Dr Rice visited Moscow a few days ago to prepare Putin to believe that the US had no interest in the former USSR republics... "Russia has sent a letter of protest to the US soon after Washington announced that President George Bush would expand a trip to Moscow with stops to promote democracy in the former Soviet republics of Latvia and Georgia..." "Dr Rice promptly shot back, in effect, that Mr Bush could visit whatever countries he wished."

From the BBC

Putin criticises West over energy

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused European countries for whipping up fears over the reliability of Russian energy supplies.
Speaking after meeting German leader Angela Merkel, Mr Putin said Russia and Europe must agree "rules of the game".
Russian firms could seek new markets in Asia if they were not free to operate in Europe, he said in a veiled threat.
European anxieties on the issue have been growing since Russia briefly cut gas supplies to Ukraine in January.
The stoppage had a knock-on effect, hitting supplies to other European countries further down its pipeline.
Fears about Russia's supplies resurfaced in the UK recently after it emerged that Russian gas giant Gazprom was eyeing British Gas owner Centrica as a potential takeover target.
The BBC's Andrew Walker says Russia is unlikely to break any existing contracts, but firms know perfectly well there is enormous demand for their oil and gas in Asia.
The timing of Mr Putin's comments, after a meeting with the German chancellor, was unlikely to be a coincidence - the message would not go unheeded, our correspondent adds.
----------------------------
As gus mentioned in earlier blogs, the Chinese are open for business...

From 'Russia has left the western orbit' in Guardian:

... In another robust move, the Russians have refused to back down on a recent $700m (£380m) deal to sell 29 Tor M1 mobile surface-to-air missile defence systems to Iran despite pressure from Washington. ...

Somewhat related, from Robert Fisk The United States of Israel?:

... Such nonsense continues to this day. In Australia to launch my new book on the Middle East, for instance, I repeatedly stated that Israel - contrary to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists - was not responsible for the crimes of 11 September 2001. Yet the Australian Jewish News claimed that I "stopped just millimetres short of suggesting that Israel was the cause of the 9/11 attacks. The audience reportedly (and predictably) showered him in accolades."

This was untrue. There was no applause and no accolades and I never stopped "millimetres" short of accusing Israel of these crimes against humanity. The story in the Australian Jewish News is a lie. ...

Both may be related to Ted Lapkin's Brewing calamity in OnLine Opinion.

From the Moscow Times and a few bits...

Paper: Menatep Boss Tried to Smear Putin

By Catherine Belton
Staff Writer
Stephen Curtis, the British lawyer who died in a helicopter crash shortly after being appointed director of Menatep, headed a security company that aimed to smear President Vladimir Putin, Britain's Sunday Times reported, citing the contents of a "confidential dossier."
The paper said Curtis chaired a security firm, ISC Global, that was funded by Russian oligarchs, among them Mikhail Khodorkovsky lieutenant Leonid Nevzlin, and was run by former Scotland Yard police officers. It cited the dossier as saying the company was to "discredit [Putin] and those around him." ISC was to target 11 senior officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and former Sibneft owner Roman Abramovich, the paper said Sunday. The firm was also to customize a luxury yacht so that a "SWAT team" of guards could defend oligarchs taking refuge on board from armed assault, the paper said.
A British court last year ruled that the crash that killed Curtis and his pilot, Max Radford, near the south coast of England in March 2004 was an accident.
But speculation has continued about the possible causes of the crash. At the inquest, the coroner conceded that Curtis' death had "all the ingredients of an espionage thriller." Radford's parents have rejected the inquest's findings.
Curtis specialized in creating offshore networks for some of Russia's richest tycoons, including jailed former Yukos boss Khodorkovsky and arch-Putin opponent Boris Berezovsky. His clients also included the ruling family of Dubai, the Makhtoums. Shortly before his death, he met with officials from Britain's National Crime Intelligence Squad, a former law enforcement officer with knowledge of the matter has said.

read more at the Moscow Times

Bank Menatep
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bank Menatep was a US$29 billion holding company created by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, that had indirect controlling interest in Yukos Oil Company, and was involved in the US$4.8 billion diversion of International Monetary Fund (IMF) funds. The bank's financial condition was seriously damaged during the 1998 financial crisis due to risky investments. The Russian Central Bank revoked Menatep's licence in May 1999. However, according to Ernest Backes, former #3 of Clearstream, a clearing-house which has been qualified as a "bank of banks", Menatep maintained an unpublished secret account at Clearstream until at least 2000. The bankruptcy was finalized by February 2001. In the time between August 1998 and May 1999 the bank's assets were siphoned off by the owners and management defrauding the creditors. Over 15 thousand people lost their saving. A new Bank Menatep Saint Petersburg was created from the Saint Petersburg division of Bank Menatep. It accumulated the assets but not the liabilities of the original bank. In 2004 the bank was bought by the management and renamed to Trust National Bank.

The Kremlingate

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now in prison, has been accused of money-laundering, among other things. Menatep was implicated in the diversion of US$4.8 billion in International Monetary Fund funds lent to Russia in 1998: this gave rise to the Kremlingate. Funds have transited through Clearstream clearing-house, which has been qualified as a "bank of banks" and was accused, but never convicted, in a major scandal in Luxembourg.

Menatep Bank has also been accused by French journalist Denis Robert of having opened a non-published Cedel (predecessor to Clearstream) account on May 15, 1997, after Clearstream CEO André Lussi visited Khodorkovsky in Moscow. "Menatep further violated the rules because many transfers were of cash, not for settlement of securities", writes Lucy Komisar. "For the three months in 1997 for which I hold microfiches, Ernest Backes says, only cash transfers were transferred through the Meanatep account. They were a lot of transfers between Menatep and the Bank of New York." Natasha Gurfinkel Kagalovsky, a former Bank of New York official and the wife of Menatep vice president, was accused of helping launder at least US$7 billion from Russia, according to Komisar. US investigators have attempted to find out if some of the laundered money originated with Menatep. Furthermore, even though Menatep officially failed in 1998, it oddly remained on Clearstream accounts for 2000, as did the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), involved in another major scandal. In reaction to those accusations, Menatep filed a complaint against Denis Robert [1]. [2].

On 3 March 2004, Stephen Curtis, managing director of Group Menatep (created in 1997) since November 2003 (shortly after Khodorkovsky was arrested), and his pilot Matthew Radford died in a helicopter crash, near Bournemouth International Airport, in the south of England. In November 2005 a British jury concluded that the crash was accidental, rejecting any conspiracy theory. It had been told that the aircraft had been sabotaged.[3] Stephen Curtis, a lawyer, had played a key role in creating Menatep's network of offshore structure in the 1990s, according to the Moscow Times[4].

From the Moscow Times

Companies Skimping on Governance Before IPOs

By Anna Smolchenko
Staff Writer
Corporate governance at some of Russia's best-known companies is something of a facade, especially among those that have floated shares on stock markets recently or are planning to go public soon, according to a new U.S.-funded study.

In many areas, corporate governance practices at companies that have held an initial public offering since January 2005 or are planning to do so in the next 18 months are worse than the average of the companies surveyed, says the study, which was presented Friday at a conference by the Russian Institute of Directors, or RID, a corporate governance group.

The study, which was sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, used questionnaires and publicly available information to assess corporate governance practices at 158 companies, spanning energy, telecoms, metals, transportation and other sectors. Of those companies, 34 had either recently held an IPO or were planning one soon.

Yet those firms often pay lip service to corporate governance and adopt basic measures aimed at achieving maximum results with minimum effort, the study said.

read more at the Moscow Times

--------------------
Gus is floored:
Gees, It looks these Rusky companies behave with the same code of ethics as many Amerikan enterprises... Maximise profits for minimum work... Isn't that the name of the corporate game? Ha yes, This story is possibly more disinformation from the Yankees...

From the BBC

Yanukovych approved as Ukraine PM

Ukraine's parliament has approved [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5245330.stm|Viktor Yanukovych] as prime minister, ending a four-month political crisis. The vote was held a day after pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko backed the candidacy of his arch-rival.
In return, Mr Yanukovych - who favours closer ties with Russia - signed a pact aimed at preserving key areas of the president's policies.
It is a dramatic comeback for Mr Yanukovych, who was ousted in Mr Yushchenko's 2004 "Orange Revolution".
Mr Yanukovych, 56, was backed by 271 lawmakers in the 450-member parliament, easily passing the required majority of 226 votes. Nine MPs voted against him.
"I am itching to get down to work," he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency before the vote.
Political reforms mean the new prime minister will have increased powers. The president formally submitted the candidacy of Mr Yanukovych to parliament on Thursday, hours after a constitutional deadline.
Some Orange Revolution supporters see Mr Yushchenko's move as a betrayal, and they have accused the president of weakness.
But Mr Yushchenko's aides say the other option - of dissolving parliament and calling new elections - would merely have sharpened the stand-off.
Ukraine has been in political turmoil since a parliamentary ballot in March in which no party won a majority, although Mr Yanukovych's Party of Regions polled the most votes.

Prolonged deadlock
Mr Yanukovych draws his support from the mainly Russian-speaking industrial south-east of Ukraine, where many voters are suspicious of the pro-Western, liberal Orange Revolution agenda.

-----------------
Gus: May be the Yanks have gone a bit too far in the East pushing their wares of "freedom and demokracy" and perceptions of this "US goodwill" to help changing ways for the locals — as tooted by gun-dilly Cheney during his last visit there — are perceived for what they could be: a way to be robbed clean and raped faster by a more flamboyant gangster... At least the devil you know...
See cartoon at the top of this line of blog...

 

Flea: Just as with Washington's announced plans for Post Castro Cuba. Seems the Cuban People are not rushing to embrace the thought of a dead Fidel and a "Liberated" country with yet another American Puppet in the Presidential Palace. Ahhh, the ingratitude they show their neighbours to the north for all of the years of embargoes.

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation. ~~ Marian Wright Edelman

From the BBC

.....

... Sixty years on, that war-time and post-war experience remains the source of Britain's pained ambivalence about its European identity - its very commitment to Europe.
The British have never drawn the same visceral, highly charged connection between European union and the prevention of war that their continental neighbours drew.
For the British, whose country never fell, the European project has never been about building a better world. It has been about something much more technical, less emotional.
It has been about trade, about markets, about economic growth.
Britain remains the reluctant European, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5245830.stm|half-in, half-not].
That ambivalence has its origins in the 1940s, in the days when those old men I met on the beaches of Normandy two years ago were young.
----------------------

Gus: In fact, as I have claimed for a long time and for nearly two years on this site, it is obvious that England has been used by the US as a beach-head to stiffle the formation of Europe... in a very covert manner... and the UK should stand up to the bully in Washington...

From the Moscow Times

Russia Pays Off All Its Soviet-Era Debts
By Douglas Busvine
Reuters
Russia on Monday finished paying off its Soviet-era debts to the Paris Club of creditor nations, drawing on newfound oil wealth to seal a dramatic recovery from its 1998 financial crash.

Vneshekonombank, the state-owned bank that acts as the country's debt agent, said it had made an early repayment of $22.5 billion and servicing costs of $1.3 billion.

The Finance Ministry hailed the repayments, made to 17 Paris Club creditor nations from Aug. 15 to 21, around the time of the eighth anniversary of its $40 billion domestic debt default and ruble devaluation.

"The early repayment to creditor nations was made possible by growth in the economic and financial might of Russia," the ministry said in a statement.

Russia was forced to restructure the debts twice, which were assumed by Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991: in 1996 and 1999.

The Finance Ministry said the repayment would save over $12 billion in debt costs through 2020 and reduce foreign debts as a share of gross domestic product to just 9 percent.

read more at the Moscow Times

From the BBC

...

President Putin continued in a similar vein for some time.

"The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres - economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states," he said.

It was a formula that, he said, had led to disaster: "Local and regional wars did not get fewer, the number of people who died did not get less but increased. We see no kind of restraint - a hyper-inflated use of force."

From the ABC

US 'disappointed' by Putin attack

The United States Government says it is surprised and disappointed by comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has accused the US of trying to force its will on the world.

But the White House says it expects to continue to work with Russia in areas such as counter-terrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction.

In a speech in Germany, Mr Putin accused the US of making the world a more dangerous place by pursuing policies aimed at making it "one single master."

Attacking the concept of a "unipolar" world in which the United States was the sole superpower, he said: "What is a unipolar world? No matter how we beautify this term it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master.

"It has nothing in common with democracy because that is the opinion of the majority taking into account the minority opinion.

"People are always teaching us democracy but the people who teach us democracy don't want to learn it themselves."

Press secretary for the White House National Security Council, Gordon Johndroe, rejected Mr Putin's comments.

From the New York Times

MUNICH, Feb. 10 — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.

In an address to an international security conference, Mr. Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration.

MOSCOW — It is not, from a purely technical standpoint, impossible to make fun of Vladimir V. Putin. His head is shaped a bit like a light bulb, with eyes that are heavy-lidded, as if to convey that he has just been reading your dossier. He has a needle nose, a prizefighter’s swagger and a fondness for posing shirtless. If all else fails, there is always the matter of height.

-------------------

See the first appearance, on this site, of Mr Putin — as a toon, at the top of this line of historical comments... As lazy as I am, I've used the same drawing ever since. And this drawing was one I did in 2002 in black and white, then using the computer to colour it... I had dreamed that Bush endearingly called Putin "Poot" and that Putin called Bush "idiot" in Russian, of course, and with little endearment... Who would not, apart from rabid rightwing crazy neo-cons?