MOSCOW, July 24 (RIA Novosti) Investment barriers put Russia and EU in different corners/Russia refuses to cooperate with U.K. on counterterrorism/Russia gives the West 150 days to revise its CFE Treaty position/Are Russian businessmen in Britain packing up?/United States getting ready to attack Iran/Russian scientists against clericalization of society
Vedomosti
Investment barriers put Russia and EU in different corners
EU officials have gotten down in earnest to defending Europe's economy against undesirable investors.
European Commissioner for Trade Peter Mandelson is proposing that the "golden share" mechanism be revived to enable governments to control a company regardless of the size of their own stake. The aim of the initiative is to prevent strategic firms from falling under the control of third-country investment funds.
The European Parliament has only recently approved the idea of protecting the European power industry from investments by countries that themselves impose restrictions on outside investments in their fuel and energy sector.
The measures being prepared are unlikely to be directed against Russia. The West is concerned about the expansion of the developing world as a whole, especially India and China.
However, the symmetry theme in relation to Russia is logical, because Russia has begun formalizing its own restrictions. Last week, a bill on foreign investments in strategic industries was finally submitted to the State Duma.
An investment Iron Curtain between Russia and the EU is falling at a time when the United States plans to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, and Russia is considering a possible withdrawal from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty.
A crisis in the European security system is obvious. But investments and economic integration are also part of the world's security system.
Economic integration not only provides better wages to everyone, but also makes everyone dependent on one another.
Investment barriers, on the contrary, put Russia and Europe in different corners, pushing economic interests into the background.
The latest crisis in relations between Russia and Britain shows that "symmetric replies" only lead to a sharpening of the situation, because each side uses a different yardstick to measure the "symmetry" of its next move.
Mutual give-and-take is usually assisted by incentives. But when obvious incentives are lacking, common sense can help remedy the situation.
It can produce a system of incentives for those who are short on common sense. Europe's economic integration in the wake of World War II is one of the finest examples of hands-on and purposeful efforts to create such a system.
Saying no to integration, going back to an era of bans, and a globalization crisis indicate that common sense is on the wane in the world.
In order to see what it all portends, one need only recall the pre-war history of Europe and Russia - where common sense disappears and human values tend to disappear, too.
Vremya Novostei
Russia refuses to cooperate with U.K. on counterterrorism
Moscow's refusal to combat terrorism together with London is the most ridiculous consequence of the current chill in Russian-British relations.
Hopefully, such cooperation did not just amount to Moscow's efforts to persuade London to extradite former Chechen terrorist emissary Akhmed Zakayev. The U.K. may refuse to do so, anyway, citing the "Lugovoi case" as a convincing argument.
Although both countries may be completely divided on the murder of former Russian spy and dissident Alexander Litvinenko, they should not stop cooperating on counterterrorism, because that concerns the life and safety of hundreds of millions of people.
The world will have a hard time defeating terrorism, because entire nations view terrorists as heroes and martyrs in line with religious, political and social factors.
Moreover, the great powers, which claim the right to act as geopolitical arbiters, are unable to work out common criteria for identifying terrorist organizations.
Counterterrorism operations are thwarted by the mutual suspicions of national secret services, which tend to conceal information in conditions of a global terrorism threat.
Instead of competing against one another, the world's secret services must join hands in order to fight an enemy that does not recognize geographic, political and moral boundaries.
Consequently, we can and must criticize the United States for the mistakes it made during the Iraq war, but it would be foolish and irresponsible to rejoice over Washington's setbacks in that country.
The Middle East Quartet, comprising the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, must separate Palestinian terrorists from other organizations and politicians willing to negotiate.
That is why the government of one country cannot stop cooperating with another country if both of them view counterterrorism operations as a common goal.
Russia and the U.K. probably consider terrorism an absolute evil.
It would be imprudent to stop such cooperation if Russia can help British authorities prevent terrorist attacks and vice versa. No mutual grudges or goals can justify such a refusal.
Gazeta
Russia gives the West 150 days to revise its CFE Treaty position
Yesterday, President Vladimir Putin submitted to parliament a bill suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), in accordance with Article 37 of the federal law on Russia's international treaties.
NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer argued that the CFE Treaty has no loopholes that allow suspending its operation, but Russian laws permit it.
According to the relevant federal law, the president may suspend an international treaty in a force majeure situation, provided he immediately informs the two houses of parliament of his decision and submits a relevant bill to the lower house.
At the same time, the law obliges the Russian authorities to refrain from any actions that can hinder the resumption of the operation of the said treaty.
In other words, the Kremlin may not stop other parties to the treaty from advocating its resumption. According to the spirit of the relevant article, Russia should not move its troops and weapons in violation of the CFE Treaty's provisions.
Article XIX of the CFE Treaty says that each party has "the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests" or "if another State Party increases its holdings in" the armed forces, as defined in Article II, "in such proportions as to pose an obvious threat to the balance of forces within the area of application."
Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Russian Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said: "The bill is needed to prolong the operation of the presidential decree indefinitely. It was drafted because no suspension procedure is stipulated in the CFE Treaty. The Russian president opted for that decision as more correct in the given situation."
Viktor Litovkin, a military analyst, said the president's decision was a warning to foreign partners.
"If the West fails to act on Moscow's proposals within 150 days, Russia will send notifications to all states party to the CFE Treaty and officially withdraw from the treaty in July 2008," he said.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Are Russian businessmen in Britain packing up?
Russian-British relations have always followed "a sinusoidal pattern," swinging from a very close relationship to a serious cooling. Nevertheless, that has never had a drastic effect on the economy, said Igor Yurgens, vice president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, in his article in RG.
In political terms, we are now approaching what might be called a mild Cold War. The British official reaction to the Litvinenko case is overly serious.
But if there had been no change of government in Britain, the response would not have been so sharp, if only because there would have been no need to prove one's political loyalty to the people.
As regards business relations, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the Confederation of British Industry are getting along just fine.
The Russo-British Chamber of Commerce is active. And all the top officials of these organizations who have been interviewed are firmly against the political scandal being fomented and for it to be a matter for politicians alone, without any consequences for the economy.
Nevertheless, some analysts in Russia have made a few guesses, saying that Russian business may leave the London exchange and lose some of their enthusiasm for that country.
The danger of the worst-case scenario does exist, of course, but in my view only in politics. And as long as Russian business finds it profitable to work in Britain, it will find ways to steer around political roadblocks.
And in general, the danger allegedly threatening Russian business abroad is largely exaggerated.
The other day, the press discussed how the Americans intend to restrict foreign investments in their country.
True, the secret services can under certain conditions voice their opinion on strategic acquisitions on U.S. territory. That procedure was introduced after Arabs nearly bought up all of the United States' port facilities from the British.
America got worried that that could ease terrorists' entry into the country.
But we have likewise drafted a bill regulating the acquisition of assets in 39 strategic sectors.
There have lately been voices saying that Chinese and Russian state-owned companies should be carefully monitored to see if they begin buying assets in Europe.
They say special interests may lie behind that. But Russia, too, monitors the activities of foreign investors. And can we say that foreign business in Russia feels like a pariah? Of course not. So let's not pile up the agony where there is none.
Moskovskiye Novosti
United States getting ready to attack Iran
The world is once again discussing a possible U.S. military operation against Iran.
The U.S. media said Iran would face a surprise attack unless the ruling Islamic regime scrapped its nuclear program, and that Washington would merely support operations by the Israeli military, which had successfully bombed the Iraqi nuclear center near Baghdad in 1981.
Israel and the United States would probably deal several air strikes against Iran, and NATO's special weapons and tactics (SWAT) units would enter the country from Afghanistan. The www.WorldPress.org web site said Russia could shield its northern flank and use diplomatic pressure tactics against Tehran.
Moscow, which is helping Iran with its nuclear program, knows a lot about Tehran's nuclear facilities and the nation's military-political leaders. However, the United States does not think that Russia will share its intelligence data.
Although the Bush administration stresses that it will try to settle the conflict through diplomacy, the United States and Israel have repeatedly said they will not tolerate a nuclear Iran.
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman said the European Union and the U.S. would support Israel if it attacked Iran. That may be true because he made the statement after his meeting with EU and NATO officials.
The Iranian nuclear program is not the only problem facing Washington and Jerusalem. Tehran also finances Shiite groups in Iraq and supplies them with weapons, and also trains militants for the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist groups.
Washington said Iran was also aiding them through Syria.
The Washington Post recently published satellite photos of numerous tunnels being constructed in Natanz, the main Iranian nuclear research center. As these tunnels are intended for storing nuclear components, Iran is also probably preparing for war.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russian scientists against clericalization of society
The electronic media have published an open letter to President Vladimir Putin signed by 10 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, including Nobel Prize winners Zhores Alferov and Vitaly Ginzburg.
The scientists are worried by "the growing clericalization of Russian society" and the "active involvement of the Church in all spheres of social life."
The Russian Orthodox Church cannot come to terms with the fact that God has long ceased to be an inalienable part of the picture of the world in which scientific discoveries are possible.
The clericalization of education refers not only to a priest giving students bad marks for their failure to learn gospel parables, testaments or the number of apostles.
It also refers to physics or biology teachers saying that the scientific view of the world is only one of several possible theories, and offering the view of the Church as an example.
Instead of forming a streamlined view of the world, students are drowning in a multitude of versions.
Instead of proper socialization, they are suffering from fragmented thinking and an inability to clearly perceive the world they will live in. The Church has the right to express its views on any issue, but where should it do so?
The scientists reminded Putin of the words of Patriarch Alexy II: "There is no harm in students learning the biblical view of the origin of the world. Some want to believe that they are descended from monkeys, but why should they be allowed to force their beliefs on others?"
They write that harm does not come from knowledge, it comes from a clash of the systems of coordinates the young are invited to consider for purity.
The theory of evolution is an inalienable part of the modern system of coordinates. One human being or one organization may close their eyes to it, but clericalization gives the said organization a right to shut the eyes of a whole generation.
Scientists cannot say how far the state will go in its flirting with the Church. Officials can pray, go to mass and fast, but their private lives and religious preferences must not be allowed to distort the pragmatic system of education.
Vladimir Putin is a taciturn judge. He receives letters from Orthodox believers and scientists, asking for his opinion. But the president keeps silent, which may be good because it helps to preserve the status quo.
Debates, if held according to accepted rules, are proof of social health, provided students are not involved in them.
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