MOSCOW, July 4 (RIA Novosti) Bush needed Kennebunkport meeting more than Putin/FSB to fight terrorism outside Russia/Turkmenistan balancing between Russian and Chinese gas projects/Moscow does not want to be a raw materials supplier for Beijing/Russian authorities close online music site
Vedomosti
Bush needed Kennebunkport meeting more than Putin
Two lame ducks - Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush - have decided to step down without losing either Russia or the United States. According to Russian experts, Bush needed the meeting in Kennebunkport, Maine, more than Putin, and has benefited from it more.
Alexander Konovalov, president of Russia's Strategic Analysis Institute, said: "Russia and the United States are ready to become partners. The two lame ducks do not want to be remembered as the men who provoked a new Cold War. As a result, the Kennebunkport meeting showed a nearly complete coincidence of views on Iran, which must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons. By offering joint use of Russian radars in the American anti-ballistic missile system, Putin actually recognized the threat coming from the south [Iran]."
Anatoly Utkin, director of the U.S. and Canada Institute's Center for International Studies, said: "Had the sides reached an important agreement, such as not to deploy ABM systems in the Czech Republic, Bush could be impeached. The political system in the United States differs from that in Russia or Iran, where Putin's or Ahmadinejad's decisions are law. On the other hand, it is important that the two presidents have confirmed their good relations. Although lame ducks, Putin and Bush can still do much. They seem to have decided to end their terms without losing Russia and the United States."
Ivan Safranchuk, director of the Moscow office of the Washington-based World Security Institute, said: "Bush needed the meeting more than Putin. In 2000, he told Albert Gore, his rival in the presidential elections, that the Clinton administration had lost Russia. Can Bush now be accused of not doing well with Russia? Yes, he can. Some people may be tempted to play on that during the upcoming presidential campaign."
Dmitry Orlov, director general of the Russian Agency of Political and Economic Communications, said: "Bush needed the meeting more, as he wanted to show that relations with Russia had not gone completely sour. He also benefited from its results more. The news background was favorable, and Bush has not agreed to a single concession he contemplated."
Gazeta.ru
FSB to fight terrorism outside Russia
Nikolai Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and chairman of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, said all Russian embassies abroad would establish anti-crisis centers for preventing terrorist acts.
Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the international affairs committee of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said such anti-crisis centers would comprise secret service operatives and experts from other concerned agencies.
He said similar Soviet-era divisions had proved ineffective, and that the new centers would be more professional and would utilize scientific concepts because the scope of the terrorist threat was now different.
"The Soviet Union was responding to hypothetical threats, whereas Russian diplomats now face terrorist attacks and other emergencies," Kosachyov told the paper.
He said the idea would be promptly implemented in line with simple logic, and that other countries would have no reason to criticize Moscow, which was acting strictly in accordance with international law and its commitments.
"Embassy officials can do what they want on their territory because they have diplomatic immunity. They can set up any anti-crisis centers without notifying the receiving country's authorities. This is no sensation, because Russia is copying the experience of other countries that perceive certain threats," Kosachyov told the paper.
Vedomosti
Turkmenistan balancing between Russian and Chinese gas projects
Turkmenistan and China are trying to cope with the problems that have evolved around their joint gas project.
In mid-July, Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov will discuss the project with the Chinese leadership in Beijing. However, experts have said the sides will not be able to come to terms on gas prices in the near future.
An agreement on a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China was signed by the late Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov in Beijing in April 2006.
Under the agreement, the gas pipeline, which is to supply 30 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually for 30 years, was to be put into operation in 2009.
However, it did not include a formula for determining the gas price. The agreement also provided for the joint development of gas fields on the right bank of the Amu Darya River.
The Turkmen president has more than once spoken of Turkmenistan's intention to implement the project.
However, so far the sides have not coordinated some key issues, primarily gas prices, said Azhdar Kurtov, from the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.
According to him, in its talks with Turkmenistan and discussions of future gas supplies with Russia, China has insisted on a lower gas price that does not exceed $100 per 1,000 cubic meters.
Actual reserves of the gas fields on the right bank of the Amu Darya River are not known. The Chinese-Turkmen agreement provides for Turkmenistan's use of other sources in case the Amu Darya deposits fail to fill the gas pipeline.
Actually, this will mean cuts in gas sales to Gazprom, though Russia already pays as much as $100 per 1,000 cubic meters of Turkmen gas, and the price may be raised in future, Kurtov said.
The price of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters is mentioned most often in discussions of the Turkmen gas price, but China insists on a fixed long-term price, said Andrei Grozin from the Institute of CIS Countries' Studies.
Chinese experts have said at meetings that Ashkhabad's intentions are not clear to them, he added.
In his opinion, the Turkmen president will use the existence of the two competing gas projects in order to get concessions from both sides, and he is therefore interested in preserving the uncertain situation for as long as possible.
The president's visit to Beijing will be accompanied with statements confirming Turkmenistan's interest in the project, but it will hardly settle the price issue.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Moscow does not want to be a raw materials supplier for Beijing
The Year of China in Russia has been overshadowed by strained relations between the two countries in terms of trade and the economy.
Moscow, unhappy with its worsening balance of trade and role as a source of raw materials and an outlet for Chinese goods, has clamped new restrictions on Chinese businessmen and toughened its stand on energy supplies.
The CNPC state-owned oil and gas corporation is seriously worried by statements from top Gazprom managers that construction of the Altai gas pipeline might be postponed.
The pipeline is expected to begin delivering several dozen billion cubic meters of gas to China in 2011.
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry and the Industry and Power Ministry have announced a decision not to allow Chinese cars to be assembled in Russia. The decision threatens four projects at once, costing $400 million.
But what concerns Moscow the most was made public a month ago by State Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov when he addressed the opening meeting of the Russian-Chinese parliamentary commission.
He said that Russian exports "not only mostly contain, but continue to increasingly include raw materials and primary conversion products, such as crude oil, round timber, fish, chemicals, and non-ferrous metals." Conversely, the export share of high technology products is dwindling.
However, even despite the current bias in the balance of trade, experts believe that the situation is not entirely hopeless for Russia.
Sergei Pravosudov, director of the National Energy Institute, said that a program recently approved by the government to develop East Siberia and the Far East stipulates the construction of a number of gas processing and gas chemical production units to be sited right at the fields.
"It will become possible not only to pipe the gas, but also to produce costlier helium, propane, butane, etc. from it, manufacture polypropylene, all kinds of plastics and so on," the expert said. "Isn't that a way of remedying the commodity imbalance?"
Yevgeny Yasin, research director at the Higher School of Economics, said that Russia will have to learn to make high-quality products.
"Things in this field are bad for the time being, if we exclude armaments," the analyst said.
Kommersant
Russian authorities close online music site
Allofmp3.com, a popular Moscow-based online music site, accused of music piracy by the United States, was recently closed in response to official pressure because Russia would otherwise be unable to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Market players said numerous rivals would now take over the allofmp3.com niche.
Allofmp3.com, which annually netted $10-$14 million in profits, controlled 30%-45% of the pirated music market in the Russian Internet, the Russian segment of the Internet.
The annual value of the local pirated music market is estimated at $30-$50 million.
Soundtrack exports accounted for up to 80% of allofmp3.com earnings and made the site quite popular in the West because it charged much less for recordings than its rivals.
One allofmp3.com melody cost 10 cents, whereas the popular iTunes Music Store offers one recording for $1.
Media Services, which owned the now defunct online site, has always said that it never violated Russian legislation and was paying deductions on licenses issued by a Russian agency for managing multimedia and digital networks.
A source close to Media Services said hosting provider Masterhost, whose Web site had been switched off for no apparent reason, had stopped supporting allofmp3.com.
Telecommunications experts said that explanation was far-fetched. Alexander Malis, general director of the company Corbina Telecom, said any Web site owner would retain its name if the site were blocked.
He said it would take only two days and $300 to find another provider in Malaysia or Switzerland.
According to Malis, Russian officials probably ordered allofmp3.com owners to close it because it had become a political issue and because representatives of the U.S. administration directly linked Russia's accession to the WTO with the crackdown on music piracy last year.
Information security experts said music piracy on the Internet would not subside. Oleg Yashin, executive secretary of the information market security commission at the Businessmen Council under the Moscow Municipal Government and the mayor, said several smaller online music stores would now divide up the allofmp3.com niche.
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