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Business/Economics

Russia bails out Iceland. Media reacts in horror.

October 7, 2008

When I heard the news earlier today that Russia is about to loan Iceland $5.4 billion (the equivalent of 1/3 of Iceland’s GDP) to bail out the financially crippled country’s ailing banks, I thought to myself:
“Hmm, when I get home tonight I think I’ll write a tongue in cheek post wondering how long it will [...]

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Can Russia’s oligarchs finance their debts?

October 6, 2008

More bad news for the Russian – and global? – economy. Rumours are starting to swirl that a few oligarchs can’t finance their debts.
Already Basic Element, Oleg Deripaska’s investment vehicle, has been forced to transfer it’s 20% stake in Canadian car parts manufacturer Magna to repay a debt to French bank BNP Paribas. [...]

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The Putin years in statistics

August 31, 2007

The BBC has put together a fascinating statistical analysis of Russia during the Putin years.

The analysis has graphs aplenty, covering the Russia’s economy, Energy, Population (including a revealing statistic about HIV prevalence in Russia) and the Military.  Sometimes the stats are standalone, sometimes in comparison to other countries.  But all are well worth a quick look.

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Russia to cut off gas to Belarus – again

August 2, 2007

Russia’s Gazprom are to cut off gas to Belarus, in a row over unpaid bills.  According to Gazprom, Belarus are more than $450 million behind in payments, and so they are left with no choice but to cut supplies by 45% from Friday (August 3rd).
As this cutoff seems to be related to Belarus’ reluctance, or [...]

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Baltika beer in Britain

July 21, 2007

It looks like Baltika Beer are expanding into the British market in a big way, and it looks like conquering London is just the first phase of Baltika’s ambitious plans. 
Not only did I see big, bold Baltika adverts in each of the free London papers earlier this week, but they’ve taken to advertising on [...]

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Russian court orders Visa to process payments to Allofmp3.com

July 20, 2007

In an interesting ruling, a Russian court has ordered Visa to process payments to Internet Audit, the owners of Allofmp3.com.  This presents something of a problem for Visa, as Allofmp3.com has been declared illegal by another Russian court and shut down.
According to Internet Audit, the court ruled in their favour because:
“the decision on whether copyright has [...]

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Gazprom’s private army

July 4, 2007

The Russian Duma has today voted in favour of allowing Gazprom to form its own private army. Reuters reports:
A law backed by 341 lawmakers in the 450-seat State Duma lower house of parliament gave Gazprom, and oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, special exemption from strict limits on private businesses wielding arms.
The two state-controlled companies will [...]

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Allofmp3 dies, and is reborn

July 3, 2007

The Russian government has finally bitten the bullet, decided it wants to be in the World Trade Organisation more than it wants to be seen as a haven of music piracy, and closed Allofmp3.com.
The site, Allofmp3.com, was quietly closed as the Kremlin sought to end criticism from the United States that Russia was failing [...]

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PwC withdraws 10 years of Yukos audits

June 26, 2007

In a move that many are condemning as a climbdown in the face of Kremlin pressure, PricewaterhouseCoopers has withdrawn all of the Yukos audits it undertook between 1995 – 2004:
“PwC now believes that information and representations which was provided to PwC by Yukos’ former management may not have been accurate,” the firm said in a [...]

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Mosnews – RIP

June 8, 2007

Update, April 2009: After an almost two year break, Mosnews has returned from the dead.
Last month I reported that the Mosnews website was no longer being updated with new stories.
Sadly, it looks as though Mosnews has now finally gone to the great newsroom in the sky, as their website – www.mosnews.com – has been [...]

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Guess which country is the largest investor in Russia?

June 6, 2007

Would you believe that the largest single investor in Russia so far this year is Holland?
Direct investment to Russia from the Netherlands in the first quarter of this year hit $7.76 billion, the Russian agriculture minister said Wednesday.
The majority of this investment is, as you’d imagine, in the energy sector, (Royal Dutch Shell are investing heavily [...]

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Russia bans export of biological specimens

May 31, 2007

Russia has decided to ban the export of biological specimens, but nobody seems to be able to figure out quite why.  Cyrill Vatomsky runs through some of the possible reasons.  My favourite:
According to Kommersant Daily, the report claims that the supposed biological weapon is designed to be ethnically specific and will target health of Russian [...]

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Russia to invest $1bn in nanotechnology

April 21, 2007

Russia is to invest more than $1 billion into nanotechnology research and development over the next three years.
Business Week reports First Deputy Prime Minister (and until recently, Defense Minister) Sergei Ivanov as saying that 90% of the benefits will be economic, while the remaining 10% will have military application:
“(Nanotechnology) is a very promising scientific and [...]

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Russia & CIS had world’s worst airline safety record in 2006

April 17, 2007

The International Air Transport Association released its 2006 Air Safety report yesterday.  It makes glum reading for Russia and the CIS:
Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) had the highest accident rate of all the regions in 2006, with 8.6 Western-built hull losses per million flights—13 times the global average. 
That’s [...]

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Ozon.ru (Russia’s Amazon) gets $18m venture capital

April 7, 2007

Ozon.ru, Russia’s largest online bookstore, has received $18 million in venture capital funding from Cisco systems and German firm Index Ventures.
The money will go primarily on expanding Ozon’s logistical infrastructure, by allowing them to establish new distribution centres. In a country as big as Russia, you can see why this kind of investment is [...]

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