MOSCOW, July 18 (RIA Novosti) Lugovoi protests his innocence in Litvinenko murder case/Russia is promised a glowing future/Russia unwilling to disclose information about its eastern oil reserves/Oil to cost $90 per barrel /Harry Potter in Russia: fifth film and seventh book
Komsomolskaya Pravda
Lugovoi protests his innocence in Litvinenko murder case
Andrei Lugovoi, a key suspect in the murder of former security officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006, granted an interview with popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.
- How do you feel in your role as the hero of a prominent international scandal?
- Of course, I never thought something like this could happen to me. On the other hand, I have grown used to the situation, as it's been going on for some time. At the end of the day, the outcome of the investigations was predictable - the lack of official documents, Scotland Yard officers' formal arrival in Moscow, their unwillingness to let me talk with the Crown Prosecution Service, falsified facts, and then the extradition request. So the new "testimony" did not surprise me much.
- Are you referring to what the waiter in the bar where you met with Litvinenko said?
- Yes. It was so badly done. I wonder who is responsible for it. To listen to the waiter, he was nearby and yet didn't see anything. Very convenient.
- But not for you - you cannot go abroad now.
- Yes, I'm on the international wanted list now. But on the other hand, things aren't so bad for me in Russia. I have my family here, and a business.
- But don't you resent having such restrictions imposed on you?
- Do I resent it? On the contrary, I've concentrated on Russian projects, there are plenty of them. As for the British - if they want war, then that's what they'll get.
- Are you going to fight?
- Not the state, but the top-level bureaucrats that stirred up this mess. Put it this way: I have taken up their challenge.
- And what do you plan to do?
- I did everything necessary when I met with the investigating officers. I told them everything I know.
- You seem so confident. Has someone guaranteed that you won't be extradited?
- Nobody has specifically met with me to talk about this. But what do I have to be scared of? I know I am innocent - full stop.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russia is promised a glowing future
By 2050, the Russian economy will overtake the British, German and French economies, according to a special study released Tuesday in London by the American Goldman Sachs investment bank.
The study compares future economic strengths on the world stage according to national GDP. Bank experts said the current surge observed in China, Russia, India, Brazil and Mexico would drastically change the world situation in the next few years.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) experts predicted a slowing of economic growth for Russia. Its GDP, analysts believed, would at best draw even with France's present figure by 2050.
On the other hand, specialists from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Russia's rate of economic development in 2007 would be 6.5%.
True, next year they expected a mere 5.8% growth, slightly less than Russian government forecasts. But the drop will be short-lived, and will be caused by changes other than economic ones.
OECD experts thought that the rivalry of political forces during parliamentary and presidential elections (December 2007 and March 2008) would contribute to the worsening of the investment climate in Russia, and hence to lower figures.
James Wolfensohn, chairman of Citigroup International Advisory Board, is not looking at election factors.
However, his forecast is more than favorable - by 2050, he is sure, developing economies will post more than a 20-fold growth. That also fully applies to Russia.
On the other hand, developed economies will only grow 2.5-fold.
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov is certain that Russian economic growth will never slip below the 7% mark, enabling Russia to join the top five world economies in 2020.
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes that the way is paved for Russia to leap from ninth to sixth place in the world ratings table within the next two years.
Given such a perspective, Russia's GDP will in these two years overtake the economies not only of Italy and France, but also of Britain.
Gazeta
Russia unwilling to disclose information about its eastern oil reserves
In January of this year, President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to draft a development strategy for the Far East, and the Economic Development and Trade Ministry proposed holding a tender among experts and scientists to work on the document.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said at a meeting of the state commission on the development of the Russian Far East and the trans-Baikal region: "We have more secrets that South Korea or China; such information must not be made public at a tender."
East Siberian and Far Eastern resources have not been thoroughly studied. Geologists claim there are a great many potential deposits there, referring not only to oil and gas, but also to precious metals, copper, diamonds and uranium.
Russia's eastern regions have enough resources for a commodities expansion into the Asian-Pacific region, just like the oil and gas of Yamal and Western Siberia allowed Russia to become an energy superpower and energy supplier of Europe.
The trouble is that it is very difficult to produce that wealth in the Far East, which lacks the necessary infrastructure and whose climate is a barrier to mining.
South Korea expects to get gas from Sakhalin, whereas China needs Russian oil. That is why the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline project was launched.
However, it turned out later that oil produced in Western Siberia was not enough to fill the pipeline even at the first stage.
The first stage is to be completed by 2009 and to have a throughput capacity of 30 million metric tons.
The second stage, to be completed by 2012, provides for increasing its capacity to 80 million metric tons and building an offshoot from Skovorodino, in the Amur Region, to China's Daqing.
In early March, Vladimir Bogdanov, president of Surgutneftegaz, told the prime minister that his company did not have enough oil for the pipeline.
But last Thursday, Semyon Vainshtok, head of the state-controlled oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, said in Neryungri, a city in Yakutia through which the ESPO pipeline runs, that Rosneft would supply 25 million metric tons of crude and Surgutneftegaz, the remaining 7 million.
Bogdanov's statement and questions about Rosneft's ability to supply the 25 million metric tons of oil cast doubt on the region's prospects for development.
That explains why Fradkov wants to keep the work on the development strategy for the Far East secret, including from experts.
Novye Izvestia
Oil to cost $90 per barrel
On Tuesday, the OPEC oil basket hit an all-time high of $72.83 per barrel and broke the August 8, 2006 record of $72.67.
The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) has been charging sky-high oil prices for the last 10 months because traders fear possible summertime shortages at refineries in conditions of peak gasoline demand.
However, oil prices are even higher on the London exchange, and analysts said prices were bound to rise.
U.S. analysts said a barrel of oil could cost over $90 by this fall, and could reach $95 in late 2007. That seems possible if OPEC maintains current production levels.
OPEC decided to cut daily oil output by 1.7 million barrels starting in November 2006. Production cuts now total 850,000 barrels, while daily global demand has soared by a million barrels.
Some Russian experts said oil prices were likely to increase. Vladimir Feigin, the deputy chairman of the board of the non-profit partnership Gas Market Coordinator, said a barrel of oil could cost $90.
He said Nigerian insurgents and OPEC plans were among the prevalent factors now influencing global oil price hikes.
Anatoly Dmitriyevsky, director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute, said oil prices would not increase for a long term, and that U.S. analysts probably knew about some political decisions due to be made in the next few days.
"Anyway, there are no economic factors capable of pushing up oil prices," Dmitriyevsky told the paper. He said a barrel of oil would cost $65-68 in the next few months, and Russia would still get rich in conditions of high oil prices.
Gazeta/Vedomosti
Harry Potter in Russia: fifth film and seventh book
The fifth film about the young magician created by the British author J. K. Rowling is released across Russia today - a week after hitting international screens.
The Russian public is unlikely to stay away. Harry Potter is now a hot selling brand, and the quality of the product, the film in this case, is not important.
Russian viewers will go to the movies to watch The Order of the Phoenix regardless of whether its screen adaptation is good or bad.
The last book about Harry Potter will be published in Russia in November, in a record initial print run of 1.8 million copies. American and British bookstores will start selling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this Saturday.
"The book is being printed here by three printing houses: publishing capacities available in the country are insufficient to run off a larger starting print," said Mikhail Markhotkin, Rosmen publishing house general director.
The print run is based on orders placed by the publisher's retail partners, he said. The book has no official Russian translation of the title yet, and will go on sale in November. Its estimated selling price is 300 rubles (about $12), and sales may total $20 million.
The last but one book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, sold 1.4 million copies (initial print run of 800,000 copies).
As seen by the Russian Book Chamber, these are record figures for the book market as a whole. They compare with 253,000 copies for Patrick Suskind's Perfume and 25,000 for Paulo Coelho's The Diary of a Magician.
Not even such popular Russian authors as Tatyana Ustinova, Nick Perumov and Oksana Robsky can compete with Harry Potter. Their combined prints in 2006 totaled 950,800 copies.
Only a non-children's collection of legal cases, Disputes with Government Bodies, could match Rowling's writings: it came out in an edition of 1.2 million copies.
According to Rosmen's publishing statistics, Russia has sold 9 million books in the Harry Potter series (six books) since 2001. Total sales of the young magician's adventures have approached $60 million.
No other book is likely to touch it in the near future, Markhotkin said.
In its report Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007-2011, PricewaterhouseCoopers said that Russia's book market would be worth $1.9 billion in 2007.
In 2006, according to the Russian Book Chamber, Russia issued 102,268 titles in a total edition of 633.5 million copies. The average print run was 6,200 copies.
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