"Russian">Russian Environmental Digest (REDfiles) is a compilation of the week's major English-language press on environmental issues in Russia. 19 - 26 June 2000, Vol. 2, No. 25 1. <A HREF="#1">WHO Ranking Rankles Health Chiefs</A> 2. <A HREF="#2">Half-million HIV Carriers in Russia</A> 3. <A HREF="#3">German Energy Companies Sign Agreements</A> 4. <A HREF="#4">Japan Fishes Away in Russia, Owes 720 mln Yen in Toll</A> 5. <A HREF="#5">Greenpeace Accuses Japan of Illegal Fishing in Russian Waters</A> 6. <A HREF="#6">Nikitin Wins Defamation Case against Adamov</A> 7. <A HREF="#7">Ivanov Praises Baltic Region Cooperation</A> 8. <A HREF="#8">No Harm To Environment from Wartime Ammunition Dumps in Black Sea</A> 9. <A HREF="#9">Iran and Russia To Fight Caviar Smuggling</A> 10. <A HREF="#10">Greenpeace Publishes Info about Catastrophic Oil Pollution</A> 11. <A HREF="#11">Russian Children Hit in Smallpox Blunder</A> 12. <A HREF="#12">Putin And Nazarbayev Deem Necessary To Discuss Caspian Status</A> 13. <A HREF="#13">Coloured Rain Falls on Russia's Vladikavkaz</A> 14. <A HREF="#14">Estonia To Take over as Chair of Baltic Sea Border Services</A> 15. <A HREF="#15">Russia Gov't Not To Act on Sakhalin Proposal on Isles</A> 16. <A HREF="#16">Duma To Debate Law on Spent Nuclear Fuel Imports This Year</A> <a NAME="1">1 WHO Ranking Rankles Health Chiefs The Moscow Times, June 23, 2000 The World Health Organization issued a report this week evaluating health care systems around the world and it has been met with bewilderment in Russia. Out of 191 WHO member countries, Russia was ranked 130th, sandwiched between Peru and Honduras and far behind 11 former Soviet republics. Only Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan rank lower. The research, which is part of the WHO Health Report 2000, concluded that France has the best health care system, with Italy ranked second. Sierra Leone was ranked last behind Myanmar. Health Ministry spokesman Alexander Zharov said the report was based on data from 1997 and Russia's low ranking does not reflect the current state of the health care system. "While for France, where the economy is stable, three years do not mean much, in Russia they mean a lot," he said Thursday. Dr. David Evans, a WHO project coordinator, said the researchers focused on five main indicators: the level of the population's health; distribution of health care in population groups; responsiveness to people's needs; fairness of responsiveness among different groups; fairness in financing among different groups, evaluating the proportion of income people devote to health care. Russia's performance was so poor largely due to the dramatic decrease in life expectancy and the declining birth rate, Evans said by telephone from Geneva. Despite the rankings, he said the purpose of the research was not to compare different health care systems. "The idea of having a list comparing one health care system to the others would seem controversial. But there is no comparison here at all," Evans said. Boris Rozenfeld, health economist of the Academy of Sciences' Institute for Economic Forecasting, said the report - which ranks Kazakhstan 64th, only 27 places behind the United States and 66 places above Russia - appears controversial no matter what categories were used to rank health care systems. "The money Russia spends on health care needs is ridiculous if compared to the United States and Britain, but it's difficult to imagine that Kazakhstan boasts a better health care system and spends more money on health than we do," Rozenfeld said. Spending 6 percent of its gross domestic product on health needs, Britain was ranked 17th, while the United States, which spends more on health care than any other country in the world (13.7 percent of GDP) was 37th. After Kazakhstan, the next highest former Soviet republic was Belarus, ranked 72nd. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="2">2 Half-million HIV Carriers in Russia British Broadcasting Corporation, June 23, 2000 A total of 45,000 people infected with HIV has been registered in Russia. At least 44,000 people were registered as carriers of HIV/AIDS infection over the past four and a half years, which is 41 times higher than in the previous decade from 1987 to 1997. This was said at a news conference today by the head of the republican centre for AIDS prevention and control, Vadim Pokrovskiy. According to him, Moscow Region, with 8,721 infected people currently accounts for the highest incidence of HIV. Irkutsk Region ranks second, with 5,676 HIV carriers, and the city of Moscow is a close third, with 6,646 people. Pokrovskiy notes that statistics usually reflects only 10 per cent of the real figure, and this means that in fact the number of Russians infected with HIV/AIDS is about 500,000 people. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="3">3 German Energy Companies Sign Agreements British Broadcasting Corporation, June 23, 2000 At the close of the visit by President Vladimir Putin, skeleton agreements for four joint projects in the sphere of energy, involving a total of over DM3.5bn, were signed in Berlin today [16th June]. It was also agreed to establish a strategic working group that is to support and implement existing and new economic projects. The new projects that have been finalized include a project between the BASF subsidiary Wintershall and the Russian Gazprom energy company. It covers cooperation in the development of an oil deposit in the Arctic Pechora Sea. The project has an investment volume of 1bn dollars and will be tackled in the fourth quarter of this year. Oil production is to start in 2004. The Essen-based Ruhrgas AG and the Russian Gazprom want to cooperate in the sphere of environmental protection and the economical use of energy. According to Ruhrgas, the agreed projects are designed to make the use of energy in Russia more efficient and to curb the emission of greenhouse gases. The projects also include the further modernization of the Russian transportation network for natural gas. In addition, new tax systems are to increase the energy output in the Gazprom network. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="4">4 Japan Fishes Away in Russia, Owes 720 mln Yen in Toll ITAR-TASS News Agency, June 24, 2000 Japan's debt to Russia for fishing offshore southern Kuriles stands at 720 million yen, a spokesman for the Sakhalin regional administration told Itar-Tass on Saturday. The debt has piled up over three years since Japan's fishermen were allowed to hunt in Russia's exclusive economic zone under an inter-governmental fishery accord. Meanwhile, the international environmental group Greenpeace said Japanese fishing-boats are actively hunting any sea food using drifting nets. These nets, which are called "walls of death", also trap sea mammals and birds. Greenpeace said at a press conference in Sakhalin on Saturday that Japanese fishermen wall off with these nets straits between Kurile islands to prevent salmon from migration from the Pacific Ocean to Sakhalin rivers for breeding. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="5">5 Greenpeace Accuses Japan of Illegal Fishing in Russian Waters Kyodo News Service, June 23, 2000 'Illegal' fishing by Japan in Russian waters near the Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East is extensively damaging the environment for wild birds in danger of extinction as well as fish, Greenpeace Russia said Friday. The group accused Japan of conducting illegal drift-net fishing, saying it conspired with Russian border guards sent to board Japanese fishing vessels to watch for any illegal fishing in Russian waters. Greenpeace Russia concluded that some 70 Japanese fishing vessels are conducting illegal drift-net fishing using 8-kilometer-long fishing nets in the Sea of Okhotsk, after the group sent its ship Rainbow Warrior between June 8 and Wednesday to inspect fishing there. Ships are allowed to use nets less than 4 km long. The group also accused Russian authorities of overlooking the acts in exchange for several thousand dollars from the ships. Such drift-net fishing in international waters is banned by a 1991 U.N. resolution. Greenpeace is demanding a total ban on such fishing in all waters, saying such fishing, which can catch other creatures including dolphins, could severely damage the environment. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="6">6 Nikitin Wins Defamation Case against Adamov What The Papers Say, June 23, 2000 Trud, June 23, 2000, p. 1 The Kuibyshev district court, St. Petersburg, has ruled in favor of Alexander Nikitin in his slander suit against Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov. The court recognized that the information disseminated by the minister was untrue and defamatory of Nikitin, and ordered Adamov to pay 10,000 rubles compensation. The media which reported the minister's false statements will have to publish retractions. In 1998, Atomic Energy Minister Adamov was assuring people that "seventy percent of the data Nikitin gathered for Belluna had nothing to do with the environment." Adamov also stated that Nikitin had gathered technical information about Russia's military capacity. According to the minister, Nikitin violated procedures for handling top-secret information. The above-mentioned statements led Nikitin to sue Adamov for slander. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="7">7 Ivanov Praises Baltic Region Cooperation BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, June 24, 2000 Bergen, 22nd June: Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the 9th session of the Council of Baltic Sea States [CBSS] focused on the development of regional cooperation. Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Ivanov cited an example of such cooperation. A programme, Eurofaculty, will begin operating in Kaliningrad University from 1st September 2000 and under the programme, leading European experts will train lawyers and economists, he added. The minister noted that this initiative is being financed on a voluntary basis mostly by CBSS countries. CBSS countries "appreciated Russia's openness for equal and mutually advantageous cooperation, including in the realization of important investment projects on our territory, primarily in the energy sector", Ivanov said. He noted that the session discussed projects of cooperation with Russia in the areas of environment and nuclear safety and security. It focused on the reconstruction of the Pechenganikel factory, adding that Norway is ready to provide over 30m dollars to this end. An impetus has been given to the projects of nuclear and radioactive safety and security in Northwestern Europe, the Russian minister said. As a whole, the results of the ministerial meeting prove the countries' drive for solving the existing problems through cooperation and its goal is to strengthen stability and prosperity in the Baltics, Ivanov said. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="8">8 No Harm To Environment from Wartime Ammunition Dumps in Black Sea Interfax Russian News, June 25, 2000 Wartime ammunition dumped quite a distance away from the Black Sea shore, 1,200-1,500 deep in the ground and water has no substances that could adversely affect the ecology of the sea and the health and life of humans. Such are the results of a ten-day Black Sea expedition, organized by the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations and brought to conclusion last Saturday, the ministry's press service has told Interfax. The source says, the expedition, in which the scientific production association Taifun (Obninsk) participated aboard the scientific research ship Rescuer Prokopchik completed the three-year program drawn up by the ministry to inspect the ammunition dumps in the Black Sea. Simultaneously, at scientists' initiative, water and ground samples were taken to monitor radiation. On the spot analysis of these samples showed that radiation level in and around the dumps was within norm. The in-depth study of the samples will be carried out in Taifun laboratories. Yet another task of the expedition was to inspect the sunken steamship Admiral Nakhimov. Observations showed that the ship's position was intact, posing no danger for navigation, and having no fuel leak from its tanks, the source said. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="9">9 Iran and Russia To Fight Caviar Smuggling Agence France Presse, June 25, 2000 Iran and Russia, the world's two major caviar-producing nations, want to work together against the smuggling of the delicacy from the Caspian Sea, Iranian Construction Minister Mohammad Saidi-Kia said on a visit to Moscow. "We highlighted the need to cooperate to prevent illegal fishing and especially to fight against caviar smuggling," the minister said, quoted by Iranian newspapers. During meetings in Moscow, Saidi-Kia said the two countries reached cooperation agreements in a number of areas, including fishing, livestock breeding and natural resources such as forests. Iran's caviar industry has been declining, with 1999 production of the sturgeon eggs at 100 tonnes, down from 300 tonnes a decade ago. The breakup of the Soviet Union, which tightly regulated its caviar industry, created three new Caspian countries -- Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan -- which Iran says have developed their own caviar industry without precautions. In particular they have failed to check illegal fishing and allowed nets of too small a mesh, bringing the sea's sturgeon population down from 200 million in 1990 to 60 million five years later. The Caspian's resources have also been harmed by pollution from the sea's growing oil industry. Iran releases 20 million sturgeon fry into the sea each year and tries to protect the young population by banning fine fishing nets. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="10">10 Greenpeace Publishes Info about Catastrophic Oil Pollution Interfax Russian News, June 20, 2000 At a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday, an expedition by Greenpeace Russia to recently return from the Russian North, announced information about catastrophic oil pollution in the Usinsky region of Komi republic. According to the ecologists, recent research of a 450 square kilometer of the Usinsky region showed that the total area of polluted territory amounts to about 700 hectares (which is several times worse that the spill area after the catastrophic accident in 1994). The total volume of spilt oil currently on the land's surface amounts to about 225,000 tonnes, with about 90,000 tonnes concentrated in drilling sludge reservoirs. The damage to the environment caused by many years of development is estimated at 26 billion rubles. Greenpeace representatives especially noted that an official document, containing these dreadful statistics, has for a long time been kept from public view as the pollution itself has been hidden. According to the ecologists, the worst spills are on federal territory, entrance to which is restricted. Greenpeace called on international financial institutions and oil companies to invest money in the modernization of pipelines, the improvement the ecological standards of oil extraction and the rehabilitation of polluted territory. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="11">11 Russian Children Hit in Smallpox Blunder The Times (London), June 20, 2000 More than two decades after smallpox was eradicated from the world, eight Russian children have been stricken with a form of the disease after playing with glass ampoules of vaccine dumped in Vladivostok. The children, aged 11 to 14, were taken to hospital in the Far East port city over the weekend with rashes and high temperatures. The illness was attributed to smallpox vaccine after the children said that they had been playing with it. The ampoules are a throwback to the Cold War. The Soviet Union was convinced that smallpox might be used as a potent biological weapon and stored the vaccine as an antidote. According to Ken Alibek, a former Soviet biological warfare scientist who left Russia in 1992, Russian leaders had every reason to make that assumption because they planned to use smallpox themselves. The children cannot catch full smallpox from the vaccine, an inactivated form of the virus, but there are fears that they could have given themselves much larger doses than required for immunisation. There was alarm over the fact that doctors threw it out instead of destroying it. NTV television reported that boxes of glass ampoules of the vaccine, whose shelf life had expired, were found lying over a large area near a public clinic. Dmitry Maslov, the chief local medical inspector, insisted that there was no danger of the children developing full-blown smallpox, but prosecutors said that the clinic's managers were likely to be charged with criminal negligence. Vladivostok, an eight-hour flight from Moscow, is notorious for its corrupt local administration and lax safety standards in its vast port, where the Russian Pacific Fleet, including dozens of nuclear-powered vessels, is based. Reports of children being injured playing with unexploded ordnance are virtually routine, but yesterday's smallpox scare was a first for post-Soviet Russia. When in May 1980 the World Health Organisation declared smallpox eradicated, three years after the last naturally occurring case, the world celebrated. "But where other governments saw a medical victory, the Kremlin perceived a military opportunity," Mr Alibek said. Eventually the Soviet Union produced and stockpiled up to 20 tonnes of smallpox virus. Today some experts claim that the virus is held by as many as ten countries. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="12">12 Putin And Nazarbayev Deem Necessary To Discuss Caspian Status ITAR-TASS News Agency, June 20, 2000 The presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan have called on the Caspian nations to promote more actively the dialogue on the new legal status of the Caspian Sea, says the joint statement, which was signed by Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev, the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan, here on Tuesday. "The presidents note that the agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan of July 6, 1998, to delimit the sea bottom in the northern part of the Caspian Sea so as to be able to exercise their sovereign rights to tap underbed deposits was a positive contribution to the process of determining the new legal status of the Caspian Sea," says the joint document, which Itar-Tass received from the presidential press service later in the day. The two leaders stated that "Russia and Kazakhstan are now exercising their sovereign rights to use the underbed deposits on the parts of the sea bottom, which are to be delimited in keeping with the said agreement". Russia and Kazakhstan, the document says, "call on the other coastal states to conduct a more active dialogue on the problem of determining the new legal status of the Caspian Sea, believing that the compromise proposal to delimit the bottom of the Caspian Sea among the coastal nations so that they could exercise their sovereign rights there and to leaving the water space above for common use in order to ensure free shipping, agreed fishing quotas, and protection of the environment" could serve as the basis for a consensus decision". The joint statement further says that Russia and Kazakhstan "regard as one of the priorities of their foreign policies the promotion of cooperation among the CIS countries and will contribute to the evolution of the CIS into an effective integration community of nations". "The presidents of the two countries "attach particular importance to the formation of a free-trade zone within the CIS in keeping with the Agreement on the Establishment of a Free-Trade Zone, signed on April 14, 1994, and in accordance with the protocol to it of April 2nd, 1999". Moreover, the sides believe that the introduction of a multilateral free-trade regime should be preceded by bilateral exceptions from this regime, agreed by the parties to it, and also by the settlement by them of the procedures for collecting indirect taxes. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="13">13 Coloured Rain Falls on Russia's Vladikavkaz ITAR-TASS News Agency, June 21, 2000 Coloured rain fell on Tuesday on the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz, capital of the North Ossetian autonomous republic. The owners of bright-colour cars were the first to notice pink and orange spots on their bonnets. According to the local hydrometeorologic service and the North Ossetian Environment Protection Ministry, the phenomenon was cased by a discharge of harmful substances from a plant or factory within the city limits. The rain had such an unusual colour because its drops contained concentrations of manganese and several other elements by far exceeding the norm, spokesmen for the service and the ministy told Itar-Tass. North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokov has ordered to expose the enterprise which effected the discharge and bring the responsible to justice. The phenomenon was not spotted anywhere else in the republic. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="14">14 Estonia To Take over as Chair of Baltic Sea Border Services Baltic News Service, June 22, 2000 A conference that ended Wednesday in St. Petersburg, Russia appointed Estonia presiding country of the organization of Baltic Sea countries' border services in 2001-2002. Border guard leaders from countries on the Baltic rim passed a resolution appointing Estonia the next president of the organization, a spokesman for the northwest division of Russia's federal border service told BNS. Participants in the meeting were pleased with the progress of mutual cooperation to date. Estonian border guard chief Tarmo Kouts characterized the present situation in the Baltic Sea region as busy, naming illegal migration, drug trafficking, smuggling and environmental issues as the principal challenges. The conference paid great attention to setting up a joint sea monitoring system on the Finnish maritime administration's proposal. Tentative plans are to start developing the system in the Gulf of Finland and later expand it to cover the whole Baltic Sea, a spokesman for the Estonian Border Guard Department said. The system that is to be based mainly on exchanges of information will enable Baltic Sea countries to keep track of the movement of ships and watch more closely vessels suspected of environmental pollution or smuggling. At a separate meeting of Estonian, Finnish and Russian border guard officials on the fringes of the conference the three-way cooperation earned high marks. Besides the above three countries' representatives, officials from Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, and Sweden, as well as observers from Bulgaria, took part in the meeting. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="15">15 Russia Gov't Not To Act on Sakhalin Proposal on Isles Kyodo News Service, June 19, 2000 The Russia government has no plan to act on a controversial proposal from local Sakhalin authorities to put three disputed islands in the northern Pacific claimed by Japan on the World Heritage List, a government source said Monday. The proposal reportedly came from the governor of Sakhalin, Igor Farkhutdinov, who exercises administrative control over a group of islands off northeastern Hokkaido that has been the focus of a long-standing territorial dispute between Japan and Russia. The source said the Russian government has no intention to accept the Sakhalin proposal nor would it send it on to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the U.N. agency in charge of administering the World Heritage List. The Japanese Embassy in Moscow says it has heard nothing from the Russian government about the Heritage List proposal. On Sunday, officials in Sakhalin said Farkhutdinov sent the World Heritage List proposal to the Russian Foreign Ministry as well as the Russian State Commission on Environmental Protection and the Moscow chapter of the Greenpeace international environmental group. According to Sakhalin officials, the proposal calls for putting Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai group -- the three disputed islands closest to Hokkaido -- on the UNESCO Heritage list. Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai, which are thinly populated, are known for their pristine natural environment. The three island groups, along with Etorofu further to the north, were seized by Soviet troops at the end of War II. In Paris, UNESCO officials said the U.N. agency has not received any documents from the Russian government nor from any environmental group about the World Heritage List proposal. Farkhutdinov is known for his strong views to keep the disputed islands -- known in Russia as the southern Kurils and in Japan as its Northern Territories -- in Russian hands. The territorial dispute has been the thorn in Japanese-Russian relations and prevented the two countries from even concluding a peace treaty to formally wind up diplomatic irregularities stemming from World War II. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) <a NAME="16">16 Duma To Debate Law on Spent Nuclear Fuel Imports This Year ITAR-TASS News Agency, June 19, 2000 The State Duma will debate draft laws regulating the import of irradiated nuclear fuel from other countries by Russia by the end of this year. The draft laws were prepared by the Atomic Energy Ministry and may be considered by the lower house of parliament either before it adjourns for summer vacations or at its autumn session, Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Vladimir Vinogradov said. He spoke at a conference of Russia's Nuclear Society in St. Petersburg on Monday. Chairman of the State Duma sub-committee on atomic energy Vladimir Klimov said Russia's capacities for processing uranium fuel from other countries into fuel for nuclear power plants are loaded by only 10-15 percent. However, more imports are prohibited by the law on environmental protection. If the Duma adopts the proposed amendments, Russia may control one-tenth of the world's irradiated nuclear fuel processing market which is estimated at 200 billion U.S. dollars. Deductions from these revenues will help solve the problem of scrapping old nuclear submarine and other nuclear weapons. (<A HREF="#Russian">back to top</A>) REDfiles subscription information: To unsubscribe, send an e-mail message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with "unsubscribe redfiles" in message body; to subscribe, send to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with "subscribe redfiles" in body. REDfiles is distributed free-of-charge and is for personal use only. 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