GZT.RU
Platon Lebedev believes Khodorkovsky verdict proves innocence
Platon Lebedev, former head of Menatep International Financial Association, has asked everyone who reads the khodorkovsky.ru website to scrutinize an excerpt from the text of the verdict judge Viktor Danilkin signed.
Page 674 reads: “The court is coming to the conclusion that the arguments, cited by defendant Platon Lebedev about profits production companies made in the period 2000-2003, point to the absence of embezzlement.” Lawyer Konstantin Rivkin believes this is reason enough for the defendants to be acquitted.
Lebedev also asks people to help unravel whether or not this is “a veiled admission of innocence, tucked away in the verdict, or the court’s conclusion that this absence of embezzlement is no reason they should forego the pleasure of finding individuals guilty of said crime and sending them to a prison colony for many years.”
Lebedev also draws attention to Danilkin’s interview with the TV program People and the Law, in which the judge said that “ … no one in the Khamovnichesky District Court had access to the verdict … “ “In fact, it sounds like a candid admission of the truth has suddenly been revealed,” Rivkin comments.
It was earlier reported that Natalya Vasilyeva, who works as an assistant to the Khamovnichesky Court judge, said that Danilkin was not the author of the verdict on the second Lebedev and Khodorkovsky case. Danilkin has repeatedly denied the claim.
Vedomosti
iPad 2: Russia release delayed
On Wednesday night Moscow time, Apple introduced a new version of its breakthrough product: the iPad 2 tablet PC. Details of the new product had been leaked, but for the last few days the focus was on whether or not Apple CEO Steve Jobs would put in an appearance at the event, after taking indefinite leave for health reasons six weeks ago.
“We've been working on this product for a long time and I just didn't want to miss today,” he said. Once it became clear that Jobs himself was launching the iPad 2, Apple shares rose 2%, only to fall again during the presentation.
The iPad 2 is the same size and has the same screen resolution as its predecessor, but, weighing between 601-613 grams, is 15% lighter and also about 33% thinner (only 8.8 mm, like the iPhone 4). A new, more powerful dual core processor is at the heart of this second generation iPad. Jobs explained that this new A5 chip makes CPU performance twice as fast and gives 9 times faster graphics. The new model has lost nothing in battery life: 10 hours in use or 30 days standby.
Apple announced a $100 discount on all models of the first iPad.
With cameras rear and front, the new iPad, like the iPhone also incorporates a gyroscope. Available in black and white, the new model is priced the same as its predecessor: $499 for the 16 GB model and $829 for the 64 GB model.
The iPad 2 will be released in the United States on March 11, subsequently being shipped to Canada, Australia, Mexico, Western and Eastern Europe (Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland) on March 25. Russia is not on the list.
As always, Jobs couldn’t pass up an opportunity to make a dig at his competitors. “With more than 15 million iPads sold, iPad has defined an entirely new category of mobile devices,” he said. “While others have been scrambling to copy the first generation iPad, we’re launching the iPad 2, which moves the bar far ahead of the competition and will likely cause them to go back to the drawing boards yet again.” Jobs said that 65,000 apps had so far been released through the AppStore and that their developers have earned $2 billion. Apple's competitors have no more than one hundred apps each, he claimed.
Jobs added that since launching the iPhone, Apple has sold 100 million units. The iPad first went on sale in April 2010 and since then 15 million units have been sold for $9.5 billion – 85% of the market. Apple intends to retain its overall market lead and sell from 20 million to 24 million tablet PCs in 2011.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Eccentric art group activists kiss cops in Moscow metro
The Internet is full of photos and videos of young women hugging and kissing female police officers in the Moscow subway. The Kiss a Cop performance is the latest stunt organized by Voina, an eccentric art group that created the notorious 64-meter penis graffiti on a St. Petersburg bridge last year. Militant feminists from what they call Voina’s Moscow section have claimed responsibility for the stunt.
Although Voina leaders have dismissed the stunt as plagiarism and denied any connection with the Moscow group, the kissing protest did look like one of their stunts. Videos show young women approaching female police officers and distracting them with questions, then suddenly coming at them with wild kisses. Their “victims” reacted differently. Some smiled weakly as they tried to free themselves from the passionate embrace. Others put up more determined resistance.
The fact that the stunt was aimed at the police also pointed to Voina’s involvement because the unusual group’s attitude to law enforcement officials is well known. On September 15, group activists tipped over seven police cars in the center of St. Petersburg near the gate of the Mikhailovsky Palace, chanting “Beg for mercy, cop!” The Voina activists called their stunt The Palace Revolution.
Finally, the Kiss a Cop stunt was held shortly after two Voina activists, Leonid Nikolayev and Oleg Vorotnikov, were released from prison. They had been detained for tipping over the cars. The Moscow stunt could have been organized to mark their release.
Alexei Plutser-Sarno, head of the Voina group, condemned the kissing stunt and the feminist group that organized it: “These people are plagiarists. They give interviews on behalf of Voina and call themselves some non-existent ‘Moscow section’ of our group. What they did was a stupid stunt, a good-humored jape at these turncoats.” He added that his art group would never kiss a cop.
Incidentally, the Moscow subway stunt coincided with the debate about the withdrawal of Voina’s project from the shortlist for an official award from the State Center for Contemporary Art.
The notorious graffiti, painted on the rising part of a bridge opposite the security services’ headquarters in St. Petersburg, called Dick Captured by the KGB, was nominated for the prize but suddenly taken off the shortlist. The organizers said not all of the artists had agreed to participate in the competition. The change sparked protests among the Russian art community, causing the organizers to backtrack and promise to resolve the dispute.
No official decision has been made yet. A letter to the art pranksters has been posted on Voina’s website asking them to confirm in writing their consent to compete for the award, to give the official name of their project and to approve a list of members authorized to make statements on behalf of the group.
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