SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1028 (94), Friday, December 10, 2004
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Moscow
 Shuns Oil
 For Food
 Inquiry
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Russia has refused to sign a cooperation agreement with a United Nations' probe into possible corruption in the Iraqi oil-for-food program and is withholding access to witnesses and other information from investigators, media reported Thursday.
 
However a spokesman for the UN investigation, which is being headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, downplayed the reports, saying that "after some initial difficulties," Moscow is cooperating. 
 Russia has refused to sign documents that would govern how witnesses and documents are handled in the investigation, said Russia's Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Konstantin Dolgov, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Both France and the United Kingdom have already signed such agreements, Bloomberg said. 
 Also on Thursday, the Financial Times reported that an official close to the Volcker Commission said Russia is denying access to witnesses and information crucial to investigators' success. The paper said that while there is still hope for diplomacy with Russia, the commission was reaching the point where it would consider taking "further steps." 
 Iraqi Ambassador to Moscow Abdul Mustafa told Interfax this week that all sides should wait for the results of the UN investigation.
 But, he told the agency, "if there is real evidence in accusations against any Russian companies, the Iraqi authorities will demand compensation."
 Dolgov told the Financial Times that Russia is actively assisting the investigation. 
 "We have been cooperating as much as we can, we have been providing information," Dolgov told the paper. "But some of the documents have been classified, some date back and probably no longer exist."
 The Russian mission to the UN did not reply to requests for additional comment on Thursday. 
 A government's refusal to sign memoranda of understanding is not necessarily a sign of reluctance to cooperate, Mike Holtzman, spokesman for the Volcker Commission, said Thursday.
 "Lots of governments participate [in the investigation] without them," he said. "They are used to specify the conditions of the inquiry. The evidence we have from the field right now is that - after some initial difficulties with Russia - cooperation has actually been quite good."
 A U.S. Senate investigation charged last month that Saddam Hussein made $21 billion violating UN sanctions by smuggling oil and charging illicit kickbacks and surcharges on deals made through the program. 
 The terms of the oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, allowed Hussein to sell some oil and purchase certain humanitarian goods such as food. 
 But investigations by the UN and in the U.S. Congress are looking into allegations that the program was abused by Hussein to enrich his regime and its supporters abroad.

TITLE: Police: City Tops Country for Attacks on Foreigners
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Contradicting the protests of foreign students who say they are more and more frequently falling victim to attacks by skinheads and other nationalists on the streets of Russian cities, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday that crimes against foreigners are rare and numbers are falling each year.
 
However, St. Petersburg is the country's black spot for attacks on foreign students, accounting for a third of all attacks in the country, according to police statistics.
 "The number of crimes linked to foreigners grows by 10 percent to 15 percent a year," Interfax quoted Viktor Papsuyev, head of the federal criminal police, saying at a Moscow news conference. 
 "While the number of crimes committed against foreigners is falling, the number of crimes committed by foreigners grows annually."
 A total of 8,500 foreigners were victims of crime in 2003 when foreigners committed more than 41,000 crimes, he said.
 "Crimes of national hatred are of an isolated character and the Interior Ministry makes a swift response to them," he said. "We have paid and will continue to pay attention to such crimes. If a crime is found to have its roots in extremism, special [police] departments are assigned to deal with them."
 The police do not use the terms racism or hate attacks, and seem reluctant to admit that such things exist in Russia. 
 Moscow and Voronezh came second and third in the numbers of crimes committed against foreign students, accounting for 25 percent and 10 percent of attacks on foreign students respectively.
 "This is not surprising because these cities have high concentrations of educational institutions," Papsuyev said.
 Fifty-two percent of crimes committed against foreigners in Russia are robberies and theft, 6 percent are physical assaults and 5 percent are swindles. Most of victims of such crimes are Ukrainians with 15 percent, followed by Azeris (10 percent), Tajiks (7 percent), Uzbeks and Chinese (3 percent), with Germans, Finns and Vietnamese accounting for 2 percent each.
 This year, 283 crimes had been committed against foreign students in Russia. A total of 33,000 foreign students study in Russia, including 10,000 in St. Petersburg. The total number of crimes committed against foreigners in the city so far this year is 488, according to the ministry.
 But foreign students in St. Petersburg say that the police statistics do not reflect the reality that students face attacks by extremists every day.
 "[Attacks] are being committed several times a day," Kommersant quoted Enok Iyamiremye, head of the International Center for Culture and Business Cooperation with African and Asian Countries, as saying at a meeting at the Legislative Assembly last week. 
 "We don't report each attack to the police because there is no reason to."
 Governor Valentina Matviyenko, who promised in October to boost the students' security by putting more guards outside hostels among other measures had done nothing by the end of the month, members of the center said.
 "At the beginning of the 1990s living here was more calm," student Serge Zedong told Kommersant.
 "It was possible to go to Kolpino [a notorious suburb] and come back with no problems," he said. "In 1998-1999 the situation changed. We are beaten up for no reason. They come up to us for a cigarette and while we taking it out we're get beaten. They approach in groups of not less then four people."
 Yury Vdovin, co-chairman of human rights organization Citizen's Watch, said that rather than counting statistics, the authorities should look into the problem to understand its roots. 
 "I was brought up in Soviet times and I used to be proud of my country," he said Wednesday in a telephone interview. "I feel ashamed when foreigners and also Russian citizens are beaten up or robbed." 
 "[The attacks] should be analyzed to see if they are merely thefts or if racism is behind them. If extremism is growing, the authorities should look into it and understand its reasons." But the police seem to think they already know the root of the problem - foreigners are attacked because they are better off than Russian citizens.
 "Foreigners, as a rule, have large amounts of hard currency on them or own expensive equipment," Papyusev said. "Foreigners participate in business and attain a high material standard of living and this is what draws criminals to them."
 The most frequent crimes committed by foreigners, involve fraud (30 percent) theft (18 percent), drug dealing and robberies (5 percent).
 On Tuesday, the St. Petersburg police said two suspects had been detained after three Chinese navy officers were beaten up on Saturday near the Chernaya Rechka metro station on their way to a hotel.
 However, Papsuyev said that the investigation had been discontinued because "the victims have sent letters asking that the case be dropped."
 On Wednesday, the city court sentenced five suspects for from 2 1/2 years to 10 years jail after they were convicted of murdering a five-year-old Tajik girl in September 2003. The court ruled the crime had been committed on grounds of national hatred. Another two were convicted but got suspended sentences.
 However, the same day Mikhail Vanichkin, head of the St. Petersburg police, said that no racial motive had been demonstrated in the killing of another Tajik girl, aged nine, in the central city in February.
 A group of drunk teenagers brutally murdered Khursheda Sultanova and beat up her father and cousin.
 "The killers will be tried, but it is impossible to prove that this crime was committed on the grounds of her nationality and that it was not simply a physical assault," Interfax cited Vanichkin as saying at the meeting with Legislative Assembly deputies.
 "The purpose of attacking foreign students is to rob them," he said. "The slightest resistance from students who don't know the Russian language results in the use of force. [Cases] involving extremist groups are very rare," he said, adding that students themselves are "sometimes are busy committing crimes."

TITLE: Duke Backs Return of Tsarina's Remains
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Duke Dmitry Romanov, great-great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas I, plans to accompany the remains of Tsarina Maria Fyodorovna, mother of the last tsar, Nicholas II, from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg in 2006.
 
"I think someone from our family should accompany the remains of our relative," Romanov said Wednesday at a news conference. "I was the Romanov who escorted the remains of the last tsar's family from Yekaterinburg in 1997." The tsarina, Denmark's Princess Dagmar, married Crown Prince Alexander in 1866 before he was crowned as Tsar Alexander III. She changed her name to the Russian-style Maria Fyodorovna after adopting the Orthodox faith.
 She died in Copenhagen in 1928 after fleeing the Bolsheviks who murdered her son and his family in 1918. 
 Romanov, who came to St. Petersburg on a charity mission for The Romanovs Foundation for Russia, said he approved the 2001 initiative of his elder brother, Nikolai, head of the Romanov Dynasty Association, to rebury Maria Fyodorovna's remains. 
 "There were different opinions in our family, but I personally had a feeling that it's wrong when a husband and a wife are buried in different places," said Romanov, who lives in Denmark. "Even more importantly, Maria Fyodorovna wanted to be buried next to her husband."
 Ivan Artsishevsky, head of the State Protocol Department in St. Petersburg, said the remains of the empress may return to Russia on a navy vessel.
 "Princess Dagmar came to Russia on a Danish warship, and we want a reminder of that fact," he said. "Since the Danish part of the [handing over] ceremony will be performed by Danish authorities, the delivery of the remains may take place in international waters."
 Maria Fyodorovna was buried in Copenhagen's Roskilde Cathedral. Her husband, who died in 1894, was buried in St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Cathedral.
 Artsishevsky said preparations for the reburial have begun. "We work with reverence, having a clear understanding that we are touching the history of a great person, who left her country as a princess and went back as a great empress."
 Romanov rejected a recent statement by a Japanese genetic scientist that the remains buried in Peter and Paul's Cathedral in 1997 do not belong to the murdered family of Nicholas II.
 "I believe that those are the remains of that family," he said. "Scientific analysis has shown there is a 99.6 percent probability that it is them."
 Artsishevsky, said that the religious functions of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where the remains of most of the Romanovs are buried and which has the status of a federal museum, should be restored. The cathedral will soon hold religious services at least twice a week.
 Romanov, whose foundation aims to help veterans and the handicapped in Russia and other CIS countries, delivered equipment for the development of spatial orientation for blind children for St. Petersburg's nursery school No. 53.
 The foundation was founded in 1992 in Paris, when seven representatives of the tsars' family gathered to discuss their attitude to changes in Russia.
 "It would be shameful to make demands on Russia," Romanov said. "The country lost so much during World War II. So we decided to help in a non-political way."

TITLE: Chamber Is Toothless
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin's brainchild to bridge the gap between government and civil society, the public chamber, will exclude state officials and politicians but will be stacked with pro-Kremlin members and will not perform oversight of government bodies, Russian media reported Thursday. 
 
Putin's proposals, submitted in a bill to the State Duma on Wednesday, allow him to dominate the chamber with Kremlin-friendly nominees. He will be able to nominate 42 members - one-third of the total - who will in turn nominate another 42 members from non-governmental organizations. These members will then select the final one-third of the chamber.
 The bill, to be considered by the Duma in late December, bars state officials or members of political parties from being members of the chamber, Kommersant reported Thursday, citing a copy of the bill. The chamber will copy the Duma's structure of committees and working groups, and operate under similar ethics and procedural rules. 
 State-run television and radio will be obliged to dedicate no less than one hour of airtime per week to cover the chamber's work.
 But the chamber's decisions will only take the form of recommendations to the government, Kommersant reported.
 Putin first floated the idea of a public chamber in the wake of the Beslan school attack, along with controversial initiatives to scrap direct gubernatorial and single-mandate Duma elections.
 At the time, Putin said that the chamber would exercise public oversight over the actions of the government. However, no such function for the chamber was mentioned in the bill.
 It is expected that the bill will be adopted and signed into law by next spring, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.

TITLE: Injunction Over Manuscript
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The sale of the manuscript of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony was canceled Tuesday after, Alexandre Rachmaninoff, a grandson of the composer, contested its ownership and stopped the sale with a court injunction.
 
"The manuscript was withdrawn from the music sale because there was a title claim from the Rachmaninov estate," a spokesman for Sotheby's said.
 The original manuscript, which contained all the original orchestration for the work, although the first four pages and the title page were missing, had been lost for almost a century.
 It had been due to be auctioned in London and was expected to fetch Pound300,000 to Pound500,000 ($575,000 to $960,000). The dispute is likely to be resolved in Britain's High Court.
 The 320 pages were discovered in a Swiss cellar recently. Sotheby's identified the seller only as a "European private collector."
 The second symphony is Rachmaninov's most popular orchestral work. It was completed in Dresden in 1907.
 The composer conducted its first two performances in St. Petersburg in January 1908, when it was used to prepare the first published edition. 


TITLE: Two Finns Murdered in the Past Week
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Two Finns - a 58-year-old man and a male student - have been murdered in Russia in the past week, the Finnish Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
 
The body of the 58-year-old man was found at a dump near the paper mill town of Svetogorsk in the Vyborg district of the Leningrad Oblast last Thursday. He had been stabbed to death.
 The man, whose name has not been released, was a resident of the Finnish town of Imatra just over the border from Svetogorsk. He was the owner of a car repair workshop, and had driven to Svetogorsk to buy gasoline on the night of Dec. 1
 Ilkka Poyhia, chief of investigations at Imatra's police department, said Thursday in the telephone interview that after the man failed to come home that night, his wife called the Imatra police. An acquaintance drove to Svetogorsk on Dec. 2 to look for the missing man.
 Svetogorsk police found the man's body at a dump, and his car in the center of the city that day. 
 Poyhia said he didn't have exact information as to whether the man had also been robbed, but the man did not have much money with him.
 "It's a common practice for residents of Imatra, located a few kilometers from Svetogorsk, to go there to buy gasoline, because in Russia it's much cheaper than in Finland," he said.
 "Some Finns have been robbed in Svetogorsk, but I don't remember anyone being killed," he said.
 Poyhia said an investigation is underway.
 Meanwhile, a Finnish student, was found dead outside Moscow on Tuesday. 
 Kari Lehtonen, a spokesman for the legal department of consular services on criminal issues at the Finnish Foreign Ministry, said preliminary information suggested the student had been severely beaten. 
 "We don't know yet what exactly happened," Lehtonen said. "Over the past several years only a few Finnish citizens have been killed in Russia."

TITLE: Agency: LAES Reactor Stopped by False Alarm
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: An emergency shutdown of reactor No. 1 at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, or LAES, late Monday was caused by a false alarm, representatives of the Federal Nuclear Power Agency said Tuesday.
 
They were trying to assure the population that the reactor, which has just come back into operation after renovations following the expiration of its designed lifetime, works just fine.
 "This was not a failure of the LAES safety systems," Interfax quoted an unnamed agency official as saying. "Everything worked as it should and then a sort of re-insurance occurred."
 "New equipment has been installed on the reactor, the terms and functions of which have been extended; it is now undergoing a series of tests," the official said.
 The radiation level in Sosnovy Bor, the town about 100 kilometers west of St. Petersburg where LAES is located, was slightly less than 30 microroentgens per hour on Tuesday afternoon. This is normal for the area around the nuclear power plant, local environmentalists said.
 LAES is the main supplier of electricity to St. Petersburg, and there are plans to transmit some of its power to Finland. The reactor that shut down is one of four RBMK-1000 reactors at the plant. This is the model that caused the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The No. 1 reactor was stopped for renovations in 1999 after operating for 30 years and the agency says it will be able to operate another 10 years safely after its renovation.
 The reactor was relaunched Oct. 27. The renovations involved installing new equipment made in European countries with the intention of raising the safety of the power unit. Shortly after the reactor was launched, automatic safety equipment shut it down, but it was switched back on again couple of days later.
 Sergei Kharitonov, a member of Greenworld, an environmental organization in Sosnovy Bor that monitors LAES, said emergency shutdowns of reactor No. 1 can be expected to occur regularly because the foreign equipment is too sensitive for a power plant built using Soviet technology.
 "According to information I have, staff at the plant has been begging management to get rid of the foreign equipment because it does not allow them to work," he said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
 "There is a conflict of two types of systems, in other words Soviet and European equipment," he said. "If Japanese meters were installed in a Lada car with a low-quality gasoline, they would indicate that something is wrong with the vehicle every single minute; the car would stop and it wouldn't be possible to drive it. Exactly the same is happening here." 
 Greenpeace has urged officials to return to discussions on its request to conduct an independent environmental study to make sure the reactor is safe.
 "The problems started long before this accident," Greenpeace spokesman Dmitry Artamonov said Tuesday in a telephone interview. "No independent environmental impact report was conducted and everything linked to it was completely closed to the public.
 "I'm not talking here about the technical specifics of the projects, but about data on the possible risks and possible accidents that have never been released to the public," he said.

TITLE: Belgium to Extradite Murder Suspect
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Belgian Justice Ministry has approved Russia's application to extradite Pavel Stekhnovsky, a suspect charged with participating in the 1998 assassination of State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, Interfax reported Wednesday quoting the Federal Security Service.
 
"The relevant official bodies in Belgium and the Prosecutor General's Office are in the process of completing the necessary documentation for the suspect to be extradited to Russia," Interfax cited the FSB press service as saying. He is expected to arrive in Russia in the nearest future.
 Stekhnovsky, a Russian citizen, was detained in Brussels in mid-July by the Belgium police at the request of Russian law enforcement authorities. He is charged with attempting to buy the weapon that would later be used to kill Starovoitova.
 Investigators said they have evidence Stekhnovsky bought the murder weapon, an Agran-2000 machine-gun. According to one witness, he bought it some time in the summer of 1998 for $3,000.
 Stekhnovsky denied the charges in the Belgium Court of Appeal.
 "During the preliminary investigation he told the court in his own words that he bought the machine-gun and Beretta gun," Ruslan Linkov, Starovoitova's assistant who was injured during the assassination, said Thursday in a telephone interview. "He gave testimonies in which he confirmed this."
 "Only a few questions remain, such as how it happened that he appeared to be at large after providing such evidence, how did he manage to leave Russia and who was paying for his stay in Belgium and all his adventures in that country?" Linkov said.
 Seven suspects are being tried n St. Petersburg for the murder in a court case that began in January. The accused include Yury Kolchin, an employee of the military intelligence General Staff's Main Directorate, or GRU, at the time of the crime, Igor Lelyavin and his brother Vyacheslav, Vitaly Akishin, Igor Krasnov, Anatoly Voronin and Yury Ionov. All were born in the city of Dyadkovo in the Bryansk region.
 In addition to the warrant for Stekhnovsky, federal arrest warrants have been issued for Sergei Musin, Oleg Fedosov and Igor Bogdanov.
 Starovoitova was killed on the staircase to her apartment on the Griboyedov canal on Nov. 20, 1998.
 The next court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 20.

TITLE: Hunger Strike Ends as Court Studies Payouts
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A week-long hunger strike by eight men who participated in the clean-up of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Sestroretsk ended Tuesday after they were given assurances that their demand to have their compensation indexed to rising costs will be considered by the Supreme Court.
 
The men, who were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation when they helped stop nuclear material entering the atmosphere, complained that they were sick, could not afford medicine and had not had an increase since 2000. Many of their colleagues who took part have died. The men believe their financial compensation will rise from 4,000 rubles to 20,000 rubles a month ($143 to $714). The maximum any of them received was 6,000 rubles a month
 "We suspended the strike after we got the news that the Supreme Court hearing on our case is scheduled to take place on Jan. 18," said Gennady Teranov, a spokesman for the hunger strikers. "This happened thanks to the intervention of Vladimir Lukin [the national ombudsman for human rights] who visited us last week,"
 "I have already received a notification to participate in local court hearings on Tuesday; these hearings have been moved forward from January or February when they were scheduled before [the strike]," he said.
 Governor Valentina Matviyenko has sent federal officials letters this week with requests to speed up the process to raise compensation for Chernobyl survivors and this also had influenced the decision to suspend the strike, he said.
 The group said their further actions will depend on the ruling the Supreme Court makes in January.

TITLE: Mechel Steel Group Probed Ahead of Auction
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Mechel Steel Group said Wednesday that Interior Ministry agents showed up at its Moscow offices on two occasions this week and confiscated documents in what the company said was an attempt to stop it from bidding for the government's stake in No. 2 steel producer Magnitogorsk.
 
"The company is certain that the events are the result of actions designed to prevent the participation of Mechel in the privatization auction of ... Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works," the company said in a statement issued overnight in the United States through PR Newswire.
 The government is due to sell its 23.8 percent stake of Magnitogorsk's voting shares at an auction scheduled for Dec. 22. The starting price is nearly $800 million, but Mechel, Russia's fifth-largest producer, said last month it was willing to pay $2.15 billion for the shares, which would give it a blocking stake.
 Mechel already owns about 17 percent of Magnitogorsk, making it the third-largest shareholder after the Urals-based company's management team, which owns 32.33 percent of voting stock, and the federal government. Another 25.54 percent is held by the steelmaker as treasury stock. 
 Mechel became Russia's first metals firm to list on the New York Stock Exchange in late October, raising $291 million by selling about 10 percent of its shares, giving it a market capitalization of about $2.9 billion. To support its bid for Magnitogorsk, Mechel later sold another $44 million worth of shares to the public, raised some $70 million from a bond issue and reportedly secured a $200 million credit line from French bank BNP Paribas.
 Despite Mechel's ballooning war chest, however, most analysts consider Magnitogorsk's management to be the front-runner to win the auction, although declared bidders include No. 4 producer Novolipetsk.
 Mechel's spokesman Alexei Sotskov would not elaborate on the company's suggestion that the Interior Ministry is acting on someone else's behalf. Sotskov would only say that the ministry's Federal Service for Economic and Tax Crimes is in charge of the investigation, and that the documents confiscated came from the group's marketing arm, Mechel Trading House, which is involved in a wide range of operations, including buying and selling raw materials, both within the group and with outside partners.
 Mechel's net income in the first half of the year totaled $254.5 million, versus $143.5 million for 2003.

TITLE: Mall Embodies Transparency
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The area around Sennaya Square will become the "shopping heart" of St. Petersburg, hope city retailers and officials, as a large retail complex opened on the square this week. Another is expected in two years.
 
Sennaya Square serves as a transport hub for city residents, with daily traffic levels of about 190,000 people and 40,000 cars. "The location is key to making [newly opened] Pik a success," said Arkady Teplitsky the head of the Pik project on Tuesday.
 The shopping complex, which took two years to complete, packs in 20,000 square meters of retail space, and should see 20,000 visitors daily, said Teplitsky. 
 Pik became the second large retail complex to open on Sennaya Square in a year; Sennaya shopping center stands across the street. In two years, the vicinity will boast a third shopping center, said Yunis Lukmanov, head of Admiralteisky district administration.
 "The center under development - Sever, will cover a 40,000 square meter area behind Pik - between the Gorohovaya and Yefimova street, and will require investments of around 35 million euro," he said. The project, in the hands of the city agency for property developments, still welcomes additional investors, Lukmanov said.
 "We believe increased competition will only benefit the consumer," said Lukmanov. As an example he cited Moscow hypermarket chain Perekryostok, an anchor tenant at Pik, competing for customers with Patterson, the supermarket chain at Sennaya.
 However, Petromir, the company that carried out the Pik project, said it is not in competition with Sennaya. The two complexes have a different retail store selection and cater to different customer groups, said Vitaly Kuvakin, Pik's marketing director. 
 Besides Perekryosotk, Pik's anchor retailers include Moscow's Detsky Mir (Childern's World), Baltic Sport, and Soyuz music stores. Roskino, Russia's cinema production company has rented the fourth floor for an eight-screen multiplex movie theatre, while smaller spaces are occupied by various international boutiques, such as Timberland and Oggy.
 "Sennya's retail selection targets more teenagers, while we count on the upper middle-class group of over 25-year olds," Kuvakin said. Pik managers don't expect many tourist visitors, but hope the view from the top-floor restaurant will attract.
 The center has been praised by officials for its innovative design, sporting a hundred-meter-tall glass façade and sidewall. "We are proud of the architecture, which fits very well into the historic city center," Lukhmanov said. 
 Petromir invested $35 million into construction. The amounts spent on land and surrounding area infrastructure works have not been disclosed.
 Teplitsky said he expects the project to pay off within six to eight years. As part of the deal with the city, Petromir had to restore a church, nearby Yefimova Street, plus build a power sub-station.
 Real estate firms, Colliers International and Astera, said they do not expect the influx of construction around Sennaya to lead to over-supply on the market.

TITLE: Lenta, Perekryostok to Double Number of Stores
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The number of supermarkets in the city looks set to rocket after two large retail chains announced they will open nine new stores in St. Petersburg in 2005.
 
Lenta Group plans four new supermarkets which will be backed by a $30 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, while Moscow budget chain Perekryostok announced plans for five St. Petersburg stores.
 Lenta, the city's largest retailer with expected annual sales of $430 million in 2004, secured the seven-year ERBD loan to increase its current number of six stores to 10 within the next 18 months, it was annnounced this week.
 "The bank felt there was a significant shortage of modern, efficient retail [space in St. Petersburg], and therefore [this loan] is a good opportunity for new investments," said Hans Christian Jacobsen, the EBRD's director of agribusiness.
 The first of Lenta's stores to open is a 12,000-square meter supermarket in the village of Shushary, on the Moscow highway which will serve up to 13,000 customers a day, reported Delovoi Petersburg.
 Stores at Dalnevostochny Prospekt, Uralskaya Ulitsa, and Obvodny Kanal will appear at regular intervals during the year.
 Lenta's expansion follows the entry into the city's retail market of at least one other major player, Turkish-owned Ramstore, which announced a target of opening 10 to 15 stores in St. Petersburg within four to five years and at least a 10 percent market share by end of 2005.
 Lenta's self-assessed share of the retail market at the start of 2004 stood at about 12 percent, a representative at its press office said, adding that its position has been affected by the entry of new retailers in St. Petersburg's retail market.
 The construction of its four new stores will ensure that, as the competition in the city's retail market heats up, "we too are building and expanding. By end of next year we're aiming for a market share of 20 percent," Lenta press officer Svetlana Shorina said.
 Food purchases comprise 44 percent of Russians' overall consumer spending, versus 39 percent in China and as little as 7 to 8 percent in the United States, reported Pricewaterhouse Coopers in a recent study. Russia's growing incomes are helping to fuel a boom in the retail sector, PwC partner Chris Skirrow said on Wednesday.
 "St. Petersburg is a great market; it stands in the same position as Moscow," Mete Doguoglu, first deputy of general director of Ramenka, owner of Ramstore, told The St. Petersburg Times.
 Perekryostok's director for St. Petersburg, Alexander Skobelev, said Wednesday that his company was planning a further three stores in the city by end of 2004 to add to the two already in operation, reported Interfax.
 Although the amount of investment was undisclosed, capital investment in one Perekryostok store varied between $500,000 and $1 million, said Skobelev.
 
 <i>
Additional reporting by Valeria Korchagina. </i>

TITLE: Bosch-Siemens 'Interested in St. Petersburg'
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: German Bosch-Siemens Hasgeraete (BSH) will invest 95 million euro into building a consumer appliances factory in the city's Strelna industrial zone, said the governor's press office Tuesday. However, the German company said no decision has been reached yet.
 
&quot;We are interested in working in St. Petersburg and there was a BSH delegation to the city [which met with Governor Matviyenko on Tuesday]. But the decision will not be made until early 2005, since this is an on-going process,&quot; said a Bosch-Siemens corporate communications representative at the head office in Munich, in a telephone interview. 
 Should the company proceed with expansion plans, the factory will become a second BSH plant in Russia. The first - producing gas stoves - was opened in 1998 in the Moscow region. The St. Petersburg plant would need a 20 to 22 hectare territory, with a year-and-a-half construction period, according to Izvestia.
 The company is one of the first German investors expressing interest in the Noidorf-Strelna land development, which neighbors the presidential administration's Konstantinovsky palace.
 &quot;We can expect increased interest in the development from investors within a year and a half,&quot; said Stefan Stein, head of German Economic House, to business daily Delovoi Peterburg. Hormann, Henkel, KBE, Knauf, developing company GVZ and the Raffizen and Dresdner banks were named among potential major investors. 
 The Noidorf-Strelna zone has been developed as part of the Russian-German settlement program, approved by the city administration and the Economic Development ministry in 1996. 
 One of the main attractions of the 42-hectar area is its infrastructure - reportedly, it is complete with an engineering and water supply network, as well as electricity and roads systems. 
 So far, the German government has contributed about 10 million euros to the settlement project, while the Russian side has spent around $ 4 million, most of it coming from the St. Petersburg city budget.

TITLE: Bye Oligarchs,
 Hello Feudal
 Capitalism
TEXT: When thugs shake down a shop ow-ner, they're not trying to get hold of the shop for themselves. They just want the owner to pay them tribute. If the owner proves uncooperative, of course, they sometimes have to take over the shop anyway.
 
The formation of criminal protection rackets, which thrived in the late 1980s and early 1990s, turned the owners of private property into vassals. Every piece of property was owned by two people: the businessman who owned the property, and the criminal who owned the businessman.
 Toward the end of Boris Yeltsin's second term, this process came to an end. The slaveowners were replaced by proprietors - the oligarchs, who assessed their wealth not in terms of guns and the number of businessmen under their thumbs, but by stock portfolios and profit margins.
 Now the process is moving in reverse: Private ownership is once more giving way to feudal ownership.
 When an oligarch resists this process, his property is taken away and handed over to the bureaucrats, as in the case of Yukos. If he does not resist, he keeps hold of his property but effectively becomes a vassal. He retains his freedom in the sense that no one throws him in prison. But he forfeits his freedom just as Russian serfs once did.
 Vladimir Potanin and Vladimir Bogdanov aren't in jail, but I doubt that Mikhail Khodorkovsky would willingly trade places with them.
 Nearly all of the influential officials in Putin's inner circle became chairmen on the boards of major state companies: Gazprom, Rosneft, shipbuilder Sovkomflot and air defense concern Almaz-Antei. They received these companies as fiefdoms just as dukes and counts in the Middle Ages were granted lands in exchange for loyal service to the lord.
 This unique system of fiefdom-based capitalism has produced an equally distinctive system of political clans. Bureaucrats in this system belong to the person higher up the chain of command to whom they pay tribute. Now major clashes and shakeups in the Kremlin administration occur because of commercial, not political, disputes. Maybe, just maybe Dmitry Kozak was exiled to the Caucasus and removed as board chairman at Sovkomflot not because he was brighter than the rest of Putin's inner circle, but because he got caught pocketing the tribute.
 The advantage of fiefdom-based capitalism over oligarchic ownership of property immediately became evident. Kozak was stripped of Sovkomflot with a stroke of a pen, and without resorting to all the tedious procedures that have been used against Khodorkovsky. 
 Feudalization does not spell an end to private ownership of property. On the contrary, the people who control the flow of revenue into state companies value capitalism very highly where consumption is concerned - villas in Nice, expensive restaurants, private planes and pretty girls. Power in its bare, Soviet form - run-down Volgas and slapdash apartment buildings for the select few, complete with real Yugoslavian toilets - doesn't quite cut it.
 But they don't have a clue about investment. From the feudal lord's perspective, investing money in new technology and oil wells that could be spent on villas and girls makes no sense whatsoever. This sort of investment only makes your fiefdom more attractive to the next guy, who then proceeds to buy your position and destroy you.
 
 <i>Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio. </i>

TITLE: The Vicious Circle of State Interference
TEXT: Last month a big Estonian company initiated a conference on investment in Russia that was supposed to take place in Tallinn, but never took place thanks to the extremely &quot;productive&quot; work of Russian diplomats, according to the organizers.
 
Different businesses from Estonia and Russia had been invited to Tallinn to talk about investment opportunities in the Northwest region and in St. Petersburg in particular, to discuss ways to overcome obstacles and the advantages of the Russian market. But only a couple of weeks before the conference was due to take place the organizers say they got a phone call from a representative of the Russian Embassy in Tallinn. The diplomat insisted that the list of participants representing Russia be changed, saying that wrong people had been invited. New invitations should be issued to different people, who, according to Russian diplomats, would be more suited to the conference, an organizer said.
 It is no surprise that the Estonian business considered the diplomat's approach as weird. I doubt that a western embassy would interfere in the organization of a business conference in such a disruptive and, obviously, extremely silly way that damages the interests of their own country's businesses and those of their foreign partners.
 &quot;I don't work for the KGB,&quot; the Estonian organizer said and hung up.
 The conference had to be called off.
 I am deliberately not naming the Estonian businesses involved in this ridiculous case because perhaps in the future, when Russian officials finally understand the ways that &quot;civilized&quot; business works, they could find a good partner that can bring certain advantages for economic development of the region.
 But while we wait for this understanding to come to them any criticism, even if it is intended to stimulate a change for the better, will merely be interpreted as an attack by unfriendly people. More obstacles will follow for the businesses that brought the problem to the public's attention. I have already noticed the unfortunate tendency of businesses, even foreign ones that are doing quite well, are afraid to say bad things about City Hall or federal authorities even when they are extremely unhappy with their actions.
 On the one hand, this is completely understandable because they fear even constructive criticism will make things worse. On the other, this is a vicious circle with authorities feeling that they can do whatever they want, no matter if a business is friendly or unfriendly toward them.
 I hope this is not the case for such international firms working in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast such as Coca-Cola, Ford, Phillip Morris or Gillette because the authorities are still smart enough not to spoil the operations of the most significant taxpayers to the regional budgets.
 But for small- and medium-sized businesses with foreign capital the situation is different. While the authorities treat big taxpayers as most important for the regional economy, small companies find themselves exposed to an accidental change in the mood of clerks sitting in the offices of the regional tax police, sanitary inspection or City Hall itself. It's not hard for a local businessman close to authorities to acquire real estate in the city center that is occupied by another business if he or she kindly asks for the authorities' assistance. A competitor can suddenly lose the right to extend their rental agreement.
 I imagine that something like this happened over the conference in Tallinn. It might have been that businesses close to the authorities or the authorities themselves had no access to the conference and were miffed at not being included.
 So, it's very strange to hear when the Kremlin declares it is distancing itself from business because the separation between businesses and the authorities is barely visible and they keep getting closer year by year.

TITLE: Food, glorious food
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: They don't discuss politics and business; they turn their mobiles off during meals. This certainly doesn't sound like a typical Russian club, but these are the rules at the Russian branch of Chaine de Rotisseurs. The venerable and prestigious gastronomic society celebrated its second anniversary in St. Petersburg this month with its third sumptuous gathering, and with 90 respected members on board. 
 
The Chaine des Rotisseurs, which translates from French as Chain of Poultry Cooks, is an international society that promotes the culinary and hospitality arts. Established in France in 1248 by Louis IX, it received its own coat of arms as the Brotherhood of the Rotisseurs in 1610. The Chaine was dismantled on the wake of the French Revolution but revived in Paris in 1950.
 The Russian office of the Chaine des Rotisseurs was established in St. Petersburg two years ago by Thomas Noll, general manager of the Corinthia Nevskij Palace hotel, who is now the association's president.
 It was extremely difficult to establish an organization in a country where its name doesn't ring a bell for almost anyone, Noll recalls. I didn't want to found a foreign club, so it took months and months to get [Russian] people interested, so basically one day I told the people in the organizing committee that we either decide to go on with it and pay our fees or forget about it. This is how it started. The Chaine brings together both professional caterers and amateur gastronomes from 123 countries and has 35,000 members. Each participating country has a national office and in some cases regional branches as well. Russia's is the youngest branch.
 Gastronomy doesn't mean just good food and good service; it means friendship at the table and respect for the people that cook for you and serve you, Noll said of the Chaine's philosophy. For Russia, the Chaine is also a wonderful way of communicating to the world and delivering a positive message because overall opinion of service standards in the country is still rather low. Our foreign guests may arrive here with stereotypes but always leave completely overwhelmed and delighted.
 Every national office holds an international event - a Grand Chapitre - once a year, in addition to regular gatherings throughout the year. This year the Chapitre was organized in the Marble Palace by Viktoria Sobolevskaya, food and beverage director of the Corinthia Nevskij Palace.
 The Chapitre, attended by the top-flight international members of the Chaine, features a Medieval-style ceremony of introducing new members. I swear to always uphold the art of haute cuisine and the culture of the table, reads the Chaine's oath. Each new member receives an medal on a coloured ribbon - the colour depends on their title. The Chaine member awarding the title then raises a sword over the newcomers' left shoulder while saying the words of the consecration formula.
 All diners are obliged to observe a set of rules. Thus, members of the Chaine don't mix water with wine. Water, which is always present at the table, is used to quench the thirst, while wine is reserved for pleasure. 
 But don't look for salt or pepper. As the table is prepared by great cooks, we aren't doubting and questioning their work or knowledge, reads the rule. A great chef is like an artist, and, as our former president said, 'if you buy a painting by a famous artist like Rubens, Moreau or Picasso, you don't supplement it with your own strokes'.
 Smoking is only allowed after the coffee, and coffee isn't served after the first course or in the middle of a meal. Guests never leave the table between dishes, unless absolutely necessary. Their mobile phones must be switched off throughout the event, and this is where Russians apparently face a tough challenge.
 Russians never switch their phones off, even on the plane, Noll smiles. If you hear a mobile phone going on during takeoff, it must be a Russian. 
 Rachel Shackleton, general director of Concept Training, Development and Consultancy Services and a Chaine member, called the Chaine a great initiative for St. Petersburg, adding that it will help promote the food service industry in Russia and boost the quality of food and service.
 As its members point out, the Chaine is about promoting good food and good service and creating an environment that allows that to happen for its members. At the same time it helps young chefs to gain experience and new opportunities.
 The Chaine is not about destroying culture, Shackleton said. Rather, it is to help individual cultures to maximize good food and fine service.
 Vladimir Gusev, director of the State Russian Museum, joined the Chaine in 2002. Last month the museum's wing in the Marble Palace hosted this year's Grand Chapitre, whose theme was gastronomy in art and art in gastronomy. 
 The dishes, created by Ruslan Burmistrov (Renaissance), Engelbert Gamsriegler (Grand Hotel Europe), Michael Roehr (Corinthia Nevskij Palace), Arndt Liekefett (Radisson SAS Royal Hotel), Ryan Smith (Astoria), Colin Flood (Angleterre) and Natalia Koveshnikova (Astoria/Angleterre), were inspired by works of art of various styles, from Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe to Salvador Dali's Portrait of Picasso to Qi Baishi's Shrimps. 
 Engelbert Gamsriegler joined the Chaine in 1980 while working in Venezuela and has remained a member since for two primary reasons - prestige and curiosity.
 Gamsriegler's dish at this year's Grand Chapitre - roasted rack of baby veal in potato crust with veal tail red wine reduction - was inspired by Salvador Dali's Portrait of Picasso. It was meant to appear colorful and slightly crazy.
 The veal was served with an array of finely chopped vegetables - pumpkin, zuccini, yellow squash, baby carrots, colrabi, Brussel sprouts, and broccoli leaves, he said. 
 In Gamsriegler's opinion, the Chaine brings new ideas and sophistication to the local culinary scene. It is a matter of prestige for a hotel, restaurant and chef to be a member, he said. As a chef I am busy in the evenings, so I don't have a chance to attend our events very often, but when I come it is curiosity that drives me. 
 As the chef points out, most members of the Chaine travel a lot and have an expert knowledge of fine food and wine. Russia is now in a situation where there are more people like that, and I think the Chaine has a good future here, he said.
 In terms of spirit, Gamsriegler feels that Russian gatherings are closer to the relaxed and less restrained south American style than to somewhat stiffer European dinners. Russians show more enjoyment and happiness, he said.
 Russians are also famous for bringing politics into the kitchen. 
 Over the years, especially over the past century, these discussions have become an integral part of the Russian table culture, almost to the extent that some diners forget about the meal, Gusev jokes. Most of the population in the country shows a keen interest in politics. It is even believed that kitchen talk produces the best ideas.
 Service is widely considered the weakest point of the dining experience in most Russian restaurants.
 At the same time, Shackleton, who is from England, feels there isn't enough appreciation of the skill of a good chef and service staff. 
 I think this comes back to education, she said. England suffers from this dreadfully. You know, the last thing that you want your family members to do is work in a hotel or restaurant industry because it is seen as not really being a skilled job, but actually it is a very skilled and difficult job.
 Only one restaurant of those tested in town has been refused membership due to poor service, Noll said.
 The owner's attitude played a role as well, Noll added. The man went to ski in Switzerland when his team was presenting the dinner. But, Noll adds, this simply goes to show that the Chaine is a society for connoisseurs, not simply a trade association. One has to be a true gastronome respecting the rules to be able to decorate one's restaurant with the emblem, he says. 
 Ruslan Burmistrov, executive chef of the Canvas restaurant at the Renaissance St. Petersburg Baltic Hotel, compares the Chaine events to theatrical performances. 
 You can't repeat yourself or anything that you've recently seen, he said. You must surprise and amaze, and there is always that galvanizing creative spirit of experiment which I thrive in.
 Burmistrov's dish at the last Grand Chapitre - Marinated grape stuffed with crabmeat glazed in bitter caramel pomegranate and crema di balsamico sauce - exploring symbolism in the art of the miniature and used Pamela Gladding's Fruit Bowl a source of inspiration. 
 My intention was to show that cooks belong to the devotees of art, as do painters, musicians and poets, he said. 
 But, Burmistrov laments, the techniques of the Russian tradition in this art can now be considered lost. 
 The ancient, old-fashioned Russian art of cooking doesn't exist anymore, in the form it existed before the Bolshevik revolution. 
 Mentioning 200 recipes for marinating apples in pre-revolutionary Russia, Burmistrov said old Russian cuisine would be hard to revive for one main reason: the foods and ingredients are not generally available. 
 During the Soviet era, the cuisine degraded into a unified faceless system of canteens, while farming was destroyed, he said. The land is so overused and carelessly used that it has almost become fruitless.
 The Chaine, Burmistrov said, is one of the best things to happen to Russia's culinary field in recent times. 
 It brings to the country some of the world's greatest culinary traditions while stimulating local resources and potential, he said.

TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: The week's premium gig by a Western act is likely to be that by <strong>Kid and Khan,</strong> a collaboration of U.S. guitarist Kid Congo Powers and German vocalist/programmer Khan who perform what the promoters describe as &quot;techno garage pop rock.&quot;
 Powers has been in Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Congo Norvell, The Knoxville Girls, and has collaborated with Die Haut, Lydia Lunch, and Barry Adamson. He also has his own band called Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds.
 His collaborator Khan, described as a &quot;sex king&quot; and &quot;genius,&quot; is also known for his work with Julee Cruise, Andre Williams, Francoise Cactus of Stereo Total, Jon Spencer and Diamanda Galas. Khan was born as Can Oral of a Finnish mother and Turkish father and grew up in Germany. He now lives between Berlin, New York and Mexico. Kid and Khan will perform at Red Club on Saturday.
 Local group <strong>Billy's Band</strong>,<strong> </strong>which started out as a Tom Waits cover band performing at the city's Irish bars, return to its roots with a staging of a theatrical/musical performance called &quot;Being Tom Waits,&quot; named after the band's 2001 demo album which contained Waits covers.
 &quot;When I first heard Waits, I wondered how someone with no voice, no musical ear and no good musicians can create something that grabs your heart. So I decided to try, too,&quot; said Novik in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times in 2003, soon after the release of the band's debut album.
 &quot;Tom Waits gave me a new lease on life,&quot; he added.
 Formed in 2001, Billy's Band still consists of Novik on vocals and double bass, accordion player Anton Matezius and guitarist Andrei &quot;Ryzhik&quot; Reznikov. The band perfrom at the Estrada Theater on Friday.
 The all-girl folk-punk band <strong>Iva Nova</strong> will introduce vocalist Tatyana Dolgopolova, a replacement for current singer Vera Ogaryova who is having a baby, in its next two concerts when it will perform with the both singers.
 Dolgopolova, who is praised for her wide vocal range, is better-known on the local pop/jazz scene than on the underground rock scene, but, according to Iva Nova drummer Katya Fyodorova, she approached the band herself because she liked Iva Nova's music. 
 Iva Nova will perform GEZ-21 on Saturday. The show will be repeated at Moloko on Dec. 18.
 The folk-punk band<strong> Skazy Lesa,</strong> fronted by singer/accordion player Andrei &quot;Figa&quot; Kondratyev, also know for his other band Nordfolks, will launch its new album with a concert this week.
 The album has already drawn some praise from the local underground rock scene, including Seva Gakkel, formerly a cello player with Akvarium and the founder of the now-defunct club TaMtAm, where Kondratyev started out in the mid-1990s. Skazy Lesa will play at Red Club on Thursday.
 Also watch out for the cabaret-punk band <strong>Chirvontsy</strong> at Griboyedov, Latin/reggae-tinged punks <strong>Poimannye Muravyedy</strong> at Jah'mbala and hip-hop/alt-rock band <strong>Kirpichi</strong> at Griboyedov (all on Saturday).
 
 <i>
- By Sergey Chernov </i>

TITLE: Service in Latin
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Tres Amigos, 25 Ulitsa Rubinshteina. Tel: 572 2685. 
 Menu in English and Russian. Credit cards accepted. 
 Open from 12 until last customer leaves. 
 Dinner for three: 1,750 rubles ($62.50) 

Let's face it, winter can get dismal at times. You wake up in the middle of the night, and then you realize it's actually morning already; it's just dark outside and five below zero. When you have summoned up enough courage to go out, you nearly break your neck at least once a day on the slippery pavements. Then, just when you are getting into your stride and feel you are ready to face the day, you realize that the light is dwindling and it's nearly evening already. And you've haven't even had lunch yet.
 
It's about this time that you might think about hopping on a plane and flying down to Rio. But if, like the rest of us, your lunch budget doesn't stretch that far, how about getting hot and sweaty in the <i>banya</i> on Ulitsa Dostoevskogo and following it with Latin American meal in Tres Amigos on nearby Ulitsa Rubinshteina? 
 Right now, the restaurant has its Christmas decorations up, and the interior resembles <i>el Casa del Santa Claus</i>, with tinsel and lights as well as all the cacti and sombreros you might expect. Otherwise it's clean and friendly. Part of the warmth is provided by the staff, who all seem to be from Latin America, and so perhaps don't know the Russian law against smiling at customers. A pleasant doorman divests you of your winter clothes. There are two rooms in the restaurant, but when I was there with <i>dos amigos</i> (a nice Irish couple on a visit from Moscow) on a Sunday afternoon, the further room was being used for a children's party with clowns. They weren't too disturbing, but the music in general was a little too loud.
 The waiter was Peruvian and said he was studying in St. Petersburg. He exuded the sort of smooth efficiency you only get in good hotels in St. Petersburg. We explained our special circumstances: one member of our party had to leave early and so needed his starter and main course at the same time. In most places expecting this kind of instruction to be followed would be wishful thinking at best and more likely, asking for trouble. At Tres Amigos the kitchen took it in its stride - all the courses arrived in exactly the way we had requested them to. A small Christmas miracle.
 But be warned: the food is very filling. Unless you are exceptionally hungry, a starter followed by a main course is not necessary. My Entrada Mexicana, a snake broth with beans, tomatoes, tortilla chips (120 rubles, $4.20), was spicy and deep-flavored and could happily have lasted me until the evening meal with nothing else in-between. One of my friends was almost defeated by a taco with shrimps (250 rubles, $8.90), a salad-like mix of lettuce, tomatoes, shrimps and more, which was imaginatively served on a giant taco plate made of corn, while the other guest (a vegetarian - who was impressed with the number of things she could eat on the menu) struggled to finish a vast and delicious plate of nachos (190 rubles, $6.70).
 By the time the starters were over, we had already eaten so much food that the arrival of the rest of the main courses was greeted with faint groaning and the sound of popping buttons. One of my friends triumphantly devoured two thirds of her fajitas with beef (320 rubles, $11.40) before the waiter arrived with the plate of beef and pancakes. She realized it was only the side dish of rice and beans (which comes included with main courses) which she had eaten. The non meat-eater among us had a Burrito Vegetariana (200 rubles, $7.10), which should have been tasted out of professional curiosity, but I was too busy eating a chimichanga (210 rubles, $7.50), a giant spring roll filled with spicy meat. My side dish was potatoes in a cheese sauce (<i>Papa al Orno</i>) which I could happily eat as a side dish every day for life.
 Our heroics in facing a dessert after all this are set to become the stuff of legend. We had one between two as one of us had left by now. A normally appetizing dessert, fried bananas covered with desiccated coconut, (90 rubles, $3.20) now looked like an ingenious method of torture. I managed a couple of bites, and it seemed like a good choice for someone with a very sweet tooth.
 Back on the street, it was dark again, freezing cold, and each step was a treacherous voyage into the unknown, but well fed, and pampered with excellent service in congenial surroundings, we didn't really care: the sun was just rising in Latin America.

TITLE: Nightmare at sea
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Mourners at the burial of the Kursk's captain, Gennady Lyachin, in St. Petersburg in March 2002. Just before midday on Aug. 12, 2000, the Kursk submarine sank following two explosions during a military exercise in the Barents Sea. When news of the disaster broke two days later, riddled with official lies, the media went into a feeding frenzy: One hundred and eighteen patriotic sailors trapped at the bottom of the sea in a Russian nuclear submarine made an emotive story, especially during the slow news months of summer.
 
But as the truth about the disaster emerged, it was the reaction of the Russian military - befuddled, self-contradictory and intentionally deceptive - that took center stage. No less shocking was newly elected president Vladimir Putin's decision to continue his vacation on the Black Sea while the submarine accident was making headlines across the world. In short, the Russian leadership gave a brilliant example of how not to handle a crisis. The Kursk had been participating in an exercise intended to illustrate to the world that Russia was still a major player, but the inept reaction of the Kremlin - and especially the Navy - exposed the decline of the country and its military instead.
 Skillfully building up tension in &quot;Cry From the Deep,&quot; Ramsey Flynn, an American investigative journalist who admits he had never worked in Russia before beginning the book, gives a readable, if overly emotional, blow-by-blow account of a disaster whose causes are still fraught with debate. To this day, many in the Russian Navy think that the Kursk was sunk by a collision with a U.S. or British submarine, even though Putin has said that there is little proof of such a theory. Indeed, it's hard to believe that evidence of a collision would have been withheld by the Russians if it existed.
 Flynn argues with skill that a faulty torpedo was to blame for the sinking of the Kursk - the same conclusion reached by Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov in the official inquiry. The torpedo that sank the Kursk was a Type 65-76, more familiarly known as a <i>tolstushka</i>, or &quot;fat girl,&quot; because of its size. The tolstushka has a bad reputation among sailors since the high-test hydrogen peroxide that it uses as an oxidizer can break down upon contact with common catalysts, rapidly expanding in volume and creating massive temperatures. The weapon had been loaded onto the Kursk on Aug. 3 with a &quot;flood of paperwork irregularities,&quot; and roughly handled in the process. In an indication of how bad it is to be a sailor in the Northern Fleet, military analysts have claimed that submarine crews often have to pay torpedo units to ensure that they get well functioning weapons.
 The torpedo exploded in the Kursk's firing tube on a Saturday at 11:28 a.m. With fires raging at up to 2,700 degrees Celsius, warheads on the remaining weapons detonated 2 minutes and 15 seconds later. The Memphis, a U.S. submarine tracking the Kursk about 40 kilometers away, registered the blasts, as did Norwegian sensors and other vessels. A Russian ship, the Peter the Great nuclear cruiser, also noted the explosions, but Fleet Commander Vyacheslav Popov made little effort to investigate.
 Flynn gives a good overview of the U.S. reaction to the disaster, showing how top officials in the United States, and probably in Britain, knew about the explosion and likely sinking of the Kursk well before the Russian military got around to informing Putin. U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Defense Secretary William Cohen were told on Saturday afternoon, Moscow time, when the Kremlin was still in the dark. Twelve hours after the blasts, Popov called Moscow to report that the Kursk was missing, and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev was informed. But Sergeyev didn't tell Putin until 7:15 the next morning.
 Much of the passion behind the Kursk story was fueled by Navy reports that the soldiers were tapping for help from the bottom of the Barents Sea. But those reports were doubtful at best. Later, officials would say that the tapping had been an automatic signaling response from the submarine. Moreover, the super-secret AS-15 minisubmarine - which usually reports to Moscow intelligence officials rather than to the Northern Fleet - reported no signs of human life when it sent back images from the Kursk on Sunday. One of the sailors, Dmitry Kolesnikov, did write in notes salvaged later that 23 sailors had survived the blasts and made their way to the back compartment of the submarine after checking that the reactor had shut down. But Kolesnikov wrote his last message at 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, according to Flynn, who concurs with the official report that an oxygen-producing device must have fallen into the oily water and started a fire, poisoning the air for those still alive.
 Packing his narrative with impressive detail about the Northern Fleet's belated reaction, Flynn rightly hammers top Russian admirals and military officials for their attempts to stall British and Norwegian efforts to rescue the sailors. But Flynn surely misses the fundamental point: When you rip away the drama, there was very little chance that anyone could have gotten out alive. The Russian rescue teams were too badly organized and equipped, and the foreign teams were too far away. According to Flynn, the best submarine rescue operation was based in Britain, but was being trucked across Europe for an exercise in the Mediterranean. It would have taken 60 hours to get it into place, he says.
 With the Kursk leading news reports worldwide, the Navy continued to make an array of inane comments suggesting that the soldiers were still alive, and refusals of Western help were reported on Russian television. Down in Sochi, a tanned Putin in casual dress provoked tough criticism from the local press when he appeared on national television. While it is surely naive to think that Putin would have been more in control of his country from the Kola Peninsula than on the Black Sea, this, in a sense, was not the point for viewers of Russian and world television. More than anything, the Russian leadership had lost an information war, coming across as callous and incompetent while sailors' mothers were being injected with sedatives.
 Flynn has produced a racy overview of the sinking of the Kursk, but his narrative is marred by sensationalistic additions to what is already a sufficiently traumatic story. We are told, for example, that Putin &quot;is itching to escape as soon as possible for his vacation&quot; and that Kolesnikov, feeling particularly in love before he boards the submarine, &quot;finds it hard to believe this dancing goddess is his wife.&quot; There's no need to grasp for vicarious feelings when the real story is so sad and scary. The perilous state of what was once the world's biggest fleet of nuclear submarines should be a concern for everyone, not least for the admirals who send young sailors to man them.


TITLE: THE WORD'S WORTH
TEXT: Recent events in Ukraine have given everyone plenty of food for thought, if you can understand what everyone is talking about, that is. Take <i>&Uacute;&Acirc;&Iuml;&Igrave;&Euml;&Iacute;&Euml;.</i> This is the word used in Ukraine to describe the official instructions given to news agencies on what news to report and how to &quot;spin&quot; it. It would seem to come from the word <i>&Uacute;&Acirc;&Iuml;++ </i>- topic - but has the echo of <i>&Uacute;&Acirc;&Iuml;&Igrave;&Euml;&Uacute;, </i>(to obscure) and <i>&Uacute;fi&Iuml;&Igrave;(o)&Egrave; </i>- dark, shadowed, shady, fishy. Perhaps you hear that echo because of the Russian phrases <i>~fi@&Igrave;(o)&Acirc; &Uacute;&Acirc;i&Igrave;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Oacute;&quot;&Euml;&Euml; </i>(dirty tricks, literally &quot;dark/black technology&quot;) and <i>~fi@&Igrave;(o)&Egrave; &Ocirc;&Euml;++@ </i>(smear campaigns, literally &quot;black PR&quot;). For example, one Internet blogger asks, <i>&aacute;&Igrave;++~&Euml;&Uacute;, &Igrave;++-&Euml; &euml;&aring;&agrave; &Icirc;&Oacute;'~&Acirc;&Acirc; &Uacute;&Acirc;&Iuml;&Igrave;fl&Uacute;? </i>(So it means that our mass media are more adept at obscuring information?) 
 
During elections in Russia, one source says, these instructions are called <i>&Uacute;&Acirc;i&Igrave;&Euml;~&Acirc;&Ograve;&Iacute;&Euml;&Acirc; &Aacute;++o/oo++&Igrave;&Euml;fl,</i> literally &quot;technical tasks,&quot; but better translated as &quot;briefs&quot; - that is, a written document that defines and shapes the messages that should be conveyed. Another source says, <i>&igrave; &Igrave;++&Ograve; ~&Uacute;&Oacute; o/oo&Acirc;&Icirc;++&Acirc;&Uacute;&Ograve;fl &Igrave;&Acirc;&quot;&Icirc;++&Ograve;&Igrave;&Oacute;. </i>(Here it's done without words.) 
 Folks who prepare these can be called <i>&Ograve;&Ocirc;&Euml;&Igrave;-o/oo&Oacute;&Iacute;&Uacute;&Oacute;@++</i> (a dreadful calque of &quot;spin doctors&quot;) or <i>&Ocirc;&Euml;++@^&Euml;&Iacute;&Euml; </i>(PR specialists). The folks who oversee the entire strategy of the campaign are called <i>&Ocirc;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Euml;&Uacute;&Uacute;&Acirc;i&Igrave;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Oacute;&quot;&Euml;</i> - political strategists. The folks who sit back and analyze what's going on among the <i>&Ocirc;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Euml;&Uacute;&Uacute;&Acirc;i&Igrave;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Oacute;&quot;&Euml;</i> in rival camps are <i>&Ocirc;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Euml;&Uacute;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Oacute;&quot;&Euml;</i> (political analysts, political scientists). And the poor folks who are the object of this frenzied activity are <i>&Euml;&Aacute;.&Euml;@++&Uacute;&Acirc;&Icirc;&Euml; </i>(voters), <i>~&Icirc;&Acirc;&Iacute;&Uacute;&Oacute;@++&Uacute; </i>(electorate) or simply <i>&Igrave;++@&Oacute;o/oo</i> (the people). 
 One of the many sources of argument over the election in Ukraine is the question of who's paying the <i>&Ocirc;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Euml;&Uacute;&Uacute;&Acirc;i&Igrave;&Oacute;&Icirc;&Oacute;&quot;&Euml;. &eacute;&Igrave;&Euml; @++.&Oacute;&Uacute;++&Icirc;&Euml; &Igrave;++ o/oo&Acirc;&Igrave;,&quot;&Euml; &Iuml;&Oacute;&Ograve;&Iacute;&Oacute;'&Ograve;&Iacute;&Euml;i / ++&Iuml;&Acirc;@&Euml;&Iacute;++&Igrave;&Ograve;&Iacute;&Euml;i / &Acirc;'@&Oacute;&Ocirc;&Acirc;&Egrave;&Ograve;&Iacute;&Euml;i &Aacute;++&Iacute;++&Aacute;~&Euml;&Iacute;&Oacute;'.</i> (They were paid by customers/clients in Moscow / the U.S. / Europe). <i>&aacute;++&Iacute;++&Aacute;~&Euml;&Iacute; </i>in Russian has a stronger sense of &quot;the person placing the order&quot; <i>(&Aacute;++&Iacute;++&Aacute;), </i>i.e., the person calling the tune. 
 This is very wicked indeed, since as everyone knows: <i>&Igrave;&Acirc;&Icirc;,&Aacute;fl '&Iuml;&Acirc;-&Euml;'++&Uacute;,&Ograve;fl ' ~&Ucirc;&Ecirc;&Euml;&Acirc; '(o).&Oacute;@(o) </i>(interfering in another country's elections is wrong). But since everyone does this all the same, one Russian politician had the honesty to add: <i>&Ocirc;&Oacute; &Iacute;@++&Egrave;&Igrave;&Acirc;&Egrave; &Iuml;&Acirc;@&Acirc;, &Igrave;&Acirc;&Icirc;,&Aacute;fl '&Iuml;&Acirc;-&Euml;'++&Uacute;,&Ograve;fl ++&Iacute;&Uacute;&Euml;'&Igrave;&Oacute;, &Oacute;&Uacute;&Iacute;@(o)&Uacute;&Oacute; &Euml; &Ocirc;&Ucirc;.&Icirc;&Euml;~&Igrave;&Oacute;</i> (at least it's wrong to interfere actively, openly and publicly). This realpolitik view of things was echoed by a Ukrainian politician, who said: <i>&Igrave;&Acirc;&Icirc;,&Aacute;fl &quot;@&Ucirc;.&Oacute; '&Icirc;&Euml;fl&Uacute;, &Igrave;++ &Uacute;&Acirc; &Ocirc;@&Oacute;^&Acirc;&Ograve;&Ograve;(o), &Iacute;&Oacute;&Uacute;&Oacute;@(o)&Acirc; &Ocirc;@&Oacute;&Euml;&Ograve;i&Oacute;o/oofl&Uacute; ' &igrave;&Iacute;@++&Euml;&Igrave;&Acirc;</i> (this ham-handed influence on what's happening in Ukraine is wrong). You can also translate <i>&Igrave;&Acirc;&Icirc;,&Aacute;fl</i> as &quot;you can't,&quot; &quot;you shouldn't&quot; or &quot;it's forbidden&quot; - but since everyone does it, in these contexts the most you can do is assert that &quot;it's wrong to do.&quot; 
 Then there's the question of just what's going on there: <i>&Ocirc;&Acirc;@&Acirc;'&Oacute;@&Oacute;&Uacute; </i>(a coup), <i>&Aacute;++i'++&Uacute; '&Icirc;++&Ograve;&Uacute;&Euml; </i>(a takeover) or <i>&Iacute;++-&Uacute;++&Igrave;&Oacute;'++fl @&Acirc;'&Oacute;&Icirc;,^&Euml;fl</i> (Chestnut Revolution), which is now called the Orange Revolution. This is of course the Ukrainian version of the <i>@&Oacute;&Aacute;&Oacute;'++fl @&Acirc;'&Oacute;&Icirc;,^&Euml;fl</i> (Rose Revolution) in Georgia. The big question seems to be: <i>&Aring;&Ucirc;o/oo&Acirc;&Uacute; &Icirc;&Euml; .&Acirc;@fi&Aacute;&Oacute;'++fl @&Acirc;'&Oacute;&Icirc;,^&Euml;fl ' &ecirc;&Oacute;&Ograve;&Ograve;&Euml;&Euml;?</i> (Will there be a Birch Revolution in Russia?) 
 
 <i>
Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter. </i>

TITLE: Sales force
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Following the sale of millions of dollars worth of Russian art in London last week, Auktionsverk, the oldest auction house in Europe, will hold its first sale of Russian art in Stockholm, Sweden on Dec. 16. With estimates ranging from 1,000 euros to 300,000 euros, the sale will feature almost 230 lots that include works by Ivan Aivazovsky, Lev Bakst, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Vrubel, Ilya Repin, and Leonid Pasternak, father of the Nobel Prize winning poet and writer, Boris Pasternak.
 
With Christie's and Sotheby's dominating the market for Russian art with semi-annual sales in London and New York, more and more new auction houses, predominantly in Scandinavia, are attempting to break the monopoly. Following Sotheby's and Christie's historic sales in which record prices were set for Russian art (both auction houses sold over $42 million worth of art), and the opening of MacDougall's, a London auction house specializing in Russian art, Uppsala Auktionskammare held its own Russian sale on Sunday with works by Ilya Repin selling for a total of $453,000. 
 On Dec. 11 and 12 yet another auction of Russian art will take place at Bukowski-Horhammer auctioneers in Helsinki.
 Still, the Auktionsverk sale is expected to be the largest. 
 More than 230 works of Russian art from about 35 painters spanning 200 years will be on sale, including 11 seascapes by Ivan Aivazovsky and five rare works by Leonid Pasternak. Pasternak's works come from the collection of Oxford professor and biologist, Charles Pasternak, grandson of Leonid, and include a portrait of Boris Pasternak playing the piano. Charles Pasternak had intended to sell these works at Sotheby's but changed his mind. He says that Auktionsverk is &quot;closer to Russia and more focused on that country.&quot;
 &quot;It is natural that new Russian sales are appearing all over Europe,&quot; says Natalia Milovzorova, an art expert working with the Guelman Gallery in Moscow. &quot;As long as there's increasing demand for Russian art, the number of auctions will keep rising, and the sales will remain profitable. After a certain period of time, the situation will settle down and natural selection will leave only a number of auction houses specialising on Russian art out of over-abundance. The rest will stop dealing with it.&quot;
 Milovzorova adds that at the moment only old Russian art is in demand. 
 &quot;Early 20th century Russian avantgarde used to be the most popular, however, now the major part of it has been already bought by private collectors and is not available anymore. Contemporary art is not considered to be liquid. That leaves us either with minor avant-garde artists of the first half of 20th century (such as Baranov-Rossine, who made a record at Sotheby's earlier this year), or Russian old, in other words, classic, art. Old art is liquid even within the country.&quot; 
 &quot;It's well-known that at present most major buyers for Russian art are Russians. That's why auction houses tend to appear closer and closer to the Russian border, to be near to and to comfort potential buyers,&quot; she adds. Milovzorova point out three main reasons for the emerging interest of Russians in Russian art. 
 &quot;These are: the fashion for being patriotic; the necessity to invest money; and an upswing in the art market in Russia in general,&quot; she said.

TITLE: Home to roost
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Faberge's &quot;Coronation Egg,&quot; made in 1897, part of the dazzling new show at the Hermitage. This week the State Hermitage Museum unveiled its latest glittering blockbuster show, &quot;Faberge: Lost and Found,&quot; with all the expected fanfare. The show consists of 26 items, including 15 jewelled Easter eggs, nine of which belonged to the Russian royal family. Besides the headline-grabbing eggs, visitors can see articles of jewelry and other imperial memorabilia. Enlarged photos of the miniature items line the walls to aid closer inspection of their minute, exquisite craftsmanship.
 
The show follows the purchase of the collection by Yekaterinburg-based industrialist Victor Vekselberg in a dramatic 11th-hour intervention before the it was due to be sold - and likely dispersed - by the auctioneer Sotheby's. The collection was formerly owned by the family of the editor-in-chief and president of Forbes Inc., the late Malcolm Forbes. 
 He had assembled the collection over several decades and, by the time of his death in 1990, he had owned the largest single collection of Faberge items in the world. After exhibiting the collection in their 5th Avenue corporate headquarters in New York, his sons put the works up for sale.
 After the 1917 Revolution the imperial eggs were taken to Moscow and many were sold abroad in the 1920s and '30s. Those which were unsold went to the Kremlin Armory, where they are on exhibition to this day. The Kremlin now has the second largest collection of Faberge items. 
 The Faberge workshop created a total of 50 bejeweled eggs for Easter presents by the royals and their entourage. The eggs are made of gold, platinum, diamonds, rubies and other precious stones, as well as rock crystal and enamel. 
 The collection's greatest masterpiece is 'The Coronation Egg', presented by Tsar Nicholas II to his wife at Easter in 1897. It was valued by Sotheby's at $ 25 million, thus making it the most expensive Faberge egg in the world.
 Karl Faberge started working in the Hermitage as a restorer in the 1870s. In 1882 he won first prize at an arts and industry exhibition in Moscow and from 1885 he began working for the royal family, creating his series of Easter eggs, his most important and famous creation, which has become his calling card.
 At the opening of the exhibition, Hermitage director Mihkail Piotrovsky said: &quot;We are happy to host the exhibition because part of our cultural inheritance is coming back to the country. Secondly, we are happy because Russia has returned to the world art markets.&quot;
 When Vekselberg bought the collection for his Bond of Time Foundation, speculation rose that he would donate the collection to the Russian state. But the foundation's director Vladimir Voronchenko spoke out at the Hermitage this week to explain the status of the priceless clutch. 
 &quot;It belongs to Victor Vekselberg but we are planning to create a museum of private collections in Moscow where there will be several collections including Vekselberg's. Meanwhile the collection of Faberge items will be taken around Russia and other countries.&quot; 
 
 <i>
&quot;Faberge: Lost and Found&quot; 
 at the State Hermitage 
 through Feb. 13. </i>

TITLE: Telling it like it is

PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A play exploring drug abuse is a rare thing in Russia, but &quot;Keep Coming Back,&quot; performed at Maly Drama Theater last weekend, probed this taboo with openness and honesty. Rarer still, the play was performed in English by its creator and two fellow actors, courtesy of the Dublin-based touring theater company Stray Dog Productions.
 
&quot;Keep Coming Back,&quot; which tackles the problem of drug abuse among various social groups in contemporary Ireland, is staged with searing realism. Three characters tell their life stories and about their struggle with addiction and rehabilitation directly the audience, as if in a one-on-one dialog. 
 As drug addiction becomes an ever-increasing problem in Russia, methods of tackling it are mainly restricted to legal and punitive approaches. Medical means remain undeveloped and the number of rehabilitation centers is limited. Their work is not widely publicized in the media in Russia - let alone in the theater.
 But &quot;Keep Coming Back,&quot; nominated for an award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and described by New York's Irish Echo newspaper as &quot;one of the most genuinely compelling items to come out of the Irish theater in recent years,&quot; begins with a scene at a rehab clinic as the characters share their experiences and the results of their treatment. 
 The play was written and directed by actress Rynagh O'Grady for her Stray Dog Productions company and was brought to St. Petersburg with the support of the Embassy of Ireland in Russia. The company has already performed &quot;Keep Coming Back&quot; in Latvia and Estonia, and it traveled to Finland and Germany after its St. Petersburg performances. 
 Significantly, the play was not only performed the Maly Drama Theater, but also at the St. Petersburg drug addiction rehabilitation center Vozvrascheniye (which means &quot;Return&quot;).
 After the opening scene at the rehab clinic we learn what brought each of the three characters to this point. Each story is performed as a monologue in a &quot;documentary&quot; style. O'Grady says that the monologues were composed from the real stories of the people she selected after interviewing several former drug-addicts at a clinic. 
 &quot;This play is dedicated to all those people who have made it into recovery,&quot; she says. &quot;There is an honesty, humility and love in recovering addicts that marks them as survivors in the true sense of the word&quot;.
 The characters come from various social backgrounds and each has personal reasons for turning to drugs. 
 All the characters have either been neglected or abused by their parents, lose their friends and loved ones because of drugs, and, finally, decide to change their lives in rehabilitation.
 &quot;The audience is permitted into their world as witness to these individuals' survival, to see their compassion, humor and love as well as their anger, hate and denial,&quot; O'Grady says.
 She also adds that not only does the play show people a way out of drug addiction, it also helps people who have never encountered drugs in their lives to learn about experiences they would never otherwise have known. Making no moral judgments, &quot;Keep Coming Back&quot; works like a piece of journalistic reporting: detached, yet moving with its realistic and sharp narrative. 


TITLE: Irish, British PM Unveal Devolution Plan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BELFAST, Northern Ireland - The British and Irish prime ministers unveiled a sweeping new Northern Ireland peace plan Wednesday that offered solutions to issues - particularly Irish Republican Army disarmament - that have bedeviled negotiations for a decade.
 
The leaders' optimism was offset, however, by statements from the two key parties in the conflict - the British Protestants of the Democratic Unionists, and the Irish Catholics of Sinn Fein - that they could not fully support the plan.
 In a statement released Thursday, the IRA confirmed it was willing to disarm quickly under the eye of Catholic and Protestant clergymen but said it would not allow the process to be photographed for the wider public to see - a key stumbling block in negotiations.
 But the IRA - which this week reopened negotiations with disarmament chief John de Chastelain after a 13-month break - suggested that if others abandoned their demands for photos, it would decommission its remaining weapons stockpiles &quot;speedily, and if possible by the end of December.&quot; British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, appeared to side with Protestant demands for photos and held out hope the argument could be solved quickly so the wider plan still could be put into effect this month.
 He noted Protestants had demanded photos of IRA disarmament up front, while the IRA-linked Sinn Fein called for none at all. The governments' compromise called for the photos to be taken but withheld from publication until Northern Ireland's legislature elects a power-sharing administration led jointly by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein.
 Without visual proof of disarmament, Paisley has said Protestants could not support the revival of a combined Roman Catholic-Protestant administration.
 Nonetheless, the 23-page document published Wednesday offered a catalog of diplomatic advances achieved during the past year's negotiations.
 The plan sought the IRA's full disarmament by Dec. 31, followed by the convening of the Northern Ireland legislature in January. Lawmakers would elect an administration, jointly led by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, by March.
 The package also included several detailed scripts for each key participant in the talks to read:
 . Sinn Fein would pledge support for Northern Ireland's police force;
 . The Democratic Unionists would promise to govern alongside Sinn Fein;
 . The IRA's seven-man command would pledge full disarmament by the end of the month;
 . The disarmament chief, retired Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, would confirm that the IRA had agreed to allow photos of disarmament to be taken and for Catholic and Protestant clergymen to serve as independent witnesses.
 Crucially, Blair and Ahern proposed that any disarmament photos would be shown to Protestant leaders only after the general published his final report on IRA disarmament. The photos would have been published on the same day that the power-sharing administration was elected.

TITLE: World Hunger on the Rise, UN Report Says
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROME - The world is losing the battle against hunger, with the number of malnourished people in developing nations growing to more than 800 million people and rising, according to a UN report Wednesday.
 
The report's findings make an eight-year-old pledge by governments to halve the number of the world's hungry by 2015 seem difficult to reach - the number in the developing world is just 9 million lower than in 1990-92.
 Yet the report by the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization insisted that achieving the target is still possible, and that progress toward that goal would provide countries with rich returns through boosts to productivity and income.
 Though the number of hungry people in developing countries fell in the early 1990s, that trend was later reversed, the report said, the agency's annual update on world hunger. By 2000-02 the figure stood at 815 million, just 9 million below the estimate of a decade earlier.
 With an additional 28 million hungry people in &quot;transition&quot; countries such as those in eastern Europe, and 9 million in industrialized countries, the global total in 2000-02 stood at 852 million.
 According to the report, hunger and malnutrition cost around $30 billion in direct medical expenses each year, with estimated indirect costs due to premature death and disability ballooning into hundreds of billions of dollars.
 The report blamed the recent rise in hunger levels largely on a worsening situation in the world's two most populous countries, China and India, both of which had earlier recorded improvements.
 The agency said that Latin America was the only developing region to see a modest reduction in hunger in the second half of the 1990s, with the numbers in Asia, African and the Near East on the rise. All but one of the 16 countries with the highest levels of hunger are in sub-Saharan Africa, where many nations are suffering from food emergencies, the report said.

TITLE: South America Launches
 New Block
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CUZCO, Peru - Twelve South American countries signed a declaration Wednesday creating a political and economic bloc they hope will put them on a more equal footing with the United States and Europe.
 
The pact was signed at a two-day summit beginning Wednesday in the ancient Incan capital of Cuzco. But the absence of three presidents - Ecuador's Lucio Gutierrez, Uruguay's Jorge Batlle and Argentina's Nestor Kirchner - raised questions about the strength of their commitment to forming a powerful regional alliance.
 After an all-day meeting, the 12 nations signed a declaration of principles creating the South American Community of Nations. The document expressed the hope that the new regional bloc &quot;will achieve a greater weight and presence in international forums&quot; for South America.
 Critics of the new regional organization abound. They note that Latin America already has several political and economic blocs and argue they have little to show for their existence.
 Blasco Penaherrera, a former vice president of Ecuador and ambassador to the Organization of American States, said the regional meetings deal with general themes like improving education and battling poverty and never bring concrete results.
 Paraguayan Foreign Minister Leila Rachid said Paraguay would not sign the document creating the new bloc &quot;because we don't need more bureaucracy. We have enough with Mercosur.&quot;
 Mercosur is a trade bloc composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and covers the eastern half of the continent.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Prison Uprising
 </b>

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Inmates in the Ecuadorian capital's largest prison took 180 visitors hostage Wednesday to protest what they called overcrowding, poor conditions and long sentences, a prison official said.
 The prison was designed to hold 400 prisoners but houses more than 1,000 in tiny cells, most of which lack basic services like electricity and running water.
 
 
<b>New Headquarters
 </b>

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - NATO and the Belgian government signed an agreement Wednesday to build new alliance headquarters adjacent to the current site, confirming Brussels as the home of the military bloc and underscoring improved relations between the host and the United States.
 Construction of the new building beside NATO's current compound in suburban Brussels is expected to be completed by 2010 at an estimated cost of $390 million.
 The current site was built in the 1960s and had become too small, especially since NATO expanded earlier this year to include seven eastern European nations.
 
 
<b>La Scala to Reopen 
 </b>

MILAN, Italy (Reuters) - Milan's La Scala opera house reopened on Tuesday after a three-year renovation with dazzling displays both on stage and off.
 La Scala is famed worldwide for having staged the premieres of Verdi's "Otello" and Puccini's "Turandot" and fostered the careers of singers like Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano.
 But the hall had become dirty and backstage La Scala was simply not up to the task of putting on 21st-century operas, let alone meeting fire regulations.
 In an $80 million makeover, the front of house was meticulously restored, the only new additions being a resonant floor and subtitle screens in the seat backs.
 
 
<b>Napoleon's Will Sold
 </b>

PARIS (AP) - An early draft of Napoleon Bonaparte's will - in which the French emperor writes of his English enemies "I forgive them," but then apparently thinks better of it and scratches out the phrase - sold at a Paris auction Tuesday for $149,505.
 Napoleon dictated the will in 1821 while exiled and bedridden on the British territory of St. Helena, and it had not been previously published, auction officials said. It was sold to an anonymous French collector.
 Druout also sold an 84-page memoir recounting the day-to-day adventures of the emperor's early military campaign to conquer Europe, partly written in Napoleon's own handwriting and including many spelling mistakes. It sold to an unidentified Swiss buyer for $336,400, the auction house said.
 
 
<b>Japan Troops Stay on
 </b>

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan decided on Thursday to keep its troops in Iraq for another year, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said, although most voters want them to come home from the nation's riskiest military mission since World War II.
 Koizumi, a close ally of President Bush, has expended considerable political capital to support the U.S.-led war in Iraq and sent about 550 troops to the southern Iraqi city of Samawa.
 The prime minister said the mission reflected the two basic principles of Japanese diplomacy - upholding the U.S.-Japan alliance and cooperating with the international community.