Prime Minister Vladimir Putin introduced a cash-for-scrap-cars scheme and mortgage support at Saturday's United Russia congress, as he forecasted a 2009 GDP decline of 8-8.5%, 'which would be Russia's worst result since 1994,' notes the Washington Post.  Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov says Russia's first road connecting East and West will be finished next year (over thirty years after construction began?), as part of a project to build 6,000km of federal roads. 'Russia still lags behind its BRIC partners in terms of bilateral trade with Africa, but its trade with Africa is the fastest growing -- at 15 percent annually since 1992.'  Renault may take full control of AvtoVAZ in the next four years - if it hasn't merged with KamAZ to create an autos giant by then.  Two General Motors employees in St Petersburg - one ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 20, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Apple Inc. (AAPL), KT Corp. (KTC), SK Telecom (SKM), China Unicom (CHU) and American Express Company (AXP).

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Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

South Korea Welcomes iPhone

Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone is finally reaching the hands of South Korean mobile users. The country’s telecom regulator Korea Communications Commission (“KCC") has granted Apple the license to sell the iconic handset in the domestic cell phone market. KCC has also lifted

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American Express Company (AXP) said on Wednesday that it will acquire Internet payment platform Revolution Money for about $300 million.  The deal is expected to close in early 2010. Following the closure of the deal, Revolution Money would operate as a subsidiary of AmEx. The founder and chief executive of Revolution Money, Jason Hogg, will continue as president and chief executive.  St. Petersburg-based Revolution Money was founded by AOL co-founder Steve Case’s Revolution LLC in 2007. Revolution Money provides payments through an internet-based platform and issues prepaid cards that can be used for offline payments or to withdraw cash from ATMs in the U.S. Additionally, Revolution Money offers MoneyExchange, a service to remit money by people using social and instant messaging networks.  According to AmEx management, this acquisition would keep AmEx at the cutting edge in terms of new payments products and platforms. The company ...

Vladimir Putin has been ranked number 3 in the Forbes list of the most powerful people in the world, President Medvedev comes in 43rd, after Deputy Prime Minister, siloviki chieftain and Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin at number 42. (See the editor's choice for Russia's top seven.) Forbes has got a special feature on the politician the Russian press apparently call 'the scariest person on earth'. There is little solid information about the man. Like many of Putin's cronies, Sechin is a St. Petersburg native. In the 1990s he worked in city government. Before that, it's widely believed he was a spy; Moscow sources confirm that he was a member of the GRU, the KGB's foreign-intelligence arm. ...

TODAY: Youtube policeman faces slander investigation; Omsk students threatened with expulsion; Committee to Protect Journalists urge global attention to threats against media in Russia. Merkel thanks Gorbachev; Medvedev approves new military bill; advocates abolition of death penalty. Delay for Gazprom eyesore?; Nobel Prize winning physicist dies; Kalashnikov goes on; gangsters' idea of cemetery chic. Corruption-highlighting policeman Alexei Dymovsky is now facing three investigations after posting a video address to Putin lamenting the state of the police, including an Investigative Committee examination of whether the policeman's accusations hold any truth; another investigation is against Dymovsky himself, for slander.  Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev has already ordered an investigation into the Novorossiisk police force and suspended Dymovsky ...

In the New York Times Ellen Barry writes about the outcry among academics St Peterbsurg University (alma mater of Putin and Medvedev) who are concerned about new legislation that may require their work to be submitted to the authorities before it can be published overseas.  Whilst defenders of the order, such as the university's rector, Putin-Medvedev friendly Nikolai M. Kropachev, say it is a standard move to defend intellectual property, detractors claim that the project recalls the Soviet-era censorship program and suggest that those interested in controversial topics, such as human rights, will be the first to suffer from its restrictions.In an interesting footnote, under the rector's leadership, the University has, says Barry, strengthened in the league tables, ...

Tracing the policy movements of Presidential power-handler Vladislav Surkov is rather like witnessing a three-point turn in a dark alley - as a piece in the Power Vertical points out today.  Whilst transparency is the last thing once can expect from the Kremlin's shadowy ideologue, his moves of late are dizzying analysts.  Brian Whitmore identifies some of Surkov's recent twists - from the motives for his alleged involvement in the Duma walkout - to the matter of his oscillating stance on liberalizing political structures to aid economic development.Whitmore quotes from a Stratfor.com analysis, which suggests that Surkov's maneuvring is underpinned by a familiar motive: power rivalry.  In a recently published four-part series titled "The Kremlin Wars," Stratfor.com offers up one possible answer.According to Stratfor, the Kremlin is divided into two roughly ...

An interesting opinion piece today by Vladimir Ryzhkov in the Moscow Times sees one of the last bastions of media freedom - Ren TV - looking like it may have to fight for its independence.  The increasingly popular station, the only one in Russia to offer a critical interpretation of the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam disaster and cover the Dissenter's Marches in Moscow and St Petersburg, may be fettered by management 'restructuring'.Controlled by National Media Group, owned by Putin ally Yury Kovalchukm, Ren will have a new Director General and will find new lodgings alonside state-controlled RIA-Novosti and the tow-the-line RT.  Ryzhkov recollects Gazprom's Media's overhaul of NTV which followed similar lines: could this be another nail in ...

The Gazprom tower, which threatens to imperil St Petersburg's UNESCO heritage status, has been the subject of several public protests of late and, as you may remember, some imaginative headlines.  Now the  project seems to have encountered a new adversary.  An article in today's Moscow Times reports that two state channels have offered contrasting opinions on the potential new HQ, which could signal a government rift.  A Channel One report harshly criticized the plans.  Interviewee Valentina Matviyenko, St. Petersburg Governor and tower approver, seemed to backtrack with a suggestion that the plans would have to wait for 'serious government assessment' before going ahead.  Meanwhile Gazprom's media organ NTV heartily endorsed the project (no surprises there).  Conservationists have noted ...

Gazprom's plan to build a 400-meter skyscraper in St. Petersburg is reportedly causing a government split, with many ministers stepping up vocal opposition to the tower.  Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev wants state-controlled companies and banks to limit their foreign borrowing, as fears that lack of funds could drive pre-crash practices that could hamper the road to recovery. It is expected that the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi will receive over $1 billion of sponsorship money, having reportedly raised $850 million thus far from just seven sponsors.  Endemol, the television company behind Big Brother, has announced its first third party distribution deal in Russia.  Despite having received $853 million in emergency loans from the government and made heavy job and salary cuts, AvtoVAZ may be forced to file for bankruptcy. ...