May 22:
The UAE may soon be competing with Russia to export gas to Europe. According to the Gulf Times, the Emirates recently entered talks to invest in Turkmenistan, thereby gaining access to - and positioning itself to exploit - the former Soviet republic's vast gas reserves. “We have a special relationship with Turkmenistan," the UAE's Oil Minister, Mohamed al-Hamli, has declared. "There is a genuine interest and a genuine determination with both countries to exploit this possibility.”
For Abu Dhabi, helping develop Turkmenistan’s reserves would mean access to the fourth-largest source of natural gas in the world - a wealth of resources the Emirates covet for both domestic use and profitable sales. The likely transport route currently is the still-notional Nabucco pipeline, which could transfer gas to Europe through Turkey by as soon as 2014, bypassing Russia. The UAE currently backs the Nabucco route, rather than Gazprom’s planned South Stream pipeline, which aims to provide 32 percent of Europe’s gas supply by 2020.
May 24:
In an effort to prevent future terrorist attacks, Russia will install explosives detectors in the metro systems of each of its major cities. The Homeland Security Newswire reports that the sensors are part of a new, sophisticated checkpoint security system that the Kremlin plans to implement in urban centers over the next four years. Other innovations expected to be deployed by 2014 include passenger registration and ID-verification requirements for ticket sales “on all means of public transport, including inter-city buses.”
May 25:
Belarus is bucking Russia's energy monopoly. Amid deteriorating relations between Moscow and Minsk, the former Soviet satellite has reportedly refused to pay reduced-cost fuel prices to Gazprom, despite already owing nearly $200 million for gas purchased this year. According to the Saint Petersburg Times, the spat comes despite the fact that since the start of the year, Belarus has received some $4.2 billion in subsidies from Russia, including “below-market gas prices and tax-free oil deliveries.”
The Russian government’s latest case against twelve Muslim men in Tartarstan accused of attempting to overthrow the Republic’s administration has drawn criticism from human rights activists, reports the Voice of America. These experts argue that the cases are essentially an attack on freedom of religion, and encourage radicalization. According to Valentin Gefter, director of Russia’s Human Rights Institute, the Kremlin’s current policy in the Caucasus represents a fight against independent thought, rather than terrorism. Last year's decision by the Kremlin to eliminate juries in terrorism cases, Gefter added, has only enabled “the possibility of not only manipulating, pressuring, and perpetrating all kinds of outrages during an investigation, but also to get courts to deliver verdicts desired [by authorities].”
May 26:
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has stepped up his efforts to attract foreign investors to the country's economy. While many of the G20 states are busy tightening financial regulations, Medvedev believes that Russia's looser restrictions offer “a haven for equity firms,” reports the Moscow Times. However, doubt about investing in Russia remains high among financial experts, and even President Medvedev has admitted that the risks are “quite high," although he has argued that "they can be counterbalanced by the preferences that we are willing to offer.”