The site, Allofmp3.com, was quietly closed as the Kremlin sought to end criticism from the United States that Russia was failing to clamp down on music and video piracy.

However, an alternative site run by the same Moscow company has already emerged. MediaServices says that mp3Sparks.com is legal under Russian law, using many of the same arguments advanced in support of allofmp3.com.

Somehow, I don’t really see this phoenix-from-the-ashes tactic fooling anyone in the record industry…

Anyway, I had a few dollars tucked away on Allofmp3 for a rainy day (I know, foolish when you consider the ongoing uncertainty over its future) so took a quick trip over to see what has changed.

I was amused to see that mp3Sparks.com is an exact replica of allofmp3.com - same catalogue, same basic design, same user IDs, it’s even transferred across every single allofmp3 user’s account!

My account, sadly, wasn’t working properly when I visited, so I’m not quite sure that my money is still mine, but when I emailed the mp3Sparks.com to check whether my password was still valid, a reply came back within minutes, which is a fairly positive sign.

Update 4 July:  In the comments Михаил has pointed out that mp3Sparks has gone the way of its older brother and is, itself, no more.  I guess someone sent the heavies round.

I thought I’d spend today writing about the Bush-Putin Kennebunkport summit.  But, sadly, there’s nothing of substance to report, beyond an “informal chat”.

So, in lieu of real news, here’s the gossip from Kennebunkport:

• A member of Putin’s advance party allegedly tried to buy whisky with a fake $100 bill.
• Bush, Putin, wives, et al, ate some local lobster.
• Bush and Putin went for a spin in a speedboat.
• A fishing expedition is planned for Monday morning.

Exciting stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree!

So, Putin’s coming to visit George W Bush in Kennebunkport this weekend, and his advance guard are in town, checking out the place.

Now, Kennebunkport isn’t the most exciting place to be if you’re a Russian Secret Service agent , and, well, you know how these Russians, they like their liquor:

A Russian man attempted to pass off a phony $100 bill at the New Hampshire State Liquor store shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday, according to the store manager, who said a cashier discovered the bill was bogus.

I’d have been more convinced by this story if the man was trying to buy vodka…

If the US plan goes ahead as expected, high powered radars from Poland will be able to cover all of European Russia, and a good chunk of Siberia as well:

At the same time, it illustrates just why Central/Eastern Europe is such a perfect site for this anti-missile system.

• It’s directly in between any missiles that may be fired from Iran towards the US.
• It’s almost directly in between any missiles that might head towards Western Europe.
• It’s sufficiently far enough away to allow interceptors to be launched in good time.
• It’s perfectly placed to mesh with US-based radars covering the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
• Oh yes - and it just happens to have a bonus feature allowing sneak peaks into Russian airspace…

(Hat tip: Cyrill Vatomsky, who posts his thoughts on the issue here).

So, after spending the past few weeks ratcheting up the pressure, Putin has made an about turn and offered to work on a ‘joint’ missile shield with the United States.

Details of exactly how such a scheme would work are a little sketchy at the moment, to say the least, but it seems as though the Kremlin envisage a system built primarily around the radar station they currently rent in Azerbaijan.

Dmitri Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman, insisted that a radar base in Azerbaijan would be sufficient to cover the whole of western Europe and that the use of Poland for interceptor rockets should be reconsidered. “The two sides could completely share the technological data of that station with equal control of the station . . . It would lead to a substantial easing of tension and it will solve the problem.”

In principle, I think it’s a good idea - and, with the benefit of my 20-20 hindsight - makes Putin’s brinkmanship of the past few weeks seem much more logical. Lets face it, Russia is at much at risk of missile attack from ‘rogue’ nations or terrorist groups as Western Europe and the United States - if not more so - and a joint missile shield does seem the logical way forward.

But will it happen in practice? I can see plenty of potential problems.

For starters, there is the whole trust issue. An effective joint shield would require a lot of actual joint working, and there isn’t a lot of evidence to suggest that Russia and the US could work well together on such a politically charged project. Although, having said that, there’s always a first time for everything…

Technical issues are also going to come to the forefront. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, although welcoming Russia’s joint missile shield proposal, argued that a shield located in Azerbaijan wouldn’t be able to react in time to incoming missiles:

“It’s a bit close to the rogue states we are discussing.”

A shield located primarily in Azerbaijan wouldn’t cover all of NATO’s member states either.

I suppose this could be overcome by stationing the main radar in Azerbaijan, and the interceptor missiles somewhere else - say, in Poland - but for this would not only require phenomenal co-ordination, but would still probably require radars to be stationed too close to Russia’s Western borders. And wasn’t the whole point of Azerbaijan to avoid that…?

Ultimately, I don’t think this is anything more than a good idea, destined to failure - but I’d be happy to be proved wrong.

Update: For the true cynics among us, here another explantion as to why Putin offered to develop a joint missile shield based in Azerbaijan:

I think that the Russian base, there in Qabala [Azerbaijan] is getting ready — they’re going to lose the base, the lease on the base is going to expire, and they’ve already been making plans to relocate the radar to Krasnodar [Krai, in Russia]. And so what they’re trying to do here is legitimize their presence in Azerbaijan at the expense of the Azerbaijanis. And they will also permanently make the United States a target of the Iranians, and the Azeris, and it’s designed to divide the United States and Azerbaijan. And it creates a Russian military presence there, if I understand the statement correctly.

Cunning, or what?

Found on Reddit - Bush showing Putin how the US missile shield would work.

Russia test fired a new ICBM yesterday.  

As you would expect, the western press - particularly in the UK - are muttering darkly about the new Cold War and a renewed arms race (see the Express and Guardian, for examples).

I was more interested by the following comment from First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov though:

“As of today Russia has new missiles that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems. In terms of defence and security, Russia can look calmly to the country’s future.”

As Russia now has an unbeatable nuclear deterrent we can clearly expect it to stop worrying about America’s piffling missle shield defences. 

No, seriously, mark my words… from today onwards the Russian government won’t make a single complaint about the US missile defence bases in Eastern Europe.

Or maybe not.

The tunnel under the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska story has resurfaced again. Bloomsburg report that Russia plans a tunnel that will include both transport links, and a pipeline to allow the export of oil to the United States:

The planned undersea tunnel would contain a high-speed railway, highway and pipelines, as well as power and fiber- optic cables, according to TKM-World Link. Investors in the so- called public-private partnership include OAO Russian Railways, national utility OAO Unified Energy System and pipeline operator OAO Transneft, according to a press release which was handed out at the media briefing and bore the companies’ logos.

The cost? Oh, just a cool $10-12 billion.

I’m sceptical that the tunnel will be built in the near future - if ever - but I’d still love to see it happen. I’d be the first to hop on the train from London to New York.

The picture on this post, found on Flickr, was taken by Lukeii.

Rumours are swilling around that PricewaterhouseCoopers may lose their license to practice in Russia, after PwC were found guilty of violating professional standards while auditing Yukos, and have been fined $480,000.

PwC’s current license expires on 20th May, and a number of news agencies are suggesting that the Finance Ministry may use the ruling in order to justify not granting an extension.  At the moment, though, it’s not clear whether this is just rumour-mongering, or if there is actually any substance behind the stories.

PwC themselves are pretty upbeat about the whole thing.  They plan to appeal the verdict and, in a press statement, said:

“We have no reason to believe that the application for our licence prolongation will be impacted based on the resolution of the court.

“We fully expect it to be renewed in accordance with existing procedure and legislation.”

Condoleezza Rice has weighed in on behalf of the US government, pointing out to Sergei Lavrov that any move against PwC, or auditors in general, could damage the confidence of foreign investors, and even Russia’s World Trade Organisation application.

One to watch.

Georgia is to more than double the size of its forces in Iraq, from 850 to 2,000.  The increase will make Georgia the fourth largest contributor of troops to the Coalition in Iraq, behind the US, UK and South Korea:

In a statement, President Mikhail Saakashvili said that Georgia wanted to do everything possible to help the Iraqi people and US-led forces to bring peace and freedom to the country.

The move comes on the back of recent US Congress for Georgian moves towards membership of NATO. 

I also wonder if the Georgian government’s decision to send extra troops abroad signifies a growing confidence in the stability of the security situation within Georgia itself.  2,000 men, after all, is a significant proportion of the Georgian army. 

Paul Joyal, a reported ‘acquaintaince’ of Alexander Litvinenko was shot and critically injured in the driveway of his Washington DC home, just days after giving an interview on Dateline NBC critical of President Putin:

In the “Dateline” interview, Joyal accused the Russian government of being part of a conspiracy to silence its critics.

“A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: ‘If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you, and we will silence you — in the most horrible way possible,’ ” Joyal said.

Joyal is now in critical, but improving, condition in a Washington hospital.

Evidence so far is leaning towards this being a fairly random - if horribly unfortunate for the victim - shooting. For one thing, Joyal lives in a high crime area - these things do happen. And, secondly, he’s a US national, based in the US. There are plenty of those who are critical of Vladimir Putin, and the current Russian government. The KGB would have a hard time silencing them all…

Still, keep an eye on this story over the next few days, to see what develops.

Update: La Russophobe notes a possible connection with Georgia.

In 1987, ABC aired a 14 hour miniseries dramatising a Soviet occupation of America called - of course - Amerika. Here’s the trailer.

Another clip from the series is available from, of all places, the Marmot’s Hole.

This (rather simplified) map of Russian and US forces might help to put things into perspective.

The title, by the way, reads: How Americans control Russian territory.Image from English Russia.

Vladimir Putin used the fifth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay to try and convince the world that Russia is morally superior to the United States:

“Russia, hopefully, will not have a Guantanamo. The world community is marking five years since this camp was formed, where people are held without trial or investigation. It is a lamentable situation,” Putin told the presidential Council for Assisting Civil Society and Human Rights Institutions.

Clearly Putin has forgotten Chechnya, where Russian forces held Chechen prisoners at “filtration points” such as PAP-1 without trial.  The investigations carried out there tended to be of the brutal variety.

I picked up some incoming traffic from Matthew Yglesias’ blog today. Wondering what was going on, I wondered over to his site, to find the following story about the Russian decision to shut down the flow of oil through Belarus:

All of Europe gets cut off from crude oil supplies, apparently.

His source is the New York Times, of all places, which has run a story with the headline:

Russian Crude Stops Flowing to Europe

Russian crude oil stopped flowing to Western Europe through a major pipeline across Belarus, officials here and in Europe said.

It isn’t until the fourth paragraph until the NY Times even mention the fact that only Germany, Poland and Ukraine are actually affected by the cutoff. And even then, it’s only in passing.

This isn’t really a criticism of Matthew - the NY Times story is incredibly misleading. But I found it fascinating to see how a little regional spat has turned into a public perception that big, bad Russia is turning off the lights all over Europe.

Update: Now Instapundit has picked up the meme.