DME ranked 85th on a rating of the world's airports.  Is anyone shocked?

Guess who ranked #1?  ICN!

Second year in a row.  It came in first in all four categories in which it qualified.

I love Icheon Seoul airport.

This is actually an optical illusion, but wouldn't it be creepy if it were literally true?

Inuit seek answers to Arctic sun quirks


I have a lot of photos and some video to post from a recent visit by Russian environmentalists to Oregon and the SF Bay Area, but for now this is all I have time to do.

Pacific Environment is proud to present some of Russia's top environmentalists in two Bay Area events, on March 6th and March 8th.

Please join us!

======================
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
======================

The World Affairs Council of Northern California COSPONSORED BY
PACIFIC ENVIRONMENT AND GLOBAL EXCHANGE
Presents:

________________________________________________________

Russia's Sakhalin Island: Environmental Politics and Oil
________________________________________________________

with

Dmitry Lisitsyn, Board President, Sakhalin Environment Watch, from
Sakhalin Island, Russia, and

Irina Bogdan, Board President, Ecodal,
a Russian Far Eastern environmental community organization.

In September 2006 the Kremlin wrested majority control of Sakhalin II,
the world's largest oil and gas project, from Royal Dutch Shell and
gave it to Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom, citing environmental
violations among other reasons. In the wake of these changes Dmitry
Lisitsyn and Irina Bogdan, internationally recognized environmental
leaders of the campaign to improve Sakhalin II, will offer their
perspectives on the domestic and international implications of
Russia's shifting energy policy, and ways to ensure that the Kremlin
addresses the negative environmental impacts of Sakhalin II and other
oil and gas projects.

Registration 5:30 PM, Program 6:00 PM
World Affairs Council Auditorium
312 Sutter St., 2nd floor, San Francisco
Nonmembers $15 Student Nonmembers $5, World Affairs Council Members FREE

To buy tickets please visit here.




======================
Thursday, March 8, 2007
International Women's Day
======================

PACIFIC ENVIRONMENT PRESENTS:

________________________________________________________

An Intimate Reception with four of
Russia's most renowned environmental activists
________________________________________________________

Please join Pacific Environment for appetizers and wine to honor four
leaders of Russia's environmental movement.

Guests of honor include:

Dmitry Lisitsyn, Board President of Sakhalin Environment Watch. Leader
of the campaign to improve the largest integrated oil and gas project
in the world, Sakhalin II.  Winner of a 2006 Whitley Award for salmon
and forest conservation efforts on the island of Sakhalin.  The
Sakhalin II Campaign also won a Business Ethics Network award in 2006.

Irina Bogdan, Board President of Ecodal. One of Russia's top
environmental lawyers.  Involved in a number of legal cases that are
seeking an end to illegal actions by Russian and foreign operators of
resource-extraction projects in Siberia and the Russian Far East.
Irina was a Runner-Up for the 2004 Conde Nast Traveler's Environmental
Award.

Marina Rikhvanova, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Baikal Environmental
Wave. In 2006 she won the Conde Nast Traveler's Environmental Award
for her outstanding work defending Lake Baikal against the massive
Siberia-Pacific oil pipeline.

Sergei Bereznuk, Director of the Phoenix Fund. In 2006 he celebrated
the re-routing of the terminal for the gargantuan Siberia-Pacific oil
pipeline away from sensitive Amur Leopard habitat, a result of a
campaign that he helped coordinate in Primorye, along the eastern
coast of Russia. Winner of a 2006 Whitley Award for his efforts to
save the endangered Amur Tigers and Leopards in Russia's Far East.

6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Delancey Street Restaurant
600 Embarcadero Street, San Francisco
$30 - $100 sliding scale donation

Appetizers and wine provided.

Space Limited: RSVP recommended.
RSVP to Sarah Kagan at skagan@pacificenvironment.org or 415 399 8850 x 309, or visit here.

Orange snow in West Siberia not toxic (RIA Novosti, 02/02/07)

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070202/60081891.html

The yellow-orange snow that fell in a West Siberian region Wednesday contains no toxic substances, experts said Friday. "Experts have established that the substances in the snow are not toxic, but the iron content in the snow samples was four times above the norm," the press service of the local emergencies situations department said.

A priceless but creepy headline.

Russia probes smelly orange snow

Well, RIA Novosti has just published a translated-to-English article that says that the whole mess that is Sakhalin II is no longer a thing of concern.  The state gas monopoly Gazprom has paid a handsome fee to become a majority stockholder, and Shell will retain control through its subsidiary Sakhalin Energy.  All those environmental engineering disasters?  Well, why even bring those up. 

The article "Debates Around Sakhalin II Over" reasons that Gazprom paid a high price for its share because it wanted to compensate for "moral damage."  Apparently that's the only kind of damage any of these oily gassy folks are concerned about.  Nobody is even paying lip service to the long long list of illegal and simply bad engineering and design decisions made by Sakhalin Energy and its contractors. 

I guess we just wait for the catastrophic oil spills and hope when that happens they do more than just compensate for the "moral damage".

Well, at least public money won't be going to the project now, if this Yahoo article's (Gazprom's Sakhalin-2 buy may let EBRD off the hook) prediction is true, that the EBRD can't finance a project that is majority government-owned.

I am confused about why Russia is being such a hardass on the only Former Soviet Republic that wanted to stay in the Soviet Union.

Georgia and Ukraine, I see that, but Belarus?

No, I don't mean Pinochet, I mean that ultra nutjob Saparmurat Niyazov - "Turkmenbashi" - dead of heart failure at 66.  He didn't name a successor- so what's next for Turkmenistan?

Another chaotic Central Asian country that most US Americans don't know exists... and what a twilight zone.  People were fined $50,000 if they ever left the country.  Even other Central Asians don't know what the hell is going on in that prison of a country.

Bummer!

Skype’s free phone call plan will soon have annual fee (New York Times, 12/13/06).


"The new annual fee for unlimited calling, while still nominal compared with other Internet calling plans, is part of a broader strategy by eBay to expand Skype’s product offerings and revenue."

Our operations depend a lot on Yahoo IM and Skype-- I hope it doesn't get priced out of our Russian partners' range!

I was reading the Economist from a week ago and there was an article about Bolton (who has now resigned at the UN as US Ambassador) -- the article mentioned that one impact he had was uniting the G77 against the "developed" world.  I had never heard of the G77, but apparently it formed in the 1960's, and it has its own website. 

My first question is, since Russia is sometimes and sometimes not considered developed, and so floats in and out of the G7 or G8, would it include itself also in the G77?  Well, according to the country member list, it is not.

When is Russia not in the G8? 

Wikipedia says:
--------------------------

In 1991, following the end of the Cold War, the USSR (now Russia) began meeting with the G7 after the main summit. This group became known as the P8 (Political 8), or colloquially the "G7 plus 1", starting with the 1994 Naples summit. Russia was allowed to participate more fully beginning in the 1997 political summit, marking the creation of the Group of Eight or G8.

Russia was not included in the meeting of financial officials as it is not a significant economic power; "G7" now refers specifically to the meeting of the respective Finance Ministers and Governors of the Central Banks.
--------------------------

So, the G7 -- France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada -- are the only ones considered "significant" economic powers.

I wonder who on earth would say Russia is an insignificant economic power.  They must mean that Russia is not floating the developing world the way the G7 nations are.  Well, what can you say, Russia didn't create significant colonies overseas, so it doesn't have to apologize and back away slowly throwing wads of loan-money at its former colonies. 

So who IS in the G77 who doesn't really belong there anymore?

China!  Who is the new number one world superpower in about 15 years.

And, Romania!  Who is entering the EU in January.

I spent the morning at the Hard Assets Investors' Conference today, trying to be inconspicuous and pick up info on mining in Russia and China.  Above is a scene from the edge of the Kupol mine.  I didn't learn anything radical about any of the mines, but these gold mines, like Kupol, are in for hard times if the overinflated price on Au goes kerplunk.  I heard one news pundit saying "silver is the new gold."  And then there was the uranium miner talking about how popular nuclear fission is becoming in India, China and Russia.  It's by far more in demand than gold, or will be after we have to abandon fossil fuels.

Hard assets indeed.

I'm chagrined to find out that my understanding of the Anna Politkovskaya murder had left out the fact that she was one of the lead journalists at the progressive newspaper Novaya Gazeta.  This week I wrote to a grantee who is also a journalist at that paper, and bugged her about some reporting on a project that was due in March.  She reacted politely but with more detail than should have been necessary to inform me that her newspaper has been busy with giving evidence to the chief public prosecutor's office in Moscow.  It makes this journalist's tragic end a lot more real and chilling to know that she was a colleague of a colleague.  I just get overwhelmed sometimes-- the ripples of a sadness like this murder were lost in the day to day waves of effort/ success/ disappointment/ renewed effort.  But now the ripples hit my shores a little harder.

We had some cool visitors to the office today-- some partners involved in our  Altai Program here at Pacific Environment. Or, one who is involved and two we hope to get involved.

These guys are slender Mongolian-esque types with a careful manner.  They hail from a place that I can only describe as the remotest of the remote.

She's pretty content out there in the lupin. (photo credit Jen Castner)



So the three fellows who were here are working to enforce anti-poaching measures on the beautiful snow leopard...
(Photo from Sacred Earth Network, who have been active in the Altai)

And they are also working to enforce contiguous nature parks-- the Ukok, Argut, and Belukha.  It provides a wild buffer zone between Russia, and Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China, along the southern border of the southernmost point in south central Siberia.


(map from Way To Russia .com)

This article was brought to my attention today. The teaser passage read like a Jack London novel opener. But it is in fact just another document about the melting arctic. This ice breaker apparently found no ice to break.

Melting Arctic Makes Way for Man (Washington Post 11/5/06)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/04/AR2006110401173.html?referrer=emailarticle

The Amundsen's engines growl low, as if in warning.
The ship steals ahead; its powerful
spotlights stab at fog thick with the lore of

crushed ships and frozen voyagers. Ice floes
gleam from the void like the eyes of animals in the night.  The
Canadian Coast Guard
icebreaker Amundsen weaves in

graceful slow motion through the ice pack, advancing
through the legendary Northwest Passage well after
the Arctic should

be iced over and
shuttered to ships for the winter.
 

 

The Amundsen's engines growl low, as if in warning.

 

I guess they had the usual parade in Moscow this morning, but it's not an official holiday anymore.  Here's an explanation (from the School of Russian and Asian Studies holidays page)

-------------------------------------------

Ex-Holidays:

The Russian Duma passed a bill on Dec 24th, 2004, changing Russia's official holidays.  Two Soviet Era holidays were eliminated:

November 7. Day of Accord and Reconciliation / День Согласия и Примирения (day off)
The 1917 Russian Revolution occurred in October according to the Julian calendar. Although the Russians quickly changed the calendar, the name “October Revolution” stuck, despite the fact that it occurred on Nov 7th according to the new, Gregorian calendar. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the name of the day was changed from “The Day of the Great Revolution of October 1917,” and its official purpose changed to celebrate the unity of Russia. However, in a recent poll some 50% of Russians stated that they didn’t know why they celebrate the day anymore. Some said that they celebrate it to celebrate not having to celebrate the Revolution anymore!  Given the fact that the "Day of Accord and Reconciliation" was so short-lived, perhaps that was it's actual purpose, in retrospect.  

-------------
Here's an old Soviet poster for the October Revolution holiday.  Very space age.


Here's the other holiday that the post-Soviets no longer officially celebrate:

---------------

December 12. Constitution Day / День Конституции (day off)
The date of this holiday changed several times over the course of history, with each new Russian constitution from Lenin to Stalin to Brezhnev to Yeltsin. Celebrated with fireworks, food, and drink.

-------------------

I haven't seen the movie yet, but since people seem to want my opinion, here's what I know so far, from seeing the promotional interviews, and hearing from people who have seen it:

1. It has nothing to do with anything as far as Kazakhstan is concerned.  His accent is closer to Italian than Slavic.  The movie's "home town" scenes were shot in Romania, a country which doesn't even speak a Slavic language and was never part of the Soviet Union.  Think of Borat the character as a symbol of the developing world + ethnicized whiteness (generic mix of southern Mediterranean, Bohemian / Balkan, Central Asian, Russian, Middle Eastern, Persian, Jewish, etc.). 

2. The artist behind the character is far far less concerned with commenting on the developing world and the social / political / economic issues of the homelands of US America's ethnicized white people (from Italy to Afghanistan) than  he is concerned with amplifying the idiocy of people around him by putting them off balance and puncturing their veneer of socially-acceptible programming by being a huge goofball.

3.  My coworker from Kirghizstan says he was brilliant, and that 90% of the country will not get that they are being laughed at.  They will just sit down -  see "huge goofball" - laugh - continue projecting glory on whosoever they identify with (redneck, frat boy, etc.) - leave the movie - wash - rinse - repeat. 

4.  Everyone should go see it.

5. If you want to learn about the very real and very scary reality of journalists being harassed, censored, and executed in Central Asia, read about it on the websites of Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

I just learned that one of our partners is being evicted from his office in Vladivostok (the university has given him cheap office space and now they want it back), and we don't know what he's doing about it because... he's in the field catching tigers and leopards.  This is dedication-- or madness-- but in either case it's impressive to know that they apparently have now caught one of each.  The cats are to be used to replenish the tainted genetic stock of the captive populations of these tigers and leopards.

This guy runs one of the oldest and most successful conservation groups in the Primorye region of the Russian Far East, Zov Taigi.  The leopard and tiger preservation work in the RFE is done by a host of organizations, including Zov, and they are apparently all bought in to the idea that, left in the wild, the last remaining 30 or so Far Eastern leopards (outside Russia called Amur leopards) cannot survive on their own.



Add that information to the fact that someone mixed a male of a completely different species into the breeding population of the captive Amur leopard population, and suddenly preserving the genetic stock is more important that preserving the habitat. 

This zoo photo above is one we love to use to show off the Amur leopard's unique markings, but the current stud-book keeper for North America recently informed us that this picture actually depicts a mixed breed cat.

The habitat isn't going to be abandoned, I hope, but it sounds like they plan to remove as many leopards and tigers as they can and reintroduce them into better protected areas in Primorye.

Learn more about the Amur leopard from the Tigris Foundation.

The organization where I work Pacific Environment is about to host a visiting group of fishermen from Kamchatka, taking them around for two weeks to various fishing villages, to meet the people who process and market salmon in Washington and Oregon.  I'm helping out my coworker Sibyl tonight (before going trick-r-treating) by putting together beaucoup materials for the English speakers they meet along the way.

Here's a really cool map of Kamchatka we just reproduced for the packets we're making.  I don't know the source!  National Geographic?  The Smithsonian is cited, but only for the data, not the map.

Last night my organization's Russia and China teams presented a talk giving examples of environmental heroes on both sides of the Amur River-- Siberia and the Far East, and China.

The groups whose leaders were featured in Russia were the Kamchatka League of Independent Experts, Sakhalin Environment Watch, and the Baikal Environmental Wave.

In China: Green Longjiang, Green Eyes, and Green Anhui.

The Chinese groups are younger and - though ambitious - don't have the same "wins" that the Russian groups can claim in 2006.  Someday!

The room last night was packed to capacity (it was a small room-- 40 people was too many - some had to stand).  Apparently this is a hot topic!

I spent the day sitting in on public policy classes at UC Berkeley, as I prepare to apply to the MPP program.  Every conversation about policy and health and climate change led to the general conclusion that we are all doomed, doomed, doomed.

I started out at 8 am pondering the poisoning of children in poor housing through the lead paint in their environment, and ended at 6 pm with a conversation with a professor about how we may have to lose some cities to rising ocean levels before the big oil and gas companies get serious about alternative energy and stop feeding our CO2 problem.

I just did a little poking around the interwebs to see if I could read up on lead poisoning in Russia, and stumbled on a website dedicated to documenting environmental victories.  Read and be inspired!

And then you can read about our remarkable partner Marina Rikhvanova and her first prize win in the Conde Nast environmental award competition.

Today someone from the National Endowment for Democracy came to our office to talk about building democratic institutions in China.  We talked about Russia, and she mentioned that a colleague of hers had written this article "Darkness Spreading Over Russia" about the Politkovskaya murder.  He writes:

[T]he idea that the Russian authorities would be targeting liberal journalists and human rights activists as enemies who need to be silenced should be of the utmost concern to the US and Europe, which still seem to regard Russia as a responsible partner.

Meanwhile, a journalist whose case I worked on at my previous job at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights commission, Ruslan Sharipov, wrote to me yesterday to say he has a hearing with the Department of Homeland Security.  He's been a refugee in this country now for a year, and he's finally getting some movement on his case for a Green Card.  The Uzbek government would torture him (again) and probably he wouldn't survive this time, should he be deported. The scary thing: the US government is demanding original documents from his court case in Uzbekistan that he couldn't possibly have with him, and they say he'll be deported if he doesn't present these documents.  I feel powerless against the crackdowns on journalists in Russia, but even more so in the case of this Uzbeki who has won awards for his writing on the lack of freedom in Uzbekistan, risking his life and the lives of his family, and who my country is now considering for deportation.

I just got home from the first day of the annual Russian American Pacific Partnership conference.  The main message of the day is EVERYTHING  IS  JUST  FINE.    DON'T  WORRY. 

The elephant in the room is that Shell's Sakhalin II project is being subjected to creeping expropriation by the Russian government, on the perfectly legitimate (and convenient) basis of environmental disasters waiting to happen all around the massive oil and gas project.

So all these investors are waiting for some kind of realistic evaluation of the future of that particular project, and the Sakhalin Provincial Administration's reps are all about - we're not pessimists, we're sure it will all work out.  Our Russian contractors are almost world-class now, after a couple years of work on Sakhalin I and II. 

Sakhalin Energy, the Shell-run consortium that manages the project, didn't EVEN send a representative.  All the big displays and shiny colorful pamphlets are from Exxon, giving all the boring details on the Sakhalin I project.

There was one US government rep at the cocktail hour at the end of the day who seemed (after two shots of vodka) ready to make a scene at the conference just to get some truth out there.  Sakhalin is being driven into a state of bankruptcy and the inadequate infrastructure that existed previously is on its way to complete destruction, and Sakhalin I and II can take some if not all the blame. 

I wasn't much help, I'm sure.  I added to what he was saying, describing what I saw on a pipeline monitoring trip to Sakhalin in June.  He was seriously talking about getting himself fired tomorrow.  His wife seemed genuinely concerned.

So, I need to get my beauty sleep so I can be up and out in my business attire in time to see a Dept of Energy employee go down in grandiose flames of some kind.

(The massive Shell LNG terminal on Sakhalin, from space)