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"In a luxury hotel at Suweima, on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, the Russians held a "Track II" conference this week designed to send a clear message to the Arab world: "We are back." Medvedev talks alongside... Medvedev talks alongside Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, not pictured, after they signed bilateral accords at the Presidential Palace in Cairo on Tuesday. Photo: AP The conference, covered widely in the Arab world but hardly at all in Israel, took place just weeks after the re-launch - after an absence of some 18 years - of an Arabic version of the Moscow News. It also comes at a time of diplomatic stagnation in the Middle East that has led to increased calls from many quarters - particularly the Palestinians and the EU - for various actors in the international community to step in and impose a solution on the parties. Russia, obviously, wants to be one of these actors. Hence the two-day conference, part of the Valdai Discussion Club, put on jointly by the Ria Novosti, the Russian News and Information Agency funded by the government, and the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, the equivalent to the Council on Foreign relations in the US. The organizers invited a slew of Mideast experts from Russia and the region - including Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the "State of Palestine," Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, with a couple of people from the UK, US and France thrown in for good measure - to discuss whether a comprehensive settlement is possible in the Middle East by 2020. The hope of the conference, said Sergei Karaganov of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy at its outset, was to "generate fresh ideas." Forget about it. The real agenda, it seems, was to implant in the Arab public a sense that Russia has returned to the region and is a player. Some 50 Arab media outlets covered the conference, according to its organizers, and Ria Novosti quoted Al Jazeera as saying, "This is perhaps the first large-scale

"If you asked most people on the street which nation produces the most oil most of them would say that the answer is Saudi Arabia of course. But they would be dead wrong. The truth is that Russia is the number one oil producer in the world. Not only that, but Russia is also the number one natural gas exporter in the world. So what does that mean? It means that Russia is the top energy superpower on the globe. Russia pumped more than 10 million barrels of oil per day during November, and now they have done something which will give them even more power over energy. Russia has just finished a new oil pipeline and port complex that enables them to export more oil than Saudi Arabia. On December 28th, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was on hand to celebrate the opening of Russia's first modern Pacific-based oil export facilities. The Pacific port of Kozmino is a project that Putin is extremely proud of, and it promises to literally change the world. So what makes this port so significant? The new Kozmino complex promises to be a gate through which Russia's vast East Siberian oilfields will supply oil for Asia's energy-hungry economies. Notice that the Middle East and the West are not part of that equation. According to Reuters, the first oil transport will load at Kozmino on January 15th. Hong Kong is scheduled to receive that first shipment. But this is just the latest sign that Russia has more than recovered from their past economic woes. In fact, the Russian Bear is back."