Mikhail Prokhorov
Mikhail Prokhorov
| Mikhail Prokhorov | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 3, 1965 (age 45) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | |
| Alma mater | Moscow Finance Institute |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Net worth | |
| Height | 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) [2] |
Mikhail Dmitrievitch Prokhorov (Russian: Михаил Дмитриевич Прохоров; born May 3, 1965) is a Russian billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the New Jersey Nets. After graduating from the Moscow Finance Institute he made his name in the financial sector and went on to become one of Russia’s leading industrialists in the precious metals sector. While he was running Norilsk Nickel, the company became the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium. He is currently chairman of Polyus Gold, Russia’s largest gold producer, and President of ONEXIM Group.
Prokhorov is the second richest man from Russia and the 39th richest man in the world according to the 2010 Forbes list with an estimated fortune of $13.4 billion.[3][4]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Career
In 1989, Prokhorov graduated with honors from the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation, known at the time as the Moscow Finance Institute. From 1989 to 1992, Prokhorov worked in a management position at the International Bank for Economic Cooperation, and afterwards shortly served as head of Management Board of the International Finance Company (MFK). In 1993, aged 28, during the largely un-regulated privatization of former state-controlled industries after the fall of Communism, Prokhorov (together with Vladimir Potanin) engineered the acquisition of Norilsk Nickel by Onexim Bank, of which he was then chairman of the board.[citation needed]
[edit] Norilsk Nickel
Mikhail Prokhorov (Right-center)
Mikhail Prokhorov (Center)
Prokhorov has been credited with transforming Norilsk from an inefficient conglomerate into one of the largest and most profitable natural resource corporations in the world.[citation needed] After selling off most of its non-mining assets, he moved to modernize a complicated, expensive business venture which required icebreakers to transport metal over the frozen Arctic region. Prokhorov invested in an innovative Finnish freighter that did not require icebreakers.[citation needed]
Norilsk Nickel is headquartered in the Siberian city of the same name. Environmental and labor conditions are harsh there, and pollution remains a problem; Prokhorov has invested heavily in pollution control. He converted Norilsk Nickel’s gold-mining interests into the $8.5 billion corporation Polyus Gold, Russia’s largest gold producer, of which he is chairman of the board.[citation needed]
Prokhorov resigned as Norilsk CEO in February 2007 and declared his intention to separate his assets from those of long-time partner Vladimir Potanin. The two engaged in protracted negotiations to separate the conglomerate Interros, co-owned by the two, into separate holdings.[5] By the end of 2009, the only major asset jointly owned by the two remains the development company JSC Open Investments, which is hard to value due to a volatile situation on the Moscow real estate market.[citation needed]
[edit] ONEXIM Group
In May 2007, following the decision to exit Interros, Prokhorov launched the private investment fund ONEXIM Group, with assets valued at $17 billion at the time. As the de-merger from Interros proceeded, and as other industries caught Prokhorov’s attention, the group rapidly changed its investment profile. In April 2008, Prokhorov sold his most valuable asset – a 25% plus two shares stake in Norilsk Nickel – to United Company RUSAL, another mining conglomerate controlled by fellow billionaire Oleg Deripaska, in exchange for some 14% of Rusal stock, about $5 billion in cash and an obligation to pay over $2 billion more.[citation needed]
In retrospect, the deal has been singled out as a major success for Prokhorov: only three months later, following a dip in oil prices, a disastrous stock market crash halved the value of most Russian companies, including Norilsk. Prokhorov emerged as one of the very few businessmen to have cashed out in time. However, his wealth has also been affected, as the value of his remaining interests in various companies (including Rusal and Open Investments) declined sharply, and as the remaining payment from Rusal had to be postponed.[citation needed]
In September, 2008, ONEXIM Group acquired 50% of Renaissance Capital.,[6] a major Russian investment bank which has reportedly encountered liquidity problems. ONEXIM also purchased a small bank, renaming it IFC in honour of the bank that Prokhorov ran in the early nineties.
One of ONEXIM Group’s divisions focuses on the development of nanotechnology investing in high-technology projects such as white LEDs. One of the key areas of development is the production of materials with ultra–tiny structures used in energy generation and medicine. In that purpose in 2008 ONEXIM purchased Optogan.[citation needed]
In June 2007, then-Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov announced the formation of the Government Council for Nanotechnology, to oversee the development of nanotechnology in the country. Prokhorov was one of 15 individuals appointed to the council, which was to be chaired by then-First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.[citation needed] Another high-profile venture is the media group “JV!”, led by the founder of Kommersant Vladimir Yakovlev, which among other things publishes two expensive magazines targeted at the rich and successful (Snob and Russian pioneer).[citation needed]
In July 2009, the shareholders of RBC Information Systems agreed with ONEXIM Group of Mikhail Prokhorov to sell the latest issue of the additional 51% stake for $ 80 million, half of which goes to pay debts. The deal was closed in 2010.
Prokhorov has business interests in mining and metallurgy (Polyus Gold, stake in Rusal), financial services (IFC-Bank, Soglassye insurance company, half of Renaissance Capital), utilities (stake in Quadra), nanotech, media (JV!) and real estate development (stake in Open Investments).
[edit] Sports and patronage
In March 2004 he founded the Cultural Initiatives Foundation (as part of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation). It is headed by Prokhorov’s elder sister, Irina, a prominent Russian publisher.
At one time, he financially supported CSKA Moscow‘s basketball, hockey and football clubs, and is a member of the Supreme Council of the Sport Russia organisation.[citation needed] Prokhorov currently serves as president of the Russian Biathlon Union.
In September 2009 he made an offer to buy a controlling interest in the New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association and half of a project to build a new arena in Brooklyn. He will invest nearly $250 million and become the first non-North American and tallest (he stands 6’8″) NBA owner.[7] On May 11, 2010, the NBA approved the sale of the Nets to Prokhorov, making him majority owner of the team with an 80% stake. He will also own a 45% interest in the Nets’ new Barclays Center.[8][9]
[edit] Controversy
At a Christmas party for the Russian rich at the French Alpine resort of Courchevel in January 2007, he was arrested for allegedly arranging prostitutes for his guests.[10] After four days he was released without charge.[11] In September 2009, Prokhorov was officially cleared from this charge and the judicial case was dismissed.[12] According to his blog,[13] he even received apologies from French officials during his visit to France in November 2009.
Prokhorov made headlines in early March 2010 when he was forced to forfeit a £36 million deposit he placed on the £360 million Villa Leopolda in the French Riviera in 2008. Under French property law, once an initial sale contract has been signed, a deposit can only be refunded during a seven day cooling-off period. On March 2, 2010, a court in Nice, France ruled that the villa’s owner, 71-year-old Lily Safra, widow of deceased billionaire banker Edmund Safra, could keep the £36 million deposit, plus £1 million in interest.[14]
[edit] Awards
In August 2006 he was awarded the Order of Friendship for his significant contribution to the growth of Russia’s economic potential, when the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, signed an order for the granting of state honours on August 18, 2006.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Forbes Billionaire List Forbes.com. Accessed March 2010.
- ^ Mikhail Prokhorov’s Childhood Nickname Was Giraffe!
- ^ Forbes Billionaire List Forbes.com] Forbes.com. Accessed March 2010.
- ^ Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/profile/Mikhail-Prokhorov.
- ^ Prokhorov, Potanin to split Interros assets, St-Petersburg Times, February 2, 2007
- ^ Prokhorov Acquires Half of RenCap
- ^ Bagli, Charles V. (September 23, 2009). “Richest Russian’s Newest Toy: An N.B.A. Team”. New York Times. “A Russian tycoon with a longstanding passion for basketball agreed to a $200 million deal on Wednesday that would make him the principal owner of the New Jersey Nets and a key investor in the team’s proposed new home in Brooklyn.”
- ^ http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2010/05/nba_board_of_governors_approve.html
- ^ http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/nba/news/story?id=5181478
- ^ Bryanski, Gleb (January 12, 2007). “French spoil party for Russia’s super-rich ski set”. Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-03-29. “French police held Mikhail Prokhorov, co-owner of the world’s biggest nickel producer with an estimated fortune of $7.6 billion, after he was detained with a group of young women in an upmarket Courchevel hotel on Tuesday.”
- ^ Süddeutsche:Russen im Wintersport
- ^ “France drops prostitution case against Russia’s richest man” Sydney Morning Herald, September 29, 2009
- ^ Blog
- ^ Sparks, Ian (March 3, 2010). “Russian billionaire loses £36m deposit he put down on the world’s most expensive home… plus another £1m interest”. Daily Mail (London). Retrieved 2010-03-29. “A Russian billionaire has lost a £36 million deposit he paid to buy the most expensive house in the world on the French riviera, plus another £1,000,000 interest. Basically He is the man.”
[edit] External links
- Forbes billionaire topic page on Mikhail Prokhorov. Forbes.com. Accessed April 2010.
- Article about his January 12, 2007 arrest
- Kommersant article about standing down as General Director of Norilsk Nickel
- “Mikhail Prokhorov: The Russian Is Coming,” 60 Minutes, CBS, March 28, 2010
- “The N.B.A.’s Oligarch and His Power Games,” The New York Times Magazine, October 28, 2010
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Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
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| Mikhail Khodorkovsky | |
 Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2001 |
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Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy of Russia
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| In office 1993[citation needed] – 1993[citation needed] |
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| Born | 26 June 1963 (age 47) Moscow, Soviet Union |
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| Spouse(s) | Inna |
Khodorkovsky with then President of Russia Vladimir Putin on 20 December 2002
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (Russian: Михаи́л Бори́сович Ходорко́вский, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil xədɐˈrkofskʲɪj]; born 26 June 1963 in Moscow) is a Russian oligarch[1][2] and businessman. In 2004, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia, and was 16th on Forbes list of billionaires, although much of his wealth evaporated because of the collapse in the value of his holding in the Russian petroleum company Yukos.[citation needed]
On 25 October 2003, Khodorkovsky was arrested at Novosibirsk airport by the Russian prosecutor general’s office on charges of fraud. Shortly thereafter, on 31 October, the government under Vladimir Putin froze shares of Yukos because of tax charges. The Russian Government took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse in the share price. It purported to sell a major asset of Yukos in December 2004.
On 31 May 2005, Khodorkovsky was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to nine years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 8 years. In 2003, prior to his arrest, Khodorkovsky funded several Russian parties, including Yabloko, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and even, allegedly, the pro-Kremlin United Russia.
In October 2005 he was moved into prison camp number 13 in the city of Krasnokamensk, Zabaykalsky Krai.
In March 2006, Forbes magazine surmised that Khodorkovsky’s personal fortune had declined to a fraction of its former level, stating that he “still has somewhere below $500 m.”[3]
On 31 March 2009, a new trial of Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev began in Moscow for fresh charges on embezzlement and money laundering, and continues to the present day.[4] The two men face up to 22 more years in prison. On 27 December 2010, a judge found both men guilty of the charges laid against them in 2009. In October, prosecutors asked for a 14 year sentence but indicated that it should include time already served. This would mean that Khodorkovsky and his partner could remain in jail until 2017; however, Khodorkovsky’s defense have vowed to appeal the sentence.[5] Suggesting that the legal process was only ‘gloss’, the US has described his trial as ‘lipstick on a political pig’.[6]
[edit] Early years and entrepreneurship in Soviet Union
- Early life
Khodorkovsky grew up in an ordinary Soviet family in a two-room apartment in Moscow. He has a Jewish father and a Christian mother. The young Khodorkovsky was ambitious. He received excellent grades. He then attempted and succeeded in building a career as a communist functionary. He became deputy head of Komsomol (the Communist Youth League) at his university, the Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemistry and Technology, where he graduated in chemical engineering in 1986.[7] The Komsomol career was one of the ways to get into the ranks of communist apparatchiks and to achieve the highest possible living standards.[8]
After perestroika started, Khodorkovsky used his connections within the communist structures to gain a foothold in the developing free market. He used the help of some powerful people to start his business activities under the cover of Komsomol. Friendship with another Komsomol leader, Alexey Golubovich, helped him greatly in his further success, since Golubovich’s parents held top positions in the State Bank of the USSR.[8]
- Café and trading
With partners from Komsomol, and technically operating under its authority, Khodorkovsky opened his first business in 1986, a private café; an enterprise made possible by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev‘s programme of perestroika and glasnost. In 1987 they opened a “Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity of the Youth” (which eventually allowed him to found the bank Menatep[9]). In addition to importing and reselling computers, the “scientific” center was involved in trading a wide range of other products; French brandy, Swiss vodka. It is alleged that these goods were mostly counterfeit: “Swiss” vodka was produced in Poland, and the brandy was not French[citation needed].
By 1988, he had built an import-export business with a turnover of 80 million rubles a year (about $10 million USD).
- Banking
Armed with cash from his business operations, Khodorkovsky and his partners used their international connections to obtain a banking licence to create Bank Menatep in 1989. As one of Russia’s first privately owned banks, Menatep expanded quickly, by using most of the deposits raised to finance Khodorkovsky’s successful import-export operations.
Bank Menatep was also successful in forcing the government to award them the right to manage funds allocated for the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Because of its “exempt status”, the bank allegedly might have been an extremely convenient vehicle for the evasion of tax and import duties. By 1990, critics suggest the bank was active in facilitating the large-scale theft of Soviet Treasury funds that went on at the time prior to and following the collapse of the USSR in 1991.[citation needed]
In a prophetic statement of the time, Khodorkovsky is quoted as saying:[8]
Many years later I talked with people and asked them, why didn’t you start doing the same thing? Why didn’t you go into it? Because any head of an institute had more possibilities than I had, by an order of magnitude. They explained that they had all gone through the period when the same system was allowed. And then, at best, people were unable to succeed in their career and, at worst, found themselves in jail. They were all sure that would be the case this time, and that is why they did not go into it. And I” —Khodorkovsky lets out a big, broad laugh at the memory— “I did not remember this! I was too young! And I went for it.
Khodorkovsky’s connections with Komsomol and CPSU structures would prove critical in his success.
[edit] Political ambitions
Khodorkovsky also became a philanthropist, whose efforts include the provision of internet-training centres for teachers, a forum for the discussion by journalists of reform and democracy, and the establishment of foundations which finance archaeological digs, cultural exchanges, summer camps for children and a boarding school for orphans.[10][11] Khodorkovsky’s critics saw this as political posturing, in light of his funding of several political parties ahead of the elections for the State Duma to be held in late 2003.
He is openly critical of what he refers to as ‘managed democracy’ within Russia. Careful normally not to criticise the elected leadership, he says the military and security services exercise too much authority. He told The Times:
- “It is the Singapore model, it is a term that people understand in Russia these days. It means that theoretically you have a free press, but in practice there is self-censorship. Theoretically you have courts; in practice the courts adopt decisions dictated from above. Theoretically there are civil rights enshrined in the constitution; in practice you are not able to exercise some of these rights.”
[edit] Merging with Sibneft
In April 2003, Khodorkovsky announced that Yukos would merge with Sibneft, creating an oil company with reserves equal to those of Western petroleum multinationals. Khodorkovsky had been reported to be negotiating with ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco about them taking a large stake in Yukos. Sibneft was created in 1995, at the suggestion of Boris Berezovsky, comprising some of the most valuable assets of a state-owned oil company. In a controversial auction process, Berezovsky acquired 50% of the company at what most agree was a very low price.[citation needed]
When Berezovsky had a confrontation with Putin, and felt compelled to leave Russia for London (where he was granted asylum) he assigned his shares in Sibneft to Roman Abramovich. Abramovich subsequently agreed to the merger.
With 19.5 billion barrels (3 km³) of oil and gas, the merged entity would have owned the second-largest oil and gas reserves in the world after ExxonMobil and would have been the fourth largest in the world in terms of production, pumping 2.3 million barrels (370,000 m³) of crude a day. However, the merger had been recalled by the shareholders of Sibneft after the arrest of Khodorkovsky.
[edit] Prosecution
In early July 2003, Platon Lebedev, a Khodorkovsky partner and second largest shareholder in Yukos, was arrested on suspicion of illegally acquiring a stake in a state-owned fertiliser firm, Apatit, in 1994.[citation needed] The arrest was followed by investigations into taxation returns filed by Yukos, and a delay to the antitrust commission’s approval for its merger with Sibneft.[citation needed]
Khodorkovsky was himself arrested in October 2003, charged with fraud and tax evasion. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office claims Khodorkovsky and his associates cost the state more than $1 billion in lost revenues.[citation needed]
Subsequent to Khodorkovsky’s arrest, Leonid Nevzlin gained a controlling stake in Yukos when Khodorkovsky handed him a 60% share in the holding company that controlled the firm.[12] Nevzlin is himself now wanted in Russia and has since fled to Israel.[citation needed]
On 31 March 2009, a new trial of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev began in Moscow for fresh charges on embezzlement and money laundering. The two men face up to 22 more years in prison.[13] Khodorkovsky refused to enter a plea, claiming that he did not understand the charges.[14] In May 2010, Mikhail Kasyanov, who became an opposition figure after serving as Putin’s prime minister from 2000 to 2004, told the court that Putin, while president, had been angered by Khodorkovsky’s support of the Communist Party together with liberal Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces. [15]
[edit] Impact of arrest
Initially news of Khodorkovsky’s arrest had a significant effect on the share price of Yukos. The Moscow stock market was closed for the first time ever for an hour in order to assure stable trading as prices collapsed. Russia’s currency, the ruble, was also hit as some foreign investors questioned the stability of the Russian market. Media reaction in Moscow was almost universally negative in blanket coverage, some of the more enthusiastic pro-business press discussed the end of capitalism, while even the government-owned press criticised the “absurd” method of Khodorkovsky’s arrest.
Yukos moved quickly to replace Khodorkovsky with Russian born U.S. citizen Simon Kukes. Simon Kukes, who became the CEO of Yukos, was already an experienced oil executive.
The U.S. State Department said the arrest “raised a number of concerns over the arbitrary use of the judicial system” and was likely to be very damaging to foreign investment in Russia, as it appeared there were “selective” prosecutions occurring against Yukos officials but not against others.
A week after the arrest, the Prosecutor-General froze Khodorkovsky’s shares in Yukos to prevent Khodorkovsky from selling his shares although he retains all the shares’ voting rights and to receive dividends.
Khodorkovsky’s arrest alarmed foreign investors and policymakers alike.
In 2003 Khodorkovsky’s shares in Yukos passed to Jacob Rothschild under a deal they concluded prior to Khodorkovsky’s arrest.[16][17]
[edit] Criminal charges
Prosecutors stated that they operated independently of the government appointed by President Putin. The Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov was appointed by former President Yeltsin and was not seen as being particularly close to Putin, who once tried to remove him. However, he was politically ambitious and prosecuting Russia’s most prominent and successful tycoon was perceived as a boost to his political career and intended candidacy for the Duma.
The criminal charges against Khodorkovsky read as follows:
In 1994, while chairman of the board of the Menatep commercial bank in Moscow, M. B. Khodorkovsky created an organized group of individuals with the intention of taking control of the shares in Russian companies during the privatisation process through deceit and in the process of committing this crime managed the activities of this company.
Khodorkovsky was charged with acting illegally in the privatisation process of the former state-owned mining and fertiliser company Apatit. It is alleged that the CEO of Bank Menatep and large shareholder in Yukos Platon Lebedev assisted Khodorkovsky. Lebedev was arrested and charged in July 2003.
According to the prosecution, all four companies that participated in the privatization tender for 20% of Apatit’s stock in 1994 were shell companies controlled by Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, registered to create an illusion of competitive bidding that was required by the law. One of the shell companies that won that tender (AOZT Volna) was supposed to invest about US$280 million in Apatit during the next year, according to their winning bid. The investment was not made and Apatit sued to return their 20% of stock. At this point, Khodorkovsky et al. had transferred the required sum into Apatit’s account at Khodorkovsky’s bank Menatep and sent the financial documents to the court, so Apatit’s lawsuit was thrown out. The very next day the money was transferred back from Apatit’s account to Volna’s account. After that the stock was sold off by Volna in small installments to several smaller shell companies, which were, in turn, owned by more Khodorkovsky-owned companies in a complicated web of relationships. Literally dozens of companies were registered for these purposes in Cyprus, Isle of Man, British Virgin Islands, Turks & Caicos and other offshore havens. Volna actually settled the Apatit lawsuit in 2002 by paying $15 million to the privatization authorities, even though it did not own Apatit stock anymore at the time. However, according to the prosecution, that $15 million sum was based on the incorrect valuation which was too low. Allegedly, at the time Apatit was selling off the fertilizers it was producing to multiple Khodorkovsky-owned shell companies below market value, and, therefore, Apatit formally did not have much profit, lowering its valuation. Those shell companies then resold the fertilizer at the market value, generating pure profit for Khodorkovsky, Lebedev and others.
In addition, prosecutors conducted an extensive investigation into Yukos for offences that went beyond the financial and tax-related charges. Reportedly there were three cases of murder and one of attempted murder linked to Yukos, if not Khodorkovsky himself.
One area of interest to the Prosecutor-General included the 1998 assassination of the mayor of Nefteyugansk in the Tyumen region, Vladimir Petukhov. Nefteyugansk was the main centre of oil production within the Yukos empire. Suspicions arose in Nefteyugansk because Petukhov had publicly and frequently campaigned about Yukos’ non-payment of local taxes.
President Putin himself commented on this aspect of the investigation while questioned about the investigation into Yukos in September 2003. President Putin said:
The case is about Yukos and the possible links of individuals to murders in the course of the merging and expansion of this company…the privatizations are the least of the reasons for it…in such a case, how can I interfere with prosecutors’ work?
The verdict of the trial, repeating the prosecutors’ indictments almost verbatim, was 662 pages long. As is customary in Russian trials, the judges read the verdict aloud, beginning on 16 May 2005 and finishing on 31 May. Khodorkovsky’s lawyers alleged that it was read as slowly as possible to minimize public attention*.[18]
Khodorkovsky was defended by Karinna Moskalenko, who now faces being disbarred by the Russian government for her alleged negligence in defending him. Khodorkovsky denies being dissatisfied with her conduct.
[edit] Third party support
Khodorkovsky has received a high level of independent third party support from groups and individuals who believe the process, charges, and two trials against him are politically motivated.[19] On 29 Nov. 2004, The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights published a report which concluded “he Assembly considers that the circumstances of the arrest and prosecution of leading Yukos executives suggest that the interest of the State’s action in these cases goes beyond the mere pursuit of criminal justice, to include such elements as to weaken an outspoken political opponent, to intimidate other wealthy individuals and to regain control of strategic economic assets.”[20]
In June 2009 the Council of Europe published a report which criticized the Russian government’s handling of the Yukos case, entitled “Allegations of Politically Motivated Abuses of the Criminal Justice System in Council of Europe Member States”[21]
“The Yukos affair epitomises this authoritarian abuse of the system. I wish to recall here the excellent work done by Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, in her two reports2 on this subject. I do not intend to comment on the ins and outs of this case which saw Yukos, a privately owned oil company, made bankrupt and broken up for the benefit of the stateowned company Rosneft. The assets were bought at auction by a rather obscure financial group, Baikalfinansgroup, for almost €7 billion. It is still not known who is behind this financial group. A number of experts believe that the state-owned company Gazprom had a hand in the matter. The former heads of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, were sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for fraud and tax evasion. Vasiliy Aleksanyan, former vice-chairman of the company, who is suffering from Aids, was released on bail in January 2009 after being held in inhuman conditions condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.3 Lastly, Svetlana Bakhmina, deputy head of Yukos’s legal department, who was sentenced in 2005 to six and a half years’ imprisonment for tax fraud, saw her application for early release turned down in October 2008, even though she had served half of her sentence, had expressed “remorse” and was seven months pregnant. Thanks to the support of thousands of people around the world and the personal intervention of the United States President, George W. Bush, she was released in April 2009 after giving birth to a girl on 28 November 2008.”
Statements of support for Khodorkovsky and criticism of the state’s persecution have been passed by the Italian Parliament, the German Bundestag, and the U.S. House of Representatives, among many other official bodies.[22]
In June 2010, Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Elie Wiesel began a campaign to raise awareness of the Khodorkovsky trial and advocate for his release.[23]
In November 2010, Amnesty International Germany began a petition campaign demanding that President Medvedev get an independent review of all criminal charges against Khodorkovsky, to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights.[24]
[edit] In prison
On 30 May 2005, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was sentenced to 9 years in a medium security prison. At the time, he was detained in Moscow prison Matrosskaya Tishina.
On 1 August 2005, a political essay written by Khodorkovsky in his prison cell, titled “Left Turn”, was published in Vedomosti, calling for a turn to more social responsible state. He stated that: “The next Russian administration will have to include the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Motherland Party, or the historical successors to these parties. The left-wing liberals, including Yabloko, and right-wing Ryzhkov, Khakamada and others should decide whether to join the broad social-democratic coalition or to remain grumpy and without relevance on the political sidelines. In my opinion, they have to join because only the broadest composition of a coalition in which liberal-socialist (social-democratic) views will play the key role can save us from the emergence, in the process of this turn to the left turn, from a new ultra-authoritarian regime. The new Russian authorities will have to address a left-wing agenda and meet an irrepressible demand by the people for justice. This will mean in the first instance the problems of legalizing privatization and restoring paternalistic programs and approaches in several areas.”[25]
On 19 August 2005, Khodorkovsky announced that he was on a hunger strike in protest at his friend and associate Platon Lebedev‘s placement in the punishment cell of the jail. According to Khodorkovsky, Lebedev had Diabetes mellitus and heart conditions, and keeping him in the punishment cell would be equivalent to murder.
On 31 August 2005, he announced that he would run for parliament.[26] This initiative was based on the legal loophole: a convicted felon cannot vote or stand for a parliament, but if his case is lodged with the Court of Appeal he still has all the electoral rights. This “loophole,” or alternatively, ordinary provision of appellate procedure, is a common practice in US federal and state court. Usually it requires around a year to get somebody’s appeal through the Appeal Court, so it should have been enough time for Khodorkovsky to be elected. To imprison a member of Russian parliament, the parliament should vote for stripping his or her immunity. Thus, he had a hope to escape from his prosecution. But the plans were flawed, as the Court of Appeal unusually took only a couple of weeks to process Khodorkovsky’s appeal, reduce his sentence by one year and invalidate any of his electoral plans until the end of his sentence.
As reported on 20 October 2005, Khodorkovsky was delivered to the labor camp YaG-14/10 (Исправительное учреждение общего режима ЯГ-14/10) of the town of Krasnokamensk near Chita.[27] The labor camp is attached to a uranium mining and processing plant and during Soviet times had a reputation as a place from which nobody returned alive.[citation needed] According to news reports, currently the prisoners are not used in uranium mining and have much better chances of survival than in the past. The second part of Khodorkovsky essay/thesis “Left Turn” was published in Kommersant on 11 November 2005, in which he expounded his socialist manifesto.[28]
On 13 April 2006, Khodorkovsky was attacked by a prison mate while he was asleep. It was speculated that a prison mate tried to disfigure his face but not to kill him. Jail sources told reporters that a fellow prisoner Alexander Kuchma attacked him after a heated conversation. Western media immediately accused the Russian authorities of trying to play down the incident. In January 2009, the same prisoner filed a lawsuit for 500,000 rubles (~$15,000) against Khodorkovsky, accusing him of homosexual harassment.[29]
On 5 February 2007, new charges of embezzlement and money laundering were brought against both Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.[30] Khodorkovsky’s supporters point out that the charges come just months before Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were to become eligible for parole, as well as just a year before the next Russian presidential election.[citation needed]
On 28 January 2008, Khodorkovsky started a hunger strike[31] to help his associate Vasily Aleksanyan, who is ill and was held in jail and who was denied the necessary medical treatment. Aleksanyan was transferred from a pre-trial prison to an oncological hospital on 8 February 2008,[32] after which Khodorkovsky called off his strike.[33]
While Khodorkovsky was imprisoned, Arvo Pärt, the Estonian composer, wrote his latest symphony, Symphony no. 4, and dedicated it to Mikhail. The symphony was premiered on 10 January 2009 in Los Angeles at Walt Disney Concert Hall conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
In prison, Khodorkovsky announced that he would research for, and prepare, a PhD dissertation on the topic of Russian oil policy.[citation needed] The third part of Khodorkovsky’s essay/thesis “Left Turn” with the subheading “Global Perestroika” was published in Vedomosti on 7 November 2008, in which he stated: “Barack Obama‘s victory in the US presidential elections is not simply the latest change of power in one individual country, albeit a superpower. We are standing on the threshold of a change in the paradigm of world development. The era whose foundations were laid by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher three decades ago is ending. Unconditionally including myself in that part of society that has liberal views, I see: ahead – is a Turn to the Left.”[34][35]
In May 2010 Khodorkovsky went on a three-day hunger-strike to protest what he said was a violation of the recent law against imprisonment of person accused of financial crimes. The law was pushed by President Medvedev after the death of Sergei Magnitsky who died in pre-trial detention in a Moscow prison in 2008.[36]
[edit] Political transformation
After six years in prison, observers have argued that Khodorkovsky has been transformed from an oligarch into a martyr: “He speaks with the authority of a chief executive of what was once Russia’s largest oil company. He explains how Yukos and Russia’s oil industry functioned, but he goes beyond business matters. What he is defending is not his long-lost business, but his human rights. The transformation of Mr Khodorkovsky from a ruthless oligarch, operating in a virtually lawless climate, into a political prisoner and freedom fighter is one of the more intriguing tales in post-communist Russia.”[37]
The political transformation of Khodorkovsky is cited in many of his writings from prison. On 26 October 2009, he published a response to Dmitri Medvedev’s “Forward, Russia!” article in Vedomosti, arguing that “authoritarianism in its current Russian form does not meet many key humanitarian requirements customary for any country that wishes to consider itself modern and European.”[38]
On 28 January 2010, Khodorkovsky authored an opinion article in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune, which argued that “Russia must make a historic choice. Either we turn back from the dead end toward which we have been heading in recent years – and we do it soon – or else we continue in this direction and Russia in its current form simply ceases to exist.”[39]
On 3 March 2010, Khodorkovsky wrote an article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta about the “conveyor belt” of Russian justice. In this article, he warns that “siloviki conveyor belt, which has undermined justice is truly the gravedigger of modern Russian statehood. Because it turns many thousands of the country’s most active, sensible and independent citizens against this statehood – with enviable regularity.”[40]
[edit] Release date
According to his official site, Khodorkovsky would have been eligible for early release, but an alleged conspiracy involving jail guards and a cell mate resulted in a statement that Mikhail had violated one of the prison rules. The statement was false, but it was sufficient to make Khordorkovsky lose his rights, once the statement was logged in his file.[41]
It is predicted that he might be released by the middle of 2011,[42] although Khodorkovsky has been found guilty (27 December 2010) of fresh charges of embezzlement and money laundering, which could lead to a new sentence of up to 22 years. He alleged that both cases were instigated by Igor Sechin. “The second as well as the first case were organized by Igor Sechin,” the tycoon claimed in an interview with The Sunday Times from a remand prison in the Siberian city of Chita, 4,000 miles (6,400 km) east of Moscow.[41]
On 22 August 2008, he was denied parole by Judge Igor Faliliyev, at the Ingodinsky regional court in Chita, Siberia. The basis for this was in part because Khodorkovsky “refused to attend jail sewing classes”.[43]
In the second trial, the prosecutors have asked the judge for a 14-year sentence, which is just one year less than the maximum. Taking into account the time already served, Khodorkovsky would not be released until 2017 if the judge hands down the requested sentence. The next court date for the judge’s decision was set for 15 Dec. 2010.[44] However, without any notice and no reason given, the verdict was deferred until 27 December 2010, potentially to decrease Western media coverage of the court proceedings.
[edit] Final Words from Second Trial
On 2 Nov. 2010, Mikhail Khodorkovsky delivered his final words to the court in the closing of the second trial. The speech, which has received significant media coverage, included the following passages:[45]
- I am ashamed for my country.
- Your honour, I think we all perfectly understand the significance of our trial extends far beyond the fates of Platon [Lebedev] and myself. And even beyond the fates of all those who have innocently suffered in the course of the reprisals against YUKOS that have taken place on such a huge scale, those I found myself unable to protect, but about whom I have not forgotten. I remember every day.
- Let’s ask ourselves, what does the entrepreneur, the top class organizer of production, or simply an educated, creative individual, think today looking at our trial and knowing that the result is absolutely predictable?
- The obvious conclusion a thinking person would come to is chilling in its simplicity: the bureaucratic and law enforcement machine can do whatever it wants. There is no right of private property. No person who conflicts with the “system” has any rights whatsoever.
- Even when enshrined in law, rights are not protected by the courts. Because the courts are either also afraid, or are part of the “system”. Does it come as a surprise that thinking people do not strive to realize themselves here in Russia?
He continued:
- I am far from being an ideal person, but I am a person with an idea. For me, as for anybody, it is hard to live in prison, and I do not want to die here.
- But if I have to, I will have no hesitation. What I believe in is worth dying for. I think I have shown this.
In response to Khodorkovsky’s speech, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera wrote,[46] “I have never been so moved by the words of a businessman. (…) It should make no difference that he was once rich and once an oligarch. What matters is that Mikhail Khodorkovsky is fighting for political freedom and the rule of law, putting his life on the line for ideals we claim to hold dear.”
Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl argued[47] that “Khodorkovsky delivered what is likely to stand as a historic indictment of the Putin-Medvedev regime. (…) Because he is an entrepreneur and not a poet, Khodorkovsky was regarded skeptically for many years by the sort of people who usually defend Russian dissidents. That’s no longer true: Elie Wiesel is campaigning for him; Nobel-winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa and French philosopher Andre Glucksmann have taken up his case. The U.S. Senate, prompted by Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin and Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker, passed a resolution saying Khodorkovsy and Lebedev ‘are prisoners who have been denied basic due process rights under international law for political reasons.'”
[edit] See also
- Leonid Nevzlin (one of the key figures in the Yukos oil firm headed by Mikhail Khodorkovsky)
[edit] References
- ^ Khodorkovsky: an oligarch undone – BBC News, 31 May 2005
- ^ Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky goes on trial for second time – The Telegraph, 3 Mar 2009
- ^ Forbes reports billionaire boom, BBC News, 10 March 2006. Retrieved 6 June 2008.
- ^ [1] Foreign Policy, May/June 2010
- ^ [2] CNN, December 2010
- ^ “WikiLeaks: rule of law in Mikhail Khodorkovsky trial merely ‘gloss'”. The Guardian. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ Gessen, Keith (25 February 2010). “Cell Block Four”. Archive. LRB. Retrieved 4 March 2010.
- ^ a b c Hoffman, David (2002). The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. New York: PublicAffairs. pp. 100–126.
- ^ “p. 116”. Google. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ Harding, Luke (1 November 2009). “Mother of jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky calls for UK help”. The Observer (London: Guardian News and Media). Retrieved 4 March 2010.
- ^ Reitschuster, Boris (15 September 2008). Focus (Munich: Hubert Burda Media): p. 156. http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2008/09/focus_mikhail_khodorkovskys_or.htm. Retrieved 4 March 2010.
- ^ [3][dead link]
- ^ [4][dead link]
- ^ “Russian oligarch refuses to enter plea on new charges”. The Daily Telegraph (London). 21 April 2009. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
- ^ “Reuters attribution .. link to article”. Reuters. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ “Arrested oil tycoon passed shares to banker”. Washington Times. 2 November 2003. Retrieved 26 October 2008.
- ^ Russian tycoon ‘names successor’, BBC News, 14 July 2003. Retrieved 6 June 2008.
- ^ Levin, Josh. Why Are Russian Verdicts So Long?: They can take two weeks to read, Slate Magazine, 16 May 2006. Retrieved 6 June 2008.
- ^ Supporters around the World – Khodorkovsky Center
- ^ “Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l’Europe”. Assembly.coe.int. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ “edoc12038_visad” (PDF). Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ Global Leaders – Khodorkovsky Center
- ^ “Wiesel Kicks Off Campaign To Free Khodorkovsky – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2010”. Rferl.org. 25 June 2010. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ [5]
- ^ “Left Turn”, Vedomosti, 1 August 2005
- ^ Khodorkovsky to stand for Dumas, CNN, 31 August 2005. Retrieved 6 June 2008.
- ^ “Lenta.ru: б пНЯЯХХ: уНДНПЙНБЯЙНЦН “ПЮЯОПЕДЕКХКХ” Б 8 НРПЪД “СПЮМНБНИ” ЙНКНМХХ”. Old.lenta.ru. Retrieved 26 October 2008.
- ^ “Left Turn – 2”, Khodorkovsky Center, 11 November 2005
- ^ “Gay claim by Khodorkovsky’s ex-cellmate adjourned to Feb. 25 | Russia | RIA Novosti”. En.rian.ru. 16 January 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ New fraud charges in Yukos case, BBC News, 5 February 2007. Retrieved 6 June 2008.
- ^ “Михаил Ходорковский объявил голодовку в знак солидарности с Василием Алексаняном // Прессцентр Михаила Ходорковского и Платона Лебедева”. Khodorkovsky.ru. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ Echo of Moscow, Бывший вице-президент “ЮКОСа” Алексанян переведен из СИЗО в специализированную клинику (Former Yukos vice-president transferred from pre-trial prison to hospital), 8.02.08 (Russian)
- ^ Statement M.[dead link] Khodorkovsky, 11 Feb 2008
- ^ Khodorkovsky, Mikhail (7 November 2008). “Новый социализм: Левый поворот – 3. Глобальная perestroika” (in Russian). Vedomosti, 211(2233). Retrieved 19 April 2010.
- ^ “A Turn to the Left – 3: Global Perestroika”, Khodorkovsky Center, 7 November 2008 (English translation)
- ^ “Khodorkovsky hunger strike lasts three days”. Russia Time. 22 May 2010.
- ^ [6], The Economist, 22 April 2010
- ^ Khodorkovsky’s Opinion Editorial in Vedomosti: Generation M, Khodorkovsky Center
- ^ Khodorkovsky, Mikhail B. (29 January 2010). “A Time and a Place for Russia”. The New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
- ^ Khodorkovsky: Conveyor Belt of Russian Justice Legalizes Abuse – Khodorkovsky Center
- ^ a b Statements: ‘I’m constantly reminded that I’m in jail until further notice’ – Press Centre for Defence Attorneys of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, 18 May 2008
- ^ Platon Lebedev. “Khordorkovsky Regressive Counter”. Khodorkovsky.info. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ “In brief: Clark Rockefeller; Kashmir; Somalia; Karadzic; Iraq”. The Times (London). 23 August 2008. Retrieved 26 October 2008.
- ^ [7][dead link]
- ^ “Mikhail Khodorkovsky: final trial speech”. openDemocracy. 14 December 2010. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/business/06nocera.html?_r=3&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1289206282-1hyNoEJZxIVpUSK4mZchUA&pagewanted=all
- ^ Post Store (8 November 2010). “Russia on trial”. The Washington Post. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
[edit] External links
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mikhail Khodorkovsky |
- Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center (English)
- Khodorkovsky’s official Russian website
- Guilty of Being Right, City Journal online, 12-28-2010
- Independent Institute Ivan Eland discusses the international fallout from Khodorkovsky’s arrest
- Updated Blog on Khodorkovsky Affair
- Council on Foreign Relations Interview with Marshall I. Goldman on Khodorkovsky
- Centre for Eastern Studies report: “The Yukos Affair: its Motives and Implications” (in Polish and English)
- Khodorkovsky Legal Updates
- New York Times Magazine article on Khodorkovsky
- Keith Gessen on Khodorkovsky in the London Review of Books
- Foreign Policy article on second trial
- Michael Khodorkovsky Publications
- Khodorkovsky Related Legal Cases
- Michael Khodorkovsky Statements
- Complete text transcript and audio (Russian) of Khodorkovsky’s Closing Statement at Khamovnichesky Court
- The Khodorkovsky-Ulitskaya correspondence
|
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Michael Morell
Michael Morell
[edit] References
- ^ CNN.com: CIA deputy director steps down
- ^ a b c Dyer, Bob (2006-08-17). “Here’s the dossier on new No. 3 guy at the CIA: Cuyahoga Falls native, UA grad says spy agency wasn’t part of original career plan.“. Akron Beacon Journal. Ohio.
- ^ a b “Biography for Michael Morell”. Silobreaker. 2006-07-24. http://beta.silobreaker.com/FactSheetReader.aspx?Item=5_614014976. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
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John Michael McConnell
John Michael McConnell
| John Michael “Mike” McConnell | |
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| In office 20 February 2007 – January 20, 2009 |
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| President | George W. Bush Barack Obama (temporary holdover) |
| Preceded by | John Negroponte |
| Succeeded by | Dennis Blair |
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| In office 1992–1996 |
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| President | George H.W. Bush Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | Bill Studeman |
| Succeeded by | Kenneth Minihan |
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| Born | July 26, 1943(1943-07-26) Greenville, South Carolina |
| Profession | Naval / Intelligence officer |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1967–1996 |
| Rank |  Vice Admiral |
John Michael “Mike” McConnell (born July 26, 1943) is a former vice admiral in the United States Navy. During his naval career he served as Director of the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1996. His civilian career includes serving as the United States Director of National Intelligence from 20 February 2007 to 27 January 2009 during the Bush and seven days of the Obama administration.
Contents[show] |
[edit] Early life, education, and family
McConnell was born and grew up in Greenville, South Carolina.[1] [2] [3] He graduated from Wade Hampton High School, and first attended college at North Greenville Junior College, later earning a B.A. in Economics from Furman University. He holds an M.P.A. from George Washington University, and is a graduate of the National Defense University and the National Defense Intelligence College (Strategic Intelligence). He is married to Terry McConnell, and together they have four children and six grandchildren.
[edit] Military and intelligence career
McConnell as a Rear Admiral, 1990.
McConnell received his commission in the United States Navy in 1967. He worked as the Intelligence Officer (J2) for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the United States Secretary of Defense during Operation Desert Shield/Storm and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He developed approaches for improving information flow among intelligence agencies and combat forces in the Gulf War.
From 1992 to 1996, McConnell served as Director of the National Security Agency (NSA). He led NSA as it adapted to the multi-polar threats brought about by the end of the Cold War. Under his leadership, NSA routinely provided global intelligence and information security services to the White House, Cabinet officials, the United States Congress, and a broad array of military and civilian intelligence customers. He also served as a member of the Director of Central Intelligence senior leadership team to address major intelligence programmatic and substantive issues from 1992 until 1996.
In 1996, McConnell retired from the Navy as a vice admiral after 29 years of service – 26 as a career Intelligence Officer. In addition to many of the nation’s highest military awards for meritorious service, he holds the nation’s highest award for service in the Intelligence Community. He also served as the Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
McConnell is sworn-in as DNI, February 20, 2007.
McConnell is the second person to hold the
position of Director of National Intelligence. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on January 5, 2007, and was sworn in at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. on February 20, 2007.[4][5] McConnell’s appointment to the post was initially greeted with broad bipartisan support, although he has since attracted criticism for advocating some of the Bush administration’s more controversial policies.[6][7]
Before his nomination as DNI, McConnell had served as a Senior Vice President with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, focusing on the Intelligence and National Security areas.[8] From 2005 until his confirmation as DNI in 2007, he was also chairman of the board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, the “premier not-for-profit, nonpartisan, private sector professional organization providing a structure and interactive forum for thought leadership, the sharing of ideas, and networking within the intelligence and national security communities” whose members include leaders in industry, government, and academia.[9]
On Tuesday, August 14, 2007, McConnell visited Texas with House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes to review border security[10], and granted a wide-ranging interview to the El Paso Times newspaper, which surprised many in the intelligence community for its candor on sensitive topics such as the recent changes in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy. At the end of the interview, McConnell cautioned reporter Chris Roberts that he should consider whether enemies of the U.S. could gain from the information he just shared, leaving it up to the paper to decide what to publish. The El Paso Times put the entire, unexpurgated interview on their website on August 22, with executive editor Dionicio Flores saying “I don’t believe it damaged national security or endangered any of our people.”[11][12]
A resurgent Taliban is back in charge over parts of Afghanistan, McConnell told CNN on February 27, 2008 in an assessment that differed from the one made January 2008 by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.[13]
On 24 January, it was announced that McConnell would return to Booz Allen as a Senior Vice President.[14]
[edit] Initiatives as DNI
[edit] 100 Day Plan for Integration and Collaboration
DNI Seal
Two months after taking office, McConnell created a series of initiatives designed to build the foundation for increased cooperation and reform of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). His plan, dubbed “100 Day Plan for Integration and Collaboration” focused on efforts to enable the IC to act as a unified enterprise in a collaborative manner.[15]It focused on six enterprise integration priorities:
- Create a Culture of Collaboration
- Foster Collection and Analytic Transformation
- Build Acquisition Excellence and Technology Leadership
- Modernize Business Practices
- Accelerate Information Sharing
- Clarify and Align DNI’s Authorities
The 100 Day Plan accomplished the launch of a civilian joint duty program, improved security clearance processing times, increased diversity in the intelligence workforce and more information sharing across the community. A 500 Day Plan is being designed to sustain the momentum with an expanded set of initiatives and a greater level of participation. It is set to deepen integration of the Community’s people, processes, and technologies.[15][16] The plan will address a new performance management framework that entail six performance elements that all agencies must entail.[17]
[edit] 500 Day Plan for Integration and Collaboration
The 100 Day Plan was meant to “jump start” a series of initiatives based on a deliberate planning process with specific deadlines and measures to ensure that needed reforms were implemented. The 500 Day Plan, which started in August 2007, was designed to accelerate and sustain this momentum with an expanded set of initiatives and broader IC participation. It contains 10 “core” initiatives which will be tracked by the senior leadership in the Intelligence Community, and 33 “enabling” initiatives. The initiatives are based on the same six focus areas described in the 100 Day Plan.
The top initiatives are:
- Treat Diversity as a Strategic Mission Imperative
- Implement Civilian IC Joint Duty Program
- Enhance Information Sharing Policies, Processes, and Procedures
- Create Collaborataive Environment for All Analysts
- Establish National Intelligence Coordination Center
- Implement Acquisition Improvement Plan
- Modernize the Security Clearance Process
- Align Strategy, Budget, and Capabilities through a Strategic Enterprise Management System
- Update Policy Documents Clarifying and Aligning IC Authorities
Director McConnell ended office near the 400th day of his 500 day plan.[18]
[edit] Updating FISA
McConnell approached Congress in early August 2007 on the need to “modernize FISA,” claiming two changes were needed (initial efforts began in April – see the factsheet for more). First, the Intelligence Community should not be required, because of technology changes since 1978, to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence from “foreign targets” located overseas. He also argued that telecoms being sued for violating the nation’s wiretapping laws must be protected from liability—regardless of the veracity of the charges.[19] Shortly thereafter, McConnell took an active role [20] on Capitol Hill for legislation being drafted by Congress. On August 3, McConnell announced that he “strongly oppose[d]” the House’s proposal because it wasn’t strong enough.[21] After heated debate, Congress updated FISA by passing the Protect America Act of 2007.
In September 10, 2007 testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, McConnell asserted that the recently passed Protect America Act of 2007 which eased restrictions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had helped foil a major terror plot in Germany. U.S. intelligence-community officials questioned the accuracy of McConnell’s testimony and urged his office to correct it, which he did in a statement issued September 12, 2007. Critics cited the incident as an example of the Bush administration’s exaggerated claims and contradictory statements about surveillance activities. Counterterrorism officials familiar with the background of McConnell’s testimony said they did not believe he made inaccurate statements intentionally as part of any strategy by the administration to persuade Congress to make the new eavesdropping law permanent. Those officials said they believed McConnell gave the wrong answer because he was overwhelmed with information and merely mixed up his facts.[22]
In that same testimony, McConnell blamed the death of a kidnapped American soldier in Iraq on the requirements of FISA and the slowness of the courts. However, a timeline later released showed that the delays were mostly inside the NSA, casting doubt again on McConnell’s truthfulness. [23]
McConnell, speaking to a Congressional panel in defense of the Protect America Act, said that the Russian and Chinese foreign intelligence services are nearly as active as during the Cold War.[24] In other September 18, 2007 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, McConnell addressed the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, saying that that agency had conducted no telephone surveillance of Americans without obtaining a warrant in advance since he became Director of National Intelligence in February, 2007.[25] McConnell called FISA a “foundational law” with “important legacy of protecting the rights of Americans,” which was passed in the era of Watergate and in the aftermath of the Church and Pike investigations. He stressed that changes should honor that legacy for privacy and against foreign threats.[26]
[edit] Analytic Outreach
July 2008, Director McConnell issued what many regard as a bold directive (ICD 205)for analysts to build relationships with outside experts on topics of concern to the intelligence community—a recommendation highlighted in the WMD Commission Report.[27]
[edit] Updating Executive Order 12333
Director McConnell worked with the White House to overhaul Executive Order 12333, which outlines fundamental guidance to intelligence agencies. McConnell believes the update is necessary to incorporate the intelligence community’s new organizations and new technologies and methods. The redo is expected to help the sixteen intelligence agences work together, and to reflect the post 9/11 threat environment.[28][29][30]
In July 2008, President Bush issued Executive Order 13470, which amended 12333.[31]
[edit] Information Integration and Sharing
As one of McConnell’s last acts as DNI, he signed ICD501 “DISCOVERY AND DISSEMINATION OR RETRIEVAL OF INFORMATION WITHIN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY”to dramatically increase access to several databases held by various agencies in the community. The policy establishes rules to govern disputes when access is not granted, with the DNI as the final adjudicator to resolve disputes between organizations.He also established the Intelligence Information Integration Program (I2P) under the leadership of then-CIO Patrick Gorman and then NSA-CIO Dr. Prescott Winter. The goal of I2P was to create a shared infrastructure and family of shared services as a means to increase information access, sharing and collaboration throughout the US Intelligence Community.[32][33]
[edit] Integrated Planning, Programming and Budgeting System
Director McConnell led the effort to create an integrated planning, programming, and budgeting system to more fully integrate and optimize the capabilities of the Intelligence Community. Previously, each agency’s budget was developed independently and aggregrated for Congress. After the issurance of ICD106 Strategic Enterprise Management, the Intellignece Community budget was more closely aligned to strategic goals and objectives, requirements, and performance criteria.
[edit] Years After DNI
In early April 2010, Admiral McConnell called for expanding the powers of the DNI by giving him tenure and creating a Department of Intelligence for the DNI to oversee and fully control to settle the continued fighting amongst agencies within various departments.[34]
[edit] Career highlights
- USS Colleton APB 36, Mekong Delta, 1967–1968
- Naval Investigative Service, Japan, 1968–1970
- Commander of Middle East Force Operations, 1971–1974
- Executive assistant to Director of Naval Intelligence, 1986–1987
- Chief of Naval Forces Division at National Security Agency, 1987–1988
- Director of Intelligence (N2) Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet, 1989–1990
- Intelligence director for Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1990–1992
- Director of NSA, 1992–1996
- Senior Vice President Booz Allen Hamilton, 1996–2006
- Director of National Intelligence, 2007–2009
- Senior Vice President Booz Allen Hamilton, 2009–Present[35]
John Negroponte
John Negroponte
| John Dimitri Negroponte | |
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| In office April 21, 2005 – February 13, 2007 |
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| President | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | none; newly created office |
| Succeeded by | John Michael McConnell |
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| In office February 13, 2007 – January 20, 2009 |
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| President | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Robert Zoellick |
| Succeeded by | Jim Steinberg Jacob Lew |
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| In office May 6, 2004 – 2005 |
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| President | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | L. Paul Bremer (as Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance) |
| Succeeded by | Zalmay Khalilzad |
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| In office 2001–2004 |
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| President | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Richard Holbrooke James B. Cunningham (acting) |
| Succeeded by | John Danforth |
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| In office 1987–1989 |
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| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Colin Powell |
| Succeeded by | Robert Gates |
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| In office 1993–1996 |
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| President | Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | Richard H. Solomon |
| Succeeded by | Thomas C. Hubbard |
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| In office 1989–1993 |
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| Preceded by | Charles J. Pilliod, Jr. |
| Succeeded by | James Robert Jones |
| President | George H.W. Bush |
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| In office 1981–1985 |
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| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Jack R. Binns |
| Succeeded by | John Arthur Ferch |
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| Born | July 21, 1939 (1939-07-21) London, United Kingdom |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Diana Villiers Negroponte |
| Children | Marina, Alexandra, John, George, Sophia |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Profession | Diplomat |
Contents[show] |
[edit] Background
Impostor
Impostor
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This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008) Find sources: “Impostor” – news · books · scholar · images |
Mikheil Saakashvili
Mikheil Saakashvili
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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2009) |
| Mikheil Saakashvili მიხეილ სააკაშვილი |
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| Assumed office 20 January 2008 |
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| Prime Minister | Lado Gurgenidze Grigol Mgaloblishvili Nikoloz Gilauri |
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| Preceded by | Nino Burjanadze (Acting) |
| In office 25 January 2004 – 25 November 2007 |
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| Prime Minister | Zurab Zhvania Zurab Noghaideli Lado Gurgenidze |
| Preceded by | Nino Burjanadze (Acting) |
| Succeeded by | Nino Burjanadze (Acting) |
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| In office 12 October 2000 – 5 September 2001 |
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| President | Eduard Shevardnadze |
| Prime Minister | Avtandil Jorbenadze |
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| Born | 21 December 1967 [1] Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union (now Georgia)[1] |
| Nationality | Georgian |
| Political party | United National Movement |
| Spouse(s) | Sandra Roelofs |
| Children | Eduard Saakashvili Nikoloz Saakashvili |
| Residence | Tbilisi, Georgia |
| Alma mater | Kiev State University Columbia University George Washington University |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Georgian Orthodox |
| Signature |  |
Mikheil Saakashvili (Georgian: მიხეილ სააკაშვილი, IPA: [mixɛil sɑɑkʼɑʃvili]; born 21 December 1967) is a Georgian politician, the third and current President of Georgia and leader of the United National Movement Party. Saakashvili became president on 25 January 2004 after President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned in a November 2003 bloodless “Rose Revolution” led by Saakashvili and his political allies, Nino Burjanadze and Zurab Zhvania. Saakashvili was re-elected in the early Georgian presidential election of 5 January 2008. He is widely regarded as a pro-NATO and pro-USA leader who has spearheaded a series of political and economic reforms. He has been criticized for authoritarian tendencies and worsening human rights record in the country. Opposition parties have also accused him of rigging elections and using riot police to crush opposition rallies.[2]
Some non-Georgian sources spell Saakashvili’s first name via the Russian (Михаил Саакашвили) as Mikhail. In Georgia, he is commonly known as “Misha,” a hypocorism for Mikheil.[3]
He is married to Sandra E. Roelofs, of Dutch origin, and has two sons, Eduard and Nikoloz. Apart from his native Georgian, he speaks fluent English, French, Russian, and Ukrainian,[4][5] and has some command of Ossetian and Spanish.[6][7]
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[edit] Early life and career
Mikheil Saakashvili was born in Tbilisi,[1] capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union, to a Georgian intelligentsia family. His father, Nikoloz Saakashvili, is a physician who practices medicine in Tbilisi and directs a local Balneological Center. His mother, Giuli Alasania, is a historian who lectures at Tbilisi State University.
During University, he served his shortened military service with the Soviet Border Troops in 1989/90. Saakashvili graduated from the Institute of International Relations (Department of International Law) of the Kiev State University (Ukraine) in 1992. He briefly worked as a human rights officer for the interim State Council of Georgia following the overthrow of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia before receiving a fellowship from the United States State Department (via the Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program). He received an LL.M. from Columbia Law School in 1994 and took classes at The George Washington University Law School the following year. In 1995, he also received a diploma from the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
After graduation, while on internship in the New York law firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in early 1995, Saakashvili was approached by Zurab Zhvania, an old friend from Georgia who was working on behalf of President Eduard Shevardnadze to enter politics. He stood in the December 1995 elections along with Zhvania, and both men won seats in parliament, standing for the Union of Citizens of Georgia, Shevardnadze’s party.
Saakashvili was chairman of the parliamentary committee which was in charge of creating a new electoral system, an independent judiciary and a non-political police force. Opinion surveys recognised him to be the second most popular person in Georgia, behind Shevardnadze. He was named “man of the year”[dubious ] by a panel of journalists and human rights advocates in 1997. In January 2000, Saakashvili was appointed Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
On 12 October 2000, Saakashvili became Minister of Justice for the government of President Shevardnadze. He initiated major reforms in the Georgian criminal justice and prisons system. This earned praise[dubious ] from international observers and human rights activists[citation needed]. But in mid-2001 he became involved in a major controversy with the Economics Minister Ivane Chkhartishvili, State Security Minister Vakhtang Kutateladze and Tbilisi police chief Ioseb Alavidze, accusing them of profiting from corrupt business deals.
Saakashvili resigned on 5 September 2001, saying that “I consider it immoral for me to remain as a member of Shevardnadze’s government.” He declared that corruption had penetrated to the very center of the Georgian government and that Shevardnadze lacked the will to deal with it, warning that “current developments in Georgia will turn the country into a criminal enclave in one or two years.”
[edit] In the United National Movement
Having resigned from the government and quit the Shevardnadze-run Union of Citizens of Georgia party, Saakashvili founded the United National Movement (UNM) in October 2001, a right-of-center political party with a touch of nationalism, to provide a focus for part of the Georgian reformists leaders. In June 2002, he was elected as the Chairman of the Tbilisi Assembly (“Sakrebulo”) following an agreement between the United National Movement and the Georgian Labour Party. This gave him a powerful new platform from which to criticize the government.
Georgia held parliamentary elections on 2 November 2003 which were denounced by local and international observers as being grossly rigged. Saakashvilli claimed that he had won the elections (a claim supported by independent exit polls), and urged Georgians to demonstrate against Shevardnadze’s government and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience against the authorities. Saakashvili’s UNM and Burdjanadze-Democrats united to demand the ouster of Shevardnadze and the rerun of the elections.
Massive political demonstrations were held in Tbilisi in November, with over 100,000 people participating and listening to speeches by Saakashvili and other opposition figures. The Kmara (“Enough!”) youth organization (a Georgian counterpart of the Serbian “Otpor“) and several NGOs, like Liberty Institute, were active in all protest activities. After an increasingly tense two weeks of demonstrations, Shevardnadze resigned as President on 23 November, to be replaced on an interim basis by parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze. While the revolutionary leaders did their best to stay within the constitutional norms, many called the change of government a popular coup dubbed by Georgian media as the Rose Revolution.
Saakashvili’s “storming of Georgia’s parliament” in 2003 “put U.S. diplomats off guard. …. [Saakashvili] ousted a leader the U.S. had long backed, Eduard Shevardnadze.”[8] Seeking support, Saakashvili went outside the U.S. State Department. He hired Randy Scheunemann, now Sen. John McCain’s top foreign-policy adviser, as a lobbyist and used Daniel Kunin of USAID and the NDI as a full-time adviser.[8]
On 24 February 2004 the United National Movement and the United Democrats had amalgamated. The new political movement was named the National Movement – Democrats (NMD). The movement’s main political priorities include raising pensions and providing social services to the poor, its main base of support; fighting corruption; and increasing state revenue.
[edit] Presidency
[edit] First Term
Saakashvili’s inauguration as President of Georgia
On 4 January 2004 Mikheil Saakashvili won the presidential elections in Georgia with more than 96% of the votes cast, making him the youngest national president in Europe. Saakashvili ran on a platform of opposing corruption and improving pay and pensions. He has promised to improve relations with the outside world. Although he is strongly pro-Western and intends to seek Georgian membership of NATO and the European Union, he has also spoken of the importance of better relations with Russia. He faces major problems, however, particularly Georgia’s difficult economic situation and the still unresolved question of separatism in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia regards itself as independent of Georgia and did not take part in the elections, while South Ossetia favours union with its northern counterpart in Russia.
Saakashvili was sworn in as President in Tbilisi on 25 January 2004. Immediately after the ceremony he signed a decree establishing a new state flag. On 26 January, in a ceremony held at the Tbilisi Kashueti Church of Saint George, he promulgated a decree granting permission for the return of the body of the first President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, from Grozny (Chechen Republic) to Tbilisi and renaming a major road in the capital after Gamsakhurdia. He also released 32 Gamsakhurdia supporters (political prisoners) imprisoned by the Shevardnadze government in 1993-94.
In the first months of his presidency, Saakashvili faced a major political crisis in the southwestern Autonomous Republic of Adjara run by an authoritarian regional leader, Aslan Abashidze, who largely ignored the central Georgian government and was viewed by many as a pro-Russian politician. The crisis threatened to develop into an armed confrontation, but Saakashvili’s government managed to resolve the conflict peacefully, forcing Abashidze to resign on 6 May 2004. Success in Adjara encouraged the new president to intensify his efforts towards bringing the breakaway South Ossetia back under the Georgian jurisdiction. The separatist authorities responded with intense militarization in the region, that led to armed clashes in August 2004. A stalemate ensued, and despite a new peace plan proposed by the Georgian government in 2005, the conflict remains unresolved. Recently, in late July 2006, Saakashvili’s government managed to deal successfully with another major crisis, this time in Abkhazia’s Kodori Gorge where Georgia’s police forces disarmed a defiant militia led by a local warlord Emzar Kvitsiani.
Although the reforms initiated by President Saakashvili are considered to have mixed success, still the rate of corruption in the country has drastically reduced. According to the World Bank accounts, Georgia is named as the number one economic reformer in the world and the country ranks as 11 in term of ease of doing business, when most of the country’s neighbours’ are in the 100s of the World Bank’s rank.[9]
In his foreign policy, Saakashvili maintains close ties with the U.S. leadership, as well as other NATO countries, and remains one of the leaders of the GUAM organization. The Saakashvili-led Rose Revolution has been described by the White House as one of the most powerful movements in the modern history[10] that has inspired others to seek freedom.[11].
[edit] Economic policy
Saakashvili is a popular supporter of free market and believes that less government regulation of business is a good idea.[citation needed] Georgia has become involved in international market transactions to a small extent, and in 2007 Bank of Georgia sold bonds at premium, when $200m five-year bond was priced with a coupon of 9 per cent at par, or 100 per cent of face value, after initially being priced at 9.5 per cent and investors pushed orders up to $600m.[12]
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
| Mikhail Gorbachev Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв |
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 Gorbachev in 1987 |
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| In office 15 March 1990 – 25 December 1991 |
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| Prime Minister | Nikolai Ryzhkov Valentin Pavlov Ivan Silayev |
| Vice President | Gennady Yanayev |
| Preceded by | Andrei Gromyko |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
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| In office 11 March 1985 – 24 August 1991 |
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| Preceded by | Konstantin Chernenko |
| Succeeded by | Vladimir Ivashko (Acting) |
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| In office 1 October 1988 – 25 May 1989 |
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| Prime Minister | Nikolai Tikhonov Nikolai Ryzhkov |
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| In office 25 May 1989 – 15 March 1990 |
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| Preceded by | Himself as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet |
| Succeeded by | Anatoly Lukyanov as Parliament Speaker himself as Head of State as President of the Soviet Union |
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| In office 1980–1991 |
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| Born | 2 March 1931 Privolnoye, Russian SFSR, USSR |
| Birth name | Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev |
| Political party | Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1950–1991) Social Democratic Party of Russia (2001–2004) Union of Social Democrats (2007–present) Independent Democratic Party of Russia (2008–present) |
| Spouse(s) | Raisa Gorbachyova (d. 1999) |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | None (formerly Russian Orthodoxy) |
| Signature |  |
| Website | The Gorbachev Foundation |
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲeɪvʲɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕof] (
listen); born 2 March 1931) was the sixth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991.
He was the only Soviet leader to have been born after the October Revolution of 1917. In 1989, he became the first and only Soviet leader to visit China since the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s.
Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family, and in his teens operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While at university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and soon became very active within it. In 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the deaths of Soviet Leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo in 1985. Already before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level.
Gorbachev’s attempts at reform as well as summit conferences with United States President Ronald Reagan and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War, ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
In September 2008, Gorbachev and billionaire Alexander Lebedev announced they would form the Independent Democratic Party of Russia,[1] and in May 2009 Gorbachev announced that the launch was imminent.[2] This was Gorbachev’s third attempt to establish a political party, after having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social-Democrats in 2007.[3]
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[edit] Early life
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This section requires expansion. |
Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Stavropol, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union into a peasant mixed Russian–Ukrainian family,[citation needed] and in his teens operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While at university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon became very active within it.
[edit] Marriage and family
Gorbachev met his future wife, Raisa Titarenko, at Moscow State University. They married in September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation. She gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mihailovna Virganskaya (Ири́на Миха́йловна Вирга́нская), in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of Leukemia in 1999.[4]
[edit] Rise in the Communist Party
Gorbachev visiting a pig farm in East Germany, 10 June 1966
Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U.S. in per capita production within twenty years. At this point in his life, Gorbachev would rise in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party. He was promoted to Head of the Department of Party Organs in the Stavropol Agricultural Kraikom in 1963.[5]
In 1970, he was appointed First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, a body of the CPSU, becoming one of the youngest provincial party chiefs in the nation.[5] In this position he helped reorganise the collective farms, improve workers’ living conditions, expand the size of their private plots, and gave them a greater voice in planning.[5]
He was soon made a member of the Communist Party Central Committee in 1971. Three years later, in 1974, he was made a Representative to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Standing Commission on Youth Affairs. He was subsequently appointed to the Central Committee’s Secretariat for Agriculture in 1978, replacing Fyodor Kulakov, who had supported Gorbachev’s appointment, after Kulakov died of a heart attack.[5][6] In 1979, Gorbachev was promoted to the Politburo, the highest authority in the country, and received full membership in 1980. Gorbachev owed his steady rise to power to the patronage of Mikhail Suslov, the powerful chief ideologist of the CPSU.[7]
During Yuri Andropov‘s tenure as General Secretary (1982–1984), Gorbachev became one of the Politburo’s most visible and active members.[7] With responsibility over personnel, working together with Andropov, 20 percent of the top echelon of government ministers and regional governors were replaced, often with younger men. During this time Grigory Romanov, Nikolai Ryzhkov, and Yegor Ligachev were elevated, the latter two working closely with Gorbachev, Ryzhkov on economics, Ligachev on personnel.[8][page needed]
Gorbachev’s positions within the CPSU created more opportunities to travel abroad, and this would profoundly affect his political and social views in the future as leader of the country. In 1972, he headed a Soviet delegation to Belgium,[5] and three years later he led a delegation to West Germany; in 1983 he headed a delegation to Canada to meet with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and members of the Commons and Senate. In 1984, he travelled to the United Kingdom, where he met British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Upon Andropov’s death in 1984, the aged Konstantin Chernenko took power; after his death the following year, it became clear to the party hierarchy that younger leadership was needed.[9] Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on 11 March 1985, only three hours after Chernenko’s death. Upon his accession at age 54, he was the youngest member of the Politburo.[7]
[edit] General Secretary of the CPSU
Mikhail Gorbachev was the Party’s first leader to have been born after the Revolution. As de facto ruler of the USSR, he tried to reform the stagnating Party and the state economy by introducing glasnost (“openness”), perestroika (“restructuring”), demokratizatsiya (“democratization”), and uskoreniye (“acceleration” of economic development), which were launched at the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986.
[edit] Domestic reforms
Gorbachev’s primary goal as General Secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev years.[7] In 1985, he announced that the Soviet economy was stalled and that reorganization was needed. Gorbachev proposed a “vague programme of reform”, which was adopted at the April Plenum of the Central Committee.[6] He called for fast-paced technological modernization and increased industrial and agricultural productivity, and he attempted to reform the Soviet bureaucracy to be more efficient and prosperous.[7]
Gorbachev soon realized that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without reforming the political and social structure of the Communist nation.[10] Gorbachev also initiated the concept of gospriyomka (state acceptance of production) during his time as leader,[11] which represented state approval of goods in an effort to maintain quality control and combat inferior manufacturing.[12]
He made a speech in May 1985 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) advocating widespread reforms. The reforms began in personnel changes; the most notable change was the replacement of Andrei Gromyko as Minister of Foreign Affairs with Eduard Shevardnadze. Gromyko, disparaged as “Mr Nyet” in the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs and was considered an ‘old thinker’. Robert D. English notes that, despite Shevardnadze’s diplomatic inexperience, Gorbachev “shared with him an outlook” and experience in managing an agricultural region of the Soviet Union (Georgia), which meant that both had weak links to the powerful military-industrial complex.[13]
A number of reformist ideas were discussed by Politburo members. One of the first reforms Gorbachev introduced was the anti-alcohol campaign, begun in May 1985, which was designed to fight widespread alcoholism in the Soviet Union. Prices of vodka, wine, and beer were raised, and their sales were restricted. It was pursued vigorously and cut both alcohol sales and government revenue.[14] It was a serious blow to the state budget—a loss of approximately 100 billion rubles according to Alexander Yakovlev—after alcohol production migrated to the black market economy. The program proved to be a useful symbol for change in the country, however.[14]
The purpose of reform, however, was to prop up communism, not transition to market socialism. Speaking in late summer 1985 to the secretaries for economic affairs of the central committees of the East European communist parties, Gorbachev said: “Many of you see the solution to your problems in resorting to market mechanisms in place of direct planning. Some of you look at the market as a lifesaver for your economies. But, comrades, you should not think about lifesavers but about the ship, and the ship is socialism.”[15]
Michael Mitchell Mikhail Miguel Michelle Michel Mickey
Michael
| Michael | |
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| Pronunciation | /ˈmaɪkəl/ |
| Gender | Male |
| Origin | |
| Word/Name | Hebrew: מִיכָאֵל / מיכאל (Mikha’el) |
| Meaning | “Who is like God?”[1] |
| Other names | |
| Nickname(s) | Mike, Mick, Mikey, Mickey, Mickie, Mic |
| Related names | Michel, Michaela, Michelle, Michele, Mickie, Miguel, Mike, Mikey, Mitch, Mitchell, Mitchel |
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Look up Michael in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Michael (
/ˈmaɪkəl/) is a given name that comes from the Hebrew: מִיכָאֵל / מיכאל (Mikha’el), derived from the Hebrew question מי כמו אלוהים? (Hebrew pronunciation: [mi kəmo ʔelohim]) meaning “Who is like God?“[1] In English, it is sometimes shortened to Mike, Mikey, or, especially in Ireland, Mick. In Russian language, it is Mikhail and Mykhailo in Ukrainian.
Female forms of Michael include Michele, Michelle, Michaela, Mechelle, Micheline, and Michaelle, although Michael is occasionally seen as a female name, with women named Michael including actresses Michael Learned and Michael Michele. Another form is Mychal, which can either be a male or female name. Surnames that come from Michael include Carmichael, Dimichele, MacMichael, McMichael, Micallef, Michaelson, Mikhaylov, Mykhaylenko, Michaels and Mitchell.
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Etymology
The name first appears in the Bible, Numbers 13:13, where Sethur the son of Michael is one of twelve spies sent into the Land of Canaan. The Archangel Michael, referred to later in the Bible (Daniel 12:1), is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church. 29 September is the feast day of the three archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.
Popularity
Michael is a popular name in the United States, and has been in the top three most popular name given to male babies in the U.S. for each year since 1954.[2] It is in the top 50 most popular boys’ names in England and Wales.[3] The name has been popular in Orthodox Christian countries, and was borne by several rulers of the Byzantine and Russian Empires. In recent years, Michael has been the most popular name in the Philippines,[4] the second most popular name in Finland (Mikael)[5] and ranks among the top ten names in Denmark (Mikkel)[5] and Ireland (Mícheál).[6] It is the 23rd most popular name in Canada,[7] and the 37th most popular in Mexico (in the form of ‘Miguel’).[8]
Short form and other versions
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009) |
“Mike”, “Mick”, “Mikiel”, “Mikey”, “Mikael”, “Mic”, “Mishka” (common in Russia) and “Mickey” are short forms of, or nicknames for, Michael as a given name. “Mick” is commonly associated with Irish people.
The Irish language version of the name Michael is usually spelt Mícheál but is also sometimes spelt Micheál or simply Micheal. Meik and Maik are German short forms of Michael. The German pronunciation of both variants is identical to the English pronunciation of “Mike”, since both are directly derived from their English counterparts. Similarly, the Welsh versions “Meical” and “Meic” are pronounced in the same way as their corresponding English analogues. Another Welsh version of the name is “Mihangel”, which is a contracted combination of the name Michael and the word angel. Michiel (mee-KHEEL) is Dutch and the Dutch given name “Chiel” is a variation of Michiel. Mikael, Mikell, Mikkel are Scandinavian.[9] In Swedish, “Micke” is a nickname for “Mikael” (also spelt “Michael”).
In Greek “Μιχάλης” (“Michalis” or “Mihalis”) is an everyday common form of the “Μιχαήλ” (“Michail” or “Mihail”). “Miķelis” is the Latvian form for Michael. In Russian, “Миша” (“Mischa” or “Misha”) is a shortened form of “Михаил” (Mikhail). “Мишка” (Mishka) is a common diminutive form, “Миха” (Mikha) is an informal shortened form, and “Михайлович” (Mikhaylovich) is a patronymic form that can be shortened to more informal “Михалыч” (Mikhalych). Michal is Czech and Slovak. Michał is Polish; Miko is Slavic.[9] Mëhill or Mhill is the Albanian for Michael. The first belongs to the southern (Tosk) dialect, the second to the northern (Gheg) dialect. In Hebrew, “מיכה” (Mikha) is a common shortened form of “מיכאל” (Mikha’el). In Arabic,” میکائیل” (Mikā’īl).
Miquel (or Quelo in its shortened version) is the Catalan form for Michael.
Miguel is a Spanish and Portuguese form; Michel is French and popular in the Netherlands.[9] In French, both forms are popular: Michel and Mickaël.
Powers and Principalities 