SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1025 (91), Tuesday, November 30, 2004
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Registration
 Switch Hits
 House Deals
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: All real estate deals in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast are in danger of becoming stalled by bureaucracy from Jan. 1 when the city's and the oblast's property registers are united, real estate operators and lawyers said Monday.
 
The Justice Ministry ordered the unification late this month. Additional staff have not been employed, nor have new documentation been prepared or a new chief been appointed to head the regional bureau.
 "Real estate deals will get stuck," said Natalya Yemuranova, a member of the St. Petersburg Collegium of Lawyers who chaired a round table on security issues at the American Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
 "This will cause problems for everyone," she said. "If it takes five days to register a deal now, from Jan. 1 it will take one month. It won't be just terrible; it's going to be terrible times three."
 The real estate registration system that has been developed in the city over the last 10 years and which seems much more advanced than those used elsewhere in the country could be destroyed, Yemuranova said.
 "This way the reorganization that is taking place at the moment can not be described as anything other than a distraction," she said. Last Thursday, the St. Petersburg Association of Realtors sent an official letter to Governor Valentina Matviyenko asking City Hall to postpone the plan to avoid of harming the city's real estate market. If the merger takes place, it will damage the interests of more than 70 percent of applicants who prefer to register their deals as they have been doing, the letter said.
 "The increased period of registration will have a negative influence on the development of mortgages and leasing when real estate is pledged," the letter said. "These developments are key goals for the success of the real estate market and the Russian economy as a whole."
 Realtors also said the changes would harm the market in communal apartments purchased by investors. 
 These investments improve the city's housing stock and save apartment buildings from falling apart if their residents cannot afford to restore them.
 "Increasing the time it takes to complete deals in the communal apartments sector will decrease the interest of investors in this segment and lead to its total stagnation," realtors said. "Residents of communal apartments will lose their last option to improve their living conditions."
 About 12 percent of St. Petersburg housing consists of communal apartments. Some 300,000 families - about a fifth of the city's 4.7 million population - live in them, according to the city's housing committee.
 City Hall had not commented on the letter by Monday.
 In her comments to the media last week, Galina Volchetskya, head of St. Petersburg registration bureau, con-firmed that the time taken to register real estate dates will be extended to one month as it is for the whole country. 
 At the same time, she admitted her office is not ready for the reform.
 "The regional office of the Russian State Registry has not been created," Delovoi Peterburg quoted Volchetskaya as saying last week. 
 "We don't yet have a description on how we should transfer to the new system, many question have not been cleared up - starting with application forms and stamps, and finishing with staff." 
 Registration fees that are transferred to the local registration office and which are used to pay for its operation will be sent to the federal budget starting Jan 1, which is supposed to then take over responsibility for financing the office, Volchetskaya said.
 Registration fees are expected to jump five times compared to current rates, according to reports in the local media.
 Sergei Galalu, general director of real estate firm Itaka, said real estate companies are getting ready to face complications from the beginning of next year. 
 "The change will result in serious delays and the real estate industry stands to lose staff because the change will result in a drop in their salaries," Galalu said Monday in a telephone interview.
 "The longer registration period will create a range of problems for citizens who are buying houses and apartments," he added. 
 "The money to pay off deals is usually stored in safes in banks and there not that many safes to hold it for such a long period of time," he said. 
 "Even if there was an exception made for such cities as St. Petersburg and Moscow to register property deals in no longer than two weeks ... even this would be too long," he said.
 Taking into account that St. Petersburg's registration system is one of the best in Russia the attempt to bring it to the federal level will damage its functioning in the city, Galalu said.
 Alexander Belkin, deputy director of the Dinas real estate agency, said: "If they had done it half a year in advance nobody would have noticed anything and nobody would have been worried now. 
 "But as it always happens in our [country] the left leg doesn't know what the right one is doing."

TITLE: Falcons Help Pulkovo Stay Free of Bird Strikes
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Worried that a mid-air collision with a plane will have fatal consequences, airports throughout the world consider birds enemies. 
 But some birds can be friends.
 
At St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport those friends are the four falcons "hired" by the airport operator this summer to guard the runways from other feathery intruders. 
 When Akka, Kesha or the two other falcons, which don't yet have names, soar in the sky over the airport, they act as red traffic lights to all those seagulls, crows and ducks that dare to show their beaks near the landing and take-off routes.
 "Every year Pulkovo airport has incidents in which planes landing or taking off ram into birds flying above the airfield," said Andrei Sokolov, head of Pulkovo's ornithology service. "Everything we tried previously to counter this produced little result."
 At least 10 bird strikes have occurred a year, although few strikes have proven dangerous. However, the fear remains that a bird hitting an engine or other important mechanism could have a serious effect on a plane's ability to fly.
 The airplane industry estimates at least 350 people have been killed as a result of bird strikes since the dawn of aviation. The problem is growing worse because of increasing numbers of birds and planes, CNN reports.
 The deadliest bird-plane collision was in 1960, when an Eastern Airlines jet struck a flock of starlings and crashed into Boston Harbor, killing 62 people.
 In 1995, an Air Force radar plane crashed in Alaska, killing 24 crewmen, after geese were sucked into one of the plane's engines, the television company said.
 However, Sokolov said that CNN's figures did not take account of all casualties and the true number is much higher.
 Most bird strikes occur at low altitude during the most dangerous time of any flight, the take-off or landing. More bird strikes occur during landing, because the noise of take-offs scares birds away, he added.
 Seagulls that flock around the city's largest dump about four kilometers from the airport represent Pulkovo's main bird problem.
 The dump is too close, but St. Petersburg is also on the flight paths of migrating birds, he said.
 Until this summer the Pulkovo ornithology service relied on two main methods of battling bird strikes - shooting birds or acoustic methods. One acoustic method consisted of broadcasting special soundtracks of sounds that alarmed birds. Another was setting off fireworks.
 "However, those methods were not very effective," Sokolov said.
 When the falcons arrived at Pulkovo from a nursery in the city of Voronezh in early July there was a noticeable difference.
 "There have been no bird strikes since the falcons joined our service," Sokolov said.
 Pulkovo ornithologists received the falcons when the birds were one month old, which was the perfect age for training them.
 Vladimir Semyonov, Pulkovo's ornithologist, who worked with birds at the city's Leningrad Zoo for 25 years, said training birds requires a special approach.
 Unlike dogs, birds respond only to rewards, not to punishment, he said.
 "If a coach scolds or punishes a bird, which might work with dogs, the bird won't understand why it's punished, and will merely dislike further training," Semyonov said.
 The main task that Pulkovo's young falcons had to learn was when they fly above the airport, they must patrol a certain area, and to come back as soon as an ornithologist gives them a signal.
 "The falcons don't understand that this is work when they do it, but they must be controlled strictly and obey an ornithologist completely," Semyonov said.
 One difficulty had been getting the falcons used to the noise of jet engines on the runways.
 The falcons don't chase birds that approach the airport; they simply frighten other birds off with their presence because all other birds are by instinct afraid of the birds of prey.
 "When our falcons circle in the sky every morning, they not only scare away the other birds but also impress on those birds for a long time that this area is dangerous for them," Semyonov said.
 The falcon service has much in common with the tradition of hunting with falcons that was very popular in tsarist Russia. Its traditions were largely lost in Soviet times.
 Similar falcon or hawk services operate at airports in other countries, including the U.S., Germany, Britain and Poland. 
 Falcons are being introduced to quite a few other Russian airports.

TITLE: Dalai Lama Visits Buddhists
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ELISTA, Kalmykia - The Dalai Lama arrived Monday on his first visit to Buddhists in Russia after Moscow abruptly reversed its refusal to grant the Tibetan spiritual leader entry. 
 
The Foreign Ministry had said the Dalai Lama would be given a visa in the expectation that he would limit his activities solely to pastoral purposes, visiting largely Buddhist communities in Kalmykia, in southern Russia. 
 Half the 300,000 residents of the region are Buddhists. In all, Russia is home to about 1 million Buddhists. 
 The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, also leads Tibetans who resist Chinese rule. Russia, wary of upsetting China, has rejected visa requests for the Dalai Lama at least three times in the past. 
 "Considering the numerous requests by the leaders of the Buddhist community and rank-and-file citizens of Russia, the Dalai Lama has been given a visa," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement Monday. 
 China occupied Tibet in 1951 and claims the Himalayan region has been Chinese territory for centuries. Russia has refrained from any official contacts with the Dalai Lama, saying it considers Tibet "an inalienable part of China." 
 "The Buddhists have broken the 'Chinese Wall' of Russian diplomacy," the Vremya Novostei daily commented in a headline Monday. 
 It said the Dalai Lama had been required to send a letter to President Vladimir Putin, promising to refrain from any political statements.
 Signaling the sensitivity of the planned visit, the Foreign Ministry on Friday announced that a visa would be granted, but within hours Yakovenko said the visit was in question because of the "unnecessary uproar being created around the Dalai Lama's possible trip." 


TITLE: Corruption 'a Question of Will'
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Corruption in Russia, or any of its regions, including St. Petersburg, could be eliminated within just one year if there is enough political will, said lawmaker Andrei Chernykh Monday. 
 
"When I say political will, I mean not only politicians, but also police officers, judges, journalists and ordinary citizens," he said.
 When there are enough allegations against an official for taking bribes, if law enforcement officers, prosecutors and journalists pursue them, then it can only end in a conviction, Chernykh added.
 He was speaking at a roundtable on corruption held at Rosbalt news agency. The roundtable was part of a conference "Civil Society Against Corruption in North-Western Russia," organized by the local center "Strategia", that specializes in humanitarian projects and political research.
 According to the Moscow-based National Anticorruption Committee, corruption costs Russia $40 billion a year.
 A 2002 research project conducted by Transparency International and Moscow-based research foundation INDEM, St. Petersburg is the country's No. 3 region in terms of corruption after Moscow and the Moscow region.
 "Both corporate and everyday corruption were examined and St. Petersburg held the leading position in the entire country for the amount of money paid in everyday bribes to, for instance, road police and doctors," said Yelena Chirkova, an anticorruption researcher with Transparency International.
 The research will be repeated in the near future to monitor changes, she said.
 The difference between how citizens perceive corruption in a region and its true level is often drastic.
 In Karelia, the citizens saw corruption as high, while research identified the republic as having some of the lowest corruption levels. By contrast, in Bashkortostan, residents described the region as clean, while the researched unveiled a widespread and deep-seated corruption.
 Lawmaker Mikhail Amosov called corruption a bleeding wound of Russian society. Greater legal accountability of politicians for their decisions and consequences as well as their appointees would help to reduce corruption, he said. 
 "Alexander Datsuk is the head of the city's transport committee , while his son Yury is commercial director of Passazhiravtotrans, the state body responsible for social bus transportations," Amosov said. "Everybody knows it is turning into a joint-stock company in the near future, and everyone is turning a blind eye to this. Someone has to be responsible for such major appointments, and such major apparent conflicts of interest."
 Amosov also suggested stronger punishment is introduced for the officials for telling lies. "It doesn't matter who they are lying to - journalists, parlamentarians or ordinary people - if they get away with a lie, here is where corruption starts," the lawmaker said.
 Kirill Kabanov, acting director of the National Anticorruption Committee, said most Russians don't see corruption as a "clear and immediate danger".
 "Our research shows that most people mention social issues, education, security as the country's most ailing issues, which should be priorities for the state," he said. "It doesn't occur to them that problems in all these spheres are the consequences of corruption, which is rooted everywhere. Corruption is a system, not a string of occasional bribes."

TITLE: Charkin Re-Elected as Rector
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Albert Charkin was last week re-elected as rector of the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, which has been through major staff reshuffles over the past six months.
 
Charkin, a professional sculptor, resigned as rector in June after being urged to do so on the recommendation of Moscow-based Zurab Tsereteli, the president of Russian Academy of Fine Arts. 
 Charkin was forced to vacate his office two years before the end of his term.
 Tsereteli also appointed Oleg Kharchenko, formerly St. Petersburg's chief architect, as Charkin's replacement. But these sudden and unexplained staff changes caused student protests. 
 Pro-Charkin activists held a series of meetings, demanding his return on the grounds that the academy's rector should be a practicing artist. Branding Kharchenko a bureaucrat, they pasted leaflets opposing his appointment all over the academy.
 Tsereteli also received a letter from the General's Prosecutor's Office denouncing the appointment of Khar-chenko. The letter said it was illegal to appoint the rector, who must be elected.
 Kharchenko was forced to quit. Vladimir Pesikov, the academy's deputy rector, temporarily replaced him. 
 Pesikov ran against Charkin. Kharchenko did not run. All academy Staff and students were eligible to vote.
 Albert Charkin chairs the city's Union of Artists. Some of his most familiar works include the sculpture Peter the Great inside the Moskovsky Railway Station Hall and a statue of poet Sergei Yesenin in the Tavrichesky Garden.
 Meanwhile, Kharchenko, who is a professor and corresponding member of the academy, continues to teach at its architecture faculty, where he has his own workshop. 
 The results of the election have to be approved by the Russian Academy of Fine Arts and its president Tsereteli.

TITLE: Defense Casts Doubt on Linkov's Testimony
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Defense lawyers at the trial of seven suspects accused of the 1998 slaying of Galina Starovoitova on Monday cast doubt on the evidence of Ruslan Linkov, the deputy's assistant who was injured in her assassination.
 
But lawyers for the prosecution say the accused are grasping at straws to drag out the hearing.
 The defense quoted testimony Linkov gave in a hospital a few days after the assassination, when he had said he had clearly heard a woman's voice at the murder scene shouting, "Finish her."
 None of the accused are female.
 "I heard a rumble in my ears," Interfax quoted Linkov as having said. "I was losing my consciousness so for this reason I might have misheard or mixed up the voice's gender."
 The defense also reviewed a Linkov statement made before the trial proper began in December last year when he said shortly before Starovoitova arrived in St. Petersburg he called her in Moscow and she said that money would soon be delivered to pay for her allies to run for the Legislative Assembly.
 Linkov said the questions were a deliberate attempt to mislead the court.
 "They are doing this on purpose, trying to drag out the hearing, probably at the suggestion from those who ordered the assassination and from these who are still at large," he said Monday outside the hearing. "They keep asking me to repeat over and over the same words I have said numerous times already."

TITLE: Ukraine TV Journalist Stages Silent Revolt
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - When the anchorwoman for Ukraine's state-owned television station UT-1 reported Thursday morning that Viktor Yanukovych had officially been declared the winner of the presidential election, Natalya Dmitruk staged a silent protest.
 
Dmitruk, shown in the bottom righthand corner of the screen wearing an orange ribbon indicating her support for opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, told viewers in sign language that she considered the Nov. 21 election a farce.
 "I am addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine," Dmitruk signed. "Our president is Yushchenko. Don't believe what they say. They are lying."
 Dmitruk, 47, whose parents are deaf and who has worked at UT-1 as its sign-language interpreter for almost three years, then went back to signing anchorwoman Tatyana Kravchenko's report before straying from the script one more time at the end of the 10-minute segment.
 "My soul is heavy that I had to repeat these lies," Dmitruk signed. "I will not do it again. I don't know if we'll see each other again."
 Dmitruk's personal revolt came amid a mutiny of Ukrainian television journalists against the management of pro-government stations and a gag order on showing the growing masses of Yushchenko supporters demonstrating in the capital. 
 By the end of last week, the journalists claimed to have won, though critics say their coverage still is not what it should be.
 Contacted by telephone in Kiev on Sunday, Dmitruk said she felt she had a special responsibility to speak her mind. "The deaf don't have any other option for getting television news," she said, referring to the reports she does daily on UT-1 at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. 
 "I figured they could fire me, but I wasn't scared. The only thing I was worried about was that they might get rid of the sign-language news."
 On Wednesday, 14 journalists at UT-1 and 1+1, a privately owned but pro-government channel, went on strike to protest the use of "temnyki," instructions from the presidential administration on how certain subjects should be handled. The strike soon spread.
 After her morning report, Dmitruk joined the strike, one of more than 220 journalists and contributors at the state-owned channel to do so. They put out a statement condemning the "one-sided coverage" that "deprives Ukrainian citizens of important news."
 Thursday evening, journalists at 1+1 said they had struck a deal with management. They went back on the air for the first time since Tuesday to announce the deal and to apologize.
 "We acknowledge our responsibility for the biased information that the channel spread after coming under pressure from various political forces," the 1+1 journalists said. "From today, ... we guarantee that any information we broadcast will be complete and objective."
 Inter, another privately run and strongly pro-government channel, promised Friday to put an end to biased reporting. Inter is controlled by members of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine, which is headed by President Leonid Kuchma's chief of staff, Viktor Medvedchuk.
 No formal agreement was reached at UT-1, but the channel changed its policy and on Friday began showing the huge demonstrations in support of Yushchenko in Kiev. 
 Natalya Ligachova, head of the media watchdog organization Telekritika, said all the national channels are now showing footage of the Yushchenko supporters, but she still did not consider it completely objective coverage.
 "Unfortunately, they are not showing as much of it as they should," Ligachova, whose organization monitors Ukraine's television media, said by telephone from Kiev on Sunday.
 She complained that Inter and UT-1 were giving the impression of balanced coverage by showing footage of meetings between representatives of Yushchenko and Yanukovych instead of running reports highlighting the marked difference in the amount of public support for the two candidates.
 "When they show a rally of 4,000 for Yanukovych and a rally of 100,000 for Yushchenko and don't make it clear how much more support Yushchenko has, that's not accurate reporting," Ligachova said.
 Until Thursday, Channel 5 was the only channel giving significant airtime to the pro-Yushchenko protests and airing critical reports about the Yanukovych camp. 
 For example, on Thursday the station reported that Yanukovych supporters were brought to Kiev on special buses and trains and were being paid 200 hryvnas (about $30) per day to stay. Kuchma has accused Channel 5 of trying to prepare the way for a coup.
 Ligachova said Channel 5 had been blacked out in much of eastern Ukraine, where Yanukovych claims most of his support, as a result of its critical coverage of the prime minister. A woman named Tanya who answered the phone Sunday at Yushchenko's headquarters in Donetsk, confirmed that Channel 5 and also TRK Era, another station critical of Yanukovych, were not being received.
 "Now our only source of reliable information is Radio Era," she said. "We've been listening to Radio Era all day."
 Television channel 1+1 has changed its content for the better but is still not providing objective coverage, she said. "Before it was just complete lies, now it shows the truth more often," she said.
 
 n Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, accused Russian journalists on Friday of "lies and manipulating public opinion" over the election dispute, The Associated Press reported. 
 He singled out state-controlled Channel One television and newspapers he did not name for acting like "slaves who envy others' freedom," and said they were "poisoning one part of the Ukrainian people against the other."
 Channel One, which is broadcast in Ukraine and many other former Soviet republics, has given blanket positive coverage to pro-Yanukovych demonstrators and accused their opponents of worsening tensions. 
 <i>

 Staff Writer Greg Walters contributed to this report. </i>

TITLE: Scientists Slam Danilov Verdict
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A group of prominent Russian scientists have expressed their support for convicted physicist Valentin Danilov, who was sentenced to 14 years in jail on treason charges and demanded a detailed and public reinvestigation of the case.
 
Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov backed the sentence, saying that Danilov's conviction will serve as a warning to other scientists.
 The Krasnoyarsk Regional Court on Wednesday sentenced Danilov to 14 years in a maximum-security prison after a panel of jurors in a retrial earlier this month found him guilty of spying for China and embezzlement of state funds.
 Danilov maintained that he had used open sources in his research for a Chinese company and Chinese science institute, which looked into the influence of electromagnetic waves on satellites. His lawyer has appealed the verdict.
 A group of prominent scientists from the Public Committee for the Protection of Scientists - including Yury Ryzhov, president of Moscow Engineering University, and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Vitaly Ginzburg - met to discuss Danilov's conviction.
 Reached by telephone Thursday, Ryzhov declined to comment on the results of the meeting, saying only that the scholars are determined to support Danilov.
 Ryzhov told news agencies that the committee would demand a new open trial for Danilov.
 Ryzhov has publicly backed Danilov since the Federal Security Service started its investigation of him on treason charges. He was among a group of scientists who signed a statement last year saying that the information Danilov passed to the Chinese was not secret.
 &quot;Contracts with foreign partners, like the one Danilov concluded in 1999, are still being concluded by Russian researchers,&quot; Ryzhov said, the Regnum news agency reported. &quot;This work helps them to survive in the conditions of modern Russia, which are unfavorable for science.&quot; 
 Since the Soviet collapse, scientific research in Russia has been largely neglected by the state, and cash-strapped researchers often opt to work abroad or seek research grants from foreign companies.
 Ginzburg, who also signed a letter in support of Danilov last year, criticized the verdict.
 &quot;I know from competent people that he is not guilty. If there were doubts over his innocence, such highly reputable scholars would not be supporting him,&quot; Ginzburg said, Kommersant reported.
 &quot;I'm against espionage, but also against falsified cases. This is why such court cases should not be held behind closed doors,&quot; Ginzburg said.
 Other prominent scholars warned that cases like Danilov's would discourage young scientists from pursuing an academic career in Russia.
 &quot;I don't believe Danilov is guilty,&quot; Sergei Kapitsa, vice president of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, told Ekho Moskvy radio. &quot;The first jury acquitted him, but the second found him guilty. It once again shows that the number of fools in this world is quite high.&quot; 
 Kolesnikov said Thursday that while he felt sympathy for Danilov, he thought the verdict and sentence were fair.
 &quot;It is a warning to others: Protect your country,&quot; Kolesnikov said, Interfax reported.
 But Eduard Kruglyakov, deputy director of the Novosibirsk Nuclear Physics Institute, warned that cases like Danilov's evoke memories of the Stalinist purges, when many thousands of scientists faced repression.
 &quot;This trial is an outrage and a disgrace,&quot; he said, Kommersant reported. &quot;It's true, we're more civilized now and 1937 is not threatening us, but this is a clear step backward.&quot;
 Some scholars said Danilov's sentence was too harsh, but stopped short of defending his conduct.
 &quot;We have a department which looks after the safety of secret information,&quot; said Kurchatov Institute director Yevgeny Velikhov, Kommersant reported. &quot;I think we can avoid going to jail with Danilov.&quot;
 But Grigory Balykhin, head of the Federal Education Agency, said that a report to the court by several dozen experts for the Education and Science Ministry found that Danilov had shared classified files.

TITLE: State Duma Approves
 Long New Year Break
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The country is all but assured of getting a 10-day break during the upcoming New Year holiday after the State Duma last week approved a bill changing holidays.
 
The amendment to the Labor Code also scraps the Nov. 7 and Dec. 12 public holidays, shortens the two-day May Day holiday to one day and adds a new holiday on Nov. 4 called National Unity Day.
 The Duma passed the Kremlin-approved bill on the first reading by 325-100 with six abstentions. 
 While it still needs two more Duma readings and approval by the Federation Council and President Vladimir Putin, politicians have made it clear that they want the bill passed into law in time for the new year. The only hurdle was kick-starting the process with a first Duma reading.
 Andrei Isayev, chairman of the Duma's Labor and Social Policy Committee, promised on Tuesday that the country will get a longer break this New Year season, from Jan. 1 to 11.
 Under the changes, Jan. 1-5 and 7 are days off, but due to the fact that two of those days fall on a weekend, nobody will work or study until Jan. 11. The new holiday schedule will leave the country with 12 holiday days off work compared to the current 11.
 Presenting the bill to the Duma, United Russia Deputy Oleg Yeremeyev said the government has endorsed the changes even though the extra day off will cost the federal budget 8 billion rubles ($281 million) in lost taxes.
 The provision to drop the Nov. 7 holiday sparked a lively debate in the Duma, which for the past year has rammed through legislation while stifling any dissent from minority opposition deputies.
 Yeremeyev and Isayev insisted that the holiday - which originally commemorated the 1917 Revolution and was renamed the Day of Accord and Reconciliation in the 1990s - is ideologically outdated and should be replaced with the holiday on Nov. 4, the day in 1612 when Moscow was liberated from Polish occupation.
 &quot;Millions of Russians do not consider Nov. 7 a holiday. Why should we impose this holiday on them?&quot; Isayev said. 
 LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a co-sponsor of the bill, went even further, saying that the Communist Party should be abolished along with the holiday.
 In one of his most impassioned speeches in recent years, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov told deputies they were rejecting their own history and reminded United Russia members that many had been Communists in Soviet times.
 &quot;I urge you not to spit on the graves of your parents,&quot; Zyuganov said.
 Outside the Duma, several dozen protesters denounced the proposed change. Several attempted to enter the building but were taken away by police.

TITLE: Last Issue of Gusinsky's
 Yezhenedelny Zhurnal
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The last remnant of Vladimir Gusinsky's once-mighty media empire, weekly news magazine Yezhenedelny Zhurnal, printed its last issue last week.
 
&quot;Yezhenedelny Zhurnal is ceasing its existence as a paper publication and is going online,&quot; editor Mikhail Berger wrote in the last issue, which hit newsstands last Tuesday. 
 &quot;We want an event and the reaction to it to become virtually simultaneous and our consumer to receive our product not only quickly, but immediately.&quot;
 Berger said weekly news magazines cannot compete with television or the Internet in speed of delivery. Also, the &quot;virtual absence of public politics&quot; and opposition makes political coverage uninteresting for most readers, he wrote. 
 &quot;The main reason is technological. There may be a future for glamour or entertainment print media, but not for political ones such as ours,&quot; Berger explained in a telephone interview. 
 The magazine will keep some staff, but will only be available as an Internet publication at www.ej.ru. Its return to print is &quot;highly unlikely,&quot; Berger said.
 However, other news and economics weeklies, such as Kommersant Vlast and Ekspert, are unlikely to follow Yezhenedelny Zhurnal's example in the near future, as they have a much higher &quot;margin of economic safety,&quot; he said.
 Launched in December 2001, Yezhenedelny Zhurnal is known for its liberal, anti-Kremlin stance, particularly in relation to Chechnya.
 The magazine, which Berger said had a circulation of 60,000, had a loyal, albeit small, audience. The magazine is the last major Russian media asset of exiled mogul Gusinsky, who controls the newsru.com web site and the Israeli-based RTV International satellite channel, which has a Russian subsidiary, Ekho-TV.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Smoking Restrictions
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Federation Council approved a bill Wednesday to restrict smoking in public places. 
 Senators voted 90-19 in favor of the bill, which now goes to President Vladimir Putin for his approval. 
 There had been doubts over whether the council would approve the bill after it blocked a similar bill restricting beer sales and consumption on the streets this month. 
 
 
<b>1,000 Nukes Destroyed
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia and the United States have destroyed some 1,000 nuclear missiles and other launch vehicles under a 1991 arms control deal, the Defense Ministry said. 
 A source in the Defense Ministry told Itar-Tass on Tuesday that Russia had reduced its number of nuclear delivery vehicles to less than 1,000 units and its number of warheads to 5,000.
 
 
<b>Land Mines Protocol
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - The State Duma on Tuesday ratified an international protocol restricting the use of some categories of land mines. The Duma voted 349-33 with three abstentions to ratify the 1996 protocol, which restricts the use of the deadliest land mines and bans mines that are impossible to detect. 
 The protocol has languished in the Duma since 2000 and came to a vote Tuesday, only after Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told deputies that further delays could hurt Russia's image abroad. 
 "Dragging out the ratification is fraught with negative political consequences," Ivanov said. 
 He said the protocol would not hamper military plans to deploy minefields along some Russian borders. 
 
 
<b>Al-Qaida Link Denied
 </b>

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A leading Chechen militant has denied assertions that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida movement is linked to Chechen rebels fighting Moscow.
 In a statement published on a rebel Web site last Tuesday, Movladi Udugov said the international Islamist militant group had never set up training camps in Chechnya. He also denied meeting bin Laden.
 Russia has long said the Chechen rebels are linked to international terrorists, saying its 10-year war in the rebel province is a key front in the U.S.-led war on terror.
 "This is a total lie and crude provocation," said Udugov, a propagandist for the rebels, on Web site www.kavkazcenter.com in response to a declassified U.S. intelligence report published by U.S. pressure group Judicial Watch.
 
 
<b>Torshin on Beslan Link
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - The head of a parliamentary commission investigating the September massacre at a school in southern Russia said there is evidence of involvement by a foreign intelligence agency, Interfax reported Saturday. 
 The statement was the latest of several in which Russian officials and politicians have alleged foreigners were involved in the Sept. 1-3 attack on a school in the southern town of Beslan, which ended in bloody chaos and left more than 330 people dead, many of them children. 
 "For the moment, the evidence that we have of this involvement is indirect, so I consider it premature to name exactly which special service it is," Interfax quoted commission head Alexander Torshin saying. 
 Russians refer to intelligence and security agencies as special services.

TITLE: New Foreign Brews Enter Market
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: As foreign brewers seek larger shares in a Russian beer market that producers and experts claim is still far from saturated, St. Petersburg brewers have begun production of at least two major foreign beer brands this month.
 
The mid-November launch of Scottish &amp; Newcastle's Kronenbourg 1664 brand, brewed by Vena, has been followed by Foster's lager, produced by Baltika Brewers under license from Australian drinks company Foster's Group Ltd.
 &quot;It's a huge market and it's fast-growing,&quot; Rick Scully, managing director of Foster's Brewing International, told Dow Jones Newswires. &quot;Just on basic volumes, you've got be in Russia.&quot;
 Baltika began production of Foster's beer at the end of October and the first consignment totaling 300,000 liters is already available across Russia, Baltika's press-service said.
 The brand's official launch is planned for Dec. 9 in Moscow, and in St. Petersburg on Dec. 17.
 Local prodcution of foreign brands under license is nothing new.
 Advantages for Russian brewers, which take care of marketing and distributing foreign brands across Russia, lie not only in percentages of sales but in &quot;strengthening the company's presence in the license segment of the market,&quot; said Baltika's press-service in a telephone interview.
 &quot;The Russian beer market is still gathering its speed, and it's not overloaded with products yet,&quot; the brewer's press service added.
 Vena said it plans to produce 400,000 decaliters of Kronenbourg 1664 beer in 2005. 
 Despite recent federal legislation to curb beer promotion, the domestic market has doubled to $7 billion in the last five years. It ranks as the world's fifth-largest, and this year alone is forecast to grow by at least 5 percent, several percent higher than in Western Europe, noted Moscow-based brokerage Renaissance Capital, as reported by Bloomberg.
 The international premium beer segment as yet represents about 5 percent of the overall Russian market but this is set to double in the next three years. While both Foster's and Baltika declined to comment on their royalty/sales agreement, Scully said Foster's viewed the deal as &quot;a big opportunity,&quot; and that the partners aimed to sell 400,000 hectoliters, or four million cases of Foster's within three years, as reported Dow Jones.
 &quot;Russian companies are seeking to offer a larger variety on the market, and that includes through foreign brands brewed under license,&quot; said Vyacheslav Mamontov, executive director of the Russian Brewer's Union. &quot;And naturally, Baltika is interested in promoting foreign brands as much as its own - after all it is to their profit.
 &quot;There is still potential for the Russian beer market to develop and the foreign brand sector especially. If we're talking about the number of brands, the German market has over 1,400.&quot; 
 Mamontov does not exclude the possibility that as more international brands enter the domestic market Russian brewers' cooperation with foreign companies could help domestic brands.
 The Australian beer, &quot;mainly aimed at 20- and 30-somethings with good incomes,&quot; is the second foreign brand after Carlsberg to be brewed by Baltika for the Russian market, said Baltika's press-service. The company added that the appearance of new beer brands on the Russian market is conditioned by the quick and successful development of this segment in Russia.
 Per capita beer consumption in Russia has quadrupled in the last decade to 53 liters a year, according to brewers' data. That is still about half of that in the U.K., U.S., Australia, and Eastern Europe; for instance, in the Czech Republic per capita annual beer consumption is almost twice that as in Russia at about 90 liters. 


TITLE: Big Plants Plug Small
 Firms to Supply Parts
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg enterprises need to &quot;step up and volunteer for business,&quot; said heads of large international firms operating manufacturing plants in the region on Friday. 
 
Elcoteq, Ford and Electrolux representatives discussed their experiences with localizing production or subcontracting, at the &quot;Subcontracting in Finland and St. Petersburg: Networking &amp; Cooperation&quot; seminar organized by the Finpro trade center and the Finnish Consulate. The multinationals named lack of aggressiveness, outdated equipment and poor quality standards on the part of Russian manufacturers as factors restraining the development of their business relationships.
 Elcoteq, which started construction of a manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg last month, said the company has not secured any local manufacturing contractors yet. &quot;We are checking for local suppliers, but have started without them,&quot; said Hannu Ollila, the firm's director.
 &quot;We have no issue with using local manufacturers,&quot; he said, &quot;the problem is meeting the quality standards, especially when it comes to electronics.&quot; 
 Elcoteq will import materials from their Vantaa Finland plant, manufacture products locally and export the finished goods back to Europe. 
 &quot;There are no manufacturers here approved by large OEMs in regards to electronic components, but we do hope to find printing and packaging suppliers,&quot; Ollila said.
 &quot;Technology takes longer to develop, but Elcoteq counts on the sector growing down the road, as more international companies develop their St. Petersburg operations and knowledge is shared,&quot; he said. 
 &quot;It is important to attract global suppliers, even though there is a desire to develop local manufacturers. [Global suppliers] have the necessary know-how, and help to establish local start-ups.&quot;
 Representatives of Ford Russia and Electrolux said they were willing to provide their expertise and training to the interested companies. Murray Gilbert, general director of Ford Russia, said his company was looking to strengthen business ties with local manufacturers. In January, the Ford plant (located in St. Petersburg's suburb Vsevolozhsk) will host an open-door day for all interested component manufacturing companies, Gilbert said.
 Electrolux, which is building a washing machine factory in St. Petersburg, and plans to invest about 90 million euro by 2006, is also interested in subcontractors, said senior vice president Jean-Michel Paulange. 
 Global suppliers have to use local manufacturers in order to cut costs and stay competitive in Russia. And the government has an important role to play in the process, especially when it comes to establishing infrastructure, business heads said.
 &quot;Electrical power shouldn't take too long or cost too much (compared to European levels),&quot; said Ollila addressing an issue particularly prevalent with the city land. &quot;The officials have to create an investment-friendly environment,&quot; he said. 
 The city administration officials attending the seminar pledged their support. &quot;We understand that [investors] won't be able to get much done without the government's help,&quot; said Yury Rakov, deputy chair of economic policy, industry and trade committee.
 He mentioned new tax-breaks for big investors (from 50 million to 150 million rubles) and the Nov. 16 land price lowering law as some of the initiatives the city was putting forth. &quot;All large projects are prepared, and ideally we want to have one official assigned to each project to help push it along,&quot; he said. 
 Although the city administration has been providing increasing assistance to big investors, small and medium business representatives have been left without the attention, said Sergei Shukhovets, the director of Elast, a local manufacturing company. Shukhovets' sentiment echoed the feelings of many SME representatives during last week's Small and Medium Enterprise forum.
 Rakov said Smolny has relatively low resources in assisting business development in the subcontracting industry, which is dominated by small and medium enterprises. &quot;Developing subcontracting is the responsibility of business, &quot; he said.
 There are ten government-based small and medium business centers and a non-commercial association of subcontractors in the city, said Rakov. Moreover, the city's administration has agreed to provide loan guarantees making it easier for local firms to qualify for bank financing. 
 There are over 12,000 manufacturing companies in St. Petersburg. Metallurgical, food products and energy production makes up over 80 percent of the total manufacturing industry in the city. About 800 of the companies are large and medium firms; the rest being small enterprises.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Retail Turnover Rises
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg's retail turnover reached 195 billion rubles in the first 10 months of the year, up on last year's 160 billion ruble ($5.7 billion) turnover, an official said.
 "According to our committee estimates, turnover of retail goods will be 20 percent higher than last year's figure," said Nikolai Arkhipov, deputy chair of economic policy, industry and trade committee. Arkhipov said 10 chain stores opened in the city this year, another 50 are expected next year.
 
 
<b>For the Record
 </b>

Herzen University's Management Career Day competition was won by Olga Vasilievna, a 2nd year student, with a project called "St Petersburg Children's Books Museum". The annual event, held November 25 and sponsored by a number of local companies, aimed to encourage the development of students in the field of social management.

TITLE: Yukos Appeal to Be Heard in Court
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia's biggest oil producer will fight the planned sale of a core production unit against its crushing back tax debt, and has submitted an appeal to the Moscow Arbitration court that will be heard this week, news reports said Monday. 
 
Meanwhile, Italian energy giant Eni, which was rumored to be mulling a bid for the unit, Yuganskneftegaz, said it would not take part. 
 The embattled Yukos oil giant faces $24.5 billion in back tax claims for 2000-2003 in what observers call a Kremlin-led drive to marginalize its jailed founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and reassume dominance in the politically crucial oil sector. 
 President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly countered that the case is a just charge against shady bookkeeping. 
 Yuganskneftegaz, a west Siberian unit that produces 1 million barrels of oil a day - or some 60 percent of Yukos' oil - is due to be sold at an auction Dec. 19 with an $8.6 billion starting price. 
 Russian news agencies quoted a source in the Moscow Arbitration Court as saying Yukos had filed an appeal against bailiffs' Nov. 18 decision to auction off Yuganskneftegaz and that the challenge would be heard on Friday. 
 Yukos has promised any buyer a grueling court fight. The company dismisses the starting price as a &quot;bargain&quot; and insists that bailiffs have no right to sell core assets to settle the tax bill. 
 There has been fevered speculation over a possible buyer. On Monday the business daily Vedomosti reported that Deutsche Bank had recommended state-controlled natural gas monopoly Gazprom should bid for Yuganskneftegaz. The bank would not comment, while a source at Gazprom told Dow Jones Newswires that it was considering the advice. 
 Italy's Eni, which has been rumored to be contemplating a bid ether on its own or in tandem with Gazprom, dismissed the suggestions. 
 &quot;We haven't bid and we won't bid&quot; for Yuganskneftegaz, Eni chief executive Vittorio Mincato told reporters in Milan. 
 Asked about a possible alliance with Gazprom, Mincato said any consideration would be premature at present and noted that Eni will wait and see the auction's outcome before making any acquisition move in Russia. 
 The relentless government campaign against Yukos has sent shares plummeting. They closed at $1.08 a share on Moscow's RTS exchange Monday, compared to $16 before Khodorkovsky's arrest in October last year. 
 Khodorkovsky ran afoul of the Kremlin after using part of the vast fortune that made him Russia's richest man to support opposition parties in the run-up to parliamentary elections last year. He has spent more than a year in prison. 
 Khodorkovsky is being tried along with business partner Platon Lebedev on charges including fraud and tax evasion. He congratulated fellow inmate Lebedev on his 48th birthday Monday with a brief greeting in the Kommersant business daily. 
 &quot;Dear Platon! I bow before your unbendable will and strength of spirit ... over the past two years you have become a brother to me ... Happy birthday. Hang in there!&quot; the announcement said. 
 The charges against the two center on the 1994 privatization of a fertilizer component maker.

TITLE: EADS Bid for 10% of Irkut Has State Support
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The government said Friday that it had approved a request by European aero-space giant EADS to buy up to 10 percent of fighter jet manufacturer Irkut.
 
&quot;EADS has appealed to buy between 5 and 10 percent [of Irkut]. The purchase was approved Thursday,&quot; Stanislav Naumov, spokesman for the Industry and Energy Ministry, said by phone Friday.
 EADS, which agreed last year to buy parts for its Airbus unit's A-320 passenger jet from Irkut, made the request in June. Approval was granted during a meeting Thursday between visiting EADS co-CEO Rainer Hertrich and top officials from the Industry and Energy Ministry, the company said.
 &quot;It was not necessary, since we could have bought the shares directly on the market,&quot; said Vadim Vlasov, head of EADS's Russian subsidiary. &quot;But we did not want to act aggressively, we wanted to get a blessing from the government,&quot; he added.
 In March, Irkut became the first Russian defense company to go public, raising $127 million on local markets.
 In addition to the A-320, EADS and Irkut are cooperating on Irkut's Be-200 multipurpose amphibious plane. EADS, which is helping to market the Be-200 abroad, has said sales of the plane could total $7 billion over the next decade.
 Irkut will issue new shares for the EADS purchase, but the number has yet to be decided, both Vlasov and Irkut spokeswoman Yelena Fyodorova said. 
 Foreigners are barred from owning more than 25 percent of a Russian aerospace company, and foreigners own at least 15 percent of the 25 percent of Irkut that is traded on the market.
 &quot;At the current market price the transaction would be valued at around $55 million, meaning that Irkut will raise significant financing for its own development as well as gaining a strategic partner,'' Aton investment bank said in a note to clients. &quot;The news is positive for the industry as a whole and Irkut in particular.''


TITLE: Duma Toughens Beer Ban
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The State Duma continued its crackdown on beer drinking Friday, unanimously approving a tougher version of a ban on public beer sales and consumption that the Federation Council rejected earlier this month for being too soft.
 
The Duma voted 437 to zero in favor of the bill after a 20-member conciliatory committee of lawmakers from both houses agreed to add public transportation and cultural and sports buildings to the list of places where beer sales and consumption will be banned. Medical, educational and youth organizations were already on that list.
 The authors of the bill say the new restrictions, together with others that were passed recently, will help combat teenage alcoholism. Beer commercials between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. were banned in September, and a ban on the use of people and animals in ads will come into effect next year.
 &quot;I am sure that this law will, nevertheless, be sabotaged by the beer mafia,&quot; Deputy Duma Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a member of the conciliatory committee, said in televised remarks after the vote. The Russian Brewers' Union and other critics of the bill, which does not mention canned cocktails, say it will do little to curb underage drinking and that it will only lead to more bribe-taking by cops on the beat.
 &quot;Beer consumption may decrease by at least 25 percent, while consumption of hard liquor will grow,&quot; Galina Grekova, spokeswoman for the brewer Ochakovo, said by e-mail.
 Union chief Vyacheslav Mamontov said the law will &quot;fuel corruption&quot; by giving local authorities discretion over where to institute the ban. Mamontov also criticized the bill for unfairly penalizing those on low-income. &quot;The rich are not the ones drinking by the metro.&quot;

TITLE: Under-Supply Keeps Warehouses Hot
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The country's residential real estate market might be showing signs of beginning to plateau, but the under-supplied industrial real estate sector remains hot.
 
Market watchers anticipate the supply of warehouse space will start to increase substantially in a couple of years' time, but agree that Russia's wealth is among the reasons why it is unlikely to experience industrial rents dropping through the floor in the way they did in the '90s in Central and Eastern Europe.
 While new construction will force warehouse rents to fall as soon as two years from now, experts agree it is unlikely that Russia will repeat Poland's disastrous 1997 experience and see warehouse rents slashed to half of their previous rate.
 &quot;I expect there to be plenty of supply in two to three years, resulting in a dramatic decline in rates,&quot; said Darrell Stanaford, senior director at Noble Gibbons in association with CB Richard Ellis. &quot;But here they are starting higher than they were in Central and Eastern Europe, and will remain higher over the long term.&quot;
 Poland saw rates of $100 per square meter of Class-A space, Stanaford said, at the height of its market. In contrast, rental rates in Russia have already increased from $130-$150 to $140-$160 per square meter from 2003 to 2004, according to estimates by DTZ Zadelhoff Tie Leung, which organized a presentation on the logistics market last week.
 Poland's crash was mainly caused by the country's poor economic conditions at the time, &quot;which we do not expect to be repeated in Russia,&quot; said Stephen Wilson, director of DTZ in Moscow, speaking after the presentation.
 &quot;In contrast to Central and Eastern Europe, there's great wealth [in Russia and] demand for the latest bag or car,&quot; said Craig Maguire, director of DTZ's Warsaw-based logistics team.
 Maguire said Russia's unique characteristics will continue to fuel the country's retail sector, spurring the demand for industrial real estate. 
 Current market estimates differ across companies because logistics real estate projects lack transparency and there is no stringent standard for defining Class A, or premium industrial real estate, in Russia.
 &quot;The current demand for quality warehouse space is approximately 1 million square meters, but no more than 300,000 square meters of Class-A warehouse space will be completed by the end of 2005,&quot; said Alexei Grishko, Jones Lang LaSalle's industrial real estate consultant.
 Noble Gibbons places the figure of the total available acceptable warehouse space in the country at 600,000 square meters, but says only half of it constitutes modern international-standard warehouses.
 DTZ's estimates of prime warehouse space - 600,000 square meters in 2003 and 940,000 square meters by the end of 2004 - are at the higher end. But Wilson concedes that &quot;Class A in Russia doesn't necessarily mean European Class A.&quot;
 &quot;I don't know anyone who'd want to occupy a Class-D warehouse in Moscow. It would probably just be four poles and a roof,&quot; Wilson joked. 
 DTZ is currently seeing early signs of falling rents, since higher quality standard projects coming online in 2005 are already being marketed at a lower rate of approximately $130 per square meter.
 However, the red tape and corruption that is associated with getting access to land in Russia are slowing the decline in rents and Jones Lang LaSalle's Grishko estimated that rents will begin to fall no earlier than 2006, when several 50,000- to 150,000-square-meter warehouses built by Western companies, including ProLogis and AIG Lincoln, will enter the market.
 &quot;Foreign investors, who have the capital to carry out large warehouse construction - 50,000 square meters and up - struggle with getting access to land plots,&quot; Grishko said. &quot;Russian investors have better access because of their connections in the government, but their financial capabilities are weaker.&quot;
 Falling rental rates in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe coincided with an improvement in their business climates. Unlike Russia, these countries were encouraged by the prospect of European Union accession to reform permit registration, land access and other business processes.
 &quot;Having observed the difference between those markets [of Central and Eastern Europe] and Russia, I'm not sure it's going to happen that way here,&quot; said Steven Shone, a lawyer with Cameron McKenna, who has practiced law in Central and Eastern Europe for the past 12 years.
 Market players do not have a strong incentive to reform, Shone stressed, speaking at DTZ's presentation, because they are not interested in increased competition. 
 &quot;Russia does not need to adapt to the expectations of others for political or economic reasons,&quot; Shone said. 
 He stressed that in the current environment, existing players are prospering and developers are still offering pre-leases on projects that do not have airtight legal footing. 
 Despite the poor transparency, a lack of longer-than-three-year leases and inadequate utilities and infrastructure - all of which discourage new players from entering the market - &quot;the influence of foreign developers is growing,&quot; Wilson said. 
 International logistics providers FM Logistics and Tablogix were, until recently, among the few Western representatives in a market that is dominated by Russian or joint-venture schemes.
 However, international investors, including AIG Lincoln, ProLogis, Ghelamco and GE Capital Golub, have projects in the pipeline for 2005 and beyond. 
 When market players see that companies who play by the rules get access to cheaper money - debt and credit from financial institutions - they will also have an incentive to become more transparent, Shone said.

TITLE: Russians Wild for Wireless Gadgetry
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Whether it's dialing up pop tunes or swapping nude photos, Russians are paying ever-increasing amounts to enjoy the latest in mobile phone services.
 
The market for messaging, SMS games and other wireless content will triple this year to more than $300 million and shows no signs of slowing, leading mobile market consulting firm J'son &amp; Partners said in a report on the industry released Wednesday. 
 &quot;Wireless content services could reach $1 billion in market revenue over the next two years,&quot; providing Russia's record economic expansion continues as expected, J'son &amp; Partners analyst Dmitry Martemyanov said.
 Companies looking to enter the market to cash in on the boom had better hurry, though, because the window of opportunity is closing fast, Martemyanov said. 
 &quot;The market will become more saturated by the second half of 2005, prompting massive market consolidation,&quot; he said. 
 About 130 companies are currently active in the industry, which is dominated by Russian firms, but competition will likely heat up in the coming months as foreign providers try to break in, Martemyanov said.
 Some 71 percent of all profits come from entertainment and personalized content, including pictures, music and Java games. Interactive products like SMS games, dating services and lotteries are more popular, but only account for 22 percent of all revenues because they are cheaper.
 &quot;The market is not as profitable as it may seem,&quot; Martemyanov said. 
 Leading content providers such as Vimpelcom's BeeOnLine or i-Free earn just 10 to 15 cents of every dollar MTS, Megafon, Vimpelcom and other mobile phone companies charge for the services, according to J'son and Partners. 
 Mobile providers keep up to half of content revenues, while media partners get about 20 percent and the rest goes to royalties and other fees, according to the consultancy. Despite the tight margins, the average monthly net profit for the industry is $150,000, according to estimates by J'son &amp; Partners.
 &quot;Undoubtedly, this is a dynamic market,&quot; said Olga Zhilinskaya, telecom analyst at Renaissance Capital. &quot;But its speed of growth will depend on the price of new services offered.&quot; 
 The most explosive growth in the industry is coming from media projects like so-called television chats, which allow mobile users to influence television content by voting for contestants on reality shows or participants in a debate, for example. 
 &quot;Publishers [and producers], without making a large investment, saw their audience increase, [so] media projects will continue to grow fast,&quot; Martemyanov said. 
 Also, business and other types of appropriate wireless content for 35- to 40-year-olds is under-represented and may have latent demand because the market now primarily targets 16- to 24-year-olds, he said.
 &quot;The country is huge, and the demand for information is far from saturation,&quot; J'son &amp; Partners said in its report. &quot;To become a participant in this market, one should start now.&quot;

TITLE: Peripatetic Goethe Institute Head Warms to St. Petersburg
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Since Ralf Eppeneder signed his contract with Goethe Institute in Munich in 1982, this respected international cultural organization has been ushering him around from Lima to Munich to Melbourne to St. Petersburg.
 
Luckily, the way Eppeneder feels about his assignment in Russia has changed from an &quot;Oh, my God!&quot; (when he just received the proposal) to a &quot;Thank you Lord!&quot;, which is he says after eight months as director of Goethe Institute in St. Petersburg. 
 &quot;After the heat of six hot Australian summers I am really looking forward to a real, crispy Russian winter,&quot; laughs Eppeneder, who started his current job in March.
 &quot;Basically the Goethe Institute's strategy used to be that people are sent to a cultural area where they know the language and are familiar with the society. But, in the last few years, the Institute has suffered drastic budget cuts,&quot; he said. &quot;Now anyone can be sent to any place, dependent on the needs of the location.&quot;
 At the time when the assignment was delivered, Eppeneder's knowledge of the country was scarce and his Russian language skills non-existent.
 &quot;We talked it over with my wife, and, although Russia seemed a distant place and we didn't know the language, we decided to go, because your country currently finds itself in a very interesting and dynamic period,&quot; he said. 
 The Eppeneders have come to believe the decision was absolutely correct from a professional point of view: St. Petersburg offers fantastic opportunities.
 &quot;It is far more interesting working here in comparison to, say, Chicago, not to mention Australia,&quot; he said. &quot;Australia is a wonderful place to live, the society is open and people friendly, but German language and culture are not so important there.&quot;
 St. Petersburgers, in contrast, show curiosity and are historically close to Germany, he added. 
 From his first day in town, Eppeneder felt that his Institute's activities were very much sought after in the city. About four million young Russians are studying German, according to Institute statistics. The figure suggests that worldwide every third person learning German is a Russian. 
 From Eppeneder's experience, while in Australia most people studied German primarily for family reasons, when getting married to a German for instance, Russians demonstrate more practicality.
 &quot;Our students tell us they need the language because of plans to work or study in Germany, or because their current or potential job involves the language,&quot; he said. &quot;They're not driven by emotional reasons, like, for example, understanding German films. Rather, their reasons are pragmatic and professional. The young generation in Russia is obviously looking towards Europe, and this European context is becoming increasingly important for them.&quot;
 Eppeneder believes it is only fair that Goethe's lyrics are perhaps less popular in Russia than those of hard-rock group Rammstein. &quot;Modern people care about modern culture,&quot; he said. &quot;Both our countries have a rich cultural tradition but if you ask German people about Russia, most of them won't be talking about Pushkin or Tolstoi, but Russian rock bands.&quot;
 Goethe Institute recognizes modern tendencies and devotes particular attention to presenting contemporary German culture: from dance to photography to painting.
 A new color glossy magazine focusing on contemporary German culture is coming out this week. It is Eppeneder's brainchild, called 'GID' (Goethe Institut Digest). The new publication features, among other stories, an article about Rammstein.
 Eppeneder's vagrant life means that the family doesn't have a home in Germany. &quot;Now, St. Petersburg is my home,&quot; he smiles. &quot;Last year, it was in Australia.&quot;
 It took Eppeneders several months to find an appropriate apartment before they settled in their current comfortable flat near the Smolny Cathedral. 
 &quot;It was difficult to find an apartment providing European-standard accommodation for a price we could pay,&quot; he said.
 Luise Junque, head of the institute's information center, has known Eppeneder since way back in the 1990s when he was working as personnel manager in the head office of Goethe Institute in Munich. A few years later, in 1997, the colleagues' paths crossed again in Melbourne.
 &quot;Ralf is a very pleasant person to deal with, he respects colleagues and gives them an opportunity to do their work independently,&quot; Junque said.
 Beate Kolberg, head of the institute's German language teaching department, most values her boss's emotional composure, sense of humor and unprejudiced views. &quot;He has a rare ability to listen to others and respond to what they say,&quot; Kolberg added. &quot;I very much appreciate his openness and support. The trust and respect he shows to the people he works with are also winning qualities.&quot;
 Junque said the institute finds its target groups not only in St. Petersburg but in the entire Northwestern region, from Kaliningrad to Komi. 
 &quot;Since knowledge of Germany in your country generally tends to be a little 'historical', we see our task as updating our clients on the actual situation in modern Germany,&quot; Junque said.
 As Eppeneder has noticed, the general stereotype of what German people are like is virtually the same everywhere. 
 &quot;People think Germans are very busy, efficient and clean,&quot; he said. &quot;I think this is because people link ordinary Germans with corporate images of successful German companies, like Lufthansa or Volkswagen. Well, it is only partly true.&quot;
 What would he like to change about Russian perceptions of Germany and its people?
 &quot;My dream is to show that Germany is a totally different country compared to 60 years ago,&quot; he said. 
 In this respect the Goethe Institute is facing a serious challenge next year when Russia celebrates the 60th anniversary since the end of World War II, he added.
 &quot;Germans did so many horrendous things at that time, not only in Russia, but especially in Russia,&quot; he continues. 
 &quot;And I believe it was a great achievement of German society to get rid of this legacy and establish itself as a modern, liberal and democratic society.&quot;
 This German experience of successful transition is what Eppeneder would like to share with the Russians. Human rights advocates both in and outside of Russia agree that the country still hasn't overcome its totalitarian past. 
 &quot;It was very difficult for Germans to battle with the country's past,&quot; Eppeneder said. 
 &quot;And we have much experience to share with Russia as a society with ninety years of a Communist legacy still in the not very distant past.&quot;

TITLE: Charting a Course for Haiti
TEXT: The authors of the 2005 federal budget low-balled the projected revenue figure in order to ensure that the government would receive a windfall in excess of that figure that could then be allocated quickly - and therefore even less transparently than usual. 
 
When the price of oil is soaring above $50 per barrel, only a single-party system could produce a budget based on a price of $28 per barrel. Only a total contempt for reality could explain a projected inflation rate of 8 percent when the projected rate for 2004 of 10 percent is certain to be exceeded by as much as 1 percent. Inflation in the third quarter of 2004 alone ran at 1.8 percent, three times higher than the third-quarter rate the year before.
 This contempt for reality is especially clear in indicators that the authors of the budget considered secondary. For example, they calculate that at the end of 2005 the euro will be going for $1.37.
 
Reduced transparency is characteristic of the entire 2005 budget, but is manifested first and foremost in the limitation of information about investment programs, an area highly conducive to corruption. The most important feature of the budget, the stabilization fund, comes up only twice with no explanation of how this money might be used. Economically senseless changes in the structuring of expenditures - including the combination of functionally disparate expenditures in one line item - impede spending comparisons with previous years and in roughly one-third of all cases make such comparisons impossible.
 
By reducing transparency and increasing the difficulty of comparing spending figures with previous years, the authors of the budget attempted to conceal increases in spending on the military and law enforcement that have become a tradition under President Vladimir Putin.
 The wave of terror that washed over Russia following the assassination of Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov on May 9 makes clear that there is no correlation between increased spending and improved performance in the so-called power agencies. Defense spending is up 28 percent in 2005, and spending on law and order and state security has jumped 26 percent, while overall spending is up just 14 percent. This is just the most obvious indication that Russia's new ruling class, the siloviki, is firmly in command. At the same time, the budget contains a 10 percent cut in spending on agriculture. For all the talk of increased social spending, expenditures on social programs has been cut by 1.5 percent, on education by 8.6 percent, and on protecting the environment by a whopping 15.2 percent.
 Rather than lead us to the promised land of the liberal fundamentalists - Portugal - the Kremlin has now charted a course for Nigeria and Haiti.
 But the rise of the siloviki alone does not explain this budget imbalance. The regime must also deal with the consequences of the liberal policy of handing over the nation's resources to big business and curtailing social guarantees. In 2005, quelling the social protest resulting from this policy will be the state's biggest task. Society will close ranks when it confronts the elimination of its right to adequate social programs, housing, pensions, education and health care combined with the government's likely failure to prepare the country for winter.
 The 2005 budget continues the Kremlin's policy of cutting funding to the regions with no consideration of their needs - the economic component of Putin's drive to strengthen the executive chain of command. Regional budgets have been hit with new spending requirements, but no new funds to meet them. As a result, a number of governors will find themselves campaigning for re-election amid social budget crises.
 The goal of increasing salaries for government employees by 20 percent applies only to the federal level. Raises in the regions will be a mixed bag, and the minimum wage will vary from region to region. This disrupts the country's common economic space and creates the preconditions for the disintegration of Russia. The 2005 budget accelerates movement in this direction, which began with the decision to replace social benefits with cash payments.
 Officially, the stabilization fund is intended to put money away for a rainy day - a dip in the price of oil. But its real goal is to legalize the barbarous freezing of budget funds to achieve a marginal reduction in inflation.
 This explains why the government is making no attempt to kick the oil habit by modernizing the economy, and carries on socking away petrodollars like an old lady saving up for her funeral. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said that a nest egg of 500 billion rubles ($17.5 billion) was sufficient, but plans to increase it to 719.5 billion in 2005 after paying out 167.99 billion rubles to service Russia's foreign debt and up to 74.7 billion rubles to plug the hole that appeared in the Pension Fund as a result of a senseless reduction in the Unified Social Tax. 
 The stabilization fund will receive an injection of 387.8 billion rubles - 109.7 billion more than the entire budget surplus of 278.1 billion rubles. This extra money comes from one source: external borrowing. And the ruble equivalent of this planned borrowing - 109.5 billion rubles, or $3.65 billion - miraculously coincides with the difference.
 It would appear that the government plans to beef up the stabilization fund by taking on external debt. Given that any money raised in this way can only be invested in prime government securities - in other words, the economies of our potential creditors - this decision is less intriguing than downright indecent - like the government's entire economic policy.
 <i>

 Mikhail Delyagin, head of the Modernization Institute and chairman of the Rodina party's policy committee, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Keeping Clear on the RF Customs Code
TEXT: What is the current situation over the new Russian Customs Code (entered in January 2004; with an amendment in October 2004)? And how have this year's changes affected foreign trade participants?
 </i>While goods customs valuation methods (stated in the Law on Customs Tariffs) have not changed since the introduction of this year's legislation, alterations were made to the monitoring of valuation and the procedure for presenting additional supporting documents.
 

 <strong>
CUSTOMS VALUATION PROCEDURES
 </strong>The applicant has 45 days to discuss the customs value with the customs body and to collect and submit information and documents. Subsequently, the customs body should make a final decision on the customs value of the goods. Finally, customs can either accept the amount in customs taxes declared by the applicant or set their own value and notify the applicant.
 
In cases where the customs body chooses to refute or adjust the value, additional documents to certify the correctness of the valuation may be required. 
 The period for release of goods is three days. If the customs value cannot be established or confirmed within that time, then in practice, to release the goods the applicant will need to provide security for additional duties and taxes that may apply.
 
 <strong>
AMENDMENTS SINCE OCTOBER 2004
 </strong>Since 1 October, Chapter 16 came in as an amendment to the RF Code on Administrative Offences. Of the changes, the most important relate to Article 16.2 (presenting inaccurate information on goods affecting the size of customs payments). Now, a declarant is liable for fines of between 50% to 200% of the amount of underpaid customs taxes (earlier the declarant would pay fines of between 50%-200% of the goods' price).
 
Other major change is an introduction of new customs offences, for instance, Art. 16.7 (provision of invalid documents upon declaration) and Art. 16.4 (incorrect declarations of currency by natural person). The liability for some violations has increased. For example, Art. 16.12 provides for a fine of up to 500 times the minimum wage for noncompliance with submission deadlines for customs declarations. Prior to 1 January 2004, this was 50 times the minimum wage.
 Since the amendments came into force, claims with the arbitration courts against customs have increased. Meanwhile, customs officials have taken a less formal approach to customs violations.
 Nonetheless, several cases of customs' penalties under the old procedures have occurred. For instance, the RF Code on Administrative Offences requires an administrative investigation to establish the nature and cost of damage caused by the violation. This, at times, customs officials have failed to carry out.
 Practice shows that the most effective form of legal protection from being held liable without grounds for customs violations is to file claims against the decisions and actions (or a failure to act) of customs officials with the courts or arbitration courts.
 
 <strong>
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS
 </strong>In 2004, the RF State Customs Committee (SCC) was reformed as the RF Federal Customs Service (FCS), and is now under the control of the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade (MEDT). The structure of other customs bodies has not changed.
 
Resulting from the reforms, the Ministry of Finance regulates levying customs payments and monitoring the customs value of goods, while the MEDT regulates procedures for completing cargo customs declarations, the list of documents and information required for customs operations, and others. Also, the MEDT is responsible for monitoring the customs authorities' fulfillment of normative acts.
 The current Customs Code empowers the FCS to manage lower-level customs bodies. FCS also adopts decisions on issues of foreign trade, including classifying goods in accordance with goods classification of foreign trade activities, among others.
 Businesses should not forget that in monitoring the lower customs bodies' application of customs rules, the FSC is able to overrule any illegal decisions, actions or a failure to act of the bodies and their officials.
 
 <strong>
UNJUST CLAIMS
 </strong>The practice of applying the new Customs Code shows that breaches of the new rules are not infrequent. The customs bodies continue to compare average prices of goods at their disposal with the prices set by foreign trade participants. If the difference is not in the budget's favour, the applicant is required to pay excess customs. Meantime, of unnecessary documents sometimes asked for are the producer's calculation of the cost price and the seller's price-list.
 

 <i>
Nariman Kutlubayev is the Customs Practice Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers' Moscow office. 
 
 Natalia Scherbakova is the Senior Tax Manager at the firm's St. Petersburg office. </i>

TITLE: Vyugin Plans Markets Revamp
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Oleg Vyugin, the head of the Federal Service for Financial Markets, secured government approval Thursday for ambitious plans to make the country's financial markets bigger, better-run and less corrupt.
 
Vyugin told the Cabinet that Russian companies are increasingly going abroad- primarily to London-to borrow money and sell shares because domestic markets have too few instruments, are poorly regulated and behind the times.
 Trading of Russian shares totals $25 billion per month but only about one-third of that takes place inside the country, Vyugin, a respected former deputy chairman of the Central Bank, told journalists at a briefing at the White House.
 &quot;It is a race against time for Russian financial markets to increase the competitiveness of its institutions,&quot; Vyugin said in his report. &quot;If this is not resolved in the next few years, Russia will lose its national capital markets.&quot;
 The value and volume of the country's securities have soared since the 1998 default and devaluation, but markets remain relatively shallow. The rule book for trading is inconsistent and incomplete, raising costs for issuers and doing little to curb insider trading or stock manipulation, investors said.
 Russia has made little or no progress in making companies better-run and more open, while the country's legal and regulatory system often hinders better corporate governance, Standard &amp; Poor's said in a report this month.
 The total market value of the country's stock market was 7.64 trillion rubles ($268 billion) at the end of October, according to Vyugin's report to the Cabinet. Yet more than two-thirds of all trades in Russian shares this year took place on foreign exchanges, mainly on the London Stock Exchange. That makes the LSE the main arena for trading Russian shares, bigger than the ruble-denominated MICEX and the dollar-denominated RTS combined.
 &quot;We get very few clients who come to us and say, 'What we really need to do is an IPO on the domestic market,' and I think that is clearly disappointing,&quot; Mark Jarvis, Ernst &amp; Young managing partner for markets in the CIS, told a conference Wednesday.
 &quot;The big Russian corporates do not see the local market as an efficient way of raising capital,&quot; Jarvis said.
 Vyugin's report said the unstable relationship between business and the authorities has also had a negative effect on the development of the stock market. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told the Cabinet that the judicial system and law enforcement agencies simply do not defend investors' rights properly.
 As Vyugin was delivering his 93-page report to the Cabinet, stocks were falling across the board, led by Yukos, whose share price plunged below $1 for the first time since the 1998 crisis. The teetering oil giant has lost more than $40 billion of market value in the last year and is now worth just $2.9 billion.
 Another major stock, Unified Energy Systems, fell nearly 8 percent after the government said it had put key reforms of the electricity giant off until at least 2006.
 Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov told the Cabinet that the country's markets are too shallow for some investors and that the whole market is still worth much less than a few multinational companies.
 Vyugin said plans to create a single regulator for financial markets would be submitted to the government soon and legislation on controlling aggressive takeovers would be submitted next year.
 Legislation on creating Russian Depositary Receipts will be sent to the government by Jan. 10, Vyugin said, adding that companies from the CIS, the United States and Europe have expressed interest in the idea of issuing RDRs.
 He also said a law to ban insider trading could be worked out within a year.

TITLE: Comparing Roses and Chestnuts
TEXT: A bitter campaign marked by predictions of vote fraud culminates in an election that all Western observers call seriously flawed. On election day, exit polls show the opposition candidate clearly in the lead, but the official central elections commission comes up with the reverse result. Large crowds gather in the capital to protest, vowing to stay until the results are thrown out or a new election is held, and state authorities respond by issuing dire warnings of civil unrest and unpredictable consequences. 
 
This describes the &quot;Chestnut Revolution&quot; in Ukraine in 2004, but it fits last year's &quot;Rose Revolution&quot; in Georgia just as well. The parallels have been noted by many, including those brandishing Georgian flags at political rallies in Kiev. Do these flags mean that the Chestnut Revolution in Ukraine is a carbon copy of the Rose Revolution? If yes, in what respect? If not, why not? 
 In order to answer these questions we need to ask what defined the Rose Revolution, and in this regard I think four factors need to be kept in mind. 
 The first is a free press that represents a range of political perspectives. In the months before the events in November 2003, the media in Georgia covered all parties involved in the upcoming parliamentary elections. This coverage included remarkably strong criticism of the government of incumbent President Eduard Shevardnadze, something that became only stronger once the election results were called into question. The media - especially the television channel Rustavi-2 - were owned and operated by forces outside the government and were sometimes themselves sharply criticized, especially by the authorities who didn't like what they had to say. 
 A second factor is the framework of civil society that had begun to emerge by the time of the Rose Revolution. Nongovernmental organizations had been very active in encouraging this development in Georgia and were some of the country's most trusted institutions, ranking well ahead of the government. 
 This is not to say that NGOs called the shots during the revolution itself. They did not. But they did help prepare the Georgian population for its role, and without this preparation the event very well may not have occurred, or it might have unfolded in a much less peaceful and productive way. The striking contrast between the resolute and disciplined civic action of the Rose Revolution and earlier Georgian susceptibility to demagoguery and violence can be attributed at least in part to the work of these NGOs. 
 The third factor in the Rose Revolution was the weakness of the state. By the autumn of 2003 the power of the Georgian government had so deteriorated that it almost invited resistance. Police who had not been paid for months began to declare their allegiance to the opposition several days before Shevardnadze stepped down. 
 Shevardnadze has always asserted that he did not call out the police and army because he did not want to see blood spilt, but in fact it was unclear what these forces would have done had he called for their assistance. 
 And finally, there was a high level of support for the Rose Revolution from people across all regions and backgrounds in Georgia. The Shevardnadze government was viewed as controlled by a small group of self-interested actors, and as such it was discredited in the eyes of the vast majority of Georgian citizens. 
 Less than two months after the revolution, its leader Mikheil Saakashvili was overwhelmingly voted in as president in what Western observers judged to be a free and fair election. 
 So what has been the role of these four factors in the Chestnut Revolution? First, an open and critical press did not play a role. Opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko received very little coverage, and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych received very little criticism. 
 Second, a fledgling civil society has played a role in Ukraine not unlike that in Georgia. In both cases the efforts of NGOs to create some basic habits of democracy seem to be paying off. 
 With regard to state authority, there are both similarities and differences. By the time of the Rose Revolution, state authority had largely disappeared in Georgia. 
 In Ukraine it still was very much in evidence. Even so, doubts arose as to whether the Ukrainian army and police would respond to orders. 
 Lastly, the Ukrainian and Georgian events differ most strikingly in terms of the breadth of support for the protesters. Even the most optimistic exit polls of the Ukrainian opposition revealed that it enjoyed only a slight majority of the voters. The population was deeply divided along regional and ethnic lines, something that correlated with differences over whether the country should cast its lot with the West or with Russia. 
 So where does this leave us? The bottom line seems to be that the Rose Revolution served more as a general inspiration for events in Ukraine than as a blueprint. The main thing that those Georgian flags brandished in Kiev may have signified was a newfound conviction by citizens that the power of disciplined mass protest can undo the results of a stolen election.
 
 <i>James Wertsch is a professor and director of International and Area Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and co-editor of Caucasus Context. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Target the Program for Creating Jobs for the Young
TEXT: One aspect of the social policy of the city is the vital necessity to re-energize budget reforms started in 2001 but not completed. The reforms were aimed at raising the efficiency of its usage.
 
The city has a program to assist young people in obtaining jobs. This is a very pressing problem. It's hard for everyone to find a job, especially a good one. 
 And for young people it is even harder. As a rule their education does not prepare them for the demands of the market - it's the old Soviet tradition of preparing young people not for a job but for the labor market in general that persists to this day. 
 These young people too, not to mention their parents, make all sorts of plans except ones that are in touch with reality.
 As a result the problem of finding a job is very real for young people. An aid, if not a solution, has been the development of a special program by the authorities. 
 It is based on a city law on quotas among workplaces for young people and has been in force in St. Petersburg since 1998; it was introduced to stimulate employers to create new jobs for young people. 
 With that goal in mind the city pays something to employers for every new job created for young people.
 It's obvious that the budget does not subsidize every young person in St. Petersburg who enters the workforce. There is a certain quota of subsidies for new work placements for young people each year. 
 The size of these quotas and even the actual size of the payment to employers for each new job has been determined each year in the form of an amendment to the law that created the system.
 In the 2005 city budget 5.2 million rubles ($184,000) has been allocated for this purpose. Last Tuesday the city government suggested that the quota be set at 300 workplaces. For those places employers will receive monthly a subsidy of 1,358 rubles ($48). 
 This recommendation is to be confirmed by the Legislative Assembly in the form of an amendment to the law. I don't think it should be done; the amendment must be rejected.
 In the opinion of Dmitry Cherneiko, head of the city branch of Federal Labor and Employment Service, the law is ineffective. 
 On the one hand, the criteria for selecting the young people to support are too vague and cover an extremely large number of individuals. 
 According to the law, the subsidy entitlement is for creating work places for &quot;graduates of educational institutions that prepare people to start a profession at entry or medium level, for graduates of tertiary studies, citizens rejected for military conscription and also young people aged 18 who especially need social protection and the experience of working.&quot;
 On the other hand, with such a large group of individuals entitled to support, the sum allocated is clearly not enough for a 5-million-strong city. The quota provides for an insignificant number of those who really create workplaces for young people and the size of the subsidy of the order of 1,500 rubles is laughable. 
 As a result the social problem is not being solved; instead of real support there is only an imitation.
 Cherneiko considers that the concept of subsidies for creating jobs for young people needs to be changed. 
 Inasmuch as the city neither has the money nor will it ever have enough to support young people's entry into the workforce, any money should not be distributed to such a large group of people, but should be concentrated on one category of workers.
 Those who are really need this support and also who are important to the city should be selected. 
 And it's obvious that these should include state workers in the social sphere, for instance, young teachers and doctors, or junior and medium-level medical staff. 
 But once selected, those professions should receive total support for all the young people entering them. 
 Then, above all, there will be no corruption - the bureaucrats will not have the right to decided who gets the money and who does not. Secondly, it will resolve a clearly-stated problem.
 To achieve that, of course, the level will have to be increased several times as will the number of subsidized jobs, and the size of the payments to employers for each job should not be less than 5,000 rubles. 
 Only then, with massive but directed support in the form of a social state order can a serious change be achieved. This has already been demonstrated in Sweden where a similar program operates successfully. In its existing form the program makes no sense and leads only to wasting money. 
 There have been many similar purposeless state programs in St. Petersburg that have been reformed effectively. 
 They haven't received much attention because they are not financed as state orders, but directly from the budget. It should be something reformers in the team of Governor Valentina Matviyenko tackle soon.
 
 <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: Worm Turning
AUTHOR: By Chris Floyd
TEXT: There has been much throwing about of brains on the subject of
 George W. Bush's further lurch to the right since he limped over
 the election finish line with his tiny, 1 percent, fraud-marred
 majority. And to be sure, the wholesale purges he has instituted
 throughout his regime - replacing a slew of merely cringing sycophants
 with cringing, drooling, groveling sycophants - will indeed hasten
 the United States' degeneration into corpo-religious authoritarianism
 along the lines of Franco's Spain.
But all the earnest disquisitions about Bush's Franco-U.S. &quot;ideology&quot;
 entirely miss the point - and increase the fog that the Regime
 deliberately spreads over its true interests. For the heart of
 this slouching beast is neither left-wing nor right-wing; it's
 strictly Bush-wing. Anyone even slightly acquainted with the
 history of the Bush dynasty knows what makes these preppy puppies
 run - and it has nothing to do with conservative principles or
 moral values or national security or world freedom. It's not
 ideology, but investments - the gobbling up of unearned, risk-free
 lucre on the grandest scale imaginable.
 Naturally, the pursuit of this kind of piratical wealth leads
 to certain kinds of policies that can at times be mistaken for
 a political philosophy. For example, the Bush Regime's devotion
 to Big Oil, the military, tax cuts, corporate deregulation and
 unbridled executive power could be seen as the expression of
 a coherent, if repellent, worldview: Social Darwinism - survival
 of the fittest, might makes right, winner takes all. Likewise,
 the regime's embrace of religious and cultural fundamentalism
 resembles an ideological stance of unbending zeal and moral certitude,
 encompassing the whole of reality.
Taken together, these traits present a formidable picture of
 a thoroughgoing ideological juggernaut, well-plated with philosophical,
 academic, legal and theological armor. But underneath all this
 bristling array there is nothing but a tiny white maggot of greed,
 wriggling and gorging on scraps of rotting meat. No deep beliefs
 or high ideals inform the Bushist ethos, which can be boiled
 down to one sentence: Grab your pile and screw anybody who gets
 in the way. War, energy and corporate finance just happen to
 be where the money is. And raw, secretive political power - unfettered
 by courts, laws, legislators or public scrutiny - is the most
 effective way to safeguard and augment these investments.
That is not to say that the Bushist credo lacks all nuance. There
 is in fact a very important refinement to their wormy greed:
 Loot should always be obtained without the slightest risk to
 your own financial position. The &quot;free market&quot; must be shunned
 at all costs - and manipulated by string-pulling, deceit and
 intimidation when competition is unavoidable. Thus the Bush model
 is to cozy up to governments - preferably strongman regimes free
 to ladle out public money to their favorites with no questions
 asked.
That's why Bush patriarch Prescott, pa and grandpa to presidents,
 invested heavily in Nazi war industries throughout the 1930s
 - and kept on investing even after the German war machine was
 grinding through Europe. That's why George I made his mogul bones
 by pumping oil with repressive royals in Kuwait. Later, when
 he had a government of his own to play with, George sent U.S.
 troops to bail out his Kuwaiti partners after another of his
 business clients, Saddam Hussein, got too frisky in a border
 dispute. George I would end his career as a corporate bagman,
 roaming the Earth in search of insider deals and choice &quot;privatizations&quot;
 from Saudi princes, Asian dictators, African tyrants, South American
 sleaze merchants and Europork peddlers.
George II's murky road to fortune was likewise paved with insider
 trading, no-risk loans and mysterious infusions of foreign cash,
 including a bailout from a firm embedded in the octopus of BCCI
 - the renegade banking cartel that the U.S. Senate called the
 &quot;largest criminal organization in world history,&quot; which cloaked
 drug deals, gun-running, nuke trafficking and &quot;black ops&quot; by
 the CIA and other intelligence services behind a protective wall
 of bribes that reached into nearly every government on Earth.
Of course, the best of all possible worlds is controlling the
 government yourself - and Dubya has certainly raised crony capitalism
 to dizzy heights, tearing down whole countries just so his investor
 pals (and his family) can reap the profits of &quot;reconstruction.&quot;
 But again, it is the maggoty hankering for easy money that truly
 drives Bushist militarism, not any kind of ideological or religious
 vision. For such crude minds, the surest way to guarantee that
 floods of public boodle keep pouring into your private pocket
 is to scare the hell out of people and keep them scared with
 war and rumors of war.
The decidedly un-butch Bushes are not really bloodthirsty. They
 don't sit in dark corners and cackle over the idea of children
 being chewed to pieces by American bombs. Nor do their nostrils
 flare with righteous rage at the thought of homosexuality or
 abortion or nipples on national television.
It's just that war profiteering, corporate rapine and cynical
 pandering to the public's worst instincts are the easiest way
 to get the unearned riches they crave - and the perks and power
 they feel are their birthright as an ancient branch of the American
 aristocracy.
Perhaps if they could obtain these same privileges as easily
 by other, less horrific means, they would. As it is, they take
 the world as they find it, and go about their business without
 fretting over the consequences - the dead, the ruined, the spreading
 hate, the poisoned planet. Why should they care? As the maggot
 cannot see beyond the meat, so too these men of greed-stunted
 understanding can see nothing of worth outside their own bottomless
 appetites.For annotational references, see Opinion at www.sptimesrussia.com

TITLE: Kaliningrad Pipe Dreams, Racism and Health
TEXT: In response to &quot;Zhirinovsky Moots Tunnel to Kaliningrad,&quot; an article by Galina Stolyarova on Nov. 19.
 </i>

 <i>
Editor,
 </i>
If Russia was smart it would work at returning the land to the original German inhabitants who were forced to leave their land between 1945 and 1948. My ancestors lived in the area for at least 1,000 years until then. This would be a better use of LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky's energy. 
 Many of East Prussia's landmarks are falling into decay and some could be rebuilt such as the Koenigsberger Schloss. This would promote tourism and investment in the area. However, Western-style laws and safeguards must be put in place to protect investors from the corruption of public officials in the Kaliningrad region. This will be difficult to change overnight.
 The concept of the property rights of the former Germany must be respected and restored, before further development takes place from the descendents of the former German inhabitants. I would gladly take back possession of my grandfather's farm if it were made available to us. This once productive agricultural land is overgrown with trees and bushes. It could be put to good use to feed the inhabitants of the area.
 Perhaps this is a pipe dream like Vladimir Zhirinovsky's tunnel. However, if my suggestions were pursued it would cost Russia far less than pointless nationalist interests. A tunnel to mainland Russia is ridiculous.
 The Germans who lived once there were hard working people. Many perished fleeing the area in those horrible dark years following World War II. It is time to respect this reality and move the area forward in a joint future with the descendents of the former landowners. 
 The only realistic future for the Kaliningrad region may be within the EU. This would be the most practical means of implementing what I have suggested. A multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multilingual Kaliningrad. Look for example at Canada, a peaceful country with many ethnic groups coexisting. A vision like Canada's reality is certainly achievable on a much smaller scale.
 <i>Klaus Knierim,
 Aurora, Ontario, Canada
 </i> 
 <strong>
<b>Polishing the Image
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;City Urged to Spruce Up Its Unwelcoming Image,&quot; an article by Galina Stolyarova on Nov. 16.
 
 Editor,
 </i>This article about promoting the uniqueness of St. Petersburg is on the right track. Being the beautiful and friendly city that it is, St. Petersburg should promote itself in the United States.
 
The brands that I would use would be: the White Nights; that St. Petersburg is the home of modern Russia (since it was the first city in Russia to turn its face to Europe); the city of art treasures found nowhere else in the world along with a rich history of historical sites; the Northern Venice; the doorway to the West; and the most beautiful city in northern Russia.
 I know that I will one day return for all these reasons and more. 
 <i> Howard F. Knight Jr.
 Newport, Vermont
 </i>
 <i>
Editor, 
 </i>I am writing to you to express my disgust at the poor treatment of tourists in Russia.
 
I refer to the two-tier price system in museums and some hotels. This is an unfair and uncivilized system that I have never seen abroad.
 Russia is among the richest countries in the world. Why should tourists pay for the inefficiency of Russia's social and political organization?
 I was appaled by the behavior of the passport and visa offices and by the behavior of the <i>militsia</i>, who seem to be on the side of pickpockets and of bandit drivers.
 The authorities should bear in mind that every mistreated tourist will not only avoid coming again to Russia, they will also tell others of their bad experiences.
 <i>Emmio Cascivolo
 Rome, Italy
 </i><strong>
<b>Short Reach</strong>
 <i></b>
In response to &quot;Governor's Iron Fist Reaches Only So Far,&quot; a comment by Vladimir Kovalev on Nov. 12.
 
 Editor,
 </i>This is a good article that says what the districts are really like. The entrances are dirty, the floors are dirty, the garbage bins are full and stink, the entrance doors and the benches outside are broken and the yards are in disrepair. All of this said, the government can not be responsible for everything.
 
Individual responsibility by the apartment owners is the correct answer. Without people taking charge of their entrances to their apartments and convincing all residents to help keep the entrance clean nothing will ever happen. Good luck.
 <i>Larry and Irina Freeman
 Sterrett, Alabama
 </i>

 <i>Editor,</i>
 I have always wondered why the city officials are not doing something about these dangers. 
 
I think it would be great if the city had similar programs to those in other countries where officials receive and act on complaints or just drive around inspecting walkways, stairs and streets, then tell a city construction office to make prompt repairs. This would surely help remove some of the dangers to St. Petersburg residents and tourists. 
 Another thought comes to mind concerning city officials, including the governor. If they never travel to the outlying areas, they will never see the problems, therefore, there are no problems. 
 <i>Randy Crowder
 St. Petersburg
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Neglected Tsar
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Little Recognition of Tsar Liberator,&quot; an article by Lisa Strid on Nov. 9.
 
 Editor,
 </i>For a country with as epic and censored a history as Russia's, to forget the achievement of Alexander II in giving freedom to the serfs, is to deny the world a valuable lesson. Fundamental human rights, such as freedom, were deemed important in Russia while the Civil War still raged in the U.S. 
 
Erect the monument to Alexander II, and consider yourselves worthy heirs to the idea of individual freedom.
 <i>Karin Cyrus-Strid, 
 Gillette, Wyoming
 </i><strong>
<b>Hostage plan 
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;UN Body Decries Hostage Plan,&quot; an article by The Associated Press on Nov. 5.
 
 Editor,</i>
 Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov's proposal to take relatives of terrorists hostage is drastic, and one which clearly would violate international norms established at the Nuremberg trials after World War II, and subsequently endorsed in numerous instruments which govern conduct by states in the area of international humanitarian law.
 
Nevertheless, I do believe that the practice of hostage-taking by terrorists was not envisaged by the drafters of those instruments and that a fresh approach may be required to meet the situation. However, it should be pointed out that even the Israelis, in the face of terrorist bombings, and are happy to blow up the bombers' houses in retaliation, seem to have stopped short at arresting their relatives.
 It could be counter-productive for Russia to espouse such a policy on its own, as it would suggest that it can ignore international norms with impunity. Better, in my view, would be to work for an international conference on terrorism, at which you might get agreement to change the rules in this specific case.
 <i>Tom Holden 
 Mittagong, New South Wales, Australia
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Racial Attacks
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Youths Murder Vietnamese Student,&quot; an article by Vladimir Kovalev on Oct. 15.
 
 Editor, 
 </i>This is terrible news about a Vietnamese student being killed in St. Petersburg. India and Russia have a long history of friendship, but events such as this are leading us nowhere. I assure you that unless the authorities in Moscow and St. Petersburg act quickly and stop this racist menace against colored foreigners and Indians in particular, Russians will face retaliatory action in India. We will not stoop to the level of violence, but will lodge our protest.
 
Dear young Russians, don't be misled by villainous people who poison your mind with racist rubbish. They will use you and then drop you. Racism has no place in a multi-ethnic society like yours. May God guide you
 <i>Dr. Rajkumar,
 Coimbatore, India
 </i>
 <i>
Editor, </i>
 I studied at St. Petersburg State University in 2003-04 and was dismayed when I learned of a racially-motivated assault that took place in an elevator in the main hostel by two Russian students against two Japanese students I knew.
 
The most disconcerting fact about the whole sorry episode was the disinterest of the <i>militsia</i> and that they did not prosecute the two attackers. The police demanded only that they pay back the victims' money taken in the assault.
 If Russia is ever to progress and join the rest of the developed world in the 21st century, it must begin to address deep-rooted social problems such as crime, poverty, education, and tolerance.
 <i>Gus
 London
 </i>
 <i>
Editor, </i>
 
As a Black American I was horribly appaled at reading the article on the senseless killing of the young Vietnamese student. 
 It sent chills up my spine as I read with great interest and began to think about my own security. I was in Russia working with credit cooperatives, mostly in the south in Rostov on-Don, but toward the end of my work project, I decided to come to St. Petersburg because I had heard so many wonderful and beautiful things about the city. 
 Never once did I think that the city would be unsafe for a person of color. I have traveled to some remarkable and remote places in the world, never once thinking that someone would harm me. After reading the story about this young student, I immediately wanted to leave the city of St. Petersburg. For all it's glory and beauty, it suddenly became for me a city tarnished and it no longer felt beautiful to me. 
 I thought these sort of things (hate crimes) happened only to people in America or in other parts of the world where crime is rampant and out of control. 
 There is really not much difference between the drive-by-shootings in America and the senseless stabbing to death of students in St. Petersburg. Not once did I think this about your country. 
 The funny thing was, I didn't encounter any problems in Rostov. For the most part, I didn't encounter any problems in St. Petersburg, but after reading about the death of the student, the city seemed unsafe for me. 
 The oblivious looks that I would get from everyone (and I figured because of my color and my boxer's build) were no longer looks of curiosity, but were now interpreted as looks of possible hate. 
 I started to be more aware of who I was and took more care to not attract these stares. I never think of myself as black when in another country. Instead, I looked the other way and preoccupied myself with the posters on the walls or the architecture of the city.
 Unfortunately for St. Petersburg, these random acts of violence do little to attract tourist to this wonderful and beautiful city. Rather than speak about the Hermitage and other great monuments, I was left with these images of violence and found it difficult to share with my American friends the beauty of your city without first talking about these horrible crimes.
 I love Russia, it's people, food, customs and beauty. But I was horribly shocked that people were allowed to violate others. This is a worrisome problem, one that may prevent me from ever coming back to St. Petersburg.
 <i>Michael Ray
 Washington D.C.
 
 
Editor,
 </i>To be honest, I don't see racism as being the biggest problem in this beautiful city. The biggest problems are things like terrible drivers and from most of the people in museums or other places of tourism interest not knowing English. 
 I travel a lot and in western Europe there are worse cities like Naples, for example, where if you come from northern Italy as I do, you could be a possible target for unpleasant actions.
 <i>
Nicolas Tadiello
 Verona, Italy
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,</i>
 Some comments by the readers surprise me with their naivete. What police are you talking about? The Russian <i>militsia</i> is the biggest criminal body of all. They are a last resort in an emergency situation. They have no respect whatsoever for their own compatriots, and even less so for foreigners, especially of a different race.
 
And stop talking about Russia's historical tolerance toward other nationalities. Whoever is not blond looks suspicious to Russians, whether they are Jews, Romas, Armenians, Chinese or Black.
 <i>Svetlana Friedland
 San Francisco
 </i>
 <strong>
<b>Premature Deaths
 </strong><i></b>
In response to &quot;Half of City Men Die Before Pension Age,&quot; an article by Irina Titova on Oct. 22.
 
 Editor, 
 </i>
My knowledge of Russia is through the Russian magazines that were available in my childhood at very reasonable prices. I remember reading about Russian citizens living for more that 100 years and cycling even at the age of 95 to 100. 
 What happened to the mythical vigor and vitality of St. Petersburg? As a doctor engaged in serving the masses in India, I am puzzled to know and read about falling longevity in your great city. 
 City doctors must do something to stem this rot. The youth must be taught to stop smoking and refrain from alcohol. Good dietary habits and switching over to vegetarian foods, milk and cereals might correct the malady. 
 Junk foods and aerated drinks have their ill effects on the health, it is advisable to go for fresh fruits and freshly cooked food than the frozen and stored food.
 <i>Dr. Sudharani 
 Amberpet, Hyderabad, India 
 </i>
 <i>
Editor,
 </i>
Russia has so much potential. It is time for the government to pass progressive legislation. End all alcohol and tobacco advertising.
 Increase dramatically taxes on alcohol and tobacco. 
 Ban smoking in all public and commercial establishments. Progressive countries have done the above with amazing results - people live longer.
 Tax income from alcohol and tobacco could be directed to health and education programs.
 Toughen drinking and driving laws. Direct the fines collected to law enforcement. 
 Stop the ridiculous hazing and initiation practices in the military; they make Russia look primitive and barbaric. Officers should be held accountable and dealt with appropriately.
 Simple things will improve the quality of life in Russia. It is the little and simple actions that make for a civilized society.
 <i>Gerald McDowell, 
 Winnipeg, Canada </i>

TITLE: Aznar Defends His Response to Bombings
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MADRID, Spain - Former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar defended his government's response to the Madrid train bombings in keenly awaited testimony Monday before lawmakers investigating the massacre.
 
In opening remarks, Aznar said criticism that his government was too quick to blame the armed Basque separatist group ETA for the attack was unfair considering opposition politicians had already made that charge.
 The government of Spain's northern Basque region also immediately blamed ETA and so did officials of the then-opposition Socialist Party.
 Aznar began his address by remembering the 191 people killed in the March 11 attack, now thought to have been carried out by Islamic extremists with links to al-Qaida. He said his government's security forces acted quickly and efficiently after the train bombings and were forthcoming with information as it emerged.
 Critics say the government's primary concern was trying to salvage national elections three days later, amid fears that Islamic involvement in the attacks would be seen as revenge for Aznar's support of the Iraq war in the face of vehement opposition at home. Aznar denied his party lied when it blamed ETA.
 Aznar's testimony was expected to focus on what former Interior Minister Angel Acebes and former Foreign Minister Ana Palacio have already told the commission: The attack was unpredictable, most assailants and ringleaders are already in jail and the Popular Party never misled voters.
 The 16-member commission, which began hearings July 6, has focused in part on whether the bombings were linked to Aznar's support for last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
 Despite the war's unpopularity among Spaniards, Aznar sent 1,300 troops to support the military occupation. 
 The Madrid bombings were regarded by many to be retribution for that support, and Aznar's conservative government lost elections to the Socialists days later.

TITLE: Hamas Stops Attacks While New Leader Sought
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RAMALLAH, West Bank - A senior Hamas leader indicated Monday that the militant group is halting attacks on Israelis while the Palestinians prepare to choose a new leader, the latest sign of change following the death of Yasser Arafat.
 
Sheik Hassan Yousef, the group's top leader in the West Bank, said Hamas also would consider a formal truce with Israel. Hamas has carried out dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks, killing hundreds of Israelis during four years of fighting.
 Since Arafat's death Nov. 11, there has been a sharp drop in violence. The Palestinians have turned their attention to Jan. 9 presidential elections, while Israel has curtailed its military activity and made a series of gestures meant to ensure that the vote goes smoothly.
 &quot;In the current situation, many political and militant groups have halted their attacks. They are waiting and exploring the new era,&quot; said Yousef, who was recently released from an Israeli prison after serving a 28-month sentence.
 He also said that Hamas would consider a formal cease-fire, if Israel reciprocates. He said Israel must be prepared to release Palestinian prisoners, withdraw from occupied land and stop targeted killings of militants.
 &quot;The truce should have a price,&quot; he said. &quot;There is no truce from one side. The truce should be two-way. But a truce with continued Israeli aggression is not acceptable to us.&quot;
 The interim Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has been highly critical of the armed uprising against Israel, and met with rival groups like Hamas in hopes of reaching a cease-fire. Abbas was to hold more talks with militant groups on Wednesday.
 While Hamas is not fielding a candidate in the election, Yousef said the group is interested in becoming a faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization.
 Abbas, the PLO chief, is the leading contender in the presidential election, according to opinion polls. Abbas appears to enjoy the tacit support of Israel and the United States.
 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made a number of gestures to Abbas, saying that he is ready to meet the Palestinian leader and coordinate a planned pullout from the Gaza Strip next year with the Palestinians. Sharon refused to negotiate with Arafat.
 Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, said Israel has already eased its military presence in Palestinian areas to clear the way for elections.
 &quot;I think it's very clear we have scaled down our military operations,&quot; Gissin told The Associated Press. &quot;We're not conducting any initiated military operations, with the exception of those intelligence reports about 'ticking bombs' or pending suicide attacks.&quot;
 Senior military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the army is focusing only on preventing attacks and is trying to avoid operations that would create tensions with the Palestinians.
 The Palestinians, for their part, have also begun to crack down on internal chaos. Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, who heads the National Security Council, said last week that he has ordered all members of the security services to return to their units.
 The Palestinians acknowledge privately that many members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a violent group with ties to the ruling Fatah movement, are members of the security forces who have not reported to their jobs during the past four years of fighting.
 Ala'a Sanakra, an Al Aqsa leader in the West Bank city of Nablus, said the group is also considering a truce.
 &quot;We are watching the changes after Arafat's death. We haven't announced a truce from our side but we are exploring the future. If there is a real truce on the table, we will agree to it,&quot; he said.

TITLE: Pinochet
 Victims to
 Get Cash
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SANTIAGO, Chile - President Ricardo Lagos on Sunday said he planned to compensate thousands of people who were imprisoned and tortured under the regime of General Augusto Pinochet.
 
Lagos said he made up his mind after studying a gruesome report on torture during Pinochet's 1973-90 regime. The report was prepared by a commission that heard testimonies from 35,000 people. The commission accepted 28,000 of those testimonies as true.
 However, Lagos cautioned that &quot;These measures should not be seen as an insult to the armed forces&quot; that ruled with Pinochet.
 Pinochet's right-wing dictatorship fiercely suppressed leftists, dissidents and others perceived as opponents, imprisoning, exiling, torturing and killing thousands. Many of them simply disappeared.
 The report on torture was the second to be compiled since the restoration of civilian rule in 1990. A 1991 examination focused on the abductions and deaths of dissidents, stating that 3,197 people died for political reasons during the Pinochet regime.
 Lagos called reading the report &quot;an experience that has no precedent in the world.&quot;
 He said he would ask Congress to approve compensation for the victims, including pensions of $190 a month. In addition, victims and their relatives will get housing and health benefits from the state.
 Politicians both pro-government and from the opposition anticipated support for the presidential proposal to Congress. But human rights groups reacted with frustration.
 &quot;This is just a partial solution,&quot; said Liliana Mason, member of an association of former political prisoners. &quot;I do not think this is enough. We wanted truth, but also justice.&quot;
 There was no immediate reaction from Pinochet or his associates, but when Lagos received the report earlier this month, retired General Guillermo Garin, the former dictator's spokesman, said the report would &quot;reopen wounds in our society.&quot;

TITLE: Toxic Gas Slows Hunt
 For 141 Coal Miners
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING - Toxic gas hampered the search for 141 trapped coal miners Monday following an explosion in central China, and an official said their chances of survival were &quot;extremely slight.&quot; At least 25 people were confirmed dead.
 
High levels of carbon monoxide kept rescuers from reaching the site of Sunday's disaster in Shaanxi province, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
 An official at the Shaanxi coal mine safety bureau said hope was fading fast for the trapped miners.
 Some 127 workers managed to escape the state-owned mine, Xinhua said, citing the State Bureau of Production Safety. Some 45 were hospitalized, 11 with serious injuries.
 The blast rocked Chenjiashan coal mine at 7:20 a.m. on Sunday, when 293 workers were underground, Xinhua said. The explosion was centered around coal pits five miles from the mine entrance.
 Most of the miners who escaped were working close to the entrance, Xinhua said, and many suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. High levels of carbon monoxide was preventing rescuers from reaching parts of the tunnels.
 Staff at Chenjiashan said communications with the trapped miners were cut off, the site said.
 On its evening newscast, state television showed ambulances rushing to the scene as huge crowds of people gathered outside the mine's main gate.
 President Hu Jintao urged rescuers to employ &quot;all effective measures&quot; to save the trapped workers, China Central Television said.
 Premier Wen Jiabao, who arrived at the ASEAN summit in Laos on Sunday, said he was &quot;extremely upset&quot; over the accident.
 He said the cause of the explosion would be thoroughly investigated and the government would continue to push for safer working conditions in the mines.
 According to Xinhua, Chenjiashan is capable of producing 1.3 million tons of coal a year.
 China's mines are the world's most dangerous, with thousands of deaths reported every year due to explosions, fires, cave-ins and flooding often blamed on lax safety rules and lack of required equipment.
 The government has vowed to improve conditions and frequently orders mass shutdowns and safety checks after a fatal mine accident.
 But despite the crackdown, accidents still happen on a near daily basis. Chinese officials have suggested that a countrywide energy shortage may be pressuring the mining industry to raise coal production.
 The worst mining accident in four years occurred last month, when a massive explosion in the Daping Mine in central Henan province left 148 people dead.
 It was sparked after mine operators failed to realize that extending the mine's shaft would greatly increase its gas level.
 Also Sunday, 16 officials in the northern Hebei province were charged with helping to cover up a massive coal mine explosion June 3 that killed 14 miners and injured 23 others, Xinhua said.
 It said the mine owner &quot;collaborated with some local officials&quot; to give a false death toll of one to investigators from the central government. The owner was worried that if the real figure was revealed, authorities would shut down his mine and he would lose more money, Xinhua said.
 The officials' misconduct included failing to search passages for more trapped miners and secretly cremating five bodies.

TITLE: No Clear Winners in Romanian Elections
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BUCHAREST, Romania - Exit polls showed no clear winner in Romania's presidential election Sunday, forcing a runoff next month between a former ship's captain with a populist message and a political veteran whose party is associated with the country's communist past.
 
The polls also showed that no party won a majority in the parliamentary election that would enable it to form a government by itself.
 The two top vote-getters both promise to lead the east European country out of poverty and into the European Union, and both also will likely maintain their support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Romania currently has about 700 troops there.
 Although 12 candidates contested the presidency, the race was between Prime Minister Adrian Nastase of the left-wing Social Democratic party and Bucharest mayor Traian Basescu, the former sailor.
 The polls showed Nastase leading for the presidency with up to 43 percent of the vote, while Basescu was in second place with 35 percent. About 18 million people were eligible to vote, and turnout was expected to be 57 percent.
 If the exit polls hold up, a runoff will be needed Dec. 12 since neither candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote.
 The polls were carried out by the Insomar/Metro Media group and Center for Urban Sociology of Romania based on interviewing more than 1,000 people. 
 Official results in the presidential and parliamentary elections were expected by Tuesday.
 Nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a poet-turned politician, came in third with about 12 percent of the vote, the polls indicated.
 In the parliamentary vote, the polls predicted the governing Social Democratic Party would get about 40 percent of the vote, the centrist Justice and Truth Alliance 35 percent, and Tudor's Greater Romania Party 12 percent, making it a force to be reckoned with in runoffs and in forming a new government.
 Nastase, 54, said he considered his party had won the parliamentary elections.
 About 3,300 Romanian and 50 foreign observers monitored the election and are expected to present their conclusions Monday.
 Basescu called on authorities &quot;to investigate irregularities because no party has won a majority. We will have to see what the options are for forming a government.&quot;
 But said he would take his complaints to the election authorities and not try to create a situation like the one in Ukraine, where the disputed presidential election has triggered a national crisis.
 The close race for the presidency reflects a nation being pulled in two directions as it elects the man who will replace longtime President Ion Iliescu and pursue Romania's cherished dream of joining the prosperous European Union in 2007.

TITLE: Switzerland Approves Law
 Allowing Stem Cell Research
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GENEVA - Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a law allowing stem cell research Sunday, rejecting a hard-line campaign that compared researchers to the Nazis' &quot;angel of death,&quot; Dr. Josef Mengele.
 
Some 66.4 percent of those polled - or 1.1 million voters - approved the law passed by the government last December. The law will take effect in March.
 Opponents had called the referendum to try to overturn the legislation, even though it sets stricter limitations on research than exist elsewhere in Europe. The Swiss bill only allows the use of embryonic stem cells left over from in-vitro fertilization.
 Embryonic stem cells form in the days after fertilization and can turn into any tissue of the body. Many researchers believe stem cells harvested from embryos could be used to regenerate nerve tissue or cure diseases, including Alzheimer's. But extracting stem cells from an embryo kills the embryo, which opponents say is tantamount to taking a life.
 In the United States, President Bush has approved federal funding of embryonic stem cell research for only the 78 stem cell lines in existence on Aug. 9, 2001. At last count, less than two dozen of those lines are still available.
 The government said the law will permit Switzerland - which has major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies - to take part in vital research.
 The opposition alliance, which included Roman Catholics and Protestants as well as left-wing and green groups, said the defeat was a setback for scientific ethics.
 &quot;In a few years, we will be voting on therapeutic cloning,&quot; said Pascale Steck of the referendum committee.
 European nations that permit stem cell research include Sweden, Finland, Greece and the Netherlands. Britain allows the creation of human embryos for stem cell procurement.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: New Bishop 
 </b>

ST. POELTEN, Austria (AP) - Roman Catholic Church leaders in Austria formally installed a new bishop Sunday in a diocese rocked by the discovery of a vast cache of child pornography on computers at a seminary.
 Klaus Kueng, a bishop in southwestern Austria who was sent by Pope John Paul II to investigate the scandal for the Vatican, was installed as the bishop of St. Poelten in a solemn ceremony in this city 50 miles west of Vienna.
 Kueng succeeds Kurt Krenn, who abruptly resigned amid investigations by the Vatican and a federal prosecutor into the discovery of up to 40,000 lurid images - including child porn - at the diocese seminary last summer.
 
 
<b>Cairo Film Festival
 </b>

CAIRO (AFP) - The 28th Cairo International Film Festival, the biggest in the Middle East, is due to open Tuesday with US and British films excluded from competition for "technical" reasons, organizers said.
 While films from the United States and Britain, the two countries who led last year's invasion of Iraq, will be excluded from the official competition for the first time, American and British films will be shown uncompetitively.
 A total of 180 films from 49 nations will be screened in what organizers call "a ray of sunshine in a difficult geopolitical time for our region," from November 30 to December 11.
 
 
<b>Tenure Extended
 </b>

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has been told by police she is being held under house arrest under a law which allows for such detention for up to a year, an opposition spokesman said Monday.
 The 59-year-old Nobel peace laureate was detained in May last year after a bloody clash between opposition and government supporters, sparking outrage from the West and embarrassment among Myanmar's Southeast Asian neighbors.
 Suu Kyi's NLD won a landslide election victory in 1990 but was denied power by the army, which has run the country in various guises since 1962.
 
<b>De Broca Dies at 71
 </b>

PARIS (AFP) - French filmmaker Philippe de Broca, a master of costume drama and sparkling comedy whose works include "King of Hearts" and "That Man from Rio", died near Paris on Friday aged 71, according to a close aide.
 De Broca worked as an assistant director for Claude Chabrol and Francois Truffaut before he started making films himself, often appearing in walk-on parts, including in Truffaut's seminal "A Bout de Souffle".
 He worked with a galaxy of French stars including Belmondo, who appeared in six of his films, Yves Montand and Catherine Deneuve.
 
 
<b>Jordan Royal Shake-Up
 </b>

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - King Abdullah II stripped his half brother and heir apparent of his title as crown prince in an abrupt shake-up Sunday aimed at redeeming the full power the king inherited from his late father.
 A senior aide to the king said the move had no political ramifications.