only short kids think they've won when they cheat....we all knew that by 6th grade; sadly some make a lifetime of it

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is poised to win today’s presidential election in the first round as spending pledges helped reverse a drop in popularity after disputed December parliamentary polls. 

Putin will get about 60 percent of votes, more than the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff, surveys predict. Balloting for about 110 million voters begins at 8 a.m. March 4 seven time zones from Moscow in Russia’s Far East. Exit-poll data is due from 9 p.m. in the capital, to be followed by preliminary results. The final outcome will be released within 10 days.

Putin, 59, who first came to power in 1999 and has been premier since handing the presidency to protégé Dmitry Medvedev in 2008, has faced unprecedented protests over a parliamentary vote in December that opposition parties say was rigged in favor of his ruling United Russia party. In trips across the country, Putin vowed to raise state salaries and pensions.

China is on Board...and now to Russia....

China backs international efforts to send humanitarian aid to Syria, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said, after Western powers proposed a United Nations resolution authorizing humanitarian aid. 

It was not clear whether Yang's remarks mean China will consider the proposed new U. N. Security Council resolution. China is one of the five permanent members of the Council which have the power to veto such resolutions. 

"The pressing task now is for all sides to cease violence in the Syrian conflict, and to launch as soon as possible inclusive political dialogue and together deliberate on a reform plan," Yang told Elaraby, who has previously said Beijing's veto lost it diplomatic credit in the Arab world. 

"The international community should create conditions for this, and extend humanitarian aid to Syria," added Yang.

Poland the Game Changer in European Gas

Poland's ambitious goal to exploit Europe's biggest estimated deposits of shale gas. Beginning in 2014, Warsaw wants to tap an estimated 5.3 trillion cubic meters of recoverable reserves of gas - enough, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, to supply Poland with more than 300 years of its domestic energy needs.

But the shale gas push is about more than energy. Poland wants to break its reliance on Russian energy and reduce Moscow's power over Europe. That is one reason why Warsaw has welcomed U.S. oil majors such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Conoco and Marathon, even though it risks igniting tensions with Russia.

"If this thing comes true, if the American technologies deployed here at some point are really able to produce this gas, then this means a winning situation for the whole of Europe really," Radzieciak said in an interview in his small office filled with sports trophies, banners from local teams and a large map of Poland on the wall. "It would create more competitiveness on the gas market, which is now dominated by Russia, and one side would not be able to force anything unilaterally anymore."

Western European capitals are just as eager as Poland to diminish Russian influence over supplies. Russia currently supplies 25 percent of deliveries to the European Union. Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer-prize winning author and energy historian who included a chapter on shale gas in his latest book "The Quest," sums up Warsaw's thinking: "They're motivated to develop it economically and they're motivated to develop it politically."

Russia sells Syria weapons and has its only military base outside the former Soviet Union in the Syrian port of Tartus.

“The Russian government is not only unapologetically arming a government that is killing its own people, but also providing it with diplomatic cover,” Philippe Bolopion, UN director at Human Rights Watch in New York, said after the UN vote.

Russia’s alignment with Syria may put at stake the country’s relationship with oil-rich Gulf States led by Qatar that asked the Security Council to endorse their plan to convince Assad to delegate his powers to a deputy to pave way for elections.

“The Russians are doing this to help preserve their navy base in Tartus, their arms trade with Syria and their strategic position in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Sullivan said. “In the end Russia will lose its base. Russia has also in many ways lost the Arabs on this.”

al-Assad must go! NOW

The U.S. will “redouble efforts”and work with “partners outside the United Nations” to put“immense pressure” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end bloodshed and step down, after the U.N. Security Council failed to deliver global condemnation of Syria giving the regime room to continue its 11-month crackdown on protesters, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in Sofia today.

Russia refuses to Condemn Syria with the rest of the UN Security Council

The battle over Syria moved to the United Nations on Tuesday with Western powers and much of the Arab world confronting Russia and its allies in the Security Council over their refusal to condemn the Syrian government for its violent suppression of popular protests.

As top diplomats gathered in the Council chamber for the showdown, the drumbeat of violence continued without pause in Syria, where government forces used heavy weapons and tanks to push rebels back from strongholds near Damascus. 

At the United Nations, the two sides skirmished over a draft Security Council resolution proposed by Morocco that calls for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to leave power as the first step of a transition toward democracy. 

But behind all the arguments lurked the ghost of Libya, with Russia determined to block any resolution that might be construed as a license for regime change. The Arabs and top Western diplomats argued that endorsing the demonstrators was the minimum step required to support popular demands for change that began with peaceful demonstrations and have evolved into an increasingly armed uprising. 

“The Syrian government failed to make any serious effort to cooperate with us,” Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, told the Security Council about Arab League efforts to mediate the dispute. “The government killing machine continues effectively unabated.” 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined by the foreign ministers of Britain, France and several other countries, argued that Libya was a “false analogy.” The plan for a gradual democratic transition “represents the best efforts of Syria’s neighbors to chart a way forward, and it deserves a chance to work,” she said.

The proposed resolution, which most likely would not be voted on before Friday, called for Mr. Assad to cede power to his vice president, who would help form a unity government that would prepare for elections. It is unlikely that Mr. Assad would heed the demands to step down, even if the resolution made it through the Council.

Russians' to fight for free and fair elections!

Russia's opposition, for all its efforts to remain peaceful, could be headed for a confrontation with authorities as the date of its next major demonstration draws near.

The Moscow municipal government rejected the opposition’s request to hold their protest march “For Honest Elections” as planned on Feb. 4, on the grounds that it would "disrupt the normal functioning of vital municipal services, create obstacles . . . for traffic, and violate the rights of citizens not taking part in the event,” according to a document published on an opposition Facebook page.  More than 22,000 people have signed up on Facebook to attend the march, despite a forecast temperature of 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Opposition leaders are discussing the possibility of holding the march without a permit -- a move that may expose demonstrators to arrest and even violence. In his blog on the web site of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, the journalist Sergey Parkhomenko stated the grim truth: “Everything, of course, depends on the protestors themselves, on their courage, decisiveness, and sense of responsibility.

Meanwhile, the opposition and the government are taking measures to ensure that presidential elections, scheduled for March 4, are free and fair -- or at least perceived as such. Last Wednesday, reported the Moscow Times, 16 prominent cybernauts announced the foundation of the League of Voters, which, acting as “a coordinating and advisory body for activists,” will “use the Internet to connect activists nationwide who are agitating for fair elections.” Firebrand anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny “was barred from being a member because of his stated presidential ambitions,” the article said.

If not for Russia and Iran; Syrians would be FREE and rid of Assad.

The Arab League looks a bit toothless in Syria,” Paul Sullivan, a specialist in Middle East security at Georgetown University in Washington, said in an e-mail. “The Syrian regime has little time left. The clock is ticking. If it were not for Iranian and Russian help, Bashar would have been out already most likely.”
The Syrian government has “exacerbated” the situation by resorting to force, the Arab League said.

Syria said it was surprised by the Arab League decision after agreeing to allow the mission in the country for another month, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported yesterday, citing an unidentified government official.

Assad’s security forces have maintained their efforts to crush demonstrations even after the Cairo-based organization sent observers to Syria on Dec. 26. The monitors aimed at ensuring that Assad followed through on his pledge to withdraw security forces from cities, release political prisoners and allow anti-government demonstrations.

Putin the People want Democracy not your runaway EGO!!!

Tens of thousands of flag-waving and chanting protesters called Saturday for a disputed parliamentary election to be rerun and an end to Vladimir Putin's rule, increasing pressure on the Russian leader as he tries to win back the presidency.



The protesters shouted "Russia without Putin" and "New elections, New elections" as one speaker after another called for an end to Putin's 12-year domination of the country at the second big opposition rally in two weeks in central Moscow.

"Do you want Putin to return to the presidency?" novelist Boris Akunin asked from a large stage. Whistling and jeering, protesters chanted: "No!"

Witnesses said at least as many people turned out as at the last big Moscow rally on December 10 to protest against alleged vote-rigging in the December 4 election won by Putin's United Russia party.

If the 99% only lived under the Roman Empire or in Russia they would benefit from a better distribution of wealth than in the USA!!!

Over the last 30 years, wealth in the United States has been steadily concentrating in the upper economic echelons. Whereas the top 1 percent used to control a little over 30 percent of the wealth, they now control 40 percent. It’s a trend that was for decades brushed under the rug but is now on the tops of minds and at the tips of tongues.



Since too much inequality can foment revolt and instability, the CIA regularly updates statistics on income distribution for countries around the world, including the U.S. Between 1997 and 2007, inequality in the U.S. grew by almost 10 percent, making it more unequal than Russia, infamous for its powerful oligarchs. The U.S. is not faring well historically, either. Even the Roman Empire, a society built on conquest and slave labor, had a more equitable income distribution.

‘Russia Without Putin’ Россия без Путина!

Russians rallied across the country against election fraud in the biggest protests faced by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in his 12 years in power.



Twenty-five thousand people gathered in the center of Moscow today in near-freezing temperatures and dispersed after 6 p.m. without detentions or violence, police said. Several thousand demonstrated in St. Petersburg and more than 15,000 in about 30 other cities across the world’s biggest country by area, RIA Novosti reported.


The swelling resentment threatens to weaken Putin’s bid to return to the Kremlin in a presidential contest in March. His United Russia party retained a narrow majority in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, amid accusations of vote rigging in the Dec. 4 parliamentary ballot.


“We are for free elections, we are for democracy,” Ilya Ponomaryov, a Duma lawmaker and one of the protest organizers, told the crowd in Bolotnaya Square, on an island just south of the Kremlin. “We want a recount of the vote.”


As many as 150,000 people turned out for the biggest rally in the capital in two decades, said Vladimir Ryzhkov, a former lawmaker. The organizers are planning to stage protests the next two weekends and will apply for a permit to hold a 500,000- person rally on Sakharov Prospekt, he said.

What led to the Russian Revolution of 2011? The possible return of Tsar Putin!!

Thousands of people have taken to Moscow streets to protest the result of the Dec. 4 parliamentary election, which was marred by complaints of violations and ballot-stuffing. The Solidarity movement, an umbrella opposition group, has planned a rally tomorrow near the Kremlin. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party lost 12 million votes, or more than a quarter of the support it garnered four years ago. Urals crude, Russia’s chief export blend, hit a two-week low.


“Russian politics has become an issue, and for investors, that’s something new, and for some people, it does create uncertainty,” Martin Diggle, director of the $70 million Vulpes Russian Opportunities Fund, said in a phone interview from Geneva. “Europe remains a drag on stocks, and oil is also down.”

From Russia with Love......or not

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Moscow for a second successive day on Tuesday to demand an end to Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, defying a crackdown by tens of thousands of police reinforced by crack Interior Ministry troops.



Police said they had detained about 250 people in central Moscow when they tried to stage an unapproved rally and held about 200 more in St Petersburg, where opposition forces have also been emboldened by the prime minister's worst election setback since he took power in 1999.


After permitting the biggest opposition rally in Moscow for years on Monday evening, the police were out in large numbers. The Interior ministry said about 2,000 special troops were supporting almost 50,000 police, and some moved through the city centre in armored vehicles in a show of force.

Imagine an X-KGB operative rigging his election....doesn't require any imagination...

MOSCOW — Western election monitors said on Monday that they had observed blatant fraud, including the brazen stuffing of ballot boxes, in the parliamentary elections that delivered surprisingly big losses to United Russia, the party led by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.


The election on Sunday left United Russia clinging to a slim majority, and while the monitors declined to draw firm conclusions, it was clear from their report that vote stealing and other alleged malfeasance could have shifted the outcome in United Russia’s favor.

The scathing report by international observers, combined with dramatic, mostly amateur, footage of alleged election malfeasance posted on the Web, made clear that the authorities would face continuing questions about the fairness of the vote despite the main party’s steep losses.

On Monday evening, thousands of demonstrators gathered on a promenade by the Chistye Prudy metro station in central Moscow, and voiced their opposition to the government at an event organized by the Solidarity Party. Throngs chanted “Russia without Putin!” and “Putin is a Thief.” Police officials estimated the crowd at about 2,000 though some participants said it was larger. There was a heavy police presence and some protesters were detained.

Earlier in the day, thousands of supporters of United Russia held a celebratory event in Revolution Square that took place without incident.

With more than 95 percent of the votes processed, United Russia led with a shade under 50 percent, trailed by the Communists with 19 percent, Just Russia with 13 percent and the Liberal Democrats with nearly 12 percent, according to the Central Election Commission.

After the redistribution of votes for parties that did not clear a minimum threshold to enter the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, United Russia will have 238 seats, or just under 53 percent, down from the 315, or 70 percent, that it holds now, election officials said.

The observers, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said their main concerns were about an overall flawed framework that marred the campaign, including no separation between the government and the main political party; the lack of independence for election administrators and the absence of a free, independent mass media.

Some opposition parties were prohibited from running in the elections at all, the observers said. Those that could run faced huge disadvantages as United Russia employed government resources in support of its political aim, the observers said.

Tiny Kox, a senator from the Netherlands and a leader of the monitoring mission, said he personally observed violations including a case at one Moscow polling station where first the voter lists disappeared and then the ballot boxes were opened and clearly stuffed.

“It’s a major violation of the protocol,” he said, “and I think it’s a major insult to all those who voted that day, all these millions of Russian voters.”

But Mr. Kox and other officials said they were precluded from rendering any judgments on how the irregularities might have influenced the results. Observers were not present for the 2007 parliamentary elections because of disputes with Russian election officials. And with tensions high this time as well, officials seemed to be taking extra care not exceed the basic parameters of their role as monitors under multilateral agreements.

Opposition leaders, however, were less circumspect in accusing United Russia of tilting the outcome. “These elections were unprecedented in their filth, pressure and falsification,” said Gennadi A. Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party, which finished second, winning about 90 seats.

Mr. Zyuganov said his party would immediately demand a greater say in the running of the government, including the installation of one of its members as deputy speaker of parliament.

Sergei Mironov, the leader of the Just Russia party, also leveled allegations of fraud. At a news conference, Mr. Mironov on Monday said the party was specifically intent on investigating a case of ballot-box stuffing in St. Petersburg, including reports of bundles of premarked ballots. He said the party also wanted an explanation of extremely high voter turnout in two regions, Chechnya and Mordova, southeast of Moscow.

Of United Russia, he said, “They were swindlers and committed gross violations.”

In response to the reports of voting irregularities, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply criticized what she called “troubling practices” before and during the parliamentary elections in Russia. She cited the harassment of Golos, Russian’s only independent election observer organization, reports of ballot stuffing and cyberattacks on Web sites on Election Day.

Golos was fined about $1,000 for violating the law by publishing reports of campaign abuses.

Russia votes for change from Putin!!!

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party may win a reduced majority in Russia’s parliament, partial election results show, forcing it to work with other political groups.

United Russia’s backing fell to 50 percent from 64 percent in 2007, the Moscow-based Central Election Commission said on its website, with votes from 72 percent of precincts counted. The party’s results at yesterday’s election had been estimated at 45.5 percent and 48.5 percent by two exit polls.


“Given the new composition of the Duma, on individual issues and on certain questions, we will have to enter into coalition bloc agreements,” President Dmitry Medvedev told supporters at the party’s campaign headquarters late yesterday. “This is normal, this is parliamentarianism. This is democracy.”


The loss of United Russia’s two-thirds majority, which allowed it to change the Constitution singlehandedly, is the first time the party’s support fell from one nationwide election to the next since it was set up 10 years ago. Putin, 59, next year may be forced to make unpopular cuts in social spending and raise the pension age to balance the budget.


The premier, who plans to return as president next year to give him potentially almost a quarter-century in power if he runs again in 2018, lost support as stalling wage growth and the government’s shortcomings in curbing corruption repelled voters.

Russia doesn't need Putin part II; it doesn't need a dictator

Vladimir Putin says he stands for stability, but his critics say his return to the Kremlin next March could ultimately bequeath an era of stagnation and even turmoil in Russia.

The prime minister, who announced on Saturday he would seek a new term as president, prides himself on bringing order after the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

But prominent critics, from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, say his return could undermine stability unless he can shake the country out of inertia and torpor.


Even Putin's protege, President Dmitry Medvedev, said there was a danger of stasis in Russia in a speech to the ruling party on Saturday, just minutes before he suffered the humiliation of proposing Putin take back the presidency from him next year.


"Formalism and bureaucratization are very dangerous: they lead to stagnation and the degradation of the political system," Medvedev told a congress of Putin's United Russia party.

A Mercader: not really state of the art.

Pakistan Spies on Its Diaspora, Spreading Fear
They all do it…spy on the USA. Some of them; ok most of them try to recruit former nationals gone American. This alone is why I think all new immigrants to the USA should serve in the military or a US Public Service Corps. First, it would allow better indoctrination into American values and second, it would allow better observation for the clandestine gene.

So before beating up on Pakistan the safe haven for the USA’s greatest enemy (Osama bin Laden) since Emperor Hirohito; let’s check out some relevant Russian and Chinese cases:

Russia

The United States Treasury Department was successfully penetrated by nearly a dozen Soviet agents or information sources, including Harold Glasser and his superior, Harry Dexter White, assistant secretary of the treasury and the second most influential official in the department.

China

According to federal investigators, four people recently arrested in Los Angeles are part of an extensive network of Chinese military intelligence agents operating here in the United States. The alleged spies have been working in the U.S. since 1990 and, according to documents obtained from the suspects; they may have compromised some of America's most important weapon systems.

All four were arrested and charged with theft of government property. The charges are expected to be upgraded to espionage or espionage-related, according to law enforcement officials.

According to investigators, the ring consisted of Chi Mak and his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, along with Chi's brother, Tai Wang Mak, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li. Documents found at the search of Chi's home in Downey, California, showed that sensitive data on Aegis battle management systems have been passed to communist China.

Chi reportedly holds a secret-level security clearance and worked on more than 200 U.S. defense and military contracts as an electrical engineer with the defense contractor Power Paragon, a subsidiary of L3/SPD Technologies/Power Systems Group in Anaheim, Calif. In addition, Chi had access to details on U.S. aircraft carriers and once was aboard the USS Stennis.

Pakistan

F.B.I. agents hunting for Pakistani spies in the United States last year began tracking Mohammed Tasleem, an attaché in the Pakistani Consulate in New York and a clandestine operative of Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.

Mr. Tasleem, they discovered, had been posing as an F.B.I. agent to extract information from Pakistanis living in the United States and was issuing threats to keep them from speaking openly about Pakistan’s government. His activities were part of what government officials in Washington, along with a range of Pakistani journalists and scholars; say is a systematic ISI campaign to keep tabs on the Pakistani diaspora inside the United States.

The F.B.I. brought Mr. Tasleem’s activities to Leon E. Panetta, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and last April, Mr. Panetta had a tense conversation with Pakistan’s spymaster, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha.

Within days, Mr. Tasleem was spirited out of the United States — a quiet resolution typical of the spy games among the world’s powers.

But some of the secrets of that hidden world became public last week when two Pakistani-Americans working for a charity that the F.B.I. believes is a front for Pakistan’s spy service were indicted. Only one was arrested; the other is still in Pakistan.

The investigation exposed one part of what American officials say is a broader campaign by the Pakistani spy agency, known as the ISI, to exert influence over lawmakers, stifle public dialogue critical of Pakistan’s military and blunt the influence of India, Pakistan’s longtime adversary.

ISI’s campaign extends to issuing both tacit and overt threats against those who speak critically about the military.

The ISI is widely feared inside Pakistan because of these very tactics. For example, American intelligence officials believe that some ISI operatives ordered the recent killing of a Pakistani journalist, Saleem Shahzad.

According to one American law enforcement official, the F.B.I. had originally hoped to arrest the two men working for the charity, the Kashmiri American Council, several times earlier this year but was told each time by the State Department or the C.I.A. that the arrests would only aggravate the frayed relations between the United States and Pakistan.

The indictments came as the C.I.A. was trying to negotiate the release of a Pakistani doctor who was jailed by the ISI on accusations that he had helped the Americans track down Osama bin Laden before his killing.

Several Pakistani journalists and scholars in the United States interviewed over the past week said that they were approached regularly by Pakistani officials, some of whom openly identified themselves as ISI officials. The journalists and scholars said the officials caution them against speaking out on politically delicate subjects like the indigenous insurgency in Baluchistan or accusations of human rights abuses by Pakistani soldiers. The verbal pressure is often accompanied by veiled warnings about the welfare of family members in Pakistan, they said.

One Pakistani journalist, who like the others asked to be quoted anonymously because of concerns about his safety, recalled an episode in December 2006 in which a Pakistani man filmed a public discussion about Pakistan’s tribal areas at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The event’s organizers later learned the man was from the ISI, the journalist said.

A second Pakistani author said that at several conferences and seminars in recent years, representatives from the spy agency made their presence known by asking threatening questions.

“The ISI guys will look into your eyes and will indirectly threaten you by introducing themselves,” the author said. “The ISI makes sure that they are present in every occasion relating to Pakistan, and in some cases they pay ordinary Pakistanis for attending events and pass them information.”

The indictments last week were part of a broader F.B.I. investigation into how Pakistan’s government, including the ISI, has secretly funneled money into the United States to influence American policy about Kashmir, a region claimed both by India and Pakistan. The effort, American officials said, included lobbying and publicity activities by the Kashmiri American Council (also called the Kashmiri Center) and by donations to lawmakers.

In recent years, the Justice Department has brought several cases against defendants charged with supporting terror groups that have historically had ties to the ISI, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group that carried out the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

Abbas, author of "Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror," said there is an alarming trend that includes Pakistani pilots refusing to bomb militant strongholds, and units surrendering to militant groups rather than fire on them.

Last month, Pakistani Taliban insurgents stormed the Naval Air Station in Karachi, apparently armed with inside information on its layout and security. They destroyed two U.S. supplied surveillance aircraft.

Days before he was abducted and murdered, Pakistani journalist Syed Shahzad described that attack as "the violent beginning of an internal ideological struggle between Islamist elements in the Pakistani armed forces and their secular and liberal top brass."

He went on to quote unnamed sources in the ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence service, as saying: "It was shown several months ago that the Pakistan navy is vulnerable to Islamists when a marine commando unit official was arrested.....Now, they (intelligence) realize how the organization (navy) is riddled and vulnerable to the influence of militant organizations."

Brigadier General Ali Khan was close to retiring at the end of a distinguished career in the Pakistani Army when he was detained early in May - and accused of links with an outlawed Islamist group.

His arrest, which became public Tuesday, shocked fellow officers at army headquarters and again raises the specter that senior ranks of the Pakistani officer corps may be infiltrated by Islamist militants.

Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said Khan was believed linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation). He said efforts were underway to arrest members of the group who had been in contact with Khan.

New American intelligence assessments have concluded that Pakistan has steadily expanded its nuclear arsenal since President Obama came to office, and that it is building the capability to surge ahead in the production of nuclear-weapons material, putting it on a path to overtake Britain as the world’s fifth largest nuclear weapons power.

There is a good reason to let people spy on your soil. You can always turn them or at least watch what they are spying on. If you know, what they know, and they don’t know it; then you’re ahead. Unless of course they know that you know, and you don’t know it. All very confusing in the spy game, isn’t it?

But what of militant Islam in Pakistan and WMD? We all went to war over Iraq’s alleged program and have bombed and will bomb Iran as it heads in that direction. But what of Pakistan the safe house of Osama bin Laden?  Can it be allowed to be a nuclear threat? The Washington Post, citing nongovernment analysts, said Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal now numbered more than 100 deployed weapons.

From Russia with Love

Russia plans to revive a Soviet-era Arctic sea passage to service energy projects and provide a shorter supply route to Asia for carriers such as OAO Sovcomflot as the shipping line plans an initial share sale this year.
Opening the northern sea route may allow state-owned Sovcomflot to speed natural-gas deliveries to China and win cargos between Europe and Asia by offering a quicker alternative to the Suez Canal.

Sovcomflot, along with companies such as OAO Novatek, is sending test cargoes via the Arctic route, which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has vowed to transform into a year-round passage. To make it work, Russia must revamp ports, install rescue systems and build icebreakers for as much as 30 billion rubles ($1.1 billion) each to provide safe passage for tankers.

The northern sea route dates to 1932, when the Soviet Union sent the first vessel from Arkhangelsk to the Bering Strait. The route, open from July to November, is about a third shorter than the almost 13,000-mile journey from Rotterdam to Yokohama via the Suez Canal, saving time and fuel.

It also may attract carriers seeking to avoid pirates in the waters of East Africa and “Arab Spring” revolutions in the region around the Egyptian waterway.

Russia hired Morgan Stanley (MS) on June 30 to manage the sale of a quarter of Moscow-based Sovcomflot. The deal may take place in October or November, Alexei Uvarov, head of the Economy Ministry’s property department, told reporters last month. Natural investors would either be Japanese or Korean shipbuilders.

Sovcomflot plans to expand its gas transportation business as energy producers gear up to bring Arctic projects on line later this decade. In 2010, it shipped 70,000 metric tons of gas condensate through the Arctic for Novatek, which plans to start producing liquefied natural gas for sale to European and Asian customers at a project on the Yamal peninsula in 2016.

“Demand for LNG has grown in the east over the past two to three years in China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore,” Babakhanov said. “As Asian demand rises, the northern sea route will become very important strategically.”

The OAO Gazprom-led Shtokman project in the Barents Sea, which may contain more than 3.9 trillion cubic meters (137.7 trillion cubic feet) of gas, may begin initial production in 2016. OAO Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer, is developing fields in the Kara Sea that may hold as much as 35.8 billion barrels of potential resources. The Moscow-based company may drill its first well in 2015.

Icebreakers in Demand

In all, Russia’s Arctic shelf may hold more than 100 billion tons of oil equivalent, according to the Natural Resources Ministry.

Even before tests are completed, demand for the northern sea route is rising. Atomflot, the state operator of nuclear icebreakers that charges commercial shippers for passage, said it has received 15 applications this year, about three times as many as in 2010.

“Northern sea shipping will become a more profitable route than the Suez Canal,” Leonid Mikhelson, Novatek’s CEO told reporters June 17. Russia’s second-largest gas producer may export seven condensate or light crude cargoes via the Arctic to Asia this year, he said.

Moscow-based Eurochem isn’t saving money by using the northern sea route because it’s paying about $50 per ton of cargo for shipping and passage, the same as it would for the Suez Canal, Nechaev said. Still, it halves the time to 25 days and avoids risks stemming from Middle East unrest and pirates.