Russia and the CIS News Digest
Foreign Ministers of India, Russia, China To Meet
On Oct. 21, in Almaty, Kazakstan, the foreign ministers of Russia, China, and Indiawhat former Prime Minister Yevegeni Primakov called the Strategic Trianglewill confer, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an exclusive interview with The Hindu published Oct. 12. Lavrov told correspondent Amit Baruah, that the meeting would be "about our common belief that multilateral approaches are the best solution to global problems and regional conflicts. It's certainly our belief that our three countries can do a lot together to keep and promote stability in the Asia-Pacific region, Eurasia in general, and in the United Nations." The three Foreign Ministers have been meeting at the UN General Assembly for the past several years, but did not do so this year. The Almaty meeting is a conference of governments, on Cooperation and Confidence-Building in Asia.
Lavrov also discussed the "very active" cooperation of India and Russia against terrorism. India wants to "universalize counter-terrorist conventions and also [has] initiated the adoption of a comprehensive counter-terrorist convention, [and] Russia, on its part, suggested a new international convention on fighting nuclear terrorism" to the UN, he said.
Putin Visits China
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited China Oct. 14-16, to mark 55 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. In an interview with Chinese media at the Kremlin Oct. 11, Putin praised Chinese economic development, and the ability of both sides to "discuss any issue with frankness and sincerity." Putin said that economic cooperation would be a key issue of the visit, including among the two nations' border regions. He also emphasized that youth delegations from both sides would be meeting, a program which began during his historic China-India trip of December 2002. He called on Russian and Chinese youth to cooperate in joint development of high technology.
Oil was also high on the Sino-Russian agenda, as well as the long-delayed decision on building a pipeline from East Siberian oilfields, either directly to China, or to the Pacific port of Nakhodka (and on to Korea and Japan), with China as the destination of a spur. The decision has been complicated by the financial scandals around Yukos Oil, the main Russian company involved in the China route.
Putin told Chinese journalists in Moscow, before his departure, that Russia "must be guided by our national interests, first and foremost; we must develop the Russian Federation's eastern territories, as well as Far Eastern territories. Consequently, we must plan and implement large-scale infrastructure-related projects there." China wants to know just how much of overall Russian fuel-and-energy resources it can receive in the future, "including specific deadlines, in accordance with Chinese economic-development plans," Putin said.
Russia is also developing nuclear and thermal power, Putin said. "We would like to cooperate with China; and we are going to cooperate with China in the context of its northern, northwestern, and northeast territories' development; moreover, we'll cooperate in the field of fuel-and-energy deliveries."
Neo-Cons: Russia to Blame for Its AIDS, Demographic Disaster
Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute has released a report that blames Russians' bad social habits and proclivities, for their own looming demographic disaster. The report was issued in September under the auspices of the National Bureau of Asian Research, with the title "The Russian Federation at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century: Trapped in a Demographic Straitjacket." The Eberstadt report was instantly seized by The Economist of London, recent source of scenarios for the fragmentation of Russia through ethnic conflicts, as the topic of its editorial in the Oct. 2-8 issue, "Russian demography: Death wish; Russia appears to be committing suicide."
The Economist quoted Eberstadt on how Russia's birthrate cannot recover rapidly from its plunge in the early 1990s, due to widespread infertility from abortions and STDs (sexually transmitted diseases). Meanwhile, the death rate, which fell "from the catastrophic to the merely gruesome" in the 1990s, is rising again. "Fewer than half of 16-year-old Russian boys will reach 60," said The Economist.
The early deaths of Russian men, the editorial continued, cannot be blamed wholly on poverty. Russian men are dying because of "wanton disregard for their own health," especially excessive alcohol consumption. "But alcoholism is itself just a symptom of the long, dark night of the Russian soul ushered in by the disorienting collapse of communism," it admonished (not mentioning how much Eberstadt's AEI and related Mont Pelerin Society fronts did to plunge Russia into the abyss). The article concluded, "How low could Russia's population go? Perhaps to 100 [million] by 2050, or less if the country continues to neglect its AIDS problem. Tuberculosis is rife. Russia's suicidal bent could eventually threaten its disintegration, if its vast, depopulated territory became ungovernable."
Minus the propaganda for disintegration and ungovernability, the numbers cited by The Economist correspond to a recently leaked Russian Academy of Sciences projection. And on Oct. 1, a State Statistics Service official said that the size of Russia's working-age population will begin to fall in absolute terms, in 2006.
The Oct. 11 issue of The New Yorker carried a lengthy article by Michael Specter, on the imminent explosion of HIV/AIDS in Russia.
Glazyev: Government Policy Against General Welfare
Economist Sergei Glazyev, now leader of the For A Decent Life political movement, has criticized the latest economic policies of the Russian government, as well as the administrative and electoral changes announced by the Kremlin. He says that the government's economic austerity moves, affecting the living standards of the population, are what most threaten the national security. In an interview with Novaya Gazeta of Oct. 4, Glazyev said that President Putin was violating Constitutional principles, first and foremost, by failure "to ensure social security guarantees and federal norms of financing for the [state] budget sector." Under the decentralization of social entitlements, "the central authorities are not responsible for Russia's living standards."
Glazyev also attacked the 2005 budget priorities of the government, which allocate one-fourth of all state spending to foreign debt service, and approximately one-third to all kinds of law enforcement and security spending, while cutting other critical areas. "The budget does not envisage economic development incentives. This is a typical colonial model. A police regime and a similar budget structure can be found in any African country."
The week of Sept. 27, Glazyev visited Washington, D.C., the Washington Times reported. Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Glazyev said he was preparing to collect two million signatures on a national referendum, which would call for restoring direct elections, more taxation of oil and gas companies, and upholding of state responsibility for health, education, and other vital services for the population.
Russian Orthodox Church Moves To Reunify
At an Oct. 7 news conference, the Assembly of Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) summed up the results of a forum held on reunification of the branches of Russian Orthodoxy, separated after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Yuvenali, Metropolitan of Krutitsy and Kolomna, said that the assembly had appraised the revival of Russian Orthodoxy during the past several years and mapped out priorities for the future. The most important decision, adopted unanimously, was for the ROC/Moscow Patriarchate to reunite with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR).
The Assembly also issued a special statement on terrorism. Patriarch Alexi II stressed at a meeting with President Putin at the Kremlin, "We should be united as never before in the face of the dreadful threat."
Putin Prepares for Visit To Brazil
President Putin will visit Brazil before attending the Asia Pacific Cooperation Forum (APEC) meeting in Chile in mid-November, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov announced, following a meeting of the Russian-Brazilian High-Level Cooperation Committee, in Moscow on Oct. 11-12. It will be the first such visit by a Russian head of state. Brazilian Vice President Jose Alencar headed the Brazilian side of the Cooperation Committee meeting.
Alencar and Fradkov emphasized that Brazil and Russia must capitalize on their good relations, to move beyond trade matters. Russia and Brazil "have a right to aspire to forming a technological alliance ... including [in] the military-technical area," and should implement "long-term programs in the high-tech sector," Fradkov told the committee on Oct. 12. Alencar cited space exploration, the peaceful use of nuclear energy, civil aviation, shipbuilding, and energy as the among the most promising areas for cooperation. While in Moscow, Alencar toured the Sukhoi aircraft design and engineering plant, before proceeding onto St. Petersburg, where he addressed 100 businessmen from both countries at that city's Chamber of Trade and Industry. He reported that Brazil was interested in the creation of joint companies with Russia for the production of electrical turbines, extraction equipment for oil and gas, and aircraft construction. Brazilian Foreign Ministry sources report that Brazilian state oil company Petrobras is trying to interest Russian companies in bidding for oil exploitation rights in Brazil.
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