Nevsky Prospect - Russia breaks up protest with riot police

Russia breaks up protests with riot police

Russian police broke up anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Sunday, and detained more than 100 demonstrators, including several opposition leaders.
In Moscow, several hundred demonstrators gathered in a central square, defying a ban imposed by authorities.
They denounced the policies of President Dmitry Medvedev and his predecessor and mentor Vladimir Putin, who continues to wield broad powers as Russia’s powerful prime minister.
Protesters shouted “Shame!” and “Down with Putin!” as Moscow police in riot gear pushed them into buses. Police quickly dispersed a similar rally in St. Petersburg, detaining most of several dozen protesters who gathered on a downtown Nevsky Prospect. Some of the demonstrators were beaten with truncheons.

Russia holding 5 Georgian fishermen

TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia on Wednesday accused Russian authorities of illegally detaining five Georgian fishermen and demanded their immediate release.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry said five men were detained Tuesday while fishing in Georgian territorial Black Sea waters off the town of Anaklia. It said the Russian authorities accused the men of illegal fishing.
"A chain of Russia's extremely dangerous and dirty provocations still continues, and it has acquired a clear form of hunting people," the ministry said in a statement.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said that Russian coast guard detained nine fishermen off the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia and handed them over to Abkhaz authorities. He said those detained lacked proper IDs and fishing permits.
Neither Russian nor Georgian officials offered any explanation of the differing figures.
Moscow has recognized Georgian breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent nations following a five-day Russian-Georgian war last year. Russia has deployed its troops to both regions, and Russia's coast guard also patrol Abkhazia's Black Sea coast.
Nicaragua and Venezuela are the only nations that have followed suit in recognizing of the two regions' independence. The U.S., the EU and the rest of the world consider them part of Georgia.
Georgia also accused the Russian troops in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia of firing on a minibus that carried a four-year-old child to a hospital along with several other people. The ministry cited local residents as saying that several people were wounded during the incident that occurred early Wednesday. The claim could not be independently verified, and the Russian Foreign Ministry didn't comment on that.
Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war over South Ossetia and Abkhazia last year.
Russia recognized Georgia's breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations after the war. Nicaragua and Venezuela are the only nations that have followed suit. The U.S., the EU and the rest of the world consider them part of Georgia.

Another Human Rights Activist Killed in Russia

A prominent human rights activist in Russia's southern province of Ingushetia has been shot dead in at least the third killing of an opposition figure in the volatile North Caucasus region in as many months.

An opposition activist and businessman from Russia's Ingushetia region in the country's southwest was shot and killed in his car on Sunday. Local authorities reported that Maksharip Aushev was driving near the town of Nalchik in the nearby region of Kabardion-Balkaria when his car was sprayed with automatic-weapon fire. The attack also seriously wounded a passenger.
According to the opposition website, the attack took place on a main road, but the full circumstances remained unclear. Aushev was a strong critic of the region's former president, Murat Zyayikov, and had led protests to publicize human rights abuses allegedly committed by government security forces.

Colleagues of the slain activist are shocked and many have spoken out, including Yunus-Bek Yevkorov, the Kremlin appointee who took over the position of regional president a year ago. In a statement on his website, Yevkorov said the killing was an attempt to destabilize the situation in Ingushetia and that he would personally take charge of the investigation.
Alexander Cherkasov, from the human rights group Memorial, told Echo of Moscow radio that Aushev had received threats and that in recent weeks he feared the secret services would take revenge.

Attacks on the rise

This is just the latest in an increasing number of attacks over the past few months in the North Caucasus. In July, Natalya Estemirova, a prominent human rights activist, was found shot dead in Ingushetia. A month later, Zarema Sadulayeva, a Chechen woman who helped injured children, and her husband were kidnapped and killed.
The Russian government has blamed the attacks on Muslim insurgents, who it says are backed by foreign cash which threatens Moscow's control over the volatile southern region. The worst hit areas have been Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. Russia has fought two wars against Chechen separatists since 1994.

Aushev had close ties with another prominent local opposition activist, Magomed Yevloyev, who was detained and killed by local police in August 2008. The website Ingushetia.org, which Aushev owned at one time, said the deaths of the two men were linked and that anyone who dared to speak against the authorities or speak the truth, is doomed to the fate shared by Magomed and Maksharip.

Tatiana Lochkina, director of Human Rights Watch in Moscow, agreed. She told Interfax that the killing "illustrates very clearly the atmosphere of impunity" in the region. She added that participating in opposition politics or defending basic freedoms in the North Caucasus has become "almost a form of suicide."

Iran - Russia - IAEA

A team of Obama administration officials, joined by officials from France and Russia, will begin negotiating in Vienna on Monday with Iranian diplomats over terms of an unusual deal that could remove a significant amount of Tehran's low-enriched uranium from the country.

The administration views the deal -- which would convert the uranium into fuel for a research reactor used for medical purposes -- as a test of Iranian intentions in the international impasse over the nation's nuclear program. The reactor is running short of fuel, according to Iran, and so the administration proposed that 80 percent of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile be sent to Russia for conversion into reactor fuel. France would then fashion the material into metal plates, composed of a uranium-aluminum alloy, used by this reactor.

U.S. officials argue that if Iran fails to follow through on a tentative agreement on this deal, then it will help strength the case for sanctions. But the negotiations already have highlighted splits between the United States and two of the key players -- Russia and China -- in the effort to restrain Iran's nuclear ambitions.

During a visit to Moscow last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was rebuffed by Russian officials when she tried to discuss the need for tougher sanctions if negotiations with Iran do not progress quickly. "All efforts should be focused on supporting the negotiating process," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, with Clinton at his side. "Threats, sanctions and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive."

Meanwhile, China signaled impatience with talk of new sanctions. On Thursday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met in Beijing with Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and declared that his government would seek "close coordination in international affairs" with Iran. "The Sino-Iranian relationship has witnessed rapid development, as the two countries' leaders have had frequent exchanges, and cooperation in trade and energy has widened and deepened," Wen said, according to the official New China News Agency.

Three other key players -- France, Germany and Britain -- are more willing to press for sanctions if progress is not apparent by the end of the year. A secret French Foreign Ministry strategy paper, published this month by the French weekly Bakchich Hebdo and translated by the Web site ArmsControlWonk.com, depicted France as the most eager for substantial sanctions.

There were "minor differences about the envisioned sanctions" with Germany and Britain, the paper said.

"The United States, which made an unprecedented overture to Iran in the spring, apparently does not intend to review this strategy until the end of the year. Its strategy is a bit more wait-and-see than ours." Russia and China, it added, "very clearly emphasize dialogue and do not wish to raise the idea of further sanctions."

French officials declined to comment on the document.

In a sign of American seriousness, the U.S. delegation for the talks in Vienna will be headed by Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel B. Poneman and include White House and State Department officials. The make-up of the Iranian delegation is unclear, but a Reuters report from Vienna quoted an Iranian official as saying Iran was sending relatively low-level officials rather than the head of its nuclear energy program.

Since officials announced a tentative agreement on the deal in Geneva on Oct. 1, Iran has sent a series of contradictory signals. Different Iranian officials have suggested at various times that there was no agreement; that Iran wanted to produce the fuel itself; that Iran wanted to purchase the fuel rather than convert its enriched uranium stock; and that Iran wanted to convert even more uranium. U.S. officials said they have no idea what Iran will propose in Vienna but they expect hard bargaining over timetables, payments and other issues.

The talks, to be held under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will last at least two days.

The French document suggested that Paris is concerned the U.S. gambit could lead to endless haggling. "We have given the United States our agreement for this operation, with conditions," it said. "In particular, it seems essential that . . . the entire 1,200 kg [2,640 pounds] of uranium leave Iran on a short deadline (Iran should be asked for an answer in principle by the end of October; the uranium should exit before the end of the year)."

NATO-style rapid-reaction force

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Thousands of troops from Russia and four other ex-Soviet nations are staging exercises as part of a newly formed NATO-style rapid-reaction force.
It's the first such drills for the Collective Security Treaty Organization's new miltary unit.
Kazakh defense officials say more than 7,000 troops gathered Friday in southern Kazakhstan for two weeks of exercises.
Russia and four other members — Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — earlier this year agreed to set up the unit.
Moscow hopes it will bolster the power of the seven-nation CSTO, seen largely as a talking shop established by Russia to counterbalance NATO.
Officials say the exercise will, among other things, train the force in responding to insurgencies in alliance member countries.

No missiles in Kaliningrad

Russia won't put missiles in Kaliningrad: Medvedev

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday he will call off his decision to deploy missiles in the enclave of Kaliningrad, his response to the United States scrapping missile shield plans in Europe.
U.S. President Barack Obama last week announced Washington will not put interceptor missiles in Poland or a radar system in the Czech Republic, parts of a project viewed by the United States as protection against potential attacks from Iran.
Medvedev, who met Obama in New York on Wednesday, has described that decision as "courageous."
Dealing with the issues of the U.S. missile shield, Iran and nuclear disarmament are major elements of attempts by Medvedev and Obama to reset thorny bilateral relations that had plunged to post-Cold War lows under the Bush administration.
To Russia, the U.S. missile shield plan for eastern Europe was a threat to its security.
Medvedev had vowed to put Iskander missiles in the Baltic region of Kaliningrad, bordering NATO members Lithuania and Poland, if Washington went ahead with the plan.
"When I announced this decision I said it was a reaction to the creation of a third positioning region," Medvedev said in Pittsburgh, where he attended a summit of Group of 20 leading economies.
"Now that this decision was scrapped, I will make a decision not to deploy Iskanders in the appropriate region of our country."
A senior Russian military official said earlier this week that the military would reverse plans to deploy Iskanders after Obama's announcement. But armed forces chief of staff General Nikolai Makarov later said such a decision should be made by the president.
The West suspects Iran of seeking to make nuclear weapons. Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has so far blocked attempts to impose strong sanctions against Tehran.
But Medvedev, annoyed by reports about Iran building a new uranium enrichment plant, warned Tehran to respond to international concerns and give up any military elements of its nuclear program.
Medvedev, clearly siding with the Western condemnation of Iran's plans, said Tehran should start cooperating with U.N. inspectors by the time it meets international negotiators for talks on October 1.

Rural Russia is Dying of Poverty and Neglect

KUVSHINOVO, Russia — The government administrator was bursting with optimism: More children are being born, many rubles will be invested in infrastructure and his region is weathering the global economic storm.
"The situation is so good," said Boris Zaitsev, a broad-shouldered man who spoke in a confident monotone.
Outside his office, some 170 miles northwest of Moscow, the front steps to the Soviet-era government building are falling into a pile of rubble. Deep, spine-rattling potholes that rival sections of Baghdad riddle the town's streets. The region's population has plummeted by more than a quarter.
Officials here like to point visitors to Kuvshinovo's new Russian Orthodox church, an elegant wooden structure. Work inside the church hasn't been finished, because the money ran out. Looters searching for icons and cash previously torched the office of another local church. Twice. A priest in a nearby village, who'd led an anti-alcoholism campaign, was burned to death with his family.
The area around this rural enclave is in steep decline; once-thriving fields are empty and the population is in free-fall. Along with many other towns and villages in vast rural Russia, it's a microcosm for a country that, according to recent studies, is withering away.
In Kuvshinovo and outlying hamlets, the population has dropped to 16,000 people from 22,000 in less than 20 years. Russia as a whole lost 12.3 million people from 1992 to 2008. An influx of immigrants, mainly from former Soviet territories, helped hide the extent of the problem. The population is now 142 million, but it would have been 136.3 million without that surge from outside.
The statistics help explain why Vice President Joe Biden struck such a sensitive nerve among Russia's ruling elite when he said recently that the country has "a shrinking population base; they have a withering economy," and added, "It's a very difficult thing to deal with, loss of empire."
Despite the Kremlin's posturing on the world stage and its hard line in what Russians call the "near abroad" — invading Georgia, shutting off natural gas to Ukraine, claiming a privileged sphere in other post-Soviet territories — the decay in the heartland suggests that Russia isn't a resurgent superpower so much as a nation that's trying not to come apart at the seams.
The mansions and gardens of old imperial Russia have faded or crumbled, as have many of the collective farms that fed communist Russia. Today, the hamlets dot a forsaken land of rampant poverty where men drink from morning to night. The interconnected crises of low fertility, high death rates and ragged infrastructure have left much of the nation barren.
Looking over the hayfields that lead to the onion dome and the glistening gold cross of a steeple a few miles outside Kuvshinovo, a Russian Orthodox priest mulled the question: What's happening to Russia?
"There are villages with only two people left, and others where nobody lives," Alexander Peshekhonov said, choosing his words carefully. Peshekhonov, his gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, added the obligatory caveat that, "Our country is great."
He then flicked a finger at his throat, a gesture meaning, "They drink."
When spring comes around, he said, the bodies of locals who fell drunkenly into the snowdrifts of winter are found in the pastures and roads. One man responsible for burning the church office in Kuvshinovo was caught in a market, selling icons and religious cassette tapes he'd swiped to raise money for vodka.
"If you read the newspapers and listen to our leaders' propaganda, you get the feeling that everything is OK," Peshekhonov said. "But I don't believe that."
Even darker times may lie ahead.
A major study that the United Nations released in April, authored by leading Russian experts, projected that Russia would lose at least 11 million more people by 2025. Another U.N.-sponsored report said last year that the population could fall to as low as 100 million in 2050.
That report cited a recent improvement in fertility but cautioned that, "while these favorable trends may last another five or six years, all recent forecasts . . . predict that Russia's population decline will only intensify."
"There's a risk that in the most negative situation, Russia will stop existing as a state," said Olga Isupova, a senior demographic researcher at the Higher School of Economics, a leading private Russian university in Moscow.
Asked whether that was really a possibility, Isupova told a reporter who was about to visit Kuvshinovo, "If you go out there and find something more optimistic, please tell me."
Down a dusty road and then a dirt path from Kuvshinovo, Dr. Anna Voronova holds medical clinics in the village of Pryamukhino. Sitting behind her desk in a dimly lit room with warped floors and chipped paint, Voronova said she saw a lot of people with drinking problems. She didn't mean just vodka and beer.
"They buy household cleaners, or solvents used to clean a machine, and drink it because it's cheap," she said. "It's not one or two people; it's many people."
There were 720 people living around Pryamukhino in 1990. Today, there are about 500, a decline caused in part by an exodus to Russia's cities, but mostly by the fact that deaths outnumber births.
The talk of alcoholism isn't confined to handwringing clergymen and small-town doctors. A study published this June examined three Russian industrial cities with typical mortality trends and found that during the 1990s, more than half of the deaths of those aged 15 to 54 were alcohol-related.
The findings, authored by a blue-ribbon panel of experts including representatives of the Russian cancer research center and the University of Oxford, suggest that Russia is drinking itself to death.
Unless something changes, "the villages will die out," said Yulia Novosyolova, a school equipment manager in Pryamukhino whose husband shovels coal in the winter and tends to cattle in the summer.
Novosyolova, who invited a guest to tea and pastries, has three daughters aged 17 to 22. All of them have moved away or are planning to, and none of the three sounded optimistic about the future.

Russian submarines on a friendly mission?

Two Russian attack submarines have been cruising in the Atlantic off the East Coast of the United States, a senior defense official said Wednesday.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said their presence is not causing alarms to go off.
"So long as they are operating in international waters, as, frankly, we do around the world, and are behaving in a responsible way, they are certainly free to do so, and it doesn't cause any alarm within this building," he said.
It has been years since Russia operated near the U.S. seaboard, thousands of miles from home ports.
"What's interesting is, they haven't been able to do this in some time, and now they are. It indicates a return to their ability to do this," the senior defense official said.
He viewed the patrol as an example of Russia showing the United States and the world its expeditionary forces, part of a continuing trend. He said the Russians have recently been a partner in anti-piracy operations around the world. And last year the Russian Navy conducted a "tour around the world," pulling into ports throughout Latin America.
In December, a Russian spokesman said that tour demonstrated "Russia's ability to fly its naval flag and ensure protection of its national interests in the world theater."
The Akula-class nuclear-powered submarines, which are normally equipped with surface-loaded cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles, have stayed in international waters, the source said. These are not the class of submarines that can launch intercontinental nuclear missiles.
The U.S. Navy has the capability to locate, identify and track submarine activity through satellites, ships, aircraft and classified systems.
"NORAD and U.S. Northern Command are aware of Russian submarine activity off the East Coast operating in international waters. We have been monitoring them during transit and recognize the right of all nations to exercise freedom of navigation in international waters according to international law," said Lt. Desmond James of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
A Russian military spokesman said at a news conference in Moscow that the submarines' activities were "part of the normal process."
Defense officials told The New York Times that one of the Russian submarines was in international waters Tuesday about 200 miles off the coast of the United States. The location of the second was unclear.
U.S. officials downplayed the significance of the submarines operating off the U.S. coast.
"There is no need to overreact," the senior defense official said.
"This is not an issue of concern. It is all consistent with the internationally-recognized principle of freedom of navigation. As long as the vessels do not cross into territorial waters, they are free to navigate any open waters," another official said.
Officials have said this is the naval equivalent to Russian bomber missions close to U.S. and other countries' borders.
"It is Russia again trying to assert its influence and trying to show they have a relevant military," a third defense official said.

Security treaties between Russia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia

MOSCOW — Russian border guards on Saturday began taking up long-term positions along the boundaries of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, an arrangement that will probably mean sustained tension in the two breakaway Georgian territories.
Security treaties signed on Thursday in Moscow between Russia and the two territories called for joint patrols in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for an unspecified period along the boundaries that separate the enclaves from the rest of Georgia. The State Department expressed “serious concern” over the arrangement, saying it violated Georgia’s territorial integrity and broke commitments made in a cease-fire agreement reached last fall.
The territories were at the heart of a war last August between Russia and Georgia; the conflict raised tensions between Moscow and the West to a level not seen since the end of the cold war. Heavy Russian armor poured into both territories after Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. Russia then officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign nations, despite protests from Europe and the United States, and promised to guarantee their security.
Russian troops have been at the territories’ border since August, but the security pact signed on Thursday makes their role formal and permanent. It grants Russia’s border guards, a division of the Russian Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., any land or buildings needed to patrol the area. It also grants Russian border guards many of the rights of Abkhaz and South Ossetian citizens.
In an interview, Abkhazia’s president, Sergei Bagapsh, said 500 Russian border guards — not Defense Ministry troops — would perform joint patrols alongside 300 Abkhazians until Abkhazia could train enough personnel to secure the 60-mile border.
He said Abkhazia had negotiated for some changes to the agreement, among them ensuring that guards at the crossing in the Gali region, which has a large ethnic Georgian population, would be Abkhaz rather than Russian.
“People will be going to the markets; you cannot stop life,” he said. “We don’t want to build a Great Wall of China between Abkhazia and Georgia.”
But Georgian authorities said the move to long-term postings was dangerous. Shota Utiashvili, a senior official in Georgia’s Interior Ministry, said that though Russian soldiers had been staffing checkpoints since August, he worried that F.S.B. units “might be more willing to stage operations” along the Georgian border.
He said Georgian authorities were watching to see how heavily fortified the border would be.
In a statement released on Friday, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said Russia “once more draws a line between itself and the entire international community, and again brutally tramples on fundamental standards and principles of international law.”

Russia expands the list of banned US meat imports

Russia has expanded the list of banned U.S. meat imports. In addition to U.S. pork, they have also banned U.S. beef and poultry from certain U.S. states.
The bans apply to meat and poultry produced in California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas, where cases of influenza have been reported.
U.S. Meat Export Federation quickly denounced Russia's decision. USMEF President and chief executive officer Philip Seng described it among the "demonstrated overreactions" by certain trading partners.
The American Meat Institute also is trying to spread the word. In a statement, AMI quotes Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organization as saying, " Right now we have zero evidence to suspect that exposure to meat leads to infections."
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk on Tuesday urged all trading partners to base their decisions on scientific evidence per international obligations.

Russia needs more political competition

Russia needs stronger political competition and a greater freedom to protest, President Dmitry Medvedev said in remarks released Thursday, sending the strongest signal yet that he may rethink the legacy of predecessor Vladimir Putin.
Medvedev, who has positioned himself as a cautious liberal during his first year in power, has until now followed the path blazed by Putin, who methodically rolled back Russia's post-Soviet freedoms during his presidency.
Medvedev's statements at a meeting Wednesday with civil society activists contained some of his most explicit criticism of Putin's policies to date. The remarks were released on the Kremlin's Web site Thursday.
Medvedev specifically criticized the 2006 law that toughened registration and accounting rules for human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations, hampering their operations.
"A significant number of officials, which I think is quite dangerous, have got a sense that non-governmental organizations are enemies of the state which must be confronted to prevent some disease from seeping through and undermining the foundations of our order," Medvedev said.
Medvedev added that the purpose of the law was not to interfere with the operations of the groups. But his remarks contrasted sharply with statements from Putin who said tightened regulation was necessary to make sure that NGOs weren't controlled by what he called puppeteers from abroad.
The 2006 law requires organizations to file highly detailed reports about activities for the previous year, such as a precise accounting of all meetings held by NGO officials, and detailed information on how they are financed.
Passage of the law reflected the Kremlin's fears of what it saw as Western encouragement of anti-government protests in other ex-Soviet nations, including Georgia and Ukraine.
Medvedev said that NGOs face undue restrictions and added that changes in the law are "possible, and even essential."
He added that the country needs more freedom.
"There must a political competition, it's irreplaceable," he said.
Responding to rights activists' complaints about official refusals to sanction opposition protests, Medvedev agreed that authorities' actions defied the law.
"Authorities obviously don't want to sanction such actions, it's understandable," he said. "But in any case such decisions aren't based on law."
He agreed with one person at the conference, who suggested that Moscow needed its own Speaker's Corner, like the one in London's Hyde Park, and added that it should not be put in a distant location.
"It mustn't be an empty spot near garages or near some industrial zone," he said.
Moscow authorities have continuously rejected appeals from opposition groups to hold their rallies in central areas and offered alternative spots away from downtown.

NATO urges Russia to pull out of breakaway regions

Strasbourg (AP): NATO reached out to Russia at its summit today, saying it wanted to work together against threats such as piracy and terrorism. But the alliance's insistence that Russia pull its troops from the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia risks meeting Kremlin resistance.
NATO leaders meeting on the French-German border sent the two-pronged message to Moscow, which sees the alliance as a throwback to a Cold War that ended nearly two decades ago.
Their choice of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO's new chief threw another potential wrench into the complicated relationship, as he is little loved in Russia.
"There is a shared view in NATO that we must cooperate with Russia," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at the close of the summit. "We think this relationship can deliver more than it has up to now."
NATO leaders said they were ready to resume ministerial level meetings with Russia in the coming months, and hoped to work with Russia on fighting new threats including piracy and terrorism.
"Despite the disagreements we have now with it, Russia has a particular importance for us as a partner and neighbor," the NATO leaders said in a statement.

Russians do not like Polish meat

Poland is to block Russia’s WTO accession until Russia takes off embargo on Polish meat and vegetables, introduced in November 2005.
Still Poland doesn’t mind Russia’s joining the organization; the Polish side has claimed that such a powerful country like Russia should be the WTO member.
But Poland first of all tries to solve its meat market problems. It has already blocked a new cooperation agreement between Russia and EU, now it can block Russia’s WTO accession.

Russia used to buy 5% of Poland meat export. In 2005 Russia has banned Polish meat and vegetables as Poland re-exported these products from the third countries, mostly from African countries. Russia claimed such products didn’t match Russian veterinary requirements.

Will Russia ever join the WTO?

President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that delays in Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation "irritate" Moscow but added that his country was still ready to join the global trade body.
"Russia is ready for accession on normal, non-discriminatory terms. We will do everything that is necessary. This process has dragged out and this irritates us," Medvedev said in televised remarks.
"We are not making a tragedy out of the fact that the process has been drawn out. The main thing is that it does not become a never-ending story," Medvedev said at a joint press conference with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
Russia's WTO hopes suffered a setback last year after its war with Georgia badly strained relations with the West, and the United States cast doubt on Russia's bid to join the international body.
Moscow responded that its WTO bid was an economic matter that should not be politicised, but trade negotiations made little progress.
Russia is the largest world economy still outside the WTO. Initial membership negotiations started in 1993 but were delayed by disputes over a variety of issues, including enforcement of copyright laws and meat exports.

Can Obama Take on Russia?

Reports coming from the meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev sound reassuring, but behind the apparent love feast is a stark, cold, and threatening reality far different from the optimism surrounding the encounter. The truth is that the diplomatic smiles of the Russian elite mask a world strategy meant to bring America to its knees. The strategy continues and will not abate, despite the Obama-Medvedev press releases.
In a statement to the press, President Barack Obama characterized his meeting with Russian Federation president Dmitry Medvedev, which occurred during the G20 summit in London, as the beginning of a "very constructive dialogue," and Medvedev declared that "there are many more positions that bring us together than those that pull us apart." A joint statement pledged a united effort in Afghanistan and against "Al-Qaeda and other terrorist and insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan," and seemed to promise progress on an agreement reducing nuclear weapons.
Moscow appears to be a reasonable international partner, but the internal and external realities of the Russian Federation recall the old Soviet Union far more than the Russia which was promised by Boris Yeltsin and other Moscow politicians following the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Medvedev's Russia, like Vladimir Putin's Russia, is the home of suspicion, murder and state terror. Opposition journalists are often killed, and even lawyers seeking to defend journalists against state harassment are in danger, as the recent slaying of one well-known lawyer proved. Schools and news outlets preach distrust of the West, especially of the United States. Pro-Kremlin youth groups, usually dressed in Bolshevik revolutionary red, teach their young members hostility to the United States and attack those opposing official Russian policy.
The activist organization Memorial is often the target of official Russian displeasure. Memorial seeks to protect human rights in Russia and to uncover and preserve the memory of those who suffered and died during the oppression of the Soviet era. Memorial's offices have been raided, its files confiscated never to be returned.
The most recent work of one of the leading writers on the Soviet era, Orlando Figes, cannot find a publisher in Russia - evidence of a de facto ban. Figes had based much his book, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, on material from Memorial.
Around the world, Moscow is pursuing a course hostile to the United States.
Only a few weeks ago, a group of Russian "Swallow" bombers flew into Venezuela. Speculation soon followed, inspired by statements of a Russian general, that Moscow would establish bomber bases in Venezuela and Cuba, both of which are within striking distance of the United States. Moscow is selling sophisticated weapons to Venezuela's neo-Marxist tyrant, Hugo Chavez, and has granted a license to the Chavez regime for the manufacture of the AK103, one of the world's most advanced automatic assault rifles. There is strong indication that an unknown number of the 100,000 AK103s already sold directly to Chavez by Moscow may have been passed on to drug cartel militias now engaged in a savage civil war against the Mexican government.
The island gulag state of Cuba remains one of Moscow's "key allies" in the Latin American region. Moscow has recently assured Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's brother and successor, of its continued and enthusiastic support. As with almost all of the Russian press, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass is under the control of the Kremlin. The deputy director-general of Itar-Tass, Michael Guzman, interviewed Raul before his late January-early February 2009 trip to Moscow. During the fawning interview, Guzman continually and respectfully referred to the new Cuban leader as "Comrade President."
The visit of the Russian bombers indicates that Chavez has very powerful friends willing to extend themselves into what had been regarded as "America's Backyard." Moscow's support of Cuba's fifty-year communist dictatorship confirms an alliance which extends, without interruption, back to the Soviet era.
In the Middle East, Moscow is the only reason that Iran has a nuclear capability and is able to threaten its neighbors from Israel to Europe. It is Moscow that has sold sophisticated anti-aircraft missile batteries to Iran for the defense of those nuclear facilities.
At this writing, North Korea is preparing a missile for launch which may be able to reach the United States with a nuclear weapon. The Stalinist dictatorship also has hundreds of thousands of troops ready at the whim of the "Beloved Leader" to attack American soldiers and their South Korean allies. Neither Stalinist North Korea, nor the "Beloved Leader," could not exist without the support of Moscow.
Russian aid has also made possible the Chinese military buildup which now threatens the United States and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region. For well over a decade Russia has supplied China with weapons technologies and training for the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) . U.S. aircraft carrier groups are vulnerable to a Chinese ballistic strike, and almost every nation on earth is vulnerable to a Chinese cyber attack. Russian forces have staged extensive military exercises with the increasingly sophisticated PLA.
Russia's attack on the small Caucasus nation of Georgia shocked the world, and now Moscow recognizes as independent the rebel regions it helped sever from Georgia. This past winter Russia cutoff natural gas supplies to Ukraine during a dispute over pricing. In terminating Ukraine's access, Russia also endangered gas delivery to much of Western Europe, which soon learned that dependence on Moscow comes at a high price.
As Arctic ice melts and reveals extraordinary deposits of natural resources, the nations bordering on the Arctic Ocean are pressing their claims to the newly available wealth. To assert its interests, Russia is preparing for possible military operations in the region. As Russian bombers prowl off the southern coast of Alaska, specially trained Russian troops are engaging in military exercises in preparation for action in the Arctic, a conflict which could easily involve the northern coast of Alaska.
The last Democratic president to engage Russia was Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Russia at that time was weak and in the early stages of recovering from the shock of the collapse of the USSR. On the other hand, America was strong in every way, the only remaining superpower. Now, the situation is dramatically different. Russia is strong thanks to its tremendous natural resources, and America is weakened from its excessive spending policies, especially those enacted in the last few weeks by the new administration.
The Russian bear is again walking upright - and thanks to Moscow's political elite, the bear is hungry. Obama, America's policy makers, and the American public must beware of the embrace, no matter how warm, of the stalking bear.

Russia versus NATO

Days after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced his country's intentions to revamp its armed forces, the top U.S. commander in Europe is warning of a new period of "uncertainty" in U.S.-Russian relations.
In Senate testimony today, Gen. Bantz Craddock, the head of U.S. European Command, was blunt. "The relationship with Russia," he said, "is likely to be more difficult to manage in coming years than any time since the end of the Cold War."
Relations between the Kremlin and Washington hit a rough patch after the August 2008 South Ossetia war, and Craddock's statement comes as European Command reevaluates plans to downsize the U.S. force presence in Europe. Two Army brigades are scheduled to return to the United States from Europe in 2012 and 2013, but Craddock is now recommending they remain stationed in Europe. Without specifically mentioning Russia, the general said in testimony that "these forces contribute directly to our dissuasion and deterrence efforts."
The Obama admistration has tried -- with limited success -- to push the "reset" button with Russia, and it wants the Kremlin's help in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions and preserving supply routes to Afghanistan. President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet next week with his counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev; Russian experts are already telling us to curb our expectations.

Russia is strengthening its military

MOSCOW – The diplomatic tone between Russia and the US may have sweetened since Barack Obama took office, but Russian leaders are adopting a tougher line than ever when addressing their domestic audience.
Speaking to a room of Russian Army brass on Tuesday, President Dmitry Medvedev pledged massive hikes in military spending and stepped-up procurement of nuclear missiles, tanks, fighter planes, and a new generation of deep-water warships, including aircraft carriers.
Despite a galloping economic crisis, “significant funds have been earmarked for the development and purchase,” of these weapons, Mr. Medvedev said.
He did not specify the amounts to be spent on new arms, but said the increases will not take effect until 2011. The daily newspaper Kommersant reported Wednesday that Russia might actually cut its military expenditures for next year amid a hurricane of budgetary woes.
A “qualitative” upsurge in Russian military development is necessary because conflict looks more likely than ever in the present world, Medvedev argued. “Threats remain that can bring about local crises and international terrorism; NATO is not halting its efforts to widen its military infrastructure near the borders of our country,” he added.
In a separate statement, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov called for a robust military response to what he described as Washington’s attempts to drive Russia into a strategic corner. “US aspirations have been aimed at getting access to raw materials, energy, and other resources,” of the former USSR, he said. “Active support was given to attempts to push Russia out of its traditional sphere of interests.”
Russia has been discussing military renewal for several years as Soviet-era hardware deteriorates, the old-fashioned conscript army grows increasingly dysfunctional, and fresh military challenges emerge. Last summer’s flash war against the neighboring ex-Soviet republic of Georgia was won handily by Russia’s Caucasus-based 58th Army, but postwar analyses highlighted disastrous shortcomings that cost the Russian forces dearly.
Russia has also been moving to bolster its regional alliance system and develop military cooperation with neighboring China, which also happens to be one of the biggest clients for Russian arms sales.
Some experts suggest that the sudden burst of strident talk coming out of Moscow, including declarations of rearmament and proposals to base Russian nuclear-capable bombers in Latin America, is mostly political atmospherics aimed at putting Obama on the defensive when he meets with Medvedev on the sidelines of the G-20 conference in London next month to renegotiate the strategic relationship between the two countries.
But others say Russia’s rearmament plans are very real, and may even be long overdue. “We are not happy at all with the Army we have,” says Viktor Baranets, a military expert with the independent Moscow daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“It may have won the Caucasus war, but it proved itself to be an outdated Army of the Soviet type. Even though some parts still work well, such as the strategic missile command, our Army is basically good for nothing,” he says.
The message delivered by Medvedev is that Russia will no longer scrimp and save at the expense of its armed forces. “This statement is mainly for domestic consumption, to reassure the Russian public that we are ready to meet all challenges,” Mr. Baranets adds.

Russia is selling arms like never before

MOSCOW, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday his country will promote the export of arms while the world is experiencing a financial crisis, local media reported.
"This year will not be easy because the whole world is facing a financial crisis ... However, we should try to preserve what we can do (in arms export) and maybe to increase cooperation in some sectors," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying at a government meeting on military cooperation held near Moscow.
Medvedev urged Russian arms producers to improve quality, sign tangible contracts, and make the price formation transparent.
He also applauded Russia's arms exports in 2008, which exceeded8.35 billion U.S. dollars, up 800 million dollars year on year.
Russia now ranks as the world's No. 2 arms exporter after the United States.

Riots in Russia - Government raising tariffs on imported automobiles

Riots in Russia

Small demonstrations occurred in several Russian cities over the weekend in reaction to the government’s plan to raise tariffs on imported automobiles, and the riot police broke up one protest on Sunday in Vladivostok in the country’s far east, briefly detaining scores of people, news agencies reported.
While the demonstrations each drew only a few hundred people, they were perhaps the most visible evidence of discontent with the government over the financial crisis. When the price of oil was high and Russia’s economy was soaring, the government was broadly popular, but the recent downturn has caused growing public anxiety as unemployment has spiked and the value of the ruble has dropped.
In an apparent sign of the Kremlin’s concern over the tariff issue, it sent special riot police units to quell the protest in Vladivostok, according to witnesses quoted by news agencies. Other demonstrations over the tariffs have occurred there this month.
Amateur video posted online by people who said they were at Sunday’s demonstration in Vladivostok shows riot police officers dragging protesters into vans. The authorities said they broke up the demonstration because its sponsors had not received official permission to hold it.
A reporter for The Associated Press in Vladivostok said that police officers had beaten several people with truncheons, thrown them to the ground and kicked them. Several journalists were arrested.
Vladimir Litvinov, who leads a local rights group, told The Associated Press that officers behaved “like beasts” and should not have ended the gathering because it was peaceful and not political.
“We support a civilized resolution to all the problems, but when they send Moscow riot police to break up a gathering in our city, and they start breaking arms and legs and heads,” he said, adding: “People are very, very angry. It’s hard to predict what might happen now.”
Vladivostok, Russia’s largest port on the Pacific, is a major point for importing foreign cars into Russia. The government announced the tariffs on imported cars in an effort to protect the beleaguered domestic car industry.
The Federation of Russian Car Owners, a grass-roots advocacy group, has helped sponsor the protests, under the slogan, “Authorities: Raise the Standard of Living, not the Tariff.”

Twelve people dead in Russian mine (Murmansk region)

Twelve people were killed and six were injured in an explosion at an open-cast mine in Russia's northwest Murmansk region, a local emergency official said Friday.
Rescue workers had only recovered four bodies by midday Friday, more than 12 hours after the explosion and resulting fire, said Irina Gretskaya, a spokeswoman for the local division of the Russia Emergency Situations Ministry.
Other bodies are in hard-to-reach areas of the mine where the temperature remained high, she said.
All the dead miners were between the ages of 20 and 37, she said.
Murmansk is near the Barents Sea and Russia's northern border with Finland.
The mining company said the explosion happened during preparations for a controlled explosion at the mine, scheduled for December 15.
More than 19 tons of explosives had already been charged and another 30 tons were being delivered to the site at the time, when an unexpected blast went off inside the cargo truck that was delivering the explosives, the Apatit Mining Company said.
The Murmansk regional prosecutor's office has opened a criminal investigation into the explosion to see whether it violated explosion and mining rules, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the prosecutor's office.
The mining company develops apatite-nepheline ores used in the production of fertilizers.