SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1013 (80), Tuesday, October 19, 2004
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TITLE: Putin: Bush Must Win or Terrorists Will Triumph
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Monday made his strongest endorsement yet for his friend U.S. President George W. Bush, saying "international terrorism" will claim victory over the international antiterrorism coalition if Bush loses. 
 
"I believe that the activities of terrorists in Iraq are not as much aimed at the coalition as at President Bush personally ... The goal of international terrorism is to prevent the election of President Bush to a second term," Putin said.
 "If they achieve that goal, then they will of course celebrate it as a victory... over America and, to a certain extent, over the forces of the international antiterrorism coalition," Putin told reporters in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, after a regional cooperation conference.
 Putin, however, was quick to point out that his views on the U.S.-led war on Iraq continues to differ from those of Bush and that he will "respect any choice of the American people" for president. 
 Asked by a reporter whether Democratic challenger John Kerry's criticism of Bush over Iraq might be inspiring international terrorist networks, as Bush contends, Putin said only that the Kremlin is ready to work with whoever wins the Nov. 2 election.
 Putin openly criticized the Democrats when he first voiced support for Bush's re-election on June 10. Speaking on the sidelines of a G8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia, Putin accused the Democrats of hypocrisy for criticizing Bush administration's actions in Iraq by pointing out that it had been Bill Clinton's administration that authorized the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia by U.S. and NATO forces.
 Eight days later, Putin offered Bush more support by announcing that before the Iraq war started, Russian intelligence had passed over information indicating Saddam Hussein was planning attacks on U.S. targets. Those comments left Bush administration officials scratching their heads, and some said they had never heard before about Russia sharing the information. 
 Political analysts expressed bewilderment over Putin's latest comments, saying his motives were unclear since his words would have little impact on U.S. voters. Voters started casting absentee ballots Monday.
 "It is sort of a bizarre [and] makes one wonder how well Putin and those around him understand U.S. politics," said Andrew Kuchins, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. 
 Kuchins and Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said Putin's words are highly unlikely to have any effect on the U.S. presidential campaign.
 Coverage of the remarks by state television also have no impact on U.S. voters and, if anything, only increase support for Bush among the Russian public, the two analysts said. More than half of all Russians hope that Bush wins re-election, according to a Sept. 3-10 survey commissioned by Moskovskiye Novosti. 
 Safranchuk said Putin might realize how little sway he has over U.S. voters but is still expressing his support for Bush because he would rather deal with a White House that continues to keep concerns about the Kremlin's record on democracy and Chechnya on the backburner of the official U.S.-Russian agenda. 
 Bush has warm relations with Putin and has kept U.S.-Russian relations focused on the global struggle against terror.
 Kerry, however, might return to a agenda pursued by the Clinton administration that engaged Russia on issues of strategic arms reduction, nonproliferation and democracy, Safranchuk said.
 Kuchins agreed. "The conventional wisdom is that Democratic administration will be more critical of internal affairs, trends in democracy and the war in Chechnya," he said.
 Kerry was much more vocal than Bush in his criticism of Russia during the presidential debate earlier this month. 
 Kerry said Putin's decision to scrap popular elections for governors and individual State Duma races as part of Russia's struggle against terrorism "goes beyond just the response to terror."
 "Mr. Putin now controls all the television stations. His political opposition is being put in jail," Kerry said.
 Despite any concerns Putin might have about a Bush loss, he should not have framed the outcome of the election as a possible "victory of the terrorist evil over good," Safranchuk said. 
 While Kerry would certainly not hold a grudge against Putin if he wins, key figures in his team might, he said. "They have filed away what Putin said and may remind [the Kremlin] about it," he said.
 Still, a Kerry administration might actually do a lot of good for both Putin and Russia by helping Moscow playing a more central role on the world stage, Safranchuk said. Among other things, Kerry has said he intends to engage the international community when embarking on foreign policy initiatives and has criticized Bush for ignoring the United Nations and antagonizing Washington's traditional allies.

TITLE: Call to Do More About Domestic Violence
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: American Bree Schuette, 29, who is fighting against her Russian husband for the custody of their daughter Veronika, aged four, and says he abused her, has said Russia needs to change its attitudes to and laws on domestic violence.
 
"In Russia, [domestic violence] has to get to the last point before the police and other official organs responsible for helping the victims finally react," Schuette said Monday at a news conference on family violence.
 On the night of Feb. 8, Schuette fled from her husband's St. Petersburg home in her pajamas after "particularly severe physical abuse." But she had suffered regular violence over several years, she said. 
 On Feb. 8, her spouse "hit her on her head, her body, twisted her arms and was strangling her," she said.
 She went straight to a police station, where she was told her plight was "a problem she should deal with herself at home." At her request, city prosecutors have since launched a lawsuit based on her allegations.
 Asked to comment, her husband Mikhail Slobodkin, 33, said he would not do so before court hearings on the custody of Veronika begin on Oct. 27.
 Yury Luchinsky, Slobodkin's lawyer, said Monday in a telephone interview that he was "unsure of Schuette's mental health." Luchinsky said that the only use of violence Slobodkin had admitted to was that on Feb. 8 he abused Schuette, but Slobodkin said it was only once and was not as vicious as his wife claims. 
 Luchinksy said Slobodkin did not want to surrender custody of Veronika to her mother, "taking into account her behavior and psychological condition."
 According to statistics, a woman is killed by domestic violence in Russia every 40 minutes. Every day 36,000 women are beaten by their husbands or partners.
 Natalya Khodyreva, head of St. Petersburg's Women's Crisis Center, said Monday that 300,000 Russians suffer from regular domestic violence.
 "The number of Russian women who have suffered from domestic violence exceeds the number of people who have suffered from terrorist attacks," Khodyreva said. Schuette said that despite her marriage being violent and abusive, with the violence getting worse in the last four years in Russia, she could not get the help she needed. 
 "All through that time police, doctors, colleagues and friends were unable or unwilling to discuss it," she said. "As a victim of domestic violence I can say that it remains a very big problem in Russia."
 Schuette met Slobodkin in her homeland at Boston University where they both studied economics.
 Six months after the relationship began, Slobodkin began abusing her sexually, verbally, and physically, she said. However, Schuette remained in the relationship.
 In January 2000, Schuette gave birth in the U.S. to Veronika. When Veronika was eight months old Slobodkin suggested that the family go for a short visit to his home city of St. Petersburg.
 While en route to Russia, Slobodkin told Schuette that he would not allow her to return home, and that they would stay to live in Russia, she said.
 In 2001, Schuette gave birth to the couple's second child - a son named Valery. The same year the couple got officially married. However, the boy died aged one year and three months.
 Slobodkin did not work and Schuette, who worked as an English-language teacher, was the family breadwinner, she said. She suffered medical problems as a result of the abuse, she added. 
 After fleeing her husband she made several attempts to leave Russia with her daughter. However, she couldn't take the child out of the country without Slobodkin's permission.
 Therefore Schuette fled Russia with the help of the U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg and returned in August to start a legal battle for Veronika's custody.
 On Sept. 28 the police department of the city's Vyborg district initiated a criminal case against Slobodkin under articles 115, 116, 119 of the Criminal Code. Those articles cover light body injuries, beatings, and threatening to kill.
 At the same time Slobodkin brought a civil custody case at the Vyborg district court for divorce, asking the court to decide where Veronika's should live, and demanding alimony from his wife, Schuette said. Marina Sidorchuk, Schuette's lawyer from JurConsult International law firm, said she and Schuette have been trying to get Slobodkin to agree to let Schuette meet Veronika sometimes, but he has refused. 
 Schuette said her husband said she would try to kidnap the girl.
 "It's nonsense," she said. "Because if I was planning to do so, I wouldn't be having all these legal proceedings." 
 Participants in the news conference, who shared their knowledge of domestic violence in Russia, are taking part in a conference on the issue that runs until Wednesday.
 One of the aims of the conference is to raise public awareness of domestic violence, they said. 
 Alexander Gogolkin, head of the Russian movement of Men of the 21st Century, said Russia's problems of domestic violence often have to do with the national patriarchal tradition, where a man is taught from his childhood to be in control of everything.

TITLE: Racial Attacks Continue After Student Slain
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: As foreign students continue to protest the stabbing death of a Vietnamese student, St. Petersburg authorities promised Friday to increase security and pleaded with them not to pack their bags.
 
A group of up to 18 young men attacked Vu An Tuan, a 20-year-old student from the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, on Wednesday night as he walked to the metro after attending a birthday party at a dormitory at the Pavlov Medical Institute. When he ran away, the attackers chased him down and stabbed him to death.
 Local media reported that his body had been flown to Hanoi, Vietnam, for his funeral.
 Police detained 15 suspects but released most of them for lack of evidence Friday, Itar-Tass reported. No suspects have been charged.
 Four of six other detained teenagers that had no relation to extremist movements were also released by Friday afternoon. Two others, who have been charged with theft in the past, were kept in detention for further examination, the police said.
 City Hall said it was ready to increase security in the area near the dormitory where the killing took place.
 "We will examine all the ways we can increase security for the students," Alexander Viktorov, head of the city administration's science committee, said after meeting with the Pavlov Medical Institute's board, Interfax reported.
 "In dormitories, we will increase controls on people who are not registered there." 
 He said the authorities will work more closely with the students "to make sure that even the slightest infringement does not go unnoticed."
 "Unfortunately, events of this kind badly influence the image of the city. But I hope there won't be a drop in the number of students," Viktorov said.
 About 15,000 foreign students are studying in 46 institutes and universities in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko said Saturday that she was "outraged by the monstrous crime" and that "99 percent of the city's residents feel the same."
 "For now, the most important thing is to solve this murder and establish who is behind it - mere hooligans or other types of criminals," she said.
 She promised that the case would be solved.
 State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, a former interior minister, urged the police to pay special attention to the case and take measures to prevent further attacks, Itar-Tass reported.
 On Thursday, the day after the Vietnamese student was killed in St. Petersburg, another event of a similar character happened in the Siberian city of Chita. Two drunk teenagers aged 15 and 16 stabbed to death a Chinese student from a local medical university, national media reported Monday.
 Early Friday morning, an unidentified group of people attacked two Uzbek citizens in Moscow, stabbing one of them to death. The attackers fled the scene of the crime.
 Last Wednesday eight teenagers severely beat a student from Kenya studying in Voronezh. A police patrol that happened to be near to the spot stopped the beating and detained the attackers who were later charged with hooliganism, the Moscow Human Rights Bureau reported Friday.
 It was the third recent attack on foreign students in Voronezh. In February, a medical student from Africa was killed by a group of teenagers.
 The latest attack on a foreign student occurred in St. Petersburg on Sunday evening when a group of young people provoked a fight with a Congolese citizen who was walking with a woman on Grazhdansky Prospekt. As a result of the fight with three attackers the student of Polytechnic University was delivered to the hospital with head injuries, Interfax reported Monday.
 The attackers fled.
 "We don't have any sort of eruption in crimes in relation to citizens of foreign states. I think we shouldn't exaggerate the situation," Interfax quoted Vladimir Gordiyenko, head of the federal criminal police, as saying Sunday.
 "To be objective, Russian citizens are more often victims of criminals from abroad," he said. Gordiyenko criticized the media, saying reporters are not objective. As an example o this he referred to the murder of nine-year-old Tajik girl in St. Petersburg in February. 
 He said the media did not pay enough attention to the way the case was investigated. 
 But local human rights advocates say the authorities are losing control over the problem of nationalism.
 "Another bloody crime, the killing of a foreign student who came to study in Russia, is an indication that a solid segment of community has formed in the country that blames foreigners for all their anger and dissatisfaction about the bad economic and social conditions of their lives," Yury Vdovin, vice chairman of human rights organization Citizen's Watch, said in a telephone interview last week.
 "This way of forming society seems to be very good for the authorities, because it believes it can control this segment," he said. "However, the fact is that it can't control it. This way, living here becomes dangerous for everybody, the community, foreigners and also for the authorities themselves." 
 <i>See letters, page 15. </i>

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>New NBN Format 
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The St. Petersburg-based NBN television channel has is to start broadcasting in a new format in January, Interfax reported Friday quoting Sergei Yamshchikov, the television company's general director.
 The changes are linked to a recent deal in which 100 percent of the channel's shares were sold to Rambler Media Group, Interfax quoted Yamschikov as saying.
 "They are not happy with the broadcast quality of the OTV channel, which belongs to them," he said.
 Rambler Media Group will invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy new equipment for NBN that will allow the channel to broadcast in digital-quality images, the general director said.
 
 
<b>Murder Trial Resumes
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The trial of seven suspects for the assassination of a five-year-old Tajik girl resumed Monday after it was adjourned last Wednesday, Interfax reported.
 The suspects' lawyers planned to file an official request for much of the evidence to be declared inadmisssible, Interfax reported.
 The group of suspects is charged with attacking members of a Roma community stationed near the Dachnoye train station on Sept. 21, 2003. The girl was badly injured and died in a hospital the next day.
 
 
<b>Starovoitova Hearing
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The City Court has resumed the murder trial over the slaying of State Duma lawmaker Galina Starovoitova, in November 1998, Interfax reported Monday.
 The court had been scheduled to start examining defense evidence on Oct. 5. The judge has completed hearing the testimonies of 60 investigation witnesses.
 The court has also examined a video tape of an interrogation of one witnesses made during the investigation and requested by the defense. The defense has insisted that the witness indirectly participated in preparation of the assassination, but was taken out from the investigation process because he is too young to be charged.
 The hearing was to be proceed last Thursday, but was suspended after the lawyer of Yury Kolchin, one of the suspects, failed to show because he was busy dealing with a different hearing.
 Seven suspects are on trail and federal search warrants have been issued for four others. Another suspect, Pavel Stekhnovsky, was detained in July in Belgium and is waiting a ruling on an extradition request filed by Russia. 



TITLE: Skeptics Say Belarus Referendum Rigged
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MINSK, Belarus - Opposition figures and election observers on Monday said widespread violations riddled a referendum that scrapped presidential term limits, allowing President Alexander Lukashenko to run for another term. 
 
Lukashenko shrugged off criticism and said the results of Sunday's vote showed he has people's trust. 
 &quot;I'm pleased with these results,&quot; Lukashenko said during a meeting Monday. &quot;Our 10-year work has received a high appraisal.&quot;
 Lukashenko has not said whether he will run again when his second term expires in September 2006, but he is widely seen as wanting to hold on to power. 
 Central Election Commission chairwoman Lidiya Ermoshina announced early Monday that a preliminary tally of all ballots showed that more than 77 percent of registered voters approved dropping the term limits and that nationwide turnout was nearly 90 percent. 
 &quot;It is a convincing victory. I consider it an elegant victory,&quot; Ermoshina said. 
 But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the vote - in which Belarussians also voted to fill the largely powerless 110-seat parliament - fell &quot;significantly short&quot; of democratic norms. 
 Lukashenko's opponents protested a government-endorsed exit poll showing the measure passing that was broadcast repeatedly on state television while polls were still open. Under Belarussian law, exit poll results cannot be announced until voting is over to avoid influencing those who have not voted. 
 But Ermoshina insisted that election laws were not violated. 
 Another exit poll, conducted by the independent Gallup Organization/Baltic Surveys, had only 48.4 percent of 37,602 respondents saying they voted to scrap presidential term limits, short of the simple majority needed for the measure to pass. The rest voted against, threw out their ballots or refused to answer. The poll had a margin of error of 1 percentage point. 
 Ermoshina dismissed the independent poll's results as lacking credibility. &quot;We stand comfortably by our reputation,&quot; she said at a news conference. 
 The elections filled 107 parliamentary seats, but none of the opposition candidates made it into the house. 
 &quot;That means they didn't have the people's support,&quot; Ermoshina said. 
 The opposition, which brought together anti-Lukashenko Communists and liberals, saw some 40 percent of its candidates stripped from the ballots. Opposition leaders said their observers were barred from some voting stations and denied the right to ensure no one tampered with ballot boxes from pre-election day voting. 
 Former Czech President Vaclav Havel also criticized the referendum and Lukashenko's government.

TITLE: Kholodov Trial in Limbo
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prosecutors investigating the killing of reporter Dmitry Kholodov promised to press ahead even though a 10-year statute of limitations on murder cases ran out Sunday.
 
The case is now in the Supreme Court, which will decide whether to uphold a lower court's acquittal of six suspects - four former paratroopers and two businessmen - or order a new trial.
 Kholodov, a 27-year-old investigative journalist for Moskovsky Komsomolets, died on Oct. 17, 1994, when he opened a suitcase bomb in his office. He thought the suitcase contained information about military corruption.
 &quot;Naturally, we would not like to apply the statute of limitations because this case isn't over yet,&quot; said Irina Alyoshina, who represents the Prosecutor General's Office in the case, Interfax reported.
 Igor Yartykh, lawyer for Pavel Popovskikh, the former head of paratroopers intelligence, said he was prepared to fight in court again. 
 Vladimir Levin, lawyer for Vladimir Morozov, another former senior paratrooper, said the defendants might ask the court to terminate the case.


TITLE: Chinese to Invest in Road
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Chinese investors may invest up to $1 billion in a high-speed toll road between St. Petersburg and Moscow, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, said during during an official visit to Beijing last week. 
 
&quot;The final decision hasn't yet been taken but we have signed a preliminary agreement,&quot; Interfax quoted him saying. &quot;Total investment may reach $1 billion.&quot;
 Gref said the road was just one of several large projects in Russia that Chinese investors may support. China is considering investing $350 million in a major construction project in Moscow, he added.
 The plan to construct a high-speed toll road between St. Petersburg and Moscow, which was unveiled by the Transportation and Communications Ministry last month, is scheduled to start next year.
 Construction is expected to take about five years and cost some 180 billion rubles ($6.2 billion), the ministry said.
 &quot;Half of the funding will be provided by the government, while the other half should be covered by private investors,&quot; said Viktor Bukreyev, deputy head of the Federal Road Agency. &quot;The investors will be granted the right to rent the adjacent lands for the long term.&quot;
 The exact route of the toll road is being kept secret to prevent land-price speculation. 
 Some analysts expressed skepticism about getting foreign investors interested as several recent grand-scale transport projects, as, for example VSM high-speed trains between Moscow and St. Petersburg, ended in a miserable fiasco. 
 Chinese businessmen apparently don't find this experience, as well as general situation in the country, an intimidating factor. 
 Direct investment from China into the St. Petersburg economy totaled $2.4 million in 2003, according to the city's external relations committee. Chinese businessmen mainly invest in industrial, trade and transport projects.
 Last summer the Chinese government gave its blessing to a plan to build a Chinatown in St. Petersburg. Five Shanghai companies are planning to build a mega-trade center in Krasnoselsky district in the southwest of the city. Involving $1.25 billion, the local China-town will cover 180 hectares, with business centers, hotels, recreation zones and apartment buildings.

TITLE: Fradkov Allows Finns to Survey Border Zone From Aeroplanes
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia has granted Finland permission to perform an aerial photographic survey of the Russian-Finnish border before the end of this year.
 
Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed a decree allowing the survey to proceed, Interfax reported Thursday.
 Finland had asked for permission to cross the border, once a Cold War frontier, and to fly in Russian air space while undertaking the survey.
 Fradkov instructed the Defense Ministry to let Finnish commercial aviation operator Finnair Cargo Oy/Malmilento make geophysical calibration flights that will allow data to be combined with maps of magnet fields.
 The ministry is also to let Finnish firm Konekorhonen Oy and the Finnish geodesy service to photograph the border zone and to let Finnish planes make turns in Russian air space.
 Jukka Helminen, maintenance manager at Konekorhonen Oy, said Friday in a telephone interview that the company will conduct an aerial survey for a Finnish company that makes maps, and also for agricultural purposes.
 Helminen said he didn't know when Konekorhonen would start its work.
 The ministry is to define the conditions for crossing the Russian state border and completing flights above its territory. The ministry and the Federal Security Service will co-ordinate the procedure of photography with Finnish border authorities and are to ensure the preservation of state secrets when the Finnish planes have completed their work.
 The Finnish-Russian border was dictated by the Soviets after they forced Finland to submit to their terms after the Continuation War ended in 1944. Finland attacked the Soviet Union in an alliance with Nazi Germany in 1941. 
 The modern border largely follows the border Finland was forced to accept in the Moscow Peace Treaty of March 1940, which was a result of the Soviet Union's attack on Finland in 1939. That war, the Winter War, cost Finland about 10 percent of its territory, and Vyborg, its second-largest city, with many citizens losing their homes.

TITLE: Russian Journalist Detained
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Channel One television journalist and a harsh critic of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko was arrested Sunday evening in Minsk on charges of hooliganism.
 
Pavel Sheremet, head of special projects at the state-run channel, was arrested after being accused of verbally abusing and starting a fight with two unidentified men, a duty officer at the police precinct where Sheremet was detained and later released said by telephone Monday.
 But Sheremet, a Minsk native and a Russian citizen, denied in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio on Monday that he had caused any trouble and said the incident was a provocation organized by the Belarussian authorities.
 After his arrest, Sheremet complained of a headache, after which he was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with a minor concussion. 
 Sheremet made two scathing documentaries for Channel One in the run-up to Sunday's election and referendum vote, highlighting Lukashenko's dictatorial tendencies. He had been working on a third program about Lukashenko, Channel One spokesman Igor Burenkov said Monday.
 Burenkov said that the station was in contact with Russian diplomats and was &quot;doing everything possible to bring Pavel back to Moscow.&quot;

TITLE: President Keeps China Guessing
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin's three-day trip to China ended Saturday where it began-with Beijing still hoping it can somehow convince Moscow to back at least one of two proposed pipelines to carry Siberian fuel directly to the energy-starved country.
 
Chinese President Hu Jintao reportedly expected some reciprocity for officially backing Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization, promising to invest nearly $1 billion per year into Russia's economy through 2020, and ending a border dispute that had lingered for nearly half a century.
 If so, however, he was mistaken.
 Aside from what Putin called &quot;new opportunities for growing bilateral cooperation,&quot; the visit, which included chief executives of several major companies, produced little of substance-at least publicly.
 The main issue for China, which is now the world's second-largest crude importer after the United States, is to secure oil and gas supplies from its resource-rich northern neighbor. But no progress was made on two key planks of Beijing's strategy-an $18 billion, 5,000-kilometer gas link from the massive Kovykta field in eastern Siberia, first proposed nearly a decade ago, and a 2,500-kilometer oil link from western Siberia to the heart of China's refining industry.
 Officials at CNPC, China's leading oil and gas firm, were &quot;confident&quot; that Putin would approve the gas link during his talks with Hu, who raised the issue personally, The New York Times reported, citing two Western energy executives familiar with the talks.
 Instead, however, all CNPC got was a vague agreement on cooperation with Gazprom, the world's largest gas company.
 The bigger issue for China at the moment, however, is the oil pipeline. With demand for crude growing at nearly 15 percent per year and supplies from the Middle East increasingly tenuous, Beijing is anxious for a pipeline that would run from Angarsk, a town near the southern tip of Lake Baikal, to the Chinese oil city of Daqing.
 Russia has every intention of building a pipeline to move western Siberian crude to Asia, but appears to be favoring a rival route backed by Japan. That route, for which the Japanese have offered $7 billion in loans, would bypass China and terminate in the port town of Nakhodka on the Sea of Japan.
 The Nakhodka route would make more sense, economists say, as it would allow Russia to ship oil to more countries, including the United States. It would also leave open the possibility of building a spur to Daqing.
 &quot;China has a shortage of energy resources, which is why we are very interested in the construction of the pipeline to Daqing,&quot; said Hu Wenmin, co-chairman of the Russia-China business council. 
 &quot;If Russia agrees to building a pipeline to China, it will find the most reliable, long-term and secure customer and partner,&quot; Hu told Interfax.
 Prior to flying to Beijing, Putin told Chinese reporters that the decision had to be made based primarily on &quot;Russia's national interests.&quot;
 Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, who accompanied Putin on the trip, appeared to keep the Chinese at arm's length Thursday by suggesting that the only decision left to make is whether to build the spur to Daqing after a pipeline to Nakhodka is completed.
 Interfax quoted an unnamed senior government official as saying in Beijing that the route Russia chooses is strictly an internal matter.
 &quot;We understand the interest China has in long-term cooperation with Russia on energy resources,&quot; the official said. 
 &quot;[But] making such a serious decision requires time, money and environmental expertise.&quot;
 Other negotiators who traveled with Putin made more headway.
 Yevrazholding, Russia's largest steelmaker, said it is pushing forward with plans to build a plant in China.
 &quot;We are interested in building a plant either with Chinese companies or ourselves and would like to fulfill this project as soon as possible,&quot; Yevrazholding chief Alexander Abramov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
 State-owned banking giant Vneshtorgbank said it had secured a $200 million line of credit from China's Agriculture Bank to finance imports of Chinese durable goods.
 It was not clear whether Russia struck any deals or agreements in the arms industry with China, its biggest customer. 
 Sergei Chemezov, the head of state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, was part of the delegation, but he made no public statements.

TITLE: World Doesn't Like Russia Or the U.S., Survey Shows
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia's image worldwide remains poor compared to other G8 countries, with only the United States ranking even lower in the minds of people in 60 countries, a survey says.
 
A Gallup International poll, released Monday, indicates that 25 percent of the 50,000 people interviewed dislike Russia, while 31 percent view the country in a positive light. The United States, however, is disliked by 34 percent, while 40 percent have a positive opinion. The survey represents the opinion of 1.16 billion people worldwide, Gallup said.
 The poll attempts to gauge the impressions of people around the world toward the G8 leading industrial countries. In addition to Russia and the United States, the countries include Italy, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Canada.
 Of all European Union countries, Austria and Sweden have the most negative image of Russia, at 44 percent and 43 percent, respectively. The Czech Republic comes third at 42 percent, while negative sentiment is also high in France, Germany and Norway. Overall, 32 percent of respondents in Western Europe felt negatively about Russia.
 While the United States is unpopular because of the war in Iraq, Russia's image is suffering due to the Kremlin's policy in Chechnya and the perception that it is not open to criticism, said Alexander Muzafarov, a sociologist with Romir, a Gallup partner in Russia. &quot;None of the European countries can substantially affect Russian or U.S. policies, and that builds up a negative attitude toward them,&quot; Muzafarov said. 
 Interestingly, negative sentiment against Russia is also strong in Egypt and Turkey, at 41 percent and 57 percent, respectively. The countries are very popular among Russian tourists.
 The good news for Russia is that other former Soviet republics tend to view it positively. Russia gets good marks from 70 percent of Ukrainians, 66 percent of Moldovans and 60 percent of Georgians.

TITLE: Readers Send Rich Variety of Questions About St. Petersburg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: When will crimes against foreigners in St. Petersburg stop? How were Soviet cosmonauts are selected? How would you feel if a foreigner became a Russian citizen and was allowed to fight terrorists in Russia?
 
These were just some of the questions The St. Petersburg Times received from its readers when we invited them to send in their queries for the newspaper's 1000th issue on Sept. 3. Many of the questions were addressed to the St. Petersburg or federal government.
 Several of the questions were by their nature are unanswerable.
 But a wine merchant who expressed his delight at watching Alexander Sokurov's single-take film &quot;The Russian Ark,&quot; asked if the movie director &quot;was tempted to tackle St. Petersburg canals in the same way.&quot;
 Sokurov answered he is not planning to make such a film. He said that with &quot;The Russian Ark&quot; he used a one-take method as a new tool to make his film. However, he said he didn't feel like using it again anytime soon. 
 An American female fan of Russian opera singer Dmitry Khvorostovsky was willing to ask him if he would be willing to move back to Russia.
 &quot;Would you ever consider moving back to Russia? Where would you live - Krasnoyarsk (Khvorstovsky's home town), Moscow, or St. Petersburg?
 The woman, who called herself &quot;a 46-year-old great admirer of the Russian space program,&quot; also wanted to ask a question to Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who was the first man to walk in space on March 18, 1965.
 &quot;How were the cosmonauts and their back-up pilots selected for certain missions,&quot; she asked.
 Soviet cosmonaut Konstantin Feoktistov, who was the first cosmonaut-scientist in the world, and is also a professor, answered that Soviet cosmonauts were sent on their missions according to a predetermined order.
 &quot;There was a certain order in the group of cosmonauts, and when one's turn came up they would just go on a flight,&quot; Feoktistov said.
 Feoktistov said that of the two crew members Leonov, who was a co-pilot to pilot Pavel Belyayev, probably was chosen to space walk because he was the stronger of the two. To get though the tunnel leading outside and to get back, a cosmonaut would need to be strong.
 In fact, Leonov, whose space walk lasted about 20 minutes, had problems in re-entering the spacecraft because his space suit had enlarged slightly. He had to let air leak out of his space suit in order to squeeze back inside. Feoktistov said in general people, mainly pilots, who were willing and were selected to become cosmonauts, had to have good health and be psychologically strong. However, he said the first cosmonauts often had a lacked special knowledge of space developments.
 Some of the city's guests and residents expressed concerns directly about the cleanliness of St. Petersburg's streets and the entrances to apartment buildings, as well as their curiosity about business issues and Russia's cultural life.
 &quot;I visited St. Petersburg last August... I liked it very much and I'd like to come back. But there are some things that must be improved,&quot; wrote an Italian teacher.
 &quot;The first concern is that the city authorities should work on easing the visa process; the second is that they should improve safety for tourists because the street-crime rate is too high. Policemen shouldn't stop people on the street only with the goal of scaring them... and they shouldn't be asking for money without good reasons,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;Besides, I think that all personnel working in public transport should smile a little more and should learn good manners (maybe they should be paid a little more). And since St. Petersburg is a fashionable destination in Europe, English should be used more (for example, for information in the metro),&quot; he said.
 Another reader, who said he was a doctor, addressed St. Petersburg's governor with a number of questions:
 &quot;What is your reaction once having read through the warnings regarding crimes against foreigners in St. Petersburg in every single travel book and web site? What will you do with St. Petersburg's police department, which is characterized as incompetent and corrupted by not only by tourists but also by city residents? Would you dare to get dressed smartly, put on expensive jewelry, take money and credit cards, and walk alone along Nevsky Prospekt, and go into the Nevsky Prospekt metro station via the Griboyedov Canal entrance?&quot;
 Another question, asked by an analyst, was addressed to Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is being tried in court.
 &quot;Do you feel wealth creation and its distribution is better administered by the private sector and religious and charitable organizations than by the government? What is your view of government's role in wealth creation?&quot; the analyst asked.
 A young American, 17-year-old Joshua, addressed the military, asking about the situation in the Russian army.
 &quot;Where do you see Russia's military in the next 10 years? Do you think the rebel menace in Chechnya will be exterminated during this time span? How would you feel if a foreigner became a Russian citizen so that he too may fight against the terrorist presence in Russia?&quot;
 Meanwhile, a man from Australia asked a question about Christmas trees in public places in St. Petersburg. He wrote that he and his grandchildren would love to see those Christmas trees, but since they live far away they don't have the chance.
 In fact, usually in Russian provincial towns there is just one city Christmas tree, which gets fixed in the center of the town. In such places many people have a strong tradition of gathering around that tree on New Year's Eve for festivities.
 However, in big cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg there are usually at least several city Christmas trees - on Palace Square, St. Isaac's Square, and near Kazan Cathedral. 
 According to the information from the state enterprise of Lesoparkovaya Zona, which is in charge of fir-tree plantations in the Leningrad Oblast, big Christmas trees fixed in the city streets usually come from a wild forest.
 They said those trees are often higher than 12 meters, and they don't have such big fir trees in their plantations. Therefore, organizations in charge of fixing Christmas trees in the city have to order those trees from a wild forest.
 City Christmas trees are usually decorated with big paper toys and have multicolored electric illuminations.

TITLE: 3 Parties Seek to Raise The Membership Bar
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - United Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party and Rodina submitted a bill to the State Duma last Wednesday requiring political parties to increase their membership from 10,000 to 50,000.
 
Critics said the legislation is an attempt by the Kremlin to clear the political scene of all but a handful of loyal parties. The bill would also require parties to have at least 500 members in regional branches in more than half of the country's 89 regions. Party branches currently must have 100 members or more.
 In addition, branches in the remaining regions would have to have at least 250 members.
 The bill calls for an unspecified &quot;transitional period for registered political parties to bring their memberships up to 50,000.&quot; Parties that fail would lose their status.
 The Communist Party, which has some 500,000 members, is the only Duma faction refusing to endorse the bill.
 &quot;We are afraid that the Kremlin is trying to artificially cut down the number of parties to two,&quot; said Nikolai Sapozhnikov, deputy chairman of the Duma's Credit Organizations and Financial Markets Committee.
 &quot;We do not have any membership problems, but many parties probably would not be able to fulfill the criteria even if they had 10 years to do it,&quot; Sapozhnikov said Thursday. &quot;A full spectrum of political life will be cut out.&quot;
 Oleg Kovalyov, a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party and chairman of the Duma Management Committee, said the bill is part of a broader United Russia effort to reform the whole political system.
 &quot;We support the abolition of single-mandate districts in favor of deputies being elected on party lists, but before switching to this new system we need to reform the way parties are created,&quot; Kovalyov said.
 &quot;This bill will allow only a few, strong parties to remain, and as a result the political system will be made stronger,&quot; he said.
 President Vladimir Putin announced last month plans to eliminate individual races in Duma elections and replace the popular vote for governors with a system under which he submits gubernatorial nominations to regional legislatures for their confirmation. United Russia has 844,000 members, according to its web site. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party and a co-author of the bill, agreed with Kovalyov. He said it is &quot;ridiculous that parties without a real regional structure can aspire to win parliamentary elections and, what's more, make it into the Duma,&quot; Interfax reported.
 Zhirinovsky said his party has about 600,000 members. The nationalist-populist Rodina party called the measure necessary &quot;to eliminate parties that have no ideology and no definite program.&quot; Six parties are enough to represent the entire political spectrum, Rodina spokesman Sergei Butin said.
 Rodina has 37,000 members but plans to have 50,000 by year's end and up to 150,000 next year, Butin said.
 The bill will give the Kremlin even more control over the parties, said Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
 &quot;If the requirement is high, then it is harder for a party to meet it and easier for the Kremlin to say, 'You have fake members,'&quot; Lipman said.
 Liberal parties that did not make it into the Duma in last December's elections expressed concern about the merits of the bill but downplayed suggestions that it might lead to their demise.
 &quot;This bill will make the country resemble the Soviet Union, when people were required to hold party cards,&quot; said Alexei Melnikov, a former Duma deputy from Yabloko, which has 85,000 members.
 Boris Nadezhdin, deputy head of the Union of Right Forces, said the Kremlin &quot;wants only a few parties&quot; and stressed that &quot;in developed democratic countries there are no such requirements for parties.&quot;
 Nadezhdin said his party has only 35,000 members but that should not pose a problem. &quot;Millions of people voted for us,&quot; he said. &quot;We'll be able to find a solution, but this [new rule] would mean more work and organizational problems.&quot;
 Among the other parties that did not make it into the Duma are the People's Party, with 120,000 members, and the Agrarian Party, with 60,000 members. Kovalyov said the bill is likely to come up for a first reading by the end of the year.
 It is an amendment to constitutional law and will require a two-thirds majority vote to be approved. United Russia alone has two-thirds of the seats in the Duma.

TITLE: Washington Children Draw for Beslan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Drawings by American children went up on the walls of a Moscow school on Oct. 11, as a show of sympathy and solidarity in the wake of the Beslan school hostage-taking. 
 
The drawings by students at three schools in Washington - colorful works bearing messages of hope and peace and condemning terrorism - were displayed at the Stankevich House school at 8 Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Pereulok near Christ the Savior Cathedral.
 Aslanbek Aslakhanov, President Vladimir Putin's adviser on North Caucasus affairs, was to take them Oct. 12 to North Ossetia and give them to the children of Beslan.
 &quot;It will be hugely rewarding for our children to know that both in Moscow, in the Russian Federation and in America children are united - unlike, unfortunately, the adults [of the world],&quot; Aslakhanov said.
 &quot;You children treat everyone the same, you understand each other despite the fact you speak different languages.&quot;
 Michael Klecheski, first secretary of the U.S. Embassy, said he did not believe the drawings he presented to Aslakhanov were made at the request of teachers.
 &quot;I think that it is very spontaneous and very, very sincere, because I know that the people in the States have an enormous feeling of sympathy,&quot; he said. 
 Phrases written on the pictures in English and Russian urge the world never to give in to terrorists and counsel adults to work together to bring peace to the world. Some just read &quot;Mir,&quot; or &quot;Peace,&quot; in Russian. After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Russian children drew pictures that were given to American children, part of an outpouring of sympathy from Russian people toward Americans. 
 &quot;If our governments behaved toward each other as sincerely and wholeheartedly as these children have done, we would most likely live in a much better world,&quot; Aslakhanov said. 
 Putin and other Russian officials have accused political figures in the United States and other Western countries of maintaining double standards on terrorism, criticizing them for questioning Kremlin policy in Chechnya and urging the United States to hand over a Chechen separatist figure who has been granted asylum.

TITLE: Abramovich's Life Set to West End Music
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - British mania over Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich looks to be reaching new heights after it was disclosed last Wednesday that a show business producer is considering turning the oil tycoon's life story into a musical.
 
British author Chris Hutchins, who co-wrote a new unauthorized Abra-movich biography, said Wednesday that he is in talks with Billy Gaff, the former manager of rock star Rod Stewart, about turning his book into a show on London's West End.
 &quot;He wants to create something along the lines of the musical 'Jerry Springer - The Opera',&quot; said Hutchins, who specializes in writing books about the rich and famous, including Princess Diana, Elvis and John Lennon.
 &quot;This would make a great musical,&quot; he said of Abramovich's story, which, he said, he spent just over a year researching to write &quot;Abramovich: The Billionaire From Nowhere,&quot; published Oct. 4.
 The Sun, a British tabloid, first reported Wednesday that Abramovich's climb from orphaned barter trader to oil baron and soccer club owner might end up being turned into an all-singing, all-dancing show on the West End. Under the headline &quot;Red Rom: The Musical,&quot; the tabloid printed a mock version of a publicity poster for the musical reading, &quot;The Show Moscow On: True Story of a Russian's Love for Chelski F.C.&quot;
 In a telephone interview Wednesday, Gaff said that the idea &quot;started out as a joke&quot; before turning into &quot;extensive talks&quot; with Hutchins. But, taken aback by the leak to The Sun, he accused Hutchins of trying to sell more books by talking to the press about the musical. 
 Gaff said the production, if it went ahead at all, was a long way from getting off the ground.
 &quot;This is a bit premature,&quot; he said, adding that it was too early to say who he would hire to write the score and lyrics. &quot;It's just a crazy idea, but everyone seems to like it.&quot;
 Gaff said he was inspired by the recent success of &quot;Jerry Springer - The Opera&quot; and a recent trip to St. Petersburg. &quot;'Jerry Springer' was a good example of a story that I would not have considered but ended up being turned into a fabulous musical,&quot; he said. 
 &quot;Jerry Springer - The Opera&quot; is based on the controversial U.S. talk show host who drew television audiences with shows such as &quot;Pregnant by a Transsexual&quot; and &quot;I Refuse to Wear Clothes.&quot; It enjoyed a sold-out run at the National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre before moving to the West End.
 Gaff said Abramovich's rags-to-riches story could be turned into a musical akin to a male version of &quot;My Fair Lady,&quot; which he could take to Moscow.
 John Mann, spokesman for Abramovich's Sibneft oil company, was less enthusiastic. &quot;Jerry Springer is a man who courted publicity all his life whereas Mr. Abramovich is a man who would prefer to be left alone by the media,&quot; he said.
 &quot;We will reserve judgment until we get more particulars,&quot; he said.
 Gaff said any musical version of Abramovich's life would steer clear of the controversy surrounding his climb through Russia's vicious business world. 
 &quot;This a story about a man who became an incredible success and how he did that. It's the glamour I'm looking at,&quot; he said. &quot;I certainly would not be involved in anything that would upset them. We wouldn't touch politics.&quot;
 Britain has been swept by Abra-movich-mania ever since he bought Chelsea in the summer of 2003. The British press has been filled with tales of his vast wealth, his English mansions and yachts, and his climb to the top of Russian business.
 Abramovich's splurge on Chelsea has, however, brought him unwelcome attention at home, with many Russian officials lashing out at him for spending his millions on English soccer rather than on local teams.
 A member of the Russian business community in London said Wednesday that he doubted a musical version of Abramovich's life would bring Chelsea fans to the theater. &quot;It's football that comes first, the rest is discussed in the pubs,&quot; he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
 &quot;Abramovich has become more or less a brand in England, and they are selling this brand without his permission,&quot; he added.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>New Izvestia Editor
 </b>

MOSCOW (MT) - The board of directors of Izvestia appointed acting editor Vladimir Borodin as editor-in-chief last Wednesday, Interfax reported.
 Borodin, 26, had been running Izvestia after the previous editor, Raf Shakirov, stepped down on Sept. 6 amid pressure over how he had handled the paper's Beslan coverage. A political science graduate, Borodin has worked at Izvestia since 1997, Interfax said.
 
 
<b>Finland Praised
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - The Foreign Ministry praised Finland last Wednesday for shutting down the rebel Kavkaz Center web site, which Moscow says promotes terror. 
 "We note the speed with which our Finnish colleagues made a decision on this," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday. 
 Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja wrote on his own web site: "One cannot accept the kind of material made in the name of freedom of speech on television, in newspapers or on Internet sites that urges the murder of a president of a foreign power or praises suicide bombers' terrorist acts."
 
 
<b>Kiriyenko Ruling
 </b>

MOSCOW (MT) - A Moscow court has upheld presidential envoy Sergei Kiriyenko's libel suit against Novaya Gazeta, and reporter Georgy Rozhnov, over articles suggesting he was involved in diverting billions of IMF dollars as prime minister and that he had sought permanent residency status in the United States.
 Novaya Gazeta said it was considering an appeal. If last Tuesday's ruling is not challenged, the newspaper will have to publish a retraction. 



TITLE: Japan Visit Spurs Local Interest
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Governor Valentina Matviyenko's visit to Japan last week has created a stir in St. Petersburg business circles as the city seems to be warming to the land of the Rising Sun.
 
Representatives of Japan's largest financial trading groups, Marubeni Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation are expected in the city to finalize agreements on a number of city projects. Meanwhile, other Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi and Toyota, have recently announced their intention to partner up with St. Petersburg, City Hall said.
 &quot;There is a wealth of financial resources in Japan, and its business people are looking for investment markets,&quot; said Matviyenko upon returning from Japan on Saturday. During the governor's three-day visit, she met with representatives of 12 companies and signed two cooperation agreements. &quot;We went to Japan not to ask for anything, but to seek cooperation as equal partners,&quot; said Matviyenko.
 Recent moves towards cooperation have much to do with JBIC, Japan's largest state-owned bank, saying in July that it would provide long-term loans to St. Petersburg without requiring federal guarantees in return. The possibility of getting low-interest loans played a major role in attracting Marubeni, Sumitomo, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries among others, to projects in the city, said a source close to the major Japanese investors, who wished to remain anonymous.
 Agreements already signed by Marubeni and Sumitomo with the city set out frameworks for development of several large city projects.
 Marubeni, a corporation since 1949, lists several large Japanese banks and insurance companies as its major shareholders. It has expressed interest in supporting the construction of the Western Express Diameter, working in partnership with Vodokanal (the city's water utility) on building new water-treatment plants and renovating the water-pipe system, Interfax reported.
 Sumitomo, a trading power group with long ties to Russia, is keen to supply electrical equipment for the city's public transport and to build waste utilization outlets, although no details of the projects can be made public yet under the confidentiality agreement with Smolny, said a company's representative. Although it is too early to talk about the amount of financial input, one thing remains clear - the projects, once completed, will be owned by the city, said the representative. 
 Matviyenko also met with representatives of Japan AirLines to discuss the possibility of establishing direct flights from Japan to St. Petersburg.
 &quot;There is nothing sudden about the boom of Japanese interest in the city&quot;, said Hiroshi Yamamoto, the director of the city's Japan Center.
 &quot;St. Petersburg is the second city in Russia in all respects, and so far it has had very little Japanese presence, especially when compared with Moscow and Russia's far-east cities,&quot; said Yamamoto. He agreed that the cheap credit offered by JBIC is the main catalyst for St. Petersburg's Japan connection at this point, but added that it seemed a logical step in any case. 
 Among the most interesting projects Yamamoto named the potential openings of large automobile assembly plants, such as Toyota. &quot;Companies like that never enter the market alone. They have a satellite company chain that comes with them. New plants also mean real investment in a region's economy, and not only a trade boost,&quot; said Yamomoto. 
 Matviyenko said Toyota plans to start building 23 plants in Russia, with three of them in St. Petersburg. When asked to expand, she reported that negotiations were under way and nothing more could be added due to confidentiality agreements, reported news services.
 For one industry insider, who asked to remain anonymous, Matviyenko's prognosis that Toyota will open assembly plants in Russia, and, furthermore, in St. Petersburg seemed more than doubtful. &quot;A total of 23 new plants is complete rubbish,&quot; he commented.

TITLE: City Real Estate Eyed at German Real Estate Fair
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Several St. Petersburg projects received high interest from German investors at ExpoReal, the international real-estate investment fair in Munich, Regnum news agency reported.
 
Among the most noticed projects were plans for hotel infrastructure development, the construction of the Western Diameter road, the second Mariinsky Theater stage and a marine passenger port.
 ExpoReal, an annual fair, in which Smolny's delegation traditionally participates, is one of the leading commercial real-estate forums in Central Europe.
 Maxim Sokolov of the city's investments and strategic projects committee said that before the end of the year, the city administration also plans to represent St. Petersburg at a large real-estate exhibit in Dubai. 
 The city also plans to show off its attractions to developers by participating in the MIPIM exhibition in Cannes early next year.

TITLE: IKEA Plans 2nd Outlet
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Swedish furniture retailer Ikea plans to open a second shopping outlet in St. Petersburg, said Nikolai Asaul, head of the city's investments and strategic projects committee.
 
Ikea representatives have approached the city government with a request for a land plot to build a new shopping center, Fontanka.ru reported Asaul as saying.
 After visited several land plots, Ikea chose an area located in the Kirovsky district.
 The first Ikea store in St. Petersburg - Ikea Kudrovo, recently renamed Ikea Dybenko - opened in December 2003. It covers an area of 31,000 square meters and it cost $45 million to build.
 Metro Cash&amp;Carry, Iskrasoft and Pyatyorochka chains have already purchased land plots along the highway near the airport, Asaul said. &quot;We have information that [French retail chain] Auchan is also weighing up the possibility of purchasing land along the Pulkovskoye highway,&quot; he said.

TITLE: State Staff To Strike For Wages
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Teachers, doctors and other social workers across Russia will go on a one-day strike and hold rallies this week to demand higher wages, labor union representatives said Monday.
 
About 1 million workers are ready to strike on Wednesday, when about 3 million are expected at public rallies, said Mikhail Kuzmenko, president of Russia's non-industrial labor unions.
 State-employed doctors, teachers and cultural workers - such as librarians and museum employees - are demanding a 50 percent increase next year on monthly wages, which currently range between 3,000 and 4,000 rubles ($103 to $148), Kuzmenko said at a news conference.
 Salaries should then continue to increase to keep pace with inflation, he said.
 Galina Merkulova, chairwoman of education and science labor unions, accused state officials of pressuring workers to refrain from striking. <br> She said many employees and regional union leaders had been threatened and intimidated by authorities in <br> an attempt to thwart Wednesday's protests.
 This is the second series of nationwide protests by labor unions this year, following rallies across Russia on June 10. 
 If the government fails to react to workers' demands this time, they may stage longer strikes and protests, Kuzmenko said.

TITLE: Industry Has Tough Month
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW - Industry had its worst September in six years after borrowing costs increased during the summer, hampering growth in construction and machinery, figures showed late last week.
 
Output rose an annual 3.5 percent last month, the slowest pace since March and worst September performance since the 1998 crisis, the State Statistics Service said.
 The year-on-year result was far below the 6.3 percent to 6.8 percent median estimate by economists surveyed by Bloomberg and Reuters.
 The country's manufacturing sector has been growing by using up spare capacity but robust expansion now demands more investment.
 &quot;I think industry has run out of drivers,&quot; said UralSib senior economist Vladimir Tikhomirov.
 This year the ruble has appreciated in both nominal and real terms, making imports cheaper.
 &quot;Local products cannot compete without proper investment but they have no money to invest,&quot; Tikhomirov said.
 &quot;The construction industry is dragging the growth down,'' said Natalia Orlova, an economist at Alfa Bank, Russia's largest nonstate bank. &quot;Banks almost stopped lending to it. I don't see the situation improving later this year as some companies may go into default.&quot;
 At least six banks were closed in June and July, triggering a run on deposits amid a cash crunch when banks stopped lending to each other because of concern more banks may be shut.
 Production of construction materials rose 3.1 percent in September, compared with the year-earlier period. Compared with August, construction materials output fell 2.3 percent, adjusted for working days, the statistics service said.
 Production in machinery making and metal processing rose an annual 5.1 percent in September, after increasing 7.7 percent in August, the service said.
 &quot;It will be no surprise if this negative trend develops later this year,'' Renaissance Capital economist Alexei Moisseyev said. &quot;The lack of borrowing during the banking crisis will have a lasting effect.&quot;
 <i>(Bloomberg, Reuters) </i>

TITLE: Open Wide for Sympathetic, Healing Dentist
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A doctor can be successful only if he loves people, says Tamaz Mchedlidze, 44, president of Russia's biggest private medical organization, MEDI, based in St. Petersburg.
 
&quot;A doctor should feel the greatest of satisfactions from the fact that he is helping people; even if he has to leave a party urgently to help a patient,&quot; Mchedlidze said.
 According to Mchedlidze, &quot;sincere sympathy&quot; for a patient is &quot;the main factor behind a doctor's financial and spiritual success today&quot;. 
 &quot;Because, if a patient feels that the doctor does not care for his problem, he will go to a different doctor,&quot; he said.
 Mchedlidze, graduate of St. Petersburg Pavlov Medical University's stomatology faculty, founded his Medical Association MEDI in 1991 with a little stomatology clinic.
 Twelve years on and MEDI's empire consists of 11 stomatology centers in St. Petersburg and Moscow, an aesthetic medicine clinic, an opritalmology clinic, a family medical center, Russia's only private institute for improving dentistry qualification, and the pharmacy producer Biopin-Farma.
 MEDI claims to have one of the best elite medical services in Russia, and is equally known for being very expensive.
 Mchedlidze, a descendant of Georgian folk healers, began his medical career in early childhood. As a boy, he used to help his grandmother, who knew a recipe for a miraculous ointment, and was able to cure any wounds and skin disease.
 &quot;I remember long lines of people in our house, who came from all over Georgia looking for my grandmother's treatment. My siblings and I used to assist her holding a bandage or providing some other kind of help,&quot; Mchedlidze said.
 Together with his brother and sister, Mchedlidze grew up with the idea that &quot;medicine is the most noble profession&quot;.
 &quot;We had no other choice other than for all of us to become doctors,&quot; he said. Mchedlidze said his sister became a physician, his brother - a military surgeon, while he went in for stomatology.
 Mchedlidze's professional medical activities started by flying in a helicopter, which was equipped with a dentist chair, around the Arkhangelsk Oblast to treat patients in the region's cold, deserted villages.
 &quot;There I learnt to treat almost anything, apart from heart disease. Some villages were 200 kilometers from a nearest doctor,&quot; he said.
 Mchedlidze began in the medical business with a private stomatology office in his Georgian hometown of Khashuri in 1989.
 Soon its corridors leading to his office were full of people from all over Georgia. People would spend the night in their car to wait for Mchedlidze's service. Mchedlidze's finishing time sometimes stretched to 1 a.m.
 &quot;They knew my treatments were painless,&quot; said Mchedlidze, who says he was the first in Georgia and Russia to introduce the regular use of painkillers in dentistry. At the time, the Soviet Union considered painkillers only for use during dental surgery.
 Mchedlidze said he learnt to sense the feelings of a patient on himself when in 1982, while still a student, he gave himself three fillings by standing in front of a mirror.
 &quot;Since that time, when I treat a patient I feel as if I am treating my own teeth. I can feel the patient's pain and fear. And, I still have one of those fillings,&quot; Mchedlidze said.
 In 1990 Mchedlidze came back to St. Petersburg and opened a two-room stomatology clinic. It was open 24 hours a day, had a regular set of prices, and was booked up a year ahead.
 However, in 1993 Mchedlidze decided to change such an exhausting policy. In order to shorten waiting times, he raised the prices to be the highest in the city.
 &quot;I thought that our cost should be the maximum a patient can pay for the work to be of the highest quality. In turn, we could improve our service, equipment and knowledge to the highest standards,&quot; Mchedlidze said.
 A year later the company opened its new fancy office at 82 Nevsky Prospect, where it still has its main elite class stomatology clinic.
 Currently its prices for a tooth filling range between $30 and $150. A complicated case may cost $500.
 The prices in the other eight MEDI clinics of VIP class are slightly lower, while the ones in standard class clinics are equal to regular city prices for private stomatology services.
 Mchedlidze considers the 148 dentists who work in his clinics &quot;the elite of Russian stomatology&quot; and the most expensive and high-quality dental personnel in Russia.
 In defense of the prices, Mchedlidze explains the work of a stomatology association as very expensive. Costs include purchase of the brand new equipment, latest materials, constant education of dentists, building up teamwork, and many other business components.
 According to Mchedlidze, one of his biggest achievements was that he managed to unite the high quality of private Western dentist services with the Soviet system of a big stomatology clinic.
 &quot;The advantage of that Soviet system was that big teams of dentists could have conciliums and consult each other in complicated cases, while in little private dentist rooms a dentist does not have anyone to consult. And he alone just can't know everything,&quot; he said.
 Over the years, neither did Mchedlidze forget about the miraculous ointments he learned from his grandmother: made of bee wax, olive oil, animal fat, and resin of relic pine trees.
 He gave the ointment the name of Biopin and organized its pharmaceutical production in St. Petersburg.
 Mchedlidze said &quot;society, power, and business should live under the principle of mutual partnership and profit&quot;.
 &quot;It's a philosophy of market economics which creates harmony,&quot; he said. However, he said that today power is still not very well adjusted to business and society.
 Mchedlidze, who has a wife and an 11-year old daughter, said he is willing to have their daughter continue his business.
 &quot;But as I said the most important factor for her success is to love people and be able to sympathize with them. I see that she has it,&quot; he said.
 &quot;In fact, philanthropy is essential for any profession which involves human relations. However, there are people who are not born to love people, and it doesn't mean they are necessarily bad. It means they should work with machines instead,&quot; he said.
 Eleonora Kurrinen, clothes designer and head of a fashion house Eleonora, who was a patient of MEDI's stomatology service, said she was delighted by the work of MEDI's dentists.
 &quot;After visiting MEDI, for the first time in my life I realized what it's like to have healthy teeth,&quot; Kurrinen said. &quot;They have great doctors,&quot; she said.
 Kurrinen said she thought MEDI services were expensive but addictive: &quot;patients, who once come to MEDI usually can't switch for anything else after that&quot;.
 Kurrinen, who knows Mchedlidze personally, said he is &quot;a great administrator&quot;. Along with having a stomatology institute, she'd like him to open an administration school and teach there.

TITLE: Tech and Drug Stocks'Earnings Reports Eyed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - As Wall Street sifts through more than 300 third-quarter earnings reports this week, technology and pharmaceutical stocks will be getting some of the closest scrutiny. 
 
The focus on drug companies results from a recent spate of bad news about Merck &amp; Co. and Pfizer Inc., both Dow components. On Sept. 30, Merck pulled its blockbuster arthritis drug Vioxx from the market due to an increased risk of heart attack. And the New England Journal of Medicine raised questions about Pfizer's rival drug, Celebrex, saying that medication could carry similar risks. 
 The two companies' outlooks will be far more important to investors than third-quarter profits. Wall Street will want to see whether Merck will lower its guidance for future quarters due to the loss of Vioxx sales and whether Pfizer, despite the journal study, expects to increase its market share. 
 The markets will look to a number of technology heavyweights as well, hoping for signs that the long-suffering technology sector can break out of its months-long slump. Microsoft Corp. and International Business Machines Inc. will lead a number of tech companies with earnings in the week ahead. 
 Last week, another surge in oil prices stymied Wall Street, pushing stocks lower for the week. A disappointing earnings report from General Motors Corp. also made investors nervous, while strong earnings from Intel Corp., Citigroup and Bank of America Corp. were largely overlooked. 
 For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial average lost 1.21 percent, the Standard &amp; Poor's 500 fell 1.24 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.44 percent. 
 Pfizer is expected to earn 54 cents per share when it reports earnings before Wednesday's session, up from 47 cents per share a year ago. The stock has fallen 26.6 percent from its high of $38.85 on Feb. 6 to close at $28.50 on Friday, but analysts expect an uptick in the company's outlook now that its chief rival in the arthritis pain market has bowed out. 
 Merck, meanwhile, will announce its earnings Thursday before the session, and is expected to earn 75 cents per share, down from 83 cents per share in the third quarter a year ago. 
 Microsoft, which releases its earnings Thursday afternoon, has been stuck in a trading range for nearly three years, with its stock price hovering between $27 and $30 with few exceptions. While earnings at the software giant have been consistent, they've also been rather static. The company is expected to post profits of 30 cents per share, the same as the third-quarter a year ago. 
 Google Inc., which started trading in August, will be releasing its first quarterly earnings report since going public, announcing its results Thursday, after the session. The online search leader has risen from an offering price of $85 to $144.11 at Friday's close. 
 Other technology firms reporting in the coming week include online auctioneer eBay Inc. on Wednesday afternoon and online shopping giant Amazon.com on Thursday afternoon. 


TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Efes IPO Nets $178M
 </b>

LONDON (Bloomberg) - Efes Breweries International, which brews beer in Russia as well as other Eastern European countries, and its shareholders raised $178 million in an initial public offering as the company seeks to grow overseas. 
 The brewer sold 5.2 million global depositary receipts for $23.25 apiece Friday, raising $119 million, the Istanbul-based company said in a Regulatory News Service statement. Investors including Templeton Asset Management and Harvard University sold 2.5 million GDRs, 600,000 more than planned, to raise a further $59 million. The IPO values Efes at about $688 million.
 
 
<b>Rosbank Eurobond
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Rosbank, plans to issue between $150 million and $200 million of eurobonds with a maturity of no more than five years, Deputy Chairman German Aliyev said Friday.
 "Rosbank is planning to issue an obligation, securitized by future flows of credit card receivables from Visa and MasterCard, in the form of eurobonds with a maturity of up to five years," Aliyev said.
 The bank earlier said its board of directors had authorized an issue of no more than $275 million in eurobonds.
 
 



TITLE: Russia Doesn't Need Special Favors
TEXT: With terrorist attacks against Russia on the rise, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denounced what he calls Western &quot;double standards.&quot; Americans and Europeans hit back hard when they're attacked, he says. He's doing the same thing - and he expects our support.
 
Putin is right that we should want others to fight terrorism as single-mindedly as we do. But he's wrong that Russia is a victim of double standards. It's a beneficiary. Putin's counterterrorism efforts are judged more leniently than those of other countries, and as a result his own citizens, and ours, are less secure.
 If this seems implausible, try a simple thought experiment. Suppose that the two aircraft that exploded after taking off from Moscow in late August had instead departed from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. And imagine the international uproar when we learned that the suicide bombers had bribed their way on board. Azerbaijan would be under intense pressure to correct this gross institutional failure and to prove that it wasn't a failed state.
 Or suppose that schoolchildren had been held hostage by terrorists in a small town in Ukraine, and that after days of official lying, the incident ended in a melee between the terrorists and half-trained local police, irregulars and vigilantes, leaving hundreds of children dead. 
 Suppose also that Ukraine had (as Russia has) badly botched rescue attempts in earlier terrorist incidents. Other governments would naturally feel deep sympathy, but they would also insist that the fiasco was bound to repeat itself unless Ukraine's corrupt, brutal and incompetent law enforcement agencies were reformed. Wouldn't it be obvious that a state that handles its own problems so poorly puts the whole neighborhood at risk?
 Of course, demanding that another government reform itself is a challenge to its sovereignty, and like us Russia resists this sort of thing. Its view is: We handle lawlessness in our country, and you handle it in yours. 
 Yet two states of the former Soviet Union, Georgia and Moldova, accuse Russia of a far more basic violation of their sovereignty: keeping its troops on their territory against their wishes and providing military protection for separatist groups that rule entire provinces of each country. Georgia and Moldova complain that these areas have become centers of smuggling, illicit arms trading, human trafficking and drug dealing - lawless zones that we now recognize as potential havens for terrorism, too. Yet, despite years of trying, neither country has been able to get the Russians to leave.
 To see how strange Russia's position is, try another thought experiment. Suppose that separatists in Moldova and Georgia were supported by two other neighbors, Romania and Turkey. These allies of the United States might argue (with some justice) that they had historical and ethnic ties to the area, or perhaps that they couldn't find suitable housing for their troops back home, or that a pullback would injure their national pride. Would any of these seem to be convincing reasons?
 Neither Romania nor Turkey could infringe a neighbor's rights in this way without deep damage to its international standing. Had it done so, Romania would never have been admitted to NATO last year, nor would Turkey have been invited earlier this month to begin talks on joining the European Union. Putin must marvel that he alone can support separatism in neighboring states, pay no price for doing so - and still complain about double standards.
 The fact that Russia benefits from double standards does not mean that Putin is wrong about the case that troubles him most: his unsuccessful effort to subdue the Chechen resistance, which now seems able to strike at will inside Russia. 
 All states have a right to control their own territory, and during a decade of violence in Chechnya neither the United States nor any European government has ever questioned this Russian right.
 Yet here too a thought experiment can help us. Suppose that another government had waged the same unrelenting, scorched-earth warfare against militants wanting their own state and still had to admit, despite tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees and the total devastation of countless towns and villages, that terrorist attacks were actually on the rise. How would other countries react then?
 Many might worry that this failing effort would eventually begin to threaten them. Some would surely consider drawing up an international &quot;road map&quot; to resolve the conflict. They would doubtless demand a credible plan for local reconstruction and call for outside monitoring of its implementation. 
 They might begin to question the argument that there was nobody on the other side to negotiate with. Some would explore contacts with elements of the resistance not implicated in terrorism - and might even consider offering them limited technical aid.
 These would not necessarily be useful or prudent steps with Chechnya. But prudence has to guide us - not fear that we are unfairly applying double standards to a friend in trouble.
 Russia is a friend in trouble and too great a nation to depend on special favors. Yet we treat it with what President Bush, in another context, has called &quot;the soft bigotry of low expectations.&quot; It does not serve us well, and helps Russia even less.
 
 <i>Stephen Sestanovich is a senior fellow at the Coun-cil on Foreign Relations and a professor of interna-tional diplomacy at Columbia University. He was U.S. ambassador at large for the former Soviet Union from 1997 to 2001. This comment first ap-peared in The Washington Post. </i>

TITLE: Vertical Integration Bodes Ill Whichever Way You Look At It
TEXT: Certain facts have been released that allow the forecasting of what the vertically-integrated Russia that President Vladimir Putin's administration is working so hard for will look like, and how it will affect the socio-economic situation.
 
The socio-economic policies of centralized administration are linked to two mutually dependent trends. The first is the methods by which order will be introduced. Centralized administration diverts for itself all the profits from regional budgets and also forces upon the regions a set of rules, whether they be laws or &quot;understandings.&quot; A telling illustration of how current circumstances have made New Russians suddenly care about the law is the recent attempt by authorities to demolish a cottage that was built illegally on nature reserve land in the Moscow region. Keeping in line with the &quot;understandings,&quot; New Russians are following the now fashionable principle of &quot;social partnership between business and the administrations.&quot; In St. Petersburg, for example, this means that businesses finance the welfare package for war veterans (to mark 60 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany). The administrations of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast does yet more, and tries to force business to pay in &quot;declared&quot; wages at least the minimum legal wage.
 The effective exercise of the administration in these directions is inversely proportional to the difficulty of the task. If the veteran scheme has been to some extent effective, then progress on the wages front has been barely noticeable. As regards the cottage in the Moscow region, that story has become a complete joke: the court marshals cannot decide whether to start the demolition from the roof or the walls. And it has already taken more than a week for the same judge who decided that the cottages should be demolished to resolve that problem. Nonetheless, the point of the government's action on this matter is being reexamined - something that cannot be said of the second trend: the manner in which central authorities use their ever-growing revenues. The successes that the first trend provided are being used up just any old how.
 In recent times, business publications discuss at length the strange behavior of the federal government and its subordinated structures in the way that they use collected taxes. At the beginning of September, $10.5 billion had accumulated in the stabilization fund. At the beginning of October there was already $12 billion, and by the end of the year it will be $19.8 billion. By the year 2007 the Finance Ministry intends for it to expand to $25 billion. At the beginning of October the government decided to invest those funds in state bonds of the 14 most-advanced countries in the world. Which amounts to the same thing as what Russian entrepreneurs do - move capital abroad.
 It's understandable that businessmen don't want to risk investing money in the Russian economy because of the strengthening of Putin's power vertical. But what is the government afraid of? Does it, just like us, have little faith in economic development through the power vertical (in order to, for instance, double the gross national product)? The bureaucrat's official arguments - not wanting to foster inflation by releasing the cash from the stabilization fund, and also a need to keep money in reserve in case of an oil-price crisis - are similar to those that were convincingly rejected by experts in 1998. In addition, the hard currency and gold reserves of the Central Bank have grown to a prodigious size exceeding $100 billion at the end of 2004, greater than the whole annual budget of the country.
 Superprofits from oil are not working for the economy of this country - until the government's October decision they were simply lying like a dead weight in the vaults of the Central Bank - and it doesn't look as though they will be put to work. Therefore you would do well to ask why the Kremlin's hawks are pulling Yukos apart - just to gets its money and keep it sterile in Central Bank accounts or even to ship it offshore? And isn't it likely that the funds will not be redistributed to the country's own citizens, who with the monitarization process have had their privileges revoked by more than half (nor are the authorities sharing them with state workers who have retained their professional privileges nor, with ordinary voters). This is not to mention the pressing current need to develop the country's infrastructure without which no doubling of GDP will be possible. The conduct of the government is not one of a competent economist but is, in fact, more reminiscent of Pushkin's sickening money-grubbing, miserly knight (&quot;Oh lucky day, today/When my sixth chest - the one as yet unfilled/Will bathe in golden sand&quot;).
 This is all taking place during the oil boom that could do wonders for the country's economy! Presidential adviser Andrei Illarionov is right to say that the government is acting against the interests of Russia.
 It is worth noting that all this is happening while the poll rating of the head of vertical power is very stable. The population, whose privileges are being sharply cut, still believe in their president, regardless of the strange behavior of his government in relation to state assets. For now, Russians don't see any connection between the reduction in their privileges, the continually low wages, and the spending priorities of the &quot;verticals.&quot;
 As I have already said, centralization will not lead to better administration in the country. And for all the reasons mentioned above, neither will anything good happen in the socio-economic sphere. Judging by the above-mentioned trends, the central administration is not able to manage accumulated assets rationally. Therefore, the end result for Putin's power vertical must be - growth of entropy and an increase in chaos.
 
 <i>Vladimir Gryaznevich is a political analyst with Expert Severo-Zapad magazine. His comment was first broadcast on Ekho Moskvy in St. Petersburg on Friday. </i>

TITLE: Readers Express Their Outrage, Fears After Student's Murder
TEXT: Editor, </i>
 I am thinking about visiting St. Petersburg. I am English and white. Is it safe for me to visit? I am concerned. I have many friends in Russia and I would like to come and visit them and see the sights. 
 <i>
Andy Mercer
 Preston, England.
 </i>
 <i>
Editor, 
 </i>Please forward my letter to President Vladimir Putin.
 
I am a Vietnamese studying in Australia. Mr. Putin, you are my hero, and the hero of millions of Vietnamese. We are proud of your strong will. You are a president who could restore the image of Russia.Yes, we love you. 
 But I feel very disappointed because violence is out of your control in Russia. I do not think it is an uncontrollable issue when you have such a strong military and policemen, and, especially, your heart. You saved two cats when you were young and had nothing. Why do you not save people when you have everything?
 The death of Vu An Tuan, the Vietnamese student who was killed, should serve as a warning to all people around the world that Russia is not a safe place any more. We Vietnamese are very sorry that he died. We feel even more sorry for the image of Russia. Mr. Putin, from our hearts, we would like you to do more to protect international students in particular but everybody in Russia. How can we keep believing in Russia, my hero?
 I know that your heart will have been hurt when you heard about the murder. But being president, you have a responsibility to do whatever you can to save poor students like Tuan
 Be our hero as ever, Mr. President.
 <i>Hong 
 Australia 
 
Editor, 
 </i>I am an former student who recently completed his studies in St. Petersburg and happy and thankful that I am back home in Kenya after seven years in Russia without any scars or injuries despite having twice been a victim of racially motivated attacks.
 
My first advice to anyone I encounter with plans to seek further studies in Russia is &quot;make other plans&quot; because it,'s going to get worse over time unless the authorities do not finally see the difference between simple hooligans and bloodthirsty, racially motivated gangs.
 <i>Gregory Chacha Philip
 Nairobi, Kenya 
 

 Editor, 
 </i>This is absolutely horrible. Russians are a proud people. How could a country like Russia allow racist violence to be an ongoing problem? Where are the police? Where is the law enforcement? Where is the political leadership?
 
The government appears to be tolerating racists if they do not prosecute the instigators. I have seen case after case occurring without anything being done. The police force has also been known to target the Vietnamese business community to get bribes and extort money.
 Solving the skinhead problem is in the best interests of Russia. If you don't do it your image abroad will suffer, which will affect your diplomacy and economic, as well as political, interests.
 <i> Trong Dong
 Salt Lake City, Utah 
 </i>
 <i>
Editor, 
 </i>Although you reported that the murder occurred in the city center, it was more important to say that it happened very close to the Pavlov Medical University. The victim took the route that all foreign students use to come to the university. On the night of the murder we protested and demanded that the rector speak to us, but he didn't come.
 
And on Friday, we went to Governor Valentina Matviyenko's offices, but she didn't speak to us.
 We haven't seen any action from the governor against these fascist people. This suggests she is worrying about losing the support of some of their sympathizers. The slogan that was used to encourage us to come here is still passing through my mind: 
 &quot;Study In Russia.&quot; I think they forgot to put one more sentence: &quot;and get killed in Russia.&quot;
 <i>Anonymous 
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,
 </i>Russians should get tough on these Nazis and ban them and hunt them down as they have themselves done with various groups. Racial killings of little girls in the daylight in Russian towns and cities does no good to Russia's international image. I know there are a lot of decent people in Russia and they should make their voices heard now.
 
The only thing I can say is that the image of Russia has sunk to the lowest level in the eyes of foreign students. It is the skinheads, local authorities and policemen who contribute to this abhorrent feeling.
 <i> Peter O'Hallogen, 
 Kuopio, Finland 
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,
 </i>St. Petersburg is getting close to a situation similar to the one faced by Florida many years ago.
 
Many tourists were robbed and killed. The last straw was when a German tourist was killed in front of his wife and two daughters. Then Germany decided to stop all tourism to Florida. Other European states would have followed the German example. Then the Florida governor acted and put together a task force with strong powers.
 The robberies and killing stopped in a few months as the criminals where put in jail by the hundreds. Is this a situation St. Petersburg wants? Is it time for the European Union to stop all its citizens from visiting St. Petersburg in particular and Russia in general?
 <i> Sven Martin
 Vaesteraas, Sweden 
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,
 </i>The death penalty is the only way to deal with this guy's racist murder. 
 
The killers are not from the culture of Pushkin. Nevertheless, the responsibility for safety in the city lies with the city government. If you can't be safe on the streets of one of the most important cities of the world, how will Russia be able to develop an antiterrorist strategy? How can nuclear plants and the chemical and biochemical infrastructure be safe? 
 This is not a problem of one student being murdered, it is about a very weak system of a great nation.
 <i> Anonymous 
 </i>
 <i>
Editor, </i>
 I'm a student of the Hanoi Water Resource University where Vu Anh Tuan lived.
 
I have a best friend and my young sister studying in St. Petersburg. My parents live in Moscow. I am very worried. Why? We Vietnamese only want to study.
 <i> Viet Hung Doan,
 Hanoi, Vietnam 
 </i>
 <i>
Editor, </i>
 As a Vietnamese who has admired the former Soviet Union and now Russia, I was shocked when reading the news about Tuan's murder. 
 
Though the police might say that this murder is not a racist one, I still wonder why they have not yet resolved the case, if they already questioned some of the suspects. 
 If this was an &quot;ordinary' killing&quot; the murderer should be found soon. The killing of foreigners in Russia is proving that the police is so corrupt that they just leave everything unsolved. 
 Racist or not, political or not, this murder shows that the government in Russia is as good as turning a blind eye. No wonder terrorists from Chechnya can kill in Russia without being caught. 
 It explains also why the background of the Beslan killing is not going to be made public. The public are to be made as blind as the law enforcers.
 <i>Le Dong Phuong
 Hanoi, Vietnam 
 

 Editor,
 </i>I live in Ireland and am learning Russian because I like your people. Why should I continue learning a language and culture that virtually permits such obviously racial attacks?
 <i>
Donal Bergin
 Dublin, Ireland 
 </i>
 <i>
Editor, 
 </i>It scares me to think that this is going on in St. Petersburg. My mother, my sister and I (then 15) went to the city for a week as tourists and we were almost mugged by a group of Roma children. 
 Thankfully we fought back and they took nothing. I would like to go and study in Russia when I am older, but this recent news scares me. Although I am white, I still feel uneasy. However, this has not put me off making future trips to Russia. 
 <i>
 Lucinda Allen 
 Nottingham, England 
 

 Editor, 
 </i>It's awful that this murder is your introduction to skinheads. The killers are not skins, in fact they are boneheads. Traditional skinheads are not racist and we far outnumber the racist minority around the world, but I'm sure in Russia it is a little different. 
 
Let it be known, that there are some good skinheads in Russia that are fighting racism and there will be more soon to help with your cause.
 <i>Anonymous </i>

TITLE: Triumphant Russians Sweep Kremlin Cup
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The narrative of homegrown athletes triumphing over foreign opponents resonates with Russian sports fans, reaffirming their conviction that their country's athletes are no worse, and in many cases even better, than athletes abroad.
 
But this storyline is becoming increasingly rare in the world of women's tennis. These days, tournament finals frequently turn out to be all-Russian affairs.
 Such was the case Sunday afternoon at Olimpiisky Stadium, where defending champion Anastasia Myskina crushed compatriot Yelena Dementyeva 7-5 6-0 to win her second straight Kremlin Cup title in a repeat of the French Open final in June.
 But while fan support was divided between the two Russians in the women's final, there was no doubt who the crowd was behind in the men's final, as Nikolai Davydenko beat Britain's Greg Rusedski 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to notch a Russian sweep of the $2.3 million tournament.
 Both Dementyeva and Myskina played sloppily early in the first set, though they sharpened their play by the fifth game as Dementyeva took a 3-1 lead.
 Myskina held her serve and then broke Dementyeva to even up the score at 3-3 while fans voiced their allegiances with alternating cries of &quot;Go Lena!&quot; and &quot;Go Nastya!&quot;
 Dementyeva took the next two games and was serving for the set at 5-3, but Myskina broke her opponent's notoriously weak serve and went on to sweep the next nine games and capture the title.
 &quot;I had a good chance at 5-3, but I played passively, and in the second set I hardly even put up a fight,&quot; Dementyeva said at the post-match news conference.
 Myskina said she was out to show that her victory over France's Amelie Mauresmo in last year's final was not just a lucky win.
 &quot;This time I wanted to prove that last year's victory wasn't a fluke and that I earned the rating points,&quot; said Myskina, who took home a $189,000 check for Sunday's win.
 Myskina became the first Russian woman ever to win a Grand Slam title when she beat Dementyeva in the French Open final. 
 Teenage sensation Maria Sharapova, who did not play in the Kremlin Cup, promptly became the second, capturing the Wimbledon title in July, and Svetlana Kuznetsova followed suit, beating Dementyeva in an all-Russian final at the U.S. Open last month.
 Seven Russian women are currently ranked in the Top 20 of the Women's Tennis Association Tour. 
 By winning her third title of the year Sunday, Myskina will move up one spot to No. 3 in the world, behind the United States' Lindsay Davenport and Mauresmo. 
 Despite the loss, Dementyeva will move up one spot to No. 5, while Kuznetsova, who lost to Dementyeva in Friday's quarterfinal, assumes the No. 4 spot in the rankings.
 Mayor Yury Luzhkov was on hand to present the winner's trophy to Myskina, as was former President Boris Yeltsin, an avid tennis fan who was a courtside staple over the course of the tournament.
 Immediately after the match, Yeltsin made his way down to the court to congratulate Myskina on the victory while Dementyeva sat dejectedly on her courtside bench, tugging on her ponytail and wiping away an occasional tear. 
 Russian Tennis Federation president Shamil Tarpishchev eventually led the runner-up over to Yeltsin, who shook her hand and gave her a kiss on the cheek while she tried to put on a happy face.
 Addressing the crowd with a microphone after the awards ceremony, Dementyeva thanked Yeltsin for his support of tennis, noting the quandary facing Russia's most famous tennis fan in light of Russia's storming of the women's tennis world.
 &quot;I don't know who you were rooting for today,&quot; Dementyeva said. &quot;But thank you anyway for the support.&quot;
 Indeed, Yeltsin did not betray any partisanship during the women's final, keeping his hands at his sides for most of the match.But the former president was less reserved in the men's final as he openly cheered on Davydenko, who saved three match points in the 10th game of the third set, broke Rusedski in Game 11 and held his serve to capture his first-ever Kremlin Cup title and earn a $142,000 paycheck. 
 It was Davydenko's second ATP title this year after he won the BMW Open in Munich in April.

TITLE: Chelsea Loss Blamed on Dodgy Ref
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: LONDON - Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho pointed an accusing finger at referee Howard Webb but said missed chances were also to blame for his team's shock 1-0 defeat by Manchester City on Saturday.
 
An early penalty won and converted by French striker Nicolas Anelka consigned Chelsea to its first defeat in any competition under its Portuguese coach, and cast the London side five points adrift of Premier League leader Arsenal.
 &quot;That's the reality, you have to face it and just think about the next game against CSKA [Moscow] in the Champions League,&quot; Mourinho told Sky Sports.
 &quot;We're five points behind the leaders... and we just have to start winning matches again. After the Champions League on Wednesday, we have to think about Blackburn this weekend.&quot;
 The Chelsea coach was unhappy with the penalty, awarded by Webb after a challenge on Anelka by Paulo Ferreira, a member of Mourinho's Porto side who won the Champions League in May.
 City boss Kevin Keegan, whose side notched only its third league win in nine games, put the victory down to &quot;hard work, a togetherness that maybe wasn't here last season, and team spirit.&quot;
 &quot;We stood up to be counted,&quot; he added. 
 Also Saturday, Robert Pires scored twice for Arsenal in its 3-1 win over Aston Villa, the Gunners hitting back from conceding a third-minute goal, to make it eight victories from nine Premier League games. 
 It also stretched the Gunners' record unbeaten league streak to 49 games and next up is Manchester United.
 Lee Hendrie stunned Gunners fans at Highbury with an early strike for a Villa side coached by former Arsenal hero David O'Leary. But Pires leveled from the penalty spot before Thierry Henry put the Gunners ahead and then set up the third for his countryman.
 &quot;I was [worried]. It was not an expected start,&quot; Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. 
 &quot;But from then on I felt we developed a fantastic game and created chance after chance. Their 'keeper was a hero today.&quot;
 Third place Everton edged struggling Southampton 1-0 thanks to a last minute goal by Leon Osman and moved within a point of Chelsea.
 In the best fightback of the day, Liverpool rallied from two goals down to win 4-2 at Fulham.
 After Luis Boa Morte had given Fulham a two-goal lead at Craven Cottage, Rafael Benitez' team hit back with goals by Milan Baros, Xabi Alonso, and Igor Biscan after an own goal by Cottagers' defender Zat Knight.
 &quot;For the confidence for the future it will be very important,&quot; Benitez said of the result. 
 &quot;It was a very exciting game for all the supporters. With four goals we are very happy.&quot;
 Meanwhile, Manchester United slipped two places to sixth and surrendered two more points in its title challenge after a 0-0 tie with a Birmingham City side coached by former United defensive star Steve Bruce.
 
 <i>(Reuters, AP) </i>

TITLE: Red Sox Stave Off Yankees In Marathon Fourth Game
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOSTON, Massachusetts - So, they didn't sweep. 
 
No problem, the New York Yankees say, they're still in charge. 
 &quot;We know they're not going to give up,&quot; Derek Jeter said. &quot;But we're exactly in the position we want to be in.&quot; 
 That position is up three games to one in the American League championship series going into Monday, when the Yankees will try again to close out Boston at Fenway Park. This time, they face Pedro Martinez. 
 Despite a disappointing loss Sunday night, the Yankees have plenty of reasons to remain confident: They've outplayed their rivals almost the entire series, and Mike Mussina will be on the mound after taking a perfect game into the seventh inning of the opener. 
 &quot;You have to come back,&quot; manager Joe Torre said. &quot;Everybody is going to have trouble sleeping, probably except maybe from exhaustion, but that's our job.&quot; 
 Mariano Rivera could have saved his team the trouble, but baseball's most reliable closer blew his second lead of the postseason in Game 4. The Red Sox staved off elimination by rallying for a 6-4 victory in 12 innings. 
 The game lasted 5 hours, 2 minutes and ended at 1:22 a.m. local time, marking the second consecutive marathon these clubs have played. Saturday's 19-8 win by the Yankees took 4 hours, 20 minutes. The teams only had about 15 hours to get ready for Game 5, which was due to start at 5:10 p.m. on Monday. 
 &quot;That's not a problem. This time of year, we can play until 5 in the morning and be ready to roll,&quot; said Alex Rodriguez, who hit a two-run homer in the third inning to give New York a lead. &quot;We've got business to take care of, and it starts tomorrow.&quot;
 New York still needs just one win in the next three days to advance to the World Series. Of the 25 previous teams to take a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series, none were pushed to Game 7. Only two even went to a sixth game. 
 Yet the Yankees know they wasted a great opportunity to knock out the Red Sox. Curt Schilling, injured ankle and all, is expected to pitch Game 6 for Boston at Yankee Stadium - if it gets that far. 
 &quot;You don't allow yourself to fast forward - especially when they've got a good team over there,&quot; Rodriguez said. 
 Rivera labored through 40 pitches and two tense innings in Game 4, but insisted he'll be ready if needed on Monday. &quot;I will be there,&quot; Rivera said. &quot;[I've] been there before and this is no different.&quot; 
 He gave up a leadoff walk to Kevin Millar in the ninth and a tying RBI single to Bill Mueller, who also hit a game-winning homer off Rivera on July 24. It was one of two times Boston beat the All-Star closer this season. 
 &quot;We scored a run off the best relief pitcher in the history of baseball with our backs against the wall,&quot; Doug Mientkiewicz said. 
 Rivera escaped a bases-loaded jam and kept it tied at 4 by getting David Ortiz to pop out, but looked tired in the dugout as the game went to extra innings. 
 Ortiz won it with a two-run homer off Paul Quantrill in the 12th, ending the longest game in American League Championship Series history.

TITLE: Patriots Rack Up 20th Victory
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: FOXBORO, Massachusetts - Tom Brady lost a fumble and his helmet - but not the streak. 
 Brady recovered from that fumble and a costly interception by throwing a long completion in the closing minutes, giving the Patriots their National Footbal League-record 20th straight win, 30-20 over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday. 
 &quot;It's not like we say, 'All right, guys, let's go out and make the play' and [we] make the play,&quot; Brady said. &quot;At the same time, our team has a lot of confidence that when we get in these type of games we're going to make the plays to win.&quot; 
 Facing a third-and-7 at his 40 with 2:45 left and the Patriots leading 23-20, Brady threw down the left side to speedy Bethel Johnson, who made a 48-yard reception as he hit the ground. The Seahawks challenged the catch, saying he didn't have possession, but lost. 
 &quot;I think he made a great catch,&quot; Seattle coach Mike Holmgren said. &quot;I really saw that play differently than the referee.&quot; 
 Three plays later, Corey Dillon put the game away with his second touchdown on a 9-yard run with 1:55 remaining. 
 &quot;Without that catch we can't even begin to say what could have happened,&quot; Dillon said. 
 Without it, the Patriots (5-0) might not have tied the NFL record of 17 straight regular-season wins set in 1933-34 by Chicago. They'll be at home next week against the undefeated New York Jets. 
 New England led 20-3 late in the first half, and it was 20-9 early in the fourth quarter when Brady was jarred as the Seahawks recovered his fumble at their 42. 
 &quot;That was disappointing because I had the first down,&quot; Brady said. &quot;I was fine, not much in that head to rattle around.&quot;
 On the Patriots' next series, though, he threw an interception to Michael Boulware. That set up Shaun Alexander's 9-yard touchdown run and a 2-point conversion that pulled the Seahawks within 20-17 with 11:05 left. 
 The Seahawks (3-2) fell behind 23-17 on Adam Vinatieri's third field goal, a 30-yarder, with 6:43 to go. They had a first down at the New England 13 with 3:51 left before an intentional grounding penalty against Matt Hasselbeck forced them to settle for Josh Brown's fourth field goal, a 31-yarder with 3:01 to go. 
 &quot;I threw it thinking someone was going to peel out&quot; toward the ball, Hasselbeck said. &quot;That was not the big play that hurt us.&quot;

TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: <b>Zenit Goes Off Boil
 </b>

St. Petersburg (SPT) - Ahead of its UEFA Cup tie against AEK Athens on Thursday, St. Petersburg's FC Zenit has gone off the boil in the race for the Russian championship. 
 Zenit, which were last year's runner up in the Premier League to put them into the European-wide club competition, have slipped to third after a disappointing away draw to FC Rubin Kazan. Twenty-year old midfielder Igor Denisov scored for Zenit at 37 minutes but the match ended tied at 1:1. 
 With four matches left in the domestic season, Moscow teams CSKA and Lokomotiv occupy first and second places in the Premiership at 52 and 51 points respectively. Zenit has 50 points. 
 
 
<b>Rossi clinches MotoGP
 </b>

PHILLIP ISLAND, Australia (AP) - Four MotoGP world championships in a row, three consecutive wins at Phillip Island in the Australian Grand Prix: not a bad day - and season - for Valentino Rossi. 
 Rossi overtook Spain's Sete Giberneau on the final lap Sunday, when the lead changed hands three times, to win for the eighth time this season. It was his fifth career victory in Australia. 
 "It's a fantastic finish to a fantastic championship," said Rossi. "It was very close on the last lap, I'm sure very good for the fans." 
 Rossi finished in 41 minutes, 25.819 seconds, just ahead of Gibernau's 41:25.916. Loris Capirossi of Italy was third in 41:36.305. 
 It was the 25-year-old Italian's 46th Grand Prix win.
 
 
<b>Klitschko to Fight
 </b>

LONDON (Reuters) - World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko will defend his title against Britain's Danny Williams in New York on Dec. 11, Williams' promoter said Thursday. 
 Former British and European champion Williams has been given a title shot after he caused one of the biggest upsets in boxing when he knocked out former champion Mike Tyson in the fourth round of their fight in July. 
 "For Danny Williams, this is a huge, huge opportunity," Williams' promoter Frank Warren was quoted as saying on his web site frankwarren.tv. 
 "He grabbed lightning in a jar by stopping Tyson, and now he has the same chance to do it again. He's got the bit between his teeth and he'll come to fight." 
 A venue had not been set for the fight, but the web site said Klitschko's promoters were "99 percent certain" it would be at Madison Square Garden. 
 Klitschko stopped South African Corrie Sanders in April to win the title vacated by Briton Lennox Lewis a fortnight after the Ukrainian's brother Vladimir had lost his bid for the World Boxing Organization version of the title. 
 
 
<b>Yartsev to Quit?
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia coach Georgy Yartsev is to take a week to ponder his future following Wednesday's 7-1 drubbing by Portugal in a World Cup qualifier in Lisbon. 
 "He said he needed time to think things over," the president of the Russian Football Union Vyacheslav Koloskov said Friday. 
 "He will report to me in a week to let me know if he wants to continue. We are not talking about replacing him at this time." 
 Yartsev was savaged by the Russian press on Friday for the Group 3 defeat, the team's worst - either as Russia or the Soviet Union - since 1912. 
 "Incompetent", "weak-willed", "coward" - were some of the terms used to describe the coach, who left the bench minutes before the end of the match after Portugal scored their sixth goal, complaining that his players were not motivated.