ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A looming battle over the extradition of Russian hacker Vladimir Zdorovenin, who is accused by the US of financial cyber crimes, has Zurich caught in the middle. Zdorovenin, 54, and his son Kirill, had been sought by the US for four years before the father was arrested in Zurich 27 March 2011. His son remains at large.
Switzerland, in response to an American extradition requested, handed him over to US authorities after examining the case, and he was flown to New York Monday 16 January. Moscow has angrily said that the extradition was illegal, blaming the US secret services. The exact circumstances of the arrest and the extradition request have not been revealed and Swiss authorities have not commented on the case.
The pair’s names have not been on Interpol’s Red List of suspects wanted internationally.
The Zdorovenins were accused of a number of crimes in a sealed indictment in Manhattan in May 2007. This week the court said that they are charged with 9 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud, aggravated identity theft, and securities fraud, according to Russian media.
The Voice of Russia cites Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich as saying that “it wasn’t the first time the US had arrested Russians in third countries under a doubtful pretext and by using provocative methods”, with Lukashevich accusing Washington of applying extraterritorial legislation in its dealings with Russian citizens.
Cartoon by Chappatte, Globe Cartoons ©2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A Monday night Moscow protest of 5-8,000 people, followed by thousands taking to the streets Tuesday, has led to 600 people being arrested, according to Russian state media.
Those pulled in by police include opposition leaders, liberal Boris Nemtsov and liberal party Yabloko head Sergei Mitrokhin among them, as well as well-known political and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny.
The rally, which was licensed to go ahead, was organized to demonstrate against alleged ballot-rigging in last weekend’s Puma (parliament) elections, with claims that ballots were rigged in favour of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Unted Russia party. It won 238 of the 450 seats, a sharp drop from its previous majority of 315 seats.
Mikhail Fedotov, chairman of the presidential council for human rights and civil society and advisor to President Dmitry Medvedev Wednesday morning criticized the police. “If a person commits an administrative offence, namely, takes part in an unauthorized rally, the maximum penalty they may get is a fine. They do not face administrative arrest,” Ria Novosti quotes Fedorov as saying.
Reuters reports that pro-Putin youths tried to crash the rally and there were some scuffles. “After permitting the biggest opposition rally in Moscow for years on Monday evening, the police were out in large numbers. The Interior ministry said about 2,000 special troops were supporting almost 50,000 police, and some moved through the city centre in armored vehicles in a show of force.”
Links to other sites: CBC, Moscow Times, NDTV, Ria Novosti
AFP video
Bolshoi dancers
More than a facelift: 6 years of restoration have brought back the Bolshoi Theatre
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – More than six years of renovations were needed to restore the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia to its former glory. The theatre has been home to the renowned Bolshoi Ballet company but the 1776 building has also seen a number of historic events, including the official founding of the creation of the Soviet Union.
The Bolshoi Ballet will be performing one of the pieces for which it has long been known, “The Nutcracker”, on the main stage for the Christmas holiday season.
Wednesday 2 November the world will once again see the beautiful main stage, with the first performance open to the public since renovations began in 2006. The opera “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, by Mikhail Glinka, will be showing. Two earlier performances were put on in October, one for workers, another for VIPs 28 October that featured a host of stars, including Placido Domingo.
The project was riddled with delays, cost overruns and suspected corruption, and not everyone agrees that the end result reflects the theatre’s former glory. The trial of an earlier contractor for embezzlement is still running, according to Bloomberg. Summa, a Russian holding company with interests in a number of heavy industries, stepped in, in 2009, to back the floundering $680 million project. The news agency notes that “the Bolshoi’s most comprehensive makeover in 150 years involved more than 3,600 artists, designers, builders and engineers in the last two years alone.”
Links to other sites: BBC, New York Times
Bolshoi, restored and ready for the public in November 2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Vita, an animal rights protection group in Russia, is putting the spotlight on Katya, a longtime star of the Big St Petersburg State Circus who is now being poorly treated in her retirement, according to an AP report that is being widely picked up by US media. The 36-year-old bear, who was cheered as she rode a bicycle around a ring during the 1980 Moscow Olympics, has reportedly not left the cage in her old touring bus for the past two years, and she “spends the long hours jumping up and down in her cage and trying to crack the rusty metal railings with her chipped and yellowed teeth”
Bears used in Russian circuses regularly make the news, sometimes for mistreatment, sometimes when things go wrong as in the 2009 incident where a bear on ice skates killed a circus manager, or when nature takes over, as in December 2010 when four bears on a circus tour went into hibernation.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Forty-four people died and eight survivors are hospitalized with serious injuries, Russian media are reporting, when a RussAir Tu-134 airplane crashed in the northern republic of Karelie. The dead include four foreigners, a Swedish and a Dutch citizen and two Ukrainians, and a family of four with dual US-Russian citizenship, according to state news agency Ria Novosti.
The flight from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport to Russia’s northwest city of Petrozavodsk, ended several kilometres short of its destination when the plane made an emergency landing on a highway just before midnight. Petrozavodsk is about 900 km from Moscow, and it is the province’s capital.
The cause of the accident is not yet clear.
The Financial Times described world markets as “sombre” Friday afternoon 6 May despite a recovery from Thursday’s 10 percent price fall for oil, and skittish trading in other markets. The drop in oil prices Thursday was the largest single day decline since the start of the global economic crisis, but a report from the US Labor Department that employment was up prompted oil prices to rise 4.6 percent Friday and other markets to recover somewhat as well.
Reuters reported Thursday that despite the price fall the Opec oil-producing nations were not likely to intervene by changing output. The news agency early Friday, before the recovery was underway, cited an unnamed Opec delegate, “The price had been going too high, to $120 a barrel, which is not good for consumers because it can affect the world economy.”
The swift price movements came on the heels of a presentation Tuesday by the European Union to Russian officials in Moscow of a new EU plan. “The Road Map to a Carbon Neutral Economy by 2050 sets out a strategy for the EU to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to a mere 20 percent of 1990 levels over the next four decades,” reports the Moscow Times, adding that Russian officials were skeptical but unworried, saying new Asian markets could “pick up the slack” if the EU reduces its needs.
Oil rose from a trading low Friday of $105.15 for Brent crude to a high of $113.40 mid-afternoon before dropping slightly.
Links to other sites: Financial Times, Moscow Times, Reuters
Russian authorities Tuesday 29 March charged Doku Umarov, known in Russia as a Chechen warlord, with masterminding the January Domodedovo Moscow Airport bombing. But according to Russian media, he may well have died Monday of this week when Russian security forces raided a camp for suicide bombers in Ingushetia, according to the Moscow Times.
The 17 people killed Monday are still being identified.
Umarov has previously been declared dead eight times since 2000, according to the Moscow newspaper.
The attack on the camp came a day before the first anniversary of a major bomb attack at a Moscow metro station.
Anti-doping agency appeals Spanish court ruling on cyclist Contador
Rowing to Lausanne, home to many of the world's sports federations
Update 30 March Lauanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Lausanne’s role as an international centre for sports organizations has been highlighted in recent days with a number of decisions taken in the city at the “other” end of Lake Geneva.
The city has been much in the sports world news in recent months as doping decisions in several sports, notably cycling, have gone to Cas (Court for Arbitration in Sport). Last week the Union Cycliste Iternationale said it will contest a decision made by the Spanish cycling union to clear Alberto Contador of doping in 2010.
Contador won the Tour de France four days after testing positive, but he argued that it was due to eating contaminated meat, reports Bloomberg.
Sports Illustrated reports 30 March that Wada, the World Anti-Doping Agency based in Lausanne, has also appealed to Cas to overturn the Spanish ruling, and that Cas aims to hear the appeals and make a decision before the next Tour de France cycling race in July.
Other Lausanne decisions include:
- SportAwards has announced the shortlist for its various Spirit of Sports awards that commend athletes and sports organizations for commitment and humanitarian spirit, to those who have made an exceptional and lasting contribution “to using sport as a tool for positive social change”; the awards are handed out 8 April (Sports Features)
- The international equestrian federation, FEI, was scheduled to have a vote on reorganizing what many consider its too heavy structure at an extraordinary general meeting 15 May, but country federations have said they need more time to study the proposals and the meeting will now be used only to discuss changes; a move to reduce the 19-person bureau with a smaller board failed in 2009 (Horse and Hound)
- The IOC’s (International Olympic Committee) Swiss director general Urs Lacotte is retiring 31 March for health reasons; he has been responsible for the IOC’s administrative side (USA Today)
- China’s “impressive tally” of 12 medals at the Fina/Midea Diving World Series 2011 sealed their dominance of the sport, with European countries together winning 8 medals, at Beijing’s Water Cube (Swimming World Magazine)
- Also in swimming, Lubos Krizko, 31-year-old Slovakian who twice won at the Olympics, has been banned by Fina for two years after he failed a doping test, for taking tamoxifin, a drug used to treat breast cancer but sometimes used to hide the side effects of steroids (AP)
- The International Figure-skating Union announced 24 March that it is moving the world championships from Japan to Moscow and rescheduling them for 24 April following the earthquake in Japan (Bloomberg).
WikiLeaks and criticism of Putin appear to be behind it
Luke Harding, the correspondent in Moscow for the British newspaper, the Guardian, was deported by Russian authorities Monday 7 February, without being given an explanation, he says. The reporter returned to Moscow after two months away, but upon arriving at the airport he was “detained in a cell for 45 minutes”, according to Ria Novosti. He was then put on a plane to London and once on the plane he was given back his passport, with his Russian visa cancelled.
Ria Novosti mentions that Harding reported on WikiLeaks cables, publishing at least one that was critical of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, but the information is taken virtually word for word from the Guardian‘s own report. The Russian state news agency also notes, as does the Guardian, that this is the first time since 1989 that a British journalist has been expelled.
The Guardian reports that the British Foreign Office is trying to ascertain, with its Russian counterpart, what lies behind the expulsion, but no explanation has been provided yet:
“Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor-in-chief, said: ‘This is clearly a very troubling development with serious implications for press freedom, and it is worrying that the Russian government should now kick out reporters of whom they disapprove. Russia’s treatment of journalists – both domestic and foreign – is a cause of great concern. We are attempting to establish further details, and are in contact with the Foreign Office.’”
New rules issued for tighter security at Russia’s airports
The Russian government a week ago issued new security requirements for airports which will include checking that all cars have their papers in order and verifying individuals’ IDs before they enter an airport. Media in Moscow published the information Monday 7 February, noting that it was published a few days earlier by the government, but with no date set for implementing the new rules. The roles of various security groups and responsibilities for guarding different parts of the airport have been spelled out, an effort to remedy confusion that was harshly condemned by President Dmitry Medvedev in the wake of the Moscow Domodedovo Airport suicide bombing in January that killed 36 people.
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Ria Novosti
State police investigators wearing black balaclavas and carrying automatic weapons raided Deutsche Bank’s offices in Moscow Wednesday, reports the Moscow Times. The raid is part of ongoing investigations into fugitive State Duma Deputy Ashot Yegiazaryan‘s involvement in embezzlement of $87 million in Moscva Hotel reconstruction funds. “The bank confirmed the raid but stressed that it was solely connected to a single client and a criminal case into alleged embezzlement during the reconstruction of the Moskva Hotel,” says the paper.
The badly deteriorated original hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, was a massive structure whose design was approved by Joseph Stalin. It was torn down in 2004 and construction was begun of a replica.
The Russian government siad 29 January it has identified the suicide bomber who killed 35 people and injured 180: a 20-year-old man from the Caucasus region. It also issued a photo of Vitaly Razdobudko, 32, who is suspected of being the mastermind behind the blast. He is wanted in connection with a number of other attacks in the recent months. Moscow Times reports that he “is a Russian-born adherent of the fundamentalist Wahhabi branch of Islam, which is popular among terrorists, a law enforcement source told RIA-Novosti.”
Link to Ria Novosti, which carries several new articles on the people behind the bomb, which Russian authorities now say was clearly aimed at foreigners.
The author of a book about being an illegal immigrant in Norway was deported to Moscow Monday, 11 years after she last saw Russia, at the age of 14. Her case has sparked heated debates in Norway over the rights of children who are illegal immigrants, once they are adults, a subject that has repercussions elsewhere in Europe.
The Moscow Times notes that she flew into Sheremetyevo Airport, not Domodedovo, where a bomb exploded Monday, killing and injuring scores. The newspaper carries a lengthy feature about her case.
Maria Amelie, the nom de plume for the author who was born Madina Salamova, was sent back by Norwegian authorities after she became a celebrity. The young woman fled from North Osetia with her family, to Finland, where their request for asylum was not accepted. Norwegian media have carried stories of the family’s possible flight from heavy debts. The daughter learned Norwegian, earned a university degree but lived without papers. Her Norwegian boyfriend, who followed her to Moscow, cannot marry her because she has no papers.
Norwegian officials say she can return with a work permit, since she has been offered a job with a newspaper, but it’s unclear how long this could take, possibly months. Norway’s prime minister told journalists Monday he has no regrets about the decision to deport her.
Links to other sites: Dagbladet (Nor), News and Views from Norway, wikipedia
Muscovites have been shocked by the news of a suicide bomb going off at the city’s largest airport, Domodedovo International Airport, at 16:40 Monday afternoon 24 January. Authorities say a suicide bomber was among a crowd waiting at an arrivals gate, with a bomb the equivalent of 5kg of TNT. Russia’s transport minister has ordered tightening of security at all the country’s airports, effective immediately. According to state news agency Ria Novosti, “Planes from London and Brussels, as well as Greece, Ukraine and Egypt, had landed in the 30 minutes preceding the attack.” A flight from London turned around before landing, after hearing the news, but flights have begun to land again, late in the evening Moscow time.
President Dmitry Medvedev has postponed his Tuesday flight to Davos, Switzerland, where he was scheduled to speak at the World Economic Forum.
Links to other sites: Ria Novosti, for updates, Reuters
Reuters video
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of regular flights to Russia is being increased by both Swiss and Aeroflot for the winter ski season, Geneva’s Cointrin Airport says. Aeroflot has added an additional evening flight every day to Moscow-Sheremetyevo airport, while Swiss is adding four flights a week between Geneva and Moscow-Domodedevo.
Emirates will begin daily flights between Dubai and Geneva in June 2011, according to the airport.
The Moscow Times reports that parliamentary committees in Georgia have been meeting to plan ways to “destabilize” the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, following their failure to convince the Lausanne-based IOC (International Olympic Committee) to move the Games elsewhere because of continuing tensions between Georgia and Russia. “Georgia, which fought a five-day war with Russia after attempting to retake its breakaway province of South Ossetia in 2008, appealed in November that year to the International Olympics Committee to relocate the Olympics from Sochi because of the possibility of conflict in neighboring Abkhazia, another separatist Georgian region. The committee ignored the request,” write the newspaper, which quotes Maxim Agerkov, an analyst with a think tank, as saying that “The only possible option is destabilizing the situation in the region,” and that Georgia could use existing local ethnic conflicts and separatists to influence the situation.
Links to other sites: The Voice of Russia, Pravda
Japan has recalled its ambassador to Moscow to protest Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s visit to one of a string of disputed islands off the northern coast of Japan. Medvedev visited Kunashir island 1 November, the first time a Russian or Soviet head of state has done so. The Japanese foreign ministry said the recall was temporary. The incident comes just weeks after Japan and China had their most serious row in years over a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea.
The former Soviet Union seized the Kuril islands in the final days of the world war two and the dispute has interfered with a peace treaty formally ending the war between the two countries.
Links to other sites: New York Times, Reuters, Ria-Novosti
Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov has been asked to step down by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, who said he had lost confidence in him, according to the president’s website 27 September. He is to be replaced by his deputy Vladimir Resin. Rumours of an impending break had been swirling for days.
Luzhkov has been mayor of Moscow since 1992, and had a loyal base and independent sources of patronage. As such he was beyond the Kremlin’s reach. His wife, construction magnate Elena Baturina, now Russia’s richest woman, has long benefited from her relationship with the mayor of Moscow. Luzhkov has been under unprecedented pressure in the press since the summer, when he was criticized for being away on holiday while Moscow choked on smoke from nearby wildfires.
Links to other sites: Dawn, Economist, RiaNovosti,
Russia, the USA, Denmark, Canada and Norway are countries attending an international summit on the Arctic in Moscow today, 22 September. All have made claims on parts of the Arctic, which has seen a dramatic decline in ice coverage over the past four decades, thus opening up the possibilities for exploration and extraction of natural resources.
If a country can show that its continental shelf extends beyond its 200-mile exclusive economic zone, it may be granted jurisdiction beyond the limit, according to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The summit was originally scheduled for April but had to be postponed because the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano which closed much of Europe’s airspace.
Links to other sites: BBC, Ria Novosti
You guessed it: the high-profile presentation in Moscow of a new book, Moscow: Traffic Problems of a Megalopolis, was delayed 90 minutes by traffic, or rather by the late arrival of a special guest. The guest was former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and the book was written by his son Kichiro Hatoyama, a visiting lecturer at Moscow State University’s Graduate School of Business Administration, who suggests that Muscovites take lessons from Japan in how to better manage their clogged road system. The father was caught in heavy traffic, but the mayor of Moscow sent a police escort to his rescue, making him only 90 minutes late. Police escorts, complain Moscow motorists, are part of the problem, according to the Moscow Times, which reported the story.
Suicide bombers triggered explosions in two crowded Metro subways in Moscow early Monday 29 March. The death toll currently stands at 37, with 33 people injured. The first went off about 08:00 at Lubyanka station, during rush hour, and the second 40 minutes later at Park Kultury station. “No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts but suspicion was likely to fall on groups from the North Caucasus, where the Kremlin is fighting a growing Islamist insurgency,” reports the Moscow Times.
Police were saying late morning in Moscow that female terrorists are suspected to have carried the bombs, according to Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Ria Novosti
The city of Puebla, 120 km east of Mexico City, has inaugurated a taxi service for women by women who drive pink cars. In Puebla the drivers undertake 160 hours of first aid and self-defense training before they can drive a pink taxi. Their passengers can preen themselves in two mirrors in the back seat and drive in the knowledge that their whereabouts are tracked by GPS, reports Le Monde. Fares are about 10 percent higher than usual.
Other cities in addition to Mexico City are studying the concept with a view to copying it. Dubai and Moscow already have women-only taxis, reports the Korea Times, which says that Seoul is to introduce the concept in December 2009.
In 2008, 87 women reported being raped in taxis in Mexico City and a woman is murdered every six hours country-wide.
Shabtai Kalmanovich, who was accused of spying for the KGB in Israel in 1988 after 17 years in the country to which he had emigrated, was killed after being shot in central Moscow Monday 2 November. The Lithuanian-born Kalmanovich was shot more than 20 times by a passing car, according to Russian media, and his driver sustained serious injuries. Kalmanovich moved to Russia in 1993 after being given a medical pardon in Israel, and he became a successful businessman who owned a women’s basketball team and organized major international concerts, among other ventures.
Links to other sites: Jerusalem Post, Moscow Times, Novosti
Foreigners in Moscow are shying away from luxury apartments, while the number of Russians taking them has tripled, reports the Moscow Times, while noting that foreign companies with offices in the city are shocked at sudden unexplained increases of up to 50 percent in their rent. “Elite” apartments still have a majority of foreigners living in them, says the newspaper, but the number has fallen by 18 percent in the first nine months of 2009, a change attributed to foreign companies pulling out top expatriate managers because of the economic crisis. Top apartments, which start at $10,000 a month, remain in demand.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on his weekly radio show Sunday 13 September that his government was buying 92 Russian T-72 tanks and several Russian S-300 surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems. Chavez was in Moscow, Russia a week ago. Venezuela views neighbouring Colombia’s efforts to upgrade its military relationship with the US, including a standing US military presence in Colombia, as potentially a first step in a US intervention in Venezuela.
The S-300 system is considered one of the best in the world and has been deployed in several countries. The US bought one for evaluation.
He said Russia was lending the government $2.2. billion to make the purchase. A consortium of Russian oil companies has paid Venezuela $1b for access to Venezuela’s Orinoco oil fields, the Venezuelan oil company PdVSA announced. BBC, El Nacional, El Tiempo
US President Barack Obama made a key speech on future US-Russian relations at a graduation ceremony at Moscow’s New Economic School where he drew a line between past generations, children of the Cold War, and the new one, focused less on battles and nuclear arms. “The future belongs to young people with an education and imagination to create. That is the source of power in this century”, he told the students. Canada Free Press, Christian Science Monitor, Moscow Times, NPR and full transcript of the speech
Russian and US presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama have agreed, during a meeting in Moscow 6 July, to reduce “the number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,500-1,675 from levels above 2,200″, reports Reuters, and Russia agreed to allow US troops en route to Afghanistan to fly over its territory. Obama Wednesday 7 July meets Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whom he referred to before his trip as still having one foot in the cold war. Major US companies traveling with the americaqn president to boost trade with Russia include Deere & Co, PepsiCo and Boeing. Moscow Times, Washington Post
Russian signed the European Social Charter 20 May, a fact that excited little media attention elsewhere in Europe, but in Moscow it is stirring up the public because it may force the government to offer sex education courses to young people. The Moscow Times reports that there is little such education and according to one government official not a single textbook mentions the word condom. Groups of parents are, however, protesting plans to start teaching children about sex at ages 11-12. The country has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection among young people, according to the Times.
Russian government officials revoked the diplomatic accreditation of two Canadian diplomats working in Nato’s Moscow office. This action was in response to the dismissal of two Russian envoys working in Nato’s headquarters in Brussels. The diplomatic quarrel stems from Nato’s military exercises in Georgia that the Russians see as a provocation, according to a BBC report.
Russia ended its more than 10-year counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya in an attempt to restore and develop the economic and social infrastructure, according to a BBC report. Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin President Ramzan Kadyrov has helped to stabilize the country, according to Moscow. Human rights groups accuse his militias of abuse. Al Jazeera
