Russian Press at a Glance, Thursday, May 5, 2011

A brief look at what is in the Russian papers today

POLITICS

The St. Petersburg branch of Russia’s ruling United Russia party has notified Sergei Mironov that a procedure to dismiss him as head of the upper house of parliament had been launched (Kommersant, Izvestia)

The Kremlin has asked the United States for legal guarantees that a planned U.S. missile defense base in Romania will not target Russia’s strategic nuclear forces

(Kommersant)

Russia is to adopt on Thursday a color code system to measure the threat of terrorism in the country at any given time. A high threat will be marked with red, medium with yellow, and low with blue

(Rossiiskaya Gazeta)

BUSINESS ECONOMY

The Russian government has selected 30 investment projects worth 145 billion rubles ($5.3 billion) in agriculture, tourism and information technology as part of an ambitious program to develop the volatile North Caucasus region through 2025

(Kommersant, Moscow Times)

A Moscow court has issued an international arrest warrant for former Bank of Moscow head Andrei Borodin and his deputy Dmitry Akulinin. Both fled Russia for Britain after a dispute with state-controlled VTB bank

(Vedomosti, Moscow Times)

Russian aircraft industry regulator Rosaviatsiya has asked Russian air companies to shift all their charter flights to night time

(Kommersant, Vedomosti, Izvestia)

OIL GAS

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov spoke out on Wednesday against the division of the Caspian Sea shelf into national sectors and said Russia would exclusively use zero liquid discharge technology for the production of oil and gas in the region

(Rossiiskaya Gazeta)

Russia may introduce new taxation rules for oil exports. Higher global oil prices would lead to lower taxation of exported crude oil, but higher taxation of exported oil derivatives (Kommersant, Vedomosti)

Russia’s Finance Ministry wants to raise mineral tax on natural gas and return to gas export duties, forcing energy giant Gazprom to contribute an additional 150 billion rubles ($5.5 billion) a year to the state budget

(Kommersant, Moscow News)

Russian gas giant Gazprom has lost about 8.7% of its value in the past two days

(Vedomosti)

WORLD

U.S. President Barack Obama’s public opinion ratings have reached an all-time high after a successful operation to eliminate al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden

(Vedomosti)

SOCIETY

Almost 100% of Russians do not believe that state officials declare all their incomes and property for taxation purposes

(Kommersant)

Moscow may soon build filling stations for electric cars. Experts believe the authorities should first experiment with hybrid models

(Izvestia)

Russian lawmakers want to make studying traffic rules a compulsory subject at high schools (Izvestia)

CRIME

Russian investigators have launched a new criminal investigation into four former senior prosecutors who are suspected of helping organizers of illegal gambling

(Vedomosti)

In an escalation of a legal battle between Hermitage Capital and Russia’s Interior Ministry, a Moscow court ordered the arrest of one of the firm’s partners, and the case’s investigator said Hermitage founder Bill Browder had been placed on an international wanted list

(Moscow Times, Vedomosti, Izvestia)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a law that raises fines for giving or taking bribes to up to 100 times the amount of the bribe. The maximum fine is 500 million rubles ($18.3 million)

(Rossiiskaya Gazeta)

For more details on all the news in Russia today, visit our website at http://en.rian.ru.

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