SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1605 (66), Tuesday, August 31, 2010
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TITLE: Mammoth Bones, Bears Keep Putin On the TV
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Ever since his first flight in a Sukhoi warplane in October 1999, Vladimir Putin has dazzled the world with a machismo extravaganza and scored high popularity ratings that have became the backbone of the state he runs.
But nothing compares to the past few days.
A trip to the Far East this week turned into a public relations rampage that saw Putin shooting gray whales with a crossbow from a boat, studying the bones of mammoths at an excavation site, and watching a brown bear gobble up fish in a river just a stone’s throw away from him.
Needless to say, the national media, especially the state-run television channels, played up the juicy images and Putin’s trademark one-liners.
This week’s hoopla followed Putin climbing behind the yoke of a Be-200 plane to extinguish two of the hundreds of wildfires that devastated Central Russia this summer. He also was initiated into the Hells Angels biker brotherhood under the name Abbadona and, clad in black leather and high boots, drove a three-wheeled Harley-Davidson motorcycle in the company of bearded bikers.
This could not topped by President Dmitry Medvedev, whose glitzy PR achievement this week was to sip tea with U2’s Bono in Sochi. But Medvedev did manage to pull a publicity coup of his own late Thursday by ordering a halt to construction of a highway north of Moscow amid growing protests.
With Putin’s trip, government watchers are scratching their heads over whether the prime minister is campaigning for the ruling United Party, which he heads, in the run-up to October regional elections, preparing a presidential bid for 2012, trying to undo the harm inflicted by the government’s disastrous response to the wildfires, or a combination of all the above.
But pundits agreed that Putin’s photo-grabbing antics have not evolved much over the past decade and that while his exotic rambles do not look like “slavery in the galleys,” as Putin once described his job, the images still play well to an audience whose only window to the outside world is state television.
Putin created a buzz as prime minister in October 1999 when he took a 10-minute flight in a Su-25 plane during a visit to a training base in the Krasnodar region.
Putin’s trip to the Far East this week aimed to shore up support for United Russia in the October elections, said Lilia Shevtsova, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
“He acts as a steam engine for the party, which is his most important power base now,” she said.
After transferring the presidency to Medvedev in 2008, Putin assumed the post of prime minister and cemented his grip over the legislative branch by becoming the leader of United Russia, which enjoys an overwhelming majority in the State Duma and regional legislatures.
Putin has hinted that he might run for the presidency in 2012, most recently during the meeting with bikers in Crimea in July, when he said that whatever he did could be seen as campaigning.
“The logic of the Russian authorities is not to allow being seen as weak,” Shevtsova said, referring to photos and reports where Russian authorities showed dismay and confusion over the wildfires. “Therefore the image of the national leader must be strengthened independently of anything else, and even a natural disaster becomes a suitable backdrop.”
Tatyana Stanovaya, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies, said Putin’s Far East trip was partly intended to sideline negative media coverage of how poorly United Russia and its youth branch, Young Guard, performed during the wildfires.
After reporting in the thick of the fires that local officials in some regions ordered volunteers to act only under the aegis of United Russia, state media have ignored a scandal over Youth Guard’s faking of photos of its members fighting fires. But the fake photos have turned viral on the Internet and in the print media.
“The Kremlin just doesn’t know how to react to it,” Stanovaya said. “It is no longer possible to suppress such things, but admitting to them and starting a dialogue with other, nonofficial actors is still viewed by many Kremlin strategists as a dangerous departure.”
Putin also hopes to whip into shape his traditional power base — ordinary voters in provincial towns and villages, Stanovaya said.
The effectiveness of images of Putin showing an interest in animals and flaunting his masculinity has decreased since the early days of his presidency, especially among business people and the intelligentsia, but his appeal remains strong among the less politicized masses, she said.
“You must understand that Putin’s political base is comprised of common voters, not the elite,” she said.
A total of 78 percent of 1,600 Russians polled in August by the independent Levada Center approved of Putin’s actions as prime minister, while Medvedev’s approval rating was 73 percent. The poll’s error margin was 3.4 percent. The state-run VTsIOM pollster came up with 56 percent and 53 percent, respectively, in a similar study this month. The numbers do not differ much from regular ratings that the ruling tandem scores in surveys.
Alexei Mukhin, head of the Center for Political Information, a think tank, said Putin needs to make forays like the whale-shooting adventure this week to demonstrate to other power clans that he remains the national leader and the top decision maker.
“Amid the uncertainty over who will become the next Russian president, which Putin and Medvedev maintain, some players might start to question whether Putin holds the ultimate power,” he said. “Strong popular support will help Putin keep everyone under control.”
TITLE: Putin Gives Warning to Demonstrators
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While a criminal case about the police excesses during the July 31 demo in defense of the right to assembly was opened in St. Petersburg last week, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made news Monday by speaking approvingly of police beatings in an interview with Kommersant.
“You have to get a permit from the local authorities,” Putin was quoted as saying.
“You got it? Then go and rally. If not, you don’t have the right. If you go out without having the right, you’ll get a bash on the head with a truncheon.”
Putin also said that demonstrators consciously provoke the police into administering beatings and pour red paint over themselves to imitate blood.
Putin’s words were published a day before rallies due in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities across Russia on Tuesday, as part of the Strategy 31 campaign in defense of the right of assembly guaranteed by Article 31 of the Russian constitution. The events are held on the 31th day of months that have 31 days.
The authorities in Moscow and St. Petersburg have not authorized the campaign’s events since it began on July 31, 2009, in Moscow. Opposition politicians took Putin’s words as a threat.
Author and oppositional politician Eduard Limonov, one of the leaders of Strategy 31, reacted by describing Putin as a “man of violence.”
“The chair of the Russian government V.V. Putin’s interview is outrageous in its tone and insulting to the citizens of Russia,” Limonov wrote in his blog on Monday.
“It contains elements of intimidation with the threat of violence […]. Incitement of law enforcement agencies to violence is evident. Thus, the phrase ‘get a bash on the head with a truncheon’ is repeated three times.”
Despite the interview, the Aug. 31 events will go ahead as planned, organizers said Monday. Moscow demonstrators will assemble on Triumfalnaya Ploshchad, while St. Petersburg protesters will assemble by the Gostiny Dvor metro station on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, on Tuesday. The events start at 6 p.m.
Aug. 31 events are also scheduled in around 40 Russian cities. Demos in support of Strategy 31 are also due to take place near Russian embassies and Russian government representative offices in London, New York, Tel Aviv, Prague and Helsinki.
“For us, nothing has changed, as a matter of fact; we’ll go to Gostiny Dvor, as always,” said Andrei Dmitriyev, a local Strategy 31 leader, on Monday.
“It’s a mixture of Putin’s typical yobbishness — posing as a tough guy — and sheer bluff, because if one analyzes in detail what he said, it has nothing to do with Russian law and common sense,” he said.
“He either doesn’t know Russian laws or simply couldn’t care less about them.”
In Dmitriyev’s view, the law on public events says nothing about getting permits from the local authorities, instead requiring merely that the authorities be informed of planned events.
“Our authorities have chosen several ‘ghettoes,’ where they send the opposition to rally,” said Dmitriyev, adding that earlier this month City Hall offered the organizers the chance to hold the rally in the remote 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution Park on the city’s northeastern outskirts, but refused to authorize the rally near Gostiny Dvor.
“This practice of sending the demonstrators to ‘ghettoes’ is also illegal in its essence,” he said.
The St. Petersburg authorities have refused to authorize Strategy 31 rallies on the grounds that the site was close to a metro and thus the subject of “special security regulations” starting from the first local event on Jan. 31, but failed to produce these regulations to the organizers.
The most recent Strategy 31 rally, which was held on July 31, was thwarted with particular brutality, with several people being badly beaten. The St. Petersburg Department of Internal Affairs (GUVD) started an investigation on the police’s actions during the demo, which is due to be finished on Sept. 2, according to a GUVD spokesman.
A criminal case was opened by the Investigative Committee of the Russian prosecutor’s office last week. According to its statement, the investigation has established that a police officer hit an “unidentified” man on the head with a rubber truncheon at least once “without having sufficient grounds.”
TITLE: Russian Capital a Leader in Construction Red Tape
AUTHOR: By Maxim Tovkailo
PUBLISHER: Vedomosti
TEXT: MOSCOW — While it is becoming easier to build in Russia, administrative barriers in several regions, such as Moscow and the Moscow region, remain high, the Regional Development Ministry said.
The ministry analyzed administrative barriers to construction in a report submitted to the government on the efficiency of government agencies in 2009, a copy of which was obtained by Vedomosti.
The problems arise both in industrial and residential construction. It takes six months from the day the results of a land auction are confirmed to the moment the construction permit is granted. Builders have to wait another 22.4 months until the building can be inhabited, the ministry said. The situation is improving, but slowly: In 2007, the figures were 8.6 months and 26.5 months, respectively.
When dealing with industrial construction, builders have to wait 5.6 months for a permit to lease the land, six months for a construction permit, and another 20 months until the building is usable. The longest procedure is in the Far East, where it takes more than 10 months just to properly form the lease.
Companies must get their plans approved by 11 institutions on average, down from 13 in 2008, the ministry said. But in certain regions, construction firms must go through even more agencies: In Moscow permission must be granted by 40 bodies, and the Moscow and Tula regions require the agreement of 25 agencies.
The ministry recommended that regional officials lower administrative barriers for builders, by reducing the time it takes to give out permits and accepting and distributing documents through a “single window.” Without doing so, it will be difficult for the construction sector to recover, the ministry said.
In 2009, the amount of land under residential development decreased by one-third, the ministry said. And despite an increase in the housing supply — from 21.5 square meters per person in 2007 to 22.4 in 2009 — more than 40 million Russians live in homes built from 1947 to 1970, and about 35 million in ill-equipped apartments.
In 2009, Moscow passed an ordinance cutting red tape in construction, said a representative of the city’s economic policy and development department. The time it takes to give out documents was cut from two months to two weeks, and the permit fee was canceled, as was the requirement that the process be repeated for small changes to the project. Builders have to go through many different agencies because building in a metropolis requires the resolution of additional infrastructure issues, he said.
After a meeting with the main construction firms in the Tula region, a program is being prepared that will reduce administrative barriers, said a spokesman for the Tula governor. Calls to a Moscow region spokesman were not answered.
Federal officials have promised to help construction firms. The Economic Development Ministry and the Regional Development Ministry have already come to an agreement on measures to simplify the process for getting construction permits, said Sergei Belyakov, director of the Economic Development Ministry’s investment policy department.
Companies will also be able to get their inspections done by nonstate agencies, inspections must be completed within 60 days instead of 90, and fines will be introduced for baseless refusals or delays in handing out construction permits. Several regulatory amendments will also be made this year, Belyakov said.
For builders, Moscow’s leadership in the field of administrative barriers is nothing new, said Anton Danilov-Danilyan, chairman of construction firm Rodex Group, and Mikhail Urinson, managing director of Alur.
Nor do Danilov-Danilyan and Urinson sense a reduction in red tape in other regions. In place of old regulations, new ones are put in place — for example, utilities slap on new requirements on the municipal level when it comes to connecting buildings to infrastructure, Danilov-Danilyan said. Urinson said the number of procedures does not necessarily need to be reduced. Rather, the existing ones need to be monitored more tightly.
Either way, reducing red tape will lower the costs of construction firms, but it won’t lead to the rapid growth of the sector, Danilov-Danilyan and Urinson said. The main problems of the sector are expensive credit and declining demand, Danilov-Danilyan said.
TITLE: Komi Cop In Appeal Detained
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A former Komi police major who accused his ex-colleagues of fabricating a case against two convicts in a 2005 fire that killed 25 people was detained in Moscow on Friday, police said.
Mikhail Yevseyev, who was placed on a federal wanted list last week, was arrested in southern Moscow and sent to the Komi republic to face charges connected to his service in Chechnya in 2004, Interfax said.
Yevseyev is charged with assault and abuse of office in Chechnya. He is also accused of disclosing classified information, but details of that charge have not been made public, Interfax reported.
In November, Yevseyev released a video addressed to President Dmitry Medvedev in which he claimed that Komi law enforcement officials were falsifying criminal cases against innocent people, including businessmen.
Yevseyev, who quit his job in 2008, cited the arson incident in the Passazh shopping mall in the local town of Ukhta as an example of “the police’s lawlessness.”
Two men were handed life sentences in July by the Komi Supreme Court over the 2005 fire, and two other suspects, accused of ordering the arson, are currently awaiting trial.
TITLE: Putin Backs Halt to Forest Roadworks
AUTHOR: By Alexander Bratersky
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — In a rare reversal, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has backed down on his opposition to halting the construction of an $8 billion highway through a centuries-old oak forest north of Moscow — even as loggers said they already cut down almost half of the trees in question.
Putin said he was open to an alternative route Friday, a day after President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to the deforestation needed to make way for the highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
“The question about what route the road will take is an important one,” Putin told reporters during a tour of the Far East, according to a transcript on the government’s web site.
But he also said the highway was a “necessary” project.
Meanwhile, Teplotekhnik, the contractor hired to clear the forest, said it had cut down about 60 hectares of the 144 hectares scheduled for destruction, Vedomosti reported Friday.
Putin and Medvedev made no public comment about Teplotekhnik’s announcement by Sunday.
Yevgenia Chirikova, leader of the Khimki forest defenders, told The Moscow Times that restoring the destroyed trees would take more than 70 years.
Putin’s government previously supported the partial destruction of the forest. But speaking to reporters Friday, Putin stressed that this was not the first time that he had changed previously approved construction plans because of environmental concerns.
He said he was referring to Transneft’s Siberian pipeline, which he personally ordered to be moved from Lake Baikal’s shores ahead of its construction in 2006.
Alternative routes for the highway are to be discussed at public hearings this week. But activists fear that the initial route might still win out.
“I fear that the result of the hearings will be predictable: The ‘right’ people will stand by their decision [to destroy the forest], and both the prime minister and the president will agree with those experts,” said Gennady Rodin, one of the forest’s defenders.
He said Khimki City Hall was pressuring local businessmen and state employees to sign a petition in support of the deforestation.
The government could consider two possible routes that have been drawn up for the highway and that go around the Khimki forest, said Mikhail Blinkin, an expert with the state Transport and Road Infrastructure Research Institute.
One route runs parallel to the railroad from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and the other passes through the Molzhaninovsky district in northern Moscow, he said.
“Both are more expensive,” Blinkin said, adding that the first route will require resettling about 30,000 residents, while the other involves paying companies that lease land in the area.
The Molzhaninovsky route was considered by the authorities in 2006 but dropped because Inteko, the company owned by Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s wife, Yelena Baturina, was planning to develop the district, Vedomosti reported Friday, citing an unidentified source close to the state company Russian Roads. Inteko abandoned the plans last September, the report said.
TITLE: Worries Over Effects of Smog Created by Wildfires Declines
AUTHOR: By Alexandra Odynova
PUBLISHER: The Moscow Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — At the height of this summer’s heat wave, some doctors warned that a few hours of inhaling the thick, acrid smog that blanketed Moscow was like smoking a pack of cigarettes.
One scientist declared that cases of suicide, diabetes and alcoholism would soar once winter set in because of the aftereffects of the toxic smoke.
But now that chilly rains and a cold front have swept away both the heat and the smoke, doctors are not so sure that the consequences of the summer spent sweating and coughing in smog hell will be quite so bad.
Moscow might see a slight increase in deaths, but the average, healthy city dweller has little to fear, several doctors said in interviews.
Galina Kokovkina, head doctor at City Dispensary No. 17, said patient traffic has increased by 30 percent at her clinic after the Health and Social Development Ministry grouped it among 50 in the city where people could get free medical examinations after the smog.
But, Kokovkina said, none of the patients have shown signs of illness because of the smoke, which drifted into the capital from peat fires in the Moscow region.
“There have not been any serious cases,” she said in an interview, adding that many of her clinic’s patients had come from the areas worst affected by the fires in the Moscow region.
Kokovkina said, however, that it was difficult to detect any ill effects of the smoke on the respiratory system and other vital organs so soon after the summer ordeal.
“Those are changes that we can’t see clearly,” she said. “Besides, a lot depends on a person’s health.”
Still, she expressed skepticism that the smog would have any major long-term effects on her patients.
It will take at least a year to determine the long-term effects of this summer as researchers study slowly emerging data, said Sergei Zakharov, deputy head of the Demography Institute at the Higher School of Economics.
“There definitely will be an increase in the death rate, but no expert can even assume what the figure will be like,” Zakharov said.
If the statistics are well collected, researchers might be able to conduct their first-ever study of such a disaster, he said. Severe wildfires in central Russia in 1972 killed at least 104 people and burned 1,460 hectares, but no one gave serious study to the long-term effect on health afterward, he said.
This summer’s fires in central Russia destroyed 927,500 hectares and killed about 50 people.
Moscow’s death rate increased by 50.7 percent in July, jumping to 14,340 deaths compared with 9,516 during the same month last year, according the the civil registration office, also known by its Russian acronym, ZAGS.
The head of Moscow’s health department, Andrei Seltsovsky, said earlier this month that the death rate doubled during the heat wave, with about 700 deaths registered every day compared with the usual 360 to 380 deaths. He also said the number of daily ambulance calls increased to about 10,000 from the usual 7,500.
Russia’s top pulmonologist, Alexander Chuchalin, has warned that the smoke weakened the immune systems of people in affected areas, making them more susceptible to disease.
The heat also has had an impact on all the body’s vital organs, Boris Revich, a senior demography and environmental researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said Aug. 17. In the coming months, “we should expect more cases of diabetes, suicide and alcohol-related nervous breakdowns,” he said, RIA-Novosti reported.
But Nikita Neverov, a senior family doctor with Medsi, formerly known as the American Medical Center, said it was difficult to estimate long-term health effects because of a lack of official data on the composition of the smog.
“The effect is unlikely to be positive, but it’s hard to forecast that right now,” Neverov said.
He said that as a rule, the smoke is followed by a five-day reaction period, after which symptoms are unlikely to emerge.
But deeper research into the composition of the smoke and the people who breathed it is needed in order to pinpoint possible chronic diseases, he said.
Repeated requests to the city’s health department for comment on the implications of the smog went unanswered between Wednesday and Friday.
A senior city doctor, Leonid Lazebnik, took a darker view of the smog last week, comparing its consequences to long-lasting altitude sickness.
“Those who lived through it will feel its consequences for a long time, maybe even for the rest of their lives,” he said, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported last Monday.
Meanwhile, at least one Moscow resident is trying to file a lawsuit that holds City Hall, the Emergency Situations Ministry and the Heath and Social Development Ministry responsible for a deterioration in the health of Moscow residents because of the smog.
In her lawsuit, lawyer Svetlana Dobronravova said the authorities failed to provide enough assistance when she asked for it during the smog. She also said officials did not give her the locations of Moscow bomb shelters, where she hoped to hide from the smog.
TITLE: Medvedev Puts Forests Under Putin
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Federal Forestry Agency to be transferred to the direct control of the government as the authorities take steps to ensure that there will be no repeat to the wildfires that ravaged central Russia last month.
First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov told Medvedev on Friday that the forestry agency, which formerly reported to the Agriculture Ministry, operated without sufficient authority.
“As far as protecting the forests and supervising forestry operations and fire safety, it turned out that the agency didn’t have these functions — they were in different agencies,” he said in comments posted on the Kremlin web site.
Medvedev ordered that the forestry functions of the Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Inspection Service and the Agriculture Ministry be transferred to the Federal Forestry Agency and called for a detailed review of the 2007 Forest Code.
Critics say the Forest Code, signed into law by then-President Vladimir Putin, was the main culprit behind the fires because it dismantled a centralized system of forest oversight for a more regional system.
Environmentalists supported the bureaucratic shakeup. The World Wildlife Federation “has long called for this step, but the state recognized its necessity only after catastrophic fires, which are only an indicator of systemic problems in forest management,” it said in a statement.
The WWF also called for the government to engage more actively with society over forestry policy and for further reforms to the forestry legislation.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Man in Trunk
MOSCOW (SPT) — Four Moscow policemen were arrested Saturday with a businessman in the trunk of their car, RIA-Novosti reported.
The officers are accused of kidnapping the businessman in Moscow to force him to pay his debts to unspecified lenders, it said. But his wife witnessed the abduction and alerted the police, who detained the suspects and freed the businessman.
Police are investigating whether the policemen might be linked to a number of other felonies, including the theft of 10 million rubles ($324,000) from a businessman who had just withdrawn the cash from a bank on Arbat last Monday. The attackers wore riot police uniforms and masks.
$250k Bribe for Cop
MOSCOW (SPT) — A police captain was detained in Moscow for extorting $250,000 from an unidentified businessman whose goods were seized at Domodedovo Airport on fabricated smuggling charges, Interfax reported Friday.
The officer, Sergei Rudnev, 31, was detained when accepting the money. Rudnev admitted to extorting the bribe and identified other policemen involved in the case, the Investigative Committee said, without elaborating.
TITLE: Long-Lost Jesus Icon Returns to Kremlin Gates
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — An icon of Jesus embedded in a Kremlin gate used by Soviet leaders but bricked over in the 1930s during communist times was restored on Saturday to public view, Reuters reported.
On a rainy and windy day of the Assumption in the Orthodox calendar, President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill unveiled the icon on Spasskaya Tower, or Savior Tower, that has been covered for more than 70 years and had been regarded as lost.
The icon could have been immured in 1937 — the exact date is unknown — when Soviet authorities celebrated the 20th anniversary of the coup of the Bolsheviks, who waged war against organized religion, destroying temples and icons across the country.
The idea to return the icon appeared in 2007, backed by the presidential administration and the patriarch, and initially a hunt began to see whether it could be found hidden away in the archives of the country’s museums.
When that failed, restorers began exploratory work on the spot where they thought that the icon had once been and discovered it last spring, hidden behind a metal grate that had then been plastered over.
The icon, which had adorned the tower since the 16th century, was deliberately hidden by unknown workers who presumably feared that it would be destroyed by the Bolsheviks. Their fears were not exaggerated, as the Bolsheviks once used the icon as target practice, firing cannons at it. All the shots were said to have missed the icon.
“We must remember those who assisted and helped in the restoration of this icon, including those who in a very difficult hour for this country — a period of godlessness, a period of hard times — risked not only their positions but their lives to save this wonder,” Medvedev said.
In tsarist times, the icon was venerated and people dismounted and took their hats off as they entered the Kremlin through the gates of Spasskaya Tower.
A second mummified icon of St. Nicholas was also found and restored at the entrance to Nikolskaya Tower.
Medvedev, speaking from under an umbrella on Saturday, the day that marks the belief that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken to heaven, said the “Savior Smolensky” icon would provide moral support to Russia.
“Now that we’ve gotten the icon back, our country secures an additional defense,” he said after Kirill, struggling to keep his cap on his head in a strong wind, anointed the icon with water.
The icon of Jesus is 2.2 by 1.5 meters wide and depicts Jesus holding open the New Testament with the Russian saints Sergius and Valaam below him. The icon was painted in commemoration of the siege of Moscow by Crimean Tatars in 1521.
The St. Nicholas icon shows him holding a sword in one hand and a church in the other.
Restorers plan to start working on the other Kremlin towers in the future in search of icons that were once there as well.
Medvedev’s presence at the event is another sign of the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, criticized by rights groups and some other religious confessions amid a trend toward consolidation of the church as a national force in the country.
The Orthodox Church has undergone a revival since the Soviet collapse almost 20 years ago ended decades of repression under communism, and Russia’s leaders have endorsed it as the country’s main faith.
“There is a special meaning in today’s event — particularly, it’s in the unity of the church and the people,” Medvedev said.
TITLE: Spy Poses for ‘Erotic’ Photos
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Glamorous secret agent Anna Chapman has posed provocatively for a Russian magazine shoot in her first public appearance since she was deported from the United States in a major spy swap, Reuters reported.
The 28-year-old redhead agreed to an “exclusive interview and photo shoot” for Zhara, Maxim Korshunov, the glossy magazine’s editor, said by telephone Friday.
“It was just a matter of convincing her that we will give her the exposure she needs,” Korshunov said. “The photos of our spy are very revealing and erotic.”
The Chapman issue will go on sale Sept. 1.
Lifenews.ru, an online tabloid owned by News Media-Rus, has published film footage of Chapman being photographed for Zhara in a VIP room in the upscale Hotel Baltschug Kempinski Moscow. In the 1 minute, 43 second clip, Chapman struts about in two figure-hugging dresses.
“Clearly enjoying showing off her curves, Chapman shows that women’s secrets mean more to her than those she kept at the secret service,” the web site wrote, in a clear jibe at the fact Chapman and nine other Russian spies were caught.
(SPT, Bloomberg)
TITLE: Militants Strike Kadyrov’s Village
AUTHOR: By Alexey Eremenko
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — A daring militant raid on Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s home village on Sunday erupted in a gunbattle that killed at least 14 people, officials said.
Kadyrov was in the village of Tsentoroi, about 20 kilometers east of Grozny, when the gang of about 30 Islamist militants entered at about 4:30 a.m., and he personally led the counteroffensive.
The president, who appeared on national television examining the bodies of killed militants, said the situation was under control.
“We let them into the village so they couldn’t escape,” Kadyrov told Channel One state television. “We forced them into a place where they could be eliminated.”
Kadyrov, who is up for reappointment next year, said 12 militants and two of his guards were killed and four civilians wounded.
But law enforcement officials told RIA-Novosti that the militants’ casualties could not be confirmed, and five civilians and two policemen were killed in the attack.
Kadyrov denied that any civilians had died.
But The Associated Press, citing a local resident, said a militant had detonated explosives in a house, killing a 30-year-old resident as well as himself.
The resident also said the fighting had erupted at a construction site about 150 meters from Kadyrov’s residence.
The militants torched several houses and shot at police, who fought back alongside Kadyrov’s guards, RIA-Novosti reported.
In other violence in the North Caucasus, four militants were killed in Dagestan early Sunday after a gunfight with police and a nighttime car chase on the streets of Khasavyurt, Interfax reported.
The militants, who drove two cars, were stopped by police for a document check but opened fire and tried to escape, a Federal Security Service spokesman told Interfax.
Among the dead was Nariman Satiyev, 19, a three-time world champion in Muay Thai martial arts, the report said.
On Saturday, Dagestani police killed five militants identified as members of a gang led by Magomedali Vagabov, the suspected organizer of the March suicide bombings in the Moscow metro who was killed Aug. 21, Interfax reported. Among them was Vagabov’s Sakha-born chief bomb maker, it said, citing local police.
Police acted on a tip, ambushing the militants in the forest as they were picking up food supplies from a supporter, police said. One police officer was injured in the operation and died in the hospital Sunday.
In the restive Kabardino-Balkaria republic, local militant leader Arsen Khazhbiyev was killed with four of his men Saturday after being surrounded by police in an apartment in the local capital, Nalchik, Interfax reported. Khazhbiyev and his men are suspected of orchestrating a May 1 blast at the Nalchik racetrack that killed one person and injured 43 others.
More than 30 militants have been killed in the North Caucasus in August, FSB director Alexander Bortnikov said Saturday. The count includes Khazhbiyev’s gang but not those killed in other violence over the weekend.
TITLE: Kremlin Forwards Appeal on Magnitsky’s Death
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev has forwarded to the Investigative Committee an appeal from an international alliance of lawyers for justice in the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the association said Thursday.
In July, TAGLaw, a legal network that unites 147 law firms in 81 countries, including Magnitsky’s employer, sent an open letter to Medvedev, calling on him to investigate allegations that Magnitsky was “tortured to death.”
The appeal will now be considered by the Investigative Committee, TAGLaw said, citing a letter from the Prosecutor General’s Office.
The Kremlin and investigators did not comment on the statement.
In the letter to Medvedev, TAGLaw said Russian authorities were ignoring “strong evidence” that Magnitsky was effectively killed by the Interior Ministry officers whom he had testified against.
“The almost total lack of legal protection and the absence of effective restraints on government officials” will hurt foreign investment in Russia, said the letter, copies of which were sent to the United Nations and the U.S. government and Congress.
Earlier this summer, Magnitsky’s supporters released videos accusing police investigators Pavel Karpov and Artyom Kuznetsov, against whom Magnitsky had testified, of corruption.
The Interior Ministry opened an internal investigation on the allegations earlier this month.
Magnitsky, 37, died of heart failure in November in a pretrial prison where he was jailed for 12 months while awaiting trial on tax charges. His supporters said he was intentionally denied sufficient medical help.
TITLE: Inflatable Sex Toy Challenge Attracts Over 450
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: LOSEVO, Leningrad Oblast — Adrenaline-addicts from the city and beyond competed in a three-minute wet and wild ride on inflatable women from sex shops in the eighth annual Bubble Baba Challenge at the Losevo Rapids on the Vuoksa River, about 80 kilometers northwest of St. Petersburg.
The competition was held on Aug. 28. At the contest, riders have to raft on inflatable devices down the rapids on Vuoksa River.
The triumphant winner of the race was St. Petersburg “athlete” Vladislav Pavlenko on his “Vanilla Pelotki” (2 minutes 47 seconds) , followed by Dmitry Arsentiev, another local, who rode “Killer Whale” (2.51). Alexander Marasin, also of St. Petersburg and the owner of “Fearless Zina” (2.55), came third.
Baba translates from Russian as “peasant woman,” but is sometimes used with sexually offensive connotations.
More than 450 thrill-seekers took part in the unorthodox contest, where inflatable babes-turned-boats were given titles no proper regata would ever have accepted. Take, for instance, “Floating Piggy” or “Baby-Barge.” Other bold and sassy names that provided valuable insights into their male riders’ characters and egos, have included “Unstoppable Chick,” “Cuddly Female Racoon,” “Big Tit Excess,” “Sexual Goddess,” “Roach,” “Miss Peep,” “School Girl,” “Indefatiguable” and “Luba For A Price.”
The event, which was first held in 2003, runs under the motto “A Rubber Babe is More Than Just A Vehicle”.
Since 2008, the competition has included a separate heat just for women.
Female competitors demonstrated much poorer results. Vera Tatosyan of St. Petersburg took first place in the women’s event with “Yosya,” with a time of 3:29. Another local Nadezhda Pavlenko and “Vanilla Pelotka” came second at 3:38, followed by third-place winner, St. Petersburger Lyubov Rumyantseva on “Quill-Driver” with a result of 4.06.
There are no strict health restrictions for participation in the the competition, although a specially accredited doctor, however, makes all competitors pass an obligatory alcohol test. The contest also sets the minimum age at 16 years, for both male and female riders.
The competition’s charter also allows the replacement of the rubber doll with a rubber penis of an equivalent size or an inflatable animal. Some female participants have used the rubber penis option. One such vehicle competed under the title of “Ladies’ Pleaser.” Obligatory gear includes wet suits, life vests, and helmets as the Vuoksa rapids can present a challenge.
TITLE: Putin Sees Enough Grain as Winter Sowing Lags
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia was not short of grain after the worst drought in half a century cut yields, and that there was no reason for an increase in domestic grain prices.
The country has reserves of 9.5 million metric tons of grain, including 3 million tons of feed grain, Putin told Russian news agencies while driving on the Amur highway in the Khabarovsk region. Russian companies have a carry-over of 21 million tons of grain in the country, Putin said, Interfax reported.
“Formally, there’s still the potential for exports,” he said. “But I made the decision to halt grain exports because we don’t know what will happen with the winter crops next year, or how the 2011 harvest will be.”
Drought-hit Russia has sown winter grains on only half the area it had planted a year ago, official data showed Friday.
Farmers had sown 484,900 hectares with winter grains as of Thursday, 479,800 hectares less than a year ago, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement Friday. It said an optimum period for the winter grain sowing started Aug. 15 in the Central and Volga federal districts, where the sowing lagged behind last year’s because of soil aridity.
Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik has said farmers will have to increase spring grain planting areas by some 30 percent to make up losses on areas unlikely to be sown to winter grains because of a lack of soil moisture.
But analysts said winter grain losses could only partially be compensated by an increase in the sown area, and grain planted in spring tends to be lower yielding than winter grain.
Earlier this month, the country’s chief weather forecaster said mass winter grain sowing in European Russia, hit by a severe drought, was unlikely at least until Sept. 10, although rain in some regions had brought some relief.
Russia had harvested 41.9 million tons of grain by bunker weight by Thursday, the Agriculture Ministry statement said. It did not provide a comparison.
On Wednesday, the ministry said the country had harvested 41.5 million tons of grain by that day, which was 31 percent less than at the same date a year ago.
Skrynnik said earlier Friday that the country had bigger grain carry-over stocks than previously estimated and could avoid grain imports, although analysts doubted this.
The State Statistics Service “has revised at our request the data on the stocks carried over from last year,” Skrynnik said in an interview to state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
“Taking into account what is stockpiled at backyard farms, [the country had] 25.8 million tons as of June 1,” she said.
Carry-over stocks are normally calculated at the end and at the beginning of every crop year, which starts July 1 and ends June 30 of the next calendar year. It was not clear why Skrynnik referred to June 1 data.
Previously, the statistics service said the country’s carry-over stocks were 21.7 million tons by July 1 this year, while the ministry insisted that the data did not take into account small farms and the stocks in fact were equal to 24 million tons.
Agricultural research group SovEcon said Thursday that it estimated the country’s carry-over stocks at 20.2 million tons as of July 1.
Losses for Russian farmers may quadruple to as much as 160 billion rubles ($5.2 billion) from a government estimate of 40 billion rubles in July, Kommersant reported Friday, citing its own calculations based on information from an Agriculture Ministry meeting the day before.
Domestic demand is expected at about 77 million to 78 million tons, said Skrynnik, adding that an optimistic forecast calls for a harvest of 65 million to 67 million tons this year.
“For now, we are following the optimistic scenario,” Skrynnik told Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
She added that under a pessimistic scenario, the crop would be 60 million tons, which is in line with analysts’ estimates, under which the former world No. 3 wheat exporter could need to import up to 6 million tons of grain.
The harvest is expected to fall this year after bumper crops of 97 million tons in 2009 and 108 million tons in 2008, after the drought destroyed crops in some key grain growing regions and lowered yields in others.
(Bloomberg, SPT)
TITLE: Putin Says Shareholder Fight Damages Norilsk
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: A public feud between Norilsk Nickel’s two largest shareholders is damaging the company, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told news agencies Friday, while noting that Russia had not yet emerged from the economic crisis.
The government helped broker a peace deal between the two Norilsk owners in 2008, fearing that their dispute would harm the strategic company as the economic crisis was settling in.
“The Russian economy, just like the world’s economy as a whole, is emerging from the crisis gradually,” Putin said during a trip to the Far East, RIA-Novosti reported. “We believe that we have to continue to implement these [anti-crisis] programs,” Putin said.
Putin was scheduled to visit Norilsk last week but had to delay the trip because heavy fog prevented him from landing in the Arctic city. The miner, with a market capitalization of $32 billion, is the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium.
“It is a healthy company,” Putin said, Interfax reported. “There is a fight among the main shareholders, and this fight, no doubt, is causing damage to the company,” he said. “The government in this case is limited in its actions by the law.”
Comments from Putin on specific businesses are relatively rare, but owners and analysts pay careful note to criticism from the prime minister.
Vladimir Potanin’s Interros Holding and Oleg Deripaska’s United Company RusAl each control at least 25 percent of Norilsk and have offered to buy each other out in a dispute over the company strategy and contested elections to its board of directors.
RusAl has accused Norilsk management of manipulating election results, causing it to lose a representative and leaving it on unequal footing with Interros.
Norilsk has denied the claim, while both Interros and RusAl have accused the other of trying to run the company against the interests of other shareholders.
Responding to a reporter’s question about the social implications of the shareholder battle, Putin said the situation at Norilsk was “nothing like” what had happened in Pikalyovo.
Putin traveled to the Leningrad region town in June 2009 and personally ordered business owners — including Deripaska — to restart plants there and pay salaries.
“As far as what’s happening at Norilsk Nickel, you can’t compare it to Pikalyovo,” he said, Interfax reported. “There’s nothing alike.”
Norilsk said Friday that it completed its dividend payout for 2009, one of the decisions made at an annual meeting that RusAl is contesting. Norilsk paid out $1.33 billion, less than RusAl wanted, the company said.
(Bloomberg, SPT)
TITLE: General Motors May Double Capacity
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — General Motors may need to double production capacity in Russia to meet demand and is in talks with potential partners, including billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s GAZ Group, a top executive said Friday.
GM, which has the ability to make 180,000 cars a year in Russia, would need to add capacity even after its St. Petersburg plant and a joint venture with AvtoVAZ reach peak output, James Bovenzi, GM’s Russia president and managing director, said in an interview. A final decision will depend on market demand, he said.
“We really see the market now poised for growth,” Bovenzi said at the Moscow International Auto Salon. “The bad things are behind us, and the crisis is behind us, and now the market is starting to improve.”
Nissan, Japan’s third-largest automaker, raised its Russian car sales target and plans to add a third model on its St. Petersburg assembly line as demand rebounds along with the economy. Nissan will produce the Murano crossover in addition to the X-trail and Teana sedan near St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Economic Forecasts
Criticized
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Audit Chamber took the Economic Development Ministry to task on Friday, saying its forecasts for the crisis-hit 2009 were too inaccurate.
The ministry’s predictions for gross domestic product growth in 2009 were off by 14.6 percentage points from the actual figures, while the maximum acceptable deviation is only 0.5 percentage point, Valery Goreglyad, a deputy head of the budget watchdog, said during a meeting.
Initial predictions for 2009 saw GDP growing 6.7 percent. That forecast was repeatedly revised downward: first to a 2.2 percent fall, then to an 8.5 percent decline. The economy contracted 7.9 percent that year, according to the State Statistics Service, which reports to the Economic Development Ministry.
GDP is expected to grow by 4 percent this year, unchanged from the previous forecast.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Gazprom-Naftogaz
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Ukrainian household gas prices may fall to Russian levels after a merger between Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukrainy, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Friday.
“We could merge Gazprom and Naftogaz, and we think it would be a very important social move,” Miller said in comments broadcast by state television. Gazprom keeps domestic household prices at 1,880 rubles, or about $61, per thousand cubic meters, he said.
Miller held talks with Yuriy Boyko, Ukraine’s energy and fuel minister, on creating a joint venture between the companies. Talks are at an “advanced stage,” Gazprom said.
Aeroflot Gets $52M
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Switzerland returned 53 million Swiss francs ($52 million) in assets stolen more than a decade ago from state-run Aeroflot, the Swiss Justice Ministry said Friday.
The money was paid into an Aeroflot account in Zurich after Russian prosecutors agreed that the funds should be returned directly to the airline, the ministry said. Those responsible for the fraud have been convicted in Russia, it said without elaborating.
When Russian authorities requested Swiss legal assistance in the case starting in 1999, Switzerland agreed to freeze bank accounts and start its own money laundering and fraud probes, the ministry said. Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court found one of the accused guilty of “abetting qualified misappropriation” in 2008, it said. None of those involved were identified.
Kurdish Gas Deal
FRANKFURT (SPT) — Germany’s RWE said Friday that it signed a cooperation agreement with the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq that included future gas supply for the Nabucco pipeline project, Reuters reported.
A statement issued by RWE in Germany quoted Iraqi Kurdistan’s natural resources minister Ashti Hawrami as saying that up to 20 billion cubic meters of gas a year could be fed into the pipe to Turkey and Europe.
Rosneft Refinery
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Rosneft is in talks to buy stakes in four German refineries, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing sources it said were familiar with the matter.
The talks include buying the half of Ruhr Oel that Venezuela’s Petroleos de Venezuela owns for as much as $2 billion, the paper said. BP owns the other half and has the right to block a sale, which it will waive in exchange for concessions in the Russian shelf in the Arctic Ocean, the paper said.
RusHydro Shares
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — RusHydro, Russia’s largest renewable energy producer, said Friday that it raised 21.85 billion rubles ($712 million) selling new shares.
RusHydro sold 19 billion shares for 1.15 rubles each, including to existing owners of its depositary receipts, the company said. It plans to publish detailed results in the next two months.
Inter RAO Issue
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Inter RAO sold 24.9 billion rubles ($811 million) of new shares to state development bank Vneshekonombank and existing shareholders, the power company said Friday.
TITLE: Road-Tripping Putin Says Gasoline Too Costly
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin got behind the wheel of a Glonass-equipped Lada Kalina to test the new Amur highway over the weekend, but he complained that the “historic” road’s quality was unsatisfactory and that gas prices are too high.
The government is planning to raise excise taxes on fuel next year to help rebuild Russia’s notoriously bad roads. Analysts have called the move risky, as drivers are a well-organized political force and have opposed the taxes.
In an apparent recognition of those complaints, Putin posed on Friday at a Khabarovsk region gas station, filling up the tank. On Sunday, the prime minister tried to console road workers who asked him whether gasoline prices would keep rising.
“I think the prices for gasoline in Russia are too high, in the western part and in the east,” he said, according to a transcript posted on the government web site.
“We’re trying to fight this somehow with our main [oil] companies,” he said.
“In recent years we’ve at least been able to keep [price growth] restrained. And I think that in general, prices need to be restrained,” Putin said, noting that anti-monopoly officials and prosecutors needed to remain vigilant.
He met with workers who built the final stretch of the Amur highway, running from Chita, in the Zabaikalsky region, to Khabarovsk, near the Pacific coast. The connection, Putin noted, was “historic” as the first motorway fully linking western Russia to the Pacific.
“Finally, we did it. I should have a look,” he said.
The prime minister traveled about 350 kilometers in a bright yellow Lada Kalina provided by AvtoVAZ, the country’s largest carmaker. He told reporters that he would not personally drive the entire trip.
AvtoVAZ representatives asked him to test drive the vehicle, which came equipped with a Glonass navigation system. Government officials have been actively promoting the technology as a homegrown alternative to GPS.
Putin, who owns a Lada Niva, said it was important that he test drove the Lada, which is “the most popular car in our country, used by millions of people.”
Four of Russia’s five most popular new cars last year were made by AvtoVAZ, and the brand has benefited from the government’s cash-for-clunkers rebate program.
“The car unexpectedly turned out to be very cozy, comfortable and reliable. Try to buy such a car. I can assure you, you won’t be disappointed,” he told motorists Friday at the gas station, RIA-Novosti reported.
The road, however, left Putin considerably less satisfied. He called it a “good country road,” but told Transportation Minister Igor Levitin that the work was clearly “1995 quality” at the road’s start, Rossia-24 state television reported.
The 2,100-kilometer road was begun more than 30 years ago, but much of it has been built since then-President Putin signed an order in 2001 establishing the route as a priority.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said separately on Saturday that the country’s roads could reach European quality in the next 10 years, once a federal fund is formed to finance construction and repairs.
“That means that all the roads will be level, and it will be possible to travel them without potholes and without getting stuck,” he told reporters in Yakutsk, in the far eastern republic of Sakha.
In July, President Dmitry Medvedev approved the government’s proposal to increase the excise tax on gasoline by 1 ruble per liter annually over the coming three years. The revenue would enter the Federal Road Fund.
The government expects that after the tax is increased, the federal budget will get an additional 83 billion rubles ($2.7 billion) in 2011, with 34 billion rubles to be appropriated for road repairs. A total of 87 billion rubles and 139.7 billion rubles will be appropriated for this purpose in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
But increasing the excise tax is likely to solve only part of the problems, Finam analyst Dmitry Baranov said Sunday.
“More money doesn’t mean that the roads will be of a higher quality. The roads’ quality depends not only on … the money but on the quality of construction, on the workers’ efforts, on not having theft,” he said. “It’s also necessary to use good materials and modern technologies, and to take the climate into account.”
TITLE: RusHydro Begins Construction Of $1Bln Power Plant in Amur
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — RusHydro began construction of a $1 billion power plant in the Far East on Friday in a project that would feed electricity to consumers including coal mines, an oil pipeline and a launch pad.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended the ceremony to pour the first concrete at the 320-megawatt Nizhne-Bureiskaya Hydroelectric Station, which is expected to start operating at half capacity in 2014.
Following an energy industry tradition for good luck, Putin tossed a wristwatch into the plant’s cement. The prime minister twice gave Blancpain watches — said to be worth as much as $10,500 — during public meetings last year. It was not immediately clear what he was wearing Friday.
The station will generate electricity for consumers including Mechel’s Elga coal deposit, Transneft’s East Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline and the new Vostochny launch pad, according to agreements signed as part of the ceremony. It will also supply Petropavlovsk’s gold mines, Interfax reported.
RusHydro executives have said the four-turbine, 31.3 billion ($1 billion) ruble station would also export electricity to China.
The station, located in the Amur region, will start operating at full capacity in 2016, RusHydro said.
It will stand 90 kilometers downstream on the Amur River from the larger Bureiskaya Hydroelectric Station and will allow that station to operate at greater capacity, RusHydro said. The capacity increase will become possible because the new station’s equipment will regulate the water flow from the upriver facility.
TITLE: State May Sell $1Bln in Diamonds
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: YAKUTSK — The government may sell the diamonds it bought last year for $1 billion from state-owned Alrosa, the world’s largest rough diamond producer, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Saturday.
“We are being asked to begin selling diamonds from the reserve we acquired last year,” Kudrin told reporters in Yakutsk, in the republic of Sakha. “We are now considering these offers.”
The government bought the gems to support Alrosa after diamond prices plunged more than 40 percent from their 2008 record.
Russia has earned 15 percent to 18 percent on the diamonds after prices rebounded, Alrosa chief executive Fyodor Andreyev said in a July 12 interview. Gokhran, the state repository, may choose to sell the gems on its own or offer Alrosa “some kind of swap,” he said at the time.
Prices of rough, or unpolished, diamonds have climbed this year after producers cut output and gem dealers rebuilt stockpiles.
The world market has “woken up” and prices for gems have recovered, “completely justifying” the government’s decision to support Alrosa last year, Kudrin said Saturday.
TITLE: Avianova Sees First Year as ‘Revolution’
AUTHOR: By Olga Razumovskaya
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — Low-cost airline Avianova said Thursday that it had created a “price revolution” on the Russian market in its first year of operations, though analysts and competitors said the startup was just revving its engines.
Avianova — owned by Alfa Group’s A1 investment arm and U.S. private equity firm Indigo Partners — has grown quickly since starting last year as Russia’s second discount airline, though executives hedged when asked about its financial success.
The airline sells tickets starting from 250 rubles, or about $8, before taxes and tariffs, and management says the goal is to charge nothing for tickets and draw revenue from travel-related “auxiliary” services.
“Success is a loud term, but let me tell you we have had concrete achievements this year,” CEO Andrew Pyne told a news conference. He said it remained “confidential” whether the business had managed to break even.
Avianova has boosted its fleet to five Airbus A320s with 180 seats each, from an original two planes, and it now travels to 22 destinations in Russia, up from four when the carrier started.
The company hopes to have carried a total of 1.2 million passengers by the end of 2010, up from 900,000 to date, general director Vladimir Gorbunov said.
“We have created a price revolution,” Gorbunov told reporters. “Our passengers are students … young people sometimes flying for the first time … those who have been cut off by most airlines but can use the Internet and can make their own travel plans.”
Avianova had 605,777 passengers in the first seven months of 2010, with an average seat occupancy of 75.3 percent, according to the Federal Air Transportation Agency.
The company said it became Russia’s fourth-largest domestic carrier in July. Eighty percent of all tickets are sold through the company’s web site, and 37 percent go for the 250 ruble base price.
“Our unique business model has helped us achieve these results,” Gorbunov said, brushing off a question about the country’s first low-cost airline, Sky Express.
Avianova and “the company we would rather not mention” should not be used in the same sentence, he said.
Sky Express, which reported a profit of 2.1 billion rubles ($68 million) last year, disputed its smaller rival’s claims.
“It is incorrect to claim you’re revolutionizing the market when all you’re really doing is following in the footsteps of the company that really brought the idea to the market,” Sky Express spokesman Vitaly Korenyugin told The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: Potash Merger Seen as Possible
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said Thursday that it might consider allowing the merger of Russia’s two largest potash producers, Uralkali and Silvinit, while placing restrictions on what would become a national monopoly.
“It will be a monopolist, so we should weigh pros and cons. But I can’t say, ‘No, we’ll never allow it,’” Andrei Tsyganov, a deputy head of the service, said in an interview.
“If such a deal goes ahead, it can only be permitted with restrictions,” he said. Neither of the companies, nor their trading units, has yet filed an application seeking permission to merge, Tsyganov said.
Developments in the Russian potash industry may become “even more interesting” following BHP Billiton’s $40 billion bid for Potash Corp.ration of Saskatchewan, he said, without commenting further.
TITLE: Airline Passenger Volumes Recovering
AUTHOR: By Irina Filatova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The number of airline passengers increased 30 percent in the first seven months of the year, showing that the business is recovering after the economic crisis, the Federal Air Transportation Agency said Thursday.
The number of passengers came to 31.2 million in January through July, compared with 24 million a year before, the agency said on its web site. Airlines carried even more passengers than they did in the first, pre-crisis seven months of 2008.
The figures show that the industry is recovering fast after the crisis, said Andrei Rozhkov, a transportation analyst at Metropol.
A drop in the price of oil is the primary reason for the higher traffic, he said, because it allowed air carriers to lower ticket prices and made them more competitive with railways.
Jet fuel accounts for 40 percent of the ticket price, Rozhkov said.
Among other factors is an upturn in people’s incomes and a growing consumer optimism, he said.
The number of cross-border passengers rose by 33 percent to reach 15.1 million, while the figure for domestic flights increased by 27 percent to 16 million, the Federal Air Transportation Agency said.
The increase was largely driven by state-owned Aeroflot, which carried 6.3 million passengers, or 33 percent more than in January to July 2009.
The airline was followed by Transaero, with the number of passengers increasing by 39 percent to 3.6 million.
The country’s 4 biggest airlines — Aeroflot, Transaero, S7 Airlines and UTair — reported strong financial results in the first half of 2010, with Transaero increasing its net income according to Russian accounting standards more than sixfold to 107 million rubles ($3.5 million).
The four companies also increased their common market share to 49.5 percent in January through June from 48.6 percent a year before, Vedomosti reported.
The carriers’ performance in the second half of the year may be weaker, since there are fewer months with traditionally high passenger flow, Rozhkov said.
TITLE: Medvedev’s Climate Moment
AUTHOR: By Adnan Vatansever
TEXT: The wildfires and heat wave that recently ravaged central Russia brought climate change to the forefront of the country’s domestic agenda. While Russian leaders have often played down the threat of higher temperatures on the country, the severe impact of the fires — which caused more than 50 deaths and destroyed more than a third of Russia’s wheat crop — offers an opportunity to rethink policies and devote urgent attention to becoming a global leader in climate change — as Russia modernizes its economy.
Climate change has long been seen by Russian leaders as someone else’s problem. Not too long ago, then-President Vladimir Putin said Russia would simply have “fewer fur coats and a longer wheat growing season.” And only a few months before last year’s climate summit in Copenhagen, President Dmitry Medvedev warned that “we will not cut our development potential” to reach a new global deal.
Last December, there were new hopes of a turnaround when Russia adopted its first climate doctrine. However, Moscow has maintained its “wait and see” approach to international climate negotiations. There is no indication of a shift toward a more proactive strategy or sign that there are any aspirations to assume a leadership role in this growing transnational challenge.
Waiting for others to take the lead is a mistake. Russia is the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, and only a handful of economies are more energy intensive. Not only is Russia a major source of greenhouse gases, it may also turn out to be one of the most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change. A recent report by the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring revealed that the country’s average temperature rose faster than the global average over the past century — almost twice as fast for the country overall and nearly three times faster in parts of Siberia during the winter. Russia is suddenly finding itself on the front line of climate repercussions.
Medvedev now has a chance to step up his rhetoric in favor of a more active approach — if not leadership — in climate talks. And he suddenly seems to get the message. “Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change because we never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past,” Medvedev said in response to the recent fires. “This means that we need to change the way we work — to change the methods that we used in the past.”
Russia must do two things to show the world that it is getting serious about fighting climate change. First, it needs to move toward more daring emission targets. As a follow-up to the Copenhagen summit, Russia submitted a plan in February to reduce emissions by 15 to 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. This target is hardly inspiring. At the end of 2009, Russia’s emissions were already about 40 percent below the mark in 1990 because of the painful economic collapse during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency and the more recent recession.
Many critics argue that the 20 percent reduction target would mean that emissions could actually accelerate during the next decade compared with the years of rapid economic growth from 2000 to 2007. This is often referred to as “success without really trying” or “compliance without implementing vigorous environmental measures.” Medvedev should set Russia’s target at 30 percent — at the minimum — to dispel such doubts about Russia’s dedication to combating climate change.
Second, it is time to end the disconnect between Russia’s energy efficiency agenda and targets for carbon emission reductions. In 2008, Medvedev signed a decree aiming to improve Russia’s energy efficiency by 40 percent by 2020. Meeting this objective could undoubtedly help Russia reach more ambitious emission reduction targets — possibly more than 30 percent according to some studies. The government, however, has shied away from presenting a clear assessment of the climate-related repercussions of its energy efficiency program.
Russian officials are more comfortable referring to energy efficiency than emission targets as this leaves more room for maneuvering, particularly when officials are inclined to advocate overly optimistic economic growth. But, for Russia to be a true climate leader, it must show a commitment to both economic development and absolute reductions in carbon emissions.
As life in Moscow returns to normal, Russia has a unique opening to advance its newly proclaimed commitment to economic modernization. By setting ambitious emission reduction targets, Russia can boost investor confidence by proving its commitment to a broader agenda that both improves energy efficiency and enhances economic modernization. As energy efficiency gains could be achieved by rapid economic growth and restructuring alone, potential investors in renewable energy would feel more confident if Russia establishes meaningful emission targets.
By committing to absolute levels of carbon reduction and taking action to meet more ambitious targets, Russia can take its rightful place as a global leader in climate protection and modernize its economy at the same time.
Adnan Vatansever is a senior associate at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
TITLE: Blame Lies With Sun, Not Global Warming
AUTHOR: By Julian Morris
TEXT: Millions are suffering and thousands have died from flooding in Pakistan and China. An extraordinary heat wave in Russia sparked fires that caused dreadful pollution and wiped out swathes of the wheat crop. Are these weather-related disasters caused by global warming?
In its most recent report, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserts that as the world becomes warmer, “flood magnitude and frequency are likely to increase in most regions.” This seems plausible. A warmer world is also likely to be a wetter world, as more water evaporates from the oceans into the atmosphere. But, although rainstorms put out some of the fires, Russia has a drought.
The UN panel also claims that droughts are more likely in a warmer world — and that they have become more frequent since the 1970s, partly because of reduced precipitation. In fact, the number of droughts reached a low point between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. Evidence shows that there has been no statistically significant increase in droughts since the 1950s. Given that global temperatures appear to have risen considerably since then, it seems a stretch to blame the Russian drought on global warming.
Underpinning both the floods in Pakistan and China and the drought in Russia is a change in the usual pattern of the jet stream. Each hemisphere has a “polar” jet (seven to 12 kilometers above sea level) and a “subtropical” jet (at 10 to 16 kilometers). In the northern hemisphere, the polar jet pushes cooler air south and induces rain in mid-latitudes, while the subtropical jet pushes warm air north. But in mid-June, a kink appeared at the intersection, causing warm air to remain further north and east than normal and causing more cold air and rain to fall over northern Pakistan and China.
To make matters far worse, this kink in the jet stream was kept in place by a phenomenon called a “blocking event.” This kept the Russian heat wave going for nearly two months and massively exacerbated the precipitation in Pakistan and China.
Such blocking events are rare, and there is no evidence of links with global warming. However, an explanation has been proposed by Professor Mike Lockwood, an astrophysicist at the University of Reading in Britain, who shows in a recent paper that blocking events in the winter are related primarily to solar activity. (Although he cautiously said in an e-mail to me that he “cannot say much (yet) about summer conditions as most of our work to date has been on wintertime, which shows relatively strong solar effects in the Eurasian region”).
So the culprit is quite possibly the sun, not human emissions of greenhouse gases.
As for remedies, the current disasters demand a major humanitarian response. Worst affected is Pakistan, where an estimated 6 million people face cholera and other waterborne diseases unless they urgently get potable water. Pakistan’s government responded slowly, making immediate national and international philanthropy even more important.
But what of the longer term? Floods, droughts and other weather disasters have plagued mankind for all of history. But deaths from such natural disasters have fallen by more than 90 percent in the past 100 years despite dramatic population growth. Why? Because higher wealth and better technology enable people better to cope. This is a silver lining to this summer’s natural disasters.
Julian Morris is a visiting professor at the University of Buckingham and executive director of International Policy Network, London, an independent economic think tank. Richard Lourie will return to this spot in September.
TITLE: Early Music Festival Prepares for New Start
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Now in its thirteenth year, the city’s groundbreaking Early Music Festival returns on September 5. Every fall, vibrant performances of its refined ensembles evoke, embody and revive the long-lost noble spirit of St. Petersburg.
The event kicks off at the State Academic Cappella on Sept. 5 with a concert by the world-renowned Collegium Vocale Gent under the baton of Philippe Herreweghe of Johann-Sebastian Bach’s famous Mass in B Minor.
Founded in 1970 by Herreweghe, the ensemble has gained international fame for its fresh and innovative interpretations of Baroque and Renaissance repertoire. The orchestra’s discography now 65 features stunning recordings.
“The morning recitals at the Queen’s Hall remain one of the international festival’s great artistic trump cards,” wrote prominent British classical music reviewer Hugh Canning in an article for The Sunday Times about the performance of Haydn’s Songbook at the Edinburgh International Festival.
“It was certainly bold of Jonathan Mills to inaugurate the series with an all-Haydn programme that interspersed solo piano works with his all but unknown part-songs. Haydn is the only prolific composer I can think of whose entire oeuvre contains hardly a dull note, and the fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout and 12 singers from the splendid Collegium Vocale Gent — one of the world’s great small professional choirs — proved the point again. It was a tantalising concert.”
Early music, embracing everything created between the medieval era through to early classicism, long remained a missing link in repertoires of Russian orchestras. The brainchild of local enthusiasts Marc de Mauny and Andrei Reshetin, the Early Music Festival was originally designed for a narrow circle of the initiated. But interest was instantly sparked, news traveled fast, and the event is now in full blossom.
The festival — which has no equivalents or competitors in Russia — has, over the 13 years of its history, attracted some of the biggest names in early music to St.Petersburg. This year is no exception.
Over the course of the festival, which lasts a little over three weeks, ending on Sept. 30 with a concert by the internationally acclaimed French countertenor Philippe Yaroussky, renowned for his virtuoso coloratura technique in the baroque repertoire, and soloists of The Catherine the Great Ensemble.
Owing to financial difficulties, the Catherine the Great Orchestra — the first ensemble dedicated to performing early music and baroque works in contemporary Russia — has shrunk in size over the last three years. When the musicians do perform, they most often play duets, trios or quartets.
This year, Earlymusic is vigorously pushing geographic boundaries. Thus, the concert on Sept. 7, titled “Aristocrats of East and West,” in the Sheremetev Palace features prominent Italian harpsichordist Francesco Cera and “Sanjo,” a traditional Korean court music ensemble, which will enjoy its first exposure to the Russian public.
Sanjo, which literally translates from Korean as scattered melodies, is a solo genre and one of the most advanced forms in Korean music. It begins slowly and proceeds to a faster tempo, developing into spontaneous improvisations. Sanjo can be performed on various instruments but at present, the majority of musicians prefer bamboo flutes and various types of zither.
Another fine example of the festival’s cross-cultural mission is the “Oriental Ornament” lecture-concert, introducing Faik Chelebiev, who performs on a tar, a traditional Azeri folk instrument, presenting the art of muhgam, on Sept. 15, at the Museum of History of Religion. Mugham translates from Persian as time or the moment, is the predecessor of Azeri folk song. A mugham transcends the performer’s visual, emotional and acoustic experiences, from the singing of birds and flowing of rivers to the exultation of the birth of a child or sorrow at separation from loved ones.
“This festival is something more sophisticated than a string of decent concerts; we perceive it, rather, as a musical instrument,” said violinist Andrei Reshetin, artistic director of the Catherine the Great Orchestra, and the festival’s organizer. “When in good hands, a musical instrument can produce magical sounds that touch your heart and get under your skin.”
It is the policy of Reshetin, the festival’s godfather, to introduce the ensembles that once formed his own musical taste and influenced his preferences.
The festival has just produced a DVD recording of “Boris Goudenow,” the first-ever opera written by a European composer on a Russian theme, which will be distributed with the festival’s booklets.
Johann Mattheson’s 1710 opera Boris Goudenow — produced by the Early Music Festival and directed by Berlin choreographer Klaus Abromeit — enjoyed its Russian premiere at the Mikhailovsky Opera and Ballet Theater in autumn 2007.
Boris Godunov, regent of Russia from 1584 to 1598 and then the first tsar from 1598 to 1605, is one of Russia’s cultural icons. In Mattheson’s opera, the character of Boris, compared to the tsar that appears in Modest Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” and as featured in Pushkin’s drama, comes across as a drastically different character. Presenting an unknown baroque version of “Boris Goudenow” in contemporary Russia proved a serious challenge.
The opera was written in 1710 in response to Peter the Great’s victory over Sweden at Poltava, and was clearly an attempt to answer the question: “What is this new strong emerging Russia?” It made an attempt to decipher the enigma that Peter the Great presented, and, almost three hundred years on, the issue is as resonant as ever. Western Europe is still struggling to crack the Russian enigma and guess the intentions of Russia’s current rulers, President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The festival is enthusiastically trying new event formats. On Sunday, Sept. 12, Earlymusic offers the chance to spend a day in Gatchina, at The Earlymusic Day which features three concerts of Russian 18th century composers, both well-known and obscure, as well as music of Italy, Austria and France, performed by the Catherine the Great Ensemble, Musica Petropolitana Ensemble and harpsichordist Maria Uspenskaya (Moscow).
“We would really love to establish this form of event — where the audiences can enjoy a day out at a historical estate, with concerts taking place throughout the day — and develop it further,” Reshetin said. “Our other idea, which we are hoping to fulfill in the future, is the ‘Spiritual Garden’ — a version of The Early Music Day on Yelagin Island. In the early afternoon, the halls of Yelagin Palace and the islands gardens will host mugham performances as well as Buryat folk music, Taimyr shamanistic music concerts and a concert of performances on the gusli, a Russian folk instrument. After that, we hope the audiences will enjoy themselves in boats on the park’s romantic pond and watching lute players performing on two gondolas in the center of the pond, as the sun is going down. Then, the island’s quay, transformed into the stage, will host a ballet performance to the music of Jean Baptiste Lully.”
Another of the festival’s project is to bring together in one concert an ensemble performing Italian tarantella dances and traditional Siberian shamans. Just like shamanistic music, which is essentially an ecstatic trance technique, tarantella was originally created as an exorcist ritual that later evolved into a form of folk dances characterized by a fast upbeat tempo. In both cases, music originally served to directly influence human beings not just emotionally but also physically and mentally.
For full festival schedule,
visit www.earlymusic.ru
TITLE: Rediscovering a Legendary Musical Teacher
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The discovery of a long-lost musical masterpiece is always something of event. Imagine, then, what it feels like to find the entire legacy of a wonderful composer.
It took Italian cellist Federico Ferri, the founder and artistic director of the Bologna-based orchestra Accademia degli Astrusi, and harpsichordist Daniele Proni almost ten years to research the archive of Padre Giovanni Battista Martini, whose works the musicians presented to the public in a special festival in May, 2010.
The name of Padre Martini may not ring any bells among general audiences, yet for classical music connoisseurs Martini is perhaps the most important figure on the 18th century classical music scene in Europe. Aspiring young musicians flocked to this Franciscan monk, who taught at the prestigious Accademia Philharmonica in Bologna, and had Mozart and Gluck as his students. A person of astounding encyclopedic knowledge, and the creator of the world’s first musical reference book, Martini was widely regarded as “the google of music” of his era, a man capable of answering almost any question in his sphere of expertise.
It would seem likely that the legacy of such a master would already been examined in detail, at least in the maestro’s home country. Yet, almost inexplicably, almost all of Martini’s works — totaling nearly 3,000 pieces — remain out of print. The manuscripts had been gathering dust in a musical library until the musicians Ferri and Proni took an interest. Ferri, Proni and the Accademia degli Astrusi orchestra have now discovered and rehearsed enough material to fill a total of 10 audio recordings. Negotiations are now in progress with several top-flight international recording companies.
In May, Bologna hosted the first edition of the Martini Festival, with concerts – performed exclusively by the musicians from Accademia degli Astrusi – held in some of the city’s most fascinating historic churches, including, Basilica di Santo Stefano and the churches San Giovanni in Monte and San Giacomo Maggiore. The festival is set to become an annual event.
The several dozen works that were presented to audiences during the festival captivated with an elevating spirit and joyous yet solemn character. The 200-year-old scores — with styles covering the musical terrain between Vivaldi and Handel — appeared remarkably full of life. Sophisticated and rich in fine details, the music spanned a stunning emotional range from thoughtfulness and serenity to ecstasy and jubilation.
The compositions represented Martini’s secular works which he composed in addition to his religious works. One admirable feature of Padre Martini as a teacher was that he composed musical exercises for each and every one of his students individually. His attention and dedication to musical talent was legendary. Martini did not hesitate to help Mozart, his most gifted student, to pass entrance exams to the Accademia Philharmonica. In the following years, Mozart also secured the Padre’s recommendation when seeking employment with August III, the Kurfurst of Saxony. Maestro Martini never accepted any monetary fees for his classes but was happy to receive books – the Padre possessed a vast library of more than 17,000 volumes - and chocolate.
As Charles Burney, renowned 18th century British music historian, composer and organist, put it, “Martini was a man of rare chastity and modesty, while being a lively and most humane person.”
The musicians and their managers are now busy arranging a contract to produce audio recordings of the works and looking for opportunities to win this music the international exposure it deserves. The orchestra already has performances scheduled in Berlin and London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall and is looking into the possibility of participating in the 2011 International Musical Hermitage Festival in St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg composer Sergei Yevtushenko, the head of the Hermitage Music Academy and the artistic director of the Musical Hermitage Festival, has expressed a keen interest in the Martini findings and approached the Accademia degli Astrusi saying he would like to know more about the beautiful initiative and perhaps receive the musicians in Russia next year.
Martini had at least two Russian-Ukrainian composers among his pupils, who later won international fame – Dmitry Bortniansky and Maxim Berezovsky, both renowned for their choral works and liturgical music for the Russian Orthodox Church. The two composers counted among the so-called “Golden Three” maestros of their time in Russia, along with Artyom Vedel.
“The first festival was essentially like introducing an inventory, in the sense that the orchestra simply performed most of the works that have been discovered so far,” explains Giovanni Oliva, the festival’s artistic consultant. “In the next renditions of the festival the programs will juxtapose the works of Martini and some of his finest pupils, including, of course, Mozart, Christoph Gluck, Johann-Christian Bach and Joseph Myslivecek, in order to allow the audiences to be able to trace the influence of the teacher on his pupils who developed into distinguished composers.”
All concerts at the festival were held free of charge, thanks to the policy of the orchestra’s venerable patron, the respected Foundazione del Monte. Founded back in 1473 in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region, the foundation has since been a generous arts patron of events and projects in the area, primarily in Bologna, where its headquarters are located, and Ravenna.
Some Western musical critics have cautioned the patrons against turning the Martini Festival into a free access event, with the key reason being that a substantial proportion of dedicated Western European classical music goers who are keen to travel for the arts would find it hard to take an event seriously if they do not have to pay a hefty ticket price. This somewhat Kafkaesque logic, which implies that anything that doesn’t come with a price tag attached has no value, has not been followed.
“The quality of the music and the level of the performances will work to create a reputation for the new event,” argues Marco Cammelli, the president of Foundazione del Monte. “It is the policy of our foundation that when we do an arts event it has to be accessible to everyone, regardless of their social or financial status.”
Cammelli’s attitude is very close to the cultural policy of the city of Bologna in general, where all museums, with the exception of Pinacoteca Nazionale del Bologna, can be visited free of charge. Bologna, which has been on the prestigious UNESCO list of creative music cities since 2007, boasts an admirable musical legacy. The city’s Accademia Filarmonica ranks as one of the most important musical schools in history, while the University of Bologna – the oldest in the world, dating from the 16th century – was a pioneer in establishing an art, music and performance department.
Bologna’s list of honorary citizens includes, among others, Richard Wagner, Riccardo Muti and Claudio Abbado. Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti and Verdi all spent years in Bologna, either studying or working. Today, the city is home to some of the most internationally acclaimed popular music composers and song writers, such as Lucio Dalla and Gianni Morandi.
The Martini festival, rolling back centuries and bridging historical classical music traditions with the contemporary world, has fantastic potential. With this event, the historical city of Bologna has an excellent opportunity to show the world that it is not only very much alive but also still holds an amazing stock of musical discoveries up its sleeve.
TITLE: Thousands Flee Volcano in Indonesia
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: KABANJAHE, Indonesia — An Indonesian volcano spewed a vast cloud of smoke and ash high into the air on Monday, disrupting flights and sending thousands more people into temporary shelters.
Airlines were warned to avoid remote Mount Sinabung in northern Sumatra as it erupted for a second day after springing to life for the first time in four centuries.
“It erupted again at 6:30 a.m. and lasted about 15 minutes. The smoke and ash reached at least 2,000 meters,” government volcanologist Agus Budianto said.
The eruption was bigger than Sunday’s when the 2,460-meter Sinabung rumbled into action for the first time since 1600, adding its name to the list of 69 active volcanoes in the sprawling Southeast Asian archipelago.
About 27,000 people are staying at the temporary shelters on Monday and 7,000 more are expected, Disaster Management Agency spokesman Priyadi Kardono said.
“We’re expecting the number to rise to 34,000. That’s the total number of people living within the six-kilometer radius of the volcano. The rest are on their way,” he added.
Authorities have ordered everyone within the six-kilometer “danger zone” to leave.
Twenty shelters have been set up to accommodate people who began to evacuate their villages as ash and stones fell around the fertile farming area early Sunday.
“They’re all quite happy to stay at the shelters — nobody thinks it’s safe to go home yet,” Kardono said.
Witnesses said a strong smell of sulphur filled the air and many people fled their homes on foot before receiving the order to evacuate.
Marsita Sembiring, a vegetable farmer, said she fled Sukanalu village — which is about four kilometers from the volcano — with her husband and four children. They spent Sunday at a shelter in the town of Kabanjahe, 20 kilometers from Sinabung, but returned to the village for the night to protect their home from looters.
“It also rained last night and we were sure that the volcano would become calmer, so we decided to stay overnight in our house,” she said.
But fresh eruptions Monday convinced her to take her family to safety again.
“This morning it erupted again. We panicked as the smoke was rising very high. I’m so worried that the smoke is poisonous,” the 41-year-old woman said.
Aircraft were ordered to avoid the area and travelers to North Sumatra province were warned of possible delays, transport ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said.
“It may affect flight traffic to and from the province. It all depends on the direction of the wind,” he told AFP. Several domestic flights had to be cancelled on Sunday due to the smoke, he said.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity. It has more active volcanoes than any other country.
Television footage showed black smoke shooting up into the sky and lava overflowing from the crater as residents fled the area in pickup trucks and cars.
Government volcanologist Budianto said the volcano’s long sleep had made it difficult for experts to read.
“We hope that the eruptions have significantly reduced the energy accumulated inside the mountain. But we must remain on alert for unpredictable events as this mountain has been dormant for hundreds of years,” he said.
Earlier this month four people went missing after the 1,784-meter Mount Karangetang erupted on the island of Siau, North Sulawesi province.
TITLE: Drilling Of Rescue Mine Started
In Chile
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: COPIAPO, Chile — Chilean rescuers begin Monday the months-long task of drilling a shaft to rescue 33 miners trapped deep underground for 25 days, as officials push for an accelerated rescue plan.
Another plan “has already been designed,” Health Minister Jaime Manalich said, adding that details would be released soon.
Under the current plans, an Australian-made hydraulic bore will drill a hole 66 centimeters wide to pull the miners out one at a time from the hot and damp shelter where they are huddled underground.
“The shaft we’re drilling to the shelter will go down 702 meters in a straight line” to the trapped miners, the engineer in charge of the rescue operation, Andre Sougarret, told AFP on Saturday.
Sougarret said the drilling operation was expected to last three to four months, in line with previous estimates.
The hydraulic bore drills at a maximum rate of 20 meters per day. The initial narrow shaft it will dig will have to be doubled in diameter to allow a man to pass through, Sougarret explained.
Officials are also considering drilling where the main entrance ramp to the San Jose gold and silver mine collapsed on August 5, though some engineers fear the site remains unstable.
A third option being tabled suggests broadening an already existing shaft some 12 centimeters in diameter, about 300 meters from the emergency shelter where the miners are confined.
According to Geotec, the company owning the drilling equipment, expanding that shaft could free the men in about 60 days, two whole months ahead of early estimates.
Geotec manager Walter Herrera said government experts were studying this proposal. But Mining Minister Laurence Golborne earlier rejected reports of a possible rescue within the next month.
“We have reviewed 10 different options,” he told Radio Cooperativa. “Up to now there is no alternative... that would allow us to get them out in 30 days.”
Golborne said that while the Australian-made bore went to work, engineers would also be widening a third existing access shaft to the miners’ shelter from 10.2 centimeters to 30.5 centimeters so bigger objects can be sent down to them.
On Sunday, the miners spoke for the first time with their loved ones Sunday, reassuring each other in brief but moving conversations by radio-telephone after 24 days underground.
“To hear his voice was a balm to my heart,” said Jessica Chille after speaking to her husband, Dario Segovia.
Limited to one minute per miner, the wives, mothers and fathers lined up for their first person-to-person conversations since a cave-in August 5 blocked the miners’ exit from the San Jose mine.
TITLE: UN to Probe Raid On
Gaza Flotilla
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: AMMAN — A UN human rights inquiry into Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla started on Monday a probe in Jordan where investigators interviewed four Jordanian activists.
“The UN investigators arrived last night and met today with four Jordanian activists who were on board the Mavi Marmara ship,” in which nine passengers died on 31 May 2010, said Alaa Borqan, who is in charge of public relations at the Islamist-dominated trade unions.
“They will meet in Amman with the majority of the 33 Jordanians who were on board the ship.”
Interviews with witnesses are held at a five-star hotel, he said.
Earlier this month the UN human rights office said in a statement that the experts would be in Jordan until September 4, following an eight-day mission to Turkey.
The mission is due to report back to the 47 member UN Human Rights Council at its next session from September 13 to October 11.
TITLE: Flood Spares Pakistan City as Waters Recede
AUTHOR: By Hasan Mansoor
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: SUJAWAL, Pakistan – A torrent of water threatening to deluge a city in flood-hit Pakistan has begun to recede, officials said Monday, as emergency workers plugged a breach in defences against the swollen Indus river.
Pakistani troops and workers were on a “war footing” over the weekend battling to save the southern city of Thatta after most of the 300,000 population fled the advancing waters.
“The breach near Thatta has been half-plugged and fortunately the flood has also changed its course and is moving away from the city and populated areas,” senior city official Hadi Bakhsh Kalhoro told AFP.
“The water is flowing into the sea and its level is receding, and many people are returning to their homes,” he said.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department said inflows at the nearby Kotri barrage were receding but maintained its “significant” flood forecast.
The Flood Forecasting Centre said the Indus river at Kotri would “continue in exceptionally high flood level” for another 24 hours.
Torrential monsoon rain has triggered massive floods that have moved steadily from north to south over the past month, engulfing a fifth of the volatile country and affecting 17 million of Pakistan’s 167 million people.
Southern Sindh is the worst-affected province, with 19 of its 23 districts ravaged as floodwaters swell the raging Indus river to 40 times its usual volume.
One million people have been displaced over the past few days alone and hundreds of thousands fled Thatta ahead of the approaching torrents.
Kalhoro said the low-lying town of Sujawal, near Thatta, was flooded on Sunday and almost the entire population of about 100,000 had evacuated, with power supplies cut and some residents waiting on the roofs of their homes for rescue boats.
“We estimate that there are still up to 400 people in Sujawal and the surrounding villages and they are being rescued by boats,” the city official said.
An AFP reporter in Sujawal said the town was filling up with water as people were being shuttled in navy and private boats, and trucks, to safety.
“There was between five and eight feet of water in the town and the level was rising so we had no option but to leave,” grocery shop owner Abdul Razzaq Memon, 32, told AFP.
The Pakistani government has been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster, the worst in the country’s history, with millions in need of tents, food and medical aid.
Aid agencies are worried about the growing risk of malnutrition and water-borne disease, with children especially vulnerable.
“The World Health Organization has set up 70 diarrhoeal treatment centres in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces to check the disease,” WHO spokeswoman Gul Afridi told a news conference in Islamabad.
“We are in the process of setting up similar treatment centres in Baluchistan to prevent spread of the disease,” Afridi said.
She said that cases of malaria were also on the rise, especially in Sindh and Baluchistan provinces.
The United Nations has so far received contributions amounting to 292 million dollars in response to its 459-million-dollar appeal, said spokesman Maurizio Giuliano.
Eight million people have been left dependent on aid for their survival and floods have washed away huge swathes of the rich farmland on which the country’s struggling economy depends.
The government has confirmed 1,600 people dead and 2,366 injured but officials warn that millions are at risk from food shortages and disease.
The UN has warned that 800,000 people in desperate need of aid have been cut off by the deluge across the country and appealed for more helicopters to deliver supplies to those reachable only by air.