MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti)
Gazeta/Vedomosti
America Demands Nuclear Expert's Extradition
Yevgeny Adamov, a former nuclear energy minister of Russia, has been arrested in Switzerland at the request of the United States. American officials are insisting that he be extradited to the U.S. to face charges that he embezzled $9 million from the U.S. Energy Department. Adamov's lawyer, Timofei Gridnev said the arrest took place in a Bern court where his client had come to answer some financial questions. Two dailies, Gazeta and Vedomosti, pick up the theme.
This is part of a struggle between Russia and the U.S. over control of nuclear security and an attempt to prove that dishonest people govern the Russian nuclear sector, said Konstantin Simonov, the general director of the Center for Current Politics in Russia.
It is no coincidence that Adamov was arrested on the eve of George Bush's visit to Moscow on May 9. The issue of U.S. access to Russia's nuclear facilities will be most probably raised at the Bush-Putin meeting, Simonov said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has reported, "the claims to Adamov are connected not with his time in office" but with his commercial work in the early 1990s, when he headed the Nuclear Energy Ministry's Research and Development Power Industry Institute.
"The institute pledged to fulfill a series of research projects in nuclear power safety," said Gridnev. "The U.S. side accepted the projects without any complaints. But now the Americans have suddenly decided that the money did not reach the institute but was embezzled by Adamov."
However, the Americans are not alone in being suspicious about Adamov: the previous State Duma's corruption commission had questions for Adamov, too, said Akhmed Bilalov, deputy chairman of the Duma committee on the CIS.
Adamov set up several private companies in Russia and the US. The Duma investigation showed that Adamov was worth more than $3 million in 1999, when he was minister, and his wife $1.5 million.
Politichesky Zhurnal
Putin's Successor To Be Presented With New Premier
The Kremlin is continuing to discuss ways to transfer power in 2008-2012. An anonymous source in the presidential administration told a weekly analytical magazine, Politichesky Zhurnal, that Vladimir Putin's successor would be presented to the people with the new prime minister.
If the situation around Russia remains calm and most domestic reforms are carried out by 2008, the best candidates will be chief of the presidential staff Dmitry Medvedev, as a lawyer president, and vice premier Alexander Zhukov, as a liberal premier. In the absence of force majeure circumstances, these two candidates will be acceptable to the broad masses and the narrow group of the business elite. In this case, Putin will enjoy maximum freedom of political action from 2008 to 2012.
A tougher option would see a president from a power-related agency (Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov) and a liberal-patriotic premier (Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin). This may be acceptable if "color revolutions" continue around Russia and the authorities have to preserve the country's integrity. Besides, the above two politicians would never challenge Putin's informal leadership and would listen to his recommendations, the weekly writes.
The Kremlin is also considering other candidates. A reserve "couple" may be needed in the event of an acute foreign policy crisis or a sharp fall in oil prices and more aggressive state intervention in the economy. In this case, Igor Sechin, the deputy chief of the presidential staff, may act as Putin's successor, while Mikhail Fradkov would keep his post as prime minister. Under this scheme, Putin would rule without formally governing Russia.
Another reserve couple - presidential representative in the Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak (president) and Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref (premier) - may be used in the event of an emergency economic and political situation in Russia and especially outside it. Both candidates would advocate the same key element of the reform of state power - a radical overhaul of the judicial and law enforcement systems.
Biznes
Russia Clears Czech Debts With Helicopters
Russia will supply combat and transport helicopters worth $300 million to the Czech republic to clear state debts. Biznes, a daily newspaper for the business community, writes that this move will give the country a chance to return to the eastern European arms market, which has largely been lost since regional countries joined NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Konstantin Makiyenko, an expert with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based think tank, said the supplies had been sealed in a 2002 helicopters-for-debt contract.
In all, 26 helicopters will be delivered, including 10 modernized Mi-35s (NATO reporting name, Hind) with the cockpit adapted for night vision goggles. The first three vehicles will arrive in the Czech republic in May and the other seven will follow by the end of the year.
The remaining 16 helicopters are multirole Mi-171s (NATO reporting name, Hip). An informed source in the defense industry said, "More than half the order has been completed and all the Mi-35s will be delivered by the end of the year."
Analysts say swapping state debts for hardware is good for Russia. "Eastern Europe is a closed market for us, as it is very hard to sell something there for money," said Makiyenko. "Using this kind of scheme will help [us] enter not only the eastern European, but also, for instance, the South Korean market. We could settle our debts there by supplying T-80 battle tanks, BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, Il-103 planes, and Murena air cushion landing craft."
The Mi-35M is a Mi-24 Hind derivative armed with antitank missiles, air-to-air missiles, and a twin 23-mm cannon. The Hinds are operated by 35 countries, and around 700 of them are in service with the Russian Air Force.
The multirole Mi-171 is a modification of the Mi-8T. The helicopter's improved performance means it can fly missions in poor weather and visibility. It can be flown as a passenger or transport craft, or a flying ambulance, and can also be used in search and rescue operations and to extinguish fires.
Vremya Novostei
Russian Prosecutor Proposes Tougher Rules For International Adoption
Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov has sent the government proposals on concluding special international agreements with countries whose citizens seek to adopt Russian-born children. The lack of such agreements, in his view, means that no control is exercised over the adopted children's situation and measures to end violence against them cannot be taken, the weekly Vremya Novostei writes.
Yesterday a source in the government described these proposals as very constructive, saying, "The letter arranges puts everything in order and the proposals are, in a good sense, pragmatic." The proposal is expected to be considered within two weeks.
Children's rights defenders strongly oppose the idea of bilateral treaties. In the United States, Canada and Germany adoption is regulation by state laws, explains Boris Altshuler, head of the Child's Right organization. The proposed legislation will immediately stop adoption in the countries that admit the most orphans, including disabled children, whom no one in Russia needs, he says.
Ella Pamfilova, chairman of the presidential council to develop civil society institutions and human rights, says, "The country does not have systematic and judicial grounds to protect children's rights." In her opinion, the mediators who help foreign parents to find children and prepare documents need to be licensed, while the adopting families can be controlled not only using bilateral agreements, but also by other inter-government agreements, such as the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. The president signed the latter in 2000, but parliament is yet to ratify it.
Noviye Izvestia
Xenophobic Sentiments Increase In Russia
Nationalistic and fascist sentiments are alarmingly strong in Russia. This is the main conclusion of a report from the Moscow Human Rights Bureau (MHRB) entitled Racism, Xenophobia, and Neo-Nazism in Russian Regions. The report covers 2004 to the first quarter of 2005, writes a daily, Noviye Izvestia.
The authors cite the results of a survey conducted by the Ekspertiza foundation. Statistical data show that 50% of Russians are not opposed to the idea of restricting the number of the ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese, and residents of the former Soviet Central Asian republics allowed to live in Russia. Forty-three percent of respondents even said the presence of "non-Russians" cast a cloud over their lives.
The picture is no brighter in Moscow, which has been traditionally more democratic than the provinces. Forty-eight percent of Muscovites complain about an inflow of people from the Caucasus region. Chinese immigrants are disliked in Russia's Far East, while residents in the Kaliningrad region, Russia's enclave on the Baltic Sea, are increasingly negative toward Lithuanians.
Experts point to a sharp and somewhat uneven increase in xenophobic sentiments in Russia in the wake of the Beslan tragedy. The cumulative image of "outsiders" being compelled by foreign secret services to perpetrate all sorts of outrages has replaced the image of "Chechen terrorists" in people's minds, they added.
According to the MHRB, 40 murders racially motivated were committed in Russia in 2004, while hundreds of attacks were made on members of ethnic minorities.
Bureau Director Alexander Brod said the number of extremist editions had increased compared to previous years. "Quite respectable publishers are starting to issue Nazi-tinted literature," he said. Brod added that radial newspapers had dramatically stepped up their calls for deportations, murders, and violence.
MHRB experts link growth in radical attitudes to certain political forces that seek to make it into the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in the 2007 elections by running their campaigns on nationalist rhetoric.
