MOSCOW, March 22 (RIA Novosti) U.S. nuclear capabilities/ Russian gas supplies to China/ Russia's economic outlook/Tourism industry in Russia/ Red tape hampers artists
(RIA Novosti does not accept responsibility for articles in the press)
Vedomosti
U.S. achieving nuclear primacy
Experts of U.S. foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs recently concluded in an article titled "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" that the U.S. could soon be invulnerable to any nuclear strike, even by Russia or China. "It will probably soon be possible for the United States to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike," they wrote.
But their Russian colleagues question the restoration of the U.S. nuclear monopoly of the 1940s and say such statements could strengthen the positions of war hawks in countries with which Washington has concerns over rapprochement.
This rhetoric will not scare the so-called "axis of evil" - Iran, North Korea and other global outcasts. The U.S. certainly has nuclear superiority over these countries, but this has not resulted in tangible political benefits.
The article seems to have been written for Russia and China, and it was not an accident that it was published shortly before Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to China.
How reasonable are the conclusions of authors Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, who cited the White House in their article? Yevgeny Myasnikov, an expert with the Center for Disarmament Studies at the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology, said the article created the false impression that the U.S. has the capability to launch a preemptive disarming strike against Russia.
The Americans can hardly hope to destroy the response capabilities of an attacked country with a first strike. Moscow is not sitting on its hands while its missiles rust. In early 2006, Putin spoke about a new super-missile that can evade U.S. ballistic missile defense systems.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who recently assumed control of the military-industrial commission and thus state defense acquisitions, wrote in an article for The Wall Street Journal about Russia's potential cooperation with China and the protection of Russian interests in other regions.
The threat of nuclear war is no longer real but virtual. Even if the U.S. has attained the hypothetical ratio of warheads that amounts to nuclear primacy, it accomplished this at a time when it is no longer important.
Gazeta.ru
State company to exclude TNK-BP from gas supplies to China
Russian energy giant Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a memorandum on Russian gas supplies to China from 2011 in the amount of 30-40 billion cubic meters annually. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been on a two-day visit to China, said the supplies would come from both East and West Siberia. Analysts have failed to make sense of the scheme.
Firstly, Russia plans to deliver gas supplies to China from West Siberian fields and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, i.e. from a distance that is two times longer than the announced 3,000-km length of the new pipeline network codenamed Altai. Russia intends to finance the $10-billion pipeline project independently, without involving Chinese investors.
Putin said gas supplies from West Siberia were "easier and faster" than from East Siberia, namely, the Kovykta field in the Irkutsk region, whose development is not a priority.
"The distance between Kovykta and China is much shorter, and the pipeline project from East Siberia will be much more profitable in the long term," Alexei Kormshchikov, an analyst with the Uralsib financial group, said. Dmitry Lukashov of the Aton brokerage said it was unclear why the construction of a pipeline that was twice as long would be considered more profitable.
Experts also question the planned volumes of supplies and the cost of the project. "The West Siberian fields have been developed for a long time, and many of them are already exhausted," Kormshchikov said. Earlier, analysts for British-Russian joint venture TNK-BP estimated the Kovykta development and construction of a pipeline to China at $14 billion.
An expert who asked to remain anonymous commented on the state-owned company's move: "Gazprom does not want to allow TNK-BP into the pipeline. That is what all these statements on developing West Siberian gas first are about."
Gazeta
Economists predict default in Russia within three years
Prominent Russian economists announced Tuesday that the country's period of rapid economic growth was over.
Russia can no longer raise its volume of exports by 9-10% as it did in 2001-2003, said economist Abel Aganbegyan. He said the revenues of export companies would decline, and they "will be unable to repay corporate debts of $140-$150 billion." Russia is facing a default. "We are in for trouble in the next three to five years," the former dean of the Academy of National Economy said.
Andrei Illarionov, former economic adviser to the Russian president, sees no grounds for optimism. He said political issues and bureaucratic interference were slowing growth rates. "A short while ago, our industry was growing by 7% annually using the same equipment, but today we are witnessing an industrial decline," he said. Yevgeny Yasin, a former economic minister, said: "Instead of strengthening market institutions, the state is trying to scare business, which has stopped the engines of economic growth."
"Business needs understandable and stable rules of the game," Yegor Gaidar, a former prime minister, said. "Instead, there is the threat of arbitrary tax claims and, subsequently, a reduction in the demand for money, which may be one of the reasons for high inflation."
"The government can suppress inflation only by allowing an economic decline," Yasin said. The head of research for the Higher School of Economics said the state had halted pension, healthcare and education reforms, which could have served as a new impetus for modernization.
"What we have now is not a free market but state monopoly capitalism," Illarionov said. "The new economic system could prove to be much stronger than the Soviet planned economy."
Kommersant
WTTC expects boom in Russian tourism industry
The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) presented a report to the Russian government and the Federal Tourism Agency Tuesday forecasting that Russia would become a leading tourism nation by 2016.
Russia's tourism industry is expected to develop at double the pace of the European Union countries in the next decade, the report said. But the Federal Tourism Agency has questioned the forecast.
The WTTC assessed tourism demands not by industry standards but on the basis of macroeconomic indices, comparing the tourism industry to other Russian sectors and the economic situation in the country. It concluded that Russia's tourism business is underestimated.
According to the WTTC, the Russian tourism industry will progress more dynamically in all aspects than its EU counterparts. In the next 10 years, the annual growth rate in Russian tourism is expected to account for 6.4% of GDP, whereas the figure for the EU is expected to be 3.1%. By 2016, the share of tourism in Russia's GDP will reach 9.1%, the report said. The outlook for employment in this sector is somewhat less optimistic: the number of personnel in the sector is expected to grow 1.5% annually, the same as in the EU countries (7.7% by 2016 against 13% in the EU).
The optimistic forecasts of the WTTC surprised Sergei Shpilko, president of the Russian Union of Tourism Industry. He said foreign tourism in Russia had fallen by 16% in 2005, according to the Federal Statistics Service, while Russian tourism abroad declined by 3.5%. "This does not promise a growth in the tourist sector," he said.
Natela Shengelia, deputy head of the Federal Agency for Tourism, said the WTTC was "interesting and important to us and investors" but questioned many of its figures. In particular, the WTTC said the share of tourism in Russia's GDP would be 7.8% in 2006, whereas the agency had assessed it at 3.5%-4%, she said. Shengelia called the WTTC review of the trends in tourism "contradictory."
The World Travel and Tourism Council is a London-based public organization comprised of about 100 top officials in global transportation, the hotel industry and other companies in the tourism sector.
Novye Izvestia
Bureaucrats hinder creative work
The effects of a new law that came into force January 1 have reached the absurd. Under the Law On Placing Orders for the Delivery of Goods, Work and Services for State and Municipal Needs, a state-financed organization must hold a tender among suppliers for purchases above 60,000 rubles (about $2,000).
The Vakhtangov Theater in Moscow was recently forced to arrange a pseudo-tender with the Moscow Chekhov Art Theater for the right to host its own anniversary celebration. Executives of the Moscow Kremlin museums, which are throwing an extravagant celebration for their 200th anniversary, prefer not to say that the Tretyakov Gallery claimed the right to host the event. In St. Petersburg, the city committee for economic development, industrial policy and trade proposed that Sergei Shuba, general director of local theater Baltiisky Dom, sign contracts with three poultry farms and hold a tender for the lowest-priced chicken, which he needs for a performance.
This approach is logical when the government needs to place an order for field development, supersonic aircraft production or school construction: competition between several contractors (unless it is fictitious, as is often the case in Russia) helps the state select the best bid. But what about staging a play or producing a film?
The new law, which ostensibly follows market principles, has provided numerous bureaucrats another opportunity to profit, this time from art.
Film director Igor Maslennikov told the newspaper: "This is absurd. You cannot reduce all state support for the cinema to placing state orders. Such attempts were made in the Soviet Union, but even then they failed."
Yelena Levshina, dean of the State Institute of Innovative Advanced Training Programs for Cultural Workers, said: "These fictitious tenders put theater directors in a partly criminal situation. At any moment, any inspectorate could rule the tenders invalid and bring directors to justice."
