MOSCOW, March 6 (RIA Novosti)
NATO to develop new European security strategy without Russia / Nord Stream consultations enter final straight / U.S. satellite company tries Russian market again / U.S. multimillionaire to fly to ISS at a discount
Kommersant
NATO to develop new European security strategy without Russia
The next NATO summit will consider a new European security strategy without waiting for Russia's explanations of the proposals President Dmitry Medvedev made last year.
Russia prefers "to follow the events rather than show initiative."
According to Kommersant sources, the NATO summit, to be held on April 3-4, 2009 in Baden-Baden and Kehl, Germany, and in Strasbourg, France, will adopt a document tentatively named a Declaration on Allied Security, outlining NATO's purpose and potentially paving the way for a new strategic concept for the alliance.
In other words, NATO will start working on the new structure of European security, which Medvedev first proposed last summer.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in Brussels yesterday that the alliance's member states welcomed the Russian president's ideas and were for details. However, Russia has not made any practical proposals on the issue since last summer.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the security conference in Munich in February this year that the development of a new structure of European security was a task for NATO, but that Russia should be involved in the process.
A source of the newspaper in the NATO Secretariat said it might take the alliance a year to develop the new strategy.
A source with close ties in the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Moscow was aware of these plans but was so far not doing anything regarding them. In his opinion, Russia "is following the events rather than showing initiative in its foreign policy, just as in its efforts to overcome the crisis."
"The strategy NATO is developing now is important because the alliance will use it in its actions, including regarding Russia," the source said. "But Moscow is not doing anything to influence that strategy, and is not trying to prevent the appearance of possible problems in the future."
Kommersant
Nord Stream consultations enter final straight
The operator of Nord Stream, a natural gas pipeline project to link Russia and Germany, has sent a comprehensive environmental report on the project to environment regulators of Russia, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. The project's critics will no longer have a formal reason to delay their final decision.
Nord Stream AG, which paid over 100 million euros for the environmental study, said the report would be published on Monday. A source in the company, 51% owned by Gazprom, said the five countries, whose economic zones will be crossed by the pipeline, would gather after three months' consultations to produce a consolidated decision on the project's environmental safety and risks.
The report was to be completed a year ago, but Finland, Denmark and Sweden insisted on altering the route, which entailed more adjustments to the project. Rolf Nystrom, deputy director at Finland's Uusimaa Regional Environment Center, said they had decided against using explosions while laying the pipes.
Mikhail Korchamkin, director of East European Gas Analysis consultancy, said local officials are more likely to begin slowly reading the document now, then take a break for the summer, and come up with a new list of questions (or criticisms) to Nord Stream AG in the fall.
If construction is not started next year, it might end up being put off for much longer, said Arkady Moshes from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. "Russia's investment potential is falling because of the crisis, while Europe is so far highly interested in the project," he added.
French GDF Suez is eager to buy into the project. GDF Suez President Jean-Francois Cirelli said the company was interested in a minority stake in Nord Stream AG, the first official confirmation of its plans.
A top manager at Gazprom Export added that a sale of 9% in Nord Stream to the French company was in the works, and that the deal might be closed before the end of March. Another manager said BASF and E.ON were also considering selling 4.5% each to GDF Suez, thus reducing their own stakes to 15.5%.
RBC Daily, Vedomosti
U.S. satellite company tries Russian market again
Private U.S. company Iridium Satellite LLC, which has the largest commercial satellite group in the world and made its first attempt to penetrate the Russian market in 2000, is ready to make another go of it.
At present, Russian citizens cannot legally use Iridium phones because the company does not have an office in the country.
Iridium is ready to open an office in Russia, said a source with information about the recent talks between Russian Communication Minister Igor Shchyogolev and Iridium managers. The sides also discussed the orbiting of a new group of satellites, Iridium Next, and modernization of the gateway at the Khrunichev research and production space center.
Alexei Kondrashov, managing director at research and consultancy company Direct Infor, said Iridium wants to legalize its operation in Russia. He said Iridium has subscribers here who may not legally use their terminals.
"According to Russian legislation, the [U.S.] company must do at least two things now - register as a legal entity and build a gateway so that security agencies will be able to monitor its traffic," Kondrashov said.
He said Iridium's investment could reach tens of millions of dollars if not more.
Iridium is eyeing Russia because of its vast territories not covered by communications, said Liz DeCastro, the U.S. company's corporate communications director.
Igor Kot, deputy head of non-governmental satellite operator Gazprom Space Systems (former Gascom), said personal satellite communication was expensive.
Iridium's timing is good, said Andrei Kozlov, head of Globaltel, a subsidiary of the Globalstar consortium of international telecom companies set up in 1991. The quality of Globalstar services is not high now, because it is renewing its satellite group.
Iridium has 66 satellites, which, unlike Globalstar and Thuraya satellites, cover the whole of the earth, said Sergei Pekhterev, director general of Settelecom, a VSAT satellite communications company.
Currently the number of Globaltel subscribers is 40,000, while those who subscribed to Iridium totaled 320,000 late last year.
Gazeta
U.S. multimillionaire to fly to ISS at a discount
Space tourism remains popular despite the current global financial and economic crisis and soaring ticket prices.
On March 26 Charles Simonyi, the U.S. citizen of Hungarian descent who co-developed Word and Excel software packages at Microsoft Corporation, will fly to the International Space Station for a second time.
Simonyi said his upcoming tour cost $35 million.
Although active Russian cosmonauts praise the readiness of space tourists to finance their trips, space veterans say the industry could do without their payments.
Simonyi said he was entitled to a discount, but did not elaborate. Space Adventures, Ltd., the only company sending private space explorers into orbit, has posted new rates on its website. Although early tourists paid $20 million per flight, every launch will now cost between $45 and $55 million, depending on the program.
Gennady Padalka, commander of ISS Expedition 19, praised Simonyi's readiness to explore space at his own expense, and said he was a real hero who had decided to support the ISS project amid the financial and economic crisis.
Space veterans remain skeptical. "Tourists should not fly aboard state-owned spacecraft," twice Hero of the Soviet Union and pilot-cosmonaut of the U.S.S.R. Georgy Grechko told the paper. He said U.S. tourists were not allowed to visit the ISS' U.S. segment for a long time, and that space should still be explored only by professionals.
Grechko said the Russian space program could do without these fun-ride payments, and that tourist payments were being disbursed behind the scenes.
"I have not seen a single report. To be frank, this is a strange system. We do all the technical work, while some foreign intermediary company receives substantial payments," Grechko told the paper.
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