SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1491 (53), Tuesday, July 14, 2009
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TITLE: Ruble Falls Against Euro, Dollar
AUTHOR: By Denis Maternovsky
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — The ruble fell to the weakest level in almost five months against the euro and dropped versus the dollar Monday as Russia said the economy may shrink more this year than previously estimated.
Russia’s currency depreciated 0.7 percent to 45.8804 against the euro as of 4.03 p.m. in Moscow, heading for its weakest close since Feb. 24. The ruble retreated 0.3 percent to 32.8556 per dollar, poised for the weakest close since May 4.
The ruble last week posted its steepest slide against the euro and dollar since January as oil sank, the budget deficit widened and the central bank reduced interest rates for the fourth time in less than three months. 
The currency’s drop after the rate cut shows a “very fragile trend” and “downside potential is high,” Alfa Bank’s Chief Economist Natalia Orlova wrote in a note Monday.
“The ruble is likely to suffer a little bit more while we enter a new wave of stress,” said Luis Costa, an emerging markets debt strategist at Commerzbank AG in London. 
“Add to this the prospects of further rate cuts and it’s difficult to be extremely bullish on the ruble now,” Costa said.
Russia’s economy may shrink between 8 percent and 8.5 percent this year after companies depleted stockpiles and exports plummeted during the global slowdown, the Economy Ministry said.
Gross domestic product probably contracted 10.2 percent in the first six months and may slump 6.8 percent in the second half, the Moscow-based ministry said in its draft economic forecast for the next three years, which was due to be discussed at a government meeting Monday. 
Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina had predicted a 2009 contraction of as much as 8 percent in May.
Russia’s central bank announced a cut in its refinancing rate on Friday to 11 percent from 11.5 percent, the fourth reduction since April, as policy makers seek to stimulate bank lending amid the country’s first economic contraction in a decade.
“We suspect that one of the reasons behind the ruble’s depreciation was the market’s expectation that very poor economic growth will lead to deflation,” Orlova wrote. “In that case, the central bank would continue to cut rates, reducing the attractiveness of ruble assets.”
Orlova said she expected the refinancing rate would be lowered by as much as one percentage point in the coming months. 
Inflation in June slowed to an 18-month low of 11.9 percent, from 12.3 percent in May.

TITLE: Leaders Say G8 Losing Its Currency
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Against a growing chorus to expand the Group of Eight, President Dmitry Medvedev spoke on Friday in favor of keeping the G8 format as a useful tool for international policymaking.
Medvedev, speaking at a news conference at the end of the three-day G8 summit, also said Russia would continue with its individual bid to join the World Trade Organization, even though Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said June 9 that the country would suspend its bid and seek to join with Belarus and Kazakhstan as a customs union.
Leaders of the G8 rich nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — met alone on Wednesday in  L’Aquila, Italy. On Thursday, they had sessions with six other countries, forming the so-called G14, and on the closing day they invited a number of additional states from the developing world.
The major global economies are also working together to combat the crisis as the G20.
Medvedev said he believed the formats should co-exist for the foreseeable future before being replaced one day by a single format.
“I believe that on the whole we need to choose an economical format for communication,” he said, without specifying what it should be.
His foreign policy aide, Sergei Prikhodko, was more blunt on Thursday.
“It’s too early to bury the G8. We need to continue the collective analysis,” Prikhodko told reporters. “There is a big common range of subjects that the G8 is best suited for.”
He added, however, that the G20 would take over some issues from the G8 and would likely keep them. He did not elaborate.
Medvedev said a broader format would be useful to strengthen the legal groundwork for international cooperation, to reform international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, and to rethink the “stereotypes” of the past years.
Medvedev found support from Canada and Germany for keeping the G8 format, but the United States, Italy and France argued that the G8’s days should be numbered.
U.S. President Barack Obama pointed out that big economies outside the G8 were vital for advancing on issues such as the economic crisis and global warming.
“One thing that is absolutely true is that for us to think we can somehow deal with some of these global challenges in the absence of major powers like China, India and Brazil seems to be wrongheaded,” Obama told reporters.
He appeared to signal that the G8 was marching toward extinction.
“We are in a transition period,” Obama said Friday. “The one thing I will be looking forward to are fewer summit meetings. … I think there is a possibility to streamline them and make them more effective.”
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he was strongly in favor of having the G14 assume a dominant role in international decision making.
“As far as I am concerned the G14 is the format that in the future will have the best possibility to take the most important decisions on the world economy, and not just that,” he said.
The G14 includes Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Mexico and South Africa.
Berlusconi said he opposed a further widening of the forum and adopting the G20 format permanently. “When more than 15 people sit around a table you have a problem with discussions and debate,” he said. “There isn’t the possibility for direct contact or to interrupt, so it becomes formal and static.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy also backed the G14, which represents about 80 percent of the global economy, up from 50 percent that the G8 accounts for. “We will put the G14 in place in 2011 when France chairs the G8,” he told reporters.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his country would try to create a broader forum but expressed hope that the G8 would survive.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 serves an important role. “There are issues for which the G8 is the appropriate body in our view,” she said.
The fact that Russia chose not to articulate its support for a larger G8 organization on Friday doesn’t mean that it doesn’t support such an expansion, said Boris Shmelyov, director of the Center for Comparative Political Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“It’s a process that is inevitable and necessary,” he said of the possible formal expansion. “It would strengthen Russia’s position because it has common interests with the major developing countries.”
Regarding the WTO, Medvedev outlined a different approach for Russia than what Putin announced in June.
Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan may continue with their individual bids rather than seeking entry as a single customs union, Medvedev said.
He didn’t outright reject trying to join as a customs union, as Putin proposed, saying it would be “beautiful but quite a problem.”
Instead, Russia and its two customs union partners could negotiate common standards to apply in their separate bids, Medvedev said. 
This would be “simpler and more realistic” and would allow them to join at different times, Medvedev said.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke last week described the customs union bid as “not workable and unacceptable.”
Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina denied last week that Russia was still considering a solo bid.  
“We’re joining together. That’s the decision that’s been made and that’s what we’re working toward,” she said.

TITLE: TV’s ‘Bridge of Freedom’ Describes Gays as ‘Abomination’
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A chief editor at a local television channel called homosexuality an “abomination” in a caustic reply to an open letter written by an insulted viewer. The viewer, St. Petersburg resident Maria Yefremenkova, had earlier held a one-woman protest against what she described as a “homophobic” broadcast that “discriminated” against sexual minorities.
Valery Tatarov, the editor of 100TV’s public affairs talk show “Bridge of Freedom,” refused to apologize for the broadcast, as requested by Yefremenkova. Instead, he informed her, in an e-mail dated July 1, that he would not apologize unless a court ordered him to do so.
In closing, Tatarov expressed “the deepest disrespect for homosexuality and other abominations” and wished Yefremenkova “the best of luck in studying the law as well as civil rights and liberties.”
The program that sparked Yefremenkova’s campaign was broadcast on 100TV on May 22. The topic debated by the show’s in-studio guests was “Is homosexualism [sic] a crime against childhood?” 
The phrasing of the topic was inspired by a statement made by the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox priest Andrei Kurayev, one of the church’s most visible public figures. When asked about a planned gay pride event in Moscow in May, Kurayev slammed what he called the “propaganda of homosexuality.” 
During the course of the fifty-three minute program, anti-gay guests and interviewees argued several times that the aim of gay rights protests was to recruit minors into the homosexual community by making homosexuality “fashionable.” “Is homosexuality a fashion or psychiatric disease?” one of the presenters asked a guest.
The terms gomoseksualism and gomoseksualist, seen as inappropriate by gays because they suggest that homosexuality is a disease or a form of deviancy, were used consistently throughout the entire program.
Yefremenkova found remarks made by journalists and guests, as well as pre-recorded video sequences aired during the program, insulting to sexual minorities. 
“As a member of Russian society, I am deeply outraged by this instance of discrimination against sexual minorities. It’s intolerable,” Yefremenkova said by phone last week.
In a letter she wrote to 100TV’s general director and editor, Andrei Radin, after she received Tatarov’s response last week, Yefremenkova alleged that the “hosts and creators of this program violated the rights, honor and dignity of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community.”
She also wrote that the presenters “spread rumors disguised as reliable facts; [they] presented information on homosexuality in such a way as to demean this category of citizens, ignite intolerance and contribute to the rise of hatred in society.” 
Yefremenkova accused the show’s hosts of “fabricating facts” and allowing the program’s guests — Igor Knyazkin (introduced as a doctor of medicine), political analyst Alexander Konfisakhor of St. Petersburg State University, and historian Yury Sokolov — to threaten and insult sexual minorities.
“Don’t write on your t-shirt that you’re a faggot, and nobody will touch you,” said Knyazkin, who also described homosexuality as a “social disease.” Konfisakhor seconded him: “In my youth, you would get punched in the face for [openly expressing homosexuality] — long, hard, and so that it hurt.” 
In response to a post on the channel’s web forum that read “Gay culture is being exported from abroad. The goal is the destruction of Russia,” Sokolov said, “Strange as it may seem, this might be true.” ”That’s right,” an off-screen voice was heard to say in reply.
Moreover, guests repeatedly compared homosexuality to bestiality, necrophilia and pedophilia.
Although there were two speakers on behalf of sexual minorities in the studio, the show’s general tone was hostile. When Valery Sozayev, an activist with the LGBT rights organization Vykhod (Coming Out) asked his opponents and the presenters to imagine how they would react “if [their own] children turn[ed] out to be gay,” presenter Svetlana Malinina sarcastically retorted, “God forbid!”
Journalist Andrei Klyushev concluded the broadcast by remarking that a person should not speak publicly about his or her sexual orientation.
“In the U.S. army […] they have arrived at a very simple slogan — ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ That is, sexual orientation is everyone’s personal affair, but you shouldn’t speak about it publicly. I think that is a rather healthy idea,” Klyushev said.
What Klyushev did not mention, however, was that the Pentagon’s controversial ban did not extend to civilians, and that several recent surveys have shown that the vast majority of Americans are against the ban.
Last year, during his presidential campaign, Barack Obama pledged to work with military leaders and Congress on repealing the law that bans openly gay men and women from serving in the military.
At the end of the broadcast, the results of a viewer call-in poll were shown on screen. Those who agreed that “homosexualism” was a “crime against childhood” outnumbered those who disagreed by an overwhelming margin — 7,263 to 1,298, or 85 versus 15 percent. 
On Monday, the program’s web site showed that a video of the controversial broadcast had been viewed over 13,000 times since the May 22 airing. Other recent broadcasts in the series, which airs three times a week, have garnered just over a thousand online re-viewings at most.
Yefremenkova wrote that the facts she cited in her letter constitute “evidence of discrimination against sexual minorities by employees of 100TV” and were thus violations of Russian and international law.
On June 6, Yefremenkova held a picket near 100TV’s studios, near Petrogradskaya Naberezhnaya. She held up a placard that read, “Against discrimination toward sexual minorities in the media. 100TV is a homophobic channel.” She also distributed leaflets in which she demanded that the channel apologize to the LGBT community.
Under the Soviet legal code, male homosexual acts were criminal offenses, punishable by terms of five to eight years in prison. This law was abolished in 1993, two years after the Soviet Union collapsed, during the administration of President Boris Yeltsin. During Soviet times, the subject of homosexuality was strictly banned from print and broadcast media.
Speaking by phone this week, LGBT rights activist Sozayev talked about what he called the “lack of professionalism” of 100TV’s journalists.
“In a debate, the hosts should not take sides, whatever their personal views are, but these hosts demonstrated their homophobia in a very obvious way,” he said. 
“Many thoughtful people I spoke to, people who are able to think for themselves, said the program had the opposite effect on them,” Sozayev added.
“If the editor wanted to use this program to incite homophobia, he failed. As one woman wrote in her blog, ‘For the longest time I couldn’t explain to my husband why LGBT rights have to be protected. After watching this program he understood why.”
Radin, who heads 100TV, said he had not received the letter when called on Monday and declined to comment.

TITLE: Station’s Name Sparks Controversy
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: An announcement last week that Russian Railways (RZD) planned to change the name of Moscow’s Leningrad railway station to Nikolayevsky sparked major discussion among both the public and political leaders.
On Thursday, RZD’s press service released information that the company’s president, Vladimir Yakunin, had signed a decree changing the name of the Leningrad railway station, which connects Russia’s two biggest cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Later, in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station, Yakunin confirmed the information, saying that the decision was “part of RZD’s current policy of a historical and continuous approach.”
Several hours later, however, RZD denied the story, saying that “no final decision on the matter had yet been taken” but that “the idea is currently under discussion.”
“The company did receive a letter with such a suggestion from the Vozvrashcheniye public foundation, whose members include politicians, scientists and priests,” the press service said.
“The possibility of changing the name is being considered by the Russian History Institution, Federal Railway Agency and Moscow’s Transport and Communications department,” it said.
However, the news of the possible change provoked disagreement among a number of Russian politicians and members of the public.
Gennady Zyuganov, leader of Russia’s Communist Party, said RZD did not have the right to make decisions regarding the return of the Leningrad railway station’s former name of Nikolayevsky.
“It’s not a question about which some department has the right to make decisions,” Zyuganov said.
He called such attempts an “ideologically subversive act.”
“I believe that in the stressful situation of the global economic crisis, such actions, directed to undermine Soviet history, provoke unrest in the country,” he said.
Gennady Gudkov, deputy head of the A Just Russia faction in the State Duma, said that decisions regarding the return of historical names to the country’s cities, streets and squares should be made only by federal and regional parliaments, Interfax reported.
“It’s not very clear why the railway station should bear the name Nikolayevsky,” Gudkov said. “The whole dynasty of Russian tsars compromised themselves by their inability to carry out reforms, except Peter the Great and Alexander II. None of the rest did anything good for the country.”
St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said decisions on changing names should be made carefully.
“I’m very cautious about it. Before such decisions are made, we need to weigh them up ten times, get the opinions of experts and historians,” Matviyenko said, Interfax reported.
“What need is there to change the name of the Leningrad station now? Leningrad is a part of our history, and let this part remain in the name,” she said.
St. Petersburg residents are also actively discussing the issue.
“I travel between St. Petersburg and Moscow fairly often for business, and it would be quite unnatural for me to arrive at the Nikolayevsky station instead of the Leningrad station,” said Svetlana Vasilyeva, 39, a manager in St. Petersburg.
In its first statement regarding the matter, RZD’s press service said that the decision to change the station’s name from Leningrad to Nikolayevsky was based on the major input of Tsar Nicholas I in the development of the Russian railways.
The press service also announced plans to build a church dedicated to St. Nicholas at the railway station, Interfax reported.
The Leningrad railway station is the oldest in Moscow. Initially it was called the Petersburg station, but a few years after its opening it was renamed the Nikolayevsky. In 1923, the Russian railway network was renamed the Oktyabrskaya, and the station was also given the name of Oktyabrsky.
It was renamed the Leningrad station in 1924, after the death of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, in whose honor the city of Petrograd, as St. Petersburg was then known, was renamed Leningrad.

TITLE: Riot Police Quash Demonstration By Altai Workers
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Altai riot police violently dispersed a crowd of about 200 unpaid workers who tried to block the M-52 federal highway running from Novosibirsk to Mongolia on Friday.
Headed by management, the workers from the Gorno-Altaisk-based road construction company Magistral converged on the highway with signs reading, “A government that doesn’t help citizens must resign.”
Television footage showed rows of police officers aggressively pushing back the protesters, including a man carrying a young child on his shoulders.
A video released by RIA-Novosti showed the officers forcefully pinning demonstrators’ arms behind their backs and throwing them to the ground.
Police denied any violence.
“News agencies carried incorrect information about riot police officers using violence to disperse the rally,” police said in a statement.
Two of “the most active participants” in the demonstration were detained, including Magistral director Vasily Piryayev, police said.
About 100 Magistral workers attempted to block the same highway on July 3.
The workers say they are owed 5.6 million rubles ($170,000) in back wages and blame the Altai republic’s administration for a lack of work.
The Altai administration blamed Magistral’s managers Friday.
“Magistral does not participate very much in tenders in other regions,” said administration spokeswoman Yelena Kobzeva, RIA-Novosti reported.
Magistral, one of the biggest road-construction companies in the republic, has laid off a third of its employees since the start of the year, RIA-Novosti said.

TITLE: President Backs S. Ossetia On First Trip to Tskhinvali
AUTHOR: By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday paid his first visit to South Ossetia, a region of Georgia that Moscow has recognized as independent following a brief war there last year.
Medvedev arrived in the region’s capital, Tskhinvali, and met with its Moscow-friendly leader, Eduard Kokoity, according to Russian news agencies.
Georgia’s attempts last August to retake South Ossetia from Russian-aligned separatists were repelled when thousands of Russian troops under Medvedev’s orders poured into the region and fought back.
The troops remained after the five-day war and Russia has supported South Ossetia’s subsequent declaration of independence, along with that of Abkhazia, Georgia’s other rebel-held province.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia border Russia to the north.
Georgia considers South Ossetia and Abkhazia occupied and called Medvedev’s visit an act of “provocation.”
“If Medvedev has nowhere else to go except Tskhinvali ... there’s nothing you can do. We expect provocations from the Kremlin,” Temuri Yakobashvili, Georgia’s minister for reintegration, said.
Russia has signed border patrol agreements with the regions, allowing thousands of Russian troops to patrol the de facto border with Georgia proper.
“It is ... necessary to develop defense cooperation and related treaties,” Medvedev said in Tskhinvali, ITAR-Tass reported.
“I am grateful for the invitation to visit the new country, South Ossetia, which was born in the time of dramatic events and was supported by the Russian people,” he said in comments carried by Interfax.
Medvedev, who later visited a Russian military base in Tskhinvali, stressed there were a “number of projects for the economic and social restoration of the republic.”
“There is a lot of work to be done,” he said.
Georgia’s president, meanwhile, was in Turkey attending Monday’s signing of a deal on the construction of a pipeline that would take Central Asian gas to Europe, bypassing Russia. See story, page 4.
Georgia is likely to be a transit nation feeding gas harvested in Azerbaijan to the Nabucco pipeline in eastern Turkey. 
Gas headed for the terminal in Turkey could also come from Iran, but that would be vehemently opposed by Washington, increasing the importance of Georgia as a partner.

TITLE: Ship With Toxic Load Holed
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Captain Lus, a Russian vessel that regularly delivers radioactove cargo to St. Petersburg from abroad for subsequent reprocessing in Siberia, has collided with The Sundstraum, a Norwegian tanker, that was carrying chemicals. The Russian ship was en route from St. Petersburg to the French port of Le Havre. According to the preliminary investigation into the incident, the vessels share responsibility for causing the collision.
Rashid Alimov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of the international environmental organization Bellona, told The St. Petersburg Times that The Captain Lus, which was holed in the collision, was carrying 9 containers of urainum ore concentrate on board. The cargo totalled 182 tons in weight, but no radioactive leaks were registered.
The Captain Lus is currently undergoing repairs in Denmark. After the accident the radioactive cargo was moved to another Russian ship, The Mikhail Lomonosov, which has already delivered the shipment to its final destination, the COMURNEX enterprise which belongs to the Areva holding in Malvesi, France.
Every month The Captain Lus or similar vessels deliver uranium hexafluoride or other uranium derivatives to the city. The Russian authorities claim the transportation is safe, while ecologists maintain that the process is very risky.
“The Captain Lus incident — which received no coverage in the mainstream media — is a compelling example of the fact that nuclear transportation is not at all immune to accidents,” Alimov said.
Russian environmental organizations campaign to end the transportation of nuclear cargoes over the Baltic Sea, arguably the most polluted sea on the planet.
“Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency is bragging about what they describe as the high levels of security in nuclear transportation but, as we can see, major accidents still occur,” said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense. “Risks of radioactive leaks really are high, and, if such a leak happens, the damage to nature and humanity would be severe,” Slivyak said.
“Russian legislation forbids the import of spent nuclear fuel or any nuclear waste, but the authorities evade the law by marking uranium hexafluoride as a raw material,” Alimov explained.
“Because neither Russia nor any other country has any idea of what they can possibly do with uranium hexafluoride, which is to say what use they could make of it, the substance clearly qualifies as waste. The world’s storage facilities currently hold several million tons of uranium hexafluoride.”
According to Bellona, Russia is the only country in the world that receives uranium hexafluoride from abroad in industrial quantities. 
Russian officials claim that uranium hexafluoride is as safe as toothpaste, while ecologists regard the compound as a nuclear waste.
The environmentalists described “a cloud of secrecy” surrounding nuclear transportation.
“We are particularly worried about the fact that Russian environmental groups are constantly denied any opportunity to implement independent control and monitoring of the traffic,” Alimov said.
“Despite numerous requests, officials have refused to inform us about emergency or clean-up plans that would be implemented should an accident happen.”
The authorities insist that they are in full control of the situation and do not require any help from ecological groups.
Government officials also stress that the nuclear industry is crucially important for Russia. The country provides nuclear fuel for every third nuclear reactor in the world. According to nuclear imports advocates, this earns huge amounts for the state budget: nuclear fuel is Russia’s third most profitable export, after the export of oil and gas.
Alimov warns, however, that accidents during transportation are still very common in Russia, with trainssometimes colliding, going off the rails and even falling off bridges.
“Russia’s transport system is not immune to accidents and if an accident involving radioactive material were to happen in St. Petersburg, the price that the city would pay would be much too high,” Alimov said. 
“If a transport accident occurs that breaks the hermetic seal of a container which is loaded with spent nuclear fuel, it could result in lethal cases of radiation poisoning within a 32-kilometer radius from the site of the spill,” he said.

TITLE: Web Site Shut Over ‘Mein Kampf’
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A popular web site used by historians to explore the often-murky Soviet past has been blocked for publishing Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” in what appears to be a case of selective justice.
The site, Hronos.info, was shut down last week by its Moscow-based Internet provider after a warning from St. Petersburg’s “K” police squad, which deals in cyber crime, the site’s founder, Vyacheslav Rumyantsev, said Friday.
Rumyantsev, a Moscow State University history graduate who opened the site in 2000, said he first posted extracts from Hitler’s book 2 1/2 years ago.
Hronos.info, which posts articles and scanned historical documents, is widely recognized as one of the biggest and most popular historical sites in Russia. Rumyantsev called it “the central historical resource on the Russian-language Internet.”
“Mein Kampf” is banned in Russia under the law on countering extremist activities, which lists in its text “the works of the leaders of the German Nazi Party.”
Rumyantsev said, however, that he wasn’t aware of this. “I don’t know about any list of books. I haven’t seen this book there,” he said.
In fact, “Mein Kampf” is not on a list of banned extremist materials published by the Justice Ministry because it falls directly under the law. The list on the Justice Ministry web site includes 389 materials, including articles, films, pamphlets and magazines.
The list is based on books that have been ruled extremist by courts. It is controversial among Russia’s Muslim community because it includes seminal texts by Muslim thinkers, and human rights campaigners complain that it is almost impossible to remove a book once it appears on the list.
One of the books listed is “Hitler’s Table Talk” by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper.
Rumyantsev insisted that the publication of “Mein Kampf” was for academic research.
“The site posts historical sources so that people can read them and get to know the past,” he said, adding that he had posted only an “outline” of the first part of the book.
A spokesman for St. Petersburg police, Vyacheslav Stepchenko, said Friday that the site was closed down after the police sent a letter to provider Agava. He said that the law calls for the distributor of information to be warned first, and a criminal case will be opened only if the warning is ignored.
The law applies to the provider, not to the author of a web site, he said. “According to Russian law, responsibility for distribution lies with the owner of the resource, the owner of the hosting.”
The police department sends about 20 warning letters every month, he said.
Agava officials were not immediately available for comment.
Rumyantsev said he had obtained a copy of the police fax from the provider and passed it to a well-known nationalist politician, former State Duma Deputy Andrei Savelyev, to post on his LiveJournal blog. Savelyev, a former Rodina deputy, heads a nationalist organization called Great Russia that hasn’t won registration as a political party.
The scanned document, dated June 19, cites a link to “Mein Kampf” and says this breaks Article 280 of the Criminal Code by making a public call to extremist activities.
It says the provider must block the site according to the law on communications, and that if it fails to do so, it could lose its license and the head of the provider would be considered as an accessory to a crime.
World War II history is particularly controversial at the moment, after President Dmitry Medvedev in May called for the creation of a commission to prevent historical falsifications that damage Russia’s interests.
Nevertheless, the closure of one web site bears the hallmarks of selective justice. If you type “Mein Kampf” in Russian into search engine Yandex.ru, the system automatically suggests “download” as the most popular result. Dozens of web sites offer downloads of “Mein Kampf.” One called XXII-vek.info offers the option of ordering a paper version described as “samizdat.” Another web site, Knigadarom, lists the book and says that 1,984 people have downloaded it.
Historian Yaroslav Leontyev, a staff member at the human rights group Memorial, said he hadn’t heard of the closure of the web site, but that he felt that “Mein Kampf” should not be available to readers.  “I don’t think distribution of this book should take place,” he said.
But another historian, Boris Sokolov, said such censorship was pointless.
“I think it’s just another stupid idea because ‘Mein Kampf’ can be seen as a historic document,” Sokolov said. “Only historians read it. It’s quite a complex book; your average fascist won’t be able to read it. I don’t think it’s right to have censorship on the Internet.”
He also noted that the book was available on many web sites. “They won’t be able to ban them all, especially because some of them aren’t in Russia,” he said.
Rumyantsev said the book got around 200 hits per week, compared to 10,000 daily for the site as a whole. “People definitely didn’t log on for ‘Mein Kampf,’” he said.
Two mirror sites, Hrono.ru and Hronos.km.ru are still working because they have a different provider, Rumyantsev said. He has removed “Mein Kampf” from both.  
“I removed it from there because it’s more precious and important to me that people read the other materials,” he said.

TITLE: President Shows Off Future World Money
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — After months of pushing for a new world currency, President Dmitry Medvedev had more than an idea to tout at his G8 news conference. He had the real thing.
With a broad grin, Medvedev held aloft a shiny gold coin Friday that he said represented a “symbol of unity” and a possible “future world currency.”
“I have some supranational currency in my pocket that I got as a souvenir. This is a test sample of a currency unit under the Unity in Diversity motto,” Medvedev said, holding the coin between two fingers.
“It is called the United Future World Currency. It can already be seen and touched,” he said, according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s web site.
Examples of the coin, worth $3,900 and produced by the United Future World Currency, a group backing the idea of a global currency, was presented to all world leaders attending the Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila, Italy.
The coin was made by Belgian Luc Luycx, who also designed one side of the Euro coins, and are called “eurodollars” in a symbolic call for a common currency to unite Europe and the United States.
Medvedev pulled out his coin when reporters asked him about new reserve currencies at the news conference that closed the three-day summit. “This is a symbol of our unity and our desire to solve such issues,” Medvedev said.
Russia and China have called for a “super currency” to replace the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at the summit that the dollar’s supremacy as a reserve currency is outdated.
“This has become a regular theme now,” Medvedev said Friday at his G8 news conference. 
“We are discussing the creation or, to be more correct, the appearance of new reserve currencies, including the possibility of making the Russian ruble such a currency unit,” he said.

TITLE: Medvedev Warns U.S. Against Missile Shield
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that Russia will still deploy missiles near Poland if the United States pushes ahead with a missile shield in Eastern Europe.
Medvedev reaffirmed the threat four days after he welcomed Obama to Moscow for a summit aimed at improving troubled ties.
Medvedev and Obama reached a preliminary agreement on new reductions in the Russian and American nuclear arsenals. Russian officials have suggested Moscow may not sign a treaty on the cuts unless the U.S. abandons the previous administration’s plans for missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Medvedev said the Kremlin believes the Bush administration’s decision to build those facilities was “a mistake.”
“If we cannot agree on these questions, you know the consequences,” he told a news conference at the Group of Eight nations’ summit in L’Aquila, Italy.
“What I said in my (state of the nation) address — I have not withdrawn this idea,” he said.
He first made the threat in a state-of the-nation address just hours after Barack Obama was elected in November.
The new remark appeared aimed at staking out a firm position ahead of further talks with the U.S. on an arms reduction deal to replace the 1991 START I treaty, which expires in December. At the same time, his use of the word “revise” — rather than something more unequivocal — appeared to leave the door open for further bargaining on missile defense.
Medvedev praised Obama for ordering a review of the missile plans, saying that it made him feel “moderately positive” that the U.S. would abandon the idea.
“Whose point of view will prevail in the American administration, I do not know,” he said.
During the Moscow summit last Monday and Tuesday, Obama reiterated the U.S. insistence that the missile defense system would pose no threat to Russia. U.S. officials say their intent would be to guard against a potential missile threat from Iran, but Russian officials say they fear its real intent is to weaken their country’s nuclear deterrent.
Medvedev made more upbeat comments about his first summit with Obama. He called the agreements reached “very, very positive,” particularly compared to Russian-U.S. ties about six months ago, which he said had “rolled back almost to the level of the Cold War.”
Russian-American ties, severely strained during the presidencies of Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush, were further damaged by Russia’s war with U.S.-supported Georgia last August.
Medvedev said he and Obama are getting along well, adding: “I like talking to Barack.”
“I won’t hide the fact that last year, it was harder for me to talk with the president of the United States of America, as our positions on many issues differed,” Medvedev said. “More accurately, I’ll put it this way: Talking with the younger George Bush is a real pleasure — he is a sincere person, a quick-witted person — but unfortunately this had no consequences for our relations; frankly speaking, it sometimes had negative ones.
“In this sense, I hope that Barack Obama and I listen to each other better and understand each other better, too,” he said.

TITLE: 2x2 Cuts Putin Scene From South Park
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Television channel 2x2 cut a segment of the ribald U.S. cartoon comedy “South Park” that appeared to mock Vladimir Putin, a spokesman said Friday.
The channel cut material from the show that aired Tuesday portraying Putin as a greedy and desperate leader, the network’s spokesman said. The decision prompted criticism and furious discussion on Russian blogs.
It was unclear whether the decision, involving an episode that originally aired in the United States in 2005, was made by channel executives or regulators.
Asked about the Putin scene being cut, channel spokesman Andrei Andreyev said by e-mail, “The given scene in this version was absent.”
Andreyev said it was the third time the edited version of the episode had been shown this year.
He declined to comment on the reason for the censorship.
A spokesman with Russia’s broadcast regulator, the Federal Mass Media Inspection Service, said he knew nothing of the incident.
“We have never interfered with editorial decisions,” spokesman Yevgeny Strelchik said.
NTV television was forced to pull its satirical puppet show “Kukly” in 2002 after the Kremlin objected to the excessive lampooning of Putin.
Internet publications and blogs are among the last outlets for unfettered commentary and satire in Russian, and commentators on Russia’s most popular blogging service, LiveJournal, vented their anger after news of the “South Park” censorship leaked out.
Oleg Kuvayev, a blogger and online animated filmmaker, said on his web site that the decision would only attract more attention to the channel.
“It’s stupid to cut things this way,” he wrote, because it attracts more attention to the scene in question.
The station has previously been warned about the extremist content of its cartoons by the Basmanny District prosecutor’s office, though Moscow’s Basmanny District Court later ruled that the station does not promote religious hatred.

TITLE: Ford Plant Down to Two Shifts
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The local Ford Motor plant will start operating on a two-shift basis from Sept. 22, a spokeswoman for Ford’s Russian office said Monday.
Currently the plant, located in the town of Vsevolozhsk in the Leningrad Oblast, operates on a three-shift basis. All the employees currently working the third shift will be transferred to similar positions on the first and second shifts, said Yekaterina Kulinenko.
The plant will also continue its reduced four-day working week through Feb. 5, 2010. The reduced working week was introduced at the plant on June 8 and was originally planned to last through Oct. 5 this year.
The measures will be taken due to the decreasing demand for new cars on the Russian market, said Kulinenko.
“With an industry forecast in Russia this year of around 1.4 million new vehicles — more than 50 percent down on 2008 levels — Ford Russia is continuing to adjust its production output to bring it into line with sales demand,” she said.
The company informed its trade union about the forthcoming changes in advance as required by the local labor code.
“Both measures will help to avoid significant job losses, which otherwise would have been necessary due to prevailing weak industry demand levels,” Kulinenko said.
The plant resumed work Monday through July 16, having halted its assembly line on July 1, during which period the plant’s employees received two thirds of their salary.
From July 20 through August 7 the employees will be on the traditional collective vacation, Kulinenko said.

TITLE: Nabucco Pipeline Becomes ‘Inevitable’
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: ANKARA — Four EU countries and Turkey signed an accord Monday on building a major U.S.-backed gas pipeline to reduce European reliance on Russia amid lingering uncertainty on who will supply the gas.
The prime ministers of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Turkey inked the intergovernmental accord, hailing it as a milestone in the Nabucco pipeline project, long delayed by lack of commitment from gas-exporting nations.
The 3,300-kilometer conduit is planned to become operational in 2014 at an estimated cost of 10.9 billion dollars, with a capacity to pump 31 billion cubic meters of gas from the Caspian Sea to Austria via Turkey and the Balkans, bypassing Russia.
The project “is of crucial importance for the EU’s and Turkey’s energy security,” European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said at the ceremony.
“Some time ago people said the project would not go ahead. I believe this pipeline is now inevitable rather than just probable,” he said.
The Nabucco project aims to avoid a repetition of cut-offs that have disrupted Russian supplies to Europe during the winter, with Moscow accused of using the gas as a political weapon.
A quarter of all gas used in Europe comes from Russia, with several southern European countries depending almost exclusively on Russian supplies.
Nabucco is in direct competition with Russia’s South Stream project, which will carry Russian gas through Bulgaria to Western Europe under the Black Sea.
The project appeared to get a boost Friday when Turkmenistan said it was prepared to supply Nabucco with gas.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <strong>Foreigner Regulations</strong>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russia may simplify procedures for hiring foreigners to work in the financial industry under new legislation, Kommersant reported.
The lower house of parliament was on Monday due to consider amendments to the law that will allow employers to hire foreigners without seeking approval from the Federal Migration Service, the newspaper said, citing Kira Lukyanova, a member of the chamber’s committee on economic policy.

<strong>Trial Allegations</strong>
LONDON (Bloomberg) — Russian investor Shalva Chigirinsky claimed that Yelena Baturina, the wife of the Moscow mayor, held 50 percent of his stake in Sibir Energy Plc in return for assisting him with “bureaucratic issues,” the Financial Times reported, citing the filing of a witness statement.
The statement was filed at London’s High Court as part of a legal battle over rights to Chigirinsky’s 23.5 percent stake in Sibir, the FT said.

<strong>Oil Spilled Into Volga</strong>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — An inland river tanker spilled about 2 metric tons of oil products into the Volga River, Europe’s longest, after running aground, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said.
“The spill stretched about 12 kilometers long and 35 meters wide,” Oleg Zugeev, head of media relations for the Volga region, said by telephone Monday.
The leak has been controlled and the remaining oil is being pumped from the tanker into reserve tanks, Zugeyev said.

<strong>Mechel Refinances Debt</strong>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Mechel, the Moscow-based steelmaker run by billionaire Igor Zyuzin, agreed to refinance $2.6 billion of loans in the biggest foreign-debt restructuring by a Russian company since the credit crisis began.
Mechel refinanced $1.6 billion of a $2 billion loan used to acquire the Yakutugol and Elgaugol coal fields in October 2007, the Moscow-based company said in a statement Monday. The debt was refinanced at 6 percentage points over the London interbank offered rate. Mechel also refinanced $1 billion of a $1.5 billion loan used to acquire chrome and nickel producer Oriel Resources Plc in 2008 at 7 percentage points over Libor.
Mobile Telesystems, Russia’s biggest mobile phone company, refinanced part of a $1.33 billion loan in May.

TITLE: The Smell of War
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Will Russia launch a war against Georgia? That is the most important question that should have been decided during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow — or, to be more precise, during Obama’s breakfast meeting last Tuesday with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Everything else was of secondary importance. Compared with the Russia-Georgia conflict, what difference does it make what kind of agreement they reach to reduce strategic nuclear arms? After all, Russia and the United States will never use these weapons against each other anyway.
The pleasantries shared between President Dmitry Medvedev and Obama during their news conference and photo ops were just as meaningless. In the end, Medvedev and Putin will always support regimes that are antagonistic to Washington for one simple reason: To increase international tensions, drive up oil prices and give the Kremlin another chance to bask in its inflated self-image as a global energy superpower.
It was very important that Obama’s visit coincided with Russia’s large-scale military exercises “Caucasus 2009,” which were most likely held in preparation for a new war in the region. And whether or not Russia’s troops will be given the green light does not depend on military considerations, but on whether Putin, after meeting with Obama, believes that he can start a war without incurring repercussions from the West.
“Caucasus 2009” is strikingly similar to the Russian exercises that preceded the August 2008 war with Georgia. The smell of war is once again in the air. Counterterrorism operations have been instituted in the Prielbrusiye region on the Russian-Georgian border, many people have been evacuated from the region and Russia has beefed up its forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Like deja vu, the Kremlin is again accusing Georgia of aggression, and yet it is Moscow that has insisted that all observers from the United Nations and Europe leave the region to remove unnecessary witnesses to Russia’s planned aggression. It would be difficult to label these moves as simply blackmail. Russia is mobilizing for war.
The Kremlin’s foreign policy is driven by one basic principle: It will pursue an aggressive, hostile policy as long as it believes it can get away with it.
The Russian-Georgian war last year was a perfect example. When Georgian forces occupied Tskhinvali, Putin, who always operated on the assumption that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was a puppet of former U.S. President George W. Bush, met with Bush in Beijing while they were attending the Olympic Games there. Bush, who apparently knew nothing about the events in Georgia, muttered something to the effect of “Nobody wants a war.” Putin interpreted these words to mean that Bush was rescinding U.S. support for Georgia. But after French President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Georgia, this was enough to convince Putin to stop the army’s advance, even though Russian troops had already reached the outskirts of Tbilisi.
The Kremlin’s behavior is driven by both rational and irrational motives. An irrational motive is Putin’s stated desire to hang Saakashvili by the balls. A rational motive is the desire to convince the world that Saakashvili has already hanged himself by the balls.
The outcome of the last Russian-Georgian war was determined when Putin met one-on-one with Bush in Beijing. Similarly, whether or not there will be another Caucasus war will depend on what Putin read in Obama’s eyes during this summit.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.