NEW STORAGE PRINCIPLE OF PROVIDING RETIRED OFFICERS WITH ACCOMMODATION
Izvestia, August 9, 2002, p. 3
2004 could be remembered not only for the presidential elections but also for the unprecedented afflux of the military school graduates into the regular army. A new storage principle of providing the retired officers with accommodation was approved yesterday at the government meeting. 43,000 lieutenants, who will start their military service in two years, have a chance to get personnel apartments paid from the federal budget.
The essence of the innovation is that the annual funds will be allocated from the federal budget to the special state fund. It will conclude a treaty with the participants of the financial market who will invest these funds to the investment projects. Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Kosovan said that an officer could get the money from his own account and buy the apartments where he would like after 20 years of service.
Defense Ministry has not decided yet on the problem of the kind of the state fund. The departments should put forward their proposals by December 1, 2002. In any case, the inflation should not exceed the yield from the investments. The basis of Defense Ministry’s estimate is the inflation prognosis of Ministry of Economic Development. The latter supposes that the rise in prices in Russia will come to 3% a year on average until 2020.
COMMUNISTS FORMULATED QUESTIONS FOR REFERENDUM
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 9, 2002, p. 2
The communists have formulated the questions for the referendum, which is to bloc up the basic government reforms. It looks as if the struggle for the holding of this referendum will turn out to be the main action of the lefts on the threshold of the parliamentary elections.
The preliminary variants of the referendum questions are following: “do you consider it necessary that the land, natural resources, forests, natural reservoirs, which, in accordance with the Russian Constitution, are the basis of life and activity of the peoples of Russia should be in the state possession, excluding the lands, assigned for the personnel farming, which can be in private possession of the Russian citizens; do you agree that the payment for the public utilities should not exceed 10% of the joint family income; do you think that it is necessary to use the death penalty for the special grave crimes; do you consider it necessary that the railways and enterprises should be in the state possession?”
RUSSIA SHOWING STRENGTH
Trud, August 9, 2002, p. 2
Dozens of combat and auxiliary ships, vessels, and boats left Russian naval bases at the Caspian Sea yesterday. That was the beginning of an active phase of large naval maneuvers. A theoretical part began on August 01. the main task of the maneuvers is to polish methods of fighting terrorist bands that get to the coast.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov personally controls the maneuvers. Such raids are annually held in all fleets. However, the present one is unprecedented as to the composition of drawn forces and means and tasks. To some extent, the legend of the maneuvers provides an insight of what military-political scenario might be nearly the worst for Russia in that restless area. Maps of the General Staff picture that as follows: a large bandit group rushed into Dagestan, approximately like units of Khattab and Basaev in 1999. As a result of offensive of troops of the North Caucasus Military District, the enemy is pressed to the Caspian coast. The task to destroy it completely by a strike on the rear is set to ships of the flotilla and mariners of the 77th brigade dislocated in Kaspiisk.
For the first time in Russian history, apart from the armed forces maneuvers will engage all military and militarized state structures – railway troops, border guards, units of the Civil Defense Ministry, Federal Security Service, interior troops, and structures of Russia’s Transportation Ministry. In all this makes about 10,000 soldiers and officers, some 60 ships and vessels, 30 planes and helicopters.
A HEARING IN THE KREMLIN
Trud, August 9, 2002, p. 2
Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin met with the chief justices of the Constitutional, Supreme, and Supreme Arbitration courts. They discussed reforms in the judiciary.
At the meeting, the president stated that Russia will have a new Arbitration Procedure Code from September 1. According to Putin, the most notable aspect of it is the delineation of authority between arbitration courts and courts of general jurisdiction. As for the new Administrative Code, Putin said it had been passed to guard against unwarranted state interference in the lives of individuals.
The president also said something the judges had waited a long time to hear. He said their own living and working conditions would not be forgotten: the number of judges and magistrates would be increased, and their salaries as well.
Supreme Court Chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev considers that the initial phases of implementing the new Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) have been sufficiently certain, and the courts can work with the new code, although he says this does not mean there are no problems at all.
The most controversial aspect of CPC amendments has involved arrest warrants. Lebedev said that since the new code came into effect, law enforcement agencies have requested 11,140 arrest warrants; the courts have granted 85% of them.
MEASURES ARE BEING TAKEN
Parlamentskaya Gazeta, August 9, 2002, p. 2
Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov is currently on an official visit to the Russian Far East, where he is holding intensive talks with regional lawmakers.
“The official trip I am have been making for more than a month already has been interesting and useful in all respects. During this time I have visited seven Russian regions and Mongolia. There are still three regions of the Far-East federal District left,” he said.
According to Sergei Mironov, one of the main problems for the Far East is the tariff and tax policy.
“I have already given definite instructions to members of the Federation Council as regards these or those issues. I have got a significant number of letters about different problems. These “signals from locations” are worked through and specific measure are being taken,” he said.
The Progress aviation plant in Arseniev as an example, Sergei Mironov found out about the state of affairs in Far East defense industry, saw with his own eyes the oldest ship repair company in the Far East – Dalzavod, and got an idea of the ship building and repairing basis of the Pacific whose flee had become so obsolete that in the next five years it would have to be changed completely.
