March 8: International Women’s Day public holiday.

Russia100308

Basic Political Developments

  • Hurriyet: Putin pledges more gender equality in Russia - "There is still plenty, plenty for us to do in the country, in Russia - on the protection of motherhood and childhood, on access for women to various kinds of work, to equal payment, to equal work conditions," the president-turned-premier said in his brief televised address.
  • Japan Times: Okada setting up three summits between Hatoyama, Medvedev - Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Sunday he will work with Russia on arranging three summits with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this year to press for the return of four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido.
  • Bernama: Seoul Mulls Warning For Tourists To Moscow Following Attacks On South Korean - South Korea is considering issuing a travel warning for students and tourists heading to Moscow, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday, as a South Korean student in the Russian capital remained hospitalised following what appeared to be the latest in a series of hate crimes against people of "non-Slavic" appearance.
  • Reuters: Iran gives Russia pilots two months to leave: report - Iran has given Russian commercial pilots working in the Islamic Republic two months to leave the country as it has no need for them, Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani was quoted as saying on Saturday.
  • Global Post: Kremlin youth group embraces North Korea - Nashi, the Kremlin-run youth group created a few years ago to support the leadership of Vladimir Putin, is in fact called the "Democratic Anti-Fascist Youth Movement NASHI," if we want to be precise about it. Being "democratic," they gave into popular demand this week and published on their website a series of gruesome North Korean posters showing U.S. troops raping and pillaging, murder and torturing their way across Korea.
  • RIA: Somali pirates release fishing vessel with Russian crew
  • BarentsObserver: Norwegian investment in Russia worth 22 billion
  • Interfax: Patriarch Kirill to give Africa new bells as a present - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia during his visit to Alexandria planned for spring is going to present a set of seven bells to Patriarch Feodor II of Alexandria.
  • RIA: Italian minister apologizes to Russian musicians for Pantheon scandal
  • Itar-Tass: Medvedev disbands federal agencies for science and education - The president disbanded the Federal Agency for Science and Innovations and the Federal Agency for Education for the purpose of “optimising the structure of the federal executive branch”. The functions of the disbanded agencies will go to the Ministry of Education and Science.
  • Itar-Tass: Putin signs resolution on fuel discounts for agricultural producers - Sechin said 450,000 tonnes of petrol and about 2.5 million of diesel fuel would be supplies for this purpose in 2010.
  • Itar-Tass: SKP pinpoints roles of Ingushetia detainees, involved in train blast
  • Itar-Tass: Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev buys two London newspapers
  • Times: PROFILE: Alexander Lebedev - The billionaire former KGB man is buying up more British newspapers. Is he a committed democrat or a Kremlin Trojan horse?
  • : Intel Brief: Power Plant Politics - The closing of Lithuania’s only nuclear power plant in accordance with EU requirements will render it dependent on Russian energy and perhaps vulnerable to Kremlin influence
  • Georgian Daily: Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Eurasian Security - As NATO members debate among themselves the issue of reducing tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, Russia's Eurasian landscape may demand a broader focus for such discussions on this part of the nuclear equation because of the emerging explicit connections.
  • BarentsObserver: Russian Armed Forces cut to 1 million men
  • Georgian Daily: Few Russians Opt to Declare Their Nationality in the Russian Military, Commentator Says - When soldiers are asked to voluntarily list their nationality in military documents, a retired Russian officer says, “no more than five to seven percent” declare themselves to be Russians, even though that is what they are, thus raising the question “why do these boys not want to declare their nationality?
  • RFE/RL: Five Years After Maskhadov's Death, Situation In North Caucasus Remains Complex - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's recent appointment of Aleksandr Khloponin to oversee the North Caucasus was clearly intended to resolve those "bleeding problems." But with the insurgency growing in strength daily, time is not on Medvedev's side.
  • Georgian Daily: Russia’s President Visits North Caucasus Offering No Real Solution to its Main Problem - Acknowledging the complexity of the situation, Moscow is willing to take risks and undertake various initiatives that, according to its plans, will help alleviate the intensity of the armed resistance. But the focus is on physical elimination, rather than seeking an understanding of what motivates the armed resistance that is engulfing most of the North Caucasus.
  • RFE/RL: Inaction, Stigma Fuel Chechnya's TB Epidemic - Health experts say more than half of the patients reporting to Chechnya's tuberculosis hospitals already have severe, often irreversible lung damage. The disease killed as many as 139 people last year in Chechnya, with a population of just over 1 million.
  • The Georgian Times: Noghaideli Explains his Moscow Trips - I have my own plan, and it coincides with the public will. People just want to restore Georgia's chance to develop. Many have already realised that it is important to take further steps in this direction because Georgia will have no future without a due relationship with Russia.
  • Russia Today: Gas aftershock from Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia - People in the South Ossetian town of Leningor survived a war, but are now struggling to make it through the winter. They say that since Georgia’s devastating attack in 2008, it has blocked vital Russian gas supplies.
  • Telegraph: Dmitry Medvedev's Russia still feels the cold hand of Vladimir Putin - Dmitry Medvedev came to power amidst high hopes that Russia would liberalise, but the authoritarianism brought in by Vladimir Putin remains.
  • Time: Anti-Putin Movement Gains Confidence in Russia
  • Guardian: FC Moscow go out of business after owners pull plug on funding - Fans go on hunger strike in protest as Russian club drops out of the Premier League after Norilsk Nickel withdraws its backing
  • Russia Today: More women rise to corporate peaks - More and more women are taking senior-level positions in Russian business - according to a survey by PWC and the Russian Managers Association in the run up to International Women’s Day.
  • Pravda: 100 Years of International Women’s Day: Russia was the Pioneer of Women’s Rights
  • RIA: Toy balloons released into sky in Russian Far East anti-abortion flash mob
  • Hurriyet: Russia grapples with labor-migrant dilemma - Russia, which has the second largest population of foreign migrants in the world after the US, is preparing for a new, incoming wave of labor migrants for spring season. Government officials acknowledges that the Russian economy needs guest workers in order to promote a steady growth rate

National Economic Trends

  • Pravda: Russia May Lose Influence on Setting Oil and Gas Prices - “The demand on oil and gas will remain, of course, but it will be a different kind of demand, where the customer, not the producer, will dictate the prices,” Evgeny Gontmakher, a senior official with the Institute of Contemporary Development said.
  • Russia Profile” Cutting Across the Grain - Efforts to Resolve Russia’s Problem with a Grain Surplus Are Hindered by a Decrepit Infrastructure and Logistical Challenges

Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions

  • Steel Guru: Russian quota utilization for Ukraine
  • Steel Guru: Belon intends to invest in Kuzbass.
  • Your Induatry News: Mechel Announces Prolongation of Gazprombank’s Credit Facilities
  • BBC: What will save the Russian car industry? - Russia has decided to follow in the footsteps of some European countries and the US by introducing a car scrappage scheme in an attempt to save the country's automotive industry.
  • Bloomberg: Siemens to Start Russian Locomotive Production, FAZ Reports
  • BF News: AFI Development FY losses narrow to $2.66m
  • Businessneweurope: FUNDS: Pharos Miro agric fund gives investors something to chew on - Veteran Russian fund management group Pharos Financial and Dubai-based agribusiness specialist Miro Asset Management have teamed up to launch the Pharos Miro Agriculture Fund to tap into the evolving agricultural investment theme, with food and water resources increasingly regarded as important as oil and gas reserves were 40 years ago.
  • Russia Today: Taxes take the gloss off domestic printers

Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)

  • Xinhua: China-Russia oil pipeline to be completed this year: FM
  • RIA: Russia-China oil pipeline to be ready by yearend – minister
  • Balkans.com: Bosnian Serbs to join Russia-led gas pipeline
  • Steel Guru: LUKOIL provides loan to Astrakhanenergosbyt
  • OilVoice: Volga Gas Buys Into Gas Processing Facilities
  • Rigzone: RussNeft to Increase Oil Production at Tomsk Block
  • Oil & Gas Journal: Russians, Chinese eye new Arctic oil route

Gazprom

  • The Baltic Course: PM of Lithuania: Gazprom claim is entirely law-based
  • Reuters: Gazprom seeks $135 million compensation from Lithuania
  • BarentsObserver: Preparing for Shtokman hearings - A number of public hearings on the development of the Shtokman project will start this spring.
  • PR Inside: Songa Mercur secures contract with Gazflot LLC
  • Financial Times: Fears raised over process of extraction - “Every housewife in the US has heard of the term shale gas,” says Alexander Medvedev, deputy chief executive of Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled gas producer. “Not every housewife is aware of the environmental consequences of the use of shale gas...I don’t know who would take the risk of endangering drinking water reservoirs.” Mr Medvedev is no environmentalist and Gazprom has much to lose if shale gas becomes dominant in Europe, its main export market. But many analysts agree that environmental considerations will play a bigger role in Europe.

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Basic Political Developments

Hurriyet: Putin pledges more gender equality in Russia

Monday, March 8, 2010

MOSCOW – From wire dispatches

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday pledged to do more to promote gender equality in Russia as he congratulated women on Women's Day, one of the country's most beloved holidays.

"There is still plenty, plenty for us to do in the country, in Russia - on the protection of motherhood and childhood, on access for women to various kinds of work, to equal payment, to equal work conditions," the president-turned-premier said in his brief televised address.

In Russia, International Women's Day is a public holiday and celebrated with flair. But women's rights activists say glaring gender imbalances remain in society and Russian women for the most part do not take part in decision-making. There are currently only three women ministers in Russia and all of Putin's powerful deputies are men.

Activists said rates of domestic violence against women are alarming and sexual harassment in the workplace remains an issue in Russia. "We need to say it as it is - we still have things to work on," said Putin, who has cultivated an image of an alpha male and is considered the country's paramount leader. "And we will of course seek to solve all these tasks."

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Putin warned that Russia would occupy a part of Georgia two years before war broke out between the two neighbors. “In 2006, Putin told me he will create a northern Cyprus for us,” Saakashvili said in an interview published by Russian magazine Vlast on March 1. “It was a concrete war scenario, he really warned us.”

Saakashvili said Russia almost attacked in 2006, as tensions increased amid a spy scandal and Russia’s de facto economic embargo on Georgia. Only the tough stance taken by the European Union and the U.S. held back Putin then, he said.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Japan Times: Okada setting up three summits between Hatoyama, Medvedev

NEMURO (Kyodo)

Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Sunday he will work with Russia on arranging three summits with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this year to press for the return of four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido.

At a meeting with former residents of the disputed islands in Nemuro, Hokkaido, Okada said he hopes the two leaders will meet more than twice, which was the number of times they met last year.

"I want the two leaders to meet without fail whenever there is an opportunity to do so, taking advantage of opportunities such as international conferences" that both attend, the foreign minister said.

Earlier in the day, Okada repeated his resolve to get the islands back when he visited a cape in Nemuro to view the territory.

"They are really close when you look at them like this. I will do my best," he said.

The Soviet Union occupied the islands at the end of the war, preventing Tokyo and Moscow from signing a peace treaty

March 08, 2010 15:26 PM

Bernama: Seoul Mulls Warning For Tourists To Moscow Following Attacks On South Korean

SEOUL, March 8 (Bernama) -- South Korea is considering issuing a travel warning for students and tourists heading to Moscow, Seoul's foreign ministry said Monday, as a South Korean student in the Russian capital remained hospitalised following what appeared to be the latest in a series of hate crimes against people of "non-Slavic" appearance.
The move, if taken, could seriously undermine Russia's reputation as a tourist destination in the international community, Yonhap news agency cited ministry officials as saying.
"Issuing a travel warning requires careful deliberation as it may limit visits by our tourists to the area and it might also have a serious effect on the concerned nation," ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun told a press briefing.
"For now, the government is carefully reviewing the possibility of issuing a travel warning on Moscow," he added.
Before taking any official measures, the ministry spokesman advised people staying or traveling in Russia to move only in groups and to have a local guide at all times if possible.
The move comes after a 29-year-old South Korean student, identified only by his surname Shim, was attacked while on his way home from a shopping mall in the Russian capital on Sunday.
The assailant, who wore a white face mask, waited until the victim parted from his friends before stabbing him in the neck, according to officials from the South Korean embassy in Moscow, who cited eye witnesses. The suspect immediately fled the scene.
The incident came about three weeks after another South Korean student in the Siberian city of Barnaul, capital of the Altai region, was stabbed to death in what was believed to be a racially motivated crime by three Russian youths. Seoul has repeatedly requested Russia to help prevent the recurrence of such crimes.
But cases have continued, though they are not on a quick rise, according to ministry officials.
"The government again asked the central government of Russia and police authorities in local governments around Russia to take measures to prevent such incidents.
"They, of course, promised to actively cooperate, but we are trying to make sure such cooperation will actually take place," the ministry spokesman said.
The local police in Moscow were earlier said to believe the latest attack on the South Korean student, too, may have been racially motivated as it bore similarity to crimes carried out by Russian skinheads in the area.
Seoul's foreign ministry spokesman, however, said it was too early to presume the attack was racially motivated.
"There are views the crime was committed by a member of a racist gang, but it is hard to say all crimes against South Koreans are racially motivated," he said.
Shim, now in critical conditions, went to Russia six years ago and is currently enrolled at a cinema college in Moscow.
-- BERNAMA

Reuters: Iran gives Russia pilots two months to leave: report

Sat, Mar 6 2010

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has given Russian commercial pilots working in the Islamic Republic two months to leave the country as it has no need for them, Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani was quoted as saying on Saturday.

The move is a further sign of strains between Iran and Russia, which has indicated it could back new sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear work. For its part, Iran has voiced frustration over Moscow's failure to deliver a defense missile system.

Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency said the idea to order the Russian pilots to leave the country gained momentum after a Russian-made aircraft caught fire as it landed in northeastern Iran in January, injuring more than 40 people.

The plane belonged to Iran's Taban airline but the pilot was Russian, Fars said. It did not say how many Russians currently worked as pilots for Iranian airlines.

"Upon an order from the president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the Road and Transport Ministry has set a two-month deadline, upon the expiry of which all Russian pilots will have to leave the country," Behbahani said.

"When our country itself possesses plenty of professional and specialist pilots, there is no need to bring in pilots from abroad," he told Fars.

Iran has suffered a string of crashes in the past few decades, many involving Russian-made aircraft.

In 2009 a Tupolev aircraft flying to Armenia caught fire in mid-air and crashed, killing all 168 people on board.

U.S. sanctions against Iran have prevented it from buying new aircraft or spare parts from the West, forcing it to supplement its aging fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes with aircraft from Russia and other former Soviet states.