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About 40% of Russians, or almost 57 million people, drink to excess, a Health Ministry top specialist told Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
Yevgeny Bryun said the number of registered alcohol addicts in the country is about 2%, or 2.7 million people. “I mean the number of people, who are undergoing treatment,” he said in an interview with the government daily. “But all kinds of problems, I mean economic, social and family troubles, come mainly from those who just drink to excess. They constitute about 30-40% of our population.”
Alcohol consumption in Russia per capita is currently about 18 liters a year, twice the critical norm set by the World Health Organization. The Russian government has declared an anti-alcohol campaign and aims to halve consumption by 2020 and root out illegal production and sales.
Bryun also said that around one and a half million people are addicted to heroin in Russia, almost three times as much as the number of registered users. “Some 530 drug addicts are registered, but the total figure stands at 1.5 million, according to our estimates,” the official said.
Many experts believe the real figure to be as high as 2.5 million, accounting for almost 2% of the Russian population. According to official statistics, around 30,000 people die in Russia every year from heroin, around 90% of it coming from Afghanistan. Last year, a total of 825 people died from drug overdoses in Moscow alone, almost twice as many as in 2008.
From Ria Novosti – Rossiiskaya Gazeta
A new expensive energy strategy for Europe.
15 Nov 2010Europe needs a new strategy for energy. The narrow interests of national capitals prevailed too long. EU leaders will be asked to support a plan for unity at the first EU energy summit on February 2011. These are the main points in European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger’s programme unveiled in Brussels. According to his remarks the Twenty-seven have to invest 1 trillion euros over the next decade in a shared EU energy network.
The International Energy Agency forecasted global oil supplies would peak around 2035, when oil prices would exceed $200 a barrel, kicking off a scramble for alternative energy sources. “To have an efficient, competitive and low-carbon economy, we have to Europeanize our energy policy and focus on a few, but pressing, priorities,” Oettinger said. The idea of uniting Europe’s infrastructure is not new, nor is that of liberalizing the markets for the gas and electricity that flow through it.
Article – Deutsche Welle – November 2010.
Poland. Smolensk cross at Saint Anne’s.
12 Nov 2010
The Smolensk cross has been relocated this week from the Presidential Palace chapel to the nearby St Anne’s church. The move puts an end to a long controversial row. The Catholic Church had accused Poland’s politicians of politicizing the matter.
The cross was the centerpiece of a conflict between supporters of the Law and Justice party (PiS) on one side and President Komorowski, the government and secular politicians on the other over the place of religious symbols in public places. It was erected in April by the Scouts as a symbol of mourning after the death of President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others onboard the plane crashed on landing at Smolensk Severny airport in Russia.
Later in summer, the cross was relocated from outside the Presidential Palace to the palace chapel, in a surprise move which angered protestors who wanted the cross to remain where it was. Following the attempt on 3 August to move it further to St. Anne’s church, just down the road, – when police clashed with protestors – it was decided the cross would be taken on a Pilgrimage leaving two days later to the holy shrine of Jasna Gora in the southern city of Czestochowa, also without success.
Groups of elderly Kaczynski supporters kept guard round the clock for several days to prevent its removal, accusing Komorowski, the Prime Minister Tusk and Civic Platform (PO) of betraying Poland and the Catholic faith. A hard-line group, the so-called “Defenders of the Cross“, opposed any decision unless a permanent memorial would have been installed. Some 77% of Poles surveyed by stats researcher GfK Polonia for Rzeczpospolita daily saw the cross relocation to the presidential chapel as the right decision.
According to a joint statement by the President’s Chancellery, Warsaw diocese, a scout organisation “the Academic Church of St Anne in Warsaw, a place strongly bound to the history of … Poland. This temple is the site of permanent prayers for the tragically perished President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and all victims of the Smolensk catastrophe.”
BUCHAREST, Romania – Romania and Moldova signed a border treaty Monday, almost two decades after Moldova declared independence from the Soviet Union, Associated Press writes.
Romania’s Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi and Moldova’s Prime Minister Vlad Filat emphasized the good co-operation between the neighbours, which has resulted in a number of new agreements being adopted in the past year since a pro-European alliance came to power. Romania supports Moldova’s current government. Monday’s signing took place ahead of a general election in Moldova on Nov. 28 in which the pro-European parties face the Communists who favour closer ties to Moscow.
Romania’s President Traian Basescu said last month that the treaty will disprove claims by Moldovan Communists that Romania has territorial claims on Moldova. This was echoed by Baconschi, who said that by signing the document “we also discourage the obsessive affirmations” of some Moldovan politicians who believe Romania has claims on Moldova. The treaty deals with technical issues such as the marking of the border, usage of water, railways and roads, fishing, hunting and breaches of the border regime.
Romania has been lobbying hard for closer ties between Moldova and the European Union, of which Romania is a member. Baconschi said Romania hopes that the border with Moldova will eventually become an internal border within the European Union.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has welcomed the signing of a border treaty, calling it “an excellent example” of regional cooperation. Bucharest has repeatedly refused to sign a bilateral political treaty with Moldova, most of which was part of Romania before World War II.
Romania was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Moldova after the latter declared independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991. Romania’s President Traian Basescu had repeatedly stated that Bucharest shall never sign a treaty recognizing the consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the secret additional protocol to it. However, the delicate pre-election situation in Moldova has finally changed Romania’s official stance on this issue.
Transparency International(TI) defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. This definition encompasses corrupt practices in both the public and private sectors. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries according to the perception of corruption in the public sector. The CPI is an aggregate indicator that combines different sources of information about corruption, making it possible to compare countries.
The 2010 CPI draws on different assessments and business opinion surveys carried out by independent and reputable institutions. It captures information about the administrative and political aspects of corruption. Broadly speaking, the surveys and assessments used to compile the index include questions relating to bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of public funds, and questions that probe the strength and effectiveness of public sector anti-corruption efforts.
Russia made it only to 154th place on the 178-country survey, scoring evenly with nine other countries ranging from Cambodia to Tajikistan that scored 2.1 points from a possible 10. Despite President Dmitry Medvedev’s efforts to fight corruption, the country remains firmly rooted in the bottom of the rankings.
Corruption Index Rankings
| Rank | Country | Score ’10 | Score ’09 | Score ’08 | |
| 1 | Denmark | 9.3 | 9.3 | 9.3 | |
| 1 | New Zealand | 9.3 | 9.4 | 9.3 | |
| 1 | Singapore | 9.3 | 9.2 | 9.2 | |
| 26 | Estonia | 6.5 | 6.6 | 6.6 | |
| 41 | Poland | 5.3 | 5.0 | 4.6 | |
| 46 | Lithuania | 5.0 | 4.9 | 4.6 | |
| 59 | Latvia | 4.3 | 4.5 | 5.0 | |
| 67 | Italy | 3.9 | 4.3 | 4.8 | |
| 68 | Georgia | 3.8 | 4.1 | 3.9 | |
| 105 | Kazakhstan | 2.9 | 2.7 | 2.2 | |
| 105 | Moldova | 2.9 | 3.3 | 2.9 | |
| 123 | Armenia | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.9 | |
| 127 | Belarus | 2.5 | 2.4 | 2.0 | |
| 134 | Azerbaijan | 2.4 | 2.3 | 1.9 | |
| 134 | Ukraine | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.5 | |
| 154 | Russia | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.1 | |
| 154 | Tajikistan | 2.1 | 2.0 | 2.0 | |
| 164 | Kyrgyzstan | 2.0 | 1.9 | 1.8 | |
| 172 | Turkmenistan | 1.6 | 1.8 | 1.8 | |
| 172 | Uzbekistan | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | |
| 178 | Somalia | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.0 | |
The two countries have had generally friendly ties since the fall of communism in 1989 and Lithuania regaining independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Warsaw’s ostentatious disappointment with Vilnius’ decision not to support the Russo-Polish initiative to lift the visa regime for the residents of Kaliningrad region has marked the beginning of a freeze in the bilateral relations.
For months Lithuanian politicians and diplomats have been openly talking about their conviction that a new Polish leadership – composed of members of the liberal party, Civic Platform – would change its foreign policy after the presidential election. And they were right: after July Warsaw paid more attention to Berlin and Moscow than to Vilnius and the latter to Minsk, that is trying to make the Klaipeda oil terminal suitable for importing Venezuelan oil to Belarus.
Even though the new Polish Chief of State Bronislaw Komorowski stems from an old noble Lithuanian family and does not hide his feelings for his historical homeland, he is not someone who is capable of implementing an independent policy, the way that President Lech Kaczynski did, wrote Audrius Baciulis on weekly Veidas.
On Wednesday Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski criticised Lithuania in unusually blunt terms for European Union partners, saying its Baltic neighbour was failing to live up to its commitments either to ethnic Poles or to Polish investors. Some days before meetings among diplomats were postponed until local Poles were allowed to write their names in official documents using Polish letters.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk campaigned in 2007 on expediting privatization, even before the crisis hit, and the revenues from the sales, which were planned to be held from 2008 to 2011, are now helping the country cover a budget deficit that could grow to 8 percent of GDP this year, Tusk admitted this month.
Growth in the country has unfortunately not meant stable public finances, then, as the government has, for the moment, relied on the privatization of more than 800 companies to cover costs. Compared with countries like the Czech Republic and Germany, Poland has not adopted austerity measures, preferring instead to continue feeding growth.
The privatization plan is expected to generate 25 billion złoty (6.4 billion euros) over four years.
Article – The Prague Post – October 2010.
FROM THE GEORGIAN TIMES –
Moscow recognizes that “some sort of creative solution” needs to be applied to remove Georgia’s objection to Russia’s WTO membership, an economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama said on October 20, without elaborating how the issue can be resolved.
Lawrence Summers, an outgoing director of President Obama’s National Economic Council, who held talks with Russian officials in Moscow, said that Russia’s bid to join WTO may be successfully completed within a year.
He also said that Georgia’s position on the matter was raised during his “enormously constructive” talks with Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Shuvalov, Reuters reported.
Georgian senior officials, including PM Nika Gilauri, have reiterated for number of times recently, that Georgia supports Russia’s WTO accession, but with one condition – Russia should follow WTO rules, they said.
In particular, the Georgian officials say that they want Russia to make customs checkpoints located in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two breakaway regions which Russia has recognized as independent states, “transparent”.
Georgian State Minister for Reintegration, Temur Iakobashvili, told journalists on October 20, that Georgia was ready to consider any proposal on how to resolve dispute on Russia’s WTO entry, provided that “the principles are observed.” “Georgia has reasonable position. We demand from Russia to follow the rules of the organization, which it wants to join. We are ready to discuss any proposals, which Russia or the United States may offer. The important thing here is that the principle should be observed,” he said.
The White House announced earlier this month that the U.S. and Russia made the “substantial progress” in resolving bilateral issues and that Russia had taken “significant steps” toward joining WTO.
“President Obama pledged to support Russia’s efforts to complete remaining steps in multilateral negotiations so that Russia could join the WTO as soon as possible,” the White House said in a statement after a phone conversation between the Russian and U.S. Presidents on October 1.
Civil Georgia
At the annual two-day Deauville Summit French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev discussed on how security cooperation between the three nations could be improved.
Earlier, in a report the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank claimed a European security trialogue between the EU, Russia and Turkey would be more effective in tackling conflicts and promoting stability in the problem regions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “The idea is that an informal forum with the key players could breathe life back into the formal European security institutions,” Mark Leonard told Deutsche Welle. “One of the reasons that the current institutions are dead-locked is the fact that Russia is questioning their legitimacy.”
“Meanwhile Turkey is frustrated at the short-sighted way that some EU member states are holding up the accession process. It is so difficult to get things done through the formal institutions that Europe’s powers are often acting outside them. This is not good for the EU as we want a continent run through multilateral institutions rather than spheres of influence or the balance of power. The report argues that we should therefore engage with the other players to revitalise these institutions.” “The EU is missing an opportunity to think creatively about a new security architecture and come up with its own initiative on the future of the European order,” Leonard added.
In Deauville Dmitry Medvedev announced that he will take part in the NATO summit, scheduled for November in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. The Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization is expected to use the meeting to unveil plans for a European missile defense shield. “We are now evaluating the idea of this proposal, but I think that NATO itself needs to understand in what form it sees Russia joining this system, what it will bring, in what manner an agreement can be reached, and how to proceed further,” Medvedev said.
The gas giant Gazprom may soon create an energy hub in Far East to feed growing demand in Asia. The Russian monopolist is facing tough competition in Europe and is trying to gain a bigger share on exports to China.
According to materials on the region’s investment plans, Gazprom “may build an LNG facility to process 26 billion cubic meters a year of gas (about 18 million metric tons of LNG). The plant, which may be built by 2015, may cost 720 billion roubles ($24.2 billion). A compressed natural gas, or CNG, plant is also being considered.”
Article – Bloomberg – October 2010.
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