Transport ministry to earmark bn for Moscow subway development

Transport ministry to earmark $54bn for Moscow subway development

Russia's Transportation Ministry will allocate 1.6 trillion rubles ($54.6bn) for the development of Moscow's subway within the next nine years, a business daily quoted the transport program for the Russian capital and its surrounding region until 2020.

The Vedomosti paper said the ministry drafted the program for Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. The document in particular says that lack of financing has resulted in the metro construction rates being 3.5 km (2.2 miles) annually, whereas the demand is 8-10 km (5-6.2 miles).

The program also admits that the capital's transport system is lagging behind the city's requirements by 25-30 years. It sets the ministry's key task for the next two years as "prevention of a transport collapse."

Sobyanin's predecessor Yury Luzhkov, who held office for 18 years, was fired in September 2010 after an extensive smear campaign against him by the state-run Russian media. Sobyanin has been gradually rejecting many of the former mayor's pet projects and launching new ones since he took office.

The new projects include building up to 15 km (9.3 miles) of subway lines annually, allocating special lanes for public transport and replacing rolling stock, Vedomosti quoted deputy mayor Nikolai Lyamov as saying.

In all, the program will cost 6.8 trillion rubles ($232.2bn), out of which half will be spent on construction of roads.

MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti)

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15954829

15.02.2011, 11.45

MOSCOW, February 15 (Itar-Tass) - Moscow allocates 10.3 billion roubles for repairing of social facilities in the city, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at the meeting of the municipal government on Tuesday.

This money will be distributed among the department of healthcare – 4.3 billion roubles, department of education – 3.5 billion roubles, department of social services – 1.4 billion roubles, department of culture – 1.2 billion roubles, department of family policies – 207 million roubles, and department of culture and sports – 175 million roubles, he said.

“Here is what I would like to highlight,” he continued. “First of all, we should include the facilities which are a priority from the point of view of the services provided for the Muscovites, and secondly, all the facilities to be repaired are to be included in the schedule of the works to be done.”

Besides the capital repairing works, the money will be used for the maintenance improvement.

“For example, the department of healthcare will use 4.3 billion roubles for the capital repairing, and they have received already 2.7 billion for the maintenance,” he said. “We add three billion roubles to improve our polyclinics and hospitals.”

“It is necessary to add money for the preparations to winter /unfortunately the amount was not calculated completely, so it needs to be done/ and this means that the healthcare expenses would make about eight billion roubles,” he added.

“Since the work to be done is big, I address heads of the departments to foresee how they may transfer part of the functions in repairing to the administrative districts to speed up the process,” he said. “We have a confirmed schedule of weekly control, and I ask all heads of the departments to report weekly how the plan is being implemented.”

The schedules “should be available for the controlling departments so that we may see when a repairing starts, when it is due to finish, so that we may control it on-going.”

Russian Press at a Glance, Tuesday, February 15, 2011

New papers linked a seaside palace to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

While the government is heralding the scale of its privatization, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov is suggesting that property be confiscated from ineffective owners, beginning with the sites of accidents and terrorist acts: the Raspadskaya mine and Domodedovo Airport.

The Moscow judge who sentenced ex-Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner to jail in December was pressured and did not even write the verdict he read, the judge's assistant said.

Russia is seeing more billionaires following the financial crisis. Vladimir Lisin earned the most among the country's billionaires last year, retaining his top spot in the latest ranking of the richest Russians by Finance magazine. The number of billionaires surpassed the pre-crisis level for the first time, the magazine said.

The government kicked off its biggest privatization drive since the collapse of the Soviet Union, raising 95.7 billion rubles ($3.26bn) with the sale of 10% in its second-largest state lender VTB.

Russia's Transportation Ministry will allocate 1.6 trillion rubles ($54.6bn) for the development of Moscow's subway within the next nine years.

Russia’s largest state lender Sberbank doubled bonuses to top managers. As a result, board members in 2010 received more than in 2008.

Nouriel Roubini, a New York University professor of economics, said a new recession could start only if oil prices grow too much.

New rules supposed to make expatriates' lives easier are to come into force Tuesday, but experts fear that they will actually produce new headaches.

The Federal Security Service said it found artworks by Pablo Picasso and Rembrandt and documents for offshore companies belonging to self-exiled investor Boris Berezovsky in a raid on an illegal gambling operation in Moscow.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Monday fired 25 top engineering service officials responsible for hiring contractors to clear snow from the streets, following poor work to remove snow that resulted in traffic jams unusual for the start of the week.

Constitutional Court head Valery Zorkin sent a letter to judges explaining his position regarding expert examination of high-profile criminal cases.

A new Interior Ministry order will simplify registration of cars, allowing motorists to sell and buy cars without having to pursue a double procedure of deregistering and then registering cars replacing their license plates.

Two 19-year-old men died when traveling on the roof of a subway car in Moscow.

http://russiaprofile.org/politics/32691.html

Dozens of opposition politicians claim that Russia’s ruling party is blocking them from running in regional elections at the start of a cycle that will culminate in the March 2012 presidential elections. Meanwhile Russian electrician Dmitry Stalin and his opposition running mate Alexander Filipenko – who shares the name of Khanty-Mansiisk’s former long-time governor – have been barred from registering in the March 13 elections because of their names, Just Russia says.

“The District Central Election Commission did not like the surnames of the candidates and the bureaucrats simply cancelled their registration,” Oleg Mikheyev of the opposition Just Russia party said in a statement. “Stalin and Filipenko were removed from the election because of pressure from United Russia. It is clear, even extremely clear that this particular decision is fundamentally unlawful and antidemocratic.”

Stalin’s application for registration at the regional elections was officially denied because of infringements he committed when opening his bank account and registering his campaign fund Komsomolskaya Pravda reported. Then came a formal complaint from locals angry over his surname, RIA Novosti reported.

"Stalin demands democracy... what is Stalin guilty of if he was born and has lived his whole life with this surname?" RIA Novosti quoted Just Russia as saying. Observers say that Alexander Filipenko hoped to siphon off votes by cashing in politically on the 15 year tenure of former Governor of Khanty-Mansiisk Alexander Filipenko, which only ended last year.

Other opposition parties are showing solidarity as they claim they are under political attack from the ruling party. “It’s his [Stalin’s] constitutional right to be elected by voters. There are no legal limitations of this kind. It is the voters themselves who must choose who to vote for,” said Yabloko spokesman Igor Yakovlev. “They removed our candidates too,” he continued. “This is not an isolated case. They removed our candidates in Tambov Region, from elections to the Ccity Duma in Stavropol, and a raft of other regions in exactly the same way.”

More and more of Yabloko’s candidates are being denied registration for elections. In March 2010, there were eight, in October 14, and this year there have been 41, Yabloko said in a statement. “This is a Russia-wide trend. United Russia is using bureaucratic and administrative methods to strengthen their position and do everything they can not to allow our opposition candidates into the local level of power,” said Yakovlev.

“The whole situation is reminiscent of Stalin’s times when the people’s fates were decided by an order from the top,” Just Russia said in a statement. “Today United Russia continues this totalitarian practice. And we socialists are struggling against the ‘neostalinism’ of the party of the authorities.”

But analysts are not convinced of the trend. Sergei Mikheyev, director of the independent Center of Political Assessments in Moscow, dismissed speculation of a link between the supposed rise in numbers of opposition politicians being denied registration and the upcoming State Duma elections in December 2011 and the March 2012 presidential elections.

“Every registration case is different. There are a lot of potential reasons for being denied registration. Many of these opposition figures do not have experience of meeting all the criteria of the Central Election Commission. This also concerns Yabloko,” he said. “What are 40 candidates in a country with elections in various regions? Is this a political challenge for the authorities? Of course, not. I don’t think this is a political campaign,” said Mikheyev.

Mikheyev said that often several candidates from the United Russia ruling party find themselves in political conflict in the regions. These political conflicts are often localized, which does not lend credence to a federal campaign against the opposition administered through a discriminating registration process, he said. “I think that quite often opposition parties like to try and play up their significance,” said Mikheev, while noting that Yabloko is still one of the few parties that has a chance of winning a seat at the Duma elections.

On February 8, six members of Yabloko Youth were briefly detained for protesting outside the Central Election Commission, in particular against the denial of registration to their candidates in Tambov and in the elections to the Stavropol City Duma. They brandished banners which read “Stop removing us from elections” and “Unfair elections is the path to Egypt.”

Russia’s opposition has tried to invigorate its supporters by comparing Russia’s situation to the revolution in Egypt. The comparisons, however, have produced little more than skepticism from many observers. And when the comparison was somewhat rudely questioned by Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist Alexander Yakovlev, Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin spectacularly stormed out of the television studio on air.