Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Russian and German leaders discuss visas, sanctions against Iran
President Dmitry Medvedev spent two days in Germany holding talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel. She invited him to Berlin because she had no time to discuss issues with the Russian president during the May 9 celebrations in Moscow, which she attended.
In Germany, the two leaders discussed nearly every problem of interest to their countries, including their stands at the upcoming G20 summit, which will discuss ways to settle the financial markets. But they mostly focused on security issues.
Medvedev and Merkel signed a memorandum to set up a ministerial level political and security committee between the EU and Russia. The committee would provide a venue for exchanging opinions on the key issues of international politics and security and also "establish ground rules for joint EU-Russia civil and military crisis management operations."
Although no agreement on visas was reached, Merkel said at a news conference in Meseberg: "We are now at the stage where we will very specifically talk about what needs to be done to lift visa requirements."
This common attitude will also apply to Ukraine and other countries, but it does not depend on Germany's stand or approach to Russia, the German chancellor said.
Russia has done much to meet EU demands, Medvedev responded. In particular, it has signed readmission agreements with several countries and is introducing biometric passports.
It is not that Germany fears immigrants from Russia, said Alexander Rahr, Director of the Russia-Eurasia Center at the German Council on Foreign Relations. After all, the EU requires no visas for several Latin American and North African countries. Rather, this is a political question comparable to the issue of Russia's WTO accession, which some EU countries bordering Russia are using to their advantage.
The Russian and German leaders also expressed common views on Iran's nuclear program.
Merkel pointed to major progress in Russia's approach to Iran's nuclear program. "It was completely different two years ago," she said. "But now we have come to an agreement on this question."
Medvedev said sanctions would be applied against Iran unless it heeded the opinion of its international partners.
Expert
Total tourism for the Caucasus
In the next decade the Caucasus may become one of Russia's most rapidly developing tourist centers. The local infrastructure is already being upgraded. Now it is necessary to put the region on the map.
Since the fighting in Chechnya many observers have treated the North Caucasus as "one big Chechnya." While 20 years ago Elbrus and Dombai, Nalchik and its health resorts, and Derbent with its ancient architecture were the Caucasus for most Russians, now it conjures other, less appealing, names: Khankala, Nazran, and Beslan. One example of name "recoding" in recent years is Botlikh. For most of Russia, Botlikh in Dagestan is the place where the second Chechen war started. Which is very different to the perception of the average Soviet person in the 1960s. For them it was a popular recreation zone, a sort of Caucasian Paris. Today Caucasian tourism is returning to life.
In May, the North Caucasian Federal District administration announced that it planned to build five ski resorts in the Caucasus before 2020. The total investment will be on the order of 450 billion rubles, including 60 billion from the federal budget. This is twice as much as is being invested in the Sochi Olympic facilities. Five sites have been named: Elbrus in Kabardino-Balkaria, Arkhyz in Karachay-Cherkessia, Mamison in North Ossetia, Matlas in Daghestan and Lago-Naki in Adygea. But only the Elbrus location is operating so far.
Inter-regional ties between republics are one of the strategic goals in the Russian Caucasus, and tourism is a powerful tool to promote this. For this approach to work, the Caucasus needs to implement a "total tourism" concept (similar to "total football" introduced by the Dutch in the 1970s). Each municipality should develop tourist attractions in its territory. This is no problem for the Caucasus, as every mountain village there is exotic.
In the number of cultural and historical sights, the Caucasus ranks with the Golden Ring - Russia's main tourist promotional tool for in-bound tourists. In sheer variety, the Caucasus can offer far richer recreational activities. The region features all the popular tourist pursuits, including several exotic activities, not to mention traditional downhill skiing or beach recreation. This makes the Caucasian tourist industry very attractive for big investors, who have already begun arriving in the region.
Profile
The Jekyll-Hyde approach of Ukraine's president
The first 100 days of Viktor Yanukovych's presidency have shown that the new leader's policies are governed by pragmatism rather then ideology.
The first quality he demonstrated after being elected was ability to win "symbolic wars." In his very first month in office, Yanukovych announced he was stripping Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevich, nationalist leaders of the 1920s, of their Hero of Ukraine titles. He also removed the Holodomor page from the presidential website and later declared that the Ukrainian government no longer regarded the famine of the early 1930s as genocide against the Ukrainian people.
Yanukovych settled the gas issue for years to come and obtained a discount Ukraine had been dreaming of for the token price of keeping the Black Sea Fleet at its Sevastopol base.
The only other concession he made to Russia was probably his promise to keep Ukraine apart from any military political blocs. But again, this concession was more symbolic than anything: joining NATO would not have given Ukraine any significant military advantage, while Russia was ready to pay a lot for dropping the plan.
The new Ukrainian government adopted a different - and pragmatic - policy with regard to the Russian language. Contrary to many voter expectations, he confirmed the status of Ukrainian as the only official language. However, the use of Russian will be expanded. Even now, graduates of Ukrainian schools are allowed to choose the language they would like to take their tests in. More bills expanding the official uses of Russian have been submitted to parliament.
Yanukovych has proved he was master of political compromise, being exceptionally careful on ideological issues that could affect everyday life in the country.
Nevertheless, Ukraine should not be expected to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia because it would put at risk the country's relations with Europe and the United States. This is something Yanukovych will not sacrifice. Therefore, once the Russian-Ukrainian "honeymoon" is over, Moscow is likely to be facing a cunning, cynical and calculating partner, who knows how to get what he wants and how to keep it.
Kommersant
Supreme Court prepares internet restrictions
Reader forums on internet publications should not provide space for extremists and must be moderated, decided a working group. The working group was organized by Russia's Supreme Court in preparing for a draft resolution On Court Practice in the Implementation of the Law on Mass Media. Next week the draft is expected to be approved by a full court meeting.
The draft resolution is the first time the court has clarified the practical use of the law since it was adopted in 1991. It has remained practically unchanged since then.
The preliminary text was prepared on April 20. As soon as the resolution becomes law, it will be the official guiding principle for all judges.
The draft examines all aspects of media activity (from registration to legal responsibility). It covers all media, including the latest internet outlets. It was the internet outlets that prompted the group to take up the resolution again.
The law will be amended as it applies to forums where internet readers can make comments in open formats. Currently, moderators make minimal corrections, filtering out only tabooed words, because legally the forum is outside an internet newspaper or an internet magazine.
So far, only one approach in fighting terrorism has been found that does not at the same time infringe on freedom of speech. As it is now, anyone can contribute anything to an internet forum, but if a comment is found to contain extremist calls to action, internet moderators will be obliged to remove them.
Still, traces of this information will remain in search engines as is the technical nature of the internet. Additional requirements for Google, Yandex and other browsers may become the next logical anti-extremist step.
But experts do not believe new restrictions will be imposed on search engines or providers. Either way, the discussion is not over yet.
RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.
MOSCOW, June 7 (RIA Novosti)
