MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) Government to toughen controls over the export of light weapons and small firearms/Regional elections expose instability of bi-party model/Russian military dismayed by proposed Tbilisi withdrawal/Investors unwilling to pay premium for Russian shares/Very few candidates for space flights
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Vedomosti
Government to toughen controls over the export of light weapons and small firearms
The Russian government is toughening its controls over the export of light weapons and small firearms. Russian officials, who may require customers to report on the status of the weapons, will also have the right to conduct on-site inspections.
Experts said the decision was motivated by Israel's complaints about the sale of Russian anti-tank guided missiles by Syria to the radical Hizbollah movement in Lebanon.
New export-control regulations will cover small firearms, including machine guns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, as well as portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. From now on, every weapons-sale contract must contain a clause stipulating control over light weapons and small firearms. However, this does not apply to weapons sales based on Russia's military-political or economic interests.
Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said the government has reacted to Israeli complaints with regard to the sale of Syria's Kornet ATGMs to Hizbollah, which used them against Israeli tanks during last summer's war in Lebanon.
Moreover, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov accused NATO's East European members of supplying Soviet weapons to Georgia in violation of their commitments not to sell weapons to third countries. He was hinting at Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.
Makiyenko said tougher export controls should highlight Moscow's determination to prevent the re-export of such weapons to unfriendly countries.
A source at Rosoboronexport, the main state weapons exporter, said the new document is aimed at the United States.
"The United States has been demanding tougher controls over the export of light weapons and small firearms in the last 12 months, because such weapons pose the greatest threat to its occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan," the source told the paper.
The measure will help improve Russia's reputation, said defense analyst Maxim Pyadushkin, a leading authority on the proliferation of light weapons and small firearms.
He said the entire world is stepping up efforts to cope with the illegal sale of such weapons. The campaign is similar to the one that sought to ban land mines in the 1990s, and it would be unwise not to participate, Pyadushkin told the paper.
The sale of small weapons and light firearms accounts for only a small fraction of Russian arms exports, totaling about $100 million per year.
Gazeta
Regional elections expose instability of bi-party model
The pro-Kremlin party United Russia has for the first time attacked its new rival, the " actual left." Several of its members have asked the Prosecutor General's Office to check on the legality of actions taken by Sergei Mironov, speaker of the upper house and leader of the Party of Life, during the election campaign in the Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals.
Mironov has accused the head of the regional election commission of tampering with the October 8 election results. The outrage of United Russia may have more serious consequences for Mironov, who may be prevented from becoming upper house speaker again.
The upper house will be renewed after elections to the St. Petersburg parliament, which will be held either in December 2006 or March 2007. Mironov's nomination would automatically amount to his reelection as house speaker.
On the one hand, Mironov's nomination has been coordinated with St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, said a source in the St. Petersburg parliament. On the other hand, United Russia, which has a majority in both houses of the federal parliament, may try to punish Mironov for his actions in the Sverdlovsk Region.
"He has not become the leader of a new party yet, but he is already employing undemocratic methods," said Andrei Isayev, board member of United Russia's general council. "If he continues to enforce his ideas, as he did in the Sverdlovsk Region, we may nominate our own man to the post of speaker."
A source told the popular daily Gazeta that United Russia has been discussing a new candidate for a long time. "It may be a woman, most likely Lyubov Sliska," he said.
The regional elections showed that the bi-party model suggested to President Vladimir Putin by Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of the Kremlin administration, is not viable. The trouble is that Mironov did not play by the rules, making political infighting public, threatening the head of the Sverdlovsk election commission with persecution, and exposing the machinations of his rivals from Untied Russia.
Vremya Novostei
Russian military dismayed by proposed Tbilisi withdrawal
Russian military personnel in Tbilisi and civilians serving with Russia's South Caucasus army group are dismayed by the decision of Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov to transfer the group's headquarters, which is under Georgian jurisdiction, two years ahead of schedule [by December 31], and to withdraw the Tbilisi garrison.
An anonymous high-placed spokesman for the group's command said he and his subordinates will have to fulfill the decision, but said the defense minister would not have made it were he a military man.
The officer said the Russian army group will be effectively deprived of a headquarters for the next two years, and will thereby face additional organizational problems when it comes time to withdraw its units from Akhalkalaki and Batumi.
A source at the group's headquarters said it will first be sited at the 62nd Russian military base in Akhalkalaki, and will then move to Batumi in 2007 when the base is dismantled. The Adzharian base is to be closed a year later.
The Russian military now coordinates all its movements with the Georgian authorities, but military traffic will only intensify in the next two years.
A spokesman for the Russian high command said officers must now regularly visit Tbilisi in order to coordinate urgent issues with the Georgian Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry. Moreover, the 387 servicemen of the Tbilisi garrison still lack housing on Russian territory and have nowhere to go, he said.
In all, the Russian army group has 2,032 officers and soldiers, and over 3,000 family members. Ivanov said 484 civilians would also leave Georgia.
A Russian woman from the group's headquarters complained that her son, an eleventh-grade student, will be unable to finish school because all of the army group's schools will be closed by late 2006 on Ivanov's orders.
Kommersant
Investors unwilling to pay premium for Russian shares
Russia's largest potassium fertilizer maker canceled Wednesday an additional floating of 22.8% of its stock on the Russian and London exchanges. The company, Uralkalii, determined that bids made by investors during an exhibition tour were unacceptable. Market players and analysts say the attitude to IPOs by Russian companies is turning sour. Cancellations or rescheduling of flotations are becoming common. Investors are reluctant to pay exorbitant prices for Russian shares simply because they are novel.
Originally the issuer planned to make the placement at between $2.05-2.45 per share, looking to a capitalization of $4.4-5.2 billion.
One investment banker who bid $2.05 said the decision to cancel was prompted not so much by the company itself as by the organizers of the flotation, who failed to secure subscription volume owing to the overcharged price. Sources at Troika Dialog also found the established price range too high. "If the company decides to attempt another IPO and adjusts the price band, the flotation might be a success," company sources said.
Pavel Laberko, portfolio manager of Alfa Capital, said management set its sights too high. "In a low-liquidity market, they requested too great a premium. Investors are now not in a position to pay unwarranted premiums, and look more at the current market value of stock." On Wednesday, investors responded to the issuer's move by sending Uralkalii shares down 5.7%, to $1.82.
Experts link the increasing tendency of Russian companies to roll back the dates of their IPOs to market conditions. In their view, speculative-minded portfolio investors looking for short-term growth and a quick gain now dominate the IPO market.
Yuri Sychev, Aton vice president, said: "All issuers remember Rosneft's successful IPO, but few care to recall that they used their bureaucratic clout."
CenterInvest Securities vice-president Roman Andreyev said that "investors are sated with Russian IPOs and are not prepared to pay top-bracket prices." "They are now living from day to day," he said. "We have enough examples of underwriters overassessing their securities, which, once placed, go down."
Gazeta.ru
Very few candidates for space flights
The Russian Space Agency has approved a list of new candidates for future space flights, one of them a woman. After two years of training, they will have to pass tests and wait for their turn to visit the International Space Station (ISS). Experts found it very difficult to form the group, because few people now want to become astronauts.
Five of the candidates are Air Force pilots and two are from the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation. There are no candidates from the academic Institute of Medical and Biological Studies. In general, the list of aspirants has become shorter in the past few years, partly because of stringent health requirements.
Yelena Serova, aged 30, will be the first woman in the group since 2004. Nadezhda Kuzhelnaya left without making a flight because she reached retirement age.
Serova graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute and is an Energia engineer at the Mission Control Center. She is married to astronaut Mark Serov, who was recruited in 2003, passed the tests in 2005 and was accepted to the group. This means that the Russian team may soon have a couple.
Sergei Shamsutdinov, a commentator from the Novosti Kosmonavtiki astronews magazine, said it is the first time that Energia is short of candidates. "Hardly anyone at the company wants to become an astronaut," he said.
Fewer than a dozen were sent for medical examinations in 2005, including the 2003 recruitment reserve and new aspirants. As a result, Energia decided to recruit candidates among last year's students and university graduates who planned to seek employment with Energia.
Shamsutdinov said the students of the Moscow Aviation Institute and the Moscow State Technical University disappointed the recruiters. The majority of them don't want to become astronauts or work for a meager salary at Energia.
