Russia Seeks Pledge From NATO on Missile Defense

“We do not want any missiles aimed at Russia,” the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said after talks in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad with his counterparts from Germany, Guido Westerwelle, and Poland, Radek Sikorski.

The meeting in Kaliningrad was part of an effort by the three countries to work together over political, security, energy and visa issues.

“This is about cooperation, not confrontation, about discussing concrete projects,” Mr. Westerwelle told hundreds of students at Kant University who had gathered to question the three officials.

Mr. Lavrov said Russia wanted “some kind of written guarantees from NATO that the missiles will not threaten Russia.”

Russia has in the past threatened to place missiles in Kaliningrad — a small area with a population of nearly one million that is sandwiched between two European Union countries, Poland and Lithuania — in response to NATO’s plans to deploy part of its missile shield in Eastern Europe.

President Obama, who is to visit Poland next week, intends to deploy Patriot missiles there, but not the original missile shield system that the administration of President George W. Bush had promised to do. The Bush administration’s plans to place parts of the missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, which were once part of the Soviet military alliance, led to a sharp deterioration of relations between Washington and Moscow. The Russian prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, has said that the deployments would undermine Russia’s security.

Mr. Obama’s decision to shift strategy was not only because of the costs and the need to modify the scope of any missile defense system that would provide a much broader security umbrella over Europe. The administration said it also wanted to “reset” its relations with Russia.

During Saturday’s discussions, the ministers agreed that their meeting could evolve into something more permanent — like the Weimar Triangle, which the French, German and Polish foreign ministers set up 20 years ago after the reunification of Germany. The Weimar Triangle helped to lead to reconciliation between Poland and Germany, ending decades of enmity and distrust.

Mr. Lavrov acknowledged that Russia could not ignore Poland’s new role on the Continent, now that it is a member of the European Union and it is scheduled to take over the rotating presidency on July 1.

The three officials also discussed Belarus on Saturday. Poland and Germany, with support from France, want European foreign ministers to impose more sanctions against Belarus. The sanctions, already imposed on the top leadership, could be extended to some enterprise managers. At the same time, Poland and Germany intend to strengthen their ties to civil society and the democratic opposition.

Russia, however, said it opposed more sanctions. “This will only lead to further isolation,” Mr. Lavrov said. “That will do nothing to help the way towards direction.”

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Russia mulls chemical castration

。 10 May 2011 Last updated at 12:52 ET  Dmitry Medvedev said it was a duty for the government to discuss the issue Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said his country should consider voluntary "chemical castration" as a punishment for child sex offenders.

Mr Medvedev said convicted paedophiles should be punished as harshly as possible, including by having injections to reduce their sex drive.

Russia's influential Investigative Committee has already drawn up a draft law allowing for such a procedure.

But it is the first time the Kremlin has indicated its backing.

The process known as chemical castration generally involves injections that reduce levels of testosterone, thereby lowering sex drive. It is not a permanent procedure.

'Voluntary basis'

Mr Medvedev was quoted as saying at a government meeting that measures "including injections that block hormonal activity" should be considered for child molesters.

"The punishment should be as strict as possible," the Russian president said.

"Considering the frightening crimes committed, I think our duty is to at least discuss this issue."

He added that the injections would "probably be possible only on a voluntary basis".

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says Mr Medvedev's suggestion received widespread support, though some Russian politicians have suggested making chemical castration mandatory.

More than 9,500 sex crimes were committed against minors last year, according to Russia's top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin.

Russia Is Set to Propose Stricter Rules for Reactors

Power plants would become safer if the 29 countries that operate them accepted common and binding safety standards, Sergei V. Kiriyenko, the director of the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom, said at a briefing for journalists Wednesday in Moscow.

These countries should also commit to detailed procedures for releasing information about a leak, given the propensity of radiation to float across borders, Mr. Kiriyenko said.

The third proposal calls for governments to commit to taking the lead in responding to accidents. That would supplant the role typically taken by the operator or owner of a power plant. Governments, under the proposal, would intervene once a disaster passed Level 4 on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ’seven-level scale of nuclear disasters. Level 4 is defined as an “accident with local consequences,” while Level 5 is an “accident with wider consequences.”

In laying out these ideas, which Russia plans to present to the Group of 8 industrialized nations at a meeting this spring in France, Mr. Kiriyenko elaborated on a proposal announced Tuesday by the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, at a ceremony observing the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

The setting for that ceremony, near the ruins of the reactor, couched the Russian proposal as a magnanimous effort — the latest of many — to share the lessons of Chernobyl with a world at risk of nuclear blunders. Russia is also deeply invested in the continued global expansion of nuclear power, because it exports uranium fuel and reactor technology.

Vast commercial interests are tied up in the continued adoption of nuclear power and development of reactors, particularly in emerging markets, which are the primary customers of Russia’s nuclear exports. Those business prospects help make Russia particularly committed to improving safety, rather than letting demand disappear in a din of protests against nuclear power.

The Russians say they are now building more nuclear power plants than any other country, or 15 of the 60 new reactors under construction around the world today.

Rosatom says it has an additional 30 firm orders for reactors and plans to sell more.

Rosatom sells reactors for $2 billion to $5 billion. A subsidiary, Tvel, exports about $3 billion worth of low-enriched uranium fuel each year, or about 17 percent of global demand.

Some of that market is already drying up. Germany will close seven aging plants ahead of schedule, and Italy has extended indefinitely a moratorium on building plants.

Mr. Medvedev’s proposal, though announced in Chernobyl, may have been aimed at seizing some initiative in the public debate to restore confidence in the technology, more than at making a significant contribution to safety.

The proposal is intended to amend several decades-old global treaties, like the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage of 1963, to render International Atomic Energy Agency safety standards binding on the countries with civilian nuclear power plants.

Jeremy Gordon, an analyst with the World Nuclear Association, a trade group in London, said most national nuclear regulators already adhered to International Atomic Energy Agency standards, making it unclear why they would need to be made binding.

“Anybody who is using nuclear power in a serious way is already well within those guidelines,” he said. Of the Russian proposal, he added, “I could not put my finger on a concrete change that would make.”

For now, safety recommendations set by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based group known for its work to prevent the proliferation of bomb-making knowledge and materials, are voluntary for most countries. This is in contrast to nonproliferation rules, which are enforced by agency inspections and come under treaty obligations.