Russia and the CIS News Digest
LaRouche Remarks on Putin Address Circulated in Russia
The press release dated Sept. 7 and titled "LaRouche on Putin Statement" has been posted in EIR's Russian-language pages (www.larouchepub.com/russian). It is Lyndon LaRouche's discussion, featured last week in the InDepth section of EIR Online, of Russian President Vladimir Putin's Sept. 4 speech after the Beslan school massacre. LaRouche's release concludes with the warning, "If Bush wins, kiss humanity good-bye, for some time to come." The release was also carried Sept. 15 on the front page of the Russian web site CMNews.ru, illustrated with a photo of LaRouche.
Economic Cooperation Organization Meets In Tajikistan
Leaders of the Economic Cooperation Cooperation (ECO) held a summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan on Sept. 14, to discuss measures against drug trafficking, aid to Afghanistan, and actions under the ECO Trade Agreement endorsed in Islamabad in July 2003. The members of ECO are Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, with a total population of around 345 million people. It was founded in March 1977, in the Turkish city of Izmir, among Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan; the others joined in 1992.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami also held bilateral talks with Tajikistan's leaders, before the ECO session. On Sept. 12, Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov announced that Iran will invest $250 million in the Sangtuda hydroelectric power plant in Tajikistan, a project in which Russia is also involved. Iran will also help to complete the Anzob Tunnel.
Khatami visited Armenia on Sept. 8-9, signing seven agreements on cooperation in energy, culture and trade, including for construction of a natural gas pipeline from Megri, Iran, into southern Armenia.
Putin Attends Eurasian Summits
Besides the ECO summit, leadership meetings of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Single Economic Space (SES) organization countries took place in mid-September. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov attended the meetings, held in Astana, Kazakstan. The summit of the SES (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakstan), who met Sept. 15, dealt with 29 agreements, including one to reform value-added tax collection procedures in such a way as to promote trade, and another to create a new, joint aerospace company. The VAT will now be collected by destination countries in trade among the SES members. Putin said that this will, initially, cost the Russian state treasury $800 million per year, but that it will foster an increase in trade, which will benefit the economies of all four countries.
The new aerospace company will design and produce a new multifunctional space ship called Kliper-Zenit, which is supposed to replace the Soviet-era Soyuz capsule for missions to service orbiting space stations, as well as for separate flights. President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakstan called this agreement "the first swallow of spring in the area of advanced technologies."
Also on Sept. 15, the CIS Prime Ministers met in Astana to sign earlier-negotiated agreements on economics, financial controls, transport, natural resources, crime, and illegal migration. The next day's CIS heads of state discussion had been slated to take up the questions of the CIS's mission and raison d'etre, which was raised at CIS meetings earlier this year. And the Sept. 17 issue of the Russian government paper Rossiyskaya Gazeta quoted host President Nazarbayev, who pointed out that of the 70 councils established by the CIS over recent years, virtually none of them does anything. Armenian President Robert Kocharian said, "It is time to finally decide, what we want from the CIS."
The members of the CISfounded after the breakup of the Soviet Unionare Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan did not attend; Moldova sent only the Prime Minister.
The recent string of attacks in Russia, as well as bombings in Central Asia, changed the emphasis. "Economic cooperation remains the priority for the CIS countries," writes Rossiyskaya Gazeta, "yet yesterday, the main topic of the meeting was not the economy, but the fight against terrorism."
The final press conference was marked by sharp exchanges between Russian President Putin and Georgia's Mikhail Saakashvili. A Georgian reporter questioned Putin about whether Russia's reopening rail service between Moscow and Sukhumi, Abkhazia (within Georgia, but at odds with Tbilisi), were not aimed to heat up Russian-Georgian relations. Putin said that the rail service helps refugees return home (from Russia to Abkhazia). Saakashvili accused Putin of applying double standards, since thousands of Georgian refugees from Abkhazia can't return home. Saakashvili then rubbed it in that Georgia, like Russia, "knows terrorists"since Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev, identified by Russia as mastermind of the Beslan massacrefought on the Abkhazian side in the early 1990s. Putin said that he and Saakashvili would pursue "all these questions" in bilateral discussions.
Russian Gov't Acts To Control Energy Resource Sector
The Russian government on Sept. 14 announced a merger of the natural gas giant Gazprom, with the state-owned oil company Rosneft. The result will be a large state-dominated energy company (while more direct ownership of Gazprom shares by foreigners will be allowed, than before).
The next day, Minister of Natural Resources Yuri Trutnev warned that the government may carry out a sweeping revocation of unused licenses, granted for the development of Russian oil and natural gas deposits. Trutnev said that 23% of the fossil fuel development licenses, already issued, are not being usedexcept to inflate their holders' capitalization figures. Sixteen thousand such licenses were issued in the 1990s. Trutnev warned, "If license agreements are violated, we will resort to rescinding the licenses," because if the licenses aren't used, then necessary exploration work is not done.
Trutnev specifically threatened to revoke the license granted to BP-TNK for developing the Kovytka natural gas field, believed to hold 2 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, because they have failed to construct a local pipeline network. Trutnev said that a tender for rights to mine Siberia's vast Sukhoi Log gold deposit would be postponed until next year, and that foreigners may not be allowed to bid. A new natural resources law, he said, "will include an option to limit foreign participation in tenders for unique depositssuch as Sukhoi Log and Ukokan [a copper deposit]." And on Sept. 11, the Financial Times of London quoted an official in Trutnev's ministry, who said that licenses held by Yukos Oil's production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, could be revoked for non-payment of taxes.
Russian Defense Plant Strike
Reports of labor actions over wage arrears began to crop up again in Russia during the summer. The latest one came from the city of Ulyanovsk on Aug. 19, where 1-2,000 workers, on strike at the Ulyanovsk Mechanical Factory, blocked traffic on a major road. They had not been paid since March. Ulyanovsk Provincial Governor Vladimir Shamanov says, and Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov confirmed, that 108 million rubles ($3.4 million), issued in payment of a defense order last spring, were never received in the region. On Aug. 21, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that the Federal Construction, Housing, and Public Utilities Agency has called for Ulyanovsk Province to be put under "external administration" by the Federal governmentessentially, to be put into receivership. Otherwise, the agency predicted "catastrophe" this winter.
|