Moskovsky Komsomolets
Primorye fishermen launch shark hunt
Southern Primorye is in the midst of shark fever. On August 23, a group of experienced fishermen set out into the Sea of Japan* in two seiners and a trawl boat to catch man-eating sharks that have already injured two people. Experts who have studied the victims' bites and the sharks' broken teeth say that at least two different species of shark – the great white and the mako – are roaming the local waters. Amateurs have joined the fishermen employed by maritime authorities to catch the sharks. Shelves in stores selling fishing bait in the Khasan district are said to be empty, because the administration is rumored to be willing to pay 100,000 rubles per shark.
Oleg Bulatov, head of the commercial ichthyology department at the Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIIRO), confirmed that some fishermen under the auspices of the local administration have ventured forth to catch the predators with trolling gear. The fishing boat is equipped with a bar with fishing line hanging off both sides, and hooks baited with fish or meat. The ship moves at a speed of 4-5 km/h, trailing the bait. However, fishermen have so far only been able to ward off a great white shark from the coastal zone.
Bulatov said that the chances of catching a shark are slim, since there are few sharks near Primorye’s southern coast. Only three or four sharks have been sighted, and when there are not many of them, they tend to be very cautious, so catching them with hooks is unlikely.
“Trawling with large fishing nets could work, but there are some nuances,” Bulatov said. “Shark fishing is very different from, say, tuna fishing. Sharks are very fast, you need a speedboat to catch them. You have to have the right-sized hooks and metal cables, and these are not to be found in Primorye's fishing shops.”
If local fishermen ever catch sharks, it is only by chance as by-catch. There is no demand for shark meat in Russia, so nobody has the skills needed to catch sharks. “It is quite different in the U.S.,” said Bulatov. “Americans have long caught sharks along the Atlantic coast. There are also many experienced shark hunters in the Caribbean islands, Cuba and Costa Rica.”
Bulatov conceded that just asking more experienced foreign fishermen for help might have been easier, but would have taken months.
“The air temperature in Primorye is falling with each passing day, and these warm-water predators will soon leave of their own accord,” Bulatov said. “So now, all our hopes rest with Emergencies Ministry personnel. They are, in my view, properly notifying residents about where swimming is prohibited. I think we all need to calm down, wait until the sharks go away, and intelligently prepare for the next season by establishing contacts with foreign shark hunters.”
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russia’s government reality show
Anyone who thinks they know how to improve Russia will have the chance to review, discuss and edit new bills through an Open Government website which will go on stream next year. The Justice Ministry has issued a clear set of rules for this public review of new laws. However, government agencies currently fail to post the most controversial bills on their websites. Even if, as required by law, they are checked for any clauses that could encourage or enable corruption, Russians do not know about it.
There is much talk about e-Russia or e-government as the authorities are attempting to modernize the old bureaucratic machine and turn the lawmaking process into a kind of reality show where anyone can watch online officials as they create laws.
This does not seem to be enough for the Internet geek and President Dmitry Medvedev. So he ordered a broad public discussion of new bills online. The first to go through this public review was the new law on the police. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who does not seem to set much store by the Internet, was obliged to accept his tandem partner’s challenge. The new laws on healthcare and education are also being discussed online, as is the proposed anti-tobacco law.
The Open Government website will go live in 2012. A tender has been announced, and the winning bidder will be awarded the 16 million ruble ($550,000) contract in September. It is to be a user-friendly platform for the public review of new proposed laws ensuring transparency through the lawmaking process. This sounds like a sensible step, apart for some details.
The Open Government concept does not seem to imply that the lawmakers will actually listen to what people have to say. Users will be able to edit bills posted on the website just as anyone can edit Wikipedia articles. This provides for a one-way communication between the people and officials: people can write whatever they like, but the people actually composing Russian legislation will, at best, take a selective view of this public contribution.
As in Wikipedia, all the versions of edited documents will be stored and rated. The website will automatically monitor the statistics on user visits and send it to the government.
In fact the first attempt to forge a dialogue between the government and the public during the public review of the law on the police proved a fiasco. The website was swamped by thousands of proposals, which the Interior Ministry ignored until Medvedev ordered it to take some heed. But the final version did not get expert approval in any case. The presidential council on civil society urged Medvedev to intervene, but it was too late: the law had been adopted and all he could do was promise to amend it later. The government-proposed bills on healthcare and education were discussed in much the same way: the moon does not heed the barking of dogs.
Izvestia
Police detain ex-police officer suspected of organizing Politkovskaya murder
A former senior Russian police officer was detained during questioning by investigators on August 23. Lt Colonel Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov had been a witness in the investigation into the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in October 2006. Politkovskaya worked as a journalist with Novaya Gazeta and won international acclaim for her investigations into human rights abuses in Chechnya. Pavlyuchenkov was the one who led investigators to the alleged perpetrator and his accomplices.
“This is a great step forward for Novaya Gazeta and the Investigative Committee,” said Dmitry Muratov, editor of Novaya Gazeta. He said the newspaper had been informed about the forthcoming detention in advance.
“Pavlyuchenkov was involved in shadowing and wiretapping, he would charge $100 an hour for it,” Muratov said, adding that although the former policeman organized the crime, he lacked any personal motive.
Pavlyuchenkov will be held in detention for 48 hours, after which Moscow’s Basmanny court will decide on a measure of restraint.
Other suspects in the case are brothers Dzhabrail, Ibragim and Rustam Makhmudov. The latter is believed to be the actual perpetrator and was arrested in Chechnya on May 31, 2011.
Pavlyuchenkov was the main and classified witness for the prosecution in the case. He led the investigators to the Makhmudov brothers and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, who, he claimed, was a link between the contractor and perpetrators of the crime.
Khadzhikurbanov was also charged with extorting $350,000 from Pavlyuchenkov and sentenced to eight years of prison in February 2010. Muratov said investigators suspected Pavlyuchenkov of being involved in the murder from the very beginning, but did not have reasonable grounds to arrest him.
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