SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1534 (96), Friday, December 11, 2009
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TITLE: Administration In Perm Steps Down Over Nightclub Fire
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Perm regional administration resigned en masse Wednesday after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered withering criticism in connection with a nightclub fire that killed at least 125 people.
Perm Governor Oleg Chirkunov will form a new administration after investigators wrap up their inquiry into Saturday’s fire started by a pyrotechnics show at the Khromaya Loshad (Lame Horse) nightclub in downtown Perm, according to a statement on the region’s web site, Perm.ru.
Perm’s mayor also submitted his resignation to the city’s legislature.
The highly unusual wave of resignations come a day after Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev demanded that officials be held responsible for the fire. No other regional administration has resigned in recent memory, and the last regional shakeup took place in October, when Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov fired his administration upon returning to work following an assassination attempt.
“This is a logical step to ease tensions inside the region and in relations with the federal authorities,” said Nikolai Petrov, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Putin harshly criticized Perm officials during a visit to the site of the tragedy Tuesday. “I simply don’t understand how fireworks can be used indoors when it’s written clearly and in Russian: ‘Do not use indoors,’” Putin said in televised remarks.
The fire started when sparks from the pyrotechnics show ignited artificial branches on the ceiling of the nightclub, causing 300 people celebrating the club’s eighth anniversary to stampede toward the single exit.
Pending the outcome of the fire investigation, regional administration officials will continue in their positions in an “acting” capacity with the exception of three department heads, whom Chirkunov has suspended “to secure an unbiased investigation” into the fire, the administration statement said.
The three officials are the heads of the administration’s department of enterprise development and trade, Marat Bimatov; the head of the construction and infrastructure development department, Alexander Kudryavtsev; and the head of the public security department, Igor Orlov.
Chirkunov also suspended the head of the regional branch of the state construction inspectorate, Olga Antipova.
He told reporters that he would ask Medvedev after the investigation ended whether he should resign and would quit if asked, Interfax reported.
Perm Mayor Arkady Kats submitted his resignation to Perm lawmakers, saying in a statement that “the tragedy of this scale … has thrown me into the moral dilemma of whether I can continue to act as the head of the city’s administration.” The lawmakers will consider the mayor’s resignation Friday.
The mayor, meanwhile, suspended the head of the city’s architecture and planning department, Oleg Goryunov, Interfax reported.
The founder of the nightclub, Alexander Titlyanov, died of injuries sustained in the fire in a Moscow hospital, RIA-Novosti reported. Titlyanov, who prosecutors said founded the nightclub and owned an 85 percent stake in it, had been a suspect in a criminal case opened into the blaze.
Six other people also died of their injuries Wednesday, raising the death toll to 125, and 104 remained hospitalized.
The Investigative Committee said 48 children lost one parent in the fire, while 15 lost both parents.
Perm authorities have received about 70 calls from Perm, Moscow and other cities offering money to grieving families or seeking to adopt children orphaned by the fire, Interfax reported.
In an interview published in Izvestia on Wednesday, Perm’s governor blamed illegal reconstruction of the building that housed the nightclub for the high number of victims of the fire, saying several large windows that could have served as emergency exits were walled up in the reconstruction. Writing in his LiveJournal blog Wednesday, he urged Perm residents to send him pictures of the building before the reconstruction to help his inquiry into the matter.
TITLE: Rail Safety Under Review After Blast
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The 700-kilometer rail link between Moscow and St. Petersburg is patrolled by 180 armed officers, deployed after a 2007 bombing derailed several railcars and injured dozens of passengers.
That breaks down to about one officer for every four kilometers of track.
The site chosen by unknown attackers to plant and detonate another bomb on Nov. 27, killing 26 people aboard the Nevsky Express, was located four kilometers away from the nearest patrol.
“You should understand that it is hard to cover 700 kilometers,” said Alexander Bobreshov, vice president of Russian Railways, the state corporation that manages the nation’s network of 85,500 kilometers of track, one of the largest in the world. “It is impossible to put a guard at every lamppost.”
The latest bombing, which investigators have blamed on terrorists, has cast the spotlight on the problem of railroad security. Security and rail safety experts say the railways remain vulnerable to terrorists and criminals even though Russian Railways follows a corporate model that addresses passenger needs, including safety, and the government has poured billions of rubles into improving security infrastructure.
Federal Security Service chief Alexander Bortnikov said Tuesday that passengers and trains are at risk because government measures aimed at protecting them have not been implemented properly.
President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the government to prepare a list of new measures to improve rail safety, including increasing the penalties for officials who violate or ignore safety regulations.
Rail security is in a state of perpetual crisis, Vladimir Persyanov, one of the country’s top experts on transportation, told The St. Petersburg Times.
“When it was the Railways Ministry, it was possible to understand what was going on there. But today the whole system has turned into the tool of private political and business interests,” said Persyanov, who heads the Institute of Transportation Management with the Academy of Management under the presidential administration.
The Railways Ministry was transformed into Russian Railways in 2003 and has been headed since then by Vladimir Yakunin, a close ally of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Shortly after the Nevsky Express tragedy, senior Russian Railways officials spoke of the security measures put in place after a similar bombing of the same train in 2007. Investigators have blamed radical nationalists for the 2007 bombing, while nationalists and Chechen separatists have separately claimed responsibility for the latest attack.
The 700-kilometer stretch between Moscow and St. Petersburg is now guarded by 180 armed personnel consisting of police officers, private security guards and staff with the Transportation Ministry’s State Railway Corporate Security Company, said Bobreshov, the Russian Railways vice president.
In addition, Russian Railways has invested 200 million rubles ($6.7 million) into a 24-hour camera surveillance system to monitor the tracks and is setting up four situation rooms to control them, he said.
“It is still being developed, and the financial commitment is very large,” Bobreshov said, speaking in an interview on Channel One television late last week.
Only the busiest parts of the Moscow-St. Petersburg railroad were equipped with cameras this year, said Pavel Sazonov, Russian Railways head of security for the Moscow-St. Petersburg link. The surveillance system will cost 3 billion rubles ($100 million) and take five years to implement, he told Kommersant on Dec. 4.
Russian bloggers, meanwhile, have suggested that Russian Railways use soldiers, drones and dirigibles to patrol the railroads. Nikolai Rogozhkin, commander of the Interior Troops, said his servicemen were ready to guard tracks if necessary.
Rail security has been provided by the State Railway Corporate Security Company since Soviet times but Russian Railways reduced cooperation with the company in 2008 in favor of cheaper private contractors. Still, the security company, whose personnel consist of more than 60,000 guards armed with firearms, is responsible only for safeguarding rail cargo and protecting rail infrastructure such as bridges and dams.
The guards are not responsible for the security of passenger trains, which experts say are the most vulnerable to possible attacks.
Most tracks are easily accessible to the public, and the maximum penalty for illegal trespassing in restricted areas such as train stations is a fine of 1,000 rubles ($30).
Police often pay no attention to passengers who jump low fences to board commuter trains without a ticket, a common scene at Moscow’s train stations. Rail crime accounts for 90 percent of all crime in the transportation sector, according to the Interior Ministry’s transportation police department.
Businesses using the railways to deliver smaller cargoes have complained about poor security and the ineffectiveness of the transportation police, who are charged with protecting trains at stations.
The head of a Moscow cargo company told The St. Petersburg Times that a transportation policeman recently tried to stop thieves from unloading company cargo in Novosibirsk but received a call from his superior, who was apparently promised a portion of the stolen proceeds, to back off.
The cargo worth 2 million rubles ($67,000) was stolen, said the businessman, who has filed a complaint with the authorities. He asked that his name and his company’s name not be published to avoid impeding an investigation that has been opened into the incident.
A federal law regulating transportation safety measures is filled with loopholes, said Sergei Shishkaryov, chairman of the State Duma’s Transportation Committee. The 2007 law makes the transportation company, not the state with its police and security apparatus, responsible for the security and safety of passengers.
“The state, not a joint venture, has to be responsible for passenger safety,” Shishkaryov told National News Service radio in a recent interview.
Shishkaryov promised that the Duma would pass amendments to the law before the New Year because passenger safety has “become a life-or-death issue.”
Russian Railways declined repeated requests to give any comment for this article over the past week.
TITLE: City Parliament Clears Way to Build on Green Areas
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly stripped more than a hundred green spaces of legal protection amid controversy and protests on Wednesday.
The ruling United Russia party, which is led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and dominates the Legislative Assembly, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) voted for the changes to the Law on Public Green Spaces in its third and final reading. The bill was presented for deputies’ approval by St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko on Nov. 3.
With the Communist Party (KPRF) and A Just Russia factions voting against the changes, the exclusion of 104 sites from the list of protected green spaces was approved with 28 votes in support of them, 11 votes against and one abstention. Vyacheslav Makarov, the leader of the United Russian faction, said that the green spaces excluded were either non-existent or needed for social projects.
“It is wrong to talk about the exclusion of green spaces; either there’s something already built there, or something needs to be built there — the sites have been designated to house social or cultural projects such as kindergartens or schools,” Makarov said by phone on Thursday.
“No garden has been given over to commercial construction.”
Makarov, who described the decision as “reasonable” and necessary for the city’s development, argued with opponents who said that many of the city’s kindergartens had been privatized.
“The protesters said yesterday, ‘Take back the kindergartens that were sold 10 or 15 years ago,’ but it was not these authorities who sold them. But now there is a need for them [state kindergartens]. They should be built.”
Deputy Alexei Kovalyov of the A Just Russia faction described the supporters’ arguments as a “fictitious pretext.”
“There’s absolutely no guarantee that these territories will really be used for building swimming pools, kindergartens and so on,” he said by phone on Thursday.
According to Kovalyov, this can only be guaranteed if the sites are reserved for social projects and included in St. Petersburg’s General Plan law.
“For several years, we’ve been pressing the governor to make a decision about protecting the land and including it in town-planning documentation, but we’ve always received negative answers,” he said.
Kovalyov said that bureaucrats might have an interest in the judicial ambiguity of the situation as a potential source of corruption.
“For instance, there’s City Hall’s decree about building kindergartens, but this decree is not a law, it’s just a hope, so the decision to build a business center there could be taken in parallel — that’s where the problem is,” he said.
Kovalyov said that the land allocated for social development under the Soviets had already been given to commercial projects.
“What’s needed is not the sacrifice of parks and gardens, but the purchase of land from industrial enterprises and private owners,” he said.
“It’s important to note that land containing gardens and parks costs nothing; the cadastral cost of this land is laughable. That’s why they can make a decision and designate it for construction, while private land is expensive — it is necessary to pay for it in an open and legal way, and it will be difficult to build anything except a kindergarten there, when considerable budget funds have already been spent on it.”
According to Kovalyov, Wednesday’s approval set a dangerous precedent, which could lead to more exclusions in the future.
“If we don’t say today that the list of green spaces is untouchable and don’t declare a 10-year moratorium on changes to it, then we’ll lose everything, bit by bit, during the next two years,” he said.
“We should not yield to such compromises. It’s a bad, immoral compromise.”
Around 20 opponents, including members of the Yabloko Democratic Party and preservationist groups, picketed the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday morning, distributing fliers to deputies.
The St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko is categorically against the policy of conniving with developers, which leads to the infringement of residents’ rights and the deterioration of the ecological situation in St. Petersburg, the party said in a statement.
The changes will come into law after Matviyenko signs off on the decision.
TITLE: Anti-Krishna Leaflet Off the Banned List
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Justice Ministry has dropped a leaflet from its 450-item list of banned extremist materials, marking the first time that an item has been removed since the list’s creation in 2007.
The leaflet, which accuses Russian Hare Krishnas of selling drugs and weapons and being prepared to kill, was added to the list after a Khabarovsk court convicted a United Russia youth activist of extremism for distributing it at a far eastern festival of Indian culture in July 2008.
A higher Khabarovsk court overturned the ruling in September and ordered the lower court to reconsider the ban on the leaflet, which it did.
Yury Pleshakov, a representative for the Moscow branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, said the removal of the leaflet set a “dangerous precedent.”
“It is presented like a fact that the leaflet contains useful information for society, and this leaves other religious organizations in jeopardy,” he said by telephone.
Krishna lawyer Mikhail Frolov promised to appeal the removal of the leaflet in court.
The Justice Ministry, which compiles its list based on court rulings, declined to provide an immediate comment on its decision.
The ministry removed the leaflet in late November, said Sova Center, a watchdog that tracks extremism.
Sova noted in a statement that courts have reversed their stances on what materials are deemed extremist in the past but the Justice Ministry has kept the items on its list.
Sova researcher Galina Kozhevnikova said the ministry might have acted this time because of United Russia’s involvement in the case. The detained activist, Nikolai Nagorny, belonged to United Russia’s youth group, Young Guard.
In addition, she said, the Justice Ministry might have been motivated by the fact that the leaflet cited religious expert Alexander Kuzmin, who is a member of the ministry’s expert council.
Kuzmin, known as an outspoken critic of cults, called the International Society for Krishna Consciousness a “totalitarian sect” in the leaflet. He was not available for comment Tuesday.
Ivan Dzhulyak, head of the Khabarovsk branch of Young Guard, told The St. Petersburg Times that Kuzmin had helped Nagorny fight the extremist charges by sending reputed lawyer Alexander Karelov from Moscow to defend him in Khabarovsk.
He said Nagorny had acted alone in distributing the leaflet, whose origins were unclear.
“Even though he was doing it on his own, I was punished as the group’s leader,” Dzhulyak said.
He said that he had received a warning from the local prosecutor’s office for distributing extremist material.
Nagorny, whom Dzhulyak described as a strong Orthodox believer, remains a member of Young Guard.
TITLE: Spirals Spotted Over
Norway as Missile Fails
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s error-prone Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile has suffered its eighth failure in 12 tests, the Defense Ministry said Thursday, dealing another blow to Kremlin hopes that the sea-based weapon would become a cornerstone of its nuclear arsenal.
Officials had hoped military contracts for the submarine-launched missile could be negotiated next year, but the high-profile botches look likely to derail those plans.
The Defense Ministry’s statement announcing the latest failure, which it said occurred after Wednesday’s launch from the White Sea just east of Scandinavia, came amid speculation about the origin of mysterious spiraling lights over northern parts of Norway. Photographs and amateur video footage of the lights have been circulating on the Internet since Wednesday.
The ministry said it did not know whether the lights were the Bulava, which can accommodate multiple nuclear warheads and has a range of 8,000 kilometers.
“The first two stages of the rocket worked as they should have, however, in the third and final stage of the flight a technical error occurred,” the statement said. “According to tests, the third stage’s engine was unstable.”
Despite the repeated failures — which look set to torpedo plans to finish testing this year — Russian leaders have boasted about the Bulava’s ability to penetrate missile defenses and have described it as a key part of the military’s future nuclear arsenal.
Officials have insisted the Bulava’s design is fine and have blamed its failed tests on manufacturing flaws resulting from post-Soviet industrial degradation. They have said it’s difficult to control the quality of all the parts supplied by the 650 subcontractors involved in the program.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Hitler’s Remains
MOSCOW (SPT) — Adolf Hitler’s remains were burned and dumped into an East German river by Soviet agents 25 years after the end of World War II, the Federal Security Service said.
The remains of Hitler, his companion Eva Braun and the family of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels were dumped into the Biederitz River in April 1970 on the secret orders of then-KGB chief Yury Andropov, FSB archivist Vasily Khristoforov told Interfax.
Gum Kills Student
MOSCOW (SPT) — A 25-year-old chemistry student was killed when chewing gum that he had treated with chemicals exploded in his mouth, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The unidentified student from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute was carrying out an experiment in his apartment in the northern Ukrainian city of Konotop when the accident occurred, Interfax said, citing Ukrainian police.
The composition of the solution has not yet been determined.
TITLE: State Firms to Be Sold Via IPO
AUTHOR: By Alex Anishyuk
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The government will sell off most of the state enterprises slated for privatization through an initial public offering, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Tuesday.
“This is not a sale of stakes, with the proceeds going into the budget, but an IPO, the result of which being that the money will become part of the equity of the company,” he said, Interfax reported.
“The capitalization of the company will be increased at the expense of a lower state stake.”
The government plans to sell off stakes in 14 strategic companies next year, as well as 435 other state-owned enterprises for a total of 77 billion rubles ($2.5 billion).
A total of 5,500 Russian companies could be floated in the next few years, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in September.
Russia remains a weak link in global financial markets, as volatility in its equities and currency often scare away foreign investors.
“We currently remain a weak link in the global economy as far as capital participation is concerned,” he said. “We will experience this volatility on our stock indices, our balance sheet and currency exchange rate.”
The fall in Russia’s equity markets was among the steepest in the world last year with the MICEX Index falling 73 percent from May to October 2008. The ruble experienced a similar drop, falling 36 percent from its high of 23.1 in July 2008 to a low of 36.3 in February.
Part of this is because the monetary policies used by Russia to fight the crisis were too weak, and the country should have followed China in using stronger monetary measures, he said. He added that China had increased its money supply two times more than Russia had in order to maintain inflation and low interest rates.
Russia “has made mistakes in money and credit policy. We could have been much tougher — even now,” he said.
He added that the country was at risk by supporting its precrisis spending level, as it is facing a budget of 7.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2009.
The government’s planned eurobond sale will help close part of the gap and Kudrin said a decision on which banks would participate in the issue will be made within a few days.
In October, Deputy Finance Minister Dmitry Pankin named Citi, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, HSBC, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Nomura as possible participants.
Pankin would not specify when the bonds could be issued, saying the government will look at the oil prices, the overall economic situation and the need for cash at the time.
Last week, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said Russia might need to sell only $8 billion to $10 billion of eurobonds, down from an official target of $18 billion, as the ministry raised its forecast for oil prices.
But the large volume of sovereign bonds in circulation will challenge capital markets over the next few years, Kudrin said.
“States will become key borrowers on the capital markets in the next two years,” he said, adding that sovereign borrowers will “pull away and push aside” the private ones.
TITLE: City Braced for Annual Festive Shopping Spree
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Traditionally, pre-holiday sales in December represent 17 to 20 percent of the year’s total sales. However, New Year shopping frenzies put people at risk of buying unnecessary goods, marketing experts say.
“Particularly in times of economic crisis, it is important to avoid making useless impulse buys, and instead purchase something that will prove necessary in the long term,” said Alexander Vekshinsky, a marketing professor at St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Service, at a Rosbalt press conference devoted to the annual New Year spending splurge.
“At such times, people need to think more carefully when buying gifts or goods,” Vekshinsky said.
He suggested focusing on meaningful gifts instead of on food and drinks.
Vekshinsky said the economic decline is forcing producers and retailers of goods to enter the market with even more aggressive advertising and that customers should be aware of and resistant to such tactics.
“Popular sales promotions of ‘two for the price of one’ are based on the activation of the greed mechanism in people, and make them buy things that they don’t really need,” he said.
The other risk of pre-holiday shopping is of buying food items that have exceeded their expiry date or products that have not been stored properly, said Yelena Tkachenko, head of the products and service quality control department at St. Petersburg’s Goods, Work and Service Quality Control Center.
“For instance, when a client sees canned red caviar being sold right at the checkout counter, they should realize that canned red caviar should always be kept in a refrigerator, and not at the counter,” she said.
Tkachenko said another risky shopping practice is buying food items or perfume from street vendors.
“It should not be done under any circumstances, because street stalls are usually an indicator of dishonest vendors,” she said.
Sergei Palinchuk, head of the trade department at the city’s Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade Committee, said that despite the crisis, St. Petersburg’s retail market has not suffered too much. A decrease of 10 percent in retail sales is expected this year.
However, in December sales traditionally increase due to people buying gifts for their friends and relatives, said Palinchuk.
The experts said that the most popular New Year gifts are usually food items, beverages, perfumes and cosmetics and New-Year themed gifts. Recently, a trend has emerged of giving presents such as one-off or season tickets to concerts, fitness clubs and swimming pools.
TITLE: Russian to Head Gas Forum
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Key gas exporting countries on Wednesday backed a Russian engineering executive, Leonid Bokhanovsky, to lead their efforts to control gas supplies on the global market, a sign that they recognize Moscow’s primary role in the plan.
Bokhanovsky, first vice president of engineering company Stroitransgaz, will run the Gas Exporting Countries Forum for two years with an option to stay over for another term, an Energy Ministry source said. Ministers from the forum’s member countries unanimously voted to appoint him secretary general at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, after Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko held a number of bilateral consultations, the Energy Ministry said in a statement.
Russia, Iran, Qatar and eight other gas-rich nations turned what was a loose grouping into a formal organization at a meeting in Moscow last December. As one of its goals, the forum will seek to prevent oversupplies of gas on regional markets in an effort to head off downward pressure on prices — a prospect that has raised concerns of cartel-like price fixing in consumer countries.
Bokhanovsky’s election comes after St. Petersburg lost a bid to host the group’s headquarters to Doha last December, even after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised that Russia would foot the office’s maintenance bills. Iran and Qatar have reportedly nominated candidates to the post as well.
The choice of a Russian candidate is recognition of the leading role that the world’s biggest gas exporter played in the formation of the forum, said Sergei Pravosudov, director of the National Energy Institute, a think tank. Gazprom, a monopoly gas exporter, plans to capture a greater share of the market in the United States and Asia, which puts Russia at the forefront of efforts to establish better communication with other suppliers, he said.
“Russia is supposed to lead the way without conflicts,” he said.
Bokhanovsky’s duties will include putting together the forum’s budget and agenda and overseeing the execution of decisions made by the group’s primary governing body, the summits of energy ministers from member countries, a government source said. He will report to the gas forum’s executive council, which will be composed of representatives from each country, the source said.
TITLE: A Window for Double-Digit Gains
AUTHOR: By James Beadle
TEXT: With the equity market up by about 125 percent, 2009 has been an excellent year for Russian investors. Anyone willing to forget that the RTS Index lost $140 billion of market capitalization in 2008 will be more than happy with the $70 billion that it has gained this year. Blessed with short memories, investment management professionals feel able to look their clients in the eye once more and talk about more profits to come.
The general consensus among optimists is that strong earnings, economic growth and a new market-oriented approach will bring healthy gains in 2010. Benchmark indexes may not return to their highs, but they will put in healthy, double-digit gains. Even the more skeptical and pragmatic of investment managers are positive about prospects for the coming year.
The upside case has two distinct themes. The first is macro-based. Oil prices will remain at healthy levels, the economy will recover, inflation will retreat, and capital will pour back into ruble assets. The second is domestic change. Shocked by the economy’s failure, the Kremlin has learned its lesson and will adopt a reformist strategy, as propagated by President Dmitry Medvedev. The combination of an investor-friendly attitude and a large resource-backed economy will lure capital inflows; Russia will finally join the World Trade Organization; corruption will actually fall and economic reform will move the nation away from commodity dependency.
But since old Russia hands need little reminding of the nation’s upside potential, let’s take a closer look at the downside threats. Since Russia is first and foremost a global macro play, the international outlook remains every investor’s primary concern. Russia cannot out-perform without a benign global backdrop, and this is the largest risk for the country.
This year’s recovery in asset prices is tied directly to monetary policy in the West. Although government stimulus is certainly contributing to the fragile economic growth today, it was the slashing of real interest rates to protect household net worth by forcing money back into risky assets that really pulled markets out of the abyss.
This policy represents the biggest economic experiment in capitalist history. If asset prices can increase suffficiently and stay high long enough, then consumption will return. There is a long way to go but so far the central banks are rightly pleased with their progress and asset prices have responded positively, as expected.
But economic recoveries remain fragile and are notably dependent on fiscal support. The problem is that these levels of government spending cannot be sustained and so far there is little sign that private sectors are ready to take up the slack. Indeed, the West appears to be heading for a frugal Christmas.
This great capitalist experiment will continue throughout 2010. But today, the dichotomy between asset prices and economic fundamentals is stark. Despite the tightness of real interest rates, there is a significant risk of asset prices sliding back toward economic fundamentals in the coming months. Such a correction would most likely be a buying opportunity as loose monetary policy will ultimately prevail. But prudent investors would be well advised not to chase overbought assets in the near term.
Surprisingly for a nation so renowned for investor risk, Russia’s domestic outlook is more stable for 2010. What real improvements will we see? Sales of state assets will mark an end to government expansion into the private sector, if not notably reducing its size. Sales of debt on international markets will encourage a longer-term awareness of investor interests and concerns. There is also a real chance of WTO accession, which will prove a game-changer for many inefficient outdated sectors as foreign investment incentives will soar and red tape will be reduced.
After years of arrogant commodity-fueled wealth, the political elite finally seem to understand that Russia’s economy lacks the diversity and openness necessary for sustainable growth. The president’s team is reassuringly liberal — in the Russian sense of the term “liberal,” meaning at a minimum that it recognizes that Russia needs to integrate with the global economy. After years of anti-Western and abrasive economic policy, the potential for progress is genuine. Russia cannot easily do worse than it has in recent years, and small changes will mean real improvements.
But investors focused on this theme would do well to remember Russia’s history. Repeated efforts at reform over the centuries have fallen short of expectation. Just as in the global economy, there is a danger that optimistic expectations will exceed real world change. The government’s pro-market investment story will gloss over key issues. It is true that the legal framework can be greatly improved, but the real problem is implementation. Over the last eight years, the bureaucracy has re-emerged from the chaos of the 1990s and again dominates the economic system. Its stranglehold will not easily be shaken.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s policies have empowered too many vested interests. Midlevel bureaucrats will be unwilling to cede power unless the political elite lighten their hold as well and that is clearly against the leadership’s most basic interests. Looking at the judiciary, the police, the bureaucracy and many other branches of government, the chances of achieving fundamental reforms that decisively break away from the destructive path of recent years are very weak. Medvedev is wisely pursuing a gradualist grassroots approach, encouraging awareness of basic civil society. This strategy has the potential to feed long-term change, but it will not deliver anything substantial in the coming year.
Nonetheless, the risk that investors will be overambitious in pricing during reform is greater than the risk that we will see no reform in 2010. There are excellent gains to be made before the divergence between expectation and reality once again rears its head. Unusually for Russia, the domestic outlook is attractive in 2010 and it is on the global level that the near-term threats remain most elevated.
James Beadle is an independent global and emerging markets investment strategist.
TITLE: Catching Up With and Surpassing Guinea
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: What a great country Guinea is! Guinean President Moussa Dadis Camara was shot in the head by his military aide and chief of the presidential guard, Aboubacar “Toumba” Diakite. Shooting an unarmed person is not usually a complicated affair, but he bungled the job because Diakite’s only previous experience was in mowing down peaceful demonstrators. That is, instead of killing the president, he only wounded him. This raises obvious questions about the man’s qualifications to lead the country’s security forces.
After the failed assassination attempt, Diakite fled the compound. How the president’s bodyguards failed to seize him is anybody’s guess. Machine gun-toting soldiers are patrolling the streets in search of the outlaw, but he has eluded capture. This raises even more concerns about the effectiveness of the country’s security forces.
Camara was flown to a hospital in Morocco for treatment. By leaving the country at this risky moment, he runs a very real risk of being overthrown. This clearly does not speak very well about the quality of Guinea’s medical care.
Russia is not Guinea, of course, but I have the feeling that it will be soon.
Judge for yourself. Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer who was working on the Hermitage Capital Management case, died Nov. 16 in a Moscow prison. This is how he died: Browder accused senior Interior Ministry officials of stealing more than $230 million and ordered Magnitsky to blow the whistle on the crooks. Magnitsky subsequently was arrested on charges that he helped Browder’s investment fund evade more than $3.25 million in taxes. While being held in pretrial detention at Moscow’s notorious Butyrsky prison, Magnitsky died after he was denied medication for pancreas problems.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in an Nov. 27 interview in France that he does not know what “the lawyer” (refusing to refer to Magnitsky by name) was imprisoned for. Putin did add, however, that since Magnitsky had been arrested, there had to have been a good reason for it.
Move over, Lieutenant Diakite — It looks like you’ve got company!
The prosecutor general is demanding that Britain extradite Yevgeny Chichvarkin, former head of Yevroset, who quarreled with the management of a division of the Interior Ministry known as “K.” Meanwhile, a video has come to light titled “Thugs from the K Bureau.” It records a certain Major Filippov — who was born in 1974 and who looks like a white version of Diakitt — being arrested as he takes a $200,000 bribe that he insists was meant for his boss, Groshev.
Fillipov, our fearless 35-year-old crime fighter, does not go into battle unequipped. He has a black Mercedes-Benz Gelandewagen, 30,000 euros ($44,500) in addition to the $200,000, three superelite Vertu cell phones, credit cards from a few different banks and his K employee identification papers. The only attribute that looks comically out of place is a hokey brass keychain with the Interior Ministry’s “MID” initials stamped on its face.
Now the London court is reviewing that video footage and the Russian prosecutors must somehow convince the Brits that the K division did not try to extort money from Chichvarkin and that his refusal to pay was not the reason for all of his current troubles.
I wonder what Guinean President Camara tells his people when he gives a televised address? I think he tells them that Guinea needs to modernize and that the United States is their greatest national security threat.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: Squaring off
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s popularity as a tourist destination reaches its peak in the summer during the White Nights, but the Arts Square Festival, which begins on Monday at the Shostakovich Philharmonic, aims to draw music lovers to the city during the “off-season.”
Picking up where imperial Russian traditions left off prior to the 1917 Revolution, the festival was founded by Yury Temirkanov, artistic director of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and attempts to recreate the atmosphere of balls, masquerades and concert and theater performances that prevailed during the winter in Tsarist St. Petersburg.
This year’s festival — the 10th to be held in the city — begins with a performance by renowned U.S. pianist Garrick Ohlsso, who will give a rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with the Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ohlsson, whose international breakthrough came in 1970 when the musician won a sensational victory at the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, has gained worldwide recognition as one of the finest performers of Frederic Chopin’s repertoire. The pianist, however, does not limit himself exclusively to the works of that composer, and also has about 80 concertos by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and cutting-edge contemporary composers under his belt.
Ohlssen will also give a solo recital on Dec. 15 at the Glinka hall of the Philharmonic, featuring works by Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Scriabin.
Other performers set to appear at the festival include violinist Vadim Repin, conductor Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, pianist Boris Berezovsky, dancer Farukh Ruzimatov, conductor Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra, violist and conductor Yury Bashmet and the New Russia Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Vladimir Spivakov and his Moscow Virtuosi ensemble.
Reviewing Berezovsky’s London debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times of London described the pianist as “an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power.” In 1990 he took the Gold Medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
Berezovsky, who is a regular with London’s Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra and New Japan Philharmonic, will give a solo recital at the Glinka hall of the Philharmonic on Thursday, Dec. 17 with a program featuring Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” and Hindemith’s “Ludus tonalis.”
One of the festival’s highlights will be Vadim Repin and the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Temirkanov on Dec. 24 performing a program comprising Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto, excerpts from the ballet “Cinderella” and the waltz from the opera “War and Peace.” The musician will also perform alongside the Urals Academic Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Liss. The concert on Dec. 18 at the Shostakovich Philharmonic will include Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto and Manfred Symphony.
“The solemnity of Vadim Repin’s stance on the platform belies the warmly communicative, profoundly expressive interpretations that have become a trademark of one of today’s most compelling musicians,” London’s The Daily Telegraph wrote about the violinist.
Born in 1971 in Novosibirsk, Repin first picked up a violin at the age of five. The young musician performed in public for the first time just six months after his first lesson.
A pupil of the renowned violin teacher Zakhar Bron, Repin shot to fame at a young age. The seven-year-old wunderkind made headlines with his first appearance with an orchestra and in 1989, Repin staggered international audiences by becoming the youngest winner in the history of the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.
One of the most sought-after violinists on the international classical music scene, and winner of prizes including the Echo Award for Instrumentalist of the Year 1999, the Diapason d’Or, the Prix Caecilia and the Edison Award, Repin has a globe-trotting schedule, performing alongside the world’s finest orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Berliner Philharmoniker.
Repin performs on a “Von Szerdahely” violin made by Guarneri del Ges? in 1736.
Launched in 1999, the Arts Square festival has become a major annual event, encompassing “Western” Christmas, New Year, Orthodox Christmas and Old New Year (according to the pre-Revolutionary calendar) celebrations, and involving numerous venues and institutions: the State Russian Museum, the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall, the Grand Hotel Europe, the Mikhailovsky Theater, the Ethnography Museum and the Musical Comedy Theater.
The State Russian Museum and the Ethnography Museum will organize special exhibitions to run concurrently with this year’s festival. The displays will be devoted to the collections of precious gifts presented to the Russian tsars.
For Arts Square Festival program details, see www.philharmonia.spb.ru and www.mariinsky.ru
TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: Chinese Pilot Jao Da, a reputed Moscow music club, is set to launch a branch in St. Petersburg this week. The venue will open to the public on Saturday with a gig by 188910, a St. Petersburg-based band. Having originated in Primorsk, a port town on the Karelian Isthmus known as Koivisto until it was taken from Finland by Russia in 1944, the band took Primorsk’s post code as its name.
188910 performs “a mixture of psychedelic rock and brutal disco, broken beast and beautiful high-pitched tunes with all the noises and special effects performed on an old reverberator manipulated by the tympanist simultaneously playing the drums,” according to the band’s MySpace page.
Next week, it will be followed by Markscheider Kunst (Dec. 18) and The Krolls (Dec. 19). Two concerts a week are scheduled to be held at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
The local branch of Chinese Pilot Jao Da will be located at 7 Ulitsa Pestelya in the city center (metro Gostiny Dvor or Chernyshevskaya).
Seva Gakkel, the musician who founded TaMtAm, perhaps the most influential alternative music venue in St. Petersburg in the 1990s, will be in charge of the music program.
French composer and musician Yann Tiersen will return to the city to perform at A2 on Friday.
Best-known as the soundtrack composer of “Amelie,” the award-winning 2001 romantic comedy, Tiersen, who is influenced by minimalism, European classical music, folk and punk rock, has been active both in films and as a music performer. His other notable film work was the soundtrack for “Good Bye Lenin!” in 2003.
Tiersen’s last studio album was “Les Retrouvailles,” which featured guest performances from Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins and Jane Birkin in 2005, followed by the live “rock” album “On Tour” in 2006.
Tiersen, who arrived in the city on Thursday, will perform a fully-fledged rock set with a five-member band, according to his local promoter.
In St. Petersburg, Tiersen will be supported by The Frozen Orchestra, the St. Petersburg-based multi-national acoustic trip-hop band, which is due to perform a brief, 30-minute set. A2 is located at 12 Razyezzhaya Ulitsa, metro Vladimirskaya.
Other potentially interesting club gigs include the politically uncompromising rock band Televizor at Orlandina on Friday, disco-punk band Pep-See at Zoccolo on Saturday and Bondage Fairies, a Swedish electro-punk band, at Tantsy on Wednesday.
This week’s large-scale concert of note is by Motorhead, the British metal band with punk roots, which is due to perform at the Ice Palace on Thursday.
Motorhead was founded by bassist/vocalist Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister in 1975 and was part of the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal.”
Ice Palace is located at 1 Prospekt Pyatiletok, metro Prospekt Bolshevikov.
— By Sergey Chernov
TITLE: Changing history
AUTHOR: By Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Sjeng Scheijen’s “Diaghilev: A Life” is a superb biography of the world’s greatest artistic trailblazer and impresario, Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (1872–1929.) In this fascinating and moving account, Scheijen clearly describes the life of a complex man who started as an art critic, publisher, art historian and exhibitions organizer and later founded the Ballets Russes.
Scheijen carried out extensive research in archives in Russia, which produced a wealth of interesting new material about Diaghilev’s family and personal life. Previous biographies have told us about the Diaghilev who discovered and nurtured dancers, choreographers, musicians and painters. He and his Ballets Russes left a legacy of ideas and ideals for dance that still influence the art form. Many of his ballets are still in the repertoire of ballet companies all over the world. Scheijen covers all this but also tells us about the shattering bankruptcy of Diaghilev’s father and the loss of the family’s vodka distillery and their two houses. This happened just as the 18-year-old Diaghilev left Perm to study law in St. Petersburg. At about this time, he came into an inheritance from his mother, who died shortly after he was born. As the only member of the family with an income, he suddenly found himself taking care of his two younger half-brothers and his beloved old nurse. Until now, he has always been described as a carefree and arrogant dandy during his university years.
Scheijen also reveals that in the summer of 1902, Diaghilev spent a few weeks at the famous Krafft-Ebing Sanatorium in Graz while seeking a cure for his nerves. The founder of the sanatorium was Dr. Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing, a noted psychiatrist and psychologist. It would seem that it was during his stay in Graz that Diaghilev first fully acknowledged his sexuality. Another revelation is that the dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky, who was also Diaghilev’s lover for five passionate years, was not Diaghilev’s victim, which Nijinsky’s biographers have claimed. Scheijen produces evidence that the young dancer actively pursued Diaghilev, realizing that it would further his career.
Diaghilev’s stated goal as an exhibitions organizer was to bring European art to Russia and Russian art to Europe. He succeeded in a series of impressive, well-attended exhibitions between 1897 and 1906. He then decided to present concerts of Russian music in Paris followed by Russian opera starring the great bass Fyodor Chaliapin, and from 1909 onwards, Russian ballet. The pre-World War I seasons of the Ballets Russes and its stars, Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina, dazzled and thrilled audiences in Paris, London, Berlin and Brussels. All contemporary sources speak of an entirely novel, even life-changing experience.
Diaghilev’s chief choreographers were Mikhail Fokine, briefly followed by Nijinsky, then Leonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska and George Balanchine. His designers before World War I were Russians including Leon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Alexander Golovine and Nikolai Roerich. During the war and later, he commissioned designs from the Russian modernists Natalia Gontcharova and Mikhail Larionov, followed by many non-Russians including Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Georges Braque, Andre Derain, and Henri Matisse. It is thanks to the Ballets Russes that new art forms such as Cubism became rapidly known internationally. Picasso is on record as saying that Diaghilev did more to disseminate his fame internationally than his dealer Rosenberg’s shows in Paris. Last but not least, Diaghilev commissioned music from Claude Debussy, Sergey Prokofiev and Maurice Ravel, and he also discovered Igor Stravinsky. Their collaboration was to make a lasting mark on the sound and rhythm of music. Scheijen gives us a detailed account of the genesis and first performances of all the ballets, particularly “The Rite of Spring,” that most cataclysmic piece of 20th-century music.
Scheijen is excellent in describing the complex and frequently antagonistic web of choreographers, musicians, designers and dancers surrounding Diaghilev. The triumph of this book lies in the degree to which the biographer has achieved something like a group biography, analyzing Diaghilev and all the stars of the Ballets Russes in a rich and exhilarating story.
TITLE: Home comforts
AUTHOR: By Sasha de Vogel
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Sometimes it feels like the high-end restaurants on the eatery-packed Ulitsa Rubenshteina change as often as the St. Petersburg weather, but the newest addition, the toponymous Rubenstain, is off to a promising start.
Although from the street this self-described “restaurant of travelers” looks about as lively as an abandoned hotel lobby, once inside, diners are escorted down a hallway—and past a smoke-free area that really did appear insulated from smoke — to the warm and welcoming main dining room. Large and well-lit with high ceilings, the dining area is divided by a versatile double-sided wooden bar that creates an intimate feeling in what could have been an impersonal space.
Even though when we arrived at about 7 p.m., the waitstaff outnumbered customers, by 9 p.m. Rubenstain was bustling with all sorts of people — businessmen and families, Russians and foreigners, large parties and solitary diners grabbing a quick bite at the bar. The chef himself made several trips to the floor to greet diners, adding to the convivial atmosphere. Best of all, we were not subjected to the latest fashion news while we ate, as the restaurant is blessedly free from plasma TVs. Instead, an old silent film was projected unobtrusively onto a screen at the back of the dining room; the slapstick comedy provided more than a few laughs.
A menu of upscale French bar food (with some Italian additions slipped in) complements the comfortable yet sophisticated atmosphere. The charcuterie appetizer (350 rubles, $12) would pair nicely with the house beer (90 rubles for half a liter, $3,) which comes with a side of olives. More adventurous eaters can enjoy pate (240 rubles, $8) or one of the two escargot dishes on the menu (escargot bourguignon, 270 rubles, $9.) A cocktail menu of classic but not particularly French drinks is available for those who prefer to whet their appetite with a libation (Manhattan, 250 rubles, $8.50.)
However, like any newly opened restaurant, Rubenstain is still working out the kinks in the kitchen. The French onion soup (190 rubles, $6.50) tasted spot-on, but the melted cheese on top lacked a browned color or the required texture. The refreshing saumon perle salad (190 rubles, $6.50) with smoked salmon, radishes, soft herbed cheese and lettuce, needed an extra kick of acid in the dressing to bring the ingredients together.
The veal shank of the Osso Buco (490 rubles, $16.60) was cooked perfectly — until it was completely falling apart — but the c?t? de porc aux myrtilles (side of pork with blueberries, 410 rubles, $14) fell flat. The dry and tough meat was poorly butchered and produced several strange chunks of bone. The blueberry sauce made from frozen berries avoided excessive sweetness and could have highlighted the pork’s flavor, had it not already been annihilated in the cooking process. Perhaps the steak au poivre (640 rubles, $21.70), or one of the several fish dishes would have been a better choice.
Our meal concluded with desserts selected from a menu composed almost entirely of custard-based dishes. The wiggly-jiggly flan aux poires (pear flan, 190 rubles, $6.50) had a Jello-like consistency and promptly collapsed on the plate, but despite its lack of structural integrity, the creamy flan had a light and delicate flavor. The cake aux cerises (cherry cake, 180 rubles, $6.10) was equally strange. The hard, cold pound cake was dotted with a few maraschino cherries and drizzled with an overpoweringly sweet chocolate sauce. Undeterred by their unappetizing appearance, we found these desserts to be a satisfying conclusion to our meal.
Although the food at Rubenstain might fall a touch short, the excellent service proved the restaurant’s saving grace. The industrious and well-trained waitstaff were attentive in a way rarely seen in Russian restaurants, where waiters are often seen checking their cell phones more often than on their diners. They were attentive without being pushy and prompt without rushing us as we lingered after our meal. Most of all, our waitress was helpful. When I was unsure which of Rubenstain’s wines from Europe and South America would best compliment my dish, she diplomatically suggested a glass in every price range after considering what I had ordered (Bordolino, 120 rubles a glass, $4.) She also politely negotiated the language barrier without seeming inconvenienced, though with a menu that mixes French, Italian and Russian, confusion must occur often.
If Rubenstain can maintain that level of service while ramping up the cuisine, it may very well become the destination for travelers that it claims to be by attracting expats, businessmen and locals in search of a restaurant experience with the comforts of home.
TITLE: Obama: Peace is Goal, But War Can Be Justified
AUTHOR: By Ben Feller
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: OSLO — President Barack Obama entered the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize winners with humble words Thursday, acknowledging his own few accomplishments while delivering a robust defense of war and promising to use the prestigious prize to “reach for the world that ought to be.”
A wartime president honored for peace, Obama became the first sitting U.S. president in 90 years and the third ever to win the prize — some say prematurely. In this damp, chilly Nordic capital to pick it up, he and his wife, Michelle, whirled through a day filled with Nobel pomp and ceremony.
And yet Obama was staying here only about 24 hours and skipping the traditional second day of festivities. This miffed some in Norway but reflects a White House that sees little value in extra pictures of the president, his poll numbers dropping at home, taking an overseas victory lap while thousands of U.S. troops prepare to go off to war and millions of Americans remain jobless.
Just nine days after ordering 30,000 more U.S. troops into battle in Afghanistan, Obama delivered a Nobel acceptance speech that he saw as a treatise on war’s use and prevention. He crafted much of the address himself and the scholarly remarks — at about 4,000 words — were nearly twice as long as his inaugural address.
In them, Obama refused to renounce war for his nation or under his leadership, saying defiantly that “I face the world as it is” and that he is obliged to protect and defend the United States.
“A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms,” Obama said.
“To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history.”
The president laid out the circumstances where war is justified — in self-defense, to come to the aid of an invaded nation and on humanitarian grounds, such as when civilians are slaughtered by their own government or a civil war threatens to engulf an entire region.
“The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it,” he said.
He also spoke bluntly of the cost of war, saying of the Afghanistan buildup he just ordered that “some will kill, some will be killed.”
“No matter how justified, war promises human tragedy,” he said.
He also emphasized alternatives to violence, stressing the importance of both diplomatic outreach and sanctions with teeth to confront nations such as Iran or North Korea that defy international demands to halt their nuclear programs or those such as Sudan, Congo or Burma that brutalize their citizens.
TITLE: Concerned Parents At Heart Of Terror Probe
AUTHOR: By Devlin Barrett and Pamela Hess
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — When five young American Muslims were arrested in Pakistan over possible links to terrorism, a key break in the case came not from federal agents or spies, but parents worried their sons may have made a terrible decision.
The families, based in the northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area, were particularly concerned after watching what is described as a disturbing farewell video from the young men, showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.
“One person appeared in that video and they made references to the ongoing conflict in the world and that young Muslims have to do something,” said Nihad Awad, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. The video has not been made public.
On Thursday, police in Pakistan said the Americans had told investigators they came to the country to take part in a “jihad,” or holy war. Usman Anwar, the police chief of the eastern city of Sargodha, said they are “directly connected to al-Qaida,” although he did not say what evidence he had to support the claim.
After the disappearance of the five men in late November, their families, members of the local Muslim community, sought help from CAIR, which put them in touch with the FBI and got them a lawyer.
The missing men range in age from 19 to 25. One, Ramy Zamzam, is a dental student at Howard University.
They were arrested Wednesday at a house in Sargodha linked to the banned militant organization Jaish-e-Mohammed, Pakistani officers said.
Regional police chief Javed Islam said the men wanted to join militants in Pakistan’s tribal area before crossing into Afghanistan. He said they met representatives from the al-Qaida-linked Jaish-e-Mohammed in Hyderabad and from a related group, Jamat-ud-Dawa, in Lahore.
“They were asking to be recruited, trained and sent on a jihad,” Islam said, but were turned down because they did not have any “references” from trusted militants.
Islam added that investigators were sharing their findings with FBI officials who had arrived in Sargodha.
On the heels of charges against a Chicago man accused of plotting international terrorism, the case is another worrisome sign that Americans can be recruited within the United States to enlist in terrorist networks.
President Barack Obama declined to talk specifically about the case Thursday, but said, “We have to constantly be mindful that some of these twisted ideologies are available over the Internet.”
Obama, in Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, also praised “the extraordinary contributions of the Muslim-American community, and how they have been woven into the fabric of our nation in a seamless fashion.”
A Virginia Muslim leader said the five men did not seem to have become militant before they left the U.S.
TITLE: Al-Qaida Claims Week’s Deadly Iraq Blasts
AUTHOR: By Chelsea Carter
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — Al-Qaida’s umbrella group in Iraq claimed responsibility Thursday for coordinated Baghdad bombings this week that killed 127 people and wounded more than 500, warning of more strikes to come against the Iraqi government.
The group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, said in a statement posted on the Internet that the attacks in the Iraqi capital targeted the “bastions of evil and dens of apostates.”
It also warned the group is “determined to uproot the pillars of this government” in Iraq and said “the list of targets has no end.” The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified, but it was posted on a Web site commonly used for militant messaging.
The blasts Tuesday were the third major strike against government sites in the Iraqi capital since August, raising serious questions about the abilities of Iraqi security forces ahead of next’s year national elections and the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops.
Al-Qaida’s claim gave renewed emphasis to U.S. military warnings that insurgents would likely continue high-profile attacks in an attempt to destabilize the Iraqi government in advance of the March 7 parliamentary elections.
The claim came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faced questions from lawmakers during a special session in parliament, where legislators have demanded answers over security lapses that allowed the attacks.
It appeared, though, that al-Maliki’s top security chiefs would stay away. The prime minister arrived at the parliament without his interior and defense ministers, despite calls by lawmakers they appear as well to answer questions. The ministers have previously refused to attend two other sessions called after bombings on Aug. 19 and Oct. 25. More than 250 were killed in those attacks.
Lawmakers began the session early Thursday afternoon behind close doors.
Al-Maliki signaled the beginning of a possible security shake up late Wednesday after replacing the military chief in charge of Baghdad security.
It was unclear whether the prime minister would announce any more changes in the leadership, although he has said Iraq’s security strategies would be reviewed and further changes could be made.
Al-Maliki also was likely to offer an update on the bombings and security during a meeting later with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who flew to Baghdad Thursday after wrapping up a three-day visit in Afghanistan.
Iraq has claimed al-Qaida and loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party operating from Syria were behind the massive strikes in August and October, as well as the most recent bombings. Relations between the two countries soured after Baghdad accused Syria of harboring senior Baathists who masterminded the attacks. Syria has denied it.
While the U.S. military avoided comment Thursday on the validity of the bombing claim, it has said the August and October strikes bore the signature of al-Qaida. The group is known for suicide and vehicle-rigged bombings designed to inflict huge casualties that have tried to fuel sectarian tensions and push the country back to the Sunni-Shiite violence of 2006 and 2007 that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war.
A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, however, stressed that Iraq is in charge of safeguarding its people ahead of the national elections. “U.S. forces will provide security assistance for the elections as requested,” said Lieutenant Colonel Mark Ballesteros.
The three massive strikes in the Iraqi capital have differed from previous attacks because they hit government symbols and appeared to be aimed at having a far-reaching political impact, further undermining the government.
Al-Qaida also claimed responsibility Thursday in a separate Internet posting for last week’s killing of Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal, known by al-Qaida and the American military as one of central Iraq’s top counter-terror officials.
Al-Fahal, a lieutenant colonel in the Salahuddin provincial police force, was killed Dec. 3 in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.
The posting said an Iraqi martyrdom seeker “strapped on his explosive belt and went looking for his prey and after long waiting and patience, his eyes met the criminal faces” and detonated his explosives among them killing him and four other officers with him.
TITLE: More Than 120 Wildfires Rage In Australia
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: SYDNEY — More than 120 wildfires fanned by high winds and soaring temperatures raged in southeastern Australia Thursday, prompting emergency warnings for several towns, officials said.
Some 2,000 firefighters tackled the fires in New South Wales, where a large blaze was burning dangerously close to farming properties in the state’s northwest.
“A fire is burning in very high fire-danger conditions, and is currently between two and six hours away from properties,” the Rural Fire Service (RFS) said.
“Under these conditions fires can be difficult to control and flames may burn from the ground to the tree-tops.”
It urged residents of Bundarra and Barraba towns to be ready to evacuate, warning that “fires will be uncontrollable, unpredictable and fast moving”.
New South Wales and neighboring Queensland, which was also fighting several fires, suffered sweltering conditions on Thursday with temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius.
“Really we have got so many fires ... any number of them may pose a risk,” said RFS assistant commissioner Rob Rogers.
The RFS later said conditions were expected to ease on Friday from around 40 degrees Celsius, giving some relief to firefighters.
On Wednesday, a park ranger died and a pilot was seriously injured when their helicopter crashed while mapping fires. A day earlier, two water-bombing helicopters clipped tail rotors in mid-air, but no one was injured.