Kommersant
At yesterday's board meeting of Rosneft, a Russian oil major, Igor Sechin, deputy head of the presidential administration, was elected chairman of the board. Until recently, such senior officials, writes Kommersant, have only headed state monopolies, such as national power grid Unified Energy Systems and Gazprom.
The business community took this appointment as the first step towards creating a state-run fuel and energy company, which is to define future ground rules on a key market in Russia's economy.
Stanislav Belkovsky, the head of the Institute of National Strategy, told Kommersant that the new appointment should not be seen as merely symbolic. "It is the first step towards forming a large-scale energy holding to include Rosneft and Gazprom," he said. Most experts interviewed by Kommersant concurred.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Signed on Monday, a federal law to scrap the 50% threshold on paid enrolment in state universities and colleges in such career fields as jurisprudence, economics, business management and state and municipal management in effect means Russia's traditional free higher and secondary education is facing extinction, Nezavisimaya Gazeta comments today.
If the new federal law is adopted, it may mean that no budget places will be provided at all in some prestigious specialties, because the managements of educational establishments might not resist the economic temptation of making tuition 100% fee-based.
All this points to the obvious that the country may soon face a shortage of highly trained specialists, since fee-based tuition in the overwhelming majority of cases is not so much a matter of acquiring solid knowledge, but that of a student's ability to pay, says Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Izvestia
Aeroflot Russian Airlines will today announce a tender for 30 short-haul passenger jets. The potential bidders include the Russian companies Sukhoi Grazhdanskiye Samolyoty (Civilian Aircraft), MiG and Antonov ANTK, which manufacture the regional liners RRJs, Tu-334s and An-148s, and the Canadian company Bombardie and Brazil's Embraer.
But, according to Izvestia, the tender conditions practically rule out any possible win for the Russian producers, while the Canadian and Brazilian ones have a fair chance. The point is that Aeroflot is targeting a regional airliner priced up to $12 million. In the view of a MiG spokesman, "this is an unacceptable requirement for all Russian companies".
Izvestia believes that the tender may prove to be a screen to cajole the state into giving another series of customs exemptions to purchase aircraft abroad.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Rossiiskaya Gazeta features an interview with Leonid Tyagachyov, president of the Russian Olympic Committee. The questions mainly concern the "chances" of the Russian national team at the Athens Olympics, which opens in two weeks' time. Tyagachyov gives very high marks for Russian athletes' readiness to compete in all Olympic events. The president is confident that the Russians can win 30 gold medals in Athens. He stressed that this forecast is based on purely sporting performance.
Tyagachyov considers fans' mood to be very important for keeping up the national team's combative spirit. He urged them "not to despair" in the first week of the Games, since the medals contested in the initial stage will not be in Russia's strongest disciplines.
"We will collect the main harvest of medals nearer the end of the Games," was the assurance given by the president of the Russian Olympic Committee.
