Latest Articles about Middle East
RUSSIA MULLS NORTH KOREAN DEBT WRITE-OFF
As Moscow hinted at plans to forgive Pyongyang much of its Soviet-era debt, Russia's willingness to offer Kim Jong-Il some economic carrots may indicate the Kremlin's intention to play a bigger role in international efforts to defuse the controversy around the North Korean nuclear program.... MORE
IRAN TAKES DELIVERY OF RUSSIAN TOR-M1 MISSILES
Yesterday, January 16, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that Russia had completed the delivery of modern Tor-M1 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Ivanov insisted that the missiles were "100% defensive weapons" and that Russia did not violate any international agreements by dispatching the Tor-M1s. He... MORE
PUTIN UPHOLDS NON-EXISTENT RULE OF LAW IN RUSSIA
The main news in Russia at the start of the new year comes, rather unusually, from the courts and law-enforcement agencies. At the top of the list is the arrest of a group of suspects in the murder of Andrei Kozlov, first deputy chairman of... MORE
BRONZE SOLDIER SET TO LEAVE TALLINN AS LAST SOVIET SOLDIER
On Wednesday, January 10, the Estonian parliament adopted in the third and final reading a “Law on the Protection of War Burial Sites,” clearing the way for the long-awaited removal of the monument to the Liberating Soviet Soldier from downtown Tallinn and other obtrusive symbols... MORE
RUSSIA’S ENERGY CONUNDRUM — LONG TERM BENEFIT OR SHORT TERM GAIN?
The recent Belarus-Russian row over oil transit masks a deeper problem. The end consumer, the European Union, is now heavily reliant on Russian energy imports, for better or worse, and is hostage to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hardball tactics with Russia’s neighboring former Soviet republics.... MORE
PRESIDENTIAL WHIMS AT ROOT OF RUSSIA-BELARUS OIL DISPUTE
Last month's acute conflict between Moscow and Minsk over natural gas prices has carried into the New Year as an oil-pricing dispute. This week the transport of oil through the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline system from Russia to Europe has been disrupted (see EDM, January 8,... MORE
MOSCOW INTRODUCES NEW ECONOMIC INCENTIVES FOR OIL DEVELOPMENT IN EASTERN SIBERIA
As Transneft, Russia's crude oil pipeline monopoly, rushes to build the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline, Moscow has introduced additional economic incentives for oil companies to boost crude output and develop new deposits in eastern Siberia. Now Russia pumps a mere one million tons of crude... MORE
U.S. SANCTIONS ROSOBORONEKSPORT OVER DEALS WITH IRAN
Russia is still mostly closed for business because of the extended Christmas holidays, but more bad news on its international standing is hardly a welcome gift. On January 6 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs lashed out regarding new sanctions imposed by the United States against... MORE
RUSSIA REGRETS SADDAM HUSSEIN’S DEATH
Deposing a dictator, let alone hanging him in public, has never been popular in Russia. Saddam Hussein’s death was no exception. Public commentary in Russia over Saddam’s death by hanging on December 30, 2006, was almost unanimously negative, although the reasons offered by those who... MORE
MOSCOW LAUNCHES MAJOR ANTI-CORRUPTION DRIVE
Moscow is slowly realizing that rampant corruption is sapping the country’s economic vitality and tarnishing its image among potential Western investors. This week United Russia’s Mikhail Grishankov, chair of the Duma’s anti-corruption commission, declared, “We are confident that in 2007 we will continue a full-scale... MORE