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Russia 110308Basic Political DevelopmentsRussia still wary of US defense plans for Poland - American Vice President Joe Biden makes his way to Russia on Wednesday. It is expected that a fair amount of attention will be focused on US plans for Polish air defense and for an anti-missile shield, Gazeta Wyborcza reports.Business welcomes Biden visit - American businessmen welcome the visit of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden to Russia and the U.S. administration's intention to deepen economic cooperation between the two countries. U.S. Vice President Begins Trip To Finland, Russia, And 'Model' Moldova - Biden's Moscow itinerary begins with lunch on March 9 at the U.S. Embassy with American business leaders. The group then travels to Skolkovo, Russia's version of America's Silicon Valley, for a roundtable discussion with Russian business leaders. A dinner with President Dmitry Medvedev is also planned.Georgia Poses Hurdle for U.S.-Russia Ties - American policy makers will keep their distance from the process, despite a pressing interest in seeing Russia join the trade group. Michael McFaul, a senior adviser to President Obama, called the talks “a bilateral issue, not a trilateral issue.” Russian Missiles Only "Temporarily" in South Ossetia - Karasin, however, did not specify when the rockets would be withdrawn.What Happened to the Reset? - The "Reset" Rings Hollow Two Years On. By Russia ProfileSeperate missile defense unaccepatable – Rogozin: Mr. Rogozin underlined the fact that the alliance proposes the creation of ?two independent systems of missile defense, one European the other Russian. This option does not suit Moscow, Rogozin stressed.Bushehr plant marks the start of nuclear energy use: Russian ambassadorFailure at Iran Nuclear Power Plant Raises Concerns About Safety - The pump failure raises questions about the decisions the Russians made to move forward with emergency coolant system that’s 30 years old COMMENT: Rosatom plans dangerous thermal capacity increases at Russia’s RBMK reactors of Chernobyl infamyRussian firms 'interested in Jordan mega-projects' - The 10th Annual Russian Industrial Exhibition started on Monday with the participation of nearly 37 companies.Russia delivers humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees in Tunisia - A Russian emergency situations ministry's aircraft with humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees landed in Tunisia on early Tuesday, a spokesman for the ministry said.Russia sends more humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees to Tunisia2nd RME plane brings supplies for Libyan refugeesSevastopol: Russian fleet stirs passions in Ukraine - By Daniel Sandford Moscow correspondent, BBC NewsVictor Kaganov pleads guilty - A former Russian officer, now living in the United States, has pleaded guilty to illegal financial transactions totaling more than $ 170 million. Tajik, Kyrgyz, Uzbek need visa changes, Russian saysKim Jong Il thanks Russian musicians - DPRK leader Kim Jong Il visited a joint concert by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra of the XXI century dedicated to International Women's Day. Serbia's export to the Russian market hit a 15-year highRussia defends MTS investor warning on Turkmenistan - Russian diplomacy breaks silence, backs MTS in Turkmen rowMachines with fragments of AN-148 cannot leave the crash site due to risk of fuel spillHollywood star agent says 'unaware' if Putin's fundraiser pays off for hospitalsMedvedev wishes women spring warmth and excellent sentimentsIt depends on men whether women beautify men’s life-PMSpeakers of both parliament chambers congratulate women on March 8Interview: Politics, another way for women's self-fulfillment: Russian parliamentarianCheckpoint between Russia and Transcaucasia closed - the request came from the Georgian side to limit traffic due to heavy snowfalls in the area.Chechnya's strongman denies forcing women to wear headscarves, defends multiple wivesBrazilian stars to play in Grozny 'out of respect' - Chechen leaderChechen terrorists, the rebels of the lost causeMoscow Under Pressure to Make Decisive Moves in the Northwest Caucasus - By: Valery DzutsevA Fear of Three Letters - Traveling through Ingushetia, a republic where people are more frightened of Russia's shadowy security forces than the Islamist militants. BY TOM PARFITTChurch of Scientology Opens New Church in the Heart of Moscow - The building stands in the city’s central Garden Ring, just a mile from Red Square.Russia Faces 3-Year Race to Secure Site of Olympics - By CLIFFORD J. LEVYOne Russian national killed, another wounded near France's NiceWikiLeaks publishes new 'gas war' cables - The WikiLeaks whistleblower site on March 6 released six new classified U.S. State Department cables authored during the January 2009 gas crisis, when Russia then shut off gas supplies to Ukraine and Europe. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her counterpart Vladimir Putin on Jan. 19, 2009 reached a deal in Moscow to end the crisis. Cablegate: France bullied Poland over Georgia war - France threatened to harm a flagship EU policy for post-Soviet countries shortly after the Russia-Georgia war unless the Union forgave Russia for its invasion, a freshly leaked US cable says. National Economic TrendsSenior Bankers in U.S. to Advise Russia Oil instability a windfall for Russia East Europe Today: Russian Credit Risk at Lowest Since 2008Wheat Planting Falls to Four Year Low in Russia as Export Ban Hits FarmersBusiness, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussionsBombardier Transportation Acquires Stake in Russian Railways SubsidiaryKernel Eyes Purchase of Russian Oil Producer, Port, Rp.pl SaysRussian in and now rushing out - The gold rush into Russia's retail banking market has come to an end after Barclays Bank announced it plans to sell its high street bank, while reports say that HSBC is also looking to exit the country. Fiat seeks partner to expand in Russia - Fiat SpA is in talks with several Russian automakers to expand in the fast-growing market and hopes to have a plan in place next month, chief executive Sergio Marchionne told Reuters Monday.Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)Stockholm court begins hearings on the BP deal with Rosneft TNK-BP moves closer to Russian arctic - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said TNK-BP might be able to persuade its oil and natural gas colleagues to tap into more domestic natural resources if the terms are favorable to all parties involved.GazpromLukoil and Gazprom sign gas supply agreement in Moscow - OAO Lukoil and OAO Gazprom have signed a gas supply agreement in Moscow, under which gas will be supplied from Lukoil's fields in the Bolshekhetskaya Depression, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District and from the north of the Caspian Sea. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Full Text ArticlesBasic Political DevelopmentsRussia still wary of US defense plans for Poland March 2011US Vice President Joe Biden will no doubt discuss the issue when he visits Russia on WednesdayAmerican Vice President Joe Biden makes his way to Russia on Wednesday. It is expected that a fair amount of attention will be focused on US plans for Polish air defense and for an anti-missile shield, Gazeta Wyborcza reports.The plan would see F-16 fighter jets and SM-3 missiles based in Poland as part of the US missile shield system. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement of the plan was met with disappointment in Moscow, which warned that such moves would only make cooperation on a joint missile defense system more difficult.The Polish-American plans are nothing new to the Russians, who vehemently objected President Bush’s plans to establish a shield against long-range ballistic missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic.Moscow says that it is hopeful some compromise can be reached regarding this new defense plan in Poland.Poland AMBusiness welcomes Biden visit 8, 2011 05:16 Moscow TimeAmerican businessmen welcome the visit of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden to Russia and the U.S. administration's intention to deepen economic cooperation between the two countries. It is expected that during his visit to Russia, which is to take place from the 9th to the 11th of March, Vice President Joseph Biden will reiterate Washington’s support for Russia's accession to the WTO. The Chairman of the US-Russia Business Council, Karl Kleinfeld noted that the "restart" between the two countries has greatly improved the business atmosphere and has allowed some American companies to conclude major transactions with Russian partners.U.S. Vice President Begins Trip To Finland, Russia, And 'Model' Moldova 08, 2011 By Heather MaherU.S. Vice President Joe Biden is in Finland for the start of a weeklong, three-nation trip focused primarily on expanding U.S.-Russian ties but bookended by visits to NATO member Helsinki and European Union hopeful Moldova.Biden arrived in Helsinki on March 7 and today will hold meetings with Finnish President Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi. Finland has some 200 soldiers serving in Afghanistan, and the White House said the bilateral discussions will cover "a broad range of issues," including the war, the EU, and green technology, in which Finland is a pioneer.?Biden's Moscow itinerary begins with lunch on March 9 at the U.S. Embassy with American business leaders. The group then travels to Skolkovo, Russia's version of America's Silicon Valley, for a roundtable discussion with Russian business leaders. A dinner with President Dmitry Medvedev is also planned.On March 10, Biden starts his day by meeting with Prime Minister Vladmir Putin and then holds separate meetings with opposition leaders and civil society leaders. Biden's last official stop in the Russian capital will be a speech on U.S.-Russian relations at Moscow State University. On March 11, the U.S. vice president heads to Moldova for meetings with Prime Minister Vlad Filat and acting President Marian Lupu. He'll also deliver a speech that the White House said will signal U.S. support for "ongoing democratic and economic changes" in Moldova, which is one of Europe's poorest countries and wants closer ties with the EU. But the focus of Biden's trip is Russia, where he'll spend the most time -- three nights and two full days. According to Biden's national security adviser, Tony Blinken, the goal of the vice president's trip to Moscow is to take stock of the reset in U.S.-Russian relations that President Barack Obama embarked on when he took office in 2009, which the White House and most policy analysts have judged a success. "Today, two years later, we can see the practical and important results of the reset, including the New START treaty, the Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, much deeper collaboration on Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea -- what the president calls win-wins," Blinken said. "This trip for the vice president is an opportunity to take stock of the reset, what we've achieved, and where we hope to go next."Helping With WTOTopping the agenda of discussions with Russian leaders will be the status of Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization, which Washington supports and has helped facilitate.The White House's senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs, Michael McFaul, said the focus is now on helping Moscow through the multilateral stage of the accession process, so it can meet its goal of joining the trade body later this year.A sticking point in Russia's accession to the WTO is Georgia, which, as a member, has veto power. With Russian troops still stationed in the Georgian breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, relations between Tbilisi and Moscow are icy. McFaul acknowledged that "there are definitely issues remaining" in terms of Russian and Georgian trade relations but signaled that the United States will not play the role of mediator."At the end of the day," McFaul said, Russia and Georgia's negotiations are "a bilateral issue." Related to Moscow's WTO ambitions is the expansion of U.S.-Russian business ties, which Blinken said "are growing but [are] still far short of where they could be."That's why Biden will sit down with American and Russian business leaders, as well as pay a visit to Russia's version of Silicon Valley -- the nascent high-tech hub of Skolkovo, just outside Moscow. Medvedev visited California's Silicon Valley in 2010 to try and woo U.S. companies to do business in Russia.'Dual-Track' PhilosophyThe reset in U.S.-Russian relations -- which were at a low point when Obama took office, just 18 months after the Russian-Georgian war of 2008 -- is underpinned by a philosophy the White House calls "dual track." That means forging agreements where interests converge and agreeing to disagree in areas where they don't. Human rights activists have criticized the policy as overlooking serious abuses by the Russian government in exchange for cooperation on strategic issues like Iranian sanctions and arms control treaties.McFaul defends the U.S. foreign policy approach as necessary, and not just with Russia. He points out that in Moscow, Biden will end his meeting with Putin and go straight into meetings with opposition leaders and civil society groups. The White House says it uses that engagement model with many countries."We see the vice president's trip," McFaul said, "as trying to expand into new dimensions of reset, with a particular focus on these nongovernmental pieces -- the business piece in particular, but also the time that he'll be spending with civil society -- to practice what we call, and the president calls, a dual track engagement."This is a strategy we have with a lot of countries around the world. We believe in it firmly. And I think the structure of the vice president's schedule demonstrates that we're committed to that." ?Biden will also raise the issue of missile defense with Putin and Medvedev. It's an area of potential cooperation Washington would like to see move forward, but Moscow's refusal to accept plans for a U.S. missile-defense system in Europe is standing in the way.Still, McFaul said discussions during last fall's meeting between Obama and Medvedev in Yokohama, Japan, and the NATO-Russia Council meeting in Lisbon created what he called "a bit of a pivot" on missile-defense cooperation. "We are, I think, on the verge of trying to take an issue that used to be extremely contentious between the United States and Russia and to try to see if we can make this an area of cooperation," McFaul said. "And the vice president's trip will be an important marker to see where we're at. And we hope that at some time this year we have agreement on that."Moldova An 'Inspiration'Biden's visit to Moldova on March 11 will be the first visit to that country by a U.S. president or vice president and is an attempt by the White House to show its support for Moldova's democratic progress in the last two years. Biden was invited by Filat in January 2010, after Filat held talks with Biden in Washington.? Blinken said the small country's progress serves as a model for other Eastern European countries who want to enact democratic reforms and move closer to the West."The visit occurs in the context of Moldova celebrating 20 years of independence this year," Blinken said, "and especially a lot of hard work to build democracy and free markets, which has made it something of an inspiration in the region."Blinken praised Moldova's decision to embark on what he called "difficult reforms" laid out by the Alliance for European Integration and said the United States "stands and supports the government [in Chisinau] as it sees those reforms through to completion. "Blinken also said Biden will convey U.S. support for a resolution to the frozen conflict over Transdniester that "respects Moldova's sovereignty and territorial integrity."Georgia Poses Hurdle for U.S.-Russia Ties ELLEN BARRYPublished: March 7, 2011 MOSCOW — When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sits down with Russia’s leaders later this week, a central topic will be the payoffs of the “reset” between Russia and the United States, among them Russia’s long-awaited accession to the World Trade Organization, which American officials have vigorously supported. But it is far too early to declare that project a success. Among the remaining sticking points is the fact that Georgia, which joined the trade group in 2000, has the power to block the admission of any new member. For a decade, while grievances mounted between Russia and Georgia, the Georgian government has sought policy changes from Russia in exchange for its approval. Negotiations foundered in 2008, and a few months later, when war broke out over the separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, further talks began to look like a lost cause. On Monday, with the 17-year process of Russia’s entry nearing its endgame, Georgian officials confirmed that they would sit down with their Russian counterparts in Switzerland, which “has been mandated to act as a mediator between both countries,” said a spokeswoman for the Swiss Foreign Ministry. The issue is a difficult and occasionally painful one for all the parties involved: for Russia, which must reach out to a government it has demonized; for the United States, which has made Russia’s membership in the trade group into a central goal; and for Georgia, which has a limited window in which to negotiate before its allies become impatient. For Georgia, “the W.T.O. issue is a double-edged sword,” said Svante E. Cornell, research director for the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. “On the one hand, it gives them leverage,” Mr. Cornell said. “On the other hand, it risks making them look like they’re the problem. It risks isolating them.” First Deputy Foreign Minister Nikoloz Vashakidze of Georgia told reporters on Monday that the talks were a Russian initiative, and that they would start on Wednesday or Thursday. He did not say what Georgia’s conditions were. But in the past, Georgia’s negotiators have asked for a role in customs administration on borders between the separatist territories and Russia. Giorgi Kandelaki, deputy chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Georgian Parliament, said he would like to see international observers on the Russian side of the border, along the lines of a European Union monitoring mission that is based outside Transnistria, a separatist region in Moldova. The observers would pick up the smuggling of goods or drugs, as well as movements of Russian military hardware, Mr. Kandelaki said. “If they don’t agree, there will be no W.T.O. accession for Russia,” he said. “Georgia does not want to be a hurdle. But Georgia is not the reason for this hurdle.” He said the negotiations offered Georgia “a good opportunity to remind the international community” of the breakaway territories, which only Russia and three other countries have formally recognized as sovereign nations. Two and a half years after Russian forces routed the Georgian army in South Ossetia, tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians remain displaced from their homes in the enclave, and Russia has moved in heavy weaponry, including tactical ballistic missiles and rocket launchers. “It is an ongoing, dynamic issue, and it has direct consequences for Euro-Atlantic security,” Mr. Kandelaki said. “The problem hasn’t gone away.” Maksim Y. Medvedkov, Russia’s chief negotiator on accession to the World Trade Organization, did not respond to a request for comment. American policy makers will keep their distance from the process, despite a pressing interest in seeing Russia join the trade group. Michael McFaul, a senior adviser to President Obama, called the talks “a bilateral issue, not a trilateral issue.” Negotiators in Moscow “understand that they have to deal with this issue seriously, and that this is not just something they can wait for us to make the Georgians go along, because we’re not going to do that,” Mr. McFaul said in a conference call on Friday. Georgian leaders, he said, are prepared to “deal specifically with the economic and trade issues that are involved here, and not make it a bigger debate.” Anders Aslund, a Russia specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said Georgia’s government should press Moscow to lift all the trade sanctions imposed in 2006, when Russia’s sanitary inspector banned the import of Georgian wines and mineral water, a major blow to the smaller country’s economy. Negotiating on customs and border issues would prove thornier, since it would touch on “the formal recognition of which border is valid,” Mr. Aslund said. He said Georgia’s veto power was one of only two or three issues — like intellectual property rights and agricultural subsidies — that were keeping Russia from membership in the trade organization. Members acknowledge Georgia’s right to strike a bargain with Russia for its consent, Mr. Aslund said, “but the W.T.O. accession for Russia is really moving on.” “Right now Georgia has great leverage, but it will soon disappear,” he said. “They should use this in an effective fashion.” Russian Missiles Only "Temporarily" in South Ossetia 7, 2011 - 4:58pm, by Joshua Kucera A few weeks ago Russia announced that it was deploying new missiles to South Ossetia, eliciting an angry response from Georgia. And at the time, the unnamed Russian official who was leaking the news didn't try to avoid making it sound like a provocation; he said the missiles were "capable to effectively repel any aggression from Tbilisi."But now, Russia seems to be walking that announcement back, saying the deployment would just be temporary. Via Civil.ge, quoting RIA Novosti:"Tochka-U installations were deployed on the territory of South Ossetia for participation in the military exercises of our military base; they were deployed there temporarily," he said.Karasin, however, did not specify when the rockets would be withdrawn.That's a positive move. The recent Center for American Progress report called the missile deployment (along with another rocket deployment) the "most obvious contributing factor to Georgian insecurity." U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is on his way to Moscow, and that's the sort of thing that a diplomatic partner does as a friendly gesture. So can we thank the reset for this?What Happened to the Reset? "Reset" Rings Hollow Two Years OnBy Tom Balmforth Russia Profile 03/06/2011 Two years on, the “reset” in U.S.-Russian ties has changed the tone of relations, but the “hollow” veneer of its overall success does not mask enduring mistrust between the countries and their different national interests, say analysts. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is due in Russia on March 10 to “energize” the reset, but analysts question how warmer ties can develop further, while noting that the Barack Obama administration – keen to flaunt a foreign policy triumph domestically – has shouldered the weight of the reconciliation. “The determination of the United States not to rock the boat on a number of issues where it could have done has effectively led to the appearance of the reset working, whereas in fact there is very little of a substantive nature,” said James Nixey, head of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. Advocates of the reset point to the signing and ratification of the strategic arms reduction treaty – voted through the U.S. Senate by a close margin – as a milestone in closer ties, but analysts say it could well have been signed without the reset. “I’m not convinced you can point to START as a direct result of the reset,” said Nixey. “The treaty was always in the interests of both sides.”Alexander Konovalov, the president of the Moscow-based Institute of Strategic Analysis, said that the reset has struggled to overcome the legacy of Cold War enmity. “There could definitely be more going on overall,” said Konovalov. “Relations are still built on the ruins of the system of confrontation. In the nuclear field we still rely on nuclear containment, although it’s pretty clear that there is no need to contain each other.”Since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her counterpart Sergei Lavrov “hit the reset button” in Moscow on March 6, 2009, the Kremlin has tentatively inched closer to the U.S. position on Iran by backing moderate UN sanctions to curb Iran’s perceived nuclear ambitions. But Moscow questions the efficacy of sanctions, and is also reluctant to anger Tehran as it risks losing its traditional economic interests in the oil rich pariah state.Moscow gave the green light to the “Northern supply route,” a key transit corridor for non-lethal U.S. cargo needed to service the faltering military campaign in Afghanistan. But far from a Russian concession related to the reset, the move was entirely “in line with Russia’s national interest.” Russia does not to want to see instability in Afghanistan worsen, potentially resonating throughout post-Soviet Central Asia, along Russia’s underbelly, Nixey said. For its part Washington has appeased Moscow by taking Georgia and Ukraine off the entry roadmap to NATO, by shelving missile defense plans in Europe and by reneging on the Goerge Bush administration’s democracy promotion in the post-Soviet space, Russia’s so-called “backyard.”American rhetoric aimed at Russia has also softened. Nixey said he was “extremely doubtful” that there would be anything more than “token” criticism of Russia’s upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in December and early next year – unthinkable during the lows of relations under Bush and Putin. “The desperation to make the reset work has almost made it work,” said Nixey. “But it doesn’t quite cover up for the hollowness of it all and the fact that there are still vast differences on various things.” The relatively calm way that Washington dealt with uncovering the largest post-Cold War spy ring exemplified the U.S. political will to make the reset work. But it will still have raised eyebrows behind the White House’s closed doors. “There’s a public face and a private face to these things. Privately, this was unsurprising and merely confirmed in the minds of American policymakers that Russia is awkward and not really to be trusted,” said Nixey. The next step Nixey said “it is conceivable” that Russia will soon accede to the World Trade Organization, and that there will be increased cooperation between Russia and NATO. “But in fact I think it’s more conceivable that the values gap between Russia and the West will expose the reset for the hollow thing that it is,” said Nixey. Konovalov agreed, despite suggesting that areas of joint cooperation could be waiting around the corner. “It’s difficult to imagine what more can be done in the reset. The lack of trust on both sides remains strong. But life keeps on throwing new topics at us, like the situation in North Africa. We have to find ways to act together on these matters,” he said. Seperate missile defense unaccepatable – Rogozin 8, 2011 05:36 Moscow TimeNATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is optimistic regarding cooperation with Russia on missile defense but according to Russia's permanent representative to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin, negotiations will be complex as the parties will only be able to agree if NATO's missile defense will not affect the strategic nuclear potential of Russia, the diplomat said. Mr. Rogozin underlined the fact that the alliance proposes the creation of ?two independent systems of missile defense, one European the other Russian. This option does not suit Moscow, Rogozin stressed.Tuesday, March 8, 2011 | Volume: 11106Bushehr plant marks the start of nuclear energy use: Russian ambassador Times Political DeskTEHRAN – The Bushehr nuclear power plant is not just a symbol for Iran, rather it marks the start of a move to use nuclear energy on a legal basis, Russian Ambassador to Tehran Alexander Sadovnikov has said. Speaking to the Mehr News Agency, Alexander Sadovnikov commented on problems in making the plant fully operational, saying this important project sometimes encounter some technical hurdles, which need thorough examination. And it is wiser to fix these problems now instead of having to incur losses in the future, he added. There is no doubt that Russia will finish the project and this is like an objective for Moscow as it is for Tehran, he added. Iran had started loading the fuel into the reactor in October 2010 after the inauguration of the plant on August 21, 2010. The Bushehr nuclear power plant has a pressurized water reactor with a capacity to produce 1,000 megawatts of power Failure at Iran Nuclear Power Plant Raises Concerns About Safety Peter S. Green - Mar 8, 2011 2:16 AM GMT+0100 A shattered cooling pump at Iran’s only civilian nuclear-power reactor, forcing a shutdown during its initial start-up phase, has renewed safety concerns about the hybrid Russian-German power plant on the Persian Gulf coast. The 1000-megawatt power plant at Bushehr combines a German- designed plant begun under the rule of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the 1970’s and Russian technology installed over the last decade. Safety questions have raised concern among some nuclear-power experts and in neighboring countries such as Kuwait, which is vulnerable in the event of a radiation leak since it is downwind about 170 miles (275 kilometers). “The rest of the world is depending on the Russian Federation for policing the nuclear safety of this reactor,” said Mark Hibbs, an expert on Iranian nuclear issues at the Carnegie Endowment for World Peace. The pump failure “raises questions about the decisions the Russians made to move forward with emergency coolant system that’s 30 years old,” he said. Russian officials said in a statement Feb. 28 they were removing the nuclear fuel to thoroughly clean the reactor core and the primary cooling system to remove metal shards left by the pump’s failure. Shards as small as 3 millimeters can damage instrumentation and the zirconium cladding that protects the core and prevents radiation leaks. Russia’s Ambassador to Iran, Alexander Sadovnikov, was quoted yesterday by Iran’s state-run Mehr news agency as saying that the delay was necessary since it’s better “to prevent unwanted consequences rather than to regret it later and spend more time trying to make up for it.” Safety Issues Nuclear experts cite potential safety issues due to the hybrid design, Iranian nuclear inexperience, the Islamic state’s reluctance to join international safety monitoring programs, and the unknown reliability of some of the original components. Iran’s decision to withdraw the fuel from the reactor was in “no way” linked to the malicious software known as Stuxnet, Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi, said in a report published by the state-run Fars news agency on Feb 27. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged Nov. 29 that high-speed centrifuges used in Iran’s uranium-enrichment program were damaged by the malicious computer software. Under United Nations sanctions for trying to amass enriched uranium that could be used in a nuclear bomb, Iran has requested only one safety consultation on Bushehr from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. No Monitoring After that visit last year, the IAEA warned Iran’s nuclear regulatory agency had “a shortage of staff” and the existing workers who were under-trained and under-funded. The UN group’s mission was “neither an inspection, nor an audit,” the agency said in a March 2 statement. The IAEA does monitor installation and removal of the reactor’s nuclear fuel. UN sanctions allow Iran to buy equipment for Bushehr, a light-water reactor that does not produce weapons-grade nuclear material. Russian engineers will remain at the plant as Iranians learn the ropes, said Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Russia’s state-owned nuclear builder, Rosatom Corp., the plant’s constructor. “This is a program largely developed in secret and their first ever of this size and you don’t develop a safety culture overnight,” said Jim Walsh,?a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cost Cutting The cooling-system pumps were “supplied to Bushehr in the 1970’s and, under the current contract, Russia was obliged to integrate them into the project,” Rosatom said in the Feb. 28 statement. “To cut costs the Russians had to agree to use certain parts supplied by the Germans,” said Bill Horak, chairman of the nuclear science and technology department at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, who studies Soviet and Russian- built reactors. Bushehr also sits at the junction of three tectonic plates, raising concerns that an earthquake could damage the plant and crack its containment dome, or disrupt the electrical supply needed to keep it safe, said Dr. Jassem al-Awadi, a geologist at the University of Kuwait. Bushehr was hit with a 4.6 magnitude temblor in 2002. Kuwait Downwind Winds in the Persian Gulf blow from East to West and coastal currents circle counter-clockwise, meaning Kuwait and the Saudi Arabia would feel the effects of a radiation leak at Bushehr within hours, notes Sami Alfaraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies. And with the Gulf Arab states reliant for their freshwater on desalination plants that line the coast, long-term contamination of the Gulf could prove fatal. “What are our concerns -- water and air, and these are the essence of life for everybody,” Alfaraj said in an interview. “The Iranians have said so far ‘trust us,’ and it’s quite difficult to trust them and the next thing is to trust Russian certification and it’s very difficult to trust that.” Iran “has always given priority to the plant being in line with highest international standards,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, told the state-run Iranian Students News Agency Feb. 26. Risks Low Technology has improved since the accidents at Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania making the risk from a modern reactor “extremely low,” said James Acton, a physicist who works with the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. Horak also rates the chances of a catastrophic accident as low, noting the German-built containment dome was built to resist a direct hit by a jet fighter. Russia, which built the reactor, has perhaps the greatest incentive to ensure it operates safely, which is commercial self-interest, said Hibbs. Atomstroyexport JSC, the export arm of Rosatom, has nuclear power plants planned or under construction in 14 countries, from Armenia to Jordan. Plants are under construction in India and Bulgaria, according to its website. A serious accident at Bushehr would bring a swift end to the entire industry, noted Hibbs. To contact the reporter on this story: Peter S. Green in New York at psgreen@ To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@ COMMENT: Rosatom plans dangerous thermal capacity increases at Russia’s RBMK reactors of Chernobyl infamy – A new experiment to be conducted at Russian nuclear power plants employing RBMK-type reactors of Chernobyl notoriety is aimed at increasing the thermal power capacity of these reactors – and presumably, beefing up the operator company’s profit – but is likely to contribute to growing radionuclide discharges and a heavier burden on the aged equipment, at the risk of setting it up for malfunctioning and failure Andrei Ozharovsky, 08/03-2011 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya The advent of capitalism in the Russian nuclear industry has not just shown itself in the many transformations the former Ministry of Atomic Energy, later the Federal Agency of Atomic Energy, and finally the State Nuclear Corporation Rosatom has undergone, re-incorporating its many structural entities as joint stock companies in place of former state enterprises.? Capitalism’s first law is that of making profit. This may be what gave rise to a seemingly insane idea that is now gaining force within the Russian nuclear domain: Operating commercial reactors at capacities exceeding design-basis levels.The frightening insanity is that this dangerous experiment is expected to have a broad enough reach to encompass not just the VVER-type reactors – of which none, thankfully, has blown up to date – but also the RBMK-1000s, the series infamous for the 1986 catastrophe at the nuclear power plant (NPP) in Ukraine’s Chernobyl.Eleven RBMK-1000s are currently in operation at Russia’s Leningrad, Kursk, and Smolensk Nuclear Power Plants. These reactors were not shut down after 1986. First, as per the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) recommendations, their output capacity was decreased. But following a series of upgrades, the reactors were brought back to design-basis capacity – and furthermore, permissions were then applied for and granted to extend their operational life spans beyond the 30 years specified in the original design.And now Reactor Unit 1 of Kursk NPP, located in the town of Kurchatov in Kursk Region in West European Russia, has been designated as a pilot site to experiment on increasing these reactors’ thermal output capacity.Rosenergoatom, Rosatom’s structure in charge of operating Russia’s nuclear power plants, is soon expected to apply for a license to operate Kursk’s Reactor 1 at an increased thermal capacity. The application will be filed with Russia’s industrial oversight authority, the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological, and Atomic Supervision (or Rostekhnadzor, in its Russian abbreviation). Bellona has at its disposal documents that were used as the basis for the application. An analysis of these documents shows that a large-scale dangerous experiment has been devised that threatens to create risks of the kind that precipitated the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.Runaway greed as a precursor to runaway reactorsIt would seem logical that as the main objective for Rosenergoatom is producing power at nuclear power plants, maximising output would be one of desired goals. Achieving that goal was what prompted the development of the “Programme for increasing electric power output at generating units of nuclear power plants in operation by Concern Rosenergoatom for 2007 to 2015.”Increasing output can be done without risks incurred to a nuclear power plant’s safety – for instance, by enhancing a plant’s installed capacity utilisation factor via improving the performance of its non-nuclear components – such as power generators and turbine plants. But the nuclear capitalists are opting for a simpler, if more dangerous, solution: Raising profit by boosting the reactors’ thermal output – in other words, making them operate under loads increased beyond design limits.It is more or less clear why the eleven RBMK-1000s were not excluded from the output-enhancement programme – all reactors are supposed to participate in this race for profit, including reactors that have proved, in practical experience, just how capricious and dangerous they can be.In 2007, Rosenergoatom adopted a “Sub-programme for implementing five-percent increases in thermal output at generating units of RBMK-running nuclear power plants in operation by Concern Rosenergoatom for 2007 to 2015.” There are also plans to further boost the RBMK reactors’ capacity by 10 percent. Kursk NPP has been selected to pioneer these efforts.Public discussionIn late January, a public hearing was held in Kursk NPP’s satellite city, Kurchatov, to discuss the plan to operate the station’s Reactor Unit 1 at above-nominal capacity. The plant’s management chose not to post the documents they had presented at the hearing for open access on the Internet.“The materials are stored in a library here, in the town of Kurchatov – you’re welcome to come and read,” Kursk NPP’s public information service told the author of this comment. I came, I read, I found a lot of interesting and curious information: The plant’s reactors are already operating at increased capacity; the engineering proposals on which this capacity boost is based are dubious; the NPP’s radioactive discharges are bound for a significant increase, while safety levels will likely go down – but, as per usual, those behind this experiment are confident the Chernobyl tragedy will not repeat itself.Reactors boosted already?At the hearing, Kursk NPP’s chief engineer Alexander Uvakin said the thermal capacity increase programme was already in full swing at the plant. Back in March and April in 2009, Reactor Unit 1 at Kursk NPP already underwent a “Comprehensive programme for gradual (phase-by-phase) elevation of thermal output of Reactor Unit 1 of Kursk NPP by 5 percent above nominal.”Documents presented at the public hearing show that compared to the nominal capacity of 4,000 megawatts, the actual combined operating load at the station was usually in excess of 4,150 megawatts; a maximum of 4,204 megawatts was reached on February 4, 2010. Power output levels of individual generating units frequently went above 1,060 megawatts – or 106 percent of nominal values. Maximum electric power output was reached on Reactor Unit 2 twice, on January 20 and February 1, 2010, when output amounted to 1,070 megawatts (7 percent above nominal load).The danger of this experiment is both in increased radionuclide discharges through the ventilation system and in an increased burden on the reactor components, as well as in the changing operating modes – all of which could lead to an increased risk of accidents.Increasing radiation dosesThe documents that Kursk NPP presented at the hearing demonstrate that with Reactor Unit 1 operating at 110 percent capacity, the combined radionuclide discharges from the station grow – in the worse-case scenario – by 1.2?times in inert radioactive gasses and by 1.5?times in iodine-131.Yearly acceptable discharges, as per the existing Sanitary Rules for Designing and Operating Nuclear Power Plants, will not be exceeded, but the danger of significant increases of radioactivity discharges is evident. And if the experiment is deemed successful and all four of the station’s power units begin to operate at above-nominal capacity, then discharges of inert radioactive gasses should rise by 80 percent, while discharges of radioactive iodine, which causes thyroid cancer, will be three times as current levels!It is not too difficult to understand why it is the discharges of radioactive iodine specifically that will grow as output capacity increases by what seems like a fairly insignificant percentage.With a reactor of the RBMK type – a channel-type reactor – total thermal capacity only increases if thermal capacity is increased in each of the fuel channels. Radioactive iodine is generated in fuel rods as a product of nuclear fission. As long as fuel rods remain sealed, radioactive iodine presents no threat. However, with load increases, the likelihood of loss of seal increases accordingly, and so does the thermal load on those fuel rods where loss of seal has already occurred. Fission products, such as radioactive iodine, end up in the coolant flow much faster; part of them is held back by filters, but that part that has passed through is released via ventilation pipes into the surrounding environment, leading to increased radioactive discharges.Expert estimates say a ten-percent increase in the average output of a non-hermetic fuel rod doubles iodine-131’s radioactivity levels in the water passing through the coolant circuit and augments its concentration in a nuclear power plant’s discharges by 1.5 times.Kursk NPP, however, believes the experiment to be safe: “Discharges of [inert radioactive gasses], iodine, and radioactive aerosols into the surrounding environment are possible as a result of increasing capacity of Reactor 1 of Kursk NPP, however this will not lead to statistically discernible changes in environmental contamination levels or radiation exposure experienced by the population residing in the vicinity of [Kursk] NPP.”??The documents used to substantiate Kursk’s application for Rostekhnadzor’s license to run Reactor 1 at an increased thermal capacity also say: “With three reactors of Kursk NPP operating at nominal capacity and Reactor Unit 1 operating at an increased capacity, an increase in the radiation exposure burden on the population at the perimeter of the [sanitary protective zone] (1.7 kilometres) and in the town of Kurchatov will be observed, in the amount of 0.03 [microsieverts], or 18 percent, above current levels.”?One can expect, therefore, that if the remaining three reactors are also brought to output levels beyond nominal, the combined radiation exposure burden on the population living in the vicinity of the plant will increase by 72 percent – or by 0.12 microsieverts per year. That would already constitute a serious problem, since what is at issue here is not external exposure, but radiation doses received internally, exposing the thyroid to the harmful impact of radioactive iodine.?The threat of abnormal iodine discharges is, unfortunately, quite real. It was precisely that sort of radioactive iodine release – during a November 1975 accident on an RBMK-1000 reactor at Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant – that accounted for a spike in newborns diagnosed with chromosomal abnormalities (Down Syndrome) in Leningrad NPP's hometown of Sosnovy Bor, near St. Petersburg, the following year. The little nuclear town had zero Down Syndrome statistics prior to the accident.Radioactive discharges reach as far as KurskIt has long been no secret that the tall ventilation stacks are needed at nuclear power plants to ensure emissions of dangerous artificial radionuclides into the surrounding atmosphere – to release radioactive products such as resulting from both accidental leaks and as part of so-called “sanctioned discharges,” or discharges implemented under normal operating conditions.It was not for nothing that Kurchatov, the satellite town of Kursk NPP, made it into a report entitled “On the condition of the environment and on environmental protection in the Russian Federation in 2009” and prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology. This is what the report had to say about Kursk NPP:“Increased, as compared to background [radiation] levels, radioactivity concentrations of [caesium-137], as averaged per month, were registered in 2009 in Kurchatov […] in April, at 42* 10–7?[becquerels per cubic metre]. Increased, as compared to background levels, by 6.5 times, radioactivity concentrations of [caesium-137], as averaged per year, were registered […] in Kurchatov, at 15* 10–7?[becquerels per cubic metre] […]. Furthermore, in 2009, as in previous years, several instances were registered of detection in the atmosphere in the cities of Kursk and Kurchatov […] of certain products of nuclear fission and neutron activation.”The ministry continues in its report: “The appearance of traces of these radionuclides in the atmosphere of these cities is directly linked with the operation of the nearby Kursk NPP.”That the radiation from Kursk NPP, located some forty kilometres west of the regional centre of Kursk, was established to reach that far – albeit in small quantities – speaks plenty about the seriousness of the problem.And according to Rostekhnadzor, in 2009, Kursk NPP discharged into the surrounding environment 297.3 terabecquerels’ worth of inert radioactive gasses, 1.32 terabecquerels of iodine-131, 0.333 terabecquerels of cobalt-60, and 50.7 megabecquerels of caesium-137. And this is not the complete list of artificial radionuclides released by nuclear power plants through their ventilation stacks into the surrounding atmosphere. For instance, discharges of tritium – radioactive hydrogen – are not even monitored at all…By trial and errorCuriously, the proponents of the risky experiment with boosting the RBMKs’ thermal output are themselves no strangers to understanding that the equipment is not ready to withstand such increases and that the associated additional burden may turn out to be just the straw that broke the camel’s back.This, for instance, is how experts with the federal Scientific and Technological Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Safety, an entity of Rostekhnadzor’s, expect the separator drum – a device that separates steam needed to turn the turbine from water – to behave in reaction to such an experiment: “As the power unit’s capacity is increased to 110 percent of nominal levels, the steam humidity burden is increased on the evaporation surface in the [separator drum] […] Moreover, there is, in the existing design of the steam drum internals, the threat of steam getting caught in the downcomer, which can lead to a cut-out of the [main circulation pump] as the emergency protection system is activated at nominal capacity. Steam drum internals of existing designs, furthermore, do not provide for even distribution of steam across the width of the submerged perforated plate or reliable operation of hydroseals at water outlet from the plate.”?But the experimentators will not be stopped. They have taken it upon themselves to modernise the steam drum design, substituting a non-standard variation for the machinery previously in use: “The steam drum internals of the existing project design have been replaced at Reactor 1 of [Kursk NPP] with a system of collector distribution of the water-steam mixture inside the steam drum.”There is no certainty that the innovation will work, so tests are needed: “The Applicant plans, while increasing capacity to 110 percent, to conduct steam separation tests at each incremental capacity increase of 2÷3 percent owing to the separation drum’s limited capability to provide for regulated steam humidity and the existing [inflexible] separating characteristic. In the Applicant’s opinion, the results of the tests on the reactor unit will help find the limit to which increasing the reactor installation’s capacity is possible, as well as identify the exact emergency protection setpoints with regard to changing water levels in the separators.”So basically, Kursk personnel will have to go through nearly every NPP component, working by trial and error, adjustments and improvements, just to get it right and force the reactors to work at increased capacity.The deaerators, too, seem to need retrofitting, inserting an additional valve that was not provided for in the original design: “Because, during the unit’s operation at increased capacity, the flow of “hot” feedwater into the deaerator will increase as well, an adjustment is needed in the deaerator’s excess pressure protection system, i.e. inserting into the scheme a backup safety valve.”Just how substantiated and thought through these innovations, improvements, adjustments, etc are, introduced as they are on the go, only practice will show – experimental, in this case. But it wouldn’t hurt sparing a thought as to what kind of accidents might occur on a Chernobyl-type reactor once it is “boosted” beyond the tried and tested limits.Rusty old wrecks…Two facts can serve as confirmation that Rosenergoatom’s plan to boost RBMKs’ capacity is a dangerous venture.One is the accident at Lithuania’s Ignalina NPP, where the cooling circuit of the shut-down Reactor Unit 1 – Lithuania had to close down the aged Soviet-built station, complying with a European Union condition as it was ascending the union – failed to withstand the impact of a decontaminating solution, as it was being flushed through the systems, and leaked some 300 cubic metres of radioactive sludge onto the floor of the main operations hall. Even though Ignalina’s Reactor 1 – of the upgraded RBMK-1500 series – was in operation less than the 30 years of its design-basis lifetime, the equipment was evidently in a deplorable enough condition – even though the plant’s owner had no inkling of how worn-out the systems were until the leak occurred.?The second is the information from a yearly report by Rostekhnadzor, publicised in 2010, which says that Rosenergoatom simply does not have reliable data on the state of many reactor components that are critical to the safety of the NPPs in its purview: “As regards the weld seams in the […] austenitic pipelines of RMBK-1000 reactors, the issue of reliability of maintenance control must be differentiated depending on the method of maintenance control and location of the weld seams (some of them are not subject to control). On the whole, the reliability of defect monitoring, as dependent on the method of maintenance control, can be assessed to range between 64% and 90%, which also attests to the urgency of the problem of substantiating assessments of integrity and strength of […] welded austenitic pipelines.”In plainer language, the danger is there that the pipelines in use at Russian RBMK-running NPPs may burst at any given moment. Whether this is as big a threat as another Chernobyl depends on many factors, but certainly, these are not risks to be dismissed offhand.So let’s just not pretend that our RBMKs are in a good enough condition and that we know all there is to know about them and their safety. If we just stop pretending, then maybe it will become clearer that experimenting on the aged and unreliable equipment is a stunt of the kind that borders on criminal negligence.Inadequate analysis of accident scenarios The issue of whether accidents of Chernobyl magnitude are possible with RBMK reactors as their innards go through retrofitting and adjustments to squeeze more power out of them is being dodged by Rosenergoatom in the simplest way possible – by keeping total silence on the subject. As in, it’s just impossible, and that’s that.There is, to be sure, some progress, compared to the 1980s: Back then, what was at the time the atomic energy ministry claimed RBMKs were so safe one might as well build one in Red Square. At least now, there is an admission, to a certain point, that there might be certain consequences if an accident occurs – though, Rosenergoatom says, they will not reach farther than 2.6 kilometres in the worst case.This is not a joke: The documents presented at the hearing in Kurchatov say no measures beyond evacuating and sheltering the population and iodine-based prevention will be required at distances greater than 1.7 kilometres from the plant, while sheltering measures will not be required at any distance greater than 2.6 kilometres. The only other limitation that the documents provide for in case of a beyond-design-basis accident is “necessary measures to limit consumption of contaminated food at distances less than 25 kilometres” from the plant.?What is meant here is precisely beyond-design-basis accidents – that is to say, accidents developing according to the worst scenario possible, one that cannot be entirely prognosticated, thought through, or taken all necessary precautions against in advance… Does one really need to point out, for the umpteenth time, that one beyond-design-basis accident has already happened once on an RBMK reactor – on April 26, 1986, at Reactor Unit 4 of Chernobyl NPP – and that its impact went far beyond a mere couple of kilometres, poisoning lands as far away as in Western Europe? Limitations on food consumption were introduced then in Germany’s Bavaria, for instance – thousands of kilometres away from ground zero…Contamination misinformationIn critical remarks written with regard to the documentation presented at the hearing in Kursk, Bellona’s St. Petersburg-based branch, Environmental Rights Centre (ERC) Bellona, said the impact of potentially serious beyond-design-basis accidents was unjustifiably excluded from consideration:“Only those scenarios for beyond-design-basis accidents are examined [in the documents] that can potentially develop as a result of ‘loss of [cooling] water’ and ‘simultaneous rupture of nine fuel channels.’ Excluded from analysis, absent of any foundation, are other possible scenarios for beyond-design-basis accidents, such as, for instance, destruction of the reactor resulting from external impact – a plane crash involving a passenger plane with a mass of around 100 tonnes and proceeding at a speed of around 800 [kilometres per hour] – or […] internal causes or actions of the personnel (the Chernobyl scenario, or the ‘human factor’).”“Only the ‘benchmark’ Level 5 beyond-design-basis accident scenario is considered, as described by the INES scale, while more serious accident scenarios, of Levels 6 and 7, are unjustifiably excluded from consideration,” ERC Bellona’s document said, referring to the International Nuclear and Radiological Events Scale, an IAEA tool developed to classify nuclear and radiation incidents and accidents by their degree of severity in order to provide for a uniform public information code. The “benchmark” in this case is the estimated concentration of iodine-131 released as a result of a given accident and serving to classify the accident according to one level or another.Level 5 on the INES scale describes “Accidents with Wider Consequences” involving “limited release of radioactive??????? material likely to require implementation of some planned countermeasures; several deaths from radiation,” and, where radiological barriers and control are concerned, “severe damage to reactor core; release of large quantities of radioactive material within an installation with a high probability of significant public exposure,” possibly resulting from “a major criticality accident or fire.” The infamous 1975 accident at Three Mile Island in the US was a Level 5 event.Accidents of Levels 6 and 7 are classified as “Serious Accidents” and “Major Accidents,” respectively, and involve “significant release of radioactive material likely to require implementation of planned countermeasures,” for Level 6 events, and “major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures,” for Level 7 events. In terms of examples in the history of operation of nuclear facilities worldwide, both levels are represented by accidents that have taken place in the former Soviet Union, with Chernobyl being the world’s severest nuclear accident to date.In reference to one of the documents, entitled “Environmental protection while increasing capacity of, and operating at above-nominal capacity, Reactor Unit 1 of Kursk NPP,” ERC Bellona continues to say in its critical remarks that as a result of failure to pay due attention to the possibility of more serious accidents than Level 5 events, “the impact of a serious beyond-design-basis accident on the environment and population health was significantly underrated. Erroneous conclusions were made based on underrated data with regard to the significance of population exposure levels following a beyond-design-basis accident and the necessity of evacuation and iodine-based prevention measures for the population at any distance greater than 1.7 kilometres, or protection (sheltering) of the population at any distance greater than 2.6 kilometres, from the reactor.”ERC Bellona concludes: “This approach may cause both the public and persons responsible for relevant decision-making to be misinformed about the real consequences of a serious beyond-design-basis accident.”Hostage to the “peaceful atom”The town of Kurchatov and its 48,000 inhabitants are just 3.5 kilometres away from Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, towering on the banks of an artificial pond where the plant takes water for its cooling circuits. The ventilation stacks on top of the station’s roof are well visible from the top floors of Kurchatov’s buildings and from many other vantage points in the town.Living in such a close proximity to a nuclear power plant has been proved to be dangerous, especially for children. Studies conducted in Germany in 2007 showed leukaemia incidence in children under five living at distances of less than 5 kilometres from nuclear power plants was double the rate among their peers from regions with no nuclear power plants. Nothing says the same risks cannot be anticipated for populations residing near nuclear power plants in Russia.Yet Russia, unlike Germany, maintains no federal registry to keep track of cancer cases; the single maternity hospital in the region where Kursk NPP operates is located in Kurchatov, right inside the five-kilometre radius of the plant.Furthermore, even though the operating license for Kursk’s Reactor Unit 1 expires in December 2016, there are no plans in motion to prepare the reactor for decommissioning. No social support programmes are being developed for the locals, specifically, nuclear specialists, to provide assistance in relocation or re-training or create new production enterprises and new jobs. Rosatom’s idea of social programmes probably amounts to spending the funds the corporation wheedles out of the federal budget for nuclear satellite cities on building new reactors to replace outgoing ones.Is a nuclear-free future possible for Russia?On March 1, a visiting session of the Committee for Energy of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, was to take place at Kursk NPP. The parliamentaries were likely in for a long sales pitch on how there was no future without nuclear energy and that all these initiatives at Kursk NPP needed to be approved – from increasing the existing reactors’ capacity to building a second line of construction at the plant.If the parliamentaries are so na?ve and ill-informed that they will believe the usual incantations about the RBMKs' safety, there might be a tangible risk they will make a new tragedy that much more possible in the future.08 Mar 2011Russian firms 'interested in Jordan mega-projects' Omar Obeidat ?AMMAN -- The 10th Annual Russian Industrial Exhibition started on Monday with the participation of nearly 37 companies.According to Nael Kabariti, president of the Jordan Chamber of Commerce (JCC), a delegation of 150 businesspeople are participating in the three-day event representing major industrial companies in Russia working in the fields of energy, construction, water and railway as well as other heavy machinery manufacturers. "This year we brought firms that can take part in the mega-projects Jordan plans to implement in the fields of energy, railway and water," Kabariti told The Jordan Times yesterday, adding these companies have also the capability to finance such projects. Svetlana Zabelina, director of the exhibition, remarked that 20 other companies were supposed to take part in the expo but they cancelled their participation due to the political unrest in the region."We were shocked by these last minute cancellation because Jordan is stable and the Russian foreign ministry encouraged them to participate in the event," she added.Kabariti indicated that many Jordanian firms benefited from previous exhibitions by being able to enter the Russian market, particularly Dead Sea products, in addition to other firms, which signed contracts with their Russian peers to represent them in Jordan and the region.He noted that the exhibitions also contributed to raising trade exchange between the two countries, indicating that trade volumes reached $600 million last year, in favour of Russia, mainly wheat from the former Soviet Union Republic. Among participating companies is the Russian Railways company (Zarubezhstroy Technology), which is implementing the railway network linking the Libyan cities of Sirt and Benghazi with a cost of 2.2 billion euros and a length of 1,219 kilometres. Officials at the company stressed their keenness to take part in the National Railway Network the Kingdom plans to carry out next year to connect Jordan with its neighbouring countries.On the sidelines of the expo, members of the Jordanian-Russian Business Council called for establishing a trade centre for the Kingdom in Moscow to promote Jordanian made products. The annual exhibition is organised by JCC, Zarubezh Expo and the International Association of Peace Foundations. ? Jordan Times 2011 Russia delivers humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees in Tunisia 08/03/2011A Russian emergency situations ministry's aircraft with humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees landed in Tunisia on early Tuesday, a spokesman for the ministry said."The Russian emergencies ministry's plane landed at the Djerba airport at 0:25 Moscow time [21:25 GMT Monday]. The Il-76 aircraft has delivered another batch of humanitarian cargo," the spokesman said.This is the second plane from the Russian emergencies ministry with humanitarian cargo for Libyan refugees in Tunisia. The first plane delivered on Sunday food, nourishment for children and tents.The unrest in Libya began on February 15, following the ouster of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. Libyans are demanding an end to its leader Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule. Up to 6,000 people had been killed in the anti-government clashes, according to the international human rights organizations.MOSCOW, March 8 (RIA Novosti)March 08, 2011 10:59Russia sends more humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees to Tunisia. March 8 (Interfax) - Russia has delivered another shipment of humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees to Tunisia."An Il-76 plane belonging to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry landed at the airport of Djerba (Tunisia) at 0:25 a.m. Moscow time," the ministry told Interfax on Tuesday.The plane delivered 30 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including sugar, baby food, and other food products, and also tents, it said.Russia had earlier delivered 34 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees to Tunisia.2nd RME plane brings supplies for Libyan refugees, March 8 (Itar-Tass) - A plane of the Russian Ministry for Emergencies (RME) with humanitarian aid supplies for refugees from Libya has arrived at the Tunisian island of Djerba. The IL-76, which landed at the Zarzis international airport, delivered 34 tonnes of necessary supplies, including tents, medicines, and food. This is a second plane with humanitarian supplies from Russia. The supplies will be brought to an area which borders on Jamahiriyah for numerous refugees who in plight there. The first RME plane arrived at Djerba on March 6. Since the flare up of unrest and combat actions in Libya, more than 100,000 people of various nationalities have crossed into Tunisia. A continuous evacuation of refugees, mainly Egyptians, as well as nationals of other countries, is being carried out through the efforts of European Union countries, as well as the United States. The Tunisian army ensures order at the border which is located at a distance of 175 km from Tripoli, and coordinates the accommodation and provision of refugees with necessities. There are about 15,000 people at the Shusha refugee tent camp, 7 km from the Ras el-Jedir main border crossing point. The delivered supplies are intended mainly for those people. 8 March 2011 Last updated at 01:22 GMT Sevastopol: Russian fleet stirs passions in Ukraine Daniel Sandford Moscow correspondent, BBC News Last April the Ukrainian government signed an agreement allowing Russia's Black Sea Fleet to continue using Sevastopol as a base. Amid angry scenes in the parliament in Kiev, it extended Russia's lease until 2042, in exchange for cheaper gas. Colourful competitionWalking around Sevastopol almost one year on, the Russian tricolour flies proudly from Navy buildings and private apartments, while the yellow and blue of Ukraine flutters over the city hall. The dockyard cranes, also painted yellow and blue, tower over Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Even at the World War II memorial, the Ukrainian wreaths seem to be competing to outdo the Russian ones. It's all evidence that, despite the uneasy peace that reigns in Sevastopol, strong passions linger just beneath the surface.A strategic military port From the many viewpoints in the city you can look down on the inlets of the famous natural harbour. Nestling in the shelter of the hills you can see the dark grey Russian ships, often moored alongside ships of the small Ukrainian navy.Sevastopol was founded by Russia in 1783 and has remained an important strategic military port ever since. In nearby Balaklava an extraordinary James Bond-style submarine cave was carved into the seacliffs. But in 1954, when the Soviet Union seemed inviolable, the Crimean peninsula was transferred for administrative purposes from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. When Ukraine broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 it took Crimea, and Sevastopol, with it.The Soviet Navy split up. Officers had to decide whether to serve in the Russian Navy or the Ukrainian Navy.One of those who chose to serve his native Ukraine was former Captain Vadim Makhno. On a bluff overlooking the harbour he told me that he understood that Sevastopol was not very Ukrainian, but he explained that it was not in his countrymen's nature to give things up."I can't imagine a mechanism which will let Sevastopol become a part of Russia without blood being spilt," Captain Makhno said. "Nobody here thinks seriously about attacking Russia, but to just give something away is impossible. The Russians need to think about whether they really need the fleet here."Russian symbolBut Sevastopol is a potent symbol for the Russian navy, and for politicians in Moscow. They have bought themselves time by the agreement that allows them to use facilities in the city until 2042, but they have not bought a solution.Vladimir Solovyov was a Rear Admiral in the Russian navy. He is retired now but still works in Sevastopol. However he is not a Ukrainian citizen so he needs to leave the country and re-enter on a new migration card every three months. Like many Russians he believes that one day Sevastopol will return to Russia."They understand in Ukraine that for Russia Sevastopol is not just another port, it is a symbol of Russia," he told me. "Sevastopol can be a city of two countries but it is unthinkable without Russia."There is no sign that Sevastopol is about to become a source of violent conflict like the one seen in Georgia in 2008. But the issue is like a bomb on a slow fuse and at some point it will need to be resolved.Victor Kaganov pleads guilty 8, 2011 05:48 Moscow TimeA former Russian officer, now living in the United States, has pleaded guilty to illegal financial transactions totaling more than $ 170 million. According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Victor Kaganov created five fictitious companies and transferred through them for overseas business partners. Much of the money came from Russia and the transfers were made to countries in Asia and Europe. Victor Kaganov emigrated to the U.S. in 1998.From 2002 to 2009 he conducted more than 4 thousand electronic financial transactions.Tajik, Kyrgyz, Uzbek need visa changes, Russian says Report2011-03-07DUSHANBE – A Russian lawmaker said on Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei Radio (RSNR) his colleagues are preparing to institute visa requirements for Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Tajik visitors, pressa.tj reported March 7. The lack of drug enforcement on the Afghan-Tajik border will force Russia either to take charge there itself or to cancel Tajiks' visa-free privileges, Semion Bagdasarov said, according to AsiaPlus.tj. He also warned of the danger of allowing visa-free travel from countries where Islamic militant groups are based, pressa.tj reported. Bagdasarov sits on the Russian Duma's committee for international affairs. Kim Jong Il thanks Russian musicians 8, 2011 08:46 Moscow TimeDPRK leader Kim Jong Il visited a joint concert by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra of the XXI century dedicated to International Women's Day. In the evening's program were works by Korean and Russian composers, including songs from Soviet years. At the conclusion of the concert, Kim Jong Il personally thanked the Russian musicians for the "excellent presentation, and all the joy they had brought to Korean women celebrating their holiday.Serbia's export to the Russian market hit a 15-year high Business News Correspondent - 08.03.2011Serbia's export to the Russian market hit a 15-year high last year, head of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce (PKS) office in the Russian Federation Janko Djuric told Tanjug. The export/import ratio, which ranged between 12% and 14% in the last decade, reached "a fantastic 25%". In 2010, the total trade between Serbia and the Russian Federation reached $2,701.6 million, some 16% above the 2009 balance. Serbia's export rose by a staggering 55% from the year before and totaled $541.1 million. Import grew about 9%, to $2,160.5 million. The negative score of $1,619.4 million is caused by the import of oil and gas from Russia, where oil accounts for 43.3% and gas for 30.7% of the total imports. Serbia exports fruit, medicine, car batteries, floor covering, copper pipes and car tires to Russia, while importing oil and oil derivatives, gas, aluminum, mineral fuels, etc. Apple exports have almost been quadrupled and Serbian fruits can now be found at large market chains due to the SCC's activities. Source: SIEPARussia defends MTS investor warning on Turkmenistan, Mar 7 2011* MTS licence suspended in December* Turkmenistan complained it had no fare share of MTS profit* MTS warned energy firms business in Turkmenistan is risky* Russian diplomacy breaks silence, backs MTS in Turkmen rowBy Vladimir SoldatkinMOSCOW, March 7 (Reuters) - Russia's Foreign Ministry on Monday threw its weight behind the country's top mobile telecoms firm, MTS (MBT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), pledging to defend its interests in a row with gas-rich Turkmenistan which suspended its licence.The dispute is aggravated by Moscow's hunt for Ashgabat's huge gas reserves -- also an attraction for the European Union trying to secure access to Turkmen gas for its Nabucco pipeline project, a rival to the Russia-sponsored South Stream link.Apart from exports to Russia, Turkmenistan, with the world's fourth-largest reserves of the fuel, also supplies its gas to China and Iran and eyes a route to India and Pakistan via Afghanistan to cut dependence on former imperial master Moscow.MTS, part of oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Sistema (SSAq.L: Quote, Profile, Research), had an 85 percent share of Turkmenistan's mobile market until its licence was suddenly suspended last year for reasons that the company said "were never fully justified". [ID:nLDE6BL1FK] "We believe it is a matter of principle that the conscientious Russian investor's interests are upheld. We will provide necessary help to MTS in the future," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.The rebuke was issued as a response to the Turkmen Foreign Ministry's riposte to MTS last week, when Ashgabat said it had not received its fair share of the "enormous profits" generated by the operator in the country. Last week MTS sent a letter to participants of Turkmenistan's oil and gas roadshow in Singapore, warning energy majors of the "perils" of investing in the Central Asian nation.It said its sad experience in the country should serve as a "cautionary tale" for all those doing business in Turkmenistan.MTS said it had invested over $188 million in Turkmenistan since 2005 and serviced more than 2.4 million customers. It had previously said that it could incur total losses of about $600 million following the licence suspension. [ID:nLDE72208F]Relations between Moscow and Ashgabat soured after a dispute over a pipeline rupture in 2009, which ultimately led to a sharp reduction in Turkmen gas exports to Russia on the back of declining demand for energy as the economic downturn bit. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter) Machines with fragments of AN-148 cannot leave the crash site story: Investigation into the crash of AN-148 in the Belgorod region, March 8th - RIA Novosti. Machine, which on Monday plunged tail and wing crashed in Belgorod, Voronezh aircraft An-148, could not leave the crash site because of the risk of fuel spills on the road, told RIA Novosti source, who works at the scene.AN-148 crashed on Saturday near the village of Garbuzova Alekseevskii region of Belgorod region. Killing all six crew members - four Russians and two pilots of the Republic of Myanmar. At the crash site by representatives of the Moscow and Kursk investigation department of transport, as well as flight engineering, computational, analytical, administrative committees have studied and the list of wreckage of the aircraft.Sending fragments to the examination was difficult due to the fact that the tail of the plane was in a swamp. To extract even wanted to bring the plane, but in the end cost the rescue crane. In the evening, loading the machine on the tail section and one wing of the aircraft is over Machinery planned to send in Voronezh on Monday night, but they still remain in the village Garbuzova. Because of the oversized cargo, both the truck could not go yesterday. There is a danger of spillage of kerosene on the road. Need support - the source said.According to him, the column will need two cars and two traffic police MOE, including a fire. Board production Voronezh Aircraft Joint Stock Company (JSC VASO) performed a test flight. In addition to the four Russians among the crew were two pilots of the Republic of Myanmar which took place at the An-148 training in accordance with the program of training flight crews. On Sunday, the bodies of all the victims were taken to Voronezh, was the procedure for their identification. Requiem for the pilots will take place on Wednesday at 11.00 in the Palace of Culture. Lenin.Hollywood star agent says 'unaware' if Putin's fundraiser pays off for hospitals 08/03/2011The agent of actor Mickey Rourke, who took part in a Russian cancer charity event last year that famously featured Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has said he is unaware whether any donations have been made to the fundraiser.The event, held in St. Petersburg's Ice Palace in aid of children diagnosed with cancer, saw Putin swap - albeit briefly - his strongman image for the unlikely Vlad the Singer doppelganger.However, doubts have been raised about the donations after a woman whose daughter is being treated for cancer in a St. Petersburg hospital complained last week that "there had been no money and no help" from the fundraiser.She said the charity foundation "The Federation" which organized the December event "is not registered and has no website; no one knows anything about it.""I cannot tell you if any funds were raised [by the event]," Rourke's agent at the International Creative Management told RIA Novosti.Putin's spokesman moved to deflect the skepticism on Monday, saying that sponsors had been found to provide three hospitals with the needed equipment, but added that deliveries would take a few more months."It's important to understand how charity funds work," he said.In a staggering makeover, Putin played a sentimental song from a Soviet-era spy series on the piano and sang his version of Blueberry Hill to a standing ovation from the likes of Mickey Rourke, Sharon Stone, Kevin Costner and Monica Belucci.MOSCOW, March 8 (RIA Novosti)Medvedev wishes women spring warmth and excellent sentiments, March 8 (Itar-Tass) - President Dmitry Medvedev congratulated women on the holiday. “Dear women, congratulations on the holiday! I wish you spring warmth and excellent sentiments! We love you!” the head of state wrote in his microblog in Twitter. It depends on men whether women beautify men’s life-PM, March 8 (Itar-Tass) - It depends, above all, on men whether women beautify men’s life, claimed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He congratulated women reporters of the government pool and all Russian women on the holiday on the eve of March 8. “Sure, we men want very much that women should be beautification of our life,” he acknowledged. “But it depends, above all, on us whether women become beautification of our life,” the premier noted, addressing more likely representatives of the male sex. According to the prime minister, women “always accompany us along the entire life”. “Women give life to all of us. And that’s it. But this is not all. We look at first at our mummy, granny and then are growing up. Later, we have girl-friends, wives and then daughters. Those who have no daughters, have daughters-in-law,” Putin added. “Of course, women are very different. But they are always beautiful,” he concluded in a philosophical mood. Speakers of both parliament chambers congratulate women on March 8, March 8 (Itar-Tass) - Russian women possess unique qualities and should be represented better in politics. An appropriate confidence was expressed on Tuesday by speaker of the Russian Federation Council upper chamber Sergei Mironov in his congratulatory message to Russian women on March 8. “The Russian woman is a unique human being,” the speaker claimed. “It is surprising how our women, taking into account their tense work and difficult every-day life, manage to remain beautiful and charming!” “Your energy, cordiality, optimism, readiness to get down to resolving the most difficult problems, ability to create a cosy life and comfort under the most difficult conditions, to combine in yourselves qualities of excellent worker and loving as well as careful wife and mother, last but not least, your ability to forgive – are unchallenged,” he emphasised, addressing Russian women. “Possessing such qualities, Russian women should be represented in all arms of government in greater numbers, should participate more actively in political processes and in hammering out a strategy on settling pressing social problems,” Mironov said with confidence. He regretted in this context that Russia “has only a few women legislators, although 60-70 percent of voters are women”. Therefore, the Federation Council head sees one of the chamber’s tasks in “creating necessary conditions in the country for manifestation of professional qualities and merits by women”. Mironov wished Russian women on this holiday that all congratulations addressed to them “were sincere indeed, permeated with love, care and understanding”. “Let the spring reign in nature too as well as in the heart of each of you!” he added. In the meantime, the speaker addressed also representatives of the male sex, reminding an old joke that “real men take care of women 365 days a year, while others – on March 8”. In this context, he advised them in his Internet-diary not to limit themselves to beautiful words, addressed to women, but “to make such things for them so that their life should turn into a holiday rather than a date in the calendar”. For his part, speaker of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament Boris Gryzlov also wished in his congratulations on International Women’s Day that “attention and love should not be only words, but should be buttressed by specific deeds and actions”. “I’m always fascinated with your outside weakness and inside stamina, as well as ability to love and preserve family,” acknowledged the State Duma speaker. “You make the world brighter, sunny and more humane. Wish you happiness, love and well-being!” Interview: Politics, another way for women's self-fulfillment: Russian parliamentarian 00:22:27MOSCOW, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Politics is another way for women to achieve self-fulfillment, a woman deputy in Russia's parliament told Xinhua Monday.In an interview ahead of the International Women's Day, which falls on Tuesday, Tatiana Voronova, a 36-year-old member of the ruling United Russia party serving in the State Duma, or lower house, first recalled her political career.The tall and nimble woman entered public life in her 20s, and became known nationally after she became a deputy in the State Duma at the age of 32."My career brings me a sense of tremendous accomplishment," said Voronova, in a gray business suit and always with a smile.She said that her wish is to make the envisioned future come true. "If a politician is not able to create an image of future and make the image possible, then he or she is not a politician," she stressed.Voronova's political ability emerged when she was still a student in the well-known Irkutsk State Economics Academy, where she managed to organize many activities of youth groups."I have always been dreaming to make the world better. Gradually I began to know that we need a more influential platform than one university to realize our claims and change the social situation," Voronova said.In 2000, Voronova became a youth leader in the Irkutsk region. Four years later, she became the youngest member of the Irkutsk House of Assembly at the age of 29."They looked at me as if I were a miracle, both because I was female and very young," she said.Yet Voronova stressed that in Russia, there is neither prejudice nor tendentious policies against female politicians. "The most important thing for this career is personal professionalism," she said."Gentle, patient and tolerant are the nature of a woman, but in politics we often need to show a strong and tough character. Generally speaking, female politicians are mainly focusing on the social and cultural fields, where they could more than anywhere else present their essence of a mother and a woman," Voronova said.As a mother, how to balance the career and the life has been a challenge for Voronova.After becoming a deputy in the State Duma, Voronova moved with her family from Siberia's Irkutsk to Moscow. "My daughter has faced a hard time of adaptation in the new place," Voronova said.For years, her family have been supporting her choice. Now, Voronova said she is ready to back the choice of her child."My achievements in career relied on my family's support. I do hope to find the balance between the two and make all my family members happy, which I know is not easy for anyone. But I think the efforts itself, concerted to this kind of perfect life, is also a happiness for me," Voronova said.She added that she has tried her best to spend more time with her family and often go for outings with her family.Although the career consumed much of her energy, it brought more positive changes than negative ones into her life, said the woman parliamentarian."First of all, I worked for the International Affairs Committee of the State Duma, so I got colossal experience from my job at an international level," Voronova stressed."Despite all the hardships, happiness for a female politician is absolutely attainable and possible," she added. Checkpoint between Russia and Transcaucasia closed News line, March 803:37 A checkpoint between the Russian republic of North Ossetia and Georgia was closed to motor vehicles on March 7. According to Russia’s Emergencies Ministry, the request came from the Georgian side to limit traffic due to heavy snowfalls in the area. The local department of the ministry also issued a warning about the possibility of avalanches.Chechnya's strongman denies forcing women to wear headscarves, defends multiple wives Vladimir Isachenkov (CP) – 17 minutes agoGROZNY, Russia — Chechnya's strongman Ramzan Kadyrov on Tuesday shrugged off rights groups' accusations that he is imposing strict Islamic rules on women in the Russian republic.Kadyrov said Tuesday that Chechen women wear headscarves because they are Muslim and also as part of local traditions.During a news conference with foreign reporters that stretched past midnight, he added that he personally admires women in headscarves, saying "no hair style, no colour could make such beauty."Rights activists have said that Kadyrov's government has created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that forces most women to wear headscarves. There have been paintball attacks on women who failed to cover their heads.Kadyrov denied exerting any pressure on those reluctant to adhere to Islamic dress."You have seen women in short skirts without headscarves in Grozny," he said with a grin. "If I try to force them (to dress differently) I will be removed tomorrow."Kadyrov has also defied Russian law by encouraging Chechen men to have more than one wife. He said he has just one wife and loves her, but could take another one some day."If I see another woman prettier than her, why would I go somewhere and sin if Islam allows me to marry her?" he said.Kadyrov has ruled Chechnya with an iron hand since succeeding his father, who was killed in a rebel bombing in May 2004. He has been strongly backed by Vladimir Putin, now Russia's prime minister after serving as president in 2000-2008.Kadyrov's feared security forces have been accused by rights groups of arbitrary arrests, torture and killings of people with suspected rebel links.But his brutal rule has allowed him to boast of success in suppressing Islamic militants in Chechnya, which has seen two separatist wars in the past 16 years. Kadyrov claimed Tuesday that only several dozen rebels are still hiding in Chechnya's forested mountains and pledged that his forces would soon flush them out."We have destroyed many odious gang leaders, and we will also get Umarov soon," he said referring to Chechen warlord Doku Umarov, who has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of Moscow's largest airport in January.Kadyrov repeated his diatribes against the West, accusing it of fomenting unrest in the Caucasus and sheltering former rebel leaders such as Akhmed Zakayev. Britain and, most recently, Poland have rejected Russia's requests to extradite Zakayev.Kadyrov also lashed out at the United States, blasting it as the "tyrant of the world community."Copyright ? 2011 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved. Brazilian stars to play in Grozny 'out of respect' - Chechen leader 08/03/2011Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Tuesday that members of Brazil's 2002 World Cup winning side would play in an exhibition match in the republic's capital of Grozny "for free."Speaking at a news conference that stretched into the early hours of March 8, former militant Kadyrov, 34, said that he knew nothing about any payments to the Brazilian team, which may include recently retired football legend Ronaldo."I didn't know we had to pay them," Kadyrov, clad in black, said. "If they ask, we'll refuse.""They are coming out of respect for the Chechen people," he went on.Although the line-ups for Tuesday's match have not yet been announced, Kadyrov confirmed that he would captain "Team Grozny" against the Brazilians at the Sultan Bilimkhanov stadium, where his father, Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed by a bomb attack on May 9, 2004.Ruud Gullit, the one-time Dutch international and former world player of the year, who recently took over as manager of Terek Grozny, is also expected to line-up alongside the leader of the Chechen republic.The game is due to begin with a concert that Chechen officials say will feature pop music star Enrique Iglesias.Unsurprisingly, the match has garnered international media attention, and there were some 50 foreign reporters in attendance at the news conference in Grozny, rebuilt from scratch in recent years after two brutal separatist wars.But Kadyrov denied the game was being staged as a massive public relations stunt for the republic, which suffers from massive unemployment."The whole world loves football," he said. "We love it too."GROZNY, March 8 (RIA Novosti)Chechen terrorists, the rebels of the lost cause 9 February, 2011On Tuesday, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for January’s Moscow airport attack. He has also promised to accelerate the bombing campaign against Russia. Strapped for cash and abandoned by local allies, the few remaining Chechen rebels are resorting to their last weapon: Terror. By SIPHO HLONGWANE.On 24 January, a man in a black baseball cap entered Domodedovo Airport and stood in the international arrivals terminal. After waiting 15 minutes, he detonated the bombs he’d strapped to his body, killing himself and 35 other people in the building and injuring a further 180. Among the dead were Britons, Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians, Tajikistanis, Kyrgyzstanis and Uzbekistanis.This isn’t the first time Russia has been attacked by rebels from the Caucasus region. Not even the airport in Moscow is new to attacks. But this attack was different. Not only was it the biggest airport strike in terms of victims, but its alleged mastermind is an ethnic Slav, a Russian and not of any one of the Caucasian ethnicities. Almost a week after the bomb attack in Moscow, the authorities arrested Vitaly Razdobudko, a 32-year-old disenchanted Russian who had embraced radical Islam and planned the airport attack.Attacks of this nature in Russia have historically been perpetrated by non-Slavs, to the extent that antiterrorist squads quite readily used race profiling in an attempt to identify and apprehend possible suspects. The Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov took responsibility for the attacks in a taped video released on 7 February? saying, “This operation was carried out on my order”. Umarov is fighting for an independent Islamic state in the Caucasus.In the immediate aftermath of the blast, even as Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev sacked several airport security staff, suspicion fell on Chechen rebels. As the investigation lengthened, the suicide bomber’s possible place of origin was expanded from Chechnya to encompass the clutch of troubled Russian provinces known collectively as north Caucasus. Smothered between Russia in the north and Turkey and Iran to the south, it is one of the most fought-over places on earth. It is in these termagant mountains that the clash between the East and West, Muslim and Christian, has been the most bitter and painfully protracted.The Caucasus states have almost never been able to rule themselves. Khazars, Alans, Persians, Mongols, Byzantines, Turks and Russians have all taken turns at ravaging the mountains and imposing themselves on the more than 100 ethnicities scattered across the Caucasus Mountains. The Chechens, perhaps more than others, have felt the boots of various oppressors throughout their history.With the fall of the Soviet Union, Chechnya declared independence in 1991, with the former Russian General Dzhokhar Dudayev taking power in his homeland. However, despite Boris Yeltsin’s proclamation that the satellite Soviet states should take as much power as they could stomach, Moscow never intended for countries like Chechnya to be truly free.In 1994, the Russians decided to correct Yeltsin’s mistake and began a two-year assault (known as the first Chechen War) on Chechnya to dislodge Dudayev . They eventually succeeded in murdering Dudayev in 1996 when a Russian fighter plan got a lock on his position after intercepting a satellite phone call the Chechen commander was making, and blasted the location with an air-to-surface missile.In January 1996, Chechen rebels seized a hospital hostage in the town of Kizlyar in neighbouring Dagestan. The rebels then attempted to take the hostages across the border into Chechnya, but were stopped by Russian commandos who killed many hostages in the rescue attempt.In August 1999, Chechen militants headed by Shamil Basayev (at this stage, Umarov was a close ally of Basayev) crossed into Dagestan. They were beaten back into Chechnya a week later. Using this incident and the bombing of apartment complexes in Moscow which killed hundreds of people in September of the same year, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Chechnya. Far more prepared than before, the Russian forces quickly surrounded and subdued the country.Realising he could hold Chechnya far easier using the old divide-and-conquer tactic, Putin installed one of the Chechen warlords, Akhmad Kadyrov, as Russia’s puppet president of Chechnya. Those who refused to bow to Moscow’s authority now found themselves without a country and were now fighting against their own countrymen.Three years later, Chechen rebels took control of a theatre in Moscow, and after a three-day siege, Russian commandos entered the theatre and killed 41 Chechen guerrillas in the attack, as well as 129 hostages. The incompetence of the Russian commandos shocked the world, but the incident failed to illicit sympathy for Chechnya’s cause.After 9/11 the Chechens faced increasing isolation as Russia succeeded in branding their rebellion as Islamic extremism. In September 2004 Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan and demanded autonomy for their country. Like the theatre attack, the Russian commandos who stormed the school after a three-day siege botched the operation horribly, killing more than 131 hostages (half of them children) in the rescue operation. After this incident, rebel attacks quietened down. In the same year, Akhmad Kadyrov was assassinated in Chechnya’s capital Grozny. Russia replaced him with the current incumbent, his son Ramzan Kadyrov.In the past two years, rebel attacks from the north Caucasus have picked up again, including two female suicide bombers who targeted Moscow’s subways in March 2010.The Chechens are Sunni Muslims, thanks to a protection deal struck in the 16th century for incorporation into the Ottoman Empire. The religious element would poison Russo-Chechen relations for centuries to come. The fight between Russia and Chechnya began in earnest after 1783 when the Caucasus became a buffer zone between the Turks to the south and the Russian Empire to the north. The Czar’s Cossacks became a permanent fixture in the region. The first war between Russia and the Caucasian states began in 1830, a war Leo Tolstoy famously took part in for czarist Russia. The hatred between Russians and Chechens was mutual, with the mountain rebels developing a reputation for sneaky underhandedness and favouring sniping and guerrilla attacks as opposed to Russia’s formulaic grand battles. The first Chechen war ended in 1859 when the Caucasian leader Imam Shamil was captured by the Russians.Because of their religion, the Chechens and other Caucasian groups suffered brutally under Stalin’s regime by being subjected to mass deportations to Siberia, collectivisation and other horrors. It was not difficult for wahhabism, the radical strain of Islam that had swept the Saud family to power in Saudi Arabia and was later adopted by Osama bin Laden, to find a foothold among Chechens. This didn’t immediately translate into acts of desperate violence against Russia, because the Chechens still felt they had a chance at autonomy.The centuries-old resentment between Russia and its north Caucasian satellites is unlikely to end soon. Not only is the region cripplingly poor, but no countries in the West recognise the independence of states like Chechnya, Ingushetia or Dagestan. Since Putin’s rule, the attacks have taken an increasingly extremist stance as the few remaining Caucasians who still resist Russia’s rule grow increasingly desperate.Umarov is fighting to establish an Islamic Caucasus emirate, but he and other Chechen rebels face a hopeless task. Putin has succeeded in turning the Chechen clans against each other, by installing the most powerful among them to power. Establishing an independent Chechnya (or emirate) would entail not only throwing off Russia’s yoke, but dislodging a Chechen clan from power as well. Should that happen, the capital Grozny would resemble Mogadishu: a battleground between different clans for power. But Chechnya is not there just yet. Umarov and the other rebels are fighting for the lost cause of a united Chechnya. Putin has rendered that outcome impossible. Umarov’s adoption of complete terrorism (as opposed to the sovereign wars of his predecessors) indicates that he realises how hopeless his position is and has nothing to left to lose. All he can do now is terrorise Russia by attacking civilians. DMMoscow Under Pressure to Make Decisive Moves in the Northwest Caucasus[tt_news]=37608&tx_ttnews[backPid]=27&cHash=e9c96e3c59366e75bd54b6c6b8621f8cPublication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 45March 7, 2011 05:39 PM Age: 32 minCategory: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, North Caucasus Analysis, Military/Security, Terrorism, Domestic/Social, The Caucasus, North Caucasus , Russia By: Valery DzutsevOn March 1, a blast destroyed the home of a suspect militant, Eduard Ulbashev, in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Chegem district.? One day earlier, on February 28, Ulbashev himself was killed in a shootout with the police.? Government forces reported that two explosive devices equal to 25 kilograms of TNT as well as other pieces of ammunition were found at the suspect militant’s house and the bombs went off as the police tried to defuse them. No one was hurt in the explosion (kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 1).As the security situation in once quiet Kabardino-Balkaria has dramatically deteriorated in recent months, the government response has offered few solutions. Following the killings of tourists from Moscow in Kabardino-Balkaria and other attacks in February, a counterterrorist operation regime was introduced in parts of Kabardino-Balkaria on February 22. Later, it was expanded to the capital Nalchik and other areas. Republican and federal officials have repeatedly stated and then retracted the claim that their tactics include punishing the relatives of suspected rebels. The latest destruction of a suspect rebel’s house may be a sign of the government’s new tactics to pressure insurgents and their relatives.At the beginning of February, the head of Kabardino-Balkaria, Arsen Kanokov, stated in an interview that the republican authorities would learn from their Ingush, Chechen and Dagestan colleagues how to cope with an insurgency. “There are cases when [the militant] wanders in the forests, while his relative has a shop and trades in it. We will not, of course, burn their houses, as in Chechnya, but we will force them to answer for their relatives and children,” Kanokov said (kp.ru, February 2).A previously unknown terrorist organization the Anti-Wahhabis-Black Hawks has threatened to take revenge on the insurgents and their families. On February 11, a two-part video statement was posted on YouTube in which a man in a mask, speaking in Russian with no easily detectable Kabardin or Balkar accent, promised to kill insurgents and advised their families to leave Kabardino-Balkaria. Trying to play the nationalist card, the masked man derided Kabardino-Balkaria’s militants, saying “there have been no Balkars or Circassians in history who subordinated themselves to Chechens” (). The rebels in Kabardino-Balkaria say they are part of the Caucasus Emirate led by Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov.Later, on March 1, a representative of the Black Hawks’ gave an interview to the Russian TV channel REN-TV. The masked representative threatened that his group would not spare even the children of militants (). Aleksandr Torshin, the first vice-speaker of Russia’s Federation Council and a member the Russian National Anti-terrorist Committee, revealed surprisingly deep knowledge and support for the Black Hawks.? Torshin said that the group was “a real force” made up of mostly young people who “want to live according to civilized laws, not according to radical religious Islamic rites.” Torshin said he did not believe the Black Hawks would kill children and said that the law enforcement authorities should not fight these “decent people,” but rather use them as informants against the insurgency (kbr-inform.ru, March 4).The rebel website Kavkaz Center compared the masked image of the Black Hawks on REN-TV to a previous interview with a masked Russian security services officer and claimed they were identical (). In addition, many local experts expressed skepticism that the Black Hawks is a spontaneously organized civil organization (regnum.ru, March 3). “The Black Hawks came about almost immediately after President Arsen Kanokov proposed creating self-defense groups to fight the extremists,” said Timur Tenov, a political scientist in Nalchik, in an interview. “So many people in Kabardino-Balkaria view them as sort of a special project” (Interfax, March 3).Meanwhile, the rebels treated the threats against their families quite seriously and assumed the local government was behind these threats. In a special statement, they promised not to take revenge against the families of the ordinary policemen, but said that if the Black Hawks started to spill their relatives’ blood, they would go after the families of Arsen Kanokov and his administration in response (, February 27).At a Russian National Antiterrorist Committee meeting in Vladikavkaz on February 22, Kanokov asked Moscow to create a special police unit to defend the republican government along with a separate military detachment to fight the rebels, which would be comprised of 500 local men (Interfax, February 22).Conditions seem to be ripe for the start of a civil war in Kabardino-Balkaria, as Moscow appears to be running out of other options to retain control over this territory. The rebels apparently enjoy considerable support on the ground, which allows them to launch attacks and lose no fighters. At the same time, it is hard to see how the insurgency can translate its strength into political capital. There is no question that the Russian military could quell an open uprising in this small republic, with a population of 900,000. So the situation has reached the point of unstable parity between the government and the insurgency forces.Given the current political climate in Moscow, which is manifestly opposed to making deep and thoughtful political reforms, and the rapidly expanding influence of the rebels in Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia is likely to face the dire choice between withdrawing from the republic altogether or opting for a low-intensity civil war. Since Moscow has somehow managed similar conflicts in several other North Caucasian republics, it must be tempted to head down the path of an escalated war in Kabardino-Balkaria as well. Yet, there are also serious reasons why Moscow will try to avoid this. One of them is the viability of the Olympic Games in the nearby Sochi in 2014, which could be severely affected by serious skirmishes in Kabardino-Balkaria. Another, more strategic factor is the question of how many unstable regions Russia can sustain simultaneously, which could militate against Moscow making further moves in the increasingly stable Northwest Caucasus.A Fear of Three Letters through Ingushetia, a republic where people are more frightened of Russia's shadowy security forces than the Islamist militants. BY TOM PARFITT | MARCH 7, 2011 NAZRAN, Russia — In Ingushetia, a rugged outpost on Europe's southern perimeter, people lower their voices when they talk about the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB. Sometimes they just call it "the organization with three letters." For at least eight years, this tiny republic has lived in fear as one of the most unstable spots in the troubled North Caucasus -- even worse, in recent times, than neighboring Chechnya. But the violence is not just the fault of Islamist militants, acting with financial support from jihadists overseas. In truth, it is overwhelmingly homegrown, the result, in large part, of an ongoing campaign of repression by Russia's security services, dominated by the all-powerful FSB. During the Soviet period, the Ingush and Chechens (brother nations known collectively as the Vainakh) shared a republic here at the edge of the Eurasian steppe, where hamlets are scattered through the forest-cloaked foothills of the Greater Caucasus Mountains. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the two nations went their separate ways, and Ingushetia stayed mostly out of the two wars in the 1990s fought between separatists in Chechnya and the Russian army. ? Around 2002, however, the continuing guerrilla war in Chechnya began to spill into Ingushetia. In 2004, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev led an attack on police stations and other buildings in Nazran that left 98 people dead, including many civilians. In response, Russian security forces began extending their ruthless zachistki ("cleansing" sweeps) onto Ingush soil. The sweeps gave way to targeted assassinations and kidnappings of suspected guerrillas by squads of mask-wearing commandos. Russian law demands that prosecutors are informed of any detention within 12 hours and that a suspect is allowed to meet a lawyer before questioning -- but the siloviki, or security chiefs, were breaking these laws on a regular basis. In 2004, security forces whisked away at least 24 men who were never heard from again. Such flagrant abuses quickly swelled the ranks of the insurgency in this tight-knit, patriarchal society where poor treatment of a relative is not easily forgiven. By 2007, the militants were launching almost daily attacks in Ingushetia, strafing police cars and firing on security posts in Nazran and other settlements. In a republic with the highest unemployment rate in Russia (now 53 percent) -- its capital, Nazran, little more than a sprawling village -- this constant, open warfare became a self-feeding inferno. Bespredel, most Ingush called it the last time I was here, in the summer of 2008: a Russian word that translates roughly as "beyond all limits" or "extreme violence." After a policeman shot a prominent opposition leader in the head at point-blank range in Ingushetia's airport later that year, the Kremlin finally realized it had to act to stop the rot. It appointed a new president to the region, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, a decorated and decisive former army general who looked liked he had the nerve to straighten things out. There was a major setback in his first year -- a suicide bomber ramming a Toyota Camry packed with explosives into his car on his way to work -- but Yevkurov recovered and in November 2009 made a crucial decision. At a meeting with the republic's siloviki in his fortified compound, he warned them to rein in their excesses, which, he said, were only spurring the militants. "To be fair to the president, there was a lull in fatal abductions and extrajudicial killings for about a year from that moment," Timur Akiyev, director of the Nazran office of Russia's human rights group Memorial, told me last week. "Then the siloviki couldn't hold on any longer and they went back to their old methods." Yevkurov's peace ended abruptly. Until the autumn of 2010, things had looked promising. Out of 14 cases of abductions reported to Memorial in the first 10 months of the year, all the victims were eventually released or charged with crimes. (By contrast, in 2009, four people were later found dead or reported killed and five disappeared out of 13 abductions.) Then on Nov. 22 of last year, Dibikhan Pugoyeva, from Pliyevo village in central Ingushetia, tried calling her 17-year-old son Magomed Gorchkhanov, who was visiting friends in Nazran. Unable to reach his cell phone, she called the wife of an acquaintance who was meant to be driving her son and one of his friends home -- and heard that the car had been shot at and set on fire by FSB agents. The acquaintance was dead, and the two passengers were missing. In a panic, Pugoyeva and her relatives began making calls to the prosecutor's office and the police. No one had any information. At the morgue in Nazran, a friendly policeman on guard told her that only the driver's body was inside. Two boys had leapt out of the car and been taken into FSB custody, he said. The FSB denied this. "I didn't know what to do," Pugoyeva, 39, told me recently. "Nobody would give us an answer about what exactly happened." Then one day in December, she found an envelope in her front yard that someone had slipped under the gate. Inside the envelope was the memory card from a cell phone. On the card was a shaky video recording. It showed a burning car by a roadside and several figures in plainclothes leading two young men with their hands tied behind their backs to another car, where at least one is pushed into the trunk. The recording is fuzzy, but Pugoyeva says she recognizes both her son and his friend, the other passenger, named Aslan-Giri Korigov. "It's them," she said. "I'm sure." Seeing her son and his friend alive was reassuring, but her ordeal was not over yet. When Magomed had been missing for a month, police summoned Pugoyeva and told her he had been killed in a shootout with FSB officers near Pliyevo. A relative went to the morgue and was able to identify Magomed's clothes, but he couldn't identify the remains. "All that was left were lumps of flesh," said Pugoyeva. "He had been blown up." Another broken body was discovered nearby, possibly Aslan-Giri, but his family has refused to accept it's him. Prosecutors say they cannot open an investigation into Magomed's alleged kidnapping and murder until his remains are formally identified. Pugoyeva gave blood for a DNA test in December and was told it would take two weeks. She is still waiting. Magomed and Aslan-Giri weren't the only ones to go missing this winter. Four days before they disappeared, a group of commandos in a fleet of vehicles without registration plates came to the house of Israil Torshkhoyev, 36, an out-of-work taxi driver, in Altiyevo, near Nazran. After searching his house, they loaded Torshkhoyev into an armor-plated minibus and drove him away. Torshkhoyev's brother, Mussa, has spent the last three and a half months looking for him without being told a thing. Then on Dec. 22, in perhaps the most scandalous case of recent months, a 30-year-old Ingush woman, Zalina Elkhoroeva, was traveling across the border from North Ossetia in a taxi when masked men with automatic weapons detained her. She hasn't been heard from since. Elkhoroeva had been visiting her brother, Timur, who was then in a pretrial detention center in North Ossetia and has since been sentenced to four years in prison for leading a militant group. "Maybe they took Zalina in order to put pressure on Timur," said her aunt, Taykhant, when I visited her in the Ingush town of Karabulak. "I don't even want to think what might have happened to her." Nazran, it must be said, is calmer than it was when I was last here three years ago. Then, I would hear firing or explosions at night. Last week, an alleged boyevik (rebel fighter) was killed in a shootout in the center of the city and a makeshift bomb was defused in the town of Karabulak, but otherwise it was quiet. Some statistics are improving. An estimated 136 people died in Ingushetia in insurgency-related violence last year, compared with 273 in 2009 (the republic's population is 530,000). But though the FSB and other outfits can claim partial responsibility for the drop in deaths -- they "liquidated" or captured several senior militants like Said Buryatsky and the one code-named Magas, thus reducing the number of armed clashes -- they appear unable, or unwilling, to curb their own excesses. One state official in Nazran put it bluntly in a private conversation. "The FSB just does whatever it likes to achieve its goals," he told me. "No one can argue." It is a growing complaint across the North Caucasus. In September, Arsen Kanokov, the president of Kabardino-Balkaria, called on Moscow to give him direct powers over federal security services on his territory, saying their unwarranted arrests of innocent people were "filling the ranks of the boyeviki." According to Batir Akhilgov, a lawyer who works with the families of abductees in Ingushetia, security officers torture their captives for information about the location of rebel camps and safe houses, or, if they turn out to be innocent, force them to admit to unsolved crimes. No one knows who the perpetrators are because they are masked, without ID or insignia. Most analysts believe they are FSB operatives, but they could also be police special forces or officers from ORB, the local Operational Investigative Bureau of Russia's Interior Ministry. Akhilgov is representing a young man who was detained illegally for six days, during which he was punched and submitted to electric shocks through his fingers. "This is how it is done," he said. "The suspect is held for just as long as it takes to beat him into a confession and then he is charged." He added: "It is practically pointless for me to make a complaint in such cases because they are always ignored or rejected. Our courts are an integral part of the system." The impact is clear. One theory about the motive of the Ingush suicide bomber, Magomed Yevloyev, who killed 36 people at Moscow's Domodedovo airport in January, is that he was provoked by police officers killing his brother-in-law, a suspected insurgent. "Eighty percent of the young men who join the boyeviki do it to fulfill one desire," said Magomed Mutsolgov, a rights activist based in Karabulak. "Revenge." President Yevkurov is not giving up. In January, according to his press service, he once again tried to restrain the siloviki, meeting with them to warn that persecuting detainees would "only create new terrorists." Yet he seemed to admit his powerlessness in a Feb. 14 newspaper interview: "No one is guaranteed against a violation of the law during the active phase of a special operation." For now, the Kremlin appears unfazed by the ongoing brutality. On Feb. 22, President Dmitry Medvedev led a meeting of Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee in North Ossetia, the Christian republic bordering Ingushetia to the west. He spoke passionately about the need to attack the militant "degenerates," "in their dens, in their hiding places, wherever they are." Those insurgents "who want blood will choke on their own blood," local news agencies reported him as saying. Of abuses by the security services, he said nothing. Mutsolgov, whose own brother, Bashir, a schoolteacher, was kidnapped and vanished without a trace eight years ago, is impatient for change. "If we want to save Ingushetia, what we need is new schools and hospitals and factories. We need equal rights before the law. We need a sense of hope," he said. "What we don't need is terror and injustice." Tom Parfitt is a fellow of the London-based Royal Geographical Society and a former public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. His trip is supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.Church of Scientology Opens New Church in the Heart of Moscow Mar, 2011 06:34 CETThe Scientology religion has opened its first major Church in the Russian Federation—the new Church of Scientology of Moscow. The building stands in the city’s central Garden Ring, just a mile from Red memorating this new Scientology Church, Mr. David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board Religious Technology Center and ecclesiastical leader of the religion, declared: “It has been said that Russia cannot be understood with the intellect, that it cannot be measured by any common standard and that it can only be believed in. Well, let Russia now believe this: The Church that now stands in Moscow possesses a technology that is all but synonymous with the human spirit. It is a technology to bring forth the goodness in people and the greatness they are destined to achieve. It is a technology that is both kind and strong. It is a technology for freedom and wisdom.”Scientology established its first Church in the Russian Federation in 1993 after the fall of communism and has seen phenomenal growth in the years since. It has been recognized as a leading voice in the fight for universal human rights.The new Moscow Church not only meets the needs of its growing congregation of Scientologists, but also serves as the center for all faiths to unite for community betterment and social improvement in the name of religious freedom.The Church of Scientology of Moscow further coordinates the Church’s many humanitarian initiatives. The 65,000-square-foot building houses a Public Information Display presenting an introduction to all Church-sponsored programs, including those dedicated to drug education, literacy and human rights. The new Church also provides public conference rooms and an auditorium for religious community functions.The Moscow Church already stands at the forefront of Russia’s greater human rights movement. It works in coordination with the internationally renowned Moscow Helsinki Group, founded by Ms. Lyudmila Alexeyeva. Ms. Alexeyeva is one of the original Soviet era dissidents to decry communist oppression. She is also the recipient of the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. On the occasion of the Moscow Church opening, Ms. Alexeyeva stated: “For me, as a human rights advocate, all religions are equal in their rights. Your Church is particularly devoted to defending the freedom of belief not only for its own parishioners but for all religious people of any denomination.”The Church’s religious freedom victories are now legend. Scientology’s landmark decisions before the European Court of Human Rights set the standard for religious rights in all 47 member states. In recognition of what this new Church of Scientology represents to religious freedom, Mr. Boris Nikolayevich Panteleyev from the Russian Federation’s Public Chamber stated: “The precedents you have set in the European Court of Human Rights regarding your Church are very important for all those who stand for religious freedom. Today all lawyers, religious scholars, human rights advocates and representatives of other faiths carefully study these texts, seeing in them hope for justice and protection from discrimination in our own land.”Mr. Panteleyev, who presented the Church with a recognition commemorating its grand opening, continued, saying: “Scientologists work to see that all have the right to thought, to practice religion and to rejoice. You work to see that all people have the right to assemble, the right to establish and support their own churches and organizations; that they have the freedom to think for themselves and to the expression of their thoughts and ideas. These freedoms are the very manifestation of the individual spirit. So it is important that we rejoice today, for this is a glorious day in the name of freedom for all of Russia.”Scientology’s Drug Free World initiative is but one of the Church programs now adopted by citizens of the Russian Federation. Among its foremost advocates is Dr. Victor Ivanovich Cherepkov, two-term State Duma Deputy, who said: “The drug industry has taken its toll on Russians for years. Until recently we had no solution that could prevent the problem. Your drug education is well recognized in Russia. We are already using your literature and your methods in the fight against drugs. In fact, these are widely disseminated throughout Russia. And it’s spreading for one reason only: it simply is working everywhere and anywhere.”Dr. Cherepkov went on to say, “In the effectiveness of your anti-drug campaign, I see the wisdom of L. Ron Hubbard—the great teacher and philosopher. For he unlocked the human mind and human problems with knowledge, to free us from the wickedness of existence in the name of creation, perfection and kindness.”With the new Church of Scientology of Moscow, so begins the next historic chapter for Scientology. It is a chapter that not only signifies a renaissance for the religion itself, but a new era for religious and human rights in Russia.Russia Faces 3-Year Race to Secure Site of Olympics CLIFFORD J. LEVYPublished: March 7, 2011 SOCHI, Russia — Less than 250 miles separate the skating arenas being built here for the 2014 Winter Olympics and the home of a suicide bomber who killed 37 people at a Moscow airport in January. A little farther on is Chechnya, site of two civil wars and a still seething Muslim insurgency. In a neighboring region, three tourists on a ski trip were shot to death recently, and local resorts were closed as soldiers searched in vain for the assailants.The host nations for the Olympic Games inevitably worry about terrorism. But a glimpse at a map shows why the 2014 Winter Olympics, to be held in this Russian resort on the Black Sea, seem to be facing security concerns unlike any Games in recent memory. Sochi lies at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, the same region that since the Soviet collapse two decades ago has yielded so much turmoil in Russia. In fact, skiing events will be held on those mountains, albeit to the west of the majority-Muslim provinces that have spawned extremist groups. It is not only internal strife. The city of Sochi directly abuts Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions of Georgia that set off a brief war between Russia and Georgia in 2008. (The Olympic Park itself is only about five miles from the border.) Abkhazia has declared its independence, with staunch support from Russia and its military, and senior Georgian officials have responded by calling for a boycott of the Olympics. International Olympic Committee officials have expressed confidence in Russia’s ability to ensure that the Games are safe, even as fears have risen sharply in recent weeks with a spate of attacks. The Russian government has repeatedly stressed that it is devoting enormous amounts of money and resources to Olympic security. Senior Russian officials say they have many years of experience in killing, detaining, or, at a minimum, bottling up Muslim militants in the Caucasus. In an interview, a deputy prime minister, Dmitri N. Kozak, acknowledged that such groups would be likely to try to step up their activities as the Olympics drew closer. But he played down the significance of Sochi’s location, saying that the terrain was so difficult to traverse that it was easier to travel by plane from Moscow — about 850 miles — than over land from Chechnya. “Concerning geography, I would say that it is an illusion that there is more access to Sochi for terrorists,” Mr. Kozak said. “Sochi is isolated from the rest of the Caucasus — Chechnya and other such regions — by mountains that are not easily passable.” He said the Sochi Olympics would be a target for extremist groups around the world, not just those from the Caucasus. “Today, distance for terrorist organizations does not have much meaning,” he said. Yet, the Jan. 24 suicide bomb attack at the international arrivals terminal in Moscow’s showcase Domodedovo Airport seems to be weighing heavily on Olympic preparations, having raised fears that Muslim extremists from the Caucasus are turning their attention to foreigners in order to damage Russia’s image around the world. Soon after, the governor of the region around Sochi, Aleksandr N. Tkachev, called a public meeting to upbraid local officials for not doing enough to safeguard Olympic sites during construction, especially in light of the airport attack. He said reports from intelligence officials and investigators painted “an extremely disturbing picture.” “If we do not build a solid wall of security, not only for the athletes and guests at the Olympics, but also for Sochi residents, then we risk losing everything,” Mr. Tkachev said. “But for now, unfortunately, there is an enormous distance between what must be and the current reality.” The mood darkened even more on Feb. 18, when three tourists from Moscow who were on a ski trip to Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe, were gunned down by people suspected of being Muslim extremists who pulled over their vehicle. “A serious danger now exists for Sochi,” said Vadim M. Mukhanov, an analyst at the Center for Caucasus Studies in Moscow. “If before, the goal of the radical Islamic underground was to attack the police and security services, recently their slant has changed, and they have started going after tourists. And that is a very disturbing trend.” The rising tensions in the Caucasus are also threatening to spill into the international arena. A senior Russian lawmaker, Aleksandr P. Torshin, last week accused Georgia of organizing the Domodedovo bombing, though he did not provide any proof. The actual bomber was a 20-year-old from a village in Ingushetia, a region next to Chechnya. Mr. Torshin maintained that Georgia, under President Mikheil Saakashvili, wanted to foment instability in Russia. Other officials have gone further and insisted that Mr. Saakashvili hopes to turn the Olympics into a public relations disaster for Russia. Georgian officials have called such charges ludicrous. In Sochi late last month, the Russian government sought to demonstrate that it was heeding warnings about possible increased terrorist activity. At the Olympic Park, security officials used metal detectors to screen all workers and visitors. Trucks and other heavy equipment were searched and tagged with global positioning devices when they entered the site so they could be monitored. At the skiing areas in nearby Krasnaya Polyana, the FIS European Cup was conducting test skiing events. Police officers were stationed throughout the slopes, with some even guarding pylons that held aloft the cables for ski lifts. Competitors and spectators were required to wear badges and had to go through checkpoints. The races occurred without incident. Throughout Sochi, the municipal government has installed thousands of video cameras so that it can respond more quickly to security problems. One of the city officials who oversee the system, Iles P. Dzaurov, just returned from London, host of the 2012 Summer Olympics, where he observed the security precautions there. Standing before a bank of giant video screens with feeds from across the city, Mr. Dzaurov said he understood why people were nervous. But he contended that the city would be ready. “There are no grounds for concern,” he said. “We are on guard for anything that occurs, and we have a lot of experience doing this.” One Russian national killed, another wounded near France's Nice Russian national was shot dead and another wounded near the southern French resort city of Nice, a Russian diplomat said on Tuesday.Russia's Consul General in Marseilles Yury Gribkov said citing information from French police that the murdered Russian was identified as Mikhail Lanin, a businessman from Russia's Samara, a city on the Volga River.His female companion was identified as Yelena Pravoslavnaya, who was hospitalized with multiple gun wounds.Police found airplane tickets on Pravoslavnaya, which indicated they were both on the way to the airport in Nice for the flight to Samara via Moscow."Police got in touch with Lanin's son via Interpol and he has identified his father," Gribkov said.He added that the Russian Consulate General has no information as of yet on the purpose of Lanin's visit to France.PARIS, March 8 (RIA Novosti)WikiLeaks publishes new 'gas war' cablesToday at 07:47 | Peter Byrne The WikiLeaks whistleblower site on March 6 released six new classified U.S. State Department cables authored during the January 2009 gas crisis, when Russia then shut off gas supplies to Ukraine and Europe. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her counterpart Vladimir Putin on Jan. 19, 2009 reached a deal in Moscow to end the crisis. U.S. State Department cables released earlier provide insight insight into U.S. interest in Russia’s rocky relationship with Ukraine, top-level government corruption in the transit of Russian natural gas via Ukraine to Europe, Ukraine’s plans to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and consequences of Russia's full-scale military invasion of Georgia in August 2008.Future releases, to take place "over the months ahead," are expected to include more than 1,000 diplomatic cables originating from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv from December 2005 through February 2010.Presidential Administration deputy head Anna Herman in December said Ukraine "has nothing to fear" from the leaked diplomatic correspondence."What the current authorities say in tete-a-tete conversations is no different from the official position of our state and those who have power," Herman said. "We do not have double standards."Full text of the latest six U.S. State Department leaked by WikiLeaks are here. Read more: : France bullied Poland over Georgia war RETTMANToday @ 09:26 CETEUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - France threatened to harm a flagship EU policy for post-Soviet countries shortly after the Russia-Georgia war unless the Union forgave Russia for its invasion, a freshly leaked US cable says. The November 2008 dispatch from the US embassy in Stockholm reports that Johan Frisell, a senior Swedish diplomat, told US charge d'affairs Robert Silverman that France pressured Poland and Sweden into lifting the Union's only post-war sanction on Russia."France threatened to stall the Eastern Partnership initiative if the Swedes and others opposed to 'business as usual' with Moscow refused to resume EU-Russia talks, according to Frisell," Mr Silverman wrote. "Once the decision on talks on the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement [with Russia] was made, Sweden and Poland, co-drafters of the [Eastern Partnership] initiative, were given a green light to 'move ahead'."The French support for Russia came at a time when Russian troops were still parked in Georgia proper in violation of a French-brokered peace agreement.Previously leaked cables on the 2008 war show that France, Germany and Italy tried to soften the EU's reaction at every step of the conflict. France later cemented relations with Russia by buying a stake in its Nord Stream gas pipeline and selling it two state-of-the-art warships.The US memo also indicates that Poland and Sweden see the Eastern Partnership as a path to EU enlargement and security co-operation. "Frisell said that the Eastern Partnership was essentially an 'invitation' to the six states to join the EU internal market," Mr Silverman noted. "'Profound EU integration is every bit as important as Article 5 [Nato's mutual defence pact],' he added. Moscow is 'agnostic' on European Neighborhood Policy, in part because it has seriously underestimated the impact of soft power. To the extent that the Eastern Partnership's related security co-operation remains 'under the Russian radar,' it will be successful."Another cable out on on Monday (7 March) shows the influence on German politics of Matthias Warnig, a former officer in the east German secret police, the Stasi, who runs day-to-day affairs in the Nord Stream consortium. "The [US] ambassador asked whether the project [Nord Stream] has the full support of the German government. Warnig said yes, noting that he has regular, direct access to Chancellor Merkel's office and that Nord Stream chairman Gerhard Schroeder also meets frequently with Merkel," the November 2009 dispatch from the US embassy in Moscow says. Mr Warnig added that Russia's South Stream project, a plan to increase EU dependency on Russian gas, is a no-go, however: "He said that although he is a 'de facto employee of Gazprom,' he personally believes South Stream is unlikely to be built anytime soon."A third fresh cable gives a peek into what Ukraine's new foreign minister, Konstantin Gryshenko, really thinks of Russia."Gryshenko said that the Kremlin wants a 'regency' - someone in power in Kyev who is totally subservient. He noted that Putin ... has a low personal regard for Yanukovych," Mr Yanukovych's minister told the US embassy in Kiev in January 2009. "He observed that everyone in [the Russian government] government seemed to be part of the 'security brotherhood.' People are afraid to tell jokes; it is 'back to the USSR'," he added on Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his allies in Russia's FSB security service.National Economic TrendsMARCH 8, 2011Senior Bankers in U.S. to Advise Russia LIZ RAPPAPORT And DAN FITZPATRICK The Russian government has been reaching out to the top Wall Street investment banks and private-equity firms in an effort to bring more high-profile, foreign money to companies and projects in the country.The initiative is the brainchild of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and it includes a steering committee created last year that is chaired by Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, said people familiar with the matter.The steering committee has reached out for advice and guidance on Russia's economic development from the chief executive officers of major U.S. Wall Street powerhouses including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s Lloyd Blankfein, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s James Dimon, and Bank of America Corp.'s Brian Moynihan.The committee is called the International Advisory Council to the Presidential Commission on Moscow as a Financial Center. While the chief executives of these major firms agreed to advise Russia on its developing capital systems, they aren't expected to meet together in a room at any point. They have no official mandates to manage Russia's money or advise the government, said the people.One of the ideas discussed by some of the members of the committee was to entice foreign cash by putting Russia's own money into a fund with non-Russian investors, particularly private-equity firms. There is no specific fund currently being raised, said people familiar with the matter."The idea of creating [such a fund] is being discussed at various meetings," a spokesman for First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said. But he declined to discuss details of the steering committee and other details, saying the idea is still being discussed.Russian officials have reached out to test private equity firms' interest in Russia with executives at Blackstone Group LP, among others. Blackstone expressed interest in the idea, said people familiar with the matter. Other private-equity executives said they considered working with Russia on a prospective plan but decided against it.The Carlyle Group, which has invested in Russia in the past, several months ago decided against participating in the effort, according to someone close to the matter.The Financial Times reported Sunday that Russia is setting up a $10 billion fund to co-invest with international private-equity firms.—Gregory Zuckerman contributed to this article.Write to Liz Rappaport at liz.rappaport@ and Dan Fitzpatrick at dan.fitzpatrick@ Oil instability a windfall for Russia "Budget revenues have become considerable," Putin all but gloated on national TV amid unrest in the Persian Gulf.By ANDREW E. KRAMER, New York Times Last update: March 7, 2011 - 8:43 PMMOSCOW - Whatever the eventual outcome of the Arab world's social upheaval, there is a clear economic winner so far: Vladimir Putin.Russia, which pumps more oil than Saudi Arabia, is reaping a windfall from the steep rise in global energy prices resulting from instability in oil regions of the Middle East and North Africa. Riding the high oil prices, the Russian ruble has risen faster against the dollar this year than any other currency, which is helpful because it will curb consumer inflation during an election year.Russian stocks are buoyant, too: The Micex index closed last week at 1,781, up nearly 6 percent since the beginning of the year. (Monday was a holiday in Russia.)But the Russians could not step in to offset any potential big drop in global production, because Russia does not have any oil wells standing idle that would allow it to increase production. Right now Russia is pumping oil at its top capacity.But at last week's closing of $114, the price of each of those barrels of Ural crude, the country's main export blend, has risen 24 percent since the beginning of the year.Last week, Prime Minister Putin sat down for a televised meeting with Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin, which was nationally televised on state news channels for the public's enlightenment as the two discussed, just short of gloating, the benefits to Russia of a global oil panic."Mr. Kudrin, budget revenues have become considerable," Putin said matter-of-factly.Kudrin agreed, noting that if prices hold, Russia will be able to resume contributions to its sovereign wealth funds for the first time since the summer of 2008, when the global recession began.Russia is building a pipeline under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, called Nord Stream, and has proposed another similar pipeline under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. It says these pipes will reduce the risk of traveling overland through central European countries that are unfriendly to Russia, but some European governments have balked at the high cost and political subtexts of these projects.When Putin visited Brussels last month, he had a new argument for these pipes, which he has championed for years. "I am confident that the real long-term interests of the European economy lie with our resources," Putin said at a news conference. "Nothing matters more than stability."East Europe Today: Russian Credit Risk at Lowest Since 2008By Douglas Lytle - Mar 8, 2011 7:33 AM GMT+0100 Russia Credit Risk Declines to Lowest Since August 2008 (2) The cost of insuring Russian government debt against default fell to the lowest level since August 2008, according to CMA prices for credit-default swaps. Wheat Planting Falls to Four Year Low in Russia as Export Ban Hits Farmers Maria Kolesnikova and Marina Sysoyeva - Mar 7, 2011 5:43 PM GMT+0100 Russia’s ban on grain exports means the country’s farmers will plant the fewest wheat fields in four years, another sign that global prices will keep rising. Wheat plantings in the country, once the second-biggest exporter, will drop 2.3 percent to 64.2 million acres for this year’s crop, according to the median in a Bloomberg survey of as many as 19 producers, traders and analysts. Farmers can’t plant more because the ban imposed after last summer’s drought is limiting farm income. Diesel was 30 percent higher than a year earlier in January and OAO Acron, Russia’s third-biggest nitrogen fertilizer producer, raised some prices by more than 12 percent for the first half. The 84 million-metric-ton grain harvest anticipated in the survey is 1 million tons below what the government says it needs to consider lifting the seven-month-old export ban. The absence of Russian supplies comes as the U.S. says global grain inventories will drop 13 percent, riots topple leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and governments hoard food. “The situation in Russia is absolutely crucial,” said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, a London-based commodities analyst at Barclays Capital, the most accurate wheat-price forecaster in the first two quarters of 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. With global stockpiles reduced, “we’d be starting a year off on a much weaker footing,” she said. Wheat Prices While Russian wheat prices are 20 percent cheaper than futures on the Chicago Board of Trade, the global benchmark, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said March 2 the export ban could be extended from July through the end of 2011. Russian policies may mean no reversal in the 89 percent rally that began in June after drought and flooding from Canada to Russia ruined crops. The surge contributed to what the United Nations says were record-high global food prices last month. The S&P GSCI Index of 24 commodities rose 47 percent since June, the MSCI World Index of equities climbed 28 percent and Treasuries returned 0.8 percent, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch index shows. Wheat will average $8.98 a bushel in the next quarter, 11 percent more than the $8.09 traded by 4:35 p.m. in London, Barclays estimates. Societe Generale SA, the second most- accurate forecaster tracked by Bloomberg in 2010, is predicting $9.10, the highest quarterly average in more than three years. Ukrainian Curbs Natural disasters are cutting harvests around the world and forcing governments to forego revenue from international sales to ensure food security for their own people. Ukraine imposed grain export quotas last year and India banned shipments of lentils, onions and edible oils. China and Japan are selling from state food stockpiles. Egypt, Iraq, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia tendered for grains. Cyclones and flooding damaged crops in Australia this year and drought is threatening wheat in northern China. Costs may keep rising in coming months, with only rice keeping the world from a repeat of the previous crisis, the UN said March 3. More than 60 food riots occurred worldwide from 2007 to 2009, the U.S. State Department estimates. Russian farmers are already behind after planting 12 percent less winter wheat, a crop that normally accounts for 66 percent of the annual total, according to estimates of the International Grains Council, whose membership exceeds 50 countries. The country’s grain stockpiles will probably drop to 5.4 million tons by June 30, 75 percent less than a year earlier, the IGC estimates. Global inventory of wheat will decline 10 percent to 177.8 million tons, according to the USDA. Spring plantings could be bigger if the government provides loans to farmers, according to Pavel Skurikhin, president of the Moscow-based Grain Producers’ Union, which represents about 3,000 companies. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said March 2 the government gave farmers another 1 billion rubles ($35.5 million) to buy seeds and the same amount for fertilizers. Spring grain plantings in Russia usually start by April and the harvests are usually completed in October. Growing Conditions Harvests may also exceed expectations should growing conditions improve. “The early indications are that the crop is going to be more or less normal,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. “At this time last year we expected the record for Russia, and look what happened. So it still has to be seen in the context of assuming normal weather during the growing season.” The surge in wheat prices may slow as demand weakens. North African and Middle Eastern nations accelerated grain purchases to boost stockpiles and curb domestic prices as unrest spread. Grain Shipments Grain shipments from the French port of Rouen, Europe’s biggest cereal hub, to Algeria were the highest in more than six months in the week to March 2, to fill contracts concluded in past months, port data show. Egypt, the largest wheat importer, is “running on fear” and will likely buy less in coming months, said Mehdi Chaouky, a London-based analyst at Diapason Commodities Management SA, which has about $8.5 billion invested in commodities. Relief may also come from outside Russia. Combined global production of wheat, soybeans and corn will be 1.81 billion tons in 2011-2012, 16 million tons more than demand, Societe Generale estimates. That compares with a 40 million-ton shortfall in the current season. The bank is predicting higher prices in every quarter this year. While Russian wheat plantings are forecast to drop, production will rise 25 percent to 52 million tons, from last year, when about 37 percent of the crop was wiped out by drought, according to the median in the Bloomberg survey. Excluding 2010, this year’s harvest would be the smallest since 2007. Predicted Drop Production gains also disguise a predicted drop in yields. Russia’s most efficient farms will probably reap 3 tons a hectare (2.47 acres), 25 percent less than before the drought, said Mikhail Orlov, the founder of Moscow-based Ambika Group, which advises planters and agricultural investors. Yields will drop as farmers use less fertilizer, he said. Government officials will consider “the necessary measures to restrain prices” for fertilizers, Putin said March 2. Some farmers already pledged their land and equipment as collateral for loans last year after production declined in 2009-10, Orlov said. They may leave land fallow if no government loans are available by the spring plantings, he said. “We have survived, but we are not ready for the spring planting,” Alexey Sedov, a farmer from the south-central Saratov region, told Putin at an agricultural meeting in the central city of Tambov on March 2. “Seeds are a sore spot, especially since we under-planted winter grains, so there is a big pressure on the spring sowing.” U.S. farmers, the biggest exporters, will increase combined winter- and spring-wheat acreage by 6.3 percent to 57 million acres, the USDA said Feb. 14. It is scheduled to issue wheat harvest estimates March 10. Export Ban Some Russian farmers may switch to sunflowers and soybeans, said Alexander Korbut, vice president of Russia’s Grain Union. The Moscow-based group represents about 1,000 producers and traders. With parliamentary elections this year and a presidential vote in 2012, the Russian government may make fighting inflation a higher priority than allowing farmers to obtain international prices, said Jenia Ustinova, an associate in Washington at Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting company. Russian consumer prices will rise 9 percent this year, compared with almost 6.9 percent in 2010, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 12 economists. That’s almost five times the anticipated pace in the U.S. and more than four times the predicted gain in the euro region. Grain Markets Eventually, Russia will seek to revive its ambition to be a dominant supplier in global grain markets, according to Eurasia Group, which advises companies and government agencies. President Dmitry Medvedev created state trader United Grain Co. in 2009 to boost Russia’s exports to as much as 50 million tons a year by about 2025, from about 20 million tons before the ban. Russia is seeking a 20 percent share of the global grain trade, Agriculture Minister Elena Skrynnik said in June 2009. Russia was the world’s second-largest wheat exporter in 2009-10, the IGC estimates, shipping 18.8 million tons, behind the U.S. which exported 23.9 million tons. “The end of elections next year will mean a shift in focus for the policy makers,” said Eurasia Group’s Ustinova. “The pressure to control inflation and food prices will ease and government will prioritize long-term development. Moscow’s goal of becoming a grain superpower is intact.” To contact the reporters on this story: Maria Kolesnikova in London at mkolesnikova@; To contact the reporters on this story: Marina Sysoyeva in Moscow at msysoyeva@ Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussionsBombardier Transportation Acquires Stake in Russian Railways Subsidiary NewsDeskFollowing the signing of a share purchase agreement in Moscow on December 13, 2010, Bombardier is pleased to confirm today that BT Signaling B.V. purchased a stake in the signalling equipment manufacturer United Electrical Engineering Plants, known as Elteza. BT Signaling B.V. purchased a 25 per cent stake in Elteza, a subsidiary of Russian Railways (RZD). Subject to further approval, BT Signaling B.V. could increase its stake to up to 50 per cent. RZD will remain the majority shareholder.Elteza is Russia’s largest signalling equipment producer with more than 3,000 employees across seven manufacturing sites. The company focuses on the design, development and production of rail signalling equipment and automatic and remote train control systems which have been delivered in Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Baltic states. The new partnership will be one of the first successful examples of the privatisation of a Russian Railways’ subsidiary and part of the modernization strategy of RZD.Already strong partners in the signalling sector, Bombardier and RZD have a well established engineering joint venture, Bombardier Transportation (Signal) Ltd., in operation in Moscow since 1996. This partnership has worked in close cooperation with Elteza to equip over 100 Russian stations with BOMBARDIER EBI Lock 950 computer-based interlocking (CBI) technology. This new agreement leads to the creation of an Elteza department dedicated to new technologies and focusing on the manufacture of products including EBI Lock 950 as well as the latest generation of wayside products.Bombardier Transportation’s Rail Control Solutions portfolio covers the complete range of BOMBARDIER CITYFLO mass transit solutions, from manual to fully automatic systems, as well as communication-based systems. It also provides BOMBARDIER INTERFLO mainline solutions, from conventional systems to ERTMS level 2 systems. Bombardier solutions encompass a broad portfolio of wayside and onboard products.Source: BombardierKernel Eyes Purchase of Russian Oil Producer, Port, Rp.pl Says David McQuaid - Mar 7, 2011 7:24 AM GMT+0100 Kernel Holding SA (KER), the Ukrainian exporter of sunflower oil, is close to making a Russian acquisition that should be completed in the first half of this year, Rzeczpospolita reported on its Rp.pl website, quoting Patrick Conrad, Kernel’s director of investor relations. Kernel plans to buy a Russian oilseed processor for less than the 200 million zloty ($70.2 million) it paid for Allseeds Group in 2010, the newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information. The company also wants to buy another port in Ukraine within the next several months to add to its existing terminals in Nikolaev and Ilchevsk, at a cost of about $130 million, Rp.pl cited Conrad as saying. To contact the editor responsible for this story: David McQuaid at dmcquaid1@ Russian in and now rushing out Aris in Moscow March 8, 2011The gold rush into Russia's retail banking market has come to an end after Barclays Bank announced it plans to sell its high street bank, while reports say that HSBC is also looking to exit the country. HSBC and Barclays Bank would be just two of the most high profile foreign banks that have given up on Russia. With a population of more than 142m people, but a very low banking penetration – only one in four Russians have any sort of bank account at all, according to some surveys – the retail banking business was doubling in size every two years prior to the global economic crisis, leading to a stampede by international banks into the market from about 2004, which sent prices for banking acquisitions through the roof. Barclays paid top dollar for Expobank, based in Russia's Far East, in March 2008 for $745m (€531m) at the very top of the banking boom, valuing the bank at a whopping 3x book value. Over the next few years, Barclays rapidly rolled out a retail offering across the country. But in the middle of February, the bank announced it was seeking a buyer for its retail business and would focus solely on investment banking. "The people in London realize that they paid stupid money for these banks. There was a rush into Eastern Europe, but now they are willing to write off a big loss. It seems to me to be a very emotional decision," says Sergei Nazarov, head of Renaissance Asset Managers financial institutions fund. A week later, HSBC was also reportedly pulling the plug on its retail operations just two years after announcing ambitious growth plans, although the bank is insisting it "remains committed" to its business in Russia. "No decision has been made to exit one of our businesses in Russia," the bank said in an e-mailed statement on February 21. HSBC doubled its Russian unit's capitalization in the midst of the crisis and former CEO Stuart Lawson said the bank was, "targeting high net worth individuals as the cornerstone of its growth strategy." The bank launched what it called a "world-class retail offering" in June 2009, opening four branches in Moscow and one in St Petersburg as the starting point in an ambitious $200m expansion plan. However, a year later, Lawson left the company in what one banking source at HSBC described as an "acrimonious disagreement over strategy." The possible exit of the two British banks comes after a string of smaller banks have given up on the Russian market. Holland's Rabobank surrendered its Russian retail license last year. Spain's Santander sold its Russian business to local player Orient Express in December. And both Belgium's KBC Group and Swedbank, the biggest Baltic lender, have also cut back their Russian operations in the last year, citing stiff competition as the cause. Too big to beat The reasons for the whittling down of the number of foreign players are multiple. The crisis has obviously depressed earnings and saw the number of non-performing loans soar. At the same time, almost all of Russia's banks slashed interest rates as the crisis receded in an effort to rebuild their deposit bases, reducing the profit margins for everyone in the sector. Finally, the relentless expansion of the two state-owned giants of the sector – Sberbank and VTB Bank – means competition has become increasingly tough. Founded in the Soviet era, Sberbank is a monster with about 20,000 branches nationwide and accounts for 27% of Russian banking assets and 26% of banking capital. VTB's retail business, VTB-24, has more than 530 offices. Most of the bigger private retail banks have at best a few hundred branches, mostly concentrated in Russia's biggest cities. "Shrinking margins and growing competition means the days of easy money are over," says Roland Nash, chief investment officer of Verno Capital. "Those banks that have not built up sufficient bulk in the last few years are going to be pushed of the Russian market or bought up by the stronger players." However, a few foreign banks have succeed in gaining a toehold in Russia; foreign banks cumulatively account for just over a quarter of the sector's total assets as of January this year. France's Societe Generale has probably been the most successful after it bought a string of banks as well as launching a greenfield retail operation of its own over the last decade. The bank has almost 3m clients and its consumer unit posted a €13m profit in the fourth quarter of 2010, following a loss of €58m a year earlier, according to the bank's website. The bank predicts Russia will be the biggest contributor to it international retail earnings by 2015. Fiat seeks partner to expand in Russia??By Cyntia Barrera Diaz And Luis Rojas Mena, Reuters March 8, 2011 4:12 AMFiat SpA is in talks with several Russian automakers to expand in the fast-growing market and hopes to have a plan in place next month, chief executive Sergio Marchionne told Reuters Monday."We need to find the optimal way to get it done in terms of timing, in terms of cost, and I think we have until April to finalize our plan," Marchionne said. "We have people on the ground looking at this."TaGaz had been recently mentioned by European media as a possible partner for Fiat in Russia, but Marchionne did not single out the automaker, saying the company is in talks with "a number of people" about how to expand in Russia."I am confident we'll find a solution and if necessary, Fiat will do it alone," Marchionne said.Russian carmaker Sollers unexpectedly dropped a joint venture plan with Fiat earlier in February in favour of Ford Motor Co.Rivals like Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and Germany's Volkswagen AG have also rushed to forge ties with Russian partners.Marchionne described Europe as a "stagnant market." By contrast, Russia is expected to be the sixth-largest global auto market by 2020, up from its current position as No. 10, according to a Boston Consulting Group study last month.Russia will overtake Germany by 2018 as the largest producer of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in Europe, the consultancy said.In January, Fiat sold 788 vehicles in Russia, up from 640 in January 2010, making Fiat the 27th best selling brand in the country, according to the Association of European Businesses."(Europe) is an incredibly competitive marketplace so we need to find ways to continue to leverage the know-how that we have, that we built up inside the group as a result of the combination with Chrysler," Marchionne told Reuters.Marchionne is in Mexico to promote the production of the Fiat 500 out of the Chrysler Toluca plant, just outside Mexico City.The Fiat 500 is a small car aimed at competing with subcompacts like Honda's Fit or Ford's Fiesta.Asked about Fiat's plans for China, Marchionne said that "2011 is a transient year."We are actually importing cars out of Toluca into China. We'll bring the Fiat 500; we'll see how many the market will take." He declined further details.Marchionne said that one of the problems with Fiat is that the automaker has historically held a very strong position in Italy but is relatively weak in non-Latino countries."I think Chrysler will allow us, because of the architectures it brings out of the U.S. manufacturing base ... to play a significant role," he added.Fiat currently manages and has a 25 per cent stake in U.S. automaker Chrysler Group LLC, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 and is planning for an initial public offering this year.Before an IPO, Chrysler must refinance some $7 billion in government debt. The company is in advanced talks on its refinancing, people familiar with the matter said last week.Marchionne told reporters in Mexico City that Chrysler is talking to between one and 10 banks on its debt refinancing.VEHICLE RECALLSToyota Motor Corp. will recall about 22,000 vehicles because a tirepressure monitoring system might fail to notify drivers of a flat or deflated tire. The recall affects Toyota Sequoia, FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser, Tacoma and Tundra vehicles from model years 2008-11.Toyota has issued recalls of more than 13 million vehicles since September 2009 in the U.S. alone, including the recall of more than two million vehicles to correct problems with floor mats and other issues that could cause unintended acceleration.Meanwhile, Chrysler Group will recall about 20,000 Jeep Wranglers from model years 2010-11 to tighten the fasteners that attach the axles to the chassis. Federal safety regulators said the loose fasteners could lead to a loss of steering control, increasing the risk of a crash.And American Honda Motor Co. will recall about 37,000 Civic hybrids from the 2006-07 model years to replace a voltage converter that can cause the engine to stall and prevent the car from being restarted.McClatchy-Tribune News? Copyright (c) The Windsor StarRead more: in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)GOOGLE TRANSLATIONStockholm court begins hearings on the BP deal with Rosneft Arbitration Court today began hearing the suit of TNK-BP to the British oil company BP as part of its deal with Rosneft. About this RBC said a source familiar with the situation. Previously reported that in the Stockholm Arbitration will consider the claim of the Russian shareholders of TNK-BP - a consortium AAR - to BP for their involvement in a deal with Rosneft. Rosneft and BP 15 January 2011. announced a strategic alliance for the development of offshore fields in the Arctic. To develop three oil fields companies will create joint venture (JV), where Rosneft will hold 67%, and BP - 33%. Corporation also agreed to exchange shares. Rosneft will receive a 5% stake in BP, a British company in return would gain control over a 9.5% stake in Rosneft. Together with the existing shares in BP, Rosneft, which it acquired in 2006. during the initial public offering (IPO) "Rosneft's share in the Russian company will increase to 10,8%. The aggregate value of shares of BP, produced for the transfer of Rosneft, is approximately 7.8 billion dollars The consortium AAR, which owns a 50 percent stake in joint venture with BP - TNK-BP - January 27, filed suit in a London court, which asked to suspend work on these transactions. AAR claims that BP failed to warn and did not provide all the necessary documents for the upcoming deal with Rosneft, which is a violation of a shareholder agreement. In turn, BP says it will not prejudice the shareholders' agreement, and AAR has been timely notified of any plans for cooperation with Rosneft. As a result, the court froze the deal before the final review of the effect of claims AAR in the Stockholm arbitration. It was planned that the Stockholm Arbitration Court should consider the opinion of the board of directors of TNK-BP, but the meeting of the collegial body was postponed until March 12, 2011. A source familiar with the situation told RBC that the recommendations of management of TNK-BP board of directors concluded that TNK-BP buys 5% stake in BP for 7.6 billion dollars and exchange them for 9.5% stake in Rosneft. 8 March 2011 TNK-BP moves closer to Russian arcticPublished: March. 7, 2011 at 8:26 AMRead more: , March 7 (UPI) -- Anglo-Russian energy venture TNK-BP could join Rosneft and Gazprom in developing the Russian arctic shelf if terms are good, the Russian prime minister said.Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said TNK-BP might be able to persuade its oil and natural gas colleagues to tap into more domestic natural resources if the terms are favorable to all parties involved."There is a law, under which we have entrusted Rosneft and Gazprom with work on the shelf," Putin was quoted by Russia's official RIA-Novosti news agency as saying. "If TNK-BP offers suitable terms of joint work to one of the companies it can (join the project). Why not?"TNK-BP, a joint venture between a group of Russian billionaires and BP, is at odds with the British supermajor and Rosneft over an asset swap that included exploration deals in the Russian arctic.BP in January agreed to pay Rosneft more than $8 billion in shares for a 9.5 percent stake in the Russian energy company in addition to a development agreement for the Kara Sea on Russian's northern continental shelf.Putin brushed off the historic rival between TNK-BP and its London counterpart by noting any rivalry is an internal matter for each company to address."These are their problems, they must solve them between themselves," he said.GazpromLukoil and Gazprom sign gas supply agreement in Moscow, March 07, 2011 7:54 AM(Source: Datamonitor)OAO Lukoil and OAO Gazprom have signed a gas supply agreement in Moscow, under which gas will be supplied from Lukoil's fields in the Bolshekhetskaya Depression, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District and from the north of the Caspian Sea. Under the Agreement, Lukoil will supply natural gas produced from the Bolshekhetskaya Depression fields to Gazprom in 2012 2016. This gas will enter Gazprom's gas pipeline near Yamburgskaya compressor station. The supplied gas volume is expected to come to 8.35 billion cubic meters in 2012. This amount however may fluctuate depending on whether the Bolshekhetskaya Depression fields are launched into operation and will be affected by Gazprom's gas pipeline system load. The document envisages that as soon as Lukoil starts gas production at the northern Caspian Sea fields, Gazprom will seek to accept all of the Northern Caspian gas in its pipeline system and will supply the same volume of gas to LUKOIL Group's enterprises in accordance with the replacement plans.A service of YellowBrix, Inc. ................
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