MOSCOW, December 12 (RIA Novosti) U.S. looks for safe route to Afghanistan bypassing Russia/ OPEC membership will enable Russia to pressurize the West/ Nationalists are killing migrant workers in Russia/ Russia, China sign copyright agreement
Kommersant
U.S. looks for safe route to Afghanistan bypassing Russia
The Pentagon openly said yesterday that the route through Pakistan for delivering supplies to troops in Afghanistan was highly exposed and could jeopardize the Western allied operation there. An air and ground transit treaty with Russia for military freight will not solve all the U.S. and NATO problems. Besides, the price of Moscow's agreement could prove too high.
According to Kommersant, the American military is devising an alternative route bypassing Russia.
"The Kandahar route is not that big and is not very secure," said Andrei Serenko, an analyst with the Contemporary Afghanistan Studies Center. "The Americans are left with only two choices: to agree with Russia or lay a new route. Considering Russia's price - non-deployment of a missile shield in Eastern Europe - the U.S. needs a new route."
The talks U.S. administration officials are having in Central Asia confirm the view that a new project exists: last week Kazakhstan's parliament ratified memorandums of support for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. They allow the U.S. to use the military section of Alma Ata Airport for emergency landings by military planes.
Georgia's parliament, too, said talks were underway on a new Afghan route. "The port of Poti is of strategic importance to our Western allies," said one of the deputies of the ruling National Movement of Georgia. "Cargo from Poti could be delivered to Azerbaijan and from there to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. But, as far as I know, Azerbaijan has not yet given its go-ahead for the project."
Azerbaijani political scientists say that "such talks could take place, and Azerbaijan's price for consent is the settlement of the Karabakh issue."
"Azerbaijan is favorably placed geographically, and it will use it in its national interests," said Anar Mamedkhanov, deputy of Azerbaijan's parliament. "Above all, in solving the Karabakh issue."
Gazeta.ru
OPEC membership will enable Russia to pressurize the West
Russia is considering joining OPEC to stop the fall in oil prices, President Dmitry Medvedev hinted on Thursday.
Russia may also set up a gas cartel modeled on the organization of petroleum exporting countries, which will enable it to dictate conditions to the U.S. and Europe, analysts say.
It is the first time Russia's president has admitted there is a possibility of joining OPEC. Previously Russian officials only said they might coordinate moves with the organization, however, Medvedev's hint could be nothing more than a signal to the markets.
Alexander Shatilov, an analyst at the Russian Center for Current Politics, said: "Medvedev's statement is not only a politeness to OPEC, but also an attempt to play on oil prices."
It could also be a veiled threat to the West.
"Medvedev is hinting at the possibility of a gas OPEC, which has long been rumored and which the U.S. and Europe fear," Shatilov said. "The president has hinted that if there are any unfair games played against Russia during the crisis then it will join the gas cartel."
Alexander Razuvayev, an analyst at Sobinbank, said a decision to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day would be taken a week after a routine OPEC meeting.
"Russia will support OPEC and will cut production," Razuvayev said. "Moreover, Russia will soon join the organization as a full member."
Gas producing countries, which are to meet in Moscow on December 23, may decide to set up a gas cartel.
"Russia will play first fiddle in OPEC and in the potential gas cartel," Razuvayev said. "This will give it powerful levers to pressurize consumers, above all Western countries. It will be in a position to put forth almost any demand, from the terms of delivery to the settlement currency."
Gazeta, Vremya Novostei, Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Nationalists are killing migrant workers in Russia
The severed head of a worker from Tajikistan was found in Moscow near the building of a district administration. An obscure Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists has claimed responsibility for the gruesome crime.
The nationalists write in a letter e-mailed to the Moscow branch of the Human Rights Watch that the act was designed to show their dissatisfaction with the authorities' migration policy "in a maximally harsh form."
A worker from Uzbekistan was accused of strangling a 15-year-old schoolgirl in the same district two months ago. Ultra-nationalists immediately wrote on the net that they would take revenge on migrant workers for that murder.
Several attacks and one murder of a migrant worker were recorded in the district in November, causing panic among foreigners many of whom left their jobs and fled back to Central Asia.
Dmitry Dyomushkin, leader of the Slavic Union, and Alexander Belov, leader of the Movement against Illegal Immigration, have assured the police that their comrades were not responsible for the latest murder.
Belov has appealed to journalists to wait until the official results of the investigation have been made public. "The organization that has claimed responsibility for the murder is completely unknown. It could be anyone using nationalist slogans as a cover," he said.
But human rights activists blame the murder on nationalists.
Semyon Charny, a leading expert at the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, said: "They are trying to make their crimes public, videotaping them and sending the tapes by mail or publishing them on the net."
The media reported that the Russian authorities don't have any way of counterbalancing the ideology of radical nationalism, or possibly have not yet considered the problem seriously. Officials mention the need to fight nationalism in their speeches, but no practical moves have so far been taken.
The relatively peaceful actions by the political opposition are often described as extremist, and the authorities treat them much more harshly than they do the organizers of the nationalistic "Russian marches."
Vedomosti, Kommersant
Russia, China sign copyright agreement
The Russian-Chinese inter-governmental commission for military-technical cooperation met in Beijing for the first time in the past three years.
On Thursday, both sides signed an intellectual property protection agreement in the sphere of military-technical cooperation. However, analysts said they doubted that the document would prevent China from pirating Russian weapons.
Sources in the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had insisted on the commission's meeting. Bilateral military-technical cooperation has faced major problems in the last few years.
Copyright protection is a serious problem. For instance, China has used Russia's Antonov An-12 Cub and An-24 Coke transport aircraft to develop its Y-8 military cargo plane and Modern Ark MA-60 regional aircraft.
Beijing has also repeatedly displayed the C-602 cruise missile closely resembling the Russian-made X-55 missile and the Tai Hung WS-10 aircraft engine similar to the AL-31F used in Russia's Sukhoi fighter family.
The share of Chinese contracts in Russian arms exports is continuing to decrease.
Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy director at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, explained this by the fact that Chinese market was saturated with Soviet-era weapons, and that Beijing now wanted hi-tech equipment.
China now prefers to buy small batches of weaponry and focuses on technology imports. Moscow, which has entered new markets in the last few years, no longer depends on Chinese contracts that had propped up the Russian defense industry in the 1990s.
Under the agreement, which simplifies copyright registration procedures, Moscow and Beijing will take action to protect their respective copyright holders, Vladimir Entin, director of the Center for Intellectual Property Legal Protection, told the paper.
Although it will be almost impossible to persuade China to stop pirating Russian equipment, Moscow can use the agreement to oppose its exports to other countries Makiyenko said.
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