Russia
Russia 091218
Basic Political Developments
• Kyodo News: Okada to visit Russia from Dec. 27 to discuss territorial issue
• Interfax: Putin, Tymoshenko discuss situation in Russian-Ukrainian trade, economic relations
• Russia Today: Putin calls for aviation boost - Vladimir Putin has ordered an extra $700 million to be pumped into the country’s aircraft manufacturers.
• Itar-Tass: Putin to discuss Russian navy development - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will travel to St. Petersburg on Friday to chair a meeting devoted to navy upgrading and development.
• Itar-Tass: Medvedev, Obama may reach START agt in Copenhagen-source
• Itar-Tass: Medvedev, Obama to discuss arms deal in Copenhagen
• China Daily: Obama, Medvedev to meet on nuclear weapons talks
• Timesonline: Obama and Medvedev set to meet over nuclear treaty in Copenhagen
• Reuters: Obama, Medvedev may get arms deal "in principle"
• Russia Info centre: No Russian Plutonium for NASA - Russia won’t supply any non-weapon-grade plutonium-238 for power sources of NASA’s space ships, 5 kilos of which were expected to arrive to the US in 2010.
• Eurasianet: AFGHANISTAN: RUSSIA EXPRESSES DESIRE TO RAISE ITS PROFILE IN KABUL – by Aunohita Mojumdar
• Voxy.co.nz: Joint New Zealand-russia Statement
• Itar-Tass: RF, New Zealand agree to develop economic cooperation
• RIA: Medvedev meets with Lebanese PM in Copenhagen
• The Moscow Times: Russia to Offer $200M to UN Climate Fund
• RIA: WWF welcomes signing of Russian climate doctrine
• RIA: Ecologists to survey Amur tiger numbers in Russia's Far East
• RIA: Russian energy institute says climate change due to Earth's spin
• : Russian Temps Turn Up Heat On Warmers - The Institute of Economic Analysis, an independent Moscow-based organization, issued the report Tuesday. It was titled, "How Warming Is Being Made: The Case of Russia."
• Russia Today: Renewable push looks for alternative environment - Alternative energy currently provides less than 1% of Russia’s energy but the government is planning to boost that to 4.5% by 2020. The country has huge potential to develop solar, nuclear, hydro and wind resources, and the business community is keen to innovate. But Robert Nigmatulin, Director of the Institute of Oceanology says the burden is too heavy without state support.
• Today.az: Russian expert: Russia to back supply of Azerbaijani gas to Iran
• Abc.az: Azerbaijan and Russia to resume Baku-Olya ferry line for next two months
• Abc.az: Russia expects signing of agreements on Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict settlement in 2010
• Today.az: Armenia, Russia sign partnership deal on export of military goods
• News.az: CIS countries agree to create nanotechnologies center - The founding documents of the CIS international innovation center were signed in Dubna (Moscow).
• : Georgia destroys Soviet monument, offends Russia
• ISRIA: Russia - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Head of the Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov
• Reuters: Sochi 2014 chief promises all venues will be ready
• RIA: Over 100 spies uncovered in Russia's Novosibirsk Region in 2009
• RIA: Russia's fastest train gets from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 3h 45m
• Reuters: Russia's fastest train makes maiden journey
• Business Week: High-speed train makes maiden Moscow-St Pete trip
• Bloomberg: Russian Lawmakers Submit Proposal to Ban Beer Sales at Kiosks
• Telegraph.co.uk: Russia 'to ban swearing' - A group of Russian senators is backing new legislation to ban swearing in public as part of a Kremlin-backed drive to clean up Russia's morals.
• Telegraph.co.uk: UFO pyramid reported over Kremlin
• The Moscow Times: Kadyrov Won’t Testify - A Dubai court on Thursday turned down an appeal by defense lawyers to summon Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to testify in a trial of two suspects in the March killing of former Chechen commander Sulim Yamadayev, RIA-Novosti reported.
• Itar-Tass: 3 suspects in murder of Islamic Institute rector Bostanov detained
• The Other Russia: Aushev’s Widow Hospitalized After Assassination Attempt
• The Jamestown Foundation: Circassian Opposition to the Kremlin Mounts in the Northwest Caucasus
• : Russia sets the terms for coming in from the cold - Russia aims to modernise without compromise
• Reuters: Russian tycoon closes in on Independent – FT
• NYTimes: Russian Passes Background Check, and Vote Looms on His Bid for Nets
• : New Job for Ex-Soviet Pilots: Arms Trafficking
• RIA: Peaceful atom: providing safe nuclear energy development in the Middle East
• The Moscow Times: Khodorkovsky a Grandpa
• The Guardian: Gordon Brown calls for full investigation into Magnitsky death
• OfficialWire: Russia Defence And Security Report Q1 2010 - New Report Published - New report provides detailed analysis of the Defence market
• Interfax: Poll: Majority of Russians support Medvedev
• Itar-Tass: All hostages taken by deserter released in Omsk
• RIA: Russian cadet briefly takes 4 hostage after row with girlfriend
National Economic Trends
• RIA: Russian monetary base up $3 bln in week to $137.639 bln
• Interfax: VTB forecasts reserves at 9% at year-end 2009; 10% in 2010
• Prime-Tass: Bailed-out banks return funds worth 74 bln rbl to Russia's DIA
• RF finance ministry ordered to earmark Rub 1.55 tln to plug gap in budget deficit
• Russia’s foreign trade turnover sinks 40.9% in January-October 2009
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
• Reuters: Russia eyes postal bank to rival Sberbank
• Bloomberg: Russian Rosavia Prolongs Airbus, Boeing Bidding, Interfax Says
• Reuters: Russia's Rosavia delays $2.5 bln plane deal
• Bloomberg: Magnitogorsk Says Profit Doubled on Steel Production, Prices
• Reuters: UPDATE 1-Russia's MMK misses Q3 forecasts due to write-offs
• Bloomberg: Rusal Said to Get Approval From Hong Kong Exchange for IPO
• Bloomberg: Rusal Said to Face Proposal to Limit Offering to Institutions
• The Moscow Times: Potash Trader May Sign Benchmark China Deal
• Reuters: McDonald's to target stay-at-home Russians
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
• Ukrainian Journal: Russia to boost European gas exports via Ukraine 20% in 2010, Naftogaz says
• RBC: ESPO pipeline to be launched soon - The official ceremony of launching the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline system will take place in a special seaport - Kozmino - on December 25-27, 2009.
• Oil and Gas Eurasia: Russian Crude Oil Exports to the Far East – ESPO Starts Flowing - By Platts' analysis
• The Moscow Times: Barsky Says Tycoons Good for Business
• Reuters: UPDATE 1-TNK-BP to boost 2010 crude output nearly 3 pct
• : Lukoil Moves Operations to Midtown - Lukoil Pan Americas is consolidating its crude oil and refined products trading operations, taking an 11-year lease for 20,433 square feet at the Blackstone Group’s 1095 Ave. of the Americas
• : Petroneft wins new Russia licence - The Dublin-listed, Siberian-focused oil exploration company Petroneft Resources has won a state auction for a 100 per cent stake in the Ledovy Licence 67 in Russia.
Gazprom
• Euroweek: BarCap closes syndication of Gazprom M&T L/C
• RBC: Gazprom Neft's 2009 investment program to double
• BarentsObserver: Gazprom discussed design of Teriberka
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Full Text Articles
Basic Political Developments
|Kyodo News: Okada to visit Russia from Dec. 27 to discuss territorial issue |
| |
|TOKYO, Dec. 18 KYODO |
| Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada will make a two-day visit to Russia from Dec. 27 for talks with his Russian|
|counterpart Sergei Lavrov over a long-standing territorial dispute and other issues, Okada told a regular press|
|conference Friday. |
Interfax: Putin, Tymoshenko discuss situation in Russian-Ukrainian trade, economic relations
MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) - Russian and Ukrainian Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Yulia Tymoshenko discussed trade and economic cooperation between the two countries during a telephone conversation, Russian Prime Minister‘s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
"The parties discussed the current aspects of the trade and economic relations between Russia and Ukraine," Peskov said.
The telephone conversation was initiated by Ukraine, he said.
Russia Today: Putin calls for aviation boost
18 December, 2009, 11:24
Vladimir Putin has ordered an extra $700 million to be pumped into the country’s aircraft manufacturers.
The money will be channeled to aviation holding United Aircraft-Building Corporation through the state-owned VEB Bank.
“A decision is to be made to contribute 21 billion rubles to the UAC charter capital," he said, adding that the measure had taken several months to draft. “It was studied very carefully and must be adopted today.”
“These funds were earmarked for the company's financial rehabilitation, and for settlements with creditors and providers,” Putin said. He said that the UAC early next year would receive an extra 10.7 billion rubles from the federal budget.
The UAC incorporates 18 enterprises, such as the holding company Sukhoi, foreign economic association Aviaexport, leasing company Ilyushin Finance, research and industrial association NPK Irkut, inter-state aircraft-building company Ilyushin, aeronautics company Tupolev and the Financial Leasing Company.
"This money will be spent not to plug holes, but to build new civil planes," the prime minister said.
Next year will see the first deliveries of the SuperJet- Russia's first new passenger plane since the Soviet Union – as well as a new version of the world’s largest aircraft the An-124.
Itar-Tass: Putin to discuss Russian navy development
18.12.2009, 05.34
MOSCOW, December 18 (Itar-Tass) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will travel to St. Petersburg on Friday to chair a meeting devoted to navy upgrading and development.
The government press service said Deputy Prime Ministers Sergei Ivanov and Igor Sechin, as well as Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov will participate.
Putin will also attend the floating ceremony of Kirill Lavrov tanker adapted for Artic navigation and intended to deliver oil round-the-year from Prirazlomnoe field. The tanker needs no ice-breakers when ice is up to 1.2 meters thick.
Itar-Tass: Medvedev, Obama may reach START agt in Copenhagen-source
18.12.2009, 09.04
WASHINGTON, December 18 (Itar-Tass) - The Presidents of Russia and the United States, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama may agree in principle on a new agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) during a meeting they will hold in Copenhagen on Friday, an official of the American administration said on condition of anonymity here on Thursday.
He said if the presidents manage to reach accord on the remaining issues of control over arms, it will be possible to reach an agreement in principle that nevertheless will require finalisation by negotiating groups.
Reuters reported that Obama and Medvedev could reach an agreement in principle on nuclear arms reduction in Copenhagen on Friday, leaving it to negotiators to finalize a deal in coming days, a senior US official said. With Washington and Moscow still grappling over a few key differences, the official insisted there was little chance the leaders would be ready to sign a finished accord when they meet on the sidelines of a global climate change conference.
“But if the presidents are able to come to terms on the remaining verification issues, it might be possible to reach an agreement in principle, which will still require the negotiating teams to finalize,” the official said in Washington.
According to the agency, there were no guarantees, however, that the Copenhagen talks would yield a provisional accord, given the latest signs of tension in US-Russian negotiations in Geneva despite the White House's insistence that “good progress” was being made.
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Itar-Tass: Medvedev, Obama to discuss arms deal in Copenhagen
18.12.2009, 04.34
COPENHAGEN, December 18 (Itar-Tass) -- The Presidents of Russia and the United States, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama, will meet on the sidelines of the climate summit in Copenhagen on Friday to discuss a new strategic arms reduction treaty that is to replace START that expired on December 5.
But no new deal will be signed in Copenhagen, Moscow and Washington said.
“The presidents plan to meet after the end of the summit. They will discuss actual bilateral relations, including preparations of a new treaty that is to replace expired START,” a Kremlin official said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said no new deal is expected to be signed. “That will hardly happen in Copenhagen,” he said adding a lot of technical work remains to be done.
“The negotiations are progressing, we are advancing to the goal,” Lavrov said.
Earlier, Medvedev’s foreign policy aide Sergei Prikhodko told Tass the content of the new treaty is much more important than the signing date.
“The signing date is certainly important, but thorough work on the treaty contents… is much more important,” Prikhodko said.
China Daily: Obama, Medvedev to meet on nuclear weapons talks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-18 14:04
WASHINGTON: Negotiations with Russia to replace an expired Cold War-era arms control treaty have bogged down and appear unlikely to be concluded by the end of the year as the White House had hoped.
As the two sides seek a breakthrough, US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, plan to discuss the nuclear negotiations in a meeting Friday on the sidelines of United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark. The two leaders are not expected to seal a deal.
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US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, say negotiations with Russia to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty have become hung up on a disagreement about how to monitor the development of new intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Obama and Medvedev initially had instructed negotiators to seek a fully ratified deal by the December 5 expiration of START. Recently Obama had expressed hopes that a deal could be completed by the end of this year.
The Obama administration has sought to make the negotiations a vehicle for demonstrating improved relations with Russia. They hope that greater cooperation on arms control can lead to Russian help on stickier issues including efforts to rein in Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions.
Officials said US negotiators would continue working with their Russian counterparts on the treaty through the weekend in Geneva after the meeting of the two presidents. Top negotiators may pause for the Christmas holidays, however.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed disagreements standing in the way of a deal.
Lavrov blamed the US delegation for slowing negotiations in the past few days. He told reporters in Moscow that the talks have now resumed their pace, but a deal is unlikely to be reached in time for Obama and Medvedev to sign it when they attend the climate summit in Copenhagen on Friday. He urged the United States to accept deeper cuts and less intrusive verification measures.
US officials said Russian negotiators were seeking changes from the original treaty on the encryption of missile flight data. The now-expired treaty banned such encryption so that each side could monitor missile tests from a distance. Using such data, monitors could determine whether the other side was developing missiles restricted by the treaty.
According to Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, Russia has less of an interest in monitoring such data because it is seeking to upgrade its missile arsenal while the United States has not been testing new missiles.
"The missiles the US have are the most accurate, deadly ones in existence," he said.
Despite the disagreements, US and Russian officials continue to express optimism that the treaty can be concluded soon. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the United States will not bend for a quick deal.
"It doesn't make sense to get something just for the sake of getting it, if it doesn't work for both sides," he said.
The expired START pact, signed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H.W. Bush, required each country to cut its nuclear warheads by at least one-fourth, to about 6,000, and to implement procedures for verifying that each side was sticking to the agreement.
Obama and Medvedev agreed at a Moscow summit in July to cut the number of nuclear warheads that each possesses to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years as part of a broad new treaty.
December 18, 2009
Timesonline: Obama and Medvedev set to meet over nuclear treaty in Copenhagen
The US and Russia are on the brink of a new arms control treaty that would reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals by at least one quarter.
A senior US official in Washington said US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev would meet on the sidelines of the Copenhagen climate summit today to discuss the delayed accord.
US and Russian officials have been holding intense talks in Geneva on replacing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) which led to deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals, but expired on December 5 without a replacement.
Mr Medvedev and Mr Obama had first pledged to sign the successor treaty by the time the original agreement expired. Then officials on both sides said the deal would be signed by the end of the year, possibly in a European capital.
The new version of Start would require each side to reduce deployed strategic nuclear warheads to roughly 1600, down from 2200, according to senior American officials. It would also force each side to reduce its strategic bombers and land- and sea-based missiles to below 800, down from the old limit of 1600.
But reports said that after the new pact was signed both presidents plan to send negotiators back to the table next year to pursue a far more ambitious agreement tackling whole categories of nuclear weapons never before subject to international limits.
The talks envisioned for 2010 would continue to advance Mr Obama's disarmament agenda and attempt what no US president has managed since the Cold War, The New York Times reported. In addition to further reducing deployed strategic warheads, the negotiations would try to empty at least some vaults now storing warheads in reserve. And the two sides would take aim at thousands of tactical nuclear bombs most vulnerable to theft or proliferation, some still located in Europe 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the paper said.
The effort was part of a broader initiative by Mr Obama to start down the road toward eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons and to transform the American military for a new era, the report said. A nuclear posture review due next month in Washington will propose an overhaul of the nation's strategic doctrine and force consideration of the question of how many weapons the US really needs without a superpower rival, including whether to eliminate one leg of the traditional ``triad'' of submarines, missiles and bombers, it said.
The Obama administration has sought to make the negotiations a vehicle for demonstrating improved relations with Russia. They hope that greater cooperation on arms control can lead to Russian help on stickier issues including efforts to rein in Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions.
Officials said US negotiators would continue working with their Russian counterparts on the treaty through the weekend in Geneva after the meeting of the two presidents. Top negotiators may pause for the Christmas holidays, however.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed disagreements standing in the way of a deal.
Mr Lavrov blamed the US delegation for slowing negotiations in the past few days.
"It is highly unlikely to happen in Copenhagen," Mr Lavrov said yesterday in Moscow. "The work is continuing. A lot of key issues have already been agreed upon but some things remain to be solved."
But the White House responded by saying that progress was being made and that a deal could be signed by the new year.
"Our goal remains to conclude a good and verifiable agreement by the end of the year," said National Security Council spokesman Michael Hammer.
Reuters: Obama, Medvedev may get arms deal "in principle"
Thu, Dec 17 2009
By Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev could reach an agreement in principle on nuclear arms reduction in Copenhagen on Friday, leaving it to negotiators to finalize a deal in coming days, a senior U.S. official said.
With Washington and Moscow still grappling over a few key differences, the official insisted there was little chance the leaders would be ready to sign a finished accord when they meet on the sidelines of a global climate change conference.
"But if the presidents are able to come to terms on the remaining verification issues, it might be possible to reach an agreement in principle which will still require the negotiating teams to finalize," the official said in Washington.
There were no guarantees, however, that the Copenhagen talks would yield a provisional accord, given the latest signs of tension in U.S.-Russian negotiations in Geneva despite the White House's insistence that "good progress" was being made.
The talks in the Danish capital follow Russia's call on Thursday for simpler verification procedures for planned cuts in nuclear weapons arsenals, while Washington insisted it wanted a deal that worked for both former Cold War foes.
"It's high time to get rid of excessive suspiciousness," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow earlier in the day.
Talks between the world's two largest nuclear powers to find a replacement for the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START-1, have stumbled in recent weeks, although both sides have said they expect an agreement to be reached in the near future. START-1 was the biggest pact to cut nuclear weapons in history.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said earlier the discussions were making good headway but that the United States was not interested in doing a deal for its own sake.
"We want something that works for both sides. We're going to work on this agreement until we get it right ... it doesn't make sense to get something just for the sake of getting it if it doesn't work for both sides," he said in Washington.
Obama and Medvedev had sought a new treaty by December 5, but that deadline passed and the old accord was extended indefinitely while negotiators in Geneva try to forge a new pact. An Obama administration official said on Wednesday arms negotiations were likely to extend into 2010.
On Thursday, another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive state of discussions, raised the prospect Obama and Medvedev might set parameters to guide negotiators in working out final details and set a deadline for them to do so. The official declined to elaborate.
TENSIONS SURFACE
Tensions came to the surface on Thursday.
"In the last couple of days we have noticed some slowing down in the position of U.S. negotiators in Geneva," Lavrov said earlier. "They explain this by the need to receive additional instructions. But our team is ready for work."
Gibbs denied Washington was dragging its feet.
Lavrov, whose ministry is leading the negotiations together with the U.S. State Department, said a deal was unlikely to be signed this weekend in Copenhagen.
Both sides say finding a replacement to the START-1 treaty would help "reset" relations between Moscow and Washington that had sunk to a post-Cold War low in recent years.
Negotiations in Switzerland have been proceeding under unusually tight secrecy and neither side has given a clear explanation for the delay in finding a deal.
The START-1 treaty, signed in July 1991 by U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, took nearly a decade to achieve but under the deal both Russia and the United States more than halved their nuclear arsenals.
Obama and Medvedev said at a Moscow summit in July they wanted a new treaty that would reduce operationally deployed nuclear warheads to 1,500 to 1,675, a cut of about a third from current levels.
They also agreed that strategic delivery systems -- the missiles, bombers and submarines that launch nuclear warheads -- should be limited to between 500 and 1,100 units.
Lavrov said he hoped the cuts in the new treaty would be as drastic as possible but added that verification procedures, which were extremely strict under START-1, should be made "less complicated and less costly."
Precise figures on deployed nuclear weapons are secret, but the U.S.-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimated at the start of 2009 that the United States had about 2,200 operationally deployed nuclear warheads and Russia about 2,790.
(Additional reporting by Conor Sweeney in Moscow and Alister Bull in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Russia Info centre: No Russian Plutonium for NASA
18.12.2009
Russia won’t supply any non-weapon-grade plutonium-238 for power sources of NASA’s space ships, 5 kilos of which were expected to arrive to the US in 2010.
Order for the same amount of plutonium for 2011 also won’t be fulfilled. Russia and NASA are working on new conditions for signing a plutonium contract.
If Russia won’t supply any plutonium after 2011, then the United States would have to reconsider launch programme for automatic space stations, NASA officials say. NASA recently announced its need for 30 kg of plutonium for three orbital missions, scheduled to start for 2020.
USA doesn’t produce this element since late eighties of the previous century, preferring to use Russian plutonium, which is known to be of better quality.
Eurasianet: AFGHANISTAN: RUSSIA EXPRESSES DESIRE TO RAISE ITS PROFILE IN KABUL
Aunohita Mojumdar 12/16/09
A derelict building stands on the broad Darul Aman Avenue leading to Afghanistan’s parliament. In the 1990s, gunfire, shelling and rocket attacks caused its roof to cave in, and these days the air inside is foul. Abandoned, the structure is now primarily a haven for drug addicts.
But the building may not be neglected for much longer. The Russian government has expressed a desire to renovate the former Russian Cultural Center as part of its plan to restore up to 150 industrial, commercial and cultural sites that Moscow had sponsored during its 10-year occupation of Afghanistan, says Russian Ambassador Andrey Avetisyan.
Since Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Moscow has been extremely wary of involving itself in Kabul’s affairs. But these days, the Kremlin’s cautious outlook appears to be changing. Not only have Russian officials begun cooperating with NATO and the United States on ferrying military supplies to Afghanistan, Moscow looks likely to step up humanitarian aid, trade, and military assistance. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
"We have been playing it kind of low-profile for the past eight years possibly because Russia was looking for its place in the modern Afghan situation," Avetisyan told EurasiaNet. "We have been waiting for a moment. [...] This moment seems to have come because in Afghanistan we see at last not only fighting but some efforts to revive this country, to build again its economy, to do something for education."
"It is very good because we have been telling our Western friends that by fighting only terrorism you can’t win here," Avetisyan added.
While Russia has had an uneasy relationship with the presence of nearby US military bases in Central Asia and Afghanistan, Russian diplomats say they value cooperation. Moscow views instability in Afghanistan as a greater threat than the proximity of western forces, Avetisyan indicated. "We support the international forces here. We are not interested in their defeat because otherwise we will have to deal with this problem in the future and I think it is in our common interest to join forces to stop it," the ambassador said.
Afghan analysts appear to welcome Russia’s assistance, while agreeing that instability there is also a grave problem for Russia.
"It is important for Russia to have peace and stability here," says Shahmahmood Miakhel, a former deputy interior minister and current head of the United States Institute of Peace’s Kabul office. "Most of the [Afghanistan-grown] narcotics go through Russia, and they are also worried about the extension of extremism to Central Asia, Chechnya and Russia."
"If there is terrorism in Afghanistan, it will affect the entire world," added Abdul Rahim Oruz, a senior Foreign Ministry official tasked with working on Russia.
The difficulty that the West has had in fostering sustainable economic development in Afghanistan over the past eight years has caused some Afghans to develop a sense of appreciation for bygone Soviet-built infrastructure projects. "Russia has expertise in building infrastructure projects in Afghanistan. Some of these projects were destroyed and others need rehabilitation," said Oruz, expressing optimism about Russian plans to invest. "If we want to rebuild the Salang [tunnel connecting northern and southern Afghanistan], for example, another country would need to start from the beginning. But Russian experts who worked on it are still there and they can do it."
The tunnel, opened by the Soviets in 1964, is indeed something Russia is interested in rehabilitating. However, in its new role, Moscow hopes to collaborate with Western states for whom the tunnel serves as a vital transport link. "We are discussing with the Americans the possibility of trilateral cooperation," said Avetisyan. "We still have expertise in that and certain Russian companies have already done the feasibility study. We are now trying to agree upon investments for this, and if we come to an agreement, then the Salang tunnel can be restored quickly because it is the most important part of the [resupply] route."
Russian businesses - which have been mostly absent since the fall of Kabul’s Communist government in 1992 - are now hoping to get a share of the lucrative Afghan market. Insecurity and the high costs of operating in Afghanistan ensure that donor funded projects are given high overhead costs, making investment a profitable prospect for businessmen willing to take risks. "Here in Kabul I am receiving Russian businessmen who want to start their business even with minimal levels" of protection, says Avetisyan. "The special feature of Russian business is that they do not demand such high levels of security as Westerners or the Japanese."
The Afghan government is keen to cultivate the renewed Russian interest.
"Russia can and should play a more active role in Afghanistan," said Davood Moradian, Director General of the Center for Strategic Studies in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Avetisyan contended that Russian-Afghan relations no longer carry a heavy burden of history. "As far as feelings in Afghanistan towards Russian are concerned, it is absolutely friendly. All my colleagues who meet Afghans everyday [...] tell me there is absolutely friendly feelings towards Russians," he said, denying past baggage related to the Soviet occupation. "I can’t feel it and all Afghans - ministers, MPs, prominent members of Afghan society - tell me the same thing: That chapter is now closed."
Moradian, however, offers a very different assessment of the recent past: "We have neither forgotten, not forgiven. We have postponed [the question of] how to deal with the past."
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul.
Voxy.co.nz: Joint New Zealand-russia Statement
Friday, 18 December, 2009 - 11:05
New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
At the invitation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand Murray McCully visited the Russian Federation on a working visit on 16-17 December 2009.
The Ministers conducted talks in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and friendship, characteristic of the Russia-New Zealand relationship, and discussed a wide range of bilateral and international issues.
Having noted that 2009 marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and New Zealand, Sergey Lavrov and Murray McCully expressed satisfaction with the positive nature of practical bilateral cooperation and the recent strengthening of political dialogue.
The ministers agreed to effectively exploit the potential of trade and economic, scientific and technical, cultural and educational cooperation in the interests of two countries. In particular, it was noted that the increasing exchanges of students and tourists were signs of the diversifying bilateral relationship.
The ministers emphasised the special importance of increasing trade and economic ties between Russia and New Zealand. Murray McCully stated that New Zealand fully supports Russia's accession to the WTO.
Russia and New Zealand underlined a shared commitment to strengthen Asia-Pacific regional integration and deepening cooperation in regional organisations, including APEC.
It was confirmed that Russia and New Zealand intended to continue the constructive cooperation in the area of Antarctic research within the framework of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.
Sergey Lavrov and Murray McCully reviewed nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament issues in detail, and emphasised the importance of achieving positive results at the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There was a detailed discussion of other current international problems, including the situation in Afghanistan, prospects for addressing issues in the Middle East, Iran's nuclear programme and the nuclear problem of the Korean peninsula.
Murray McCully conveyed a request to Sergey Lavrov for Russia to support New Zealand's candidature for election to the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member for 2015-2016. The Russian side stated that New Zealand's request would be given thorough attention with account of the traditionally friendly nature of the bilateral relationship.
The ministers expressed hope that positive results would be achieved at the 15th session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change / 5th Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen.
Murray McCully extended an invitation to Sergey Lavrov to visit New Zealand. The invitation was accepted with appreciation.
Itar-Tass: RF, New Zealand agree to develop economic cooperation
17.12.2009, 18.39
MOSCOW, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and New Zealand have agreed to develop economic cooperation.
An agreement to this effect was reached after the talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries, Sergei Lavrov and Murray McCully, on Thursday. The ministers also agreed that New Zealand Trade and Conservation Tim Groser would visit Moscow in the beginning of 2010.
“We discussed cooperation in the Asia Pacific Region. We seek to take an active part in integration processes in the region and in discussions on security in the Asia Pacific Region,” Lavrov said.
In his words, during the talks, “the parties noted a big role played by ASEAN and the Regional Security Forum”. “We intend to strengthen security regimes within ASEAN. “However this should be done in a transparent manner, without creating ‘private clubs’,” the Russian minister said.
Moscow “praises New Zealand’s role in ensuring economic stability in the region”. “In international affairs we call for complying with the norms of international law and strengthening the U.N. role. We develop close cooperation in the field of disarmament and the WMD non-proliferation,” Lavrov said.
“We are satisfied with today’s talks. There is a broad area for continuing cooperation,” the Russian minister added.
McCully said the New Zealand government intended to establish closer relations with Russia. “Russia is a global player making an important contribution to solving pressing problems. We welcome Russia’s constructive work in the region,” he said.
At the same time, McCully stressed that both parties “have chances to expand trade and economic cooperation”. In this context, the New Zealand Trade and Conversation Minister, Tim Groser, would visit Russia in the beginning of 2010.
Russia and New Zealand established diplomatic relations more than 50 years ago, on April 13, 1944 when both countries jointly struggled within the anti-Hitler coalition.
“Our diplomatic contacts help step up a constructive political dialogue and create favourable conditions for the ongoing development of bilateral cooperation in many fields,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.
He recalled that the foreign ministers had regular meetings on the sidelines of different international events. In June Lavrov and McCully met in Thailand within the ASEAN Regional Forum. The ministries of the countries held talks in Wellington in March 2009.
Nesterenko considered the development of inter-parliamentary relations rather successful. In January 2007 New Zealand parliament speaker Margaret Wilson made an official visit to Russia to take part in the 15 session of the Asia Pacific parliamentary forum. Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov paid a return visit to New Zealand in January 2008. Parliamentary groups maintain regular contacts.
“New Zealand became the first developed country with which Russia ended successful talks on the accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The corresponding protocols were signed in 2003 and 2004,” Nesterenko said. “From 2004 Wellington takes part in financing a programme of chemical disarmament in Russia within the G-9 Global Partnership,” the diplomat added.
“We are convinced that the upcoming visit to Moscow by the New Zealand minister will be a considerable contribution to the development of Russian-New Zealand cooperation in different spheres,” Nesterenko stressed.
RIA: Medvedev meets with Lebanese PM in Copenhagen
03:4818/12/2009
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has met with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Copenhagen, where he arrived on Thursday in order to take part in the UN climate change conference.
The Russian president told Saad Hariri he hoped they could discuss "not only climate-related issues, but also issues of... bilateral relations" during their stay in the Danish capital.
Saad Hariri said in his turn that Dmitry Medvedev's decision to meet with the Lebanese delegation showed Russia's interest in developing bilateral cooperation with his country.
After the meeting with Hariri, Medvedev headed to an unplanned meeting of heads of state and delegations of countries - participants of the Copenhagen climate talks.
The 15th UN climate change conference, the result of two years of international talks on a binding treaty to cut global carbon emissions, began in the Danish capital on December 7.
Friday is the final day of the talks, which bring together about 15,000 participants from 192 countries. However, negotiators have so far failed to reach an agreement on how to fight climate change.
U.S. Secretary Hillary Clinton told participants of the Copenhagen talks on Thursday that time is running out for the international community to address the issue of global warming.
On Monday, Medvedev announced that Russia would restrict its greenhouse gas emissions to 25% of 1990 levels by 2020.
The president wrote on his blog that Russia could reduce the release of 30 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year by enhancing its energy and environmental efficiency through economic modernization based on energy-saving technology and the development of renewable energy sources.
COPENHAGEN, December 18 (RIA Novosti)
The Moscow Times: Russia to Offer $200M to UN Climate Fund
18 December 2009
By Irina Filatova
Russia is ready to contribute $200 million to a multibillion-dollar fund to support poor nations, but it won’t sign a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to cut pollution unless other major carbon dioxide emitters also agree to cuts, Kremlin aide Arkady Dvorkovich said Thursday.
President Dmitry Medvedev flew to Copenhagen to deliver a short speech Friday at the end of a chaotic two-week United Nations climate change summit, where negotiators were scrambling to write an intelligible draft to present to world leaders.
Russia’s contribution to the summit is minimal, with the major problem being a deadlock between United States and China on carbon cuts. But Russia is also the world’s third-largest emitter, after the United States and China.
Hopes for a strong UN climate pact appeared slim until U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Thursday that Washington supported the creation of a $100 billion fund by 2020, adding political drive to negotiations also aimed at reaching agreement on many other measures, including saving rainforests, boosting carbon markets and stiffening global carbon emissions cuts.
Dvorkovich said Russia would consider the summit, the climax of two years of talks, a success if major emitters from both developed and developing countries agreed on their own emissions cuts.
“We realize that signing a global agreement in Copenhagen is virtually impossible. Nevertheless, this conference is one of the stages toward the signing of such an agreement,” he said.
He said Russia was ready to cut emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, but only if the United States, China and other emitters agreed to fair reductions as well.
Medvedev said earlier this week that a new climate pact would only work if all countries cooperated on cuts. “Our piecemeal efforts will be ineffective and senseless,” he said in his videoblog Monday.
Nevertheless, Russia is not insisting that all countries cut emissions as they tackle global warming because there are other measures that can be taken as well, Dvorkovich said.
But all countries have to adopt some kind of measures, he said. “This is a key principle for us, and an agreement will not be reached without it,” he said.
The new treaty must also provide “convenient” conditions for the transfer of technology, recognition of a country’s forests as gas absorbents and financial support for developing countries, Dvorkovich said.
Dvorkovich said poor nations needed assistance relinquishing fossil fuels and Russia was prepared to contribute $200 million in climate aid. Before Clinton declared the United States’ support for a $100 billion fund, the European Union had proposed a fund of $150 billion to help poor countries go green.
The Copenhagen summit is meant to reach a global climate deal that would serve as the foundation for a legally binding treaty next year to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The measures aim to avoid dangerous climate change and promote a greener global economy less dependent on fossil fuels.
Russia’s emissions fell by about 30 percent from 1990 and 2000, leaving it with a surplus of carbon credits. Under the Kyoto Protocol, a country with a surplus of emissions quotas may sell them to other countries.
Russia is ready to consider selling its quotas to other countries if it helps negotiators reach a new agreement, Dvorkovich said. But he added that he doubted that Russia would sell its quotas this way.
“I think Dvorkovich was ironic while talking about quotas,” said World Wildlife Fund climate expert
Alexei Kokorin. “He meant that Russia was not going to sell its quotas in big chunks, but if any country needed our help, we would help it.”
He said Russia might sell quotas to Japan or Canada, which fail to fulfill the conditions of Kyoto Protocol.
“It’s more of an issue of saving political face for Japan and Canada. It’s a political problem rather than an economic one,” Kokorin said.
Russia could also sell smaller slices of quotas to Italy and Spain, Kokorin said.
Oleg Pluzhnikov, a senior official from the Economic Development Ministry, said earlier this week in Copenhagen that Sberbank was negotiating a possible sale of quotas. He said some sales might take place before the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Meanwhile, Dvorovich said Medvedev on Wednesday had signed a climate doctrine that analyzes the possible consequences of climate change on Russia and how Russia’s energy market would be affected by new climate measures.
“The main part of the doctrine is devoted to the measures we should take in order to increase the energy efficiency of Russia’s economy,” Dvorkovich said.
Russia plans to increase the energy efficiency of its economy by as much as 40 percent by 2020, Medvedev said on the videoblog.
Dvorkovich said Russia would increase the energy efficiency of its economy whether or not the global climate agreement was signed.
“This is beneficial for us. It will make Russia’s economy more competitive,” he said.
RIA: WWF welcomes signing of Russian climate doctrine
21:5317/12/2009
The World Wildlife Foundation has welcomed a Russian climate doctrine signed by the president earlier on Thursday.
WWF Russia noted the document's importance in light of the ongoing UN climate change conference in Denmark.
Russian Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev earlier said the doctrine on government measures focuses on energy efficiency.
Alexei Kokorin, the head of WWF Russia's climate program, said: "the educational measures in the doctrine need to be immediately implemented."
"It is extremely difficult for people to understand the real state of affairs, to distinguish between short-term man-induced effects and long-term natural effects. It is sad that the media organizes totally unfounded discussions on the causes of climate change, when we are already at the next stage - formulating measures," he said.
On Monday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that Russia would restrict its greenhouse gas emissions to 25% of 1990 levels by 2020.
The president wrote on his blog that Russia could prevent the release of 30 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year by enhancing its energy and environmental efficiency through economic modernization, based on energy-saving technology and the development of renewable energy sources.
Medvedev will attend a meeting of heads of state and government on Thursday in Copenhagen, where the UN climate change conference has been underway since December 7.
MOSCOW, December 17 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Ecologists to survey Amur tiger numbers in Russia's Far East
11:4918/12/2009
Russian ecologists will carry out a census of the Amur tiger population in the Primorye and the Khabarovsk territories, a World Wildlife Fund spokesman said on Friday.
"This year Amur tiger population monitoring is especially important, as before the global summit on tiger preservation that will bring heads of states to Vladivostok in September 2010, the research should confirm or refute data on the tigers' population obtained last year," the spokesman said, adding that the exact data will be revealed in March.
According to Russian representative of WWF biodiversity preservation Sergei Aramilev, if there is evidence that the tiger population is on the decline then additional monitoring will be carried out across their entire range.
Experts say poaching is the number one cause of declining populations in the region.
The last Amur tiger population census carried out in 2005 showed there were 428-502 adult individuals in the Primorye and the Khabarovsk territories, the only parts of Russia inhabit by the tigers. In 1995, there were 415-467 adult Amur tigers living in the area.
Monitoring of the tiger population in carried out annually in separate areas.
In June, the Russia and China agreed to start preparations to create a cross-border nature reserve to protect endangered Amur tigers and Far East leopards.
Amur tigers, also known as Siberian tigers, are the largest subspecies of tigers, growing to over 3 meters in length and weighing up to 300 kilograms. They are on the World Conservation Union's critically endangered status list, and there are only about 500 of them left in the wild. Since 2006, poachers are known to have killed around 10 in Russia's Far East.
VLADIVOSTOK, December 18 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Russian energy institute says climate change due to Earth's spin
22:4217/12/2009
The head of a Russian energy strategy institute has claimed that fears over planet-warming emissions are exaggerated, and that observed climate change is in fact due to the slowing of the Earth's rotation.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will enter its final day on Friday, with world leaders trying to agree on global measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012. Scientists have warned that the emissions cuts so far offered at the summit would fail to prevent a catastrophic rise in temperatures.
However, Vitaly Bushuyev, general director of the Energy Strategy Institute set up by Russia's Fuel and Energy Ministry, insists that the main reasons for climate change are being ignored.
"Cyclical changes, including climate change, have always existed and will continue to exist," Bushuyev told RIA Novosti.
"Climatologists tend to limit their research to the planet's thermal balance. In effect, they merely study the influence of solar radiation or its lack as caused by the greenhouse effect. In reality, a powerful energy force is linked with changes in the Earth's rotation speed, which is now slowing down.
"Even if the planet's rotation speed slows down insignificantly, at a rate of one second every few years, this process still generates a tremendous amount of energy, which would exceed the amount of electricity generated by all power plants around the world.
"This is why we believe that current climate change is not linked with any man-made factors or emissions from burning fuels, but is primarily determined by energy emissions into the Earth's atmosphere. Such emissions are determined by changes in the Earth's rotation speed," he said.
However, Bushuyev did not deny the danger of greenhouse gas emissions, saying any small changes can trigger larger ones.
"I have always believed and still think that it would be incorrect to go from one extreme to another and to claim that there is no impact and that the environment is something irrelevant, or to say that everything depends entirely on environmental factors.
"Humans increase or reduce this influence. We can even express this influence in percentage terms. Even a small increase in some critical change can become a decisive factor and trigger some process," he said.
He called for countries to join efforts to find the best way of deal with the looming environmental dangers.
"We must now work out a common approach, one based on the environment, energy and the economy. A common approach is the only way that would enable us to make the right decision regarding the development of our civilization," he said.
Bushuyev, 70, was deputy fuel and energy minister from 1992 to 1998.
MOSCOW, December 17 (RIA Novosti)
: Russian Temps Turn Up Heat On Warmers
By SEAN HIGGINS, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 07:26 PM ET
A Russian think tank alleges that climate-change data obtained from that country have been cherry-picked to overstate a rise in temperatures. With Russia accounting for a large portion of the world's land mass, incorrect data there could affect the analysis of global temperatures.
The Institute of Economic Analysis, an independent Moscow-based organization, issued the report Tuesday. It was titled, "How Warming Is Being Made: The Case of Russia."
It alleged that England's Hadley Centre for Climate Change and the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the U.K.'s two top climate research outfits, had improperly selected climate data from Russia.
The Hadley Centre has issued a statement saying it was impossible for them to have tampered with the data. The same statement conceded possible flaws, but these were due to "the limited availability of Northern Hemisphere high latitude observations." It further claimed that its data may actually have underestimated the warming trend in Russia.
Climate Fallout
The Russian study is part of the "climategate" fallout regarding the e-mails and other data leaked from the CRU last month. Some of the information appeared to show top climate scientists expressing private doubts about their data and in other cases tweaking them to bolster warming claims.
The leaked data reignited debate over global warming science. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has demanded a hearing into the leaked data.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, during a press conference to announce that the agency now had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases on its own, disputed that the leaks showed any need to reexamine the underlying science.
In the wake of the controversy the CRU and Hadley Centre placed some of their previously private climate data in the public domain. The IEA study examines the data as they pertain to warming in Russia.
The entire study has not been officially translated into English but institute president Andrei Illario-nov discussed the findings with IBD. He also wrote a summary of them for the free market Cato Institute, where he is a senior fellow.
According to Illarionov, an analysis of the climate data shows that the data in Russia came from just 25% of the country's meteorological stations and missed about 40% of the country's land mass.
The chosen stations tended to be the ones closer to large population centers, which tend to be warmer.
"(The report) is an analysis of what stations have been used, what stations have not been used and, based on this analysis, it looks like the real actual temperature dynamics ... in Russia, that is the increase in warming, have been artificially increased by 0.64 degrees Celsius," Illarionov told IBD.
Russia accounts for 12.5% of the world's total land mass, he notes, and argues that this calls for a reevaluation of United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's finding that the global temperature rose 0.76 degrees Celsius over the last century.
"The IEA report concludes that it is necessary to recalculate all global temperature data in order to assess the real rate of temperature change during the last century. Global temperature data will have to be modified because the calculations used by Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change analysts are based on (Hadley-CRU) research," Illarionov wrote in his Cato posting.
William Yeatman, climate policy analyst for the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, notes that outside examination of the CRU and Hadley Centre data has only just begun.
"If (the Russians) have isolated some sketchy scientific practices, chances are they going to isolate some more," he said.
Hadley Defends Data
In a statement e-mailed to IBD, the Hadley Centre disputed claims that there had been any data manipulation.
"The World Meteorological Organisation (sic) chooses the set of stations designated as essential climate stations that have been released by the Met Office," the statement read.
It further stated: "These are evenly distributed across the globe and provide a fair representation of changes in global average temperature over land. We do not choose these stations and therefore it is impossible for the Met Office to fix the data."
The same statement also said the overall data were limited by the lack of the high latitude observations. Dave Britton, spokesman for the Met Office, the U.K.'s top climate organization, which includes the Hadley Centre, said that despite these limitations they had "every confidence" in the data. The IEA's claim that they only use a percentage of the Russian climate data available misses the point, he says.
"If we use every single piece of temperature data that is available then we would probably suggest that the (Russian) warming would actually be greater," Britton said. They don't use all data, he explains, because they must be quality-controlled, taken from reliable sources and "consistent with other temperature data sets."
He added that the Met Office would publish all underpinning station data as soon as it can. That may take a while though because those data come from climate centers in many different countries, some of which may not be willing to give up their intellectual property.
The IEA's Illarionov has had a colorful, high profile career in Russia. A former top economic adviser to former President Vladimir Putin, he quit in late 2005, criticizing the government for backsliding on democracy.
He subsequently founded the IEA and is now identified with Russia's political opposition. He is also a longtime critic of global warming claims.
"Illarionov is a notorious climate change skeptic," said Samuel Charap, Russia scholar at the liberal Center for American Progress. "He is a serious economist, but he has some very strong opinions."
Russia Today: Renewable push looks for alternative environment
17 December, 2009, 20:10
Russia should shift its focus from oil and gas and begin developing alternative energy. But members of the International Energy forum say innovations will require state investment and social and economic policy changes.
Alternative energy currently provides less than 1% of Russia’s energy but the government is planning to boost that to 4.5% by 2020. The country has huge potential to develop solar, nuclear, hydro and wind resources, and the business community is keen to innovate. But Robert Nigmatulin, Director of the Institute of Oceanology says the burden is too heavy without state support.
“Governments in all the developed countries contribute a lot from their budgets. To make innovation a reality, Russia needs to change its social and economic course. We need to redistribute incomes, adjust the tax system and change budget policy.”
Russia recently adopted new legislation on energy efficiency, but the law doesn’t outline how the state can facilitate alternative projects. Businessmen complain that the energy reform – aimed at attracting investment, creating a free market and updating old capacity – has failed to meet expectations. Nadezhda Gerasimova, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma says there is too much red tape.
“There’s still too much bureaucracy in our legislation, especially for start-up projects. That hinders small business engagement in the innovation sector. We are expecting changes. The government should also work harder to encourage scientists.”
But following a massive brain drain in the 1990s innovative science in the country is lagging the rest of the world. Russia now has to turn to foreign expertise. Experts say the clock is ticking as Russia's hydrocarbon resources shrink and their exploration demands more and more money.
Today.az: Russian expert: Russia to back supply of Azerbaijani gas to Iran
18 December 2009 [12:32] - Today.Az
Professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations Igor Tomberg says Azerbaijan and Iran may maintain long-term cooperation in gas sphere.
“Why it not to be long-term? As the prices suit both sides, Azerbaijan will be able to implement gas production plans in new fields and diversification is only positive. Russia will surely back gas supply to Iran, but not to Europe via Russia’s alternative gas pipelines,” said Igor Tomberg, head of the Russian Academy of Sciences Oriental Studies Institute Center for Energy and Transport Studies.
“I do not rule out joint supplies through the South Stream and Blue Stream-2 with Russia in future. The transit issue is very important. Gazprom will either transit supplies or will be second-hand dealer as in case with Turkey,” the expert said.
Tomberg believes that increase in Azerbaijan’s gas supplies may impede implementation of the Nabucco project.
"Depending on Azerbaijan’s export potential, in two to three years increased number of non-European importers of Azerbaijani gas may hinder construction of Nabucco. It seems that so large number of gas pipelines in the direction of southern Europe is not necessary. One can expect that next year there will be talks about a symbiosis of the South Stream, Nabucco, Blue Stream, and possibly other projects in a new joint project, more cost-effective and resource-backed,” the professor added.
Abc.az: Azerbaijan and Russia to resume Baku-Olya ferry line for next two months
Baku, Fineko/abc.az. The delegation of the government of Astrakhan Oblast (a federal subject of Russia) visiting Baku currently has had meetings in the Ministry of Transport and Azerbaijan State Caspian Company (Kaspar).
At today’s Baku session of the Caspian-European Integration Business Club (CEIBC) Astrakhan Oblast’s vice governor Konstantin Markelov informed that during negotiations it was voiced support to resumption of ferry carriages between port of Baku and Astrakhan port Olya halted as the sides failed to load them with cargo.
“Ater solution fm logical schemes the sides are to resume ferry traffic for the next two months. We have also plans on organization of transportation by railroad ferry ships,” Markelov said.
He said that with potential capacity of 4 million tons Olya port is handling 1 million tons of cargo a year.
“It was decided to transfer port organizations from Astrakhan centre to Olya port. I think that we will be able to increase port’s turnover up to 8 million tons and plan to bring it up to 30 million tons,” he said.
A range of new terminals will also be constructed in the port.
Abc.az: Russia expects signing of agreements on Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict settlement in 2010
Baku, Fineko/abc.az.
Russia expects breakthrough in negotiations on peaceful settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno Garabagh conflict.
Today in Baku Vladimir Dorokhin, the Russian ambassador to Azerbaijan, has stated that if (accent was made on word “if”) the negotiation process goes as fast and good as in 2009, then there are chances to hope for any concrete results.
Following the Garabagh conflict Armenia has occupied 20% of Azerbaijani territory and evicted 1 million people from places of permanent residence. Since May 1994 Armenia and Azerbaijan have been applying ceasefire regime.
Today.az: Armenia, Russia sign partnership deal on export of military goods
|[pic] |
18 December 2009 [10:53] - Today.Az
Yerevan hosted the 4th session of Armenian-Russian Intergovernmental Committee on Military-technical Cooperation on Dec. 14-17.
Discussion was chaired by Armenia’s Deputy Defense Minister Alik Mirzabekyan and Deputy Head of Russian Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service Constantine Biryulin.
On Dec. 16, Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan and Co-Chair of Armenian Armenian-Russian Intergovernmental Committee on Military-technical Cooperation Constantine Biryulin signed an agreement on export of military-technical products to third Countries.
In his Speech, Minister of Defense Seyran Ohanyan noted the agreement’s key role in deepening Armenian Russian military cooperation and strengthening military efficiency of both countries’ armed forces.
News.az: CIS countries agree to create nanotechnologies center
Fri 18 December 2009 | 07:26 GMT
The founding documents of the CIS international innovation center were signed in Dubna (Moscow).
The documents were signed by representatives of the ministries, national academies of science, trade and industrial chambers, scientific and educational centers, state and private companies in the sphere of high technologies from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Ukraine, says a news release of interstate humanitarian cooperation foundation of the CIS member-states,.
"The center aims at creating new instruments of the scientific and innovative cooperation, joint access to the world competitive markets, gaining superiority in the innovative development of the CIS countries and organization of joint actions in the sphere of innovations", said Alexander Sisakyan, director of the Associated Institute of Nuclear Studies.
He noted that as the year of 2010 is declared the year of science and innovations in the CIS states, the creation of the center will become one of the key events of the next year in the CIS area.
"There are high quality research and educational facilities in the CIS countries but they are often isolated by the business world and they do not create a "critical mass" necessary for innovations. The Center will become a mechanism that combine three sides of the "triangle of knowledge" (education-research-innovations) and will raise the capacity of the countries to transform the results of studies and innovations into commercial innovations", Sisakyan said.
The CIS Center is being created in Dubna as a center whose activity is aimed at forming the highly technological CIS market of nanoindustry with international competitiveness. The Center will become a tool of integration of the CIS innovative, research and educational area.
The initiative to create the center belongs to the Associated Institute of Nuclear Studies, it is supported by the interstate foundation of humanitarian cooperation between the CIS countries.
: Georgia destroys Soviet monument, offends Russia
Published: Friday 18 December 2009
Diggers tore into a Soviet World War Two memorial in Georgia on 17 December to make way for a new parliament in the former Soviet republic, angering Russia and opponents of pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Saakashvili wants parliament sessions to be relocated to Georgia's second city of Kutaisi under an initiative to revitalise the former industrial hub.
But the demolition of a 46-metre-high concrete and bronze war memorial at the proposed construction site has been criticised by Georgia's opposition and Russia, which fought a brief war with US ally Georgia last year.
The Russian Defence Ministry issued a statement saying it was "concerned", and Duma deputy and former prime minister Sergei Stepashin said it was "sacrilege".
Critics said the move reflected an indifference to public opinion by authorities under Saakashvili, whose rejection of Georgia's Soviet past has been his signature policy since taking power on the back of the 2003 'Rose Revolution'.
Some 300,000 Georgians died fighting for the Soviet army during World War Two. "The decision to dismantle this memorial without asking the people and without asking the author of this memorial is a very good example of how our leadership ignores public opinion," said Georgy Akhvlediani of the opposition Christian Democrats.
Naked horseman
One part of the monument, a statue of a naked Georgian horseman in front of the main concrete structure, has already been removed. Authorities said it would be relocated within Kutaisi, 236 km (147 miles) west of the capital Tbilisi.
Municipal construction official Jemal Tsuladze told Reuters the bronze sections of the monument, built in 1982, would be kept in storage, but the main structure was too big to move.
"It was a government decision and we are just implementing it," he said. Kutaisi city officials could not confirm Russian media reports that the main structure - designed by Georgian sculptor Merab Berdzenishvili - would be blown up on 21 December, the birthday of Saakashvili which he shares with Josef Stalin.
A spokeswoman for Saakashvili declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Russian officials said it was a crime. "The [...] criminal nature of such evil acts must be raised at all international events," Alexei Ostrovsky, a committee chairman in the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, told RIA Novosti.
Relations between Russia and Georgia show no sign of improving since they fought a five-day war in August last year, when Russia crushed an assault by US ally Georgia on the breakaway pro-Russian region of South Ossetia.
The monument dispute has echoes of Estonia in 2007, when Russia reacted furiously to the removal of a statue of a Soviet Red Army soldier in the capital Tallinn.
(EurActiv with Reuters.)
ISRIA: Russia - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Head of the Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov
Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Good evening. Yesterday, three GLONASS navigation satellites were launched from the Baikonur space centre. How did the launch go?
Anatoly Perminov: The launch went as planned. Three GLONASS navigation satellites were launched by the Proton carrier rocket. We plan another three launches in 2010, which will bring nine satellites into orbit and thus fulfil President Dmitry Medvedev's objective of completing the GLONASS satellite grouping of 24 satellites by the end of 2010.
Vladimir Putin: Currently there are 19 satellites in orbit, aren't there?
Anatoly Perminov: Correct. These three satellites have to be introduced into the grouping to ensure their effectiveness and bring them into operation. Then we must...
Vladimir Putin: Wait a second. How many satellites will be in orbit by the end of this year?
Anatoly Perminov: By the end of next year there will be...
Vladimir Putin: No, I mean this year.
Anatoly Perminov: We will have 19 operational satellites.
Vladimir Putin: And by the end of 2010?
Anatoly Perminov: If everything goes according to plan we should launch another six satellites.
Vladimir Putin: And one will be taken out of service?
Anatoly Perminov: Possibly. But I think that we will be able to launch three satellites in February, another three in August, and the remaining three in November, thus adding a total of nine satellites to the GLONASS satellite grouping.
If one, or even two of the currently operational satellites are taken out of service, even in this case the objective set by the President will be accomplished.
Vladimir Putin: And the system will have a global reach?
Anatoly Perminov: Yes, with 24 satellites in place the system will have a global reach.
Vladimir Putin: Will the remaining satellites serve as backups?
Anatoly Perminov: Yes, the remaining devices will be operational but will serve as backups. The Americans do the same: 27 of their 30 space vehicles are operational. Of this number two satellites are currently being serviced.
Vladimir Putin: What about the ground-based facilities?
Anatoly Perminov: We are currently focusing our attention on a special programme that services our users' ground-based facilities. We have accomplished a lot this year, with over 50% of the various air, ground, sea and river-based transport facilities put into operation. We have also been implementing pilot projects in 51 regions.
Vladimir Putin: How are you getting along with users?
Anatoly Perminov: We are arranging our contacts on the nationwide scale, and our users' ground facilities will be able to receive a signal for free. As for the project's commercial aspect, we have established a national operator that is now active and has formed a board of directors. The first meeting of the board was chaired by Sergei Shoigu at the National Emergency Management Centre, where the activities will be planned both for Moscow and nationwide.
Vladimir Putin: What about international cooperation within the GLONASS project?
Anatoly Perminov: International cooperation is based on mutually beneficial terms. According to the agreements we have signed with several countries, we provide commercial signals through the main operator.
Vladimir Putin: What countries are your main partners?
Anatoly Perminov: We have signed agreements with a large number of countries, including India, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Nicaragua. An agreement with Belarus in progress.
Reuters: Sochi 2014 chief promises all venues will be ready
Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:08am IST
By Gennady Fyodorov
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Sochi 2014 chief Dmitry Chernyshenko has dismissed any concerns about the city's ability to host the Winter Olympics and promised that all the venues will be built on time.
A senior Moscow regional official had suggested that his area could host the 2014 Olympic bobsleigh and luge events if Sochi could not build its track on time.
"If the situation with Sochi becomes difficult we can help," the head of the Dmitrov region, Valery Gavrilov, told reporters last weekend at the site of Russia's first bobsleigh and luge track in the village of Paramonovo, just north of Moscow.
Chernyshenko dismissed Gavrilov's suggestion, saying: "I'm sure Paramonovo will host many wonderful international competitions but the 2014 Olympic bobsleigh and luge events will be held in Sochi.
"I guarantee that all Olympic venues will be built on time," he told Reuters.
Sochi needs to build most of the venues and infrastructure from scratch and, despite Chernyshenko's assurances, the construction of the bobsleigh and luge track has given local organisers a headache.
In July, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered organisers to move the track to a new location after the original site was criticised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as "environmentally unfriendly".
Putin said the move had been agreed with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
This week, a powerful winter storm swept through Sochi, causing major damage to the Black Sea port and creating havoc at some of the Olympic venues.
(Editing by Clare Fallon;
To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@)
RIA: Over 100 spies uncovered in Russia's Novosibirsk Region in 2009
09:0118/12/2009
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) indentified more than 100 foreign agents operating in the Novosibirsk Region in 2009, the regional department said on Friday.
The southwestern Siberian region's research institutions and technical enterprises are the focus of foreign special services' interest.
"This year, more than 100 foreigners were revealed who were employed by or belonged to the intelligence apparatus of foreign secret services," the regional branch of the FSB said in a statement on the year's work.
An official said that in some cases, members of foreign special services are expelled from the country, but many are simply kept "under control" by counterintelligence officers.
In summing up the year, the FSB also said it had filed 68 criminal cases for corruption, with nine high-ranking officials being convicted, broke up 11 international smuggling operations and 10 drug-trafficking rings.
NOVOSIBIRSK, December 18 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Russia's fastest train gets from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 3h 45m
05:0218/12/2009
Sapsan, Russia's first train capable of travelling at a speed of 250 kmph (155 mph), made its first commercial run between Russia's two largest cities in a record time of 3 hours and 45 minutes.
The train departed from the Russian capital at 07:00 p.m. local time [16:00 GMT] and arrived in the Russian second city of Saint Petersburg at 10.45 p.m. local time [19:45 GMT], at precisely the scheduled time.
It takes approximately eight hours for most Russian trains to cover 650 km (about 400 miles) that separate Moscow from Saint Petersburg. Nevsky Express, which had been considered Russia's fastest train, is able to cover the distance in 4 hours and 30 minutes.
The train, of the Velaro RUS series, is a joint project between Russia's railway monopoly RZD and Germany's Siemens. It has 10 cars, of which two are first class and eight are second class, and can carry 604 passengers. The track gauge is 33 cm wider than in Germany to ensure it is appropriate for Russia's railroad tracks.
Tickets to Sapsan cost 5,300 rubles ($175) for the first-class coaches and 3,300 rubles ($110) for the second-class coaches. During the first week of the service, tickets will be sold at a discount.
Sapsan made its first unofficial journey in late November, when it evacuated passengers from the Nevsky Express train, which derailed as a result of a bomb attack, killing 26 people and injuring over 90.
Two Sapsan trains will make three runs daily - at 06:45 (arrival time 10:30), at 13:00 (arrival time 17:15) and 19:00 (arrival time 22:45).
The two Nevsky Express trains are due to be removed from the route as Sapsan comes into operation.
RZD signed a deal to buy eight Sapsan trains from Siemens in 2006, followed by a maintenance contract in April 2007.
SAINT PETERSBURG, December 18 (RIA Novosti)
Reuters: Russia's fastest train makes maiden journey
Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:17am IST
By John Bowker
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's first high speed train left Moscow for St Petersburg on Thursday, weeks after a bomb killed 26 on the same busy route.
A rousing burst of recorded brass music accompanied the departure from Moscow of the "Sapsan", which means peregrine falcon in Russian, the planet's fastest bird.
Travelling at up to 250 km (155 miles) an hour, the Sapsan will cut the journey time between Russia's two main cities to three hours 45 minutes from at least four and a half hours, delighting business travellers.
Tickets for the maiden journey of the sleek train which sports a red, aerodynamic-styled nose quickly sold out.
"This is fantastic news for Russia. I changed my plans to take this train. The government should have done this long ago, especially on such a busy route," said Konstantin, one of the passengers.
Sapsan's launch comes as a high profile show of government support for Russia's state-owned railways following the attack on the luxury Nevsky Express train on the same route on the night of November 28.
Islamist militants later claimed responsibility for the bombing, the worst in Russia outside the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region since 2004.
"Of course I am worried about bombs given what happened recently," said passenger and energy ministry official Alexander Savyelev, who snapped pictures of the train's distinctive nose on his mobile phone before embarking from Moscow's Leningradsky station.
"I didn't actually know I was on this train until five minutes ago as my manager booked it. I thought, why is the journey time so short?" he added.
GERMAN-BUILT
The Sapsan was built by German industrial group Siemens, which won a 30-year, 630 million euro ($907.5 million) deal to supply and service eight of the trains in 2006/07.
State-controlled Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin also took the maiden passage.
"I have my ticket and I will take this train," he told a throng of reporters and television crews before heading out onto the freezing platform.
High speed rail tops many government agendas as a more environmentally friendly alternative to short haul flights.
The Sapsan train claims to be quicker than flying when journeys to and from airports are taken into account, though it is much slower than trains in China and South Korea that can top 300 km (185 miles) an hour.
It will run three times a day each way, can carry more than 550 passengers, and will cost $175 for first class and $115 for economy class.
(Additional reporting by Yuri Pushkin and Gleb Stolyrov)
Business Week: High-speed train makes maiden Moscow-St Pete trip
MOSCOW
December 17, 2009, 3:52PM ET
A new high-speed train in Russia has arrived in St. Petersburg from Moscow in its maiden voyage, less than three weeks after the bombing of an express train on the same line killed 27 people.
Russian news agencies said the Sapsan, which means peregrine falcon, completed its three-hour, 45-minute journey Thursday night with a full compliment of more than 600 passengers. It can reach a top speed of 155 mph (250 kph) on Russia's rail infrastructure.
The minimum rail journey time between Russia's two capitals had been using the Nevsky Express, which took 45 minutes longer to complete the roughly 435-mile (700-kilometer) journey. A terror attack Nov. 27 caused a Nevsky Express train to derail.
Bloomberg: Russian Lawmakers Submit Proposal to Ban Beer Sales at Kiosks
By Maria Ermakova
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Russian lawmakers have proposed banning beer sales by kiosks to curb alcohol consumption.
The proposals were submitted to Russia’s lower house of parliament, known as the Duma, the legislature’s committee on economic policy and entrepreneurship said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The proposed law would also ban sales of low-alcohol drinks at kiosks.
The “accelerating and endangering growth of beer and low- alcohol cocktails consumption,” especially by young people, made the ban necessary, Viktor Zvagelskiy, a lawmaker and a member of the committee, said in the statement.
In June, President Dmitry Medvedev asked the government to find ways to fight excessive drinking. Annual alcohol consumption in Russia averages about 18 liters (38 pints) per person, according to Russia’s Alcohol Market Regulation Federal Service. The World Health Organization estimates 8 liters as an “acceptable volume of consumption,” the service said in a report in November.
To contact the reporters on this story: Maria Ermakova in Moscow at mermakova@
Last Updated: December 18, 2009 01:01 EST
Telegraph.co.uk: Russia 'to ban swearing'
A group of Russian senators is backing new legislation to ban swearing in public as part of a Kremlin-backed drive to clean up Russia's morals.
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 8:00AM GMT 18 Dec 2009
The law would be based on an existing scheme in the Russian region of Belgorod where police hand out on-the-spot fines for anyone overheard using foul language in public.
The fines there range from 500 roubles (£10) to 1,500 roubles (£30). People heard cursing in front of children are fined the most.
Mikhail Nikolayev, deputy chairman of Russia's upper house of parliament, or Federation Council, is pushing the improbable initiative.
"Swearing should cease to be part of our everyday life," he says, adding that the scheme in Belgorod, started in 2005, has produced encouraging results.
A clutch of fellow senators is supporting Mr Nikolayev's plan.
The move comes as the Kremlin seeks to tackle rampant alcoholism, a culture of heavy smoking, and a steady stream of hardcore violence and erotica on TV and in adverts.
The assault on swearing appears to have been motivated in part by a series of foul-mouthed tirades against Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, and President Dmitry Medvedev on a popular blog run by a famous designer.
A number of pro-Kremlin politicians have tried to get the designer prosecuted but without success. He has merely told them – in the strongest possible terms – to leave him alone.
Analysts say it is too early to say whether this latest anti-swearing campaign will become law. Part of the problem, say detractors, is that the people who are meant to enforce it – the police – swear like troopers themselves.
Telegraph.co.uk: UFO pyramid reported over Kremlin
A giant pyramid which appears to be a UFO hovering over the Kremlin has caused frenzied speculation in Russia that it is an alien spacecraft.
Published: 6:47AM GMT 18 Dec 2009
The object has been compared to an Imperial Cruiser in the Star Wars films and witnesses estimated it could be up to a mile wide.
Two film clips exist which appear to show the same object and footage has been repeatedly playing on Russian television news channels.
The shots, one taken at night from a car and one during the day, were both filmed by amateurs.
The 'craft' was said to have hovered for hours over Red Square in the Russian capital.
The clips of the 'invasion' have gone to the top of the country's version of YouTube.
The identity of the shape has not been confirmed. Russian reports ruled out a UFO but police refused to comment.
Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO analyst, said it was "one of the most extraordinary UFO clips I've ever seen".
"At first I thought this was a reflection but it appears to move behind a power line, ruling out this theory."
A spokesman for aerospace journal Jane's News said: "We have no idea what it is."
The Moscow Times: Kadyrov Won’t Testify
18 December 2009
A Dubai court on Thursday turned down an appeal by defense lawyers to summon Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to testify in a trial of two suspects in the March killing of former Chechen commander Sulim Yamadayev, RIA-Novosti reported.
Yamadayev, a bitter foe of Kadyrov, was shot dead near his Dubai luxury home on March 28.
Two men — from Iran and Tajikistan — are on trial on charges of aiding the suspect killers, two Russian brothers who have fled Dubai.
Itar-Tass: 3 suspects in murder of Islamic Institute rector Bostanov detained
18.12.2009, 10.28
MOSCOW, December 18 (Itar-Tass) -- Three suspects in the murder of Islamic Institute rector Ismail Bostanov were detained in Cherkessk, a source in the Karachai-Cherkessia law enforcement agencies told Itar-Tass on Friday. The rural chief executive is among the suspects.
“Policemen and federal security officers detained three suspects on suspicions of killing the deputy chairman of the Karachai-Cherkess Spiritual Authority and the rector of the Abu Hanifa Islamic Institute and wounding his son. The suspects are the chief of the Nizhne-Teberdy rural municipal entity and two unemployed aged 23 and 27 years,” the source said.
“According to the detectives, the crime was committed out of religious strife,” the source said.
A Kalashnikov assault rifle was confiscated from the detainees.
The deputy chairman of the Muslim Spiritual Authority in Karachai-Cherkessia and the Stavropol Territory and the rector of the Islamic Institute Ismail Bostanov was killed in Cherkessk on September 20, when he was coming back with his son from a festive religious service in Ust-Dzheguty. A silver-colored car caught up with their Volga car and the bandits opened fire. The clergyman died of wounds instantaneously. His son Muhammad, 16, was hospitalized with a gunshot wound.
Ismail Bostanov has been the deputy chairman of the Muslim Spiritual Authority of Karachai-Cherkessia and the Stavropol Territory for more than 20 years and has been the rector of the Karachai-Cherkess Islamic Institute for more than ten years. He already survived in an attempted murder in December 2006. Three masked gangsters broke into Bostanov’s house in Cherkessk, wounded him from firearms, stabbed and beat up his wife.
The Other Russia: Aushev’s Widow Hospitalized After Assassination Attempt
December 17th, 2009
The widow of slain Ingush oppositionist Maksharip Aushev has been hospitalized after an attempt on her life, Kommersant reported on Thursday.
Fatima Dzhaniyeva was driving with her mother and two brothers in the Ingush city of Nazran when their car suddenly exploded.
Dzhaniyeva, who is pregnant, and one of her brothers were hospitalized with heavy wounds, while her mother and second brother died at the scene
Investigators believe that the attempted assassination may be connected with the murder of her husband, opposition activist Maksharip Aushev, in October.
One investigator said that a bomb had been placed under the driver’s seat either directly inside of the car or within the undercarriage.
“It’s obvious that it was a well planned assassination attempt,” said the investigator.
Maksharip Aushev was gunned down in his car by unknown assailants in the Kabardino-Balkaria territory of the Northern Caucasus on October 25. He died at the scene. His cousin, Tauzela Dzeitova, was hospitalized with heavy wounds, but passed away on December 6.
Aushev was a prominent businessman in the Russian republic of Ingushetia who turned to activism after his son and nephew were abducted in 2007, an incident that he blames on the republic’s security forces. His colleague, former editor Magomed Yevloyev, was murdered in August 2008. Aushev had been determined to form an opposition movement that would use all lawful methods to stop bloodshed in the troubled North Caucuses.
The Jamestown Foundation: Circassian Opposition to the Kremlin Mounts in the Northwest Caucasus
[tt_news]=35853&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=94ccffb370
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 232
December 17, 2009 03:49 PM Age: 8 hrs
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, North Caucasus Analysis, Home Page, North Caucasus , Domestic/Social
By: Fatima Tlisova
The authorities and opposition movements in the Circassian republics of the northwestern Caucasus have returned to negotiations after a series of protest demonstrations and violent attacks targeting the leaders of Circassian non-governmental organizations (EDM, November 18 and 25, December 3).
On October 30, the parliament of Kabardino-Balkaria (KBR) issued a new law taking around 30,000 hectares of pastures from Circassian villages and giving them to their Balkar neighbors. On November 12, three articles were removed from the KBR as “separatist” laws. On November 17 two non-profit movements, the Circassian Congress (CC) and Khasa, organized a mass demonstration in Nalchik against the new land law, with CC leader Ruslan Keshev declaring: “We are ready for radical actions” (EDM, November 18, 25).
On November 26, approximately 3,000 young Circassians and Abazas gathered in Karachaevo-Cherkessia (KChR) to protest against violations of their ethno-political rights. A group of 300 Circassians who were driving from KBR to join the protest walked for miles after being stopped at a military checkpoint, where their vehicles were blocked from entering the KChR (EDM, December 3). On December 1, Keshev was hospitalized with multiple injuries after being attacked by a group of well-built men. That same day, the KChR parliament lodged a complaint with the Russian prosecutor-general against the Circassian movement in the KChR, accusing its leaders of crimes under articles 280 and 282 of the Russian criminal code (EDM, December 3).
The demonstration scheduled for December 5 in Nalchik was cancelled after organizers were alerted to the possibility of a provocation being planned to discredit the group. An hour before the demonstration, the leader of the Circassian NGO Khasa, Ibragim Yaganov, was hospitalized after being attacked by a group of young sportsmen who, according to Yaganov, started beating him and used the following words: “We are Muslims, but you nationalists separate our people” (Gazeta Yuga, December 10).
On December 6, another leader of the Circassian Congress was attacked in Maikop, Adygeya, 200 miles west of Nalchik. A grenade exploded in the backyard of Murat Berzegov’s home, burning his car and the front door of his house. On December 9, an office of the Council of Elders of Balkaria in Nalchik was burned down by unknown perpetrators. On December 12, the KBR parliament suspended the law on land, which had been opposed by both Circassians and Balkars. Zalim Kashirokov, a representative of the KBR president, announced that the law on land had been abolished in order to solve inter-ethnic problems. Now, any decision on the ownership of a tract of land must be negotiated between villages and only after the decision is reached can the parliament approve the status of that territory (kavkaz-uzel.ru, December 12)
Two questions have been the source of extensive controversy in Circassian blogs and forums (such as heku.ru): who was behind the attacks on Circassian leaders? And what was the role of the Islamic insurgency? There is a whole chain of events that goes beyond any of the theories that have been put forward.
For instance, according to one theory, KBR President Arsen Kanokov was involved in the attacks, using his bodyguard unit to break up the opposition. That theory seemed logical considering the impending end of Kanokov’s presidency and the strong opposition to his rule within the local business elite affiliated with the Kremlin. However, the fact that Circassian Congress leader Ruslan Keshev, who has been in Kanokov’s circle of advisors, was the first to be attacked ruins the “Kanokov’s guard” theory.
The motive for the attack on Murat Berzegov in Maikop obviously cannot be explained in any way other than in connection with his political activities, which are fully and only concentrated on general Circassian issues such as the recognition of the Circassian genocide, opposition to the Sochi Olympic Games, and so on. Finally, there is no way to connect with the Wahhabi or Kanokov theory to the complaint that the KChR parliament issued against the Circassian NGO’s in the republic. The most logical explanation demands something more general than local political or ethnic frictions.
The way the situation has been solved in KBR (without an appeal to the Kremlin to resolve it) raises suspicions that the triangular scheme –with the Circassians and their neighboring Turkic speaking Karachai-Balkars playing the opposite roles against each other and both appealing to the Kremlin for a justice, and with Moscow escalating tensions in order to support its rule over the Caucasus– does not work properly anymore. Notes of tolerance have been appearing in the public exchanges between the leaders of the national movements, although they still indicate a strong determination to continue standing for their rights (kavkaz-uzel.ru, December 12).
Until very recently, the anti-colonial resistance in the Circassian republics could best be described as consisting of two non-crossing parallels, one represented and being carried out by groups of Islamic rebels and the other being non-violent resistance represented by the NGO sector. The NGO resistance has often obeyed the Kremlin more than the local governments and it has been easy to fit the NGO’s into different types of agendas – from declaring national independence goals to simply opposing the local governments or confronting them with different ethnic groups.
There are obvious examples, such as the most influential political organization, the Worldwide Circassian Association changing its agenda from national independence to cultural preservation only (Harvard University, Conference on the Circassians, April 2008) or the Adyge Khasa of Cherkessk suddenly entering into an ethnic conflict with the Karachais soon after appealing to Boris Yeltsin’s administration with a declaration of independence of Circassia (1996-1999 KChR media archives).
On December 12, the leader of the Islamic resistance in Kabarda, Karachai and Balkaria, Anzor Astemirov aka Seifullah, released a statement explaining the position of the Islamic resistance regarding the situation in the Circassian republics. He made it clear that the local confrontations that occurred are outside the Islamic resistance’s agenda. The first and only priority, he said, is to overthrow the “illegal Russian regime and as long as any ethnic movement is sharing the same goal, the jamaat will not interfere with them” (, December 12).
It is quite possible that the parallel structure in Circassia described above converged into a mixture of ethno-political and militant religious resistance similar to that which exists in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia. Moreover, the growing influence among the Circassians moves an Islamic insurgency from the position of an insignificant segment of society to the place of a powerful player in the political arena, with the ability to undermine the Kremlin’s influence in the Northwest Caucasus.
: Russia sets the terms for coming in from the cold
Russia aims to modernise without compromise
By Quentin Peel in Moscow
Published: December 18 2009 02:00 | Last updated: December 18 2009 02:00
The latest buzzword in Moscow is modernisation. Everyone in Russia's chattering classes is using it, from President Dmitry Medvedev to assorted economists, commentators, bankers and businesspeople.
It seems to mean many things - from investing in technology to rooting out corruption and cutting back the state's role. It is a response to the shock of the economic crisis that has hit Russia hard and underlined its failure to diversify from an energy-based economy.
Mr Medvedev seems inclined to a minimalist approach: singling out sectors such as the nuclear industry, information technology, health and aerospace for a surge in state-inspired spending.
Liberal economists see a chance to reopen the debate on the lack of competition in the Russian economy and its politics. But they fear that with the recovery of the oil price, pressure for more radical reform will disappear.
Another big theme in Russian government circles - on the face of it unrelated - is the proposal for a "new European security architecture".
Moscow wants an agreement to bind all the existing institutions of European security, including Nato and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, into a framework that would give it an effective veto - especially on any Nato enlargement.
On the eve of the OSCE's last ministerial meeting on December 1, Mr Medvedev published a draft European security treaty, to the surprise and alarm of the Nato allies and those who still want to join. The document would place all European nations and organisations under a common umbrella, and allow any state to declare the actions of another to be a threat to its security. It makes no mention of protecting human rights, or ethnic minorities - the "third pillar" of the OSCE's founding treaty.
What seems to bind the two themes of security and modernisation together is a desire in the Kremlin to come in from the cold. But what is equally clear is that any return to warmer relations with the west should not do anything to disturb the power structure in Moscow or its regional sphere of influence.
Take Mr Medvedev's modernisation thesis. Andrei Ryabov, editor of the journal World Economy and International Relations, says the Kremlin's strategy seems to have a lot in common with that of Peter the Great or Joseph Stalin. "It means buying foreign technology while maintaining control, stability and law and order. You have a Utopian project which can hardly be realised, because the key actor [in Russia] will remain the state, with structures that are riddled with corruption."
Commentators such as Mr Ryabov argue that without economic and political competition, Russia will never wean itself off its dependence on oil and gas, because these revenues preserve the present power structure.
Igor Yurgens, head of the Institute of Contemporary Development in Moscow who advises Russia's president, sees a link between modernisation and external security. "We need 20 years to modernise our economy and all we ask for is external stability while we do so," he says.
Hence the need for a European security treaty, says Sergei Karaganov, head of Russia's Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. But it all depends how you define "external stability". For Russia, the greatest threat is Nato enlargement, says Mr Karaganov - above all if it includes Ukraine. That would cause "a threat of a large-scale war in Europe". For him, last year's short Russia-Georgia war was a victory for Moscow because it stopped talk of expanding the Atlantic alliance.
There lies the rub. Russia wants to engage, but entirely on its own terms. It wants investment without excessive reform. It wants a security deal that largely ignores the sovereign choices of its neighbours. That is likely to be too high a price for the rest of Europe to pay.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from and redistribute by email or post to the web.
Reuters: Russian tycoon closes in on Independent – FT
Thu, Dec 17 2009
LONDON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev is in advanced talks to buy British national newspapers The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
Earlier this year both parties denied speculation that Lebedev, who owns a majority stake in the London Evening Standard newspaper, had made an offer for the Independent. [ID:nLC222053] [ID:nN11519486]
Citing people familiar with the matter, the FT said Lebedev had held intermittent talks with the papers' Irish publisher Independent News & Media Plc over the past year but plans had been put on hold over the summer while the heavily-indebted media group agreed to a refinancing deal with its lenders. [ID:nN28103871]
Now that process has been completed, the talks have been restarted, the paper said.
Neither INM nor Lebedev was immediately available for comment. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Carol Bishopric)
December 18, 2009
NYTimes: Russian Passes Background Check, and Vote Looms on His Bid for Nets
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Mikhail D. Prokhorov has survived the N.B.A.’s background examination, helping the billionaire Russian oligarch take another step toward acquiring 80 percent of the Nets and 45 percent of the proposed Barclays Center in Brooklyn. He is said to be Russia’s richest man.
“There were multiple investigations of him by interested parties and there was nothing that was disclosed that would cause us not to move forward with his application,” N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern said Thursday.
The positive results of the vetting process were made known to the league earlier this month.
Prokhorov must still submit all the documents required by the league’s advisory finance committee, which will then make a recommendation on his application to the Board of Governors. Stern said the league would continue to look into Prokhorov until a vote by the full ownership late next month or in early February.
He needs to be approved by 23 of the league’s 30 owners. A spokesman for Prokhorov had no comment.
The N.B.A.’s decision to make known its clearance of Prokhorov’s background came a day after his company, Onexim Sports and Entertainment Holdings, closed on the deal to pay Forest City Ratner Companies, which is developing the Barclays Center as part of the Atlantic Yards project, $200 million for his stakes in the team and the arena.
Prokhorov has also agreed to finance up to $60 million of the Nets’ losses until they move into the arena in 2012 and assume 80 percent of the team’s $207 million in debt.
In late October, after the most recent N.B.A. Board of Governors meeting, Stern voiced confidence in Prokhorov’s bid, saying, “We haven’t surfaced anything that has caused us to have a negative opinion of him.”
On Thursday, Stern recalled that “Mikhail had a very positive meeting with the advisory finance committee.”
Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009
: New Job for Ex-Soviet Pilots: Arms Trafficking
By Simon Shuster / Kiev
It was no ordinary smuggling bust. On Dec. 11, an old Russian plane landed in Thailand to refuel after taking off hours earlier from Pyongyang, North Korea. In its hull, police found 35 tons of explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air missiles, all being transported from North Korea in breach of U.N. sanctions. The captain and his crew were promptly arrested and charged with illegally transporting arms. But according to experts, they were only tiny cogs in a global network for arms trafficking that feeds off the castaway pilots and planes of the former Soviet Union. Suspected smugglers like Russian Viktor Bout have used the system to transport weapons, as have huge U.S. military contractors like Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), though not for illegal purposes. And while the flight crews like the one stopped in Thailand face the prospect of long prison terms, the people behind this global arms-shipping service remain hidden in the shadows.
The chief engineer on the flight was Mikhail Petukhov, 54, an out-of-work Belarusian with nearly two decades of experience in the Soviet air force. His wife Vera told TIME by phone from Belarus that the flight was Petukhov's first for a company whose name he never told her. Before that, he had waited more than six months for a job. "That's how it always is," she says. "Only once in a while by chance they'll get a call about some one-off job. And they take what they can get. Once he was gone for three months and came back with only $50; other times it's more. Then he waits around again." She said he had never the other crew members, all Kazakhs, before he left in early December for Kiev, where the flight is believed to have originated. (See pictures of Russians in Ossetia.)
Most of the time, the coordinators of these flights are fly-by-night companies set up to ship goods in violation of U.N. weapons sanctions or embargoes, says Hugh Griffiths, an expert on illegal arms trafficking at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Analysts have said the weapons on board the flight from Pyongyang were probably meant for terrorist groups or rebels in the Middle East or Africa, the usual clients for these types of portable but high-impact arms. But authorities have thus far been unable to establish who arranged the shipment — the paper trails are too winding and the companies involved too murky.
However, there are clear connections between the seized plane and smuggling networks in Russia and Eastern Europe. Griffiths says the plane was previously registered to a company that has links to self-professed Serbian gunrunner Tomislav Damnjanovic and to three companies controlled by Bout, who has been dubbed the "Merchant of Death" by Russian media. Last year, Bout was arrested in Bangkok after allegedly offering to sell weapons to U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officers posing as members of the Colombian rebel group FARC. While the U.S. seeks his extradition, Bout is being held at Klong Prem prison in Thailand, the same place where Petukhov and his crew are now jailed. (See the top 10 underreported stories of 2009.)
Damnjanovic has been accused of setting up other hauls like this one. According to a report published in 2007 by a U.N. Development Program (UNDP) research institute in Serbia, a company owned by Damnjanovic smuggled military equipment in 1996 to the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, which was then under U.N. sanctions. During one of the shipments, the pilot of an aircraft noticed problems with the plane's electrical systems. Damnjanovic insisted that the flight go ahead anyway, the U.N. report alleges, and offered the crew $2,000 extra apiece. Fifteen minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed near Belgrade and killed everyone on board, the report says. "[The pilot and crew], they are victims of circumstance. They are often paid extra money to accept a flight, often using planes that they know are not entirely safe. But they are so desperate for the money that they agree to take the flight," Griffiths says. (See pictures of the rise of Muammar Gaddafi.)
Repeated efforts to contact Damnjanovic, believed to be living in the United Arab Emirates, were unsuccessful. In a 2007 interview with the New York Times, he denied any involvement in illegal dealings and defended his involvement in arms shipments to places like Rwanda, calling his business "completely official." He said, "What somebody else does with the weapons when they get there is up to them."
Complicating matters is the fact that Damnjanovic has ties to U.S. defense contractors like KBR and General Dynamics, according to the same UNDP report. Both companies have hired Damnjanovic's companies in the past to ship equipment on behalf of the U.S. military. "The case study of the career of Tomislav Damnjanovic illustrates how smart arms smugglers work within and outside the law, trafficking to rogue states and African dictatorships under U.N. sanctions while at the same time supplying arms on behalf of some of America's biggest companies, such as General Dynamics and Kellogg, Brown and Root," the UNDP report states. (See "The Arms Trade Booms Amid Global Economic Woes.")
In a statement to TIME, Heather Browne, KBR's head of communications, said the company had no knowledge that the allegations in the UNDP report were true. "KBR is committed to providing high-quality service to our customer, the U.S. military, and conducting our business with ethics and integrity. The company in no way condones or tolerates anything to the contrary," the statement read. Rob Doolittle, a spokesman for General Dynamics, declined to comment on the report.
For out-of-work pilots in Eastern Europe, a job is a job no matter who is paying the bill. Vladimir Migol, a retired aircraft engineer who served with Petukhov in the Soviet air force in the 1980s, says that for many pilots, flying for these shadowy companies is the only type of work they can get. "Everybody knows that these planes sometimes get busted with stuff, or they crash," says Migol. "But you still have to fly. We all have families to feed, and the chips fall where they fall."
RIA: Peaceful atom: providing safe nuclear energy development in the Middle East
11:1617/12/2009
By Anton Khlopkov,
Director of the Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS)
The Middle Eastern states are actively seeking nuclear power. Of the Gulf countries, excluding Iran and Iraq, almost 20 agreements and MOUs (memorandums of understanding) on nuclear cooperation were signed during the last 18 months, with countries, possessing advanced nuclear technology, including Canada, China, France, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the U.K, and the U.S.
At present, the only nuclear energy facility in the region is the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Russian specialists are now completing the construction of the plant's first power reactor. The expected start-up date is some time in the spring of 2010. The region also has a few nuclear research facilities (in Israel, Iran, Egypt and Syria).
At the same time the region is on the top of the nonproliferation list due to the disclosure of undeclared nuclear activity in Iraq in the early 1990s and in Iran in 2002 (and Tehran’s lack of cooperation with the IAEA since then). Experts estimate that Israel has 60-80 nuclear devices. The country's government neither confirms nor denies this. In addition, during the 1990-2000s the Middle East was a key region for deliveries by an illicit nuclear proliferation network run by A.Q. Khan, including the supply of fissile material production technology and nuclear weapons-related design information. More recently, the IAEA is questioning possible undeclared nuclear installations in Syria. Nuclear energy development in the Middle East has therefore raised serious concerns over the issue of nuclear nonproliferation.
Other issues include the lack of specialists - or the expertise and technical capability to train such specialists locally; heightened security requirements in view of the terrorist threat in the region; and the need to set up national regulating agencies to oversee safe and secure nuclear energy development.
Such development requires a series of steps to be taken in the region as outlined below.
1. Due to a lack of expertise in the region and a lack of funds for nuclear studies in some Middle Eastern countries, a few joint multinational nuclear-research and training centers under IAEA safeguards could be established instead of individual state centers. Each center could specialize in one nuclear-related field. One center, for example, could specialize in nuclear powered desalination, a big issue for the region. Over 50% of all desalination plants around the world are located in the Middle East. In fact, according to initial plans from the 1970s, the Bushehr nuclear power plant was expected to be used partially for desalination.
2. Expanded international oversight of nuclear activities in the region should be implemented (after local ratification) with IAEA Additional Protocol, which provides the IAEA with extended authority to monitor civilian nuclear programs. As of November 2009, this Protocol is in place for over 90 countries; only two (Jordan and Kuwait) represent the Middle East.
3. A Middle Eastern nuclear-free zone is not likely to be established soon due to the peace process in the region. At the same time the states of the region could take confidence-building steps, which would create a more open atmosphere for further dialogue on the subject. Signing and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by all the countries in the region could be the first step in this direction.
4. Greater international cooperation would result from a voluntary agreement prohibiting these countries from creating new uranium enrichment and SNF reprocessing facilities, the most sensitive nuclear technology. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently affirmed their intention to forgo sensitive indigenous fuel-cycle technology.
The Middle East has been a point of discussions during the last three Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Reviews and will no doubt continue to be in the spotlight during 2010 NPT Review Conference to be held in New York on May 3-28, 2010. Special attention should be paid to the lack of universality of the nuclear nonproliferation process in the region during the Conference debates. Israeli nuclear programs were almost ‘ignored’ (or its discussion was blocked by the United States) during recent international nonproliferation forums, while nuclear progress in Iran and Syria is sometimes exaggerated. So a balance should be reached between the issues of non-compliance, process consistency and nuclear energy development during Middle East nonproliferation discussions.
International forums on the future of the nuclear energy industry in the region like the ‘Middle East Nuclear Energy Summit’ to be held in Amman on March 21-24, 2010, could contribute a lot to the development of the peaceful use of nuclear energy in the region.
The Moscow Times: Khodorkovsky a Grandpa
18 December 2009
Jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has become a grandfather after the wife of his elder son, Pavel, gave birth to a daughter, Khodorkovsky.ru reported Thursday.
Khodorkovsky, 46, has been locked up in prison since being arrested in October 2003 on tax and fraud charges that he says are politically motivated.
The Guardian: Gordon Brown calls for full investigation into Magnitsky death
• PM 'deeply concerned' at Moscow pre-detention centre death
• Hermitage case plea may inflame Anglo-Russian relations
Luke Harding in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 December 2009 15.29 GMT
Gordon Brown has called for a "full and transparent" investigation into the death in prison of the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, in a move that is likely to inflame further tensions between Britain and Russia.
In reply to a letter from two peers, the prime minister said he was "deeply concerned" at Magnitsky's death in a Moscow pre-detention centre, after the lawyer's repeated pleas for medical treatment were ignored. Magnitsky died on 16 November of a ruptured abdomen.
Brown said that David Miliband had raised the case during his visit to Moscow last month, adding that the foreign secretary had "underlined… the importance of effective and transparent judicial processes and the importance of the rule of law". Britain's embassy in Moscow was also pressing the matter, he said.
Interior ministry officers arrested Magnitsky late last year. He was held as a suspect in the case against Hermitage Capital Management's co-founder William Browder. Browder has accused corrupt officials of using Hermitage, previously Russia's top investment fund, to fake tax refunds and defraud Russian taxpayers of $230m (£143m).
In a 40-page affidavit written shortly before his death, Magnitsky complained about his treatment in detention – detailing how his numerous requests to see a doctor were ignored, even when he was keeling over in pain. Officials deliberately withheld treatment to pressure him to testify against Browder, friends and colleagues believe.
Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev has reacted to the scandal by firing the head of the interior ministry's tax crimes department, Anatoly Mikhalkin, who had orchestrated the campaign against Hermitage, accusing it of tax fraud. Medvedev has also sacked officials at the prison where Magnitsky died, aged just 37.
But the Kremlin is generally ill disposed to lectures from western politicians, especially British ones. Relations between London and Moscow, though marginally improved, have still not recovered from the diplomatic row over the November 2006 polonium murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the rogue FSB agent.
Last night Browder, a US citizen based in London, said he welcomed the prime minister's intervention. In his letter to the two anonymous peers, dated 30 November, Brown promised Browder "support" and said he had "raised his (Browder's) serious concerns consistently with the Russian authorities".
Browder told the Guardian: "Gordon Brown has shown his support for President Medvedev's decision to investigate the death of Sergei Magnitsky. It demonstrates that people in Russia and around the globe are deeply concerned about the death of an innocent man and the deterioration of the rule of law in Russia."
Today London and Moscow appeared to be on another collision course after Russian prosecutors indicated they were seeking the extradition of Andrei Leonovich, the former treasurer of the bankrupt Russian oil giant Yukos. Leonivich escaped to London in 2004 when the Kremlin seized Yukos and arrested its oligarch CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
According to today'sKommersant newspaper, prosecutors now accuse Leonovich of being part of an "organised group" led by Khdorkovsky, who is currently on trial for a second time in Moscow with his business partner Platon Lebedev. Leonovich took part in the theft of oil, prosecutors told Moscow's Basmanny court this week.
The refusal of British courts to extradite several high-profile Russian businessmen including the Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky is a source of extreme frustration for the Russian government. "We ask and ask. But Britain doesn't give them up," Kommersant wrote in its headline on the Leonovich story.
According to Leonovich's lawyer Alexei Dudnik the new and conspicuously belated criminal charges are an attempt to bolster the faltering case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, who are charged with embezzling 350m tons of Yukos oil, as well as money laundering.
The pair face more than 20 years in jail if convicted. Their trial has become increasingly embarrassing for the Kremlin, with even the state prosecutor apparently unable to make sense of the new charges.
Observers say the second trial is a politically motivated continuation of the first 2003 trial, which saw both men imprisoned on charges of fraud and tax evasion. There is little chance of either getting out of prison while Vladimir Putin remains in power, they add.
OfficialWire: Russia Defence And Security Report Q1 2010 - New Report Published
New report provides detailed analysis of the Defence market
|Published on December 17, 2009 |
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|by Press Office |
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|( and OfficialWire) |
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|LONDON, ENGLAND |
Russia's domestic political risk profile highlights instabilities within the regime, but during 2009 there was some improvement and we expect this to continue as economic risks subside. We no longer expect an early electoral cycle is likely, nor do we think a major change in the country's legislative direction is probable. Inflation has improved and the economic situation is being supported, not least by an actual reduction in unemployment figures. This all points to a recovery, but it will be a weak one at best.
Tensions persist between Russia and Georgia and security issues remain in North Caucasus. The 2008 clash with Georgian forces left Moscow in a stronger position but our view is that a ‘frozen conflict' suits all parties better than all-out war would. However, the area of North Caucasus is a different proposition and the nightmare scenario for Moscow would be a series of local insurgencies causing it to lose control of this strategically important region, undermining its status as a world power.
As a result of the growing internal conflict, Russia decided to place greater operational emphasis on special forces. Actions in Chechnya showed that regular armed forces were not able to deal with the lowlevel conflict and, more importantly, conscripts were not able to deal with the rigour of an insurgency.
What was needed was a professional force dedicated to dealing with insurgencies. In 2006, Russia made a considerable step forward in the modernisation plans for its armed forces in four areas: doctrine, organisation, personnel and armaments.
The government formulated a plan for reorganisation and resources have been allocated for rearmament.
In 2008, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin talked about a new long-term programme of military development until 2020, taking into account modern challenges and threats to Russia's national interests.
To enforce these changes, the government plans to reorganise the armed forces in new territorial divisions, probably to allow for an adaptable structure that can be quickly deployed to internal security flashpoints such as North Caucasus. It is unclear whether these efforts will cause any long-lasting change, particularly after the Putin administration.
While plans to downsize the number of active armed forces continue, money is being spent upgrading and improving the arms industry and the Russian forces' equipment. A new aircraft carrier will begin to be built in 2013-2014, adding to the single carrier Russia already has.
In 2007, Russia proposed a jointly operated missile defence system from the Qabala radar base in Azerbaijan to the US. The US had already decided on anti-missile bases in the Czech Republic and Poland and military relations deteriorated. However, in September 2009, US President Barack Obama scrapped the original plans in Poland and the Czech Republic and has instead suggested a US missile defence shield. Russia has publicly supported Obama's decision but has also asked for more information about the new shield. Obama is also reconsidering the idea of a joint defence system.
Russia's defence industry is undergoing a revival, securing large contracts in new markets as well as maintaining a loyal customer base, and is set for expansion globally and domestically. Russia has a relaxed attitude to selling arms to states with poor human rights and democracy records and will offer flexible payment options. Venezuela has become one of Russia's main customers. Also, during the last decade, the demand from developing countries for arms and defence platforms has significantly increased. In South East Asia, many states showed renewed interest as their economic situations improved post-1997. One of Russia's largest customers in the Asia Pacific is Indonesia, with which it secured a US$1.1bn contract in 2007.
Domestic demand also appears to be improving – underpinned by a drive to improve controls and reduce red tape. Many smaller firms have been streamlined into larger umbrella groups. United Aircraft Building Corporation (UABC) was formed in February 2006 from Gorbunov Kazan Aircraft Production Association and Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG (RSK MiG). The government said that the main driver for forming the corporation was to maintain Russia's defence capabilities, although it is more likely that the move was prompted by European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS)'s successful bid to acquire 10% of Irkut Corporation in 2005. The strategic ventures list features 550 state-owned ventures, the majority of which are in the defence and aerospace industries.
United Industrial Enterprise Oboronprom is a significant player in the Russian defence industry as it includes helicopter manufacturer Rostvertol; Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant, which produces the Su-25 fighter aircraft and the Mi-171 helicopter range; Vpered Moscow Machine Building Plant; and Stupino Machine-Building Production Enterprise.
Russia remains reluctant to rely on other countries for its weapons and the size and technological advancement of its indigenous defence industry makes it largely unnecessary to source arms from abroad.
Nonetheless, with the industry becoming less tightly controlled by the state, greater multinational involvement may lead to interest in overseas products in the medium term.
There are problems with the way the defence industry is managed and one criticism is a lack of strong policy guidance. There is also a divide within the government as to how the industry should be managed.
It is also under threat commercially, with only 15 defence systems under patent protection instead of the estimated 100 patents needed to fully protect its defence exports. The industry is composed of enterprises producing far below their capacity, although the aviation industry is the most highly developed and successful of the sub-sectors. The majority of Russian shipyards are using antiquated production and management techniques and are unable to compete with the more efficient shipyards of South Korea, Europe and China.
Russia Defence and Security Report Q1 2010:
Interfax: Poll: Majority of Russians support Medvedev
Yesterday at 21:22 | Interfax-Ukraine
An opinion poll suggests that most Russians support President Dmitry Medvedev but that only 12% of the population see Medvedev as Russia's dominant political force while 32% believe the reins are solely in the hands of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Seventy-seven percent of Russians believe Medvedev is an influential figure in Russia's developments, the Levada Center opinion studies group told Interfax on Thursday, citing the results of a survey carried out on November 20-23.
Sixty-three percent support Medvedev and only 12% are against him, according to the results.
Russians who feel they do not know enough about the president's policy make up a proportion that has shrunk to 19% from 24% at the start of the year.
The proportion of those sure that Medvedev is completely or mainly following the course started by Putin when the latter was president went down to 76% in November from 84% in January, Levada Center poll suggests.
Those who believe Medvedev is gradually abandoning the course set by Putin made up 10% in January and 14% in November.
Three percent believe Medvedev is pursuing a policy completely different from that of Putin's, Levada Center claimed.
Asked in last month's poll who in effect held power in Russia, 48% of respondents said power was "in the hands of both [Medvedev and Putin] in equal degree."
Thirty-two percent said Putin dominated the country's political scene. In a poll in March, 28% of respondents expressed this view.
The proportion believing that Medvedev holds the main power in the country has remained unchanged at 12% since the beginning of the year.
Sixty-five percent of respondents in November's survey, which encompassed 46 Russian region, said they chiefly had a favorable impression of Medvedev, while 30% took the opposite attitude to the president.
Itar-Tass: All hostages taken by deserter released in Omsk
18.12.2009, 11.05
OMSK, December 18 (Itar-Tass) -- All hostages taken by a cadet of the Omsk Tank Institute were released on Friday. A second-year student of the military institute Denis Gaponenko was convoyed to the prosecutor’s office, a source in the Omsk regional police told Itar-Tass.
The call that Gaponenko left his post without permission and went to the city with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and munitions came at 03.35 a.m. local time on Friday in the police alert force. The interception plan was immediately introduced in the city, but by this time Gaponenko had already gone by taxi in the Sovetsky administrative district, which is situated in the far north-western part of the city.
It was found out in the search operation that he arrived at an apartment block in Andrianov Street, where his girlfriend lives. Four people were staying in the flat at the moment, and the cadet was acquainted with all of them. He took hostage all of them.
The problems in personal relations with a girlfriend caused the Friday night taking of four hostages by the cadet of the Omsk Tank Institute. “Second-year student Denis Gaponenko fled from his post with an assault rifle and munitions and went to the city to settle the problems with his girlfriend,” chief of the Omsk regional police Gen. Viktor Kamertsel, who was personally in command of the hostage-release operation, told Itar-Tass.
“On Thursday Gaponenko learnt that his girlfriend was going to work in Italy. Already in the nighttime when being on duty he called his girlfriend by mobile phone and learnt that she had a party with her friends. When the patrol passed the Omsk Tank Institute’s entrance at about 03.00 a.m. local time Gaponenko unexpectedly ran to a nearby taxi and forced the cabman under the gun barrel to go to the city at the high speed,” the general said.
“On the way to the city Gaponenko called up again to his girlfriend and proved his intentions to meet with her by a gunshot in the air. He left the taxi in Andrianov Street adjoining to the leisure park in the Sovetsky district of the city and entered the 5-storey apartment block with a submachine gun. He knocked on the door of the neighboring flat, which two young women acquainted with his girlfriend rented. A young man was also staying there. Under the barrel of the gun Gaponenko made them invite his girlfriend. When she came he took hostage all four of them. He did not make clear demands,” Kamertsel said.
By this time the police operatives established the address of the girlfriend. The police commandoes cordoned off the house. The local chiefs of the law enforcement agencies, a penetration team and a group of negotiators rushed to the incident site. The police have brought the father of the cadet two hours later from the Tavrichesky rural district 100 kilometers away. “They had to talk the fugitive into surrendering for more than five hours. Thanks God, they succeeded to do it. At first the deserter released two refugees, then he surrendered himself and set free other two refugees. He was immediately convoyed to the military prosecutor’ s office. A criminal case was instituted,” the Omsk regional police chief said.
RIA: Russian cadet briefly takes 4 hostage after row with girlfriend
10:5618/12/2009
A Russian military cadet armed with an assault rifle briefly took four people hostage in the southwest Siberian city Omsk on Friday following an argument with his girlfriend, military officials said.
A second-year student of the Omsk tank college, Denis Gapopenko, was on sentry duty when he left his post and took a taxi to his girlfriend's place. When he arrived, he took his girlfriend and three other people in the apartment hostage, local police said earlier on Friday.
"A preliminary investigation showed Denis Gapopenko's motive was an argument with his girlfriend," said Col. Oleg Yushkov, spokesman for the land forces commander.
Russian media reports said Gapopenko rushed to the city after learning his girlfriend was going to Italy to work. He was reported to have forced the taxi driver to speed to the city by pointing a gun at him.
The sentry guards were unable to stop him leaving his post, but reported the incident to the officer on duty.
Police cordoned off the house while psychologists, later joined by Gapopenko's father, negotiated with the young man. He initially let two hostages leave and released the other two - including his girlfriend - some time later.
The cadet, who did not make any demands, is now being investigated on desertion charges, which provide for up to 10 years in prison.
MOSCOW, December 18 (RIA Novosti)
National Economic Trends
RIA: Russian monetary base up $3 bln in week to $137.639 bln
10:5918/12/2009
MOSCOW, December 18 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Central Bank said Friday the country's narrowly defined money supply (M1) was 4 trillion 246.4 billion rubles ($137.639 billion at the current exchange rate) as of December 14, up 91.7 billion rubles ($3 billion) in the week since December 7.
According to the Bank, M1 money supply consists of the currency issued by the bank, including cash in vaults of credit institutions, and required reserves balances on ruble deposits with the Central Bank.
Interfax: VTB forecasts reserves at 9% at year-end 2009; 10% in 2010
MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) - VTB (RTS: VTBR) expects loan loss reserves will amount to no more than 9% of the loan portfolio at the end of 2009, Deputy CEO Gerbert Moos said.
"The reserves will be 8%-9% by the end of 2009, and up to 10% in 2010," he said during a conference call with analysts on Thursday.
VTB boosted the reserves to 7.9% as of the end of September, up from 3.6% at the end of 2008. However, the reserve increase was just 4.3% of the loan portfolio in the third quarter on an annualized basis, compared with 7.1% in the first quarter and 6.6% in the second. Moos expects the reserving expense to decline further. "We have seen the reserve expense decline in the last two quarters. We will continue to do that," he said.
Prime-Tass: Bailed-out banks return funds worth 74 bln rbl to Russia's DIA
MOSCOW, Dec 17 (PRIME-TASS) -- Bailed-out banks have returned funds worth 74 billion rubles to state-owned Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), Mikhail Sukhov, head of the Central Bank of Russia's (CBR) licensing and financial recovery department, said Thursday.
He said loans provided by DIA had been repaid with assets owned by bailed-out banks.
In particular, KIT Finance has repaid its loan with shares in telecommunications company Rostelecom worth 50 billion rubles, Sukhov said.
Sukhov said DIA had spent a total of 525 billion rubles to bail out banks.
18.12.2009 - RIA NOVOSTI via Banki.ru
RF finance ministry ordered to earmark Rub 1.55 tln to plug gap in budget deficit
The Russian government has raised the coverage limit for a federal budget deficit in the second half of the year, the Cabinet said on its web site.
“The Russian Finance Ministry will allocate in the second half of 2009 up to Rub 1.54 tln from the Reserve Fund to keep the federal budget balanced, including the financial security of oil and gas revenues," the government said in a resolution.
This year the finance ministry planned to take Rub 2.75 tln from the Reserve Fund to plug a budget deficit. A total of Rub 1.43 tln of the scheduled Rub 1.60 tln was spent on these measures in January-June 2009. The amount for the second half of 2009 was planned at Rub 1.35 tln.
As of December 1, 2009 Rub 2.26 tln was allocated from the Reserve Fund to keep Russia’s federal budget balanced. The ministry said on numerous occasions the Reserve Fund will be in reality exhausted at the end of 2010.
18.12.2009 - PRIME-TASS via Banki.ru
Russia’s foreign trade turnover sinks 40.9% in January-October 2009
During the first ten months of 2009 Russia’s foreign trade turnover sank 40.9% y-o-y to $389.4 bln, the Federal Statistics Service said in a statement prepared on the basis of CBR calculations using the balance of payment methodology.
From January through October Russia recorded a 42.2% slump in exports to $238.6 bln and imports declined 38.7% to $150.8 bln. The surplus of Russia’s foreign trade balance slumped by 90% to $87.8 bln compared to $166.6 bln in the year-earlier period.
Russia’s foreign trade turnover with main partners from non-CIS countries declined 41.9% to $314.74 bln in January-June 2009, including a 44.2% decrease in trade with EU member states to $185.81 bln and a 39.7% dive in goods trade with APEC countries to $76.76 bln. The Russian Federation’s foreign trade turnover with CIS member states also sank by 43.1% to $53.66 bln, down 37.9% to $32.70 bln with EurAsEC and a 44.9% slump in trade volumes with countries from the United Economic Space (UES) to $46.1 bln.
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
Reuters: Russia eyes postal bank to rival Sberbank
2:56am EST
MOSCOW, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Russia plans to secure the future of bankruptcy escapee Svyazbank by turning it into a postal bank with twice as many branches as current largest lender Sberbank .
The future of Svyazbank, which counts the Russian Post among its clients, was discussed at a recent board meeting of VEB, the government's bank and the distributor of state anti-crisis funds.
"At a meeting of the supervisory board of VEB on Dec. 17, 2009, the strategy of development for Svyazbank was approved, which features the creation of a Russian Federation Post Bank on the basis of Svyazbank and with the participation of Russian Post," VEB's press service said late on Thursday.
The board -- presided over by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin -- decided to form a working group to prepare by April 1 the necessary events for the creation of such a bank.
The Russian Post has 42,000 branches, employs 415,000 people and handles 190 million money transfer operations a year.
Sberbank in comparison has 19,050 branches, employs around 270,000 people and holds half of Russia's retail deposits.
Both companies plan job cuts. [ID:nLB226840] [ID:nGEE5AM0GT] (Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; writing by Toni Vorobyova; editing by Simon Jessop)
Bloomberg: Russian Rosavia Prolongs Airbus, Boeing Bidding, Interfax Says
By Brad Cook
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Rosavia, Russia’s new state airline, prolonged its $2.5 billion aircraft competition between Airbus SAS and Boeing Co. for at least two months as it seeks better maintenance terms, Interfax said.
A decision will be made “no earlier” than two or three months from now, the Russian news serviced reported, citing an unidentified official from Russian Technologies Corp., Rosavia’s parent company.
Last Updated: December 18, 2009 00:42 EST
Reuters: Russia's Rosavia delays $2.5 bln plane deal
Thu, Dec 17 2009
MOSCOW, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Russia's new state-run airline Rosavia has delayed announcing results of its $2.5 billion tender to buy 65 planes as it needs time to review additional offers from sellers, its main shareholder said on Thursday.
"We have received additional offers from the tender participants and have taken a break," a spokesman for state conglomerate Russian Technologies told Reuters.
In August, Russian Technologies said Rosavia had solicited offers from Boeing and Airbus for the 65 narrowbody planes it plans to buy in the next few years. [ID:nLJ649955]
It was due to announce the tender results on Dec. 18. (Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; writing by Maria Kiselyova, Editing by John Bowker)
Bloomberg: Magnitogorsk Says Profit Doubled on Steel Production, Prices
By Maria Kolesnikova
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel, Russian billionaire Viktor Rashnikov’s steelmaker, said profit more than doubled in the third quarter from the previous three months on increased demand and output. Net income rose to $76 million from $34 million in the second quarter, Magnitogorsk said in an e-mailed statement today. Sales climbed 35 percent in the period to $1.4 billion.
To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Kolesnikova in Moscow at mkolesnikova@.
Last Updated: December 18, 2009 02:02 EST
Reuters: UPDATE 1-Russia's MMK misses Q3 forecasts due to write-offs
Fri Dec 18, 2009 9:35am GMT
* Q3 net profit $76 million, vs $124 million forecast
* Q3 EBITDA $309 million, vs $357 million forecast
* Q3 Revenue $1.40 billion, vs $1.51 billion forecast
* Sees Q4 EBITDA growth considerably above sales * Shares up 2.3 percent
(Adds detail)
MOSCOW, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Russia's third biggest steel maker, Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MAGN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research), posted a second consecutive quarterly profit on Friday, but missed forecasts after writing off unpaid bills.
MMK's third-quarter net profit reached $76 million, below the $124 million forecast, as it booked a one-off charge of $47 million for debt it does not expect to be paid.
It said it did not expect similar one-offs in the current quarter when earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) should grow faster than sales while its main products should fetch higher prices.
MMK shares were up 2.3 percent by 0935 GMT.
Russian steelmakers have returned to profit after dipping into the red for several quarters as domestic economic growth plummeted, hit by sharp declines in construction spending and durable goods such as automobiles in the downturn.
Most are now benefiting from increased exports, with Severstal (CHMF.MM: Quote, Profile, Research), Russia's largest producer, and Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) posting a profit in the July-September quarter. [ID:nLJ298392] [ID:nGEE5B604W]
MMK, controlled by billionaire Viktor Rashnikov, also said third-quarter EBITDA reached $309 million, below a forecast for $357 million and down from $667 million a year ago.
Sales totalled $1.40 billion, missing the $1.51 billion forecast and after $3.53 billion a year ago.
MMK said it expected to produce 2.3 million tonnes of finished steel products this quarter.
Total debt fell to $1.57 billion, down 9 percent from the start of the year. (Reporting by Alfred Kueppers; Editing by John Bowker and Dan Lalor)
Bloomberg: Rusal Said to Get Approval From Hong Kong Exchange for IPO
By Bei Hu
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- United Co. Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer, received conditional approval from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for an initial public offering in the city, two people familiar with the matter said.
The company plans to start gauging demand for the sale on Jan. 4, the people said, declining to be identified because no announcement has been made. The IPO also needs approval from the Securities and Futures Commission, one of the people said.
Lorraine Chan, a spokeswoman for the exchange, declined to comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bei Hu in Hong Kong at bhu5@
Last Updated: December 18, 2009 02:13 EST
Bloomberg: Rusal Said to Face Proposal to Limit Offering to Institutions
By Bei Hu, Cathy Chan and Yuriy Humber
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- United Co. Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer, may have to exclude individual investors from its planned initial public offering in Hong Kong, three people familiar with the matter said.
Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission proposed limiting the sale to institutions, the people said, declining to be identified. The regulator is discussing the matter with Rusal and no conclusion has been reached, they said.
The SFC is seeking to limit risks to individual investors, after Rusal’s IPO was delayed as the Hong Kong bourse sought more information about the company’s debt restructuring, the people said. Rusal, controlled by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, aims to become the first Russian company to go public in Hong Kong, which has tried to lure overseas firms to its exchange.
“The exchange regards the issue as a high-risk investment, but they are under pressure to allow the listing to go ahead,” said Eric Kraus, head of strategy at Otkritie Financial Co. in Moscow.
Moscow-based Rusal, which plans to sell a 10 percent stake to help repay debt, completed the restructuring of $17 billion of borrowings this month.
The Hong Kong bourse’s listing committee asked Rusal for more information on a $4.5 billion loan from state development bank Vnesheconombank, people with knowledge of the matter said this month. Russian state-controlled lender OAO Sberbank agreed to refinance the loan unless Vnesheconombank rolls it over, the Financial Times reported yesterday, citing people it didn’t identify.
The Wall Street Journal reported the talks about excluding retail investors from the IPO earlier, citing unidentified people. Rusal spokesman Vera Kurochkina declined to comment, as did spokespeople for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the SFC.
Vnesheconombank spokeswoman Yekaterina Karasina declined to comment and Sberbank spokesman Alexander Baziyan said he couldn’t immediately comment.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bei Hu in Hong Kong at bhu5@; Yuriy Humber in Moscow at yhumber@
Last Updated: December 17, 2009 22:41 EST
The Moscow Times: Potash Trader May Sign Benchmark China Deal
18 December 2009
Bloomberg
Belarusian Potash Co., a trader representing Russian and Belarussian potash producers, may sign a benchmark contract to supply the crop nutrient to China by the end of the year, sales chief Oleg Petrov said.
The contract for 2010 “will be important for the consumer sentiment and may give a boost to the market,” Petrov said in an interview Tuesday. He declined to forecast a price. BPC, as the trader is also called, may move to spot sales in China in 2011 as the biggest potash market becomes less dependent on imports because of growing local output, he said.
BPC’s Chinese contract may be set at a price lower than spot prices in Brazil, Petrov said. German and Israeli potash suppliers cut Brazilian spot prices to $400 to $405 a metric ton, inclusive of transport costs, Fertecon, an adviser on fertilizers, said in a report Dec. 15.
Potash rose to a record of more than $1,000 a ton in some parts of the world in 2008 before collapsing as farmers cut purchases because of slumping grain prices.
Chinese spot prices are $360 to $370 a ton, including freight, Troika Dialog analyst Mikhail Stiskin said in a report Dec. 14. Most market participants expect China to settle contracts at $300 to $350, excluding freight, Stiskin wrote.
“We should take into account domestic price in China as a serious factor in contract talks,” Petrov said. Chinese contracts are usually signed on a free-on-board basis, which excludes freight costs.
Jim Prokopanko, chief executive officer of Mosaic, North America’s second-largest fertilizer maker, said Dec. 8 that the Chinese contract price may be as low as $325 to $355 a ton, excluding freight.
BPC is owned equally by Uralkali and Belarus’ state-owned Belaruskali. Its sales may rise 50 percent in 2010, from as much as 4.9 million tons this year, Petrov said. Global exports may rise to 45 million tons next year from 25 million tons in 2009, he said.
China will use 8 million to 9 million tons of potash next year, of which 4 million to 5 million tons will be produced domestically, Petrov said. China accounted for 22 percent of global potash consumption last year, according to Fertecon.
Chinese stockpiles may be 3 million tons, Petrov said. Domestic supply will be limited until March as local production slows, he said.
Potash producers, who buy 5.3 million tons of potash a year, will start talks with Indian buyers early in 2010, and volumes will be similar to this year, he said.
Reuters: McDonald's to target stay-at-home Russians
By Maria Kiselyova and Maria Plis
MOSCOW (Reuters) - McDonald's still sees plenty of growth potential in Russia -- where more than two thirds of the population are yet to make a habit of eating out -- two decades after opening its first restaurant there.
Khamzat Khasbulatov, chief executive of McDonald's Russia, told Reuters the world's largest restaurant company would ramp up Russian expansion next year, opening at least 40 outlets against the 33 planned for this year and 21 in 2008.
McDonald's has 233 eateries in Russia, where a restaurant of any kind was rare before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"While 70 percent of our population is not used to eating outside the house, we will have a niche that we should be looking at carefully as there are big opportunities to make these people eat out," Khasbulatov said in an interview.
McDonald's will expand mostly in the Russian regions, which are less penetrated by fast-food chains than Moscow or St Petersburg, and would consider launching a franchise scheme to expand beyond the Urals mountains, he said.
Rivals share Khasbulatov's view on the strength of the Russian market. Burger King pledged to open its first Russian restaurant in Moscow this year, while privately owned chain Subway plans to expand its Russian network to 1,000 outlets by 2015 from 78 now.
"We are not afraid of competition. The market is still in the making and one who takes right decisions at the right time will be the leader. We did it 20 years ago," Khasbulatov said.
"When we saw the first queues that were lining up to our first restaurant in Moscow every day and night all year round, our success was predetermined and all we had to do was to develop as fast as possible."
Punters queued for hours to sample Big Macs and french fries when the first Russian McDonald's opened in Moscow's Pushkinskaya Square in 1990.
NO WORSE
Russian consumer sentiment has been hit dramatically by the economic crisis, and the overall restaurant industry will be down 7-8 percent this year, Khasbulatov said.
But McDonald's, which has a 70 percent share of Russia's quick-service restaurant market, did not suffer as much -- fast food chains proved more resilient due to relatively low prices.
"In 2009, we have seen positive dynamics in customer traffic and sales. The average bill was higher than in 2008 although it did not reach what we forecast," Khasbulatov said. "We have no fundamental concerns that the situation may turn for the worse," he said, adding business would be "no worse" next year.
Investment in a single restaurant ranged from $3-$5 million, meaning investment by McDonald's in new openings in Russia would be $120-$200 million next year, he said.
The hamburger chain will also invest a "significant" sum renovating existing Russian outlets, part of its $2.4 billion global capital expenditure plan for 2010 aimed at revamping restaurants and expanding in emerging markets.
(Editing by John Bowker and Dan Lalor)
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
Ukrainian Journal: Russia to boost European gas exports via Ukraine 20% in 2010, Naftogaz says
Journal Staff Report
|KIEV, Dec. 17 - Naftogaz Ukrayiny on Thursday predicted that shipments of Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukrainian pipelines |
|will increase 20% to 113 billion cubic meters in 2010. |
| |
|Naftogaz made the forecast assuming that the economic crisis currently plaguing many European countries will end, boosting demand|
|for natural gas. |
| |
|“We expect that the shipments will increase about 20% next year,” a spokesman at Naftogaz said Thursday. |
RBC: ESPO pipeline to be launched soon
RBC, 18.12.2009, Moscow 12:14:38.The official ceremony of launching the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline system will take place in a special seaport - Kozmino - on December 25-27, 2009. The launch will be symbolized by the arrival of the first oil tanker to the Kozmino port, which is the final point of the ESPO system, according to the press office of the pipeline's operator Transneft. The tanker is expected to carry 100,000 tonnes of oil.
Oil and Gas Eurasia: Russian Crude Oil Exports to the Far East – ESPO Starts Flowing
№ 10 (October 2009)
The Asian markets are heavily dependent on imported oil and the role of Russian oil has been growing in recent years. The Eastern Siberian Pacific Ocean pipeline will enable supplies from the Eastern Siberian fields to supply some of the rapidly growing energy needs in Asia.
By Platts' analysis
Russia’s crude oil production rose to 10.02 million barrels/day in November, gaining 2.6% year on year and, according to the president of Russia’s national oil pipeline operator Transneft, Nikolai Tokarev, is expected to grow to 11 million b/d after 2012. The start of the ESPO crude exports will be a major step for Russia’s oil export infrastructure, which is currently heavily focused on moving oil west toward Europe. The initial stage of the ESPO pipeline, which runs for 2,757 km from Taishet in East Siberia to Skovorodino in the Amur region Russia’s Far East, near the border with China, has a capacity of 600,000 b/d. Capacity is slated to grow to 1 million b/d by 2012 in the second stage of the project, and potentially to as much as 1.6 million b/d at a later date.
From Skovorodino, 300,000 b/d will be transported by rail to a new export terminal at Kozmino on the Pacific coast, and eventually another 300,000 b/d will be delivered to China, after an offshoot from Skovorodino to the Asian country is completed at the end of 2010. The offshoot from Skovorodino to Daqing will be built by CNPC, with only 64 km to the border to be constructed by Transneft. Rosneft has signed a 20-year contract with CNPC for the delivery of 300,000 b/d from Skovorodino, and supplies to China through the pipeline could increase beyond this in the future, according to Rosneft. The price at Skovorodino for deliveries into China will be equal to the FOB Kozmino price, with no premiums or discounts being applied, sources involved in negotiations told Platts. Russia’s deputy prime minister Igor Sechin estimated the contract signed between Rosneft and CNPC to be worth at least $100 billion. The contract envisages total oil deliveries of 300 million mt (close to 2.26 billion barrels) over 20 years. Equipment testing at Kozmino, the final point and the loading terminal of the Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean crude pipeline, was completed November 24.
The Kozmino testing was done following the filling of the port installations with technical crude oil. The port has received 102,500 mt of the crude, equating to more than 750,000 barrels. The technical oil, oil which remains within the system for operational purposes, belongs to Transneft and will not be sold in the market, remaining on the company’s balance sheet, the port authority said.
The terminal at Kozmino will have initially a tank farm with capacity of 350,000 cubic meters (close to 2.6 million barrels) and a loading capacity of 300,000 b/d. The first rail tanks with crude oil for export left Skovorodino pipeline delivery station in Russia’s Amur region November 30 for the port of Kozmino, carrying 4,890 mt of crude oil in 82 carriages, according to Vostoknefteprovod. Vostoknefteprovod, a company affiliated with Transneft, was created to operate the new Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean oil pipeline. The Skovorodino delivery station has a storage capacity of 80,000 mt and a loading installation for 82 rail tanks, with a current loading capacity of 35,000 mt/day, which is expected to increase to 43,000 mt/day (close to 323,000 barrels/day) in the near future. Physical exports along the ESPO route are set to start in late December.
Russia’s Rosneft sold on November 23 the first ESPO cargo through a tender auction, with the buyer emergingas International Petroleum Products OY at a 50 cents premium to average Platts Dubai prices published for December. Rosneft awarded the tender to IPP OY for 100,000 mt of ESPO crude for December 27-29 loading FOB Kozmino basis. A total of 15 companies participated in the tender, with two companies bidding at positive differentials, according to industry sources. Transneft estimates the cost for the first stage of the ESPO pipeline at Rb420 billion, or $14.4 billion. The company expects the second stage of the pipeline, which would expand capacity from the initial 600,000 b/d to 1 million b/d, to cost around Rb350 billion, or $11.97 billion. Beyond the second stage, capacity could be extended further to 1.6 million b/d. When the route is expanded to the planned maximum capacity, 300,000 b/d will go to China, 400,000 b/d will be sent to a new refinery Rosneft plans to build near Kozmino, and around 200,000-300,000 b/d will be sent through the route to existing Far Eastern refineries in Komsomolsk- on-Amur and Khabarovsk, according to Transneft. This implies that the remaining 600,000-700,000 b/d will be exported from the terminal at the Pacific Coast, although it is not currently clear when the route might be expanded to this maximum capacity.
For 2010, Transneft’s transportation schedule projects deliveries of 15 million mt or 300,000 b/d via the route.However, Transneft has not ruled out some changes at the initial stage when the new transportation system is tested.
Rosneft has said it expects to export some 4-6 million mt of oil from Kozmino in 2010, while TNK-BP expects to export a total of 2.0-2.2 million mt. Russia has also not ruled out sending additional volumes of West Siberian crude to the ESPO pipeline if there is not enough crude produced in East Siberia to fill the line. Russia’s energy minister Sergei Shmatko, however, said that he believes that 100% of East Siberian crude would be exported. The Russian government announced late November an exemption from crude export duty for East Siberian crude, to be implemented from December 1. The exemption is designed to stimulate development in the remote oil province. The long-awaited zero rate will be applied to crude with a density of between 694.7-872.4 kg/cubic meters at 20 degree Celsius (equivalent approximately to API gravity of 30-70 at 15.5 degrees Celsius) and with a sulfur content of between 0.1% and 1%, according to the documentsigned by prime minister Vladimir Putin. A total of 13 separate fields in East Siberia are currently eligible for the zero rate. They are Vankor, Yurubcheno-Tokhomskoye, Talakan – including the East Block, Alinskoye, Srednebotuobinskoye, Dulisminskoye, Verkhnechonskoye, Kuyumbinskoye, North Talakan, East Alinskoye, Verkhnepeleduyskoye, Pilyudinskoye, and Stanakhskoye. The fields are owned by several entities including Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz, TNK-BP and Gazprom Neft. Russia is said to be considering expanding the number of East Siberian fields eligible for the zero rate to eighteen.
In late October, energy minister Shmatko said the zero rate was likely to last a minimum of five to seven years, but the government has yet to make a firm decision on this. Russia’s Federal Tariffs Service has proposed a through transportation fee for crude deliveries via the new export oil pipeline across East Siberia towards the Pacific Ocean of Rb 1,600/mt ($52.630/mt or $7.20/barrel). The fee is yet to be approved by the service’s board, but this is widely expected to happen before the official launch of the pipeline on December 25. The fee will include services for crude deliveries via thepipeline, by railroad, and for crude re-loading at terminals including at the Kozmino sea port for onward exports.
Copyright © 2009 Platts, a Division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Moscow Times: Barsky Says Tycoons Good for Business
18 December 2009
Reuters
Maxim Barsky says having billionaires on the management team at TNK-BP may affect the value of the venture but getting rid of them would be a bad move.
The 35-year-old picked to run TNK-BP from 2011 has set his sights on overtaking privately owned peer LUKoil on key performance indicators but said new management could only achieve that with the billionaires’ lobbying power.
“They have colossal connections and it would be suicide for the company not to use them,” Barsky said. He also said BP and its billionaire partners would sacrifice dividends to find the cash needed to tap new deposits in the Arctic, a departure from previous strategy.
That shift signaled that hostilities between BP and the Russia-connected co-owners, which rocked investor confidence in Russia, have now been left behind, he said. “What I saw is that all shareholders are raising very ambitious goals. So the company grows, profit grows, dividends grow,” the former investment banker said.
“Today we are [Russian] industry leaders as we have a very high dividend yield. I think it will likely change, because the company has very ambitious projects ahead.”
Barsky has a three-year contract to serve as chief executive from 2011 when he will replace interim chief Mikhail Fridman, one of the four shareholders.
“Independent management is always a factor creating a premium to a company value. Direct participation of owners means a discount,” he said.
The last permanent head of the company, BP veteran Robert Dudley, left Russia with a number of other expatriate workers at the height of the shareholder conflict in summer 2008.
The billionaires said BP ignored their calls for expansion abroad and used too many BP secondees, thus damaging profit at TNK-BP which is responsible for a quarter of BP’s worldwide output and earns more than $5 billion a year.
BP said the oligarchs used state pressure to win the battle.
The dispute ended with BP ceding more operational control to the billionaires. Asked to comment on the widely held industry belief that executive director German Khan is the real power behind TNK-BP, Barsky said: “He is playing a significant role in the company.”
Barsky, chosen as an independent CEO, will tour BP’s offices to “better understand BP as a strategic investor.”
Proposed by the oligarchs then backed by BP, Barsky said he did not know any of the tycoons before April, when a headhunter contacted him a few months after he closed the merger of mid-sized oil firms Alliance Oil and West Siberian.
Barsky said he feels he can be a real leader and is rich enough to guarantee independence from both the oligarchs and BP. “I have, in principle, solved all personal financial issues in this life. I have a completely different motivation from other candidates,” Barsky said when asked whether he was a “Fridman man.” His motivation, he said, was to learn and realize potential.
BP and the oligarchs have received tens of billions of dollars by channeling almost all of the venture’s profit on dividends since TNK-BP was created in 2003.
While LUKoil has said it will cap growth to raise dividends, TNK-BP will likely go in the opposite direction to tap giant fields on the Yamal Peninsula and eastern Siberia.
“More and more will be invested in growth rather than in anything else,” said Barsky, adding that his long-term goal was to beat LUKoil on all enterprise value indicators.
Reuters: UPDATE 1-TNK-BP to boost 2010 crude output nearly 3 pct
Thu Dec 17, 2009 5:36pm IST
* Plans 2010 capex of $3.3-$3.5 bln
* Oil output to rise to 71.8-72.0 million tonnes
(Adds details, quotes, background)
MOSCOW, Dec 17 (Reuters) - TNK-BP (TNBPI.RTS: Quote, Profile, Research), Russia's No. 3 oil producer, plans to produce nearly 3 percent more crude next year as it ramps up output at new fields, a senior company official said on Thursday. Sergei Brezitsky, upstream vice-president, told a news conference TNK-BP aimed to produce between 71.8 million and 72.0 million tonnes in 2010, compared with 70 million tonnes expected this year.
Brezitsky said TNK-BP, half-owned by BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research), planned to invest $3.3 billion to $3.5 billion next year. "Capital expenditure will increase compared with 2009," he said.
Russia, currently pumping more oil than Saudi Arabia as OPEC persists with output cuts, expects crude production to rise 1 percent in 2009 after last year suffering its first decline in a decade. The launch of new oilfields in East Siberia has helped. Rosneft (ROSN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research), Russia's state-controlled industry leader, expects to raise 2010 production by between 4 percent and 5 percent after a 2 percent jump in the current year, Chief Executive Sergei Bogdanchikov said on Tuesday. [ID:nLDE5BE2CT]
TNK-BP's planned capital expenditure for 2010, though higher than this year's level, is below the $4.0 billion figure quoted on Dec. 8 by one of its large Russian shareholders, Viktor Vekselberg. [ID:nGEE5B71PU]
Brezitsky said about $450 million of planned investments would be switched to projects on the Arctic peninsula of Yamal, while the greenfield developments of Uvat in West Siberia and Verkhnechonskoye in East Siberia would get $500 million each. (Reporting by Anton Doroshev, writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Sue Thomas)
Last updated: December 17, 2009 01:40pm
: Lukoil Moves Operations to Midtown
NEW YORK CITY- Lukoil Pan Americas is consolidating its crude oil and refined products trading operations, taking an 11-year lease for 20,433 square feet at the Blackstone Group’s 1095 Ave. of the Americas. Until now, the two operations were located in Red Bank, NJ and East Meadow, NY.
"We were fortunate to hit the market at the right time," says John Mambrino, senior managing director of Studley, in a release. Mambrino, who represented Lukoil along with Studley managing director Nicholas Farmakis, adds that 1095 Sixth Ave. "represented the best option" out of a handful of well-located properties.
He notes that the property’s location near Bryant Park and convenience to mass transit access access for Lukoil employees were strong draws. Adds Farmakis in the release, "The building itself has been impressively renovated, and the landlord is constructing Lukoil’s space on the 33rd floor to its specifications." Lease terms were not disclosed; asking rents at the 1.3-million-square-foot office tower are in the high $60s per square foot.
Blackstone was represented in negotiations by the CB Richard Ellis duo of EVP Robert Stillman and first VP Zachary Freeman. Robert Nash and Keith Pollock of Schulte Roth & Zabel were the attorneys who acted on behalf of the ownership, while Daniel Weisz of Marans, Weisz & Newman provided legal counsel for Lukoil.
Formerly known as the Verizon Building, 1095 Sixth was purchased by Blackstone in February 2007 as part of its $23-billion acquisition of Equity Office Properties. It was EOP’s only Manhattan asset not sold to Macklowe Properties just prior to the deal closing.
: Petroneft wins new Russia licence
The Dublin-listed, Siberian-focused oil exploration company Petroneft Resources has won a state auction for a 100 per cent stake in the Ledovy Licence 67 in Russia.
Petroneft is already the owner and operator of Licence 61, also in Tomsk Oblast.
The Ledovy 'Licence 67' is located in the main oil bearing region of the Tomsk Oblast west of the Ob River, in the prolific Western Siberian Oil & Gas Basin.
The 2,447 km2 Licence 67 is surrounded by proven and producing oil and gas fields and is located close to existing road, power and pipeline infrastructure - including the Vasyugan-Raskino oil pipeline and electric power lines running through the middle of the Licence 67 area.
Russian registered C3 recoverable resources are 55 million barrels in three prospects and there is believed to be significant upside within existing discoveries, the company said.
Gazprom
Euroweek: BarCap closes syndication of Gazprom M&T L/C
Issue: 1135 - 18 December 2009
Barclays Capital closed general syndication of a $148m one year debut syndicated loan for Gazprom Marketing and Trading on Monday. GM&T will use the deal to provide letters of credit to liquefied natural gas infrastructure facilities in Mexico and California, which may receive LNG from Sakhalin...
RBC: Gazprom Neft's 2009 investment program to double
RBC, 18.12.2009, Moscow 10:50:46.Gazprom Neft's investment program is estimated to reach between RUB 170bn (approx. USD 5.58bn) and RUB 180bn (approx. USD 5.91bn) for this year, which is double the original estimated amount, the RBC Daily newspaper reported today.
The program was approved in late 2008 and provided for RUB 91.6bn (approx. USD 3.01bn) in investments. However, the situation changed radically this year, and as much as RUB 152bn (approx. USD 4.99bn) was spent in January-September, and a total of RUB 182bn (approx. USD 5.98bn) is expected to be spent until the year-end, with long-term investments reaching RUB 85bn (approx. USD 2.79bn).
Meanwhile, the Russian oil company plans to invest a mere RUB 60bn (approx. USD 1.97bn) from its own funds, with the rest of investments financed through loans. Such significant changes in times of crisis are quite logical: lower oil prices and problems with debt repayment forced owners of many oil companies to put them up for sale. Gazprom Neft spent a considerable part of its funds to purchase a 48.3-percent stake in Sibir Energy.
BarentsObserver: Gazprom discussed design of Teriberka
2009-12-18
The layout of the port and transportation complex infrastructure near Teriberka was an important issue discussed at Thursday’s meeting between Gasprom Management Commottee and the company’s subsidiaries.
In particular, the meeting addressed the information by design institutes on hydro-meteorological specifics of the Teriberka Bay, as well as the results of physical and mathematical simulation for optional locations of the LNG export facility, Gazprom writes in a press release.
The meeting was attended by the department of Gas Condensate and Oil Production, heads and experts from Gazprom’s specialized subdivisions, Gazprom dobycha shelf, Gazflot, Giprospetsgaz and Shtokman Development AG. The meeting was also attended by representatives from the Russian Federation Transport Ministry, Krylov Shipbuilding Research Institute, Lenmorniiproekt and Sovcomflot.
It was noted that the port and transportation complex infrastructure engineering had to be carried out so as to optimize the construction costs and ensure the navigation safety of heavy-duty LNG carriers.
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