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Russia 110830Basic Political DevelopmentsRelapses between Palestine and Israel ‘unacceptable’ – Russian Foreign Ministry: The statement, published on the website of the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, came after talks between Russian DeputyForeign MinisterMikhail Bogdanov and Palestinian leaders, including Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Damascus.Russian envoy discusses Palestinian-Israeli settlement with HamasRussian Deputy Foreign Minister Bogdanov held in Damascus talks with Hamas leadershipDeputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia M. Bogdanov met with leaders of Palestinian organizations - August 29 in Damascus, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Bogdanov, met with the chairman of Hamas politburo Khaled Mashaal, general secretary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine N. Hawatmeh, Deputy Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command member and Naji T. Politburo of the PFLP M. Taher.Official: Iran Willing to Expand N. Cooperation with Russia - Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereidoon Abbasi announced that the country is willing to further develop its cooperation with Russia in building more nuclear power plants. Iran to launch Bushehr nuclear power plant "completely" at the end of autumn: Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Fereidoon Abbasi, said Monday that Iran will launch Bushehr nuclear power plant completely at the end of autumn, the official IRNA news agency reported.Russian military commander discusses plan for joint naval maneuvers during visit to N. KoreaSeoul hopes Russia’s gas pipeline may help Korea’s unificationLaying a gas pipeline from Russia to South Korea will unite the two Koreas - the leader of the ruling partyBritain may ban the entry into the country for the officials of the ‘Magnitsky list’ - A member of the British Parliament, former Minister for Europe Denis MacShane called on the government to immediately follow the U.S. example and officially announce the introduction of visa sanctions against Russian officials from the Magnitsky listGaddafi assets to be used exclusively for humanitarian goals on Moscow's insistence - "The idea of using the frozen bank accounts for aiding Libyan citizens is sober, given the need to ease the humanitarian plight in that country. But there are certain terms which the world community must comply with," Churkin said.Russia warns against mis-spending Gaddafi assets Action in support of Gaddafi stopped in Moscow - Moscow police stopped a rally in support of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya at the embassy, Interfax reports.Nasser al-Sarami: We hate the West and love Russia … but why?Rocking the boat of Syrian religious tolerance - “If some have a problem with the government, and because [the regime] belongs to this sect, they have to fight against this sect,” an independent member of the Syrian parliament told RT.CSTO secretary-general to discuss fight against extremism - Secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Nikolai Bordyuzha, will meet on Tuesday with the chairman of the CSTO Collective Security Council, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko to discuss counteraction to extremist and terrorist groups in the CSTO area of responsibility.Hydrocarbons in exchange for Karabakh - Baku proposes a petro-formula to settle relations. By Yury Roks Washington says elections in Abkhazia 'illegitimate'US reiterates does not recognize election in AbkhaziaPresiding Over Nowhere - Abkhazia’s New President Will Have to Walk a Fine Line to Maintain the Interests of the Republic, Russia and the West US ‘hot sauce mom’ Beagley gets suspended sentence for cruelty to childU.S. woman gets suspended sentence for abusing adopted Russian sonCongratulations to President of Kyrgyzstan Roza Otunbayeva - The President’s message was delivered by Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Naryshkin at a celebratory event marking the 20th anniversary of the Kyrgyz Republic’s independence.Russia Central Bank to Name Deputy Chairman, Kommersant Reports - Russia’s central bank may name the new first deputy chairman within a week after Gennady Melikyan steps down, Kommersant reported today, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. Sufficient supplies aboard ISS for crew to manage till next summerRussia resumes Proton-M rocket launches - The Russian Federal Space Agency has lifted its ban on launches of Proton-M rockets equipped with Briz-M upper staged imposed following the failed launch of the Express-AM4 communications satellite, Roscosmos said on its website.Russia resumes launching of Proton-M rockets and Briz-M upper stages NASA: Space station may be evacuated by late NovemberFirst versions of Mi-8 crash in Karachay-Cherkessia – The helicopter was carrying 13 people. They included Ahmed Bilalov, CEO of the Resorts of the North Caucasus, who wasn’t injured. Deputy of Alexander Khloponin, Maxim Bystrov, Bilalov’s deputy, Vladimir Berezhnoy, pilot Sergey Fomintsev, mechanic Victor Kondar and assistant Bystrova Yekaterina Boyenko were hospitalized, Kommersant reports.Fraud Breeding Terrorism - Fraud and?other financial machinations, not the?absence of?an ideology, is the?real cause of?terrorism and?extremism in?the North Caucasus Federal District, Alexander Khloponin, presidential representative to?the region, said at?a meeting Monday summing up results of?prosecutors' work in?the North Caucasus and?Southern federal districts in?the first half of?this year.Church thanks plenipotentiary representative of Dagestan President who publicly condemned his nephew for participation in disorderRussian Moslems celebrating Uraza Bairam, or Id ul-Fitr Main Moscow mosque construction to go ahead - Ravil Gainutdin, the head of Russia's Mufti Council, said on Tuesday the construction was set to go ahead and hailed the country's leaders for the "real help" they were giving to Muslims.Grain worth RUR12 mln stolen from intervention fund in Krasnoyarsk Ter Russian Press at a Glance, Tuesday, August 30, 2011DECEMBER PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONRussian President’s decree on elections to Duma takes effectElection campaign starts in RussiaMedvedev's popularity declines - The August poll conducted by Levada showed the share of the population supporting Medvedev fell to 63%, marking a fresh low since 2008 and comparing with levels of around 75% in the preceding year. At the same time, Putin's popularity ratings stabilized around 68-69% after reaching 79% at the end of last year.Senior Russian deputy quits Putin's ruling party - Igor Isakov has withdrawn his membership from United Russia, his spokesman said on Tuesday.Russia Medvedev warns of ethnic tension before voteElection campaign starts in RussiaRussia's Putin revs up vote campaign astride a bikePutin calls bikers "brothers," says memory cements nationUnited Russia prepares a new ideology - The party is trying to accept socialists, conservatives, and liberals from the All-Russia People’s Front. Russia’s election chief: turnout is key - Central Election Commission head Vladimir Churov talks to RBTH about the Commission’s relationships with European observers and the Russian voter’s choice.Politically Blonde - Though Female Beauty Is Often Exploited During the Pre-Election Season, Women’s Real Power and Influence on Russia’s Political and Social Life Is Still Very Small, Say Experts Kremlin's Fear of China Drives Its Foreign Policy - By Alejandro SueldoRussia and China's Energy Dispute and the Struggle for Eurasian Dominance - Written by John Daly ?? WikiLeaks: Russian Foreign Ministry 'Bastion' of Sexism and Low Pay - By Alexandra OdynovaObama's Big Fail on Resetting Russia - By Kim ZigfeldPolitical analyst notes importance of restoring high-level dialog between Ukraine and Russia - Head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko has said that one of the main trends in Ukraine's foreign policy in August 2011 was the restoration of a high-level dialog between Ukraine and Russia and the recognition of the existence of problems in bilateral relations. The course of treatment is over - The Health Ministry has run out of money to ensure medical treatment.Broken Spirits - Although the Law “On Returning Church Property” Has Been Adopted, Many Religious Organizations Have So Far Been Unable to Reclaim Their Possessions At 35,000 Feet, a Russian Image Problem - By ANDREW E. KRAMERDeath of a Peacemaker - In June, Maksud Sadikov, the tall, large-hearted rector at Dagestan's Institute of Theology, was shot in his car in Makhachkala, leaving his wife, four children, and hundreds of students in deep mourning. BY ANNA NEMTSOVAGhost villages multiply as Russia’s rural exodus gains paceNational Economic TrendsRussia's Q1 direct investment down 20 pct to $12.8 blnRussia’s Grain Harvest May Top 90 Million Tons, Rossiyskaya SaysRussia Limits Transport of Grain to Black Sea, Vedomosti SaysMoscow to allocate over one trln roubles for special investments Gazprom Climbs in New York as U.S. Boosts Oil: Russia OvernightRussian Ruble May Weaken Up to 25%Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussionsRussian Copper Increases Tominskoye Copper Deposit ReservesOGK-1 IFRS net profits triple in H1 to 2.9 bln rublesVTB unit to buy Bulgarian tobaccoBank of Moscow bailout saved VTB - ex-CEOSberbank's CEO increases his shareholding another 16% Sberbank H1 net profit up at 176.1 bln roublesSberbank agrees to pay 585 mln eur for VBI-sourcesRussia's Rusagro posts H1 net lossRostelecom mulls expansion into Ukraine Russia's Ist acquires stake in Italian Wimax operatorScartel Owners Want $1 Billion for the Company, Vedomosti SaysMobile operators to withdraw from LTE consortium with Scartel? Zynga may postpone IPO Zynga IPO DelayedUPDATE 1-Globaltrans upbeat on H2 as first-half profit risesGlobaltrans' first half profit skyrocket 66 pct to $159 mlnRussia's M.Video H1 net profit up 50 pctIkea finally launches in UfaActivity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)Russia Gas Production to Reach Record This Year, Vedomosti SaysMinistry for the Economy increases its oil and gas production forecastCzech EPH Says Not Buying Slovak Gas Firm For RussiansNovatek to pay RUB 2.5/share interim dividend (up 67% y/y), yielding 0.7% Shtokman Devt to receive discount rate of corp profit tax at 13.5%Russia’s oil tax hike: winners and losers - FTTNK-BP sparring turns up heat on Dudley - By Sylvia Pfeifer in London and Catherine Belton in MoscowGazpromGazprom Boosts First-Quarter Profit 44%Gazprom first quarter net profit soars 44 pct to 468 bln rblsGazprom Q1 earnings, sales top expectationsGazprombank Q1 net profit jumps 31 pct to 31 bln rblsGazprom Neft and Iran unable to agree on field developmentNew Well Tested On Sakhalin ShelfGazprom to Build Underground Gas Storage Facility in IrkutskZubkov to Keep Gazprom Post Despite Medvedev's Order ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Full Text ArticlesBasic Political DevelopmentsRT News line, August 30Relapses between Palestine and Israel ‘unacceptable’ – Russian Foreign Ministry has stressed the importance of maintaining peace in the Gaza Strip, saying that “relapses ofviolence between Palestinians and Israelis are unacceptable”. The statement, published on the website of the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, came after talks between Russian DeputyForeign MinisterMikhail Bogdanov and Palestinian leaders, including Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Damascus. As one of the Middle East Quartet members, Russia will continue its efforts to “form a mutually acceptable base for unblockingthe Palestine-Israel settlement, which would facilitate the establishment of comprehensive and stable peace in the Middle East”, the ministry added.RT News line, August 30Russian envoy discusses Palestinian-Israeli settlement with Hamas insists peace in Gaza should be maintained, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has said during talks with the leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian organizations. He stressed that “relapses of violence between? Palestinians and Israel are unacceptable,” the foreign ministry’s website said on Tuesday. Russia will continue to find ways to form a mutually acceptable base for unblocking the Palestine-Israel settlement, the official said. Bogdanov negotiated the current stage in the Middle East settlement with the chairman of the Hamas Politburo? Khaled Mashaal, the general secretary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Naif Hawatmeh and other Palestinian officials.GOOGLE TRANSLATIONRussian Deputy Foreign Minister Bogdanov held in Damascus talks with Hamas leadershipAugust 30, 2011 10:46Moscow. August 30. INTERFAX.RU - Russia declares the importance of maintaining calm in the Gaza Strip and the non-resumption of violence between Palestinians and Israelis, said Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Bogdanov at the meeting with the leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian organizations."The Russian side stressed the importance of maintaining calm along the perimeter of the Gaza Strip and the inadmissibility of the recurrence of violence between Palestinians and Israelis," - said in a statement the Russian Foreign Ministry issued an official site office on Tuesday after the meeting. TRANSLATION RELEASEDeputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia M. Bogdanov met with leaders of Palestinian organizations1269-30-08-2011August 29 in Damascus, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Bogdanov, met with the chairman of Hamas politburo Khaled Mashaal, general secretary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine N. Hawatmeh, Deputy Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command member and Naji T. Politburo of the PFLP M. Taher.During the contacts discussed the situation in the Middle East peace process in conjunction with the current developments in the Middle East. Particular emphasis was placed on the task of ensuring inter-Palestinian consensus and creating an independent Palestinian state in the well-known international legal basis. The Russian side stressed the importance of maintaining calm along the perimeter of the Gaza Strip and the inadmissibility of the recurrence of violence between Palestinians and Israelis.M. Bogdanov said that Russia, which is an influential member of the international "quartet" of Middle East mediators to continue vigorous efforts to seek a mutually acceptable framework for the process of unlocking a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, which would serve the interests of establishing a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East including taking into account the multifaceted nature of place in this region, socio-political transformations.August 30, 2011News number: 9006080014 10:23 | 2011-08-30Official: Iran Willing to Expand N. Cooperation with Russia (FNA)- Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereidoon Abbasi announced that the country is willing to further develop its cooperation with Russia in building more nuclear power plants. Tehran has offered a proposal to Moscow on the building of new nuclear plants using Iranian-made nuclear fuel, Abbasi who is also Vice President of the Islamic Republic of Iran said. Referring to the 'step by step' proposal of Russia to settle the standoff between Iran and the West, he said any nuclear proposal either step by step or all at once must guarantee Iran's nuclear rights. He added, "I don't think Iran-G5+1 talks can resolve the issue in near future. Any partner who wants to get involved on talks on Iran's nuclear issue and who makes a proposal in this regard should recognize Tehran's nuclear rights, at first." "The Islamic Republic of Iran would study Russia's "step by step" plan on Iran's nuclear issue," the official told the Islamic republic news agency. Nuclear issue is just an excuse for the West to put pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran and if it is resolved, the US and its allies would impose more sanctions against Iran under the pretext of human rights violations, Abbasi stated. Abbasi made the remarks, referring to a July 13 'step-by-step' approach towards Iran's nuclear program proposed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that offers the Islamic Republic to address the questions raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a step-by-step manner. According to the proposed plan, Iran can revive negotiations to alleviate individual concerns of the IAEA about its nuclear activities and be rewarded along the way by the partial removal of sanctions. The approach would start out with the easiest questions and move on to more complicated ones that would require a longer time for a response, according to Lavrov. Iran says that according to the modality plan agreed by the Islamic Republic and the IAEA in 2007, the agency should close Iran's nuclear dossier since Tehran has addressed and resolved all issues of contention. Iran to launch Bushehr nuclear power plant "completely" at the end of autumn: of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Fereidoon Abbasi, said Monday that Iran will launch Bushehr nuclear power plant completely at the end of autumn, the official IRNA news agency reported.Abbasi said that the turbine of the power plant made by Russia has passed an initial "successful test" but it needs longer time for the completion of all the tests, Xinhua reported.Iran has started negotiations with Russia for the construction of more nuclear power plants in the country, he told IRNA.Other countries, especially those from the West, can also participate in the construction of Iranian power plants, he added.08/30 09:35 ? Russian military commander discusses plan for joint naval maneuvers during visit to N. Korea News line, August 30Seoul hopes Russia’s gas pipeline may help Korea’s unification gas pipeline from Russia to South Korea through North Korean territory may contribute to the unification of the two countries, the leader of the South’s ruling Grand National Party, Hong Joon-pyo, said on Tuesday. Commenting on the Russian-North Korean summit, he said that if the three countries sign an agreement opening the way for the implementation of the project, it may be helpful in the dialogue between Seoul and Pyongyang. Itar-Tass quoted him as saying that the project “will open a new page in the inter-Korean relations.”GOOGLE TRANSLATION Laying a gas pipeline from Russia to South Korea will unite the two Koreas - the leader of the ruling partySEOUL, Aug. 30. / Itar-Tass Kutakhov /. The project implementation of the gas pipeline from Russia to South Korea may help to unite the two Koreas. This was announced here today the leader of the ruling Grand National Party, deputy of the National Assembly Hon Chong RK Phe, commenting on the results of a recent summit of leaders of Russia and the DPRK."If workers negotiate the official representatives of the three countries / Russia, South Korea and North Korea, ca. Itar-Tass / completed in an agreement, and begin implementation of this project, it will open a new chapter in inter-Korean relations" - said the legislator.South Korean parliamentarian also expressed the hope that the achievement of a tripartite agreement between Moscow, Seoul and Pyongyang on the exercise beneficial to all three countries, energy agreement will reduce the price of imports to South Korea of natural gas.GOOGLE TRANSLATION may ban the entry into the country for the officials of the ‘Magnitsky list’August 30, 2011 9:55Moscow. August 30. INTERFAX.RU - Lawmakers urge UK government after the U.S. announce the visa sanctions against Russian officials from the "list Magnitsky.""A member of the British Parliament, former Minister for Europe Denis MacShane called on the government to immediately follow the U.S. example and officially announce the introduction of visa sanctions against Russian officials from a list of Magnitsky" - said in a statement the fund Hermitage Capital, received by the "Interfax" Tuesday.In the parliamentary inquiry, sent McShane in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the UK, a lawmaker says: "Given the powers available to the Minister of the Interior to exclude undesirable aliens stay in the UK, do you consider the possible entry into our country of Russians involved in theft, fraud, torture and murder, and whose presence is considered undesirable by the U.S. government? "In the parliamentary inquiry emphasized that the EU is currently in discussion of the relevant resolutions of the visa sanctions. Earlier, the Parliament unanimously supported the introduction of Dutch visa sanctions against officials of the "list Magnitsky." The project is preparing a similar resolution in the parliament of Great Britain.Earlier, the Interior Ministry said the UK that the authority to ban entry of "foreign nationals whose presence is assessed as not appropriate for the purposes of public order", assigned to head the agency.In July, the U.S. State Department has made the names of Russian officials, relating to the death of the employee fund Hermitage Capital Magnitsky, a "black list" for visas.Gaddafi assets to be used exclusively for humanitarian goals on Moscow's insistenceToday at 10:35 | Interfax-Ukraine Moscow, August 30 (Interfax) - Russia has insisted that the Muammar Gaddafi regime's foreign bank accounts, which have been frozen by the UN Security Council and which are being handed over to the Libyan opposition, be spent exclusively for humanitarian purposes and in the interests of all Libyan citizens, the daily Kommersant writes, citing Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin. "The idea of using the frozen bank accounts for aiding Libyan citizens is sober, given the need to ease the humanitarian plight in that country. But there are certain terms which the world community must comply with," Churkin said.The UN Security Council at the end of last week backed the United States' initiative to unfreeze part of the Gaddafi regime's assets, worth $1.5 billion, and to hand them over to the National Transitional Council, Kommersant writes.This proposal was enthusiastically supported by London and Paris. Moscow, however, adjusted the initial American proposal, Churkin said, according to the newspaper.The terms on which Moscow had been insisting are as follows: the unfrozen bank accounts must be used exclusively for humanitarian purposes. The aid must be devoid of politics and be provided to the entire population all over Libya. Control over the provision, distribution and spending of the unfrozen assets must be transparent, Churkin said. Read more: warns against mis-spending Gaddafi assets 30, 2011 11:29 Moscow TimeMoscow warns against mis-spending Muammar Gaddafi’s foreign assets, Russia’s permanent envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin said on Tuesday.The assets should only be spent on humanitarian needs, he said, adding that the financial aid should be depoliticized and rendered to the whole of Libyan population.Late last week, the UN Security Council agreed to release 1,5 billion dollars in Gaddafi assets to help deal with humanitarian issues in Libya.GOOGLE TRANSLATION in support of Gaddafi stopped in MoscowLast Updated: Tuesday, August 30, 2011, 04:56 GMT 08:56 MCKMoscow police stopped a rally in support of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya at the embassy, Interfax reports.Inconsistent action on the Embassy of Libya in Moscow took nine people."The picketers were carrying the national flag of Libya and chanted slogans in English" - quoted by a law enforcement source.According to the source, all the protesters up reports on administrative violations.Last Updated: Tue Aug 30, 2011 09:24 am (KSA) 06:24 am (GMT) Nasser al-Sarami: We hate the West and love Russia … but why?, 30 August 2011 By Nasser Al SaramiSome people view Russia’s support for suppressive regimes in the Arab world in the light of their hatred for the West in general and the United States in particular. It is quite striking how Russia has enjoyed this kind of psychological immunity among Arabs despite its obvious negative role as far as the human rights of Arab citizens are concerned and its inability to achieve anything positive on the ground.It is important here to refer to this recurring talk about Russia’s policies in the region and in which the excuse has always been its other positive stances like supporting the Palestinian cause and recognizing the PLO. Well, but what did this stance add to the cause or to the Arab nation as a whole? And what are their results in reality? The documented outcome is nothing. These are all superficial stances that have not had any effect, but we applaud them with our usual emotionality and our love for oral cultures which have become part of us. Let us just remember that Moscow’s past stances and its future ones did not and will not make any concrete change.Some say that the weapons used in killing our Palestinian brethren are Western or American made, but we forget that Israel is home to the most sophisticated of technology development centers and this covers defensive, military, and intelligence fields. Plus, Israel is an important player in international arms trade. In fact, it was Israel’s expertise and military production that were capable of bringing down Soviet helicopters in the Afghan war and this is what made Afghanistan emerge victorious in what later came to be known as its “jihad,” and defeat the Soviets. In addition to Russia’s position on the armament of Iran on both the conventional and the nuclear levels, let me also remind you that it was the Russian-made Scud missiles that Gaddafi used against his people in his desperate attempt to survive. Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador and the Russian news agency became the only source of news for the Libyan and Syrian regimes which are both exterminating their people.Sympathy for Russia in comparison with the West goes back to the Socialist-Communist camp in the Arab world at the time when the Soviet Union enjoyed for decades close military, economic, and political ties with several repressive regimes in the region like Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and others. Intellectuals and the media were the best way to promote the Socialist ideology during this era and the sympathy we can see now for Russia is a remnant of that time. However, it looks like the old story is about to end soon.(The writer is Head of Media at Al Arabiya. This article was first published in Al Jazira newspaper on Aug. 28, 2011 and was translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid.)Rocking the boat of Syrian religious tolerance: 30 August, 2011, 10:04Edited: 30 August, 2011, 10:04 With more than 4,000 years of history, Damascus, like the rest of Syria, has been home to multiple faiths. But with the recent political unrest, many are starting to wonder whether this delicate balance of religious tolerance may soon be gone.Protests in Syria started out with political slogans. But when violence breaks out, people come to blows over issues of faith, not politics.For now, Huda is enjoying the quiet comfort of her home. Like most Christians in the country, it is a life she has been used to since her childhood.“I was growing up in a place with Christians, Jews, Muslims, and everyone got along just fine. We still do, actually,” she says.But it is not like this everywhere. More than 70 per cent of the Syrian population is Muslim, and just like Christians, most Muslims here belong to different branches of the religion.Take, for example, the president himself. Bashar al-Assad is a follower of the Alawite branch of Islam, whose followers are a minority among the predominantly Sunni population. So, some of those dissatisfied with the current regime have been directing their animosity towards all Alawites.“If some have a problem with the government, and because [the regime] belongs to this sect, they have to fight against this sect,” an independent member of the Syrian parliament told RT.And it can be a bloody battle, indeed, as Nizha Ali Ibrahim, an Alawite Muslim who recently lost her son, knows only too well.“I don't know why my son was killed. He was just working in a shop, and his killers knew that he was not politically active,” she explains. “But they also knew he was an Alawite, and that must have been reason good enough for murder.”Such violence is something that is new to Syria, where religious minorities have a special status largely because the country's leader is himself a member of one.“We are protected by law, which allows us to live according to our customs,” Huda continued. “Since the protests started, a lot has changed… and it's strange for us. It [the source of the intolerance] must be coming from the outside.”Whoever is rocking the boat of Syrian religious tolerance, they are not reaching their goal just yet. The prevailing attitude on the streets is still that of acceptance. But if the political unrest worsens, the lives of many religious minorities in Syria could be at stake.Meanwhile, Russia continues its calls for the Syrian leader Bashar Assad to end the bloodshed and implement promised reforms. But as human rights activists report six more people killed as government forces continue their crackdown on protesters, it looks as if the appeals are falling on deaf ears.08:44?30/08/2011ALL NEWSCSTO secretary-general to discuss fight against extremism, August 30 (Itar-Tass) — Secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Nikolai Bordyuzha, will meet on Tuesday with the chairman of the CSTO Collective Security Council, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko to discuss counteraction to extremist and terrorist groups in the CSTO area of responsibility.“During his working visit to Belarus the CSTO secretary-general will focus on efforts to upgrade the organization’s activity, priorities of counteraction to extremist and terrorist organizations and stronger potential of the collective rapid reaction forces,” CSTO spokesman Vladimir Zainetdinov said.The meeting will also consider the implementation of agreements reached at the CSTO informal summit that took place in Astana on August 12.“We unambiguously announced that this year we will take steps to strengthen the organization’s role. We will make a significant breakthrough and are fully determined to complete the CSTO forces’ recruitment and re-equipment,” President Alexander Lukashenko said at the summit noting that the CSTO has many areas of actions following recent events in the world, including those in the Middle East and Africa.The summit in Astana stressed the need for drafting a comprehensive document that will reflect directions of the organization’s development. This document will be prepared for the CSTO summit due in December. Special attention was paid to a treaty on the creation of the collective rapid reaction forces.Hydrocarbons in exchange for Karabakh: 30 August, 2011, 07:21Edited: 30 August, 2011, 07:21 Yury Roks Baku proposes a petro-formula to settle relations. A two-day conference in Batumi, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Azerbaijani independence, ended on Monday. In the upmarket Radisson Hotel, representative delegations of the strategic partners, Georgia and Azerbaijan, read reports sparing no compliments toward each other and slightly reprimanding in various ways the third South Caucasian country, Armenia. This is understandable as Baku and Tbilisi, both of which have experienced a territorial catastrophe, have solidarity on this issue, whereas Yerevan’s position differs.?? The Azerbaijani guests stated that on the 20th anniversary of the restoration of state independence, it can be said that the republic has made great strides in the region. “It is the largest state in the South Caucasus, rich in natural resources. We are not only thinking about the Azerbaijanis, our achievements can be applied by Georgians and Armenians. Azerbaijan’s achievements could be useful for the Georgian and Armenian states. It is only necessary that they support the territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan,” Ali Gasanov, head of the social-political department within the Azerbaijani presidential administration, said in his speech. According to him, the Azerbaijani government is not only thinking about its development, but also about the development of Georgia and the fate of Azerbaijanis living in Georgia. “Of course, every state is, before anything else, concerned about its national interests, ensuring its security and development. However, the geo-strategic components and the neighbors’ interests should not be ignored, otherwise, we will find ourselves in complete isolation,” he said, underlining that “the strategic partnership and alliance between Azerbaijan and Georgia could serve as an example to the entire world.” “The successful cooperation between Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey could serve as an example to the entire world. Azerbaijan has always supported Georgia, and Georgia, in turn, Azerbaijan. And though we may be a small state, we have the most important geo-strategic position in the world,” he said.?????????? Georgia, which cordially hosted the conference – “every Azerbaijani, coming to Georgia, must feel at home” – agreed with all of the guests’ statements, but at the same time hinted that without its partnership with Tbilisi, it would have been hard for Baku to achieve the current standing of a major player on the energy market, as all of the export routes inevitably pass through the Georgian territory due to the conflict with Armenia. While realizing that with the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict this “inevitability” may come to an end, resulting in negative consequences for the Georgian economy, in its declaration the Georgian delegation nevertheless expressed a strong stance on the issue of territorial integrity of the countries in general, and Azerbaijan in particular.?? The position of Azerbaijan is identical. As was candidly acknowledged by Ali Gasanov, Armenia could receive any amount?– and on almost any conditions?– of hydrocarbons if it agreed to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. In his opinion, among other things, the South Caucasian region is unique due to the fact that not a single country “can be happy at the expense of a neighbor’s misery.” The formula for normalization of relations with Yerevan presented by the representative of Azerbaijan’s presidential administration is not new, and given the current realities even somewhat na?ve if we consider that, while in a severe blockade, due to which it was submerged in cold and darkness, as early as in the 1990s, Armenia refused to use Azerbaijani energy resources at the expense of Karabakh’s attempts to gain independence. It would be foolish to assume that it will suddenly accept the proposal now, when the socio-economic hardships that put the nation of the brink of survival are a thing of the past.??? In an interview with the Baku-based publication Zerkalo, the US ambassador to Azerbaijan, Matthew Bryza, who could hardly be suspected of having much affinity with Armenia, blamed both sides for the stagnation of the Karabakh-Azerbaijani conflict. “As of now, there are no positive results. The parties have no trust in one another and are not making concessions and compromises, which exacerbates the problem,” he said.Washington says elections in Abkhazia 'illegitimate' 30/08/2011WASHINGTON, August 30 (RIA Novosti)The United States has dismissed recent presidential elections in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia as illegitimate and reiterated its support for Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty.Alexander Ankvab, the acting president of Abkhazia, won the presidential election on August 26 taking 54.9 percent of the vote in the first round. The turnout was 72 percent."The United States does not recognize the legitimacy or the results of the August 26 so-called elections in the Abkhazia region of Georgia," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Monday."We reiterate our support for Georgia's sovereignty, territorial integrity within its internationally-recognized borders," Nuland said.Abkhazia broke away from Georgia after a brutal civil war in the 1990s.Abkhazia and another Georgian breakaway republic, South Ossetia, were recognized by Russia as independent states in 2008 following a five-day war, which started when Georgia attacked South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control.Georgia, which still considers the two regions part of its sovereign territory, has repeatedly stated that any elections in Abkhazia or South Ossetia would be illegitimate and would never be recognized by the international community.Only four countries - Nicaragua, Venezuela and the tiny Pacific island nations of Nauru and Vanuatu - have so far followed Russia's lead in recognizing the two former Georgian republics.05:37?30/08/2011ALL NEWSUS reiterates does not recognize election in Abkhazia, August 30 (Itar-Tass) — U.S. Administration does not recognize the results of Friday's presidential election in the Republic of Abkhazia, a senior spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State told a daily press briefing Monday.“ [..] the United States does not recognize the legitimacy or the results of the August 26 so-called elections,” said Victoria Nuland, the spokeswoman.She referred to Abkhazia as a “region of Georgia.”“We reiterate our support for Georgia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders,” Nuland said.“We urge Russia to fulfill all of its obligations under the 2008 ceasefire agreement, including withdrawal of forces to pre-conflict positions and free access for humanitarian assistance to the territories,” she said.Russia recognized the state sovereignty and independence of two former regions of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, at the end of August 2008.Presiding Over Nowhere’s New President Will Have to Walk a Fine Line to Maintain the Interests of the Republic, Russia and the West By Andrew Roth Russia Profile 08/30/2011 Abkhazia, one of Georgia’s two breakaway republics, has elected former Vice President Alexander Ankvab to become the country’s third president. For Ankvab, the next few years will remain key as he tries to maintain a working relationship with his Russian patron without selling the country out to Russian business and political interests. While the elections have been called illegitimate by nearly every major world player other than the Russian government, there may be a way forward for Abkhazia on the world stage, note experts, by focusing on integration without diplomatic recognition.Ankvab won what appeared to be free and fair presidential elections with a high turnout, receiving close to 55 percent of the vote. Following an acrimonious elections season, when he was accused of spying for Georgia during the earlier Abkhaz separatist war in the early 1990s, he received congratulations from President Dmitry Medvedev and pledged to maintain a close relationship with Moscow during his term.Several factors came together to push Ankvab to victory in a vote that pitted him against the country’s Prime Minister Sergei Shamba and former Vice President Raul Khadzhimba, noted Alexei Malashenko, a Caucasus expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. While Khadzhimba, who promoted himself as an opposition candidate, was seen as too radical, Shamba’s close links to Moscow probably hurt him in the eyes of the electorate. Ethnic cleavages also may have played a role in the vote, with many Abkhazians likely voting for Khadzhimba, he added.Ankvab takes over after several months as acting president, following the death of two-term President Sergei Bagapsh. Bagapsh was in power during the Georgian war with Russia in 2008, largely steering Abkhazia through a difficult transition period into an independent, albeit shaky, government. Only five countries in the world have recognized Abkhazia (one of those being the islands of Vanuatu), making the country especially vulnerable to Russian influence.With over 5,000 Russian soldiers stationed on Abkhaz territory and Russian state business interests, like Rosneft, taking advantage of Abkhazia’s newfound independence to conclude gas and oil deals, a fear that the republic might be annexed or simply controlled by Moscow’s economic interests is ever present. Accordingly, Abkhazia’s president-elect is expected to thread the needle between outright subservience to Moscow and being careful not to offend its patron to the north. “There was an understanding that while each candidate had to be pro-Russian, they would have different visions for a relationship with Russia, and would essentially work in a triangle of relations: Abkhazia, Russia, and the rest of the world,” said Malashenko. “In Abkhazia, they need foreign economic and political presence badly, but they also want to perform the role of an independent state. This will be a headache for both Abkhazia and Russia, and next year will be a time of diplomacy.”Meanwhile, Georgia and a chorus of supporters from the West, including NATO, the European Union and the United States have called the Abkhazian elections illegitimate, signaling that Abkhazia should not expect to receive diplomatic recognition from the West anytime soon. Despite that quick rejection, however, Abkhazia’s goal over the next year will be to show that it is a country that the West can work with despite its lack of international recognition, said Malashenko.In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, the authors argue that the key to stabilizing some of the worst frozen conflicts in the world, in places like Nagorno-Karabakh and Transdnestr, as well as in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, would be engagement from Western countries. “By insisting on territorial integrity, the United States and other countries forgo the chance to turn phantom states into responsible players. So long as phantoms are denounced as separatists or outposts of illicit commerce, the international community has little opportunity to hold their leaders accountable,” wrote the authors.While engagement from the West is a possibility, Abkhazia and Georgia will likely not be able to normalize relations, said Malashenko, and the return of Abkhazia to Georgia is already out of the question. “Russia would have to collapse in order for Abkhazia to return to Georgia,” he said.?03:56?30/08/2011ALL NEWSUS ‘hot sauce mom’ Beagley gets suspended sentence for cruelty to child ANGELES, August 30 (Itar-Tass) – Resident of Alaska Jessica Beagley, who has become widely known in the U.S. as a ‘hot sauce mom’, has gotten a suspended sentence for 180 days in jail and a suspended penalty of $ 2,500.The punishment was awarded to her by the Anchorage District Court, says a report by The Anchorage Daily News.Beagley was accused of cruelty towards her seven-year-old adopted Russian child Daniil Bukharov, whom she poured cold water on and whom she made keep a hot sauce in his mouth.District Court Judge David Wallace said, however, Beagley and her son should continue attending the sessions of mandatory counseling.He also warned that Beagley will not go to jail or be fined unless she breaks the conditions of her three-year probation.U.S. woman gets suspended sentence for abusing adopted Russian son 30/08/2011MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti)A U.S. woman who poured hot sauce into her adopted Russian son's mouth has been given a 180-day suspended jail sentence and a $2,500 suspended fine by a U.S. district court in Alaska.Jessica Beagley will not go to jail or be fined unless she breaks the conditions of her three-year probation, District Court Judge David Wallace ruled on Monday, the Anchorage Daily News paper reported.The Anchorage mom must also continue to attend counseling sessions with her adopted 7-year-old son, Daniil Bukharov (aka Chris Beagley).Last year, a U.S. TV show broadcast a video footage of Beagley pouring hot sauce into her son's mouth and forcing him into a cold shower.The court in Alaska said Beagley had recorded the video because she wanted to get on the Doctor Phil TV show.Her lawyer argued that the Beagleys provided the boy and his twin brother, adopted from Russia in 2008, "a loving home and reached out to producers of the television show to gain help for persistent behavioral problems."Beagley and her husband Gary have four biological children.Russia suspended adoptions by U.S. families after a Tennessee woman sent her 7-year-old adoptive son back to Russia last year. He was put on a plane on his own with a note from the woman saying she did not want him as he was "psychotic."Russia's children rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said in January that 17 Russian children have died in the United States as a result of child abuse since the adoptions began more than 15 years ago.The latest official figures show that about 60,000 children born in Russia have been adopted by families in the United States.Congratulations to President of Kyrgyzstan Roza Otunbayeva 30, 2011, 11:00 Dmitry Medvedev sent his congratulations to President of the Kyrgyz Republic Roza Otunbayeva on the 20th anniversary of Kyrgyzstan’s independence.The message reads, in part:“In recent years, your Republic has faced some serious trials. I am certain that the friendly people of Kyrgyzstan will successfully overcome existing difficulties and continue their steady progress on the path toward strengthening Kyrgyzstan’s statehood and socioeconomic development.It is a pleasure to note the highly dynamic nature of Russian-Kyrgyzstani political dialogue, which is allowing us to resolve current issues on the bilateral agenda in the spirit of allied partnership and on the basis of consistently implementing existing agreements. I also give a high assessment to the close cooperation between our nations within the framework of regional associations – the CIS, CSTO, EurAsEC and SCO – which provides new prospects for launching long-term integration projects.I am certain that through our joint efforts we will be able to implement significant cooperation potential in various areas, for the benefit of our citizens, in the interest of peace and stability in Central Asia.”The President’s message was delivered by Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Naryshkin at a celebratory event marking the 20th anniversary of the Kyrgyz Republic’s independence.August 30, 2011, 11:00 Russia Central Bank to Name Deputy Chairman, Kommersant Reports Yuliya Fedorinova - Aug 30, 2011 6:26 AM GMT+0200 Russia’s central bank may name the new first deputy chairman within a week after Gennady Melikyan steps down, Kommersant reported today, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. Mikhail Sukhov, head of the licensing department of the bank, and Alexei Simanovsky, head of the inspectorate department, are possible candidates, the newspaper said. To contact the reporter on this story: Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@ To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@ August 29, 2011 20:06Sufficient supplies aboard ISS for crew to manage till next summer. Aug 29 (Interfax-AVN) - The existing supplies of food, water and oxygen aboard the International Space Station are sufficient for the crew to manage without new supplies till next summer, chief of NASA's ISS Program Michael Suffredini told reporters in Houston.We can do without new freighters till next summer, he said.He gave no indication whether he meant a six-member ISS crew or a reduced crew of three cosmonauts. Lg(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)August 30, 2011 12:17Russia resumes Proton-M rocket launches. Aug 30 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Federal Space Agency has lifted its ban on launches of Proton-M rockets equipped with Briz-M upper staged imposed following the failed launch of the Express-AM4 communications satellite, Roscosmos said on its website."As a result of the commission's work, the ban on preparations of Proton-M launch vehicles equipped with Briz-M upper stages has been lifted. All of the necessary recommendations have been drafted. They will be put into practice before the next launches," it said.tm(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)RT News line, August 30Russia resumes launching of Proton-M rockets and Briz-M upper stages Russian federal space agency Roscosmos has announced it is to resume launches of Proton-M rockets and Briz-M upper stages, Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday. An embargo on launches was put in place after a rocket malfunction put the Russian telecommunications satellite Express-AM4 into an uncalculated orbit on August 18. Last week a source in the aerospace industry told Interfax that the satellite may pose a lasting threat to working spacecraft in the vicinity.NASA: Space station may be evacuated by late NovemberYesterday at 23:50 | Associated Press CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) — Astronauts may need to take the unprecedented step of temporarily abandoning the International Space Station if last week's Russian launch accident prevents new crews from flying there this fall. Until officials figure out what went wrong with Russia's essential Soyuz rockets, there will be no way to launch any more astronauts before the current residents have to leave in mid-November.The unsettling predicament comes just weeks after NASA's final space shuttle flight."We have plenty of options," NASA's space station program manager, Mike Suffredini, assured reporters Monday. "We'll focus on crew safety as we always do."Abandoning the space station, even for a short period, would be an unpleasant last resort for the world's five space agencies that have spent decades working on the project. Astronauts have been living aboard the space station since 2000, and the goal is to keep it going until 2020.Suffredini said flight controllers could keep a deserted space station operating indefinitely, as long as all major systems are working properly. The risk to the station goes up, however, if no one is on board to fix equipment breakdowns.Six astronauts from three countries presently are living on the orbiting complex. Three are due to leave next month; the other three are supposed to check out in mid-November.The Sept. 22 launch of the very next crew — the first to fly in this post-shuttle era — already has been delayed indefinitely. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft have been the sole means of getting full-time station residents up and down for two years.To keep the orbiting outpost with a full staff of six for as long as possible, the one American and two Russians due to return to Earth on Sept. 8 will remain on board at least an extra week.As for supplies, the space station is well stocked and could go until next summer, Suffredini said. Atlantis dropped off a year's supply of goods just last month on the final space shuttle voyage. The unmanned craft destroyed Wednesday was carrying 3 tons of supplies.For now, operations are normal in orbit, Suffredini noted, and the additional week on board for half the crew will mean additional science research.The Soyuz has been extremely reliable over the decades; this was the first failure in 44 Russian supply hauls for the space station. Even with such a good track record, many in and outside NASA were concerned about retiring the space shuttles before a replacement was ready to fly astronauts.Russian space officials have set up an investigation team and until it comes up with a cause for the accident and a repair plan, the launch and landing schedules remain in question. None of the spacecraft debris has been recovered yet; the wreckage fell into a remote, wooded section of Siberia. The third stage malfunctioned; a sudden loss of pressure apparently was noted between the engine and turbopump.While a crew may well have survived such an accident because of safety precautions built into the manned version of the rocket, no one wants to take any chances. One or two unmanned Soyuz launches are on tap for October, one commercial and the other another space station supply run. Those would serve as important test flights before putting humans on board, Suffredini said.NASA considered vacating the space station before, following the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. Back then, shuttles were still being used to ferry some station residents back and forth. Instead, the station got by with two-man crews for three years because of the significant cutback in supplies.The space station's population doubled in 2009, to six. It wasn't until the space station was completed this year that science research finally took priority.Even if the space shuttles still were flying, space station crews still would need Soyuz-launched capsules to serve as lifeboats, Suffredini said. The capsules are certified for no more than 6? months in space, thus the need to regularly rotate crews. Complicating matters is the need to land the capsules during daylight hours in Kazakhstan, resulting in weeks of blackout periods.NASA wants American private companies to take over crew hauls, but that's three to five years away at best. Until then, Soyuz capsules are the only means of transporting astronauts to the space station.Japan and Europe have their own cargo ships and rockets, for unmanned use only. Commercial front-runner Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, plans to launch a space station supply ship from Cape Canaveral at the end of November. That would be put on hold if no one is on board to receive the vessel.Suffredini said he hasn't had time to consider the public relations impact of abandoning the space station, especially coming so soon after the end of the 30-year shuttle program."Flying safely is much, much more important than anything else I can think about right this instant," he said. "I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to discuss any political implications if we spend a lot of time on the ground. But you know, we'll just have to deal with them because we're going to do what's safest for the crew and for the space station."___Online:NASA: Read more: versions of Mi-8 crash in Karachay-Cherkessia are studying the Mi-8 crash site in Karachay-Cherkessia.Vestnik Kavkaza reported that an Mi-8 helicopter crashed near thevillage of Arkhyz in Karachay-Cherkessia. 5 people were injured. Thehelicopter was carrying 13 people. They included Ahmed Bilalov, CEO ofthe Resorts of the North Caucasus, who wasn’t injured. Deputy ofAlexander Khloponin, Maxim Bystrov, Bilalov’s deputy, VladimirBerezhnoy, pilot Sergey Fomintsev, mechanic Victor Kondar andassistant Bystrova Yekaterina Boyenko were hospitalized, Kommersantreports.The flight recorder has been found. The Mi-8MTB was exploited by thePANKh company, with a certificate until May 5, 2012.One of the main theories for the crash is side winds that caused amanoeuver failure. Another reason is a possible mistake caused bypilot error, Vesti.ru reports.Fraud Breeding Terrorism 30 August 2011InterfaxPYATIGORSK — Fraud and?other financial machinations, not the?absence of?an ideology, is the?real cause of?terrorism and?extremism in?the North Caucasus Federal District, Alexander Khloponin, presidential representative to?the region, said at?a meeting Monday summing up results of?prosecutors' work in?the North Caucasus and?Southern federal districts in?the first half of?this year."Everything that is happening in?the North Caucasus, i.e. the?breeding ground of?terrorism and?extremism, is less related to?ideology and?more related to?divvying up financial resources available on?the market," he said. The?budget is damaged a?lot by?excise tax and?VAT fraud, he said."The regional budget fails to?collect about 8 billion rubles [$275 million] in?excises, including those on?alcohol. I have not seen any related criminal cases. The?damage from?VAT fraud is nearing 10 billion rubles," he said."All that funds extremism, banditry and?terrorism," Khloponin concluded.Read more: The Moscow Times 30 August 2011, 10:09Church thanks plenipotentiary representative of Dagestan President who publicly condemned his nephew for participation in disorder, August 30, Interfax - Head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin thanked plenipotentiary representative of Dagestan President in Petersburg Gasan Gasanov for adherence to his principles in evaluation of the recent conflict where expatriates from the republic participated including a close relative of the official. "In spite of relational links with a participant in the conflict, you were strong enough to condemn his actions, saying it was "shame to the family, shame to the nation," Father Vsevolod said in his address to Gasanov posted on the official website of the Russian Church. The incident in question happened at night of August 5 to 6 at the entrance to night club XXXX in the 3rd Sovetskaya Street in Petersburg where young people did not pass face control and bet a girl who sat at the table outdoors. When security guards gripped the attacker, ten unidentified people came up to the club and asked for the guard who defended the girl. After receiving a refusal, they attacked the guards, smashed the window and door glasses. Two young people were caught right after the incident including the nephew of the plenipotentiary representative 23 year-old Islam Gasanov.This incident was discussed at the recent session of the Commission for Harmonization of Interethnic and Interreligious relations of the Council on Cooperation with Religious Associations at the Russian President chaired by Father Vsevolod. The participants decided to thank Gasanov for displayed "dignity and courage." 08:41?30/08/2011ALL NEWSRussian Moslems celebrating Uraza Bairam, or Id ul-Fitr , August 30 (Itar-Tass) — Moslems across the world are making Id ul-Fitr, or the Festival of Breaking the Fast which is known in the Turkic-speaking regions as Uraza Bairam and culminates the Holy Month of Ramadan, established to remind the people about bestowal of the Quran by the Almighty Allah.Major religious ceremonies will be held in Moscow’s Metropolitan Mosque on the Prospekt Mira Avenue.Apart from this, a mass prayer will be held in a pavilion of the Sokolniki cultural and exhibition center.Clerics on the Council of Moscow Muftis expect that the prayer in Sokolniki will bring together from 5,000 to 7,000 disciples of Islam.This will mean a big alleviation of the burden on Moscow’s four major mosques.The muftis say that last year’s Uraza Bairam saw about 50,000 people get together for a prayer in the Metropolitan Mosque alone.An action called ‘The Ramadan Tent’ is held on the Poklonny Hill /Mount of Glory/ for the sixth year on end.This year, the tent provided catering to the lovers of nighttime meals – iftar – was open for the visitors daily from August 16 to August 29.Along with the meals, it offered a nice opportunity for people of different ethnic identities and religious backgrounds to communicate with one another.During the month of fasting, the faithful disciples of Islam are expected to stay away from taking meals and water during the daytime. According to the Islamic tradition, fasting provides the best way of deliverance from sins.Dietary exceptions are made for pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers, children, the elderly, and the grownup men engaged in heavy physical work.??Main Moscow mosque construction to go ahead 30/08/2011MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti)Russia's chief mufti has praised government plans to continue the construction of a new mosque in Moscow.Construction of the new building of the Russian capital's main mosque has been dogged by delays and technical problems. It is being built next to an old building erected in 1904.Ravil Gainutdin, the head of Russia's Mufti Council, said on Tuesday the construction was set to go ahead and hailed the country's leaders for the "real help" they were giving to Muslims.People across the Islamic world are celebrating Eid al-Fitr today, the festival which marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.10:54?30/08/2011ALL NEWSGrain worth RUR12 mln stolen from intervention fund in Krasnoyarsk Ter , August 30 (Itar-Tass) — Grain worth over 12 million roubles was stolen from reserves of the state intervention fund in the Krasnoyarsk territory.This shortage was found when inspectors checked the United Grain Company of the Ilansky grain receiving point.The regional prosecutor’s office launched an investigation.On August 15, a similar criminal case was instituted over the stealing of 9,500 tonnes of grain worth over 40 million roubles from the state intervention fund in the agricultural cooperative Lokshinsky.Russian Press at a Glance, Tuesday, August 30, 2011 30/08/2011POLITICSRussian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday signed a decree setting the State Duma elections for December 4 and urged political parties not to incite nationalist or extremist sentiment during campaigning. (The Moscow Times, Moscow News)Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday hailed an “indivisible and great Russia” at a bike festival in the Black Sea resort city of Novorossiysk. After an address to a crowd gathered at the port, Putin mounted a three-wheeled Harley-Davidson to head a convoy of bikers. (Izvestia)General election campaign in Russia starts on Tuesday. Ruling United Russia party hopes to win over 300 seats in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma. (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Vedomosti) The State Duma will have representatives of only three parties predict the notorious leader of Russia’s Liberal-Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovski. (Izvestia)ECONOMY & BUSINESSFormer first deputy chairman of the Bank or Russia Gennady Melikyan, who was in charge of the banking oversight, will leave his post on September 9. He is blamed for a series of scandals in the banking sphere. No radical changes in banking oversight are expected though. (Rosiiskaya Gazeta)? Russia is ready to start exports of sugar after a 12-year break. The initial export deliveries are estimated at 400,000 metric tons, worth about $300 mln. (Vedomosti)“Diamonds are forever” - diamonds registered the biggest growth in prices (50%) this year even compared with gold (35%). (Vedomosti) OIL & GASRussia’s energy giant Gazprom increased its natural gas exports in the first half of 2011 by 11 billion cubic meters almost reaching the record 2008 pre-crisis levels. (Moscow News)Russia’s Gazprom Neft oil company has lost the right to take part in the development of the Anaran deposit in Iraq. The Iraqi side blames the Russian company for being too slow in the implementation of the project. (Kommersant)SPACE INDUSTRYA state commission investigating the recent loss of a Progress-M space freighter has concluded that shortage of fuel intake in the third stage of the Soyuz-U carrier rocket most likely caused the incident. (Kommersant)SOCIETYFour construction workers and four police officers were injured in a brawl Sunday night at the site of next year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit near Vladivostok. (The Moscow Times, Izvestia)The Moscow government is planning to turn the Russian capital by 2015 into a world leader in the use of electricity-driven vehicles in public transportation by increasing its share to 80 percent. (Kommersant) The number of newly-born infants killed by their mothers is on the rise in Russia. (Rossiiskaya Gazeta)Russia will reduce training of pilots for passenger aircraft to 18 months, starting in September this year. (Izvestia)RUSSIANS ABROADA Greek court has authorized the arrest of a Russian citizen who is sought by Peruvian authorities for the involvement in alleged illegal sales of weaponry to FARC rebels through Peruvian intermediaries. (Kommersant)DECEMBER PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION01:58?30/08/2011ALL NEWSRussian President’s decree on elections to Duma takes effect, August 30 (Itar-Tass) — Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta has published a decree by President Dmitry Medvedev on appointing an election of a new convocation of deputies to the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament.Medvedev, who signed the decree Monday, appointed the election for Sunday, December 4.He signed the document at the Bocharov Ruchei presidential residence in Sochi where he held a conference with the leaders of seven registered political parties.Tuesday, August 30, thus becomes the first day of an official election campaign.One of the first demands Medvedev issued to the political parties was to stay away by all means from exploiting the problems of inter-ethnic relations in the course of the campaign.“It’s important to rule out for sure the attempts to fan inter-ethnic strife because they are absolutely unacceptable,” he said. “Calls for unlawful actions are equally unacceptable.”“That’s not a request on my part, that’s an absolute demand,” Medvedev said. “Such calls and attempts will be cut short in a most resolute way and the people purporting them will be punished.”He voiced the hope that the composition of the Duma of the sixth convocation will reflect the broadest possible array of the Russians’ political preferences, outlooks, positions, and interests.“The election will be held upon the rules that have been revised to a big degree, as really important changes have been introduced in legislation,” Medvedev said, adding that their objective is to move popular representation to a quality new level.Among the novelties, he pointed out the extension of the MP’s powers from four to five years, a reduction in the number of voters’ signatures required for the out-of-parliament parties to get registered for the election, and the allocations of mandates to the parties that will get more than 5% votes but less than 7%.August 30, 2011 09:16Election campaign starts in Russia. Aug 30 (Interfax) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's decree addressing the December 4 parliamentary elections in the country was published in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper and came into force on Tuesday, officially giving the go-ahead to the election campaign.Medvedev signed the abovementioned document at a meeting with the leaders of registered political parties in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday."I, as president and guarantor of the Constitution, can say that our state is prepared to hold this election, which is the subject of our meeting today," he said.Election campaigns have always been accompanied by an upsurge of emotions, parties' struggle and complaints, the president said."But it is normal. This is the way it should be," he said."But I certainly would like everything to proceed in compliance with law, without any extremes. For us two things are unacceptable to an equal extent: the administrative arbitrariness of civil servants, who try to shape elections around their needs, and unproved accusations of vote-rigging, which can be heard from those who have lost quite frequently," Medvedev said, calling these circumstances instances of legal nihilism."I would very much like our next Duma to reflect the political preferences of the largest possible number of citizens," Medvedev told the Russian political party leaders."The elections will proceed largely in compliance with renewed rules. Significant changes have been made in the election law lately and efforts to perfect the political systems are continuing," Medvedev said. Noting that the laws have been amended in various ways, Medvedev said, "additional guarantees have hopefully been created for a fair political competition.""I think we have managed, jointly with the parliamentary majority, with all parties that participated in this over recent years, to enhance the quality of our democracy. But this does not mean we have done absolutely everything. Democracy has just become more up-to-date," he said.Various positions always co-exist. "Some argue that these changes are cosmetic and insufficient, while others think no change at all would have been a much better option," he said."But we must work to create a more modern and more perfect democracy model. This is the task the state authority and political parties must accomplish. I hope the parliamentary elections will facilitate the attainment of this goal to the maximum. I wish success to all of you," Medvedev said.tm(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)Medvedev's popularity declines BankAugust 29, 2011According to Levada Center, the popularity ratings of Medvedev continued to trend down in August. While Putin's popularity also sustained declines, the scale of the reduction is notably greater for Medvedev. The August poll conducted by Levada showed the share of the population supporting Medvedev fell to 63%, marking a fresh low since 2008 and comparing with levels of around 75% in the preceding year. At the same time, Putin's popularity ratings stabilized around 68-69% after reaching 79% at the end of last year. When asked who they would vote for in the 2012 presidential race if Medvedev decided to participate in the elections, 28% declared that they were ready to support the current president, while 30% stated that they would vote for another candidate as a matter of principle. The corresponding ratio for Putin amounted to 39% vs. 21% - a far more comfortable margin if the tandem decided to advance the current prime minister for the presidential race.Interestingly, when asked who deserves the most merit for Russia's economic progress, Putin's share of 38.3% was notably ahead of Medvedev's 29.5% and the government's 16.4%. There is also a greater frequency of Putin's appearances in mass-media channels, with Putin starting to outstrip Medvedev on this indicator starting from mid-July. The latest trends raise the probability of Putin participating in the presidential race. Furthermore, the greater severity of the global economic downturn and possible negative implications on Russia's economy may raise the probability of Putin's participation in the presidential elections scheduled for March.Yaroslav LissovolikSenior Russian deputy quits Putin's ruling party 30/08/2011MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti)A senior Russian politician has quit the state's ruling party three months ahead of a crucial parliamentary vote in December.Igor Isakov has withdrawn his membership from United Russia, his spokesman said on Tuesday.Isakov was a south Krasnodar Region deputy with the pro-Kremlin party, which has a ruling majority in parliament and is headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.Three months ago, Joaquim Crima, the first black man ever to be elected to public office in Russia, quit Putin's party, claiming that it acted as a brake on the country's rocky road to democratization.A source in the Krasnodar administration told RIA Novosti Isakov might join the Russian metals tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov's Right Cause party, which supports President Dmitry Medvedev, at a time when there is growing speculation that Putin might run again for presidency.Putin, who served two terms as president before becoming prime minister in 2008, is widely tipped to stand again when Medvedev's current term expires next year.Recently, he has been trying to shift attention away from United Russia, whose approval rating has sunk below 50 percent for the first time since 2007.Instead, the emphasis has been on the All-Russia People's Front, a coalition launched by Putin in May. Analysts say the group, which even its members have difficulty defining, is designed to get Putin back into the Kremlin.So far, hundreds of trade unions and social organizations have rallied to the front.Russia Medvedev warns of ethnic tension before voteToday at 09:45 | Reuters SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said there was a danger of rising ethnic tension after he gave the green light on Monday for a December parliamentary election that will set the stage for the presidential vote next March. Medvedev set Dec. 4 as the date for the election to the 450-seat State Duma, the lower house of parliament, dominated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party."What we definitely need to eliminate during the campaign are the attempts to incite ethnic hatred. This is categorically unacceptable," Medvedev told leaders of seven political parties. "Such attempts and calls will be decisively suppressed."Moscow saw its worst ethnic riots since the fall of the Soviet Union last December when nationalist youths attacked passers-by who were of non-Slavic appearance near the Kremlin in what President Dmitry Medvedev called "pogroms".The riots were triggered by a police decision to release people suspected of murdering a Russian soccer fan, a move widely viewed seen as fraudulent. Many commentators said anger about endemic corruption was also to blame for the violence.Russia's mainstream political parties, whose leaders met with Medvedev in his Black Sea residence, are expected to address the ethnic issues during the campaign and Medvedev urged them to be cautious."We agree with Medvedev that this issue is a real powder keg in our country which has over 100 nationalities and where 28 million Muslims live," said Gennady Semigin, leader of Patriots of Russia party, after the meeting with Medvedev.REFLECT PREFERENCESSteered into the presidency in 2008 by Putin, who faced a constitutional bar on a third straight term, Medvedev has loosened electoral laws, making it slightly easier for other parties to field candidates and win seats."I would very much like the makeup of the future Duma to reflect the preferences of the broadest circle of our citizens to the maximum extent possible," Medvedev told party leaders.Critics say the changes are cosmetic adjustments designed to appease critics of United Russia while keeping the political system intact.The vote is by party list with no races between individual candidates. The parties are now expected to compile the lists and those parties not represented in the Duma will also have to collect 150,000 signatures.Medvedev's talk of plurality seemed aimed at appealing to Russians who are tired of the primacy of United Russia, which holds a two-thirds Duma majority, large enough to change the constitution, dominating politics nationwide.United Russia's senior official, Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov, said in remarks published on Monday the party's aim is to preserve its constitutional majority.With opinion polls and regional elections showing flagging support for the 'party of power', Putin established a broad 'People's Front' earlier this year in a bid to improve its chances in the parliamentary vote.Putin has hinted he is trying to decide whether to run for a return to the presidency in March or endorse his protege Medvedev for a second term. Analysts say he may not make a decision public until after the parliamentary election. Read more: campaign starts in RussiaToday at 09:35 | Interfax-Ukraine Moscow, August 30 (Interfax) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's decree addressing the December 4 parliamentary elections in the country was published in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper and came into force on Tuesday, officially giving the go-ahead to the election campaign. Medvedev signed the abovementioned document at a meeting with the leaders of registered political parties in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday."I, as president and guarantor of the Constitution, can say that our state is prepared to hold this election, which is the subject of our meeting today," he said.Election campaigns have always been accompanied by an upsurge of emotions, parties' struggle and complaints, the president said."But it is normal. This is the way it should be," he said."But I certainly would like everything to proceed in compliance with law, without any extremes. For us two things are unacceptable to an equal extent: the administrative arbitrariness of civil servants, who try to shape elections around their needs, and unproved accusations of vote-rigging, which can be heard from those who have lost quite frequently," Medvedev said, calling these circumstances instances of legal nihilism."I would very much like our next Duma to reflect the political preferences of the largest possible number of citizens," Medvedev told the Russian political party leaders."The elections will proceed largely in compliance with renewed rules. Significant changes have been made in the election law lately and efforts to perfect the political systems are continuing," Medvedev said.Noting that the laws have been amended in various ways, Medvedev said, "additional guarantees have hopefully been created for a fair political competition.""I think we have managed, jointly with the parliamentary majority, with all parties that participated in this over recent years, to enhance the quality of our democracy. But this does not mean we have done absolutely everything. Democracy has just become more up-to-date," he said.Various positions always co-exist. "Some argue that these changes are cosmetic and insufficient, while others think no change at all would have been a much better option," he said."But we must work to create a more modern and more perfect democracy model. This is the task the state authority and political parties must accomplish. I hope the parliamentary elections will facilitate the attainment of this goal to the maximum. I wish success to all of you," Medvedev said. Read more: 's Putin revs up vote campaign astride a bike Aug 29, 2011 10:13pm GMTNOVOROSSIYSK, Russia (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin kicked off an election campaign on Monday revving up his three-wheeled Harley Davidson at the head of a bikers motorcade -- the latest in a series of macho stunts that have punctuated his political career.Black-clad Putin, 58, called the bikers his "brothers" as he joined a festival aboard a Soviet-era warship in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, held to mark the city's liberation during World War Two."I want to talk to you, brothers. It is cool that you do not forget the heroes of the past," said Putin. "Boys, girls you are great. Not only are you having fun while riding your bikes but you are also combining it with patriotic deeds."Putin's United Russia party is hoping to secure a two-thirds majority in December's vote for the Duma lower house of parliament -- a margin that would give it the power to change the constitution.Campaigning began in earnest after President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on Monday setting the date for the poll as December 4.The December election will also set the scene for a presidential poll in March 2012. Putin and Medvedev have not said who will run.Putin's testosterone-fuelled appearances have earned him the nickname "alpha-dog" in U.S. diplomatic cables. In the past he has been pictured sparring with his judo coach, flying a fighter jet and hunting Siberian tigers.In Novorossiysk on Monday, he rode along as the hard-rock anthem of the "Night Wolves" biker club blared in the background. Club leader Alexander Zaldostanov, nicknamed "Surgeon," is one of Putin's friends.During the event, Putin was flanked by veterans of World War Two and the conflicts in former Yugoslavia.(Reporting by Gennady Novik, writing by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Andrew Heavens)August 30, 2011 10:17Putin calls bikers "brothers," says memory cements nation. Aug 30 (Interfax) - Historical memory is the excellent medium that cements the united and indivisible Russian nation, said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.Putin arrived at Port Novorossiisk on Monday evening, heading a bikers' column, for the 16th international patriotic bike show under the Night Wolves motorcycle club's aegis."It's great you do not forget the heroic feats and heroes of the past years, brothers!" Putin said. He then got off a trike, rose to a stage and addressed an audience of guests and participants.Novorossiisk was liberated from Nazi invaders almost 68 years ago, he said."These chapters of history are amazingly connected with motorcycling. Motorcycles were the most fitting means of transportation to evacuate children. Children would be seated into the side cars and evacuated to Sochi," Putin said. "People of different nationalities and religious beliefs share the pride for their history and heroes," Putin said."This very historical memory, shared by people of various ethnicity and various religions, excellently cements one and united and indivisible Russian nation, creating and strengthening the united, indivisible and great Russia," he said.The marines who liberated Novorossiisk 68 years ago, took an oath and "had an excellent motto which has not lost its meaning to this day for bikers and for the Motherland in genera," he said."This motto is: Only Forward!" Putin said.Sd(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru) United Russia prepares a new ideology: 30 August, 2011, 07:09Edited: 30 August, 2011, 07:38 Olga TropkinaThe party is trying to accept socialists, conservatives, and liberals from the All-Russia People’s Front. A separate movement is being created within United Russia called the Russian Social-Conservative Alliance. On September 17, its members will meet in order to discuss the details and then file registration documents with the Justice Ministry. This complex combination serves the purpose of being a type of upgrade of United Russia’s ideology. Through the All-Russia People’s Front (ONF) primaries, people with various outlooks will enter and continue entering the party. Therefore, the ruling party’s conservative ideology should be corrected, explain party representatives.? “Together with the ONF, the party is basically turning into a people’s party, and work related to the ideological component of this large format which has now been created is very important,” says Yury Shuvalov, deputy secretary of the United Russia General Council Presidium. “Today, the UR is more than a party of conservatives. We are seeing the presence of a liberal group here, neo-conservatives, and representatives of other political ideologies.”? Now ideological issues are coming to the foreground, says Yury Shuvalov. And if previously they were handled by the Center for Social Conservative Politics, then now “the work will be concentrated in this movement.”How much will the ruling party’s ideology change?“Today, it does not exist as such. Now the party is the leader’s party, the party of the people,” the UR representative acknowledged candidly. But there is one thing Yury Shuvalov is confident of: “Right Cause is offering European integration and to hide behind ‘Big Brother’, while the left alliance is proposing a utopian project, related to the ideas of atheism and materialism. We don’t see either scenario as being appropriate for the country’s development.” According to Yury Shuvalov, the new ideology will be “a response to the existing challenges, both internal and external,” help the country “move through the difficult periods associated with cataclysms, and enter the stage of prosperity, a new stage of development.” “This idea shows, to put it mildly, the non-optimistic attitude of the United Russia functionaries,” says head of the Center for Political Technologies, Boris Makarenko. “Judge for yourselves: the idea of the front, which has been so pompously inflated over the last three months, has led to the ONF being one and a half times less known than United Russia, and having ratings that are two times lower. So it would not be surprising if a new radical reorganization has begun.”???“The man simply wants to increase his importance, that’s all,” says Yevgeny Minchenko, director of the International Institute for Political Expertisze. “Before, there was a structure within United Russia called a Center for Social Conservative Politics, which was headed by Yury Shuvalov. And now, there will be a movement.”Russia’s election chief: turnout is key 29, 2011Vladimir RuvinskyCentral Election Commission head Vladimir Churov talks to RBTH about the Commission’s relationships with European observers and the Russian voter’s choice.ProfileVladimir Churov has served as the chairman of Russia’s Central Election Commission since 2007. A physicist by training, Churov worked with Vladimir Putin in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office in the 1990s and is known for his close ties to the Prime minister.Elections for the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, are approaching; the vote is scheduled for December. This election differs from previous ones, however, in that the deputies who are elected will remain in office for five years instead of four, as was the case previously. The constitutional majority currently held by the United Russia party, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is also at stake. This majority has formally enabled the party of power to pass legislation without regard for the opinion of other deputies. So the main question of the December elections is whether the opposition will be able to force United Russia to make room for them in the State Duma. The results of the vote could also affect the March 2012 presidential election, in which Russia’s head of state will for the first time be elected for a six-year term, rather than four-year term.The race for parliamentary seats will be overseen by the Central Election Commission, a government agency authorized to monitor the legality of election campaigns and vote counting. The last Duma election, in 2007, was marred by a number of scandals when the opposition and prominent public figures complained of violations and falsifications in favor of United Russia. However, in every case, the Central Election Commission either ruled the violations minor or failed to find evidence supporting the allegations. As a result, international observers said the elections did not meet the “free and fair” standard. Some European observers refused to come altogether, citing unacceptable restrictions imposed by the commission on their activities in advance of the elections. Other observers, including those from CIS countries, found no violations and were satisfied with how the election took place, while the Commission accused the Europeans of bias and an attempt to influence the results of the vote.?In light of those events, the way the current campaign is conducted and the assessment it receives are of paramount importance. Commission head Vladimir Churov, stated in an interview: “Two factors determine the legitimacy of elections, the most important being the turnout.” At around 60 percent and constantly increasing, Russia’s turnout tends to be higher than in some European countries and the US. The second criterion, according to Churov, is “parliamentary representation, i.e. the percentage of votes cast by the total number of voters for candidates who get elected.” ?The percentage in Russia is 92 percent, according to Churov, meaning that in 2007 only 8 percent of voters favored Duma candidates who didn’t get elected. “This is a very good European result,” he concluded.?The Election Commission’s most complicated relationship is with observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which gave the harshest assessment of the 2007 elections. Churov singled out for criticism the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which strengthens and protects democratic institutions in OSCE countries, including through election monitoring. Churov said that the ODIHR’s mission was “politically motivated,” citing an analysis of the mission’s operations in 2010–2011 in Estonia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Latvia. He said that, “with regard to Latvia, Estonia, and Moldova, where the elections received positive assessments, the findings didn’t match the contents of the reports. That is, the conclusions were positive while the contents were negative. In Kazakhstan, it was the other way around.”?The restrictions that caused the OSCE ODIHR mission’s refusal to come to Russia for the previous elections included limits on the number of observers. The OSCE, which opposes the Russian restrictions, may once again refuse to send its observers to the Duma elections. Russia’s Central Election Commission hasn’t budged on the issue. Churov is also perplexed at why the OSCE sends different numbers of observers to different countries: “Six to Bulgaria, 11 to the UK, 60 to the U.S. presidential election in 2008.” Churov said that the OSCE sent 2,762 observers to Ukraine’s presidential election in 2004, pointing out that the election was followed by the Orange Revolution and an “illegal second-round recount.” In other words, while Russia’s top election official doesn’t trust OSCE observers, he obviously doesn’t want to quarrel with them either.?This is in particular evidenced by the fact that the commission has sent a letter to observers, including those from the OSCE, asking for suggestions about how many observers they would like to send and where. “This is unprecedented,” Churov said, stressing that in Russia, unlike in many other countries, “the rights of foreign observers are essentially equal to the rights of Russian observers.” According to Churov, “they have the right to attend commissions at all levels, including district commissions. This includes the voting day, early voting days, the vote counting, and recounts. In other words, they can attend all proceedings at polling stations.” “When we requested this at an election in Finland, we were turned down,” Churov said. “And that’s not to mention the numerous restrictions found in various U.S. states.”?ODIHR experts visited Russia for a week in August to determine what the format of the observations will be for the December election. It was supposed to be a report on the state of the Russian election system, something the Election Commission rejected in advance because the ODIHR experts were “mere guests” with no official standing as an assessment mission. In his interview with RBTH, Churov explained, “Foreign observers have the right to publicly express their views on electoral legislation and on the preparation and conduct of elections, as well as to discuss the topic with the media only after voting has closed throughout the territory of the Russian Federation.” He says, “It’s not right when they try to observe an election that hasn’t been called yet. To state that an election will be one thing or another six months before it’s even called makes no sense; it’s pure politics.”?Churov sees nothing unusual in the fact that United Russia, which holds a parliamentary majority, has only 2.2 million members, or less than 2 percent of Russia’s citizens. “So what?” Churov said. “In America, there are very few card-carrying party members. And in most European countries, the number of party members is far smaller than the number of voters.” He says that this is how it should be and “that’s what we fought for in 1991: for the voter to have a real choice.”?According to a July poll by the independent Levada Center, Russians consider only two of Russia’s seven registered parties to have real political clout: United Russia and the Communist Party (KPRF). The public views the rest as “puppet parties controlled by the Kremlin”. Some 72 percent of Russians believe Russia needs a political opposition to the authorities but that existing parties don’t fit the bill. That’s why 73 percent of Russians favor putting an “against all” option, removed for the 2007 election, back on ballots. However, the Central Election Commission’s head says that “against all” is out for good: it “has been abolished throughout Europe,” and Russia, “as a conscientious member of the OSCE has implemented a 2004 ODIHR recommendation” on the matter. “There is no ‘against all’ candidate,” and “introducing this option is aimed at misleading voters,” the Commission’s head pointed out. ?As for the fact that new political parties are being denied registration in Russia, Vladimir Churov says that is the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice, and not the Central Election Commission.Read the full transcript of the interview on the next pagePolitically Blonde Female Beauty Is Often Exploited During the Pre-Election Season, Women’s Real Power and Influence on Russia’s Political and Social Life Is Still Very Small, Say Experts By Svetlana Kononova Special to Russia Profile 08/29/2011 Russian blondes have voted to have First Lady Svetlana Medvedeva head the All-Russia Congress of Blondes, which will be held in Sochi on September 23 to 25. “Medvedeva is a paragon of perfect style and high-society glamour. Many eminent beauties envy her finesse and elegance,” the organizers of the event said on their official Web site. Although the first lady has yet to publicly comment on the offer, her nomination has drawn the attention of local and international mass media.The All-Russia Congress of Blondes looks like a commercial event. A hospitable resort city located on the Black Sea coast will host several hundred blondes from 28 regions of Russia, who will stage a street march and a large-scale tournament of tic-tac-toe, which could potentially make it into the Guinness Book of Records. The program of the event also includes various activities such as makeup, dance and photo workshops, a contest for the best imitation of a blonde star on stage, and a blonde anizers of the congress also plan to unveil a monument to a blonde and open a museum of blondes in Sochi. They claim that there are over 30 million blondes in Russia and hope to attract up to 5,000 “blonde heads” to their movement in the next several years. Besides Svetlana Medvedeva, the organizers invited other Russian blondes who were famous in the past: Soviet movie star Svetlana Svetlichnaya, who is now 71, and a perestroika sex-symbol Yelena Kondulainen, who is 53.Members of the All-Russia Congress of Blondes intend to join the All-Russia People’s Front created by the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which gives the event political connotations. The idea of using beautiful sexy blondes for political goals is not new. In 2008 an NGO titled the Party of Blondes was set up in Russia, now boasting more than 70,000 members in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Germany and the Baltic States. The organization, which operates under the slogan “All the best – for blondes!” is open to both men and women regardless of their hair color. The Party of Blondes was one of the first NGOs in Russia to start promoting the idea of women as strong political leaders and possible candidates for president and prime minister.One of the leaders of the Party of Blondes, Sergei Kushnerov, said that his organization bears no relation to the congress in Sochi. “The All-Russia Congress of Blondes is not of our doing. Our Party of Blondes stands for political initiatives – women’s rights, single mothers’ rights, support for small business and women who work in this field, free kindergartens and education for children to give women the opportunity to develop their personalities and careers,” he said. “We know about the existence of many different alternative ‘projects’ – from special restaurants and clubs for blondes to blondes’ competitions and rallies – which are one-hit-wonders. But we are not against it.” Kushnerov also called the idea of all members of the All-Russia Congress of Blondes joining Putin’s All-Russia People’s Front a “defilement for both sides.”But while Russian blondes prepare for a great game of tic-tac-toe, Forbes magazine has published a list of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women,” and there are no Russians on it. At number one this year is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is often recognized as the most influential leader in the EU. In second place is Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, and third is Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The top-ten also includes PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, the co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Melinda Gates, India’s President Sonia Gandhi and U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama.Despite the fact that most women on the Forbes list come from the Western World, the presence of developing countries is also noticeable. The list includes women from India, China, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, South Africa and even Nigeria.There have been no Russians on the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” for the last three years. In 2008, the only Russian woman on the list was Valentina Matviyenko, the former governor of St. Petersburg who has resigned in August of 2011 and is now headed for the Federation Council. “The fact that Russian women are not recognized worldwide as powerful leaders reflects reality. Indeed, women still don’t play any significant role in political and social life in Russia. It is because they are insufficiently represented in the government and other political structures – at the level like in Islamic countries. But according to United Nations, women’s representation in the authorities should be no less than 30 percent: like in the United States or Western Europe,” said Rima Sharifullina, the president of Peterburgskaya Egida, a St. Petersburg-based NGO that specializes in protecting women’s rights.“Even other BRIC countries look much better than Russia in this regard. Here no parliamentary political party even talks about gender equality. Even high-ranked officials often have a bad attitude toward females. They talk about women as ‘adornments,’ ‘diamonds’ that may be easy replaced with other ‘diamonds’ when they get older. Many Russian women still think of themselves as objects, not as individuals. Therefore, they don’t have any real power and influence,” Sharifullina continued. “A very indicative fact is that women themselves [State Duma Deputies Elena Mizulina and Tatiana Yakovleva] promote anti-abortion laws. It means that they equate themselves with ‘fertility mechanisms’ that have to give as much birth as the state needs,” she added. “But the situation has slightly changed in the recent several years. The election of Valentina Matviyenko as governor of St. Petersburg was a breakthrough in the Russian political landscape. Moreover, public movements that aim to protect women and children’s rights, including Women’s Voice, appeared in the country. A law ‘On gender equality’ has been introduced for consideration to the State Duma. If approved, we should see positive results,” Sharifullina concluded.Kremlin's Fear of China Drives Its Foreign Policy 30 August 2011By Alejandro SueldoRussia is very concerned about China, but this is driven more by fears about China’s capabilities than any real threats.Russia perceives China as being highly unpredictable and worries about Beijing’s technological dominance, growing military strength and demographic and economic expansion into Siberia, which is sparsely populated but resource-rich. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s saber-rattling in the Far East, while purportedly aimed at protecting the Kuril Islands from a weak Japan, is Moscow’s subtle signal to Beijing.The real threat for Russia is China’s capabilities. Beijing’s ability to expand its nuclear arsenal is worrisome because at parity levels, Russia’s nuclear deterrent loses credibility in relation to China’s greater counterstrike potential. Thus, fear, which is the dominant factor behind the Kremlin’s policy of maintaining nuclear superiority over China, hinders global efforts to decrease Russia’s nuclear arsenal — in particular, its tactical weapons.Moscow’s appeals to engage other nuclear states in arms control are implicitly driven by fears of China. But Russia does not fully understand how to engage China and needs the United States to pressure Beijing to talk and for political cover should talks fail. But engaging China on arms control is not practical yet, given the disparities in size and type of each country’s arsenals. Russia’s urgency to set its foot down amid China’s rise is also driven by unsuccessful attempts to assert itself on many European security issues, namely NATO and U.S. missile defense systems. Moscow has learned its lesson and wants to assure that it has a voice on Asian security matters.Shared concern over China offers Russia and the United States an opportunity to deepen relations with a strategy to engage and help contain China. Assuaging their concerns will require, among other initiatives, pressuring China to be more transparent about its military, eventually engaging China on arms control, and demonstrating that U.S. and Russian missile defense systems do not undermine China’s strategic weapons.Such a strategy, however, is wishful thinking for the time being. Historic distrust between Moscow and Washington, as well as the Kremlin’s fear of provoking China, have shaped their dialogue for the past decade or so. But Russia’s and the United States’ place in the global arena will depend largely upon their ability to find the right balance between each other and China.Alejandro Sueldo is a scholar with the Project on Nuclear Issues of the Center for Strategic & International Studies and author of “Engaging and Contextualizing Russian Nuclear Policy.”Read more: The Moscow Times Russia and China's Energy Dispute and the Struggle for Eurasian Dominance by John Daly ?? Monday, 29 August 2011 13:03China’s voracious appetite for energy from anywhere has led most oil-producing nations to attempt to feed the dragon, including Russia.But a curious situation has developed as regards Russian oil exports to the Celestial Kingdom, underlining that the two nations, which fought for global supremacy over the Communist movement for four decades, remain at best, “frenemies.”According to Chinese customs reports, last month oil imports from Russia fell by nearly half.Not so, Rosneft says, stating that deliveries are proceeding through the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline at their normal levels.Russia is now China’s ninth largest source of oil imports, with Saudi Arabia first, Iran second and Angola third.In trying to read the tea leaves in the contradictory statements emanating from Beijing and Rosneft, Russian analysts believe that China is sending Moscow a not so subtle signal that it can do without Russian imports.The Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline began deliveries to China last January, at a volume of 300,000 barrels a day. Last month China imported 4.58 million barrels per day, with Russian imports making up a mere 6.5 percent of the total.So, where’s the beef?Money, apparently.According to the 2009 Russian-Chinese intergovernmental agreement, oil deliveries to China through the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline are made under contracts among Russian oil company Rosneft, Russian state-owned pipeline monopoly Transneft, and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for 15 million tons a year over two decades. In exchange for guarantees of long-term oil deliveries China provided Transneft and Rosneft with loans of $10 billion and $15 billion respectively.But at the beginning of 2011 the CNPC started underpaying for Russian oil, as China demanded a revision of the price formula. It currently includes the price of transporting oil along ESPO’s entire route to the port terminal in Kozmino. But as the branch to China begins at the point of Skovorodino, 1,271 miles from Kozmino, China is insisting that the pricing formula must be revised and that the cost of transportation from Skovorodino to Kozmino must be subtracted from it, with Beijing originally estimating the difference at $12 a barrel, underpaying accordingly.Accordingly, China’s debt as calculated by Moscow is now approximately $85 million. In a telling comment on the validity of both Russia and China’s court systems, Rosneft and Transneft have begun consulting with lawyers about the possibility of initiating a lawsuit against the CNPC at the London Court of Arbitration. Earlier this month Transneft sniffed that if the case goes to court, it is prepared to return to China the $10 billion received in 2009 and to stop transporting Russian oil to China, unilaterally abrogating the 20-year contract.Switching gears, China is upping the stakes to begin discussions at the governmental level to resolve the impasse. Chinese negotiators have invited Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko to participate in the next round of talks, which is to take place in Beijing starting at the end of August, when it was originally assumed that only Rosneft and Transneft representatives would be participating in the discussions.Konstantin Simonov, general director of the National Energy Security Foundation, is convinced that China is indulging in a bit of good old fashioned “provokatsiia,” to use a Soviet word, telling reporters, "The statement by the Chinese customs is of a provocative nature: The Chinese are endeavoring to show that Russia is not fulfilling its contract obligations and is casting doubt on the development of energy relations with China as a whole."The reality is that Russia and China’s struggle for Eurasian dominance did not end with the 1991 collapse of Communism. The implosion of the Soviet system left many Russians feeling disoriented and it is worth remembering that the USSR was a continuation of the Russian Empire, which began to expand eastwards into Siberia in the later part of the 16th century.Many Russian intellectuals bemoan the fact that Gorbachev liberalized the political system but not the economy, leading to the Soviet Union’s demise as China liberalized the economy while keeping tight Communist Party control, leading to the country’s dazzling economic achievements of the last decade.The rivalry is evident in Moscow and Beijing’s contrasting visions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which Russia sees primarily as a military structure, while Beijing favors increased economic integration. Both nations are engaged in an ongoing “Great Game” for the hearts, minds and economies of the former Soviet Central Asian states, with their rich energy assets. Beijing is making serious inroads there, not least of because of their deep pockets and the locals’ bitter memories of seven decades of Soviet domination.Last but not least are Russian atavistic fears of the “yellow peril” and its threat to eastern Siberia, still largely devoid of population, large swathes which Russia acquired by the 1858 Aigun Treaty, which ceded the left bank of the Amur River to Russia and the 1860 Convention of Beijing, under which Russia gained control of Outer Mongolia. Both the Chinese Empire and subsequently the People’s Republic of China referred to them as “unequal treaties” until Prime Minister Zhou Enlai acknowledged them in 1969 in an effort to improve Soviet-Chinese relations in the wake of a series of violent frontier clashes along the Amur River earlier that year.The struggle between the two nations is a fascinating study in opacity. Russia, the energy superpower versus China, the economic superpower. Amidst the energy pricing squabbles and ongoing covert struggle for influence in Eurasia, Beijing and Moscow nevertheless find common ground on one topic – limiting the influence of the United States. If 42 years ago Soviet and Communist Chinese politicians could hammer out a border agreement, what’s a mere $85 million among friends?By. John C.K. Daly of WikiLeaks: Russian Foreign Ministry 'Bastion' of Sexism and Low Pay 30 August 2011By Alexandra OdynovaRead more: The Moscow Times "Sexism" and?"low pay" are the?name of?the game at?the Foreign Ministry, and?the country's middle class is growing but remains devoid of?a political conscience, according to?new U.S. diplomatic cables released by?WikiLeaks.The?whistleblowing web site published 133,887 cables over the?last week — its biggest single batch yet — in?an apparent attempt to?reclaim its place in?the public spotlight.The?Russia-related part of?the exposés is too harmless to?damage the?plodding "reset" between Moscow and?Washington, but offers instructive glimpses into?challenges of?Russian diplomats and?well-off citizenry in?general, an?international affairs analyst said.The?life of?Russian diplomats, as reflected by?their American counterparts, is described in?a lengthy cable signed by?U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle in?2008.While U.S. diplomats "frequently meet open and?engaging Russian diplomats, the?unique nature of?the Foreign Ministry contributes to?the challenging environment" in?which they work in?Russia, according to?the cable."Sexism runs rampant" at?the ministry dominated by?men, where only 15 percent of?Russian diplomats are women, said the?cable, marked as "sensitive" and?"unclassified, for?official use only."The?ministry's chief of?personnel, Vladimir Morozov, saw nothing wrong with the?male dominance at?his agency, the?report said."Men were better equipped to?handle long-term absences from?home, harsh climates, and?the 'complex political and?military situations' in?which Russian diplomats often found themselves," Morozov was cited as saying.This is why the?Foreign Ministry "remains a?bastion of?Slavic males who went to?Moscow's top schools," where education costs thousands of?dollars, even as the?staff of?the U.S. Foreign Service has become "more diverse," the?cable said.Access to?ministry jobs is limited by?the real estate market, among other things. Most diplomats are Muscovites with their own housing because people from?the provinces cannot afford an?apartment in?Moscow on?a ministry salary, which ranges from?$150 to?$4,000 a?month.Real estate also defines many a?diplomat's life: Male ministry employees are frequently married to?women employed in?the private sector who earn more than their husbands, the?cable said.Russian diplomats also complained to?their U.S. colleagues that they sometimes have to?leave their families at?home when posted abroad because of?a lack of?schools for?their children. Small diplomatic missions often have no Russian-language schools, or only classes for?small children.A?spokesman for?the Foreign Ministry declined to?immediately comment on?the issue when reached by?telephone Monday.A?separate cable sent by?Beyrle's predecessor, William Burns, in?2006 focuses on?Russia's middle class, which it said was finally emerging but still a?way off from?growing politically active."The middle class is finally stepping out of?the shadows," Burns said in?the cable published in?Kommersant on?Monday. "There must be someone other than the?mega-rich, after all, to?buy these TV sets, cars and?mobile phones."The?middle class is interested in?politics, but given Russian political traditions, "it shouldn't be expected to?swiftly transform into?activism," Burns writes in?the cable, cited in?Russian.But eventually, the?cable said, well-salaried Russians will want to?"have a?voice and?influence on?how their country is managed and?how to?spend their money."Another cable specifically cites the?skyrocketing popularity of?social networks and?an expansion of?fitness chains in?Russia as proof of?the growing middle class. Curiously, interviews with several gym owners showed that many people are taking up sports following a?fad started by?Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who often flaunts before cameras his love for?judo, skiing and?fishing.WikiLeaks had its "moment of?glory" — in?President Dmitry Medvedev's words — in?2010 when it published a?classified video of?a disputed American military operation in?Iraq and?has since emerged as a?unique source for?U.S. State Department cables.But its clout has been waning recently, both due to?lack of?new publications and?scandals surrounding WikiLeaks' Australian-born founder and?chief, Julian Assange, who is accused of?rape in?Sweden.Recent publications are likely aimed at?drawing the?attention back to?the web site, but it will have no significant political impact, said Oleg Terebov, a?researcher with the?Moscow-based Institute for?the United States and?Canada.As for?U.S.-Russian relations, "WikiLeaks has never been influential," Terebov said in?a telephone interview. But they might show what Americans find interesting in?Russia, he added.Read more: The Moscow Times August 30, 2011 Obama's Big Fail on Resetting Russia Kim ZigfeldEven knowing that Russia is ruled by a proud KGB who despises the USA, and even knowing that America is led by a shameless liar and coward whose "reset" policy is not worth the paper is was printed on, it is still surprising how relentlessly and aggressively Russia has pursued its anti-American foreign policy in recent days.Russia stood alone to support mass-murdering Syrian dictator?Bashar al-Assad?while the rest of the world condemned his?latest blood orgy. ?Russia even went so far as to seek to?fan the flames?of Arab nationalism across the region.It invited mass-murdering North Korean dictator? HYPERLINK "" Kim Jong-il?for a friendly visit.It loaned billions to mass-murdering Venezuelan dictator?Hugo Chavez?so he could buy even more weapons.It feted the lunatic dictator of Cuba, mass-murderer Fidel Castro, with verbal laurels worthy of Gandhi or Ronald Reagan.When the West sought to bar arms shipments to Bahrain over terrorist concerns, Russia leaped immediately into the breach.And it ratcheted up its foreign policy initiatives to assist the mass-murdering dictator of Iran?Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Such actions are surprising because of Russia's palpable weakness.? Though Russia's economy is not plagued by debt and has substantial reserves, the Russian stock market recently lost a stunning fifth of its value when the US market took a lesser tumble because Russia's market is fully enslaved by American demand for crude oil.? Russia does not rank in the top 130 nations of the world for life expectancy or in the top 50 for per capita GDP, where Russia is easily bettered by the likes of Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary.? Russia can ill afford its alienating, war-mongering policies, but Putin does not seem to know it.The Putin regime's aggressive, anti-American actions are perhaps still more surprising because Russia has only recently been confronted by the brutal reality of its total failure in Libya.? There, Russia actively opposed efforts to support the grassroots pro-democracy movement and it now faces the ire of the rebels and total exclusion from the Libyan oil market.Moreover, Russian foreign policy has been equally disastrous in its near abroad.?In Georgia, Russian imperialistic aggression has been so soundly rebuffed that not a single major nation of the world has recognized the annexation of Ossetia and Abkhazia, while political support for the Saakashvili government has dramatically increased and it is even more firmly ensconced in power than before the 2008 invasion.In Ukraine, while Russia thought it had a pro-Moscow president in the election of Victor Yanukovich, in fact the new leader turned on Russia almost immediately, making vigorous moves towards the European Union and accusing Russia of rigging gas deals against Ukraine.? Even worse, he has launched his country on an aggressive program of energy self-sufficiency, one that will soon wipe out Russian influence.Western attitudes towards Russia have been scathing and blunt.? One commentator, for instance, accuses Russia of having a foreign policy characterized by a "colossal extent of confusion, denial and duplicity" which "does not befit a major power that has privileges and commitments, as a country that holds the veto right at the Security Council and as a country that has a duty to preserve world peace and security."And that is, of course, correct.? Yet Russia does not appear to have learned anything at all from this repeated frustration and failure when using neo-Soviet anti-American tactics, and does not seem to fear its own weakness and vulnerability.?And the most important reason why may well be the softness and the weakness of the Obama administration's response to Russian aggression, which has no other name but appeasement.? Feeling no pressure from Washington, Putin apparently believes he is free to continue his anti-American policies without real consequences abroad other than those that the failure of the policy itself generates.? And even when Putin fails to keep anti-American maniacs in power, his efforts to do so roil the petroleum markets, and this inures directly to Russia's benefit.The strangest feature of the Obama "reset" with Russia is that it was no reset at all.? George W. Bush infamously looked into Putin's eyes, saw his soul, and pronounced him trustworthy.? He then proceeded to turn a blind eye to Putin's long litany of political murders, and even hosted a notorious Chechnya war criminal in the Oval Office.? So if Obama really intended a reset, he would have begun defending the American values that Bush let slide.But what Obama actually did was to put the reckless Bush policy on steroids, purging every last hint of opposition (Bush had steadfastly insisted on a missile defense system for Eastern Europe, for instance) and sitting down with Putin's puppet president to munch cheeseburgers.? So Obama ought to be condemned by conservatives and liberals alike, and ridden out of Washington on a rail so that a real American president can actually reset American policy, returning it to the proper path laid down by Ronald Reagan.Political analyst notes importance of restoring high-level dialog between Ukraine and RussiaToday at 09:50 | Interfax-Ukraine Head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies Volodymyr Fesenko has said that one of the main trends in Ukraine's foreign policy in August 2011 was the restoration of a high-level dialog between Ukraine and Russia and the recognition of the existence of problems in bilateral relations. "A meeting between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine in Sochi was an important foreign policy event for Ukraine in August. The main importance of this event was the resumption of a high-level dialog between the leaders of the two countries... This meeting also confirmed the existence of serious problems, but some progress in relations has certainly been made," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday.In his opinion, one of the signs that progress has been made in bilateral relations after the meeting between Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Sochi was the resumption of talks on gas issues.Fesenko also said that the arrest of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was a main domestic policy event for Ukraine in August.Among the trends in Ukraine's domestic policy, he noted the strengthening of confrontation between the government and the opposition triggered by Tymoshenko's arrest, a clash of opinions regarding the trial and arrest of the former prime minister, as well as the lack of a large and active public reaction to her arrest and support for the opposition's actions. Read more: course of treatment is over: 30 August, 2011, 07:26Edited: 30 August, 2011, 07:40 Andrey Kozenko The Health Ministry has run out of money to ensure medical treatment.The government is running out of money to provide medical treatment for its own citizens. Eighty per cent of the annual quota for high-tech healthcare – which includes 20 critical areas of medicine – has been exhausted by mid-August. Representatives of hospitals and charitable foundations say that operations are being put back by three to six months, and patients are being warned that the only way to get immediate treatment is by paying for it.??? The first to start talking about the fact that quotas on high-tech medical care (HTMC) are running out were charitable foundations. “It started with the Orenburg City Health Department sending us a petition for funds to provide treatment for a boy which was supposed to have been included in the quota. We were basically asked to perform the functions of the Ministry of Health and Social Development,” a spokeswoman for the Podari Zhizn (Give Life) Charity Foundation, Yana Sharbunaeva, told Kommersant. “Throughout the summer, the number of petitions continued to rise. As of today, we have written hospitals guarantee letters for 28 children and will now start looking for 6 million rubles for their treatment.” Parents who have petitioned on their children’s behalf say that after filling out all of the quota-related paperwork, hospitals either suggest the patient pays for the treatment, or they create waiting lists for operations and medical procedures. Waiting time could be between three and six months.????? HTMC covers treatment in 20 areas of medicine. Among them are obstetrics and gynecology, gastroenterology, neurology, oncology, neurosurgery and traumatology, as well as organ transplantation. HTMC quotas are approved annually by the Ministry of Health and Social Development based on applications received from the regions. On average, high-tech medical treatment for one person costs the government roughly 142,000 rubles. According to the ministry’s statistics, last year 213,000 people received medical care under the quota system. For this year, 265,700 quota places were allocated, including 51,000 to children, for which 37.69 billion rubles had been allocated from the budget. As of August 10, of this amount the sum of only 724 million rubles remains, or 19.3% of the annual volume.??? Hospitals (HTMC quotas are received by nearly 200 federal and regional healthcare facilities), confirm the information about the dwindling quotas. For example, the Burdenko Neurosurgery Institute’s annual quota for HTMC amounts to 4,117 patients, while according to the late-July figures, 3,917 patients have already been treated. “In some places, it gets to be absurd. Patients with prostate problems are being sent to seek treatment from Yekaterinburg to, say, Samara, because local quotas have expired, but have not in other cities,” a chief surgeon at one of the regional hospitals, who asked to remain anonymous, told Kommersant. “Most likely, the regions had asked for fewer quotas than necessary, because hospitals are more interested in cash from patients, and the federal center had reduced the volume of funds for HTMC even more,” suggests program director at Podari Zhizn, Ekaterina Chistyakova. “It is more profitable for hospitals to ask for little in the beginning of the year, and then ask for more in the summer. But this is the first time that 80-90% of quotas across the country have been used,” says the chief surgeon.?????? ?The Ministry of Health and Social Development representatives say that quotas have been met earlier than planned due to the fact that more and more citizens seek high-tech medical treatment each year. “Before the National Project ‘Health’ was launched in 2005, 10-15% of people in need of medical assistance were actually getting medical treatment,” Kommersant was told by the ministry’s press service. Therefore, it is argued that the process of redistribution of quotas in the middle of the year is “normal”, and the ministry is preparing a draft decree on the allocation of additional quotas. Meanwhile, today the Ministry of Health and Social Development is ready to provide funds for the treatment of 4,848 people.?? ?The ministry’s opponents argue that it is intentionally lowering the number of quotas, forcing people to resort to fee-based services, which is in violation of Article 41 of the Russian Constitution. It guarantees free medical services in state and municipal health facilities. “The situation with quotas and waiting lists is unacceptable. Children with oncological illnesses must be treated immediately, otherwise treatment is useless,” says Ms. Chistyakova. “The government is pushing people toward fee-based healthcare,” argues the president of the Patients’ Rights Protection League, Aleksandr Saversky. “We have already asked officials what to do if a child who does not meet the quota is brought to the emergency room. And the answer is: let his parents not forget the money.”Broken Spirits the Law “On Returning Church Property” Has Been Adopted, Many Religious Organizations Have So Far Been Unable to Reclaim Their Possessions By Pavel Koshkin Russia Profile 08/29/2011 The red-brick church on Novoslobodskaya Ulitsa in the center of Moscow may seem no different from any of the 700 or so other Orthodox churches in the city, but the All-Merciful Savior Church is in fact owned by a design technology institute and rented out to a law firm. Some 20 years ago, that was considered to be a fairly good fortune for a religious building. Yet today it is unusual to see one of the capital’s active Orthodox Christian communities failing year after year to take over buildings they consider to be theirs.Despite the demise of Soviet-era atheist policies, which led to the return of thousands of churches and monasteries, the process was not regulated by law until November of 2010. Orthodox activists believe that religious buildings should be handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church as soon as possible, but current tenants usually claim various noble reasons to retain the status quo.?? The law on the return of church estate signed by Russia’s President Dimity Medvedev in 2010 may legally obligate government agencies to return all religious buildings to the Russian Orthodox Church within six years, but so far the government has seemed reluctant to do so. While the Russian Orthodox Church doesn't have official statistics on disputed property, Kirill Frolov, a vocal campaigner on orthodox religious issues, claimed in a recent report that at least 23 Moscow churches are struggling to get back buildings that are currently occupied by police stations, clinics, museums and institutes. The first question that springs to mind when approaching the All-Merciful Savior Church is why a sign reading “Attorneys-at-Law” hangs in front of the area where religious services are conducted, followed by why the interior of the church looks like that of an administrative building. A nearby ramshackle red-brick construction is actually home to the parish, which brings together between 150 and 300 worshippers depending on the day of the year.? Closed in 1927, and occupied by various Soviet agencies throughout the 20th century, it was reregistered as a religious organization in 1993, and services resumed in 2000. But they continue to be held in the ramshackle building – a former convent and the first Female Theological Institute, according to rector Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko. “The church doesn’t have any benefactors except ordinary people who make donations for construction materials,” said Vladimir Prostov, the parish warden. "If you have fallen plaster on the floor of your flat and the wallpaper is coming off, the first thing that comes to your mind is to change the situation," said one parishioner, Valeria Posashko. "People work here on a voluntary basis – the men do repairs while the women clean. But a lack of volunteers is one of the church’s major problems: most parishioners have a family and a job and many of them live far away from the church, so they do not always find time to support the parish's projects,” Posashko said. The church’s current owner – the Institute of Design-Technology Informatics (IKTI), part of Russia's Academy of Sciences, is leasing the building to a law firm, something IKTI spokeswoman Olga Fyodorova claims it has to do: "We are forced by circumstances to rent the building to a legal firm because we have to pay utilities and expenses," she said, adding "the lack of budget money is still a problem for us.” But Ilyashenko argues that commercial interests are behind the institute’s reluctance to return the property to the church: “Because the institute has been registered as an academic entity, the government covers most of its utilities expenses. In other words, maintaining the building costs them nothing, while renting it out brings in a lot of money,” Ilyashenko said. He is also skeptical of IKTI’s claims that it invested a lot of money in reconstruction of the church and needs reimbursement. According to Prostov, the Russian Property Commission didn’t find any traces of research activity. Furthermore a Russian Academy of Sciences panel found that personnel at the institute numbered only about 20 people, which is not enough for serious research activity. “I believe that the institute doesn't conduct any useful educational or research activity at all,” he said, “It remains unclear when reconstruction of our parish will be finished: we can’t start a complete restoration because that is only possible when the church is returned.”But there are some positive examples, such as the return of the Saint John the Evangelist Church, which had belonged to the Moscow History Museum. Returned to the Orthodox Church in 1992, the museum had been using the building until now, regardless of its bad condition and church claims. “Completion of reconstruction of the church is scheduled for November,” said Hageman Peter Eremeev, dean of The St. John the Evangelist Russian Orthodox Institute. “The church has a loyal community consisting of around 1,500 people, including professors and students of the Russian Orthodox Institute.” Until now they have been conducting religious ceremonies outside the church, near the entrance, because the Moscow History Museum has used the church for exhibitions. When the “Law on Return” was finally adopted in November, the dispute between the church and the museum resulted in the Mayor’s Office ruling in favor of the church. The museum now has to vacate the building and move to the Provision Stores Exhibition Hall on Zubovsky Bulvar by October 1.? Most Russians (60 percent) are also concerned about religious property return, according to a VTsIOM poll conducted in July of 2010. While 49 percent supported churches in their attempts to retrieve property, 19 percent opposed this idea. Posashko is among those who look at the problem in different ways. “What we need is a reasonable approach and a compromise,” she said. “When applying the law [on redistribution] in practice, we should follow common sense. There is no need to oust museums from buildings or deprive an institute of the possibility to do research for the sake of the church. Similarly, the church can't lose its space and occupy a ramshackle building just because of the interests of an institute. It's not Christian." Hageman Peter views the “Law on the Return of Church Property” as a good tool to resolve conflicts between religious and governmental organizations because it proposes providing the latter with administrative buildings of equivalent value. “The law does allow both the government and the church to build up a collaborative relationship, which satisfies both parties,” he said.At 35,000 Feet, a Russian Image Problem ANDREW E. KRAMERPublished: August 29, 2011 MOSCOW — Airlines are a cautious lot, slow to trust a new airplane maker with multibillion-dollar orders and passenger lives. It took Embraer, a Brazilian maker of regional jets, two decades to become a major supplier to the industry. So Sukhoi, a Russian company best known for making supersonic fighter jets, did not exactly get off to an auspicious start. When it delivered one of the first of its highly promoted new 100-seat Superjets to Aeroflot in June, a piece of safety equipment immediately broke down, prompting Sukhoi to ground the plane. Although the plane was fixed and is flying again, the lapse shows just how difficult a path Sukhoi faces to persuade Western airlines to buy airplanes from a Russian state company. Russia’s aviation industry has long been plagued by safety problems, breakdowns and lethal crashes, rendering it virtually unable to sell planes outside the former Soviet Union, Iran, Cuba and parts of Africa. “Historically, Russian aircraft have an image that will take a long time to address,” Les Weal, an analyst at Ascend, an aviation consultancy in London that advises the insurance industry on safety, said in a telephone interview. “Superjet may be excited about their airplane,” he said. “But I’m not sure that will translate into a lot of orders from mainstream airlines. It would take a huge leap of faith for an airline to turn to a newcomer.” But Sukhoi has high expectations for the Superjet 100, the first wholly new Russian civilian aircraft design since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The list price for the chubby, single-aisle aircraft is $31.7 million, about one-third cheaper than comparable short-hop jets from Embraer or Bombardier of Canada, Sukhoi says. Gone is the grim upholstery and fluorescent lighting of the cramped, even scary, interiors of the Tupolev series of jets that are still operated by domestic Russian carriers. The Superjet’s cabin feels roomy, the overhead luggage bins can hold standard carry-on luggage and the lighting is soft. The high-bypass engines, a novelty for Russian passenger planes, hum rather than scream at take-off. Sukhoi, which is in talks to sell the planes to the American carriers Delta Air Lines and SkyWest as well as to other Western airlines, hopes to sell 800 Superjets over the next 20 years. Besides two planes delivered to Aeroflot, Sukhoi has provided one to the Armenian national airline, Armavia. It has also agreed to provide 15 to Mexico’s second-largest airline, Interjet. Sukhoi has 176 Superjet orders in total. Rather than emphasize the plane’s Siberian origins, with whatever associations with hardship or disaster that may evoke, Sukhoi has marketed it by pointing to its French and Italian partners, which worked in joint ventures to design the engines and provide the avionics. “Yes, it is a Russian aircraft,” Olga Kayukova, a spokeswoman for Sukhoi’s parent company, United Aircraft Corporation, said in an interview. However, “it is made in cooperation with world-leading suppliers.” Stephen McNamara, a spokesman for Ryanair, the low-cost Irish carrier, said his company would have no qualms about looking at a Russian plane so long as it met European Union safety standards. Most passengers, he said, don’t care what type of airplane they fly. “They know the airline, but not the airplane,” he said. Ryanair has talked to Sukhoi about its new plane, he said, and the budget airline was more concerned that the plane was too small for its routes than about the reputation of Russian airplanes. On the Superjet delivered to Aeroflot, a meter to detect leaks in the pipes that funnel fresh air, called bleed air, into the cabin had malfunctioned. The company said passengers were never at risk, as the actual air supply was not affected. Sukhoi found a silver lining in the incident by explaining it had grounded the plane from an abundance of caution that in fact illustrated its new safety culture. The Superjet was the first Russian airplane with such a detector, which is standard on Western planes. The planes also weigh two tons more than initial estimates presented to airlines, hurting fuel economy and making them less attractive. Sukhoi has said such deviations are typical for new aircraft. Russian jets have had a rough spell recently, making the sales pitch even more difficult. In 2006, about 400 people died in Tupolev jet crashes in Russia and Ukraine. This June, a Tu-134 crashed while approaching a provincial airfield, killing most of the 52 people on board. (Tupolevs are made by another division of United Aircraft Corporation.) International experts blamed the age of the planes for the accidents, but said cavalier attitudes about safety that pervade Russian industry also contributed. A year ago, for example, the Russian television station NTV reported that 70 engineers at the plant making the Superjet had obtained fake engineering diplomas by bribing a local technical college; Sukhoi said those employees were not directly involved in assembling the planes. Despite the high barrier to entry internationally for new passenger jets, Ms. Kayukova said airlines were eager for alternatives to Embraer and Bombardier for regional jets and even were searching for a third supplier for midrange jets like the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. Ryanair this year announced negotiations to buy a planned Chinese competitor to the Boeing 737, called the C919, which is expected to be cheaper. Ms. Kayukova said Russia would surely be able to compete with China on quality because China is not a traditional aerospace power. As if to emphasize this lineage, the Superjet being promoted at an air show in Moscow this month was named the Yuri Gagarin, after the Russian who was the first man in space. By the late 1990s, Russia’s civilian aerospace industry had fallen on hard times. It had become clear that the nation’s wide-body and midrange jets had no market outside the former Soviet Union and a few one-time client states. The Ilyushin aircraft company, for example, sold only a dozen of its Il-96 flagship long-haul jets, including one with a convertible passenger or V.I.P. cabin that was sometimes used as the presidential jet for Fidel Castro. Surrendering some pride, the Russian aviation industry took aim instead at Bombardier and Embraer, and formed joint ventures with Western companies to fill technological gaps. Alenia Aeronautica, a division of the Italian engineering giant Finmeccanica, owns about 25 percent of the Superjet program and is helping to market the plane in Western Europe, North and South America, Japan and Australia through a subsidiary based in Venice, SuperJet International. Sukhoi consulted with Boeing on after-sales service, and it installed avionics from the French company Thales. The plane is certified to fly in former Soviet countries and is awaiting certification for the European Union. Sukhoi has said it will apply to the Federal Aviation Administration for certification only after it has a firm order from a United States customer. “We will be facing the same problem as Japanese car manufacturers faced at the beginning,” Giacomo Perfetto, head of communications for SuperJet International, said in a telephone interview. “When they see the airplane fly, they will change their minds.” Death of a Peacemaker by one, the people Russia needs the most are being killed off. Meet the most recent casualty. BY ANNA NEMTSOVA | AUGUST 29, 2011 Bullets silence whistle-blowers in Russia. Two years ago, a human rights lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, 34, and a Novaya Gazeta reporter, Anastasia Baburova, 25, were shot half a mile away from the Kremlin. Last summer, I attended the funeral of one of Russia's most prominent human rights defenders, Natasha Estemirova, 50; her kidnappers threw her body on the side of a road. A few months later, a popular opposition leader in Ingushetia, Maksharip Aushev, 43, was killed. His car was found riddled with 60 bullet holes on a road outside Nalchik.These people were united by their uncompromising reporting on human rights violations in their own country. They understood exactly what lies at the bottom of the country's growing social problems. This summer, one more murder was added to the list. In June, Maksud Sadikov, the tall, large-hearted rector at Dagestan's Institute of Theology, was shot in his car in Makhachkala, leaving his wife, four children, and hundreds of students in deep mourning. Sadikov was a reformer and a peacemaker. Faced with the increasing problem of how to stop thousands of Russian Muslims from traveling to Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and other centers providing free -- but more hard-line -- Islamic education, his solution was to improve Islamic education at home in Russia. He imported the best teachers from elsewhere, when necessary, and hired talented Russians back from overseas universities to participate in his program, training moderate imams for Dagestan's Islamic learning centers. Respected by Moscow, Dagestani authorities and police, and Sufi and Salafi Muslim communities alike, Sadikov was an essential figure for negotiating peace between the religious sects that are de facto at war in Dagestan, where Muslims have been drawn into fighting the anti-Kremlin terrorism campaign that has long engulfed its neighboring republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia. When I visited Makhachkala in July, the republic's president, Magomedsalam Magomedov, called Sadikov "irreplaceable" in the peacemaking process. The new university management feels deeply traumatized by Sadikov's murder; without their old rector, they say, the reforms will end. Who wants to risk their life for it? This calculation is becoming all too common. When I recently visited with journalism students at Moscow State University -- where a portrait gallery honors graduates killed in recent years, including Novaya Gazeta correspondent Anna Politkovskaya and TV anchor Vladislav Listyev -- only a handful of students would admit to wanting to be an investigative reporter. Nineteen Russian journalists have been killed in the country since 2001, with none of their murders solved. And so the weekly terrorist attacks and assassinations of officials in the North Caucasus have become routine news that the majority of Russians prefer not to think about. But Sadikov was the 13th religious or civil society leader assassinated in the Caucasus since the beginning of 2010. Recent polls by the Levada Center show that only 9 percent of Russians are concerned about increasing terrorism in the country, while 81 percent worry most about rising food prices.Sadikov foresaw the engulfing disaster in the Caucasus; unfortunately, his warnings did not bring much action.Last year, I went to Dagestan to report a story for Newsweek about Islamic education reform in Russia. I met Sadikov by his university, right by the central mosque in Makhachkala. At the time, he was frustrated after returning from a Kremlin-funded conference with regional bureaucrats. He told me that the "dead-end five-year-plan" discussion did not result in any concrete progress for the republic: "While we are busy making speeches, our youth leave for the forest to join the hidden guerrilla war."He spoke with strong emotion, deep wrinkles crossing his head under his traditional tubeteika cap. "The hidden war is already on; soon it might grow into a real declared war," he said.?Just one month after his death, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported that in the first half of 2011, the number of terrorist attacks in Russia increased by 35 percent. At dinner, Sadikov and I discussed an article about Dagestan's black widows that had recently been published in the Moscow-based Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. The paper ran a portrait of Maryam Sharipova, the 28-year-old schoolteacher and widow of a militia member from Dagestan who had blown herself up in the Moscow Metro in March. Next to the article, the paper featured a gallery of 21 portraits of young Dagestani widows whose husbands had been involved with the guerrilla resistance. I was going to interview some of them, and Sadikov sent his assistant, Aisha, to go with me out of concern for the women's well-being. "I fear that the women's lives will be turned upside down by that publication," he said. A devoted Sufi, Sadikov could not tolerate injustice, even if the victim's faith was different from his. The Salafi community remembers him as a man of firm and fair principles. "I do not remember anything aggressive in his words addressed to Salafi believers," one young religious activist, Idris Yusupov, told me. Gulnara Rustamova, a leading human-rights defender for Salafi believers in Dagestan, recalled friendly meetings that Sadikov helped to organize this year between Sufi and Salafi community activists. "He was killed by somebody who did not want to see Dagestan's Muslims united," Rustamova said. "Sadikov was against police kidnapping or torturing Muslims, even if they were non-Sufi Muslims." This summer, when I traveled to Sovetskoe village in the Derbent region of Dagestan, I missed Sadikov's calm presence greatly. Shortly after the imam began the sermon before the Friday prayer for about 100 young Salafists, police marched into the mosque wearing their dirty shoes and uniforms and demanded that believers get on buses parked outside. Half an hour later, the local police station was filled with cries; each of the men detained in the mosque, including a 15-year-old schoolboy, had been beaten and his beard shaved, some in strips so they had only half of their beards left. Seeing the men, I thought of Sadikov's warnings against beating and humiliating believers. Speaking to religious and state authorities last spring, he said, "We should not be pushing Salafi believers out of society with our own hands." Ghost villages multiply as Russia’s rural exodus gains pace: 30 August, 2011, 11:16Edited: 30 August, 2011, 11:16 Bright lights, big city – that is what inspires most young Russians to leave their home villages in search of employment and excitement. This rural exodus, however, is leaving many Russian communities fighting for survival.No hot water or stable electricity supplies; the nearest pharmacy, post office and grocery store are miles away. But for Tatyana Samsonova, even that is not the most difficult thing to cope with – it is having no neighbors.“There used to be so many families living here, but then some people died, some left… Everybody's gone now. Even the roads,” she told RT.It used to be a successful tiny agricultural community where everyone knew each other's names and celebrated birthdays together. Tatyana has been here all her life, but now nearly all that is left of the village is her memories.The area used to be a collective farm back in Soviet times. Now it looks more like ancient ruins rather than something which was functioning not so long ago. It is particularly astonishing knowing that the place is some 200 miles away from Moscow.As a part of his hobby, Sergey?– a.k.a. “GothicSerge”?– travels around the country and explores deserted towns and villages. He says he is used to seeing tumbledown barns and abandoned houses even in this area, known for centuries for its great harvests.“This is fertile land. You can stick a pole in the soil here and it will have peppers growing on one side and tomatoes on the other,” he says. “Sure, some agricultural facilities are still left in some areas, but mostly the lands are empty, abandoned. There's no logic in this.”Official figures show that over 3,000 villages in Russia became deserted last year alone. Many small schools and hospitals have shut down – there is simply no-one to educate or treat. Life in the countryside is not attractive anymore, especially for young people who are fleeing to cities, looking for a better life.“It's not the village which is becoming extinct, it's the youth’s reasons for self-motivation,” Yury Krupnov of the Moscow-based Institute of Demography, Migration and Regional Development explains. “People are leaving their villages for big cities. But they often don't know what to do there, so they can't find a job or a family, build a life.”Of course there are examples of successful farming businesses in Russia. But experts agree they are only a drop in the ocean and are not enough to motivate the youth to work and live in rural communities. And as many try to eke out a living in the big cities, the lifeblood of Russia’s vast and fertile countryside appears to be draining away forever.National Economic TrendsRussia's Q1 direct investment down 20 pct to $12.8 bln 30/08/2011MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti)Russia saw first quarter 2011 direct investment slump to $12.825 billion, down 20 percent on the fourth quarter of last year, the central bank's balance of payments revealed on Tuesday.Direct investment includes foreign participation in Russian companies, reinvested profit and other capital. From 2010, the regulator has included investment not only in non-banking firms, but also in the banking sector.In the first quarter of 2011, foreign participation in Russian companies amounted to $2.384 billion, reinvested profit stood at $7.744 billion, while other capital amounted to $7.465 billion.In 2010, direct investment in Russia increased 17 percent to $42.9 billion.Russia’s Grain Harvest May Top 90 Million Tons, Rossiyskaya Says Marina Sysoyeva - Aug 30, 2011 8:20 AM GMT+0200 Russia’s grains harvest may exceed 90 million metric tons, the state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper reported today, citing an interview with Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik. To contact the reporter on this story: Marina Sysoyeva in Moscow msysoyeva@ To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@ Russia Limits Transport of Grain to Black Sea, Vedomosti Says Yuliya Fedorinova - Aug 30, 2011 7:55 AM GMT+0200 OAO Russian Railways limited transportation of grain to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk for export, citing a shortage of rolling stock, Vedomosti reported today. The limitation began on Aug. 27, the newspaper said, citing a company statement. More that 3,600 grain trucks are stuck in a traffic jam on the North Caucasus region of the rail network, the newspaper said. Russia lifted an embargo on grain exports from July 1. To contact the reporter on this story: Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@ To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@ 11:23?30/08/2011ALL NEWSMoscow to allocate over one trln roubles for special investments , August 30 (Itar-Tass) — The Moscow city authorities will allocate 1.391 trillion roubles for special investment programme for 2012-2014, a source at the Moscow Mayor’s Office said on Tuesday.“The city will allocate 443.9 billion roubles in 2012, 460 billion roubles in 2013, and in 2014 – 487.1 billion roubles,” the source said.In early August, the city authorities adopted a special investment programme for next three years – the major priority is given to construction of metro and to solving transport problems. For example, the city will allocate for construction of metro, development of public transport and for road projects about 300 billion roubles a year. Besides, the Moscow’s budget will finance construction of about 700,000 square metres of new housing, to leave alone real estate built by investors.Gazprom Climbs in New York as U.S. Boosts Oil: Russia Overnight Leon Lazaroff - Aug 30, 2011 7:48 AM GMT+0200 OAO Gazprom shares traded in New York advanced to the highest level in more than three weeks as oil gained amid speculation the U.S. economic recovery will gain traction in the second half of the year. American depositary receipts of Gazprom, the world’s largest gas producer, rose 2.7 percent yesterday to $12.31, the highest since Aug. 5. The company is due to publish first- quarter earnings after 10 a.m. in Moscow. OAO Lukoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil producer, advanced 2.7 percent to $60.15 in U.S. trading, also the highest in three weeks. Futures contracts on OAO Sberbank, the country’s largest lender, gained 0.5 percent. The bank is scheduled to post its second-quarter earnings today. Russia’s RTS stock-index futures, contracts on the nation’s dollar-denominated stock index expiring in September, were unchanged at 165,695. Moscow’s 30-stock Micex Index (INDEXCF) jumped 3.7 percent to 1,512.36 yesterday, its largest one-day advance in three months. The RTS index gained 4.5 percent to 1,667.66 yesterday in the Russian capital. The Micex may climb 0.3 percent at the start of trading, according to Alfa Bank. “You’re starting to see some money coming back to Russia, which has partly to do with oil strengthening and also with investors becoming more comfortable with a risk trade, which Russia is,” Ilya Kravets, a research analyst at ED Capital LLC in New York, said in a phone interview. Crude in New York added 0.4 percent after a 2.2 percent gain yesterday when it settled at $87.27 a barrel, after the U.S. Commerce Department said consumer spending increased the most since February last month. Urals crude, Russia’s chief export oil blend, rose 0.8 percent to $112.53 today. Fed Tools The Federal Reserve still has tools to stimulate the economy, which will probably revive in the second half, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in an Aug. 26 speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The Fed chief said data isn’t pointing to a recession. “The fact that the Fed isn’t jumping in right away says that there are signs of an improving picture in the U.S.,” Kravets said. The Market Vectors Russia ETF, a U.S.-traded fund that holds Russian shares, gained 3.3 percent to $32.70 while the Bank of New York Mellon Russia ADR Index rose 1.9 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Futures contracts on OAO Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer, rose 0.2 percent. Contracts on Lukoil fell 0.2 percent, snapping two days of gains. The Micex has dropped 10 percent since the end of 2010 and trades at 5.9 times analysts’ earnings estimates. That compares with a 21 percent slide for Brazil’s Bovespa Index, which trades at 9.1 times earnings, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The Shanghai Composite Index trades at 11.8 times estimated earnings, and India’s Sensex has a ratio of 13.7. The euro was little changed at 1.4511 per dollar yesterday, while the S&P 500 Index (SPX) climbed 2.8 percent to 1,210.08, led by Exxon Mobil Corp., Bank of America Corp. and Apple Inc. To contact the reporter on this story: Leon Lazaroff in New York at llazaroff@ To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at papadopoulos@ August 29, 2011, 6:40 PM CETRussian Ruble May Weaken Up to 25% Ira IosebashviliA senior Russian economic official has forecast a weaker ruble and slower growth, in what may be the first indication of an uphill battle at best for the country’s economy in the years ahead.Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Klepach–perhaps best remembered by investors as the first government official to admit Russia would fall into recession during the 2008 financial crisis–sees the ruble falling 10% in the next three years. Many other indicators, like economic growth and industrial output, are also expected to deteriorate.The culprits, Mr. Klepach says, are a mix of slowing global growth in combination with some uniquely Russian problems–mainly, a current account balance that’s expected to steadily worsen even as prices of oil, Russia’s chief export, will likely stay near today’s levels.Mr. Klepach’s forecast is surprising because, just a month ago, he reaffirmed his view of a strong ruble and steady growth. It seems downright optimistic, however, when compared to an assessment by HSBC, which sees the ruble falling nearly 25% by 2014.HSBC agrees in principal with the ministry’s projections, but thinks the economy will take a big hit, partly due to ongoing capital outflows. Some $30 billion has already left Russia already this year.Imports will be growing faster than exports because “there is so much corruption and red tape that it will always be easier to import something into Russia than to make it here and try to sell it abroad,” said Alexander Morozov, chief economist at HSBC in Moscow.Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussionsRussian Copper Increases Tominskoye Copper Deposit Reserves Yuliya Fedorinova - Aug 30, 2011 10:07 AM GMT+0200 Russian Copper Co., the country’s third-largest copper producer, raised reserves at its Tominskoye copper deposit in the Chelyabinsk region by 80,000-100,000 metric tons after further exploration of the area. The company will begin mining the deposit at Tominskoye, with estimated reserves of 350 million tons, in 2015. The operation will be capable of processing 28 million tons of ore a year, the company said in an e-mailed statement today. To contact the reporter on this story: Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@ To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@ August 30, 2011 11:38OGK-1 IFRS net profits triple in H1 to 2.9 bln rubles. Aug 30 (Interfax) - Russian generating company OJSC OGK-1 (RTS: OGKA), over which electrical power import-export monopoly OJSC Inter RAO UES (RTS: IRAO) took control this year, ended the first half of this year with net profits to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) having tripled year-on-year from 980 million rubles to 2.93 billion rubles, the company pany sales revenues were up 28% at 28.34 billion rubles (from 22.2 billion rubles in H1 2010).Cf(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)VTB unit to buy Bulgarian tobacco 30, 2011A European investment unit owned by VTB is the sole bidder in the privatization of a 79.8% stake in Bulgaria's dominant cigarette-maker Bulgartabak, reports Reuters. BT Invest has offered EUR 100.1m for the tobacco company, the country's privatization agency said on Monday. The Austrian-registered company is the sole bidder after BAT withdrew from the tender earlier this month. The remaining 20.2% of the company trades as free float on the Bulgarian stock exchange. The privatisation agency says it will consider the offer - which is in line with expectations - and make a decision within days.Bank of Moscow bailout saved VTB - ex-CEO IST* Exiled former CEO defends lending practices * Says VTB exaggerated bad loans at Bank of Moscow * Loan that financed stake sale well secured - Borodin By Douglas Busvine MOSCOW, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The former head of Bank of Moscow MBMM.MM has denied defrauding Russia's fifth-largest bank, saying the $14 billion bailout it received was in reality intended to save its suitor, state-controlled VTB (VTBR.MM: Quote, Profile, Research). Andrey Borodin dismissed allegations by VTB and the Russian authorities that he improperly lent billions of dollars to firms he controlled -- loans that went bad after he was ousted, forcing the central bank to launch the record rescue last month. Borodin, who fled Russia at the end of March and is wanted by a Moscow court on an international warrant, told Reuters that VTB had sought to depict Bank of Moscow's financial condition in the worst possible light to conceal its own balance-sheet woes. “They (the authorities) cannot have something substantial because there is nothing," Borodin, 44, told Reuters in an interview granted last week on condition that his whereabouts not be disclosed. "VTB was and is spreading rumours about the bad financial condition at Bank of Moscow and an undisclosed portion of loans which are ‘problematic’," he said. VTB rejected the allegations. The fallout from VTB's hostile bid for Bank of Moscow has raised questions over how politicised strategy and oversight are at Russia's dominant state banks. Top banking regulator Gennady Melikyan has resigned over the affair. VTB, Russia's No.2 bank, in February acquired a 46.5 percent stake in Bank of Moscow and a further indirect minority stake for 103 billion roubles ($3.6 billion) from the City of Moscow. But CEO Andrei Kostin was not able to install his own management team at Bank of Moscow until mid-April, after Borodin had sold his 20.3 percent stake in the bank to Kremlin-connected businessman Vitaly Yusufov for $800 million. Borodin defended a $1.1 billion loan he granted to Yusufov while still CEO, saying it was well secured against the tycoon's assets, which include a German shipyard. He added it was likely that Yusufov, son of former Energy Minister and Kremlin aide Igor Yusufov, would sell the stake at a higher price to VTB, which must consolidate 75 percent control over Bank of Moscow to unlock the bailout. WANTED Borodin is wanted in Russia over an investigation into a $440 million loan to a firm called Premier Estate, whose proceeds landed on the personal account of Yelena Baturina, the property-developer wife of former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, investigators say. Borodin said, however, that all lending by Bank of Moscow to Baturina's Inteko group, was transparent and well secured. Luzhkov was fired last year by President Dmitry Medvedev after 18 years in office. Baturina has denied any wrongdoing. Borodin also dismissed a central bank audit of Bank of Moscow, conducted after he was ousted, that found $7.5 billion in loans to businesses believed to be controlled by management, with a further $5.1 billion channelled into offshore schemes to cover interest payments on the loans. The Kommersant daily reported on Monday, quoting sources, that the Interior Ministry would revise up estimated losses on Bank of Moscow loans totally lacking any security by 100 times to $6 billion. A spokeswoman confirmed that ministry investigators were reviewing the scale of estimated losses but said it was too early to give a figure. GOING BAD Borodin, who spoke before the Kommersant report and has not yet faced charges, denied the loans were bad. "All of these loans were granted according to corporate policy," he said. “It’s inexplicable how these loans got bad in one day. Five central bank representatives have been at the bank every day; they oversaw all transactions and loans. "VTB and the new management of Bank of Moscow are interested in presenting the situation at Bank of Moscow as badly as possible.” VTB rejected Borodin's allegations, saying that half of Bank of Moscow's loan book had been found to be bad by investigators and independent auditors. "Russian state regulators confirmed that fraudulent lending activities of the previous management in 2010 and earlier have resulted in the need for provisioning of the loan portfolio against potential losses," VTB said in a statement to Reuters. Borodin defended the bank's practice of lending to firms, such as forestry company Investlesprom, in which management had an interest, saying this was necessary to ensure loans were recovered in Russia's uncertain legal environment. He said Bank of Moscow had been sound before VTB assumed control, which is why he had offered on March 23 to buy out VTB's stake, only to leave the country under official pressure two days later. Borodin's offer "was a sure sign that I was confident in the security of the asset and the future of Bank of Moscow. VTB said no, which was a clear sign that they did like this asset. "They could have walked away. They did not." ($1 = 28.955 Russian Roubles) (Additional reporting by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter) ((douglas.busvine@)(+7 495 775 1242)) Keywords: BANKOFMOSCOW BORODIN/ (C) Reuters 2011 All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing, or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. Sberbank's CEO increases his shareholding another 16% CapitalAugust 30, 2011News: Yesterday, Sberbank announced that CEO German Gref had again bought shares, for the fourth time in August. He increased his stake 16% (or USD 255,000), from 0.0025% to 0.0029%, and it is now worth USD 1.8mn (both prices as of yesterday's close). Gref's shareholding is only marginally lower than that of Sberbank CFO Anton Karamzin, who remains the biggest shareholder on the management team (his 0.003% stake is worth USD 1.9mn). Furthermore, Andrei Donskikh, Head of corporate banking, purchased some shares but his overall stake remained flat at 0.0012% (worth USD 0.8mn). Our View: This is positive for sentiment and implies that management believes in Sberbank's future performance. The stock closed up 5.2% yesterday, erasing part of the 20% decline in August following the turbulence on the global markets.Sberbank H1 net profit up at 176.1 bln roubles ISTMOSCOW, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Sberbank , Russia's top lender, posted 176.1 billion rouble ($6.12 billion) net profit for the first half of 2011 thanks to provisions writebacks, compared to 64.3 billion roubles in the same period a year ago, the bank said on Tuesday. Provisions writebacks stood at 22.2 billion roubles in the first six months of 2011, with an average net interest margin (NIM) of 6.4 percent, Sberbank said. ($1 = 28.770 Russian Roubles) (Reporting by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Andrey Ostroukh) Sberbank agrees to pay 585 mln eur for VBI-sources, Aug 29 2011MOSCOW/VIENNA, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Russia's Sberbank has agreed to buy VBI, the eastern European arm of Austrian lender Oesterreichische Volksbanken (OTVVp.VI: Quote, Profile, Research), for 585 million euros ($840 million), sources close to the transaction told Reuters. "The binding agreement was signed. Now it must be approved by VBI's shareholders," one source close to the deal said. Volksbanken has a 51 percent stake in VBI, while France's Banque Populaire Caisse d'Epargne and Germany's DZ Bank/WGZ Bank each own 24.5 percent. Sberbank and Volksbanken declined to comment on the transaction, which was agreed in principle in July. ($1 = 0.696 Euros) (Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva in Moscow, Alexander Huebner in Frankfurt, and Angelika Gruber and Michael Shields in Vienna; Editing by David Holmes) Russia's Rusagro posts H1 net loss Aug 30, 2011 6:42am GMTMOSCOW Aug 30(Reuters) - Russian sugar and pork producer Rusagro recorded a 72 million rouble ($2.5 million) net loss in the first half of 2011 after posting net profit of 2 billion roubles in the same period a year ago, the company said on Tuesday.The company, which raised $330 million in a London stock-market float in April, said its adjusted Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin fell 53 percent to 1.5 billion roubles in the first six months of 2011.Rostelecom mulls expansion into Ukraine , 30.08.2011, Moscow 12:00:04.Russian national telecommunications operator Rostelecom is looking to enter the Ukrainian market, two Rostelecom managers told RBC daily.??????The company is conducting a due diligence of Ukrainian Internet provider Datagroup, which is not the only company targeted by the Russian operator. Rostelecom is also interested in gaining a foothold on the country's fixed line market. Russia's Ist acquires stake in Italian Wimax operator 30 August 2011 | 10:08 CET ?Russian company Ist has purchased for several tens of millions of euros 28.6 percent of Aria, the only Italian operator to have been awarded a licence for WiMax technology for the entire national territory, Russian business daily Vedomosti reported. Ist, which recently also acquired an internet provider in Bangladesh, wants to support Aria's growth. The Italian company in 2009 purchased the rights to use Telecom Italia's frequencies in Southern Italy. Scartel Owners Want $1 Billion for the Company, Vedomosti Says Yuliya Fedorinova - Aug 30, 2011 7:56 AM GMT+0200 The owners of Moscow-based Scartel LLC, which provides 4G service under the brand Yota, valued the company for as much as $1 billion for the possible sale to Russia’s three largest mobile-phone operators and OAO Rostelecom, Vedomosti reported today, citing unidentified people familiar with the talks. OAO MegaFon, OAO Mobile TeleSystems, OAO VimpelCom and long-distance operator Rostelecom agreed to work together to develop a nationwide fourth-generation broadband network in March, according to the report. The four companies had the right to buy 20 percent each of Yota. Russian Technologies Corp., a state holding company, will hold a 20 percent stake, newspaper said. The parties still can’t agree on the price, Vedomosti said. To contact the reporter on this story: Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@ To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@ Mobile operators to withdraw from LTE consortium with Scartel? CapitalAugust 30, 2011Event: Today (30 August), Vedomosti reported that the Long Term Evolution (LTE) consortium, comprising MTS, VimpelCom, MegaFon, Rostelecom and Scartel, may be dissolved. According to the article, Alfa Group is unhappy with the valuation of Scartel: each of the big-three Russian mobile companies has an option to buy a 20% stake in Scartel in 2014, and Scartel's shareholders want $1bn for the company. Vedomosti writes that Sistema wants to develop an alternative project via the purchase of the 50% stake in Kosmos-TV it does not already own. Action: The cost of LTE frequencies (whether obtained at auction, via the purchase of stakes in Scartel, or any other way) remains one of the major downside risks for the operators, in our view. Rationale: The State Commission for Radio Frequencies will hold a meeting on 8 September, at which it may decide to issue 2 x 30 MHz bands in the 2.5-2.7 GHz range to Scartel. If this happens, Scartel's bargaining power should increase. That said, we note that Roscomnadzor plans to hold an auction for LTE frequencies before 1 December 2011, and mobile players might get frequencies via auctions. Either way, we see the risk of a high price tag. Ivan KimZynga may postpone IPO CapitalAugust 30, 2011Event: According to Reuters, Zynga may postpone its proposed IPO until November. Reuters cited unnamed sources close to the company who said that Zynga previously planned to raise around $1bn during an IPO in September, with the company potentially valued at $10bn. Zynga produces games for social networks; its most popular games include Farmville and Cityville. Its revenues are closely connected to Facebook's popularity, and amounted to $597mn in 2010, while net profit equalled $90mn. Mail.Ru Group owns 1.41% of Zynga, which currently contributes 1% to our valuation of Mail. Mail is due to report 1H11 results tomorrow (31 August); a conference call is scheduled for the same day at 14:00 UK time/17:00 Moscow time (dial-in: 0800 279 9640; passcode: 4057488). Shares in Mail are currently trading at 14.3x and 10.4x 2011E and 2012E EV/EBITDA multiples, respectively.Zynga IPO Delayed 30, 2011 | ReutersZynga, the social games maker may delay its plans for an initial public offering because of poor market conditions and to answer questions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to media reports on Monday.The delay is partly related to questions the SEC has about how Zynga measures its daily and monthly users, as well its bookings, CNBC reported. Zynga has had “extensive talks” with SEC about these matters, according to the report.Zynga in its S-1 filing said that it uses a financial measure called bookings, which is revenue from the sale of virtual goods that are used in games — such as weapons or crops — and from advertising over a certain period of time.The company uses the bookings figure internally. It is not meant to “substitute for revenue recognized in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles,” Zynga said in its filing.Zynga’s IPO was expected in early September and now may not come until November, the New York Post reported earlier on Monday.The company is still moving ahead with its IPO plans but is “no longer in a rush because of the rocky stock markets,” according to the Post, which cited two sources with knowledge of Zynga’s plans.Another source close to the company said Zynga’s public debut could be delayed until November, the Post reported. The company will have a clearer sense of its plans post-Labor Day, according to the report.Zynga, which is the leading publisher of games on Facebook such as FarmVille, declined to comment. The company filed with U.S. regulators on July 1 for an IPO worth up to $1 billion.Tags: IPO, ZyngaUPDATE 1-Globaltrans upbeat on H2 as first-half profit rises EDT* H1 revenue up 48 pct to $603.6 mln* H1 profit up 66 pct to $159.3 mln (Adds detail, background) LONDON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Globaltrans (GLTRq.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Russia's largest private freight operator, said on Tuesday it was optimistic about its prospects for the second half of the year as it reported a surge in first-half earnings. Globaltrans said profit for the six months ended June 30 had risen 66 percent from a year ago to $159.3 million, helped by a 48 percent rise in revenue and by higher prices for its services. "Looking forward, and notwithstanding renewed concerns about the state of the global economy, we continue to see good demand from customers for our services," the company said. "We remain optimistic about prospects for the second half of the year and our trading performance to date supports this view," it added. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Erica Billingham) Globaltrans' first half profit skyrocket 66 pct to $159 mln 30/08/2011MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti)Russia's largest private freight rail transportation group Globaltrans saw its first half 2011 net profit jump 66 percent year-on-year to $159.3 million to IFRS, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.Adjusted revenue grew 48 percent to $603.6 million in the first six months of this year due to an increase in the company's cargo turnover and firm tariff policy. EBITDA increased 52 percent to $258 debt fell 16 percent to $321.8 million as of June 30, while net debt/adjusted EBITDA ratio fell to 0.7.Earnings per share skyrocketed 85 percent to $0.85 in the first half of 2011, the company said.Globaltrans' freight rail turnover grew 37 percent to 57.5 billion ton-kilometers in the first half of 2011."The Group's market share rose to 6 percent in the first half of 2011 from 5.3 percent for the whole of 2010 and 4.9 percent in the first half of 2010 as the company's position in transportation of metallurgical and coal cargo and construction materials has strengthened considerably," the company said.The Group's total fleet amounted to 49,529 units as of June 30, 2011 comparing with 50,714 units at the end of 2010.Russia's M.Video H1 net profit up 50 pct ISTMOSCOW, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Russian home electronics retailer M.video doubled its net profits to 766 million roubles ($26.6 million) in the first half of 2011 on the back of new store openings, the company said on Tuesday. M.video's sales increased by 33 percent to 55 billion roubles, while adjusted Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) also rose by 33 percent to 1.9 billion roubles. The company said it planned to open 40 new stores this year. ($1 = 28.770 Russian Roubles) (Reporting By Andrey Ostroukh) Ikea finally launches in Ufa 30, 2011After struggling past what it claims was corruption and red tape, Ikea has finally opened its Mega Ufa shopping mall three years after it originally planned, reports Interfax. The Swedish retailer ended up investing RUB9bn in the project claimed Per Wendschlag, general director of IKEA Russia and CIS, at a news conference, or double the original budget of RUB4.5bn, after several years of struggle in the country.Once one of the most notable foreign investors in Russia, which had somehow managed to find the key to working quickly and efficiently to build stores around the country without a local 'partner', the Swedes appeared to hit a brick wall two or three years back, and there's been little but bad news ever since. Before things fell apart last year, rumors had been doing the rounds that, as it pushed into the regions during the boom years ahead of the crisis, Ikea was becoming more and more unhappy with the officials it met, whilst relations in the capital and St Petersburg were also becoming more difficult.Things came to a head in February 2010, when two top Ikea executives in Russia were fired over allegations that they authorized a pay off to get a mall in St Petersburg connected to the power grid. Later the same year, the company announced a halt to new investments in Russia - which in particular looked to be connected to the problems in Ufa, as well as similar issues at a project in Samara. Th project in Ufa was halted some years back after violations were uncovered in the way the Federal Migration Service issued work permits to foreign staff, whilst local prosecutors shut down the project for some time citing violation of building regulations. At the opening of the mall, reports RT, Bashkortostan President Rustem Khamitov told journalists the republic has reorganized the way it works with investors and major companies. He also claimed that Ikea has now become keen to work with businesses based in the region. "Company management is eager to work with local producers. The main issue is their readiness to do that. We will promote that process," Khamitov said.Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)Russia Gas Production to Reach Record This Year, Vedomosti Says Yuliya Fedorinova - Aug 30, 2011 6:13 AM GMT+0200 Russia may produce as much as 671 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year, surpassing the record set in 2008, Vedomosti reported today, citing an energy ministry forecast. Russia produced 665 billion cubic meters of gas in 2008. Production may rise to 741 billion cubic meters by 2014, the Moscow-based newspaper said. To contact the reporter on this story: Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@ To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@ Ministry for the Economy increases its oil and gas production forecast CapitalAugust 30, 2011News: According to Vedomosti, the Ministry for the Economy has made a slight upwards revision to its 2011-14 forecast for oil and gas production in Russia. Gas production is estimated to reach 671bcm (+1% from the previous forecast) and 741bcm (+1.6%) in 2011 and 2014, respectively. Oil production is seen at 509mnt (+0.7%) and 510mnt (+0.9%) in the two years. Our View: The government admits that independent gas producers are to continue increasing their market share at Gazprom's expense. We estimate that Gazprom will account for 76% of Russian gas production in 2014 (compared with 78% in 2010). Overall, we see the news as neutral for the Russian oil and gas sector, as the changes are insignificant.30.08.2011Czech EPH Says Not Buying Slovak Gas Firm For Russians and co-owner of the energy holding Energeticky a prumyslovy holding (EPH), Daniel Kretinsky, claims his company’s prospective purchase of a 49 percent stake in Slovak gas major Slovensky plynarensky priemysel (SPP) would be a long-term strategic investment. “We’re not preparing this acquisition for anyone else including [any] Russian gas companies,” Kretinsky said in an interview with Czech Position. ?Speculation has emerged in energy circles that EPH —owned by PPF Group with a 40 percent stake, J&T - 40 percent, and Daniel Kretinsky - 20 percent — is looking to buy a 49 percent stake in SPP which is currently owned by E.ON Ruhrgas and Gaz de France Suez with the intention of selling it on to Gazprom or another Russian gas company for a considerable profit.“EPH has all the characteristics of a strategic specialized investor and our presence in the energy sector is long-term and systematic. European players already consider us to be a standard energy company. We have repeatedly demonstrated that we understand the responsibility that doing business in the energy sector carries. Our approach towards our customers is conservative and we’re about long-term sustainability of our business,” Kretinsky told Czech Position. Nevertheless, he refused to comment about the details of the prospective deal to buy SPP.Copyright 2011, Ceska Pozice. All rights reserved.Novatek to pay RUB 2.5/share interim dividend (up 67% y/y), yielding 0.7% BankAugust 30, 2011Yesterday Novatek's Board of Directors recommended an interim dividend payment of some RUB7.59bn (RUB 2.5/share or RUB 25/GDR) to be approved by the EGM, which is scheduled for September 8, 2011. The proposed dividend payment accounts for some 22.5% of the 1H11 bottom line and is consistent with the company's dividend policy. It is important to remember that Novatek paid approximately 30-32% of its consolidated annual financial results over the past two years. Even though the proposed dividend payment offers a rather modest yield of 0.7%, it represents an almost 67% increase y/y. As a result, the announcement should be welcomed by the market although Novatek has never been favored for its dividends. Instead the company's growth prospects were always the focus, which makes this news all the more interesting. Despite being in an active growth phase, Novatek is able to find the necessary resources to fund an increased dividend payment. We estimate 2H11 dividend payment to reach around RUB11.6bn (RUB3.83/share), bringing the total dividend yield up to 1.8%. Pavel SorokinShtokman Devt to receive discount rate of corp profit tax at 13.5%, Aug 29 (PRIME) -- Shtokman Development, the operator of Russia’s Shtokman natural gas project, expects to receive a discounted rate of the corporate profit tax at 13.5% compared to the current level of 20%, the company said in a statement Monday. Under recent amendments to the legislation of the Murmansk Region, where the Shtokman gas field in located, strategic projects being implemented in the region could be released from payment of the property tax, while the regional rate of the corporate tax is to be set at 13.5%, the company said. Located in the Barents Sea, the Shtokman gas field contains 3.8 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 53.3 million tonnes of gas condensate reserves. Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom owns a 51% stake in Shtokman Development, while France’s Total owns 25%, and Norwegian oil and gas company StatoilHydro owns the remaining 24%. End 29.08.2011 18:53Please respect 's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - ’s oil tax hike: winners and losersAugust 29, 2011 6:00 pm by Isabel Gorst At first glance Russia’s decision to increase the export tax on heavy fuel oil exports looks like another move to milk the oil industry as the government battles the budget deficit.But the higher duty is also intended to have a positive impact on the oil industry by stimulating investors to upgrade Russia’s aged refineries.Vladimir Putin signed an order on Friday unifying customs duties on oil products at a rate of 66 per cent of the export tax on crude oil. The tax changes, which will take effect beginning?October 1,?2011, will see the customs duty on heavy fuel oil known as mazut rise by about one fifth. Duties on lighter oil products that require more sophisticated refining will fall slightly.An exception has been made for gasoline which will remain subject to a 90 per cent export tax imposed in May to guard against domestic shortages.Another order reducing the coefficient used to calculate crude oil export taxes to 60 per cent from 65 per cent is expected to be issued shortly completing an overhaul of oil customs duties.Analysts have been grappling to understand which oil companies will benefit most from the changes and how the higher fuel oil duties will impact markets.“There will be winners and losers,” says Vadim Mitroshin, oil analyst at Otkritie Capital. “But we think that net net it is an industry positive move.”Oil producers that export large volumes of crude oil such as Rosneft, the state oil company, TNK-BP, the Anglo-Russian oil major and Lukoil will benefit from the lower crude oil duties. More lenient taxes may even encourage them to boost upstream investment to buoy Russian oil production.However, companies with a strong refining focus, including Tatneft (tnfp:RTS) and Bashneft (BANE:RTS), will suffer as the higher fuel oil duty comes into force. ?Relatively small independent refiners operating in the regions could go out of business altogether.Mazut can be processed fairly simply and accounts for more than half of the oil products exported by Russia where many refineries still use technology installed in the Soviet era. Importers use Russian mazut as a boiler fuel or run it through their more sophisticated refineries to manufacture value added light products such as gasoline or jet fuel.The government intends the higher fuel oil export tax to stimulate oil companies to upgrade their refineries to produce more light products in Russia.Privately owned Russian oil majors including Lukoil and TNK-BP have already invested heavily in refinery upgrades. State firms such as Rosneft have moved more slowly to modernise and will now have to scramble to catch up with the times.Please respect 's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - 29, 2011 5:29 pmTNK-BP sparring turns up heat on DudleyBy Sylvia Pfeifer in London and Catherine Belton in MoscowEver since the collapse of BP’s proposed alliance with Rosneft, the Russian state oil group, Bob Dudley, chief executive of the UK oil company, has done his best to talk up its prospects in other countries. Australia, Angola, India and the North Sea have all been singled out as regions that will underpin long-term growth for the company and deliver much-needed returns for shareholders after last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill. But Mr Dudley’s problems in Russia do not appear to be over just yet.While BP’s alliance with Rosneft to explore in the Arctic may not have materialised, the consequences of that high-profile move continue to reverberate. Earlier this month, BP’s Russian partners in its existing venture, TNK-BP, requested a final ruling by on whether the UK group breached their shareholder agreement when it tried to team up with Rosneft.Stan Polovets, chief executive of Alfa-Access-Renova, the vehicle through which the partners hold their stake, said the alleged breach has “undermined the trust between the partners, has caused TNK-BP to suffer substantial damages and has hampered the company’s ambitions, both domestically and internationally”. AAR, he added, had asked the tribunal to make clear “that BP must accept responsibility for its actions and honour its obligations to its partners”.BP, which has consistently denied any wrongdoing, said it was “surprised that AAR had been commenting publicly” on what is meant to be a confidential arbitration process, adding that “we don’t believe any losses have been suffered”. One person familiar with the matter said the latest comments from AAR were nothing new, and that it was merely creating noise around a process it started earlier this year.The question for Mr Dudley – who is already under pressure from shareholders who want to see greater evidence of momentum from the group – is whether this latest round of sparring is something that can be contained with limited fallout or whether the current shareholder structure of TNK-BP is no longer tenable. Analysts say the renewed legal aggression from AAR – and a suit filed in Russia by minority shareholders in TNK-BP for $3bn in damages they claim were caused by the “lost opportunity” – may represent a fresh attempt to put a buy-out deal back on the table. A joint effort by BP and Rosneft to buy out the partners as a way of allowing the BP-Rosneft alliance to proceed collapsed at the last minute in May.“The vast majority in Moscow believes that there is no merit to AAR’s case because there has been no change to TNK-BP’s operations,” said one industry expert. “This is simply to keep the pressure for the [potential buy-out] deal to reach its conclusion. At this stage it makes sense for everyone that some form of the original deal goes ahead.” But one person familiar with the situation said the attempts to enforce the claim were making already extremely slim chances for a fresh share and cash buy-out even more remote. “BP and its board were willing to have [Mikhail] Fridman as a substantial shareholder … but considering his behaviour since the deal fell apart they’ve become less and less interested .”“I can’t imagine there is any deal to be discussed,” the person said. “Life moves on.”Several people close to the joint venture said the litigation can continue to run in parallel without damaging either TNK-BP’s day-to-day operations or its shareholder structure for the foreseeable future.Even from the start the relationship has never been an easy one – Mr Dudley famously had to flee Russia when a dispute with AAR over strategy turned ugly – but despite the strains, it has been very lucrative. TNK-BP recently posted second-quarter net income this year that had nearly doubled year-on-year to $2bn on higher oil prices. But others disagree.“AAR does not want to sell, and it appears that BP is not interested in exiting TNK-BP either, so the ownership structure might not undergo any fundamental changes in the foreseeable future,” said Mr Polovets.“However, life can’t go on as though nothing has happened. BP needs to acknowledge the fact that it has breached the shareholder agreement and offer to compensate TNK-BP for the damages.”Employees, however, insist the company has not been affected. “The company is doing well and it’s good that it has always been self-financing which always gives us a degree of independence,” said a person close to TNK-BP.For Mr Dudley, however, the continuing legal tit-for-tat and the possibility that BP could be found to have breached a shareholder agreement, is a headache that he could well do without.GazpromGazprom Boosts First-Quarter Profit 44% Anna Shiryaevskaya - Aug 30, 2011 8:55 AM GMT+0200 OAO Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas producer, said first-quarter profit jumped 44 percent, more than analysts forecast, after gas prices and export volumes rose. Net income climbed to a record 468 billion rubles ($16 billion) from 325 billion rubles a year earlier, the Moscow-based natural-gas exporter said in a financial report posted on its website today. That beat the average estimate of 406 billion rubles from seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Revenue increased 38 percent to 1.32 trillion rubles. Gazprom, which reports financial results to international standards months later than peers OAO Rosneft and OAO Novatek, benefited from recovering demand and higher prices in Europe, its biggest market by revenue, in the first three months of the year. The state-run producer links its gas prices to oil and products with a time lag of as long as nine months. “The first half was very successful for Gazprom,” Sergey Vakhrameev and Natalia Poskrebysheva, analysts at Moscow-based investment bank IFC Metropol, said in an e-mailed note before the earnings release. The analysts “expect second-quarter results to be even better year-on-year.” Sales volumes to Europe and other countries outside the former Soviet Union advanced 12 percent to 46.6 billion cubic meters in the first quarter, the Russian gas export monopoly said. Shipments to Europe and Turkey may reach 158 billion cubic meters this year and export revenue will probably rise to a record, Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller said in June. Capital expenditures jumped 82 percent to 397 billion rubles, giving the company a negative cash flow of 7 billion rubles, according to Gazprom’s cash flow statement. Gazprom shares rose 0.2 percent to 178.17 rubles as of 10:50 a.m. in Moscow. To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Shiryaevskaya in Moscow at ashiryaevska@ To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@ Gazprom first quarter net profit soars 44 pct to 468 bln rbls 30/08/2011MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti)Russian gas giant Gazprom saw its January-March 2011 net profit jump 44 percent year-on-year to 467.969 billion rubles ($16 billion) to IFRS, the firm said in a statement on Tuesday.Revenue rose 38 percent to 1.316 trillion rubles in the quarter.Pre-tax profit increased about 40 percent to 591.066 billion rubles in the first quarter of 2011 year-on-year, the company said.Gazprom Q1 earnings, sales top expectations Aug 30, 2011 6:33am GMTMOSCOW Aug 30 (Reuters) - Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom on Tuesday posted a 42 percent percent increase in first-quarter earnings to 478.5 billion roubles ($16.6 billion), exceeding market expectations of a 29 percent gain.State-controlled Gazprom said revenues rose by 38 percent to 1.317 trillion roubles as customers in Europe increased purchases, beating an average forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll of 1.259 trillion roubles. (Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Andrey Ostroukh)Gazprombank Q1 net profit jumps 31 pct to 31 bln rbls 30/08/2011MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti)Gazprombank, the banking arm of Russian energy giant Gazprom, saw its January-March 2011 net profit increase 31 percent year-on-year to 30.988 billion rubles ($1.07 billion) to IFRS, Gazprom said in a statement on Tuesday.Gazprombank assets rose to 2.016 trillion rubles in the first quarter of 2011 compared to 1.759 trillion rubles the first quarter of 2010.Liabilities edged up to 1.776 trillion rubles in January-March 2011 from 1.539 trillion rubles, year-on-year, the bank said.Gazprom Neft and Iran unable to agree on field development CapitalAugust 30, 2011News: According to Interfax, Iran is to revoke Gazprom Neft's development licences for the Azar project. Mahmoud Reza Sadjadi had previously warned Gazprom Neft against further delays on Azar. Interfax also speculates that Gazprom Neft is to be replaced by a consortium of Iranian companies. Gazprom Neft representatives said that the sides had not agreed on the contract details and there had been no communication from Iranian side. Our View: Since Gazprom Neft has not even started active development of the Azar field, we believe that no significant costs have been incurred since the beginning of the project. The news is slightly disappointing for the company's international ambitions but is unlikely to have any impact on the stock trading.29.08.2011New Well Tested On Sakhalin Shelf second well has been tested at the South-Kirinskoye field which was discovered a year ago near Sakhalin, ANGI has reported. The field is expected to be a large source of gas for the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-ladivostok pipeline.Gazflot began exploratory drilling on the Sakhalin shelf in 2009. This summer the company completed drilling and began testing wells at South-Kirinskoye. Work has been under way for two months, during which time the new well was drilled to a depth of 2,900 meters. Copyright 2011, Oil and Gas Information Agency. All rights reserved.29.08.2011Gazprom to Build Underground Gas Storage Facility in Irkutsk Russia gas giant Gazprom plans to build an underground gas storage facility in Irkutsk, the company reported in a news release.According to the monopoly, Gazprom will drill five test wells in order to study the geology of salt layers in Irkutsk Region to see if building the Angarskiy underground gas storage facility is feasible. Next, Gazprom will study the idea of linking the Irkutsk gas center with the unified gas transport system as well as with the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok pipeline which is to be launched in October 2011, RBK reports.Officials in Gazprom noted that "in order to develop the unique mineral resources in East Siberia, an all-encompassing approach is needed, including a study of geology and development, trunk pipeline delivery and finally, refining".Copyright 2011, Oil and Gas Information Agency. All rights reserved.Zubkov to Keep Gazprom Post Despite Medvedev's Order 30 August 2011By Anatoly MedetskyRead more: The Moscow Times First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov will remain chairman of?the country's biggest company, Gazprom, a?Kremlin aide said Monday, in?the midst of?confusion about the?position that sprouted from?the Kremlin push to?purge state companies of?top government officials.President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered Cabinet ministers and?top dogs in?his administration to?forfeit their ranks as board members at?state-controlled companies in?two phases, to?be complete by?the end of?next month. Zubkov appears to?be an?exception to?the campaign that sought to?level the?playing field in?the state-dominated economy."There will be no exit by?Oct. 1" for?Zubkov, said Arkady Dvorkovich, an?economic aide to?Medvedev. The?final decision will respect the?"interests of?the company."The?reasons for?the government to?continue to?mull the?resolution of?the Zubkov case appear to?range from?his thoughts about leaving the?government to?handing over access to?strictly confidential material at?the world's biggest natural gas company, according to?Dvorkovich.Under Medvedev's April order, independent directors were to?replace government officials on?the boards. Dvorkovich said officials balked at?giving access to?top secrets to?independents, apparently referring to?some exploration data that the?government classifies.In?addition, "given the?current political cycle, plans by?certain people to?leave the?government have already transpired," Dvorkovich said, Interfax reported. "There's no need to?rush."The?Cabinet will have to?resign when Russia elects a?new president in?March. Zubkov has not made any public statements about his immediate or future career plans. He has, however, in?recent months left all other company board seats he occupied.Zubkov’s role at Gazprom has come into focus as time runs out for the company to schedule a special shareholders meeting to replace him on the board. Corporate rules prescribe a month’s notice for a meeting like this, meaning Gazprom would have to announce its decision by Wednesday.?That said, Medvedev's order was not explicit about Zubkov's removal from?Gazprom in?the first place. The?order identified 17 state-controlled companies that should purge their boards of?government officials by?July 1. The?specific mention of?Gazprom said Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko was to?leave, but it did not mention anyone else. Shmatko gave up his seat in?June.According to?the order, the?Oct. 1 deadline is for?the remaining state-controlled companies, save the?17 firms that were listed by?name, to?reshuffle their boards.Dvorkovich, however, on?Monday did not dispute the?idea that Zubkov was supposed to?leave Gazprom.The?officials, whom Medvedev identified at?the 17 companies, had to?quit the?boards because they supervised the?industries in?which the?companies were dominant. Zubkov, on?the contrary, oversees agriculture in?the Cabinet.Read more: The Moscow Times ................
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