NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA
President Vladimir Putin met Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica in Sochi (a Russian resort on the Black Sea) on Thursday. According to NG, Putin was receiving a Serbian prime minister for the first time, but he had already received Kostunica. Before the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia collapsed, he was president and visited Moscow in this capacity escorted by numerous church leaders and businessmen.
According to the newspaper, Serbian politicians like to say that Russia is Serbia's main partner. However, when Kostunica came to power in autumn 2000, he turned to other capitals. Perhaps, he was offended that the Russian authorities had ignored him until Slobodan Milosevic resigned on October 6, 2000. On the other hand, Serbia's young democracy needed foreign financial aid, while Russia was not very generous, stating that those responsible for bombing and stifling Yugoslavia with economic sanctions should provide the funds.
NG writes that Putin brought up the subject of air strikes. "I am certain that if the international community had had the courage to prevent Belgrade bombings, we would not have been in such a complicated situation around the Iraqi crisis," said the Russian president. "It would have been completely different." As for the devastated economy, Putin noted that Russia "deems it possible to participate in restoring the Serbian economy."
The Russian president also promised to expand Russia's contribution to the Kosovo settlement. "We are ready to increase our participation but only if Russia sees that they need us and that the decisions we participate in can help remedy the situation," NG reports.
IZVESTIA
Meat imports from Europe to Russia have been suspended. The Russian agriculture ministry introduced single veterinary certificates for imported meat from the EU on June 1. The Europeans, Izvestia writes, neither had the time nor the desire to approve the new documents. Therefore, the border has been sealed off for the European meat from Tuesday.
Europe was highly concerned about the veterinary bans, as it earns about 1.3 billion euros a year from meat supplies to Russia, but European officials have suggested no measures to settle the conflict so far. Russian experts believe that domestic consumers will not suffer from the ban - importers will fill the market through increased deliveries from Latin America where meat prices are lower than in Europe.
According to the Russian Meat Union, the EU now shares about 25% of the overall meat imports, which account for 24 million tonnes a year. Domestic meat industry figures are far more modest: Russia produces only 5.5 million tonnes of meat a year.
Most meat is imported from Latin American countries today. According to experts, the quality of this meat is higher and the prices are lower. Moreover, when bringing products from developing countries, importers usually pay lower customs duties - 25% less than for the meat imported from developed nations, Izvestia writes.
KOMMERSANT
President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn, who is currently attending the first international conference Corporate Management and Russia's Economic Growth, has met Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and ministers of the economic bloc of the Russian government in Moscow. Kommersant reports that the banker is inclined to approve Putin's recent state-of-the-nation address to the Federal Assembly because it says a great deal about reducing poverty, which is a priority for the World Bank too. He believes that it is possible to double GDP, if a series of reforms are implemented: in particular, court decisions rulings have to be enforced and civilised bankruptcies have to become the norm.
At his meeting with Fradkov, Kommersant continues, Wolfensohn discussed a three-year co-operation programme (July 2005-July 2008). The sums under discussion ranged from $1 billion to $1.5 billion. Inparticular, the sides discussed a loan for reconstructing the historical centre of St Petersburg.
The WB president welcomed the changes taking place in Russia. He said that five years ago he was woken up at night by phone calls asking for $6 billion before the morning to save Russia from collapse. Now I sleep calmly, Kommersant quoted Mr Wolfensohn as saying.
VREMYA NOVOSTEI
The Election Commission of the Chechen Republic has received a third application for the early presidential elections scheduled for August 29. The list earlier featured town names: Vakha Visayev, advisor to former the late president, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed in the May 9 terrorist attack in Grozny, and Mariyat Gorchkhanova from the Urus-Martan prefect's office, both practically unknown even in Chechnya. Now there is a third name: Malik Saidulayev. The 39-year-old businessman is known as one of the wealthiest representatives of Chechen business elite, the newspaper points out. Before autumn 1999 he headed the so-called State Council of Chechnya, an anti-Maskhadov government-in-exile. Despite the purely symbolical role of that government, Saidulayev's political influence has significantly increased since then. He ran for the Chechen presidency last year and his nomination will most probably give a signal to other well-known presidential hopefuls, Vremya Novostei believes. They have almost a month and a half to think it over, as applications can be submitted until July 14.
GAZETA
On instructions of the Russian Education and Science Ministry, experts have worked out a new concept for paying teachers' wages, Gazeta reports. If it is approved, a teacher's salary will not depend on his or her working hours, but on the quality of teaching. The wage will also incorporate the given person's track record and qualifications.
Anatoly Pinsky, director of a Moscow school and head of the working group on the new concept, told Gazeta the following: "Making a teacher's wage dependent on the number of given lessons is dangerous. In trying to encourage a good teacher and increase his/her salary, the head teacher gives him/her more lessons, and as a result a good teacher becomes a bad one. If you have over 30 hours in the classroom a week, you cannot teach them properly. This affects even the pupils, because in such conditions the school administration is interested in increasing the number of lessons and even introducing a six-day academic week".
