Russia 110505 Basic Political Developments

ISS orbit to be readjusted for Soyuz TMA-20 return

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110505/163861790.html
03:21 05/05/2011

The orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) will be raised by 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) on Thursday, Russian Mission Control said.

"The readjustment is necessary to ensure the best conditions for the successful return of Soyuz TMA-20 crew to Earth on May 24," Mission Control said in a statement.

Soyuz TMA-20 will bring back members of Expedition 27 - Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli. They have been on board the orbital station since December last year.

The maneuver will be conducted using the two main engines on board the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-2), which docked with the ISS on February 24.

The engines will be switched on for 239 seconds to give the ISS an additional boost of 0.6 meters per second.

Corrections to the space station's orbit are conducted periodically before launches of Russian spacecraft and U.S. shuttles to compensate for the Earth's gravity and to safeguard successful dockings and landings.

MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti)

10:38 05/05/2011Top News

Medvedev signs bill extending PCRF members office term http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/136358.html

MOSCOW, May 5 (Itar-Tass) — President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a bill introducing amendments to Article 8 of the Federal law "On the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation" (PCRF), adopted by the State Duma lower house of parliament on April 22 and approved by the Federation Council upper house of parliament on April 27, the Kremlin press service announced.

The law extends the term of office for the Public Chamber Members from two year to three, and specifies a procedure for the election of representatives of interregional and regional public associations to the PCRF.

With a view to ensuring equal representation of interregional and regional public associations in the PCRF, the law stipulates that the number of such representatives from each Federal district shall be determined by a decision of the PCRF Council. In the process, an approximate parity in the number of representatives of interregional and regional public associations from each Federal district must be obse

Mironov Faces Dismissal

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/mironov-faces-dismissal/436314.html
05 May 2011

The Moscow Times

Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov may lose his seat in the upper chamber by mid-May, Interfax said, citing the St. Petersburg legislature, which nominated him as senator in 2001.

Mironov is a co-founder of the pro-Kremlin Just Russia party but obtained his senator seat thanks to his party's rival, the ruling United Russia, which controls the St. Petersburg legislature.

The city legislature said Wednesday that it "has launched the procedure" of Mironov's recall from the Federation Council and will review the matter during its next meeting on May 18, Interfax reported, adding that United Russia's federal leadership is undecided on the issue. Mironov said he was prepared to leave, Vesti.ru reported.

Mironov faces dismissal from Federation Council

http://www.themoscownews.com/politics/20110505/188640449.html
by Andy Potts at 05/05/2011 11:39

 

Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council, could be pushed out of his post after demanding the resignation of St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko.

Parliamentarians in the northern capital, which Mironov represents, are apparently outraged that he has questioned the city’s management, and on May 18 they plan to demand his removal from office.

However, the fate of the leader of opposition party A Just Russia could be more complicated than that, according to political analysts.

And Mironov himself has shrugged off the latest storm, saying that people try to sack him every six months.

 

The upper chamber

The Federation Council is the upper house of Russia’s two-tier parliamentary system, and works in parallel with the state Duma, whose speaker is United Russia’s Boris Gryzlov.

Mironov’s role gives him a higher profile than many politicians outside of the ruling United Russia party – but that could change if the Petersburg parliamentarians pursue their crusade successfully.

Although the city parliament does not have the right to hire and fire Federation Council members, it could revoke his mandate to represent Petersburg in the national chamber – effectively forcing him from his post.

And sources in the city told Kommersant that they were planning a show of strength to remind Mironov that United Russia holds the whip hand in Petersburg’s – and Russia’s – political operations.

 

Conspiracy theories

However, the picture is confused by recent suggestions that United Russia and A Just Russia could merge.

And others suggest that Mironov could be groomed as a leader of a new opposition party to work alongside United Russia.

Political analyst Mikhail Remizov told RIA Novosti: “Mironov, one the one hand, is a major party political opponent of United Russia, but on the other hand he is their hostage in terms of his position.

“We cannot speak of a real opposition in this situation.

“However, if you transform A Just Russia into a real opposition party, with Mironov as one of it’s leader, then he will leave this post.”

But Remizov added that the Petersburg putsch might simply be a reminder that Mironov’s party agreed to support Medvedev and Putin earlier this year.

Meanwhile Valery Khomyakov argued that the latest scandal was an electioneering effort on Mironov’s part.

“There will be no resignation and no sacking, but there is obviously a game being played,” he said. “Any statement right now should be seen as preparation for future election campaigns.”

07:40 05/05/2011Top News

Superjet may be bought for RF president http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/136260.html

MOSCOW, May 5 (Itar-Tass) — The Chaika (Seagull) ship, bought on the secondary European market for the needs of the Russian president, will arrive in Sochi this May, head of the presidential property management department Vladimir Kozhin said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

He recalled that previous presidential yacht Kavkaz had to be decommissioned because “the ship is worn, is service life cannot be extended.” “Instead we were going to order a new ship at a Russian shipyard, but we were not satisfied both with the price, time and quality. As a result, we bought on the European secondary market a medium-sized ship,” Kozhin said. He said the yacht is “functional, quiet and decent for the president to work her and rest, if he has the time.” Kozhin stressed that the ship has no luxury, calling “inventions” the rumours about the yacht’s interior that claimed that it is decorated with gold and crystal.

The presidential property manager also admitted that his department has to renovate the president’s air fleet also abroad. He recalled that two Falcon aircraft in which the head of state flies over short distances. Have already been purchased. Kozhin said that “contracts for building the Airbus liners, which will appear next year” have also been signed. “Our aircraft manufacturers simply have not enough time, and there is not enough existing aircraft for the whole programme of flights – of the president, prime minister and so on,” Kozhin said.

He noted that Russian enterprises will build for the needs of the country’s leadership the Ilyushin Il-96 and Tupolev Tu-214 planes. Kozhin confirmed that the property management department can also buy a new SuperJet, “but only when it becomes a serial aircraft.”

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is a modern, fly-by-wire regional jet in the 75- to 95-seat category. With development starting in 2000, the plane was designed by the civil aircraft division of the Russian aerospace company Sukhoi in cooperation with Western partners. Its maiden flight was conducted on 19 May 2008 and the plane received its Interstate Aviation Committee certification in January 2011 with European Aviation Safety Agency certification expected in mid-2011. On 21 April 2011, the Superjet 100 performed its first commercial passenger flight, on the Armavia route from Yerevan to Moscow.

Designed to compete internationally with its Embraer and Bombardier counterparts, the Superjet 100 aims for substantially lower operating costs at the price of $23–$25 million. With over 200 orders secured by early 2011, the Superjet 100 is widely regarded as the most important project of the Russian civilian aircraft industry and the project receives substantial support from the Russian government.

The final assembly of the plane is done by Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association, its SaM-146 engines are designed and produced by the French-Russian PowerJet joint-venture and the plane is marketed internationally by SuperJet International.

On 21 April 2011 the first commercial flight of Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SN 95007) by Armavia airline landed at Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow at 4:45 AM MSK (00:45 GMT), carrying 90 passengers from Zvartnots International Airport, Yerevan. The flight took about 2 hours and 55 minutes. Armavia used the Airbus A319 on its Yerevan to Moscow (SVO) route, but is now switching to Superjet 100. President of United Aircraft Corporation and General Director of Sukhoi Mikhail Pogosyan hailed the event as a key milestone for the Superjet 100 project, saying that it opened “a new stage of the programme - the beginning of commercial operation and full-scale serial production.”

08:40 05/05/2011Top News

Russia Antarctic expedition to finish in Petersburg http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/136276.html

ST. PETERSBURG, May 5 (Itar-Tass) — The flagship of Russia’s research fleet – the Akademic Fyodorov expedition vessel is returning on the night from May 5 to 6 to St. Petersburg from Antarctica after a 180-day voyage, chief of the Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE) - Deputy Director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the Federal Service of Russia on Hydrometeorology and Monitoring of the Environment (Rosgidromet) Valery Lukin told Itar-Tass.

Lukin said that the Akademik Fyodorov has performed two voyages in Antarctic waters: in December 2010 - February 2011 and in February-April 2011 with a call to the port of Cape Town for replenishing the ship’s supplies, sending home part of the wintering crew of the 55th RAE the taking on board another crew of experts of the 56th RAE. The vessel delivered material and technical supplies to the Russian Antarctic stations Mirny, Vostok, Progress and Novolazarevskaya, including fuel, food, consumables, spare parts, technical equipment and instruments.

Head of the RAE highlighted the most interesting spheres of research and fundamental work under the 56th RAE programme. They include hydrobiological study of living organisms in the coastal areas of King George Island with the using of scuba diving equipment at the Bellingshausen station. The expedition crew installed and commission the second automatic station for differential correction of orbital parameters of satellites of the national navigation system GLONASS at the Novolazarevskaya station. They continued the drilling of the last 100 meters of ice in the deep borehole at the Vostok station; the penetration in the water layer of the subglacial lake is expected during the 57th RAE, the AARI official said.

Scientists from Belarus and Germany took part in the research programme. Russian researchers worked using the expedition infrastructure of the national Antarctic programmes of the United States, Italy and South Korea. Representatives of 18 research and scientific and production organisations representing Rosgidromet, Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency (Rosnedra), Federal Real Estate Cadastre Agency (Roskadastr), Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), Federal Air Transport Agency, Defence Ministry, Russian Academy of Sciences also took part in the expedition work, the Rosgidromet Research Institute noted.

The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, or AARI is the oldest and largest Russian research institute in the field of comprehensive studies of Arctic and Antarctica. It is located in St. Petersburg. The AARI was founded on March 3, 1920 as the Northern Research and Trade Expedition under the Scientific and Technical Department of the All-Union Council of State Economy. In 1925, the expedition was reorganized into the Institute of Northern Studies and five years later - into the All-Union Arctic Institute. In 1932, the institute was integrated into the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route. In 1948, they established the Arctic Geology Research Institute on the basis of the geology department of the All-Union Arctic Institute, which would subordinate to the Ministry of Geology of the USSR. In 1958, the All-Union Arctic Institute was renamed Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. In 1963, the AARI was incorporated into the Chief Administration of the Hydrometeorological Service under the Council of Ministers of the USSR (now Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Monitoring of the Environment). Throughout its history, the AARI has organised more than a thousand Arctic expeditions, including dozens of high-latitude aerial expeditions, which transported 34 manned drifting ice stations Severny Polyus (North Pole) to Central Arctic. In 1955, the AARI participated in the organisation of Antarctic research. In 1958, it began to organize and lead all of the Soviet Antarctic expeditions, which would later make many geographic discoveries. In 1968, the institute engaged in research of the areas of the Atlantic Ocean contiguous to the Arctic and Antarctica. The AARI has numerous departments, such as those of oceanography, glaciology, meteorology, hydrology or Arctic river mouths and water resources, geophysics, polar geography, and others. It also has its own computer centre, ice research laboratory, experimental workshops, and a museum (the Arctic and Antarctic Museum). Scientists, such as Alexander Karpinsky, Alexander Fersman, Yuly Shokalsky, Nikolai Knipovich, Lev Berg, Otto Schmidt, Rudolf Samoylovich, Vladimir Vize, Nikolai Zubov, Pyotr Shirshov, Nikolai Urvantsev, and Yakov Gakkel have all made their valuable contributions to the work of the AARI. In 1967, AARI was awarded the Order of Lenin.

The R/V Akademik Fyodorov was built in Rauma, Finland for the Soviet Union and completed on September 8, 1987. It started operations on October 24, 1987 in the USSR. The ship was named after a Soviet polar explorer, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Yevgeny Fyodorov, who worked on the first Soviet manned drifting ice station North Pole-1. On August 2, 2007, the Akademik Fyodorov sailed with 100 scientists and researchers and two deep sea mini-submarines to the North Pole where the scientists were dispatched to a depth of more than 13,200 feet where they dropped a titanium capsule containing a Russian flag.