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By Tom Balmforth, Russia Profile
March 17, 2010
As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived in Belarus to address the range of setbacks in Russian-Belarusian relations at a Union State summit, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko unexpectedly jetted off on a tour of South America, leaving his weak prime minister to deal with Putin. As a result, little was accomplished at the Union State summit in Brest, and Putin made some icy remarks about Belarus. The Belarusian government for its part denies that the timing of Lukashenko’s trip was provocative. Meanwhile some analysts suggest Lukashenko is playing his macho “Russia defiance” card, as the Belarusian presidential election campaign gets under way.
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Comment by Alexander Arkhangelsky, Special to RIA Novosti
March 17, 2010
The popular image of the Russian Interior Ministry has been so tarnished by scandal and outrage that a policeman’s uniform now symbolizes not order, but the main threat to public order. The Russian public is passing a verdict on the law enforcement agencies as dire and irreversible as that passed on the Communist Party of the Russia Federation in 1989. The police are now outcasts, and even selfless acts of bravery on the part of individual officers will not change that.
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By Tai Adelaja, Russia Profile
March 16, 2010
President Dmitry Medvedev must be growing pretty impatient with the habitual state of lull in the country’s high-tech sector. Over the past several weeks, he has stressed on no fewer than three occasions the need to “speed up” work on the construction of a planned high technology park. With eyes set on pooling together Russia’s finest talents, the president told a session of the Commission for Economic Modernization and Technological Development in the West Siberian city of Tomsk last month that he had decreed to create a major innovation development center in Russia. But how plausible is this idea in times of economic hardship?
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By Tom Balmforth, Russia Profile
March 16, 2010
After opposition outrage at blatant vote-rigging in Russia’s last local elections, this time round the ruling United Russia party conceded the opposition a few victories at the regional elections on Sunday. The elections were still highly managed, but opposition leaders said they were satisfied. Nonetheless, the elections, seen as a litmus test for party popularity, did surprise in the capital of Irkutsk region, where a Communist actually won the mayoral seat, suggesting that United Russia will have to pay attention to growing discontent around the controversial pulp and paper mill stationed on Russia’s precious freshwater Lake Baikal.
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By Graham Stack, Special to Russia Profile
March 15, 2010
Newly published memoirs by Lord Browne, the former chief executive officer of British Petroleum, cast new light on the Yukos affair just as Yukos shareholders filed a lawsuit for $50 billion against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights. The book includes an insider’s view of Russia’s oil oligarchs, which could hypothetically reinforce the claim that Khodorkovsky’s prosecution was politically motivated.
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By Svetlana Kononova, Special to Russia Profile
March 15, 2010
If you type “Russia” into any search engine on the Internet, you will probably find links to the words “oil,” “gas,” “vodka” and “beautiful women”. The country has always been famous for its beauties. Last week, 18-year old model Irina Antonenko won the Miss Russia 2010 competition and received a cash prize of $100,000. Born in Yekaterinburg in the Urals, she will represent Russia in the Miss Universe 2010 and the Miss World 2010 pageants. Antonenko’s victory has captured the attention of a public now taking more interest in beauty pageants, beauty queens and the modeling business in Russia.
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
March 12, 2010
President Dmitry Medvedev is halfway through his first presidential term this week. So, how is he fairing and where is he leading the nation? Overall, he is doing much better than many predicted, but is still falling short of the “great expectations” his presidency has created. What does Medvedev’s balance sheet look like halfway through his first term? Is he turning into a successful reformist president, or is he shaping up as another modernizing failure in Russia’s history? Will he emerge from Vladimir Putin’s shadow?
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Comment by Shaun Walker, Special to Russia Profile
March 12, 2010
Russians seem to take the Eurovision Song Contest, scheduled to take place in Oslo in late May of this year, extremely seriously indeed. Eurovision is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union, where each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs. Russians saw Dima Bilan’s 2008 victory in the contest as a triumph of the nation as a whole, but this year it’s not your run-of-the-mill pop star that has been chosen for the job– and it’s all thanks to the Internet.
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By Tom Balmforth, Russia Profile
March 11, 2010
This morning Ukraine’s new parliamentary coalition approved Mykola Azarov as prime minister in a tentative sign that Ukraine’s politics are finally calming down after tense, drawn-out presidential elections. After his rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, was ousted from the premiership last week, President Viktor Yanukovich managed to form a coalition to avoid holding unpredictable snap parliamentary elections whilst also voting in a loyal premier. But Yanukovich’s coalition building this past week went right to the wire, and some allege it is in breach of constitutional law.
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Russian secrets for sale, no questions asked
They are selling secrets along the shining corridors of the Savyolovsky Market: Unlisted numbers. Tax returns. Customs declarations. Wanted lists. Police reports. Car registrations. Business permits. Wrenched from the bowels of government by the forces of runaway capitalism and corruption, the hush-hush databases have made their way to this market in central Moscow where the windows of tiny shops glitter with cellphones, pirated DVDs and porn. Compressed on discs, frozen in Cyrillic letters, is a trove of petty squabbles and personal tragedies that make up the fabric of this vast and often lawless land. In a country where you have no right to know, but really you can know anything, anybody can anonymously buy discs burned with private information such as rape victimization, financial holdings and the suspicion of CIA involvement. Asking price (it's negotiable): $40 to $60.
Nobody asks whether the buyer is looking for a competitive edge, an address to plan a hit, research for a newspaper article. The sale of these databases is illegal, sure, but nobody seems to care. A few beat cops browse lazily among the stalls, studying cellphones. "Krysha," a vendor with matted dreadlocks and bloodshot eyes says slyly, stretching a flat hand over his head. "Roof" -- the word Russians use to denote protection. The roof is the person who has enough connections, and enough muscle, to shelter underlings from the authorities. When Russians talk about operating in Moscow -- opening a business, or even working as a journalist -- they will, almost inevitably, say the same thing: What you need is a roof.
"It's cool, right?" the vendor prods, jabbing a cigarette at the wall displays advertising available databases. "It's cool." A reporter settles on two discs: one purporting to contain all police reports in Russia throughout 2009, the other an amalgamation of cellphone numbers, addresses and professions. Both are packed with data technically off-limits to the public. "They get leaked, or else somebody hacks into official databases," says another vendor, a swarthy young man who gives his name only as Alexander. "It's not legal."
More...
Source: LA Times
New & Updated from Resources Section
Magomedsalam Magomedov
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Klepach: Economy May Grow 4.5% in ’10
The economy may grow 4 percent to 4.5 percent this year, higher than the official forecast of 3 percent to 3.5 percent, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said Tuesday. "According to the official forecast, GDP growth in 2010 will amount to 3 percent to 3.5 percent, but it's a conservative estimate. The most realistic estimate of the GDP growth is 4 to 4.5 percent," he told a forum in Moscow.
Klepach also said that even a 6 percent increase was possible this year if the kind of growth seen in the third and fourth quarter of 2009 continued. The economy shrunk by 7.9 percent last year, the worst drop for the last 15 years, the State Statistic Service said in February. Analysts largely share the government's optimistic growth forecast, saying a recovery in consumer demand is likely to spur the economy forward. Domestic demand will increase and government spending will remain at last year's level, said Mark Rubinstein, an analyst at Metropol. And while a lack of business investment will be a major problem in 2010, it will likely rebound in the second half, he said.
Rubinstein added that his own forecast for 2010 GDP growth stood at 4.4 percent. Renaissance Capital said earlier this month that it expected the economy to grow 4.2 percent over 2010, according to its leading GDP indicator. Klepach said stable economic growth was possible as early as the second half of this year, even if the oil price falls to $65 to $70 per barrel.
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Source: The Moscow Times
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Hollywood’s Best Villain
By Mumin Shakirov
Contemporary Hollywood is not too fond of “outsiders,” but this doesn’t stop those who have ambition and an iron will. The fall of the Iron Curtain opened the way for a new generation of Russian performers. More..
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