Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russia, Turkmenistan split over Caspian
President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov will attend an informal summit marking the anniversary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, taking place in Moscow later this year, a Russian Foreign Ministry source confirmed. Berdymukhamedov is expected to sign an agreement on a free trade zone which other CIS leaders signed in St. Petersburg on October 18. Experts believe that he postponed signing due to differences with Moscow on energy exports.
On October 18, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which Berdymukhamedov dismissed Russia's objections to his country’s energy policy. In particular, he notes that the Turkmen Foreign Ministry is “surprised at Russia’s official stance on Turkmenistan's rapprochement with the European Union, which is expressed in negative and critical comments about possible joint EU-Turkmenistan energy projects.”
One Ashgabat source said that Russia has only itself to blame. Turkmenistan has repeatedly invited Russia to develop the eastern Caspian Sea, but having received no response from Moscow, it turned to Asian and Western partners. The same goes for the construction of the East-West pipeline and the Trans-Caspian pipeline between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.
Russia opposes these Caspian Sea projects on the grounds that Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan lack the rights needed to make important decisions on major Caspian Sea projects in the absence of an agreement between all five littoral states. Russia is also playing the environment card, arguing that the implementation of major projects may have an adverse environmental impact on the Caspian Sea.
Turkmen officials do not consider Moscow's arguments credible and say Russia simply wants to strengthen its own economy and geopolitical role at its neighbors’ expense. Ashgabat has also noted an increased Russian Naval presence in the Caspian Sea, with the addition of two new heavily-armed ships and recent tactical exercises there.
The Turkmen Foreign Ministry has asserted that the need for Trans-Caspian project “is dictated not by political expediency, not by a desire to infringe upon others’ interests, but by the objective need for economic development, real mutual benefits for all involved and reasoned estimates of Turkmenistan's own resource base.”
Mikhail Krutikhin, a partner in the RusEnergy consultancy considers Ashgabat's allegations reasonable.
“You can see which analysts are directly funded by the Russian presidential administration,” he said. “They're going so far as to threaten Turkmenistan with armed invasion if it commits to the Trans-Caspian pipeline.”
Krutikhin said Russia's concern about the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline is understandable, because this “short and inexpensive gas pipeline could deprive Gazprom of southern and southeastern European markets, as it would enable Turkmenistan to supply 20 - 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year.”
“Gazprom sold 107 bcm of gas outside the CIS in 2010,” he added. “It turns out that Turkmenistan could cut the volume of Gazprom's exports by almost a third, so Russia categorically opposes Caspian projects.”
Vedomosti.ru
Party of power, party of millionaires
Russia’s top officials work economic wonders accumulating savings and property far in excess of their annual earnings. Their income and property declarations suggest that United Russia is a party of the wealthy.
The Central Election Commission on Thursday published the income and property data for United Russia parliamentary candidates. Candidates with annual income exceeding 10 million rubles ($320,000) accounted for 83 of the 597 list – more than are on the lists of the other three parliamentary parties taken together. Eleven are on the Forbes rich list.
United Russia’s top candidate, Dmitry Medvedev, has added 1.5 million rubles to his bank deposit over his presidency. While his annual income fell to 3.38 million rubles from 7 million in 2007, his bank accounts grew to 4.2 million rubles.
Although government officials disclosed their financials last spring, now, as parliamentary candidates, they are obliged to provide further details. First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who tops United Russia’s ticket in Primorye, earned 14.7 million rubles while his wife made 372.9 million rubles. His blue chip portfolio is valued at $1 million. His spokesman earlier said the Shuvalovs live off a family trust fund.
Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev (Perm Region) made 114.7 million rubles in salary, dividends, deposit interest and inheritance last year.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak (St Petersburg) accumulated 5.8 million rubles in bank deposits with an income of 3.4 million rubles. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov appears to hold 70% in Iskusstvo-K, a company officially liquidated in 2007 (it was owned by Yekaterina Zhukova with 70% and Olga Kostina, 30%).
There is no need to ask officials who used to own businesses about the disparity between their incomes and savings: they can always explain it away by pointing to former earnings, said Yelena Panfilova, director of Transparency International Russia. However, it is a valid question for those from other backgrounds.
United Russia’s wealthiest candidates are lawmakers Boris Zubitsky, former CEO of Koks who now controls Industrial Metallurgical Holding Management Co with his sons, and Nikolai Bortsov, the founder of the Lebedyansky plant which manufactures famous juice brands, who recently sold his business to PepsiCo.
Zubitsky’s income is 1.9 billion rubles (123rd on Forbes list) and Bortsov’s earnings 1.3 billion rubles (138th). Grigory Anikeyev completes the top three with 878.2 million rubles.
Sergei Ageyev, who owns transport and construction businesses in the Tomsk Region, appears to have a record number of vehicles in his personal ownership including railcars, tractors, gas-tank trucks, excavators and other industrial equipment. He explained that industrial company owners often register transport as their personal property to avoid asset stripping and property disputes with minority shareholders or at least in the hope of minimizing potential damage.
Gazeta.ru
Students detained during Medvedev visit
On the day President Dmitry Medvedev visited Moscow State University (MGU), opposition-minded students were not allowed in and some were detained.
The president told the remaining students, many of them members of youth organizations, that he will knock Georgian President Saakashvili’s teeth in and explained what is wrong with the slogan “Stop feeding the Caucasus.”
Two hours before his arrival, crowds of students had gathered at the entrance, unable to get inside. Three girls who work part-time for opposition media outlets were stopped twice by federal guards. The third time they were detained for carrying placards reading: “Have you asked the prime minister’s permission to come here?” and “Why is Khodorkovsky in prison while you are on Twitter?”
One girl was detained for wearing a “Who beat up Oleg Kashin?” tee-shirt. Other students were detained for carrying placards asking, “Does ‘the press’ originate from ‘pressure’?”
None of these questions was asked at the meeting. Medvedev was welcomed by orchestrated applause and girls draped in Louis Vuitton scarves.
Students said the selection of the participants and questions lasted a week and that journalism students constituted a minority of the audience.
“Each class was represented by seven students, all of them reliable, like those who posed seminude for Putin’s birthday calendar last year,” they said.
Apart from MGU students, there were members of ethnic diasporas and students from the People’s Friendship University, as the meeting focused on ethnic relations.
Medvedev arrived one and a half hours late. TV anchor Ivan Demidov instructed the audience to smile and applaud all his statements.
Medvedev conceded that ethnic-related crime exists in Russia, said that “not everyone coming to Russia is ready to accept its customs” and Russians are fleeing from many regions.
Moscow businessman Georgy Ovakimov thanked him for “knocking in the teeth” of a post-Soviet leader, broadly hinting at Georgia’s Saakashvili.
“If they start a fight, we’ll knock their teeth in,” the president replied.
He also refuted the suggestion that only the Caucasus republics are subsidized. “We have 83 regions and 72 of them are subsidized.”
The attendees mostly thanked Medvedev for his work as president and proposed establishing a council on ethnic and faith issues, creating a special ideology to be popularized by the media and cancelling visas for EU travel.
Medvedev promised to consider the first, rejected the second and said he will continue working on the third.
He also said he planned to open an account on Russian social networking website Vkontakte because Twitter users criticized him for preferring American sites.
As the president was leaving, a Gazeta.ru journalist asked him about the fate of those students that had been detained. “Was anyone detained?” Medvedev asked, surprised, before posing for photos and leaving.
This journalist was invited to a hall where some of the detained students had been held.
All were released 10 minutes later and a relative of one tweeted that they could be expelled for violating protocol and attempting to ask embarrassing questions.
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