Christine Lagarde has been elected by the IMF’s Executive Board to be the fund’s new managing director, filling the vacancy created by the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. France’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Finances and Industry and a former synchronized swimmer, Lagarde will lead the global rainy day fund for the next five years. As the [...]
Tag: Asia
June 30, 2011
June 30, 2011
North Korea, Russia Abandon Plans for Kim Meeting
Protesters rallying against North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, pictured with a firing target, in Seoul on Wednesday. The leaders of North Korea and Russia appeared on Wednesday to have canceled plans for a summit in the Far East when the Kremlin said President Dmitry Medvedev had no meetings scheduled with Kim Jong Il. Authorities in Vladivostok, 130 kilometers from the North Korean border, had [...]
June 29, 2011
Graft and Unrest Put Kyrgyz Gold Rush on Ice
The Kumtor mine. With 100 sizable gold fields mapped but never tapped, Kyrgyzstan is ripe for a mining boom. 1 of 2 BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — The bus loaded with supporters of a planned $100 million mine had just left its remote Kyrgyz village when a mob on horseback blocked the road. What happened next was a warning to foreign mining companies who [...]
June 29, 2011
PhosAgro Sets an IPO Price Valuing Self at Up to $6.1Bln
Fertilizer producer PhosAgro said Tuesday that it had set an indicative price range of $13 to $16.50 per Global Depositary Receipt for a market debut it hopes will value the company at as much as $6.1 billion. PhosAgro said it was seeking to raise at least $500 million from the London and Moscow initial public offering prior to a 15 percent over-allotment option, confirming what sources [...]
June 29, 2011
Russia: From empire to great power
To start off, independence brought different things to different republics. The Baltic countries became EU and NATO members and their future is now linked with European and Euro-Atlantic institutions. In Central Asia, the former Soviet republics each have a very different status. Some of them, like Kazakhstan, have managed to score impressive results in economic [...]
June 29, 2011
Norilsk Invests to Double Arctic Shipments
Norilsk will increase deliveries of metal and coal through the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk, pictured. Norilsk Nickel plans to spend $370 million to double its shipments across the Arctic Ocean by 2016 as global warming allows the route to rival the journey through the Suez Canal. Norilsk will raise deliveries of metal and coal through the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk, near Finland, to China and South Korea, [...]
June 29, 2011
Stereoleto part II
Stereoleto part II The second night of this year’s Stereoleto will be held this weekend. By Sergey Chernov The St. Petersburg Times Published: June 29, 2011 (Issue # 1663) FOR SPT The Austrian modernist pop group Architecture in Helsinki will perform at Stereoleto this weekend. Stereoleto, arguably St. Petersburg’s finest outdoor summer event which marks [...]
June 28, 2011
OIC top diplomats to discuss new name and emblem of organization
Participants of a session of foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member states in Kazakhstan will discuss a new name and an emblem of the organization among the other issues. The top diplomats and other high-ranking officials are set to discuss policies and changes in the Middle East and Africa, the [...]
June 27, 2011
June 26, 2011
Armenia And Azerbaijan Blame Each Other For Peace Talks Failure
Talks on June 24 in the Russian Volga River city of Kazan were billed as crucial for trying to resolve the decades-long conflict surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, the mountainous, mostly Armenian-populated region inside Azerbaijan. But Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s Serzh Sarksyan failed to agree on a set of “basic principles” that could have marked the [...]
June 25, 2011
Language A Sensitive Issue In Kyrgyzstan
Language is a sensitive topic in Kyrgyzstan, as the country’s interim president Roza Otunbaeva mentioned recently, when she publicly backed promoting the development of the state language, Kyrgyz. Otunbaeva’s made her remarks in a speech, which has reopened debates over the role of Kyrgyz and Russian languages in the country. “The Kyrgyz language has not [...]
June 25, 2011
Russia Watches The Arab Spring
Russian policy toward Libya over the past few months has been a study in ambivalence. Earlier this month, Kremlin emissary Mikhail Margelov met with the Libyan opposition and declared them “serious and responsible people.” He also held talks with Qaddafi government officials about the dictator’s possible exit. Meanwhile, with striking inconsistency, Moscow dispatched chess champion [...]
June 24, 2011
Our 70th anniversary: From Sovinformburo to RIA Novosti 7.0
RIA Novosti marks its 70th anniversary today. Established on June 24, 1941, the Soviet Information Bureau, commonly known as Sovinformburo, has evolved into one of the world’s largest media holdings. RIA Novosti has held on to the best traditions of its past while at the same time remaking itself, expanding, and moving confidently into the [...]
June 24, 2011
Stakes High as Medvedev Seeks to Tackle Karabakh Quandary
The stakes are higher than ever before when President Dmitry Medvedev hosts talks about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Kazan on Friday. Judging from a recent war of words in the South Caucasus, the risk that a smoldering dispute over the Armenian enclave on Azeri territory will erupt into open hostilities has risen to new heights. Peace talks mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, led [...]