Russia
Russia 100414
Basic Political Developments
• Prime-Tass: Russian calendar: Key events for April 14
o Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to visit Argentina, until Apr 15
o Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to hold meeting on modernization of healthcare
o Russian Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko to visit Italy, until Apr 17
o Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov to meet with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels
o Credit Bank of Moscow to offer bonds worth 3 billion rubles
o Russia’s Finance Ministry to offer 6 billion rubles worth of OFZ-PD bonds
• Itar-Tass: Medvedev ending visit to USA, departing for Argentina
• RUVR: Medvedev, de Kirchner to meet in Buenos Aires
• Itar-Tass: Russian minister to discuss industrial cooperation in Rome - Industrial cooperation issues will be the focal point of discussions that the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade, Viktor Khristenko, and the Italian Minister Claudio Scajola are going have Tuesday in the course of their talks in Rome.
• Kyiv Post: Russia will accept highly enriched uranium Ukraine has decided to get rid of
• Business Week: Bangladesh approves nuke power deal with Russia - Bangladesh has approved a draft for a deal with Russia to set up a nuclear power plant in the power-starved South Asian nation, a government spokesman said Tuesday.
• Russia Today: Iran will become nuclear nation in May - While most of the world is trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, Iran has declared that it is expecting to join the nuclear club in May. The statement comes from Behzad Soltani, deputy head of Iran’s atomic energy organization. He has come out to say that within one month Iran will become the newest member of the world nuclear club and that as soon as in May, Iran will become a “nuclear nation” that no other country will even think of launching an attack against.
• NUCLEAR SUMMIT
o Brookings: An Address by Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation: Russia-U.S. Relations and Russia’s Vision for International Affairs
o CNN: Medvedev: Iran 'ignoring questions' on nuclear ambition
o Itar-Tass: Russia's Medvedev calls world nuclear summit very successful
o Reuters: Russia says needs time to develop political system
o Itar-Tass: Russian Pres says no revival of Stalinism in Russian society
o RIA: Medvedev ready to submit arms reduction pact to parliament in early May
o RIA: Russia ready to discuss further disarmament – Medvedev
o RIA: Russia-U.S. relations better than before – Medvedev
o RIA: Medvedev sees U.S. shale gas as stimulus for modernization
o RIA: Medvedev still counting on Washington's support over WTO entry
o Reuters: Russia wants U.S. to push harder for its WTO entry
o RIA: Russia's Medvedev blames Kyrgyz authorities for unrests, says civil war risk high
o WASHINGTON.Dmitry Medvedev met with President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich.
o Interfax: Russia ready to discuss Ukraine’s new proposals on gas price – Medvedev
o WASHINGTON. Dmitry Medvedev met with Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel.
o WASHINGTON. Dmitry Medvedev had a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
o Mainichi Daily: Japan, Russia to step up island talks, but don't discuss details - Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed Tuesday to promote top-level talks toward settling a longstanding territorial dispute over four Russian-administered islands off Hokkaido, but failed to discuss further details.
o Armradio: Foreign Ministers of Armenia, Russia meet in Washington - The interlocutors touched upon the cooperation between the two countries within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group and exchanged views on the situation in the region, including the process of settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
o Russia Today: Russian president gives interview to RT’s editor in chief
o Bloomberg: U.S.-Russian Ties Tested in Kyrgyzstan Revolution (Update1)
• RUVR: Russian, U.S. navies conduct joint anti-piracy drill: The Russian and U.S. navies have conducted joint exercises in the Gulf of Aden to rehearse anti-piracy rescue efforts. The drill involved ships of the Russian Pacific Fleet, including a large anti-submarine vessel and a U.S. destroyer ship. Both countries have been taking an active part in international anti-piracy missions.
• Reuters: UPDATE 2-US has new approach to Russia poultry spat-USAPEEC - U.S. approach could lead to quick end to Russia ban; USAPEEC declined to provide details; Russian official: US willing to stop using chlorine
• St. Louis Business Journal: Russian leaders to visit St. Louis to examine government
• CNN: Russian official: Adoption case points to need for monitoring
• ABC News: Petition Drive Urges Russia Not to Halt Adoptions
• Finnish Government: Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation meets in Helsinki led by Ministers Väyrynen and Nabiullina
• Brunei fm: Russia hoists flag at temporary embassy
• RUVR: S.Ossetia, Nicaragua seal diplomatic ties
• RIA: Medvedev signs national anti-corruption program for 2010-11
• RIA: Marine infantry land on Pyotr Veliky
• NTI: Russia to Place Early Warning Radar on Duty
• BarentsObserver: Putin to visit Murmansk this week - Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will pay a visit to Murmansk in the middle of April. According to unconfirmed information the visit will take place on Thursday this week.
• .ru: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets with Kaluga Region Governor Anatoly Artamonov
• RUVR: Olympic construction in Sochi ahead of schedule - IOC
• Reuters: UPDATE 1-Russia's Usmanov not ruling out Arsenal bid
• Apa.az: Moscow Mayor Yuriy Lujkov issues order to build Muslim Magomayev’s monument in Russian capital
• Interfax: Media review: Islamic Puppeteers - Will Kadyrov become a Muslim vice-president of the Russian Federation? – by Alexey CHELNOKOV, "Argumenty Nedely" Russian weekly
• POLISH PLANE CRASH
o Georgian Times: Pole MP Apologizes for Blaming Russia for Smolensk Air Crash
o RIA: Death toll in Polish president's plane crash set at 97
o Epoch Times: More Remains Identified in Polish Plane Crash
• Russia Profile: In the Beginning Was the Web - Has the Internet Become Russia’s Only Medium of Free Information Exchange, and If So, Can It Too Be Up for Grabs?
• Moscow Times: Today in Vedomosti
o Editorial: Greece Needs Radical Spending Cuts
o Commentary: Exemplary Patriotism - Tens of thousands of Poles gathered in the streets of Warsaw to say goodbye to their president is a sight worth seeing.
o Less Sand and Concrete Needed for Sochi - Initial assessments of the building materials needed for Sochi Olympic facilities have been overstated.
• Russia Today: 14 April, 2010 in Russian Newspapers
o Izvestiya: Poland reflects on the tragedy
o Rossiyskaya Gazeta: The last battle - A brutal and mysterious crime was committed in the capital -- an elderly couple, who were veterans of the Great Patriotic War -- were shot and killed in their apartment.
National Economic Trends
• Dow Jones: Medvedev Adviser: Ruble Likely Won't Float Freely For Years
• Bloomberg: Russia Debt Cut to 8-Year Low in Funds as Eurobond Sale Nears
• Bloomberg: Russia Vulnerable to Budget Crisis, Renaissance Says (Update1)
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
• Reuters: Russian markets -- Factors to Watch on April 14
• Bloomberg: TGK-9, Tatneft, Rosneft: Russian Equity-Market Preview
• Bloomberg: Weafer Likes Russian Infrastructure, Consumer Stocks: Video
• Vancouver Sun: Khan Resources says it's targeted by Russians
• Reuters: UPDATE1 – KazakhGold seeks Russia approval for Polyus bid
• Bloomberg: KazakhGold Says It’s Mulling Polyus Reverse Takeover (Update1)
• SteelOrbis: Russia to sell three large coal deposits in Ulug-Khem basin
• Money Times: Russians urge inquiry in Daimler case
• Capital McDonald's defended the rent of 1 ruble - Vedomosti
• Moscow Times: Sanofi Cleared to Buy Insulin Plant - Billionaires Mikhail Prokhorov and Suleiman Kerimov also got approval to consolidate their assets in the gold miner Polyus Gold, Artemyev said. Their Kazakhstan-based company, KazakhGold Group, registered on the island Jersey, will buy a number of Polyus-related units, he said.
• Abc.az: Run-up for market appearance of Russia’s Savings Bank and Gazprombank in Azerbaijan starts
• Bloomberg: Rostelecom Plans 30 Billion-Ruble Bond Sale, Vedomosti Says
• Reuters: BRIEF-Russia's Protek sets IPO price range of $3.10-4.50/share
• EasyBourse: Russian Drug Company Protek Sets Price Range For MICEX, RTS IPO
• Bloomberg: Rusal Awards Deripaska, Management IPO Bonus Shares (Update1)
• RUVR: Christie's opens office in Moscow
• Moscow Times: For the Record
o A 13 percent stake in insurer Rosgosstrakh may be sold in July or August, the Economic Development Ministry said Tuesday. (Bloomberg)
o Renaissance Capital is “on track” with its expansion plans in Africa and may enter three new markets this year, Patrick Mweheire, RenCap said Tuesday. (Bloomberg)
o Russian Technologies hired Renaissance Capital to help manage assets and lure funding at home and abroad, the companies said Tuesday. (Bloomberg)
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
• Base oil Report: Russia's export duty on light petroleum products jump to USD 202 - 204/MT, While for Heavy petroleum products USD109 - 110/MT...
• Oil and Gas Eurasia: Russia: Time to Stimulate Innovation in Oil Production - Russian Natural Resources Minister Yuriy Trutnev has issued instructions to establish a working group to draft steps to provide economic stimulus for projects that will increase oil production, Prime-TASS has reported.
• Oil and Gas Eurasia: Russkoye Field Sees First Quarter Production Double
• Upstreamonline: Bashneft runs reserve tally - Russian producer Bashneft said its proven oil reserves stand at 1.27 billion barrels based on an independent audit.
• Oil and Gas Eurasia: TNK-BP Cuts Subeconomic Wells by 25 Percent at Sorochinskneft
• Your Oil and Gas News: TNK-BP Applies New Well Clean-out Technologies at OJSC Orenburgneft Fields
• Oil and Gas Eurasia: NOVATEK Increases Gas Production 20.8% In First Quarter
Gazprom
• Interfax: PwC the winner once again in tender for Gazprom auditor; fee reduced 7%
• Haaretz: Gazprom wants into Israeli gas scene - Representatives of Russian energy giant Gazprom have met with Ya'akov Mimran, the National Infrastructure Ministry's petroleum commissioner, to discuss the possibility of Gazprom being part of the group operating the Sarah and Mira offshore natural gas fields.
• Reuters: Gazprom looking at Israel natgas mkt –report
• Moscow Times: Gazprom Exec Receives Orthodox Honor - Alexei Zavgorodnev, chief executive of Gazprom Transgaz Stavropol, was awarded the Order of the Blessed St. Daniel of Moscow.
• Oil and Gas Eurasia: Gazprom Taps Thomas Paine for a “Common Sense” Approach to the Shale Gas Challenge
• Bellona: Comment: Gazprom’s secret society, or who will profit from Shtokman backroom dealings?
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Full Text Articles
Basic Political Developments
Prime-Tass: Russian calendar: Key events for April 14
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to visit Argentina, until Apr 15
• Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to hold meeting on modernization of healthcare
• Russian Industry and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko to visit Italy, until Apr 17
• Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov to meet with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels
• Credit Bank of Moscow to offer bonds worth 3 billion rubles
• Russia’s Finance Ministry to offer 6 billion rubles worth of OFZ-PD bonds
Itar-Tass: Medvedev ending visit to USA, departing for Argentina
14.04.2010, 08.51
WASHINGTON, April 14 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday is winding up his visit to the United States where he took part in the Nuclear Security Summit and is departing for Argentina on the first ever visit of the Russian head of state to the country.
Before leaving for Argentina Medvedev will deliver a speech at the Brookings Institution where he will present Russia’s position on the nuclear non-proliferation problems, RF presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko said.
The Brookings Institution is a non-profit public policy organisation based in Washington, D.C. One of Washington’s oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and development. Its stated mission is to “provide innovative and practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and secure a more open, safe, prosperous, and cooperative international system.”
After the events in Washington Medvedev will have an 11-hour flight to Buenos Aires. This visit that has the official status will become the first in the bilateral relations’ history. “The fact that it will be held in the year of the 200th anniversary of Argentine statehood, as well as the 125th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries gives a special significance to the visit,” Prikhodko believes.
In the Argentine capital where the Russian leader will arrive on Wednesday evening, Moscow time, the president will hold talks with his colleague Christina Fernandez de Kirchner that is expected to result in the adoption of a package of documents on specific spheres. The two leaders are expected to adopt a joint statement on cooperation.
RUVR: Medvedev, de Kirchner to meet in Buenos Aires
|Apr 14, 2010 08:39 Moscow Time |
On April 14-15 Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev will go to Argentina on an official visit, the first Russian official visit since bilateral diplomatic relations. He will discuss ways to tackle the economic crisis and energy and space cooperation with his counterpart Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Talks will focus on the construction of hydroelectric and nuclear power plants in Argentina and the lease of icebreakers and helicopters for Argentina's Antarctic expeditions.
Itar-Tass: Russian minister to discuss industrial cooperation in Rome
14.04.2010, 08.24
ROME, April 14 (Itar-Tass) - Industrial cooperation issues will be the focal point of discussions that the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade, Viktor Khristenko, and the Italian Minister Claudio Scajola are going have Tuesday in the course of their talks in Rome.
Officials at the Russian Minister’s press service told Itar-Tass Tuesday’s meeting is but one in a series of negotiations where ministers of the two partner countries regularly “synchronizes their watches” as regards a number of industrial projects.
The list of sectors where Russian and Italian manufacturers have joint projects embraces aircraft building /including the project of a joint venture to be set up by the ‘Russian Helicopters’ company and Augusta Vesland, due to build helicopters in Russia/, metallurgy and automobile construction.
Apart from this, Khristenko will award the Order of People’s Friendship to Claudio Scajola on behalf of the Russian government, the ministerial press service said.
Kyiv Post: Russia will accept highly enriched uranium Ukraine has decided to get rid of
Today at 09:29 | Interfax-Ukraine
Moscow, April 14 (Interfax) - The highly enriched uranium (HEU) that Ukraine has decided to get rid of will be brought to Russia, General Director of the International Uranium Enrichment Center Alexei Lebedev has said.
The material will be placed in containers and taken to Russia apparently by rail. If it is fresh fuel, it will be taken to the facility in Elektrostal, if it has been exposed, then to the Mayak facility in Chelyabinsk, he said in a Tuesday interview with Russia 24 channel.
"In terms of volume we are apparently speaking of several dozen kilos. In terms of scale, this is an insignificant amount," he said.
"It is a different mater that this is crucial from the viewpoint of nonproliferation. Highly encircled materials should be stored there where they can be handled or made harmless," Lebedev said.
He said that that environmental impact should be minimal.
Earlier after meeting U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych announced that Ukraine is ready to get rid of its highly enriched uranium by 2012.
Lebedev said that earlier Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic and Hungary got rid of their uranium. "The talks with Ukraine lasted very long. I am very glad that they finally ended successfully," he said.
Business Week: Bangladesh approves nuke power deal with Russia
By JULHAS ALAM
DHAKA, Bangladesh
Bangladesh has approved a draft for a deal with Russia to set up a nuclear power plant in the power-starved South Asian nation, a government spokesman said Tuesday.
Abul Kalam Azad, press secretary to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said the approval came at a meeting of the Cabinet on Monday.
Azad told The Associated Press that Bangladesh signed an agreement with Russia last year for cooperation in peaceful use of nuclear power. Hasina is expected to discuss the deal for the new plant in a visit to Russia, which has yet to be scheduled.
Bangladesh intends to set up the plant at Rooppur, which is 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of the capital, Dhaka.
Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh say power shortages are hampering production in their factories, as its mostly gas-fired, decades-old power plants are failing to generate adequate electricity.
Bangladesh, a nation of 150 million people, has a daily shortfall of about 2,000 megawatts of electricity. The government says gas production has decreased in recent years.
The country is also looking for options to switch to coal-fired power plants as it has six coal fields with about 3.3 billion tons of estimated reserves.
The Asian Development Bank in a report on Tuesday said Bangladesh's economy might suffer if the government failed to generate more electricity to feed its industries.
Russia Today: Iran will become nuclear nation in May
14 April, 2010, 09:31
While most of the world is trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, Iran has declared that it is expecting to join the nuclear club in May.
The statement comes from Behzad Soltani, deputy head of Iran’s atomic energy organization. He has come out to say that within one month Iran will become the newest member of the world nuclear club and that as soon as in May, Iran will become a “nuclear nation” that no other country will even think of launching an attack against.
Iranian Fares News Agency also quoted Mr Soltani as saying that Iran is now planning to expand its nuclear program for purposes other than energy and nuclear fuel production.
So far Iran has not been transparent and responsive on the matter of its nuclear program, which raised questions from the international community on whether Iran’s motives were of a peaceful nature.
If Iran does not respond any time soon to the international community’s requests to be more open about its plans, the rest of the world may have to resort to new sanctions.
NUCLEAR SUMMIT
Brookings: An Address by Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation
Russia-U.S. Relations and Russia’s Vision for International Affairs
Event Summary
Like many industrial countries around the world, Russia is coping with the aftermath of the global economic crisis as well as with other domestic challenges. The Russian leadership is also pursuing an active foreign policy agenda. Issues being discussed with the United States include the new START treaty, Iran, Afghanistan and missile defense.
On April 13, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) hosted President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss the Russian Federation’s approach to these critical issues. Prior to his election in 2008, President Medvedev was First Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government. Previously, he served as Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office and was the Chairman of the Board of Directors at OAO Gazprom. Mr. Medvedev received his Ph.D in law from Leningrad State University where he also holds the title of associate professor.
Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution, introduced President Medvedev. After his remarks, President Medvedev took audience questions.
CNN: Medvedev: Iran 'ignoring questions' on nuclear ambition
Iran is ignoring questions from the international community about its nuclear program, using "small phrases" to make "small suggestions," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday.
Medvedev said he does not support crippling sanctions that can hurt the people of Iran "but if nothing happens, we will have use sanctions."
The Russian president made his remarks during a question-and-answer session after a wide-ranging and, at times, humorous speech at the Brookings Institution, a prestigious Washington think tank. The address came at the end of a two-day summit on nuclear security hosted by President Obama.
Sanctions, Medvedev said, should be "smart" and "universal," aimed at one result, and should be discussed with the main countries that will take part in them.
Itar-Tass: Russia's Medvedev calls world nuclear summit very successful
14.04.2010, 01.56
WASHINGTON, April 14 (Itar-Tass) -- Initiative to hold a global nuclear security summit in Washington "was absolutely timely" and the summit itself was "crowned with a complete success," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday in a speech at the Brookings Institute on the results of the summit that had brought together the leaders of 47 countries, the UN, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the European Union.
"The issues of disarmament and nonproliferation concern a big number of countries and today's discussion confirmed it," Medvedev said.
"The world is going through a period of profound transformation these days, running into challenges and seeking new models for development," he said. "Lying at the their root is the mutual interrelation of interests."
"The world will be harmonized if its constituent elements come to mutually complementing one another instead of clashing with each other," Medvedev said. "Democracy, human rights and market economy make up the backbone of national development and, on top of that, international values."
He indicated that the dialogue between Russia and the U.S. is an important part of these values.
"I'm very glad our cooperation is getting stronger and starts bringing tangible results and I'm also satisfied with the fact that changes have occurred in the atmosphere of Russian-U.S. relations within a period of slightly more than a year," Medvedev said.
He also said that Moscow and Washington should refrain from the attempts to teach each other how they should live. Instead of this, it would be worththile building long-term pragmatic relations.
"The history of our bilateral relations is far from simple," Medvedev went on saying. "At times, we begin to cleave to each other in a strangling manner and then an abyss opens up between us."
"We try to find differences between us while in reality we should build long-term pragmatic relations based on the common values of democracy and economic freedom and the common goals of fighting with global challenges," he said.
"Our national histories differ and our people very often perceive current developments in a different manner," Medvedev said. "The U.S. started building a market economy two centuries ago, and we lived through a chain of upheavals and experiments at the same time."
"Russia needs several decades of steady and undisturbed work to build an efficiently working political and economic system, and this is the only prerequisite for making contradictions a thing of the past," he said.
"To make this possible, we should stay away from teaching each other how to live," Medvedev said.
Reuters: Russia says needs time to develop political system
Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:44am IST
By Steve Gutterman and Denis Dyomkin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that he and Barack Obama have "changed the atmosphere" in Russian-U.S. ties, but demanded more American support on issues from the economy to Afghan drugs.
Medvedev also set boundaries for Russia's backing on sanctions against Iran and suggested an air base in Kyrgyzstan might not be the best tool for stabilizing Afghanistan.
His remarks, delivered at a Washington think tank after a nuclear security summit he called a "complete success," underlined the achievements and the limitations of Obama's campaign to "reset" Russia ties after years of deepening ran co runder their predecessors, George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin.
He spoke days after Medvedev and Obama signed a landmark nuclear arms-reduction pact, a crucial element of the U.S. president's high-profile push to curtail the global nuclear threat.
"I am truly glad that our cooperation is starting to bring concrete results," Medvedev told an audience at the Brookings Institution. "I will say even more: I am pleased that in a little more than a year we have succeeded in changing the atmosphere of Russian-American relations."
Russia "is ready to give the United States a shoulder to lean on if needed -- and it is needed on a whole series of issues," Medvedev said, hinting at the challenging U.S. war in Afghanistan and its efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions.
SETTING GUIDELINES
But he suggested that support would come at a price, mixing warm words with pointed guidelines for U.S. treatment of Russia.
While he said the two countries share the common values of democracy and economic freedom, he indicated that after a century of chaos and Communism, Russia cannot be held to the same standards as the United States.
"Russia needs several decades of absolutely stable, calm work to create an effective political system and an effective economic system," Medvedev said.
"We must not teach one another how to live," he said.
While the tone was sunnier, many of Medvedev's complaints echoed accusations levelled by Putin, who steered him into the presidency in 2008 and is still seen as the dominant partner in Russia's ruling tandem.
Repeating criticism Putin unleashed at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month, Medvedev said improved ties have not translated into robust economic cooperation and suggested the United States was at fault.
He said barriers to Russian investment should be removed and urged Obama's administration to help Russia secure swift entry into the World Trade Organization, saying the issue was being used as a political tool to influence Kremlin conduct.
"They have made the WTO into a carrot to hang in front of us and say 'If you behave nicely you will get in,'" said Medvedev, whose country is the largest economy outside the global trade-rules body.
IRAN AND AFGHANISTAN
Russia has moved closer to supporting new sanctions against Iran, with Medvedev leading the shift publicly. But he reiterated on Tuesday that Moscow would not back measures it considers misdirected or overly harsh.
Sanctions "certainly must not punish the people," he said.
Medvedev suggested the United States must do a far better job stemming the Afghan opium and heroin trade, which is fuelling a major drug problem in Russia.
"So far we have done little to fight drug trafficking from Afghanistan -- maybe because America suffers less from this drug trafficking," he said.
Amid geopolitical jockeying after the ouster of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev from power last week, Medvedev issued veiled criticism of the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan that supports operations in nearby Afghanistan.
The U.S. military presence in the ex-Soviet republic has raised hackles in Russia, and the fate of the base has been cast into doubt by members of the Moscow-friendly interim government claiming power in Kyrgyzstan.
"When I met with President Bakiyev, I always told him it is necessary to help our American partners solve problems in Afghanistan -- the question is how to give this help, how effective it is," Medvedev said.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
Itar-Tass: Russian Pres says no revival of Stalinism in Russian society
14.04.2010, 06.24
WASHINGTON, April 14 (Itar-Tass) - There is no revival of Stalinism in Russian society, President Dmitry Medvedev said here Tuesday as he visited the Washington studios of the Russia Today TV channel.
"One can hear the voices claiming that Stalinism is witnessing renaissance in Russia but I think that's an overexaggeration," he said in an interview with the channel's editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonian.
"There's no change in the way society assesses that period of history, and that's why such claims are but overstatements," Medvedev said.
"People of a different type are holding the helm of power in Russia today and the current values and notions about the state differ largely."
Medvedev is certain that Stalin's own and his closest associates' activity will always remain a subject of disputes because "personalities of this type will always cause a variety of reactions."
"To a far bigger degree, this is a question of personal perceptions," Medvedev said. "Signs and notions may change of course but this doesn't mean that what has been black will become white and vice versa."
He mentioned the events in Katyn, among other things.
"If you speak about Stalin and the the closest associates around him, they committed a crime against their own nation and, in a certain sense, against history," Medvedev said.
He also recalled the latest tragic events related to Katyn -- the crash of a jet carrying Poland's President Lech Kaczynski, his spouse Maria, and about 90 other top government officials and members of the Seim, the national parliament, near Russia's western city of Smolensk last summer.
"In a certain sence, it's a trial test for the country and for society, as well as for the entire system of international relations," he said.
Medvedev used this opportunity once again to express his whole-hearted condolences to the whole Polish nation in connection with the tragety that took away 96 human lives.
RIA: Medvedev ready to submit arms reduction pact to parliament in early May
07:0914/04/2010
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday he is ready to submit the new arms reduction treaty to parliament for ratification in the beginning of May should his counterpart Barack Obama do the same in the United States.
On April 8, Obama and Medvedev met in Prague and signed a long-awaited new arms reduction deal to replace the START 1 treaty that expired in December 2009.
Medvedev spoke at Brookings Institution, a leading U.S. think tank, after the end of the April 12-13 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.
A top Russian senator, Mikhail Margelov, asked the president when the treaty will be submitted to parliament.
Medvedev asked: "When will the Americans submit [it]?"
"In the first week of May," was the reply from the audience.
"We can do it at the same time in the form of a package solution," a laughing Medvedev said.
"In the morning we'll get in contact with President Obama over the phone, and I will ask him: 'Are you submitting it?' If he is, then I will submit [it] too."
In the new arms reduction treaty, the two countries, which possess about 90% of global arsenals of nuclear weapons, agreed to reduce the number of nuclear warheads to 1,550 on each side and the number of deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles to 800 on each side.
WASHINGTON, April 14 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Russia ready to discuss further disarmament – Medvedev
02:1714/04/2010
Russia is ready for further discussions on disarmament after a long-awaited new arms reduction pact with the United States was signed April 8., President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday
"As regards further reduction of nuclear offensive potentials... You can have no doubt, we are ready for that," the Russian president said.
Medvedev spoke at a U.S. think tank after the end of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.
WASHINGTON, April 14 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Russia-U.S. relations better than before – Medvedev
03:4114/04/2010
Russia and the United States have improved bilateral relations during the past year, President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday.
"I am glad that in the past year plus we have managed to change the atmosphere of Russian-American relations [for the better]," Medvedev said at Brookings Institution, a U.S. think tank based in Washington, D.C.
"I am pleased that I have a part in it," the Russian president, who spoke after the end of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington that gathered over 40 world leaders.
Russia and the United States have been following the route of "resetting" their relations and ridding them of Cold War-era holdbacks since Medvedev and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama announced the new policy of bilateral ties in April 2009.
The U.S. summit came after the signing of a new strategic arms reduction treaty by Obama and Medvedev in Prague on April 8.
In the treaty, the two countries, which possess about 90% of global arsenals of nuclear weapons, agreed to reduce the number of nuclear warheads to 1,550 on each side and the number of deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles to 800 on each side.
WASHINGTON, April 14 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Medvedev sees U.S. shale gas as stimulus for modernization
11:1814/04/2010
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said he is not disturbed by reports on shale gas deposits in the United States and sees the news as a stimulus for the modernization of the Russian economy.
Gas extraction from shale deposits, seen as an alternative to conventional gas production, is still considered commercially unprofitable by energy experts.
Earlier this month, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported that Poland could become the largest gas supplier for Europe following the discovery of large reserves of shale in the Central European country.
"The fact that our American partners have found new gas capacities, perhaps, is not bad," Medvedev said at the Brookings Institution in Washington after a nuclear security summit.
"It will lead us to be more attentive to our capabilities," the president added.
The Russian president's ambitious plan to modernize the country's economy is one of the main policies of his two years in power.
In an interview with the Russia Today news channel aired today, Medvedev said that some Russian officials might oppose modernization, adding that the process always involves a certain amount of conflict.
"There are always officials who will oppose things, they're in any society during any kind of changes," Medvedev said in an interview with the channel's editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan. "Not because they're bad, it's because there can be a conservative mentality."
"People get used to living within certain parameters, so it's necessary to convince some people - and to confront others," the president continued.
"High oil and gas prices are not bad also," Medvedev said. "We are not going to lower them."
Medvedev also said that the global recession had prompted him to launch Russia on a course on technological modernization.
WASHINGTON, April 14 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Medvedev still counting on Washington's support over WTO entry
08:4814/04/2010
Russia is counting on the support of the U.S. over the issue of its entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO), President Dmitry Medvedev told a leading U.S. think tank.
Russia has been seeking WTO membership since 1993, and is the only major economy outside of the global trade body.
"We want to enter the WTO, but this needs to be done quickly," he told Washington's Brookings Institution after the end of a two-day nuclear security summit.
He also noted that U.S. President Barack Obama had promised last year to help advance the issue.
"But, unfortunately, there have been no results so far... we are really counting on support to force Russia's WTO accession," he said.
In June 2009, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan notified the WTO of their intention to join the world trade club as a customs union.
Four months later, the three former Soviet republics announced they would resume talks on WTO accession separately, but working from synchronized positions.
"It is entirely possible to harmonize the process," Medvedev commented "Everyone will win from this."
WASHINGTON, April 14 (RIA Novosti)
Reuters: Russia wants U.S. to push harder for its WTO entry
Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:27am IST
WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to push for swift Russian entry into the World Trade Organization and said other nations were using the issue to try to influence Russian behavior.
"They have made the WTO into a carrot to hang in front of us and say 'if you behave nicely you will get in,'" Medvedev said in an appearance at a Washington think tank after attending a 47-nation summit on preventing nuclear terrorism.
RIA: Russia's Medvedev blames Kyrgyz authorities for unrests, says civil war risk high
08:0314/04/2010
In his first comments on Kyrgyzstan's riots, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev blamed Kyrgyz authorities for failing to prevent unrests and said the risk of a civil war in the Central Asian country is high.
Protests against Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his government began April 6 in the country's northwest and grew violent spreading to other regions of the country, including the capital Bishkek; over 80 people were killed and more than 1,500 injured. The opposition formed an interim government. Bakiyev fled Bishkek and is in the country's south - his traditional stronghold.
"Kyrgyz authorities are responsible for the hard situation in Kyrgyzstan, which is again going through a phase of illegitimate development," Medvedev said, apparently recalling the 2005 tulip revolution that brought Bakiyev to power.
Medvedev spoke at Brookings Institution, a leading U.S. think tank, after the end of the April 12-13 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.
Since the Tulip revolution, Kyrgyzstan's Constitution has been almost completely changed four times in bids to increase and reduce presidential powers.
In 2009, Bakiyev began amending an article which regulates the succession of presidency in case of death or unexpected resignation. Experts have seen the move as an attempt to introduce a "dynastical system" of power transfer in the country, one of the factors which fueled last week's nationwide protests in Kyrgyzstan.
Medvedev lamented that the current situation looks like the 2005 events. "At one time the former Kyrgyz president [Askar Akayev] was deposed by the opposition and he was forced to flee the country. He was blamed for economic crimes and corruption," he said.
"A few years have passed, but in essence the mottos and people are the same... It is sad because Kyrgyzstan is our close neighbor, and the last thing I would want now is Kyrgyzstan turning into a might-have-been state," the Russian leader said.
Medvedev also said he believes Kyrgyzstan is on the verge of a civil war that could split the country into north and south.
"The risk of Kyrgyzstan splitting into two parts - north and south - really exists... Kyrgyzstan is on the threshold of a civil war, and the forces in Kyrgyzstan should be aware of their responsibility before the Kyrgyz nation... and the existence of the Kyrgyz state," the Russian president said.
He urged an end to bloodshed in Kyrgyzstan.
WASHINGTON, April 14 (RIA Novosti)
|April 13, 2010 | |
|20:30 | |
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WASHINGTON.Dmitry Medvedev met with President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich.
The two leaders discussed issues related to the price of Russian gas in Ukraine. Mr Medvedev stated that the Russian side is ready to discuss Kiev’s new suggestions regarding gas prices and suggested having this matter addressed by the two nations’ specialised agencies. The President of Russia said that this topic is indeed very important for Ukraine.
Viktor Yanukovich stated that Ukraine counts on Russia’s support in its initiative to process high-enriched uranium. The President of Ukraine emphasised that the Ukrainian side has made all the necessary decisions on these issues.
Dmitry Medvedev highlighted that Russia values what Ukraine is doing in this regard and noted that Russia and Ukraine have common positions and common concerns about global developments regarding this matter, as well as a common desire to respond adequately.
President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev joined the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine as they conducted a bilateral meeting at the nuclear security summit.
April 13, 2010 20:48
Interfax: Russia ready to discuss Ukraine’s new proposals on gas price – Medvedev
WASHINGTON. April 13 (Interfax) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that Russia is ready to discuss Ukraine's new proposals on the price of natural gas and suggested that the relevant authorities in the two countries discuss the issue.
"We will definitely discuss the gas issue among others. This is a subject that is truly vital for Ukraine" he said at a Tuesday meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
"Even though earlier agreements are in effect", the matter should be considered and elaborated on by the relevant authorities in each country, Medvedev said.
"I think there is reason to check approaches and initiate additional action by the relevant ministries and agencies in light of what we talked about during your recent private visit to Moscow and with the purpose of implementing the proposals that we discussed," he told Yanukovych.
That was Medvedev's response to a remark made by the Ukrainian president that he had not received any reply to the proposal concerning gas price compensation.
Yanukovych said that the question of the price of Russian gas "troubles Ukraine today." He also said that there are a number of issues "that have accumulated over the years, not only in the past five years, but older questions that require answers."
"They must be discussed and an agreement on them must be reached," he said.
In turn Medvedev noted that the leaders of Russia and Ukraine have started meeting often. "Like we promised our public, we are meeting often. I cannot help but be happy about it. Especially, as a while ago, the situation was such that I practically did not meet the Ukrainian leadership," he said.
He said that the fact that Russia and Ukraine "have developed such a speed of cooperation meets the interests of our countries and nations," he said.
Medvedev admitted that many problems have accumulated in bilateral relations, however, there are also many ideas.
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WASHINGTON. Dmitry Medvedev met with Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel.
April 13, 2010 19:30
Tuesday
Dmitry Medvedev and Angela Merkel discussed progress in the work of the Washington summit on nuclear security and exchanged views on the discussion that took place at the plenary session. In addition, the leaders spoke about their bilateral agenda and schedule for upcoming political contacts.
April 13, 2010 16:30
Tuesday
WASHINGTON. Dmitry Medvedev had a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
The main subjects on the agenda were bilateral relations and also relations with the European Union, of which Spain currently holds the rotating presidency.
Mr Medvedev said that bilateral relations have reached a very high level and that he is looking forward to seeing the Spanish Prime Minister in Russia soon.
Mr Zapatero expressed his condolences over the recent terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Washington nuclear security summit.
Mainichi Daily: Japan, Russia to step up island talks, but don't discuss details
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed Tuesday to promote top-level talks toward settling a longstanding territorial dispute over four Russian-administered islands off Hokkaido, but failed to discuss further details.
Hatoyama told Medvedev that talks between the countries' leaders are "essential" in bringing an end to the decades-old feud, while the Russian president said he has no intention of running away from efforts to resolve the problem and is ready to engage in full-fledged discussions, according to a Japanese government official.
The two leaders met for about 25 minutes on the fringes of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington,
But they fell short of making any fresh suggestions other than agreeing to meet on the sidelines of upcoming international events -- the Group of Eight summit in Canada in June, another global meeting in Russia in September and an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Japan in November.
"We will be able to meet three times in total even if we don't include today's meeting," the premier said.
The territorial row over the islands -- Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group -- has kept the two countries from signing a post-World War II peace treaty. Japan has been calling for control of all four, known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kurils.
Immediately after taking office last September, Hatoyama said Tokyo and Moscow could see progress on the dispute, possibly within six months, as he was confident he could earn Medvedev's trust, citing his family's historical links with Russia.
The name Hatoyama is well known in Russia as his grandfather, former Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama, signed the Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration in 1956 to resume bilateral ties.
Hatoyama also headed a Japan-Russia association until he took office as premier.
Among other issues, Hatoyama told the Russian president that Japan welcomes last week's signing of a new disarmament treaty in Prague between Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama.
"The world got good news" ahead of the nuclear summit and "we welcome that," Hatoyama was quoted as saying.
The premier also said that Japan will help Russia modernize itself and develop Eastern Siberia.
(Mainichi Japan) April 14, 2010
Armradio: Foreign Ministers of Armenia, Russia meet in Washington
14.04.2010 12:11
The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Russia Edward Nalbandian and Sergey Lavrov had a meeting in Washington on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit.
The meeting covered a number of issues on bilateral agenda.
The interlocutors touched upon the cooperation between the two countries within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group and exchanged views on the situation in the region, including the process of settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
Russia Today: Russian president gives interview to RT’s editor in chief
14 April, 2010, 04:19
On the sidelines of the nuclear summit in Washington, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev found time to meet with the head of RT, Margarita Simonyan.
Margarita Simonyan: Hello, Dimitry Anatolyevich, thank you for coming to our studio, we’re very glad to see you here, we know you’ve had a very busy day, and we’re very happy that you’ve found the time to come here. This gives us great encouragement which I know means a lot to our team.
We’re now in Washington, and just recently President Obama got through his healthcare reforms. Many people criticize this plan, saying that it goes against the country's development.
Back in Russia, you are proposing modernization, you speak about innovation, about fighting corruption, you focus on this, and conservative-thinking people in government and among the Russian public also silently resist this, because it goes against their habits. We often hear you criticising offcials, their laziness, their unwillingness to look into the future, redtape. How difficult is it to break this inertia and to convince people that modernisation is firstly, neccessary and secondly, possible?
Dimitry Medvedev: First of all, I'd like to say that it's a great pleasure to be here in your studio, and to see the technology here is up and running – it looks great, especially as you only started working here recently. It looks to be world-class – at least I hope it's so. So I wish to all the staff success in all their endeavours.
Speaking about the U.S. economy and President Obama's initiative to modernise the healthcare system, I think it's a brave deed. And I would go so far as to say it's a brave deed even for a president! Because such decisions can require huge effort, and about a year ago President Obama told me "You know, it's my biggest domestic problem". But I think he has succeeded. I don't know how successful this reform will be, and in keeping with its original intentions, but on the surface it looks quite interesting, because it does, so to say, restore fairness, but on the other hand, I know that opponents of this reform consider that it contradicts the foundation of the political system of the U.S., that it contradicts the constitution. I know that some states argue against it, maybe it's part of the normal democratic process, but I repeat it's a courageous deed. And I think if this reform succeeds, my colleague President Obama will make it into American history not only for his achievements in foreign policy.
How much does it match our ideas for modernisation? Well it does match, because modernisation always involves confrontation. I can't say whether it’s more difficult than the challenges that our government and I face, but I can say for certain that these goals are close, but our goals aren't segmented like those in America. It’s not only healthcare, we have problems with our healthcare system too, but it's not our only problem. Technology modernisation, developing new industries, switching to innovative technology, developing new energy sources, space exploration, the pharmaceutical industry – these are the areas where we have a lot of work to do.
There are always officials who will oppose things, they’re in any society during any kind of changes. Not because they're bad, it's because there can be a conservative mentality. People get used to living within certain parameters, so it's necessary to convince some people – and to confront others. That's how life goes.
MS: You lived in Soviet times like me, like most of the Russians…
DM: I lived longer than you.
MS: A little longer. That was the time when it was common in Russia not to believe the U.S., to be afraid of them and vice versa. Can you remember your first visit to America, what was your impression of the country and has it changed? What do you think of the United States now?
DM: Of course, I remember the first time I travelled to the United States. By the way, it certainly was far from the worst city in the world, it was New York. I like New York, it's a very beautiful and energetic city. I feel comfortable there. By that time I had seen almost all Europe, so I can't say that I came here and saw something I'd never seen before, because for a Soviet citizen it was your first ever trip abroad that was a real shock. Beyond the Iron Curtain you found yourself in a different world where there's a big variety of things from democracy to food, that was quite impressive. America, frankly speaking, appeared to me just as I'd pictured it to be with all its advantages and disadvantages. But what I can say for certain is that New York impressed me very much especially with its strong energy, drive for results, with lots of businessmen and at the same time a kind of routine life. I hadn't seen that in Europe. That's what stuck in my memory most. At that time, I was a normal carefree person because I could stroll along the streets of New York, drop into restaurants and shops, see how Wall Street works, which wasn't much criticised than, not like today!
You know what also impressed me much, and I’ve remembered it for the rest of life – was how well-dressed young people, obviously successful and earning good money, were just standing near their office blocks eating hamburgers and drinking cola. That was a surprise for me, because in other countries wealthy people usually went to restaurants or went home for lunch. But here there's an adaptability that greatly distinguishes Americans from other nations. It doesn't matter if you're rich, a piece of hamburger and a glass of cola must give you enough energy to keep going for the rest of the day.
MS: The recent tragedy near Smolensk in which the Polish president and a large number of the Polish political elite died shocked the entire world. People were on the way there to commemorate another tragedy, the execution of Polish war captives by Stalin’s regime. As we are approaching the anniversary of WW2 victory, in the West, many have been writing recently that Stalin is still a cause for argument – or perhaps is a source of renewed vigour for such arguments; or perhaps a revaluation of history. In your opinion, how long will these arguments last for? Can we finally close this chapter in our history, or do you think we will keep discovering who was wrong and who was right for generations to come?
DM: You started your question with the tragedy that took place near Smolensk. It really was a very dreadful tragedy, for the Polish nation first of all, not to mention family members of the deceased, but also for the world order in general too. When a country’s president and a significant number of leaders die in a catastrophe, to some extent it’s a trial for a society as well as for the international system. Therefore there was such a united response from the entire international community and from the Russian nation to this tragedy. But it was a really tragic accident. There was something mystical about it, and perhaps there were rational reasons too, which the investigation must find – and explain what happened there. This is very important.
Regarding the occasion, it was a difficult one too, even though recently, we’ve come a long way. An assessment was made of the Katyn tragedy, and it was objective. It had obviously happened with the will of leaders of that time, including Stalin. Characters of this kind will always provoke different responses in people. It’s not a question of the mentality of one country or another, whether it’s totally liberated or whether it had been formed by a totalitarian period. It’s rather a question of people’s personal perception. As strange as it may seem, whether the assessment is positive or negative can change with time; understanding can change as well. But it doesn’t mean that we should call black white, and white black. Regarding Stalin and people under his leadership, the Soviet leaders of that period, it’s clear and obvious to everyone that they had committed a crime. A crime against their nation first of all, and against history to some extent too. I have no doubts that the activities of Stalin and his nearest colleagues will always be assessed differently. The question is, what assessment dominates. And I believe that nothing has changed in our country over recent years regarding this issue. When I hear that a renaissance of Stalinism is happening now, it sounds totally far-fetched to me. Some people do like Stalin and everything associated with him. And it’s for God to judge them, so to say. But modern society’s assessment of that period hasn’t changed. I believe it’s a strong exaggeration, or perhaps an attempt to explain one situation or another in our country through a prism of previous events. But this is not correct, because Russia is not the Soviet Union. And I hope that people in charge of Russia are quite significantly different from Stalin and his supporters. I am not talking about myself right now as people shouldn’t be talking about themselves, but about the new generation of our leadership in general. The set of values and ideas about the state, society, human rights, and the people have radically changed during recent years, during the Russian period. And it’s impossible not to see it. That’s it.
MS: Thank you very much for this interview and for being here.
DM: Thank you.
Bloomberg: U.S.-Russian Ties Tested in Kyrgyzstan Revolution (Update1)
April 14, 2010, 1:38 AM EDT
(Adds Medvedev comments in second, ninth and 10th paragraphs.)
By Lucian Kim
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Kyrgyzstan’s provisional government holds talks in Moscow today as the tremors of the former Soviet republic’s violent uprising create a “test case” that may lead to a realignment of U.S.-Russian relations.
Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva is sending her deputy to a second round of meetings with Russian officials since she came to power a week ago. President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in Washington late yesterday, said Kyrgyzstan is on the verge civil war, and Russia’s task is to help the country out of its political crisis.
Russia and the U.S., which both have air bases in the Central Asian nation, are reaching out to Otunbayeva, even as ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev holds out in the country’s south. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call Otunbayeva, while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed suit two days later.
“Kyrgyzstan is much more important for U.S.-Russian relations than arms control, which is an agenda of the past,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine. “Kyrgyzstan is a tiny test case whether the U.S. and Russia can find a way to coordinate interests in Eurasia. There could be a new deal.”
The U.S. depends on its Manas air base near the capital Bishkek to supply its troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. embassy said on April 12 operations resumed at the base after being suspended during unrest that left at least 80 people dead.
Russia initially consented to the U.S. opening bases in former Soviet republics to support operations against Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
‘Wink and Nod’
When the war dragged on and the Bush administration actively supported membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for Ukraine and Georgia, Putin felt “betrayed,” Lukyanov said. Russia opened its own base in Kyrgyzstan in 2003.
“Russia isn’t categorically against a U.S. presence,” Lukyanov said. “It just wants the future to be discussed with Putin and Medvedev -- not with Bakiyev or Otunbayeva.” Medvedev succeeded Putin as president in 2008.
Kyrgyzstan risks becoming a “second Afghanistan,” Medvedev said in reply to questions at the Brookings Institution in Washington yesterday.
Disintegrate
“There is a real risk that Kyrgyzstan may disintegrate into two parts, northern and southern,” Medvedev said.
Bakiyev, who himself came to power during a popular uprising in 2005, dubbed the Tulip Revolution, threatened to close Manas more than once. Last year he decided to evict the U.S. Air Force after receiving a $2 billion Russian aid package. He later reversed that decision when the U.S. agreed to pay more rent.
“My instinct is that Bakiyev couldn’t have negotiated the Manas deal without at least a wink and a nod from Moscow,” said Cliff Kupchan of New York-based Eurasia Group. “The Obama administration realizes that to hold on to Manas without consulting Moscow would be asking for trouble.”
The U.S. military presence was not the cause of Russia’s rising frustration with Bakiyev, said Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the Institute for National Strategy in Moscow. The Kremlin withdrew support from Bakiyev after he tried to bring China into an energy deal and reneged on an agreement to increase Russian interest in a Soviet-era defense plant, according to Belkovsky.
Aid Package
“Bakiyev didn’t prove himself a reliable partner,” Belkovsky said. “Russia hasn’t been very happy for the last six months, but it doesn’t have the capacity to influence the internal situation.”
Ninety percent of the Kyrgyz elite, including many former Bakiyev allies like Otunbayeva, went over to the opposition as the president consolidated power, Belkovsky said. Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S., can be considered pro-western, he said.
Almazbek Atambayev, Otunbayeva’s deputy, will make his second visit to Moscow since last week’s unrest. Atambayev told the Kabar news service after the first round of talks that Russia had promised a “solid” aid package.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to name the officials Atambayev will meet today and said only that “humanitarian aid” will be discussed.
The U.S. is dispatching Robert Blake, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, to Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. “recognizes there is a transitional administration that has taken control,” State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said on April 12.
“Real geopolitical issues are at stake here: namely does Russia care more about Afghanistan and Islamic extremism or is its priority the elimination of the U.S. presence,” Kupchan said. “This crisis will serve as a crucible.”
--With assistance from James Rupert in New Delhi, Nariman Gizitdinov in Almaty and Lyubov Pronina in Moscow. Editors: Tasneem Brogger, Chris Kirkham.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lucian Kim in Moscow at lkim3@
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Kirkham at ckirkham@
RUVR: Russian, U.S. navies conduct joint anti-piracy drill
Apr 14, 2010 09:42 Moscow Time
The Russian and U.S. navies have conducted joint exercises in the Gulf of Aden to rehearse anti-piracy rescue efforts. The drill involved ships of the Russian Pacific Fleet, including a large anti-submarine vessel and a U.S. destroyer ship. Both countries have been taking an active part in international anti-piracy missions.
Reuters: UPDATE 2-US has new approach to Russia poultry spat-USAPEEC
Wed Apr 14, 2010 3:12am IST
* U.S. approach could lead to quick end to Russia ban
* USAPEEC declined to provide details
* Russian official: US willing to stop using chlorine
* USTR spokeswoman: work continues to find a deal
* CME lean hog futures hit 19-1/2 month highs on the news (Updates with USTR comment, market reaction)
By Aleksandras Budrys and Roberta Rampton
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. government has briefed poultry industry officials on a new approach that could lead to a quick resolution of a trade dispute with Russia that has blocked U.S. chicken exports to its top market, an industry official said on Tuesday.
"It appears that our government now understands our industry's willingness to meet the demands of the Russians and has come up with a unique approach to allow our industry to comply (with) their requirements," said Jim Sumner, president of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, in an email.
Russia banned the imports on Jan. 19 after saying a chlorine wash used routinely in U.S. processing plants was in violation of its food safety standards. Washington says its poultry is safe.
Russian news agency Interfax reported on Tuesday that U.S. poultry producers have agreed to stop using chlorine in processing products for exports to Russia, quoting a Russian consumer protection watchdog.
"We have been informed that American producers are switching to poultry meat production without using chlorine and that they want to restart exports to Russia as soon as possible," said Gennady Onishchenko, head of consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative said government officials "continue to work with Russia to find a mutually acceptable outcome that will permit the resumption of U.S. poultry exports to Russia" but did not elaborate.
Sumner said he was briefed on the U.S. strategy but could not provide details.
"I think this will give Dr. Onishchenko everything he is seeking and, therefore, will allow trade to resume quite quickly," Sumner said.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hog futures 2LHM0 surged to 19-1/2 month highs after the news. Increasing poultry exports would reduce competition from poultry in cash meat markets, traders said.
"Lifting of the poultry ban by Russia can clear the way and make it easier for these pork prices to continue moving up," said James Burns, independent hog trader at the CME.
The ban has roiled exports from major producers such as Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) and Sanderson Farms Inc (SAFM.O). [ID:nN2311280] [ID:nN01113200]
Onishchenko said imports could resume after Moscow gets an official confirmation of U.S. producers' consent to stop using chlorine.
Two rounds of talks, both held under tight secrecy in Moscow, have failed to yield an agreement. Onishchenko, who has said little about the negotiations, said in the middle of March: "progress is evident and stunning." He did not elaborate. (Additional reporting by Jerry Bieszk in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 3:51pm CDT
St. Louis Business Journal: Russian leaders to visit St. Louis to examine government
More than two dozen Russian civic and political leaders plan to visit St. Louis from April 24 through May 1 to examine how local government in the United States works with businesses and nonprofits.
The 27 Russian officials will meet with St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, St. Louis Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed, Civic Progress Executive Director Tom Irwin, as well as representatives from city, county and regional public policy agencies, the media, local businesses, nonprofits, former Missouri state legislators and University of Missouri-St. Louis faculty and students.
UMSL said it received backing for the trip from Supporters of Civil Society in Russia, a nonprofit organization committed to promoting the development of a free and open society in Russia, and its Russian program partner, the Moscow School of Political Studies.
This will be the fifth visit of Russian leaders to St. Louis in partnership with SCSR and UMSL.
CNN: Russian official: Adoption case points to need for monitoring
By Ivan Watson and Maxim Tkachenko, CNN
April 13, 2010 -- Updated 2348 GMT (0748 HKT)
Moscow, Russia (CNN) -- Artyem Saveliev turns eight years old this week. His birthday will be anything but normal.
Last Thursday his American adoptive family put him on a solo, trans-Atlantic flight from the United States to Moscow. They hired a Russian driver to deliver the boy from the airport to the Russian Ministry of Education.
Russian officials allowed CNN to see a copy of a letter addressed to the Ministry of Education and signed by Artyem's adoptive mother, Torry Hansen, which the little boy carried when he arrived.
"To Whom It May Concern," the letter reads, "This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues/behaviors. I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability... After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child. As he is a Russian National, I am returning him to your guardianship and would like the adoption disannulled [sic]."
Russian officials are fuming at these accusations.
"How can you imagine that a 7-year-old boy can be [a] menace or danger for the family? For the adult people?" said Pavel Astakhov, Russia's Child Rights Ombudsmen.
"[Artyem] is in very good mental and physical condition," Astakhov said. "He's a very nice boy. He's funny. And he's very communicative."
Astakhov met with Artyem several times since he arrived in Moscow, as have officials from the U.S. Embassy.
"When we saw him, he looked like a very tired little boy off a long trans-Atlantic flight," said John Beyrle, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow.
The case of Artyem comes after the Russian media focused intense attention on several previous cases in recent years of abuse involving adopted Russian children in the United States. Not surprisingly, some Russians are calling for an end to the practice of foreign adoption.
"I am against the idea of sending our children abroad," said a woman, who gave her name only as Alexandra, as she watched her grandchildren play on a sunny day in a Moscow park.
Russian officials have made public appeals for a temporary freeze of American adoption of Russian children until a proposed bilateral treaty has been signed to allow monitoring of children after they are brought to the United States.
"We don't have any instrument or tools to control our children which are living in adoptive families," said Astakhov. "In this situation we have a kind of legal vacuum ... we have to freeze all activity in the adoptive process for the United States of America."
Those are ominous words for thousands of desperate American families who end up waiting years and spending tens of thousands of dollars trying to adopt Russian children. According to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, more then 50,000 Russian children have been adopted by American families in the last 16 years.
The U.S. State Department offered to send a delegation of diplomats to Moscow later this month to address the adoption issue.
"The Russian government has now told us informally that that's acceptable. We're actually working out the dates," said Beyrle. "So I would say to American families that are in the process of adoption not to worry too much. We're working on this, and we really don't think that this will have any long-term effect on the ability of American families to adopt here."
Russia has no shortage of orphans.
The United Nations Children Fund reported that in 2008, some 714,000 Russian children were living in state institutions. Unlike many Western societies, the vast majority -- 83 percent of these children -- are "social orphans" taken from biological parents who were deemed unfit by Russian state agencies, said Bertram Beinvel, UNICEF's representative in Moscow.
"What is important to draw out of this [Artyem's] case is to conduct a thorough analysis on the adoption of the child, then to [learn] what happened when he was put back on the plane," Beinvel said. He also called for a bilateral treaty to prevent future cases of abuse from occurring.
Both U.S. and Russian officials predicted it might take a matter of months to hammer out this proposed agreement.
But that offers little consolation to Artyem Saveliev, who has now lost two families before reaching the age of 8.
"He lost his native family, his mother. And he lost his adoptive family, Torry Hansen," said Astakhov. "Now the best way is to place him in a new family which can give him attention and love."
But Astakhov made it clear any new family for Artyem would be a Russian one.
ABC News: Petition Drive Urges Russia Not to Halt Adoptions
Petition drive in US urges Russia not to freeze adoptions despite furor over abandonment
By DAVID CRARY
The Associated Press
NEW YORK
Worried over a threatened freeze of adoptions from Russia, thousands of American adoption advocates are petitioning leaders of the two nations to prevent such a step even as they decry a Tennessee woman returning her adopted son to Russia.
Poignant pleas from would-be adoptive parents were included in the petition to President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, that was being coordinated Tuesday by the Joint Council on International Children's Services. The council, which represents many U.S. agencies engaged in international adoption, estimates there are about 3,000 pending U.S. applications for adoptions from Russia.
"My husband and I have been working toward a Russian adoption for two years now," wrote Susan Busek, a teacher from Loveland, Colo. "Please know that there are many would-be parents like us, who want only the opportunity to be parents and give our love."
The petition, which quickly gathered more than 11,000 electronic signatures, is a response to the outcry in Russia over the incident last week in which a nurse from Tennessee arranged to send her 7-year-old adoptive son back to Moscow alone on a plane, asserting that the boy had severe psychological problems.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and its children's rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, have suggested that Russia suspend all U.S. adoptions until Moscow and Washington sign a bilateral adoption agreement.
"How can we prosecute a person who abused the rights of a Russian child abroad?" Astakhov said in a televised interview. "If there was an adoption treaty in place, we would have legal means to protect Russian children abroad."
Lavrov called the return of the boy, Artyom Savelyev, "the last straw" after a string of other cases in which adopted Russian children were mistreated.
As of Tuesday, however, no freeze had been imposed, and U.S. agencies handling adoptions from Russia told their clients that applications remained active.
The U.S. State Department is arranging for a high-level delegation to visit Moscow next week to discuss the incident and the possibility of some sort of new adoption agreement.
In the past, the United States has resisted Russian entreaties to sign a formal adoption pact, contending that an international accord called the Hague Convention would be sufficient once Russia ratified it. But the latest incident appears to have softened the U.S. stance.
"We're willing to talk about some sort of bilateral understanding where we would ensure that these kinds of things could not happen," the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, told CBS's "The Early Show."
Tom DeFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services, said he was not sure if a possible U.S.-Russian pact would require ratification by the Senate, but pledged that his group would help work for ratification if that was the case.
The petition being promoted by the council calls the abandonment of the Russian boy "an isolated incident ... not at all indicative of the thousands of successful adoptions between Russia and the United States."
It calls on Medvedev and Obama to ensure that "every child's right to a permanent and safe family is not interrupted due to the suspension of intercountry adoption services." It calls on the two governments to "aggressively prosecute any individual involved in child abuse to the fullest extent of the law."
Larisa Mason, executive director of an Oakmont, Pa., adoption agency called International Assistance Group, urged the American government to be flexible in the upcoming talks with the Russians.
"We need to work with the Russians on putting together something that will protect children in circumstances like this," she said. "This is the most unfortunate incident, and maybe this will push our government to do something more."
Mason said many Russians felt that 7-year-old Artyom — and other adopted Russian children — were treated like "second-class citizens" in the United States. She said Russians were outraged that no charges had been filed as of Tuesday against the adoptive mother in Tennessee, Torry Hansen.
One of the couples working with Mason's agency to adopt a Russian orphan expressed understanding for the outrage being voiced in Moscow.
"The number one objective has always got to be the welfare of the children," said Sharon Johnson of Atlanta. "But I'd ask them to not penalize all of the waiting families who can provide loving homes to raise these children."
Johnson and her husband, Don — both attorneys — already have an adopted 4-year-old daughter from Russia and embarked last year on efforts to adopt another girl. They fervently hope the abandonment incident won't delay the process.
"The families seeking to adopt are not represented by this woman," said Sharon Johnson, referring to Hansen. "We want to help children, we want to love them and grow old with them, and watch them do sports and ballet, and give them the opportunities here that they can't get growing up in an orphanage."
In recent years, the number of foreign children being adopted by Americans has sharply declined — and Russia has been a big factor. There were more than 5,800 U.S. adoptions from Russia in 2004, and only 1,586 last year.
Louise Schnaier, director of international adoption at the Spence-Chapin agency in New York, said there is a perception in the adoption community that many of the children being adopted out of Russian orphanages can present special challenges — due to such conditions as fetal alcohol syndrome.
"Ultimately we have to depend on the families to give us feedback so we can help them," she said. "There's inherently a lot of unknowns, and families need to be clear about that."
Natasha Shaginian-Needham, co-founder of the Happy Families International adoption agency in Cold Spring, N.Y., said she had no sympathy for Torry Hansen.
"She had many sources to go to, to get help: the adoption agency, the Department of Social Services, counseling, post-adoption support groups, and many more who would guide her appropriately in this crisis situation," Shaginian-Needham said.
"There is a child who cannot be treated as a broken toy that gets sent back to the store if it stops working," she added. "This abominable action is a crime."
———
Associated Press writer Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.
Press release 108/2010
Ministry for Foreign Affairs
14.4.2010 8.43
Finnish Government: Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation meets in Helsinki led by Ministers Väyrynen and Nabiullina
The eleventh joint meeting of the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation takes place in Helsinki on 14 April. The agenda of the meeting, chaired by Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Paavo Väyrynen and Minister of Economic Development and Trade Elvira Nabiullina of Russia, includes the effects of the financial crisis and topical bilateral questions such as innovation cooperation and forest-sector investment prospects.
The Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation held its previous joint meeting in Moscow in March 2009. More than 20 sector-specific and region-specific working groups operate within the Commission; these working groups, for instance, develop joint projects and strive to resolve bilateral trade related problems. In conjunction with the meeting of the Commission, a business seminar will be held where the ministers will meet representatives of Finnish and Russian companies. The seminar topics focus on innovations and entrepreneurship in small and medium-sized businesses.
Minister Väyrynen and Minister Nabiullina will also have bilateral talks in connection with the joint meeting of the Finnish-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation.
Additional information: Päivi Nevala, Adviser to the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, tel. +358 9 1605 6171, mobile tel. +358 40 753 4375, and Counsellor Antti Vänskä, tel. +358 9 1605 5616, mobile tel. +358 40 513 1458
Brunei fm: Russia hoists flag at temporary embassy
Azaraimy HH Apr 14th, 2010
BRUNEI and the Russian Federation have promising “perspectives of synergetic development” in politics and economy, investments and communications, science and technology, education and culture, arts and sports, the Russian ambassador said in a Russian national flag hoisting ceremony yesterday at its temporary embassy at Holiday Lodge Hotel, Jerudong.
Russian Ambassador Victor A Seleznev said Brunei and Russia have been enjoying friendly relations for many years. “Now we see a quality development of this relationship”.
Brunei Darussalam has already established its embassy in Moscow. Russia recently opened its direct representation in Bandar Seri Begawan, It officially started functioning since March 3 when His Majesty the Sultan received the letter of credentials from the ambassador of the Russian Federation.
The Russian ambassador said, “We have been granted a great honour and we bear a great responsibility to give a start to the functioning of the Russian diplomatic mission in this beautiful, friendly and prosperous country.
“… I am confident that due to our common efforts and with the help and assistance of our Bruneian friends we will do atmost so that the existing traditions of interactions between our countries will be prompted by more developed cooperation based on the principles of equality and mutual benefits.”
RUVR: S.Ossetia, Nicaragua seal diplomatic ties
|Apr 14, 2010 09:31 Moscow Time |
The foreign ministers of South Ossetia and Nicaragua will meet in the Ossetian capital Tskhinval on Wednesday to sign a declaration on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The same day, the Nicaraguan minister Samuel Santos Lopez will hold talks with President Eduard Kokoyty and address the local parliament. Other countries that have recognized South Ossetia and another newly-independent Caucasian state - Abkhazia – are Russia, Venezuela and Nauru.
RIA: Medvedev signs national anti-corruption program for 2010-11
09:1914/04/2010
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed an order on a national anti-corruption program for 2010-11, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
The statement said the national anti-corruption strategy and the national anti-corruption plan were designed at eliminating corruption in society and at a federal level, respectively.
MOSCOW, April 14 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Marine infantry land on Pyotr Veliky
11:3114/04/2010
A marine infantry unit on permanent standby aboard the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky has started regular drills. The weather in the Mediterranean is favorable. The men practice rappelling down a wall, hand-to-hand combat and, of course, one of their main missions – landing on a ship from a helicopter.
According to the exercise scenario, the Marines have successfully landed on a token enemy ship from a Ka-27 helicopter, and spread out to take up their positions on the stern of the ship – each to defend his sector. The main mission of marine infantry is to land on a ship as quickly as possible and to hold their positions until the main group arrives to clear the vessel of likely terrorists or pirates.
To fulfill this objective, a helicopter hovers above the deck. Men slide down a rope and take up positions to wait until the main forces arrive. The helicopter can also pick up the men without landing on the ship. It can easily winch up two men at a time.
NTI: Russia to Place Early Warning Radar on Duty
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Russia last week indicated it could soon place into combat operations a new radar station to provide the country with early warning of incoming enemy missiles, Interfax reported (see GSN, Dec. 24, 2009).
The Voronezh radar at Lekhtusi "has already started to operate. We will put it on combat duty after the president issues an appropriate decree," Russian space forces commander Maj. Gen. Oleg Ostapenko said.
The facility "has already entered trial combat duty" and will be placed into service in accordance with a set time table, Ostapenko said.
"The construction of one more radar in Armavir is proceeding at a very rapid pace," he added (Interfax, April 9).
BarentsObserver: Putin to visit Murmansk this week
2010-04-13
Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will pay a visit to Murmansk in the middle of April. According to unconfirmed information the visit will take place on Thursday this week.
Problems within fisheries are one of the issues that will be discussed with Mr. Putin, according to First Vice Governor of Murmansk Oblast Sergey Smityushenko. -The interest towards Murmansk Oblast is growing, Smityushenko said to web site B-.
A large delegation of higher officials, including the Head of the Russian Audit Chamber Sergey Stepashin and General Director of Rosatom, arrived in Murmansk earlier this week to prepare for the prime Minister’s visit.
13 April 19:14
.ru: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets with Kaluga Region Governor Anatoly Artamonov
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Kaluga Region Governor Anatoly Artamonov focused on industry, primarily the automobile industry. They also discussed wage arrears and unemployment. The governor said that the number of jobs available “considerably exceeds the number of job seekers.”
Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Mr Artamonov, in the first quarter of the year, industrial production in the Kaluga Region rose by a respectable 17% compared to the same period last year. Housing construction is up more than 14%. More housing has been commissioned than during the past year. On the whole, things are getting better, although you still have a problem with unpaid wages. These debts are being brought down, but they are still there. Volkswagen and Volvo have assembly plants in your region, and there are plans to start producing other world famous brands. What can you say about the current status of the automobile industry? What additional support and attention does the industry need from the government? A number of facilities are being built using federal money, for instance, the court of arbitration. What can you say on this point? Please, go ahead.
Anatoly Artamonov: Mr Putin, on the whole things are getting better after the crisis last year. We have managed to do rather well owing to the things you just mentioned. Over the past few years, we have built up an adequate amount of new production capacity and created an adequate number of new jobs. In addition to the projects you just mentioned, we will open a Peugeot-Citroen assembly plant together with Mitsubishi on April 23.
Vladimir Putin: A joint venture?
Anatoly Artamonov: Yes. This year we will do assembly and next year we will launch full-cycle production, like at the Volkswagen plant you visited.
We are diversifying our economy. In our region, we have passed a law to create a pharmaceutical complex. We have already built one large plant. Another two will be built. This will be a new sector in the economy of the Kaluga Region.
A number of new enterprises producing farm equipment and food products, as well as enterprises in the construction industry, will be opening.
Vladimir Putin: There haven't been any changes in your plans to launch the Peugeot-Citroen-Mitsubishi assembly plant?
Anatoly Artamonov: No. We were also worried about that. We were afraid that the investors might start wavering last year, but thank God, everything went as we had agreed on. We will open the factory according to plan.
As for the construction of facilities using federal funds, we are monitoring the situation. We are monitoring this construction, despite the fact that the relevant federal departments are also monitoring it. All these facilities will be built on time. We recommend that our construction materials be used, as they are much cheaper than imported ones. Our construction companies work for less than, say, those in Moscow.
We are planning to build a fast neutron nuclear power plant in Obninsk.
Vladimir Putin: This city will have a number of facilities.
Anatoly Artamonov: Indeed, it has a number of facilities. We are always trying to support the city's brand. It is the first science city in Russia - you signed a decree awarding the city this high status.
We are trying to build industrial facilities around Obninsk in order to facilitate scientific research. We have to charge taxes because science cannot develop without funding from the budget. Besides, not everyone works in scientific research. Some family members are scientists, while others work at a modern plant. This is not bad at all.
On the subject of fast neutrons, Obninsk has the Chemical Energy Institute, which is the pioneer in this field. This is why we would appreciate it if nuclear power plants were built in the city. The programme of the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation calls for the construction of two plants - one for research and one for commercial purposes. This would provide serious support for research for many years to come.
I'd also like to thank you for your decision to build a radiological centre in Obninsk. It has the necessary R&D base. The centre employs 72 doctors of science.
Vladimir Putin: This was a natural decision given the experience that you have.
What will you do about unpaid wages?
Anatoly Artamonov: They amount to 22 million roubles, but we have no wage arrears in the public sector.
Vladimir Putin: I know that, but in the private sector unpaid wages were 37 million roubles. Is this right?
Anatoly Artamonov: Now they are 22 million roubles. Companies on the verge of bankruptcy were not paying wages. This is only natural. Now they are being replaced with new companies. We will need three months - six at most - to bring this debt down the zero, as it was before.
Vladimir Putin: Okay. What about the labour market?
Anatoly Artamonov: Mr Putin, the unemployment rate is below 1.5%. We believe this is a normal figure. Unemployment has not gone up in our region. To be honest, the increase in unemployment benefits has encouraged many to register as unemployed, even though they hadn't considered it necessary before. The number of jobs that we are offering considerably exceeds the number of job seekers.
Vladimir Putin: Good.
RUVR: Olympic construction in Sochi ahead of schedule - IOC
Apr 14, 2010 10:25 Moscow Time
Construction of Olympic sports facilities in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics, is ahead of schedule, an International Olympic Committee delegation has said during a regular inspection tour. Mountain ski tracks at the Roza Khutor resort site and the first level of the Grand Ice Palace seating 12,000 spectators are almost ready. About 50 km of railway and parallel motor road from the local airport to Krasnaya Polyana have already been laid. Several tunnels are being built.
Reuters: UPDATE 1-Russia's Usmanov not ruling out Arsenal bid
3:00am EDT
* Red & White Holdings "retains all its options"
* Says remains "committed long-term investor"
(Adds detail)
LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) - Red & White Holdings, the investment vehicle of Russian steel magnate Alisher Usmanov, has left the door ajar for a takeover of Premier League soccer club Arsenal , saying it will keep all options open.
In a statement on Tuesday, Red & White, which currently holds a 26 percent stake in the north London-based club, said it remained a "committed long-term investor".
"At this stage Red & White retains all its options and does not wish for the purposes of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers to reduce its future flexibility and accordingly no particular course of action is ruled in or out," it said.
The chances of an offer for the club materialising intensified this week after one of its biggest shareholders, Nina Bracewell-Smith, hired U.S. private equity firm Blackstone to find a buyer for her 16 percent stake. [ID:nLDE63B1V0]
That led to speculation that either Usmanov or U.S. sports tycoon Stan Kroenke, who has a 29.9 percent stake, could make a bid for the club.
If either of them were to acquire Bracewell-Smith's stake, it would take them over the 30 percent threshold which requires a formal offer to be made for the business under City takeover rules.
However, the chances of Kroenke making a bid diminished on Tuesday when he made a surprise move to buy the St Louis Rams American football team. He had been expected to sell his 40 percent holding in the NFL outfit, possibly to fund a takeover of Arsenal.
Arsenal currently sit third in the Premier League and remain in with a chance of winning the title for the first time since 2004.
(Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Paul Sandle)
Apa.az: Moscow Mayor Yuriy Lujkov issues order to build Muslim Magomayev’s monument in Russian capital
[ 14 Apr 2010 11:45 ] [pic]
Baku. Lachin Sultanova – APA. Moscow Mayor Yuriy Lujkov issued an order to build famous singer Muslim Magomayev’s monument in the center of Moscow, APA reports quoting RIA-Novosty.
The bronze monument with granite plinth will be built by sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov.
The project was ordered by Araz Agalarov’s Crocus International Company.
Renovation of the territory and installation of the monument will be agreed with a contractor company in the next few days.
14 April 2010, 10:54
Interfax: Media review: Islamic Puppeteers
Russian Islamic policy is being performed by a small company where all parts are cast in accordance with the rules of a classic thriller production - from king to swindler.
Will Kadyrov become a Muslim vice-president of the Russian Federation?
Moscow Metro bombings made President Dmitry Medvedev threaten "dagger thrusts" on terrorists. The Kremlin has not yet given any more insight into the Islamic problem. "To develop economy, education, and culture, and strengthen ethical and moral components" - this is, strictly speaking, the only brief selection of prescriptions for a "sick Moslem" which federal authorities thought fit to (or could) write out. In this form these recommendations may be compared to such advice as "you need to have your stomach, ears, feet and eyes treated."
Different groups of the heterogeneous (if not to say - motley) Moslem community of Russia are in a hurry to fill out a vacant form of the "Islamic policy" with their own content. But only one such group has moved beyond posting its political program on the Internet to create its real political structures at the federal level. This group is represented by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
Kadyrov's federal concept involves creating a "Social Federalist Party" (SFP) which is in the near future to form a bipartisan political system resembling the US one together with the United Russia party. Chechen leader's advisers view SFP to be similar to the Turkish Justice and Development Party chaired by Tayyip Erdogan. A new party will be naturally based on the Muslim population of Russia. The party's leader will presumably hold a post of the country's vice-president which should be established by amending the Constitution the Russian Federation.
According to the model developed by Kadyrov's advisers, the SFP shall be created on the platform of the "basic Muslim culture", since "nothing else unites the Northern Caucasus and the region of the Urals and the Volga River." Shifting the emphasis from religion to "culture" means, among other things, that Kadyrov's followers are seeking to introduce Muslim representatives of big and medium business into Islamic structures, along with religious leaders.
Dirty linen from mosque
An idea to unite Russian Muslims under the aegis of one organization and one and by all means Chechen leader was first voiced as far back as 2004 by Ahmad Kadyrov, a deceased father of the current Chechen President. The practice of establishing "representative offices of the President of the Chechen Republic" in the large Russian cities was started at that time. To some extent, it is related to strengthening general positions of the Caucasus Muslims in Russia. The day when Kazan and Ufa are going to give up their positions of the major Muslim capitals to Grozny and Makhachkala seems to be not far away.
However, the first step to establish the federal Islamic structure was made in Ufa. In December last year, the leaders of three largest Muslim organizations - the Russian Council of Muftis (CMP), Russia's Central Spiritual Governance for Muslims (CSGM), and Coordination Center for Muslims of the Northern Caucasus (CCM) - met in Ufa. Soon after, Kadyrov made an official statement that he "expressly" supported the idea to unite all Muslims of Russia.
The meeting participants decided to establish two wings within a new organization - a socio-political and a religious one. Ramzan Kadyrov was offered to govern Islamic policy of the country and Ravil Gainutdin, the head of CMP, received a proposal to provide religious instruction to Muslims. The socio-political wing put into effect the part of Kadyrov's federal concept which was intended to introduce representatives of Islamic business and bureaucracy into high politics. A well known Islamic expert Roman Silantyev noted that "immunity against resignations (for public officials), "dekulakization" (seizure of property) (for oligarchs) and legal prosecution for resources embezzlement and connections to extremists (for community leaders) would be an additional but very important bonus for secular Islamic leaders."
This union has immediately given rise to scandals of mostly criminal nature. It was rumored that the head of CSGM Talgat Tajuddin was offered one million euro as a payoff. (Tajuddin initially insisted that the integration should be made around his "central spiritual governance".)
Even more incredible seemed rumors that there had been "a conflict with the application of physical force" between Sheikh Gainutdin and his council on economic and legal matters Farit Farisov. They, however, decided not to wash their dirty linen in public, moreover, sheikh preferred not to complicate his relations with his indispensable assistant. Little is known about Farisov, in particular, that he has a master degree in boxing, and was employed by the Spektr security agency. His name was once associated with the Kazan organized crime group, allegedly, because Farisov was put on the list of wanted persons by St. Petersburg Department of Internal Affairs in 1995 upon the request of the 1st department of the Kazan Regional Office for Organized Crime (RUOP). Since 2000, however, if his official CV to be believed, Farisov has been appointed a council to the President of Chechnya.
Gradually, it became known that less than ten people were actually involved in the promotion of Kadyrov's concept to create a federal party. In charge of the process were the above mentioned Farisov and the former deputy of the State Duma Abdul-Vahed Niyazov who was the main negotiator and ideologist of this campaign.
The hustling
Niyazov mostly owes his success to do an impossible thing - put constantly conflicting Muslim leaders at one negotiating table - to his wife. She is in a unique position, because she is a nephew of Tajuddin and at the same time, a sister of Gainutdin's wife. The rest of success in building the union belongs completely to Niyazov himself, a 41-year old General Director of the Islamic Cultural Center (ICC).
Different people noted his extraordinary abilities as negotiator. For instance, when he as a newly elected deputy of the 3rd State Duma thought it improper not to have a higher education degree, he managed to "fast-talk" four years of study in the Russian State Humanitarian University within only four months and was qualified as "document manager" as early as in summer of 2000. According to law enforcement bodies report, Niyazov acted as a mediator between the interested circles of the Saudi Arabia and representatives of the so called Chechen rebellion.
In a word, Niyazov has an extraordinary talent to penetrate the most unexpected places. Thus, in 1999, he created an Islamist movement Refah. Head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergey Shoigu who at that time was the leading figure of the voting list of the future party in power made an imprudent official statement that Refax is nothing less than "an organization forming a block of the Unity (Yedinstvo) party". Now Shoigu always loses his temper when someone mentions the name of this ambitious Islamic activist in his presence, and Refax has long passed into oblivion.
Before that, in 1994, Niyazov was involved in establishing the Union of the Russian Muslims and the Highest Coordination Center of Spiritual Governance. Both organizations have ceased to exist now.
In 1997, Niyazov in association with radical mufti Nafigullah Ashirov organized the Interregional Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Siberia and the Far East. (Police files record Ashirov as a habitual criminal: in 1971, he was convicted for robbery in Tyumen, was released from prison, and almost immediately landed in jail again, this time for disorderly behavior.)
Niyazov has gained extensive experience in creating different kinds of Islamic structures. He created the only organization which cannot be sold or bought - it is the above mentioned Islamic Cultural Center. The inspection conducted this year by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation showed that the Center exists on paper only. It has no money on its accounts, and the tax service was waiting for their financial statements in vain for the last three years. The list of this "cultural center" members consists of one person only - its founder.
When Niyazov announced the decision of the Islamic Cultural Center to pay one million rubles for "reliable information" about initiators of the bomb attack on the Moscow Metro, insiders resented the idea. If this organization has nothing on its accounts, the statement must be just hearsay. Jafar Ponchayev, mufti of St. Petersburg, referred to this initiative as "PR on blood".
But it would be fairer to use a more common word for this initiative - "advertisement". Niyazov's commercial project - turnkey sale of Islamic organizations - is a win-win business. He never loses, anyway. If the SFP proves successful, Niyazov moves to the Kremlin following his powerful patrons and receives the state budget at his own disposal. If the new party loses the first round of parliamentary elections, Niyazov assigns his votes to a large federal structure for a price. In the last case, only personal ambitions of the Chechen leader would be harmed.
Alexey CHELNOKOV
"Argumenty Nedely" Russian weekly
April 8, 2010
POLISH PLANE CRASH
Georgian Times: Pole MP Apologizes for Blaming Russia for Smolensk Air Crash
Pole MP Artur Gurski has apologized for blaming Russia for the Smolensk air crash, the Novie Izvestia newspaper says.
According to the MP, he made the statement in ‘a state of a profound shock’ just in several hours after the air crush.
The Tu-154 passenger plane with Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and a delegation of senior officials, crashed some 300-400 meters from the runway near the Russian city of Smolensk on Saturday while landing in heavy fog.
All 96 people on board died.
Kaczynski was on his way to a ceremony in nearby Katyn to commemorate the memory of some 20,000 Polish officers killed by Soviet secret police during the World War ll. IPN 2010.04.14 11:43
RIA: Death toll in Polish president's plane crash set at 97
09:5514/04/2010
A total of 97 people died when Polish President Lech Kaczynski's plane crashed in west Russia on Saturday, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said on Tuesday.
Earlier reports said the number of the crash victims was 96.
"97 people - 89 passengers and eight crew members were on board the crashed Tu-154," the ministry said. "All of them died."
The ministry said that 64 bodies had been already identified.
MOSCOW, April 14 (RIA Novosti)
Epoch Times: More Remains Identified in Polish Plane Crash
Contributed by The Epoch Times (Reporter)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 8:34
A quarter of the victims from the crash of the Polish president's airplane on Saturday have now been identified, report Russian officials. A total of 97 people died, including 89 passengers and eight crew.
Among the bodies most recently identified in a process made especially difficult because many of the bodies were badly burned, is the Polish President's wife Maria Kaczynski. Her remains will be transported to Poland on Tuesday where the country is observing a week of mourning. The relatives of other Polish victims arrived in Moscow on Monday for identification procedures.
A day before, the remains of the president were flown to Warsaw from the crash site near the city of Smolensk in western Russia.
The welcoming ceremony at the airport, where President Lech Kaczynski’s casket was officially received on Polish soil by government representatives, was attended by the president’s immediate family and other important heads of state.
A crowd of several hundred thousand assembled on the streets of the Polish capital to pay their respects, lining the route the motorcade took from the airport to the Presidential Palace.
The Kaczynskis will be buried together on Saturday this week. The Polish nation is still in a deep mourn from the tragedy, say Polish officials.
Russian and Polish authorities are cooperating to investigate the cause of the accident, which is widely suspected to be pilot error. The pilot was told four times to divert to another airport because of poor weather conditions but did not, leading to the fatal crash. Because in Kaczynski's history he once berated a pilot for not being brave enough when the pilot opposed landing in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in dangerous conditions, it is being speculated that the pilot might have been pressured, or felt pressured, by the president to land despite the fog.
Transcripts from the recovered flight recorder have not yet been made public.
President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and key public figures were tragically killed in an airplane crash near Smolensk, Russia, en route to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the mass execution of 20,000 elite Polish officers during World War II in Katyn, a place 12 miles from the crash site.
The plane was filled with Poland’s political elite including ministers, members of Parliament, Polish clergy, historians, the directors of the national security service, and other top officials.
‘A Second Katyn’
Among the victims of Saturday’s plane crash were many prominent members of the Polish clergy. Father Jan Kaczmarczyk, the parish priest in Sochaczew, about 30 miles outside of Warsaw, shared his reaction to the death of close friends and colleagues.
“When talking with other priests, for whom this is a big shock, we concluded that this is a second Katyn. The same as then, when the flower of the Polish nation died. The same now, the flower of the Polish nation and church, patriots, people who have a direct impact on the fate of the Polish nation, gave their lives on the same ground. Of course, it’s not that someone murdered them, but it's about the symbolism of this tragedy,” he said.
While the investigation of the possible reasons for the crash is still going on, analysts say that this tragedy may end the long strong struggle between Russia and Poland.
Poland’s late president had put great effort into not letting Russia influence the country’s policies, which were orientated toward the West. This had generally irritated Russian leaders.
Kaczynski had accepted the U.S. plan to place an anti-missile defense shield in Poland, but it was derailed because of pressure from Moscow. Kaczynski was also going to free the European Union from dependence on Russian gas by developing and increasing the production of shale gas.
Kaczynski continued to blame Russia for occupying Poland during the Soviet era and for the murder of the Polish elite in the Katyn forest 70 years ago by Soviet security forces.
The late President’s anti-Russian policies often caused conflict between himself and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose actions leaned more toward Russia.
“Today, in the face of this national drama, we stand together. Today there is no division between left and right. Difference of opinion and creed mean nothing now,” said Bronislaw Komorowski, acting president of Poland, on Saturday in a televised address to the nation.
April 13, 2010
Russia Profile: In the Beginning Was the Web
By Masha Charnay
Special to Russia Profile
Has the Internet Become Russia’s Only Medium of Free Information Exchange, and If So, Can It Too Be Up for Grabs?
Over the last decade, the ability of Russia’s audiovisual and print media to pursue independent editorial policies has largely been curtailed by state control and self-censorship. The growing number of state-owned television channels and government-affiliated newspapers has come to dominate the country’s media scene, prompting Freedom House to rank Russia in 78th place out of 100 in its Freedom of the Press index. Meanwhile, Internet use has been spreading like wildfire among those Russians who seek alternative news content. Some analysts even call the Internet “Russia’s last bastion of free discussion and information” – an idea that has kept the authorities on their toes.
Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s chief political strategist, recently proposed setting up a national search engine, akin to Google but financed strictly by Russian investors, the RBK Daily reported. “Unlike the existing systems, the new one will be geared more toward state interests, and will provide access to safe information, filtering Web sites with banned content,” RBK quoted an anonymous source as saying.
Whether this idea is just part of Surkov’s grand proposal to align Russia’s science and technology industries with those of the West and whether this project can indeed be implemented is unclear. But Evgeny Morozov, a researcher in the field of technology and politics, wrote that “We should not underestimate the Kremlin's capacity to adapt to the digital realities: it has cultivated a sprawling community of Internet gurus who work for or consult the government.” Indeed, the fact that politicians the world over have long since discovered the effectiveness of cyberspace in reaching out to their constituency and shaping public opinion is nothing new. In the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin was arguably the first to turn his attention to the medium.
Back in 2007, when the popularization of the Internet in Russia was gaining unprecedented steam (at the fastest rate in Europe, according to the ComScore Internet research company), Putin, who was president at the time, tried to gain a foothold in RuNet (the Russian segment of the Internet). He encouraged many of his acolytes to set up online blogs and news sites in the run-up to the parliamentary elections. A 2009 report by the Washington-based Freedom House found that this period was marked by an emergence of Kremlin-affiliated propaganda and blogging Web sites.
Pavel Danilin, who currently runs the page on LiveJournal, was one of the first pro-Kremlin bloggers during that time. He chuckles at the memory of having beaten opposition bloggers at political campaigning – something that he says the ratings clearly reflected. “Certainly, the initiative to use the blogosphere to mobilize supporters came primarily from Dmitry Medvedev himself,” Danilin said. Medvedev had at the time been endorsed as a candidate for the presidency under the aegis of Putin’s United Russia Party. Following his victory in 2008, proselytizing for an Internet revolution became one of Medvedev’s signature undertakings.
In a video conference dedicated to information technologies in March, Medvedev, an avid blogger himself, berated his colleagues for their lack of technological know-how, urging them to set up online blogs. “Those who know [how to use the Internet] can be called modern managers, and those that don’t are not yet ready for that,” Medvedev said during the video exchange. But Iosif Dzyaloshinsky, an expert in the field of politics and communications at the Higher School of Economics, said that such concentrated efforts to bring public officials into the thicket of the cyberspace are nothing more than an attempt to improve the government’s image in the eyes of the public. “The Russian government has come to face quite a bit of criticism recently, including from abroad,” Dzyaloshinsky said. “The authorities are now aiming to change that by increasing transparency and fostering dialogue with the people.”
Dzyaloshinsky also claims that the initiative is not even that instrumental. “We’ve done the research. These public Web sites and blogs are not popular and see little Web traffic, particularly regional ones, where people scarcely even know of them,” he noted. This has not, however, quelled Medvedev’s zeal in mastering the World Wide Web. Last week the Interfax news agency cited the Kremlin’s press service as saying that he is now planning to move on to Twitter. Over the past year, this social networking and microblogging service had amassed more than 180,000 Russian-speaking users, which is some 26 times more than the previous year.
In the hours following the recent Metro bombings in Moscow Twitter also became one of the top sources of information, delivering first-hand accounts and bringing worldwide attention to the situation. The Echo of Moscow radio station even quoted one of its users, comparing the rate of 40 tweets per second posted on the Web site to the four television reports broadcast live that morning – a statistic that has prompted some to hail the medium as a possible substitute for Russia’s ailing journalism.
Pyotr Polonitsky, the head of the press service at Russia’s Union of Journalists, argues strongly against such judgments, insisting that a cyber platform that merely provides space to exchange information cannot compete with officially licensed and professionally-run media. “It is like comparing a bicycle to a motorbike,” he said with a certain degree of aloofness. Alexey Sidorenko, co-editor of the RuNet Echo on Global Voices blogging portal and a former researcher at Moscow Carnegie Center, supports this opinion, warning that the quality of information on Web sites like Twitter should not be overestimated. “LiveJournal is a lot better at fostering political debates and creating stimulating discussion forums,” Sidorenko said. The Web site, which has become the epitome of Russia’s blogosphere and amassed well over a million users (second only to the United States), and hosts blogs of many politicians, including Medvedev.
But despite its large contingent and a vibrant debate culture, in March of 2008 Dmitry Soloviev, one of LiveJournal’s bloggers, was accused of “inciting hatred against the police and the FSB.” According to Sidorenko, Soloviev had been “invited” to the regional FSB office on a number of occasions because of his posts that criticized the state of political affairs in the country. “Just like the KGB,” Sidorenko said.
After two years of legal proceedings the charges against Soloviev were dropped, but his previously vociferous writing was significantly toned down. Soloviev’s case was included in the report on Internet censorship issued in March by the press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders. The report highlighted six more similar cases of Russian bloggers being persecuted and one online journalist, the owner of the Ingush news Web site Magomed Yevloyev, being murdered. The organization listed Russia as a country “under surveillance,” citing government propaganda and blocking of independent Web sites as additional considerations.
In response to the report, an online media pundit Aleksandr Amzin published an article titled “Slopwork without borders,” which denounced the reliability of the report’s factual data and called the section on blogger persecution its “only serious part.” Meanwhile, in an interview with Radio Liberty blogger and journalist Oleg Kozyrev agreed with the report. “We live in a situation when any blogger can become part of a criminal case,” he said.
Could this mean that the government has indeed taken the reigns of control over the Internet into its own hands? “For the moment, the impact of these online mobilizations on the Russian society is still relatively limited,” the conclusion of the report said. “The authorities’ attitude in the months to come will determine if [these acts] are, or are not, indicative of a deliberate attempt to gain complete control of the new media.” Sidorenko put it in simpler terms: “Look at China or Turkmenistan, for instance. Luckily, we have a long way to go.”
Moscow Times: Today in Vedomosti
Issue 4371. Last Updated: 04/14/2010
Editorial: Greece Needs Radical Spending Cuts
Vedomosti
The effect of the biggest collective special operation in the history of the EU, to rescue Greece at a cost of 40 billion euros ($54.2 billion), lasted a whole day.
Commentary: Exemplary Patriotism
By Vladimir Milov
Tens of thousands of Poles gathered in the streets of Warsaw to say goodbye to their president is a sight worth seeing.
Less Sand and Concrete Needed for Sochi
By Maxim Tovkailo
Initial assessments of the building materials needed for Sochi Olympic facilities have been overstated.
Russia Today: 14 April, 2010 in Russian Newspapers
Izvestiya: Poland reflects on the tragedy
The Acting President of Poland, Sejm Marshall, Bronislaw Komorowski, today, plans to announce the early presidential election date. The funeral of the late President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, and his wife Maria (her body was taken to Warsaw yesterday), who died in an airplane crash near Smolensk - has been scheduled for Sunday. What do the Polish newspapers write in these difficult for Poland times?
Ksenia Avdeeva (Warsaw)
From the first minutes of the latest Katyn tragedy, Poland’s television and press began helping the nation reflect on the event, understand the causes of the disaster, sort out the information in the complex pre-crisis political and economic situation, and to simply survive.
The focus of attention in the Polish press - is Lech Kaczynski. “Ironically, it was only after the president’s death that it had become known what a significant role he had played in Poland’s politics, what a large and an unchanging figure he represented on the political chessboard. Things were not easy with him. But, neither were they easy for him. He was a leader of a radical party, but was not a radical himself. For the most part, his political circle was tough, vengeful. Meanwhile, he was balanced, kind, and humane. Politics drove him into a trap. In his attempt to influence Poland’s policies, he had created a party that was far from what he had originally desired. He was never an independent political player, always walking side by side with his brother. President Kaczynski was also a child of the Pilsudski tradition, in the sense that -- independence -- was the main idea in his political thinking. He attached great importance to the traditions of the Warsaw Uprising, but was not interested in the modern world to such an extent that he would learn a foreign language or follow the international presses,” Poland’s weekly publication, Politika, writes about the late president. It is already known what will formally happen in the coming week. Presidential elections will take place before the end of June, because, in this case, the Acting President, Marshall Bronislaw Komorowski does not have any room to maneuver - he must announce the funeral date within the two weeks following the president’s death. This will be a short election campaign; a president must be elected within two months. The Sejm and the Senate will within 2-3 weeks elect vice Marshalls in accordance with party preferences. Bronislaw Komorowski must also nominate a new candidate for the post of chairman of Poland’s National Bank, who will be elected by the Sejm. Here, deadlines are not determined by the Constitution; but elections must be held without further delay,” reports Politika.
“The tragedy near Smolensk will profoundly change Poland’s politics. This was a blow to the government and political parties. Almost everything had changed. Law and Justice suffered a colossal loss, people, who played a big role in the party, are no longer here. But, no significant change of opinions did, or could have occurred. Death forces people to look at the deceased from another point of view, in another context. We look at who these people were in general, and do not recall the negative or unwise things they said. Now, Lech Kaczynski is presented as a heroic character from a different tale. Jaroslaw Kaczynski now seems a natural presidential candidate of the Law and Justice Party, and has greater chances than his brother once did. After all, he is his twin, and has the same face,” comments Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza.
“The two countries have never before conducted such a complex and consequential operation. The recent days called for many rapid decisions and close cooperation. According to the statements made by the Polish diplomats, they have received the needed support. On the tragic day Russian leaders addressed the Poles with a statement, expressing their sympathies,” recalls the newspaper, Rzeczpospolita.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta: The last battle
Veterans were killed in Moscow
Mikhail Falaleev
A brutal and mysterious crime was committed in the capital -- an elderly couple, who were veterans of the Great Patriotic War -- were shot and killed in their apartment. Evgeny Prantsuzov, born in 1926, died from a shot in the head. His wife, Anna Bondarenko, born in 1927, sustained two gun shots -- to the abdomen and the head.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta (RG) correspondent was informed by the Main Internal Affairs Directorate in Moscow that on April 12 their grandson raised the alarm -- he was concerned about the fact that his grandmother and grandfather were not answering their phone. When he arrived at their home, no one came to the door. Apartment number 69 on 9 Peschanaya Street was opened by the Ministry of Emergency Situations staff. As soon as the bodies were discovered, the police were called to the scene at approximately 09:20 in the evening.
National Economic Trends
APRIL 13, 2010, 3:58 P.M. ET
Dow Jones: Medvedev Adviser: Ruble Likely Won't Float Freely For Years
By Meena Thiruvengadam
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The Russian ruble likely will not float freely for at least three years, an economic adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday.
Arkady Dvorkovich commented on the ruble during a question-and-answer session after a speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He said he expects it will take at least three to five years before Russia's currency begins to float freely.
Russia, which uses a managed exchange-rate policy, has been discussing a move toward a free-floating exchange rate for the ruble for more than two years.
-By Meena Thiruvengadam, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6629; meena.thiruvengadam@
Bloomberg: Russia Debt Cut to 8-Year Low in Funds as Eurobond Sale Nears
April 13, 2010, 6:29 PM EDT
By Michael Patterson and Denis Maternovsky
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Emerging-market bond funds are holding the least Russian debt in at least eight years in a sign money managers are making room to buy the government’s first Eurobonds since 1998.
Developing-nation debt mutual funds reduced Russia to 8.82 percent of assets, according to the latest data available from EPFR Global for February reported on April 12. That’s down from 9.91 percent a year earlier and is the lowest since Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EPFR began tracking the average weightings in 2002. Funds may have reduced their allocation to make “room” for Russia’s new bonds, said Alexander Kozhemiakin, who oversees more than $4 billion as director for emerging-market strategies at Standish Mellon Asset Management in Boston.
“This deal is likely to do well,” he said.
Russia is returning to international capital markets for the first time since defaulting on $40 billion of domestic debt in 1998. Government officials including Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin met with investors in Germany yesterday and London and Singapore today at the start of a week-long tour.
The government led by President Dmitry Medvedev has said it plans to borrow as much as $17.8 billion abroad this year and is selling at a time when yields on emerging-market debt are near all-time lows on confidence in the economic recovery and record- low global interest rates.
Lower Yield
Russia may sell $10 billion of bonds this quarter and is unlikely to return to the market in the second half of 2010, according to Dmitry Dudkin, head of fixed-income research at UralSib Financial Corp. in Moscow.
Yields on Russia’s 7.5 percent dollar bonds due 2030 dropped to a low of 4.869 percent yesterday from above 12 percent in October 2008 as oil prices rising above $80 a barrel spurred the economy’s recovery from its worst slump since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Investor demand may allow Russia to get a lower yield on its Eurobonds than on existing debt, Moscow-based Renaissance Capital said in a report yesterday. That would put the yield on 10-year dollar bonds at a possible range of 4.375 percent to 4.625 percent, according to Renaissance, compared with 4.92 percent on Russia’s 2030 bonds yesterday.
“People are probably getting prepared for more Russia exposure,” said Regis Chatellier, a London-based emerging- market strategist at Morgan Stanley. He said funds own near the same amount of Russian debt that’s represented in benchmark indexes and holdings may have fallen in part because investors shifted to lower-rated credits that outperformed during the rally in emerging-market debt.
Wasteful Spending
Russia’s bond sale may damage the economy because it threatens to spur wasteful government spending and slow reforms, Troika Dialog’s Moscow-based economist Evgeny Gavrilenkov wrote in an April 1 report. Gavrilenkov said the government doesn’t need to borrow abroad with oil prices at current levels.
Russian foreign-currency debt has returned 25 percent during the past year, beating the 23 percent gain for global emerging-market debt, according to JPMorgan’s EMBI+ Indexes. The rally helped increase assets under management in developing- nation debt mutual funds to a record $74.7 billion last month, according to research firm EPFR.
Russia is considering registering its new bonds with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to appeal to a wider group of international investors, Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin said in February. The debt may become eligible for inclusion in a bigger range of global debt indexes than Russia’s current bonds, attracting demand from investors outside the emerging-market funds, said Standish Mellon’s Kozhemiakin.
‘Wider Array’
“You’re going to see this issue introducing Russia to a wider array of investors,” he said. “Depending on pricing, we’ll be looking for opportunities to participate in the Russian deal.”
Russia hired Barclays Capital, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG and VTB Capital to arrange the sale on Feb. 5. The government’s debt is rated BBB by Standard & Poor’s, two levels above non-investment grade, and one step higher at Baa1 at Moody’s Investors Service.
--Editors: Gavin Serkin, Lester Pimentel
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Patterson in London at mpatterson10@; Denis Maternovsky in Moscow at dmaternovsky@
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@.
Bloomberg: Russia Vulnerable to Budget Crisis, Renaissance Says (Update1)
By Paul Abelsky
April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Russia’s current fiscal policy leaves it vulnerable to an “inevitable” new global downturn and may lead to a budget crisis if demand for oil sours, Renaissance Capital said.
“We note that at this point Russia, in financial terms, isn’t ready for a new global crisis, which is inevitable, unfortunately,” Renaissance economists led by Alexei Moisseev said in a report today. “To change the situation, it needs to liberalize its currency policy, look at ways of cutting the budget deficit and avoid accumulating external debt.”
The government raised expenditure four-fold over the past decade, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said last week. Russia, which last year posted a fiscal gap of 5.9 percent of economic output, the country’s first in a decade, may run a deficit this year of between 6 percent and 6.8 percent, Kudrin said on April 1. The three-month shortfall widened to 3.2 percent, the Finance Ministry said last week.
State stimulus spending may become a more important driver of Russia’s economic recovery as “new sustainable growth sources have yet to be found,” according to RenCap, the brokerage half-owned by billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov.
‘No Longer Possible’
An “analysis of the federal budget indicates that any build up in spending is no longer possible,” the economists wrote. “Moreover, if the current budget policy remains intact, we believe Russia could face a budget crisis depending on the market situation for major export goods.”
The “risk factors” linked with Russia include any material fall in oil prices, external economic shocks and the ruble’s depreciation, according to a copy of Russia’s preliminary Eurobonds prospectus, obtained by Bloomberg News.
Government officials plan to meet investors for a series of bond meetings starting today in Germany and running until April 21 in Europe, Asia and the United States as they prepare to market the country’s first foreign-currency bonds since 1998.
Russia plans to borrow as much as $17.8 billion abroad this year in its first sale of international bonds since it defaulted on $40 billion of domestic debt and devalued the ruble in 1998.
The government should abandon the planned debt sale to foreign investors and “more actively” tap the domestic bond market, Renaissance economists said in the report.
‘High’ Flexibility
“In an environment of a persistent budget deficit and high dependence on commodity prices, it is important to ensure the highest degree of flexibility in terms of managing state finances,” the report said. “This is achievable only in the absence of external debt.”
The government needs the price of oil to average more than $100 a barrel to balance its budget, the investment bank said. Budget revenue may drop by about 100 billion rubles ($3.4 billion) this year as slower inflation erodes government income, according to Renaissance.
Urals crude, Russia’s chief export blend, plunged 77 percent between July 2008 and December 2008, reaching a low of $32.34 on Dec. 24, 2008. It has since gained almost 154 percent and was trading at $82.06 today.
Consumer-price growth will probably reach between 6 percent and 7 percent in 2010 compared with the rate of 10 percent on which this year’s federal budget is based, the bank said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Abelsky in Moscow at pabelsky@.
Last Updated: April 13, 2010 08:17 EDT
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
Reuters: Russian markets -- Factors to Watch on April 14
Wed Apr 14, 2010 7:08am BST
MOSCOW, April 14 (Reuters) - Here are events and news
stories that could move Russian markets on Wednesday.
You can reach us on: +7 495 775 1242
STOCKS CALL (Contributions to moscow.newsroom@):
VTB Capital: "Russian equities are very likely to break into
new territory with a healthy follow-through. Yet, the slow
response of the Greek sovereign curve to the promised euro zone
aid ... calls for maintaining vigilance. We advocate a `barbell'
positioning for such environment: a combination of the value
stories like oils and telecoms with the highest conviction ideas
in the sectors enjoying immediate earnings momentum, like
Raspadskaya (RASP.MM), Belon (BELO.MM) and Evraz (HK1q.L)."
Gallion Capital: "America closed with a slight plus, Asian
indices are in positive territory after good results from Intel
(INTC.O) [ID:nN1382801]. Today we can expect Russian trade to
open in the black. Oil and mining stocks will perform better
than the market."
EVENTS [RU-DIA] (All times GMT):
MOSCOW- Raspadskaya (RASP.MM) 2009 results, trading update
BUENOS AIRES - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits
Argentina.
MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin holds meeting
on health care reform.
MOSCOW - Russian Union of Industrialists (RSPP) hosts a
conference on innovation and modernisation of technology
MOSCOW- Russia's Finance Ministry auctions up to 6 billion
roubles in OFZ bonds due 2013 RU25072=MM.
MOSCOW- Weekly inflation data published by stats service.
IN THE PAPERS [PRESS/RU]:
Russia's leading brewer, Baltika (PKBA.MM) -- owned by
Carlsberg (CARLb.CO) -- is set to branch out into the bottled
water market from next month in the face of higher taxes on beer
and the prospect of tougher sales regulations, Kommersant
business daily reports.
Otkrytie Financial Company may do a private placement in
late 2010-early 2011, after consolidating the two banks it owns,
and then hold an IPO in 2012, Vedomosti reports.
TOP STORIES IN RUSSIA AND THE CIS [RU-NEWS]:
TOP NEWS:
Top US envoy in Kyrgyzstan after revolt [ID:nLDE63D00W]
Russia says oil a risk, Eurobond roadshow starts[ID:nLDE63C0A2]
COMPANIES/MARKETS:
EARNINGS POLL-X5 Q4 net seen at $104 mln [ID:nLDE63C1FU]
Polyus seeks stock boost via reverse takeover [ID:nLDE63C1A9]
Seventh Continent Q1 rouble sales up 9 pct [ID:nLDE63C0HO]
ECONOMY/POLITICS:
U.S., Russia sign deal to cut plutonium stocks [ID:nN1332951]
Job worries delay Russia consumer recovery [ID:nLDE6310DT]
Rouble takes breather; Eurpbond, tax to support [ID:nLDE63C1TQ]
Russia wants US to push harder for its WTO entry[ID:nWAT014298]
ENERGY:
Gazprom looking at Israel natgas mkt -report [ID:nLDE63C1VQ]
Sokol oilfield to shut for summer maintenance [ID:nSGE63C0E3]
COMMODITIES:
US has new approach to Russia poultry spat [ID:nN13252795]
Russia may harvest 97 mln T grain in 2010 [ID:nLDE63C0S3]
Russia state grain trader mulls 6 port terminals[ID:nLDE63C14E]
MARKETS CLOSE/LATEST:
RTS 1,650.15 +0.38 pct
MSCI Russia .MIRU00000PUS 882.53 -0.65 pct
MSCI Emerging Markets .MSCIEF 1,040.29 +0.63 pct
Russia 30-year EurobondRU011428878= yield: 4.903 pct
EMBI+ Russia 11EMJ 137 basis points over
Rouble/dollar RUBUTSTN=MCX 29.0475
Rouble/euro EURRUBTN=MCX 39.5400
NYMEX crude CLc1 $84.38 +$0.33
ICE Brent crude LCOc1 $84.90 +$0.18
Bloomberg: TGK-9, Tatneft, Rosneft: Russian Equity-Market Preview
By Maria Levitov
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- The following shares may have unusual price changes in Russian trading. Stock symbols are in parentheses and prices are from the previous close unless otherwise noted.
The 30-stock Micex Index fell 0.2 percent to 1,499.34. The dollar-denominated RTS Index dropped 0.3 percent to 1,643.98.
OAO TGK-9 (TGKI RX): VTB Group, Russia’s second-biggest lender, lent 1 billion rubles ($34.4 million) to OAO TGK-9. Shares of the power generator fell 1.5 percent to 0.0056 rubles.
OAO Tatneft (TATN3 RX): OAO Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, will lend as much as $200 million to Tatneft, Interfax reported, citing German Gref, Sberbank’s CEO. Tatneft shares fell 0.8 percent to 144.63 rubles.
OAO Rosneft (ROSN RX): Crude oil declined the most in six weeks as the International Energy Agency boosted its forecast for non-OPEC supplies and U.S. inventories were estimated to climb, raising concern that the markets are oversupplied. Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil company, fell 2.3 percent to 247.17 rubles.
To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Levitov in Moscow at mlevitov@
Last Updated: April 13, 2010 22:00 EDT
Bloomberg: Weafer Likes Russian Infrastructure, Consumer Stocks: Video
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib Financial Corp. in Moscow, talks with Bloomberg's Haslinda Amin about his investment strategy for Russian stocks.
Weafer, speaking from Hong Kong, also discusses corporate governance in Russia, and the outlook for the country's economy and oil and gas industries. Kirby Daley, a senior strategist at Newedge Group's prime brokerage business also speaks. (This is an excerpt of the full interview. Source: Bloomberg)
Running time 05:41
-0- Apr/14/2010 07:04 GMT
Last Updated: April 14, 2010 03:04 EDT
Vancouver Sun: Khan Resources says it's targeted by Russians
By Peter Koven, Financial PostApril 13, 2010 9:00 PM
Canadian junior miner Khan Resources Inc. is caught in a geopolitical mess involving Russia, China and Mongolia. And even as the situation worsens, the company maintains that a planned Chinese takeover is still in the cards.
But shareholders are not buying it. Khan shares plummeted far below the proposed takeout price Tuesday after the company said its mining licences in Mongolia have been invalidated.
Toronto-based Khan, which controls the Dornod uranium deposit, ran into trouble last year when the Mongolian government suspended one of its licences. The company then received a hostile bid from a state-owned Russian company that it felt was too low.
Khan thought it resolved all those problems when it got the suspension lifted and struck a friendly deal in February to be taken over by China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) for $51.8 million in cash, or 96 cents a share.
But according to Martin Quick, Khan's chief executive, Russia has worked behind the scenes to squeeze Khan out, despite the Chinese bid.
"What they are trying to do is get Dornod for nothing," he said.
Russia and Mongolia recently reached an agreement to jointly develop uranium projects in Mongolia, and Quick said Russia has used it to pressure the Mongolia Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) to force out Khan.
Tuesday, Khan dropped its bombshell announcement that its licences have indeed been pulled, and Quick suspects that the plan is to transfer the mineral rights over to a Russia-Mongolia joint venture.
"It's an absolute travesty, and we're going after the NEA in court now," he said.
Khan shares plummeted more than 30 per cent on the news, and they are now trading at a discount of roughly 40 per cent to CNNC's offer. However, Quick maintained that CNNC accepted all the political risk when it struck the deal and it should still close. The offer is set to expire May 25.
Mongolia has said it wants more mining investment from the West, and it took a big step in that direction last year when it struck an investment agreement with Robert Friedland's Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. to develop the giant Oyu Tolgoi project.
However, the Khan situation threatens to revive the political risk concerns that have held back Western investment in the past.
"It's a sad commentary on what's going on in Mongolia," Quick said.
"They speak out of both sides of their mouth. On one side they're trying to attract foreign capital, and on the other side they're bowing to the pressure of Russian hardball."
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Reuters: UPDATE1 – KazakhGold seeks Russia approval for Polyus bid
Wed, 14th Apr 2010 08:05
LONDON, April 14 (Reuters[pic]) - Kazakh gold miner KazakhGold said it had applied for Russian government approval for a planned reverse takeover of its parent firm Polyus Gold , though there was no certainty a deal would go ahead.
'KazakhGold confirms that it has applied for an approval from the government commission on monitoring foreign investment[pic] in the Russian Federation for the acquisition of control over Polyus Gold by the company,' KazakhGold said in a statement on Wednesday.
'No decision has been made regarding any possible transaction, and any transaction would remain subject to a number of approvals and pre-conditions, including various corporate and government approvals. Consequently, there can be no certainty that any transaction will be forthcoming.'
The head of Russia's anti-monopoly office on Tuesday said the reverse takeover of Polyus, Russia's top gold producer, which controls KazakhGold, had already been cleared by the Russian government.
Analysts said the move would increase Polyus' stock market[pic] liquidity.
Polyus is controlled by two tycoons, Mikhail Prokhorov and Suleiman Kerimov, and has a lower level listing on the London Stock Exchange[pic] than KazakhGold, which gives the latter much greater liquidity.
(Reporting by Rhys Jones; Editing by Victoria Bryan) Keywords: RUSSIA POLYUS/KAZAKHGOLD
(rhysl.jones@, +44 207 542 4166, Reuters Messaging: rhysl.jones.@)
Bloomberg: KazakhGold Says It’s Mulling Polyus Reverse Takeover (Update1)
April 14, 2010, 3:42 AM EDT
(Adds analyst comment in fourth paragraph.)
By Maria Kolesnikova
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- KazakhGold Group Ltd., controlled by Russia’s largest producer of the metal OAO Polyus Gold, said it’s considering the acquisition of its parent company in a reverse takeover.
“Consideration of a possible transaction remains at a preliminary stage,” Jersey-registered KazakhGold said in a statement today.
KazakhGold would be renamed Polyus Gold and the company could join the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index, Vedomosti reported in November. The takeover would allow Polyus to bypass a Russian law capping at 25 percent the shares of a company that can be held as depositary receipts, giving it access to a bigger group of investors.
“The new international Polyus Gold should gain easier access to international capital and be able to acquire assets internationally more easily,” UralSib Financial Corp. analysts led by Michael Kavanagh wrote in a note to investors. Share liquidity will also improve, the analysts said.
Kazakhgold, which is 50.1 percent owned by Polyus, received Russian antitrust approval yesterday to buy the Russian company’s key production and exploration units. KazakhGold is likely to issue new shares to Polyus for the assets, diluting minority investors’ stake to 2 percent from 49.9 percent, UralSib said.
--Editors: Simon Casey, Tony Barrett
Maria Kolesnikova in Moscow at +7-495-771-7707 or mkolesnikova@
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stuart Wallace at swallace6@
SteelOrbis: Russia to sell three large coal deposits in Ulug-Khem basin
Wednesday, 14 April 2010 10:34:43
Russia's federal agency for natural resource use, Rosnedra, plans to sell three large coal deposits, with total coking coal reserves of 1.65 billion mt, in the Ulug-Khem basin in Russia's Tuva Republic, Russian newspaper Kommersant has reported, adding that the Russian government wants to create the country's largest coal mining complex in the area, to be operated by several private companies.
In this connection, on Friday, April 9 Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that his government is preparing a tender for the development of the coal deposits in Tuva, which will be attended by many large companies. According to Kommersant, the tender will include the western, central and eastern deposits with total reserves of about 1.65 billion mt of coking coal of Zh grade. This volume is comparable to the country's largest coal deposit, the Elga deposit, owned by Russian mining and steel group Mechel, with reserves totaling two billion mt.
The development of the coal deposits in the region is dependent on the construction of a 418 km railway between Kyzyl and Kuragino, carried out on a government-private sector partnership base, and which is planned to be finished in 2014. According to Mr. Putin, the common use infrastructure development at the Ulug-Khem basin will be carried out by the companies which receive licenses, which will unite into a consortium.
The coal reserves of the Ulug-Khem basin, among the largest in Russia, amount to about 20 billion mt, including 13.7 billion mt of coking coal.
The Russian steelmaker Severstal is likely to participate in the tender for one of the deposits. On Friday, Severstal CEO Alexei Mordashov presented his company's concept of the development of the Ulug-Khem basin at an exhibition for innovative projects held in Russia's Novosibirsk city, which was attended by Mr. Putin.
In addition, according to market players, interested parties in the Ulug-Khem basin may also include Russian steelmakers Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), which does not have its own coal reserves, and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK), which currently obtains around half the coal it needs from its own supplies. Meanwhile, due to its proximity to China, the project will be also interesting for exporters, such as Russian coal mining company Kuzbassrazrezugol and Mechel.
Money Times: Russians urge inquiry in Daimler case
April 14, 2010
Moscow -- A shareholder activist in Russia said 1,000 letters had been sent to Russian authorities urging them to open an investigation into the Daimler bribery case.
German automaker Daimler admitted to making $6.8 million in "improper payments," in Russia from 2000 to 2005 in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, The Moscow Times reported Tuesday.
Although Russian newspapers have pounced on the controversy, Russian authorities have not announced any investigations to determine which officials took bribes.
The case in the United States did not name names, but said $4 million had been paid to officials in the Interior Ministry, the Federal Guard Services Special Purpose Garage, the Russian military and officials of four Russian cities.
Activist shareholder Alexei Navalny said, "perhaps our prosecutors don't read the newspapers." He also said an online campaign to encourage an investigation had resulted in 1,000 letters sent to Russian authorities.
"Right now they surely have the information. The only excuse they have left that it is taking another couple of days to give it to the Investigative Committee," Navalny said.
Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
Capital McDonald's defended the rent of 1 ruble - Vedomosti
GOOGLE TRANSLATION
14/04/2010 10:12
MOSCOW, April 14 - RIA Novosti. Federal Arbitration Court of Moscow District (FASMO) overturned two lower court decisions in suits Property Department of Moscow (DIGM) to the ZAO Moscow McDonald's, on increased rental rates for the restaurant and the office of the company to the level of the minimum rental rate of urban property in the 1 thousand rubles square meter per year, wrote in a Wednesday newspaper Vedomosti.
The contract between the city and by McDonald's to lease two buildings in the center of Moscow was signed early in 1990 up to December 24, 2041. For him, the rent for the area network in the Arbat, house 52, building 1, and the Big Nikolopeskovsky Lane, Building 15, was to be 1 ruble per square meter per year.
On the Arbat "McDonald's takes off from the capital of 1,577 thousand square meters, which is one of his first restaurant, and in the Big Nikolopeskovsky lane rents 859.2 square meters, which trains staff.
Earlier, in Moscow there were precedents for urban spaces were rented to tenants at a rate of one ruble per square meter per year, but until 2009 the rate is so low is preserved only in respect of two premises McDonald's in downtown.
In this regard, the summer of 2009 authorities in Moscow filed a second lawsuit in a chain of restaurants (the first claim was not satisfied by the court), demanding to set a fee that would comply with the minimum rent rate in the city. As a rule, it can expect a small business, wholesalers, implement horticultural products, GUPy working on the state order, the company the consumer market and services, educational organizations and a number of other companies.
In 2009, the minimum rental rate equal to 1 thousand rubles per square meter per year, and in 2010 rose to 1.2 thousand rubles per square meter per year.
In late 2009 the Moscow Arbitration Court allowed the claim of the city authorities, however, McDonald's filed an appeal, which indicated that the condition of the appointment of rents of one ruble investments were a chain of restaurants in the premises, and the company are met.
It clarifies the issue, representatives DIGMa and McDonald's confirmed that they know about the regulations FASMO.
"The Moscow government will contest them", - emphasized in the material with reference to the press secretary of the Department of capital assets Natalya Bykova.
In this case, explains the newspaper, its decision FASMO motivated by the fact that high inflation and the emergence of a new law in Moscow, that the minimum rent, do not give grounds for amending the treaty, as DIGM was assumed that during the contract rents may increase.
Moscow Times: Sanofi Cleared to Buy Insulin Plant
14 April 2010
By Anatoly Medetsky
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the government’s foreign investment commission on Tuesday approved a deal to sell a private insulin plant to Europe’s biggest drug maker, France-based Sanofi-Aventis.
The commission for foreign investment in strategic industries, chaired by Putin, also backed Gunvor’s purchase of a stake in an offshore Caspian Sea oil field and several other transactions. But Putin singled out the planned French investment as particularly noteworthy.
“Among these, I want to point out one project that is not big but is significant, in my view,” he said, referring to Sanofi’s intention to buy 74 percent of the Bioton Vostok plant in Oryol.
Sanofi, the world’s third-largest drug maker by sales, wants to produce insulin-filled syringes at the facility, Putin said. The remaining shares will still be owned by Russian businessmen.
Federal Anti-Monopoly Service chief Igor Artemyev, who is in charge of previewing the investment plans, said the French firm would invest hundreds of millions of euros and provide state-of-the-art technology. Officials did not give any other figures about the deal.
The project, Putin said, is especially welcome in light of Russia’s stated efforts to become more self-sufficient in terms of medicine supply.
Gunvor Cyprus Holding Limited, a subsidiary of the Swiss oil trader Gunvor co-owned by Putin’s acquaintance Gennady Timchenko, secured a green light to buy 30 percent in a Swedish oil-producing unit PetroResurs, which is developing the Lagansky field off the Caspian Sea coast.
Swedish oil firm Lundin Petroleum agreed to sell the stake to Gunvor in September. The book value of the field, next to LUKoil’s major Korchagina deposit, is $850 million and potential reserves are more than 800 million barrels.
Lundin is going to invest $540 million in the field this year, 4 percent more than last year. The money will pay for the construction of a drilling rig that is scheduled to start operation in 2011.
In another deal that got the go-ahead, Tatneft Oil, a Swiss-registered subsidiary of the country’s No. 6 oil producer Tatneft, is buying an unspecified number of shares in Bank Zenit.
Tatneft already holds 24.6 percent in the bank.
In addition, the oil company owns 48.8 percent of the International Petrochemical Growth Fund, which has a 41.92 percent stake in the bank. A spokesman for Zenit, the country’s 27th-largest bank by assets, did not respond to an e-mailed request to comment Tuesday evening.
Billionaires Mikhail Prokhorov and Suleiman Kerimov also got approval to consolidate their assets in the gold miner Polyus Gold, Artemyev said. Their Kazakhstan-based company, KazakhGold Group, registered on the island Jersey, will buy a number of Polyus-related units, he said.
In an opening speech at the commission meeting, Putin ordered Artemyev to submit proposals to streamline foreign investment legislation as soon as possible. Artemyev said after the session that his agency would probably be ready to report in two weeks.
Abc.az: Run-up for market appearance of Russia’s Savings Bank and Gazprombank in Azerbaijan starts
Baku, Fineko/abc.az. Russia’s biggest banks intend to appear at the banking market of Azerbaijan.
A relevant initiative group source says that preparation for their appearance in Azerbaijan is underway. Scheme and preliminary business plan of the appearance is being worked out.
“And a probability that Savings Bank and Gazprombank will be offered either to draw local partners or to acquire an equity stake in one of the existing credit institutions is great,” the source said.
But the source did not indicate whether management of both Russian banks has already sanctioned such moves.
14.04.2010 09:45
Bloomberg: Rostelecom Plans 30 Billion-Ruble Bond Sale, Vedomosti Says
By Maria Ermakova
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- OAO Rostelecom, Russia’s long- distance telephone operator, plans to sell 30 billion rubles ($1 billion) of bonds, Vedomosti reported, citing Yevgeny Yurchenko, the company’s chairman.
Rostelecom will use the proceeds of the sale to fund the purchase of 25 percent of its parent company, OAO Svyazinvest, from OAO Comstar United TeleSystems, Yurchenko told the newspaper.
To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Ermakova in Moscow at mermakova@
Last Updated: April 14, 2010 00:54 EDT
2010-04-14 07:09
Reuters: BRIEF-Russia's Protek sets IPO price range of $3.10-4.50/share
MOSCOW, April 14 (Reuters) - Russian drug company Protek:
• ANNOUNCES IPO PRICE RANGE OF $3.10-$4.50 PER SHARE
• AIMS TO RAISE $400 MILLION
• COMPANY VALUED AT $1.46-2.12 BILLION BEFORE IPO
• BOOK-BUILDING STARTS APRIL 14, EXPECTED TO BE COMPLETED BY MONTH-END
(Moscow Newsroom, + 7 495 775 12 42, moscow.newsroom@)
EasyBourse: Russian Drug Company Protek Sets Price Range For MICEX, RTS IPO
MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- Russian drug group OAO Protek Wednesday set the indicative price range for its initial public offering from $3.10 to $4.50 a share, adding that it expect to sell $400 worth of stock.
Around half of the sum raised will go to existing shareholders.
Protek has received permission from Russian regulators to list 117.5 million shares, representing a fifth of its post-issue capital, which would imply a valuation of $2 billion for the group.
The company had revenue of 91.58 billion rubles ($3.01 billion) in 2009, with earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization of RUB5.84 billion.
Protek is Russia's largest distributor of pills and medicine--accounting for just over a fifth of that market.
The offering is being organized by UBS Investment Bank and Moscow-based Renaissance Capital.
-By Will Bland, Dow Jones Newswires; +7 495 232 9198; william.bland@
Bloomberg: Rusal Awards Deripaska, Management IPO Bonus Shares (Update1)
April 14, 2010, 12:34 AM EDT
(Adds value of shares in second paragraph.)
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- United Co. Rusal said it awarded Chief Executive Officer Oleg Deripaska and employees 56.6 million of bonus stock for helping the world’s largest aluminum maker sell shares in a public offering in Hong Kong.
Billionaire Deripaska was given 50.6 million shares, worth $70 million at the IPO offer price of HK$10.80 each, the Moscow- based company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Senior management and employees were given about 6 million shares.
The bonus shares were awarded a day after Rusal, the first Russian company to sell shares in Hong Kong, said it swung back to profit in 2009 and forecast rising demand for its products. Rusal’s shares are down about 13 percent since its January IPO, weighed down by concerns about debt of at least $12 billion.
“This question of remuneration is generally not much of an issue in Hong Kong as there’s little history of shareholder activism,” Francis Lun, general manager at Fulbright Securities Ltd., said in Hong Kong.
Rusal fell 0.4 percent to HK$9.36 at 10:24 a.m. in Hong Kong trading.
The shares were given “for services provided in preparation of the global offering,” Rusal said in the statement. The stock will be subjected to a two-year lock-up period, it said. Chief Executive Deripaska can transfer 16.9 million of his bonus shares to a third party should they agree to the same lock-up period, it said.
Lenders Support
Lenders supported a pay package for Deripaska, which includes an annual base salary of $10 million, because they want to retain his services, Oleg Mukhamedshin, deputy chief executive officer of capital markets at Rusal, said Jan 11.
The basic annual pay for Deripaska, 41, is about five times more than the comparable compensation for the CEO of BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company. Melbourne- based BHP Billiton paid Chief Executive Officer Marius Kloppers $10.4 million in the 2009 fiscal year, including a base salary of $2 million.
Rusal this week said net income for 2009 was $821 million, recovering from a loss of $6 billion a year ago as improving metal demand more than doubled the value of its 25 percent stake in OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s largest mining company. Sales in the second half rose 17 percent from the first six months, the company said.
Rusal’s share offering was delayed at least twice by Hong Kong regulators over questions about its debt, and the company was barred from marketing the shares to retail investors. Rusal cut its borrowings after raising $2.2 billion selling shares to investors including Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.
--John Duce. Editors: Tan Hwee Ann, Keith Gosman.
To contact the reporter on this story: John Duce in Hong Kong at Jduce1@
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tan Hwee Ann at hatan@; Amit Prakash at aprakash1@
RUVR: Christie's opens office in Moscow
|Apr 14, 2010 09:55 Moscow Time |
One of the world’s leading art auctions – Christie’s – has opened an office in Moscow. Christie’s has been operating in Russia for about 17 years but up to now has had no permanent representation in the Russian capital, the auction’s Moscow Office Director Matthew Stevenson had told RIA News. Christies has offices in more than 30 countries and about ten trade houses across the world, including in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Dubai and Hong Kong.
Moscow Times: For the Record
14 April 2010
• A 13 percent stake in insurer Rosgosstrakh may be sold in July or August, the Economic Development Ministry said Tuesday. (Bloomberg)
• Renaissance Capital is “on track” with its expansion plans in Africa and may enter three new markets this year, Patrick Mweheire, RenCap said Tuesday. (Bloomberg)
• Russian Technologies hired Renaissance Capital to help manage assets and lure funding at home and abroad, the companies said Tuesday. (Bloomberg)
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
Base oil Report: Russia's export duty on light petroleum products jump to USD 202 - 204/MT, While for Heavy petroleum products USD109 - 110/MT...
Base Oil Report: As per information.Russia's export duty on its Urals crude could be increased from the current 268.9 U.S. dollars per ton to 281-284 dollars per ton from May 1.The average price for Urals crude was 78.11 dollars per barrel from March 15 to April 14, compared with 75.52 dollars per barrel for the previous monitoring period. To mirror the rise in oil prices, the oil export duty should further rise to 281-284 dollars per ton.Meanwhile, duty on light petroleum products will jump to 202-204 dollars per ton, and duty on heavy petroleum products 109-110 dollars per ton.The Russian government adjusts oil export duties monthly to reflect fluctuations in global oil prices.
14.04.2010
Oil and Gas Eurasia: Russia: Time to Stimulate Innovation in Oil Production
Russian Natural Resources Minister Yuriy Trutnev has issued instructions to establish a working group to draft steps to provide economic stimulus for projects that will increase oil production, Prime-TASS has reported. The group will be tasked with preparing a list of pilot projects using innovative methods to develop "difficult" reserves. A second list will identify priority methodologies for increasing oil output which require additional economic stimulus to be implemented. Both lists are to be drafted by May 2010, along with proposals for implementing stimulus mechanisms.
By June 2010, the Ministry, together with Russian oil companies will choose the best proposals for implementing innovative technologies in subsoil development, specifically to improve the profitability of difficult reserves and to recover crude from reserves nearing depletion.
Copyright 2010, Oil and Gas Information Agency. All rights reserved.
13.04.2010
Oil and Gas Eurasia: Russkoye Field Sees First Quarter Production Double
Crude production at the Russkoye field in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District exceeded 25,000 tons in the first quarter of 2010 – double the amount produced in the same period in 2009, vsluh.ru reports.
The TNK-BP press office reported that over 400 million rubles was invested in the Russkoye field in the first quarter of 2010. The bulk of this investment was spent on building infrastructure and exploration drilling.
This year ten wells are to be drilled at the Russkoye field and the capacity of diesel power stations is to be increased 2 mW.
“We will invest about $200 million into Russkoye this year”, TNK-BP Executive Vice-President for E&P Sergey Brezitskiy said. He added that the company had started building 47 kilometers of permanent roads to the Zapolyanoye field in order to make it possible to transport all of the crude produced during test drilling by the end of 2011. “We hope the government will quickly confirm the program for the full development of the Yamal-Nenets Region and the north of Krasnoyarsk Territory and then we can accelerate the development of our fields”, Brezitskiy said.
Copyright 2010, Vsluh.ru. All rights reserved.
Upstreamonline: Bashneft runs reserve tally
Russian producer Bashneft said its proven oil reserves stand at 1.27 billion barrels based on an independent audit.
Upstream staff 14 April 2010 07:24 GMT
The company said the audit was conducted by Miller&Lents under Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS) criteria. It is the first independent audit in 12 years.
"At current output levels, the company's proven oil reserves will last for more than 20 years," Bashneft President Viktor Khoroshavtsev said in a statement.
Published: 14 April 2010 07:24 GMT | Last updated: 14 April 2010 07:24 GMT
13.04.2010
Oil and Gas Eurasia: TNK-BP Cuts Subeconomic Wells by 25 Percent at Sorochinskneft
The number of subeconomic wells at fields operated by Sorochinskneft (part of Orenburgneft, a TNK-BP subsidiary) was trimmed 25 percent in March, TNK-BP reported in a news release.
Arkadiy Popov, the head of Sorochinskneft’s field development section, said production in most of the wells is subeconomic because of the high water-cut.
“After assessing the commerciality of the entire operating well stock together with the economics department, we compile a list of subeconomic wells and decide whether to perform well interventions or to shut in wells for subsequent suspension or abandonment”, Popov said. “During March 2010, the number of subeconomic wells was cut by 25 percent, or by 13 wells, 10 of them thanks to well interventions.”
Sorochinskneft monitors the performance of each well that is currently subeconomic on a monthly basis.
Popov noted that the monitoring program will help to achieve annual savings across Sorochinskneft of around 6 million rubles.
Copyright 2010, TNK-BP. All rights reserved.
Your Oil and Gas News: TNK-BP Applies New Well Clean-out Technologies at OJSC Orenburgneft Fields
Tuesday, Apr 13, 2010
A new clean-out technology was used during drilling operations at the Buzuluk and Bogolyubov oilfields under development by OJSC Orenburgneft (a member of the TNK-BP structure) – in each case a viscoelastic fluid was pumped into the borehole. “A water-soluble container is placed in a drilling string before it is extended, then it dissolves and forms a viscous pad”, explains Konstantin Koulakov, head of the OJSC Orenburgneft well construction department. Based on this technology we perform preventive sludge level tests in the borehole and clean out bit cuttings”.
The advantage of this technology lies in is its simplicity. This method may be replicated anywhere regardless of the well layout.
Source: TNK-BP
13.04.2010
Oil and Gas Eurasia: NOVATEK Increases Gas Production 20.8% In First Quarter
According to preliminary data, NOVATEK increased gas production in the first quarter of 2010 by 20.8 percent compared to the first three months of 2009, the company reported in a news release. Natural gas production reached 9.98 billion cubic meters, while liquid hydrocarbon production grew 21.8 percent to 866,000 tons.
NOVATEK refined 816,000 tons of unstable gas condensate in the first quarter of 2010 at the Purov refinery.
NOVATEK also reported that it exported seven tanker shipments of stable gas condensate in the first quarter, up from six tankers in 2009. As of March 31, 2010, 444 million cubic meters of natural gas and about 277,000 tons of stable gas condensate were listed in the company's report as "residual prepared product" under reserves.
Copyright 2010, NOVATEK. All rights reserved.
Gazprom
April 14, 2010 10:17
Interfax: PwC the winner once again in tender for Gazprom auditor; fee reduced 7%
MOSCOW. April 14 (Interfax) - CJSC PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit has once again won the tender to conduct the annual audit of Gazprom (RTS: GAZP) in 2010, the gas giant reported.
PwC won with a bid of $7.25 million, compared with the maximum contract size of $8 million. PwC received $7.8 million to conduct the audit last year.
PwC will audit RAS financials for the lead company and for the consolidated group as well as the consolidated IFRS financials.
PwC has conducted Gazprom's audits every year since 1995. Nonetheless, the annual tender for the job attracts bids from many auditing companies.
The latest tender received bids from eight companies, including PwC, CJSC Petro-Balt-Audit, CJSC Prima Audit, CJSC MKD, Ernst and Young LLC, FBK LLC, CJSC BDO and CJSC KPMG.
Shareholders will confirm Gazprom's auditor at the annual meeting on June 25.
RTS$#&: GAZP
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Haaretz: Gazprom wants into Israeli gas scene
By Lior Zeno
Representatives of Russian energy giant Gazprom have met with Ya'akov Mimran, the National Infrastructure Ministry's petroleum commissioner, to discuss the possibility of Gazprom being part of the group operating the Sarah and Mira offshore natural gas fields.
The petroleum commissioner is responsible for awarding oil and gas exploration and drilling licenses, on land and at sea. To receive a license, the oil and gas exploration firms need a professional partner, known as the "operator," with experience in drilling such wells. Usually, the operator is also a partner in the venture.
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For example, the Israeli partners in the Tamar offshore gas field are Delek Drilling, Avner, Dor Alon and Isramco; and they brought in U.S. firm Noble Energy as their operator. In general, the partners invest the funds for production based on their relative share in the partnership, and then split the proceeds based on the same relative share.
Gazprom is Russia's largest company and the world's largest extractor of natural gas. It was partially privatized at one point, but now the Russian government owns it. It has a monopoly in the Russian gas market and supplies 25% of Europe's natural gas.
Mira and Sarah are located 40 kilometers off the coast near Hadera, adjacent to the Tamar and Dalit fields, which have already show.
Ofer Nimrodi and Yitzhak Sultan signed an agreement to buy the Canadian company PetroMed Corporation, which holds licenses to explore the Sarah and Mira areas for fossil fuels. Nimrodi and Sultan paid $16 million. The rights to the Mira and Sarah licenses belong to PetroMed (95%). A difference of opinion with the 5% stakeholder, a foreign company owned by geologist David Peace, had earlier stymied negotiations for the purchase.
The chairman of Gazprom is Viktor Alekseyevich Zubkov, who is also Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin's First Deputy Prime Minister.
An energy industry source said Gazprom's interest in the Israeli market is not at all surprising. It had considered becoming a local operator in the past in other fields. Another possibility is for Gazprom to provide Israel with natural gas through a pipeline via Turkey. Former National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer met with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller in Moscow two years ago on such matters.
A number of other Russian energy giants are showing interest in the Israeli energy and infrastructure sector.
Reuters: Gazprom looking at Israel natgas mkt –report
Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:27pm IST
JERUSALEM, April 13 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM) may join the exploration race for a new natural gas windfall off the coast of Israel, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.
Financial daily Globes on its Web site reported Gazprom, together with Israel's Modiin Energy (MDINp.TA), the IDB Group (IDBH.TA) and Israel Land Development (ILDC.TA), was considering vying for a new tender for exploratory offshore drilling.
Officials at both Israel's Infrastructure Ministry and Modiin Energy declined to comment on the report. Gazprom was not available for immediate reaction.
U.S. group Noble Energy (NBL.N) has been the major international player in the Israeli natural gas market, leading an exploration group at a number of deep-sea sites.
The group shook the local energy market last year when it announced the reserves of its Tamar site, located 90 km off the Mediterranean port of Haifa, were estimated at 7.3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) (207 billion cubic meters), enough to supply Israel with natural gas for about 20 years.
Since the Tamar discovery, Noble has been investigating further explorations.
Globes also reported a Gazprom representative met with Israel's petroleum commissioner to discuss the possibility of joining the exploration process.
A source in the energy industry confirmed the meeting took place, but stressed no decision had been made. The source also said Gazprom would likely only play the role of "operator" in any future deal.
(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Steven Scheer and Keiron Henderson)
Moscow Times: Gazprom Exec Receives Orthodox Honor
14 April 2010
The Moscow Times
The head of a regional Gazprom subsidiary received an award from the Russian Orthodox Church for its help in restoring a regional church, the gas giant said Tuesday in a statement.
Alexei Zavgorodnev, chief executive of Gazprom Transgaz Stavropol, was awarded the Order of the Blessed St. Daniel of Moscow.
The award was signed by Patriarch Kirill and awarded by Archbishop Feofan, who thanked Zavgorodnev, saying: "Every person has his path to the church, but there is a broader path, leading to faith, love, the fatherland, family and to our dear ones. Gas men know this path. It is the path of morality, purity and good."
Gazprom Transgaz Stavropol has aided in the restoration of several churches in the North Caucasus region.
This isn't the first time Gazprom has exhibited close ties with the church. Last month, the church wrote a letter to Gazprom chairman Viktor Zubkov asking for the gas monopoly to lower the price it charges Ukrainian chemical companies because of "the substantial help given by the Ukrainian chemical industry to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate." So far no deal has been reached on lowered gas prices.
13.04.2010
Oil and Gas Eurasia: Gazprom Taps Thomas Paine for a “Common Sense” Approach to the Shale Gas Challenge
By Pat Davis Szymczak
I’m writing this month from Houston where I’m attending IHS CERAWeek. To say this event is “high level” is an understatement. There are more energy company CEOs and senior government officials per square meter here than you’ll find at any other event anywhere else in the world.
I’m so impressed that I got up at 5 a.m. one day to be sure I’d not be caught in traffic while driving across town to hear Gazprom’s Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev deliver the morning keynote. But at a 7:30 a.m. breakfast session on “Chinese Gas Demand” I learned that Medvedev had cancelled because Russia’s prime minister had requested his presence in India.
Of course, no one believed the India story and throughout the day I noticed a bit of snickering whenever someone uttered the “R” word. Soon though the press in Moscow reported what was really happening “under the carpet”: Gazprom was incensed that ENI CEO Paolo Scaroni had (in his dinner speech the night before Medvedev’s planned appearance) suggested that the competing Nabucco and South Stream pipelines be partially merged. Here in Texas, we’d call that “an ambush.” Had Medvedev showed up the next morning, his message would not have been heard. The audience would have one question in mind … “Would Gazprom support Nabucco?”
What Was Alexander Medvedev Supposed to Say?
Why would Scaroni deliberately try to embarrass Medvedev? ENI is the technology advisor and main commercial partner to the Gazprom-led South Stream. Both pipelines would deliver gas to Europe and both are political. South Stream keeps Gazprom in control while Nabucco seeks to diversify supply so as to lessen European dependence on Russian gas. South Stream could be twice as expensive as Nabucco, which in turn, may face difficulty securing supply to fill the pipe.
Gazprom would not debate such a thing in a forum as public as IHS CERAWeek. I must say though that I was amused to read the text of Medvedev’s speech which was later posted for download at “CERAWeek Online” together with a White Paper on Gazprom’s industry view. I’m not joking, Gazprom’s U.S. speechwriter opened Medvedev’s keynote by quoting Thomas Paine!
“I am here to challenge your thinking and your perceptions,” quoting from the opening graphs. “One of your founding fathers and noted political philosophers, Thomas Paine, is widely known for his phrase: ‘These are the times that try men’s souls.’ Well apparently, as we have all learned over the past 18 months, times have not changed as much as we would like to think since 1776.”
When the Best Government is No Government
Since most Oil&Gas Eurasia readers are Russian, let me try to explain why this sounds so funny to an American who has lived in Russia. Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer and an intellectual revolutionary who heavily influenced the French and the American Revolutions. Every American school kid knows Paine as the author of the pamphlet “Common Sense,” written in 1776 – the year my ancestors told England’s King George III what he could do with his taxes. Yes, he is a “Founding Father” and to a man, America’s Founding Fathers were all fiercely independent landowning capitalists who thought that the best government was “no government.”
The bit of history that Paine represents – “The Enlightenment” – is the very bit of history that all my Russian friends tell me that “Russia missed” and that’s why we Americans and Russians can’t understand each other. Then, the real howler (yes, this is a direct quote!) “To quote your President Reagan: ‘Let’s trust but verify.’” What?! The late U.S. President Ronald Reagan said this, but in the context of U.S.–Soviet nuclear disarmament. This is the same Cold Warrior Reagan who labeled the U.S.S.R. “The Evil Empire” and implored, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”
Where did Gazprom’s PR advisor in the U.S. get this (student intern?) speechwriter? I’m tempted to say that if I were Russian I’d be offended, but honestly, I have to say that, as an American who does business in Russia, I’m offended too. It seems that Americans and Russians can’t communicate important stuff to each other because the kitsch stereotypes keep getting in the way.
A Call for Market-Driven Competition
Medvedev did though have a serious message to communicate. Quoting his text: “Energy is not a weapon but a resource, and governments must not script regulations and ‘policies of the month’ that create volatile investment parameters … and people in this room cannot preach the need for opportunity to invest in Russia’s resource base while simultaneously working with governments around the world trying to restrict [Gazprom’s] participation in pipeline and energy projects. Let’s decide whether this industry is going to be a politically driven one or a market driven one. I am for the latter, unless you are afraid to compete with us.”
Gazprom is feared because it is a state-owned producer with title to the world’s largest natural gas reserves. So if world powers had traded natural gas in 1776, King George III would have been in control, and Thomas Paine, together with America’s Founding Fathers, would not have had a chance.
In the “18 months” that Medvedev’s writers suggest have “tried men’s souls” the U.S. has gone from a market ready to consume LNG from Gazprom’s Shtokman field, to a market that now sees no need for further LNG imports (Russian or otherwise.) In the last 18 months, shale gas has become the craze. And several presentations at IHS CERAWeek suggested that the U.S. may become a net exporter of natural gas, even of LNG. Had Medvedev delivered his keynote, he would have disagreed: “The development of shale gas is real but the price at which sustained shale production is feasible over the long-term will enable LNG to compete in the U.S. market. This is the basis of Gazprom’s strategic commitment to Russian LNG as a head-to-head competitor in North America with shale gas producers and other gas suppliers.”
If Medvedev is right, that is good news for Shtokman. But even if his speechwriter got the LNG angle wrong, Gazprom has options. Gazprom is knocking on doors in Washington DC to obtain rights to develop U.S. gas reserves; it is trading gas out of offices in Houston and in London. And as for shale, the fact is, Russia has the most shale gas in the world if you add up estimated deposits in West Siberia and European Russia near the Arctic Circle. In Moscow in March, the Duma discussed recommendations that the government explore commercial development of Russian shale gas. With apologies to Thomas Paine and King George, I think that makes a whole lot of “Common Sense”!
Bellona: Comment: Gazprom’s secret society, or who will profit from Shtokman backroom dealings?
MURMANSK – Another round of public hearings took place recently in the village of Teriberka, a settlement on the Kola Peninsula in Russia’s far north, to discuss the Shtokman gas field development project. This should not have raised anyone’s brows except for the fact that local environmentalists, who have long been on the Shtokman case to ensure the project’s ecological safety, only learned of the hearing after the fact. Bellona’s contributor Alexei Pavlov looks into the mystery. Alexey Pavlov, 13/04-2010 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya
Shtokman, deemed to be one of the largest explored natural gas fields in the world, is a shelf deposit in the Russian sector of the Barents Sea, some 600 kilometres from Russia’s Murmansk, a large regional centre on the Kola Peninsula. Around 23.7 million cubic metres of gas is slated to be produced at the site during each of the envisioned three phases of Shtokman development.
Teriberka, on the shore of the Barents Sea in the northernmost part of the Kola Peninsula, is slated to become home to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, and plans have also been made to build a local pipeline between Teriberka and Volkhov, near Murmansk, to supply gas to Murmansk and surrounding municipalities. However, a large part of the natural gas produced at Shtokman will be transported across the Baltic Sea via the Nord Stream main pipeline, a controversial project under development, which will connect Russia and the European Union for gas deliveries into Western Europe.
The first phase of the field development project is to be implemented by Shtokman Development AG, which is a joint Russian-French-Norwegian venture established two years ago. Russia’s gas giant Gazprom with its 51 percent shares is the company’s main shareholder.
The hearing of March 14th was initiated by a company called Piter Gaz, a contractor working for Gazprom’s daughter company Gazprom Dobycha Shelf (Gazprom Production Shelf). Piter Gaz is charged with carrying out Phases Two and Three of the Shtokman project. And none of the environmentalists who have been working closely with Shtokman developers to make sure the project follows all environmental protection guidelines had been invited.
As it later became known, presented at the public hearing were two documents: “Programme for a comprehensive marine engineering study for the construction of sites of development of the Shtokman gas condensate field (Phases 2 and 3), project documentation stage” and “Environmental impact assessment of works to be carried out as part of the Programme for a comprehensive marine engineering study at Phases 2 and 3 of the Shtokman project.”
Regional media reported several days after the hearing that a number of research vessels would be used in the marine engineering study, which is a fundamental step as the Shtokman project progresses to the stages of designing and erecting the offshore production complex, laying the underwater gas pipeline, and building the shore-based infrastructure. The speakers underscored, according to local reports, that everything will be done according to requirements set by the Russian environmental legislation currently in force. All works are to be completed in the summer months of 2010 and 2011.
There is no doubt that the hearing went through without a hitch and Gazprom’s representatives got all the go-aheads they needed. Those villagers who had come to the hearing were likely only interested in seeing that Shtokman development does not impact local fishing, their main means of sustenance. No risks beyond Shtokman’s possible impact on fishery were included in the agenda – all because the hearing proceeded with no chance for opposing views to be heard and no access given to participants to any independent assessments of how construction of field development sites might affect the environment. How did this happen?
Easy. No information on the upcoming hearing appeared in the press except one tiny newspaper called The Kolskoye Slovo (Kola Word). The newspaper is published in a small municipality called Kola and enjoys a circulation small enough to never reach Murmansk, where regional environmental organisations are mostly based. It stands to reason that the hearing organisers may have been well acquainted with these facts and would hardly have any objections to the public having very limited access to the news.
Upon receiving information from Piter Gaz, Kolskoye Slovo reported on February 5th that a decision had been made to hold a public hearing. If not quite following the spirit of relevant federal legislation, Piter Gaz acted well within its requirements, which mandate that such an announcement must be run no later than 30 days prior to the hearing.
But as for Teriberka administration, however, who were also required to run an announcement of their own, stating the date of the upcoming hearing, their actions clearly violated the municipal “Regulation on the procedure for organising and conducting public hearings.” The regulation states that the date of a public hearing must be announced by local authorities no later than 15 days before the hearing is convened. The date – March 14 – was only published in The “Kolskoye Slovo” in an issue that hit the stands two days before the hearing.
Likewise, no information about the hearing appeared on the website of the municipality of Teriberka – something that had never happened before. Also, prior to this hearing, Shtokman’s environmental impact assessment materials were always made available for the public in the building housing the Kola district administration.
This was convenient: Teriberka is quite a ways away and having copies of the environmental impact assessment available here meant a much easier access to the information for all organisations keeping abreast with Shtokman developments. This time, no such courtesy was extended environmentalists or the public.
As a result, none of the ecological organisations operating in Murmansk Region were present at the hearing. The media had not been invited, either. This is an unusual turn of events, as Shtokman Development AG has long cooperated with Severnaya Koalitsiya (Northern Coalition), a group uniting five environmental non-for-profit organisations: Bellona-Murmansk, a WWF branch operating in the Barents region, Murmansk’s Priroda i Molodyozh (Nature and Youth), the Kola Centre for the Protection of Wildlife, and the Kola Ecological Centre Gaea. So what would compel Gazprom’s daughter companies behind the latest hearing to break the well-established rapport?
Is it maybe that Phases 2 and 3 of the Shtokman project are planned to proceed without the participation of western partners? Will the project stop being an international one? This would effectively give project developers an exemption from meeting international banks’ stipulations mandating the project’s transparency and an obligatory placement of all project documentation for public review.
“Such disregard for issues of public participation, both on the part of project developers and the local administration, is outrageous. There was a clear violation of the legally established procedure for informing the public of the hearing’s date,” said Bellona-Murmansk’s energy projects coordinator Nina Lesikhina. “This is absolutely unacceptable, given that a project as dangerous as Shtokman is being carried out.”
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