LEAKED VIDEO SHOWS VLADIMIR PUTIN BERATING CABINET MINISTERS

[The timing of the video’s release is a bit suspicious. As The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Miriam Elder, wrote on Twitter, “Putin slams Medvedev gov’t in ‘secret’ video released hrs before Medvedev due to speak to Duma on year’s work … ” The video makes Medvedev look pretty weak and gives Putin the appearance of cracking down on bad performance.]

By Max Fisher

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not look like an easy boss, based on this video footage, which was allegedly taken in secret during a senior cabinet meeting. The video, leaked to the outlet LifeNews and now making big rounds on the Russian web, shows him relentlessly criticizing Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev’s senior cabinet ministers, threatening to fire all of them.

RussiaSlam, a site that reports on Russian social media, posted a version of the video with English subtitles and a full translation. The Kremlin, they report, says the video is real but that Putin was actually talking to regional officials; LifeNews claims the video refutes this and shows it was actually the cabinet.

The timing of the video’s release is a bit suspicious. As The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Miriam Elder, wrote on Twitter, “Putin slams Medvedev gov’t in ‘secret’ video released hrs before Medvedev due to speak to Duma on year’s work … ” The video makes Medvedev look pretty weak and gives Putin the appearance of cracking down on bad performance.

Here’s RussiaSlam’s translation:

In conclusion, I’m going to finish this session. I want to say the following. We all understand that the 2012 directives should be given our particular attention. I was hoping to be able to say this just in terms of the emergency fund, but now, I’m going to say it in terms of the entire package. Of course, it’s complicated. You think I don’t understand that it’s complicated? The problems are complicated, difficult to solve, even, but they’re solvable all the same. But we won’t solve them if we do what we’ve just been talking about. It’s no coincidence that we’re gathered right here right now. It was no coincidence that I asked for this meeting to be organised right now.

I have just said, while the TV cameras were running, ‘how are we going to fulfill these agreements?’  How are we working? The quality of our work is appalling. Everything is being done superficially, you understand me?! And if we’re going to carry on working like this, then not a damn thing will get done. But if we work harder, more professionally, with an understanding of what needs to be done, then we’ll do it. If we don’t do this, then we need to acknowledge that either I am working ineffectively, or all of you are working badly, and you need to go. I would like to point out that today, I’m leaning towards the second option. I think that you understand that we need to be frank with one another so that there are no misunderstandings.

© The Washington Post

MUSHARRAF, FLEEING ONCE, IS BROUGHT BACK TO COURT TO FACE CHARGES

[Meanwhile, Mr. Musharraf faces criminal charges in three cases dating to his period in office — the one related to firing judges and two others related to the deaths of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a Baloch tribal leader. Attempts by some critics to charge Mr. Musharraf with treason have not succeeded.] 

By Declan Walsh

B.K. Bangash/Associated Press

The convoy carrying Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former leader, left the court 

on Thursday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When the former military ruler Pervez Musharraf ended his years of exile last month, it was with a vision of himself as a political savior, returning in the nick of time to save Pakistan from chaos.

Instead, he contributed a new and bizarre chapter to the country’s political turmoil on Thursday, fleeing the halls of the High Court after a judge ordered his arrest. Speeding away in a convoy of black S.U.V.'s as a crowd of lawyers mocked him, he hurried to his fortress compound outside the capital, where he was declared under house arrest.

Early Friday, the police escorted Mr. Musharraf from his house to a court in central Islamabad where a magistrate formally charged him. Television pictures showed him saluting briefly as he entered his S.U.V., before returning once again to his Islamabad home. Television stations reported that Mr. Musarraf was due to appear in anti-terrorism court in two days, but it was not clear if that meant Sunday or Monday.

Less than five years after wielding absolute power, the retired four-star general has become the latest example of the Pakistani judiciary’s increasing willingness to pursue previously untouchable levels of society — even to the top ranks of the powerful military.

Rarely has a retired army chief faced imprisonment in Pakistan, and analysts said the move against Mr. Musharraf could open a new rift between the courts and the military.

All this comes at a delicate moment for Pakistan, with elections near and only a temporary caretaker government at the helm. Though army commanders have sworn to stay on the sidelines in this election, there is fear that any tension over Mr. Musharraf’s fate could make the military more politically aggressive.

It was perhaps with that potential conflict in mind that the country’s Supreme Court was reported by Mr. Musharraf’s spokeswoman to have designated his luxury villa — secured by both retired and serving soldiers — as a “sub-jail” late Thursday night.

The tight security at his home, ringed by guard posts and barbed wire, was at first a reflection of repeated Taliban threats to kill the former general. But for now, the imminent danger to Mr. Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan between 1999 and 2008, stems from the courts.

At Thursday’s hearing, the High Court judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, refused to extend Mr. Musharraf’s bail in a case focusing on his decision to fire and imprison the country’s top judges when he imposed emergency rule in November 2007.

Resentment toward the former army chief and president still runs deep in the judiciary, which was at the center of the 18-month protest movement that led to his ouster in 2008.

Mr. Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League party hit back at the court, describing the order as “seemingly motivated by personal vendettas,” and hinted at the possibility of a looming clash with the military, warning that the order could “result in unnecessary tension among the various pillars of state and possibly destabilize the country.”

Mr. Musharraf’s lawyers immediately lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court, which rejected it..

The court drama represents the low point of a troubled homecoming for the swaggering general, who had vowed to “take the country out of darkness” after returning from four years of self-imposed exile in Dubai, London and the United States.

But instead of the public adulation he was apparently expecting, Mr. Musharraf has been greeted by stiff legal challenges, political hostility and — perhaps most deflating — a widespread sense of public apathy.

Pakistan’s influential television channels have given scant coverage to Mr. Musharraf since his return, and his party has struggled to find strong candidates to field in the general election scheduled for May 11. On Tuesday, the national election commission delivered another blow, disqualifying Mr. Musharraf from the election.

The army, once the source of Mr. Musharraf’s power, has offered little in the way of succor, apart from some armed security.

Meanwhile, Mr. Musharraf faces criminal charges in three cases dating to his period in office — the one related to firing judges and two others related to the deaths of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a Baloch tribal leader. Attempts by some critics to charge Mr. Musharraf with treason have not succeeded.

At times, the self-described elite soldier seemed bent on shooting himself in the foot. In an interview with CNN last week, he admitted to having authorized American drone strikes in the tribal belt — a statement that contradicted years of denials of complicity in the drone program, and which was considered politically disastrous in a country where the drones are widely despised.

In returning home in such an apparently ill-considered manner, Mr. Musharraf has placed himself at the mercy of some of his most bitter enemies.

The favorite to win the coming election is Nawaz Sharif, the onetime prime minister whom Mr. Musharraf overthrew to seize power in 1999.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is led by his sworn enemy, Chief JusticeIftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, whom Mr. Musharraf fired and placed under house arrest in 2007. Justice Siddiqui, who refused him bail on Thursday, is considered a conservative who has been hostile to the military.

Last week, another judge placed Mr. Musharraf on the Exit Control List, which means that he cannot leave the country without court permission.

In his 2006 memoir,"In the Line of Fire,"Mr. Musharraf wrote: “It is not unusual in Pakistan for the general public and the intelligentsia to approach the army chief and ask him to save the nation.” But as the events of Thursday suggested, it is the former army chief who may need saving this time.

Salman Masood contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times