MOSCOW, February 11 (RIA Novosti) Russia, United States to prioritize arms control / China looking to Saudi Arabia for replacement of Russian oil / Private sponsors flee political parties Russian lawmaker accidentally sends euro tumbling /
Izvestia
Russia, United States to prioritize arms control
U.S. President Barack Obama has voiced his administration's readiness to negotiate a new document that would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-I), set to expire on December 5, 2009.
Although this statement makes one hopeful, there are still no reasons for excessive optimism because Obama's perception of the new treaty remains unclear.
Moscow reacted positively to the U.S. leader's proposal. "We are satisfied that the new Washington administration prioritizes this issue," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Analysts said all previous disarmament agreements, including START-I and START-II treaties, hinged on the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty on the limitation of ABM systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons.
On December 13, 2001, President George W. Bush notified Russia about the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty. This move upset the mutual parity between offensive and defensive potentials.
"The proposal to reduce Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals to 1,000 warheads is purely tentative. A thousand U.S. warheads could easily hit Russia, which lacks the required missile-defense capabilities, while a similar retaliatory strike could fail to effectively breach America's National Missile Defense system. Consequently, we must not agree to ordinary warhead cuts," Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, told the paper.
General Ivashov said the Prompt Global Strike (PGS) program would enable the United States to precisely hit any spot on the planet with conventional munitions within 30-60 minutes. Washington would profit from strategic arms cuts, after prioritizing the use of conventional cruise missiles against a theoretical enemy.
This is why a new strategic arms reduction treaty should be linked with numerous other issues, including missile-defense systems and U.S. sea-launched and air-launched cruise missiles left outside arms control documents, General Ivashov told the paper.
"The Americans compromise only when they feel that their opponent is strong. The Anglo-Saxon mentality looks for an advantage. Russia will achieve its goal if it has convincing arguments in the sphere of strategic arms and other areas," General Ivashov said.
Kommersant
China looking to Saudi Arabia for replacement of Russian oil
Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia on his first diplomatic trip this year for a visit aimed at securing more energy supplies for the world's most populous nation.
Beijing is naturally seeking to strengthen contacts with Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, amid the global financial crisis and tensions with other suppliers, and is hoping to sign new oil contracts.
Analysts expect this to thwart the planned contract between Chinese CNPC and Russia's Rosneft.
Saudi Arabia accounts for the bulk of China's oil imports, meeting 20% of its demand for imported oil.
Although China's demand has been affected by the crisis of late, the country has no plans to cut fuel consumption. China's State Council plans 8% GDP growth for this year.
"This is an extremely important goal for Beijing for political reasons," said Mikhail Karpov from Moscow's Institute of Asian and African Studies. "Without maintaining a high economic growth rate, China is in for a social outburst due to surging unemployment. The Chinese economy is very energy-consuming, so the government's policy should ensure that demand for oil at least remains unchanged."
Beijing has pinned high hopes on its planned supply contract with Russia through the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline currently under construction. However, Russia and China have so far failed to agree the financial terms of a loan CNPC was to extend to Rosneft and Transneft, Russia's pipeline monopoly.
"The gap is too wide between the price Rosneft is asking and the one China is willing to pay. The country might as well find itself a cheaper source of fuels, such as Saudi Arabia," suggested Mikhail Krutikhin, a partner in Moscow's RusEnergy Consulting.
Beijing University professor Zhao Daojung shares this opinion. "China is looking to large suppliers, despite the change in market prices. Saudi Arabia has proved itself a reliable exporter in the past few years, and one easy to deal with," he said.
Gazeta.ru
Private sponsors flee political parties
The Central Election Commission is shortly to publish parties' financial reports for the fourth, or "crisis", quarter of last year. Documents show that contributions have dropped almost by half, and money is now coming from different sources. Private sponsors are fleeing the parties, experts say.
The reports on receipts and spending have been submitted to the commission by 12 out of 14 political parties, a source on the commission told Gazeta.ru. In the fourth quarter, the parties were donated property worth 404.2 million rubles, the source said. Cash made up a sizeable portion of it - 384.7 million rubles.
However, compared with the previous reporting period, receipts were drastically down: in the third quarter the parties received a total of 693.6 million rubles.
The lion's share of contributions to United Russia, for example, has mysterious origins: 267 million rubles out of 271.7 million was entered under the heading "other receipts not forbidden by the law". One quarter previously, the main source of finance for the party was the federal budget. In the fourth quarter, none of the parties received budget financing.
Dmitry Badovsky, deputy director of the Institute for Social Systems, believes the drastic reduction in financial contributions to the parties "is another side of the crisis."
"In the fourth quarter of last year, receipts dropped in other areas, too - among charities and non-profit organizations. The crisis also hit the party system," the analyst said. Cuts are due to the departure from membership of donor businessmen who until now supported the parties together with the state, believes Badovsky. "Such a financing scheme is apt to respond the quickest to a crisis," he said.
Big business, despite being hit by the crisis, has continued, more or less, to support non-profit organizations and the Russian Orthodox Church, the analyst said. The Church has however already drawn its conclusion from developments. Now it aims to have 1,000 donors in the future, each of whom will contribute one ruble rather than one donor contributing 1,000 rubles, Badovsky said. This kind of practice could benefit the parties as well. It would not only increase their political independence, but also show their voter popularity, the source said.
RBC Daily, Vedomosti, Kommersant
Russian lawmaker accidentally sends euro tumbling
The head of the Russian Association of Regional Banks, Anatoly Aksakov, forced the euro 1.2% down on Tuesday by telling Japan's Nikkei that domestic banks would ask foreign banks to reschedule loans worth up to $400 billion.
The newspaper took his statement as a sign of the Russian government's willingness to involve itself in Russian corporate foreign debt settlement.
Investors began dumping euros after The Nikkei quoted Aksakov as saying that his industry group had asked the government to renegotiate with European and other foreign banks to postpone repayment.
Some investors took the possible negotiations as a sign of potential default. Because European banks are the main creditors of Russian banks, the euro was hit hardest.
Aksakov, who is a member of the Russian parliament, later denied the information published by Japanese media.
"That was a misunderstanding," he said, adding that he had meant Russian banks had no problems with clearing their foreign debt, which in fact does exceed $400 billion and will have to be repaid over several years.
He said that several foreign banks had asked him to determine a restructuring scheme for $15-$20 billion debt.
As soon as Finance Ministry Alexei Kudrin also disavowed the restructuring news, the euro regained its positions, 1.29 euros to $1.
"Even if Aksakov hadn't made that statement, someone else should have done it on purpose," said Igor Kogan, chairman of Orgresbank. "I think it was good. Now we know that verbal interventions can be made by people other than the U.S. Federal Reserve."
He added that Russians should be proud that a mere statement by a minor association head can change the euro exchange rate and that they should give more thought to the Russian banking system's real global role.
There is no smoke without fire, and it is an alarming sign, said Lee Hardman, strategist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. He also pointed out the potential influence the respective financial status of Russia and European countries could have on the euro this year.
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