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Apr.29.– With the aim to contribute to raising awareness and capacity development in civil participation standards and tools of the Council of Europe, academy on participatory democracy was organised for local authorities and civil society representatives of Kvemo Kartli Region in Kachreti, Georgia.
The Regional Academy was led by Council of Europe international and local experts, and was held as part of the Council of Europe Project “Strengthening Participatory Democracy and Human Rights at Local Level in Georgia”.
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The 15th meeting of the European Committee on Democracy and Governance (CDDG) is taking place on 21-22 April 2022 in Strasbourg, in a hybrid format.
Strasbourg, Apr.21.– The CDDG will discuss a draft Recommendation on Principles of Good Democratic Governance applicable to all levels of government, building on the 12 Principles of Good Democratic Governance at local level. Furthermore, the CDDG will start its work on Deliberative Democracy based on a study prepared recently by the Elections and Participatory Democracy Division of the Council of Europe. Various interventions will be heard, including from Mr Art O'Leary, Secretary General of the Electoral Commission and Secretary to the Citizens' Assembly of Ireland and Mr George Papandreou, Chair of the sub-committee on Democracy, Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy of the Parliamentary Assembly.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) investigations over the years have uncovered massive money movements by prominent Russians close to President Vladimir Putin who have earned scrutiny by international authorities.
Apr.21.– Russian oligarchs Boris Rotenberg, Igor Rotenberg and Gennady Timchenko have been sanctioned by the U.K., along with five Russian banks, hours after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine last February.
For more than a decade, ICIJ has tracked flows of money globally – stories that have commonly involved wealthy Russians with elite political connections. These projects included the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, FinCEN Files, and the Pandora Papers.
Here are five oligarchs whose financial dealings have been uncovered by ICIJ investigations – and who have received additional scrutiny from authorities.
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► The lifeless bodies of at least 20 civilian men line a single street in the town of Bucha near the Ukrainian capital. Some lie face down on the pavement while others are collapsed on their backs, mouths open in a tragic testament to the horrors of Russian occupation. ► The hands of one man are tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth. Another man lies alone, tangled up in a bicycle by a grassy bank. A third man lies in the middle of the road, near the charred remains of a burned-out car. ► The shocking images of the carnage in Bucha were captured by Agence France-Presse on Saturday, the same day Ukraine declared the town liberated from Russian troops.
Bucha, Apr.11.– The town of Bucha captured the world’s attention with its images of horror. They gave a glimpse into the terrible consequences of a conflict prosecuted without limits.
Today the drive into Bucha looks very different to those first hours after it was liberated.
A gruesome video showing the bodies of civilians left decomposing where they fell, was the first indication of the war crimes perpetrated here.
«There are good reasons to question the Russian armed forces’ ability to seize and hold the portions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that it does not currently control», reports the Institute for the Study of War with HQ in Washington, DC.
Washington DC, Apr. 9.– We assess that the Russian military will struggle to amass a large and combat-capable force of mechanized units to operate in Donbas within the next few months. Russia will likely continue to throw badly damaged and partially reconstituted units piecemeal into offensive operations that make limited gains at great cost. The Russians likely will make gains nevertheless and may either trap or wear down Ukrainian forces enough to secure much of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, but it is at least equally likely that these Russian offensives will culminate before reaching their objectives, as similar Russian operations have done.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) reported on April 8 that the Russian armed forces have lost 15-20 percent of the “combat power” they had arrayed against Ukraine before the invasion. This statement is somewhat (unintentionally) misleading because it uses the phrase “combat power” loosely. The US DoD statements about Russian “combat power” appear to refer to the percentage of troops mobilized for the invasion that is still in principle available for fighting—that is, that are still alive, not badly injured, and with their units. But “combat power” means much more than that.
Apr.29.– With the aim to contribute to raising awareness and capacity development in civil participation standards and tools of the Council of Europe, academy on participatory democracy was organised for local authorities and civil society representatives of Kvemo Kartli Region in Kachreti, Georgia.
