Апрель 2000 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Putin presents awards to Russian scientists.
• Moscow conference discusses federal World Ocean programme.
• Roshydromet to hold readings dedicated to meteorologist.
• Bay Area's new startup: Russian democracy.
• Russia's first tech support centre open in Novosibirsk.
• Duma to inquire about state support of biotechnologies.
• HL:New University of the Arctic taking shape
• Young nuclear scientists to establish contacts at congress
• Putin says Russia must increase its nuclear potential
• American Held in Moscow Identified
• DeBakey arrives in Russia for heart surgery symposium.
• Head of Russian College Suspended.
• Quality Stressed in Sino-Russian Nuclear Power Plant.
• Mir's ups and downs mirror Russian life..
• Mir Gets New Lease on Its Scientific Life

"Наша задача состоит в том, чтобы дать возможность молодым ученым в области ядерной физики познакомиться и обменяться идеями, поговорить о своих достижениях," говорит глава организационного комитета конгресса Мариан Кристов. О значении форума говорит тот факт, что на него собрались представители международных организаций и руководители министерств и ядерных обществ из 42 стран.

PRAGUE April 10 (Itar-Tass) - The organisers of the first youth congress on nuclear energy that opened in Bratislava on Monday expect it to lead to the consolidation of direct creative contacts between young nuclear scientists and organisations in which they are employed. "Taging part in the congress are 250 nuclear scientists and staffers of nuclear power stations from 42 countries who are aged under 35," Tass was told by chief of the secretariat of the congress's organising committee Marian Kristof.
"Our task is to enable young nuclear scientists to get acquainted, to exchange ideas, speak of their achievements," Kristof said. The importance of the forum is highlighted by the fact that it is attended by representatives of international organizations and of chiefs of ministries and nuclear societies of various countries".
The congress which is to last till Friday was addressed by Russian Minister for Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov. He declared for the development of cooperation between nuclear scientists and said that this is one of the elements of the stabilization of the world economy.

VLADIMIR PUTIN began outlining his recipe for a strong Russia yesterday by telling nuclear weapons designers their work was vital to the country and growing ever more important. Any power's place in the world was determined by its military might and Russia had to boost its nuclear potential, the president-elect said during a visit to a top-secret closed city in the Urals.
The choice of destination for his first trip outside Moscow since his victory in last weekend's elections, a highly sensitive centre for nuclear weapons research, was heavy with symbolism.
The Telegraph was among a small group of foreign media invited to join the presidential party. Mr Putin took the opportunity to practise his muscular rhetoric. Although far from that of Cold War confrontation, it was steeped in calls for strengthening Russia's stock of strategic weapons.
In a speech to an audience of top scientists and security officials, he said: "We must raise the efficiency of our defensive potential. The significance of your work is not declining, but will increase many times over. "The nuclear industry is part of our strategic interest. The level of its development defines the status of any power and its ability to defend itself from aggression." He insisted that he was not advocating a new arms race or an increase in Russia's nuclear arsenal, merely its rationalization to make it more effective. He promised to pursue a further reduction in the number of Russia's strategic weapons and redouble efforts to persuade parliament to ratify Start 2, a key demand of the United States. He said: "We will retain and strengthen Russia's nuclear weapons and its nuclear complex. This is not about increasing weapons which we have a surplus of anyway. We are talking about increasing the country's security and the dependability of its nuclear shield."
"Dependability", "efficiency" and "effectiveness" are rapidly turning into the watchwords of the new Putin administration and the president-elect even urged the West to pay more attention to them than to take fright at talk of a strong Russia. The West was wrong to detect in such rhetoric a yearning for totalitarianism or a return to repression, he said. "The West misunderstands our thesis about a strong Russian state. It interprets it as an increase in the use of force, the law enforcement agencies and the security services. "We have something completely different in mind, an effective state. It is a state which does not just stick to the rules of the game but is able to guarantee the same rules for everyone." Mr Putin was given a warm reception by the nuclear experts and a rapturous welcome by the ordinary people of the extraordinary town. Founded in 1955, for years it was known only by its post box number, Chelyabinsk-70, and was never shown on maps. Its main business to this day is the design, development and testing of nuclear weapons. Snezhinsk and a wide band of forest around it are surrounded by barbed wire and access to the town is strictly controlled, with armed guards at the main gate. Yesterday's visit was the biggest thing to hit Snezhinsk in its brief history and a large crowd turned out to greet their guest on the main square, still dominated by a huge statue of Lenin. Most local people regard their town not as a prison but as a haven from the evils of modern Russia. Galina Grigorievna said: "I would never want it to be opened up. There would be so much crime."
Snezhinsk has suffered from the collapse of state financing which hit science in the Nineties. The town receives financial aid from America, to prevent a brain drain of Russian scientists giving rogue states such as Iraq or North Korea a boost in attempts to produce a nuclear bomb.

Личность американского бизнесмена, задержанного в Москве по подозрению в шпионаже, установлена.

MOSCOW (AP) -- An American businessman being held on espionage charges in the latest U.S.-Russian spy scandal is a former Navy officer who made frequent trips to Russia to meet with scientists, officials said Friday. Edmond Pope, who once worked at a research laboratory fostering ties with Russian research institutions, was arrested by Russian security services on Wednesday, according to an official at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
The State Department did not officially identify Pope until Friday because he had earlier refused to sign a privacy waiver, said the American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
So far, the reaction to Pope's arrest has been muted, and it remained unclear what effect it would have on Russian-American ties that have been strained by a string of spy scandals in recent months. By Friday, State Department spokesman James Rubin had only made a short statement, while Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, would still not confirm that Pope was the man it had arrested.
Russian prosecutors have not filed any formal charges against Pope, who was being held at the Lefortovo prison in Moscow, U.S. officials said. They said he had been visited by a U.S. consular official and appeared to be in good health. When the FSB made its arrest, it said the American it detained had been found with technical drawings, recordings of conversations and receipts for payment to Russian contacts. It said a Russian was arrested in the same operation.
After retiring from the Navy, Pope worked from 1994-97 with Pennsylvania State University's Applied Research Laboratory, which does research projects for the military. Attempts to get comment from Pope's family were unsuccessful Thursday and Friday.
A spokesman at Pennsylvania State University told The Associated Press that he had contacted Pope's wife, but that she did not want to talk to the media. Pope was an "assistant for foreign technology" who developed contacts between Russian and American research institutes and worked on converting technology for commercial uses, a statement from Penn State said. He left the laboratory to create CERF Technologies International, which "has commercial contacts with organizations in Russia," according to the statement. The laboratory still maintains contact with Pope, who has helped in facilitating collaborations with research institutes in Russia, the statement said. An article from the journal Penn State Agriculture, dated winter 1997, mentioned Pope as having obtained a highly sensitive spectrometer from a Russian scientist for use by a graduate student at the Applied Research Laboratory.
A separate article on icebreaking technology, dated from 1994, describes Pope as being affiliated with the Office of Naval Research, which in the past has awarded contracts to the Applied Research Laboratory. A U.S. diplomat was expelled from Russia last year after being briefly detained by the FSB. Washington then expelled a Russian diplomat who was allegedly monitored transmissions from a bugging device discovered at the U.S. State Department.

В Россию для участия в симпозиуме прибыл известный американский кардиохирург DeBakey Симпозиум организован Американским Медицинским Центром в Москве и Российской академией наук. Форум также посетит российский министр здравоохранения Юрий Шевченко и ведущие специалисты в области медицины.

MOSCOW, April 17 (Itar-Tass) - U.S. surgeon Michael DeBakey arrived in Russia on Monday to attend a symposium on cardiovascular surgery.
DeBakey told Itar-Tass at Moscow's Sheremetyevo-2 airport upon arrival that the symposium is the main but not the only purpose of his trip. On Tuesday, he will attend a solemn ceremony at the Russian Academy of Sciences where he will be awarded for achievements in the field of medicine. Asked whether he knew anything about former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's condition, DeBakey said he had not talked either with him or his doctors lately. He believes Renat Akchurin, who operated on Yeltsin, should know about this better.
Akchurin will make a report at the symposium to be held on Tuesday. The symposium has been organised by the American Medical Centre in Moscow and the Russian Academy of Sciences. The forum will also be attended by Russian Health Minister Yuri Shevchenko and other leading medics.

Юрий Савельев, ректор Балтийского Государственного Технического Университета в Санкт-Петербурге, был отстранен от работы в соответствии с распоряжением Министерства просвещения в начале марта за то, что школа помогала Ирану в создании ракет, обучая иранских студентов. Университет, известный также как Военмех, является технической школой, которая специализируется в области ракетной техники и имеет близкие связи с российской армией. В 60-х и 70-х годах профессора университета участвовали в создании ядерных ракет Советского Союза.

MOSCOW, (AP) - The head of a Russian engineering university has been suspended following allegations that the school helped Iran develop missiles by teaching Iranian students, a newspaper said Tuesday. Yuri Savelyev, the rector of Baltic State Technical University in St. Petersburg, was suspended by an Education Ministry decree in early March but was still receiving his pay, the daily Moscow Times reported, citing a ministry spokeswoman. The suspension came two weeks after the Russian Hard-Currency and Export Control service advised the school to stop training postgraduate students from Iran, the report said.
Baltic State, also known as Voenmekh, is an engineering school that specializes in rocket science and has close ties to the Russian military. Its professors helped design the Soviet Union's nuclear missile fleet in the 1960s and 70s. The school's curriculum includes classes on secret military technologies, but university officials denied that the Iranians had access to any of that information, the Moscow Times said. The United States had repeatedly accused the university of selling missile technology to Iran, and in 1998 the U.S. State Department introduced sanctions against the school.
Savelyev claimed his suspension was the result of political maneuvering, and said he and the university were unfairly victimized. In a letter to President Vladimir Putin, Savelyev called his suspension the "butchery of Voenmekh by bureaucratic authorities in the name of political ambitions and the interests of the United States," the Moscow Times reported. Savelyev is known for his less-than-amicable attitude to the U.S. administration. Last spring, when NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, he fired four American professors teaching business at an institute affiliated with Baltic State. He hired them back several days later, after they signed a letter saying they did not approve of NATO bombings, the Moscow Times reported.

Безопасность строящейся на восточном побережье Китая ядерной электростанции гарантируется

NANJING (April 10) XINHUA ,- A series of effective measures have been taken to ensure the safety of the Sino-Russian Tianwan Nuclear Power Station under construction in Lianyungang, a famous coastal city in east China's Jiangsu Province.
More than 40 Chinese nuclear specialists have been sent to Russia to supervise the manufacture of the equipment while a team of Russian experts are stationed in Lianyungang providing technical guidance, according to Ouyang Yu, chief engineer of the Jiangsu Nuclear Power Co., Ltd.. Ministerial officials from both sides meet every three months to coordinate the construction of the nuclear power station, said Ouyang, who is also an academician scholar with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
"The station has prevented severe accidents and in terms of safety standards will be comparable to all other Chinese nuclear power stations now in operation or under construction," Ouyang said. The new station, the largest cooperative project between the two countries, is designed in strict compliance with the latest safety regulations and norms from the International Atomic Energy Agency and also takes into account the experience of Russia and other Western countries in building and operating nuclear power stations.
Key technology used for it has been modeled after that nuclear power stations built in Russia and other countries. According to Ouyang, the new station will have four Russia-made pressurized water reactors installed, each with a generating capacity of one million kilowatts.
These pressurized water reactors will have four safety backup systems, as compared with two at other nuclear power stations. Siemens digital instrumentation and control systems, believed to be the most advanced in the world, will be adopted to ensure the sound, smooth operation of the nuclear station.

Two cosmonauts dock April 6 with the aging station, which had been set to crash

The thrills and spills of Mir, the first and presently one-and-only permanent orbiting space station, may be the most oft-recurring news story out of Moscow. That is, aside from the many crises of Russia itself, whose destiny the station has mirrored over the past 14 years with perverse fidelity.
Like Russia, which elected a youthful Vladimir Putin less than two weeks ago amid much talk of national renewal and brave horizons, the creaking Mir station has just been granted an unexpected new lease on life. Russian cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kalyeri, blasted off from the old Soviet spaceport at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on April 4. The capsule is to dock April 6, when the crew will "knock on the door, switch on the lights, and see how everything's going up there," according to Jeffrey Manber, president of MirCorp. The Amsterdam-based consortium is the latest in a string of private investors who have pledged to save the station from imminent demise by putting up $20 million for the mission. The company's vision is to transform the station into an orbiting hotel, tourist spa, and movie set. But plans to send along a Russian actor for a film shoot during the current mission had to be scrapped in a financial dispute.
After Mir was left dormant eight months ago, it was scheduled to tip out of orbit and go down in flames above the Pacific Ocean. "Through privatizing the renovation and maintenance of the Mir, it can stand for years to come as an emblem of how much humanity can achieve," trumpets MirCorp's Web site. The phrase almost might have been torn from Mr. Putin's own manifesto for Russia's future.

A 'symbol of perseverance'

Not ready to pull the plug

Начало дайджеста за АПРЕЛЬ 2000 года (часть 1)

предыдущий месяц

1998-2000

следующий месяц