Russia - WikiLeaks
March 8: International Women’s Day public holiday.
Russia 100308
Basic Political Developments
• Hurriyet: Putin pledges more gender equality in Russia - "There is still plenty, plenty for us to do in the country, in Russia - on the protection of motherhood and childhood, on access for women to various kinds of work, to equal payment, to equal work conditions," the president-turned-premier said in his brief televised address.
• Japan Times: Okada setting up three summits between Hatoyama, Medvedev - Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Sunday he will work with Russia[pic] on arranging three summits with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama[pic] and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this year to press for the return of four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido.
• Bernama: Seoul Mulls Warning For Tourists To Moscow Following Attacks On South Korean - South Korea is considering issuing a travel warning for students and tourists heading to Moscow, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday, as a South Korean student in the Russian capital remained hospitalised following what appeared to be the latest in a series of hate crimes against people of "non-Slavic" appearance.
• Reuters: Iran gives Russia pilots two months to leave: report - Iran has given Russian commercial pilots working in the Islamic Republic two months to leave the country as it has no need for them, Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani was quoted as saying on Saturday.
• Global Post: Kremlin youth group embraces North Korea - Nashi, the Kremlin-run youth group created a few years ago to support the leadership of Vladimir Putin, is in fact called the "Democratic Anti-Fascist Youth Movement NASHI," if we want to be precise about it. Being "democratic," they gave into popular demand this week and published on their website a series of gruesome North Korean posters showing U.S. troops raping and pillaging, murder and torturing their way across Korea.
• RIA: Somali pirates release fishing vessel with Russian crew
• BarentsObserver: Norwegian investment in Russia worth 22 billion
• Interfax: Patriarch Kirill to give Africa new bells as a present - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia during his visit to Alexandria planned for spring is going to present a set of seven bells to Patriarch Feodor II of Alexandria.
• RIA: Italian minister apologizes to Russian musicians for Pantheon scandal
• Itar-Tass: Medvedev disbands federal agencies for science and education - The president disbanded the Federal Agency for Science and Innovations and the Federal Agency for Education for the purpose of “optimising the structure of the federal executive branch”. The functions of the disbanded agencies will go to the Ministry of Education and Science.
• Itar-Tass: Putin signs resolution on fuel discounts for agricultural producers - Sechin said 450,000 tonnes of petrol and about 2.5 million of diesel fuel would be supplies for this purpose in 2010.
• Itar-Tass: SKP pinpoints roles of Ingushetia detainees, involved in train blast
• Itar-Tass: Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev buys two London newspapers
• Times: PROFILE: Alexander Lebedev - The billionaire former KGB man is buying up more British newspapers. Is he a committed democrat or a Kremlin Trojan horse?
• [pic]: Intel Brief: Power Plant Politics - The closing of Lithuania’s only nuclear power plant in accordance with EU requirements will render it dependent on Russian energy and perhaps vulnerable to Kremlin influence
• Georgian Daily: Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Eurasian Security - As NATO members debate among themselves the issue of reducing tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, Russia's Eurasian landscape may demand a broader focus for such discussions on this part of the nuclear equation because of the emerging explicit connections.
• BarentsObserver: Russian Armed Forces cut to 1 million men
• Georgian Daily: Few Russians Opt to Declare Their Nationality in the Russian Military, Commentator Says - When soldiers are asked to voluntarily list their nationality in military documents, a retired Russian officer says, “no more than five to seven percent” declare themselves to be Russians, even though that is what they are, thus raising the question “why do these boys not want to declare their nationality?
• RFE/RL: Five Years After Maskhadov's Death, Situation In North Caucasus Remains Complex - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent appointment of Aleksandr Khloponin to oversee the North Caucasus was clearly intended to resolve those "bleeding problems." But with the insurgency growing in strength daily, time is not on Medvedev's side.
• Georgian Daily: Russia’s President Visits North Caucasus Offering No Real Solution to its Main Problem - Acknowledging the complexity of the situation, Moscow is willing to take risks and undertake various initiatives that, according to its plans, will help alleviate the intensity of the armed resistance. But the focus is on physical elimination, rather than seeking an understanding of what motivates the armed resistance that is engulfing most of the North Caucasus.
• RFE/RL: Inaction, Stigma Fuel Chechnya's TB Epidemic - Health experts say more than half of the patients reporting to Chechnya's tuberculosis hospitals already have severe, often irreversible lung damage. The disease killed as many as 139 people last year in Chechnya, with a population of just over 1 million.
• The Georgian Times: Noghaideli Explains his Moscow Trips - I have my own plan, and it coincides with the public will. People just want to restore Georgia's chance to develop. Many have already realised that it is important to take further steps in this direction because Georgia will have no future without a due relationship with Russia.
• Russia Today: Gas aftershock from Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia - People in the South Ossetian town of Leningor survived a war, but are now struggling to make it through the winter. They say that since Georgia’s devastating attack in 2008, it has blocked vital Russian gas supplies.
• Telegraph: Dmitry Medvedev's Russia still feels the cold hand of Vladimir Putin - Dmitry Medvedev came to power amidst high hopes that Russia would liberalise, but the authoritarianism brought in by Vladimir Putin remains.
• Time: Anti-Putin Movement Gains Confidence in Russia
• Guardian: FC Moscow go out of business after owners pull plug on funding - Fans go on hunger strike in protest as Russian club drops out of the Premier League after Norilsk Nickel withdraws its backing
• Russia Today: More women rise to corporate peaks - More and more women are taking senior-level positions in Russian business - according to a survey by PWC and the Russian Managers Association in the run up to International Women’s Day.
• Pravda: 100 Years of International Women’s Day: Russia was the Pioneer of Women’s Rights
• RIA: Toy balloons released into sky in Russian Far East anti-abortion flash mob
• Hurriyet: Russia grapples with labor-migrant dilemma - Russia, which has the second largest population of foreign migrants in the world after the US, is preparing for a new, incoming wave of labor migrants for spring season. Government officials acknowledges that the Russian economy needs guest workers in order to promote a steady growth rate
National Economic Trends
• Pravda: Russia May Lose Influence on Setting Oil and Gas Prices - “The demand on oil and gas will remain, of course, but it will be a different kind of demand, where the customer, not the producer, will dictate the prices,” Evgeny Gontmakher, a senior official with the Institute of Contemporary Development said.
• Russia Profile” Cutting Across the Grain - Efforts to Resolve Russia’s Problem with a Grain Surplus Are Hindered by a Decrepit Infrastructure and Logistical Challenges
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
• Steel Guru: Russian quota utilization for Ukraine
• Steel Guru: Belon intends to invest in Kuzbass.
• Your Induatry News: Mechel Announces Prolongation of Gazprombank’s Credit Facilities
• BBC: What will save the Russian car industry? - Russia has decided to follow in the footsteps of some European countries and the US by introducing a car scrappage scheme in an attempt to save the country's automotive industry.
• Bloomberg: Siemens to Start Russian Locomotive Production, FAZ Reports
• BF News: AFI Development FY losses narrow to $2.66m
• Businessneweurope: FUNDS: Pharos Miro agric fund gives investors something to chew on - Veteran Russian fund management group Pharos Financial and Dubai-based agribusiness specialist Miro Asset Management have teamed up to launch the Pharos Miro Agriculture Fund to tap into the evolving agricultural investment theme, with food and water resources increasingly regarded as important as oil and gas reserves were 40 years ago.
• Russia Today: Taxes take the gloss off domestic printers
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
• Xinhua: China-Russia oil pipeline to be completed this year: FM
• RIA: Russia-China oil pipeline to be ready by yearend – minister
• : Bosnian Serbs to join Russia-led gas pipeline
• Steel Guru: LUKOIL provides loan to Astrakhanenergosbyt
• OilVoice: Volga Gas Buys Into Gas Processing Facilities
• Rigzone: RussNeft to Increase Oil Production at Tomsk Block
• Oil & Gas Journal: Russians, Chinese eye new Arctic oil route
Gazprom
• The Baltic Course: PM of Lithuania: Gazprom claim is entirely law-based
• Reuters: Gazprom seeks $135 million compensation from Lithuania
• BarentsObserver: Preparing for Shtokman hearings - A number of public hearings on the development of the Shtokman project will start this spring.
• PR Inside: Songa Mercur secures contract with Gazflot LLC
• Financial Times: Fears raised over process of extraction - “Every housewife in the US has heard of the term shale gas,” says Alexander Medvedev, deputy chief executive of Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled gas producer. “Not every housewife is aware of the environmental consequences of the use of shale gas...I don’t know who would take the risk of endangering drinking water reservoirs.” Mr Medvedev is no environmentalist and Gazprom has much to lose if shale gas becomes dominant in Europe, its main export market. But many analysts agree that environmental considerations will play a bigger role in Europe.
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Full Text Articles
Basic Political Developments
Hurriyet: Putin pledges more gender equality in Russia
Monday, March 8, 2010
MOSCOW – From wire dispatches
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday pledged to do more to promote gender equality in Russia as he congratulated women on Women's Day, one of the country's most beloved holidays.
"There is still plenty, plenty for us to do in the country, in Russia - on the protection of motherhood and childhood, on access for women to various kinds of work, to equal payment, to equal work conditions," the president-turned-premier said in his brief televised address.
In Russia, International Women's Day is a public holiday and celebrated with flair. But women's rights activists say glaring gender imbalances remain in society and Russian women for the most part do not take part in decision-making. There are currently only three women ministers in Russia and all of Putin's powerful deputies are men.
Activists said rates of domestic violence against women are alarming and sexual harassment in the workplace remains an issue in Russia. "We need to say it as it is - we still have things to work on," said Putin, who has cultivated an image of an alpha male and is considered the country's paramount leader. "And we will of course seek to solve all these tasks."
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Putin warned that Russia would occupy a part of Georgia two years before war broke out between the two neighbors. “In 2006, Putin told me he will create a northern Cyprus for us,” Saakashvili said in an interview published by Russian magazine Vlast on March 1. “It was a concrete war scenario, he really warned us.”
Saakashvili said Russia almost attacked in 2006, as tensions increased amid a spy scandal and Russia’s de facto economic embargo on Georgia. Only the tough stance taken by the European Union and the U.S. held back Putin then, he said.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Japan Times: Okada setting up three summits between Hatoyama, Medvedev
NEMURO (Kyodo)
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Sunday he will work with Russia[pic] on arranging three summits with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama[pic] and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this year to press for the return of four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido.
At a meeting with former residents of the disputed islands in Nemuro, Hokkaido, Okada said he hopes the two leaders will meet more than twice, which was the number of times they met last year.
"I want the two leaders to meet without fail whenever there is an opportunity to do so, taking advantage of opportunities such as international conferences" that both attend, the foreign minister said.
Earlier in the day, Okada repeated his resolve to get the islands back when he visited a cape in Nemuro to view the territory.
"They are really close when you look at them like this. I will do my best," he said.
The Soviet Union[pic] occupied the islands at the end of the war, preventing Tokyo and Moscow from signing a peace treaty
March 08, 2010 15:26 PM
Bernama: Seoul Mulls Warning For Tourists To Moscow Following Attacks On South Korean
SEOUL, March 8 (Bernama) -- South Korea is considering issuing a travel warning for students and tourists heading to Moscow, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday, as a South Korean student in the Russian capital remained hospitalised following what appeared to be the latest in a series of hate crimes against people of "non-Slavic" appearance.
The move, if taken, could seriously undermine Russia's reputation as a tourist destination in the international community, Yonhap news agency cited ministry officials as saying.
"Issuing a travel warning requires careful deliberation as it may limit visits by our tourists to the area and it might also have a serious effect on the concerned nation," ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun told a press briefing.
"For now, the government is carefully reviewing the possibility of issuing a travel warning on Moscow," he added.
Before taking any official measures, the ministry spokesman advised people staying or traveling in Russia to move only in groups and to have a local guide at all times if possible.
The move comes after a 29-year-old South Korean student, identified only by his surname Shim, was attacked while on his way home from a shopping mall in the Russian capital on Sunday.
The assailant, who wore a white face mask, waited until the victim parted from his friends before stabbing him in the neck, according to officials from the South Korean embassy in Moscow, who cited eye witnesses. The suspect immediately fled the scene.
The incident came about three weeks after another South Korean student in the Siberian city of Barnaul, capital of the Altai region, was stabbed to death in what was believed to be a racially motivated crime by three Russian youths. Seoul has repeatedly requested Russia to help prevent the recurrence of such crimes.
But cases have continued, though they are not on a quick rise, according to ministry officials.
"The government again asked the central government of Russia and police authorities in local governments around Russia to take measures to prevent such incidents.
"They, of course, promised to actively cooperate, but we are trying to make sure such cooperation will actually take place," the ministry spokesman said.
The local police in Moscow were earlier said to believe the latest attack on the South Korean student, too, may have been racially motivated as it bore similarity to crimes carried out by Russian skinheads in the area.
Seoul's foreign ministry spokesman, however, said it was too early to presume the attack was racially motivated.
"There are views the crime was committed by a member of a racist gang, but it is hard to say all crimes against South Koreans are racially motivated," he said.
Shim, now in critical conditions, went to Russia six years ago and is currently enrolled at a cinema college in Moscow.
-- BERNAMA
Reuters: Iran gives Russia pilots two months to leave: report
Sat, Mar 6 2010
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has given Russian commercial pilots working in the Islamic Republic two months to leave the country as it has no need for them, Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani was quoted as saying on Saturday.
The move is a further sign of strains between Iran and Russia, which has indicated it could back new sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear work. For its part, Iran has voiced frustration over Moscow's failure to deliver a defense missile system.
Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency said the idea to order the Russian pilots to leave the country gained momentum after a Russian-made aircraft caught fire as it landed in northeastern Iran in January, injuring more than 40 people.
The plane belonged to Iran's Taban airline but the pilot was Russian, Fars said. It did not say how many Russians currently worked as pilots for Iranian airlines.
"Upon an order from the president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the Road and Transport Ministry has set a two-month deadline, upon the expiry of which all Russian pilots will have to leave the country," Behbahani said.
"When our country itself possesses plenty of professional and specialist pilots, there is no need to bring in pilots from abroad," he told Fars.
Iran has suffered a string of crashes in the past few decades, many involving Russian-made aircraft.
In 2009 a Tupolev aircraft flying to Armenia caught fire in mid-air and crashed, killing all 168 people on board.
U.S. sanctions against Iran have prevented it from buying new aircraft or spare parts from the West, forcing it to supplement its aging fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes with aircraft from Russia and other former Soviet states.
Behbahani said about 120 aircraft out of 193 planes in Iran's commercial fleet were currently active, with the rest grounded for one reason or another.
Russia, which has significant trade ties with Iran, is among six world powers trying to find a diplomatic solution to the long-running dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.
Moscow has indicated it could support new sanctions against Iran provided they are not too severe. Iran denies Western accusations that its nuclear work is aimed at developing bombs.
Iranian officials have voiced growing frustration at Russia's failure to supply the advanced S-300 missile defense system, which Israel and the United States do not want Tehran to have. Russia last month said it would not sell weapons if it leads to destabilization in any region.
(Reporting by Hashem Kalantari and Rmin Mostafavi; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Noah Barkin)
Global Post: Kremlin youth group embraces North Korea
March 5, 2010 07:03 ET
Miriam Elder
Nashi, the Kremlin-run youth group created a few years ago to support the leadership of Vladimir Putin, is in fact called the "Democratic Anti-Fascist Youth Movement NASHI," if we want to be precise about it. Being "democratic," they gave into popular demand this week and published on their website a series of gruesome North Korean posters showing U.S. troops raping and pillaging, murder and torturing their way across Korea.
"Yankee Aggression in North Korea" reads the title of the post, and here's their introduction:
"Because of many requests, we are translating a North Korean painting exhibit about the military crimes of Yankee-aggressors in Korea during the time of the American occuptation (during the period of the temporary retreat of the Korean People's Army)." If that's not democracy, I don't know what is.
Take a look at the posters on Nashi's website.
And you can read more about the youth group here. It was founded in the wake of Ukraine's Orange Revolution, as Moscow looked with dismay upon the youth-led protests that overturned election results next door. The group has since morphed into a bizarre movement that spends its time picketing embassies of countries seen as anti-Russian, harassing journalists who disparage the Soviet Union and attending summer camps where they're taught healthy lifestyles and worship at posters of Russia's ruling duo. In the past, they've sued journalists who compare them to the Hitler Youth so I'm not going to do that.
RIA: Somali pirates release fishing vessel with Russian crew
22:4907/03/2010
Somali pirates released on Sunday the Thai Union 3 fishing vessel seized last year with over 20 Russians on board, a Thai Union company manager said.
"The ship is on its way. Everything is okay with the crew. Everyone's [safe and] sound and waiting for a meeting with their families," Dmitry Shport told RIA Novosti.
The Thai Union 3 tuna fishing vessel with 23 Russians, two Filipinos and two Ghanaians on board was hijacked by two pirate skiffs about 370 km (200 nautical miles) north of the Seychelles October 29.
Reuters quoted a pirate named Hassan as saying a $3 million ransom was paid for the release.
Thai Union is a Thai group of companies exporting canned tuna.
Pirates based in Somalia, which has been without an effective government since 1991, hijacked more than 40 vessels in 2009, and have already seized two this year.
BANGKOK, March 7 (RIA Novosti)
BarentsObserver: Norwegian investment in Russia worth 22 billion
2010-03-08
The Norwegian Government Pension Fund, the largest equity investor in Europe, has invested into 64 Russian companies. The Norwegian part of the shares were worth more than 22 billion NOK (Euro 2,75 billion) in 2009.
The overview of all companies the Norwegian Government Pension Fund has invested into is presented in the 2009 annual report of the fund, published on the website of the Norway’s central bank. The fund was established in 1996 to invest surplus oil revenue abroad in order to avoid overheating Norway’s domestic economy.
Based on the 2009 annual report, the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has compiled an overview of all the 10,288 companies globally that the fund has invested into and divided the investments based on countries. Although, the fund’s investment in Russia is relatively small compared to investments in other countries, it was worth 22,14 billion kroner (Euro 2,75 billion)by the end of 2009.
The fund’s total market value by the end of 2009 was 2640 billion kroner (Euro 330 billion).
Gazprom tops the list of Russian companies where the value of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund is highest. The fund holds 0,65 percent of the stocks in Gazprom with a marked value of 5,47 billion kroner (Euro 680 million), as reported by BarentsObserver last Friday.
The top-ten Russian companies in the portfolio of the Norwegian fund are according to the overview presented by Aftenposten:
|Gazprom oao |5466 million kroner |
|Lukoil oao |2951 million kroner |
|Sberbank |1996 million kroner |
|Rosneft oil Co |1874 million kroner |
|Surgutneftegaz |1611 million kroner |
|Federal Grid Co unified energy system JsC |721 million kroner |
|Novolipetsk steel oJsC |632 million kroner |
|Tatneft |445 million kroner |
|Mobile telesystems oJsC |420 million kroner |
|Severstal |396 million kroner |
As BarentsObserver previously reported, the Fund last year decided to get rid of its shares in mining and metallurgy company Norilsk Nickel following the company's bad ecological record.
05 March 2010, 16:25
Interfax: Patriarch Kirill to give Africa new bells as a present
Moscow, March 5, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia during his visit to Alexandria planned for spring is going to present a set of seven bells to Patriarch Feodor II of Alexandria.
Experts from the Vera Voronezh bell casting plant are working on the bells, organizers of the visit told an Interfax-Religion correspondent.
This enterprise is the largest in Russia and abroad specialized in church bells, including superheavy weighing above 100 tons.
Total weight of the bell set is about 600 kg. The bells will be made in traditions of the best Russian masters and supposedly decorated with a gift inscription.
The Patriarchate of Alexandria will be the second after the Constantinople Orthodox Church , which Patriarch Kirill is to visit in compliance with the diptych (the service list of local Orthodox Churches primates - IF).
RIA: Italian minister apologizes to Russian musicians for Pantheon scandal
00:4708/03/2010
Italian Culture Minister Sandro Bondi has officially apologized to Russian musicians from the Bach-consort classical music band for last month's scandal during a concert in Rome's Pantheon.
The February 28 concert of the well-known band, specializing in performing baroque and late Renaissance music, in the Pantheon, was coming to an end, but a woman, apparently a Pantheon keeper, got onto the stage and said the concert was over, requesting everyone to leave the building.
She said the hall should be closed at 18:00. The audience of several hundred did not believe their ears and asked the musicians to continue performing, but another Pantheon employee, a man, stopped the concert again and told everyone to leave the building to the audience's indignant cries "Disgrace!"
"I sent a letter with apologies on my behalf and on behalf of the Cultural Heritage Ministry to the Russian musicians for the impermissible behavior by some Pantheon keepers who vulgarly interrupted the concert because the visiting time was over," Bondi said in an official statement distributed Sunday.
The video of the incident was posted on RIA Novosti's Russian-language website and on YouTube. The YouTube recording shows the woman appear on the stage at the time of 5:00.
Many Italians condemned the Pantheon keepers for the incident, writing that they were "ashamed to be Italian."
Bondi also said: "This behavior was insulting for our foreign guests. It represented an unbearably odious image of our country," adding that he ordered an investigation into the scandal.
On Saturday Bondi's deputy Francesco Giro apologized to Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno and all residents of the Italian capital for "the absolutely irresponsible act" that "inflicted incalculable reputational and economic loss upon Rome."
Initially dedicated to pagan gods, the Pantheon was converted to a Christian church consecrated to the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs in 609. It is presently open for tourists and is used for classical music concerts.
ROME, March 8 (RIA Novosti)
Itar-Tass: Medvedev disbands federal agencies for science and education
06.03.2010, 17.25
MOSCOW, March 6 (Itar-Tass) -- President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday signed a decree by which he disbanded two federal agencies.
The president disbanded the Federal Agency for Science and Innovations and the Federal Agency for Education for the purpose of “optimising the structure of the federal executive branch”.
The functions of the disbanded agencies will go to the Ministry of Education and Science.
Itar-Tass: Putin signs resolution on fuel discounts for agricultural producers
06.03.2010, 18.22
MOSCOW, March 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed a resolution granting fuel benefits to agricultural producers during the spring sowing and autumn harvesting campaigns.
Late on Friday, Putin met with Vice Prime Minister Igor Sechin to discuss this issue. He recalled that such discounts had been granted to agricultural producers under agreements with oil companies in the previous years and said he had asked for similar decisions to be drafted for this year, too.
He noted that oil companies could not grant such discounts without an appropriate government resolution.
Sechin said oil companies had agreed to supply fuel for the needs of agricultural producers. “We have prepared a draft resolution which provides for certain fuel supplies to be made at a discount of up to 10 percent of the wholesale price. This means the retail difference may vary from 20 to 30 percent,” he said.
Sechin said 450,000 tonnes of petrol and about 2.5 million of diesel fuel would be supplies for this purpose in 2010.
“The discount in monetary terms will amount to about 5.5 billion roubles,’ he said, adding that last year the sum was about three billion roubles.
Earlier this week, President Dmitry Medvedev instructed Sechin to engage oil companies in preparing for agricultural spring fieldwork.
The president admitted that the situation “is not quite simple … as usual, it is never simple”.
“Last year decisions were made that allowed our agricultural enterprises to carry out spring and autumn fieldwork using the additional opportunities offered to them, such as gas and other fuel on somewhat easier terms than to other consumers,” Medvedev said.
“But giving nothing new, offering no new opportunities to our enterprises would be wrong … we should create conditions for their development,” he said.
“We will certainly to this shortly, draft proposals and try to dovetail them to the preferences that are granted to companies in their respective areas of responsibility in the country,” Sechin said.
“We understand that one of the important elements of work in the sector is supplies to the domestic market. We are working with the agrarians now to provide for spring fieldwork and are quite confident that this task will be implemented in a stable way as it was last year,” he said.
“You are right, it should be a responsible approach. One the one hand, we have the possibilities to stimulate them towards certain decisions, but on the other hand, we should also help our producers,” Sechin said.
Itar-Tass: SKP pinpoints roles of Ingushetia detainees, involved in train blast
07.03.2010, 13.45
MOSCOW, March 7 (Itar-Tass) - The Investigation Committee at the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office (SKP) examines the roles of mobsters in the gang, commanded by Sayd Buryatsky, concerning their complicity in the blast of the Nevsky Express train last November and other crimes, Itar-Tass learnt on Sunday from SKP spokesman Vladimir Markin.
“The main division of the Investigation Committee examines materials, received during search events and special operations, carried out in the Nazran district of Ingushetia, in connection with the investigation of the criminal case on the explosion of the Nevsky Express train in November 2009. The gleaned material evidence is summed up, and investigators establish the role of every suspect in the committed crime,” he noted.
On Saturday, head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov reported President Dmitry Medvedev that the gang that operated in Ingushetia, had been closely shadowed after the blast of the Nevsky Express train last November and additional material evidence was received, confirming a version put forth by the committee.
Ten active members of the armed gang were detained and eight destroyed in a special operation, carried out in the Nazran district on March 2-3. The destroyed mobsters included one of the most odious leaders of the criminal underground in the North Caucasus Sayd Buryatsky (Alexander Tikhomirov according to his passport).
Law enforcers found material evidence at the place of the special operation, which is directly related to the train blast, committed by this mob last November, Bortnikov reported. According to the security chief, operatives found components of explosive devices, “identical to those used in the previous blast of the Nevsky Express train November 2007.
The president instructed the FSB and the Investigation Committee to continue examining all circumstances of the train blast.
Itar-Tass: Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev buys two London newspapers
06.03.2010, 04.01
LONDON, March 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev has acquired two key British periodicals – the London-published left-of-center Independent – which is one of the five key dailies in Britain - and the weekly Independent on Sunday, the Times said on Friday. According to the report the deal was concluded on Thursday.
It is known that Lebedev will pay for the newspapers a token sum of one pound sterling. The latest major details of the deal were finalized between the Russian businessman and the current owner of the Independent – INM (Independent News and Media) last weekend.
Lately, Lebedev was received by Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Downing Street 10. Brown decided to see for himself the future owner of an influential national daily. According to some comments, the meeting was a success.
The Independent, established in 1986, is considered as one of the most “intellectual” periodicals in the UK media market. However, the newspaper has experienced a string of financial setbacks. At present its circulation stands at 92,000, in contrast to 400,000 in 1989.
According to business sources, the Independent’s annual losses have reached ten million pounds. On no occasion in its history the newspaper managed to show a stable profit-making operation, and precisely this reason forced its current owners to look for a buyer.
Lebedev has said he would be prepared to invest a million pounds.
The Times has speculated that Lebedev will most probably lower the price of both newspapers in a bid to push up sales.
Alexander Lebedev took a prominent niche on the British mass media market after he acquired a very popular but at the same time loss-making newspaper Evening Standard, founded in 1827, from the Daily Mail and General Trust, which agreed to write off the newspaper’s eight-million-pound debts.
Since October 12 Evening Standard has been distributed free of charge. The aim of the measure was to build up subscription. By now its circulation has been up from 250,000 to 600,000.
From The Sunday Times
March 7, 2010
Times: PROFILE: Alexander Lebedev
The billionaire former KGB man is buying up more British newspapers. Is he a committed democrat or a Kremlin Trojan horse?
For a former KGB spy who thought he might be dying from mercury poisoning not long ago, Alexander Lebedev is displaying a remarkably healthy appetite. Having gulped down the London Evening Standard as an hors d’oeuvre, the Russian billionaire is in the final stages of swallowing The Independent and The Independent on Sunday.
The 50-year-old entrepreneur, dubbed “the spy who came in for the gold”, is no run-of-the-mill oligarch — a term he dislikes for its “rich and bad” connotations. Rather, he portrays himself as a philanthropic potato grower who likes nothing better than fishing for bream through the ice of the Moscow river or camping in Mongolia with his 23-year-old girlfriend, Elena Perminova, who recently presented him with a son, his second.
In fact, Lebedev is a well-read man who speaks perfect English and cites Fyodor Dostoevsky and Andrei Tarkovsky as his inspirations. His attire of blue jeans, black tailcoat and trainers without laces may put interviewers more in mind of “an impoverished waiter” than a newspaper proprietor, but the effect is betrayed by his expensive Panerai watch.
White-haired and pale, Lebedev sometimes comes across as thoughtful, engaging and gossipy. At other times his square face seems inscrutable as he averts his eyes behind rimless glasses. “He is very smooth and says all the right things,” says a Moscow journalist. “He’s quite different in his clothes and way of thinking from ordinary Russians.”
While the tycoon disdains the yachts favoured by his countryman Roman Abramovich, whose Chelsea football club is “simply a money-making machine”, Lebedev does have a weakness for collecting boutique hotels and property. Besides houses in Italy and France, he has a stately home in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace. His empire, estimated at £2.2 billion, spans housing, textiles, tourism, telecommunications, newspapers and a German airline.
Last summer he revealed that medical tests had shown a mysterious spike in his blood mercury levels to 14 times the normal limit — a condition with echoes of another former KGB spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London in 2006. Lebedev, too, has been a critic of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister: he co-owns a Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, that has often taken the Kremlin to task.
Lebedev absolved Putin of blame for the poison. “I think it has not come from a political enemy or a rival, but someone close to me,” he said mysteriously. “An old story: money.” However, like the £660m of Lebedev’s fortune that he reportedly lost in the economic crash, his mercury poisoning seems to have vanished. A case of bad borscht, perhaps.
Lebedev’s reputation as a critic of the Kremlin was called into question in January after he received a massive cash injection in a deal personally sanctioned by Putin. This was the sale of his £450m stake in the airline Aeroflot and other assets to the Russian government.
These ambiguities serve only to increase speculation over Lebedev’s motives in acquiring two loss-making British newspapers. Is he the Kremlin’s Trojan horse or is he driven, as he says, by “civic responsibility” and “duty”? He bought the Evening Standard for a nominal £1 from Associated Newspapers, promising a £30m investment over three years and freedom from editorial interference.
Geordie Greig, the former Tatler editor who befriended Lebedev, introduced him into British society and was rewarded with the editorship of the Evening Standard, defends his patron: “On the day he bought the Standard, he couldn’t be there because he was at the funeral in Russia of two journalists and a lawyer who had been murdered. So no one should question his seriousness in promoting press freedom.
“He’s incredibly polite and intensely curious — the sort of person who pursues visions. He believes passionately that there should be as much democratic freedom as possible through elections. But he’s no blind crusader: he says a lot of things should be made better in Russia, but that a lot of things are much better.”
Much sport has been provided by Lebedev’s wish list for editor of the Indy: the names mooted include Jeremy Paxman, the presenter of Newsnight; Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye; and Greg Dyke, the former director-general of the BBC. Perhaps rumours of Lebedev’s wicked sense of humour are true — but then, The Independent on Sunday was once edited by Janet Street-Porter, of whom Kelvin MacKenzie said: “She couldn’t edit a bus ticket.”
Cynics initially suggested the Standard was in effect a gift to Lebedev’s 30-year-old son, Evgeny, the product of his marriage to Natalia, a microbiologist from whom he separated in 1998. Evgeny earned a reputation on the London party circuit as a playboy, squiring Geri Halliwell, the former Spice Girl, and now Joely Richardson, the actress, while fulfilling the serious roles of businessman and chairman of the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation, which helps children with cancer.
Last year Lebedev, who is mostly based in Moscow, confessed that his son was “a very nice chap and very sociable, but I don’t think at this stage he’s of any use to the newspaper”. Evgeny now sits on the Standard’s board.
So what is Lebedev up to? Some detect a rather sinister purpose — that he is the Kremlin’s man, an opposition figure licensed to say what he likes, within limits — and on a London mission to do the bidding of Putin, of whom he was an ally during the prime minister’s rise to power.
Last year The Guardian quoted a “close associate” of Lebedev as saying: “Putin is always telling the oligarchs they should go and invest in the West ... Lebedev wants to prove to Putin that he can control parts of the western media, in order to project a better image of Russia. He has said to me many times that this is his motive.”
Britain’s new press baron has described himself as “a loyal dissident”. Yet when his dissidence was tested, critics say, he showed craven obedience.
In 2008 the tycoon’s newspaper Moskovsky Korrespondent reported an unsubstantiated rumour that Putin had secretly divorced his wife, Ludmilla, and was planning to marry an Olympic rhythmic gymnast half his age. In response to Putin’s fury, Lebedev shut down the paper. He blamed distribution problems.
Born into a family of Moscow academics on December 16, 1959, Lebedev was the son of Evgeny, an engineering professor at Moscow’s technical college and a former member of the Soviet water polo team. His mother, Maria, was an English language teacher.
Alexander graduated from Moscow’s elite state institute of international relations, where he studied economics, after going to some of the best Soviet schools. Invited to join the KGB’s foreign intelligence directorate in 1983, he felt he had little choice: “Choose is not the right word — agreed.”
His mother, a Communist party member, cautioned him: “She said, ‘They’ll find out what your real views are’.” But his father, a non-member, approved: “He said, ‘No, join. The only way you will change things is from inside’.”
Soon he was posted to the London embassy, where his morning duties began with reading the newspapers. According to one KGB contemporary, he was “a very average” spy, although talented at grasping business and economics.
His job was to “read every printed thing that existed in the country ... I would precis it and they would cipher it and send it back”. By his account, he was “too small a fish” to have met politicians and he did none of the KGB’s more unsavoury work: “There was nothing to be ashamed of.” Former spies, such as Putin, who got their hands dirty think he had it easy.
Mystery surrounded his departure from the KGB with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1992. One version is that his “big mouth” and critical stance explained his recall to Moscow and subsequent resignation. It is also unclear whether he was still a spy when he began his business career: he had obtained a PhD in economics while in the service. At all events, he made a lot of money on the bond market after the Soviet Union’s collapse and his nest egg bought him his own private finance house, the National Reserve Bank, in 1995. His fortunes soared like mercury.
Politics beckoned in 2003, when he won a seat in the duma, the Russian parliament, but it was his friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president, that spurred him to greater ambitions. “He is the son that Gorbachev never had,” says Greig. Gorbachev is Lebedev’s partner in Novaya Gazeta, whose journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in 2006. Lebedev offered a reward of £500,000 for information leading to an arrest.
In 2008 Gorbachev announced he was making a comeback with Lebedev in a grouping called the Independent Democratic party. However, Lebedev’s political prospects were stymied when his candidacy for the mayor’s job in Sochi was declared invalid.
Now he has other fish to fry — or wrap — in Britain. The billionaire says he is prepared to spend what it takes, describing the newspaper business as “a good way to lose money”. Time will tell if his loss is our gain.
8 Mar 2010
[pic]: Intel Brief: Power Plant Politics
Nuclear power plant cooling tower
The closing of Lithuania’s only nuclear power plant in accordance with EU requirements will render it dependent on Russian energy and perhaps vulnerable to Kremlin influence, Anna Dunin writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Anna Dunin for ISN Security Watch
An hour before midnight on 31 December 2009, Lithuanians turned off the last reactor of the Ignalina nuclear power plant, in order to comply with conditions of EU membership. It is a decision that could have significant ramification for Lithuania's energy security, economy and foreign policy at least for the coming decade.
The closure of its only nuclear plant has left Lithuania with a sudden huge drop in energy generation capacity, and to compensate for the loss, the country will be forced to start importing significantly higher volumes of energy supplies from neighboring countries, particularly from Russia. The development has raised fears that the country's increased energy dependence on Russia will enable the latter to exercise political pressure on Lithuania.
While potential long-term benefits outweigh the drawbacks of the decision, in the short term it will likely result in slower economic recovery, while increasing Lithuania's dependence on Russia for energy supplies.
In the long term, the decision to close the last nuclear power plant has the potential to accelerate Lithuania's modernization of its energy grid and possibly its integration with Polish and Swedish networks. Lithuania's energy sector will likely become more environmentally friendly if increased use of clean sources of energy is encouraged. A new, safer nuclear power plant will likely be constructed in the next decade.
Energy
The plant's output accounted for approximately 70 percent of Lithuania's energy needs and had allowed the small Baltic state with modest natural resources relative energy independence. Now it will have to turn to its neighbors, namely Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, for energy.
Even before the closure of Ignalina, Lithuanian power stations had used Russian gas and fuel. Imports from Russia account for almost 90 percent percent of the country's gas needs, and Russia supplies the Lietuvos Elektrine plant, which produces 65 percent of Lithuania's electricity, with gas necessary for its operations.
With increased imports from Russia, the latter will gain growing influence over Lithuania's energy sector for at least the next few years. While the Lithuanian government assures the public that the country could diversify its imports with gas, electricity or fuel oil, depending on prices, Russia will be able to manipulate the prices of all these supplies.
The current energy situation facing Lithuania has created a window of opportunity for the country to develop alternative energy sources or a new, state-of-the-art nuclear power plant. The government is currently considering a number of potential energy projects; but these would not be realistic for years.
Lithuania has been negotiating with Poland, Latvia and Estonia about the possibility of constructing a new nuclear power plant since 2006. The project has experienced a number of delays due to economic problems as well as lack of agreement over power distribution. Even if the parties agreed on the terms of the project, the plant would not become operational before 2018, or even 2025.
Another project in the works is concerns Lithuania’s electric grid. While Lithuania is not yet integrated in the grid linking Scandinavian states with continental Europe, plans are underway to make this a reality. The network of electricity connections connects Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, and indirectly, Russia. The project to connect electricity network of Lithuania with that of Poland and Sweden, however, will likely take years to complete.
Politics
The Kremlin has manipulated its gas or oil supplies as a political tool in dealing with its neighbors in the past, and will likely do so with Lithuania. While Russia is likely to exploit Lithuania's dependence on energy imports, it is improbable that it will be able to exercise political pressure to the extent it has in Ukraine or Belarus in the past, due to Lithuania's membership in the EU and NATO.
In January 2009, a dispute between Russia and Ukraine resulted in Russia cutting off gas shipments transiting though Ukraine. The dispute affected a number of Balkan and Eastern European states largely dependent on Russian imports for heating and electricity generation.
In 2007, following a row between Belarus and Russia over the taxes charged for the transit of oil and gas, Russia temporarily withheld supplies on the Druzhba pipeline destined for Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
In 2006, Russia cut off the crude oil supply leading to the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda, quoting a minor technical incident as an official reason. The Moscow Times, however, indicated that the real cause of the stoppage could have been the purchase of a Lithuanian refinery by a Polish state-owned company, which defeated Russian offers.
The closure of the plant will likely result in foreign policy changes at least in the short term, as Lithuania will be forced to strengthen its ties with Russia. Lithuania has strongly opposed to Russia building a Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea. The Lithuanian government has also rejected an offer from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to construct a new joint nuclear power plant. The country's bargaining power will now likely decrease and the government could become more cooperative and lenient towards Russia on such controversial issues.
Economy
The energy situation could have a significant impact on the state of Lithuania's economy. Lithuania was among the states hardest hit by the global financial crisis, and its economy contracted by 15 percent in 2009 alone. A major increase in energy prices will likely bring rising inflation and put economic recovery in jeopardy.
In January alone, the plant closure increased consumer prices by 1.3 percent and electricity prices by 33.3 percent nationwide. Heating costs escalated, resulting in public demonstrations. On 27 February, between 3,000-5,000 people demonstrated in Visaginas, to protest the fact that their heating bills increased three to four times since the nuclear plant had been closed.
While Lithuanian authorities acknowledge the rise, they blame ineffective heating systems and have failed to offer any financial relief. Furthermore, energy prices in the country could increase even by 70 percent. The nuclear plant closure could cause further damage to the local economy, virtually eliminate the country's electricity exports (until recently constituting 1 percent of Lithuania's GDP), as well as an increase in unemployment.
Ignalina, located in the town of Visaginas in northwestern Lithuania, was the country's only nuclear power plant. Despite Lithuanian officials' assurances that the Soviet-era plant could safely function for another 20 years due to extensive upgrades in recent years, the EU was not willing to negotiate its closure fearing that the reactor could face similar catastrophe as the one in Chernobyl in 1986.
The Ignalina power plant played a significant role in Lithuania’s modern history, helping to boost the country’s economic potential following independence in 1991, and thereby allowing it greater autonomy from Russia.
Georgian Daily: Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Eurasian Security
March 07, 2010
Jacob W. Kipp
Presidents Barrack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev have pledged to accelerate the negotiation of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The new agreement would replace the treaty that lapsed on December 5, 2009.
Progress in the US-Russian negotiations has been significant with the working numbers for reduced offensive arsenals in the range of 1500-1675 for warheads and 500-1100 for strategic delivery systems. These numbers are much lower than those contained in the expired START regime. Both Presidents Obama and Medvedev have spoken of this measure as a means to increase strategic security and stability and strengthen the existing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The issues that remain to be resolved before the Obama-Medvedev summit are not seen as precluding the signing of the treaty. Current discussions suggest it may be signed in late March or April, with the ceremony held possibly in Prague. The Chief of the General Staff Army-General Nikolai Makarov, confirmed the Russian military’s support for the treaty, saying “The talks on the treaty are very difficult, but we have reached an understanding that the parties should take in to account each other’s interests and should not infringe upon each other’s defense capabilities in any way,” adding: “The treaty will be ready soon, and it will not infringe upon Russia’s interests.” Unlike the May 2002 US-Russia Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty, signed by Presidents Bush and Putin, the new agreement will include verification measures based on earlier START agreements (ITAR-TASS, February 24).
The choice of Prague as a possible venue represents Washington’s desire to link this agreement with President Obama’s proclaimed goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the twenty first century, which he delivered there in April 2009. Obama referred to nuclear weapons in general and presented the problem of nuclear proliferation as a global issue. Progress on START has made the global connections of the various nuclear arsenals more apparent and the problems associated with them much more immediate. This was apparent in the prominence given to reducing nuclear weapons at the 46th annual International Conference on Security recently held in Munich. The US and Russian delegations agreed that reducing global nuclear arsenals to zero was possible, but it would take time. Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov, the senior Russian delegate in Munich, addressed the issue as imperative: “Although nuclear armament remains the backbone of the strategic deterrence system, it cannot be viewed as a panacea against all threats and challenges. It can and should be liquidated.” Ivanov raised Moscow’s concern over the recently announced US decision to deploy missile defense systems in Romania. Ivanov stated that the signing of the START agreement would in all probability lead to pressure to reduce US and Russian tactical nuclear arsenals. Ivanov pointed to the decision of Russia in the early 1990's to withdraw such systems from combat units and to place them in central repositories, and noted that the US had not reciprocated (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, February 8).
As Ivanov predicted, calls for reductions in tactical nuclear arsenals in Europe were quickly forthcoming. The Foreign Ministers of Sweden and Poland, Karl Bildt and Radek Sikorski, appealed to Moscow and Washington to quickly and radically reduce tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. Their proposal had a Baltic-Scandinavian focus, regarding Russian tactical weapons in Kaliningrad Oblast and the Kola Peninsula. The Russian response was to express surprise at the uneven treatment of the US and Russian arsenals. Russia has already withdrawn its tactical nuclear weapons to central repositories and deploys no such weapons in Kaliningrad Oblast. Unnamed Russian generals were cited as stating that Russia in recent years has removed tactical nuclear weapons from the ground forces, reduced the tactical nuclear arsenal for the air force and air defense forces by 60 percent, and on submarines by 30 percent. As far as the Kola Peninsula is concerned, Russian commentators noted that it was the base of the Northern Fleet, which included naval units involved in Russia's strategic triad. They stated that tactical nuclear systems there were kept in secure facilities and that Russia had no intention of withdrawing them. However, Moscow has not excluded the possibility of negotiating a reduction in tactical nuclear arsenals. According to Colonel-General Vladimir Verkhovtsev, Chief of the 12th Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, which has oversight of Russia's nuclear arsenal, it will seek to have the negotiations broadened to include British and French arsenals, and take into account Russia’s distinct situation in Eurasia (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 5).
Verkhovtsev’s point about tactical nuclear weapons being part of Russia’s deterrent is an explicit part of the new military doctrine. While that document did not embrace the long-discussed notion of “preventive nuclear strike,” it did endorse first use under certain conditions, including deterrence of nuclear strikes and attacks by other means of mass destruction against Russia and its allies and in the case of conventional aggression, which would pose a threat to the existence of the Russian state. Dmitry Litovkin addressed the issue of Russia's claim to the right of a nuclear first strike in the context of the 2000 version of Russia's military doctrine which claimed a similar right against Russia's declared primary threat, i.e., the US and NATO. But the context today is different, Litovkin points to Russian declaratory policy on nuclear weapons to be a direct manifestation of the weakness of its conventional military power and questions whether the new military doctrine actually supports to the efforts to give the armed forces a “new look” (Izvestiya, February 8).
While the US and NATO expansion is once again declared to be the primary concerns in the new military doctrine, they are identified as opasnosti (dangers) and not ugrozy (threats). Moreover, a new concern has appeared among the top four: “territorial claims against the Russian Federation and its allies, intervention in their internal affairs” (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, February 17). These are direct threats to Russia and its allies and can directly result in military aggression against the Russian state, as opposed to moves which might marginally affect the balance of forces. The Russian elite avoid speaking about a threat or danger from China, but there are analysts who see the People’s Republic of China as a possible threat to which Russia could respond only with nuclear weapons. For the last two decades Russia has treated China as a strategic partner, engaging in large-scale weapons sales. Yet, now Russian arms producers warn that in the area of aviation technology China acts like a pirate state, counterfeiting Russian designs like the MiG-29 and the Sukhoi-27 and selling these copies (Izvestiya, February 17). Other Russian authors have noted the deteriorating relations between the United States and China and are concerned that Russia might be drawn into a conflict which would not be in its interests. Aleksandr Khramchikhin recently presented to his readers a scenario for a “Second Korean War,” resulting from tensions between North and South Korea and leading to the intervention of the United States and China, in which Beijing would be the only possible winner. Khramchikhin avoided discussing explicitly the implications of such a conflict for Russia, but it is not difficult to imagine its consequences, where China would expect and demand that Russia provide logistical and other support as a result of Russia’s strategic weakness in the Far East (Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, February 4). Valentina Maltseva addressed the new military doctrine’s treatment of nuclear weapons and called the statement on the use of nuclear weapons against large-scale conventional aggression as a sign that Russia will defend itself with the weapons that it has. “This thesis many consider to be a manifestation of aggression by Russia “rising from its knees.” The author does not state who the “many” might be, but the locale suggests an eastern focus (Sovetskaia Sibir, February 11).
As NATO members debate among themselves the issue of reducing tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, Russia's Eurasian landscape may demand a broader focus for such discussions on this part of the nuclear equation because of the emerging explicit connections. The Almaty-based Eurasian Media Forum reported on February 25 that “Russia is ready to protect other participants of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), including with application of nuclear weapons.” The CSTO Secretary-General, Nikolai Bordyuzha, made these remarks in a television interview. Moscow has been calling for closer ties between NATO and the CSTO, but there has been little interest in this in Brussels or Washington. Both see the CSTO as a manifestation of a Russian “sphere of privileged influence.” One cannot construe a nuclear response to terrorism or to NATO as being at the heart of Bordyuzha’s declaration, its source lies further east. Moreover, by explicitly invoking the nuclear arsenal as part of Moscow's commitment to other CSTO members, Bordyuzha has made the issue of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons explicitly into a Eurasian security problem (Eurasian Media Forum, February 25).
Source:
BarentsObserver: Russian Armed Forces cut to 1 million men
2010-03-05
The Russian Armed Forces are today staffed by one million people, President Dmitry Medvedev confirms.
Speaking with top military representatives in an extended session with the Defence Ministry, President Medvedev confirmed that the total number of men and women working in the country’s armed forces is one million, Itar-Tass reports.
In 1985, the Soviet military had about 5.3 million men; by 1990 the number declined to about four million. At the time the Soviet Union dissolved, the residual forces belonging to the Russian Federation were 2.7 million strong.
According to Wikipedia, the Russian authorities want volunteer servicemen to compose 70% of armed forces by 2010 with the remaining servicemen consisting of conscripts. From 2008, the conscript time in the country is one year.
Read more - Itar-Tass
Georgian Daily: Few Russians Opt to Declare Their Nationality in the Russian Military, Commentator Says
March 07, 2010Paul Goble
When soldiers are asked to voluntarily list their nationality in military documents, a retired Russian officer says, “no more than five to seven percent” declare themselves to be Russians, even though that is what they are, thus raising the question “why do these boys not want to declare their nationality?
In the current issue of the journal of the Russian military-industry sector, Lt. Col. (ret.) Roman Ilyushchenko says that they don’t feel the need to do so, which means that “neither in school nor at home has anyone forced them to reflect over the simple questions: who are you, who is part of your family, and where do your roots extend?”
And he suggests that this lack of a sense of identity “violates all the traditions and principles of both the Russian and the current Russian Federation army which never were super-national and non-national formations as is indicated by their names” if by nothing else
(vpk-news.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10982:2010-02-02-08-28-53&catid=634:2009-05-02-13-24-27&Itemid=489).
According to Ilyushchenko, “any serving office will confirm that identification with nationality or region always has played an important role in the development of military unit cohesion.” Consequently, any decline in that identity or even more indifference to these identities represents a serious problem for the military and the country.
One senior officer in the legal affairs office of the defense ministry, the commentator says, told him that “it is not politically correct to be interested in the nationality of soldiers. It now is now determined only when the serviceman has committed a crime.’ …The absurdity and mistakenness if not criminality of this position is demonstrated by life itself.”
Soldiers who are members of other nationalities including those from the Caucasus do not neglect to declare who they are, but Russians fail to do so, Ilyushchenko continues, because they “have not recalled that they are representatives of the state-forming Russian people whose glorious ancestors” build the state and defended it.
This must be changed. “It is necessary above all to educate our young people in the spirit of national self-consciousness,’ something that will require shifting away from the current “system of non-national, pan-human, and tolerant (read – spineless) education of young people” in Russia.
That is because, he says, “precisely the traditional Russian school of education, tested by the millennium of our history” is responsible for “all out victories,” and he cites “the well-known words of I.V. Stalin said by him in the Kremlin in the victorious year of 1945” concerning the qualities of the Russian people.
At that time, the Soviet leader proposed a toast “to the health of the Russian people because it is the most outstanding nation of all the nations who are part of the Soviet Union and the leading force of all the peoples of our country because it has a clear mind, a firm character and endurance.”
Tragically, Ilyushchenko says, “the experience of the inculcation of these qualities in the younger generation today has been largely lost.” And sociological research, he adds, show that “the majority of our citizens [now] have only a very approximate understanding of their country’s history and their own genealogical background.”
That must be changed in order to produce the qualities Russian soldiers have shown in the past, especially given the efforts of some to transform ethnic Russians into non-ethnic ones just like “at one time [the powers that be] tried to convince us that we were first of all Soviet and only then Russian.”
“Of course,” Ilyushchenko concludes, “it is necessary to show one’s national patriotism not only by external things like writing one’s nationality in military documents or on t-shirts like football fans. Everything is much deeper. But the process must begin” so that a Russian will say “’I am a Russian. And I am proud of this!’”
Ilyushchenko’s article is important for three reasons. First, it highlights something that many in Russia and even more outside it are unwilling to acknowledge: Russian ethno-national identity now as has often been true in the past is in many cases far weaker than the ethno-national identity of other groups in that country.
Second, many in the military and the Russian Orthodox Church with which Ilyushchenko is closely associated are frightened by this reality, seeing it a threat to the strength and power of the Russian military in the first instance and of the Russian Federation as a country more generally.
And third, it suggests that many of them, including Patriarch Kirill and many military officers, are calling for ignoring the provision of the 1993 Constitution that specifies citizens have the right to declare any nationality or not, a move that if it took place could undermine any chance for the civic identity on which the future of the Russian Federation depends.
RFE/RL: Five Years After Maskhadov's Death, Situation In North Caucasus Remains Complex
March 07, 2010
By Liz Fuller
Five years ago, on March 8, 2005, the Russian authorities announced the death in a shootout of Chechen President and resistance commander Aslan Maskhadov.
His death was a milestone in Russia's struggle to preserve control over the North Caucasus.
Just weeks earlier, Maskhadov had unilaterally declared a cease-fire in what was to be the last of a series of overtures to Moscow aimed at negotiating an end to years of fighting that had cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
But then Russian President Vladimir Putin -- in contrast to his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who condoned an armistice and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya in 1996 -- was obsessed with physically destroying every last fighter in Chechnya. Putin notoriously referred to "rubbing them out in the latrine" and categorically rejected any talks with "terrorists."
That fixation with military force has proven counterproductive.
As Maskhadov himself predicted in an interview with RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service shortly before he was killed, the Russian leadership's refusal to come to the negotiating table has only accelerated the spillover of fighting from Chechnya to the other, hitherto largely peaceful North Caucasus republics.
That process began even before Russia sent its troops into Chechnya in the fall of 1999 for the second time in five years.
"Unless the war in Chechnya is stopped quickly, it will spread outwards. In fact, it has been spreading for some time now. Today fighting can be seen in Daghestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ossetia, Ingushetia, Karachayevo-Cherkessia," Maskhadov said.
As an experienced military commander, Maskhadov responded by expanding his network of fighters, establishing new "fronts" in Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Daghestan. The commanders of those fronts were subordinate to the military leadership of the Chechen resistance.
But Maskhadov always insisted that his men avoid civilian casualties wherever possible. And he refrained from launching attacks outside the North Caucasus. His successors have not abided by those constraints. Doku Umarov, who was named resistance commander in June 2006 after Maskhadov's immediate successor, Abdul-Khakim Sadullayev, was killed, has revived the Riyadus Salikhiin suicide squad originally set up by renegade field commander Shamil Basayev. Its members regularly target police officers with no regard for possible civilian casualties.
Fighters loyal to Umarov have also claimed attacks elsewhere in Russia. They claimed responsibility for the explosion last August that severely damaged a hydroelectric power station in southern Siberia and for the bombing in November of a Moscow-St. Petersburg express train. (Moscow authorities have attributed the train bombing to Chechen extremists, but have dismissed terrorism in the dam explosion, attributing it to technical and infrastructure problems.)
Maskhadov sought above all to establish a negotiated agreement with Moscow that would give Chechnya the maximum leeway to develop as an autonomous democratic republic. Umarov by contrast has embraced jihad as the only way to secure independence for the entire North Caucasus.
Soviet Officer
Unassuming and soft-spoken, Maskhadov was a career Soviet army officer who at the age of 40 had risen to the rank of colonel and commander of an artillery division. Russian Army Colonel General Gennady Troshev, who commanded the Russian forces in Chechnya in 1994-1995, pays tribute in his memoirs to Maskhadov's professionalism and self-discipline.
But when the Soviet Union imploded in late 1991, Maskhadov resigned from the army and returned to Chechnya to head the armed forces created by then Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev. Maskhadov commanded the Chechen resistance throughout the 1994-1996 war. He was responsible for the recapture of Grozny by the resistance in August 1996. RFE/RL North Caucasus Service director Aslan Doukaev, who witnessed that military operation, describes it as "brilliant."
"Maskhadov was, no doubt, a talented military strategist. During the 1996 operation to retake Grozny, several hundred fighters under his command, armed only with light weapons, brought a superior Russian military force to its knees within a few hours," Doukaev said.
Within weeks, Maskhadov and then Russian Security Council Secretary Aleksandr Lebed had signed a formal cease-fire. In January 1997, Maskhadov was elected Chechen president in a ballot that international observers pronounced free and fair. In May, he signed a formal treaty with Russian President Yeltsin on interstate relations between Chechnya and the Russian Federation.
That was perhaps the high point of Maskhadov's career. He was soon drawn in to a struggle for power with the more radical resistance fighters, first and foremost Basayev, who sought to undermine him. Under pressure from that Islamist wing, Maskhadov issued decrees imposing Shari'a law throughout Chechnya and stripping the parliament elected in 1997 -- one of his last remaining bastions of support -- of its legislative functions.
In the summer of 1999, Basayev defied Maskhadov by spearheading successive invasions of Daghestan and proclaiming an independent North Caucasus Islamic republic. Moscow responded with bombing raids on Chechnya, then launched a full-fledged invasion in October 1999.
Maskhadov's repeated appeals to the international community to persuade Moscow to begin peace talks went unheeded.
Instead, Putin named former Chechen mufti Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov to head a pro-Moscow regime in Grozny. That move paved the way for the inexorable rise to power of Kadyrov's son Ramzan, today the most influential and feared political figure in the entire North Caucasus.
Last summer, the Kremlin gave the green light for talks between Kadyrov's envoys and Akhmed Zakayev, who heads the Chechen government in exile.
But a planned world congress to cement reconciliation between Maskhadov's supporters and the brutal pro-Moscow regime in Grozny, scheduled for late February, has been postponed indefinitely.
Shortly after Maskhadov's death, Lebed's successor as Russian Security Council secretary, Ivan Rybkin, told RFE/RL he doubted whether the Chechen conflict could still be resolved peacefully.
Rybkin pointed out that "there are very few potential interlocutors left, and whether they speak Chechen or Russian they say very little that makes any sense, for of course there is a glaring absence of both the professionalism and the intellect needed to resolve and untangle the knots of bleeding problems both within Chechnya and across the North Caucasus."
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent appointment of Aleksandr Khloponin to oversee the North Caucasus was clearly intended to resolve those "bleeding problems." But with the insurgency growing in strength daily, time is not on Medvedev's side.
Georgian Daily: Russia’s President Visits North Caucasus Offering No Real Solution to its Main Problem
March 07, 2010
Mairbek Vatchagaev
In the eleventh year of conflict in the North Caucasus, the Russian leadership intends (yet again) to radically change the situation to its advantage. With this intent, on February 27, President Dmitry Medvedev unexpectedly arrived in Nalchik (the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria) (rian.ru, February 27).
Perhaps the president’s arrival explains why Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov rapidly returned from Libya, where he was invited by the Libyan head of state Muammar Qaddafi to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. All the regional leaders of the North Caucasus Federal District (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and Stavropol Krai) were in attendance.
The most important part of Medvedev’s visit took place at the North Caucasus development conference, where the Russian President highlighted three main points that, in his view, interfere with the region’s development: unemployment, corruption in government and the ongoing insurgency. However, on the same day, February 27, the focus shifted. At the opening of a new Kabardino-Balkaria Federal Security Service (FSB) building in Nalchik, Medvedev stated that the main problems of the region are continued “radicalism,” “extremism” and the “bandit underground” (1tv.ru, February 27). This means that all the statements about fighting corruption and investing in the region are no more than an ideological veil. As in the past, the primary cause of concern for Russian officials is the expanding militant underground of the North Caucasus. Continuing to ignore this underground, to contain it within Chechnya’s borders, and to pretend that nothing is happening is becoming more and more difficult with each passing day.
Today, the armed underground, with a united core and affiliated branches all over the region, does not allow subversive actions conducted against the government and its religious supporters to be hidden. It is hard to say whether the situation has become more difficult in Chechnya, Ingushetia or Dagestan. Counter-insurgency operations are underway everywhere, along with an effort to pretend that everything is going well. It is worth remembering that all this is taking place in a region adjacent to Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin plans to undertake the ambitious project of hosting a winter sporting event in a subtropical climate. The selected location is very inauspicious; Putin obviously counted on not having any problems with separatism in the region as the Olympic Games approached. In reality, as the games draw near, the Circassian peoples (Adygei, Kabardin, Cherkess) will have more reasons to support the separatists, since the games will be conducted on the lands of the Circassian peoples annihilated during the Russian occupation.
The areas that make up Sochi and its vicinity are the lands of the Shapsugs, only several thousand of whom remain in the region (several hundred thousand reside in Turkey). These are the lands of the 2,000 remaining Ubykhs, who lost their language and script, and the majority of whom were wiped out in the course of the conquest of the Caucasus in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Therefore, it is no surprise that the multi-million-strong Circassian diaspora (in Turkey, Jordan, Europe, United States, and Canada) demands that the decision to conduct the games in their historic homeland be rescinded. Such actions as “No Sochi 2014” are becoming popular for patriotic Circassians all over the world. Recent demonstrations in Vancouver were organized by Circassian activists from the United States and other countries, who traveled to Canada to protest against Russian plans to conduct the games on their historic lands (emiratkavkaz., February 15). As the countdown for the Sochi Games begins, the situation may become increasingly heated and will increase in its scope. President Medvedev’s plans for regional investment to curb unemployment and improve the overall situation are removed from reality: unemployment and corruption are not the problem. Both of these exist in other regions of Russia, but they do not result in armed resistance movements. That exists today only in the North Caucasus, because of the mentality and historic memory of the actions Russia took in the North Caucasus during the nineteenth century. Moscow’s unwillingness to acknowledge its past crimes is why its governance continues to be rejected to this day.
The Kremlin does not want to comprehend reality – the armed underground of the North Caucasus is a response to Moscow’s political actions toward the region’s indigenous peoples. The disregard for the culture, religion, customs, and traditions of the North Caucasus’ inhabitants increases the ranks of the dissatisfied. Yet Moscow thinks that the local populace can be enticed by the grandiose construction of religious centers. After Chechnya, Ingushetia is next in line for an Islamic cultural center to be built. This center will be taller than the Grozny Mosque (although it will not be able to hold as many visitors). According to Ingushetia’s president, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, this is exactly what will unite the Ingush people (regnum.ru, February 27). However, as it turns out, an opulent Islamic center, where mullahs and imams appointed by the government will read sermons about the necessity of submission to the authorities, will suffice to bring an end to the daily bombings in the republic.
The Russian president’s visit to the North Caucasus did not go without powerful actions from the militants. An explosion in the center of Grozny, on Pervomaiskaya Street near the “Raikhana” trading center, wounded a police officer (gazeta.ru, February27). The blast was triggered by a remote control device. Another incident took place in the Leninsky district of the city, where a bomb exploded along the route of a police patrol, according to a representative of the regional investigative committee of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s office (kp.ru, February 27).
Meanwhile, the Ingush interior ministry reported that on the evening of same day, February 27, a local bailiff, Magomed-Bashir Buzurtanov, was killed in the Ingush city of Nazran and the perpetrators escaped (, February 27). In addition, one person was reportedly killed and another wounded in a small arms attack on a storefront in Nazran that same evening (kavkaz-uzel.ru, February 27).
Acknowledging the complexity of the situation, Moscow is willing to take risks and undertake various initiatives that, according to its plans, will help alleviate the intensity of the armed resistance. But the focus is on physical elimination, rather than seeking an understanding of what motivates the armed resistance that is engulfing most of the North Caucasus.
Source:
RFE/RL: Inaction, Stigma Fuel Chechnya's TB Epidemic
IMarch 06, 2010
By Claire Bigg
Maret Maasheva first blamed her shortness of breath on pregnancy. But the symptoms only got worse when her baby was born. Two months later, she collapsed on the floor of her bedroom, gasping for air.
"I woke up in the middle of the night with the feeling that I was suffocating," she recalls. "I fell on the ground writhing -- I couldn't breathe, either in or out -- then I was coughing so hard I couldn't even talk."
The 35-year-old mother of two was rushed to a hospital in the Chechen capital, Grozny, some 40 kilometers away from her village. There, she was finally diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Three years later, Maret is back in the hospital. She has spent a total of 15 months at Grozny's tuberculosis dispensary, and doctors believe she will need to stay at least another five months before she is well enough to go home.
Tuberculosis, she says, has devastated the lives of those in her family.
The first time she was checked into the dispensary, her daughter was one year old and her son just two months old.
"Now my daughter resents me for not coming home -- she says I've forgotten her," Maret says. "When I visit the children, I can't stay with them. Doctors let me go on the condition that I say hi quickly before going back to the hospital, just enough time for them not to forget their mother's face."
Unchecked Epidemic
Stories like Maret's are increasingly common in Chechnya.
Tuberculosis, after years of decline, is making a comeback in many countries. Conflict zones like Chechnya, where the local population is weakened by prolonged stress and malnourishment, provide a fertile breeding ground for the potentially fatal disease.
Chechnya's war-battered medical infrastructure and a long-standing stigma associated with tuberculosis further fuel what experts say has grown into a major health crisis.
"This is an epidemic; the situation in Chechnya is unprecedented," says Simon Rasin from International Medical Corps, a U.S. group that has been fighting tuberculosis in the North Caucasus for the past decade. "The 20 years that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union and the 15 years of war have brought tuberculosis back to the scene."
There are 325 registered TB sufferers for every 100,000 residents in Chechnya, and the real number could be much higher. In comparison, Moscow has 77 cases per every 100,000 people; in European countries, the number drops to a dozen.
Considering that the average tuberculosis sufferer is thought to contaminate 15 to 20 people every year, a timely response to the disease could save hundreds of lives.
Authorities are aware of the problem. The Chechen Health Ministry and the Akhmad Kadyrov foundation, a charity overseen by the republic's powerful president, Ramzan Kadyrov, have sponsored the construction of Grozny's tuberculosis dispensary.
But doctors say that with just 70 beds, the facility is unable to cope with the outbreak.
They have been pleading with authorities to reopen the capital's former tuberculosis hospital, a vast structure that was damaged and mined during the Chechen wars.
Hospital In Ruins
The Russian government earmarked more than $9 million to rebuild the hospital two years ago as part of Grozny's vast reconstruction program. But work cannot start until the territory is demined, a painstaking chore that local authorities appear in no rush to perform.
Arbi Saidullayev, the head of the smaller, functioning tuberculosis dispensary, says the district's military department has refused to proceed with the demining.
"They said demining had to be done deep under the surface," he says. "They said they could not do it themselves, that special German equipment was needed."
Saidullayev was told to turn to the Russian Interior Ministry, which operates a large military base in the Chechen city of Khankala, but authorities there have been equally unreceptive.
Both the Interior Ministry department in Khankala and the Chechen Emergencies Ministry refused to comment for this story.
Chechnya's own Interior Ministry, in turn, says it is not aware of the situation.
"The Emergency Situations Ministry and the commandant's office are in charge of demining, not the Interior Ministry," says spokesman Magomed Deniyev. "And how come they haven't been able to demine for two years? It's very strange."
The hospital's stalled reconstruction is just part of the problem.
Chechnya is sorely lacking in trained medical staff, and the poor security situation and low salaries have combined to deter foreign specialists from taking up jobs here.
Low public awareness about the disease also means that even when medicine is available, many patients abandon their treatment prematurely without realizing they are putting themselves at risk of developing an even more aggressive strain of TB.
Maret herself developed drug-resistant tuberculosis after leaving the hospital early to be with her children.
"Patients with tuberculosis tend to stop taking medication because they feel nauseous and sick after taking these drugs," says TB expert Rasin. "That's how multidrug-resistant tuberculosis develops. Then it becomes pretty much incurable, because access to the multidrug-resistant tuberculosis medication is very limited, it's extremely expensive."
A Stigmatized Disease
Perhaps even more challenging is the social stigma associated with the disease, which is often seen as being linked to poverty and poor hygienic conditions, and is widespread in Russian prisons.
The disease is so contagious that patients must endure long periods of isolation. Many sufferers, ashamed to seek medical help, prefer to hide the disease or opt for traditional remedies that experts say allow the disease to progress unchecked.
"Some eat dog fat, others eat dried-up crickets that they grind into powder," says Nura Daurbekova, a nurse at a tuberculosis dispensary in the republic's south. "Many of those people are brought to us on stretchers when they are already beyond help. As a rule, that's how things end for those who treat tuberculosis with traditional remedies."
Health experts say more than half of the patients reporting to Chechnya's tuberculosis hospitals already have severe, often irreversible lung damage.
The disease killed as many as 139 people last year in Chechnya, with a population of just over 1 million.
Back at the Grozny dispensary, Maret is desperately clinging to life and to the hope of being reunited with her family. She is heartbroken that her children are growing up without a mother. But this time, she is determined to stay away from home until she is completely cured.
"What right does a tuberculosis sufferer have to live among healthy people, just because he doesn't want others to find out?" she says. "Maybe that's what happened to me: Someone was ashamed of contracting tuberculosis, didn't seek treatment, and ended up contaminating me. People simply have no right to do that."
RFE/RL's Russian Service contributed to this report
The Georgian Times: Noghaideli Explains his Moscow Trips
In contrast to the reception given to Irakli Okruashvili when he joined the opposition, former Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli's defection from the ruling party has not been met with enthusiastic reviews by the public at large or within the opposition itself. GT has interviewed Noghaideli about his what he hopes to achieve as part of the opposition.
Q: Mr. Noghaideli, you were not known for your oratory as a Minister or Prime Minister of Georgia and therefore the sharp statements you subsequently made and your emergence in the opposition were very unexpected and have called into question many things. What can you say about this?
A: Well, it is the Government of Georgia which has incited and orchestrated the response to me. Part of the opposition has been caught up in this process unwittingly. Unfortunately all my prognoses turned out to be true during the actions held in spring 2009. The beginning and ending of these actions were exactly as the Government planned them. In the long run the people as a whole will make decisions in Georgia rather than a few political leaders and people standing almost alone. It was obvious in spring that the public lacked the charge so very necessary to change the Government.
Q: Do you think the public is ready to do this now?
A: The forthcoming elections are the principal issue on the political agenda of the country and those who intend to take part in them naturally concentrate on them. But others have different plans.
It is no secret that the public is sufficiently negative towards Saakashvili, even though, as we should acknowledge, people have been deprived of the right to make a real choice. All polls indicate that at least 60-70% of the population insists upon the regulating of relations Russia, but even though they know for sure that the present Government will fail to solve the problems, the same part of the electorate seems to be going to vote for the National Movement again.
Q: Why is this?
A: Fear, of course. In Brussels I was asked about what I hope to achieve in the present conditions. No one on earth will change the situation for us. It wouldn’t be bad to improve the electoral system by making it fairer and giving people the right to make a real choice, but even in the present conditions we have to give people another chance to express their viewpoint at the ballot box.
We in the opposition have to take measures which are well-prepared and more coordinated. The public is eager to see us standing abreast. We shall prove that together we have the chance to win. People will only support a potential winner.
Q: If the supporters of holding primaries give up this idea and your own public opinion polls show that other candidates have a much lower rating than Irakli Alasania, will you support him as the single candidate?
A: Well, let’s wait till March 7. We gave some time to the initiators of the primaries and those who supported the idea. We have already made many attempts to achieve unity. It is our country and we will have to bear responsibility for the decisions we make today.
Q: Let’s get back to the relationship between Georgia and Russia. At the present moment you neither represent the Government of Georgia nor have any political influence, but you are considered to be the most acceptable opposition leader in Moscow. Why is this?
A: Let’s get rid of all the conspiracy theories. There have been no talks about any leaders being favoured by Russia. Even if I want to be regarded as the favourite of Russia no one will ever call me a minion of Russia.
Q: So do you think only the media is kicking up a fuss about your visits to Moscow?
A: Well, that does not really matter for me. I have my own plan, and it coincides with the public will. People just want to restore Georgia's chance to develop. Many have already realised that it is important to take further steps in this direction because Georgia will have no future without a due relationship with Russia. It is very important for Saakashvili to maintain direct confrontation with Russia just to solve his domestic problems and keep himself in power. When the Larsi checkpoint was opened Saakashvili said there had been some negotiations mediated by Switzerland. In October Grigory Karasin told me that talks had been carried out directly with the Government of Russia. (GT – Russian President Dmitri Medvedev confirmed this in a conversation with the President of our holding, Malkhaz Gulashvili).
Besides, we have all witnessed the meeting between Irakli Alasania with Sergey Lavrov. Nino Burjanadze will also have some meetings in Russia in the near future. There can be no exclusive relationship with Russia for anyone now. The hysteria surrounding my visits will not make me deviate from my course because I know what I am struggling for. I do not need to have a Government position if I am going to fail again and make excuses for things done by others. Even your questions include some hints about the silence I kept then.
Q: What about the allegations that you amassed considerable assets when you were Prime Minister?
A: This was said by the Government. Even the Georgian Times said at that time that I had some USD 75 mln. I know who gave the “order” from the National Movement to say this. Unfortunately I did not respond to him openly.
Q: If you had done so, would you have to face so many questions today?
A: It is much more important for me to bring the production of our farmers back to the Russian market, develop Georgian exports and increase family incomes in each village. All the talks with Russia today deal with the future prospects of reuniting Georgia.
Q: What possibility is there of restoring the territorial integrity of Georgia and regaining the occupied territories?
A: If we start with this issue dialogue will never take place. The first thing to do is make the Government of Georgia more acceptable for Russia, Europe, the United States and all our partners. It is regrettable that no firm forecasts can be made about the opposition either.
We have to find a new formula. I have no illusions left after my five visits to Russia. If someone says that we have to stop talking to Russia they have to acknowledge that they do not expect to reunite Georgia. Under the threat of war it will never be possible to talk to the Ossetians and Abkhazians. We have to think about our own interests, not those that Russia has been acting in.
Q: Is it Saakashvili who is helping the Russians? The President of Georgia let the 58th Army into his country, will he be held responsible for this?
A: During the 20 years I have been in politics I have always been result-oriented. Even now I am sure that we will eventually achieve positive results, though we have to take many actual steps rather than just talking as Saakashvili does. Step by step Georgia will regain its chance to unite again.
Q: According to a source you met Aslan Abashidze and Igor Giorgadze in Moscow, is this so?
A: I met neither Abashidze nor Giorgadze, nor Ebralidze from St. Petersburg. If I had met them I would have told you what was said.
By Nino Tskhoidze, translated from the Georgian edition of The Georgian Times newspaper 2010.03.08 13:24
Russia Today: Gas aftershock from Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia
08 March, 2010, 10:43
People in the South Ossetian town of Leningor survived a war, but are now struggling to make it through the winter. They say that since Georgia’s devastating attack in 2008, it has blocked vital Russian gas supplies.
Georgia claims the pipes are damaged, but people in Leningor say it's a cruel pretext to deprive them of fuel. They have taken to the woods, chopping down trees for the fuel they need during the harsh winter.
“It’s cold, if you don’t have a stove. It’s wintertime after all…” says Aleksandr Asaev, one of those who became dependent on wood for heat after Tbilisi cut gas supplies to the area more than a year ago.
But the small stove can’t warm the whole house.
“It’s tough without gas… a stove takes a lot of time and effort… it’s hard for me, because I have to walk with a cane, with a crutch,” Aleksandr says. The man is waiting for summer to have his leg operated on in St. Petersburg.
And it’s not just private houses that need energy in Leningor. The lack of gas means the local hospital has also been forced to use wood-burning stoves, and conditions are tough there.
The South Ossetian government says there’s little they can do. The area had gas before Georgia attacked South Ossetia two years ago – but now Tbilisi claims the pipeline is worn out and it’s impossible to get gas to this area, a region which Georgians call Akhalgori.
“We already proved that we have the willingness to provide the Akhalgori region with gas. But actually we have no capability to operate in that region, and correspondently we are not able to provide the gas,” said Mariam Valishvili, Georgia’s first deputy minister of energy.
Local officials disagree though. The pipe wasn’t damaged during the conflict, as there were no military operations here in the summer of 2008, they say. Nor do they believe the pipeline’s worn out, as Tbilisi claims.
“Georgia is constantly looking for some pretext, trying to convince you that the system should be checked and seeking to prove that South Ossetia is indebted to Georgia. But this demand has no legs to stand on,” says Deputy Mayor of Leningor district Aleksandr Baratashvili. “They say they can supply us gas, with the proviso it shouldn’t be made available to the Russian border guards deployed in our area. I think it’s absurd.”
People like Aleksandr Asaev and children in the local orphanage are caught in the middle of this dispute, trying to keep warm in the interim. There is a hidden problem though: the beech woods that are being cut are worth a lot of money and could substantially help the local economy – but they’re going up in smoke instead.
Telegraph: Dmitry Medvedev's Russia still feels the cold hand of Vladimir Putin
Dmitry Medvedev came to power amidst high hopes that Russia would liberalise, but the authoritarianism brought in by Vladimir Putin remains.
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 6:00AM GMT 07 Mar 2010
Emboldened by what he thought was the new spirit of openness sweeping Russia, Major Alexei Dymovsky decided to blow the whistle on police corruption in his run-down fiefdom on the Black Sea coast.
The dispirited detective, from the crumbling port of Novorossiysk, broke his silence in a You Tube broadcast that became an internet sensation, garnering well over a million hits.
Four months later, he may be wishing he had kept quiet. He is now languishing in jail after being sacked and accused of fraud, while a human rights activist who took up his cause, Vadim Karastelyov, can barely stand after two men stabbed him with sharpened wooden stakes outside his flat last Saturday.
Concerns about the way Mr Dymovksy was silenced, though, go well beyond the simple matter of whether police in Novorossiysk can continue to take bribes and frame the innocent with impunity, as he had claimed. It has also raised disturbing questions about the promises of Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, to end the creeping authoritarianism brought in by his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, and usher in a renewed era of freedom.
"What is happening now is illusory," said Mr Karastelyov, speaking to the Sunday Telegraph after his discharge from hospital last week. "Medvedev does not have the political weight to make the necessary changes. There is a huge gulf between what he is saying and reality. We have hopes but no illusions."
Even though he was handpicked for the job by Mr Putin, a man accused of strangling the chaotic but vibrant democracy that Russia briefly enjoyed in the 1990s, Mr Medvedev was quick to cast himself as a liberal reformer when he came to power in 2008. His promises to fight corruption and restore the rule of law were hailed as a welcome change from the Putin era - not least in Britain, where the Litvinenko poisoning case showed a Russia lurching back to Soviet habits. Hopes that the new man would be liberal and pro-Western were raised further by the fact he was a lawyer by training, not a spy, and his matey disclosure that he was a fan of British heavy metal band Deep Purple.
Yet now, half-way into his four year term, the liberal newspapers, human rights groups and NGOs that suffered increasing harrasssment during Mr Putin's reign say little has changed. Mr Medvedev may well have denounced Josef Stalin and spoken of the need for political competition and modernisation. But the problem, say those who earnestly want to believe him, is that he is all talk and little action.
"We have not given up on him yet, and we should give him the benefit of the doubt," says Tanya Lokshina, of the Moscow branch of Human Rights Watch. "But quite a bit of time has passed and so far there has been little but rhetoric and more rhetoric."
Mr Medvedev does boast some reforms to his credit. He has replaced a clutch of regional governors, and fired a slew of top police and military officers. However, he also appears to have gone out of his way to mimic the walk, talk and even dress sense of his mentor, Mr Putin, prompting some critics to call him "Putin's younger brother". Kremlin-watchers also note that while Mr Putin addresses Mr Medvedev using the casual form of you in Russian or "ty," Mr Medvedev employs the more deferential and formal 'vy' when talking to Mr Putin, underlining his junior role in the partnership. Kremlin image makers seems to avoid putting Mr Medvedev up for the kind of macho photo opportunities deemed suitable for Mr Putin, who was this week pictured on horseback in snow-bound Siberia.
"Medvedev is warmer and sunnier," said one former senior US intelligence official. "But he does not want to change things that much. He believes in what might be called 'venture liberalism' - trying out various things, but not really getting serious."
Nina Khrushcheva, granddaughter of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, describes Mr Medvedev's job in the Kremlin in rather less flattering terms. His role, as she sees it, is not so much as president but as first lady.
"The cheerful facade is composed of Russia's miniature president, Dmitry Medvedev, whose job, like that of America's first lady, is to keep up appearances," she said. "And the appearance that needs the most maintenance is that of a modern and civilised Russia."
Among those who are disappointed, but not surprised, by the Medvedev track record is Yevgeny Ikhlov, an expert at the 'For Human Rights' pressure group, which is involved in the case of Major Dymovsky, the police whistleblower. He claims there was a secret agreement, sealed during Vladimir Putin's 2000-2008 presidency, that allowed the police and the FSB security service to do as they please in return for their unswerving loyalty to the regime.
"The system senses weakness in Medvedev and crushes anyone who dares to pop their head above the parapet," said Mr Ikhlov. "Medvedev gave people hope and created a different atmosphere in society but he is not strong enough to break the unwritten agreement with the law enforcement agencies."
Mr Medvedev's aides, who are aware of the perestroika expectations that their boss initially generated, urge patience. "Such changes do not happen quickly," says one adviser close to the Kremlin. "You cannot change the situation just like that." Russia, it is argued, is the largest country in the world, and moves like a super tanker.
Yet with whistleblowers like Major Dymovsky still viewed primarily as troublemakers, analysts who thought the main question would be purely the speed of Medvedev's reforms are now pondering other questions instead. Is he his own man or just Mr Putin's creature? And does he really believe in reform, as the impassioned style of many of his speeches might suggest, or is he just a fall guy whose job is to defuse growing social tension at a time of financial stress? With a presidential election in 2012 approaching, many sceptics believe that Mr Medvedev is merely a temporary fixture and that Mr Putin, who is now prime minister, is preparing to take his old job back at the very top of Russian politics.
"Medvedev is keeping the seat warm," says one seasoned Russia watcher who regularly interacts with the Kremlin. "You need to be more than a nice person to run a place like Russia."
Sunday, Mar. 07, 2010
Time: Anti-Putin Movement Gains Confidence in Russia
By Simon Shuster / Moscow
Russia's opposition has long been fond of the word "de-Putinization," which to those who dream of such things is a different way of saying "progress." It reflects the rather starry-eyed belief that if Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his circle fall from grace, change will come immediately and Russia will morph into Europe. For years the opposition movement's strategy has been to rub away at Putin's credibility "like drops of water on a cinderblock," as one of its leading figures, Boris Nemtsov, puts it. For most of that time the impact of their work has fit this analogy. In the past few weeks, though, signs of something new have begun to emerge. Regular Russians, not just the usual crew of activists, have been coming out by the thousands to call for Putin to resign. De-Putinization, opposition figures say, has finally begun. (See pictures of Putin and Medvedev's ski vacation.)
The pivotal point came on Jan. 30, when an opposition rally in the western city of Kaliningrad attracted 10,000 people, an incredibly high turnout for Russia's docile political culture, and likely the biggest protest for at least five years.
The people in Kaliningrad have a lot to be angry about. A hike in import duties has crushed one of the region's most vital industries: the importation of used cars from Europe that are then sold on in Russia. The end of that trade has put as many as 20,000 locals out of work. The price of utilities has jumped. And on top of that, the unpopular governor, a Kremlin-appointed former tax minister from Moscow named Georgy Boos levied a new tax on drivers. During the worst bout of unemployment and economic decline in a decade, reports of Boos' lavish vacations to Europe make many locals despise him. (See pictures of Russian police breaking up an anti-Kremlin rally.)
For the opposition, this presents a great opportunity. Opposition leaders flew down from Moscow to have their turn at the podium during the late January protest. Alongside local activists, they called not only for lower taxes, more jobs and a new governor, but for an end to Putin's reign. Nemtsov was the most prominent figure to speak. A popular governor of Nizhny Novgorod in the 1990s and a deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, he took the stage in a bomber jacket and jeans. "Moscow is sucking the money from the regions as if they were its colonies," he said. "Until we oust this corrupt police state, we will never achieve a thing." There was a swell of applause, and he finished his speech with a famous quote from Alexander Pushkin, the nation's greatest poet. "Russia will waken from its slumber," he shouted. "And on the ruins of despotism, our names shall be inscribed!" The crowd went wild. The government became the enemy.
A few weeks later at his office in a Stalin-era high-rise in Moscow, Nemtsov is still beaming. A new strategy had come out of Kaliningrad, he says, and he seems restless to enact it. "We have to monitor the overall environment very carefully. We have to spot where protests are flaring up, and we have to act on that," he tells TIME. "At first it will be a mosaic. It will be fragmented...But eventually the whole country will catch on." (See 10 things to do in Moscow.)
The ultimate goal, Nemtsov says, is to organize a rally ten times the size of Kaliningrad in the center of the capital. And then what? "Well, after that we'll have elections, and then we'll see who wins and who loses. But the point is we have to get rid of Putin. He is dangerous," Nemtsov says. "I think this year is going to be the year of anti-Putin protests."
He may be right. Demonstrations have cropped up around the country in the past few weeks. They have been smaller than in Kaliningrad but still very large by Russian standards. In the Siberian city of Irkutsk a protest on Feb. 13 attracted about 2000 people. In late 2008, just as the Russian economy was plunging, there was a protest of a few thousand people in Vladivostok and subsequent rallies that brought out a few hundred people. But the latest rallies are larger, the reasons behind them more diverse and the calls for Putin's resignation more fervent. The prime minister's popularity has started to suffer. In the week after Kaliningrad, Putin's approval ratings as measured by state run pollster, VTsIOM, fell to their lowest level in almost four years.
He remains, of course, the most popular politician in Russia by far, as well as the most powerful. But even the mainstream opposition sees an opening. Take the Yabloko Party. It had led the pro-Western forces in parliament throughout the 1990s before being voted out in 2007 in an election it says was rigged. Kaliningrad has helped turn its focus to the streets. "The outlying regions are in a better mood for protests," its leader, Sergei Mitrokhin tells TIME. "Kaliningrad shed light on all the vices of the current regime and its economic policies, and it has led us to activate our regional branches. We have been carrying out a series of protests and pickets around the country, and we will continue working in this direction." (See the top 10 news stories of 2009.)
The hurdles are many. Putin loyalists control Russia's political institutions as well as the entire bureaucracy. The government also controls all the major TV channels. The Kaliningrad protest got virtually no coverage in the mainstream Russian press. Putin has also been able to deflect part of the resentment by dressing down his political party, United Russia, and sending out envoys to show that the Kremlin is paying attention.
Meanwhile, the opposition remains deeply divided. Egos sometimes override their pragmatism, and a real alliance appears unthinkable. Since Kalingrad, opposition leaders have gone back to denouncing each other. "There is a fear of competition between them," says Valeriya Novodvorskaya, a prominent Soviet dissident and a vocal critic of Putin's rule. First arrested by the KGB for her activism in 1969, Novodvorskaya is no stranger to the opposition, but she is wary of the latest flare-up in public resentment. "A street protest is not a grocery store," she says. "You go there to demand your freedom, not to ask for more sausage on your plate."
If the recent demonstrations do manage to topple the government, Novodvorskaya says it will likely be the Communists who seize power, or some other authoritarian force. Such parties are best placed, she says, to promise handouts and paternalism, the things that people want at a time of financial crisis. "We've played that bloody game with the Bolsheviks before, and the motives behind these protests are again material. These people don't want to hear about free market capitalism and European integration. These are foreign notions here, and they will support anyone still capable of throwing them a bone. Don't be confused. The government still has bones to throw."
Kaliningrad's transport tax, for instance, has been called off for this year, and Russia can afford it: the state is still reaping massive profits from the sale of oil and gas. The broader economy is also recovering, and even though Putin's initial reaction to the protests showed some signs of dismay, Mitrokhin is far from certain that the government is afraid. "It amazes me," he says. "People are screaming for him to get out but there is no sense that he is trying to reform or justify himself. He feels his own strength. If needed, he knows he can rig the next elections, or carry out such a massive PR campaign that the people will love him again... It's naive to think he will cave."
Guardian: FC Moscow go out of business after owners pull plug on funding
Fans go on hunger strike in protest as Russian club drops out of the Premier League after Norilsk Nickel withdraws its backing
Kevin O'Flynn
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 March 2010 00.10 GMT
Chelsea, be warned: some Russian sugar daddies turn off the tap. Russian Premier League side FC Moscow have ceased to exist after their owners, metal giants Norilsk Nickel, stopped funding them.
Eleven fans went on a hunger strike in an attempt to get the club back into the league, but gave up after five days when the head of the Russian FA visited them to say there was no chance of a return. He did promise that the club would retain their professional status, though that seems unlikely. The few players left at the club had their last training session last week and, reports Moscow Times, staff have been told they will not even play in the second division this year.
Moscow used to be backed lavishly by Nickel when Mikhail Prokhorov, the sports-loving oligarch who is in the process of buying NBA side the New Jersey Nets, was in charge of the company. He sold out in 2007 and Nickel has since been badly hit by the financial crisis.
Nothing is ever simple in Russian football and the decision is seen by some as part of a conspiracy to promote Alania Vladikavkaz, champions in 1995, to the Premier League. Alania are from the troubled Caucasus region, plagued by extremist violence and poverty. Alexander Khloponin, a former Norilsk Nickel chairman, has just been made the government's envoy to the region and the club's promotion will help bolster his position.
Russia Today: More women rise to corporate peaks
08 March, 2010, 09:38
More and more women are taking senior-level positions in Russian business - according to a survey by PWC and the Russian Managers Association in the run up to International Women’s Day.
Ekaterina Shapochka has been head of marketing department in a large corporation for seven years. Her unit consists of more than 50 people. Ekaterina says it is a challenge for a woman to be a success in a business world still dominated by men.
“Women usually work longer in companies, so they’re more loyal, but they stay at the same position for a longer time, which means they probably are not promoted as easily as men are. Women just have more responsibilities we need to do much more effort to be successful.”
According to a survey by PWC and the Russian Managers Association, women now make up a large proportion – more than 90% – of chief accountants, 70% of HR senior managers and almost half of chief financial officers, while there still few women among general directors, chairmen of the board, presidents and operations directors.
The last three years have seen an increase in the number of women occupying senior-level positions. Sergey Litovchenko, Executive Director, at the Russian Managers Association says trends vary between industries.
“Women play a dominant role in the service sector, consumer and food industries, as well as in small business, which gives women more opportunities to manage their time. There are also more women working at state institutions.”
The financial crisis has also had its impact – job and salary cuts affected more women than men according to Ekaterina Shapochka.
“We do try to optimise resources, which means we need to do the same amount of work with less resources.”
On the other hand the crisis presents a chance for leaders to take responsibility and develop their future careers – and responsibility is something women can't escape.
Pravda: 100 Years of International Women’s Day: Russia was the Pioneer of Women’s Rights
07.03.2010
Monday March 8 is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, a national holiday in Russia (since 1965) to commemorate the remarkable achievements of women in guaranteeing victories for human rights despite continued constraints. International Women’s Day serves as a focal point for us to document the present and future challenges facing women and to pool resources to implement women’s rights on a global scale. Amazing it is that such a Day should still be necessary.
“The beating was getting more and more severe. In the beginning it was confined to the house. Gradually he stopped caring. He slapped me in front of others and continued to threaten me. Every time he beat me it was as if he was trying to test my endurance, to see how much I could take”. (1)
History of International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day started in the United States of America, launched by a declaration of the Socialist Party of America on February 28th, 1909 using as a basis the need to guarantee women’s rights in an increasingly industrialized society and was taken up by the international community at the first International Women’s Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1910. The horrific and inhumane conditions at the New York Triangle Shirtwaist factory which caused the deaths of 140 garment workers (mostly women) in 1911 provided an added impetus at a time when women were pressing for the right to vote and demonstrations in Russia prior to the 1917 Revolution were the first signs of women’s emancipation in that country, culminating in the declaration by Lenin of a Women’s Day on March 8th; in 1965 it was declared a public holiday by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
“Emotional abuse is worse. You can become insane when you are constantly humiliated and told that you are worthless, you are nothing” (2)
Why March 8th?
Women had been demonstrating for their rights since pre-Classical times (e.g. the sexual strike called by Lysistrata in Ancient Greece, the March on Versailles by Parisian woman calling for “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” in the 1790s). Copenhagen had chosen 19th March for the celebration of an International Women’s Day but in 1913, Russian women chose the last Sunday in February (following the Declaration by the Socialist Party of America in 1909) as the date for their International Women’s Day to call for peace on the eve of the First World War. As Springtime and local customs to give the first flowers to women combined, the end of Febuary/beginning of March began to be the time of year observed by the feminist movements, until in 1917, Russian women called a strike on the last Sunday of February to protest against the War (23d February) in the Julian Calendar; 8th March in the Gregorian.
“My husband slaps me, has sex with me against my will and I have to conform” (3)
Continuing the impetus
After having been considered “too stupid to have the right to vote”, over the last century, women stood up for their rights and won victories, culminating in the right to vote and in gaining equal rights across a wide spectrum of professional activities.
“I take a blanket and I spend the night with my children out in the cold because he is hitting me too much and I have to take the kids to stop him hitting them too” (4)
However, so much more needs to be done and it is a telling statement that after 100 years, we are still faced by glaring and shocking statistics regarding women, such as:
Women own one per cent of the world’s property, earn 10% of the world’s income, yet perform 66% of the work, produce 50% of the food;
Women have to work longer hours than men to receive the same income;
Women are concentrated in insecure jobs in the informal sector and are far more vulnerable to unemployment;
Unacceptable statistics
How can we state that we have reached a collective state of civilization when we are confronted by statistics such as these?
A WHO study conducted in ten countries discovered that between 15 and 71% of women reported physical or sexual violence perpetrated by a husband or partner;
For the 15-44 age group, violence causes more victims among women than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war;
Up to 40% of women in some countries stated that their first sexual encounter was not consensual;
There are 5,000 honour killings worldwide per year;
20% of women worldwide experience sexual abuse as children;
In South Africa, one woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner; in India 22 women are murdered each day in dowry-related incidents, often burnt alive;
80% of the world’s victims of human trafficking are women;
100 to 140 million girls have been the victims of Female Genital Mutilation, 3 million girls per year are subjected to this horrific act of intrusion;
There are 60 million girls per year forced into marriage as child brides;
Worldwide, 25% of pregnant women are subjected to physical or sexual abuse (including being punched or kicked in the abdomen);
40 to 50% of women in the EU have experiences sexual harassment at work;
83% of girls in the USA experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools (5)
Conclusion
If we state that women’s rights have been reached and ignore the facts presented above (but a minuscule sample of the horrific register of sexist abuse) then we are admitting that we live in an unjust, feeble and impotent global society which in over one hundred years of concerted efforts to set women’s rights on an equal footing with those of men has still not managed to create universal and global structures.
While one of the biological functions of the woman is to carry the child through pregnancy (if she so wishes), how can we say that we have reached any pinnacle of success if the right to employment is in many cases subjected to the precept that the woman will not have children and when hardly any societies worldwide have created the financial mechanisms for women to have full professional lives while performing their chosen roles as wives and mothers, quite apart from guaranteeing their right to inviolability of their physical integrity?
UNO: Thai University Graduate
UNO: Woman interviewed in Serbia/Montenegro
UNO: Woman interviewed in Bangladesh
UNO: Woman interviewed in Peru
American Association of University Women. 2001. Hostile Hallways: Bullying, Teasing, and Sexual Harassment in School.
Lisa KARPOVA
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru
RIA: Toy balloons released into sky in Russian Far East anti-abortion flash mob
18:5907/03/2010
An anti-abortion flash mob in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, entitled Silent Scream, gathered some 30 participants on Sunday who symbolically released black and red toy balloons with unborn children's names into the sky, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported.
Women in Russia, whose population is 142 million, undergo some 1-1.5 million abortions annually in line with official statistics.
But the flash mob participants released toy balloons to the sound of a bell ringing each six seconds, which they said was due to unofficial statistics, in line with which an unborn child dies in Russia during an abortion each six seconds, which is four-five times the official figures.
The flash mob ended when all available toy balloons were released into the sky.
"Today we are holding a youth action entitled Silent Scream against abortions and we consider an abortion to be a murder. We... want to address women and say: 'Don't darken your soul with the murder of your own child'. An abortion is inadmissible, especially in this country that is experiencing a demographic crisis," an organizer said.
Silent Scream is the name of a documentary dating back to 1983 showing the abortion of a 12-week fetus. Abortion opponents use the film as proof illustrating their viewpoint.
A recent United Nations report indicates that the Russian population will fall from 142 million in 2008 to 116 million by 2050 unless action is taken to reverse current trends.
Russia has implemented a raft of policies as part of efforts to arrest the decline, which has accelerated since the collapse of the Soviet Union and ensuing economic hardships, aiming to keep the numbers at 142-143 million people by 2015 and ensure an increase to 145 million by 2025.
President Dmitry Medvedev, who oversaw ambitious welfare projects driven by a recent economic boom as first deputy premier, has spearheaded measures to support foster families, develop preschool education, and promote a healthy lifestyle.
Programs the government has launched to tackle the demographic crisis include incentive payments for second births. Posters like those depicting a young woman with three babies and reading "Love for your nation starts with love for family" have been widespread.
VLADIVOSTOK, March 7 (RIA Novosti)
Hurriyet: Russia grapples with labor-migrant dilemma
MOSCOW – Daily News with wires
Monday, March 8, 2010
Russia, which has the second largest population of foreign migrants in the world after the US, is preparing for a new, incoming wave of labor migrants for spring season. Government officials acknowledges that the Russian economy needs guest workers in order to promote a steady growth rate
With the onset of spring fast approaching, Russia is preparing for a new, incoming wave of labor migrants. Government officials in Moscow, including the head of the Federal Migration Service, or FMS, acknowledge that the Russian economy needs guest workers in order to promote a steady growth rate, EurasiaNet repoted on its Web site. Nevertheless, the Kremlin has to maintain a delicate balancing act on the labor-migrant issue, given that xenophobic public attitudes remain strong.
In comments made in late January about 2009 trends, Konstantin Romodanovsky, the Russia’s FMS chief, described the influx of foreign labor migrants as the "best demographic indicator in the last 15 years," the Itar-Tass news agency reported. Russia currently has the second largest population of foreign migrants in the world after the United States. Estimates on the number of labor migrants vary widely - from 4 million to 12 million.
Depending on the estimated number, guest workers account for anywhere between 7 percent and 20 percent of Russia’s overall working population, which is believed to be roughly 60 million. Without foreign labor, the Russian economy might have difficulty functioning. "We have a huge country, which makes finding enough workers difficult. We are forced to rely on foreign workers," President Dmitry Medvedev explained in a late December speech.
The visa-free travel regime that Russia maintains with most CIS states enables the regular and smooth flow of guest workers to Russia. Half of all foreign migrants arrive from Central Asia, particularly the republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Others come from Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Moldova.
The importance of guest workers for the Russian economy is expected to rise, as Russia’s own demographic crisis begins to bite over the next 15 years. Caused in part by a low birth rate, along with a shockingly low average life expectancy for males of only about 61 years, Russia’s population is experiencing a precipitous decline. According to FMS estimates, the country’s working-age population could fall by 19 million by 2026.
The use of CIS guest workers would be perhaps the easiest and most efficient way to offset the shrinkage of Russia’s own labor pool. And given the ongoing economic struggles in many Central Asian states, Russia is likely to remain a magnet for foreign laborers for the foreseeable future.
Labor migration is an important economic sphere for the countries of Central Asia. In 2008, labor migrants sent more than $13 billion in officially registered remittances to friends and relatives in their home countries. (The actual amount could have been as high as $26 billion, according to World Bank data). For Tajikistan, remittances are a crucial element of the economy, accounting for nearly half of the country’s GDP.
While well-managed labor migration makes sense for all involved, many Russian citizens do not see the annual influx of labor migrants as a win-win situation. Despite their important role in the Russian economy, labor migrants are often subjected to various forms of prejudice and harassment.
A 2009 survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center revealed that 45 percent of the respondents felt antagonistic toward non-Slavic ethnic groups, particularly those from the Caucasus and Central Asia. A survey conducted in 2008 by the center showed that 55 percent of respondents favored a toughening of immigration regulations. Meanwhile, the SOVA analytical center, which monitors extremist activity, has calculated that 400 hate crimes motivated by an ethnic bias and directed against people of "non-Slavic" appearance were committed in 2009 in Russia. A great number of these crimes, the center indicates, were committed by members of anti-immigration groups.
Some officials have argued that hate crimes grow in proportion to the influx of migrants, while others have suggested the attacks may be a backlash against an increase in financial-crisis-related criminal activity. Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, the director of the Center for Migration Studies in Moscow, told EurasiaNet that such statements about criminality are spread deliberately by the opponents of immigration. She added that the public is often quick to buy into such misrepresentations, especially amid times of economic uncertainty.
Some Russian experts have argued that the influx of foreign labor is a form of dumping, and have called on the government to do more to protect the interests of Russian workers. Responding to these criticisms, authorities have sought to temporarily curtail the inflow of foreign labor by cutting foreign labor quotas.
Zayonchkovskaya criticized such remedies, arguing that attempts to restrict the natural flow of labor could hinder economic recovery efforts. She insisted that migrants were not taking jobs away from citizens. "There was never any competition [between migrants and citizens]. The number of publicly advertised vacancies in Moscow never dropped below 150,000. I am sure that now it is far beyond 200,000 and I don’t see Muscovites rushing to take these jobs," Zayonchkovskaya stated.
Sergei Guriev, president of the New Economic School and a researcher on labor mobility, said that some of Russia’s low-skilled workers are indeed competing against foreign migrants. At the same time, he admitted that an even bigger share of Russia’s population benefited from the presence of guest workers. "There are many other Russians for whom foreign migrants lower the cost of services. These people have a direct personal interest in migrant labor," Guriev told EurasiaNet. "Besides, I would say that in a country as expensive as Russia, cheap foreign labor is a very important factor that maintains some sort of price competitiveness." "It is the government’s responsibility to explain to its citizens that Russia is a multi-national country, and that attracting foreign labor is in its long-term interest," Guriev added.
National Economic Trends
Pravda: Russia May Lose Influence on Setting Oil and Gas Prices
05.03.2010
Russia will not be able to dictate prices on its exported fuel, experts of the Institute of Contemporary Development said in their report.
The specialists said that the Russian Federation would have to face serious economic problems already in the near future.
“The demand on oil and gas will remain, of course, but it will be a different kind of demand, where the customer, not the producer, will dictate the prices,” Evgeny Gontmakher, a senior official with the Institute of Contemporary Development said.
The expert believes that the state of affairs in modern-day Russia is very similar to that in the USSR during the stagnation period, when oil prices were high too.
“The current oil price is still a consolation. We had $30 per barrel a year ago – everyone panicked and did not know what to do. Now the price is high, and there is no need to think of development. This is another stagnation period for Russia,” Gontmakher said.
The report also said that Russia would not be able to compensate the reduction of the export of hydrocarbons. Its export ties with former Soviet states (CIS) gradually worsen under the influence of competitors – the EU, the USA, China, Turkey and Iran. As a result, Russia may lose its status of the sole strategic partner for the CIS. China and the European Union have all chances to enter the market of the region instead of Russia.
March 4, 2010
Russia Profile” Cutting Across the Grain
By Tai Adelaja
Russia Profile
Efforts to Resolve Russia’s Problem with a Grain Surplus Are Hindered by a Decrepit Infrastructure and Logistical Challenges
After years of playing second fiddle to the world’s major grain suppliers like the United States, Canada and the European Union, Russia now appears poised to boost its grain exports, focusing its attention primarily on East Asia. At a recent grain conference in Singapore, Russian grain farmers and union officials trumpeted what seems to be the nation’s new strategic goal of boosting its wheat sales to countries like Japan, China and South Korea. However, as industry experts were quick to point out, Russia’s renewed vigor to plow into new territories is as much a result of strategic planning as a product of desperation.
According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast, East Asia will account for about ten percent of the 121.6 million tons of global wheat imports this year, making the region an attractive port of call for Russian grain exporters. For the past three years, Russia has enjoyed bumper grain harvests, with its grain stockpile accumulating year on year even after making allowance for the 75 million tons of annual domestic consumption. "This sure is a boom period for Russian grain exporters. Russian grain is now highly competitive both in quality and price, and could give our competitors, especially the United States and the EU, a run for their money,” said Alexander Korbut, the vice-president of the Russian National Grain Union.
In Russia, many share Korbut’s optimism, and not without some justification. The country’s global market share has risen from a mere two percent in 2001 to nine percent in 2009, and there is already talk in the government of boosting the global share to 15 percent by 2018. Last year, the nation’s ten primary wheat producing regions, particularly the farming territories of Krasnodar, Stavropol, Rostov-on-Don, Bashkiria and Tatarstan, collectively produced 95 million tons of grain, giving the country an exportable surplus of 20 million tons. Yet this amount was still less than the 97 million tons produced in 2009 or the 108-million-ton harvest of 2008.
Although industry players are predicting a slight drought this year, the country is still expected to harvest between 90 and 92 million tons of grain. Not an enormous number, but still high enough to send jitters through the global grain market and weigh in on prices. In February, the Ministry of Agriculture predicted that Russia's grain exports would reach 20 million tons within the next two years, peaking at around 40 million tons in 2018. “Grain production has grown so much that there is now an urgent need to dispose of excess stockpile. We need new markets in new territories. This is where East Asia comes in,” said Oleg Sukhanov, a leading expert at the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR).
Russia's grain production
2010-2011 - more than 90 million tons (projections)
2009-2010 - 97 million tons
2008-2009 - 108.1 million tons
2007-2008 - 81.8 million tons
Source: Russian Grain Union
China, whose demand for grain and oilseed has grown considerably in recent years, is now a high priority area for Russian grain shipments, but so far only a few hundred thousand tons of wheat get exported there, Korbut said. But Sukhanov regards this shortfall in supply as temporary, and insists that Russia will be prepared to ship up to ten million tons of wheat, soybeans and barley to China every year as soon as it can establish a strong foothold in the country.
Russia will also target markets in Japan and South Korea, which are among the largest wheat importers, despite stiff competition from the United States, Canada and Argentina, Korbut said. Russia is the world’s third-largest wheat exporter, currently selling some 70 percent of its wheat to Egypt, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan, data from the Russian National Grain Union shows.
Egypt, the world’s number one grain importer, is also the largest importer of grain from Russia. In 2009, Egypt purchased 5.4 million tons of grain from Russia, compared to Turkey’s 2.4 million tons and the 1.7 million tons that went to Saudi Arabia. Egyptian Trade Minister Rashid Mohamed Rashid said in December that his country is looking to increase Russian wheat imports and to attract Russian investment to help build silos.
Lately, Russia has been savoring special trade relations with Egypt, having won a series of tenders thanks to lower transportation costs and cheaper prices. However, as Sukhanov pointed out, most of the January tender windfall in Egypt’s grain market was due to Russia’s “spot prices of grain at major ports being 15 percent to 20 percent lower than those of its competitors, mainly France and the United States.”
The possibility of a major rebound in grain exports is a wakeup call for the Russian government, which has finally decided to bail grain exporters out after some foot-dragging following the economic downturn. In February, Russia’s First Vice-Premier Victor Zubkov attended the opening of a new terminal in the Russian Black Sea port of Tuapse. The terminal has a dispatching capacity of 15,000 tons a day, and the first grain carrier was loaded for export at the new terminal on February 8. “The coming years will be momentous in Russia, both for the internal consumption of grain and its export,” Zubkov said at the ceremony.
Too good to be true
And that is the good news. But as is often the case in Russia, the true picture with grain exports may well lie beyond the realm of optimistic prognosis and good intentions. For instance, major grain suppliers are wondering why Russia has consistently failed to sell more grain in its traditional markets, despite the drop in prices in recent months.
The answer brings up some issues that have plagued the nation’s export strategy since the collapse of the Soviet Union - clunky infrastructure and the ensuing logistical problems. “At present, the grain logistics in our country are both obsolete and technologically outdated. This includes most of the storage facilities and our entire transportation system,” Konstantin Zasov, the general director of Rusagrotrans, told a recent gathering of grain exporters.
Rusagrotrans is one of the nation’s largest grain carriers, and Zasov said that the entire rolling stock that services the nation’s grain export is in a state of utter disrepair. According to the most optimistic of estimates, he said, more than 77 percent of grain car carriers are due to be written off as early as in 2015. As well as the absence of good railroads, seaports for commercial grain exports are few and far between. There are only two ports – at Novorossiysk and Tuapse – which can accommodate vessels with deadweight of up to 40,000 tons, with a total ship-handling capacity of just 8.5 million tons per year.
In order to gain a foothold in Japan and China, for example, Russia needs to triple this capacity. Dilapidated rail lines also hinder the nation’s ambitions to push into East Asia. The Siberian–Vladivostok railway, a stretch of some 6,000 kilometers, needs urgent repair, Zasov said. At the moment, the lack of an efficient transport artery connecting the grain-producing regions to the ports means that nearly half of the grain destined for export is transported by small-capacity vessels, leading to a shortfall in capacity of about 15 million tons annually, Zasov added.
At a time when the government is desperate to run down a stockpile of grain, which this year stands at 39 million tons, grain export planning and logistics remain firmly embedded in the Soviet past. Without the benefit of foresight, Soviet planners had located most storage containers in the production areas, far away from commercial ports and main transportation hubs. The government spends $20 million monthly to maintain the stockpile it accumulated through an elaborate intervention program conducted when the market conditions were still buoyant, SovEcon, a private market research firm, found.
Meanwhile, the government has continued to acquire more grain through the intervention program, purchasing 1.78 million tons of grain of various types as of February. Left with few plausible choices, in February the government also deliberated a proposal to allocate five billion rubles to prop up the state-run United Grain Company, which has been anticipating huge loses as a result of low global grain prices.
Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said the government would also subsidize the sale of some ten million tons of Russia's grain inventories, in a desperate effort to do away with the cumbersome stockpile. It is a move that could trigger animosity toward Russia and further weaken the price of grain in the world market. But, then, what else can a grain exporter do in times of plenty?
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
Steel Guru: Russian quota utilization for Ukraine
Monday, 08 Mar 2010
According to the information issued by the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy, up to March 1st 2010, Ukraine utilized 12.48% of its annual quota for rebar exports to Russia and 48.87% of its yearly quota for cold rolled steel exports to the same destination, supplying a total of 49,901 tonnes and 102,620 tonnes respectively.
In the last four months, Ukraine did not deliver any cold rolled steel products to Russia.
According to the agreement between Russia and Ukraine, the 2010 annual quota for Ukraine regarding rebar exports to Russia is 400,000 tonnes up from 363,000 tonnes in 2009. The quota is for the 12 months from January 1st 2010 to December 31st 2010.
According to the agreement signed between the countries, Ukraine yearly quota for cold rolled exports to Russia stands at 210,000 tonnes for the 12 months from July 1st 2009 to June 30th 2010.
(Sourced from SteelOrbis)
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Steel Guru: Belon intends to invest in Kuzbass.
Monday, 08 Mar 2010It is reported that Belon and Kemerovsky region administration signed an agreement on cooperation.
In spite of the crisis Belon managed to execute its obligations in 2009. The priorities were centered on the keeping-up of the production process and working places.
RUB 1.3 billion were invested in the development including modernization of the mines and building of new objects.
In 2010 the output is assumed to be raised by 40%. In the development RUB 2.5 billion are to be invested.
(Sourced from AK&M)
Your Induatry News: Mechel Announces Prolongation of Gazprombank’s Credit Facilities
Friday, Mar 05, 2010
Mechel OAO (NYSE: MTL), one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, announces prolongation of credit facilities for its subsidiaries obtained earlier from Gazprombank.
In February 2009 Gazprombank opened credit lines totaling $1billion for Mechel Mining’s subsidiaries (Mechel Mining is a part of Mechel Group). The credit facilities provided were used to finance the group’s current operations which allowed it to repay a part of its short-term debt.
Mechel Mining’s subsidiaries and Gazprombank signed amendment agreements to the credit facility agreements. According to the amendment agreements the credit maturity extends from three years to six years. Additionally, the parties have agreed to reduce both the interest rate and the security amount. Repayment of the credit body will start in three years and will be made by equal installments on a quarterly basis.
Mr. Stanislav Ploschenko, Mechel’s Chief Financial Officer, commented, “Gazprombank and Mechel have strong ties through a well-established long-standing partnership, and signing of this agreement adds more to our successful cooperation. This decision has allowed us to fully stabilize the company’s financial position in terms of debt repayment structure by creating a substantial safety cushion while the financial market is still volatile. It will help us focus further solely on our investment projects, which will considerably boost the profitability of our business and enhance the company’s investment attractiveness”.
Source: Mechel
BBC: What will save the Russian car industry?
Page last updated at 17:05 GMT, Sunday, 7 March 2010
By Konstantin Rozhnov
Business reporter, BBC News
Russia has decided to follow in the footsteps of some European countries and the US by introducing a car scrappage scheme in an attempt to save the country's automotive industry.
Companies which make or assemble cars in Russia, such as Avtovaz, by far Russia's largest carmaker, are hoping that the scheme will bring a turnaround in sales and business fortunes in the short-term.
But experts are sure that the scheme alone will not be enough to truly revive and modernise the Russian car industry.
There are a lot of additional factors which make the process of reforming the Russian car industry much more complicated than in many other countries - among them, the misuse of budget funds and lack of a tradition of creating truly competitive cars.
Also, one of the biggest problems is that too many people are employed by crisis-hit companies, but the carmakers can't fire enough people.
Avtovaz, for example, has one of its plants in Togliatti, which is a typical "monograd" - one-factory town depending on the wellbeing of a single company.
Huge job cuts would unavoidably lead to social unrests, which the Russian government have so eagerly been trying to avoid in any form since Vladimir Putin came to power 10 years ago.
Price-quality ratio
For several years the Russian car market was the fastest growing in Europe.
In 2008 most experts were sure that by the end of the year it would overtake Germany to become the largest on the continent.
However, the global financial crisis led to a slump in demand, and in 2009 the Russian car market shrank by half.
At the beginning of 2010 sales continued falling, while serious worries persisted about the future of the whole industry, in particular ailing Avtovaz, which makes Lada cars.
The market share of Avtovaz in Russia was about 70% just 10 years ago.
But after the period of rapid economic growth and the country's car market expansion the company was hit by a collapse in Lada's popularity among Russians.
The firm's market share dived to about 20%.
Foreign cars became much more affordable, as many leading global brands had opened assembly plants in Russia.
Price-quality ratio, which used to be Russian carmakers' main advantage for decades, has evaporated almost completely.
Consumers are increasingly interested in cost-saving cars which offer style, quality and affordability, says Steve Fowler, editor of What Car? magazine.
However, the whole idea of creating Avtovaz was based mostly on affordability alone. The carmaker was set up with Fiat's help in the 1960s.
Investment bank Renaissance Capital pointed out in its research note, published by Vedomosti business daily at the beginning of February, that Russian carmakers were able to compete with foreign companies in price only but not in quality or reliability of their cars, "which means their market share will be shrinking gradually".
Nikolay Kachurin, Top Gear Russia's editor-in-chief, says that Russian cars are many years behind an average European passenger car.
To some extent, though, this is an advantage for Avtovaz's relatively cheap and really dated Lada Classic models - it is much easier and cheaper to conduct repair works on them in your own backyard in comparison with more modern cars.
Matter of reputation
One of the questions debated by industry analysts is whether Russia really needs to have its own car brands.
Mr Fowler believes that there is nothing wrong when a country does not have its own models.
"But I'm British," he adds, meaning that in the UK the situation has been like that for many years. All mass production car plants in the country are owned by foreign companies.
However, Nikolay Kachurin, Top Gear Russia's editor-in-chief disagrees.
In his opinion, a country as big as Russia, with its huge industrial potential, needs its own cars.
"If the country can make really good tanks, why can't they make quite a competitive car?" he says.
"It is a matter of reputation, but Russia needs it."
New reality
Interestingly, for decades Russia's carmakers have been showing lots of concept cars at different industry events, but many years later only several of them were turned into models being sold to consumers.
A lack of investment has been the main problem for the companies.
"They had no funds to turn their concept cars into mass-production models. They are still implementing five-10 year-old plans," says Dmitry Belkin, an automotive industries expert from the Prime-Tass news agency.
Meanwhile, as Mr Fowler points out, "it is becoming increasingly fast to make a concept car", and there are about 480 models available now in the UK.
Mr Kachurin believes that there are enough good Russian engineers and designers in the car industry.
But, he adds, the lack of money does not let the engineering projects be turned into mass-production models, causing the best Russian designers to flee to foreign companies in order to see their ideas brought to life.
As Mr Fowler says: "Developing a car from scratch costs billions of dollars."
Besides, it seems Avtovaz does not have a lot of time to modernise its model list, because its foreign competitors have already been developing new cheaper budget cars amid the recent economic crisis and new environmental principles.
Global partnerships
Experts agree that the Russian car market remains attractive in the long-term for both current and potential investors, as the number of cars per person in the country is much lower than in the West.
Most analysts believe that a combination of well-controlled government investment and the working scrappage scheme might help revive the market.
There is also a wide consensus that the best way for the Russian companies to move forward is to use know-how provided by their foreign partners.
One of the best and recent examples of successful global partnerships is Dacia Logan, a car made by Renault and its Romanian subsidiary Dacia.
Last autumn, the French carmaker agreed to expand its involvement in Avtovaz. Among other steps, Renault is likely to provide its budget model as the platform to change Lada's fortunes.
To some extent, this development might please those who want Russian companies to produce their own branded cars.
At the same time, it is in line with the global business trend of joining forces.
"At the end of the day that is exactly what has been happening [in the Russian market]," says Mr Belkin.
"We are getting to the place where the whole world has already go to."
As Mr Fowler points out, even BMW and Mercedes have been trying to work together on some projects - something impossible just several years ago.
Bloomberg: Siemens to Start Russian Locomotive Production, FAZ Reports
By Richard Weiss
March 8 (Bloomberg) -- Siemens AG will start production of locomotives in Russia for the local market this year, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said, citing no one.
The joint venture with OJSC Sinara will start this summer making 100 locomotives a year, with the partners investing between 150 million euros ($205 million) and 200 million euros in the venture, the newspaper said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Weiss in Frankfurt at rweiss5@.
Last Updated: March 8, 2010 02:50 EST
BF News: AFI Development FY losses narrow to $2.66m
2010-03-08 08:07:09
Business Financial Newswire - Russia and CIS-focused property developer AFI Development posts a full year loss of $2.66m - down from $107.86m last time - after a fourth quarter loss of $219.7m.
But the firm said it maintained a strong cash position with $210.83m in cash and cash equivalents with continued ability to access existing and secure new debt financing for development projects.
The net asset value per share now stands at $3.25, down by 33% from $4.82 at the end of 2008.
The NAV based on the valuation of the project portfolio, independently verified by Jones Lang LaSalle LLC, and project costs, is $1.7bn, down by 33% from $2.53bn since 31 December 2008.
Chairman Lev Leviev said: "2009 has seen a very difficult situation in the Russian real estate sector and our full year results reflect this, especially in the revaluations of our properties in the light of that year's conditions.
"However even in these conditions careful management of our finances has meant that we emerged from 2009 with our strong cash position intact.
"Signs of stabilisation were not apparent until the end of last year and we, therefore, focused on our key developments for most of the period, but we now judge that the time is right to continue to develop and complete construction works on a number of our suspended projects."
Businessneweurope: FUNDS: Pharos Miro agric fund gives investors something to chew on
| |
| |
Guy Norton in London
March 8, 2010
Veteran Russian fund management group Pharos Financial and Dubai-based agribusiness specialist Miro Asset Management have teamed up to launch the Pharos Miro Agriculture Fund to tap into the evolving agricultural investment theme, with food and water resources increasingly regarded as important as oil and gas reserves were 40 years ago.
Peter Halloran, chief executive of Pharos Financial, says that a combination of globalisation, climate change, population growth, biofuel usage and developments in dietary patterns is changing the way that institutional investors look at agriculture. "In the past few years, there's been a shift in the way institutional investors view agriculture," says Halloran. "Before, they tended to play it through the soft commodities futures markets, but now there's more interest in investing in real assets, such as land, which can generate long-term returns."
Not that the Pharos Miro fund should be viewed as a speculative real estate play manqué, says Halloran. Far from it. "We know where to find the right land and how to farm it properly to generate sustainable high yields."
Positive signs
While Miro has spent the past two years developing a pipeline of farming projects and establishing local managements teams to run them, Halloran and his Pharos colleagues have spent the past few months jetting around Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the US to drum up the cash necessary to realize their plans. The market feedback so far has been very positive, claims Halloran, with the fund looking to deliver annualized capital returns of 20-25% from the cultivation of prime arable farmland. Halloran say Pharos Miro is looking to make the first close on the fund at $75m at the end of March, with final close at $350m pencilled in for the start of the third quarter. As such, Pharos Miro hopes to be up and farming this summer.
The joint venture is looking to buy and/or lease prime arable land in the CEE region first and then later Africa at comparatively cheap prices, and grow agricultural staples such rice, barley, wheat, oilseeds and animal fodder. In emerging Europe, it is eying opportunities in countries such as Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia and Ukraine where it's possible to buy/lease land at an average level $2,000 a hectare and then put in experienced management teams to ensure the land generates the maxim possible yields. The fund intends to secure storage facilities to mitigate against price fluctuations in the price of soft commodities.
Russia Today: Taxes take the gloss off domestic printers
08 March, 2010, 10:18
Russia's magazine industry has been hit by the economic crisis – but also by tariffs and regulation. Many publishing houses not only buy paper abroad, but even print magazines overseas.
The government has announced a temporary cut in import duties on glossy paper, to help boost the country's print industry
Russian print media, just like newspapers and magazines around the world, are going through a tough time. Advertising dropped over 40 % in 2009 over the previous year, and readers are turning to the Internet. Alexander Strakhov, President, Periodic Press Publishers Guild says current laws hamper Russia’s printing industry.
“Today the situation is absurd. To import a finished magazine, I don’t have to pay any import tax. But if I import paper in order to print the magazine here, I have to pay import tax. So, in the end the final product price is higher. This is how it has been and of course this is not viable.”
The government’s finally recognised that and cut import duty on glossy paper – from 15% to 5%. But it’s only a temporary move, until the end of the year, which Strakhov says is too little time to have a lasting impact.
“If I, for instance, have drawn up my budget for the year, and I know the tariff reduction lasts for 9 months, will I be taking the risk of cancelling orders and placing new ones? What if they cancel the tariff reduction tomorrow?”
Despite these reservations, Victor Shkulev, President, Hachette Filipacchi Shkulev Publishing House welcomes the government’s initiative.
“I think that this is a very good move by the government, especially for our publishing house because, apart from printing ELLE magazine, we also print over 25 other magazines. Today, we are the only publishing house that directly imports glossy paper and delivers it over 40 printing houses as far as Siberia.”
A temporary drop in import duty on glossy paper may tempt some publishers to turn to local printers to simplify their distribution. But that still leaves the question of what will happen once duty goes back up again.
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
Xinhua: China-Russia oil pipeline to be completed this year: FM
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-08 10:51
BEIJING - The China-Russia oil pipeline is likely to be completed by the end of this year and the project will enter into operation in 2011, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said here Sunday.
Yang made the remarks at the press conference held Sunday on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature.
Yang said the China-Russia relation is one of the priorities of China's diplomacy and that there is much potential in the practical cooperation and development for both countries.
The two countries support each other on issues concerning core interests. On many major international and regional issues, China and Russia share same or similar views and have close communications, Yang said.
China and Russia signed a series of agreements on energy, oil, natural gas, coal, power, nuclear and high-speed railways last year, Yang said.
RIA: Russia-China oil pipeline to be ready by yearend – minister
09:2107/03/2010
The construction of the Russia-China oil pipeline will be finished by the end of this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said on Sunday.
The project is part of the East Siberia - Pacific oil pipeline, which was launched into operation in December 2009 and is designed to pump up to 1.6 million barrels (220,000 tons) of crude per day from Siberia to Russia's Far East and then on to China and the Asia-Pacific region.
Yang said the Chinese section of the oil pipeline, which would stretch from the settlement of Skovorodino in the Amur Region in the Russian Far East, would become fully operational in 2011.
The Chinese top diplomat praised bilateral cooperation in the energy sphere, saying Russia and China had already signed a series of agreements on oil, natural gas and electricity supplies, and also accumulated extensive experience of cooperation in the sphere of civilian nuclear power engineering.
Yang also said that relations with Russia were a priority of China's foreign policy, adding that Moscow and Beijing held similar positions on many international and regional issues and had vast potential for the development of their interaction.
BEIJING, March 7 (RIA Novosti)
: Bosnian Serbs to join Russia-led gas pipeline
Olja Stanic in Banka Luka - 08.03.2010
The Bosnian Serb Republic will join the South Stream gas pipeline project, which will bring Russian gas to Europe, its prime minister said.
The Serb Republic plans to build a 480 km (298 miles) pipeline in northern Bosnia with capacity of up to 1.5 billion cubic metres and link it to the South Stream pipeline.
"I may surely say now that we will become part of the global South Stream project," Milorad Dodik told reporters after a three-day visit to Russia, where he met officials of its pipeline gas export monopoly, Gazprom.
"Gazprom has demanded that we produce a feasibility study for the project in a few weeks or months and agree it with other countries in the region."
The Bosnian pipeline is planned to go along the Sava River to Banja Luka to link the Serb Republic with a section of the South Stream pipeline in neighbouring Serbia.
The 1992-95 war left Bosnia divided in two -- the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation, linked by a weak central government. Dodik said his republic was willing to build a pipeline arm to the federation and to connect to Croatia's gas network.
FEDERATION HAS OTHER IDEAS
But Almir Becarevic, the general manager of the Muslim-Croat federation's gas distributor BH-Gas, said the project was politically motivated and would not be profitable as there were no major gas consumers along the planned route.
"We do not agree that gas supplies to the federation should come solely from Serbia and will try to provide alternative supply routes," he told Reuters, adding that BH-Gas was mulling a 250-km pipeline network linked with Croatia.
A feasibility study for the project had been evaluated as the most profitable by European institutions and a major part of the funding had been agreed with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Becarevic said. He said the project was still pending due to Bosnian Serb opposition.
Gazprom and Italian energy group Eni are key partners in the South Stream project to build a pipeline under the Black Sea to supply gas to southern Europe.
It is seen as strategically important by European countries keen to safeguard their supplies of Russian gas by using pipelines that bypass former Soviet satellite states, notably Ukraine, which have had troubled relations with Moscow.
A pricing row between Moscow and Kiev in 2009 disrupted gas supplies to a number of European countries, including Bosnia which has no gas reserves and uses around 350 million cubic metres of gas a year imported from Russia via Ukraine, Hungary and Serbia.
The South Stream pipeline faces competition from the EU-backed Nabucco project, which aims to transport up to 31 billion cubic metres of gas a year from the Caspian region to Western Europe, skirting Russia.
Russia has already signed a deal on the South Stream pipeline with six countries -- Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.
Source: Reuters, Business News
Steel Guru: LUKOIL provides loan to Astrakhanenergosbyt
Monday, 08 Mar 2010
It is reported that Lukoil is ready to provide the 450 million worth loan to Astrakhanenergosbyt.
This deal was approved by BOD February 18th.
The share capital is worth RUB 21264081.375. There are 850563255 common stocks of RUB 0.025 par under circulation. The large share is kept by the top managers.
The H1 net profit declined 54.5% to USD 3.362 billion, revenues from sales to US 34.861 billion from USD 56.89 billion, EBITDA coming to USD 6.534 billion.
The 9-month net profit moved down 39.5% to RUB 39.255 billion from RUB 64.868 billion prior year, revenues RUB 416.3 billion from RUB 567.7 billion, sales yield to 8.5% from 9.8%.
(Sourced from AK&M)
OilVoice: Volga Gas Buys Into Gas Processing Facilities
07 March 2010
Volga Gas Plc, the oil and gas exploration and production group operating in the Volga Region of European Russia, announces that an agreement has been signed with Trans Nafta ("TN") to purchase a 75% direct interest in gas processing facilities which will be used for the Company's Vostochny Makarovskoye ("VM") gas and condensate field.
As a result of this agreement, Gaznefteservice ("GNS"), a company 100% owned by the Volga Gas group, will have a direct 75% interest in a Gas Processing Unit ("GPU") constructed on a site approximately 7km from the VM field. The plant is to be operated by a company which is 75% owned by GNS. Under the terms of the agreement a sum of RUB 187 million (approximately US$6.2 million) has been paid. In November 2008, a sum of RUB 600 million (approximately US$20 million) was paid as an advance on the purchase of the interest in the GPU.
As reported in the 2009 Interim Results announcement, the two initial wells on the VM field have been connected by intra-field pipelines to the gas plant being constructed by TN on its Dobrinskoye field. Before the GPU can become fully operational, it will be necessary to transfer a sulphur treatment unit from the VM licence area to the GPU. This process, with the required regulatory approvals, is expected to take up to nine months. Meanwhile, it may be possible to commence long term test production from the VM field during 2010.
Mikhail Ivanov, Chief Executive of Volga Gas commented:
"We are pleased to conclude this transaction for the GPU which will enable Volga Gas to realise value in its VM field by bringing it into production and thereby establishing an additional stream of cash flow."
Rigzone: RussNeft to Increase Oil Production at Tomsk Block
RussNeft 3/5/2010
URL:
RussNeft plans to produce 333 thousand tons of oil at the Tomsk block in 2010, exceeding the analogous determinant of 2009 (197.9 thousand tons) by 40%. The growth of hydrocarbons production will be reached through implementation of large-scale drilling programs at the oil fields of Russneft in Eastern Siberia.
Stolbovoye oil field plans to raise oil production output four times as compared to last year. This year 11 new wells will be drilled here. RussNeft is going to bring the Stolbovoye oil field, where recoverable resources amount to 12.2 million tons, to the maximal level of commercial production in the shortest possible time. In three years, Russneft will try to bring annual production output at Stolbovoye oil field to 1 million tons.
The recoverable resources of Fediushkinskoye oil field amount to 3.6 million tons. 3D seismic works are under way at the area of 100 square kilometers. The exploration will permit to specify geological structure of the oil field and to prepare it for commercial operation.
Oil & Gas Journal: Russians, Chinese eye new Arctic oil route
Eric Watkins
OGJ Oil Diplomacy Editor
LOS ANGELES, Mar. 4 -- Russia’s Sovcomflot oil line will undertake a trial shipment of oil to Japan this summer, reported to be the first shipment ever to sail the entire Northern Sea Route from northwest Russia to Asia.
The decision by Sovcomflot follows earlier plans by China and Russia to begin shipping oil through the Arctic Circle, aiming to decrease sailing time and avoid piracy and terrorism along the main existing routes from Hormuz through the Straits of Malacca.
The Northern Sea route normally is open fewer than 2 months in the late summer when the ice is at its minimum. But opportunities for sailing the route are increasing due to climate changes that are melting ice for longer periods of time.
The Sovcomflot trial will begin at the Varandey loading terminal in the Barents Sea, 22 km offshore, operated by Lukoil subsidiary Varandey Terminal Co.
Lukoil and ConocoPhillips in 2008 completed construction of the Varandey facility, which includes an onshore tank farm, two 24 km offshore pipelines to a loading structure located in 17.5 m depth of water.
Varandey has the capacity to export up to 240,000 b/d, most of it from the Yuzhno-Khylchuyu field, 100% owned by Naryanmarneftegas (NMNG), a joint venture company established in 2005 between Lukoil (70%) and ConocoPhillips (30%).
Oil from the Yuzhno-Khylchuyu field is processed at a central facility, then transported along a 162 km pipeline to the Varandey terminal where it is loaded into three 500,000 bbl ice-resistant double-hull Arctic “Class 6” shuttle tankers, owned by Sovcomflot.
Last year, Lukoil announced plans to build a crude pipeline from its Kharyaginskoye oil field in the northern Russian region of Timan-Pechora to Varandey.
At the time, Lukoil said the new line would enable it to maximize the terminal’s capacity and avoid using Russia’s national pipeline network to export its crude.
This week’s Sovcomflot announcement coincides with a new analyst report that claims China also is preparing for the Arctic being navigable during summer months.
“China is slowly but steadily recognizing the commercial and strategic opportunities that will arise from an ice-free Arctic,” said Linda Jakobson, author of the report funded by the Norwegian government and published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
As China’s economy relies on foreign trade—with nearly half of its gross domestic product dependent on shipping—there could be much to gain if the shipping route from Shanghai to Hamburg is shortened by 6,000 km during the summer each year, the report said.
“With insurance costs on the traditional route via the Suez Canal having risen more than tenfold due to piracy, the Nordic countries could become China’s new gateway to Europe,” the SIPRI report said.
However, in June 2009, well ahead of the SIPRI report, Lukoil's international trading arm Litasco and Sinopec’s trading firm Unipec Asia Co. signed a framework agreement for the supply of oil.
Litasco said the agreement foresees the sale of 3 million tonnes of Russian export blend to be delivered from any Russian port or Yuzhno-Khylchuyu blend oil to be delivered by tankers from Varandey.
According to analyst IHS Global Insight, the total volumes under the supply deal, as well as the limited duration of the contract, are “relatively minor.”
However, the analyst notes that the signing of the agreement is important as it signals “the growing profitability” of Russian oil exports to Chinese consumers, even before the East Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline spur connecting the two countries goes into operation.
The agreement between Lukoil and Sinopec underlines the growing importance of alternative trade lines to China, among them the projected ice-free sea route from northwest Russia to Asia.
Contact Eric Watkins at hippalus@.
Gazprom
The Baltic Course: PM of Lithuania: Gazprom claim is entirely law-based
Petras Vaida, BC, Vilnius, 07.03.2010.
In Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius' opinion, the claim over the alleged damages of the Russian gas concern Gazprom is entirely a legal dispute between Kauno Energija and the Kaunas heat and power plant (KTE) owned by Gazprom. In this dispute the state is the third party. At the same time, the prime minister noted that the contract between Kauno Energija and the KTE did not mean that the state had no right to regulate energy and heating prices or pass relevant laws.
Virgis Valentinavicius, adviser to the prime minister, told reporters on Friday that the lawyers of the Energy Ministry were analyzing the letter of Gazprom and formulating the Government's position, writes ELTA/LETA.
As reported, after Lithuania started applying methodology for estimating heating prices to the Kaunas heat and power plant (KTE), the Russian gas concern Gazprom launched an investment dispute. Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius was informed that price regulation caused losses of hundreds of millions to the company.
Gazprom proposes the Lithuanian Government to solve the dispute peacefully by paying the group for the damages suffered.
If Lithuania continues ignoring international commitments under the agreement with the Russian Federation on protection of investments, Gazprom will be forced to resort to arbitrage, reads the letter to the prime minister.
According to Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Board Valery Golubev, under the agreement on the purchase of Kaunas power plant in 2003, Gazprom undertook to maintain the heating prices for a period of years, and later, starting from 2008, calculate the prices in accordance to a formula linked to the change of oil prices in European markets. Gazprom estimates that in 2003-2008 alone, the Russian gas concern lost around 342.22 million litas (99.07 million euros) due to the adjustment of heating prices, and the amount has been increasing every year.
Reuters: Gazprom seeks $135 million compensation from Lithuania
Fri Mar 5, 2010 6:29pm GMT
* Gazprom asks Lithuania for $135 mln in compensation
* Says government altered heating prices scheme
VILNIUS, March 5 (Reuters) - Russian gas company Gazprom (GAZP.MM) wants about $135 million from Lithuania to compensate for losses it says were caused by the country changing a deal on heating prices, a statement from a plant owned by Gazprom said.
Regional power plant Kauno Termofikacine Elektrine (KTE), owned by Gazprom, said on its website the Russian firm wanted the compensation for losses allegedly incurred in 2003-2008.
It quoted a letter sent by Gazprom to Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius.
"It is estimated that the Russian gas consortium ... lost 342.2 million litas ($134.6 million) due to the Lithuanian government changing the methodology of setting heating prices," the website said.
"Therefore, Gazprom has proposed to reach an amicable settlement with Lithuania ... for it to pay that sum as compensation for the loss suffered."
The letter said Gazprom would seek international arbitration if necessary.
The Lithuanian government said in a statement it was a third party and that Gazprom's compensation claim arose from a dispute between KTE and Kauno Energija -- a utility company owned by the Kaunas municipality.
Kauno Energija declined to comment on Gazprom's compensation claim. But it said on Feb. 17 in a statement there had been a commercial arbitration in a dispute over an investment protection treaty and KTE should pay it 5.4 million litas.
Russia is the only supplier of natural gas to the ex-Soviet Baltic republic.
Gazprom is a major shareholder in the gas companies of all three Baltic states, along with German E.ON Ruhrgas (EONGn.DE). (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Jo Winterbottom and Anthony Barker)
BarentsObserver: Preparing for Shtokman hearings
2010-03-05
A number of public hearings on the development of the Shtokman project will start this spring.
The first hearing will take place in the town of Kola, located just south of Murmansk city, on 5 April, B- reports. It will give locals the opportunity to discuss and give feedback on environmental aspects emerging in the wake of offshore operations planned in 2010 and 2011, the website informs.
It is the administration of the Kola municipality together with the company Fugro Engineering which is responsible for the hearing.
Project documentation will be made available to the public in facilitated reception offices from 3 March to 4 April. There will also be held two public hearings in Moscow.
Read more - B-
PR Inside: Songa Mercur secures contract with Gazflot LLC
2010-03-07 21:56:05 -
Songa Offshore is pleased to announce that a firm contract for use of Songa
Mercur has been agreed and signed with Gazflot LLC, a Gazprom subsidiary. The
contract covers the use of the Songa Mercur for Gazflot's upcoming drilling
campaign offshore Sakhalin Island during the 2010 Summer season.
The rig is currently scheduled to depart Singapore on or around 1st May 2010
after completion of ongoing SPS activities and Rig acceptance period.
The firm part of the contract is set at 180 days including mobilization from and
de-mobilization back to Singapore. An aggregated total revenue of approximately
USD 55 to USD 60 million is expected to be generated from the firm part of
contract.
Limassol, 7 March 2010
This information is subject of the disclosure requirements acc. to §5-12 vphl
(Norwegian Securities Trading Act)
Financial Times: Fears raised over process of extraction
By Sheila McNulty
Published: March 7 2010 17:58 | Last updated: March 7 2010 17:58
ExxonMobil's $41bn deal to buy XTO Energy, the shale gas specialist, came with a clause that allows the biggest western-listed oil company to walk away if the threat of regulation makes the key technology used to tap the gas uneconomical.
The technology has sparked a boom in US onshore gas. Recent advances have led analysts to triple estimates of US reserves of shale gas to 100 years’ supply.
The process involves drilling down for up to 20,000 feet and sideways for up to 4,500 feet. Water and fine sand are pumped through at pressure, fracturing the shale and leaving the grains propping up the rock so the gas escapes. It is this so-called fracking process that is under threat.
There is no law against fracking but some states and local authorities are investigating the industry amid concerns that the technique could contaminate ground water.
Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental group, says: “Currently there are thousands of operating sites, and the industry wants hundreds of thousands of sites.
“As the industry expands, more and more of these activities are in people’s backyards. They want this closely regulated as this is where their kids play.’’
Concerns that fracking has contaminated wells and caused livestock deaths have led regulators to consider measures to limit the scope of drilling, including buffer zones near reservoirs and aquifers.
European officials will be watching closely as many of the biggest oil companies start drilling into shales around the US this year.
At least one powerful opponent to shale believes that environmental issues will stall development of shale gas in the US and, especially, in Europe.
“Every housewife in the US has heard of the term shale gas,” says Alexander Medvedev, deputy chief executive of Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled gas producer. “Not every housewife is aware of the environmental consequences of the use of shale gas...I don’t know who would take the risk of endangering drinking water reservoirs.”
Mr Medvedev is no environmentalist and Gazprom has much to lose if shale gas becomes dominant in Europe, its main export market. But many analysts agree that environmental considerations will play a bigger role in Europe.
John Curtis, director of the Potential Gas Agency at the Colorado School of Mines, however, suggests that the groundwater contamination debate is misplaced. Most fractured wells are thousands of feet below any potable water zones, he says. The natural formation water at depth is most often a corrosive brine – or certainly not drinkable.
Last month, Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House energy committee, asked eight companies for details of chemicals they use in fracturing fluids and their potential impact on the environment and health.
“As we use this technology in more parts of the country on a much larger scale, we must ensure that we are not creating new environmental and public health problems,’’ he says.
Whether any legislation will be passed before the Exxon-XTO deal is due to close in the second quarter of 2010 seems unlikely as lawmakers consider the economic benefits of the gas to the US economy.
A study by IHS Global Insight said gas contributed $385bn to the economy in 2008, with more than 30 states boasting 10,000 jobs linked to the sector.
In October, the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus was launched to develop policy on the role of gas in the US energy portfolio. So far, 70 congressmen have been swayed by the benefits that the abundant, low-carbon fuel offers in terms of energy security and greenhouse gas emissions.
Charles Swanson, Houston office managing partner at Ernst & Young, the professional services firm, says: “The potential upside for environmentalists is so encouraging. It’s a headscratcher that they’re getting concerned about fracking technology.”
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