Highlighting a dangerous trend in Russia, wiretapping by the Russia's intelligence agencies has nearly doubled over the past five years.
This trend reached a disturbing climax two weeks ago when the country's Supreme Court upheld the legality of law enforcement surveillance of Yekaterinburg lawmaker Maxim Petlin. The reason the court gave was that Petlin regularly participates in protest rallies organized by the Solidarity movement.

Identifying a British Embassy vehicle in Moscow is an easy task for those who love history: They all have license plates with the number 001, signifying that Britain was the first foreign country to establish diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia.
It happened in 1920, when the country set up its first foreign trade mission in London. Trade offices in other countries, including Germany and the United States, followed over the next couple of years.
There are now trade offices in 53 countries, and the network is getting a serious upgrade as a result of a new initiative pushed forward by the Economic Development Ministry.
Improving the work of trade offices is critical, as it needs to be adjusted to the new realities of global trade, and some of Russia's economic ties have lost efficiency over time, said Rafael Abramyan, deputy head of the Economic Development Ministry's department for development and regulation of international trade.
"Shaping the trade offices system took decades. In many countries, Russian trade offices appeared earlier than embassies," he said in a telephone interview.
The ministry has proposed a number of measures to make the work of trade offices more efficient. Plans include beefing up some offices and trimming down or closing others, training staff and setting mechanisms for measuring the work of trade offices.

The EBRD said in its annual report that the Russia-led customs union “explicitly or implicitly” modeled its supranational institutions on those of the European Union.
 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development described the Russia-led customs union as the first successful post-Soviet attempt at economic integration in a report released Wednesday.

Until recently, foreign producers and their authorized exclusive distributors based their combat against parallel importing into Russia on the legal concept of exhaustion of exclusive rights to a trademark. Article 1487 of the Civil Code stipulates that the exclusive right to a trademark is not infringed if the trademark is used by other persons in respect of products that have been introduced in civil-law transactions in Russia directly by the right holder or with his consent.

The opening of a local office of international retailing platform eBay has been welcomed by local online retailers, although doubts remain over how the service will cope with local logistics problems.

A Moscow region court fined a U.S. flight attendant 220,000 rubles ($7,000) on Wednesday for attempting to pass through customs at Sheremetyevo Airport with more than 8 million rubles ($250,000) in undeclared jewelry.

Although the online retail market is growing by 25 percent per year, poor logistics, a low level of trust and distaste for banks continue to hamper e-commerce, experts said at an industry conference.
Internet retail sales hit 310 billion rubles ($10.5 billion) in 2011, but that is still less than 2 percent of the total Russian retail market turnover, research group Data Insight reported.
Growth is occurring thanks to decreasing delivery costs and improved shipment infrastructure. Cash on delivery is the predominant method of payment for goods ordered online.
"There is no rational reason to pay beforehand," said Adrien Henni, co-founder of East-West Digital News. "If you are buying a physical good, you want to feel and see it before handing over money. This is ingrained in Russia's culture."

Russia's 19-year wait to enter the World Trade Organization is finally over. Unfortunately, the kind of export and investment miracle enjoyed by China after it joined the club is likely to remain well out of its Eurasian neighbor's reach.

Russia became a full World Trade Organization member on Aug. 22, a month after the government notified the organization that all the internal procedures on joining were completed.

The Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan Customs Union introduces pre-arrival notification of goods imports.
 Recommendations on the introduction of pre-arrival notification of goods movements are contained in the World Customs Organization Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade. By bringing pre-arrival notification into effect from 17 June 2012 by Resolution of the Customs Union Commission No. 899, the Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan Customs Union (the Customs Union) is drawing closer to full implementation of the given framework standards and is following in the wake of the customs administration of the United States and the European Union countries.