Russia 100811 Basic Political Developments

National Economic Trends

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  Russian government to prevent possible bread price hikes
  
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  Drought may force Russia to import rye for 1st time in 15 years
  
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  Russia needs to introduce a tax on wheat exporters - From Prof Padma Desai
  
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  Heatwave hits Russian growth forecast - By Isabel Gorst and Catherine Belton, FT.com
  
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  No halt in Russia heat, winter crop sowing
  
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  Budget deficit at 2.2% of GDP in January-July
  
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  Corporate loan growth excluding Sberbank was only 0.1% m-o-m in July
  
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  Mortgage Lending Doubles - The value of ruble-denominated home loans issued in the six months through June rose to 125.9 billion rubles ($30.1 billion), compared with 52.4 billion rubles during the same period last year, the Central Bank said on its web site Tuesday.
  
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  Monetary base declined in July - According to the data, the broad monetary base reached RUB7.11trn in July, down from RUB7.24trn in June. The monetary base declined for the first month since January, and this decline is unexplained by technical factors. In January, the numbers were distorted by the effects of the New Year holidays: the banks accumulated money in December to get through the long holiday period.
  

Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions

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  Norilsk Nickel, Sberbank, Silvinit: Russia Stock Market Preview
  
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  Drought May Spur Interest in Crop Insurance
  
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  UPDATE 1-Cherkizovo expects more state help on grain
  
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  Russia's Sistema to float public issue for Indian telecom arm
  
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  Norilsk Independent Directors Back Efforts to Probe Board Vote
  
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  Rusal Seeks Arbitration Against Interros for Norilsk (Update1)
  
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  RUSAL files arbitration request against Interros
  
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  Rusal Secures $4.6 Billion Credit Line - The loan was extended to Rusal under an accord to help Russian companies generally as they struggled to survive the global meltdown.
  
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  Norilsk to Review Request - Norilsk Nickel said Tuesday that its board will review a request by shareholder United Company RusAl to hold an extraordinary general meeting.
  
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  Google Launches Traffic Tracker In 2 Russian Cities –Vedomosti
  
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  Malware Infection Hits Russian Android Phones
  
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  Virus sends costly messages from Android phones - Mobile security firm Lookout on Tuesday warned that a booby-trapped Movie Player application is infecting Android phones in Russia with a virus that sends costly text messages.
  
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  A Tiger in the Internet Mall - The private equity firm Tiger Global Management acquired a 50 percent stake in Wikimart, the Russian online mall, according to the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, with a nod to the Quintura blog. The deal took place in May, but only recently surfaced.
  
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  Japanese trio bows out of Uranium One - A consortium of three Japanese companies has agreed to end their investment in Canada-based Uranium One, securing long-term uranium purchasing rights instead. Meanwhile, Uranium One is upping its 2010 production forecast. 
  
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  INTERVIEW: Bringing PR to Russia - Peter Necarsulmer was running a PR consultancy in California at that time when he got a call from the White House. "Sid Rovich called me, the senior advisor to President Bush. Gorbachev was in Washington for a summit, but he and his wife Raisa wanted to visit California. Once they left Washington, it was no longer an official visit and Sid asked me if could handle all the media relations," says Necarsulmer.
  
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  Russia imports more Norwegian salmon - Russian import of salmon from Norway continues to rise. Russia is the second largest market for Norwegian salmon outside the EU.
  

Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)

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  Russia May Boost Oil Export Duty in September on Urals Price - Russia may boost its duty on crude exports by 5.1 percent for regular fields and as much as 11.5 percent for deposits with a discounted rate next month after prices for its Urals blend rose.
  
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  EU Seeks to Broker Trans-Caspian Pipeline Deal Between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan; Russia Finds Project 'Absurd'
  
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  Trebs and Titov fields to be sold in December - Starting price set at $603 mln
  
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  TNK-BP might sell Novosibirskneftegaz; no major implications for production profile and Eurobonds
  

Gazprom

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  Gazprom Finishes Over 750 Kilometers of the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok Pipeline
  
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  ‘Gazprom’ decides about Southern Stream and not Borisov and Tadic - ‘We do not want to comment what Serbia President Boris Tadic and Bulgarian Prime Minister Bojko Borisov talked about. Those are their wishes. The decision on the ‘Southern Stream’ route shall depend exclusively on the feasibility study presently being worked on’, the comment from Moscow says.
  

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Full Text Articles

Basic Political Developments

Former Moldovan president in talks on bilateral relations with Russia

http://www.rbcnews.com/free/20100811101742.shtml

      RBC, 11.08.2010, Chisinau 10:17:42.Former Moldovan President and leader of the oppositionist Communist Party Vladimir Voronin met with head of the Russian President's Executive Office Sergei Naryshkin on Sunday in Moscow. According to Voronin, the parties discussed matters related to the current situation and development of bilateral relations between Russia and Moldova.

      Voronin also met with Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Grigory Karasin and discussed Moldova's domestic political situation and prospects for development of Moldovan-Russian cooperation.

FAO launches NASA developed fire monitoring system - Will help countries to detect fire hotspots in real time

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MDCS-888B3R?OpenDocument

Date: 11 Aug 2010

Rome, 11 August 2010 - FAO today has launched a new online portal on fire information and real time monitoring to help countries to control fire effectively and protect property and natural resources. The new Global Fire Information Management System (GFIMS) detects fire hotspots from satellites operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Developed in collaboration with the University of Maryland, GFIMS has an online mapping interface for displaying fire hotspots in "near real" time meaning that there is a lag of approximately 2.5 hours between satellite overpass and the data being available. The new system also allows users to receive email alerts on specific areas of interest, enabling subscribers to react quickly.

"The GFIMS has been launched at a time when the incidence of megafires tends to increase," said Pieter van Lierop, FAO Forestry Officer, who is responsible for the agency's activities in fire management.

"The control of these fires has become an issue of high importance, not only because of the increasing number of casualties and the huge amounts of area burned but also because of the relations with issues of global interest, like climate change."

In Russia alone this year due to the unprecedented heat wave with temperatures soaring to up to 40ºC and winds of up to 20 metres per second the total area burned has reached more than 14 million hectares, according to the data provided by the Sukachev Institute for Forests, based in Krasnoyarsk. Forest fires in Russia have already killed more than 50 people this summer.

Globally, vegetation fires affect an estimated 350 million ha of land each year- about half or more of this area is burnt in Africa. In the Mediterranean, between 700 000 and one million hectares are damaged by vegetation fires every year.

Easy to use

Until recently, natural resource managers have faced considerable challenges in obtaining timely satellite-derived information on vegetation fires.

"The information was very fragmented because it was gathered from various sources making it unsuitable for precise analysis and identifying trends," - said John Latham, FAO Senior Environment Officer in the Natural Resources Management and Environment Department. - "GFIMS is an integrated fire information system which delivers the essential data to its users while the fires are still burning."

GFIMS allows users to download fire information in minimal file sizes and in easy-to-use formats, including text files, ESRI shapefiles, Web Map Services, Google Earth/KML files, and a plug-in for NASA World Wind.

"GFIMS has also provoked strong research interest," added Latham. "Linking the system to land cover shows us what is burning. GFIMS now provides analysis on trends of prevalence of fire by year and month, and will include information on the size of burnt area by land cover type in the future. It will result in improving analytical data and timely response."

The system could be used by forest managers and fire fighters, as well as agencies involved in agricultural and natural resources monitoring. The subscription is free of charge. The system only requires a functioning email address. Initially GFIMS has been launched in three languages - English, French and Spanish. The monitoring system is hosted at the FAO's Natural Resources Management and Environment Department.

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