’s Walking Dead wasn’t preconditioning? Maine prepares for Zombie Apocalypse!
Drills of the dead: Maine prepares for zombie attack
AFP Photo / Kimihiro Hoshino
Emergency officials in Maine have taken part in a training exercise in preparation for a zombie apocalypse. This comes just weeks after the federal government publicly denied the existence of zombies.
Around 100 emergency responders from eight different counties participated in the event in the quiet city of Bangor.
The premise: an unknown virus originating from Jamaica has reached Maine, turning the infected into zombies. Once infected, the virus quickly spreads to the brain, and turns the host into a full-fledged zombie, who has only one thing on its mind: biting other people.
The officials were armed with two would-be vaccines – one to prevent the infection from reaching the brain, and one to bring the zombies back to life.
“We have identified in several states, particularly Texas, New York, Illinois outbreaks of these civil disturbances and biting,” one official said. “And in conjunction with that there are also widespread power outages.”
The event may have been a staged act, with locals playing zombies, but it gave emergency responders an opportunity to prepare for a real life epidemic.
“This gives us the opportunity to do something a little bit different, but it still has the same principles that would apply in a real situation,” Kathy Knight, director of the Northeastern Maine Regional Resource Center told the Bangor Daily News. Emergency workers “need to figure out what they need, how they’re going to respond and how they are going to share their resources to respond to the disaster. They need to know who to go to outside their community to find the resources they don’t have, so it’s a different twist.”
The training exercise comes just several weeks after the US Center for Disease Control publicly denied the existence of zombies.
Rumors of a “zombie apocalypse” have been on the rise after a series of disturbing incidents.
In Florida, police caught a naked man chewing on the face of another person. They eventually shot him dead after unsuccessfully trying to push him away from the victim.
In Maryland, an engineering student allegedly stabbed a man to death and ate his heart and brain.
In Canada, a porn actor was detained on charges that he had killed and dismembered his lover. He is alleged to have recorded a video of himself copulating with some of the body parts, and consuming others. He is also suspected of sending the limbs of the victim to the headquarters of political parties, as well as two schools in Vancouver.
Max Keiser: “The banks are dead.”
Double suicide in Greece because of Euro crisis
Crisis-led suicide epidemic: Greek mother & son jump to death
Crisis-led suicide epidemic: Greek mother & son jump to deathA 60-year-old Greek musician and his 91-year-old mother jumped to their deaths from their 5th floor apartment, driven to despair by financial woes. This double death is the latest in a rising epidemic of crisis-induced suicides in Greece.
Witness accounts vary – some say the mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, jumped first, screaming a prayer as she plummeted to her death. Other neighbors say the mother and her son jumped together, holding hands.
But the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the family had been struggling for a long time. The night before, Antonis Perris posted a suicide note of sorts on a popular Greek forum, saying he had no way of resolving the family’s financial issues.
“The problem is that I didn’t realize that I would need to have cash, because the economic crisis came so suddenly. Even though I have been selling our possessions, we have no cash flow, we have no money to buy food anymore and my credit card is maxed out with 22% interest rate.”
The Golden Rule 