PRESS DIGEST - RUSSIA - Aug 3
The following are some stories in Russia's newspapers on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
VEDOMOSTI
www.vedomosti.ru
- Russia's government has drafted a document approving spending of 3.7 billion roubles ($61.14 million) to raise the salaries of St Petersburg policemen, whose work is viewed as "extremely strenuous" by the Interior Ministry.
- Incomes of ordinary Russians are in a free fall for the third year, but this has not made them feel less happy, according to a survey by VTsIOM pollsters which found out that there was just one unhappy person for every six happy people in Russia.
- Moscow's former mayor Yury Luzhkov plans to double production of mushrooms next year to 90 tonnes. He produces them at his agrarian holding based in Russia's westernmost region of Kaliningrad.
- Russia's Agriculture Ministry will spend 14.8 billion roubles to support 41 projects aimed to modernise regional agrarian holdings, including those in Krasnodar and Stavropol regions and the North Caucasian republic of Chechnya.
KOMMERSANT
www.kommersant.ru
- The World Congress of Tatars hosted by Kazan, the capital of Russia's republic of Tatarstan, will appeal to Russia's president to support the extension of the region's power sharing treaty with the Kremlin which gives it the right to have its own president.
- The congress could also raise the issue of making Tatar the second state language in the region which should be used in schools, the daily reports.
IZVESTIA
www.izvestia.ru
- Private investment in Crimea in the past two years have by 13 times exceeded Russia's state spending on the local economy and reached 27 billion roubles, the daily writes.
- Russia's workforce will shrink by almost 8 million people by 2020 and by 12-25 million people by 2050, analysts say, urging the government to pass laws encouraging young people to have more children.
- The number of tourists to Uralvagonzavod, Russia's main battle tank producer, reached 7,000 people last year, 1.5 times more than in 2015, the daily writes, citing Russia's Rostourism agency which had issued reports on growing interest in "industrial tourism" in the country.
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA
www.ng.ru
- Only 11 percent of Russian businessmen believe that Russian laws can guarantee proper protection of their property, according to the National Agency for Financial Studies.
- Attacks of Moroccan locust on Russia's southern region of Kalmykia have destroyed local grain fields and pastures, and could spread to more regions in the south of Russia next summer, the daily reports.
KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA
www.kp.ru
- U.S. President Donald Trump has "untied Russia's hands" by supporting a new set of anti-Russian sanctions, says Russian publicists Mikhail Leontyev. President Vladimir Putin can now take "most sharp decisions in case of extreme necessity", Leontyev adds. ($1 = 60.5143 roubles) (Reporting by Tatiana Ustinova; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov)
