WASHINGTON, January 30 (By Maria Young for RIA Novosti) – Russia’s ambassador to the United States agreed Wednesday to convey to Moscow the concerns expressed by a dozen US senators in a closed-door meeting about Russia’s recent ban on adoptions by US citizens, but stopped short of offering renewed hope to American families and Russian children whose adoptions have been […]
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MOSCOW, January 30 (RIA Novosti) – Fifty percent of respondents in a nationwide poll spoke in favor of the recently introduced law banning child adoptions by Americans, but 31 percent said they opposed the new legislation, the Levada Center pollster said on Wednesday. The poll, conducted between January 18 and 21, also found that 39 percent of respondents have nothing […]
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ST. PETERSBURG. Jan 29 (Interfax) – Eighty percent of Russian orphaned children have been adopted in Russia, said Irina Sokolova, vice chairperson of the State Duma Committee for Family, Women’s and Children’s Affairs. “Besides the anti-Magnitsky law, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on January 28 on the state policy of protecting orphaned and parentless children. There are about 650,000 […]
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(Government.ru – January 27, 2013) Fareed Zakaria: Mr Prime Minister, thank you for agreeing to this meeting. In 2009, when you were President of Russia, you wrote a very interesting and important essay about Russia’s future. You said that the two major problems of the Russian economy were excessive dependence on oil and excessive corruption. A look at current statistics […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 22 (Interfax) – The Russian Foreign Ministry’s human rights commissioner, Konstantin Dolgov, has blamed U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul for crudely distorting facts by saying that by denouncing the Russian-American agreement on cooperation in child adoptions, Russia has lost the opportunity to monitor the lives of Russian children adopted in the United States. “We have read with […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – David Edwards – January 21, 2013) David Edwards is chief copy editor at The Moscow Times. An obscure Washington state politician once said her votes on proposed legislation were based on conscience, constituency and caucus in that order. She may be on to something. United Russia deputies in the State Duma who voted for […]
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(Voice of America – James Brooke – January 18, 2013) Russia’s new law banning American adoptions of Russian orphans is polarizing Russians into two camps: pro-West and anti-West. Russia’s parliament voted overwhelmingly last month to bar Americans from adopting Russian orphans. But the vote triggered this last week the largest protest Moscow has seen since President Vladimir Putin was inaugurated […]
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(Interfax – January 18, 2013) Over 70 per cent of Russians support the recently adopted law which bans adoption of Russian children by US families, Interfax news agency reported on 18 January, quoting a poll conducted by the pro-Kremlin All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM). Details of the poll were posted on the centre’s website on the same day (http://wciom.ru/index.php?id=459&uid=113548). […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – January 18, 2013) Experts sharply criticized children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov’s proposals Thursday to create an orphan agency and inspect orphanages in Moscow, measures that appeared aimed at addressing concern over orphans’ welfare in Russia after the country renounced U.S. adoptions. “An agency with that name, explicitly for orphans, that’s the end of […]
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(Voice of America – James Brooke – January 16, 2013) James Brooke is VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR. During my two-week vacation in the United States, American friends again and again looked at me intently, and then asked: How do Russians see the new ban on Americans adopting Russian children? During the last three months […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – January 16, 2013) On the State Duma’s first day back to work this year, deputies sparred over whether to abolish a ban on adoptions of Russian children by American families, a measure passed late last year that has drawn fierce criticism. Members of the Just Russia faction submitted a bill that would […]
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WASHINGTON. Jan 15 (Interfax) – The U.S. administration cannot fathom Russia’s recent ban on the adoption of underage Russians by Americans but does not see it as a serious threat to U.S.-Russian relations in general, according to a senior American diplomat. Jake Sullivan, director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Office, said during an online conference that neither he personally […]
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[“They’ll Be in America While We’ll Be Left to Deal with the Authorities” – Moskovsky Komsomolets – January 15, 2013 – no public link to English-language version] Moskovsky Komsomolets covers adoptions of Russian orphans by Americans. According to the Deputy Prime Minister for Social Policy Olga Golodets, Russia has nearly 130,000 orphan children in need of a family, with fewer […]
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(Interfax – January 15, 2013) The impossibility to continue funding pseudo-human rights organizations was the true reason behind last weekend’s protests against the so-called Dima Yakovlev law in Russia, the country’s ombudsman for children’s rights Pavel Astakhov said. “The protests are not not against the fact that they [orphans] are allegedly doomed to some sort of existence or even death […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – January 14, 2013) Anna Arutunyan is the politics editor of The Moscow News “Children are [expletive] sacred,” one protester was overheard telling another at Sunday’s March against Scoundrels. That was one of the reasons that the march, widely expected to continue a trend of dwindling turnout for the spate of mass anti-government […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – January 15, 2013) A State Duma committee on Monday discussed an online petition opposing the “Anti-Magnitsky Law” passed late last year, but it appeared to delay until at least April any action that could result from the petition. The petition, published on the website of opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta last month, was […]
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GORKI, January 14 (RIA Novosti) – In terms of supply and demand Russia is an “adoptee’s market” with over 128,000 children waiting for adoption and only 18,000 families ready to take them, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets said Monday. Of that number 105,000 are in so-called “children’s homes,” or orphanages, while the others, who are 14 and above, are in […]
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MOSCOW, January 14 (Marc Bennetts, RIA Novosti) Opponents of a Kremlin-approved ban on US nationals adopting Russian children expressed anger on Monday at a state TV program that suggested they were betraying their homeland. “State television is brainwashing people,” said Maria Orlovskaya, who helped promote and organize Sunday’s peaceful protest march in central Moscow against the ban. “The authorities […]
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WASHINGTON, January 10 (RIA Novosti) – The US will continue its cooperation with Russia despite differences on a number of issues, such as the Russian adoption ban, US Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said on Wednesday. “Our overall approach remains to try to cooperate with Russia as much as we can on as many issues as we can that […]
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MOSCOW, January 10 (RIA Novosti) A Russian news website has provoked a furor after publishing what it claimed was an appeal from a Russian teenage orphan whose adoption by a US family was prevented by a new law banning adoptions by Americans. The 1obl.ru news portal in the Chelyabinsk region published a story claiming a boy in a local […]
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(Interfax – January 9, 2013) The U.S. can help Russian children through cultural, educational, and medical assistance programs, Russian presidential children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said. “With the termination of the adoptions agreement, we have to expand cooperation in the sphere of education, cultural exchange, education programs, and programs that make it possible to take in children for treatment,” Astakhov […]
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MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti) Opponents of a law banning US nationals from adopting Russian children were granted permission on Wednesday to hold a protest march in central Moscow on January 13, officials and rally organizers said. The ban is part of a wider response by Moscow to the Magnitsky Act, a US law that imposes travel bans and […]
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(Russian politics: Herod’s law: Russian civil society is outraged by a law that bans Russian orphans from being adopted by American families – The Economist – January 5, 2013 – click here for full article) The Economist reports the Russian goverment’s move to ban U.S. adoptions of Russian orphans, adopted in response to U.S. legislation that provides for sanctions against […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Elise Young – January 2, 2013) Kip and Kim Blackman call him Teo, a dark-haired, dark-eyed Russian orphan who is small for his 19 months and not yet walking or talking. Embracing him in a children’s shelter in Volgograd in October, they promised to bring him to Hedgesville, West Virginia, to meet their four biological children, […]
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WASHINGTON, January 3 (By Maria Young for RIA Novosti) The US Senate has unanimously approved a resolution condemning a new Russian law banning US citizens from adopting Russian children and calling on President Vladimir Putin and the Russian leadership to reconsider the measure on humanitarian grounds. In its resolution, approved in a vote late Tuesday, the Senate affirmed that all […]
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(RIA Novosti – December 28, 2012) Russian experts believe that the law, signed by President Vladimir Putin on 28 December, which bans the adoption of Russian children by US nationals, is unlikely to cause widespread protests in the country but will damage Russia’s reputation in the world. The so-called Dima Yakovlev law will come into force on 1 January 2013. […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 29 (Interfax) – Russia’s top criminal investigation agency has promised to be unrelenting in seeking action against American couples that have abused children adopted from Russia. “The Investigative Committee is determined to take all possible measures within its powers to protect Russian children from criminal encroachments, regardless of where such crimes have been committed, and to take exhaustive […]
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WASHINGTON, December 27 (By Maria Young for RIA Novosti) – Somewhere in Texas, there’s a pink room full of toys and books, waiting for a little girl who may never come home. “We’re pretty heartbroken, honestly,” said Donna Thomas in an interview with RIA Novosti on Thursday. She and her husband Robert are in the process of adopting a five-year-old […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Nicole Gaouette & Flavia Krause-Jackson – December 28, 2012) Russia’s move to prohibit Americans from adopting Russian orphans is the latest threat to the Obama administration’s flagging attempt to “reset” relations between the two Cold War rivals. President Vladimir Putin today signed a bill to ban U.S. adoptions of Russian children that the country’s parliament approved […]
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MOSCOW, December 27 (RIA Novosti) Russian Children’s Rights Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov has sent a report to President Vladimir Putin offering justifications for a bill that would ban US adoptions of Russian children. “The right of a state to outlaw foreign adoptions is supported by the majority of international acts in this area,” Astakhov wrote in his Twitter account. “The […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 26 (Interfax) – Russia will start preparations for launching procedures to invalidate the Russian-U.S. agreement on cooperation in adoption in the near future, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax on Wednesday. “We will proceed from realities. We understand the motives that both the State Duma deputies and Federation Council members were guided by in adopting this […]
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[Vladimir Putin gives big news conference in tough debate with journalists – ITAR-TASS – RUSSIAN PRESS REVIEW – December 21, 2012 – http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c142/606821.html] Itar-Tass covers Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent marathon press conference. Putin reportedly claimed he had not read a recent Duma bill banning U.S. adoptions of Russian orphans, and allowed that the Duma was responding emotionally to the […]
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[Russian lawmakers back adoption ban in row with U.S. – Reuters – Alissa de Carbonnel – December 21, 2012 – http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/21/russia-adoptions-idUSL5E8NL4FK20121221] Reuters covers the Duma’s support for a ban on U.S. citizens adopting Russian children, as well as a ban on U.S. nonprofits funding Russian democratization nonprofits, in retaliation for Congressional efforts to hold Russian human rights abusers accountable: Russia’s […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – December 21, 2012) President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signaled that a proposed ban on U.S. adoptions could not come into force for at least a year because of Russia’s obligations under a new agreement. Putin, who was asked about his stance on the ban by several journalists at his annual news conference, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – December 19, 2012) A growing chorus of senior government officials and ordinary citizens have publicly denounced a ban on U.S. adoptions proposed by pro-Kremlin State Duma deputies. The criticism, including from two Cabinet ministers and the president’s human rights ombudsman, seemed to jeopardize the measure, which has been widely condemned by human […]
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MOSCOW, December 19 (RIA Novosti) A controversial amendment that would ban US citizens from adopting Russian children passed in a second reading in the State Duma on Wednesday. The draft law retaliates for enactment of the Magnitsky Act in the US, which imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials deemed guilty of human rights abuses. The amendment […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle and Howard Amos – Dec. 18, 2012) State Duma deputies stepped up Russia’s retaliatory response to the so-called Magnitsky Act on Monday by introducing a measure that would ban U.S. citizens from adopting Russian orphans. The move was roundly condemned by children’s rights advocates, who warned that a blanket ban on U.S. adoptions […]
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(Interfax – Dec. 11, 2012) The United Russia faction at the State Duma has proposed to name the bill retaliating against the Magnitsky Act after 18-months-old Dima Yakovlev who died after his adoptive American father left him in a locked car in a parking lot for nine hours on a hot day. “They named their act after Magnitsky and United […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 2, 2012) Russian children adopted by U.S. families will remain Russian citizens so that they can “return to the motherland in case of a conflict situation,” the office of the children’s ombudsman said Thursday as a new U.S.-Russian adoption accord came into effect. “The U.S. is a lingering pain for us, as literally every […]
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