European observers pull out of Russia's upcoming election - citing official obstruction - je 16.11.2007 16

Europe's main election watchdog says it WON'T be sending its representatives to Moscow to monitor Russia's parliamentary elections on December 2nd as planned. A spokeswoman for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe or OSCE says that Russian restrictions would make the group's mission untenable. Russia invited just 70 OSCE observers to monitor the December poll, compared to 400 in 2003. For its part, Russia accused the OSCE of inventing reasons for the pull-out. +++SYN-MAZ+++