Merkel and Putin to Meet in Sochi for Energy Talks

German Chancellor Angela Merkel flies to a Black Sea resort on Sunday for a one-day meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Popularity: 4% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, Black Sea, Germany, Energy, Sochi
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Lebanese Prime Minister to Meet Putin in Moscow

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora is to travel to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, AFP reports.

Popularity: 3% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria
• Comments: 0

UK to Open Inquest Into Litvinenko’s Death

The inquest into the death of former Russian security officer Alexander Litvinenko is due to open on Thursday at St Pancras Coroner’s Court, AP reported on Monday quoting a statement by Camden Council.

Popularity: 1% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, UK, Alexander Litvinenko
• Comments: 0

Indonesia, Russia to Sign Military Cooperation Agreement

Indonesia and Russia will sign an agreement on military cooperation during Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s visit to Russia on November 29.

Popularity: 21% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, Moscow, Indonesia, Military & Weapons, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
• Comments: 4

Putin To Visit Ukraine December 22

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Ukraine to hold first meeting of Ukrainian-Russian Yuschenko-Putin intergovernmental commission on December 22.

Popularity: 2% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, Kiev
• Comments: 0

Bush Plans to Visit Moscow

Bush is attending the November 18-19 APEC summit in Hanoi. At first Moscow stop was planned for refuelling but Russian President Vladimir Putin invited Bush and his wife for a social visit during the stop.

Popularity: 2% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, International Relations, Moscow, George W. Bush, U.S.
• Comments: 0

Putin Declines to Meet Georgian Foreign Minister

Vladimir Putin has declined to meet Georgia’s foreign minister sent to Russia for the first high-level talks with giant neighbor in a bid to mend the two states’ chilly ties, RIA news agency said on Tuesday.

“On the eve of Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili’s visit to Moscow, the issue of his meeting with the Russian President was in works,” a senior Kremlin official told the agency. “But as the Kremlin official stressed, Vladimir Putin rejected the idea of such a meeting,” RIA said.

According to the Reuters news agency, Bezhuashvili arrived in Moscow on Tuesday evening. Igor Ivanov, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said earlier on Tuesday he would meet Bezhuashvili, as would Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Russia cut transport and postal links with Georgia after Tbilisi briefly detained four Russian army officers on spying charges in September.

According to the media reports, some Georgians have been deported from Russia, Georgian businesses have been shut down and police have asked some schools to provide lists of pupils with Georgian-sounding names.

Moscow has been irked by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s pursuit of NATO and EU membership, while Georgia accuses Russia of backing separatists by giving aid and Russian passports to residents of the breakaway territories.

Popularity: 2% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Georgia, Vladimir Putin, International Relations
• Comments: 0

Angolan President Arrives in Moscow

Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos arrives in Moscow for a three-day visit Monday with an agenda dominated by bilateral economic and international issues, Kremlin press office reported in Monday.

Russia has been seeking to re-establish contacts with African states, including oil-rich Angola, under President Vladimir Putin. The president and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made separate tours of the continent this fall, signaling a fresh interest in business cooperation since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which supplied arms and other goods to Africa in the ideological standoff with the West.

Russia is currently Angola’s 10th largest partner, according to Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a government daily. But meeting with Lavrov in September, Soviet-educated Dos Santos urged more intensive cooperation with Russia, above all in the development of new iron ore, oil and gas deposits, and space.

The Kremlin press office said: “A set of bilateral documents is expected to be signed at the meeting.” Other areas of cooperation between Russia and Angola include diamond production, power engineering, and fisheries. Russia’s largest diamond producer, Alrosa, has about a 40% stake in the Catoca diamond joint venture in Angola, which produces around 6 million carats of crude diamonds a year.

Russian companies are helping the country build the largest hydropower plant in the region, with a capacity of 520 mWt, and are in talks on the construction of power lines. Russian fishing companies also catch up to 25,000 metric tons of sea products a year in Angolan waters.

Angola has shown brisk economic development exploiting its vast mineral resources since the government signed a ceasefire agreement with American-backed UNITA rebels in 2002, following 27 years of bloody civil war. The country, which was in ruins several years ago, plans to export up to 2 million barrels of oil annually, largely to the United States and China, by 2008, RIA Novosti reports.

Popularity: 3% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, International Relations, Moscow, Kremlin, Sergei Lavrov, Africa, Angola, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos
• Comments: 0

Putin Defends National Soccer Team Coach Guus Hiddink

Russian President Vladimir Putin defended national team coach Guus Hiddink and said there were too many foreigners playing in Russia’s domestic league, AP reports.

Putin, speaking Wednesday in his annual televised question-and-answer session, said the Dutch coach had a proven record.

“It’s not about the new coach, it’s about the way soccer is organized in Russia,” Putin said. “The coach that came to Russia to work on contract basis is a good specialist and he proved it in practice by working in various countries in the world.”

Hiddink, who was hired in April to coach Russia even though he was still the coach of Australia, has led both the Netherlands and South Korea to the World Cup semifinals.
This year, he took Australia to the second round, where it lost to eventual champion Italy on a late penalty.

Russia qualified for the 2002 World Cup and the 2004 European Championship but failed to advance to the second round. The team failed to reach this year’s tournament in Germany and has one win and two losses in three Euro 2008 qualifiers under Hiddink.

Putin suggested that the Russian league was the problem, and that it should impose a quota on foreign players.

“This number should be limited, because when a national team is being composed, there is nothing to compose it from,” Putin said. “This excessive quantity of (foreign) players suppresses the growth of young and talented players.”

Precise figures were not immediately available, but several Russian clubs have experienced an influx of foreign players.

Last year, CSKA Moscow became the first Russian team to win a European trophy. Brazilian players Daniel Carvalho and Vagner Love scoring two of the three goals against Sporting Lisbon in the UEFA Cup final.

Putin also said Russia lacks soccer fields and that more attention should be devoted to children who want to play sports, especially soccer.

Popularity: 2% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, Sport, Soccer, Guus Hiddink
• Comments: 0

Putin Starts Talks with EU Leaders

European Union leaders arrived in Finland on Friday for sensitive talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, torn between pleading for closer energy ties and raising concerns about democracy and Georgia, Reuters reports.

EU president Finland invited Putin for dinner with the 25 EU leaders hoping to win backing for a tie-up offering Russia open access to the European market in return for better opportunities for European firms to exploit Russia’s oil and gas resources.

But the assassination of an investigative journalist and the Kremlin’s heavy-handed treatment of former Soviet Georgia and Georgians living in Russia have heightened European concerns about whether Putin shares their values and soured the mood.

Before the encounter in the southern Finnish town of Lahti, the Europeans tried to mute their own differences on whether to treat Moscow more as a strategic partner and supplier of a quarter of its gas or as a bully in its ex-Soviet backyard.

“Only if we act in a more coordinated manner can we exert real influence on world energy markets and respond more effectively to energy disturbances,” Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said in a letter of invitation to EU leaders.

“This is why we need to speak with one voice with our partners,” he urged.

Former Soviet satellites in the Baltic states and central Europe have been vociferous in seeking a tougher EU line, while France and Germany, Russia’s biggest European energy customer, have stressed common ground with Putin.

EU countries are irked by Russia’s refusal to ratify an energy charter treaty and its increasing hostility toward foreign investment in its strategic hydrocarbons sector.

“The spirit of the charter protects consumer countries, meaning Europe,” Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko told French daily Les Echos in an interview, urging
European states to do more their end to secure transit of energy supplies.

The EU this week issued unusually stern criticism of Moscow over its blockade of Georgia and harassment of Georgians inside Russia, that Tbilisi has compared to a form of ethnic cleansing.

“I hope these sanctions will be lifted soon,” Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner as saying in an interview.

“We have called on both sides to avoid actions which could raise the level of tension,” she added.

The Kremlin says Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who seeks membership of NATO and the EU, provoked the backlash with inflammatory rhetoric and a military build-up around Russian-backed breakaway regions of Georgia.

“In principle, there are no restrictions on discussing other topics. If questions arise, we will discuss them,” Putin’s adviser on EU relations Sergei Yastrzhembsky told Interfax.

Before meeting Putin, EU leaders will discuss their own future energy policy, including ambitious plans to save 20 percent of power consumption by 2020 through greater efficiency.

Britain and the Netherlands circulated a joint call to put the fight against climate change at the heart of EU energy policy, and Denmark proposed binding targets to slash fuel consumption and reward efficiency and green energy sources.

They will also debate ways to promote greater innovation through a Commission plan for a European Institute of Technology to rival the United States in connecting research and business.

Germany and Britain lead skeptics of the plan, fearing extra costs and rivalry with existing centers of excellence.

Popularity: 2% [?]

• Posted in: EU, Vladimir Putin
• Comments: 0