Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Moscow advocates united fight against global drug threat
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on the international community to jointly combat the illegal drug trade, not apply double standards with regard to drug-producing countries, and not to politicize this issue.
Medvedev addressed delegates of the international forum "Drug Production in Afghanistan: A Challenge for the International Community" that opened on Wednesday in Moscow.
According to the UN, Russia is the biggest consumer of Afghan heroin.
Medvedev said Afghanistan had virtually turned into a narco-state, and that its internal resources were inadequate to fight this evil. He noted the need to eliminate the social influences that motivate growing drug production, primarily poverty and corruption.
Medvedev said the entire international community, rather than separate states, no matter how powerful, should assume responsibility for fighting this drug threat. He stressed that any political games around this problem were inadmissible because they undermined international efforts and hindered cooperation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, should devote more attention to destroying poppy plantations and clandestine drug laboratories.
He said the ISAF and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, should cooperate with each other. The CSTO is fighting illegal drug trafficking on the Afghan border now on its own. Lavrov complained that, although the CSTO had been voicing this initiative for several years, it had received no response.
The paper interviewed both Russian and foreign delegates on the Afghan drug threat issue. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's Ambassador to NATO, said there were two possibilities for Russia-NATO cooperation, namely, Russia-NATO relations and NATO-CSTO relations.
He said the second issue was purely political, and that everything boiled down to a political impasse which should be overcome. Speaking of Russia-NATO relations, Rogozin advocated more active public diplomacy and said Western public opinion should be convinced that illegal drug sale "proceeds" were used to train and equip insurgents fighting ISAF contingents in Afghanistan.
"We should explain how dangerous it is to ignore the Afghan heroin problem and to influence Western politicians through public opinion," Rogozin said.
Vedomosti
The Left's lack of progress
The European Union's decision to renounce a socialist-style welfare society policy makes one wonder whether those who had advocated a leftist shift in conditions of the global financial and economic crisis were right after all.
It was difficult to deny the decline of the neo-liberal era when the crisis was unfolding. Everyone criticized free market economics and the lack of state control that caused the financial markets to collapse, and noted the need for greater state regulation.
It seemed that tougher state economic regulation was just as inevitable as a renewal in populist ideas.
However, two years on, the situation looks completely different. Of course, national governments implemented anti-crisis measures with a nod to the left. Greater protectionism was the first reaction. Tremendous financial assistance volumes were redistributed with state involvement to combat the crisis. Expanded social spending and swollen budget deficits were instruments borrowed from the leftist arsenal.
Many of these measures are currently being abolished. Moreover, public mentality has not changed drastically, and neo-liberal ideas still rule the world. There has been no nationalization, and nobody thinks this is a useful approach. The value of an open economy concept is not doubted either.
Taxes are being raised to cope with budget deficits, rather than redistributing public wealth in favor of the underprivileged, and are combined with national austerity plans. Tougher state regulation has mostly remained on paper.
Most of these arguments are true with regard to Russia. State influence on the economy was so great that the crisis added nothing to it. There have been no ideological changes either. The left has failed to receive additional supporters, the labor movement has not become a real force, and no one has seriously criticized market economy values.
Vzglyad
Vodka too easy to get hold of
Russia's chief sanitary officer Gennady Onishchenko proposes raising the minimum price of half a liter of vodka to 300 rubles ($9)
On Wednesday, Gennady Onishchenko, the head of the Russian consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, supported the Finance Ministry's initiative to raise the minimum price of half a liter of vodka not to 150 rubles ($5), as initially suggested, but to 300.
"The availability of vodka is the problem," he said. "The cheaper the drink, the younger the age at which people begin consuming it. This is an axiom established by other civilizations in Europe and North America. We cannot ignore this."
The chief sanitary officer does not believe this rise will affect the surrogate alcohol market. Rather it will diminish the consumption of strong spirits among teenagers. "A price increase of even 10% dramatically cuts the number of people starting to drink at an early age. Financial availability is the key factor," Onishchenko said.
He estimates that there are currently 2.2 million alcoholics in Russia, of whom half a million are "hard cases." Every year in Russia, 80,000 people die as a result of alcohol consumption.
Onishchenko's remarks came in response to an initiative by the Finance Ministry to bring the minimum price of vodka to 200 rubles ($6) a bottle by 2013. This is expected to be achieved by a higher excise tax.
At the same time, experts do not rule out that the minimum price could reach Onishchenko's desired 300 rubles in several years' time.
"We estimate that the minimum price next year should be 200 rubles, and 300 rubles the following year," said Dmitry Yanin, chairman of the International Confederation of Consumer Societies.
"It is right to raise excise taxes on vodka and cigarettes, only the proposed pace does not have any health benefits or constitute a sizeable increase in budget revenues," he said.
In another move, Onishchenko also proposed putting a limit on the number of stores where alcohol is available and raising the legal age for purchasing alcohol from 18 to 21 years.
As of January 1, 2010, the price of vodka in Russian shops is not allowed to fall below 89 rubles for half a liter. Experts say this measure has been effective. In the first quarter of 2010, illegal vodka production dropped by 30%, while legal production increased by 10%.
Izvestia
Russians name and shame the enemies of modernization
Russians are ready for change, with 23% of them backing modernization. These are findings of a study unveiled on Tuesday by the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology together with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation's mission in Russia. This is the first time that sociologists have tried to understand to what extent a top-down modernization model can respond to society's mood and interests.
Director of the Institute of Sociology Mikhail Gorshkov said the study entitled "Is Russian Society Ready for Modernization?" was conducted in March and April and involved 1,750 participants drawn from all walks of life. They appeared to view modernization as above all social transformation: equality before the law, social justice and a resolute attack on corruption. Only one in four described an "effective innovative economy" as the key to modernization.
"The general response has been: give us rules which we can live by," says Natalia Tikhonova, deputy director of the Institute. "We are at a point where many realize they are not merely 'cogs in the machine', that they mean something and have their own interests. But they also see that there is no normal way of protecting their interests."
The findings revealed that 23% of Russians back modernization (the more educated section of town dwellers and active internet users who are independent and value freedom) and 15% traditionalists (the lower social strata, mostly workers and pensioners, who do not believe they can survive without state aid). The former group, unlike the latter, welcomes change. Pollsters described the remaining 62% as "sandwiched" in between.
The main snag in Russia's progression and development, according to more than half the Russians (55%), is bureaucrats while one-third blame law enforcement personnel. The reason in both cases, the study says, is corruption. After questioning the groups accused, the pollsters concluded "bribery is not only deeply rooted in government and law enforcement agencies, but ceased being perceived by their staff members as something unnatural or abnormal."
"Only the so-called 'new middle class' of professionals and most of those who back modernization seems able to provide the social basis for Russia's modernization breakthrough," the pollsters conclude.
GZT.ru
Wajda's "Katyn" may get Russian state prize
"Katyn," a 2007 film about the 1940 Katyn massacre directed by Polish director Andrzej Wajda, 84, and shelved for three years by the Russian authorities, has been nominated for the State Prize. The decision is another step towards recognizing the crime and could improve relations between Russia and Poland, analysts say.
The decision to honor Wajda's "Katyn" was made after the film was shown on television in Russia, writes the Polish newspaper Polityka. This happened three years after the film was made, possibly because of the crash of President Lech Kaczynski's plane outside Smolensk. After the April 10 crash, the Russian government took several unprecedented steps to improve relations with Poland.
Based on the book by Andrzej Mularczyk, "Post Mortem: The Story of Katyn," Wajda's film tells the story of the 1940 tragedy through the eyes of the mothers, wives and daughters of four Polish officers executed at Katyn in 1940.
Wajda's father, Jakub Wajda, was a captain in the 72nd Infantry Regiment. He disappeared in 1939 and it was later established that he was among those murdered by the NKVD at Katyn.
Natalia Lebedeva, a leading researcher at the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of General History, helped Wajda gather material for his film. She said it left an overpowering impression on her even though she knows almost every moment of the events at Katyn. She said the decision to grant the prize to the Polish director is one more step toward recognizing the crime and is likely to improve Russian-Polish relations.
"Another reason is the attitude to the tragedy near Smolensk, because Russians' sympathy for Poles soared after the crash in which Lech Kaczynski died," Lebedeva said. "Before it, a few intellectuals and historians and a small segment of society knew about the Katyn massacre. After the crash, all Russians without exception are aware of it."
"However, the first sign of change in the attitude to the Katyn tragedy was seen before the crash, when the massacre was denounced during the visit to Katyn by prime ministers Donald Tusk and Vladimir Putin," the historian said. "But the [April 10] crash made it irrevocable."
Lebedeva said that Katyn is more important for Russians than for Poles.
"For Poles, it is their past and their memory, but for us it signifies a choice for our future," she said, adding that this should be a future where such a tragedy would be inherently impossible whatever the circumstances.
About 22,000 Poles were executed by the Soviet secret police NKVD at Katyn, in Russia's Smolensk Region, in April-May 1940.
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MOSCOW, June 10 (RIA Novosti)
