CRIME EUROPA

Dorothy Fasola, has had her bid to overturn the ruling rejected byAppeal Court judges in Edinburgh.Three judges today said the sheriff was right to order the 58-year-old's extradition.Fasola was found guilty by a Milan court in 1998 of organising armed robbery after 30kg of gold was stolen from a goldsmith's workroom in March 1991. She had instigated and planned the robbery and paid the perpetrators, and was sentenced to four years and two months in jail.She fled to her native Scotland in 1999 while appealing the conviction. She settled in Aberdeen with her daughter and set up Peterhead-based Maresca Ltd, exporting seafood to Italy, which now has an annual turnover of £2 million.Fasola was sentenced to a further four years in prison in 2001 after a police investigation discovered she had ordered the printing of fake $100 banknotes in 1988.Fasola is also wanted in connection with a diamond robbery in Tokyo and fears the Italians will hand her over to the Japanese authorities.Police raided her home in 2004 after she was named in connection with the heist. Among items taken from an exclusive Toyko boutique was a 125-carat necklace encrusted with 116 diamonds which was worth £17 million.Three Serbian men, alleged members an international crime syndicate, were found guilty of the robbery after a trial in Belgrade and were jailed for between three and seven years. Fasola has consistently maintained her innocence, and has never been charged.In September 2007, a sheriff ruled it would "not be unjust or oppressive" to extradite Fasola since she was "unlawfully" at large.On Friday, Lord Nimmo Smith said: "For the reasons given the court are satisfied that the Sheriff correctly decided that the appellant's extradition was not barred by reason of the passage of time, that being the only issue that was actually argued."The appeal is accordingly refused."

Home Office in the UK has reportedly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain to routinely hack into people's personal computers without a warrant, allowing police or MI5 officers to covertly examine the hard drive of someone's PC at his home, office or hotel room -- all from a remote location.
The pronouncement comes after a decision by the European Union's council of ministers in Brussels expanding the implementation of a statute permitting warrant-less surveillance of private property. Material gathered by "remote searching" includes the content of all emails, Internet browsing history and instant messaging.

Body of a 30 year old man from Villena has been found, shot in the face, on waste ground in Novelda. Named with the initials O.S.M., police say the victim had been arrested some years ago for drug trafficking so they think a drug-related settling of scores is the reason for his death.An Audi A3 car, owned by the victim was found nearby, and now an autopsy is to be carried out.

National Police believe that the shooting seen in the early hours of yesterday at the 'Heaven Sala Palace' discotheque in the centre of Madrid was down to a fight between a Bulgarian clan and a gang known as ‘Los Miami’. It seems the two groups are fighting to control the security procedures in several nightclubs in the capital. Police sources say the man who was arrested after shooting against the doorman and the public relations chief of the disco yesterday, killing them both, belongs to Los Miami who are also known for drug trafficking in the capital.

ex Mayor of Marbella, Julián Muñoz, has been ordered to pay 277,000 € by the Accounts Tribunal who found him guilty of accounting irregularities.Also found guilty were the ex councillor, Esteban Guzmán, and the lawyer, Modesto Perodia.
The three were found guilty of making unjustified payments to ex GIL councillors from the Eventos 2000 municipal company, hence prejudicing the assets of the Town Hall.The court rejected the defence from the three who said they were merely employed and did not hold management positions in the municipal company. They have the right to appeal the decision.

39 year old man arrested.Guardia Civil Officers became suspicious when the accused began acting strangely after disembarking from a ferry from Gran Canaria and made a point of trying to avoid them.When stopped and searched the man was found to be carrying a suitcase filled with 20kg of hashish, divided into 250g blocks.

Police seized 4.4 tons of cocaine over the weekend in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia and arrested a suspect, officials said Monday.The drug bust took place in the city of Muxia, according to officials, who said the suspect belonged to the main drug smuggling group on the Coast of Death, the most treacherous portion of the Galician coast.Police located a large speedboat some 10 nautical miles off Muxia and were able to go after the smugglers.Officers, with the support of customs service maritime and aerial units, intercepted the vessel as its crew was unloading the cocaine on land.The speedboat's crew abandoned the cocaine and fled, setting the vessel on fire and fleeing a short distance away.The smugglers unloaded the cocaine on a rugged stretch of the Coast of Death and more than 100 bales ended up in the sea.This was one of the biggest drug busts in the past two years in Galicia.

Russian steelmaker Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works plans to invest $1.4 billion annually over the next 10 years in order to increase output and produce more value-added steel, the company said on Thursday.The investment will exceed $2.2 billion in the current year, the construction and auto-industry supplier said in a statement.
MMK is one of several Russian steelmakers investing heavily to upgrade their ageing Soviet-era production assets."In order to achieve its strategic goals, MMK is carrying out a large scale investment programme at its core production platform in order to increase efficiency by upgrading existing assets, installing new equipment and introducing new technologies," the statement said.

Russia wants to influence global oil prices through output forecasts and mothballing deposits for future development, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said on Thursday.
Shmatko said Russia's policy would not involve coordinated action with OPEC states, although he said Russia admired OPEC's influence on prices and should do its part to smooth the oil price "roller coaster ride" of recent months."We think that since we have such a significant position in the high society of world oil, a Russian factor should appear. We want to formulate our approach," Shmatko told reporters.
"We think we should be more actively engaged in the market ... From the point of view of forecasts we could express our view, perhaps even actively engage in that in a practical way," Shmatko said. "The idea of mothballing oilfields seems very interesting to me."

Russia's aviation authority has suspended flights aboard Boeing 737s until their pilots receive additional training after a recent deadly crash, an official said.
All 88 people aboard a Boeing 737-500 died when the plane operated by the Russian Aeroflot-Nord crashed on September 14 while preparing to land in the city of Perm in the Ural Mountains area.Federal Agency of Air Transport spokesman Sergei Samoshin said the agency has suspended flights by planes similar to the one that crashed until their pilots can undergo more training on simulators.Samoshin said that Russian carriers now operate 107 Boeing 737s. He would not say how many of them would be affected or specify how long the suspension would last.The RIA Novosti news agency said the measure referred to a subtype of Boeing 737-500 which is in service with six Russian carriers. It did not say how many planes would be affected.
The training is necessary to make sure that all pilots properly read a key indicator showing the plane's attitude, the so-called attitude indicator or artificial horizon, Samoshin said.The attitude indicator is designed differently on Soviet-made planes and Western airliners.Transport officials initially blamed the crash in Perm on a faulty engine that caught fire, but the investigating committee said it had found no sign of engine fire or other malfunction.Investigators have yet to determine what caused the crash -- Russia's worst air disaster in two years. Aviation experts and observers said the crash was likely caused by a pilot error.
The pilot of the plane which crashed in Perm had flown Soviet-made planes before and had relatively little experience in piloting Boeings.

Traders are passing around this Russian document which purportedly lifts the ban on short selling in Russia. Those who are adamantly opposed to a blanket ban on short selling are claiming this makes Russia more of a capitalist country than we are.

The Russian Federal Space Agency said the three GLONASS-M satellites were put into orbit Thursday by a Proton-M rocket that blasted off from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan.They are to join Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System, or GLONASS — the equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System, or GPS.The system, which serves both military and civilian purposes, was developed during the Soviet era and is supposed to have 24 satellites. Thursday's launch brought the number to 17.
The government had promised to make GLONASS fully operational by the beginning of this year, but it was delayed by equipment flaws and other technical problems.
Portable navigation devices are still a rarity in the Russian military, according to officials.The short lifetime of GLONASS satellites also have made it more difficult for the government to bring the system into full working mode. GLONASS-M satellites developed recently have a lifetime of seven years, compared to three years for their predecessors.

The Russian Federal Space Agency said the three GLONASS-M satellites were put into orbit Thursday by a Proton-M rocket that blasted off from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan.They are to join Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System, or GLONASS — the equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System, or GPS.The system, which serves both military and civilian purposes, was developed during the Soviet era and is supposed to have 24 satellites. Thursday's launch brought the number to 17.
The government had promised to make GLONASS fully operational by the beginning of this year, but it was delayed by equipment flaws and other technical problems.
Portable navigation devices are still a rarity in the Russian military, according to officials.The short lifetime of GLONASS satellites also have made it more difficult for the government to bring the system into full working mode. GLONASS-M satellites developed recently have a lifetime of seven years, compared to three years for their predecessors.

North Korea is restarting its nuclear bomb-making program, and that Russia is going to stop cooperating with the United States on both fronts. As the Russian foreign minister put it, the U.S. cannot have it both ways--try to punish Russia for its invasion of Georgia, and then seek its cooperation in dealing with Iran's and North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Russia sees no crisis surrounding Iran's nuclear program and does not believe it is necessary to take any urgent steps, the Russian foreign minister said Wednesday. "The state of Iran's nuclear program does not now demand extraordinary measures," Sergei Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, commenting on reports that a six-nation meeting on Iran has been canceled.
Lavrov said a meeting on Iran involving the foreign ministers of Russia, China, the United States, France, Britain and Germany was canceled as the parties had failed to fix a date due to their busy timetables at the current UN General Assembly session.
The group was to meet in New York on Thursday. A Russian diplomat said earlier Wednesday the meeting on Iran's nuclear ambitions had not been included in Lavrov's UN agenda. "The minister will be unable to take part in such a meeting due to his busy timetable," he said. Germany's foreign minister was quoted by AP as saying earlier Wednesday that recent tensions between Washington and Moscow over the Georgia conflict could mean Russia would not take part in talks on Iran in the "medium term." At a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York on Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated that the Islamic Republic's nuclear program was entirely peaceful and dismissed accusations that the country was striving to develop nuclear weapons. Iran is under three sets of relatively mild UN Security Council sanctions for defying demands to halt uranium enrichment. The United States insists on tougher punishment.

Czech counter intelligence service says Russian spies are trying to stir up public opposition to a planned United States radar base to be built on Czech soil. The agency says Russian intelligence activity in the Czech Republic has reached extreme levels as Moscow attempts to influence Czech politicians and the media.Russia has threatened to target the radar base with its own missiles.

Russia is to build new space and missile defence shields and put its armed forces on permanent combat alert, President Medvedev announced yesterday.In a sharp escalation of military rhetoric, Mr Medvedev ordered a wholesale renovation of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and told military chiefs to draw up plans to reorganise the armed forces by December.He said that Russia must modernise its nuclear defences within eight years, including the creation of a “system of air and space defence”.The announcement puts Russia in a new arms race with the United States, which has infuriated the Kremlin by seeking to establish an anti-missile shield in eastern Europe. The US argues that the shield is aimed at rogue states such as Iran, but Russia is convinced that its own security is threatened.

Belarus is set to hold parliamentary elections, which will see "Europe's last dictatorship", as Washington calls the country, move towards the West or deeper into Russia's sphere of influence.The European Union has promised to lift travel restrictions on Belarussian leaders and offered economic aid to the ex-Soviet republic of 10 million people, if Sunday's vote shows progress towards "democratic values".Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarussian president, who has ruled his country for 14 years, told reporters last week: "We want you to accept us, to endorse and recognise our election."We do not want to talk to you across the Iron Curtain which you have erected on the borders of Belarus."About 70 opposition candidates are on the ballot - a record number - and 477 observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are monitoring the poll.But opposition leaders urged the observers on Saturday not to give their stamp of approval to the poll.
Vinchuk Vechorko, deputy head of the opposition Belarus National Front, said: "[Voters] can carry out a political project of remaking Lukashenko into a European nationally-minded politician ... or remain committed to their principles of calling a fraudulent election a fraudulent election."Sergei Kalyakin, leader of Belarus' Communist party, said: "I have no doubts the polls will be falsified."
Anatoly Lebedko, leader of the opposition United Civic Party, said Lukashenko "will tell Russia: give me good gas prices or I will walk away to Europe, and he will tell Europe: deal with me or ... you will see the Russian bear at your doorsteps".
Lukashenko promised the vote will be "democratic without precedent" and threatened to cut ties with the West if its observers say the election was rigged, as they did with previous Belarussian polls."If the West does not recognise the results of parliamentary elections ... Belarussian authorities will break off all talks with them," Lukashenko said last weekend.In August, Belarus released three people viewed by the West as political prisoners, including former presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin. The opposition has also been given more access to television.
But dissidents have dismissed the moves as cosmetic in a country where the opposition is subject to arbitrary arrests and other forms of intimidation.
Belarus has been a traditional ally of Russia, which heavily subsidises Belarus' Soviet-style economy, but has been seeking a higher price for its support.
Lukashenko, right, reportedly is wary of growing Russian ambitions [AFP]
Following Russia's conflict with Georgia last month, which led to a deep chill in Moscow's relations with the West, the Russian ambassador to Minsk criticised Belarus for maintaining a "modest silence" on the conflict.Minsk has declined to follow Moscow's lead in recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Georgian breakaway regions at the heart of the conflict.Andrew Wilson, a Belarus expert at the London-based European Council of Foreign Relations, said the Georgia war shook up the Moscow-Minsk alliance by showing how vulnerable the ex-Soviet republics were to "big brother" Russia."Clearly [Lukashenko] was worried that Russia would use a kind of sphere-of-influence power in Belarus as well as in Georgia, particularly economically."Alexander Milikevich, a former opposition presidential candidate and leading opponent of Lukashenko, said Russia "wants maximum influence on the domestic and foreign policy of the former Soviet republics, of Ukraine, Georgia [and] Belarus."It would like to preserve them as satellites," he said.
Kozulin, the recently freed prisoner and former presidential candidate, said Lukashenko had "no strategy for improving relations with the West" and was merely playing both sides "to get the maximum benefit".Alexander Byalyatsky, head of the Vyesna human rights centre, said: "After the election, there will be a strong wave of repression."

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a massive upgrade of the armed forces that unmistakably targets the U.S. as Russia’s potential enemy.He gave military commanders till December to come up with a plan for across-the-board modernisation of the country’s nuclear and conventional forces till 2020 in the light of the recent war with the former Soviet republic of Georgia.“It is of paramount importance today to make a realistic assessment of the military-political situation in the world and have a clear understanding of potential threats,” said Mr. Medvedev. He added that the war with Georgia, which he earlier described as “Russia’s 9/11,” had lent greater urgency to such a review.

Chávez then flew to Moscow, where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he will loan Venezuela $1 billion to purchase Russian military hardware. He also said is ready to consider helping Venezuela develop a nuclear energy program. This was Chávez's second trip to Russia in as many months.China and Venezuela signed 12 energy agreements in Beijing Sept. 25, calling for the South American country to export half a million barrels of oil a day to the Asian giant starting next year. The deal was signed on the final day of a three-day visit to China by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. The South American nation is the fifth exporter of crude oil in the world, but currently provides only 4% of Chinese imports of the product. The agreements also involve the construction of a new refinery in Venezuela with Chinese aid. (Radio Australia, Sept. 25)

Georgian police have arrested a son of the country's first post-Soviet leader, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, on charges of trying to overthrow pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili, a senior government source said Thursday. The source, who asked not to be identified, said Tsotne Gamsakhurdia was arrested at the Tbilisi airport.
"We detained him [Wednesday] when he flew into the airport," the source said. Tsotne Gamsakhurdia was charged in late 2007 with an attempted coup and links with Russian security services after opposition protests against Saakashvili. Saakashvili came to power in the 2003 Rose Revolution and shocked Western allies when he used riot police to crush the protests in November 2007. Georgian authorities said they had foiled a coup and accused Russia of stirring up disorder.Tsotne's father was president of Georgia from 1990 to 1991.

More than one in 10 of the country's citizens have been convicted of crimes over the past 15 years, a retired Supreme Court judge wrote Tuesday in government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Tuesday. Criticizing the social consequences of what he called excessively harsh sentencing. Former Supreme Court deputy chairman Vladimir Radchenko wrote that between 1992 and 2007, more than 15 million people were found guilty of crimes — the equivalent of one-quarter of the male population.
Of those people, 5 million were jailed, and the population now includes 8 million ex-convicts, Radchenko wrote."Our own historical experience shows that excessive harshening of criminal legislation and strengthening of the punitive system gives the opposite results," Radchenko wrote. He cited a growth in crime after Khrushchev's clampdown on hooliganism in 1966. The prison population now numbers 895,000, up from 763,000 prisoners in 2003. The increases come despite a recent fall in serious crimes such as premeditated murder and rape, Radchenko said.
The current Criminal Code "differs from the previous one in a number of aspects in its excessive cruelty," he wrote. "You come to the same conclusion if you compare our criminal legislation with that of European countries such as Germany, Austria and Italy." Too many suspects are being detained for crimes without sufficient evidence, he added.

BP has agreed that the new boss will be a Russian-speaker who has worked in the country. He will have to pay rather closer attention to output growth and the share price than did Mr Dudley. Yet BP has paid a small price in agreeing to a shift in company strategy, at least compared with a potential loss of its investment.
For all the talk of an aggressive Kremlin bent on nationalising any oil asset that its jaundiced eye chances upon, TNK-BP does not look to be a repeat of the Yukos affair or the mugging of Shell and its Japanese partners at SakhalinII. In those cases, Russia’s rulers and state companies were actively engaged; AAR, by contrast, had the help of a few friendly mid-level state officials. That was enough to land TNK-BP in bother with the taxman and to make Mr Dudley's job impossible. But the Russian investors still lack the clout to appoint their own boss or to force BP to sell—hence the need for a negotiated solution.And yet no guarantee exists for BP of a happy future in Russia. Disputes could flare again, as a fundamental difference in outlook exists between it and the Russian investors. BP will still worry that AAR might use fair or foul means to get what it wants. The IPO, if it happens, would cut BP’s stake to below 50% and perhaps leave it vulnerable. And while the Kremlin apparently stayed on the sidelines this time, Gazprom or Rosneft could one day make AAR an offer it cannot refuse. If that happens, do not expect either state champion to settle for shared control of Russia’s third-biggest oil producer.

Ukrainian president, wants Ukraine to join Nato as soon as possible, and though Ukrainians themselves are less enthusiastic, right-wing politicians maintain that if Georgia had been a member of Nato, Russia would not have dared to protect South Ossetia or march into Georgian cities and ports.However, most Ukrainians doubt that the west will put any significant pressure on Russia, and expect that any protests will be confined to hard-hitting rhetoric, along the lines of David Miliband's recent speech in Kiev. On returning to London, he admitted that Europe needs Russian gas and also noted that Gazprom needs European clients and investors.Meanwhile, untouched by western opinion, Russia has boosted its image as a country prepared for brutal confrontation with neighbours. As Putin put it on 29 August, the west started the business of redrawing the map of Europe when it recognised the independence of Kosovo, thus "opening a Pandora's box". South Ossetia and Abkhazia are only the second and third "evils" to have flown out of that box since Kosovo. Might there be others?For 17 years, the "independent" state of Transdnestria has existed on the boarder of Ukraine and Moldova. It is populated by Russians, Ukrainians and now well-rooted settlers from the 14th army of the USSR, which was stationed there when the Soviet Union broke up. There are other unrecognised "independent" territories, the leaders of which are now looking hopefully towards Moscow, which is ready to expand its political territory under the banner of the CIS (Confederation of Independent States), a friendly enough sounding union.All that will be required, from Moscow's point of view, will be the recognition of these states by each other and by Russia - and, in the end, eastern Europe, the Caucasus and central Asia will be firmly within the Russian sphere of influence. The western border of this sphere could very well be drawn through the middle of Ukraine, slicing the country in two.European officials have suggested Ukraine could be the next flashpoint for tensions between Russia and the West after a war in Georgia last month that has left Russian troops occupying positions deep inside Georgian territory.Yushchenko on Wednesday accused his opponents in parliament of a coup attempt and threatened early parliamentary elections after the prime minister's party sided with pro-Russian deputies to pass laws cutting his powers.Tymoshenko, once a close ally of Yushchenko, in turn accused the president of having "destroyed" the governing coalition by pulling out of an alliance with her party after the approval of the legislation.But Tymoshenko has also called for members of parliament from the president's Our Ukraine party to return to the coalition. The deputies have 10 days in which they can revoke their decision to pull out.On Thursday, the independent daily Gazeta 24, quoting unnamed lawmakers in Tymoshenko's parliamentary bloc, said the prime minister and the leader of the pro-Moscow Regions Party had already agreed to form a new coalition.

The report said Tymoshenko would remain as prime minister while the Regions Party leader, the Moscow-backed former prime minister and bitter presidential rival Viktor Yanukovych, would take over as speaker of parliament.

"Tymoshenko will dance to Moscow's tune," the Kommersant newspaper quoted a member of parliament from the president's party as warning, reinforcing accusations that Tymoshenko is toeing the Kremlin line.Tymoshenko has denied this but has not spoken out on the Georgia crisis.Ukrainian analysts said the political crisis could set back Ukraine's attempts to join NATO and the EU but that Cheney would seek to keep in place the country's increasingly fragile pro-Western leadership.
"Cheney will try to push Ukraine towards preserving the pro-Western coalition," which has not yet been formally disbanded, said Valery Chaly, an analyst at the Razumkov Centre for political and economic research.Segodnya, a newspaper close to the pro-Russian opposition, said the crisis was "very annoying news" for Washington, which wants "Tymoshenko and Yushchenko working together to bring Ukraine into NATO."
In other developments, a pro-Russian member of parliament put forward a motion calling for Foreign Minister Vladimir Ogryzkov to be sacked for allowing a US warship to visit the Sevastopol naval base, located in southern Ukraine.
Tymoshenko and Yushchenko were the icons of the 2004 pro-Western Orange Revolution and have each been considered Western-leaning politicians despite persistent and sharp disagreements on domestic political issues.Last month however Yushchenko's backers accused Tymoshenko of "high treason" for allegedly siding with Moscow in its conflict with Georgia.Tymoshenko had abstained from a vote to impose restrictions on the movements of Russia's Black Sea fleet, which is based along with the Ukrainian navy in Sevastopol and was involved in military action against Georgia.Cheney is to meet the two leaders separately -- the prime minister for one-on-one talks in the morning, followed by lunch with the president.He is scheduled to visit the Holdomor memorial to Ukraine's famine victims before departing later in the afternoon for Italy.

Political risk in Russia has escalated following the military conflict with Georgia last month, according to the Eurasia Group's Global Political Risk Index for September, a political stability ranking for 24 emerging markets.
Thailand and Pakistan are two other markets, where political instability is on the rise, according to the index, which is tailored toward emerging-markets investors.

Russia closed its embassy in Georgia and halted consular operations after Georgia severed diplomatic ties following last month’s war, the Russian consul said Wednesday.A U.S. Navy ship loaded with humanitarian aid, meanwhile, steamed through the Dardanelles on its way to Georgia — a day after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin complained that too many NATO ships were sailing the Black Sea and promised a Russian response.The diplomatic suspension means no new applications for Russian entry visas will be accepted, a blow to Georgians who have relatives in Russia or other ties there. Hundreds of thousands of Georgians live in Russia, and many ethnic Georgians in Russia are Russian citizens.“A break-off of diplomatic ties is an action that has a price,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said in Moscow. He said the ministry is considering other measures.

Washington’s confrontation with Moscow has reached a new level now that Russia has withdrawn its troops from most of the Georgian territory it took during the war provoked by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Russian and US warships have been engaged in a standoff in the Black Sea in recent days.The US Coast Guard Dallas carrying aid docked at the Georgian port of Batumi on August 28. US guided missile destroyer USS McFaul has also landed at the port. By choosing Batumi, the US chose a less confrontational path than docking at Poti, a Georgian port where Russian troops are still stationed. The US also allegedly feared that Poti harbor could have been mined.The USS McFaul enjoys an array of weapons, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can carry either conventional or nuclear warheads. It also has a sophisticated radar system.Washington has also ordered the flagship of the 6th Fleet, the sophisticated command ship Mount Whitney, into the area. These ships are from the NATO Maritime Group One, which normally operates in the Mediterranean.
Russia says the USS McFaul supplied new weapons to Georgia under the pretext of aid delivery. “Of course, they are bringing in weapons,” Russian President Dmitri Medvedev told the BBC in an interview. “We are not trying to prevent it.”
“Battleships do not normally deliver aid. This is battleship diplomacy, this does not make the situation more stable,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The Black Sea has seen a lot of tension since Russian troops defeated the Georgian army. The Georgian aggression against South Ossetia has brought into sharp focus the strategic value of the resource-rich area surrounding the Black Sea.During the Cold War, shipping in the Black Sea was carried out on a small scale, as the Lower Danube region was a part of the Soviet block. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the wars in former Yugoslavia, the Danube has become a key transportation route. Now, Central European exports, especially from Germany, can be floated down the river to the Black Sea, which is much less expensive than transporting them to the ports of the Baltic Sea by land. The struggle for control over the Black Sea has been the root cause of several conflicts in the past, including the Crimean and the Russo-Turkish Wars in the 19th century and the Allied Dardanelles campaign against Turkey during World War I.

Control over the Black Sea is essential for the US in projecting its force onto the region because the Carpathian Mountains in Romania and the Caucasus Ridge restrict it from land-based action against Russia from the south. The Black Sea is therefore the only path through which a potential enemy could threaten Russia from this area. Modern weapons systems such as submarine- and ship-launched cruise missiles and carrier-launched jets would be able to target Russian territory if the US were to gain supremacy over the Black Sea.The Black Sea is close to the Caucasus and the Russian oil-rich regions of Tatarstan and Bashkorostan. It offers any Russian enemy a direct route to two Russian energy lifelines. The Black Sea thus has special strategic significance for Russia as well; the area would become a major point of conflict in case there is a military confrontation between the US and Russia.
The US wants the Black Sea to fall under NATO control. A major part of Black Sea waters is controlled by NATO members Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria. Georgia and Ukraine, whose pro-Western presidents want their countries to join the alliance also have control of certain parts of the area. Russia has a short coastline with the important port of Novorossiisk. Now that Russia is working with Abkhazia as an independent state, however, it enjoys a longer Russian-friendly coastline and the deep-sea port of Sukhumi

``Thanks to Russia for defending us; they saved us,'' said Gagloyeva, a stooping, gray-haired 69-year-old. Her new temporary canvas quarters, provided by the Russians, are next to the rubble piles that had been her house in Tskhinvali. Now that Russia has embraced the pro-Moscow breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, it will have to deal with several headaches. Tskhinvali and other parts of South Ossetia suffered damage during last month's Russia-Georgia war that needs to be repaired. Both regions, already economically challenged, will now be more dependent on Russia. And Moscow's widely condemned decision to recognize them as independent may inspire restive regions within Russia's own borders.
So while Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, 42, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, 55, have avoided costly international sanctions, they didn't get away scot-free.
``For a long time, Russia will be facing enormous problems because it has openly violated the principle of territorial integrity,'' said Yevgeny Volk, a Moscow-based analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a U.S. research group. ``It will have to pour large amounts of funding into restoring the troubled economies of these nations.''
South Ossetia, an impoverished strip separated from Russia by the Caucasus Mountains, was the flashpoint of Russia's first foreign military operation since the Cold War when Georgia, a U.S. ally, tried to retake control of it by force on Aug. 7. After invading Georgia, occupying a third of it for days and setting up a buffer zone around the two breakaways, Russia on Aug. 26 recognized their independence. Both fought wars in the early 1990s to break away, gaining autonomy while officially remaining part of Georgia. ``We didn't expect other countries to follow our example immediately; there's no rush,'' said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov. Russia's use of force was aimed at heading off ``new military adventures'' by Georgia, he said by phone. The Kremlin on Sept. 1-2 organized a tour of the two regions for journalists, including one from Bloomberg News. Russia is bolstering its military presence in both areas. During the tour, a convoy of Russian army trucks left a trail of dust as it headed into Abkhaz territory, and Russian warships patrolled the waters off the region's Black Sea coast. South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity said he plans to ask for Russian army bases in his enclave. ``We have always considered and continue to consider Russia our main partner and ally,'' he said.
Russian troops remain 40 kilometers (25 miles) deep into Georgia proper, near the port of Poti, and in the buffer region along the border. South Ossetia, about half the size of Puerto Rico with a population of about 70,000, has little economic activity other than trade. It relies on Russian handouts for its budget.
Kokoity told reporters in Tskhinvali that he wants to unite his region with the Russian province of North Ossetia. Most South Ossetians have Russian passports, and Russia has allocated $400 million for reconstruction, including hospitals and schools. South Ossetia and Russia will become even more intertwined next year after a gas pipeline from North Ossetia is completed, said Alan Doyev, a visiting North Ossetian official. A separate pipeline from Georgia was cut off during the war, he said. Abkhazia, which wasn't touched by last month's war, may have a brighter economic outlook, given its Black Sea beaches lined with palm trees and sub-tropical climate, which attracted millions of tourists in the Soviet era. The region of 200,000 people has a landmass slightly larger than the U.S. state of Delaware. It can provide raw materials for construction for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in the nearby southern Russian city of Sochi. It will need Russia to develop a dilapidated tourist infrastructure and restore air and shipping routes cut off since its 1992-93 war with Georgia, said Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh. Abkhazia aims to restart flights to Moscow and other Russian cities from its Sukhumi airport, used now by the Russian military, Abkhaz officials on the journalists' tour said.

BP bowed to demands from its partners in TNK-BP and eased its grip on Russia's third-largest oil producer yesterday to end a bitter dispute that had knocked BP's shares and rattled investor confidence in Russia.TNK-BP's top management, including BP-nominated chief executive Bob Dudley, will be replaced, independent directors will be added to the board and the owners will consider floating 20 per cent of the joint venture.BP and Alfa Access Renova (AAR), the vehicle that represents the four Russia-connected billionaires who own 50pc of TNK-BP, said the deal would be finalised in the coming months."This would be a much better outcome for BP than the market has been anticipating," Richard Griffith at Evolution Securities said.Investors had feared the hostile battle for control of TNK-BP might lead to BP losing interest in the joint venture, which analysts said was worth $45 billion, with only minimal compensation.BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said the terms agreed meant it retained key protections BP agreed five years ago, although its effective management control over TNK-BP had been weakened.

International military monitors gained brief access to a Russian-imposed buffer zone adjacent to South Ossetia on Thursday for the first time since the Georgia-Russia conflict last month. A Reuters correspondent saw two vehicles carrying unarmed monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) leave the zone through a Russian peacekeeping checkpoint 30 kilometres (20 miles) inside Georgia proper. An OSCE official, who asked not to be named, said the monitors had travelled as far as Megvrekisi, three kilometres (miles) short of the de facto border with breakaway South Ossetia.

The Nabucco gas pipeline, which seeks to link central Asia's gas fields with Europe, is on track despite the Russia-Georgia conflict, the project's chief executive said in an interview published Friday.Speaking to the Financial Times, Reinhard Mitschek said the conflict had 'no impact' on planning for the US- and EU-backed pipeline, which is expected to be completed by 2013.The 3,300-kilometre (2,050-mile) pipeline is to run via Turkey and the Balkan states to Austria, and Mitschek told the business daily that a market survey had shown 'huge demand' for it.'The Georgian conflict has no impact on Nabucco or its planning, which envisages first deliveries in 2013,' he said.'We are focused on developing the project properly. Nabucco is on track and all partners are determined and fully committed to realise it.'
He added that a planned Russian pipeline, dubbed South Stream, that would travel a similar path to Europe, did not render Nabucco any less appealing.
'South Stream and Nabucco are not competing projects,' he said.'Europe is facing a strong rise in gas demand in the next 20 years. Our own European gas production is declining, so we will need different projects and additional routes.'It's not a question of South Stream or Nabucco: we will need both

September "Sexy Rating" list, the glamor magazine ranks who it considers the 20 sexiest Russian politicians. At the top is Boris Nemtsov, a former leader of opposition party Union of the Right Forces now viewed by many as a spent force.
It is rare that Putin loses out at home. A winner abroad — selected as Time's person of the year in 2007, and Vanity Fair's most powerful and influential figure of the year this month — Putin courts widespread popularity at home, having restored a sense of national pride and stability after the difficult post-Soviet years of Boris Yeltsin's rule."This is good news ... but I don't take it too seriously," said Nemtsov, who is pictured sitting on a bed, barefoot and dressed in a grey silk shirt and chinos. Although greying at the temples, that doesn't seem to put the voters off.
Responding to a query on how Putin might feel at being pushed into second place, Nemtsov said, "I don't know and I don't care. But he has unlimited opportunities to overturn my result. Maybe this comes as an unpleasant surprise for him, but I guess he has other problems right now."Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin lawmaker, said he was taken aback by the result."Putin is way better than Nemtsov," he said. "He's one of the sexiest politicians in the world." His looks may be average, he conceded, but his "decisive, harsh and unbending" character makes him extremely attractive.Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov laughed in an embarrassed fashion, and said it was hard for him to comment.The magazine's online blog — which opens the voting up to the general public — shows a rather different picture, giving Putin a narrow lead over Ilya Yashin, who leads opposition party Yabloko's youth movement. Former Economy Minister German Gref comes in at third, while four of the lesser-known entries garner no votes at all.A black belt in judo and an accomplished skier, ex-KGB spy Putin has been snapped in an array of macho shots, from flying a fighter jet to strutting his stuff on a nuclear submarine.Within days of the publication of photos last summer — where a bare-chested Putin was snapped fishing, horse riding and off-roading in a sport utility vehicle — the then-president was claimed by some as a gay icon, and local newspapers received a flood of excited letters on their websites from admiring women.In his most recent escapade this August, Putin "saved" a TV crew from a gory death at the hands of a tiger, shooting it in the nick of time with a tranquiliser gun in Ussuriland.Compiled from an anonymous poll among 20 female employees, most of them in their mid-30s, the results are sometimes surprising.Eduard Limonov — the aging opposition figure, who sports a tufted haircut and goatie — comes in at number 14. Thrice married, his current partner is some 30 years his junior.
"Putin's just short — what's sexy about that?" laughed Limonov, before conceding that Putin's power was his biggest attraction.Snappy dresser Gref has shaved off his trademark goatie to come in at number nine. Heavily-lined foreign minister Sergei Lavrov — most prominent in recent weeks for his hawkish comments regarding Georgia — slides in at number 15. Yashin scraped in at 19, and promptly posted the ratings on his blog.
Mikhail Kasyanov — also known as "Misha-two-percent", an allusion to the kickbacks he allegedly received during his tenure as prime minister — is pictured beaming at number 16. Ramzan Kadyrov — the Kremlin-friendly Chechen leader, who keeps tigers as pets — takes 18th place.But spare a thought for poor Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's diminutive president, who trailed in at seventh place.

300 illegal workers from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were detained in the Moskva trade center in the Moscow district Lyublino on Thursday morning, the press service of the Federal Migration Service reports. According to the report, the illegal immigrants lived in a three-storied building located on the territory of the trade center. The detainees told officials that they were working for various entrepreneurs who rented trading space in the center, mostly as porters and cleaners. The living conditions were poor and all tenants said they paid 460 rubles (about $20) per month for stay in the center. All the detained face deportation from Russia for violation of rules of staying in the country.

Russian Court Bailiffs' Service has barred a foreign citizen from leaving the country because of unpaid debts. While similar incidents involving Russian citizens have been reported by the media for some time, this latest case could serve as a precedent that would affect foreigners who come to Russia for work or leisure. The case concerns Georgian citizen Elshan Eyupov, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in the Siberian town of Achinsk in 2003 for murdering a local woman. Apart from the prison term, the court ordered Eyupov to pay 300,000 rubles in compensation for emotional damages to the victim's daughter. Recently Eyupov was released on parole and immediately moved to the central Russian city of Tver, where he wrote a letter to the Georgian consulate requesting to return to his home country. The consulate granted him permission to return. However, while Eyupov was serving his sentence he managed to repay only 5,000 rubles - a small fraction of the required compensation. The Federal Migration Service contacted the court bailiffs asking if Eyupov could be allowed to leave Russia. The bailiffs learned that the former inmate had neither money nor property and issued a statement that the man must stay in Russia until the debt is repaid in full. The statement will be valid for six months, and after this the limit will be either lifted or renewed if the bailiffs issue a new order. According to Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily, the court bailiffs service has a tried and tested cooperation scheme with the Federal Border Guard Service - the lists of people who have unpaid debts are delivered to Moscow and the Federal Security Service (the agency overseeing the border guards) sends fresh lists of debtors to border posts every Thursday. The Russian authorities started widely using the ban on leaving the country as a means to punish debtors only this year. But the subject was broadly covered by the media as it could affect a lot of people - mostly those who refused to repay traffic fines or alimony payments. However, Elshan Eyupov was the first foreign citizen to fall under this scheme. A source in the agency's press service said that all decisions are made in the Court Bailiffs' Service and that the Federal Migration Service is not working at the border to decide who should be let in or out. The source added that his agency would become involved only if the issue was disputed in court. The press service of the Court Bailiffs' Service was more elaborate.

The deputy editor-in-chief of the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper has been sentenced to eight years in a penal colony after a Moscow court found him guilty of extortion and the possession of illegal drugs. Court officials told the press on Tuesday that the editor, Boris Zemtsov, used the materials prepared by the correspondents of the newspaper to blackmail Russian Agriculture Minister Aleksei Gordeyev. The journalist demanded monthly payments for not making public some compromising materials, but the minister turned to the police, and Zemtsov was detained while receiving cash from one of the minister's aides. While performing a search in the journalist's apartment policemen found nine grams of marijuana and the convict was also charged with illegal drugs possession.

Police have detained three men suspected of killing a Cameroon national during a quarrel in the Volga city of Ulyanovsk, the local police press service said on Monday. The body of the 34-year-old African was found overnight Sunday. Inves­tigators said the victim, who was employed as a DJ in a local club, was stabbed on his way home after stopping to chat to three local men. The spokesperson said it is believed it was a routine attack and not a racially-motivated m

Ame­rican lawyer has been sentenced to three years in prison in Belarus in a case that raised already high tensions between Washington and the authoritarian ex-Soviet republic. Emmanuel Zeltser's sentencing Monday comes after being convicted at a closed trial for commercial espionage and using false documents. He is an expert on organized crime and money laundering. The United States raised protests over his detention and raised concerns about his health in custody. His attorney says he is not getting proper medication for diabetes.

During the five days of severe fighting the Georgia-South Ossetia military confrontation claimed the lives not only of troops and civilians, but media workers as well. At least four journalists were killed and more than ten injured during the conflict.
No parent should have to bury their own child. But it was the only thing Yulia Klimchuk prayed for. Her son Aleksandr was killed in the first days of the Georgian assault. And if it wasn't for his colleagues in Russia, his Georgian family might never have recovered his body.
Aleksandr was a photographer for the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS. Based in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, he often covered tensions between Georgia and its breakaway republic.His colleague Elena Munusova recalled that they would often ask him to take some shots of Tbilisi, but he would say: "No, I prefer working in news, making political reports". He liked to work in extreme spots.When Georgia launched its ground incursion into South Ossetia, Aleksandr and his colleague Gigi Chikhladze were travelling with the Georgian troops. Nobody knows for sure what happened to them.Sergey Uzakov, also a photographer for ITAR-TASS, said: “Doctors can't tell me how they died. I was only told their bodies were picked up on the road by Russian troops and delivered here, to Tskhinvali morgue. But it’s very mysterious.”
Sergey identified the body and promised Yulia that she would have a chance to bury her son. With the help of other journalists stationed in Tskhinvali he found two metal coffins and drove them across the border into Georgia.“Other journalists have joined us here. Our friends from AP, Reuters, France Press, and Time are here now and we all see it as our duty to complete this,” Uzakov said.Oleg Panfilov from the Center for Extreme Journalism says that the “working conditions for journalists were terrible. Of all the war conflicts in the post-Soviet space and the Balkans, this was the worst time for journalists.”But other photographers who have been working in the conflict zone say all wars are the same. And in the midst of death and destruction there's always a place for self-sacrifice and professional brotherhood.

strong explosion sounded at one of beaches of the town of Loo on the outskirts of the resort city of Sochi, Russia’s Black Sea Coast. The explosion killed two holiday-makers, and injured at least 13 others. President Dmitry Medvedev ordered his envoy in the southern administrative district of Russia to personally control the investigation of the incident. A 2-million-ruble reward (about $87,000) was announced for the information which could help solve the crime. “Two people were killed and 13 injured as a result of the explosion of an unidentified device. Five people were hospitalized with injuries of various degrees, eight others were provided medical aid on the spot,” a source from the law-enforcement agencies of Russia’s Krasnodar region told Interfax.
The explosion on Loo beach occurred at about 10:00 a.m., about three or five meters from water. Two people, a man and a woman were walking along the beach and saw a plastic bag on the sand. The woman bent over to pick the bag up - the blast followed immediately. The man, 31, a native of Rostov-on-Don, and the woman, 22, a resident of Kiev, died instantly, eye-witnesses say. Other people, who suffered in the explosion, received fragment wounds, concussions and close wounds. One person suffered a serious injury – he had his leg severed as a result of the blast.
All holiday-makers have been evacuated from the beach. A group of police officers and cynologists investigate the reasons of the explosion. Russia ’s President Medvedev had a telephone conversation with the presidential envoy in Russia’s south, Vladimir Ustinov. Medvedev ordered Ustinov to take all measures necessary for the investigation of the explosion in Sochi. The governor of the Krasnodar region of Russia, Alexander Tkachev, ahs already arrived in Sochi.

NATO hit the USA in the face. Its allies said that they were not going to scale down their cooperation with Moscow. The statement showed that the USA was no longer NATO’s master and that Washington was not the city where all fundamental decisions were made. The USA continues to wage the informational war against Russia. Americans are now acting indirectly, through Georgia. They have no true allies left except for several countries of East Europe, which they support financially. It is an open secret that politics can be very dirty, just like prostitution. However, it is impossible to bribe everyone.

South Ossetian and Moscow officials estimated the number of Ossetian civilian casualties as being between 1,600 and over 2,100.
Days after the fighting ended in South Ossetia, a huge question mark is hanging over the number of civilians who actually died.
Some human rights activists on the ground said, however, that they were struggling to find even 100 slain Ossetians, while other experts said it was still too early to compile an accurate count.
In any case, it is looking increasingly unlikely that the death toll will be anywhere close to the numbers needed to support Moscow’s claim that Tbilisi had committed genocide.
President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin both accused the Georgian military of committing “genocide” when it invaded South Ossetia on Aug. 8 in an attempt to regain control over the pro-Moscow republic.