Russia - WikiLeaks
Russia 100423
Basic Political Developments
• Today’s Zaman: Russian ambassador: Visa deal unlikely to be ready by Medvedev’s visit
• Earthtimes: NATO ministers resume meeting, focus on ties with Russia
• RIA: Russian, Ukrainian parliaments to ratify Black Sea Fleet pact on Tuesday
• RIA: Ukrainian opposition not to hamper Russian naval base deal - The Ukrainian opposition will not be able to hamper the ratification of a deal between Moscow and Kiev on extending Russia's use of a naval base in Ukraine's Crimea, Russian daily Kommersant said.
• Reuters: INTERVIEW-Norway moving closer to Russia border deal - Disputed marine border zone may be rich with gas and oil; No breakthrough seen during Medvedev's visit to Norway; Barents Sea zone part of wider debate on Arctic claims
• AP: Russia: Not involved in Georgia uranium seizure
• RIA: Russian finance minister to visit U.S. for G20, BRIC meetings
• Itar-Tass: Kudrin to attend G20, IMF sessions, visit Boeing
• Itar-Tass: High-level Russian delegation to discuss WTO accession
• Afrique en Ligne: Economy: Russian group to invest US$100m in Gabon - The Russian giant IFD Kapital has expressed its willingness to invest US$100 million in the Gabonese oil sector, following a visit to the African nation by a delegation of the company.
• RIA: Peru to buy eight Russian helicopters for anti-drug efforts
• RIA: Drills in Far East to involve warships of three Russian fleets
• Defpro: BrahMos steals the show at Malaysian defence show
• Press TV: Russia to invest $5bn in Malaysia - A Russian aircraft maker has decided to build a five billion dollar research facility for the defense and aerospace industries of Malaysia.
• BusinessMirror: Two task forces to probe crash of Russian plane - THE Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) on Thursday formed two separate task forces to look into the crash of a Russian-made four-engine Antonov cargo plane that killed three persons.
• Australian Government: Visit to Russian Federation
• Bloomberg: Australia Will Allow Exports of Uranium to Russia (Update1)
• RIA: Poland uncertain whether to reveal Tu-154 black box records
• Trend.az: Russia's FM considers Azerbaijan's proposal to include Turkey in OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries
• Armradio: OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs issue statement following Moscow meeting
• RBC: PM to hold meeting on national projects
• Itar-Tass: Putin to discuss demographic policy
• Moscow Times: Lipetsk Head Re-Nominated
• Russia Today: US urges Russia to lift adoptions ban
• AP: US lawmakers urge Russia not to halt adoptions
• Itar-Tass: Two more Sapsan trains to run between Moscow, St. Petersburg
• Post Bulletin: Lenin exhibit returns to Ukraine after 2 decades
• Russia Profile: A Dubious Victory - Following Some Hard Bargaining In Kharkov, Has Ukraine Just Become a Satrapy of Russia?
• Jamestown: Disagreements Over Finances Emerge between Moscow and Chechen Government
• Itar-Tass: Two students transporting explosives detained in southwest Moscow
• TIME: As Russia Reclaims Its Sphere of Influence, the U.S. Doesn't Object
• Forbes: China-Russia Competition Opens A Door For America
• Moscow Times: In the Spotlight: Nikita Mikhalkov
• Moscow Times: Russia Takes 'Anti-Socialist' Approach to Health Care
• Russia Today: Marking 25 years after ‘perestroika’ sparked the end of the USSR
• Russia Today: Cops’ approval needed to tie the knot
• Moscow Times: Nashi Wins ‘Nationalist’ Suit
• Moscow Times: Shenderovich Caught in Sex Video
• Huffington Post: Katyagate: Russia's hooker trap snags another another Kremlin critic, and this time it hurts
• Reuters: Activists urge prosecution in Russian prison death - New pressure for prosecution in lawyer Magnitsky's death
• UPI: Russian pathologist guilty of murder
• Moscow Times: Leader of Morgue Gang Convicted of Murder
• Russia Today: 23 April, 2010 in Russian Newspapers
o Izvestiya: Russia borrows money from abroad, yet again
o Nezavisimaya: The anticipation of a demographic pitfall
o Vedomosti: No shahids allowed - United Russia members prepared a strategic framework for combating terrorism: journalists are advised to stop using the term “shahid”, and parties are advised to unite in face of the threat of terrorism.
• KYRGYZSTAN
o RIA: Bakiyev says pressured into writing resignation letter
o RIA: Ousted Bakiyev says has no intention of returning to Kyrgyzstan as president
o RUVR: Bakiyev confirmed the resignation as president of Kyrgyzstan
o Reuters: Bakiyev says no plans to return as Kyrgyz president
o RIA: Kyrgyz interim government to implement measures against saboteurs
o 24.kg: Interim Central Elections Committee established in Kyrgyzstan
o RIA: In Kyrgyzstan, the arrest of the property the son of ex-President Bakiyev ordered
o RFE/RL: Witness In Kyrgyz Opposition Leader's Death Found Dead
o Lenta.ru: Former energy minister arrested in Kyrgyzstan
o 24.kg: Kazakhstan strengthens border with Kyrgyzstan
o Trend.az: Tolekan Ismailov resigns from the post of chairman of the CEC of Kyrgyzstan
o 24.kg: Azimbek Beknararov: Supporters of previous powers of Kyrgyzstan prepare all-Republican action for their support for 17 May 2010
o : Bakiyev’s immunity prevented the new authorities from his arrest, immunity will be removed
o 24.kg: Galina Skripkina: Legislation of Kyrgyzstan does not allow UN representatives, as foreign nationals, to be members of Central Elections Committee
o 24.kg: Almazbek Atambaev stands for Kyrgyzstan’s entry into Customs Union
National Economic Trends
• Bloomberg: Russian Economy to Expand 5.8% This Year, Goldman Sachs Says
• Prime-Tass: Russia raises $5.5 billion from two-part Eurobond offering
• Interfax: S&P gives Russian global U.S. dollar bonds 'BBB' rating
• Cbonds: Fitch Rates Russia's 2015 and 2020 USD Eurobond 'BBB'
• Interfax: Capital inflow to funds investing in Russian shares continues, $106 mln over week – experts
• Financial Times: Russia bond success fuels spending fears
• Reuters: Russian rouble rises, prompting c.bank to step away
• Russia Today: Russia looks to attract, secure savings
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
• Bloomberg: Norilsk Nickel, Polyus Gold, Rosneft: Russian Equity Preview
• Reuters: Sberbank sees margin decline by 150 bps in 2010—RIA
• Moscow Times: Mechel’s Romania Purchase
• Reuters: Russia's Irkut plans $5 bln Malaysian plant-paper
• RBC: Rostelecom to buy into Russian IT company
• Reuters: BRIEF-Russia's TMK sees Q1 EBITDA above $200 mln
• Moscow Times: Cherkizovo Shares Priced
• Meat International: Atria eyes massive Russian expansion 23 Apr 2010
• RUVR: Citroen, Mitsubishi to launch car production in Kaluga
• Moscow Times: For the Record
o Gazprom Global LNG and Sempra LNG, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, signed an agreement that will allow GGLNG to supply liquefied natural gas to Sempra LNG’s receipt terminal in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the United States. (Bloomberg)
o Russian Railways may sell as much as 35 percent of Transcontainer this year, the company said Thursday, after its board gave preliminary approval for an initial public offering of the unit’s shares. (Bloomberg)
o The Central Bank has room to cut its refinancing rate “slightly” as there are no risks of inflation accelerating significantly, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said Thursday, Interfax reported. (Bloomberg)
• RusBizNews: Construction Reloaded - Western business is again demonstrating interest to the construction industry in the Urals.
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
• Moscow Times: Russia to Consume More Saudi Oil
• Bloomberg: BG, Eni Venture Said to Face $2.5 Billion of Kazakh Claims
• Afrique en Ligne: New oil field discovered in Libya - Russian oil company, Tatneft, has discovered a new oil field at the exploration well 'A1-82 / 1', located in the Ghadames Basin, 500 kilometres south of Tripoli, the Libyan capital, the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) announced Thursday.
Gazprom
• Apa.az: Romania to Join Russia’s South Stream Gas Project
• Oil and Gas Eurasia: Romania to Join Russia's South Stream Gas Project
• Your Project News: Gazprom Group Inks Deal With Sempra LNG for Deliveries to U.S. Gulf Coast Terminal
• SteelOrbis: TMK delivers LD pipes for Gazprom’s Bovanenkovo-Ukhta project
• Moscow Times: Gazprom Becomes World's Most Profitable Company
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Full Text Articles
Basic Political Developments
Today’s Zaman: Russian ambassador: Visa deal unlikely to be ready by Medvedev’s visit
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Russia’s envoy to Turkey has said he does not believe a visa deal between the two countries will be ready in time for the Russian president’s visit next month.
Speaking at a conference jointly organized by İstanbul University, the Turkish-Asian Center for Strategic Studies (TASAM) and Moscow State University on Thursday, Russian Ambassador to Turkey Vladimir Ivanovskiy said he does not believe a deal to reciprocally annul visa requirements between the two countries will be ready in time for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Turkey in May, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in early April that an agreement would be signed with Russia during the Russian president’s visit to Turkey.
Saying that it would have been impossible to imagine lifting visa requirements when he first became ambassador to Turkey three years ago, Ivanovskiy said the preparation of the documents required for a visa deal is under way. Hoping that the visa requirements will be eliminated very soon, the ambassador said the visa agreement will not be ready in time for Medvedev’s visit.
Also speaking about how the majority of commentators point to the increasing importance of Turkey in the region, the diplomat said Turkey’s role in transferring energy resources from Central Asia and the Caspian basin to Europe is very important.
Stressing the multidimensional partnership between the two countries, the Russian ambassador said Russia and Turkey experience mutual benefits in many spheres and they cooperate in the economic arena in particular. Ivanovskiy noted that negotiations to build a nuclear power plant are already under way. Pointing out that Russia is also supporting Turkey in its bid to join the European Union, Ivanovskiy said Turkey’s place is, of course, in Europe. Commenting on the Iran nuclear standoff, the Russian ambassador said they think efforts to solve the issue through diplomatic channels need to continue.
|23 April 2010, Friday |
TODAY’S ZAMAN İSTANBUL
Earthtimes: NATO ministers resume meeting, focus on ties with Russia
Posted : Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:00:45 GMT
Tallinn - Foreign ministers of the western NATO alliance began wrapping up their two-day meeting in Tallinn on Friday with discussions reviewing the alliance's relationship with Russia, diplomats said.
A further topic on the agenda later on was to map out NATO's strategy on a future pullout from Afghanistan, with the key isue being how it would be decided when responsibility for security would be turned over the Afghan military and police.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said the alliance still needs 450 personnel to train Afgan security forces for this task.
The two-day NATO meetings got underway on Thursday with discussions on a wide range of issues including US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and the related issue of Russia's nuclear arms, the missile defence shield question, and the prospects for membership of Bosnia in NATO.
RIA: Russian, Ukrainian parliaments to ratify Black Sea Fleet pact on Tuesday
10:5723/04/2010
The Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has approved an additional plenary session on April 27 to ratify an agreement on prolonging the presence of the country's Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine's Crimea for another 25 years.
The agreement, signed on Wednesday by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, extends the lease on the Russian base in the port of Sevastopol for 25 years after the current lease expires in 2017, and may be further extended by another five years.
The head of the State Duma's foreign affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachyov, said Ukraine's parliament would also hold a session to ratify the agreement simultaneously with Russia's parliament.
State Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov said he hoped the Ukrainian parliament will also ratify the deal.
MOSCOW, April 23 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Ukrainian opposition not to hamper Russian naval base deal
11:2823/04/2010
The Ukrainian opposition will not be able to hamper the ratification of a deal between Moscow and Kiev on extending Russia's use of a naval base in Ukraine's Crimea, Russian daily Kommersant said.
The lease agreement, signed on Wednesday, extends Russian naval presence in the Crimean port of Sevastopol for 25 years after the current lease expires in 2017, and may be further extended by another five years. In exchange, Ukraine is to receive a 30% cut in Russian gas prices.
The Ukrainian opposition earlier said any prolongation of Russian military presence in the country would require amendments to the Constitution and a national referendum. It said incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych should be impeached for signing an unconstitutional agreement.
Mykola Tomenko, deputy speaker of parliament and a leader of the opposition party, Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (YTB), said on Wednesday Article 17 of the Constitution forbids the deployment of foreign military bases on Ukrainian soil.
However, section XV says existing military bases on Ukrainian territory can be used by foreign troops under a lease agreement ratified by the Ukrainian Supreme Rada (parliament) if they are determined by international treaties.
In February, former President and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko sent a request to the court signed by another 50 deputies asking it to comment on the contradictions in the constitution. Kommersant said the court refused to provide an explanation.
Yanukovych said the agreement is constitutional as it extends an existing lease agreement. He added that Ukraine would benefit from the deal as it will receive money on a cash basis for the lease and will save money from the natural gas discount.
He also said that the fleet had been stationed in Sevastopol since the Soviet Union and local infrastructure was geared towards the naval base.
NATO spokesman James Apparthurai said Russia and Ukraine are both partners of the Western Military Alliance and the signing of the agreement on the base is a bilateral process.
Yanukovych, who was inaugurated in February, vowed during his campaign to improve relations with Russia and renegotiate the January 2009 deal on gas supplies, which increased the price, straining Ukraine's already troubled finances.
MOSCOW, April 22 (RIA Novosti)
Reuters: INTERVIEW-Norway moving closer to Russia border deal
Thu, Apr 22 2010
* Disputed marine border zone may be rich with gas and oil
* No breakthrough seen during Medvedev's visit to Norway
* Barents Sea zone part of wider debate on Arctic claims
By Wojciech Moskwa
OSLO, April 22 (Reuters) - Norway and Russia are making progress in talks to end decades of dispute over their maritime border in the Barents Sea, a part of the Arctic rich with oil and gas, Norway's foreign minister told Reuters on Thursday.
But Jonas Gahr Stoere played down prospects of a deal during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Oslo next week. Medvedev will also visit Denmark, an Arctic power through its Greenland territories, as global warming makes the icy region more accessible and triggers new territorial claims.
"Since 2005, we have been in a constructive dialogue on this (Barents Sea border) issue," said Stoere, highlighting a 2007 deal over delineation of a fjord inlet at the southern tip of the disputed zone, which is half the size of Germany.
"Our negotiators have been narrowing gaps. Each day, we get one day closer...(but) this is a long story," he said when asked if a breakthrough was imminent.
Stoere rejected views that Norway, whose oil and gas resources are much smaller than those of Russia, would be increasingly pressured over time to settle for any border pact that would unlock at least part of the Arctic resources.
"Norway will never negotiate this type of deal out of time pressure. We have always been of the view that the delimitation line will unleash a potential for cooperation," Stoere said.
He said proposals from Russia for joint exploration in the disputed area before a deal had been reached were "politely rejected" by Oslo, which wants "the predictability of a border."
The disputed zone is sandwiched between the Shtokman gas discovery on the Russian side -- a huge reservoir which holds enough gas to meet global demand for a year -- and two promising oil and gas fields on the Norwegian side. Norway's champion Statoil is helping develop the giant Shtokman project.
"There is no one single project that will determine whether we succeed in the far north," said Stoere. "But if Shtokman gets off the ground, it will stimulate a lot of activity."
ARCTIC RACE?
Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States have Arctic borders and are working to stake out territorial claims over what geologists say could be a massive resource reserve.
In 2007 a Russian submarine planted a flag on the seabed at the North Pole, stoking concern of a new race for claims on undersea shelf limits which give states the right to exploit resources on and beneath the seabed, such as oil, gas and fish.
Stoere believes that some Arctic states have "over-interpreted" the symbolic flag planting, which he said "did not create law or initiate a process of recognition."
The North Pole area in the Arctic Ocean is claimed by both Russia and Denmark, and is likely to be on the agenda during Medvedev's visit to Copenhagen. Norway's own new Arctic claims stop in deep water about 550 kms (342 miles) from the Pole.
Stoere said that Norwegian-Russian cooperation on Arctic issues had "developed enormously" in past years.
Illegal fishing in the Barents amounted to every fourth fish caught in 1990, and is now "almost zero", he said. Joint initiatives on search and rescue, surveillance and environmental standards have also borne fruit, as has a Nordic-wide effort to safely deal with Soviet nuclear waste in the Murmansk peninsula.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
AP: Russia: Not involved in Georgia uranium seizure
Today at 10:20 | Associated Press
VIENNA (AP) — Russia angrily rejected accusations by Georgia's president linking Moscow to a case of attempted uranium smuggling and suggested he was lying, in a new flare-up of tensions between the hostile neighbors.
The Kremlin's sharp retort on Thursday followed comments by President Mikhail Saakashvili, who told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his country had seized a shipment of highly enriched uranium and blamed Russia for creating the instability that allows nuclear smugglers to operate in the region.
Saakashvili gave few details, saying only that the uranium was intercepted last month coming into his country in the Caucasus region of southeast Europe. But he suggested that Moscow shared some responsibility, saying that under Russian control, Georgia's two breakaway regions have become havens for nuclear smugglers.
Saakashvili's government no longer controls the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which declared independence after the 2008 Russia-Georgia war; the president said the smuggling is evidence of a security black hole in the area.
Such seizures have come "mostly from the direction of Russia," Saakashvili said. "If you are legally in occupation then you are responsible for controlling proliferation."
The International Atomic Energy Agency refused comment, but a diplomat familiar with the issue said that the Vienna-based U.N. agency had been informed by the Georgian government and was assisting it in its investigations. The diplomat asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov sharply rejected the charges.
"This is not the first time that Saakashvili has been caught red-handed while making false statements," Lyakin-Frolov said. "He shouldn't present a lie as the truth."
The head of Georgia's nuclear safety agency, Zaal Lomatadze, told AP Television News in Tbilisi that an "organized group of people tried to smuggle in a small amount of enriched uranium with the purpose of selling it to a would-be buyer."
He blamed Moscow for past incidents, saying Georgia had registered such smuggling attempts involving Russian citizens as well as people from the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia borders Russia to the south, with all but one border crossing going through the breakaway regions.
He pointed to a 2006 sting stemming from an investigation in South Ossetia as evidence of the smuggling problem in the breakaway republics. In that instance, Georgian authorities arrested four people accused of trying to sell a small quantity of highly enriched uranium, allegedly including a Russian national from South Ossetia.
Georgia has figured in several cases of attempted nuclear smuggling in the database maintained by the IAEA that was started in 1993, two years after the breakup of the Soviet Union increased fears that sensitive nuclear material would get into the wrong hands.
But smuggled amounts of weapons-grade uranium enriched to the point where it can serve as the fissile core of nuclear warheads have been minimal — at the most a few hundred grams and much less than the approximately 20 kilograms (44 pounds) needed to produce a rudimentary nuclear bomb.
Neither Saakashvili nor other officials said how much material was seized in the most recent arrests. They also did not say whether the uranium was weapons grade — enriched above 90 percent — or below that.
Reports of the uranium seizure emerged during last week's nuclear security summit in Washington, hosted by President Barack Obama and attended by Saakashvili. It was first reported by Britain's The Guardian newspaper.
Obama has pointed to Russian cooperation as essential to his goal of securing all the world's nuclear materials within four years. At the summit, Russia and the U.S. signed a deal to dispose of tons of weapons-grade plutonium.
Georgia and the U.S. last year signed an agreement boosting efforts to combat illicit nuclear trafficking in the former Soviet Republic. The U.S. has provided over $275 million since the early 1990s to Georgia to improve border monitoring, secure nuclear and radioactive materials and establish other programs to fight such crimes.
RIA: Russian finance minister to visit U.S. for G20, BRIC meetings
07:3923/04/2010
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin will pay a visit to Washington on Friday to attend the G20 and BRIC ministerial meetings and conduct talks on Russia's accession to the WTO, a source in the Russian delegation has said.
The source said that finance ministers and heads of central banks of the 20 major developed and developing economies will gather to prepare the agenda for the next G20 summit. The forthcoming summit will focus on post-crisis recovery and reform of the Bretton Woods institutions.
"In essence, it [the meeting] will focus on specific measures of post-crisis tactics and strategy and specific aspects of Bretton Woods institutions reform. Specific issues, which will have an effect on the global economy and on regulating financial markets, will be discussed," the source said.
The reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank will be discussed at their annual Spring Meetings to be held on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
The meetings were likely to produce a final decision on the World Bank reform and lay fundamental principles for the autumn meeting on the IMF reform, the source said.
The Russian delegation has "very positive expectations" for bilateral talks on Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization it will conduct with the U.S. government, the source said.
"It seems that now we are approaching "the moment of truth," when we have real opportunities, at least with the U.S. partners, to close files on the limited number of issues which still remain on the agenda. We see an opportunity to resolve them in a few months or even weeks. We have very positive expectations," he said.
He added that Russia, the only major economy still outside the WTO, might join the organization by the end of this year, depending on the results of the talks.
Russia has been seeking WTO membership since 1993.
In June 2009, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan notified the WTO of their intention to join the world trade club as a customs union.
Four months later, the three former Soviet republics announced they would resume talks on WTO accession separately, but working from synchronized positions.
NEW YORK, April 23 (RIA Novosti)
Itar-Tass: Kudrin to attend G20, IMF sessions, visit Boeing
23.04.2010, 07.00
NEW YORK, April 23 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin will participate in G20 ministerial meeting on Friday and the weekend spring session of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) during his visit to the United States that will end up with a trip to Boeing facilities in Seattle.
G20 ministers “will discuss concrete measures of post-crisis tactic and strategy and certain aspects of reforming pre-crisis institutions,” an official in the Russian government delegation told Tass.
“They will, on the one hand, assess global economic developments and, on the other hand, design measures to regulate financial institutions that have to cover the G20 and the whole global community,” he added.
As for the IMF and WB session, “the discussion of concrete aspects of the reform of the institutions and their sphere of responsibility has reached a mature stage,” according to the official. As for WB reform, the session “will adopt the final decisions and approve the mechanisms of expanded quotas and votes, and specify the scheme of activities for a further reform of the Fund.”
The official said the final decisions on the IMF reform will be passed at the autumn session. “The reform process of the Fund shall shift it from developed to emerging economies. Therefore, the reform shall also envisage changes in IMF management. Responsibility shall be shared more evenly and adequately which will increase the level of legitimacy and efficiency of the structures, as well as their post-crisis potential,” the official said adding the IMF shall be “proactive rather than reactive to the crisis.”
On Monday Kudrin will travel to Seattle to visit Boeing facilities.
Itar-Tass: High-level Russian delegation to discuss WTO accession
23.04.2010, 06.31
NEW YORK, April 23 (Itar-Tass) -- A high-level Russian delegation headed by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and comprising Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina will negotiate Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) with U.S. counterparts next Tuesday, an official in the delegation told Tass on Thursday.
The U.S. delegation will comprise “key economic figures in the administration” – Director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers, United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk, and senior White House adviser on Russia Michael McFaul.
“The talks will focus on how to complete the long marathon related to Russian accession to the WTO,” the official said adding “the moment of truth has come”.
“There is a real possibility to resolve the necessary issues with American partners and close the files on a very limited number of issues on the agenda,” he said.
“We believe the level of (Russian accession) readiness is very high and our expectations regarding the intentions of American partners are very positive,” the official said adding in case of a favorable situation “the process of Russian admission to the WTO can be completed by the end of the year.”
The official said the talks will not focus on any Russian concessions, but will discuss the completion of the initial agenda, including such issues, as state enterprises, intellectual property situation, subsidies to agriculture, and some purely technical problems like codification of electric appliances.
Afrique en Ligne: Economy: Russian group to invest US$100m in Gabon
$100m-in-gabon-2010042348190.html
Friday, Apr 23rd
Libreville, Gabon - The Russian giant IFD Kapital has expressed its willingness to invest US$100 million in the Gabonese oil sector, following a visit to the African nation by a delegation of the company.
The delegation, led by Ms Olga Plaksina, director general of the group, was received here by the Gabonese Minister for Mines, Oil and Hydrocarbons, Julien Nkoghe Bekalé.
"The Russian group is interested in the exploration of Gabonese oil and we have come to discuss the modalities of implementation of this project," Ms Plaksina told journalists.
"My company will participate in the tenders launched recently by the Gabonese government for the exploration in deep sea. We are considering investing in Gabon for 100 million US dollars," said Ms. Plaksina, who was accompanied by the Ambassador of Russia in Gabon, Vladimir Tarabrine.
According to sources close to the embassy, IFD Kapital intends to explore the "Antone Marin" block, located in deep waters off Port-Gentil (north-west) and which belongs to the American company Valco.
IFD Kapital has a capital base of US$10 billion and is one of the biggest oil exploration firms in the world.
IFD Kapital already operates in other African countries, including Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire.
RIA: Peru to buy eight Russian helicopters for anti-drug efforts
06:4223/04/2010
Peru will buy eight Russian helicopters to use them in anti-drug efforts, the country's El Commercio paper said on Friday citing Defense Minister Rafael Rey.
Peru is one of South America's main cocaine producers along with Bolivia and Columbia.
The minister said six Mi-17 transport helicopters and two Mi-35 attack helicopters will be bought at the price of $250 million.
They will be used to fight with "drug terrorism" in the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene River, the paper said in its online edition.
The area was declared a zone of military operations in August 2009 as fighting between the government troops and the Sendero Luminoso Maoist guerilla group intensified.
Sendero Luminoso, regarded by Peru as a terrorist organization, is believed to have strong ties with drug traffickers. The group is on the U.S. and EU lists of terrorist organizations.
MOSCOW, April 23 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Drills in Far East to involve warships of three Russian fleets
05:2023/04/2010
Warships of three Russian fleets will meet in the Sea of Japan during large-scale military exercises in the Far East, a Pacific Fleet source told RIA Novosti on Friday.
The Russian Armed Forces will conduct large-scale Vostok-2010 military exercises in Siberia and Far East in June-July. The exact date of the drills is yet to be announced.
The flagships of the Northern Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet, the Pyotr Veliky nuclear-powered missile cruiser and the Moskva missile cruiser, respectively, are expected to join warships of the Pacific Fleet during the exercise, the source said.
"During the Vostok exercise, warships of the three Russian fleets will conduct joint maneuvers with firing at naval and aerial targets. In addition, they will train elements of joint combat and repelling underwater and aerial attacks," the source said.
The upcoming land drills will involve units from the Far Eastern, the Siberian and the Volga-Urals military districts.
As part of the drills, the Armed Forces will practice the deployment of additional troops in Siberia and the Far East to strengthen the existing military contingent in the region in case of a potential military conflict.
Russia holds Vostok strategic command-and-staff exercises every two years. More than 8,000 troops took part in Vostok-2008.
The Russian military conducted the Caucasus 2009, Zapad 2009 and Ladoga 2009 strategic exercises, and 15 brigade-level and 161 battalion-level drills last year.
VLADIVOSTOK, April 23 (RIA Novosti)
Defpro: BrahMos steals the show at Malaysian defence show
05:56 GMT, April 23, 2010 According to 8ak (8ak.in), a media partner of , Brahmand reports that the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile has attracted many high-level delegations from several participating countries at the ongoing Malaysian Defence Services Asia 2010. The high profile potential customers included Malaysia, Vietnam, South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, Egypt, Oman, Brunei and other African & Middle East countries.
The Malaysian interest in the cruise missile comes at a critical time as the navy is looking for a new weapon system to equip its Meko A100 Kedah class ships. The development is being taken as a positive development within the Indian establishment, which has been looking to export the state-or-the-art missile system. Earlier, DefenceTalk had reported that India was looking to export the BrahMos to Chile, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. Additional GM Marketing division, BrahMos, Praveen Pathak, had earlier told 8ak that to facilitate the export of the missile, both the countries had formed a supervisory council, which has drawn up a list of friendly countries, to whom the missile could be exported.
The Missile, developed jointly by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s Mashinostroeyenia, is considered to be the most sophisticated and fastest in its class around the globe. It can hit targets up to 290 kilometres and was initially developed for the Navy. However, the successful development of the missile resulted in developing an army version as well as an air force version.
The integration process of the missile on to the Sukhoi-30s operated by the Indian Air Force (IAF) is going on and it is expected to enter active IAF service by 2012. Naval sources also confirmed to 8ak that the two nations will jointly develop a hypersonic Mach 8 version of BrahMos in the future and talks were progressing in the right direction for the same. Mach 8 version if developed will fulfil an Indian Navy requirement of a formidable Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) LACM and also pose a deadly threat to enemy warships sporting elaborate air defence radar systems like the "AEGIS type" vessels under construction for the Chinese People Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
Press TV: Russia to invest $5bn in Malaysia
Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:48:08 GMT
A Russian aircraft maker has decided to build a five billion dollar research facility for the defense and aerospace industries of Malaysia.
Malaysia's Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi says the facility would be built by aircraft maker Irkut.
He added that the Russian company would help design and manufacture components critical to the maintenance of services on which the industries in the plant depend.
"In total, Irkut has entered into 28 memoranda of agreement with various local parties to produce locally, under license, an array of parts and components not only for the Malaysian market but also for global requirements," The New Straits Times quoted Zahid as saying on Friday.
The report added that the facility would be built in a technology park in the northern state of Perak.
A spokesman for the minister also confirmed the news.
BusinessMirror: Two task forces to probe crash of Russian plane
Nation Written by Recto Mercene / Reporter Saturday, 24 April 2010 10:11
THE Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) on Thursday formed two separate task forces to look into the crash of a Russian-made four-engine Antonov cargo plane that killed three persons.
The crash happened at barangay Laput, Mexico, Pampanga, at about 9 p.m. on Wednesday.
Three other survived the crash.
Caap Director General Alfonso Cusi said that the first task force will investigate the cause of the crash, while the other will determine how the airline was able to obtain an Airline Certificate of Conveyance (Acoc).
The second task force will determine if the Caap officials who issued the Acoc to the Russian operators of the plane subjected the airline company to rigorous safety inspection, including looking into the plane’s safety records, flight history and other pertinent information.
Capt. Rolly Trinidad, a former Boeing 747 pilot, will head the task forcre that will look into the plane’s Acoc. He would be assisted by Capts. Jose Vidad, Antonio Fontanilla and Eligio Parcon Jr.
Cusi said the Caap has already in its possession the plane’s black box and cockpit voice recorder (CVR).
The black box records the plane’s altitude, speed, direction of flight and other technical information, while the CVR has record of the conversation between the crew and air- traffic controllers shortly before the crash.
Both apparatus will greatly aid in determining the cause of the crash, which was initially blamed on electrical problems, Cusi said.
Killed were Russian engineers Nikolay Bannon and Dadim Yahimov and Bulgarian Tzvidoslav Guetchevski.
The survivors are Russian Tochonyy Yuriy, pilot; and Uzbekistan nationals Dmitry Strumminski, copilot, and Ruziev Borhadir, crew member.
The Antonov AN-12 plane, with body number UP-AN216, is being, leased by Inter-Island Airlines, a local company. The company uses the plane to ferry finished goods from the Mactan Export Processing Zone to Clark for eventual transfer to other air carriers.
The Antonov AN-12 is a four-engine turboprop transport aircraft built in the Soviet Union. It is the military version of the Antonov An-10.
The plane had a cargo of electronics and general goods when it crashed while on the way to the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) at Clark Field, Pampanga.
The impact broke the plane into two before exploding in a ball of fire, according to witnesses.The crash site was in an open field, some 40 nautical miles away from Clark.
Cusi said that Manila air-traffic controllers’ last conversation with the pilot was at 8:47 p.m., when the plane was visible in the radar, and the pilot was directed to descend to 7,000 feet.
He said the air controllers noticed that the plane’s communication was garbled, so that the pilot was instructed to head directly toward the runway in the hope of getting a clearer radio-communication signal.
At exactly 8:50 p.m., the plane vanished from the radar screen.
The Dmia control tower said it received an emergency call from the pilot around 8:48 p.m., saying that a part of the plane was on fire.
Firetrucks and ambulances of the Clark International Airport Emergency Services Department were the first to respond to the accident. However, Clark International Airport Corp. emergency-services personnel had difficulty entering the crash site.
The survivors escaped the fire by crawling out of the windows of the aircraft. However, three of their colleagues were not so lucky and were trapped in the cargo hold, where they died.
Residents brought the survivors to the Laput Barangay Hall. They were later rushed to the Makabali General Hospital in the City of San Fernando, where they were treated for minor injuries. They were later discharged and escorted by Mexico Mayor Teddy Tumang.
(With Jacob Cunanan and Joel Mapiles)
Australian Government: Visit to Russian Federation
Media release
22 April 2010
I visited the Russian Federation on Wednesday 21 April and Thursday 22 April. This was my first visit to Russia as Foreign Minister, and the first by an Australian Foreign Minister since 2002.
During my time in Moscow, I held broad ranging and constructive discussions with my counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
We agreed to ratify the Australia-Russia Nuclear Cooperation Agreement and to use the Agreement to strengthen bilateral cooperation on nuclear policy and safeguards.
We affirmed the expanding relationship between Australia and Russia and agreed to deepen our strategic engagement on issues of international concern.
We acknowledged our shared commitment to the Antarctic Treaty System and welcomed progress towards greater bilateral cooperation on Antarctic issues. We welcomed the conclusion of negotiations on a bilateral agreement on Antarctic cooperation.
I also announced the inclusion of Russia as an eligible country for the full suite of Endeavour Awards scholarships available for Europe under the Australia Awards. This will enhance education and community links between our nations.
Australia and Russia cooperate in a wide range of multilateral institutions. We are both members of the G20 and APEC, and have both been accepted as new members of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process.
Russia has also welcomed Australia as an Asian Partner for Cooperation of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). We both stand firmly against terrorism and violent extremism.
I also met Russia’s Agriculture Minister, Dr Elena Skrynnik, to discuss our agricultural trade interests.
We signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Agricultural Cooperation, which will strengthen the framework for trade.
We also discussed the importance of resolution to current issues in the commercial relationship, including the Russian ban on imports of Australian kangaroo meat.
During my time in Moscow, I spoke to students at the New Economic School about Russia-Australia relations.
Australia’s relationship with Russia is growing in scope and maturity. This visit and further high-level engagement will assist in building a modern partnership.
This afternoon, I will leave Moscow and travel to Tallinn to participate in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Foreign Ministerial meeting on Afghanistan.
Bloomberg: Australia Will Allow Exports of Uranium to Russia (Update1)
By Marion Rae
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Australia, the world’s third- largest uranium producer behind Kazakhstan and Canada, will ratify a nuclear agreement allowing exports to Russia for energy purposes, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said.
“This will enable Australian uranium to be exported to the Russian Federation for civil, peaceful nuclear purposes,” Smith said, according to an e-mailed transcript of a news conference yesterday in Moscow with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The agreement will strengthen cooperation on safeguards to protect exports as Australia and Russia “both stand firmly against terrorism and violent extremism,” Smith said.
Australia, which does not generate any nuclear power, has the world’s biggest known uranium reserves, according to estimates from the World Nuclear Association. While exports to Russia will go ahead, Australia doesn’t allow uranium to be sent to India for energy use because the Asian country hasn’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Russia hopes ratification of “agreements on the peaceful use of nuclear energy” will be completed “soon,” Lavrov said.
Australia and Russia signed up to President Barack Obama’s plan to secure all vulnerable nuclear material in four years outlined at a two-day summit in Washington earlier this month that involved 47 countries.
“Together with other colleagues we will work in such a way that the conference on non-proliferation in May will be concluded with important results,” Lavrov said, referring to the NPT Review Conference in New York from May 3-28.
Deep Reserves
As much as 10 percent of Australia’s uranium is found in the state of Western Australia and is valued at about A$40 billion ($37 billion), according to a government estimate. BHP Billiton Ltd.’s Olympic Dam mine in South Australia contains the world’s biggest uranium deposit.
Energy Resources of Australia Ltd., a uranium producer controlled by Rio Tinto Group, provides about a 10th of the world’s mined uranium. It operates the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory and sells uranium to utilities in Asia, Europe and North America. It began shipments to China in 2008.
The Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett lifted a ban on new mining of uranium, which is processed into nuclear fuel, when his Liberal party won office in September 2008.
To contact the reporter on this story: Marion Rae in Canberra at mrae3@
Last Updated: April 22, 2010 20:06 EDT
RIA: Poland uncertain whether to reveal Tu-154 black box records
01:2423/04/2010
Polish investigators have not yet decided on whether to make public data from flight recorders of the Tu-154 plane, which crashed on April 10 in western Russia, killing Poland's first couple and other top officials.
Poland's chief prosecutor Andrzej Seremet said Polish prosecutors will postpone revealing the black box contents until they obtain other necessary information from Russia. The final decision on whether to disclose flight details is expected in two weeks.
"As soon as they [flight recorders] are analyzed in Poland, we would probably decide to make their content public," he said.
Seremet also said that he would "not oppose revealing the contents unless they are of private nature."
Polish investigator Zbigniew Rzepa said experts are currently trying to synchronize records obtained from the flight data and voice recorders.
The Polish delegation of top public figures was on its way to pay tribute to some 20,000 Polish officers executed by Soviet secret police in 1940, when their plane went down in thick fog killing all 96 people onboard.
Russian investigators, experts and Polish specialists are jointly investigating the causes of the deadly crash. Polish military prosecutors, however, have opened their own investigation into the accident.
Russian air traffic controllers earlier said the crew "did not listen" to recommendations to divert to another airport and landed without permission.
WARSAW, April 23 (RIA Novosti)
Trend.az: Russia's FM considers Azerbaijan's proposal to include Turkey in OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries
23.04.2010 11:20
Azerbaijan, Baku, April 23 / Trend E. Tariverdiyeva /
Russia's Foreign Ministry considers Azerbaijan's proposal to include Turkey in the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries mediating in the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Andrei Nesterenko said, the website of the Ministry reported.
"A certain number of proposals has been recently made. We are studying them. We need to contact with all those involved in the negotiation process, and ascertain their attitude to these issues to make appropriate assessments," Nesterenko said.
He said that Russia is actively involved in the contacts on the issues of Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. "Later after our contacts with our colleagues we will be able to give detailed explanations", Nesterenko said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994.
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the occupied territories.
Armradio: OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs issue statement following Moscow meeting
23.04.2010 11:58
The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassadors Yuri Merzlyakov of Russia, Bernard Fassier of France, and Robert Bradtke of the United States, released the following statement:
"The Minsk Group Co-Chairs (Ambassador Yuri Merzlyakov, Russian Federation; Ambassador Bernard Fassier, France; Ambassador Robert Bradtke, United States) met in Moscow, Russia April 22 to discuss recent developments, including high level meetings in Washington, Baku, and Moscow. They consider these meetings as providing a new impetus to the advancement of a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of the Madrid Principles. The Co-Chairs will travel to Vienna in early May to brief the Minsk Group on these efforts."
RBC: PM to hold meeting on national projects
RBC, 23.04.2010, Moscow 11:49:57.Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is scheduled to chair a meeting of the council on the implementation of top-priority national projects and the demographic policy today. One of the programs was initiated in 2005 by the then President Putin and provides for developments in the sphere of health, housing, education, and agriculture. As the government's press office announced today, the key topic on the meeting's agenda is the demographic policy's implementation in 2011-2015.
Itar-Tass: Putin to discuss demographic policy
23.04.2010, 05.30
MOSCOW, April 23 (Itar-Tass) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will chair a meeting on Friday to discuss the guidelines of the demographic policy up to 2015 that are to promote a stable population growth and increase average longevity to 71 years against current 69.
Putin earlier said the meeting will focus on maternity capital payments for the second child, the state of domestic health care system, obligatory medical insurance, and housing construction.
On Tuesday Putin said in parliament that one million 762 thousand children were born in the country in 2009 which is 50 thousand above the 2008 figure or a 19.2-percent increase. Mortality rate decreased three percent and child mortality fell 19.2 percent. The number of abortions dropped 23.1 percent. The average longevity in the country upped from 66 years in 2006 to 69 years.
“We have achieved result which is better than in many other countries that carry out demographic programs,” Putin said.
Moscow Times: Lipetsk Head Re-Nominated
23 April 2010
President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday nominated Lipetsk Governor Oleg Korolyov for a fourth term, the Kremlin press service said.
Korolyov, 58, has led the industrial region 400 kilometers south of Moscow since 1998. The ruling United Russia party proposed him as a candidate, along with Deputy Governor Yury Bozhko and State Duma Deputy Valery Galchenko. Local lawmakers are expected to vote on his nomination next week, likely on Tuesday, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.
(MT)
Russia Today: US urges Russia to lift adoptions ban
23 April, 2010, 10:10
A group of US lawmakers is urging Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to lift the freeze on child adoptions by American citizens - particularly for applications already being processed.
The letter was signed by five senators and 12 House members.
The temporary ban was put in place after an American woman sent a then-7-year-old Russian boy she had adopted back to Moscow earlier this month.
Read more
She sent him alone, on a transatlantic flight, with a note saying she no longer wanted him.
This latest case followed several incidents in which Russian children adopted by American families were abused or even killed.
Moscow insists adoptions should be regulated by a new agreement between Russia and the US – which is expected to be discussed by an American delegation arriving in Moscow next week.
AP: US lawmakers urge Russia not to halt adoptions
By MATTHEW LEE (AP) – 7 hours ago
WASHINGTON — A group of U.S. lawmakers is calling on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev not to suspend adoptions between Russia and the United States.
The group, led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y, wants Medvedev to intervene with Russian authorities to ensure that adoptions of Russian children by American families, especially those already being processed, not be halted.
Russian authorities have said all adoptions to the U.S. are on hold pending a new agreement on the matter that could take months.
In a letter to be sent on Friday to Medvedev and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gillibrand, four other senators and 12 House members say they understand the concerns that led Russia to impose the freeze.
Moscow acted following an incident this month in which an American woman put her adopted Russian son, 8-year-old Artyom Savelyev, on a plane alone to Moscow. She said she "no longer wishes to parent" the boy.
A U.S. delegation is to travel to Moscow next week to discuss a new adoption agreement.
The lawmakers appealed to Medvedev, urging him to ensure that "adoptions between our two countries — particularly those already in process — will continue."
They said they "stand ready to support such improvements as are needed to serve the best interests of the children and their new families."
Russia has not formally informed Washington of the suspension in adoptions, according to U.S. officials. But officials say at least some adoptions to the U.S. have been frozen as a result of the incident.
More than 1,800 children from Russia were adopted in the United States last year, according to the Russian Education and Science Ministry.
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Itar-Tass: Two more Sapsan trains to run between Moscow, St. Petersburg
23.04.2010, 08.31
MOSCOW, April 23 (Itar-Tass) -- Railway services add two more Sapsan express trains to run between Moscow and St. Petersburg on days off, thus bringing the number of Sapsan runs between the two major cities to six in each direction on working days.
Beginning this Friday, the additional trains will depart from St. Petersburg to Moscow at 07:00 Moscow time and arrive at the capital's Leningradsky station at 10:59. The trains will leave back at 19:25 and arrive in the city on the Neva at 23:24 Moscow time. In both directions, the trains will stop at the station of Tver.
From April 5, the number of Sapsan runs between Moscow and St. Petersburg was increased from three to five a day in each direction.
It is connected first of all with the great demand of passengers. In the second half of December, 2009, 36,900 people bought tickets for the express trains, and in March, the number increased to 90,600. The trains were 90.8 percent filled in March, and 86.1 percent for the entire period of the service.
High-speed Sapsan expresses were developed by specialists of the German company Siemens for the use on Russian railroads. They shorten the travel time between the two cities to three hours 45 minutes. Sapsan is the name of the fastest bird belonging to the group of falcons.
Such express trains will run between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod already beginning next summer, Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin said.
Besides, under consideration is the possibility to send Sapsans from the capital to Kazan. The high-speed communication range will total 2,000 kilometres, the company president added.
Post Bulletin: Lenin exhibit returns to Ukraine after 2 decades
4/22/2010 6:59:22 AM
By Anna Melnichuk
Associated Press
KIEV, Ukraine — Moth-eaten socks and other clothes once worn by Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, have gone on exhibit in Ukraine's capital for the first time since the former Soviet republic became independent almost two decades ago.
The exhibition, timed to coincide with the 140th anniversary of Lenin's birth on Thursday, was made possible under the country's new Russia-friendly president.
In Soviet times, dozens of museums were dedicated to the life of the charismatic founder of the Soviet Union. Leningrad, the cradle of the revolution now once again called St. Petersburg, had 11 of them. Kiev opened its Lenin Museum in 1938, even though Lenin had never been to the Ukrainian capital.
But when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate, the collection was dismantled and packed away in storerooms. The statue of Lenin that had dominated Kiev's main square was destroyed, as were similar monuments throughout the country.
The former Lenin Museum was transformed into an arts center called the Ukrainian House, which inherited the collection.
"We had tried to persuade the authorities to revive the collection over the years, but the answer was always 'it's not the right time,'" said Nataliya Zabolotna, director of the Ukrainian House.
The right time came after Viktor Yanukovych became president early this year, replacing Viktor Yushchenko, who had sought to break with Russia and bring Ukraine closer to Europe.
Like Russia, Ukraine has seen a rise in nostalgia for the Soviet period, in part because of the economic downturn. Zabolotna noted the "emotional attraction" of the past for many Ukrainians, but said the exhibition was not intended to glorify Lenin.
"This exhibition is not just to shake off the dust from the museum's trash, and obviously not to revive Lenin's cult, but to put it into the modern context," she said. "A dialogue between pathos and irony, propaganda and criticism, documentary and mystification, this is what the exhibition is about."
The exhibition includes paintings by modern artists depicting Marilyn Monroe and a half-naked Madonna performing for the Bolsheviks in a mockery of their rule.
A reconstruction of Lenin's room in the Kremlin shows a table and lamp with an iconic green glass shade, leather armchairs on each side. On the table are writing materials and various souvenirs, including a bronze monkey that was a gift from the American oil tycoon Armand Hammer.
Also on display are porcelain plates with the notorious communist saying, "He who does not work does not eat."
An inscription on a telephone presented to Lenin in 1923 on his birthday reads "To an honorary electrician of the Kiev (telephone) network."
In addition to Lenin's old socks, the exhibition includes the "kosovorotka," the long peasant shirt Lenin wore while in hiding in the months ahead of the October 1917 revolution, and a copy of the suit he was wearing when shot during a failed assassination attempt the following year.
"All these things give a sense of an epoch, a long historic period, a system of values that many of us were brought up on," said Nina Sheyko, the exhibition's curator.
In a separate hall, black-and-white Soviet documentaries playing across a large screen show Lenin and the "heroic days" of the young socialist state.
Muted notes of "Appassionata," the Beethoven piano sonata that was Lenin's favorite, filled the exhibition halls.
Most of the people who visited the exhibition on Tuesday, the day after the opening, were elderly. They stood for long periods in front of the exhibits, which filled three floors, taking in the details of Lenin's life.
"He was an outstanding personality. But the historic situation forced him to be cruel, maybe too cruel. It was a revolution, and a revolution cannot be done without cruelty," said retiree Grygoriy Zaychyk.
A few young people looked around with interest.
"I thought all this did not exist any more," said Igor Mazur. "Good that it has been preserved. This is history, whatever it was, and it should be preserved for those who will come after us."
April 22, 2010
Russia Profile: A Dubious Victory
By Roland Oliphant
Russia Profile
Following Some Hard Bargaining In Kharkov, Has Ukraine Just Become a Satrapy of Russia?
The Russian and Ukrainian presidents yesterday signed a historic deal on gas supplies and the future of the Russian Naval Base in Sevastopol. In exchange for a 30 percent discount on Russian gas deliveries, Ukraine will allow the Russian Black Sea Fleet to remain in Crimea until 2042 – a 25 year extension on the current lease, which expires in 2017. The deal will cost Moscow some 40 billion dollars, and means Ukraine (probably) will not join NATO for at least 30 years. But was it worth it?
The smiles on the two president’s faces belied the hard work that had gone into making the deal happen. According to the Kommersant daily the negotiating teams, headed by Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Azarov, and including on the Russian side Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, had been up all night finalizing the details of the agreement. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich were just going through the formalities.
But there is a good reason for the smiles and the attention to detail. The deal addresses three of the most sensitive issues in Russian-Ukrainian relations: the future of the Russian Baltic Fleet, gas supplies, and potential Ukrainian membership in NATO.
The Black Sea fleet will get to stay in Sevastopol, its historic and only really viable base, until 2042; that saves Russia money on building new naval facilities on its own Black Sea coast, but it also gives it a “political-strategic” victory, said Volodymyr Fesenko, the head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies in Kiev. “Russia not only preserves a military presence in the Black Sea basin and on Ukrainian territory, but also has a factor of influence on external security policy and internal affairs in Ukraine,” he said.
According to some commentators, including the Kommersant daily, the jewel in the crown of that influence is that since NATO membership rules forbid the presence of non-alliance military bases on members’ territory, the agreement effectively puts a 30-year freeze on Ukraine’s aspirations to join the North Atlantic Alliance. NATO membership was a key policy of Yanukovich’s predecessor, former President Vitor Yushchenko, and the source of much of the ill feeling between his administration and Moscow.
The quid-pro-quo is a 30 percent discount on Russian gas deliveries, which, according to the deal, Ukraine will count as additional rent payments on the Sevastopol port. For Ukraine, that basically means a saving of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas (for the record, the discount will be $100 per 1,000 cubic meters when prices are over $330, and 30 percent for lower prices. Current prices are around $334. The discount will apply to 30 billion cubic meters in 2010, and 40 billion from 2011 onwards).
At yesterday’s press conference Yanukovich said that Ukraine would receive from Russia “a real investment of resources, specifically gas,” amounting to “around $40 billion dollars” over the next ten years. “And this bears the hallmarks of an economic victory for Ukraine,” said Fesenko.
It’s so far difficult to tell whether an economic win for Ukraine means a loss for Russia. In a note released Thursday morning Alfa Bank briefly pointed out that the gas discount would come at the expense of the Russian government, rather than Gazprom, but a spokesman for the bank refused to comment further, saying that the company’s Kiev and Moscow analysts were still working out the long-term implications.
Sergei Markov, a political scientist and State Duma Deputy for the United Russia faction, insisted the $40 billion cited by Yanukovich in yesterday’s press conference was an investment on which Russia expects a return. “Russia is likely to get a lot of profit from joint Russian-Ukrainian economic projects,” he said. “It’s a popular but crude mistake to suppose that Russia is paying for the Black Sea Fleet with gas.” (Markov also contests the widely held assumption that the deal will preclude NATO membership, pointing out that when the George W. Bush administration was cheerleading Yushchenko’s membership bid, U.S. officials had said the Russian base ought not to be a barrier).
According to Markov, the deal around the Black Sea Fleet is actually much simpler. “Russia saves hundreds of millions of dollars that it would otherwise have to spend building new naval bases in Novorossiysk and elsewhere,” he said. “The deal is, Ukraine lets us stay in Sevastopol, and we share the savings.”
Not everyone is so convinced by either the supposed Chinese wall between the two agreements, or the benefits of the deal. Russian opposition leader and one-time advisor to former Ukrainian president Yushchenko Boris Nemtsov told the Kommersant daily that “we could have demanded more for that money,” and warned darkly of the “Lukashenko factor,” – a reference to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has gained a reputation for taking Russian aid without reciprocation. (Others have also raised the Lukashenko parallel, but not always negatively. Victor Ozerov, the chairman of the Federation Council’s defense committee, told Kommersant that though the price was high, it was no less than Russia grants Belarus, “and Lukashenko threatens worse relations.” And Markov even suggested that improved relations with Kiev might strengthen Moscow’s hand in its troubled relations with Minsk).
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the deal is proving even more divisive. The presence of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol is a subject that polarizes Ukrainian society, and it has unified the fractious opposition for the first time since the presidential elections, said Fesenko. “Two days ago Yushchenko, [former Prime Minister Yulia] Tymoshenko, [Arseniy] Yatsenyuk, [Vyacheslav] Kiriyenko, were all criticizing each other. Now they’re united in criticizing the agreement about the Black Sea Fleet,” he said. On Thursday afternoon it was reported that the Ukrainian Constitutional Court had approved the deal, but that doesn’t mean it will pass into law. “In the coming days we may see a parliamentary crisis as the opposition attempts to block ratification of the deal,” said Fesenko.
Jamestown: Disagreements Over Finances Emerge between Moscow and Chechen Government
April 23, 2010
Valery Dzutsev
Over 5,000 Chechen families have not received compensation earmarked by the Russian government for those who lost their homes and other property during the war. On April 20, Chechnya’s finance ministry promised to disburse the payments by the end of 2010, but it was unclear whether this would be possible. The ministry cited numerous attempts to abuse the system, which had forced them to proceed with the disbursals very cautiously. According to the Chechen ministry, the federal government allotted $100 million for compensation payments to be made this year (kavkaz-uzel.ru, April 20).
The beginning of this process dates back to 2003, and since then the amount of compensation has not been changed even though prices have significantly increased. The government pays $10,000 for a lost home and less than $2,000 for other lost property. “The authorities have not been able to decide who to pay this money to for the past seven years,” a resident of Chechnya told the Kavkazsky Uzel (Caucasian Knot) website, adding: “In 2003 it was possible to do something for $12,000, but today it is not enough even to build a hut or lay the proper groundwork for a house. State functionaries and swindlers received money, while those who had really lost everything are still waiting for that money.” Some also expressed their resentment against Moscow’s alacrity to spend funds on foreign territories like South Ossetia when Russia’s own citizens, Chechens, were denied access to reimbursements for their lost property (kavkaz-uzel.ru, April 20).
Kavkazsky Uzel noted two cases in which banks and state officials were accused of fraud in dealing with compensation issues. One of the accused received a year and a half imprisonment, while the other implicated group of officials was not sentenced at all.
In the spring of 2008 the price of a two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Grozny averaged $50,000-60,000 and the average price per square meter reached $500 (grozny-inform.ru, March 11, 2008).
As Russia is still experiencing tight financial conditions and trying to cut back on its expenses, the new presidential envoy in the North Caucasus, Aleksandr Khloponin, and Chechen President, Ramzan Kadyrov, clashed during a meeting between the leaders of the North Caucasus republics held on April 20. Khloponin raised the issue of payments for electricity consumption in the North Caucasus, pointing to a huge payment backlog of nearly $500 million, most of it in Chechnya. Kadyrov responded with counterclaims, stating that Chechnya was not responsible for the debts incurred during the war from 1999-2005. According to Kadyrov, most of the debt derived from that period. At the same time, he acknowledged that economic hardships make paying the electricity costs prohibitively expensive for Chechnya’s jobless residents, the number of which he estimated at 300,000. In addition to electricity payments, Chechnya still has a backlog of payments for natural gas supplies which, according to Chechen officials, date back to 1993, when Dzhokhar Dudaev was president of the de facto independent Chechnya (Kommersant, April 21).
It is especially hard to make ends meet in Chechnya given that the 2002 census and later population estimates are widely assumed by experts –and even by some Russian officials– to be flawed. In 2002, the Russian official that led Chechnya’s reconstruction efforts, Vladimir Yelagin, said that the population of 1,088,000 recorded in the 2002 census was “unrealistic,” suggesting instead that no more than 850,000 people were living in the republic. In 2000, the Danish Refugees Center estimated there were slightly less than 800,000 people living in Chechnya. Experts said that even if all refugees returned to Chechnya, including not only ethnic Chechens, but also numerous groups of ethnic Russians and Armenians, the number of residents would be less than 1,088,000 (demoscope.ru, October 24, 2002). Still, the population figure subsequently grew even further, and the official Russian estimate of Chechnya’s population in January 2010 was 1,268,000 (gks.ru, accessed on April 21).
Officials provided two explanations for the sudden rise of Chechnya’s population after two devastating wars. One was that the number of Chechens was artificially kept down during the communist period, and the other was that Chechnya has very high birthrates. Alexander Cherkasov of the Memorial human rights center said it was impossible to hide hundreds of thousands people for years after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 (demoscope.ru, October 24, 2002). Even though officially Chechnya enjoys the highest birthrate in the Russian Federation, given the state of the economy and healthcare, and war related shocks, it is highly doubtful that the reproductive capabilities of the general population were not negatively affected. Cherkasov put the real figure of Chechnya’s population at 600,000 in 2002.
According to the 1989 census, Chechnya and Ingushetia’s combined population was 1,270,000, out of which ethnic Chechens and Ingush comprised 900,000 (demoscope.ru, September 11, 2005). The overall population of ethnic Chechens in the USSR was around 957,000 in 1989, so there were a relatively small number of potential immigrants from other parts of the former Soviet Union.
In 2002 and ever since, Moscow has been eager to show that Chechnya’s population did not dramatically decrease as a result of two wars and the ensuing hardships inflicted on the republic. Chechnya’s pro-Moscow government also had an interest in having inflated population numbers in order to be able to demand more funds to cover the provision of services to those people. So, both interested parties reached a deal. Now, however, when more thrifty times have arrived, Moscow may be prompted to do something about the suspiciously high birth rates and what appears to be a massively inflated population statistic. This dispute appears to be increasing already tense ties between Aleksandr Khloponin and Ramzan Kadyrov and could further exacerbate the worsening security situation in the region.
Itar-Tass: Two students transporting explosives detained in southwest Moscow
22.04.2010, 22.48
MOSCOW, April 22 (Itar-Tass) – Police in southwest Moscow have detained two students who were transporting explosive devices, Viktor Biryukov, a spokesman for Moscow City Department of the Interior said.
The operation to detain the suspects was organized Thursday night by operatives from the department for criminal investigations and the Moscow regional branch of the Federal Security Service /FSB/.
“As a result of the action, the team detained two students, one of them a permanent resident of Moscow City,” Biryukov said. “Several improvised explosive devices have been confiscated from them,” he said.
The young men were stopped near the Belyayevo metro station.
“Their personal data are being established now but there’s no information at this moment that they might be involved in extremist groupings of some kind,” Biryukov said.
Thursday, Apr. 22, 2010
TIME: As Russia Reclaims Its Sphere of Influence, the U.S. Doesn't Object
By Simon Shuster / Moscow
Five years ago in the former Soviet Union, governments loyal to Moscow were falling roughly every six months. Those were the glory days of the "color revolutions" that brought new leaders to Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in quick succession between 2003 and 2005, all with the backing of the United States. The region's political center of gravity was tilting sharply toward the West. But now that trend has been reversed. In the past three months, two of those governments have been ousted. Leaders far friendlier to Russia have again taken power in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, displacing the Orange and Tulip revolutions respectively. (Indeed, Kiev just agreed to extend Moscow's naval lease on the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in exchange for cheaper gas; the previous Ukrainian regime had opposed the move.) The region's last standing leader of a color revolution (the Rose), Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, is feeling lonelier than ever, and he has a warning for the Obama administration: Don't give Russia a free hand in the former Soviet bloc.
In an interview with TIME at his glass-domed presidential palace, Saakashvili laid out how he sees the situation: President Barack Obama has been put in an awkward spot by his drive to invigorate ties with the Kremlin, having to deal with the legacy of George W. Bush, who had infuriated Moscow by supporting the color revolutions and building close ties with the governments they brought to power. Now Obama is being urged by the Russians to back away from those relationships. "It's not just about abandoning your ally Georgia. No, Russia is asking the U.S. to give back the Soviet sphere of influence," Saakashvili says. (See pictures of the Russia-Georgia war.)
In practical terms, this seems to require three things of the United States and its European allies: do not push for any more ex-Soviet countries to join NATO; do not openly support any opposition movements that seek to oust pro-Russian governments; and more generally, make sure to consult Moscow before going ahead with any big initiatives in Russia's backyard, especially military ones. Under the Bush administration, all three were ignored, and relations with Russia became nastier than they had been since the Cold War. Obama, on the other hand, has been far more obliging, and his Administration believes Moscow is reciprocating — much to Saakashvili's chagrin.
Nowhere has this been more clear than in NATO's changing attitudes. In a statement on April 14, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged NATO countries to integrate Russia into their security strategy instead of seeing Russia as a potential threat. "The United States and Russia now clearly see eye to eye on a range of security issues. And we should use this new momentum to take further steps to enhance our common security," Rasmussen said. Earlier plans to put Ukraine and Georgia on the fast track to NATO membership have been put aside, and as a result, Russia is helping NATO get its supplies into Afghanistan. The American approach to missile defense in Eastern Europe has also changed. Whereas Bush plowed ahead with his plan despite Moscow's fierce objections, Obama has invited the Kremlin to take part in a dialogue over the issue. (See pictures of Obama in Russia.)
The Russians are taking notice. "It's been very encouraging that the U.S. has refused to interfere in Ukraine's domestic policy in the way it was doing during the Orange Revolution [in 2004]. Americans have also sharply cut their support to Georgia. At least they are not giving one dollar of military assistance, as far as I know, to Saakashvili," says Sergei Markov, a long-time Kremlin spin doctor and a parliamentary deputy for the United Russia party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Officially, of course, the Obama team insists it has not turned away from U.S. allies for the sake of better ties with Moscow, and Saakashvili says he has "no reason to complain about day-to-day relations." The U.S. has also continued to criticize Russia for occupying about a fifth of Georgia's territory after the two countries fought a war in 2008. But that war still marked a turning point for America's broader strategy. It showed that Russia was willing to use force to defend its interests in the region, while the United States could be dragged into a war if it continued to oppose those interests to the end. Even the Bush administration was not prepared to take that risk. "[Bush's Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice told me that you must avoid an open military conflict with Russia," says Nino Burjanadze, former speaker of the Georgian parliament and now a leading opposition figure. "She told me, 'We respect Georgia, but we will not go to war with Russia over Georgia.'" (See 10 things to do in Moscow.)
That approach probably saved the U.S. from a military catastrophe, and now under Obama, the U.S. has become even less willing to cheer on Russia's adversaries. It has instead embraced Russia as a partner for global security, and this tactic is paying off. Concrete agreements have already been signed, most notably this month's treaty to reduce the world's two biggest nuclear arsenals by a third. But it remains to be seen how countries like Georgia will fit into this budding relationship. Right now, it doesn't appear congenial to the government in Tblisi. As Russia continues to clamor to have Saakashvili removed from office, the United States seems to be keeping him at arms length. At this month's nuclear non-proliferation conference in Washington, Obama snubbed Saakashvili's request for their first one-on-one meeting, and instead sat down with the new Kremlin-friendly president of Ukraine, who had agreed at the summit to get rid of his country's highly enriched uranium.
Sitting in his luxurious office a few days before the Washington summit, Saakashvili was in a dour mood, and seemed a bit nostalgic for the Bush years. He is still the only leader to name a street after George W. Bush, and says there is a lesson to be learned in the way the previous White House tried to "pre-empt" the risk of Russian aggression, "rather than turn a blind eye and hope it goes away." The threat Russia poses to his government, he says, is still as strong as ever, and the West's softer tone toward Russia is not going to help. "From my experience of the Russian perspective, every softening of language is perceived as weakness, as an acknowledgment of any strength Russia has locally." That strength is clearly growing with the arrival of Kremlin-friendly governments in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, and Washington seems fine with that as long as relations with Russia thrive. As for the color revolutions, they look to be fading away.
Rebuilding Global Markets
Forbes: China-Russia Competition Opens A Door For America
Jeffrey Mankoff and Leland R. Miller, 04.22.10, 11:30 PM EDT
Central Asian nations need money and security, and Washington can help keep the peace.
For the past two decades, many in the West have worried about the growth of Russo-Chinese influence over the newly independent states of Central Asia. Through the mutual-security group called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and in scores of joint military exercises, counter-terrorism maneuvers and energy projects, the two great powers collaborated closely in order to keep these buffer states peaceful, compliant and relatively free of American penetration. Lately, however, a perceptible shift has overtaken the region. In 2010, the biggest threat to China and Russia's Central Asian interests may now be each other.
Fueling these growing Sino-Russian tensions are the divergent prospects of the two economies. China's economy grew by 8.7% in 2009, despite the global slump, while Russia's economy contracted by 7.9%, with foreign direct investment (FDI) plummeting by nearly half. With Russia's prospects continuing to dim, China has accelerated its courtship, rapidly replacing Russia as the principal source of foreign investment and aid in Central Asia.
In the past year alone, China National Petroleum Corporation completed a deal to buy a 50% stake in Kazakhstan's largest oil company, outbidding Russia's Gazprom, while China's State Development Bank invested $4 billion in Turkmenistan's largest gas producer, allowing it to stay afloat during a "gas war" instigated by Moscow.
In December, China inaugurated the mammoth 4,350-mile Central Asia Natural Gas Pipeline, built to ship gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China. And perhaps most notably, Russia was forced to borrow $25 billion from China last April in order to complete a planned pipeline between the two countries, conceding a 20-year sweetheart oil deal for the privilege. In all cases, Russia's inability to keep pace financially was decisive.
This weakening of Russia's traditional influence is changing the fundamental dynamics of the region, encouraging Central Asian leaders to become less deferential to the Kremlin. In August 2008, for example, following Russia's invasion of Georgia, the Central Asian states followed China's lead in refusing to recognize the Russia-backed separatist states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Yet the other beneficiary of this increased Sino-Russian tension has been the United States, which many Central Asians would like to see play a greater role in the region to balance Russian and Chinese influence. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, the government promised Moscow it would evict the U.S. military base at Manas in exchange for a $2.1 billion loan, but reversed course when Washington came up with more money. (This month's Russia-backed coup may ultimately negate those gains.)
More recently, Uzbekistan--which did evict U.S. troops from its bases in 2005--has turned against the Kremlin, boycotting a Russian-led regional security summit and announcing it would not participate in a joint rapid-reaction force while signing up to play a major role in America's "Northern Distribution Network" for supplying forces in Afghanistan.
The United States will never be able to replace Russia or China as the major power broker in Central Asia, nor is it much interested in doing so. But these developments provide an opening for Washington to look beyond its singular focus on the war effort in Afghanistan and develop a more comprehensive regional strategy designed to help Central Asia address some of the structural vulnerabilities that make it a perpetual flashpoint.
First, the United States should support Central Asian energy projects, which diversify the region's export options, thereby reducing these countries' economic and political dependence on Russia.
Second, the U.S. should take advantage of its greater physical distance from the region to act as an honest broker among the Central Asian states, whose mutual mistrust limits their cooperation. Working directly and through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the U.S. should spearhead an initiative to resolve border disputes and reach an accord on water-sharing and cross-border investment within Central Asia.
Third, the U.S. should work with the Central Asian governments to address key sources of radicalization, particularly the dearth of educational and economic opportunities that could be alleviated if Central Asia's economies are gradually opened, backed by a promise of eventual WTO membership. Closer intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism cooperation are a likely byproduct. Human rights reforms are not exactly welcomed by the region's KGB-trained elites, but Washington should leverage its influence to push for real progress.
With the United States focused on multiple war zones, the idea of marshaling resources for a more concerted Central Asia strategy may seem ambitious. But, as the U.S. has increasingly recognized, stabilizing Central Asia is critical to eventual success in Afghanistan. If the Afghan war provides a reason for greater U.S. involvement in Central Asia, the changing Russo-Chinese dynamic creates an opportunity. Now is the time for Washington to make a major diplomatic push into this long-neglected region.
Jeffrey Mankoff is associate director of international security studies at Yale University and sdjunct fellow for Russia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Leland R. Miller is managing director of Avascent International, a global advisory firm, and fellow in international economics with the American Foreign Policy Council.
Moscow Times: In the Spotlight: Nikita Mikhalkov
23 April 2010
By Anna Malpas
On Saturday, Nikita Mikhalkov showed his new film, “Burnt by the Sun 2” at the Kremlin Palace concert hall. The sequel to his Oscar-winning film from 1994 has been so long in the making (eight years, the director said) that it seemed more like a myth than a reality, a bit like those hotel construction sites in central Moscow.
Mikhalkov does not do things by halves. His new film is three hours long, and it is only the first part of the sequel — the second part will come out later this year. Before the premiere, he showed a “making of” documentary that lasted one-and-a-half hours, although only a handful of hardcore fans were watching.
Just getting into the premiere was an achievement: The queue stretched around Alexandrovsky Sad, since all 6,000 guests had to squeeze through the turnstiles at the Kremlin gate. Still, Mikhalkov could hardly have held his premiere at an ordinary cinema, one journalist joked: “That wouldn’t have been in the Tsar’s style.”
Amazingly, Mikhalkov initially planned to show the film on Red Square on Victory Day, a plan that would have misfired since one scene lingers on the bottom of a Nazi pilot, one reviewer pointed out.
The Kremlin Palace is a magnificent monument to Khrushchev-era bad taste, with escalators and potted plants galore. In the foyer, Liberal Democrat leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky held court in a military-style khaki suit. Television crews swarmed around the film’s star Oleg Menshikov, with his beautiful but pained-looking young wife, and ubiquitous film director and actor Fyodor Bondarchuk, who isn’t actually in the film.
Meanwhile, guests wandered up and down the escalators, like in a Dantean hell, in search of the bar — only to find that there wasn’t one, as Mikhalkov wanted his masterpiece to be appreciated stone-cold sober.
The film is a sequel to the first one in the sense that it features the same characters: general Kotov (played by Mikhalkov), his wife and daughter and a secret-police officer played by Menshikov. But those who remember glowing country-house scenes and that elegantly tragic ending — didn’t they all die? — will barely recognize the sequel.
Mikhalkov spent the largest budget in Russian film history on bridges, ships and airplanes, which he then blew up. We find that Kotov’s frightened-looking wife is now married to steely-eyed Menshikov and Kotov has been sent to the front from a prison camp, while their daughter Nadya is a bright-eyed team leader at a Young Pioneer camp. Unfortunately, there isn’t time for much more on their emotional states.
The only scene I liked had a bored and slightly loopy Smersh (Death to Spies) officer idly filling in a form with poet Pushkin’s details (“I shot Dantes because he was flirting with my wife”) as he mechanically questioned yet another prisoner.
The film features a scene where Mikhalkov slowly beats a Nazi to death with an entrenching tool, and some viewers felt the same, judging from the dazed, muted applause at the end.
The director gathered hundreds of his troops, sorry actors, on the stage, seemingly in anticipation of the crowds throwing flowers at their feet. Disappointed, they had to shuffle off anti-climactically.
The funniest review, by Kommersant’s Mikhail Trofimenkov for Fontanka.ru, was an orgy of hatred for what he called “death pornography.”
“First he shows one blown-off leg of a cadet, then his second leg, then a third leg. Mikhalkov seems out of control, like a hunter in search of ‘meat,’” Trofimenkov wrote.
Moscow Times: Russia Takes 'Anti-Socialist' Approach to Health Care
23 April 2010
By Natalya Krainova
While Washington plans to pump unprecedented sums into what critics call a government takeover of health care, Moscow is moving in the opposite direction by backing legislation that could force hospitals and other public institutions to go commercial or close.
A bill scheduled to be approved by the State Duma in a third and final reading Friday aims to overhaul the financing for medical, educational, cultural and scientific institutions by giving them for the first time a free hand in how they spend state subsidies.
But opponents warn that the "anti-socialist" reform also could lead to a drop in state subsidies, forcing hospitals, schools and even libraries to increase their numbers of paid services or reduce work hours so as to make ends meet. They say this free-market approach could ultimately hurt the population, especially in poor rural areas.
The current system of funding public institutions is based on cost sheets — detailed lists of planned expenses that the institutions submit to the authorities each year. The funding rules, which are rigid and have been unchanged for years, earmark similar funding for similar institutions regardless of the quality of their work. Leftover funds are confiscated at the end of the year — a practice that leads to wasteful spending.
"The bill is aimed at making public institutions spend state money efficiently, instead of exaggerating expenses," said Vitaly Shuba, first deputy head of the Duma's Budget and Taxes Committee and a United Russia member.
United Russia, the pro-Kremlin party that dominates the Duma, is the only parliamentary faction backing the bill; the other three factions have denounced it.
The bill, a copy of which was obtained by The Moscow Times, adopts a laissez-faire approach instead of a micromanagement one. Subsidies for each public institution would be defined by a single line in the state budget. Leftover funds would no longer be confiscated.
Better services will lead to bigger subsidies, said Alexei Lavrov, a department head at the Finance Ministry, which drafted the bill.
Lavrov brushed off concerns that public institutions might be caught in a catch-22 of needing to boost the quality of their services to get more money, while at the same time needing more money to boost the quality of their services.
"The quality can be boosted through organizational efforts," he said.
But critics pointed out that the bill also frees the authorities fr om bearing any responsibility if a public institution goes bankrupt.
Opponents said they found it ironic that Russia was adopting the bill at a time when the United States, its capitalist foe during the Cold War, was increasing the government's presence in health care.
In March, U.S. lawmakers approved a seminal health care reform that will see the government spend almost $1 trillion over the next 10 years to broaden health care coverage. The reform, a hallmark of Barack Obama's presidency, has been widely panned by its critics as "socialist."
“France, Germany and the United States have more socialism than Russia, while even our Constitution implies that the country has to be socialist,” Duma Deputy Sergei Obukhov, a Communist, told The Moscow Times.
The Russian Constitution defines Russia as a “social state.”
The Duma bill, which was passed in a first reading in mid-February and a second reading on Wednesday, does not cover institutions prohibited from doing commercial business, such as defense agencies and psychiatric hospitals, nor so-called autonomous institutions that use little state money and enjoy broad freedoms.
The bill also does not specify how much money will be distributed to public institutions.
The size of the subsidies — not the new funding mechanism — is the key issue, said Lev Yakobson, a senior official with the Higher School of Economics. What the government needs to do is figure out a method for calculating the size of the subsidies, he said, adding that the method would determine whether public institutions stand to benefit from the proposed reform.
"The bill is a framework," Yakobson said.
The ambiguity, however, is stoking worries. The new rules are to be implemented nationwide by mid-2012.
A senior Just Russia deputy, Oksana Dmitriyeva, said the bill was unacceptable because public institutions should not have to face free-market pressures.
"A subsidy means partial financing, which implies a possible reduction of financing from the state budget and partial commercialization," Dmitriyeva said in a telephone interview.
Commercialization might have dire consequences in rural areas if hospitals and schools are forced to close for lack of funds, said Sergei Shtogrin, deputy head of the Duma's Budget and Taxes Committee and a member of the Communist Party.
"The country's population will die out and the quality of national education will go down," Shtogrin said in an interview in his Duma office.
He suggested guaranteeing a list of free public services for citizens.
The legislation allows the state to shrink its responsibilities and obtain a new way to pressure public institutions, said Irina Gorkova, a Duma deputy with the Liberal Democratic Party.
She explained that the bill makes legal a situation in which an institution does not receive enough money to fulfill assignments given by the state. In that case, the head of an institution would be held responsible and therefore be subject to pressure from authorities.
Insufficient funding also could result in a lack of medical equipment and cause doctors to shun jobs in public institutions, leaving hospitals understaffed, Gorkova said.
Workers in the cultural sector are equally pessimistic. With the bill's enactment, authorities would be able to get rid of their obligation to finance many museums and theaters, Russian State Library head librarian Alexander Visly said by phone.
Russian libraries are not allowed to perform commercial operations, which makes self-financing, even to lim ited degree, all but impossible, he said.
Cutting salaries is not an option because pay is already very low, so the only alternative would be to reduce working hours to save some money on electricity bills, he said.
Russia Today: Marking 25 years after ‘perestroika’ sparked the end of the USSR
23 April, 2010, 07:44
April 23 marks 25 years since former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev first announced the series of political and economic reforms that profoundly changed the USSR – and the entire world.
Perestroika, or Restructuring, brought democracy to the Cold War's Eastern bloc, which is often seen as one of the main reasons for the collapse of communism in the region.
It all started with Gorby’s “Are you in favour of perestroika or would you rather let things slide?”
This is the question that changed Soviet history.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev announced to his people that it's time to change.
Many then believed, and still do today, that Gorbachev took a loose thread and pulled on it, unraveling the Soviet Union into oblivion. But was that really the case?
“You know, the Soviet Union was such a big body built on the skeleton which was from fear,” insisted Vitaly Korotich, former Editor-in-Chief of the popular Soviet Ogonek magazine. “When this fear came out, it went down and it stopped to exist simply because nobody was full of fear towards this government, its powers, its secret police. People started to look around.”
The beginning, as all beginnings, was full of promise. Political dissidents were released from prisons, religious beliefs were no longer forbidden, and the concept of ‘glasnost’, or freedom of speech, was introduced.
Korotich said “It was a very interesting period because people were not ready for openness, people were not ready for glasnost really, and when it started we had so many protests, we had so many attempts to stop us…”
“But anyway, it started and then we understood that it's not enough to say truth, it was necessary to do something,” remembers Ogonyok’s chief editor.
But the road ahead was a rocky one. The Soviet economy was not prepared for the changes taking place and fell apart.
Expert Vyacheslav Nikonov is sure that Mikhail Gorbachev was definitely for a socialist blended economy.
“He was against the market and only few first market reforms were introduced during his Presidency and I think mostly against his will,” Nikonov acknowledged.
“He allowed small co-operatives, he allowed small restaurants, but that was it, there were fixed prices, there was an economy of deficit to which, of course, the whole anti-alcohol campaign added,” recalls the expert.
Back then, even money could not buy most necessities. The reality looked grim. Fights regularly broke out in food stores and the people were getting angry. Especially after seeing, for the first time in decades, what life in the West was like.
25 years later, politicians and analysts still debate the successes and the failures of perestroika and collapse of the Soviet Union as a consequence.
“A democracy without a market economy – that did not work for one simple reason: when people were allowed to ask questions, the first question they asked in an economy of deficits was: ‘Where is the food? Where are the commodities?’” Vyacheslav Nikonov points out.
“When they were allowed to watch television, including Western television, they saw the Western stores and they compared them to stores in the Soviet Union, and their question was absolutely evident: ‘So where is all this?’”
The romanticism of perestroika died in the 1990's when people realized the freedoms they were promised didn't provide them with the basics to keep them alive. What followed was a younger, more pragmatic generation of politicians.
But despite all its failed hopes and promises, the changes that began 25 years ago paved the way for the country that exists today.
Today, the country has a long way to go ahead of it, but also has a much more defined and promising path.
Russia Today: Cops’ approval needed to tie the knot
23 April, 2010, 10:47
Every wedding ceremony in the Russian southern republic of North Ossetia will now have unusual guests – a squad of uniformed policemen.
The order for police to guard every wedding was signed by local police chief, reports Interfax news agency. The move is an attempt to curb the number of shooting incidents during celebrations, which has risen recently.
Officers will not only keep an eye on the newlyweds and their guests, but will also help the families to organize the festivities.
A traditional marriage in Russia’s southern regions is a major event involving dozens of people and sometimes days-long feasts. Sometimes emotions go over the edge, and a row can turn into a fistfight or even a shootout.
“Earlier, drunken young men preferred using fists to settle their disputes. But lately they have adopted the habit of drawing pistols. Occasionally, they put metal points on rubber bullets, and this may be fatal,” spokesman for the regional interior ministry explained.
During previous weekend three people have been wounded at weddings in the capital, Vladikavkaz.
The report doesn’t specify whether the policemen on duty will have do abstain from eating on duty. If so, it would be a real challenge for the locals, as not being able to treat a guest is a disgrace there.
Moscow Times: Nashi Wins ‘Nationalist’ Suit
23 April 2010
Moscow’s Savyolovsky District Court has levied a fine of 250,000 rubles ($8,600) against French national weekly Le Journal Du Dimanche in a defamation lawsuit filed by the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth group.
The court also ordered the weekly to publish a retraction in connection with a Sept. 29 article that described Nashi as a “nationalist” group and detailed its public campaign against journalist and human rights activist Alexander Podrabinek for his criticism of World War II veterans, Nashi said in a statement late Wednesday.
An e-mailed request for comment to the weekly was not immediately answered Thursday. Nashi has filed similar lawsuits against Britain’s The Independent, France’s Le Monde and Germany’s Frankfurter Rundshau.
(MT)
Moscow Times: Shenderovich Caught in Sex Video
23 April 2010
By Alexander Bratersky
Satirist and radio host Viktor Shenderovich on Thursday accused Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's administration of trying to discredit him by posting online a video showing him cheating on his wife.
The clip, which also purported to show two other opposition figures having sex with the same woman, is the latest in a series of hidden-camera stings to target prominent critics of the government.
"I recognized this multipurpose girl Katya fr om photos published by Novaya Gazeta and understood that this movie is also out there and that the premiere is coming soon," Shenderovich wrote on his blog at 3 a.m. on Thursday. He said some "kind folks" tipped him off that it would be released.
Several hours later, RuNet was roaring over the low-resolution video, which included individually shot clips showing Shenderovich; Alexander Potkin, the leader of the nationalist Movement Against Illegal Migrants; and a man who looked very much like writer and Other Russia opposition leader Eduard Limonov.
All were having sex with a person who appeared to be the same woman, although she could not be identified because her face was covered by a black spot.
Shenderovich, who is married and has a daughter, wrote that he had sex with the woman but without any particular pleasure. He also joked that security officials had shortchanged him by offering only one woman.
The woman, he said, was also featured in a compromising video circulated last month showing Russian Newsweek editor Mikhail Fishman. In the video he appeared to be snorting cocaine while a naked woman walked around the apartment.
Ilya Yashin, a leader of the Solidarity opposition movement, said at the time that he had spent a night with a woman at the same apartment, whom he now believes was an agent for the security services. He said he left when he was offered cocaine.
Yashin accused Nashi of being behind the videos, after the pro-Kremlin youth group posted a film earlier in March that appeared to show him, Fishman and liberal political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin giving bribes to traffic police.
Nashi denied involvement.
On his blog, Shenderovich called the video revenge fr om Putin's retinue for accusing the prime minister of killings, corruption and seizing power.
"Putin's administration was listening to [these allegations] with enormous cool, and without denying any of it, they answered with their typical, illegal filth," he said.
Speaking later on Ekho Moskvy radio, wh ere he works, Shenderovich said "federal authorities" were involved in making the video. "It was done by authorities with two purposes: discrediting and blackmailing."
Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told The Moscow Times that he was not aware of the incident.
"We'd like it if he faced his problems alone," Peskov said.
Potkin, reached by phone Thursday, also confirmed that he was in the video.
"It was me," he said calmly. "Now you see that there are no guarantees of having your private life protected."
Limonov told The Moscow Times that he had not seen the clip and could not comment. Shenderovich could not be reached for comment.
The woman whom Shenderovich mentioned is Yekaterina Gerasimova, an amateur model who works for the Progress modeling firm in Moscow and provides services to security service officials, Yashin said. He and other prominent bloggers have said they recognized her and the apartment wh ere the clips were filmed.
The flat, located on Orlikov Pereulok in downtown Moscow, is listed in online realty databases and can be rented for $2,500 a month.
A spokeswoman for the Progress modeling agency denied that Gerasimova was ever employed there.
"We didn't have any working agreement with her. She is not in our database," she said, adding that anyone interested in working for the agency can register a profile on its web site. "We don't know what these people do in their free time."
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Huffington Post: Katyagate: Russia's hooker trap snags another another Kremlin critic, and this time it hurts
Simon Shuster
Reporter based in Moscow
Posted: April 23, 2010 12:14 AM
It was pretty funny at first, but now a Kremlin critic with some actual moral standing has gotten caught up in the latest Russian honey trap, which has been baiting one Kremlin critic after another with hookers, coke, weed, dildoes and hidden cameras, or some sloppy combination of these, for the past two years at least.
Wait, I should correct myself, there's really just one hooker, but she certainly gets around. Identified by one of her luckier victims as a part-time model named Ekaterina Gerasimova -- Katya for short -- her latest video shows her shagging Viktor Shenderovich, a journalist and master of satire who has been picking away at Vladimir Putin's credibility for a decade, more effectively than anyone else I can think of.
From among the opposition, he is one of the only people whose wit came down from a moral pedestal. His reputation was clean, and it's hard to compare his significance to anyone in the West. I'm tempted to say John Stewart, at least in the sense of being a political gadfly, and a very funny one. But the crucial difference is that Stewart does not live under an authoritarian regime, and Shenderovich does. That means his job is to ensure not just the health and sanity of the political debate but its very survival.
His romp with Katya, which was exposed on Thursday in an Internet clip, will therefore be a lot more damaging to Russia's already anemic opposition than any of the other episodes in this scandal. The first one involved Mikhail Fishman, the twenty-something editor of Russian Newsweek, who was videotaped chopping a line of coke for a half-naked girl sitting beside him in an apartment. As a nostalgic Soviet ballad plays in the background, the crassly edited tape then shows us a butt-naked Fishman coming into the room, picking his briefs off the floor and proceeding to finish off what's left of the coke. The clip was posted on the internet last month.
Fishman's friend Ilya Yashin, one of the leaders of the dissident Solidarity movement, saw it soon after and decided to make a sort of pre-emptive confession on his blog. It turns out he had gone out with the girl in the Fishman video back in 2008, and said it was Katya Gerasimova, nickname Moomoo. After they'd dated for a while, Katya surprised Yashin one night with her collection of dildoes, whips, hand-cuffs and other toys, as well as with her friend Nastya, who wanted to play. Unlike Fishman, however, Yashin claims he realized it was a honey trap after Katya poured a bag of powder onto a stool and told him he needed to relax. He gathered up his stuff and left.
Another member of the Solidarity movement, Roman Dobrokhotov, then told a similar story on his own blog, also involving Katya, who had invited him back to that same apartment in 2009 and asked him to role a joint from a pile of weed that was lying on the table. He claims he also smelled a set-up and got the hell out of there.
But all these guys have come away pretty clean, mainly because they have the sowing-oats excuse. They are single, young, and high on their own meagre prominence in the opposition movement. If anyone really denounced them after this, it was mostly the grumbling Putin loyalists who were already convinced beyond redemption that the opponents of the regime are all secret jewish drug addicts with venereal disease. So nothing much changed on that front. And as for the more liberal-minded Russians, they mostly laughed the whole thing off, because the scandal up to that point was far more embarrassing for its organizers. Whether it was the security services or the Kremlin youth group Nashi, the trap was clumsy, and it didn't work. A couple of weeks later, I saw Fishman cavorting around at Moscow's Cafe Mayak, clearly none the worse for wear.
But with Shenderovich it is different. Unsurprisingly, he blamed the secret police for setting up the whole show, but when he tried to put on his old armor of righteous comedy, it didn't quite seem to fit anymore. "Comrades of the secret police!," he wrote in his blog at 3 a.m. on Friday morning (hopefully after having a talk with his wife and daughter). "This is age-based discrimination. You're telling me that the young opposition leaders get two free girls and a dose of cocaine, but us middle-aged ones get one girl and no party favors? Have you no shame?"
Lower down, he gets into the recriminations against Putin's regime, but those also start to ring hollow this time, and even a little defeated. "As the result of an enormous ten-year operation, they have finally managed to find something on me: I fucked Katya. My congratulations to the warriors of the secret front - now, I hope, the opposition is finally vanquished, and you can turn your attention to catching [Russia's most-wanted terrorist] Doku Umarov."
Maybe they will, but I doubt it. This is part of their reason for being, to discredit the opposition, to tear guys like Shenderovich down from their moral high-ground. To what extent they have succeeded will become clear as this scandal plays out, but in any case, it already hurts.
Reuters: Activists urge prosecution in Russian prison death
Fri Apr 23, 2010 12:13am IST
* New pressure for prosecution in lawyer Magnitsky's death
* Authorities accused of seeking testimony through torture
By Steve Gutterman
MOSCOW, April 22 (Reuters) - Leading human rights activists called on Thursday for the prosecution of Russian Interior Ministry officers over the death in jail last year of a lawyer for what was once Russia's top equity fund, Hermitage.
The Moscow Helsinki Group said authorities subjected Sergei Magnitsky to conditions amounting to torture in a failed bid to force him to testify in their favour in a battle with Hermitage over tax fraud allegations.
"This was not a case of negligence," Moscow Helsinki Group member Valery Borshchev said of the 37-year-old lawyer's death in a Moscow jail last November. "It was the deliberate creation of torture conditions for Sergei Magnitsky with the specific goal of obtaining testimony that investigators needed."
Interior Ministry and prosecutorial officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.
Magnitsky's death spooked investors and set up a new test for President Dmitry Medvedev's promise to reform Russia's corruption-tainted justice system.
In October 2008, Magnitsky implicated two Interior Ministry officers in an alleged $230 million fraud involving the illegal seizure of Hermitage's Russian investment holding companies to set up fake tax refunds.
Magnitsky was arrested weeks later and accused of involvement in alleged tax fraud by Hermitage. The arrest was carried out by three subordinates of Artyom Kuznetsov, one of the officers Magnitsky had implicated.
TORTURE ACCUSATION
The rights activists said Interior Ministry officers conspired to create desperate conditions for Magnitsky in jail and deny him medical help in hopes of prompting him to withdraw his testimony against them and to implicate himself and Browder.
"Sergei Magnitsky died from systematic torture," Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the veteran human rights campaigner who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group, wrote in a recent letter to the head of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office.
She asked federal prosecutors to consider a torture investigation into Interior Ministry officers including Kuznetsov and Oleg Silchenko, the lead investigator in the case against Magnitsky.
Medvedev fired several prison officials after Magnitsky's death and later signed a law stipulating that tax evasion suspects should not be jailed.
But Alexeyeva asserted that the real culprits have avoided punishment. She said Magnitsky's death was just one glaring symptom of widespread abuse of power by Russian bureaucrats and law enforcement officers seeking financial gain.
Browder said Magnitsky's jail time included a stint in a four-person cell packed with eight inmates and a hole in the floor for a toilet. Speaking from Britain, he said Magnitsky never received adequate treatment for acute abdominal pain.
Hermitage was once the largest portfolio investor in Russia, but Browder fell out with the authorities. He was refused entry to Russia in 2005 on national security grounds, and Hermitage disposed of its Russia holdings. (Editing by Charles Dick)
UPI: Russian pathologist guilty of murder
Published: April 22, 2010 at 3:09 PM
MOSCOW, April 22 (UPI) -- A former Russian pathologist who reputedly led a gang of morgue workers who hid bodies killed by mobsters was convicted Thursday of ordering several murders.
The Moscow Times reported Valery Burykin could be sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of three murders and banditry. Sentencing will be Monday, the newspaper said.
Authorities said starting in 1995 Burykin started recruiting colleagues at the St. Petersburg Pathological Bureau to use the city's morgues to profit from disposing of bodies of victims of organized crime.
Burykin was found to have ordered the killing of Sergei Yefimov in 2001 but not before the pathologist and co-conspirator made a recording revealing the morgue group's activities and claiming they had killed at least 10 people while building their illegal empire, the local Fonanka.ru news portal reported. Burykin's attorney said he would appeal the verdict, the news Web site said.
Most of the group's members were arrested in 2004. Burykin fled the country and wasn't taken into custody until 2007 in Hungary, the Times said. Five co-conspirators have been convicted and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
Moscow Times: Leader of Morgue Gang Convicted of Murder
23 April 2010
The Moscow Times
A former St. Petersburg pathologist was convicted Thursday of ordering several murders as the leader of a gang of morgue workers who went into business hiding the bodies of people killed in organized crime disputes.
Valery Burykin was found guilty of three murders and banditry, for which he could face up to life in prison. The court will hear arguments from prosecutors and the defense during the sentencing phase on Monday.
A jury found that Burykin began recruiting colleagues at the City Pathological Bureau in May 1995 to help him take over the city's morgues to profit from disposing of bodies, St. Petersburg prosecutors said in a statement.
At the time, mob violence was rife in St. Petersburg, with contract killings a regular occurrence.
The group managed to remain in the shadows until September 2001, when Burykin ordered the killing of pathologist and co-conspirator Sergei Yefimov. He was gunned down in the entryway of his apartment building for trying to leave the group, prosecutors said.
Shortly before his death, however, Yefimov made a recording detailing the group's activities, claiming that they had killed at least 10 people while building their morgue empire, the local Fontanka.ru news portal reported. Yefimov identified Burykin — known among the group as Vasilich — as its leader.
The majority of the group's members were arrested after another morgue worker, Larisa Artyukovskaya, was killed in a bomb blast in her apartment's entryway in August 2004. Burykin fled abroad.
Five of his co-conspirators received sentences of up to 15 years in prison in October 2006. Burykin was detained a year later in Hungary and subsequently was extradited to Russia.
"On the main points, the jury found Burykin guilty, and that he did not deserve leniency," city prosecutors said in a statement.
A lawyer for Burykin said he would appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court, citing unspecified procedural violations, Fontanka.ru reported.
Russia Today: 23 April, 2010 in Russian Newspapers
Izvestiya: Russia borrows money from abroad, yet again
Pavel Arabov
Today, for the first time since 1998, the government will borrow money from aboard. But, there is no need to be alarmed. The volume of the allocation is not large -- $5.5 billion. This is only one-fifth of Russia’s existing sovereign bonds. Moreover, the borrowed money will not cost us much, say experts.
The results of this epochal allocation may be announced today. But the most important parameters became known yesterday. Russia will sell foreign investors bonds totaling $2 billion with a maturity period of five years, and for $3.5 billion -- ten years. Their rates of return are as follows: the five-year bonds will cost the budget 3.748% per annum, and 10-year bonds -- 5.08%.
Nezavisimaya: The anticipation of a demographic pitfall
Accidents are the main reason for the high mortality rate
Marina Obrazkova
Background: the population of Ukraine decreases on an equal level with Russia
According to Russia's Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), Russia’s total population, as of January 1, 2010, amounted to 141.9 million people. Starting in 1992, our country has been experiencing a steady population decline. In other words, the death rate surpasses the birth rate.
Vedomosti: No shahids allowed
United Russia members prepared a strategic framework for combating terrorism: journalists are advised to stop using the term “shahid”, and parties are advised to unite in face of the threat of terrorism.
Vera Kholmogorova
During the next meeting of the United Russia Supreme Council Bureau, a draft bill of the party’s strategic framework for combating terrorism may be introduced, Yury Shuvalov, deputy secretary of the Presidium of the United Russia General Council, told Vedomosti. On Wednesday, the document was discussed at a closed-door session of party clubs; it continues to be negotiated and has been sent to the country’s leadership, adds the United Russia party member. The conception has being developed since April 7.
KYRGYZSTAN
RIA: Bakiyev says pressured into writing resignation letter
12:3823/04/2010
Kyrgyzstan's deposed president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, said on Friday he was pressured into writing his resignation letter.
"When I was writing a resignation letter, there was a threat from those who seized power in the military takeover," he said at a news conference in Minsk.
After Bakiyev left Kyrgyzstan last week, the interim government announced he had written a resignation letter, which was published in the media.
On Wednesday, however, Bakiyev said he had not resigned and called on the international community not to recognize Kyrgyzstan's interim government.
MINSK, April 23 (RIA Novosti)
RIA: Ousted Bakiyev says has no intention of returning to Kyrgyzstan as president
12:3023/04/2010
Deposed Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev said he has no intention of returning to Kyrgyzstan as president, despite his statement that he has not admitted to his resignation.
"I will not return to Kyrgyzstan as president," Bakiyev said.
"I made a statement that I do not admit to my resignation because the country could return to its legal base," Bakiyev said on Friday during a press-conference in Minsk.
On Wednesday, Bakiyev, who had fled Kyrgyzstan following the April 6-8 riots, said he had not in fact resigned and urged world leaders not to recognize the republic's interim government.
Last week, Interim Kyrgyz Prime Minister Roza Otunbayeva showed journalists a copy of a fax that she claimed was ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's resignation letter.
Bakiyev's brother said the faxed document was a fake.
MINSK, April 23 (RIA Novosti)
RUVR: Bakiyev confirmed the resignation as president of Kyrgyzstan
23.04.2010, 12:16
The deposed president of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev said he did not intend to return to Kyrgyzstan as president, despite a statement that does not accept his resignation.
"I do not intend to return to Kyrgyzstan as president. I made a statement that did not recognize his resignation, due to the fact that the country had the opportunity to return to the legal field", - Bakiyev said at a press conference in Minsk on Friday.
He also admitted that did not foresee the developments that led to his ouster from power. "Nothing foreshadowed the revolutionary situation and the hype that would have caused concern among the population", - quotes RIA Novosti Bakiyev.
12:15
BAKIYEV ADMITS HE FAILED TO FORESEE DEVELOPMENTS LEADING TO HIS DEPOSITION
12:15
BAKIYEV DOES NOT PLAN TO RETURN TO KYRGYZSTAN AS PRESIDENT, BUT REFUSES TO RECOGNIZE HIS RESIGNATION
04/23 12:22 BAKIYEV READY TO COOPERATE WITH INTERIM GOVERNMENT TO ENSURE ELECTIONS OF LEGITIMATE LEADERS IN KYRGYZSTAN
Reuters: Bakiyev says no plans to return as Kyrgyz president
Reuters
Friday, April 23, 2010; 4:19 AM
MINSK (Reuters) - Ousted Kyrgyz leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Friday said he has no plans to return to the Central Asian state as president.
"I do not intend to return to Kyrgyzstan as president," Bakiyev told a news conference in the Belarussian capital Minsk.
He fled to Minsk, via Kazakhstan, several days after an April 7 uprising against his five-year rule.
(Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky, writing by Conor Sweeney, editing by Robin Paxton)
RIA: Kyrgyz interim government to implement measures against saboteurs
12:3423/04/2010
The Kyrgyz interim government has vowed to implement comprehensive measures against saboteurs working in the interests of deposed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his family, an interim Deputy President said on Friday.
Uprisings broke out in the ex-Soviet Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan on April 6, spreading across the country and lasting several days. Bakiyev was deposed and an interim government was formed under Roza Otumbayeva. Bakiyev fled to neighboring Kazakhstan on April 15 and then to the Belarusian capital of Minsk on April 20.
"I have received information that you are sabotaging the efforts of the interim government to normalize the situation [in Kyrgyzstan] and are acting in the interests of the Bakiyev's family, meeting them in private and getting instructions and money from them," Azimbek Beknazarov said in an address to officials in the south of Kyrgyzstan, the deposed president's stronghold.
"I would like to warn you that if you do not change your ways, we will take specific and comprehensive measures against you," he said, adding that he knew the exact details of meetings that have taken place.
Beknazarov said some of Bakiyev's supporters are trying to divide the interim government and discredit its members.
"Attempts to divide the interim government will not work," he said. "We are aware of our responsibility to the people and will not let anyone manipulate us."
Beknazarov advised both Bakiyev and his predecessor, Askar Akayev, who was overthrown in 2005, to forget all attempts re-gaining power in Kyrgyzstan.
Some 23 criminal cases have been initiated against Bakiyev's supporters and family, including his two sons, Maxim and Marat, and his brother, Zhanybek. Earlier on Friday, Kyrgyz police seized Maxim's property.
BISHKEK, April 23 (RIA Novosti)
24.kg: Interim Central Elections Committee established in Kyrgyzstan
23/04-2010 11:43, Bishkek – News Agency “24.kg”
The Kyrgyz interim government has approved the interim Central Committee for Elections and Referendums, the press center of the interim government informs.
According to the press center, the interim Central Elections Committee (CEC) included the following persons from parties: Ainura Abdykalykova (Turan), Galia Alymbekova (Ata-Meken), Zharkyn Bapanova (Ak-Shumkar), Abdysamat Bayalinov (Ar-Namys), Abdyzhapar Bekmatov (Communists’ Party), Galina Skripkina (SDPK) and Nurlan Sheripov (Erkindik).
Nongovernmental organizations are represented in the interim CEC by Zhenishbek Akmatov, Tolekan Ismailova, Larisa Li, Mikhail Korsunsky, Abdymomun Maraimov and Akylbek Sariev.
Reportedly, powers of the interim Central Elections Committee will be effective for the period of holding referendums of KR and parliamentary elections of 2010.
RIA: In Kyrgyzstan, the arrest of the property the son of ex-President Bakiyev ordered
23/04/2010 11:04
BISHKEK, April 23 - RIA Novosti, Yulia Orlova. Law enforcement bodies of Kyrgyzstan seized the objects belonging to the son of ex-President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's Maxim, said Friday on national television deputy chairman of the interim government Beknazarov.
"According to the investigation of the financial affairs of Maxim Bakiyev's works committee, after investigation, we will provide information to the interim government," - he said.
According to Beknazarov, who oversees law enforcement and the Attorney General in a temporary office, the Commission instituted 23 criminal cases on a group of close Bakiyev.
Earlier, Attorney General's office opened a criminal case against the younger son of ex-president, Maxim Bakiyev, who headed the Central Agency for Development, innovation and investment of the country, he is accused of harming the state.
Beknazarov also advised all former approximate ex-presidents Akayev and Bakiyev, leave all their attempts to enter into power. "
"We all know people who as under Akayev, and under Bakiyev, praising and indulging their actions ... led to the country was plundered, the power was corrupt through and through. Now these same people want to enter into power themselves, or pushing their offspring and relatives, and haunting members of the interim government ", - he said.
He urged supporters of the former authorities "to reconsider and cease all attempts at entry into power." "Some of you still hold key positions in government, including law enforcement agencies and courts. I ask you to voluntarily resign," - said Beknazarov.
In Kyrgyzstan, April 7 protesters occupied the Government House, Kyrgyzstan, power was transferred to a provisional government. Second President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on April 16 left the country and wrote a statement of resignation. Provisional Government assumed the functions of president, government and parliament.
RFE/RL: Witness In Kyrgyz Opposition Leader's Death Found Dead
April 23, 2010
BISHKEK -- A man jailed for his role in a controversial car accident that killed a Kyrgyz opposition leader last year has been found dead, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.
Anarkul Akmatov, the lawyer of Omurbek Osmonov, said his client was found dead on April 17 in the village of Besh-Kungey. He said his body had 11 stab wounds.
Osmonov, 25, was serving a prison term as the driver of a car that is alleged to have hit a vehicle in March 2009 carrying Medet Sadyrkulov, the former chief of staff of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiev who had left the government two months earlier to join the opposition.
Opposition leaders, Osmonov's lawyers, and relatives of the victims have challenged police investigators' conclusion that the three men died in a collision with a vehicle that Osmonov was driving. The car they were in was charred and their bodies were burnt beyond recognition.
The victims' lawyers said the bodies of the victims were in positions indicating that they were already dead when the car was set on fire.
Kyrgyzstan's interim government has pledged to reinvestigate Sadyrkulov's death.
On June 5, 2009, Osmonov was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in a minimum security labor camp.
Lenta.ru: Former energy minister arrested in Kyrgyzstan
In Kyrgyzstan, the former energy minister Ilyas Davydov was arrested. IA "24.kg" reported with reference to the interim vice-premier of the republic Azimbek Beknazarov.
According to the interim government, the arrested has already expressed willingness to cooperate with the investigation. Formal charges have not been brought against him yet.
Earlier, the new authorities in Kyrgyzstan have brought to the former Minister of the criminal case on article "The contract is contrary to the interests of the Kyrgyz Republic. Davydova suspect that even before the appointment of a minister, working in the leadership of the National Electric Network of Kyrgyzstan ", he bought the equipment at an inflated price. As a result, the state, as suggested by consequence, has suffered a 36,7 million soms (about 800 thousand dollars).
Commenting on the arrest Davydova, a representative interim government announced that the wanted list CEOs "Electric stations" and "Kyrgyzgaz Saparbek Balkibekov and Salamat Aitikeev. What they are accused, Beknazarov did not elaborate. He suggested that these people may have already fled the country.
In Kyrgyzstan, after the April coup were cases against representatives of the former leadership of the country, they were accused of corruption, abuse of authority and other crimes. Among the defendants were former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, his son Maxim, who headed the agency for investment, as well as his brother Janysh, who led the guard service.
24.kg: Kazakhstan strengthens border with Kyrgyzstan
23/04-2010 08:56, Bishkek – News Agency “24.kg”, By Anton LYMAR
Kazakhstan started strengthening the south state border, especially in the areas of the republic neighboring with Kyrgyzstan, informs Interfax-Kazakhstan agency.
According to the agency, head of the “Ontustik” regional department of the Kazakhstan National Security Committee Frontier Service Turganbek Stambekov called the area of the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border as “very unquiet”. Construction of border structures here started in 2009. In 2010 it is planned to construct curtain objects on 306 kilometers of the border. At present five engineer bases are working on this area, they are constructing engineering structures, barriers, signal complexes and control and tracing line.
According to Turganbek Stambekov, the most complicated are mountainous areas of the border 198 kilometers wide. Among other problems he noted “incomplete demarcation”, as well as bank protection on the near-border river of Chu. Besides, difficulties may appear with evacuation of residents of the near-border zone.
Last week in the process of operational and preventive measures, the Zhambyl oblast police identified 110 illegal aliens from Kyrgyzstan and confiscated 20 units of firearms and 43 units of ammunition. The legal order guards noted that among this arsenal there may be contraband weapon from the Kyrgyz Republic.
Trend.az: Tolekan Ismailov resigns from the post of chairman of the CEC of Kyrgyzstan
GOOGLE TRANSLATION
04/23/2010 10:40
Chairman of the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda Kyrgyzstan Tolekan Ismailov, appointed to the post of the Provisional Government yesterday, 22 April, decided to resign, writes AKI.
T. Ismailov announced its decision on April 23 at a meeting with reporters, explaining to him that she does not want to be an "appointee", as the decree to create a CD EP member state institutions failed the examination.
Scheduled to present 6 new CEC members to this day do not know their appointments, they just reported it. In particular, Galina Skripkin sent to the CEC Almazbek Atambayev, Abdysamata Bayalinova sent Tekebayev, "she said.
"These appointments have not been defined procedures, without credibility, we can not work as well as the status of the CEC should be transparent and honest", - she said.
24.kg: Azimbek Beknararov: Supporters of previous powers of Kyrgyzstan prepare all-Republican action for their support for 17 May 2010
23/04-2010 09:31, Bishkek – News Agency “24.kg”
Supporters of the previous powers of Kyrgyzstan are preparing all-Republican action for their support, which is planned for 17 May 2010. The interim government Vice Chairman Azimbek Beknazarov told the news agency 24.kg.
As the representative of the new administration notes, they are “aware of the process of preparation for rallies by Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s supporters, whose goal is to destabilize the situation in regions”.
However, Azimbek Beknazarov highlighted that “the interim government will not admit somebody to disseminate panic among population again and to use people for protection of their personal propertied interests”.
According to Beknazarov, “the situation in Jalal-Abad oblast has now been stabilized and is under full control of the interim government”.
: Bakiyev’s immunity prevented the new authorities from his arrest, immunity will be removed
GOOGLE TRANSLATION
post time: 10:20
Last update: 10:39
The Provisional Government of Kyrgyzstan can not demand the extradition of the former Belarusian President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in connection with the fact that he continues to have immunity. According to Interfax on Friday, deputy head of the interim government of the republic Beknazarov, despite the fact that the criminal case instituted against Bakiyev, on his arrest, he still defends immunity. In this regard, the former head of the republic is not possible to write and send documents to his extradition.
The new Kyrgyz authorities accuse the former president of abusing his official position. Last Tuesday, Chief of Staff to head the interim government Edil Baisalov said that the interim Kyrgyz government will seek extradition of Minsk Bakiyev. According to Beknazarov, he had already made a proposal to the interim government to deprive the ex-president of immunity. The proposal is not supported and will be discussed, said Beknazarov.
According to the legislation of Kyrgyzstan, former presidents of the country life immune integrity. However, the law provides that in certain cases to address the integrity of the authorities may be canceled.
Recall that the left Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev on April 15, after Russia, the United States and Kazakhstan have convinced him to resign. On the same day he flew to the Kazakh city of Taraz, and sent a fax in Bishkek, which reported the resignation. As it became known, had already on April 16 evening, Bakiyev has left the territory of Kazakhstan. On Tuesday, Belarussian President Lukashenko said that the deposed head of Kyrgyzstan is located in Minsk.
On Wednesday, Bakiyev unexpectedly abandoned his abdication and said that the remains president of Kyrgyzstan. Provisional Government in his speech Bakiyev called the "gang". Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a written resignation Bakiyev unable to correct oral statements.
24.kg: Galina Skripkina: Legislation of Kyrgyzstan does not allow UN representatives, as foreign nationals, to be members of Central Elections Committee
23/04-2010 09:32, Bishkek – News Agency “24.kg”, By Daniyar KARIMOV
Legislation of Kyrgyzstan does not allow UN representatives, as foreign nationals, to be members of Central Elections Committee (CEC), informed its member Galina Skripkina at the briefing in the Central Elections Committee of KR today, 23 April.
“There are number of issues how the CEC should work further”, she says. “They should be decided, and the CEC will act within the legal framework. For example, there is a decree of the interim government about formation of the composition of the committee, which offers to include seven representatives of nongovernmental sector and six representatives of the UN. But foreign nationals, according to the legislation and the Constitution, cannot participate in the CEC. We are not aware of whether legal review was conducted before adopting this decree. That means that we have doubts in this issue”.
Members of the CEC from political parties and civil sector speak for openness and transparency of formation of the composition of the committee, first of all because it bears responsibility for formation of organs of power.
24.kg: Almazbek Atambaev stands for Kyrgyzstan’s entry into Customs Union
23/04-2010 07:59, Bishkek – News Agency “24.kg”, By Aizada KUTUEVA
“I stand for Kyrgyzstan’s entry into the Customs Union”, the interim government Deputy Chairman Almazbek Atambaev stated to journalists on 22 April.
According to him, we should be on friendly terms with the neighbors. “Kyrgyzstan will only win by doing so. You can see that petrol gets expensive day after day. So far we have been managing to keep the prices for petrol as they are, under support of the friendly neighboring countries. But in the future, when the new rates of the Customs Union will come into force, they will impact badly on the economy of Kyrgyzstan. Therefore, I think, Kyrgyzstan should enter the Customs Union”, says Almazbek Atambaev.
National Economic Trends
Bloomberg: Russian Economy to Expand 5.8% This Year, Goldman Sachs Says
By Maria Levitov
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Russia’s economy will expand 5.8 percent this year compared with a previous forecast of 4.5 percent, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in an e-mailed report dated yesterday.
Recent economic data show “a definite macro turnaround,” the report said. Goldman also raised its 2011 growth forecast to 6.1 percent from 5.5 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Levitov in Moscow at mlevitov@
Last Updated: April 23, 2010 01:33 EDT
Prime-Tass: Russia raises $5.5 billion from two-part Eurobond offering
MOSCOW, Apr 23 (PRIME-TASS) -- The Russian government has raised U.S. $5.5 billion from placing a two-part Eurobond issue, 12 years after it defaulted on its domestic debt, ITAR-TASS reported citing British media reports.
On Thursday, Russia sold $2 billion worth of 5-year bonds with an annual coupon rate of 3.625% and a yield of 3.741% and $3.5 billion in 10-year bonds with an annual coupon rate of 5% and a yield of 5.082%.
The demand for the Eurobonds totaled $25 billion.
Russia has not offered a Eurobond since 1998, when the country fell into a financial crisis and defaulted on its domestic debt.
The placement of the sovereign Eurobond issue was a success, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told reporters. This issue has improved the market for Russian corporate bonds, he added. Russia does not plan to offer any more bonds on foreign market this year, he also said.
End
23.04.2010 11:28
April 23, 2010 10:57
Interfax: S&P gives Russian global U.S. dollar bonds 'BBB' rating
MOSCOW. April 23 (Interfax) - Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has assigned a 'BBB' rating to Russia's global U.S. dollar bond (foreign currency BBB/Stable/A-3, local currency BBB+/Stable/A-2), in line with the long-term foreign currency sovereign rating.
"We expect that Russia's budgetary and balance sheet performance will gradually improve between 2010 and 2014, due to the stabilization of Russia's terms of trade and the commitment of the authorities to consolidating the country's fiscal position over the next several years," S&P said in a press release.
"The 2009 general government deficit was 5.9% of GDP, lower than the original target of 8.3% of GDP. Although the government has already lowered its deficit target for 2010, to 6.0% of GDP from 7.5%, we believe the final figure is likely to be better than the revised target if domestic demand recovers in the latter part of the year and if oil prices remain at their current level of nearly 40% above the budgetary assumption of $59 per barrel," S&P said.
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23.04.2010 - Fitch Ratings
Cbonds: Fitch Rates Russia's 2015 and 2020 USD Eurobond 'BBB'
Fitch Ratings-London-22 April 2010: Fitch Ratings has today assigned the Russian Federation's USD5.5bn eurobond, split between a USD2bn five-year tranche and USD3.5bn 10-year tranche, a 'BBB' rating. The rating is in line with Russia's Long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR), which has a Stable Outlook.
"The eurobond issue is a significant event for the emerging market bond market as it marks the Russian sovereign's return to international capital markets for the first time since its default in 1998, excluding debt exchanges," says Ed Parker, Head of Emerging Europe in Fitch's Sovereigns team.
The issue will be used for general governmental purposes, in effect financing part of the 2010 budget deficit. The 2010 budget allows the government to borrow up to a ceiling of USD18bn externally this year, but Fitch expects it will borrow substantially less. The agency is forecasting a federal budget deficit of 3.8% of GDP (USD55bn) in 2010 (based on an Urals oil price of USD78/b), significantly below the deficit of 6.8% of GDP envisaged in the 2010 budget (based on Urals USD58/b).
In addition to net domestic bond issuance, which Fitch forecasts at 1.25% of GDP in 2010 (USD18bn), the main source of financing for the budget deficit will be from the Reserve Fund, which contained USD52.9bn as of 1 April (down from USD60.5bn on 1 January 2010). In addition, the National Wealth Fund contained USD89.6bn on 1 April. The government could finance the entire budget deficit for 2010 and 2011 from these sources (based on Fitch's forecasts) and so does not need to issue eurobonds this year. However, in the agency's view it is a prudent step to re-access international markets before depleting the Reserve Fund, so as to maintain a buffer against the risk of a sharp drop in oil prices, as well as providing a new sovereign benchmark for other Russian borrowers.
On 22 January 2010, Fitch revised the Outlook to Stable from Negative on Russia's Long-term foreign currency IDR of 'BBB', reflecting greater economic and financial confidence in Russia following the rebound in oil prices, the start of economic recovery, a decline in inflation, an improvement in net private sector capital inflows, a reduction in downside risks in the banking sector and a smaller-than-expected 2009 budget deficit.
April 23, 2010 10:04
Interfax: Capital inflow to funds investing in Russian shares continues, $106 mln over week – experts
MOSCOW. April 23 (Interfax) - The inflow of capital to funds investing in Russian and Commonwealth of Independent States country stocks continues for a tenth straight week and totaled $106 million for the period April 15-21, according to Emerging Portfolio Fund Research (EPFR)
From January 1 to April 21, capital inflow to these funds amounted to $1.7 billion, Vladimir Kuznetsov, an analyst with the investment company UniCredit Securities, told Interfax.
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Financial Times: Russia bond success fuels spending fears
By Catherine Belton, Courtney Weaver and Charles Clover,in Moscow
Published: April 23 2010 03:00 | Last updated: April 23 2010 03:00
Russia's return to the international debt markets for the first time in a decade, raising $5.5bn at rates far lower than its emerging market peers, underpins the country's turnround from just over a year ago when economic crisis forced it to use hard currency reserves at an alarming pace.
Investors jumped to participate in Russia's oil-fuelled recovery. Reserves have recovered to $456.3bn (€343bn, £297bn), as higher oil prices fuel rouble strengthening and boost budget revenues by $5bn a month more than projected.
"It's a long time since they tapped the market and oil prices and the size of reserves all look good from a macro point of view," said Ian Hague, co-founder of the New York-based Firebird Fund, which invests in Russia. He added: "The demand for quality emerging market paper is probably as high as I've ever seen it."
But some economists say Russia's return to international borrowing markets at cheap rates could make it harder in future for the government to rein in runaway spending, while the budget is becoming ever more dependent on the oil price.
"The cheaper the money, the less impetus there will be to change budget policy," said Anton Strouchenevsky, economist at Troika Dialog investment bank in Moscow.
The country's return to the capital markets comes as years of tight fiscal policy spearheaded by Alexei Kudrin, the finance minister, look to be ending.
Since the crisis, the Russian budget has become more dependent on the oil price, making the economy more vulnerable to the price shocks that helped send GDP growth down to minus 9 per cent last year.
As government spending rises, the oil price at which the Russian budget breaks even has risen to $105 per barrel this year from prices of $20 to $30 per barrel in the years up to 2007, according to Russia's Alfa Bank. In 2008, it was $60 and in 2009 it was $99.
"The deficit has grown rapidly in recent years," said Odd Per Brekk, of the International Monetary Fund, referring to the budget deficit. Without taking account of oil revenues, it stood at 15 per cent of GDP in 2009. Including oil revenues, the overall budget deficit could be above 3 per cent this year, compared with 6.8 per cent forecast by the government.
"While the government's low debt and ample reserves meant it had room to respond to the global crisis by relaxing fiscal policy, the response has increased the underlying budget deficit and exacerbated
[Moscow's] dependence on the oil price. A larger underlying budget deficit means solving the problems in the mid-term has become more challenging."
Much of the government's increased anti-crisis spending went towards permanent items such as transfers to regions instead of anti-crisis projects such as infrastructure and targeted social support that could be unwound once the economy recovered, Mr Brekk said. "This increased spending may prove difficult to reverse or offset," he added.
State investment in "the national economy", a murky line item in the budget that designates state support for enterprises, has also climbed in recent years, though spending this year has declined slightly.
"Between 2005 and 2009, spending on the national economy increased seven times," says Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog.
"It would be better to balance the budget first and then borrow."
Mr Kudrin is moving to reduce the deficit. He is locking horns with the politically entrenched state oil barons in an attempt to reduce tax holidays for the development of new fields, which could win an extra $4bn in revenues this year. He is also considering an increase in payroll tax.
The stakes are high. "What keeps Kudrin awake at night is the fear that the oil price could go down," said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib investment bank in Moscow. "He fought for the creation of the stabilisation fund that stored Russia's oil windfalls to help fund future pension payments. At the end of 2008, it looked as if the fund would be down to zero by the end of this year. He does not want to repeat that nightmare."
Reuters: Russian rouble rises, prompting c.bank to step away
RUSSIA-ROUBLE/ (URGENT)
MOSCOW, April 23 (Reuters) - Russia's central bank shifted the rouble's floating trading band for the 30th time since mid-February on Friday, allowing the currency to hit new 16-month highs versus the basket and the euro, dealers said.
In the first few minutes of trading on the MICEX exchange, the central bank shifted its floating corridor to 33.50-36.50 roubles against the euro-dollar basket from 33.55-36.65 after buying around $700 million at the previous boundary, dealers said.
"Looks like the central bank has stepped away after its usual $700 million of purchases. The rouble is being supported by Russian exporters," said a dealer at a major Western bank in Moscow.
By 0619 GMT, the rouble had climbed as far as 33.5055 versus the basket -- its strongest since December 2008, according to Reuters data.
(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; editing by Toni Vorobyova)
Russia Today: Russia looks to attract, secure savings
23 April, 2010, 10:47
Flourishing years of economic growth and rising incomes have seen people spend almost all of it. The crisis cooled the shopping spree and made people think it might be a good idea to put something away for a rainy day.
Only half of the Russian population has a savings account. The figure was even lower before the financial crisis, but still too few people in the future.
In the past entire life savings were wiped out when a bank collapsed. But the government now has a generous bank insurance system, which guarantees deposits of up to 25 thousand, says Deposit Security Agency Deputy General Director, Andrey Melnikov.
“Deposits are everything. It's obvious from the savings pattern of both, people who earn a little and those who earn a lot. There is a tendency now of investing less in real estate or financial instruments. People have greater faith in bank savings because of the deposit security system.”
The effect of the crisis might last for 2 years as Russians have less money to save or invest. But the fast growing domestic equity markets, which doubled in value last year, are persuading more people to take the risk, says Andrey Babiyan, deputy head of private assets management at Alfa Captial.
“There are 2 types of clients, the one who want to preserve money – their percentage has dropped from 80% to around 40%, the second are the ones who want profits and are ready to take all the risks. They account for around 60% of our new business now. But we are talking about 2% of the country's population who knows what investments are.”
Historically, persuading Russians to save has been difficult. With inflation sometimes in the high teens, the surest way to realize the value of money earned was to spend it. But the economy is changing, inflation is at record lows and average income is rising, so people now have both the means and motive to save.
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
Bloomberg: Norilsk Nickel, Polyus Gold, Rosneft: Russian Equity Preview
By Lucian Kim
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- The following companies may be active in Russian trading. Stock symbols are in parentheses and share prices are from the previous close of trading in Moscow.
The 30-stock Micex slipped 1.5 percent to 1,443.36 at the close in Moscow. The dollar-denominated RTS Index lost 1.7 percent to 1,583.54.
OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel (GMKN RX): Copper prices fell as concerns that European budget deficits will widen spurred sales of riskier assets including metals. Shares in Russia’s largest miner dropped 2.3 percent to 5,359.94 rubles.
OAO Polyus Gold (PLZL RX): Gold futures declined more than 1 percent as the dollar’s rally eroded the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative investment. Shares in Russia’s biggest gold producer slid 3.2 percent to 1,396.78 rubles.
OAO Rosneft (ROSN RX): Crude oil dropped for the first time in three days after the European Union said Greece’s budget deficit last year was worse than previously forecast, sending equities and the euro lower. Shares in Russia’s state oil company declined 1.6 percent to 238.46 rubles.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lucian Kim in Moscow at lkim3@
Last Updated: April 22, 2010 22:00 EDT
Reuters: Sberbank sees margin decline by 150 bps in 2010—RIA
4:19am EDT
MOSCOW, April 23 (Reuters) - Sberbank Russia's biggest lender, became more pessimistic about interest margins this year forecasting a decline of up to 150 basis points.
The state-controlled major, however, sticks with its previous forecast that net profit in 2010 will exceed 100 billion roubles ($3.44 billion).
"I think in reality the margin will decline by at least 1.5 percentage points and may be even more," RIA news agency quoted the bank's chief executive officer German Gref as saying.
In 2009, Sberbank had an interest margin of 7.8 percent.
Sberbank has earlier said it may see its interest margin decline by around 100 basis points this year [ID:nLDE62H1VE].
(Reporting by Dmitry Sergeyev; Editing by Lidia Kelly)
Moscow Times: Mechel’s Romania Purchase
23 April 2010
Steel and coking coal producer Mechel said Thursday that it had acquired a controlling stake in the Romanian Laminorul Braila steel plant for about 9.4 million euros ($13 million).
The plant’s key production facilities include two rolling mills with a capacity of more than 380,000 metric tons a year.
(MT)
Reuters: Russia's Irkut plans $5 bln Malaysian plant-paper
Fri Apr 23, 2010 6:52am IST
KUALA LUMPUR, April 23 (Reuters) - Russian aircraft maker Irkut (IRKT.MM) will build a $5 billion plant in Malaysia, a newspaper reported on Friday, quoting Malaysia's defense minister.
The New Straits Times cited Ahmad Zahid Hamidi as saying the facility would cover research and development, design, manufacture of components and parts and maintenance services for the defence and aerospace industries.
A spokesman for the minister confirmed the newspaper report.
"In total, Irkut has entered into 28 memoranda of agreement with various local parties to produce locally, under licence, an array of parts and components not only for the Malaysian market but also for global requirements," the paper quoted Zahid as saying.
It said the plant would be located in a technology park to be built in the northern state of Perak. (Reporting by Liau Y-Sing; Editing by Anshuman Daga)
2010-04-23 08:56
RBC: Rostelecom to buy into Russian IT company
RBC, 23.04.2010, Moscow 10:46:39.The board of directors of Rostelecom has approved the purchase of a 25-percent stake in the Russian IT company NVision Group, the RBC Daily newspaper reported today citing a source close to the national operator of domestic and long-distance communication services. The total amount of the deal is estimated at $50m. Rostelecom is also poised to enter into an option agreement to purchase the remaining 75 percent of the Russian system integrator's shares.
"Rostelecom's entry to the IT and communications market is in line with the modern development trends of such global telecommunication companies as Deutsche Telekom and British Telecom," chairman of Rostelecom's strategic committee Konstantin Malofeyev told the publication.
Analysts believe that the company's new financial scheme will allow it to attain a number of important goals: form a team of competent personnel, optimize the group's money flow (thanks to the distribution of taxation obligations), and make profit by entering into projects with other companies.
Reuters: BRIEF-Russia's TMK sees Q1 EBITDA above $200 mln
MOSCOW, April 23 (Reuters) - TMK:
• ESTIMATES Q1 EBITDA EXCEEDED $200 MLN
• ESTIMATES Q1 REVENUE CAME IN AT AROUND $1.3 BILLION
• CO MAINTAINS EXPECTATIONS OF 20 PCT Y/Y INCREASE IN 2010 SHIPMENT VOLUMES
• 2009 NET LOSS $324 MILLION (REUTERS POLL FORECAST NET LOSS $271 MILLION)
• 2009 EBITDA $328 MILLION (REUTERS POLL FORECAST EBITDA $371 MILLION)
• 2009 REVENUE $3.46 BILLION (REUTERS POLL FORECAST REVENUE $3.42 BILLION)
• CO EXPECTS POSITIVE Q1 TRENDS TO CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
(Moscow Newsroom, + 7 495 775 12 42, moscow.newsroom@)
Moscow Times: Cherkizovo Shares Priced
23 April 2010
Cherkizovo’s share sale was priced at $20.25 per Global Depositary Receipt, according to the transaction’s terms.
MB Capital Partners, the company’s main shareholder, may raise as much as $102 million from the sale, Vedomosti reported.
(Bloomberg)
Meat International: Atria eyes massive Russian expansion 23 Apr 2010
Atria, a Finnish meat and food processing company, has launched a new meat processing plant in Gorelovo industrial zone (Leningrad region).
By Evgen Vorotnikov
According to Russian business daily RBC, the new plant will have a capacity to process up to 90 tonnes of meat per day, which will allow Atria to occupy leading positions in the European part of Russia.
Matti Tikkakoski, CEO of Atria said the company’s customer base in Russia covers about 25 million people. In the short-term the company is planning to occupy leading position in the European part of the Urals, which has about 100 million potential consumers.
Increasing its own production capacities will allow the Atria to start a massive expansion of the Russian meat market. Currently the company owns a pig-breeding complex in the Moscow region, and plans to invest 40 million euros in the development of Dan Invest farms - a subsidiary of the Danish AS Dan Invest, which 26% stake is owned by Atria.
The Gorelovo plant will specialize in the production sausages and cooked sausages under the “Pit-product” brand. Sergey Ivanchenko, an executive director of Atria Russia, says the company expects further specialization in Russia.
The Gorelovo plant will be the second Atria’s facility in the Leningrad region after Sinyavino plant, which specializes in the production of smoked sausage. The company also has a Moscow plant which produces products under the Campomos brand.
RUVR: Citroen, Mitsubishi to launch car production in Kaluga
|Apr 23, 2010 10:27 Moscow Time |
France's Peugeot Citroen and Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corporation are to launch car production in Russia, Interfax news agency reported. The investments in the project amount to € 470 million. On the first stage the plant in the Kaluga region, south west from Moscow will produce 45,000 cars annually.
Moscow Times: For the Record
23 April 2010
• Gazprom Global LNG and Sempra LNG, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, signed an agreement that will allow GGLNG to supply liquefied natural gas to Sempra LNG’s receipt terminal in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the United States. (Bloomberg)
• Russian Railways may sell as much as 35 percent of Transcontainer this year, the company said Thursday, after its board gave preliminary approval for an initial public offering of the unit’s shares. (Bloomberg)
• The Central Bank has room to cut its refinancing rate “slightly” as there are no risks of inflation accelerating significantly, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said Thursday, Interfax reported. (Bloomberg)
RusBizNews: Construction Reloaded
23.04.2010 — Analysis
Western business is again demonstrating interest to the construction industry in the Urals. According to experts the financial situation is gradually stabilising which means the Urals Federal District in the future can expect long term funding from abroad. The RusBusinessNews correspondent has been looking into what foreign investors should expect to get in the Urals market.
It is easy for the Finns to build a house...
The Sverdlovsk Oblast government today sets ambitious goal for the development of the housing construction. The Governor Aleksandr Misharin has ordered that 1.7 million square metres of housing should be built in 2010 and by 2013 this indicator should reach 3 million. In order to achieve this goal the work is being carried out in the Oblast to increase the demand. All possible means are being considered - mortgages, subsidies, State funded support programmes. Within the framework of various projects 4,000 flats will be purchased with the state-provided money in the Mid Urals in 2010.
The commitment of the authorities could not go unnoticed by investors. In February 2010 the Finnish investment and construction company YIT has increased the registered share capital of its subsidiary YIT Uralstroi by 40 million Euro. Juhani Pitkakoski, the President of YIT, told RusBusinessNews that his company is planning to considerably increase volumes of the housing construction in the region.
"We consider the Sverdlovsk Oblast a region with good prospects that has good history and structure for the development in our changing world. It has a significant deferred demand for high quality state of the art housing which enables us to pin great hopes on YIT Uralstroi", Mr Pitkakoski pointed out.
YIT Uralstroi has been working for three years and in this time the company has built several housing estates in Verkhnyaya Pyshma and Ekaterinburg. In the nearest future the company is planning the construction of a housing estate in the Urals capital and the implementation of the integrated development of an area in the Severny neighbourhood of Verkhnyaya Pyshma.
At the moment registered share capital of YIT Uralstroi amounts to 1 billion roubles. The management of the company is convinced that this money would be enough to complete all the works successfully. However, when necessary, getting loans in foreign banks is possible.
The South Urals and Oman enter a "construction union"
Foreigners demonstrate interest to the Chelyabinsk Oblast. Mohammed bin Awad bin Abdul-Rahman al Hassan, the Ambassador of the Omani Sultanate to Russia, has visited the region in March 2010. Oman is considering the prospects of cooperation with the South Urals in the construction and construction material production sectors. According to Mr al Hassan the Chelyabinsk Oblast is well known in his country as the industrial centre of Russia with rich opportunities for investments.
At the moment, Insi, a South Urals group of companies, is conducting negotiations on the implementation of an investment project in Oman that provides for the construction of a plant specialising on the production of fast-erect buildings for industry or housing. At the moment the foreign party is considering which technologies and products from Insi would be in demand and in what quantities. Precise parameters of the project will be decided upon within the nearest two months.
The Urals opening doors to foreigners
Vadim Shumkov, the Director of the Department of Investment Policy and State Support of Entrepreneurship of the Tyumen Oblast, point out that on the whole at the moment there is some interest from foreign investors. "This is confirmed by the fact that the negotiations which we conducted two years ago on one of the large projects are now entering the final stage after which the implementation of the project proper will start. At this time we are closely monitoring 3 projects with foreign investment. These are MESA Formwork, production of concrete mould systems, Turkey, MC-Bauchemie Russia, production of dry construction mixes (Russia-Germany), Knauf Insulation, production of heat insulation materials (Germany). Moreover, about ten medium sized and large regional companies implementing projects in the sphere of construction materials production have purchased and are purchasing technologically novel imported equipment", says Mr Shumkov.
According to him the Russian Federation in the last decade has been an active market on whose growth it was possible to make good money. At the moment large companies which have long term strategies and clear understanding of market trends are continuing to work. Those who do not have this understanding or for those for whom the drop in the key production was unexpected and catastrophic are ending negotiations or postpone them for indefinite times. On the whole, however, the trend of the livening interest is there and will remain.
"For a long time still it will be possible to make several times more money in Russia than in Europe on the production of similar products. The question is which products and where. For instance in the time past investments went into cement, foam concrete, bricks and dry mixes, and everything needed for the high rise construction and commercial real estate (concrete moulds, metal structures, window profile), while regions of growth were Moscow and Sochi. Now you have to look for different trends in both products and regions. The crisis notwithstanding, low rise construction is growing, new technologies and constructions are coming into use", Mr Shumkov points out.
Investment companies do understand this which is why, despite the crisis, they are trying to continue their work in the Urals Federal District. For instance, Yamata yatirim inşaat turizm ve ticaret a.ş., a Turkish company, is building very actively in Yamal. At the moment the Turks are building the Yuribei hotel in Salekhard. Moreover, the company is the main contractor in the construction of the new building of the Kartavozh boarding school which has started in March 2010.
"I reckon that the market has started to liven up, foreign companies are starting to come into not only the construction proper, but into the construction industry as well. For instance, at the moment we have the Swiss OMIA and Maxit, a part of the French Saint-Gobain Group, implementing projects here", Yuri Chumerin, the Director of the Union of Companies of the Construction Sector of the Sverdlovsk Oblast, pointed out.
Since September 2009 OIMA is working on the construction of the ground marble plant in Polevskoy. The capacity of the enterprise will amount to about 300 thousand tons of products per year. Some of its products will be exported to European countries and Turkey. Maxit will establish a dry construction mixes plant on the same site.
Moreover, according to Mr Chumerin, PERI is continuing to work in the Urals; PERI is one of the world's largest organisations specialising in the supply of concrete moulds and scaffolding. In Ekaterinburg the company participated in the construction of the third train of the Antaeus Business Centre.
Waiting two years for what was promised
Experts point out that the return of foreign investors to the Urals will not be too rapid. The financial crisis has delivered too powerful a blow to the construction industry, the market virtually froze due to the lack of funding which is why the investors' interest will be restoring gradually.
"Recalling to the experience of personal negotiations with Knight Frank, London, on the project of the construction of the "Technoborough in Crop Farming" I can reaffirm that our construction market is really interesting for foreign companies due to its high earning power. This applies to mid-term prospects, and not to the short-term plans, because the "thaw" has just begun and the real recovery will happen in two-three years time", RusBusinessNews was told by Alexey Kozyukov, the Director of API Land Fund of the Urals.
It is worth mentioning that the "Technoborough in Crop Farming" project envisages the construction of industrial area, warehousing and logistics facility, trade and exhibition sector, and a business centre. It is planned to build these facilities on an area of 68.5 hectares. VUZ Bank JSC is the investor of the project. At the moment the negotiations are ongoing on the participation in the project of Knight Frank, the leading global consulting company in the high quality real estate markets.
According to Mr Kuzyukov foreign investors are more conservative than Russian and assess risks more carefully which is why so far they are still just looking. Only a few projects start working like, for instance, the 2009 deal between the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company and METRO which purchased from the industrialists the plot for the construction of their next hypermarket. Some livening of the participation of Russian and Sverdlovsk Oblast banks in the investment into and crediting of construction projects would be a good signal for foreigners to start concrete actions. Because if Russian bankers do not start investing into local projects then how can we convince foreigners of their attraction?
As well as the participation of the banks, authorities should also take steps for the increase of the investment attractiveness of the regions. "Many foreign investors today are not prepared to go into the regions as this is too risky for them. First of all, and this is a common knowledge, the construction market is extremely far from being transparent and a lot here depends on who you know, on connections with officials. Secondly, even Ekaterinburg market has some examples when foreign players encountered serious difficulties. Strabag, an Austrian company that declared itself to be a general contractor for the construction of the Akademicheskiy neighbourhood, can serve as an example, nothing is heard from them at the moment", commented a real estate expert Tatiana Shushakova, the Director for Development of Ekbrealty.ru.
According to her the construction market, while being highly profitable, presents high risks to foreign companies. It is better to come to the Urals region with your business in partnership with a strong local player who already has certain strong links with representatives of authorities. It cannot be ruled out, however, that in the next year or two the situation will change as the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin instructed the Prosecutor's Office to check the adherence to the city construction laws in the regions. He listed as priorities getting rid of the rigidity of the bureaucratic machine when approval of new projects takes years, and severing the shadow links between developers and authorities.
According to Konstantin Selyanin, a stock exchange analyst, foreign companies will start coming to the market more actively in two years time when the situation in the market is back to normal. "When the demand for real estate starts to grow, when incomes of Russian people increase, then the Urals will be more attractive for foreigners", the expert believes.
Maria Truskova
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
Moscow Times: Russia to Consume More Saudi Oil
23 April 2010
Bloomberg
PARIS — Ibrahim al-Muhanna, an adviser to Saudi Arabia’s Petroleum Ministry, said India, Russia and Brazil would become “major” oil consumers over this decade and that the share of Saudi crude shipped to Europe will decrease.
“Within 10 years, if the trend of current economic growth continues, there are likely to be three additional major consumption centers: India, Russia and Brazil,” al-Muhanna said. “International oil demand will become more highly diversified.”
Oil futures have rebounded 70 percent over the past year on confidence that the economic recovery will boost demand. On April 13, the International Energy Agency raised its 2010 global oil consumption forecast by 30,000 barrels a day to 86.6 million a day, citing demand in North America and the Asia-Pacific region. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said April 14 that Brazil and Russia would continue to drive growth.
Bloomberg: BG, Eni Venture Said to Face $2.5 Billion of Kazakh Claims
April 23, 2010, 3:25 AM EDT
By Nariman Gizitdinov
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- The Kazakh government is demanding at least $2.5 billion from an oil venture led by BG Group Plc and Eni SpA after talks stalled on the state’s entry into the project, said two people with knowledge of the matter.
The Central Asian state slapped the venture, Karachaganak Petroleum Operating BV, with tax and environmental claims last year, and sued for “illegal earnings” this year, after the producer demanded $1.4 billion in tax rebates, said the people, who declined to be identified before a settlement.
Kazakhstan is aiming to gain more revenue from resource projects developed under production-sharing agreements, which allow investors to recoup costs before the government profits. Karachaganak is the only major Kazakh oil development without state participation.
The dispute mirrors changes at the Kashagan project, the country’s biggest oil development. In 2008, partners led by Eni agreed to pay higher royalties and cede shares to state-run KazMunaiGaz National Co. after the government condemned cost overruns and delays. The phase that runs from 2002 to 2014 may cost more than $38 billion.
“Investors are getting more and more concerned,” said Ana Jelenkovic, a London-based analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting company. “There’s going to be increasing noise from international companies but ultimately it’s not that shocking anymore what the government is doing.”
Amicable Resolution
The Karachaganak partners want to understand the basis of the Kazakh claims and resolve the dispute amicably, said a person familiar with their plans, who declined to be identified before the issues are settled.
Francesca Ciardiello, a spokeswoman for Karachaganak Petroleum in Aksai, Kazakhstan, declined to comment on the figures in an e-mailed response to questions, saying “there are various issues that are currently under negotiation or investigation.” BG spokesman Neil Burrows referred questions to the venture. Eni spokesman Filippo Cotalini declined to immediately comment.
The government aims to eliminate many of the benefits provided by PSAs, which were signed before KazMunaiGaz was created, Jelenkovic said in a telephone interview. “There aren’t a lot of ways to influence the international consortium except by legislative and regulatory tools.”
Before the 2008 Kashagan agreement, Kazakh regulators filed environmental complaints against the project, while legislators passed amendments to the subsoil law allowing the state to annul contracts unilaterally.
‘Illegal Earnings’
Last year, the government prepared $1.8 billion of arbitration claims based on environmental damages, back taxes and fines against Karachaganak Petroleum, the two people said.
Investigators are also probing “illegal earnings” of 104 billion tenge ($709 million) for 2008 oil output that hadn’t been approved by the state, Kazakhstan’s economic crimes agency said last month.
The total claims exceed the amount the government faced paying Karachaganak in tax rebates and a possible $1 billion for a 10 percent stake in the project, the two people said. The venture suspended its tax case in December in favor of negotiations, they said.
Neither Karachaganak nor its shareholders are in talks with the government about altering the percentage ownership in the venture, Ciardiello said.
Stake or Taxes
BG Group, based in Reading, England, and Italy’s Eni are the largest shareholders in Karachaganak Petroleum, each with a 32.5 percent stake, while Chevron Corp. has a 20 percent interest and OAO Lukoil, Russia’s biggest non-state oil producer, holds 15 percent.
“You can think of it as the government paying a billion back for taxes and getting the stake essentially for free,” Jelenkovic said. The government may also forego a stake and be satisfied with changing the tax regime, she said.
The government is in discussions with Karachaganak about having the venture pay taxes under current legislation, rather than its PSA, which sets fixed rates, Novosti-Kazakhstan said April 21, citing Oil and Gas Minister Sauat Mynbayev.
Karachaganak has paid the government more than 8 billion tenge in “damages” for the period of 1999 to 2005, while two employees were under investigation for tax evasion, the Kazakh economic crimes and corruption agency said on April 12. The two women were convicted earlier this month, given suspended sentences of three years each and fined.
Expel Foreigners
Kazakhstan has also threatened to expel foreigners working at the venture. Prosecutors have taken seven people to court for receiving work permits and visas through the venture rather than their employers who are Karachaganak shareholders, and has “questions on about 270” more, Alexander Ogay, an official at the Prosecutors General’s Office in Astana, said.
The setbacks faced by Karachaganak, and Kashagan before that, echo Russia’s moves to claw back control over resources being developed by international producers under agreements signed in the 1990s.
“The situation with Karachaganak is very similar to the Russian government’s dispute over Sakhalin-2,” Tatyana Kalachova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital’s Kazakh unit, said by e-mail.
State-run OAO Gazprom gained control of the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project from Royal Dutch Shell Plc under a December 2006 agreement, following months of threats from environmental regulators to halt the development.
While Kazakhstan may be using a “bully and buy-out” tactic, it isn’t seeking control, Jelenkovic said.
“It’s more economic than ideologically-driven,” she said. “It’s not an issue of national pride as in Russia. Kazakhstan is very dependent on the technology of the international oil companies.”
--With assistance from Eduard Gismatullin in London and Lucian Kim in Moscow. Editors: Torrey Clark, Amanda Jordan
To contact the reporter on this story: Nariman Gizitdinov in Almaty at ngizitdinov@
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Voss at sev@
Afrique en Ligne: New oil field discovered in Libya
Friday, Apr 23rd
Tripoli, Libya - Russian oil company, Tatneft, has discovered a new oil field at the exploration well 'A1-82 / 1', located in the Ghadames Basin, 500 kilometres south of Tripoli, the Libyan capital, the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) announced Thursday.
The results of the initial tests of this discovery, made in Block 82 with a depth of between 5.431 and 5.437 feet, indicate a production capacity of 415 barrels per day.
The block was the result of a partnership agreement, signed in 2007 between Tatn eft and the NOC, under which both companies will explore the oil deposit and share the product.
The NOC, which did not specify how many shares each party will get, said on its website that the discovery was the third of its kind made by Tatneft on the block.
Libya, the second largest producer of oil in Africa with 1.7 million barrels per day, has oil reserves estimated at 42 billion barrels.
The country plans to double its production and bring it to three million barrels per day in 2010.
Observers believe that Libya might have much more crude oil than though, as only one quarter of its territory is currently being explored.
Tripoli - Pana 23/04/2010
Gazprom
Apa.az: Romania to Join Russia’s South Stream Gas Project
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[ 23 Apr 2010 12:03 ] [pic]
Baku - APA-ECONOMICS. During an on-line interview with Romanian media, Romanian Economy Minister Adriean Videanu said his country will join the South Stream gas pipeline project. Videanu said, "We have been able to start a dialogue, including with Russia. South Stream will pass through Romania". He did not discuss any details of the negotiations.
On April 9 of this year, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said Romanian could not join South Stream as a transit country, but said Bucharest could receive gas from the South Stream pipeline by either sea or land.
23.04.2010
Oil and Gas Eurasia: Romania to Join Russia's South Stream Gas Project
During an on-line interview with Romanian media, Romanian Economy Minister Adriean Videanu said his country will join the South Stream gas pipeline project. Videanu said, "We have been able to start a dialogue, including with Russia. South Stream will pass through Romania". He did not discuss any details of the negotiations.
On April 9 of this year, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said Romanian could not join South Stream as a transit country, but said Bucharest could receive gas from the South Stream pipeline by either sea or land.
Copyright 2010, Oil and Gas Information Agency. All rights reserved.
Your Project News: Gazprom Group Inks Deal With Sempra LNG for Deliveries to U.S. Gulf Coast Terminal
Friday, Apr 23, 2010
Gazprom Global LNG Limited ("GGLNG") and Sempra LNG, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy /quotes/comstock/13*!sre/quotes/nls/sre (SRE 50.13, -0.02, -0.04%) , today signed an agreement that will allow GGLNG to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Sempra LNG's receipt terminal in Lake Charles, La., near the U.S. Gulf Coast. The agreement provides GGLNG with another route to supply the United States with LNG from its growing portfolio and provides the Cameron LNG terminal with natural gas for the U.S. Gulf Coast and East Coast.
Under the terms of this multi-year agreement, GGLNG will pay Sempra LNG for the right to sell and deliver up to two LNG cargoes per month to the Cameron LNG terminal at a pre-determined price formula. The deal will commence in June 2010.
"We are very excited about the deal, which will help Gazprom group achieve its goal of expanding its LNG portfolio in the Atlantic Basin," Frederic Barnaud, President and Managing Director of GGLNG said. "This arrangement also provides Sempra LNG with access to additional LNG supplies. Our agreement is another important milestone in the growing relationship between Gazprom group and Sempra LNG."
In April 2009, Gazprom affiliates, under long-term assignment from Royal Dutch Shell, took capacity in Sempra LNG's Energia Costa Azul LNG terminal in Baja California, Mexico (the first LNG receipt terminal built on the west coast of North America) and downstream gas pipelines. This capacity provides an outlet for Russian LNG to access markets in Mexico and the southwestern U.S.
"We are pleased to expand our business relationship with Gazprom, the world's largest producer of natural gas," Darcel L. Hulse, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sempra LNG commented.
About Gazprom Global LNG
Gazprom Global LNG Limited ("GGLNG") is a UK-registered 100%-owned subsidiary of OAO Gazprom, the world's largest gas company by asset base, accounting for 17% of the world's total natural gas reserves and for about 70% of natural gas reserves in Russia. GGLNG is headquartered in London and was established in 2008 to develop and grow Gazprom's world-wide LNG activities.
GGLNG is responsible for aggregating and optimizing Gazprom's LNG supplies and entering new markets through its LNG marketing and trading activities.
About Sempra LNG
Sempra LNG develops and operates LNG receipt terminals serving North American markets. Cameron LNG, which began commercial operations in July 2009, is capable of processing 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas. Sempra LNG's other receipt terminal, Energia Costa Azul, commenced operations in May 2008 and is capable of processing 1.0 Bcf/d. This project's capacity is fully subscribed.
Sempra LNG is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego with 2009 revenues of more than $8 billion.
Source: Marketwire
SteelOrbis: TMK delivers LD pipes for Gazprom’s Bovanenkovo-Ukhta project
Friday, 23 April 2010 10:20:05
Russia's largest oil and gas pipe producer TMK has announced that in April this year it has shipped a batch of longitudinal welded large diameter (LD) pipes to Russia's biggest gas company Gazprom for the construction of its Bovanenkovo-Ukhta gas trunkline system.
Accordingly, TMK delivered for Gazprom's Bovanenkovo-Ukhta project a total of 15,000 mt of 1,420 mm K65 grade longitudinal welded pipes with wall thickness of 27.7 mm, and with external three-layer polyethylene and internal protective coatings. This new pipe range is manufactured at TMK's subsidiary Volzhsky Pipe Plant, with the supply in question constituting the first-ever delivery.
TMK's pipes will be used for the construction of Gazprom's Bovanenkovo-Ukhta gas trunkline system of about 1,100 km, which is part of the Yamal-Europe natural gas pipeline project.
For the construction of the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta project, in 2010 TMK will deliver to Gazprom more than 70,000 mt of longitudinal welded LD pipes.
Moscow Times: Gazprom Becomes World's Most Profitable Company
23 April 2010
The Moscow Times
Gazprom overtook ExxonMobil as the most profitable company in the world, according to Forbes magazine's list of the 2,000 largest companies published Thursday (see below), but it lost ground on other metrics, leaving it at 16th place, down from 13th last year.
Gazprom raked in $24.33 billion according to this year's ranking, overtaking ExxonMobil, which reported profits of $19.28 billion.
Forbes uses an equal rating of sales, profits, assets and market capitalization to arrive at a cumulative ranking of size, with the market cap valued on March 1.
As in previous years' rankings, oil and gas firms dominate the Russian companies on the list. LUKoil, ranked 69th worldwide; Rosneft, 77th; TNK-BP, 157th; and Surgutneftegaz, 173rd, were five of Russia's six largest companies. Overall, oil and gas companies made up eight of the 28 Russian firms on the list.
Last year, the same number of Russian companies made the list, and only a few companies were replaced this year. Retailers Magnit and X5 Group edged out struggling auto producers AvtoVAZ and GAZ. PIK Group dropped off, as did Bashneft and Slavneft, both of which were acquired by other companies. The Federal Grid Company, Raspadskaya and Silvinit all made their first appearances on the list this year.
Sberbank earned a spot among the top 100 companies in the world this year, jumping up from 172nd to 93rd.
Companies from developing countries have gained increasing representation on the list over the past several years, displacing stalwarts from the developed world. Since 2005, Russia has seen 15 of its firms make their way onto the list. Other countries that have seen an increase of companies in the top 2,000 are China (88), India (26), Hong Kong (21) and Saudi Arabia (17).
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