Addressing the G-20 summit in Seoul, the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev urged for easy credit access, both domestic and international - to small and medium enterprises.

“One of the key tasks is to ensure an unhindered access for small business to national and international capital markets,” Medvedev said while addressing the summit. “For this we need new mechanisms. Here efforts by just one state won’t be enough.”

In a recent development, Russian president Dimitry Medvedev has signed a federal law amending the operations of ‘Bank of Russia’ – the central bank of Russia; according to a recent Kremlin press service.

A poll by the independent Levada Centre of 1,600 Russians shows 37% consider Putin has failed to curb corruption in the country. The poll was conducted at the end of July this year and the results published today on the polling company's wen site. The battle against corruption was cited as the biggest failure of Putin, who was president for two terms from 2000 to 2008, and then became Prime Minister. 

President Dmitry Medvedev has dismissed from military service, a number of officers including Colonel V. Bironta - Head of the central air-technical base of the marine naval aviation of Russia, whuch was extensively damaged by fire.

By Gordon Hahn

Despite the traditional bureaucratic resistance to change always present in Russia, the thaw engineered by the ruling tandem of President Dmitrii Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin inches forward, as I noted would be the case 27 months ago on ROPV. The thaw is a radical departure from the Putinism of 2000-2008 in domestic and foreign policy. With each stage racheting up the reforms, bureaucratic resistance, stresses on the regime group’s unity, and mobilization of moderate and then more radical reform groups will intensify.

THE 'SPY' SCANDAL: A DOG THAT COULDN'T BARK

by Gordon Hahn

The present ‘spy’ scandal is a tempest in a teapot that will have no effect on the thaw in U.S.-Russian relations, the balance of power within Russia’s ruling tandem of President Dmitry Medvedev and Premier Vladimir Putin, or the Barack Obama administration’s credibility.

The “third turn”. If we look back over the last couple of decades, we see that the Western image of post communist Russia has gone through two major turns. In the 90s Russia was a sort of younger brother whom we would mould and usher into the light of democracy. That didn’t work out very well: that’s when Russians began to associate the word “democracy” with theft and poverty. Then Russia became “resurgent” and “assertive”, or, in other words, it stopped declining away. The obsession with containing and thwarting Russia made Russians come to associate “democracy” with geopolitics. I think that a third turn is underway and, for that, I would thank Saakashvili in part.

Summer Rain

Yesterday, the first day of summer, was greeted with strong market gains as a reaction to China’s Yuan move. Today the rain is back. Investors in Asia are again more focused on Europe’s solvency issues and the threat to global growth. Another example of the one-step forward and a matching step backwards trading pattern that we have had for the past few weeks. Equities and the price of oil are trading lower across Asia this morning as the euphoria generated by China’s Yuan move fades and is replaced by fresh worries about solvency in Europe. The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index is off 0.6% in mid session trade.

Russia starts cutting off gas to Belarus

Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev on Monday ordered Gazprom to cut deliveries of natural gas deliveries to Belarus over unpaid debts, a step which could jeopardize supplies to Poland and other European countries.

China Boosts Confidence

China’s decision to move to a more flexible Yuan policy, effectively a revaluation of the currency, has boosted confidence in the global recovery and helped Asia’s markets to start the new week with across the board gains. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index is up 2.0%. Hong Kong is 2.3% better in mid session and Chinese equities are 0.6% better.