Russian Press - Behind the Headlines, September 19

© Alex StefflerRussian Press - Behind the Headlines, September 19
Russian Press - Behind the Headlines, September 19 - Sputnik International
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South Stream shareholders sign binding agreement / “Socialism with a human face” in 2011 election comeback / MAK releases preliminary findings on YAK-42 air crash

Moskovsky Komsomolets

South Stream shareholders sign binding agreement

Russia’s Gazprom, Italy’s Eni, France’s Electricite de France and Germany’s Wintershall on Friday signed a shareholder agreement for the South Stream gas pipeline at the Sochi investment forum in the presence of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The pipeline’s tentative cost is estimated at 15.5 billion to 25 billion euros. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych opposes the proposed route.

Gazprom’s plans for South Stream and Nord Stream were born of controversy. After a gas war with Ukraine in 2006, when the transit country siphoned off gas from Russia’s export pipelines, President Vladimir Putin proposed building bypass pipelines under the Baltic Sea (Nord Stream) and the Black Sea (South Stream). Russia delivers 120-140 billion cubic meters of natural gas to its EU customers each year. Putin attended the recent launch of Nord Stream’s first line recently. The first line of the southern pipeline is to come on-stream on December 30, 2015. Russia will be able to export up to 118 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe through the two pipelines, including 63 billion through South Stream, from 2018. This will leave Ukraine bereft of transit revenue.

No Ukrainian president would be pleased by this turn of events, which is why Viktor Yanukovych proposed in Yalta on Friday that South Stream be built across southern Ukraine – not under the Black Sea as currently planned. He claimed this would work out five times cheaper than Gazprom’s 25-billion-euro project. The Russian energy giant quickly rejected what seemed a beneficial offer, saying it will only cost 10 billion euros to build the pipeline under the Black Sea. However, the geopolitical aspects of the problem are more important than the economics: South Stream was initially designed to bypass “fraternal” Ukraine.

South Stream has more dangerous rivals, though, in particular EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger. He recently warned Moscow that the European Commission would interfere in Russian projects if Russia exerts pressure to block alternative gas pipeline projects, notably Nabucco (31 billion cubic meters annually) and the Trans-Caspian Pipeline. Oettinger insists that European officials attend all of Gazprom’s gas talks. After all, competition must be fair.

However, the four companies signed a legally binding agreement on Friday whereas the European projects are becoming more expensive by the day and so far lack the gas supply to fill them.


Nezavisimaya Gazeta

“Socialism with a human face” in 2011 election comeback

The United Russia party formalized a Social-Conservative Union at a conference on Saturday. The idea is that it should function as an ideological alliance supporting the Russian Popular Front and United Russia.

The party in power seems to be altering its policy to incorporate new people with different outlooks flowing into it through the Popular Front.

A Just Russia, the second largest political party, also announced new projects on a similar track. The Communist Party, Yabloko, and Patriots of Russia have “civilized socialism” based platforms for this year’s campaign. Even Right Cause tried to squeeze some left-of-center socialist slogans into their program at the last minute.

 Yury Shuvalov, a senior United Russia official, was elected to head the new alliance. “Other parties have proposed European projects and integration with Asia. But Russia is one of the few countries capable of self-sufficient development. Russia’s choice is independent development,” he said. He reassured his audience that this does not mean an isolationist course, while warning his fellow party members against the development scenarios nationalists are trying to push through.

The modernization program is rooted in conservatism, explained United Russia’s Andrei Isayev, who heads the lower house labor and social policy committee. He believes the new union will draft expert solutions based on social-conservative values.

Lower house member Vladimir Medinsky proposed one expert solution at the conference. Given the challenges of 2012, he said, we should try and restore unity among the post-Soviet countries, because there is “strength through unity.”

Unfortunately, the conference participants have not explained how they planned to combine their new conservative ideology with their modernization drive.

A Just Russia is offering its voters the conservative values they have come to expect. The party plans to launch its new socialist project at its next conference.

Russian society is not responding to either socialist or conservative campaigns, unless ridicule counts, said Igor Yurgens, head of the Institute for Contemporary Development think tank.

There is no demand for socialism, however it is dressed up. “The wealthy leaders of United Russia and the Popular Front are cynically exploiting these organizations. They are opportunistically playing on left-of-center values but they do not believe in these values. In this sense, communist leader Gennady Zyuganov is much more honest,” Yurgens said.

“The discrepancy between rhetoric and reality, combined with the lies at all levels of government will eventually take this ideology to an absurd extreme,” he added.

Meanwhile, Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy head of the Levada public opinion center, believes Russia is witnessing a revival of socialist values. “Parties and groups usually put out populist pledges before elections, accompanied by socialist slogans,” he said adding that old-age pensioners, who are the most diligent voters, tend to drift leftwards with age.

It looks like socialism is gaining momentum alongside nationalism ahead of the parliamentary elections, both apparently renewed and “with a human face”. Time will show how perceptive Russians are to each of the trends.


Rossiiskaya Gazeta

MAK releases preliminary findings on YAK-42 air crash

The Yak-42 airliner, which was to take the Lokomotiv ice hockey team to Minsk, reached a speed of about 230 kilometers an hour but failed to take off, and the crew began lifting the nose wheel at a speed of about 185 kilometers an hour – these are the preliminary conclusions made by the Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) over the weekend.

According to the obtained data, the aircraft got off the ground 400 meters beyond the runway exit lip when the elevator was deflected 13 to 14 degrees and the tailplane adjusted to 9.5 degrees to order to pitch up.

After the plane had taken off, it hit an on-course beacon system antenna, and its pitch angle increased to 20 degrees within two to three seconds.

The plane gained a maximum altitude of five to six meters. It rolled sharply to the left and crashed.

Test pilot Magomed Tolboyev believes 180 kilometers an hour is sufficient for take-off. He said he could not comment in detail because he did not know whether or not the air brakes were on or the wheels blocked.

No such information has yet been made public. Tolboyev plans to organize a Yak-42 flight under similar conditions.

According to MAK, although the engines were set for take off, there was a marked slowing in the acceleration rate, which could be ascribed to an additional braking force. The actual strength of this force will be established by mathematical simulation and an experiment in the field.

Neither the take-off weight nor the center-of-gravity position exceeded  permissible limits. This rules out one possible cause of the disaster: that the passengers all crowded into the forward section of the plane and upset the center of gravity during take-off. The engines were functioning at rated power for takeoff.

Preliminary simulations established that acceleration corresponded to the engine thrust until a speed of 165 kilometers an hour was reached. The technical commission also stated that the elevator was deflected 9-10 degrees for pitching (about half of the full stroke), but no pitch increase occurred. Six seconds later, the crew switched into take-off mode. Before taking off the crew checked all control channels twice, including the elevator. Elevator response was normal. The last check was carried out 1 minute 40 seconds before take-off.

MAK’s technical commission announced that official information relating to the crash investigation is to be found on its website alone. Any quoting of other sources, unofficial reports and the dissemination of various alternative accounts of the accident’s causes runs counter to the ethical principles of air accident investigation, and are in breach of both international and Russian rules regarding this kind of inquiry, the commission noted.

On September 14, for example, one newspaper, citing its own sources, said that the Yak-42 pilots might have forgotten to release the parking brake. Official sources did not confirm this at the time.


RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.

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