Spot report by OSCE Observer Mission, 16 Nov 2014: Russian convoy of 20 vehicles crossed into Ukraine and returned via Donetsk Border Crossing Point
SUMMARY On 16 November 2014 at 07:25 (Moscow time), a Russian convoy arrived at the Russian Donetsk Border Crossing Point (BCP). A total of 20 vehicles were inspected by the Russian border guard and customs services and then headed into Ukraine. All the vehicles crossed back into the Russian Federation (RF) at 15:12 on the same day. This was the...
Russia, Ukraine, and the Visegrad: Time to Get Real
The crisis in Ukraine has betrayed fault lines in the Visegrad Group. Unless Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic change course, the “golden age” of Central Europe may come to an end. …read more Source: Carnegie Endowment for International...
OSCE introduces best practices of human trafficking prosecution to Ukrainian law enforcers
126747 Andrii Dziubenko …read more Source:...
Statement by OSCE PA human rights chair on the five-year anniversary of the death of Sergei Magnitsky
COPENHAGEN, 14 November 2014 – On the eve of the 5th anniversary of the death of Sergei Magnistky, the Chair of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s human rights committee, Isabel Santos (MP, Portugal), has called for an end to impunity in Russia and greater attention to the persistent link between corruption and human rights transgressions...
Hungary PM Dismisses U.S. Memo on Corruption, Russia’s Arctic Waters a Nuclear Time Bomb
Plus, Lithuania wraps up its probe into the 1991 crackdown and Moldova attacks corruption in preschools. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
OSCE parliamentarians to observe upcoming elections in Moldova
COPENHAGEN, 14 November 2014 – OSCE parliamentarians will observe the upcoming parliamentary elections in Moldova and provide leadership for the OSCE’s short-term observer mission. OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Didier Burkhalter has designated Emin Onen (MP, Turkey) as Special Co-ordinator to lead the short-term OSCE observer mission for the...
President Kanerva decries ‘unacceptable restrictions’ on Ukraine border observers, urges reform before OSCE Permanent Council
COPENHAGEN, 13 November 2014 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ilkka Kanerva (MP, Finland) criticized “unacceptable restrictions” on what OSCE observers on the Ukrainian-Russian border are able to report and called for broad Organizational reform in an address today before the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna. “In order to achieve consensus...
OSCE promotes international exchange of best practices for preventing torture in detention facilities
LVIV, 13 November 2014 – The Fifth East European Conference on National Preventive Mechanisms, co-hosted by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine, the country’s Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and the Kharkiv Institute for Social Researches, started in Lviv today. The two-day will discuss the challenges and practical...
Russia will direct its efforts at supporting instability in the Donbas
With Kyiv lacking the military might to break the rebels by force, Western allies now fear that a large chunk of Ukrainian territory will become a Russian protectorate with a parlous economic future, beyond the writ of the central government, the Reuters reports. “We have now realistically entered the phase of a ‘frozen conflict’,”...
Weekly update from the OSCE Observer Mission at Russian Checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk based on information as of 10:00 (Moscow time), 12 November 2014
SUMMARY KAMENSK-SHAKHTINSKY, Russian Federation, 12 November 2014 – As mandated, the Observer Mission (OM) is operating 24/7 at both BCPs. Overall cross-border traffic flows increased at both Border Crossing Points (BCPs). For the first time since late August, more people entered than left the Russian Federation (RF) at the two observed...
