MOSCOW, July 15 (RIA Novosti)
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Kremlin political pundit to host a show on NTV
Gleb Pavlovsky, head of the Effective Policy Foundation and an adviser to President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, will host a new analytical program on the federal TV station NTV, an oppositionist newspaper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.
The format of the new show is not clear and NTV's press service refused to comment on the issue until mid-August.
Vladimir Kulistikov, general director of NTV, said in late June that the host of the new public-political program "should be respected by the people so that they would know he is not just blabbing, but really knows what he is talking about.
"Every story with intrigue and culmination should have a climax," said Viktor Shenderovich, who used to be a leading journalist at NTV. "Pavlovsky as an analytical host on the channel is a befitting climax of the independent television story."
The authorities are turning NTV into their main strike force and have calculated the minutest details, said sociologist Vsevolod Vilchek. "The authorities have become smarter and no longer stifle [dissenters]. They have learned to understand the specific features of the channel, which has preserved its influence and has greater audience trust than the other channels enjoy, simply by inertia."
The sociologist believes that the channel was initially designed for a more enlightened and better-educated audience. "Pavlovsky will work on it," Vilchek said, "It is a very smart move, as others would not have been believed so readily. He is a clever man and a subtle manipulator and schemer.
"NTV is being exploited, burning its residual reputation. So, it is used to present to the public the repulsive information leak, sleazy materials and the like, which the 'big' channels refuse to broadcast," he said.
Pavlovsky has not confirmed or denied the information.
Argumenty i Fakty
Russia's sympathy to Londoners tinged with bitterness
Russia, which has lost hundreds of lives to terrorist attacks, deeply sympathizes with the victims of the London bombings, but this sympathetic feeling is tinged with bitterness reflected in Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement after the blasts, when he mentioned the West's double standards towards terrorists, according to Vyacheslav Kostikov, once press secretary to former president Boris Yeltsin, Argumenty i Fakty reported.
Immediately after the bombings, the UN Security Council convened an extraordinary meeting. The G8 countries issued a joint statement denouncing the assaults. Nothing of the kind was done when terrorists were killing Russian children and taking Russian hostages. Russia was left alone with its grief, Kostikov said.
It remains to be seen whether British politicians will learn from their own tragedy or will continue with most favorably treating terrorists' accomplices. It is in England that radical Islamic organizations have their headquarters and information centers. It is London that provides asylums for radical Islamic politicians, such as Akhmed Zakhayev, an emissary of Chechen militants. Until recently, the British government seemed to believe that terrorists would not rob or kill in their own street, he said.
Kostikov said the London bombings have shown that there is no longer such a fortress in England. Terror does not have any special direction towards the United States, Russia or France. It targets European, or, Christian civilization.
If the West continues mumbling "let's talk", quietly gesturing towards Russia, soon Londonistan, where Islamic extremists feel at home, will be supplemented with a whole new continent, Europostan, he said.
Vremya Novostei
Sakhalin II to cost $8 billion more than planned
The Sakhalin Energy company that operates the Sakhalin II project has reassessed specific investment volumes, increasing the entire cost estimate for the project by $8 billion, meaning project-recoupment deadlines will soar at least two-fold, the daily Vremya Novostei reported.
The preliminary SE cost estimate sets the project at nearly $20 billion, whereas initial investments were to have totaled $12 billion. Royal Dutch/Shell, which owns 55% of SE shares, has become more secretive after the 2003 scandal in which real-life deposits were overstated. The new sum is not final and evokes many doubts, Royal Dutch/Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said during a July 14 Internet conference.
The project's Japanese partners, Mitsui, which has a 25% stake and Mitsubishi, which holds 20% of the shares, are likely to voice additional doubts. Russian officials consistently hindering efforts to increase cost estimates of projects that are implemented in line with production-sharing agreements will be even more skeptical. This delays real-life work and incipient production-sharing plans.
The concerned departments, namely, the Industry and Energy Ministry, Rosenergo and the Ministry of Finance, still refuse to comment on the SE estimate. Moreover, Shell and Gazprom concluded an agreement on exchanging a blocking package of Sakhalin II stakes for a 50% share in Gazprom's Zapolyarnoye-Neokom project last week. This deal is to be finalized next year. Investments will match the corporate stake, after Gazprom becomes a project shareholder.
The Sakhalin II project is developing the Piltun-Astokhskoye and Lunskoye deposits, containing 185 million tons of crude oil and 800 billion cubic meters of natural gas, in accordance with a production-sharing agreement. The project calls for building two liquefied natural gas production lines with an annual capacity of 9.6 million tons. The possible construction of a third production line is also being discussed. Liquefied natural gas deliveries were scheduled to begin in November 2007. Contracts have already been signed for 80% of Sakhalin II's gas and remaining gas sales will be formalized later in the year.
Gazeta
Russia adopts realistic space program
The Russian government is apparently worried by tougher competition on the international space scene, allocating 305 billion rubles ($10.64 billion) for a ten-year, national space program, the daily newspaper Gazeta reported Friday.
Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Roskosmos, told the government next year's public spending of 23 billion rubles ($802.51 million) increasing by around 6% every year was "the minimal level required to make up for the losses of the last five years."
At the first stage of the new program, 18 Russian satellites are to be orbited until 2008 to replenish the current Russian fleet of 96 spacecraft, many of them nearing decommissioning (the United States has 400 operational satellites). Other priorities are a new national module for the International Space Station; the Kliper, an innovative manned space shuttle; and uninhabited missions to the Moon and Mars's moon Phobos.
Russia still leads the market in commercial space launches, with 23 such missions last year against 16 from the U.S., but its future on the market, estimated at $35 billion to $40 billion for the coming decade, does not look very optimistic. "We anticipate fewer commercial flights," Perminov said.
Space market expert Igor Afanasyev said the industry trends are becoming adverse to Russia as competition grows.
"The problem is, the market seems to be over saturated by launch vehicles and has little need for new ones. As Boeing makes satellites, they orbit them mainly by their own Deltas; Lockheed Martin uses Atlases, part of Russian jobs might go to the recently developed heavy [European rocket] Ariane and some Proton missions will be moved [from Russian space centers] to Kourou, French Guiana," he said.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Moscow business school in world's top 100
Foreign experts have for the first time recognized the quality of Russian business education, putting the Higher School of Business at the Moscow State Lomonosov University (MGU) on world's top 100 list and on Europe's top 40, writes Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a government daily.
The ratings were compiled by the influential QS TopMBA, a leading global company conducting research and consulting in MBA education. About 4,000 recruiters working on the international labor market were asked to specify graduates of which business schools they were ready to employ.
That graduates of the MGU Higher School of Business made it to the list alongside graduates of Oxford, Harvard and the London School of Economics.
Professionals in the labor market are upbeat. They believe that now the world will take Russian business education more seriously. "There will be less prejudices against graduates of Russian business schools," said Anastasiya Sokolova, a leading specialist with the Lider Personal recruitment agency.
The school's breakthrough inspired Russian authorities. Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref has already endorsed the idea of the partial state financing of a high-quality MBA education. There are plans to set up two large business schools, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with a budget of $200 million each. The money will come from the state budget and from sponsor companies that want to employ future graduates.
Benefits from developing domestic MBA programs are obvious. First of all, Russia will stop feeding other countries' educational systems and will at last start investing in its own. Secondly, the more businessmen have studied, the more likely the country is of reaching its goal of doubling the GDP. After all, experts say that to support the competitiveness of its economy, Russia needs to turn out more than 300,000 MBA graduates annually.
