OFFICIALLY

President

Instructed the government to urgently develop a program of additional social support for veterans of the Great Patriotic War. The draft of this document was presented by Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matvienko. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, it is necessary to conduct “all-Russian monitoring” among veterans, “to reach every” participant in the war and find out what he needs. In particular, this concerns medical care for veterans. Valentina Matvienko noted that in three months the government will develop in detail a program of social assistance to veterans in order to have time to include the corresponding expenses in the draft budget for 2004. The program will be implemented for the upcoming 60th anniversary of the Victory in 2005.

Departments

Minister of Internal Affairs Boris Gryzlov and Head of the Ministry of Economic Development German Gref spoke in favor of tightening criminal and administrative penalties for the manufacture and trade of counterfeit goods on the consumer market. They reported this at the end of the joint meeting of these departments. According to Gryzlov, today more than half of audio and video products, alcohol and food products are falsified. In his opinion, it is necessary that sanctions be calculated not in units, but in hundreds of minimum wages, and the terms of punishment under the Criminal Code should increase. In turn, German Gref said that according to the existing law, at the moment only illegal products can be confiscated, and the equipment on which these products are produced cannot be confiscated. In his opinion, the main problem remains the imperfection of the regulatory framework, as well as the lack of efficiency in the interaction of ministries exercising control.

The Ministry of Press issued a warning to the editors of the newspaper Zavtra for publishing in February 2003 a conversation between Alexander Prokhanov and Akhmed Zakayev, who is on the international wanted list. The warning states that “the editors, by publishing material that incites national hatred and justifies the need to carry out extremist activities, violated the requirements of Art. 4 of the Law “On the Mass Media” and Art. 1 of the Federal Law “On Combating Extremist Activities”. Now the newspaper must publish the text of the warning. But the troubles of “Zavtra” did not end there: the Khamovnichesky Intermunicipal Court of Moscow will consider the claim of the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the People’s Patriotic Union of Russia, Vice-Speaker of the State Duma Gennady Semigin, against the editors-in-chief of the newspapers “Zavtra” and “Soviet Russia” Alexander Prokhanov and Valentin Chikin. The reason for the lawsuit was an article by Prokhanov and Chikin published in January in “Zavtra” entitled “Operation “Mole”. The authors actually accused Semigin of trying to collapse the NPSR, and he demands the court to oblige them to give a refutation.

In Russia, gross production of the agricultural sector increased by 22% over four years, but the level of profitability decreased from 9.2% in 1998 to 3.9% in 2002. According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture Anatoly Mikhalev, the volume of food industry production was growing more intensive than the agro-industrial complex - the increase was 37% in 2002 compared to 1998. Wage arrears to agro-industrial complex enterprises amounted to 10.6 billion rubles in 2002. with an average level per person of 1287 rubles. per month. Thus, although the decline in production in Russian agriculture has been overcome, the critical situation in the industry remains. According to Mikhalev, the improvement of the agro-industrial complex will be facilitated by the support of farmers and private farms from the state. The Ministry of Agriculture recommends that the laws “On personal subsidiary plots”, “On credit cooperation”, “On agricultural cooperation” be adopted as soon as possible.

Federation Council

Plans to consider a package of energy laws on March 12. The package was adopted by the State Duma in the third reading on February 21. After entering the upper house, the package of laws on reforming the electric power industry will be sent for consideration by the relevant committees and commissions of the Federation Council: the Committee on Economic Policy, Entrepreneurship and Property, the Committee on Industrial Policy and the Commission on Natural Monopolies. The package of laws on reforming the electric power industry includes the federal law “On the Electric Power Industry”, amendments to the federal laws “On State Regulation of Tariffs for Electricity and Heat Energy” and “On Amendments to the Civil Code”, and to the laws “On the Peculiarities of the Functioning of the Electric Power Industry in the Transition Period” , “On natural monopolies” and “On energy saving”.

Repeatedly rejected amendments to the laws “On Veterans” and “On State Pensions”. The purpose of the amendments was to extend the benefits of participants in the Great Patriotic War in full, including pensions, to participants of the Second World War who served during this period not in the active army. Members of the Federation Council noted that the amendments under consideration incorrectly bring together the rights and benefits, as well as the levels of pension provision for such categories of persons as front-line soldiers, including war veterans, and veterans who served during the war in rear units and institutions. In addition, the implementation of these amendments will require more than 800 million rubles from the federal and regional budgets, and they are not taken into account either in the federal law on the budget for 2003 or in the law on the budget of the Pension Fund for 2003.

Appointed five members of the Central Election Commission. They were the lawyer of the St. Petersburg City Bar Association Nikolai Konkin, the secretary of the Central Election Commission Nina Kulyasova, the chairman of the electoral commission of Dagestan Siyabshankh Shapiev, the member of the Central Electoral Commission Sergei Bolshakov and the chairman of the electoral commission of the Kamchatka region Lyudmila Demyanchenko.

Parties

The leader of the Agrarian Party of Russia, Mikhail Lapshin, said that his party will go to the State Duma elections on its own. According to Lapshin, there are 50 million rural residents in Russia, and 4 million votes are needed to overcome the 5 percent barrier. He stated that negotiations with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation on the creation of an election bloc “are not being conducted and will not be conducted.” Regarding cooperation with the Russian Agrarian Movement, Lapshin noted that although the law allows for elections as a single bloc, the proposals of the organization’s leadership do not suit the leaders of the APR. “We are offered to greatly change the program and charter of the party, we have disagreements, but nevertheless we count on the support of the RAD,” Lapshin said.

Army

The Board of the Russian Ministry of Defense has identified additional measures to maintain the required level of combat readiness of aviation units and formations. At the meeting of the board, held under the leadership of Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, in particular, the issue of improving the training of flight personnel of the armed forces aviation was considered. Following the meeting of the board, a corresponding resolution was adopted.

Based on materials from news agencies and our own information