Russia, politics and power: internal & external(new title)

[kaur]

EU has the means to check Gazprom

It should now be a clear consequence of the latest Gazprom/Ukraine/European Union gas crisis that the EU must take at least two steps to protect itself from future Gazprom blackmail and the adverse impact that could have in U.S.-EU relations and energy security. Ignoring Gazprom's gas dominance is all the more puzzling given the EU's continued attacks on Microsoft, whose Windows operating system poses much less of an economic and security threat than Gazprom's monopoly.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009...check-gazprom/

[Schmedlap]

[kaur]

Russian Nationalism Threatens to Destroy the Russian Federation.

13.04.2009

The rise of ethnic Russian nationalism, of the kind characterized by the slogan “Russia for the Russians,” threatens the country both directly by promoting countervailing nationalisms among non-Russian groups and indirectly by making it more difficult for Moscow to move toward a law-based state, according to a Moscow analyst.

“A great state,” the analyst argues, “can be based either on a g reat past or on a great future. All that unifies in spirit the entire Russian population is May 9, 1945. But the unifying them of the war was completely exhausted by Brezhnev. In Russian history, “every other event has the effect of dividing the population.”

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/...tionalism.html

[kaur]

Window on Eurasia: Medvedev Historical Falsification Commission ‘Harmful’ or ‘Useless,’ Memorial Expert Says

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s commission to block “ the falsification of history at the expense of the interests of Russia’ will either be harmful to Medvedev’s reputation and Russia’s prospects for reform or prove useless as an operational body, even if it says a very great deal about the habit of mind of its authors.
“The struggle against the falsifications of history,” Memorial’s Arseny Roginsky argues, “is not an affair of the state,” and consequently, “the activity of the new commission will be useless or harmful” because “we all know very well how [the Russian] state struggles with falsifications”

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/...istorical.html

[davidbfpo]

The BBC News has a long report on fuel supplies and includes an interview with Gazprom's Deputy Chairman: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8090104.stm

davidbfpo

[bourbon]

The takeover of Hungary's Emfesz & energy security in Europe. Global Witness - Briefing Document – 31/05/2009. (PDF)

The takeover of Hungary’s largest independent gas supplier, Emfesz, by a shell company with unknown owners has once again highlighted the opacity of the natural gas trade from the former Soviet Union, a key source of gas supply for Europe. The European Union needs to respond by ensuring full transparency of all companies that supply Europe with gas and oil.

[Stan]

The Balts learned a painful lesson and yet, the remainder of Europe remains hungry and naive.

The title above comes from GAZPROM's website

Take a quick look at what a nasty lesson does to production and exports here.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Ah, the yo-yo that is Ukraine. Russia is trying really hard to build support and ties in the East and South. Presidential candidate Yanukovych is their favorite puppet and he rejected a power-sharing deal with Tymoshenko, so it looks like he thinks he'll get enough support and votes in the East and South (with Russia's help) to become the next president. Will be interesting to see what happens if he is "elected".

[George L. Singleton]

In an earlier post this year on this topic Fuchs in German wrote in part:

Natural gas has near-perfect substitutes in all its uses. Mankind does not need natural gas - it can do the same things with coal products.

* Natural gas replaced coal gas in the 70's for heating/cooking in residential areas (in Berlin and Eastern Europe only in the 90's).
* Natural gas powerplants are quick reaction peak supply tools, but not necessary for the base supply. Improved coal and even nuclear powerplant technologies can replace it in that role (and a special type of water power, but not on large scale).
* Natural gas is also in use in steel production. Alternative technologies use electricity and/or coke as far as I know.
* Natural gas-driven vehicles: No need for such a thing, it's a stupid idea anyway.

The reality is we have mix and match sources, ways and means to pick and choose which energy resources we prefer to use to balance out or hold down costs as our various nations and national interests would prefer.

Natural gas for vehicles here in the US is the wave of the future.

Here in my City of Hoover, Alabama our municipal auto and trucking fleet is fuel entirely by used cooking oil in a cheaper than regular gas or diesel fuel processing plant our city has contracted with for this purpose.

Summer of 2006 my wife and I were touring part of Europe, German, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. We kept seeing a growing number of windmills used to generate electricity. The highways were full of flat bed trucks carrying blades and construciton parts to build more new windmills. Wind into electricity is a very good idea in my book, and it is being pursued more actively here in the US in the past two years, in fact, oddly enough.

Russia should about now be completing it's largest refinery in the world in the Houston, Texas area...this came about inpart when interpersonal relations were at their best between then President Bush and then President Putin.

"Personalized" politics plays a great role, always, otherwise why mention Merkle over Schroder, and now Schroder regarding the Russia to Germany natural gas underwater pipeline, which underwater routing makes sound engineering and safety sense if you take the time of analyze the science of that engineering approach.

This thread is a good one and can go on forever as it revolves around the changing world scene daily from now to eternity, but it serves a good purpose to bring out so many different nationality posters on these energy and politics topics.

[Surferbeetle]

From today's NY Times: Turkey and Russian Conclude Energy Deals

Under the deal Mr. Putin obtained Thursday, Gazprom will be allowed to proceed with seismic and environmental tests in Turkey’s exclusive economic zone, necessary preliminary steps for laying the South Stream pipe, Prime Minister Erdogan said at a news conference.

After the meeting, Mr. Putin said, “We agreed on every issue.”

The trans-Anatolian oil pipeline also marginally improves Russia’s position in the region. The pipeline is one of two so-called Bosporus bypass systems circumventing the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which are operating at capacity in tanker traffic.

The preferred Western route is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which allows companies to ship Caspian Basin crude oil to the West without crossing Russian territory; the pipeline instead crosses the former Soviet republic of Georgia and avoids the crowded straits by cutting across Turkey to the Mediterranean.

Russia prefers northbound pipelines out of the Caspian region that terminate at tanker terminals on the Black Sea. The success of this plan depends, in turn, on creating additional capacity in the Bosporus bypass routes. Russia is backing two such pipelines.

Mr. Putin’s offer to move ahead with a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Turkey suggests a sweetening of the overall Russian offer on energy deals with Turkey, while both Western and Russian proposals are on the table.

[kaur]

Jubilant Medvedev Praises Yanukovych and Threatens Lukashenka

Eurasia Daily Monitor

22, 2010

Yesterday, Moscow achieved one of its most important long-term strategic goals –to secure a continued military presence in Ukraine by keeping its base in Sevastopol, Crimea. During a summit in Kharkov in Eastern Ukraine, Presidents Viktor Yanukovych and Dmitry Medvedev signed a barter agreement that will reduce by 30 percent the price of natural gas for Ukraine and extend the lease of Sevastopol as the main base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet for 25 years plus an automatic prolongation of 5 years.

[kaur]

Kommersant Reporter Is Badly Beaten

08 November 2010

One of Russia's best-known reporters, Oleg Kashin, remained hospitalized in critical condition Sunday night as journalists and activists increased pressure on the authorities to investigate the savage weekend beating that broke his jaw, fingers and a leg.

Kashin, a 30-year-old journalist with Kommersant and one of the country's most prolific and popular bloggers, was attacked by two unidentified men early Saturday near his home at 28 Pyatnitskaya Ulitsa in downtown Moscow.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/a...en/421914.html

Look at the video and how the journalist's leggs are chopped

http://www.lifenews.ru/news/42779

[kaur]

Video part II.

http://news.life.ru/news/42814

[davidbfpo]

Taken from Open Democracy an article 'Kuschevskaya: crime and punishment in a Russian village':

The story of scores being settled with a brutal mass murder in southern Russia has hit the Russian national press. It reveals much about the links between organised crime and power in the country today and gives the lie to the propaganda machine’s claims of increasing happiness and stability.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russ...ussian-village

There are links within, such as the BBC's report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11736312

Naturally Wikileaks has some wider comments on Russia being a Mafia state, IMHO this article provides some context - the reader draws his own conclusions.

[kaur]

Op-Ed Contributor
A Beating on My Beat
By OLEG KASHIN
Published: December 11, 2010

A man with a steel rod is standing behind the smiling politicians who speak of democracy. That man is the real defender of the Kremlin and its order. I got to feel that man with my own head.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/op...shin.html?_r=2

[kaur]

Russian Energy Policy by www.res.ethz.ch

26 July 2011

http://kms2.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengin...Digest_100.pdf

[kaur]

Russia's Power Families - 2011

The "Russia’s Power Families – 2011. The Government" report was prepared by the Monitoring Expert Group (MEG), created in 2011 by Marina Litvinovich, political scientist and journalist. The Group brings together information processing specialists, investigative journalists, experts and analysts. Six people helped gather the material for this report, which took three months to prepare.Russia's Power Families - 2011

Bortnikov Alexander Vasilyevich, Russian FSB Director

Chaika Yuri Yakovlevich, General Prosecutor

Fradkov Mikhail Efimovich, Foreign Intelligence Service Director

Fursenko Andrei Alexandrovich, Minister of Education and Science

Ivanov Victor Petrovich, head of Federal Drug Control Service

Ivanov Sergei Borisovich, Deputy Chairman of RF Government

Khristenko Victor Borisovich, Minister of Industry and Trade and Golikova Tatyana, Minister of Health and Social Development

Kudrin Alexei Leonidovich, ex-Minister of Finance

Levitin Igor Yevgenievich, Minister of Transport and Communication

Murov Evgeny Alexeyevich, Federal Protective Service director

Mutko Vitaly Leontievich, Minister of Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy

Nabiullina Elvira Sahipzadovna, Minister of Economic Development

Patrushev Nikolai Platonovich, Security Council Secretary

Serdyukov Anatoly Eduardovich, Defense Minister

Shoigu Sergei Kuzhugetovich, Minister of Civil Defense, Emergency Situations and Disaster Relief

Shuvalov Igor Ivanovich, Government’s First Deputy Chairman

Skrynnik Elena Borisovna, Minister of Agriculture

Stepashin Sergei Vladimirovich, Accounts Chamber Chairman

Trutnev Yuri Petrovich, Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology

Zhukov Alexander Dmitrievich, Deputy RF Prime Minister

Zubkov Victor Alekseyevich, First Deputy RF Prime Minister

http://eng.election2012.ru/reports/1/

[AdamG]

Russia has sent interior ministry troops to Moscow and increased the alert level of security forces after a protest of thousands of people opposing Vladimir Putin, officials said on Tuesday.

“They (the troops) have just one aim--to ensure the security of the citizens,” interior ministry forces spokesman Colonel Vasily Panchenkov told the Interfax news agency while a police spokesman said the security forces were now on a “heightened regime” of alert.

“The number of troops deployed is determined by the Moscow police,” Panchenkov added, without giving numbers.

http://english.alarabiya.net/article...06/181111.html

[AdamG]

MOSCOW -- Russian authorities are allowing the opposition to hold a massive Moscow protest against election fraud following a violent police crackdown on unsanctioned demonstrations earlier this week, rally organizers said Friday.
The decision to let up to 30,000 protesters rally on Saturday on a square across the river from the Kremlin appears to be an attempt to avoid the violence that occurred at demonstrations after last Sunday's parliamentary election.

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news...-against-putin

Photo caption -

Russian riot police stand guard near Red Square in Moscow on Friday. Nearly 50,000 police and 2,000 paramilitary forces are on the streets, backed by water cannons, ahead of protests planned for Saturday.

[Stan]

From The Moscow Times

Russia inched closer to a Facebook revolution Thursday, after the number of users who signed up for a protest against the State Duma vote results crossed the 30,000 mark.

Web dissent spilling offline sparked suspicions that the authorities may be mulling a crackdown on Internet freedoms, a fear fueled by reports about law enforcement agencies' disjointed attempts to pressure the online community.

But analysts interviewed for this article said the cost of such a crackdown would be too high and that the Russian segment of the World Wide Web would likely remain a bastion of free speech and political discussion.