CSTO to streamline crisis reaction mechanism.

MOSCOW, December 10 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
will chair a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
on Friday which will streamline its crisis reaction mechanism.
A Kremlin official told Tass "the central topics will be the
streamlining of the crisis reaction mechanism of the CSTO and enhanced
potential of the organization in efficient counteracting of modern
security challenges and threats."
CSTO secretariat specified changes to the mechanism will be introduced
into all major documents of the organization. Besides, a completely new
document will be proposed for signing - CSTO provisions on crisis reaction
rules.
"It regulates the algorithm of operations of permanent working bodies
and envisages urgent consultations and decision-making regarding measures
aimed at preventing (settlement) of crisis situations," it said.
The CSTO Treaty will specify measures to assist member-states to
neutralize threats to security, territorial integrity and sovereignty. The
CSTO charter will be amended to provide for joint measures to create an
efficient collective security system that will ensure collective
protection in case of threats to security, stability, territorial
integrity and sovereignty and implementation of the right for collective
security, according to the secretariat.
The Kremlin said the presidents also "plan to consider streamlining
collective security system, developing military-economic and
military-technical cooperation, military buildup, streamlined reaction to
emergency situations, information security, and several organizational and
administrative issues of CSTO operations."
A statement on CSTO peacekeeping forces is likely to be adopted.
CSTO unites Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia,
Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Belarus will take over rotating annual CSTO presidency at the summit.

.CIS summit to discuss free trade, crime fight.

MOSCOW, December 10 (Itar-Tass) -- A regular CIS summit will discuss
free trade, crime fight, and military cooperation in the Kremlin on Friday.
"Special attention will be paid to prospects of enhanced economic
cooperation. The summit agenda envisages the discussion of a free trade
agreement for the CIS which would promote the legislative base that meets
modern requirements and liberalization of trade on the CIS space,
elimination of barriers in mutual trade," the Kremlin press service said.
In the law enforcement and military spheres the presidents will
consider an agreement on international search for wanted people, as well
as targeted programs for 2011-2013 on the fight against crime, terrorism,
extremism, illegal drugs and human trafficking. Besides, the agenda
includes military cooperation concept up to 2015 and agreed border
protection measures for 2011-2015.
Moldova's acting President Mihai Gimpu will miss the summit because of
the complicated political situation in the country that followed early
parliamentary elections. Gimpu said he had authorized Deputy Prime
Minister Valeriu Lazar to sign all the documents on the agenda of the CIS
summit.

.Chief justice warns against iron-hand dictatorship.

MOSCOW, December 10 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Chief Constitutional
Justice Valery Zorkin warned that current interpenetration of crime and
officialdom may force the country to degrade and advocate an iron-hand
rule.
The interpenetration of crime and officialdom has reached such a major
scope in Russia of late that it threatens the constitutional system and
puts the ambitious modernization plans in doubt, he said in an article
published in Rossiyskaya gazeta daily on Friday.
"All grandiose development plans, which are modernization plans for
Russia, will collapse if the state fails to protect its citizens from
criminal arbitrariness," Zorkin warned.
He said the recent murder of 12 people in the settlement of
Kushchevsakaya in Krasnodar territory was a clear evidence of the
interpenetration which is typical of numerous other Russian regions as
well.
"Criminals take over major functions of the state and civil society
and the consequences are not just alarming, but terrifying," Zorkin
stressed.
He said society may split into a minority of "predators" and a
majority of despaired "walking beefsteaks" who "will dream not of
democracy, but of an iron- hand dictatorship capable of offering at least
an alternative to criminal jungles."
The iron hand will not change the situation, as it will be the
dictatorship of criminals, specifically at the regional level, Zorkin
warned.
"The state which is incapable of defending its citizens from massive
violence of bandits and corrupted officials is doomed to degradation. I
stress degradation, not stagnation."
He lashed out at claims that stabilization is a precondition for
national development.
"What stabilization we are talking about? Who do we guarantee
stabilization? To people or criminal communities terrorizing the
population? What is being stabilized? The norm or criminal pathology?"
Zorkin asked rhetorically.
The chief justice said he deliberately dramatizes the situation to
stress its scope and design remedies.
"We in Russia have to urgently and soberly study and comprehend and
borrow the best practice in the world experience," Zorkin said and offered
the United States as an example.
"Delayed fight against organized crime is catastrophically undermining
the very basis of Russian existence - the basics of its constitutional
system. Our duty today is to acknowledge the acuteness and the scope of
the threat pending over Russian society. Decriminalization of social,
economic and political life is our main task in protecting the rights and
freedoms of citizens and in establishing the rule of constitutional law,"
Zorkin said.
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