NATO initiating war against Russia

NATO must be prepared to confront a new challenge, the manipulation of energy as a weapon, Senator Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Tuesday at NATO's annual summit in Riga, Latvia.

The energy wars Russia is waging against NATO members should be equated to an armed attack and given an adequate response, he said.

But Russian experts do not think Lugar's appeal will be heeded, because it would be economically unprofitable for the West to fight such "wars" against Russia.

According to Lugar, "its recent actions to temporarily reduce gas supplies to the West, confiscate some foreign energy investments, and create further barriers to new investment are undermining confidence in Moscow's reliability." Therefore, NATO should "adopt energy security as a mission" in order to repel any attempt at energy intervention.

These militant statements have not alarmed Russian experts.

Sergei Markov, director of the Moscow-based Institute for Political Studies, said Russia was not waging energy wars but was only trying to streamline its trade.

"In the past, we could hope to create an economic alliance with the CIS countries, but the West, alarmed by the idea, has convinced some of them not to form a new USSR by promising them a life of bliss with cheap energy. But now that Russia is raising its energy prices, the West is again alarmed and is threatening to respond accordingly," Markov said.

Agvan Mikaelyan, deputy director general of the FinEkspertiza auditing and consulting group, said Russia is only protecting its national interests.

"Such relations can be compared to marketing wars, but there is no political undercurrent, only the principle of competition, which is part of any market economy," he said.

Referring to NATO's possible response, Mikaelyan said that there would be no political or economic sanctions against Russia. Moreover, he said that the European Union should be viewed as a potential ally of Russia, because the EU is interested in exchanging money and technology for energy.

Source: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20061129/56209223.html

Russian Reality: Pictures taken in Moscow Metro

Moscow metro (underground) is weell known by Moscow residents as a pure cloaca:

No comments...

Aleksander Litvinenko and Tsar Vladimir

A few people who have written about the poisoning death of Aleksander Litvinenko hold the view that since no shred of tangible evidence ... no smoking gun or trail of blood ... leads to the Kremlin door, any insinuation directed at Vladimir Putin is pushing the envelope or paranoid at worst.

While I would refrain from joining the "he dun it" chorus, enough circumstantial collateral has accrued since Putin took power to make suspicions very far from mere supposition. There is in fact very good reason to suspect the hand of the Kremlin in many of these bizarre deaths - and by "hand" I'm not inferring direct action by the way, as in "hi this is Putin, go whack L!". A wink or a nod might be all that was required to set the ball rolling, while leaving no track-back to any occupant of higher office. And the head that was nodded didn't necessarily have to be Putin's. There might well have been four, five or even six heads nodding down the line, before Sergei Poloniumevski put on his black leather jacket and called his friend the chemist. But to argue without nuance that Putin is off-the-hook - a victim of ill-placed suspicion in the deaths of regime opponents over the past few years, is to risk coming off as extremely naive. There might a 1,000 to 1 chance that he is pure as riven snow, but I'll save my money for the horse races.

In a post beneath I touched on what we do know about Tsar Vlad. We know he has muzzled the press. We also know he has made sweeping legislative changes geared toward centralizing power in the Kremlin (although some of this may indeed have been forced on him by circumstances). We know he used underhanded tactics and a dodgy court to nail Yukos and other players to the wall. We know he dislikes foreign NGO's and seems to feel threatened by any organization within his domain that he can't control. Being an ex-KGB Lt Colonel, he doubtless feels uneasy about potential spies functioning under the cover of foreign operations, and doubtless the man has very good reason to feel concerned. I completely empathize.

The psychological profile that emerges from all we do know about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is not one that inspires confidence when it comes to democratic behaviors such as freedom of speech and cultural diversity. Vlad is not cool, despite his elfin features and boy scout smile. He keeps his friends close and his enemies closer, in ways they might prefer he didn't. His rise to power effectively places a KGB-derived culture and mentality in the saddle. Along with that comes all the fun and games these guys are past masters at playing. Anyone who imagines that a wolf can morph into a sheep by play-acting at democracy, needs to look more closely at what has been going in Russia over the past few years. It's very clear Putin still holds old allegiances and old ambitions, that have merely been re-modeled to meet current challenges and opportunities. He also has oil and that can give a man a 007 complex, including the license that goes with the number.

Of course none of this makes him directly responsible for the killing of Litvinenko. I am certain a lot goes on in the name of the Russian state, many bumps in the night, that Putin knows little about. Even in the case of murdered dissidents, businessmen and journalists, it is stretching it to believe that Putin was instrumental in each case. Why implicate himself in matters that take care of themselves? The institutional outrage toward those who fall foul of the golden boy's good graces, coupled with an in-built climate of permission, simply results in things happening. Does this mean that Putin at all times kept a sanitized distance from all of this? Again we don't know, but my hunch is no. However when you are head honcho of a huge system that does in fact keep some pretty shady customers on the pay roll, and you are viewed by many as the shining symbol of the new Russia, a tweak of the pinky could well be all that is required for funny stuff to happen.

Many of the Tsars of old were very clever at remaining above the dirty work, not hard when you have a reliable hierarchy of underlings (and Putin has worked hard at maintaining his connections). It's sort of a venerable Russian tradition. As the victims keel over, the head man maintains the necessary sang-froid and stays above the unpleasantness. Stalin was good at that. He never broke a sweat, even when he refused to deal with the Germans in WW2 to obtain the release of his own son. He was even heard to remark "I have no son".

Power in Russia has traditionally been exercised with an iron fist. Weak leaders like Nicholas, who made bad decisions and seemed frozen in aspic when action was required, got swept away. Of course the times and changing realities made the odds against Nicholas succeeding pretty steep, but it's interesting that the man who stepped into the power vacuum created by his weakness was someone who could have been the reincarnation of Ivan the Terrible - Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin.

A tradition of nastiness-in-high-places has always been characteristic of Russian power politics, and it doesn't show much sign of changing. There are many well documented cases of KGB ( now FSB) attempts to snuff out real and perceived enemies. In 2004 for example Russian agents murdered the President of Chechnya, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. They staged a car bomb attack in Qatr where Yandarbiyev was then living in exile.

Omar ibn-Khattab, another Chechan leader was poisoned by Russian agents in 2002. They sent the goods via a letter.

The Russians aren't shy about doing this stuff on the world stage either. KGB operatives well understood that they could be as brazen as they liked with assassinations, so long as care was taken to leave no evidence that could be tracked back. European governments have a vested interest in maintaining good relations with Russia, so there is a lot of latitude. An agent pretty much has to be nabbed standing over a victim syringe-in-hand, before charges will be countenanced. In 1978 the KGB knocked off the Bulgarian anti-communist broadcaster, Georgi Markov, by firing poison from a specially rigged umbrella. Also a London hit. No evidence of shyness there.

More recently in 2004 , a British lawyer named Stephen Curtis, died in a helicopter crash in March of that year near Bournemouth. It so happened that Curtis was at the center of a smear campaign directed at Vladimir Putin and key associates. Shortly before his untimely demise he was the subject of threats, and went so far as to warn a relative that "if anything happens, it won't be an accident".

The poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko with dioxine demonstrates this cavalier attitude. Of course I'm sure that there are people who believe Putin had nothing to with that either, and officially of course he didn't, just as he had nothing to do with the poisoning of Litvinenko. That's the whole idea, and I'm sure he's thrilled to know that he has supporters in the West who think he is being framed. I mean how good can it get? Well, it might get even better. I don't rule out the possibility that a suspect will be fingered with connections that have no links whatever to the Kremlin. Fall guys are easy to come by in the espionage game.

Anna Politkovskaya wasn't the only victim at Novaya Gazeta. Before her murder, another journalist named Yuri Shchekochikhin was killed with poison. Like Anna, he also was looking into corruption in high places.

In the Litvinenko case, as with most others, there is no hard evidence pointing back to the chief resident of the Kremlin. However some people haven't been reticent about speaking up, and not just unconnected bloggers firing off opinions from the sidelines. The most senior KGB agent ever to defect to the UK, one Oleg Gordievsky, is adamant that the hit was state-sponsored. Gordievsky even claims he knows who did it, and that the assassin was recruited from a prison by the FSB. The other point Gordievsky makes, is that the poison and method of administration was extremely sophisticated - not some bumbling hood with rat poison.

Litvinenko was basically nuked. The poison used was polonium 210, a by-product of uranium, not exactly the type of substance a random bunch of above-mentioned rogues would have easy access to. P-210 is an isotope of polonium, a so-called alpha emitter. A milligram emits as many alpha particles as 5 grams of radium, so this gives some idea of its potency. This is a substance that has to be administered with the precision of a scientist, and clearly whoever poisoned Litvinenko knew precisely the amount to use. Any mistake and the victim could have died on the spot leading of course to public alarm and possible arrest.

As with Yushchenko the victim became a public spectacle. Both men lost hair and appeared on camera in a weakened and unflattering condition. Someone with a sick turn-of-mind, could be excused for thinking that the people behind the poisoning wanted a laugh - wanted to be able to watch their little game play itself out on television, to further enjoy the suffering of their adversaries. But of course that is ridiculously over-the-top.

No wonder Boris Berezovsky has iron-clad security. He knows what is going on in his former homeland and has been overhead using the word "bandits" in reference to Putin and his associates. Of course Boris is no saint, but maybe that's why he knows how these guys operate. One thing he won't be doing anytime soon is dining out on sushi.

About the Author

Aidan Maconachy is a freelance writer and artist based in Ontario. He has a political blog named - aidan maconachy blog - at http://aidanmaconachyblog.blogspot.com/

The Hunt for Bankers is still on

A co-owner of a small Russian private bank was gunned down in an apparent contract killing in central Moscow, prosecutors said Wednesday

An unidentified assailant shot Konstantin Meshcheryakov of Spetssetsroibank several times — in the head, neck and torso — Tuesday night, said Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman for the city prosecutors. A murder investigation has been opened, she said.

The ITAR-TASS news agency quoted an unnamed official in the prosecutor's office as saying Meshcheryakov could have been killed because of his professional activity and that the crime bore signs of a contract killing. Russia has seen a spate of contract killings in the banking sector, the AP reports.

The head of a branch of the state-controlled Vneshtorgbank was shot in Moscow in October.

First Vice President of the Bank of Russia A. Kozlov was killed Sept. 13. Unknown people opened fire on him near sport center "Spartak" while he was coming back from the sport complex at 9.30 p. m. Moscow time. As a result, Kozlov's driver was killed. The banker suffered a gunned injury of his head and was taken to Town Hospital No. 33, where he died unconscious. The investigation was taken under personal control by Russia's Chief Prosecutor Yuri Chaika.

The conclusion one may make is as follows: bankers are closely connected to criminals, and since Russia is experiencing wars for market domination in various areas (we already wrote about it in one of our previous posts) because of upcoming elections (both in the state parliament and presidential ones), this should be no surprise for Russians - they just got used to it.

Source: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/crimes/22-11-2006/85611-banker-0

Scotland Yard vs Russian Mafia

Crime gangs are fuelling a surge in art fakes and forgeries flooding a buoyant London market.

In particular, Russian gangs are exploiting a boom in paintings from their homeland. The surge in forgeries has led Scotland Yard to mount its first exhibition, aimed at raising awareness of the crimes among dealers and collectors.

A Met spokesman said: “We hope to encourage people to report crimes and work with the police to address what is a serious crime, with links to organised criminal networks increasingly looking at ways to finance and further their endeavours. Art and fakes is one of the ways.”

The police exhibits range from forged antiquities to fine art, including copies of paintings by Pablo Picasso and LS Lowry.

If genuine, the work on display at the V&A in South Kensington this week would be worth about ?10million.

Among the exhibits are paintings by Robert Thwaites, whose work deceived some of the country’s top experts.

He duped Rupert Maas, the respected gallery owner and Antiques Roadshow art specialist, into parting with ?20,000 for a painting he claimed was by John Anster Fitzgerald, a little-known Victorian. The forgery, entitled The Miser, was so convincing it was sold on at a 300 per cent mark-up.

Thwaites also tricked gallery proprietor Dr Christopher Beetles out of more than ?100,000 with another “Fitzgerald”, called Going To The Masked Ball.

It was only when the forger attempted to sell a third painting entitled Poppy With Imps And Fairies And Foliage with his brother Brian, 50, that a would-be client, Peter Nahum of The Leicester Galleries in St James’s, became suspicious and the pair were arrested.

Thwaites was jailed for two years at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court last month. His brother admitted conspiracy to obtain money by deception and was given a 12-month suspended sentence.

Dick Ellis, a former head of the Met’s arts and antiques squad, said: “When you get a sudden increase in the value of an object then it attracts fakes. People capitalise on it.”

Mr Ellis, of Art Management Group, said forgers were now also involved in coins, medals, automobilia and pottery. “Some are very good, he said. ”Only through scientific examination can you weed out many of the forgeries.“

Source: http://www.mosnews.com/

Ruthless wars for market domination in Russia

Part I. Alcohol market war

More than 40,000 Russians die annually of poisonous alcohol substitutes, and the problem was highlighted this week by reports on massive alcohol poisonings from several regions across the nation. Alcohol subsitutes are sold at cheap prices by street vendors and even stores, and officials have turned a blind eye on the problem.

First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev -- whom President Vladimir Putin put in charge of national to improve life quality and social conditions in Russia -- acknowledged Friday that widespread alcohol abuse was threatening the Kremlin's goals.

"If regional officials don't deal with these problems, then we won't be able to meet any goals under the national health project," Medvedev said during a televised conference with regional officials, adding that he was "shocked" by reports about massive alcohol poisonings.

More than 100 Russians have died and about 1,500 have been hospitalized in several provinces in recent weeks by an outbreak of toxic hepatitis caused by bad alcohol. Since the year's start, at least 18,000 have died of poisonous alcohol, according to statistics cited at a session of the upper house of Russian parliament Friday.

The house's speaker, Sergei Mironov, proposed introducing a state monopoly on ethyl spirit production and sales to cope with the problem, and criticized the Cabinet for dragging its feet on the issue.

Meanwhile, officials in the central Voronezh region on Friday announced the seizure of 600 tons of hazardous liquids that authorities suspected were intended to be resold as vodka. The liquids, containing 95 percent ethyl alcohol, included cleaners, car-window deicers and chemicals used for removing rust, the region's chief health official Mikhail Chubirko said, according to ITAR-Tass news agency.

In the western Belgorod region, 44 of 915 people sickened since August have died, the government emergency agency's local branch said, according to ITAR-Tass.

In most other affected regions, the high numbers of fake-alcohol reports started only last month. In the Siberian region of Irkutsk, officials reported 25 fatalities among 604 affected.

In the northwestern city of Pskov, near the border with Estonia, at least 16 people died of toxic hepatitis, and 369 remained hospitalized after drinking bad alcohol since mid-September, local officials said.

Vladimir Ryabenchenko, chief of emergency department at Pskov regional public health office, said most of those hospitalized were longtime alcohol abusers.
"Most of the victims of toxic hepatitis are people who have the most serious problems with alcohol, those who drink week by week," Ryabenchenko told The Associated Press. "They drink whatever is possible, including liquid for glass cleaning ... Those people normally don't watch TV, and therefore they don't get the news about the danger."

Homemade alcohol - known in Russian as "samogon," which means self-distilled - is common, and eau de cologne, aftershave products, cleaning liquids and various technical fluids are all widely consumed.

"Take for example a liquid intended to spark a campfire. People in low-income groups don't use it to spark campfires, they drink it," Gennady Onishchenko, the nation's top sanitary official, was quoted as saying by the gazeta news Web site Friday.

Earlier this year, Russia's interior minister described the widespread abuse of low-quality, often poisonous alcohol as a "national tragedy."

Pavel Shapkin, the head of National Alcohol Association, blamed the government for long ignoring the problem. When authorities finally tightened controls over the sales of ethyl spirit-containing liquids earlier this year, bootleggers turned to drugstores for cheap antiseptics that contain alcohol as well as chemicals that may cause hepatitis and other diseases.

While vodka sells at prices starting at about 70 rubles (about $2.60) per half-liter bottle, bootlegged alcohol is offered as cheap as 15 rubles ($0.60), Shapkin said.
"People who even once tried to drink antiseptics will never be able to fully recover," Shapkin said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

From 1991 to 2001, alcohol consumption in Russia increased about 40 percent, according to the World Health Organization.

Russia's population is dropping by about 700,000 a year. Experts attribute the plunge to economic turmoil that has badly hurt the state health care system, leading to a drop in birth rates and life expectancy.

Increased poverty, alcoholism, soaring crime and emigration have also taken their toll. Average life expectancy is just 66 years -- 16 years lower than Japan and 14 years lower than the EU average.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/

What happens when your car is towed in Moscow

By Rory LeGrange

As I walked out of a client pitch Tuesday morning, I discovered that my car was gone. Either it was stolen... or it was towed. After some running about, and tugging a few surly GAI away from their regular extorting activities, I managed to get out of them instructions on what to do in case my car had been towed, and how to get it back.

Apparently, I was to walk over to one of those blue taxaphone booths, dial 02, and tell them about my car.

I was greeted by an operator, who asked me for the make and model of my car, as well as a contact number. I provided all the required information, and for some reason waited around the blue booth for a call on my mobile. As it had not been confirmed to be by that point, I still had no idea whether the car was in fact towed or stolen.

After waiting several long minutes, I called a friend who'd just had her car towed, and she explained to me what needed to be done. The process was as follows: I was to go and visit the militia station on Ulitsa Durova, which is near Olympiyskiy Stadium. The car itself was likely somewhere in zhopa (ass, asshole in Russian) outside of Moscow. I was to get a ticket, payable anytime within a month, get another receipt for the return of the car, go to zhopa, pick up the car and that's apparently it.

I arrived at the cop station at about noon, and asked where I was to go in order to get my car back. The young militia guy looked at me and asked, "Where are your car's documents?"

"They're in the car, of course," I replied.

"We can't do anything until you have the car's documents."

"But...they're in the car."

He didn't even look at me. Nothing I said would convince these people to help me out. Absolutely nothing.

He gave me a few telephone numbers to call so that I could confirm whether my car was in fact towed, instead of stolen, and if this was the deal, where it could be found. The first number was answered by a surly man, who before hanging up the phone told me that he didn't have time to deal with my problem. The second was a bit more successful, and the girl on the other end managed to confirm that the car was in fact towed, and was waiting for me somewhere near Metro Kuntsevo.

I caught a cab and rode out past Metro Kuntsevo to one of the municipal parking areas for towed vehicles, more than 30 minutes away. After some buzzing at the gate, a surly guard came to the door asking me what I wanted. I explained that I had to get documents from my impounded car in order to return to a downtown militia station, so that I could return again in order to free my car. After a short pause, he walked away. I waited. Nothing. After a few minutes, I rang again and he let me in. No explanation.

The parking lot was actually quite large, however there were probably no more than 20 cars, most of which were mid to high end, late model imports. I was led to my car, which had all its doors, the trunk and hood covered by small yellow bits of tape, which served as "seals." Apparently, this was a way of indemnifying the lot of any blame in the event that something disappeared from the car. I opened the door, took the documents, and the guard quietly replaced the ripped bits of tape with new bits produced from his pocket. Meaning...anyone, including he, could steal, and just put another layer of tape on. That made me feel better.

I got back in the cab and fought traffic back to Olympiyskiy. I arrived shortly after 14:00, and couldn't find the guy who'd give me the ticket to free my car. Reason? He was on "lunch break for the next hour."

So I waited. At 15:00 I was allowed past the guard post, and told to head to the second floor, room 210. Milling around room 210 were about eight other equally despondent, weary petty criminals like myself, each waiting their individual turn to speak to the man who could free us.

Twenty minutes later I was ushered in, and asked to take a seat. The officer asked for all my documents, and after scrutinizing my Canadian driver's license for a while, started filling in forms.

"What month is February?" he asked turning to another militia officer in the office.

No reply. He turned to me. "What month is February?"

"Um, second month." I replied.

He grunted affirmatively, and continued to fill in the forms. After another fifteen minutes, he finished filling in the documents and handed me an invoice, and a form for the release of my car. I took the invoice to a nearby Sberbank, and paid the bill. It was 100 rubles. One hundred fucking rubles!

I returned to the militia station, receipt for paid invoice in hand. The officer snapped the receipt out of my hand, stamped it, and on my way out he told me that I should be careful "not to break the law."

I headed back again to the sticks where my car was, rang the buzzer for a while and after a long wait, was once again greeted by the same surly guard. After scrutinizing my Canadian driver's license for a while, turning it this way and that, he led me to my car, still covered in small bits of yellow tape.

In all, it took me about five hours to drive to Olimpiyskiy, drive to zhopa, drive back to Olimpiyskiy, wait for lunch to end, drive back to zhopa, and fill in a host of forms, all for a total of 100 rubles paid to the municipal authorities.

Some have argued that this incredible inconvenience was the real reason for this exercise and that I would now think twice about parking in a non-parking zone. However, if the true aim is to decongest the city from parked cars, then this program is a complete failure. I was parked in a cluster of about 50 cars, at the end of Tverskaya, and my removal achieved a result of leaving 49 parked cars, along with one temporarily freed spot.

If you really want to keep the zone clear, post militia officers to shoo away would-be drivers and taxi gangs away, or at least send in a good 30 tow trucks to repeatedly remove everyone until it becomes a dead zone. However, before any of this happens, I think it would be nice if someone built at least one municipal parking lot in the area.

Oh, and in case you're wondering... the dispatcher at 02 never called me back.

Source: www.exile.ru