Kommersant
KGB expert comments on air crashes
On Tuesday night, two airliners, Tu-134 and Tu-154, crashed in Russia, claiming 93 lives, according to some sources. The aircraft exploded in mid- air at almost the same time.
Vladimir Mikhailov, first chief of the explosive and technical department of the Soviet KGB, told Kommersant that he "would not jump any conclusions that there were no signs of terrorism."
Back in 1979, Mr Mikhailov continues, after a series of aircraft disasters, a plane was blown up on the ground on the instructions of the KGB leadership. To establish the real reasons of an air crash, all the parts of the aircraft should be collected and put together in a hangar, and then analytical chemists should study every detail. This process can take months, so any statements before an examination is completed cannot be substantiated.
According to Mr Mikhailov, 200 grams of explosive are enough to blow up a plane, if you know how and where to put them. And it is not easy to find where the explosion occurred in a matter of several hours.
As an expert, Mikhailov is worried about a few episodes linked to the recent air crashes. Firstly, they were preceded by an explosion at a bus stop (aimed to distract attention, according to some versions). Secondly, the air crashes occurred almost on the hour. "As far as I know, both crashes happened at about three minutes or five minutes to eleven. This usually happens when timers are used." Thirdly, both aircraft flew out of the same airport, and both were domestic flights, where security is much worse. And both were bound for the south where the situation is not very calm.
Izvestia
China wants Yukos oil, not subsidiary
On Wednesday, the Chinese authorities officially denied reports that companies from the country were interested in Yukos's main extracting subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz. However, China is ready to provide a loan of $3 billion to it in exchange for future oil deliveries, Izvestia reports.
Yukos has a monopoly on providing Russian oil to China. It has a 6-9% share in China's imports. The interest of Chinese companies in Russian oil is so high that they are ready to fund rail transit for it across Russia, the newspaper reports. However, the Chinese have distanced themselves from the oil major's assets. "The Yukos problem is Russia's internal affair," the press service of the Chinese embassy in Moscow reports. "The Chinese side has no intention of interfering. We are confident that this problem will not negatively affect energy co-operation between China and Russia."
Moreover, in his remarks at a session of a Russian-Chinese intergovernmental sub-commission yesterday, Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko stressed that a programme was being worked out to develop gas deposits in Eastern Siberia and the Far East, and pointed to the prospects for co-operation with China.
Vedomosti
In 2005, Russia's pharmaceutical market may grow by nearly 50% instead of the projected 10% figure.
This increase is expected to be brought about by the nationwide "Programme of Pharmaceutical Provision of Separate Categories of Citizens", with the state allocating $1.8 billion for it.
According to Vedomosti, a spokesman for the Finance Ministry said the Federal Service for Healthcare Supervision would be the final recipient of the funds. In September, it will hold a tender among pharmaceutical companies and distributors to choose "state providers and partners (distributors) for the programme."
Svetlana Grudacheva, an analyst with Pharmexpert, remarks that only "national distributors" can handle such a large-scale programme.
Alexander Shibayev, a business development director with Pfizer, sees the new programme as "a step towards a civilised market," though his company still has no idea about how it will work in practice.
Igor Shichanin, the director general of the ASGO consultation group, which works with foreign pharmaceutical producers, also expressed doubts about whether the project was ready. "So far, the rules of the game and how the state will co-operate with the producers are completely unclear," he said. "The main thing is that this project should be accessible for everyone, and not separate players."
Novye Izvestia
Satan destroyed in front of international observers
In compliance with the US-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), Russia recently destroyed a silo for Satana (Satan) ballistic missiles (SS-18 in NATO classification), one of the world's most feared arsenals. The silo was situated near the town of Kartaly, South Urals.
The territory in a 500m radius from the epicentre of the planned explosion was cordoned off, Novye Izvestia reports. Soldiers also closed off a sector of the nearby road. After a one-minute countdown started over the radio and a siren sounded and the explosion came at 2 p.m. local time. The mushroom cloud did not look like anything from a documentary, but more like a thin morel. This was because the explosives had been laid out in a specific way - the blast wave had to rise vertically.
An hour later there was an opportunity to see the results. The 40m deep silo, which once had concrete tubings, had become a half-buried crater. Some distance away, there were pieces of the massive square 140-ton lid of the 60mm diameter hatch. After restoration work is carried out on the site, there will be nothing left to remind anyone of the Satana silo. Judging by the recently drafted military budget, it is not a significant loss for Russia's defence, the newspaper concludes.
Vremya Novostei
Law cannot help combat spam
The volume of unsolicited commercial e-mails sent from Russia accounts for mere 1.5% of global spam. This is because "the Russian Internet plays an insignificant role in the worldwide web, while the share of spam from a country is proportional to its share of Internet-connected computers," experts say.
Spammers increasingly prefer to hack into the systems of unsuspecting users rather than use their own computers. The most valuable for them are computers with broadband access. The share of such computers in Russia, according to the research company J'son & Partners, is not too high at about 20%. Besides, "most Russian Internet surfers access the Internet via home networks with a low capacity," says company analyst Boris Ovchinnikov. This means that if a computer is turned into a spam-sending machine, the network's administrator will notice it at once.
However, it cannot be ruled out that the share of Russian spammers will grow. Recently, Yevgeny Kaspersky, head of the Kaspersky Lab, which conducts anti-virus research, said, "because of imperfect hacker-related legislation Russia may soon become a target for hacker developments' migration (including those used for sending spam)".
