May
23, 2000
This Date's Issues: 4318 • 4319
• 4320
Johnson's Russia List
#4320
23 May 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com
[Note from David Johnson:
1. St. Petersburg Times: Anna Badkhen, State Environment Body Goes
Way of Dodo.
2. BBC MONITORING: NTV, RUSSIAN ECOLOGIST SLAMS DECISION TO CLOSE
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY.
3. deadline.ru: Lev Levinson, Labor Unions To Be Sidelined by Labor
Code: Working Overtime Will Become Our Human Right.
4. Stratfor.com: Putin Appoints Two Outsiders to Key Posts.
5. Reuters: Russian land of volcanoes embraces geothermal power.
6. Washington Post: Richard Cohen, Putin's Bad Company.
7. Reuters: Germany's Grass, other writers rap Russia over war.
8. Reuters: Russian PM says no plans to sack c.bank chief.
9. Moscow Times: The Man on His Plan. (Interview with German Gref)
10. Moscow Times: ROUND TABLE: Kasyanov Looks Set to Choose His Own
Plan.
11. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Diseases in Russia Seen on the Increase.
12. Vek: Nikolai SHMELYOV, Impoverished Russia Is Financing the
Outer World. How Much Openness Is Needed For Our Economy?
13. Reuters: Putin introduces new Russian spymaster.]
*******
#1
St. Petersburg Times
May 23, 2000
State Environment Body Goes Way of Dodo
By Anna Badkhen
STAFF WRITER
MOSCOW - In what environmentalists called "a step away from the civilized
world," President Vladimir Putin last week abolished the federal committee
that monitored most of the country's environmental issues.
Last Wednesday, Putin signed a decree abolishing the State Committee for the
Environment, the main government body responsible for monitoring and
analyzing all facets of the environment except those related to nuclear
issues. According to the decree, the committee's monitoring functions will be
transferred to the Nature Resources Ministry.
In an interview Monday, committee head Viktor Danilov-Danilyan called the
decree "absurd."
"Environmental testing and environmental control must be carried out by an
independent body. Meanwhile, the Nature Resources Ministry itself exerts a
major negative impact on the environment, and all of its numerous projects
are objects of [our] monitoring," Danilov-Danilyan said.
"The ministry ... will certainly kill all environmental activities," he said,
adding that if the ministry is entrusted with ecological control, "the
environmental activities will begin to degrade rapidly."
According to the decree, the committee's specialists will not be
automatically transferred to the ministry, and it is unclear how the ministry
will fulfill its new monitoring duties. Abolishing the committee, however, is
a lengthy process that may take up to three months, Danilov-Danilyan said,
adding that he hoped the country's green lobby would put enough pressure on
the government to result in a reversal of the decision to liquidate the
committee - which he said should be deemed a government "mistake."
Environmentalists have repeatedly criticized Danilov-Danilyan for his halfway
policies. Last fall, for example, the environmental chief publicly supported
a project to import spent nuclear fuel to Russia for long-term storage,
calling the plan profitable. The project is lobbied by the Nuclear Ministry
and is sharply criticized by both Russian and international activists.
On Monday, however, independent environmentalists unanimously supported
Danilov-Danilyan, and called the decree a conscious step by a government that
does not care about the environmental situation in the country.
"Even the presence of a shabby State Committee for the Environment is better
than no environmental monitoring body whatsoever," said Greenpeace Russia
spokesman Alexander Shuvalov.
In a news release distributed last week, Greenpeace Russia called the
liquidation of the committee "a step away from the civilized world."
"From now on, Russia is absolutely helpless against the army of industrial
and commercial moguls who shamelessly steal its natural resources," the news
release said.
"This [liquidation] is a step towards de-environmentalization of the state,"
said Vladimir Slivyak, coordinator of nuclear programs for the Moscow-based
Ecodefense group.
"Maybe the next to go will be the State Nuclear Inspection Agency [or
Gosatomnadzor]," a body that monitors and analyzes all civilian nuclear
facilities in the country, Slivyak said.
Alexander Nikitin, the renowned environmental activist who heads the Russian
branch of the Norwegian environmental group Bellona, said the committee was
eliminated because it was "an inconvenient body."
"If the government had a chance to abolish the rest of the green
organizations, it would have done exactly that," Nikitin said.
Nikitin spent over 10 months in a Federal Security Service jail and four
years under constant surveillance on charges of high treason and espionage
for co-authoring a report with Bellona on the environmental hazards posed by
Russia's Northern Fleet. A recipient of several international awards for his
environmental activities, Nikitin was finally acquitted by the Supreme Court
last month.
While Russia has drawn international criticism for punishing its
environmental activists, it pays remarkably little attention to ecological
problems. According to Danilov-Danilyan, in 1999, the country allocated only
0.2 percent of its budget to support environmental work.
At the same time, the environmental chief said earlier this year that 61
million Russians - almost half of the country's population - live under
environmentally dangerous conditions, noting, for instance, that the air in
120 Russian cities is five times more toxic than acceptable levels.
*******
#2
BBC MONITORING
RUSSIAN ECOLOGIST SLAMS DECISION TO CLOSE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
Source: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 23 May 00
A leading Russian ecologist has called on President Vladimir Putin to
explain the abolition of the Russian State Committee for Environment
Protection, saying it was vital to have an ecological monitoring agency
independent of the body responsible for exploiting natural resources.
"We spent 20 years campaigning to prove that one cannot combine the
functions of exploitation [of natural resources] and monitoring [of the
environment] under one department," Aleksey Yablokov, the president of the
Russian Centre for Ecological Policy, said in remarks broadcast by Russian
NTV on Tuesday.
"We had finally achieved a situation where we had some kind of independent
and separate ecological department where the monitoring functions were the
main thing.
"But now the functions of monitoring the environment are being handed over
to the department which is engaged in exploiting natural resources. This is
prohibited even by Russian legislation," he added.
Yablokov said that the decision to abolish the Environment Protection
Committee had implications for the world at large, not just Russia, and
that Putin would have to explain what prompted him to issue the
presidential decree axing the committee to US President Bill Clinton.
"This is an event of more than a Russian dimension... I think Putin will
have to explain his position during the summit with Clinton because that
position just does not make sense," he said.
*******
#3
May 22, 2000
deadline.ru
Lev Levinson
Labor Unions To Be Sidelined by Labor Code:
Working Overtime Will Become Our Human Right
[translation for personal use only]
Vladimir Mironov, a former judge of the Moscow City Court, once opened the
employment record of one of his visitors. In the record, the inscription
"fired" was followed with a variation of the four-letter word. One might
guess that the boss got sick enough with his employee to resort to such a
verbiage. Nevertheless, in the past, under Soviet-era labor committees, it
was
hard to imagine any kind of administration doing such things even to a
hopeless alcoholic and shirker.
In essense, the government draft of the Labor Code sends a similar message
to all workers in the country. At least this is how labor unions are bound
to read the draft.
A year ago, there had already been a conflict in the Duma over this project.
Then, its discussion was suspended: both branches of power agreed that it
wouldn't be prudent to push through such an unpopular bill on the eve of
elections. Now, when everybody got elected, the Labor Code is back on the
agenda. Its consideration is scheduled for June 7.
There is little need to explain that the present composition of the Duma
will not let the government be frustrated in any of its desires.
Nevertheless, in the course of his confirmation hearings, Kasyanov responded
to a question on Labor Code by saying he was unfamiliar with the issue and
hadn't read the document, that he will give appropriate instructions, but
that these days the government needs tax bills much, much more.
Formally speaking, there have been three drafts. But only one of them,
prepared in the Labor Ministry, has the official status. The authors of the
other two - Teimuraz Avaliani, a radical communist, and Anatoly Golov from
Yabloko - lost their Duma seats. (...) Just before the hearings on the Prime
Minister's confirmation, a fourth alternative draft was introduced in the
Duma. The fact that among his authors there are influential communists
Anatoly Lukyanov and Valery Saikin, Andrei Isaev (a labor union leader from
the Fatherland) and Gasan Mirzoev, chair of the Guild of Attorneys (from the
Union of Right-Wing Forces) serves as a guarantee that final decisions will
be postponed at least until the fall. Avaliani's and Golov's proposals will
still have to be taken into account (unless someone will find some trick in
the Duma by-laws), but only this latest draft can provide a real
counterweight to the government bill.
The 30-year old Code of Labor Laws (KZoT) is obsolete. Its guarantees are
not being observed. The acting laws do not make employees answerable for the
fulfillment of their obligations under contract. (...) Many provisions are
unconstitutional and at odds with international law. Thus, it is legal to
terminate an employee that is temporarily disabled, which is in violation of
the ILO Convention. Or, another example, an employee has no right to quit
from a fixed-time contract position "without sufficient reasons".
Yet, with all deficiencies of the present law, the document that several
governments have been trying to impose upon the country throws it back by
about a hundred years. (...) In fact, the government wants to abolish the
8-hour working day limit. Employers will be entitled to "negotiate" even a
12-hour day, and, in case overtime work is done "voluntarily", employees
will be paid at a regular rate, without increase. It will be enough to sign
a declaration - at the employer's proposal - stating that you request
permission to work 56 hours a week instead of 40. What else does the
government want? To legalize payments in kind, in medieval style. Then,
employers will be able to shift the burden of marketing low-demand products
onto the shoulders of their employees.
In the government draft, employers are not answerable for non-payment of
wages. Meanwhile, employees can be fired if they decline to work without
pay. The bill expands the scope of grounds for firing and reduces
limitations on it. This Code would remove the ban on firing pregnant women,
mothers of young and disabled children. Employers would become entitled to
change labor conditions without warning, while today they are obliged to
inform their workers about these changes two months in advance.
The informal argument runs like this: the 8-hour working day limit and many
other regulations have not been enforced in practice for many years -
everybody does whatever possible to survive. Some are happy to get paid at
least in kind. Wouldn't it be better just to legalize the order that emerged
over time? Following this logic, the government decided to make at least
employers happy. And since the latter don't need unions, it's best to get
rid of them at all. The draft code strips them of any influence over
management: the boss can take any decisions on his own. Strikingly, the
"socially oriented" Yabloko advertising the "pro-employee" Golov draft, does
not pay attention to even more far-reaching proposals contained in this
project - such as entitling employers to fire workers without explanation if
the company's size is less than 30 people. (...)
Same themes can be found in the famous Gref program, which proposes large
cuts in unemployment benefits and encourages out-of-court settlements of
labor disputes.
The authors of the government bill resort to the principle of equality of
negotiating parties, i.e. equality of employees and employers, as a legal
basis for the "labor legislation reform". But a pure civil approach is not
applicable to labor relations, where one side has a more advantageous
position in the first place. The goal of labor laws is just the opposite: to
protect employees from the economic supremacy of employers. This requires
working legal mechanisms, including Processual Labor Code, which the
government promised to introduce back in 1996, but forgot abotut this
promise. Meanwhile, its draft Labor Code has already received the IMF
approval.
*******
#4
Stratfor.com
Putin Appoints Two Outsiders to Key Posts
May 23, 2000
While keeping most of his Cabinet intact, Russian President Vladimir Putin
has appointed new faces to two key posts naming an intelligence
professional with experience in the United States and Germany to run the
country’s foreign intelligence while placing a little known Siberian
official in the role of energy minister.
Over the course of the last week, Putin appointed Sergei Lebedev to run the
Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and named Alexander Gavrin energy
minister. The president’s selections appear to foreshadow his plans for
economic reform. Though unannounced, the plan will likely focus on luring
foreign investment while making national industries profitable. Each man
will bring particular skills to both endeavors.
Lebedev has a background reminiscent of the president’s. Lebedev, 52, is a
KGB veteran. Born in Uzbekistan, he graduated from both the Kiev
Polytechnic Institute and the Diplomatic Academy of the Soviet Foreign
Ministry. Like Putin, Lebedev worked for the KGB in Germany during the Cold
War. Since 1998, he has been the official representative of the SVR to the
United States.
He seems likely to add value to Putin’s new government because of his
experience in gathering information on the two most important economic
targets: the United States and Germany. Putin’s plan will probably rest on
developing investment, trade and technology with the two countries that can
offer Russia the most benefit.
In contrast, Gavrin is a comparative unknown which may be the reason that
the president selected him. He has not circulated much in Moscow. Born in
Ukraine, Gavrin has been serving as mayor of the western Siberian town of
Kogalym the home of a major subsidiary of LUKoil, the country’s petroleum
giant. Gavrin also holds degrees in the industry, according to a report by
the Interfax news agency.
Other than being a member of the All-Russia party, Gavrin has been
relatively isolated from Moscow politics. Putin is struggling to separate
Russia’s network of wealthy businessmen from their influential roles in
politics, and a Siberian mayor would seem a practical choice. Gavrin may
bring the administration a conflicted set of loyalties, however. His
knowledge of LUKoil is an asset but he is probably beholden in some
measure to the company’s powerful director, Vagit Alekperov.
*******
#5
Russian land of volcanoes embraces geothermal power
By Peter Henderson
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russia, May 23 (Reuters) - The earth's heat bursts
from volcanoes in Russia's Far Eastern ``land of fire and ice,'' a remote
region betting that geothermal power will bring it investment and an
independent source of energy.
Renewable power would safeguard one of Russia's most pristine regions, though
bankers -- and investors who would be relied on to fund expansion -- are
watching to see whether the region can repay a $100 million Western loan.
The Kamchatka peninsula juts into the Pacific Ocean on Russia's side of the
Bering Straits, nine time zones from Moscow and tied to the mainland chiefly
by the legends of its bears, volcanoes, geysers and main city of
Petropavlovsk, closed to Russians and foreigners until the early 1990s.
The world's last major run of caviar-bearing wild salmon and a port base for
sea fishing validate the city's existence, but ferocious winters have taken
their toll since the Soviet Union's demise because of diminished subsidised
shipments of fuel.
``We live forever on tankers which come -- or do not,'' said Kamchatka
Governor Vladimir Biryukov.
``Now that more than half the region lives below the poverty level, people's
inability to pay restricts our ability to dependably finance fuel purchases.
``Energy has always has been the basis for industrial growth. It is the basis
for securing life for society. So our main programme and the main capital
investment is to build an energy base that would use our own resources.''
VOLCANIC POWER
A solution of the region's erratic power supplies is bubbling away
underground next to the Mutnovsky volcano, one of about 30 stretching down
the peninsula which is roughly half the size of Texas or France.
OAO Geoterm, a Russian engineering firm set up by scientists, is developing a
geothermal field abandoned in Soviet days and plans to complete a $150
million power plant at the end of next year. A prototype is up and running.
Hot water and steam heated by the earth fuel the geothermal plants. The steam
runs turbines which produce electricity and can also be used to heat another
substance with a lower boiling point than water, which can produce even more
steam and energy.
Officials plan to pump used steam back into the ground to bury the traces of
sulphur and other elements that would otherwise contaminate the environment
and ensure steam wells do not leak pressure and sap the field's power
potential.
Geoterm says the new plant will produce up to 50 megawatts and the field
could yield from 150-300 megawatts. The top end is nearly enough to power
Petropavlovsk, says Oleg Povarov, Geoterm's vice-president.
He says geothermal stations could in theory produce almost two percent of
Russia's electricity.
Geoterm shareholders include regional authorities and the national power
utility UES, and Povarov says success is certain for current and future
investors and the project. ``There is no electricity problem in Kamchatka.
The problem is financing.''
The project has attracted the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD) which has lent $100 million for the plant.
REALITY MAY BITE
Success may not be so simple.
Viktor Luzin, Geoterm's chief in Kamchatka, busts a couple of myths about
geothermal power -- it is not completely clean and is expensive to start up
and maintain, especially in Kamchatka, where snow blocks the access road for
most of the year.
``It is a misconception that geothermal stations are cheap, that you don't
have to pay for fuel,'' he said. ``There are costs of the well -- drilling,
repairing equipment, monitoring of the well and the geothermal field.
``Energy from hot water and steam is about the same price as from fuel oil or
coal. The only difference is that it is a renewable energy source... and the
ecology.''
An EBRD representative, who asked not to be named, said geothermal
electricity would be cheap, a view shared by the governor and Povarov.
But the biggest question mark hanging over plans is the ability of the local
utility and its customers to pay for their electricity so Geoterm can repay
the loan.
The EBRD, conscious of the risk, gave its credit to the federal government
for lending to Geoterm, effectively requiring it to guarantee the loan.
It also helped push through a power purchase agreement, Russia's first, which
through a series of deals between various government bodies ensures energy
tariffs will cover payments on the loan until its maturity in 10 years.
The question is whether customers, in turn, will pay for the electricity they
use, a chronic Russian problem.
The regional administration secured oil supplies this winter -- Governor
Biryukov said the utility Kamchatenergo could not always buy fuel because it
was owed so much.
``You can't just blame Kamchatenergo. You have to speak more about the
ability of the population to pay and the ability of the government to support
payments for social infrastructure, payments for electricity and heat,'' he
said.
The EBRD also has some concerns about repayment. Investors expected to fund
the next stage of expansion of the geothermal power works would expect to see
results before making commitments, the bank representative said.
Luzin says the economy will pick up and factories will be able to pay for
their electricity, but when Biryukov was asked if households could pay, he
replied: ``They will, sometime.''
*******
#6
Washington Post
May 23, 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin's Bad Company
By Richard Cohen
Who is Vladimir Putin, anyway? Is he the democrat he says he is, a regular
freedom-of-the-pressnik, or is he a neo-autocrat, who step by step will
return to some of the policies and practices of the old Soviet Union? As of
yet no one can say, but the signs--especially recently--are not encouraging.
The man keeps some strange company.
Earlier this month, for instance, the Kremlin invited an indicted war
criminal, Yugoslavia's Gen. Dragolub Ojdanic, to Moscow. He met with the
Russian defense minister and the army's chief of staff. On both occasions,
the Russians neglected to put the cuffs on him, which is what they are
required to do as members of the United Nations. This was a clear signal that
Putin is going to play by his own rules.
Ojdanic's visit shows a studied and brassy contempt for the United Nations,
its war crimes tribunal in the Hague and--most important--for common decency.
In the words of his indictment, Ojdanic is accused of "crimes against
humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war." In plain language,
we're talking ethnic cleansing.
The United States has protested Ojdanic's visit but is not prepared to
confront Russia in the Security Council. The Clinton administration has
decided this is not the way to go. Instead, it will do its confronting in
private, maybe when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright meets with her
Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, or maybe when Bill Clinton meets with Putin
himself at next month's summit. "This is serious," said one U.S. official.
Yes, indeed. Let's see if the Clinton administration treats it that way.
For a host of reasons--some of them sound and some of them just plain wishful
thinking--this administration has been loath to confront Moscow. One reason
is that it would like Moscow not to go ape if the United States goes ahead
with a missile defense system. Another reason is that the administration has
a stake in trying to prove it has not been wrong in making nice-nice to
Russia. A third reason is that it's still feeling out Putin, trying to
determine if he is the man of his comforting words or of his alarming
actions. There's cause for pessimism.
Under Putin, the authorities raided the office of an opposition news
organization, Media-Most, carting off records and even videotapes of popular
programs. Before that, Russian forces seized the journalist Andrei Babitsky,
who was reporting critically from Chechnya, and swapped him for three Russian
POWs. Putin says he respects freedom of the press. Any more of this sort of
respect and the press will be thoroughly cowed.
In Chechnya Russia has flouted international norms of warfare by, in effect,
making war on the civilian population. As with the United States in Vietnam,
it is admittedly hard to distinguish non-combatants from combatants, but the
Russians haven't really tried. They leveled Grozny, the capital, treating
everyone the same. It was a perverse example of Russian democracy.
These, though, are domestic matters--even Chechnya, the Russia's insist. But
in foreign relations the pattern is no more promising. Russia remains buddies
with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic. Recently, in
fact, Moscow has exhibited its commitment to Serbia by propping up the
tottering Milosevic regime. It has granted Belgrade a loan for $102 million
and has offered to sell it oil at below market prices. Maybe Putin has not
noticed that Milosevic, too, has been indicted for war crimes.
About half of the people accused by the war crimes tribunal have either been
arrested or have turned themselves in. This is not a bad record for an
organization that was initially thought to be all good intentions and no
action. The tribunal has proved that individuals, even political leaders,
will be held accountable for crimes against humanity.
Ojdanic ought to be one. He commanded the units that rousted Albanians from
their homes, killed some of them, herded the rest onto packed trains,
deprived them of food and water--and forced them out of Kosovo. The action
recalled the roundups of Jews by German units during the Holocaust. The
planning was just as thorough, although the outcome was less lethal. Still,
someone had clearly studied history.
The hospitality Moscow accorded Ojdanic--its indifference to universal norms
of morality--is reminiscent of the days when it supported terrorist
organizations. Back then, the Soviet Union had a lot of blood on its hands.
Now Russia merely overlooks the blood others have on their hands.
******
#7
Germany's Grass, other writers rap Russia over war
By Gareth Jones
MOSCOW, May 23 (Reuters) - Nobel Prize-winning author Guenter Grass and other
writers on Tuesday condemned Moscow's eight-month military campaign in rebel
Chechnya and warned against the erosion of democratic freedoms in Russia.
Addressing the annual congress of International Pen, which campaigns for
authors' rights and freedom of expression, they said writers had a moral
obligation to speak out against censorship, persecution and state-sponsored
violence everywhere.
``We have to demand an end to the war against the Chechen people. And
likewise an investigation, under U.N. auspices, of all war crimes committed
by either side,'' said Grass, winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature.
He said the war was ``without reason, without mercy.'' Moscow says it is
fighting ``international terrorists'' in Chechnya and has ignored Western
calls to halt the offensive and to begin peace talks with the separatist
leaders.
Russia has vowed to probe allegations of human rights abuses but has refused
to allow an independent U.N. investigation.
``(Literature) does not turn a blind eye, it does not forget, it does break
the silence,'' Grass told several hundred delegates attending the first PEN
congress to be held in Russia.
Grass, 72, is a veteran campaigner for left-wing causes and is best known for
his epic 1959 novel about Germany's Nazi past, ``The Tin Drum.''
Novelist Andrei Bitov, president of the Russian arm of International PEN,
said the congress gave writers a valuable chance to speak out against a war
which, in Russia, remains broadly popular despite the large loss of life
among both Chechen civilians and Russian troops.
``The whole of Russian society has suffered from this war,'' said Bitov in a
news release.
The president of International PEN, Mexican poet and novelist Homero Aridjis,
told Reuters some members had expressed doubts about holding the congress in
Russia because of the war.
NO ENDORSEMENT OF RUSSIAN POLICY
``Our presence here does not imply support for Russia's policy in Chechnya or
its attempts to curb freedom of expression,'' said Aridjis.
But he added that the decision to hold this year's congress in Russia was
rich in symbolism.
``To read the history of Russian literature is to read the history of
political harassment of writers, from (Fyodor) Dostoyevsky to Alexander
Solzhenitsyn.''
The great 19th century Russian author Dostoyevsky narrowly escaped execution
for his political activities and was exiled to Siberia. Solzhenitsyn, like
Grass a Nobel Prize winner, recounted life in Stalin's labour camps in his
``Gulag Archipelago.''
Now 81, Solzhenitsyn lives as a recluse just outside Moscow and was not
expected to attend this week's PEN gathering.
In his speech to the congress, Aridjis said delegates would discuss threats
to writers and journalists around the world.
He mentioned the brief detention earlier this year of Russian journalist
Andrei Babitsky, whose coverage of the Chechen war angered the Kremlin.
He also broached the trial of Russian environmentalists Grigory Pasko and
Alexander Nikitin, the target of serious allegations by Russia's FSB domestic
security agency.
Russia's Supreme Court acquitted Nikitin last month of revealing state
secrets while working for a Norwegian environmental group. Pasko was freed in
an amnesty last summer immediately after being sentenced to three years in
prison for passing details of nuclear pollution to Japanese television.
International PEN was founded in London in 1921 and has been linked down the
decades with many famous writers including Britain's H.G. Wells and
Polish-born Joseph Conrad, U.S. playwright Arthur Miller and Germany's Thomas
Mann.
It has about 12,000 members, all published authors, and 137 regional offices
around the world.
******
#8
Russian PM says no plans to sack c.bank chief
MOSCOW, May 23 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov dismissed
a newspaper report on Tuesday that Central Bank Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko
was about to be dismissed, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
``The question of the dismissal of the chairman of the central bank of Russia
has not been raised and is not being discussed,'' Tass said, quoting Kasyanov
during a visit to the Belarussian capital Minsk.
Britain's Financial Times newspaper on Tuesday quoted a senior Russian
official as saying Gerashchenko might be forced to quit within the next six
months as President Vladimir Putin tightened his grip on the country's
financial levers.
Gerashchenko laughed off the possibility of his sacking earlier on Tuesday.
``For almost 12 years with small interruptions the central bank has had four
chairmen, while the government has already had nine heads,'' Gerashchenko
told journalists on the fringes on a banking congress.
``Let them slander, but anything can happen in our lives.''
Gerashchenko took over at the helm of the central bank after the 1998
financial crisis led to a sharp devaluation in the rouble and a domestic debt
default.
******
#9
Moscow Times
May 23, 2000
The Man on His Plan
By Alexander Bekker
Vedemosti
As work on the Center for Strategic Research's economic blueprint reached a
last-moment fever-pitch, Alexander Bekker of Vedemosti spoke last Wednesday
to German Gref.
Q:
>From what the papers have published, your work seems to be a qualitative
re-think of Ludwig Erhardt's post-World War II reforms in Germany, with
elements of the Chilean and South Korean models built in.
A:
No one else's model can be applied here. Of course there are some general
principles of reform. And there are common problems and relatively standard
solutions to them. But this does not mean we have taken the Chilean or
Malaysian model as a foundation. And particularly not the postwar German
model. I don't think it correct to compare our program with those implemented
earlier. There isn't a single country that has emerged from such a condition.
Never has there been such a closed, militarized economy organized like one
big venture. Ten years of reform is too short for empirical studies. The
initial experience with liberalization and privatization showed that market
instruments don't yield results automatically. This shows the necessity for
considering the peculiarities of a developing Russian economy and the
mentality of our managers and workers. We sometimes want to skip certain
stages, but ... society doesn't accept it. We can't use the experience of
developed countries with taxes or customs regulation. Our program is based on
the real situation in Russia.
Q:
There have been reports in the press that your strategy is all show. How much
of your document is just technicality, and how much of it is really
applicable? Or is it just going to be shelved for prosperity?
A:
The program has three formats, and they really are technically different. The
short version gives direction within the various spheres. It's like the
Chilean reformers' 15-page memorandums. The large version, the program
concept, explains what to do and how in each sphere. And finally, the most
technical format has never been drafted: the means for implementing the
program. It's more than just words. Everything there is written out in
detail, the deadlines, which laws have to be enacted, what kinds of
regulations.
Q:
For 10 years?
A:
For the next four years. We have a 10-year planning period. We have to look
into the future to determine what kind of Russia we want to see, what kinds
of trends there will be. But the actual forecast period is four years. This
is how we're planning all our work. And for that matter, it's quite detailed.
For example, it includes a presidential decree for the president to name his
own authorized representatives in major federal regions. We worked to have
the second part of the Tax Code before the Duma and have the deputies pass
it, as outlined in our program, by Aug. 1. In a word, the strategy remains a
strategy, but it is simultaneously absolutely grounded in reality.
Q:
What do you know about Yury Maslyukov's program? If the press is to be
believed, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov is preparing to use it as tactical
operating plan for the next year to year and a half?
A:
I haven't seen Maslyukov's original program. But you can't make a
comprehensive conclusion from the excerpts published in the media.
Nevertheless, you can see parts of our program in it. It needs to be
determined how compatible the two programs are. We have never discussed this
with Kasyanov. If there's a problem and we use Maslyukov's program, I think
we can conduct an analysis and decide how valuable such a system would be,
and how much of a role Maslyukov's program would play in the next year and a
half.
Q:
What was the point of encouraging competition among the programs when yours
was already underway?
A:
I don't think there's any competition. That a program is being developed at
the Duma is good. But there is no point in thinking that there are any
realistic alternatives to the Center for Strategic Research's strategy. I
know well the amount of resources needed to prepare a quality program. The
resources aren't available for creating a true alternative to our program.
Q:
A well-written economic program is not the same thing as a reliable
bureaucrat. Who of those with you at the Center for Strategic Research are
likely to go into the government?
A:
I think the specialists who worked on the program are the nation's brightest.
We're all grateful for the fate that brought us together. Most of those
specialists could help implement the program. They aren't limited to
theoretical experience, they've proven themselves in business. And some of
them - Oleg Vyugin, Mikhail Dmitriyev, Alexei Ulyukayev - had very high posts
in the last Cabinet.
******
#10
Moscow Times
May 23, 2000
ROUND TABLE: Kasyanov Looks Set to Choose His Own Plan
Which program will the government choose?
Regarding [former First Deputy Prime Minister Yury] Maslyukov's program, I
honestly don't believe it even exists. There was nothing serious in it
earlier, and I think [Maslyukov] has not had much time or desire lately to
write a program. It seems that [Prime Minister Mikhail] Kasyanov has a lot of
people working for him who used to work for Maslyukov. So they've taken some
remnants of [Maslyukov's] program by default. [Economic Development Minister
German] Gref failed to formulate a program by March 26, and after that was
inevitably drawn into the competition with other candidates. I think Kasyanov
will prevail just because it's logical. After all, a program should be
written by the people who are going to implement it. The ministers in
Kasyanov's government are going to have to implement the program. So in
accordance with that, they're going to have to be the ones to decide what to
do and how. If Putin doesn't like it, he can fire the government. Of course,
Gref could be asked for some input. But it would be impossible to tie down
Kasyanov with someone else's program in its entirety.
Sergei Alexashenko
director, Development Center
I think Mikhail Kasyanov will still try to build up some kind of political
career for himself. So this Maslyukov program will be used as a demonstration
of his independence. And I have the impression that Kasyanov will use
leftists in the State Duma as a basis for developing his political status,
because Putin already has the rest. But as regards threats to Gref's program,
I think they're exaggerated. Of course, Kasyanov is personally trying to show
that it has nothing of significance to offer. However, the events of recent
days have shown that both the president and the government are acting more in
line with the Gref program than anything else. For example, all the decisions
regarding review of regional leaders' authority clearly come from ideas
developed by [Gref's] Center for Strategic Development, as well as the tax
laws that have been sent to the Duma. And there are more reasons to consider
that the government's activities will be based on Gref's program. Moreover, I
think it will be subjected to a comprehensive reworking. At least some
adjustments need to be made to it.
Alexei Zabotkin
analyst, United Financial Group
No one's program. The government is going to base its decisions on
expedience. I don't think any of the [programs] that have been developed
would make a suitable plan of action, if for no other reason than the fact
that they all involve a different time frame. A strategy should give
direction only. It cannot and should not spell out a detailed list of
activities for each day. We can only hope that, under the guise of a
relatively liberal program, something else won't be implemented, something
like tightening control and increasing the government's role in the economy.
An attempt to consider everything of value from alternative programs could
become a useful tactic for the government. However, attempts to find
consensus, especially on very basic issues, could lead to the development of
an inconsequential and eclectic document. In such a case, everyone
participating in the process would lose interest in it, and it would never be
implemented.
Andrei Vernikov
chief economist, ABN Amro Bank
The overwhelming majority of state programs will either never be fulfilled at
all, or never implemented in their entirety because, by their very nature,
they do not take into account the reality of the situation. In the final
analysis, Mikhail Kasyanov will select that which is most acceptable to the
new government and the president. If an option doesn't suit the country's
leadership, then it will probably be adjusted to make it more acceptable, and
then begin to be implemented. If it yields good results, that will mean the
right decision was made. If not, then they'll start making changes and adapt
it to the changing situation. The result will be one new program after
another ... and the process will go on and on. Every program's author has his
own truth, his own perspective on the current set of tasks to be
accomplished.
Igor Zakharov
chairman, Sodbiznesbank
*******
#11
Diseases in Russia Seen on the Increase
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
May 19, 2000
[translation for personal use only]
Report by Irina Krasnopolskaya: "Not Summer but Contagion all
Round: Sanitation and Epidemiology Inspectorate Makes Forecast
for Holiday Season"
Gennadiy Onishchenko, the Russian Federation's
acting first deputy health minister and Russia's chief state sanitary
inspector has said that even before the onset of the summer season there
are harbingers that it will not be one of the best. The sanitary and
epidemiological situation is not stable: 26 different sicknesses are
"announcing" their increase.
Many intestinal diseases are making advances for the second year in a
row, including typhoid, which hastened to declare itself in Chechnya
before the start of the summer season in April.
You get the impression that acute intestinal infections are getting ahead
of time, striking the population even before the arrival of the warmth.
Dysentery increased its incidence by 45% over the first three months of
this year. Salmonella is not slumbering either, although its
"successes" are significantly more modest, it has gained only 3%. And
there are also the so-called unidentified agents of acute intestinal
diseases. For now they account for 6% of inroads into health but by
summer they will come out in force. The statistics of the first quarter
of this year are guarantee of this -- 19 Russian Federation components
have found themselves in the thrall of serious outbreaks of infection.
Most troubles are perhaps being caused by water, or rather what is called
water but what is in fact little suitable for drinking. 87 people have
suffered from it in Arkhangelsk Oblast and 187 in Irkutsk Oblast. 2,614
people have suffered from 14 outbreaks of acute intestinal diseases over
the short interval from 1 April to 10 May. Acute dysentery has been
raging in Cheboksary and Novocheboksarsk since 27 April. It already has
1,662 people, including 971 children, on its account. This count would
surely have been much less and perhaps dysentery would not have been able
to show itself at all if the Chuvashia administration had paid attention
to the state of the drinking water.
Not far from Yekaterinburg is the village of Kalinovskiy. For a long
time it was a secret, closed place. They opened it up. But did not
think about the water its residents drink. As a result, the water pipe
joined the sewerage system. The outcome of such a union is clear. The
money that must now be spent on treating intestinal infections would have
been more than enough to put the water pipe in order.
Hemorrhagic fever has manifested itself without waiting for the summer
season: In the first quarter of this year there was 14 times more of it
than in the same period of last year and more than 2,500 people have
fallen sick with this terrible disease. There are leaders in this:
Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, and Orenburg, Samara, and Ulyanovsk Oblasts.
Two people have died from Crimean hemorrhagic fever in Stavropol Kray.
The summer forecast for this disease is pessimistic.
According to our scientists' statistics, this disease has a very high
death rate of 60%. Treating one person sick with it costs 250,000
rubles. That is a lot more than the funds needed to prevent the fever.
It is caused by a tick that resides on livestock. But in Stavropol
Kray they did not find money to give the stock the relevant treatment.
It seems that the upcoming summer will see a continuing increase in
sickness from hepatitis A, B, and C. The "guarantee" of this is this
year's 42% increase in hepatitis A. And the fact that over the first
three months of 2000, hepatitis B was 18% up on the first quarter of last
year and hepatitis C by as much as 61%. We have hepatitis leaders too:
Karelia; Leningrad, Novgorod, Rostov, and Omsk Oblasts; Moscow, and St.
Petersburg.
Successful inroads are being made into our lives by lice, which we must
expect to become more active in summer; lice like warmth. 70,610 people
have fallen victim to this foul insect. Who? Above all they are the
denizens of children's pre-school establishments, schools, vocational and
technical colleges, and homes for the disabled.
We are not succeeding in stopping the march of HIV and AIDS across
Russia. There are quite a number of newcomers among its victims,
regions that the disease seemed to have passed by before. It has now
taken a firm hold in Ryazan, Kemerovo, and Samara Oblasts. And if we
consider that drug addicts become more active in summer and that this is
the season for the priestesses of free love, we must expect the ranks of
AIDS carriers to be filled out.
Nevertheless, there are bright patches on the gloomy "infection field."
This chiefly concerns the implementation of the program to eliminate
poliomyelitis in the Russian Federation. No instance of poliomyelitis
sickness caused by the savage virus has been registered on Russian
territory since 1997. We can say that Russia is successfully fulfilling
the program for eliminating this dangerous disease that was adopted by
the World Health Organization in 1998.
However strange it may seem, against the backdrop of a growth of
infections brought on by sex and the drug addict's syringe, syphilis is
on the wane in our country. There is all of 16% less of it in
comparison with the first quarter of last year. It only remains to hope
that summer's "time of love and tender passion" will not spoil these
indicators.
*******
#12
May 19, 2000
Vek
Nikolai SHMELYOV: Impoverished Russia Is Financing the Outer World.
How Much Openness Is Needed For Our Economy?
[translation for personal use only]
What are Russia's external economic interests? Should Russia's economy be
open or closed to the outer world? Recently, there has been a plenty of
debate around these issues.
Clearly, in principle, one can only welcome an attempt to open up our closed
economy. But not in the way we have it now. Alas, the 1990s have
demonstrated: we were overly zealous in opening our economy that had been
self-isolated from the rest of the world.
Now it is time to take stock of the downsides, not the upsides of our
openness.
These negative aspects logically result from our abrupt opening of the door
wide before the outer world. We created privileged conditions not for our
exporters, not for our national producers, but for Western producers and for
our importers. These have been unfair privileges.
Overall, these have been monstrous errors on a strategic scale. Not
surprisingly, they ended in catastrophy in August 1998. In the big picture,
this was the result of the country's unprepared openness.
A second result of our Open Door policies was Russia's virtual
transformation into the whole world's creditor. We, Russians, being in
misery, afford ourselves the luxury of helping the global economy - by
hundreds of millions of dollars. This amount is at least three times the
size of all forms of foreign capital inflows, including foreign government
aid, the aid by international organizations, all loans by IMF and the World
Bank, all direct as well as portfolio investment, credits, and so forth.
A third result is that Russia affords the luxury of virtually open crediting
of the U.S. economy and of American government. Some people might say: in
the period of reforms, Russian economy needed a stable anchor, and the
dollar was invited to play that role. But accepting dollar as our anchor
means exactly direct crediting of U.S. Treasury by Russian consumer, by the
Russian state.
One cannot build an open macroeconomy overnight, by assault. Such a goal
requires at least 10 to 15 years to fulfill. And this can be done only under
condition of really functioning market institutions and mechanisms inside
the country: mechanisms that ensure the growth of production, technological
progress, growth in the quality and competitiveness of products.
Therein, probably, lies the answer to the question: what are Russia's
foreign economic interests, what kind of industrial policies does it need?
But this is largely the matter of political skills and ability to govern.
The question is about the degree of competence in our government, at the
decision-making levels.
This requires enormous work, which is intertwined with the question of
whether our government is capable of such an undertaking. Is it competent at
all for a work on this scale?
Another issue is that of a truly creative approach to the world experience.
Do we need to borrow, and if so, from whose experience - European, American,
Chinese?
We are a European country. These days, there is a certain new formula of
social life that is taking shape in Europe. It has a distinctly social
democratic coloring. Its substance is the democratic, federative,
parliamentary nationhood, with a developed civil society and respect for
human rights. With socially oriented marked economy. With a very large state
influence as a regulator of the economy and in some sectors as proprietor
and manager of wealth.
Perhaps, the most crucial element of this experience is the creation of the
quality of life that is worthy of human being. As compared to our deplorable
quality of life, that is unaccountable for by any "objective causes"
whatsoever.
Nikolai Shmelyov is Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
and Director of the Institute of Europe.
******
#13
Putin introduces new Russian spymaster
MOSCOW, May 23 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin turned up on Tuesday at
the headquarters of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service to introduce
its newly appointed head to staff, an SVR spokesman said.
Putin and Sergei Lebedev, appointed the new spymaster last week, worked in
1980s as Soviet intelligence officers in Communist East Germany.
Lieutenant-General Lebedev, 52, replaces Vyacheslav Trubnikov, nominee of the
previous Kremlin leader, Boris Yeltsin.
The SVR spokesman, contacted by telephone, gave no details of the meeting at
the headquarters in a Moscow suburb.
``The president would want to see at the helm of the Foreign Intelligence
Service a person sympathetic to him, which whom he had personal contact,''
the daily Kommersant daily quoted General Yuri Kobaladze, former head of the
SVR press office, as saying.
Kobaladze said Lebedev's work record in Europe was an important factor in the
nomination, along with his close association with Putin.
``Lebedev is a 'European'. It is always good when trends change,'' Kobaladze
said, clearly referring to Trubnikov's association with Asia.Trubnikov's
predecessor in the SVR, Yevgeny Primakov, was a Middle East expert.
Before being summoned by Putin, Lebedev worked for two years as SVR
representative in the United States.
``He is a master of espionage,'' Kommersant quoted an unnamed officer at SVR
press service as saying of Lebedev.
******
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