The Media Mirror – Russian press review

Today's Russian newspapers focus on the the new Russian Cabinet, the Shanghai Organization of Co-operation and its role in Central Asia.

Izvestia writes, most probably the Cabinet will be re-organized within the next few weeks. There is a new catch-phrase in circulation in Moscow, writes the paper: the President wants to deliver the country to his successor “on the turn-key basis.”

The same paper says the complete transcript of the Valday Club meeting has finally made it to the Internet. It quotes President Putin speaking about staying in politics after 2008: “That will be a fact the new President will have to take into account. Naturally, we’ll have to talk about the way in which we are going to function.”

Nezavisimaya Gazeta has a column by Professor Alexey Maslov who says, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is an arena on which major world powers compete for influence in Central Asia. China and Russia are the undisputed leaders of the organization. Often their interests are in total contradiction. But both China and Russia are making their best efforts not to let the U.S. dominate the region.

Another column, by Aziz Niyazi of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, says Central Asia has a huge dowry of energy resources. There are three main suitors: Russia, China and the U.S. The current tendency, says the author, is that China and Russia put most of the region under the umbrella of the SCO to push the U.S. out. The writer suggests that at some point in the future the three main players sit down together and find a compromise.

Vremya Novostei writes this year’s Teffy award presentation had all the makings of a good corporate event. 24 Bronze Orpheus figurines, the highest prize in Russian television, went to the anchors and presenters of Channel One. 16 went to other channels.

Moskovsky Komsomolets writes – with two other bigger television companies quitting the Russian Academy of Television, the competition was narrowed to the remaining members. Channel One is the biggest among them. However it was nice of the Academy, says the paper, to give an award to Nikolay Drozdov for his lifetime achievements as the author and presenter of V Mire Zhivotnyh, or “Animal World”.

The Russian Academy of Television moves in quite mysterious ways, said director Nikolay Dostal, a winner of this year, quoted by the paper.