Декабрь 2009 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• "En Russie, l'intérêt pour le réchauffement climatique est proche de zéro"
• Russia and US in secret talks to fight net crime
• Les ours polaires, de plus en plus menacés, pourraient s'adapter
• Russia aims to modernise without compromise
• Russia to host Tiger summit in 2010
• Russia plans new generation of nuclear weapons
• La science et les technologies russes au jour le jour
  • Vers la construction d'un surgénérateur pilote
  • Le tabac, arme de lutte contre le cancer
  • La Russie investit 250 millions d'euros dans un laser européen
  • Moscou mise sur les moyens de transport électriques
• Russia's Armageddon plan to save Earth from collision with asteroid

В 2004 году Россия после долгих проволочек ратифицировала Киотский протокол, однако страна и ее руководители практически не уделяют внимания теме климата.

Après des années de tergiversations, la Russie a fini par ratifier le protocole de Kyoto en 2004, permettant même son entrée en vigueur un an plus tard. Depuis, le pays et ses dirigeants sont restés très discrets sur la question climatique. Décryptage, avec Vladimir Sliviak, co-président du mouvement écologiste russe Ecodefense.
Le sommet de Copenhague intéresse-t-il les Russes?
A vrai dire, jusqu'à maintenant l'intérêt pour le changement climatique est proche de zéro dans mon pays. Mais depuis l'engagement à réduire les émissions russes pris par le président Dmitri Medvedev lors du sommet Russie-UE en novembre dernier, et à l'approche du sommet, on constate que des médias commencent à en parler.
Comment expliquez-vous l'indifférence des Russes?
C'est psychologique. Les Russes se disent : "Nous avons beaucoup souffert dans les années 90, plus rien n'allait, et aujourd'hui c'est la même chose. Pas la peine de s'occuper de questions écologiques secondaires. Nous sommes pauvres et ce qui est important pour nous c'est de vendre du pétrole, du gaz et de gagner de l'argent. Une fois riche nous nous occuperons d'écologie". C'est une conséquence de la propagande de Vladimir Poutine.
Le réchauffement climatique n'est-il pas perçu comme une menace en Russie?
Certains vont jusqu'à dire que grâce au réchauffement, les terres de Sibérie pourront devenir plus exploitables pour l'agriculture. Mais c'est une grande erreur. Même si cela arrive, aurons-nous assez de temps pour nous adapter? Pas sûr. Car dans le même temps il y aura des conséquences négatives, des cataclysmes qui engendreront plus de dommages. La fonte du pergélisol (1) peut provoquer de sérieux problèmes. En Russie, certaines stations nucléaires ont été construites sur ces sols gelés. Leur fonte pourrait non seulement endommager les bâtiments, mais aussi les infrastructures électriques, les pylônes. Si une centrale nucléaire n'est plus alimentée en électricité, on court à la catastrophe.
Pourquoi les scientifiques russes sont-ils si peu présents dans ce débat sur le changement climatique?
Les scientifiques russes ne jouent aucun rôle dans les débats politiques depuis longtemps. C'est lié à l'histoire de la science russe, et notamment à ce qui s'est passé ces vingt dernières années. Après la chute de l'URSS, l'État a réduit le financement de la science de manière drastique. Et à la différence de l'Occident, en Russie il n'y a pas de financement privé de la recherche. Nos scientifiques ont vu leur salaire fondre, et les grosses compagnies privées en ont profité. Ainsi, les scientifiques ont perdu leur crédibilité. Et comme en plus, le monde scientifique russe est très hiérarchisé, les chercheurs ne font qu'exécuter les projets du gouvernement. Surtout que les meilleurs ne sont plus là, ils ont émigré vers l'Occident.
Que proposera la Russie à Copenhague?
La Russie s'est engagée à réduire de 20 à 25 % ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre d'ici 2020 par rapport au niveau de 1990. C'est le niveau minimal des recommandations formulées par les scientifiques internationaux qui demandent une réduction de 25 à 40% d'ici 2020. D'ailleurs, parvenir à cet objectif de 25% est facile: le déclin de l'industrie russe dans les années 90 a fait qu'aujourd'hui les émissions ont baissé de 60% depuis 1990. Ainsi, même si les émissions russes recommencent à augmenter de 1% par an, l'objectif sera respecté sans lever le petit doigt.

Россия, США и ООН ведут переговоры о борьбе с кибервойной и киберпреступностью, утверждает The Guardian, ссылаясь на публикацию в The New York Times и сообщения экспертов. Поскольку нарастает волна хакерских атак на основные институты и организации, в том числе банки, компании, государственные ведомства и вооруженные силы, дипломаты стараются выработать международный консенсус о способах обеспечения кибербезопасности.

American officials have been holding secret talks with Russia and the United Nations in an attempt to strengthen internet security and rein in the growing threat of cyberwarfare.
The effort, first reported in the New York Times, is a virtual version of the nuclear arms talks being held between the two nations in Geneva - but rather than focusing on bombs and missiles, the discussions are aimed at curbing the increasing level of attacks taking place online.
With a rising tide of strikes by hackers on major institutions - including banks, businesses, government agencies and the military - diplomats are attempting to forge an international consensus on how to deal with cybersecurity problems.
"Both sides are making positive noises," James Lewis, a senior fellow at the centre for strategic and international studies and a cyber security expert, told the Guardian. "We've never seen that before."
The potential for online warfare has become a hot topic in recent years, after a string of major incidents. Large-scale cyberattacks took place during last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia while the Estonian government came grinding to a halt after an internet assault in 2007.
Critics have said the scale and impact of such incidents may be overstated, but experts accept there are serious dangers from criminal gangs operating online - as well as the rapid growth of state-sponsored espionage conducted over the internet.
Earlier this year, some of the plans for a new £2bn fighter aircraft being developed by the US, UK, Netherlands and Israel were stolen when hackers broke into American computers. Two years ago, it was revealed that hackers thought to be linked to the Chinese People's Liberation Army had breached computer security systems at the Pentagon and Whitehall.
The latest discussions are thought to be an attempt to broker some sort of cross-border agreement over a number of issues related to internet security. Russia is said to be seeking a disarmament treaty for cyberspace, while the US hopes to use the talks to foster greater international cooperation on cybercrime.
Lewis confirmed that a Russian delegation met with officials from the US military, state department and security agencies in Washington about five weeks ago. Two weeks later, the White House agreed to meet representatives from the UN committee on disarmament and international security, the New York Times reported.
There are numerous sticking points however, not least the fact both the US and Russia - as well as most advanced militaries around the world - have sophisticated cyber warfare capabilities they are reluctant to document. Although the dangers of virtual conflicts are recognised, neither country is keen to hinder any future deployment by revealing the technologies they have developed, Lewis said.
Despite that, the talks mark a distinct turnaround from the approach of the Bush administration, which had resisted engaging with Russia and the UN over the prospect of a treaty on cyber weapons. Instead, it focused on dealing with cyber threats by economic and commercial means, rather than through the military.
Earlier this year, however, President Barack Obama identified cyber attacks as a "national security priority" and pledged to appoint a top-level White House adviser to co-ordinate responses..
"Cyberspace is real, and so is the risk that comes with it," he said in May. "From now on, our digital infrastructure will be treated as a strategic asset."
However, the post remains unfilled six months after the announcement, with disagreement inside the administration over how to coordinate the appropriate level of response. While some presidential advisers want the White House to take oversight of the issue, other top Obama aides prefer to let the commercial market handle cybersecurity. The US military and intelligence officials, meanwhile, prefer to pursue their own security programmes without direction from the White House.
Many American experts are more concerned with the financial threat of cybercrime and internet-based fraud, particularly since international enforcement efforts have been weakened by an inability to track and arrest the hackers responsible, many of whom are based in Russia and China.
Online crime is now a multibillion pound business worldwide, with criminal gangs across the globe conducting sophisticated cyber attacks to steal money from banks and disrupt commercial websites.
Last year, hackers broke into the Royal Bank of Scotland, using information gathered from to create cloned bank cards that were then used to withdraw more than £5m from cash machines in dozens of cities.
This August, an American man, Albert Gonzalez, pled guilty to his role in an attack that netted millions when an international hacking ring - largely based in Russia and the Ukraine - stole 130 million credit and debit card numbers from some of America's biggest retailers.
Despite knowing the identities of several individuals linked to Gonzalez, however, the lack of international cooperation means that the other culprits remain beyond the reach of US prosecutors.

Белые медведи в российской части Арктики находятся под угрозой вымирания из-за потепления климата. Таяние арктических льдов привело к сокращению площади обитания полярных животных. Медведи начали переселяться на территории, обжитые людьми, где им угрожает другая опасность - браконьеры.

Les ours polaires s'adaptent aux "effets catastrophiques" du réchauffement climatique, mais les modifications de leur habitat les poussent dangereusement près des humains, selon Nikita Ovsianikov, éminent spécialiste russe de l'Académie des sciences.
Leurs effectifs, répartis de l'Est de la Russie à l'Alaska, sont passés en 20 ans de 4.000 à 1.500 individus du fait de la fonte accélérée de la banquise. Cette fonte, qui rend la glace plus facile à briser, leur a aussi donné accès à de nouveaux terrains de chasse plus proches des sites habités, où le braconnage et la crainte les déciment, souligne le chercheur dans un entretien accordé à Reuters TV.
"Nous assistons sans doute à la répétition d'un modèle qui leur a permis de survivre à de précédentes périodes de réchauffement. La mer change, leur nourriture change, mais des ressources alternatives apparaissent", explique-t-il.
"Certaines populations risquent évidemment de disparaître complètement et d'autres vont diminuer dramatiquement, mais d'autres encore vont survivre."
Leur sort dépend pour l'essentiel de celui la banquise, où ils chassent le phoque, or cette banquise a atteint en 2007 la surface la plus réduite depuis l'avènement de l'observation satellitaire et d'aucuns craignent de la voir disparaître totalement l'été.
Nikita Ovsianikov, qui étudie les ours depuis 19 ans, en a filmé un traversant la glace accidentellement, puis se hissant péniblement hors de l'eau pour y tomber à nouveau. Une autre scène tournée par le chercheur montre des chiens s'attaquant à un plantigrade venu chercher sa pitance dans un village.
"Plusieurs mois pas an, tous les sites optimums en terme de nourriture pour les ours polaires se transforment pratiquement en eaux libres où ils ne peuvent pas vivre.
"Ils finissent sur des plages aux abords de zones habitées où ils se font tuer la plupart du temps", poursuit le scientifique, qui n'a toutefois pas perdu espoir de les voir échapper à l'extinction.
"L'ours polaire a survécu à quatre périodes de réchauffement au moins depuis l'ère glaciaire. Sur le plan biologique, ils peuvent y survivre", conclut-il.

Модное сейчас в России слово "модернизация" подразумевает широкий спектр реформ - от увеличения ассигнований на развитие различных наукоемких технологий до борьбы с коррупцией.

The latest buzzword in Moscow is modernisation. Everyone in Russia's chattering classes is using it, from President Dmitry Medvedev to assorted economists, commentators, bankers and businessmen.
It seems to mean many things - from investing in technology to rooting out corruption and cutting back the state's role. It is a response to the shock of the economic crisis that has hit Russia harder than others in the Group of 20 leading developed and developing economies and underlined its failure to diversify from an energy-based economy.
Mr Medvedev seems inclined to a minimalist approach: singling out sectors such as the nuclear industry, information technology, health and aerospace for a surge in state-inspired spending.
Liberal economists see a chance to reopen the debate on the lack of competition in the Russian economy and its politics. But they fear that with the recovery of the oil price, pressure for more radical reform will disappear.
Another big theme in Russian government circles - on the face of it unrelated - is the proposal for a "new European security architecture". This has been talked about in Moscow for a year or more but nobody wanted to take it seriously in the rest of Europe or in the US.
It sounds like familiar thinking. Moscow wants an agreement to bind all the existing institutions of European security, including NATO and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, into a framework that would give it an effective veto - especially on any Nato enlargement.
On the eve of the OSCE's last ministerial meeting on December 1, Mr Medvedev published a draft European security treaty, to the surprise and alarm of the Nato allies and those who still want to join. The document would place all European states and organisations under a common umbrella, and allow any state to declare the actions of another to be a threat to its security. It makes no mention of protecting human rights, or ethnic minorities - the "third pillar" of the OSCE's founding treaty.
What seems to bind the two themes of security and modernisation together is a desire in the Kremlin to come in from the cold. But what is equally clear is that any return to warmer relations with the west should not do anything to disturb the power structure in Moscow or its regional sphere of influence.
Take Mr Medvedev's modernisation thesis. Andrei Ryabov, editor of the journal World Economy and International Relations, says the Kremlin's strategy seems to have a lot in common with that of Peter the Great or Joseph Stalin. "It means buying foreign technology while maintaining control, stability and law and order. You have a Utopian project which can hardly be realised, because the key actor [in Russia] will remain the state, with structures that are riddled with corruption."
When Mr Medvedev visited Singapore last month, he found his ideal model: a thriving economy amid strict control of political debate. That is just what Russia needs, he says.
Commentators such as Mr Ryabov argue that without economic and political competition, Russia will never wean itself off its dependence on oil and gas, because these revenues preserve the present power structure.
Igor Yurgens, head of the Institute of Contemporary Development in Moscow and a liberal who is a close adviser to Russia's president, sees a link between modernisation and external security. "We need 20 years to modernise our economy and all we ask for is external stability while we do so," he says.
Hence the need for a European security treaty, says Sergei Karaganov, head of Russia's Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. But it all depends how you define "external stability". For Russia, the greatest threat is Nato enlargement, says Mr Karaganov - above all if it includes Ukraine. Indeed, that would cause "a threat of a large-scale war in Europe". For him, last year's five-day war between Russia and Georgia was a victory for Moscow because it stopped further talk of expanding the Atlantic alliance.
There lies the rub. Russia wants to engage, but entirely on its own terms. It wants investment without excessive reform. It wants a security deal that largely ignores the sovereign choices of its neighbours. That is likely to be too high a price for the rest of Europe to pay.

В 2010 г. в России пройдет первый международный "тигриный саммит", цель которого - разработка стратегий сохранения и восстановления популяций тигров, которые за последние 100 лет сократились в 25 раз, а в некоторых регионах исчезли вообще. Инициатива проведения саммита принадлежит российскому отделению Всемирного фонда дикой природы.

MOSCOW: Russia will host a tiger preservation summit in Vladivostok in 2010, according to the Russian branch of World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Scientists decided to use Oriental calendar and the coming year of the Tiger to promote public awareness of the situation with Amur tigers, Igor Chestin, Director of the Russian branch of WWF said on Thursday.
Chestin said that the Russian government, WWF and World Bank initiated the Tiger summit, in which the heads of 13 states are expected to participate.
Only 3200 wildlife tigers remain today, according to Vyacheslav Rozhnov, deputy director of the Ecology and Wildlife Evolution Institute.
WWF estimates Russia's Khabarovsk and Primorye regions have 500 Amur tigers at present.
The Natural Resources ministry will draft a tiger preservation program for the summit, which along with anti-poaching measures will urge for measures to stop cutting cedar forests, the natural habitat of tigers, and expand the territory of wildlife reserves.

Президент Медведев заявил, что Россия будет разрабатывать ядерное оружие нового поколения, дабы укрепить потенциал сдерживания. По словам Медведева, Россия и США близки к новому соглашению о сокращении ядерных арсеналов, но разработки стратегических наступательных вооружений, в том числе ракет-носителей, в России продолжатся. Идею полного отказа от ядерного оружия, которую выдвинул Обама, Медведев назвал правильной, но предостерег, что для ее реализации понадобится время.

MOSCOW, Dec 24 - Russia will work on a new generation of atomic weapons to strengthen its nuclear deterrent, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, just hours after Moscow test-fired one of its most feared missiles.
Mr Medvedev said that Russia and the United States were close to a landmark deal on cutting arsenals of Cold War nuclear weapons, but that Moscow would still push ahead with the development of new strategic offensive weapons.
"Of course, we will develop new systems, including delivery systems, that is, missiles," Mr Medvedev told the directors of Russia's three main state-controlled television channels.
Mr Medvedev said Washington and Moscow had agreed most of the remaining issues for a deal to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which led to the biggest reduction in nuclear weapons in history.
"Despite the fact that we will prepare and sign this treaty, we will nevertheless develop our strategic offensive forces because without this there is no way to defend our country," Mr Medvedev said, several hours after the armed forces test-fired a nuclear capable missile.
The new missiles would be developed in full accordance with arms agreements made with the United States, he said.
The Kremlin chief said US President Barack Obama's idea for a nuclear-free world was "beautiful and right" but cautioned that it would take time.
The Kremlin chief said he had a "special relationship" with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who many Russians believe is still the country's paramount leader, though he struck a wistful tone when asked about his role, lamenting a lack of freedom.
"It is a simple question - of course freedom and free time," said Mr Medvedev, who in May will mark the mid-term of his presidency after nearly two years of speculation that Putin may one day return as president.
"The life of the first person, of the top leaders, is an array of limits and the saddest thing is that you only feel them at the moment when you start this work," he said.
The interview, lasting 1 hour 21 minutes, contrasted sharply with Putin's confident 4-hour televised question-and-answer session with the Russian people on Dec 3, when he ruled out leaving politics and hinted he could run in 2012 presidential elections.
Putin presided over Russia's longest economic boom in a generation while president, although Russia was hammered by the economic crisis half a year after he left office in May 2008.
Mr Medvedev said the crisis had shown the vulnerability of Russia's economy, which he said had contracted by at least 8.7 percent in 2009, the worst performance in 14 years.
"The exit from the crisis will be fairly slow," Mr Medvedev said, adding that growth could total 2.5 to 5.0 percent in 2010.
"We still have an economic system which is based on the energy market," he said. "Without modernisation, our economy has no future even though it relies on huge natural riches."

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