SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1046 (12), Tuesday, February 22, 2005
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TITLE: In-Fill Plans Irk
Expats
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The apparently unregulated construction of new buildings in already built up areas is bothering not only Russians living in St. Petersburg suburbs, but also foreign citizens who have made roots in the city center and hoped that the pleasant surroundings would remain as they were.
Margarita Hollywood, a British citizen, has lived for 2 1/2 years in a building located on Kovensky Pereulok behind the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes. It is a low-rise location that appears to be about to lose its appeal and light when a modern 10-story elite apartment building is built next to the church.
Last autumn she noticed activity in her yard that she now believes was construction company Lenstroiproyekt starting work on the apartment building, two other six-story buildings and an underground car park.
Companies must hold public hearings with neighbors on their plans, but are not bound to whether the neighbors approve them or not.
"They had public hearings [last year] on the project which we did not participate in because we didn't know that they were on or when," Hollywood said Friday in a telephone interview. "The priest of the church was there and consented to the project after they promised him that the church would not be damaged."
The meeting was advertised only in the local housing office, and no participants in her building were invited, she said.
Hollywood said buildings around the planned construction site are very old and in extremely bad condition. Some of the basements are rotten. Heavy construction in the area could lead to some of them collapsing, she said.
"In the local housing office they told us that company [representatives] had visited all the apartments in the buildings around [the future construction site], but I didn't see anybody and nor did my neighbors from downstairs," she said.
If the apartment tower is built it will not only affect the lives of neighboring residents, but also block the light from a kindergarten located on the same yard where the tower is to be built, Hollywood said.
"The construction company promised them [the kindergarten] to install new windows to reduce noise from the site, but the thing is, it's going to be too dark there. That's a problem," she said.
Vladimir Vinogradov, a spokesman for Lenstroiproyekt, said technical documents for the tower are being prepared so that construction can start this summer.
His company has done everything legally and does not break the law, Vinogradov said Friday in a telephone interview.
"Everybody who lives there was invited to the hearing. There were signs telling people about the meeting on every door in the neighborhood. We didn't have to visit every single apartment," he said.
"As for the light everything corresponds with existing regulations and there's going to be the same amount of light as there was before," Vinogradov said. "I don't see any grounds for making compensations of any kind here."
Hollywood's experience is by no means the first in recent times in St. Petersburg. Foreign citizens have approached the Legislative Assembly about being adversely affected by similar projects in the city center, according to members of the city parliament.
"Foreigners are already suffering the same way as local citizens do," said Alexei Kovalyov, a Legislative Assembly lawmaker in the Union of Right Forces faction. "There is a project on Stremyannaya Ulitsa, for instance, to build an apartment block in the garden of a yard where some British citizens bought an apartment two years ago."
"This is a direct result of this bacchanalia that is taking place with all these in-fill projects that are being approved without proper public discussions and with no particular plan and regulations of city center development," he said Friday in a telephone interview. "This is not a surprise, unfortunately and it is going on."
In December, Kovalyov warned that in-fill construction in the city center could lead to St. Petersburg being dropped off UNESCO's world heritage list.
"The system to protect architectural monuments does not correspond with international norms practiced by UNESCO," he said Friday. "We are losing the integrity of these historical sites that are the reasons St. Petersburg was included on the world heritage list," Kovalyov said. The historic center of the city and related monuments were put on the list in 1990.
"Examples of this are construction of a residential building behind the circus, a building of concrete and glass next to Kazan Cathedral and an absolutely horrible cupola on Pochtamtskaya Ulitsa that can be seen from all points on St. Isaac's Square," he said. There is a residential building being planned next to the Rostral Columns on Vasilyevsky Island.
All these are clears violation of international principles to protect [architectural] monuments," he said.
Although she promised to stop in-fill construction in her election program in 2003, Governor Valentina Matviyenko said in an address to the Legislative Assembly last year that the practice would continue until the city government could allocate new areas for residential construction.
"There is a big demand for residential space. We've got to put up with this until we find new areas for construction," Matviyenko said in June.
TITLE: 72 Cars to Compete in Longest Race Across Russia
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The world's longest winter car race sets out Wednesday from a lighthouse on the Kola Bay near Murmansk, as 72 cars attempt to drive across the country in a gold rush.
The four-wheel-drive cars, from Toyotas to Ladas, will race to be the first to reach a lighthouse at Zolotoi Rog bay, near Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast.
The prize at the end of the road: a reported 10 kilograms of gold.
The race comes a year after President Vladimir Putin symbolically opened the new federal trans-Siberian highway, which spans 10,500 kilometers from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok - the world's longest road in a single country.
The ceremony sparked a dozen attempts to cross the country by bike, foot and road vehicle.
This, though, is not one man and his dog driving across in an Oka, but an attempt to set up something akin to the Paris to Dakar rally.
The 36 teams, each consisting of two cars, five men and one woman, will battle their way through seven stages, with teams eliminated at the end of each stage. On the last leg from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok, just seven teams will be racing for the finish line. They are due in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
The contestants are a mixed bag of amateurs, semiprofessionals and corporate-backed teams from all over the country, the former Soviet Union and as far away as Germany and the United States.
The organizers of the Expedition Trophy, which is being promoted under the slogan, "There are enough roads for everyone," say they had the idea even before Putin had his scissors out to cut the tape on the final section of the road.
Part of the reason they were so eager to run the race was the knowledge that the new road was not going to be anything like driving along the United States' famed Route 66.
"It is a road in the loosest sense of the word," said Alexander Kravtsov, the president of Ruyan, the company organizing the race and its chief judge.
Indeed, thousands of kilometers of the federal highway are still a gravel track, and the road is not expected to be finished anytime soon.
"There was an ice road before and there is now," Kravtsov said.
Accompanying the race will be a specially chartered train, colored bright orange, which will carry paid travelers, journalists and assorted pop stars and celebrities on the railway from Murmansk to Moscow, and then along the Trans-Siberian Railway. When the race gets to Irkutsk, a huge concert will take place on a frozen lake.
Setting off for Murmansk from Moscow last week, the support team received a blessing from a fellow traveler of long distances, Orthodox priest Father Gavrill.
The priest's journey makes the road racers look like Sunday drivers, as he is soon to travel to his parish serving the Russian community in Antarctica. That day, however, he had just come from his monastery in Sergeyev Posad, Zagorsk, 70 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
"Everyone has their own journey," Father Gavrill said, when asked if he envied them their somewhat shorter trip.
When testing out the route last year, the organizers drove across the country in 12 days. The ice roads of Lake Baikal, with cracks and rolling water underfoot, made the most impression, they said.
Kravtsov, who went on the practice run, said that the main difficulty competitors will face is not the state of the roads, or the various degrees of mendacity of the local traffic police, but simply staying awake.
After the first few days of excitement, you reach Novosibirsk and face thousands of kilometers of unrelenting monotony, he said. To avoid falling asleep, Kravtsov said the group on the practice run read and even sang to each other.
And not speed but team spirit will be decisive, the group found. To stay on the road and stay sane for the 24-hour race stages, the teams should not argue over "who slept and who didn't," he said.
The worst road on the trip was not the gravel tracks of the Far East but the first 200 kilometers from Moscow, where the organizers had to negotiate the wrecks of cars that had crashed or run off the road.
There have been similar ideas of coast-to-coast car races in the past. Japancar, a car company in Vladivostok, organized a summer race not long after the opening of the highway from Vladivostok to Moscow and back. A total of 13 cars finished that race.
As for the 10 kilograms of gold reported to be on offer as first prize to the winning team, Ruyan had no information as to how it would be paid out Monday.
TITLE: Lithuania's Adamkus Mulls Victory Day Celebrations
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus is likely to turn down Moscow's invitation to attend celebrations in Moscow on May 9 of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, Lithuanian television reported Friday quoting its sources within the state's administration.
Adamkus would neither confirm nor deny the report, saying in a statement only that he would listen to public discussions on the matter before giving his final word.
"I have my own opinion on this question, but I have to approach the Lithuanian public, to discuss everything in details and than make a decision," Adamkus said.
The celebrations raise positive and negative emotions for citizens of the three Baltic states, which were incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1940, captured by the Nazis, and then retaken by Soviet troops in 1945. Lithuania is perhaps the least hostile of the three states toward Moscow, with little friction between Balts and resident ethnic Russians.
Of the three presidents of the Baltic states, only Latvia's President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has said she will go to Moscow. At the same time, she made it clear that she does not consider the Soviets to have liberated Latvia, but to have occupied it. Estonia is yet to respond to the invitation.
Earlier this year, Adamkus said that if he was an ordinary citizen he would not go to Moscow, but his decision on whether to attend would be made in accordance with his responsibilities as head of Lithuania.
"As a head of the state, I feel responsibility for the country and people of Lithuania. I will take such a decision that will serve the common good," he said.
The Kremlin still hopes Adamkus will come.
Russian Transportation and Communications Minister Igor Levitin on Monday called for Lithuania for a dialogue at a meeting in Vilnius with Lithuania's Foreign Minister Antanas Valenis.
"I think we have to meet more often. During the last two years there was no dialogue. If we don't hear each other, and instead of a dialogue between each other we are engaged in a monologue for TV cameras, nothing good will come out if it," Levitin said.
Valenis has demanded that Russia pay back Lithuanian citizens $7.29 million that was taken out from Lithuanian branch of Vneshekonombank of the U.S.S.R. when the Soviet Union collapsed and also that cultural items taken from Lithuania be returned.
Meanwhile, the Lithuanian public seems strongly against Adamkus' participation, according to opinions expressed by leading politicians.
"So many Soviet soldiers died freeing Lithuania," said Arturas Paulauskas, speaker of the Lithuanian parliament in an interview with Latvian radio Lietuvos Radijas. "They died without bringing freedom and without knowing that for the next 50 years Lithuania would carry the yoke of occupation."
"They, the soldiers, were going to the West with a holy belief that they are freeing Europe and Lithuania," he said. "Let's honor them, but let's honor them at [our] home. Let's set a candle on the graves of each of them, lay flowers. Let them know that they are not forgotten. But there should be no trips to Moscow while politicians there keep declaring publicly and loudly that there was no occupation. This is my position as a human being and a citizen of Lithuania."
Vitautas Landsbergis, a European Parliament member for Lithuania, said Russia has to recognize that the Soviet Union committed war crimes against the Baltic States. Until it admits that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania should maintain a hard line.
"It would be right to honor May 8 and 9 the memory of all that died. These who want can go to Gruto park," Landsbergis said referring to a private museum that collected statues of Soviet era after Lithuania became an independent state.
Influential Russian magazine Expert said last week that Lithuanian reaction is part of a conspiracy against Russia initiated by Germany in order to equate the crimes of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.
"[An attempt] to wreck the Moscow celebrations in this situation [means] a deliverance from an unpleasant feast for Germany," the magazine wrote. "The idea of equating Stalin and Hitler, to represent Hitler not as the main villain, but as one villain among others, makes it possible [for Germany] to escape part of its guilt, to take off a part of responsibility for a unique evil deed."
U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrook suggested last week that Adamkus should take into account the opinions of Lithuanians and that of the Kremlin, which is apparently threatening to punish Lithuania if it does not attend as well as urging it to participate in the celebrations.
"Valdas Adamkus has a problem," Holbrook said in a comment in the Washington Post. "The 79-year-old president of Lithuania has been invited - personally, persistently, even threateningly - by Russian President Vladimir Putin to an event that he really, doesn't think he should attend: the May 9 celebrations in Moscow marking the 60th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Adolf Hitler.
"But Adamkus does not view May 9, 1945, as a day of liberation for his tiny country and its Baltic neighbors.
"'On that day we traded Hitler for Stalin, and we should not celebrate it,' he tells visitors.
Most Lithuanians, proud of their central role in breaking up the Soviet Union in 1991, agree.
But Putin seems almost desperate to have all the former Soviet republics honor Russia on May 9; he has even used his most potent threat, hinting that if Adamkus does not go, it could affect Russia's shipments of oil and gas," Holbrook wrote.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: New Hotel for Peterhof
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A four-star hotel will be built in the center of St. Petersburg suburb of Peterhof.
The new 94-room hotel will be built near the Olginsky Pond, close to the Peter and Paul Cathedral, Interfax quoted Lyudmila Travina, spokeswoman for the Petrodvorets district as saying Friday.
Moscow Investment Construction Co. is preparing the documents for the construction of the hotel and the reconstruction of two historical buildings, including "Khruschyov's Dacha" in the center of Peterhof.
Conductor in Flight
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Kaliningrad's first Boeing 737-300 plane has been named after prominent city conductor Yury Temirkanov.
The businessmen decided to name the plane after Temirkanov and his symphony orchestra opened the national arts festival "Baltic Seasons," which was dedicated to 750 years of Kaliningrad in 2004, Interfax reported Friday.
The Boeing has been leased by Kaliningradavia for five years.
Pskov Official Killed
PSKOV (SPT) - The head of Pskov's Consumers Market and Service Committee Yevgeny Lyukhotan was murdered in Pskov on Friday, Interfax reported Monday.
He had been hit on the head with a metal pipe, the report said.
Sobchak Remembered
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Hundreds of St. Petersburg residents paid their respects honors to the city's first mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, on the fifth anniversary of his death on Saturday, Interfax reported.
People brought baskets of flowers to lay on Sobchak's grave, who was the first post-Soviet leader of the city.
"He did a lot for developing democracy in Russia, being a romantic and real patriot of his country," Ilya Klebanov, the presidential representative to the Northwest region said at a ceremony at the Nikolskoye cemetery.
Yabloko to Sue Station
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - St. Petersburg's Yabloko faction plans to demand in court that it receive air time on the city's TV Channel Five "to refute the information" broadcast in a program, Interfax reported Monday.
Boris Vishnevsky, a spokesman for the liberal party, said that on Jan. 30 the channel broadcast a program that gave incorrect information about Yabloko's position on social benefits. The program also said that Yabloko coordinated its protest actions with skinheads.
TITLE: Intruders Hit Guard At Memorial Office
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Unidentified intruders attacked a security guard at the scientific center of human rights organization Memorial on Ulitsa Rubinshteina and robbed the office on Friday night.
The robbers knocked the guard, Immanuil Polyakov, on the head so that he lost consciousness. They stole a video player, a video projector and a portable photocopying machine worth a total of $2,500, said Tatyana Kosinova, co-founder of Memorial's scientific center.
Polyakov who has also helped Memorial as a translator, was hospitalized.
"It looks like the robbers were well prepared for the burglary because they obviously knew that the office didn't have an armed guard and they had information about what we had in the office," Kosinova said.
Kosinova said the three robbers came to Memorial's office at 12:30 a.m. They introduced themselves as representatives of Moscow's branch of Memorial, and the guard opened the door for them. Before entering the premises, the intruders had cut the office's telephone line.
Kosinova said Saturday the attack looked like a burglary, and there was no sign that there was any political motive.
The robbers also broke into the office of Memorial's head Irina Flige and opened the safes there. However, there was no money and they didn't take anything. They also left alone scientific documents and the archives.
However, another representative of Memorial, who didn't want to be identified, said the attack could still be "a political action", because the robbers did not take everything valuable.
The attack could have been made "to scare" Memorial, which traditionally has a "rather tough and independent position in regard to state policy."
Prosecutors have opened criminal cases of premeditated robbery committed by a group of people and illegal entry involving violence.
The attack was not the first on Memorial in St. Petersburg.
In August 2003 two men, one of whom was masked, broke into the social branch of Memorial at Ulitsa Razyezzhaya. The robbers, armed with hammers, tied up the three staff, including its head Vladimir Shnittke, took two computers with Memorial's database, and left.
The attackers were given suspended prison sentences last year. In December, Shnittke was attacked in the entrance hall of his apartment building.
TITLE: Diaries of Maria Fyodorovna Published
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Cellist and philanthropist Mstislav Rostropovich launched a book of the previously unpublished diaries of Tsarina Maria Fyodorovna on Monday.
The musician purchased the original diaries, dating back to the years 1914 and 1923, which were discovered only a few years ago, and donated them to the publishing house Vagrius, which printed them.
"We [Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya] have left Russia, but we are closely following events in the country," Rostropovich said at the launch in the State Hermitage Museum. "We are returning as many precious memorabilia of the country's finest as we can. On my last trip here I brought 20 of [Pyotr] Tchaikovsky's letters, a [Nikolai] Gogol letter, a [Nikolai] Rimsky-Korsakov letter and four pages of [Nikolai] Karamzin's manuscripts and more."
Maria Fyodorovna, daughter of the Danish king, Christian IX, married Tsarevich Alexander, later Tsar Alexander III. Together they had six children, including Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II.
After her son abdicated in 1917, Maria Fyodorovna escaped to the Crimea with her daughter, and in 1919 they emigrated from there to England and later to Copenhagen.
The diaries were found in a house on the outskirts of London where the empress spent several years before moving to Denmark. The previous owner, who sold the diaries to Rostropovich in 2001, requested anonymity. "I was approached by the owner, who didn't want to go through the auction schemes or any public sale," Rostropovich said.
The newly published diaries reflect the most tragic, troubled and challenging part of the empress's life.
"After the [October] revolution, Russia was breaking apart but the empress didn't give up and never allowed her spirit be broken by the turbulent times and miseries she was going through," said Yulia Kudrina, the project's director and one of the book's translators.
The book offers precious - and previously unpublished - personal insights into events that shook the world.
In a letter from May 4, 1917, Maria Fyodorovna describes a humiliating scene of Bolsheviks searching her estate in Ai-Todor in Crimea. "Everything was so brutal and indecent: a marine officer broke into my room and woke me up at 5:30 a.m.," the empress wrote. "He placed a guard just by my bed and told me to get up ... I was bewildered. The officer sat at my desk and started perusing literally every single piece looking for compromising materials. And everything, even my Dutch children's gospel book, was thrown into a big sack and taken away."
It took several years to prepare the manuscript for publication.
"The diaries were written in minute handwriting, with many words smudges and many pages torn," Kudrina said. "We also had to do quite a lot of deciphering as a number of words were abbreviated."
Even in the last hours of her life, the tsarina refused to believe that the Bolsheviks had murdered her son and his family. She died in Denmark in 1928 and was buried in Copenhagen's Roskilde Cathedral, and is to be reburied next to her husband in the Peter and Paul Cathedral next year.
TITLE: Deputy's Body Found in Gulf
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg divers on Sunday found the body of State Duma deputy Kirill Ragozin, who fell through ice in the Gulf of Finland on his snowmobile on Jan. 29.
The body was found under ice 100 meters away from the spot where Ragozin drowned, near the village of Podborovye in the Leningrad Oblast, the Leningrad Oblast Emergency Situation service said Monday.
"The divers searched almost non-stop for more than three weeks," said Yulia Rakita, spokeswoman for the service.
The divers searched about 25,000 square meters of the gulf's bottom. They used a remote underwater television system to inspect the waters under the ice and the bottom of the gulf.
After the body was recovered and identified, it was taken to the morgue.
Ragozin, 37, who was also the president of the alcohol-producing company Veda Sistema, managing company of holding Veda, since 2001, and one of St. Petersburg's wealthiest people, fell through the ice when he and his business partner Viktor Dolgov were riding their snow mobiles along the Gulf of Finland.
Dolgov was the first to fall through the ice, and Ragozin hurried to help him, but fell through the ice himself. A fisherman who was near the scene of the accident managed to pull out Dolgov with the help of his ice axe.
However, when the fisherman gave his ice-axe to Ragozin, the deputy was too weak to get out and went under.
The next day the board of directors of holding Veda, where Ragozin was one of the founders, confirmed Ragozin's tragic death.
A missing person who is not found, cannot be officially considered dead until three years have passed.
TITLE: Gorbachev Criticizes
Putin Over Benefits
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has added his voice to those criticizing President Vladimir Putin's policies, lambasting the government's bungled benefits reform and warning that efforts to strengthen the president's power base are curbing democratic freedoms.
In an interview to Nezavisimaya Gazeta published Friday, Gorbachev warned that Putin is losing the popular support that has sustained him through the five years of his presidency.
"During his first term, some stability came to the country and social progress was made. Certain control was established over the activities of governmental bodies. I expected that Putin would use his second term to move forward, mainly to develop economic and social policy in the interests of the people. However, what has started now worries me a lot. I can see a deviation from what he promised," Gorbachev said.
Gorbachev remains one of the most highly regarded Russian politicians in the West, but his political influence inside Russia is minimal.
The Nezavisimaya Gazeta interview is the second time in recent months Gorbachev has publicly attacked Putin's policies in the Russian media.
Last September he opposed plans to scrap popular elections of governors and individual State Duma elections in an interview published by Moskovskiye Novosti, and he called for the plans to be dropped, saying they would be a step back from democracy.
The scrapping of gubernatorial elections came into force Jan. 1, while the bill abolishing individual elections to the Duma was approved in a first reading in December and is likely to pass into law during the current parliament session.
In his latest remarks, Gorbachev said he still supported Putin, but warned him against becoming too authoritarian.
Gorbachev reserved his harshest criticism for the government's handling of the law on monetization of Soviet-style benefits, which came into force Jan. 1.
The law triggered a wave of nationwide protests by pensioners against the loss of a range of benefits, including free transport rides, which were replaced by meager cash payments.
"Monetization [of benefits] has shown how indifferently and cynically the authorities are dealing with pensioners," Gorbachev told Nezavisimaya Gazeta, adding that the Cabinet had failed to even calculate how the reform would affect benefits recipients.
He said the government should avoid being so "thoughtless" in pushing through planned reforms in healthcare and education.Gorbachev also criticized what he called the "chaotic reorganization" of the government.
"Bureaucrats just sit and wait until they are fired or downsized and do not understand what they should be doing," he said.
Alexei Makarkin, a political analyst with the Center for Political Technologies, said that Gorbachev's criticism is unlikely to be heard in the Kremlin and could more likely be for Western consumption.
"Gorbachev has long been a moderate supporter of Putin, and the fact that he has joined the ranks of resolute critics of Putin's policies will signal to the West that crisis tendencies are growing in Russia," Makarkin said.
TITLE: Lavrov and Georgians Fail to Concur
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia - Persistent disputes over Russian military bases, borders and other issues prevented any agreements from being reached during a visit Friday by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Georgian officials said.
Lavrov, making his first trip to Georgia in nearly a year as foreign minister, met with President Mikheil Saakashvili, Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili and other Georgian officials in an effort to resolve disagreements that have kept tensions high.
"I wouldn't talk at this stage of progress," Zurabishvili said by telephone. "I think we are, in our relations with Russia, at a very low point."
Russia and Georgia continue to disagree about plans for the withdrawal of two Russian bases and control over the border, which is complicated by the presence of two separatist regions in Georgia with strong Russian ties, said Saakashvili's spokeswoman, Alana Gagloyeva.
"Georgia insists on the swiftest withdrawal of the bases and will not agree with the timeline that the Russian side suggests, which is six to seven years," said Parliament Speaker Nino Burdzhanadze, who also met with Lavrov.
Earlier, Russian officials had said they would need at least 11 years to pull out the bases. Lavrov gave no public indication of any change in the Russian position.
Lavrov and Zurabishvili told reporters the nations would form working groups to discuss the six key issues in relations. Lavrov said there would be "intensive consultation" on the issues, which he identified as the bases, the creation of a joint anti-terrorism center, border delimitation, easing visa rules for travel, settling separatist conflicts and an overall treaty governing relations.
TITLE: FSB 'Charges
Scientist'
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - A Russian researcher said Friday he has been charged with selling state secrets and exporting dual-use technologies, becoming the latest in a series of scientists to fall foul of the Federal Security Service.
Oscar Kaibyshev, 66, said he has been forbidden from traveling outside his home city of Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, since the middle of January and was suspended from his post as director of the Institute for Metal Superplasticity Problems. He said he has been interrogated several times by FSB agents and his bank accounts are frozen.
"They've been going after the terrorists. Now they're going after the scientists," he said.
Kaibyshev's lawyer Yury Gervis said prosecutors have charged him with revealing state secrets and illegal export of dual-use technologies. Dual-use technologies are techniques, machinery, equipment or software that can be used for civilian and for military purposes.
Kaibyshev could receive 10 or more years in prison if convicted on the most serious charges, Gervis said. "The investigation is still continuing, so it's hard to predict what will happen," he said.
The information that he has been charged with illegally exporting has been patented in the United States and other countries, Kaibyshev said, and was published in articles in several countries. The technology involves shaping different metals without causing them to lose their strength.
He said the criminal case specifically involved Korean company ASA, which approached him and his institute seeking to acquire the technology for use in making automobile tires. Officials at ASA in Korea declined comment on the case.
TITLE: U.S. Senators Advise Bush To Talk Tough in Slovakia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush should be tough with President Vladimir Putin when they meet Thursday to put an end to "Russia's recent and dramatic backsliding with regard to democracy and the rule of law," Senate leaders of Bush's Republican Party said.
In a policy paper, the Senate Republican Policy Committee said Bush should inform Putin that Soviet-era trade restrictions will remain in force until Putin reinvigorates Russia's democratic movement, leaves his newly independent neighbors alone and honors his international security obligations.
The paper also said Congress should make clear that failure by Putin to return to democratic ideals could cost him membership in international organizations such as the Group of Eight.
"It should be the policy of the United States to ensure that Russia's leaders know that the mistreatment of both their citizens and their neighbors will neither be tolerated nor rewarded," said the paper, released late Thursday.
The Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 Trade Act established sanctions to force communist-led countries, especially the Soviet Union, to allow Jewish emigration. The restrictions became a lever to improve general human rights and now cover Russia as successor to the Soviet Union. Putin has campaigned to have them lifted, and Bush has asked Congress in every year since 2001 to "graduate" Russia.
The paper said Jackson-Vanik is high on the agendas of growing numbers of Democrats and Republicans in Congress. "Many view Jackson-Vanik as a device to exert some modicum of real political pressure on Moscow to adopt demonstrable, political, economic and legal reforms," said the paper, written for the committee by its policy director for national security and trade, Daniel Fata.
The paper prescribed these actions as precursors to graduating Russia from the restrictions:
. Respect democratic principles, human rights and the rule of law throughout Russia.
. Allow the peoples of the former Soviet nations to freely choose their own destiny.
. Honor its international obligations in European security matters. Russia committed in 1999 to withdraw its troops from former Soviet republics.
A Russian woman granted political asylum in the United States last month met with State Department officials Friday on behalf of Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB officer, who she says is being punished because he knows the truth about devastating 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow.
Alyona Morozova, 28, said she told the U.S. officials Bush should raise the issue Thursday when he meets with Putin.
Morozova said she believes FSB officers were behind the September 1999 terrorist attacks on apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk. She joined a commission investigating the bombings and believed her life was in jeopardy.
In October 2003, Trepashkin, who was Morozova's lawyer, was arrested on a weapons charge that Morozova said was trumped up. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
The State Department would not comment on Morozova's meeting.
TITLE: Irishman Finds a Home on Horseback on 'Prairies'
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: GOLUBKINO, Moscow Region - In this village south of Moscow, everyone knows the thin man in the Wellington boots. When he walks by, the children of the village nod and say "Hello, Ray" in a cheery if uncanny Irish accent.
He is Raymond O'Brien, 54, or Ray to everyone in Golubkino, a village of about 150 people 70 kilometers south of Moscow, where he lives with his family and an eclectic collection of horses.
An expert in security systems, O'Brien works in embassies and businesses in Moscow and then heads home at the end of the working day to ride through the vast expanse of land that begins just beyond his small house and yard. What he calls the prairies.
"You come home, get a cup of tea and then you can go out and ride for hours without stopping. There are no fences," he said.
A business trip first brought him to Russia 11 years ago.
"I came for six weeks and I have been here ever since," O'Brien said, standing in the kitchen of his house, where he has lived for the past five years. Through the window, chickens and ducks wandered around the backyard, clucking into the homemade stables, where they attacked a large stack of hay as his 10 horses waited for their feed.
The horses inside include Alaska, saved from the slaughterhouse, and Malvina, lassoed from a herd running wild on a neighboring collective farm. A horse who died is buried on a nearby hill, after O'Brien refused to let the neighbors eat him.
His friend Andrei, whom he calls Aidan, said O'Brien had done more in his life than Forrest Gump, though horses have usually been in some way involved.
Being on a horse is as natural as breathing for him. Off a horse, O'Brien has tales that come fast and quick, and perhaps sometimes long.
"I don't sleep much," he said, pointing to his forehead. He said he landed on his head when he fell out of a fifth-floor window when he was a small boy and spent a month in a coma. Since then, a few hours' sleep a night is all he has managed.
"It was the seventh floor the last time you told the story," said Andrei, who had driven down to the village on a Sunday for a ride.
O'Brien grew up in the 1950s on a farm with more than 50 horses in the wilds of Wicklow in the west of Ireland. He rode bareback through the forests, hunting young deer with a bow and arrow from the horse.
"All my life has had horses," he said. "It's in my blood, my parents' and their parents' before them."
Desperate to ride races, O'Brien left Ireland for England when he was 14 to become a jockey.
He showed pictures of himself as a skinny, tanned teenager, sitting bent over the back of a horse on a beach in Merseyside, where he went riding with one of the Beatles, whose horse he was looking after.
"That's Paul McCartney's horse," he said, pointing to the same picture. Not that it meant that much to him when he was riding with McCartney and his then girlfriend, Jane Asher, on the Kirby sands. "We didn't listen to the music in the mountains."
A sudden growth spurt put an end to his hopes of becoming a jockey and he returned home to go to college. He eventually became an expert in security systems, but not before trying out a number of jobs, from working on the railroads to helping out some of Ireland's best trainers, breaking horses and performing as a horse stuntman in films.
Twenty years after he had tried unsuccessfully to get a visa for a motorcycle trip to the Soviet Union, a business trip to Russia in 1994 changed his life.
He broke up with his wife, settled permanently in Russia - even if the kids in the village speak better English than he does Russian - and lives with his partner of seven years, Marina Lyutko, and their 18-month-old son, Daniel.
Since moving to the village five years ago, O'Brien has bought horses that others had given up on. He found Malvina in a herd that was roaming the land of a collective farm virtually unchecked.
"She was running free on the prairie," he said, his eyes lighting up as he told the story of riding out with the local herders and picking out the wild mare. "It took five men to put on the head collar. It was like in the Wild West."
Another time, a local man came up to him and said, "Do you want to buy a horse?" and took O'Brien to the local slaughterhouse. There, visibly out of her mind, was Alaska, trapped between boxes as on either side of her the slaughterhouse work went on. The mare kicked him, but he took her home.
Together with Lyutko, a painter who since meeting him has become a dressage rider and a trained veterinary assistant, O'Brien is building a modern stable for more than 20 horses in the village, where he hopes to concentrate on show jumping, drag hunting and teaching.
When O'Brien first came to Golubkino and rented the small house he still lives in from a vet he met at a show jumping competition, the villagers, most of whom work on a local cattle farm, were wary of the horseriding Irishman. Over time, they grew to accept him.
When villagers decided to privatize the land under their houses, partly because of a fear of development in the area, O'Brien paid their attorneys' fees. In return, they agreed to allow him to buy the common land nearby where he will build his stables.
Lyutko and O'Brien have become well-known in show jumping and dressage circles, both for winning and for the way they approach the competitions.
"Everyone thinks it's very serious, they look as if they want to kill you," Lyutko said. "Ray is smiling and waving at everyone, and then no one can remember who won, but they remember Ray."
They told the story of one incredulous wealthy horseman who openly sneered when he saw O'Brien enter a draft horse in a show jumping contest, boasting how his horse had cost $50,000 compared to the $400 O'Brien had paid for his.
Almost inevitably, the horse that was bred to pull a plow jumped a clear round and won.
With another horse, O'Brien would stop after every jump and give the horse a sugar lump.
Another time, with a particularly stubborn horse, O'Brien got off, reduced the jump to 50 centimeters and did the jump himself as an incentive for his horse and to the bemusement of the audience.
When a horse that had been with O'Brien for more than a year went down with colic, he got the villagers to help him put the horse back on his feet in an attempt to save him. The horse, a black stallion called Noi, stood up once but then lay back down. As the horse was dying, the villagers offered O'Brien $150 for the body. He bluntly refused.
"You fool, we could eat that," he recalled them saying. "We'll even give you a bit."
He was too sentimental about the horse to agree, and instead got the still-grumbling villagers to help him dig a grave for Noi, on a high spot with a view of the prairies all around.
TITLE: An Army Role in Anti-Terror Plan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: New anti-terror measures being considered after the Beslan school tragedy are misguided and will prove ineffective in preventing future attacks, but they will help shield the Kremlin and the Federal Security Service from public backlash after the next attack, defense experts said.
Amendments to the defense law, which were approved by the State Duma in a first reading this month, will allow the military for the first time to participate in counterterrorist operations - essentially legitimizing the use of federal troops in Chechnya, where the Kremlin says it has been fighting terrorism for the past five years.
A separate anti-terror bill, which is expected to be considered in a second reading in March, permits the military to send tanks into residential areas, shoot down hijacked planes, defend civil maritime facilities and carry out preemptive strikes on terrorist bases abroad.
However, Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information's Moscow office, said the bill and other Kremlin initiatives introduced after the September hostage-taking will only legitimize current - and clearly ineffective - efforts to fight terrorists.
"The Kremlin made a political decision to bring together all its resources to fight terrorism," Safranchuk said. "But instead of proposing new strategies, it is legitimizing the old ones, which used tanks to squash terrorists."
Retired General Makhmud Gareyev agreed, saying the measures would have little effect in the anti-terrorist struggle because the military suffers from poor coordination and a lack of professionalism. "How can [Defense Minister Sergei] Ivanov and others talk seriously about hitting terrorists on foreign soil, dozens or hundreds of kilometers away from Russia, if the military failed to intercept a gang that drove to Beslan, just several kilometers from where our troops are stationed?" said Gareyev, president of the Academy of Military Sciences.
He said the struggle against terrorists would fail unless the power agencies - the Federal Security Service, the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry - improve their intelligence-gathering and the coordination of their respective units on the ground in Chechnya and elsewhere. The anti-terrorist bill does not spell out ways to improve efficiency but makes big strides toward shielding the Kremlin and the FSB, from possible criticism over their handling of the anti-terror struggle.
Under the bill, the president sets general guidelines for the struggle against terror, while the federal government coordinates the efforts of federal agencies and funds their anti-terror activities.
Should a terrorist attack occur, an officer with the Interior Ministry's Interior Troops - not the FSB - would be named commander of a crisis headquarters set up to deal with the attack, the bill says. In comparison, the 1998 Law on Fighting Terrorism explicitly requires the federal government to assume responsibility for dealing with terrorist attacks and designates the FSB as the main counterterrorism agency.
The shift away from the FSB started in earnest when President Vladimir Putin ordered the Interior Troops to set up special anti-terror task forces in each of the North Caucasus' 12 republics after Chechen and Ingush rebels staged a series of attacks on military and police facilities in Ingushetia last June. Each task force coordinates the anti-terror activities of regional agencies, including the local branches of the Defense, Interior and Emergency Situations ministries.
Some 19,000 men have been recruited for the task forces, which would soon have their own aircraft able to deliver personnel and equipment to any location in their regions within 30 minutes, the commander of the Interior Troops, General Nikolai Rogozhkin, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta earlier this month.
A former head of the FSB's elite Alfa anti-terror unit, Sergei Goncharov, defended the inclusion of soldiers in the fight against terror, saying terrorists had drastically changed their tactics over the past decade and had managed to carry out large-scale operations. "The time has gone when a few Alfa officers could swoop in on a few terrorists holding several hostages and resolve the crisis in a matter of hours or even minutes," he said. "It is a real war now, and the military should definitely participate in it."
Ivanov, however, has objected to the military's involvement, saying that using an army to fight terrorists was like using a hammer to kill a mosquito.
The anti-terror bill's authorization for the military to use tanks in residential neighborhoods is raising some eyebrows. Last month, a Defense Ministry tank was brought in to help with a siege on a private house in Makhachkala, Dagestan, where suspected terrorists were holed up. The tank ended the 15-hour standoff by simply rolling over the house and crushing the gunmen inside. Gazeta, citing local residents, reported that the tank had broken down twice on its way to the scene and had to be repaired.
More recently, an armored personnel carrier ended a similar standoff in Nazran, Ingushetia, bulldozing a house and killing the lone gunman inside. The terrorist suspect, reportedly armed with a pistol, fought off dozens of policemen and troops for several hours.
Goncharov said that in such a situation, the military should only maintain security and keep back onlookers.
The Beslan attack sent a strong signal to the federal government that the public will not quickly forgive officials who botch up a terrorist crisis. Shortly after the hostage-taking ended, thousands of North Ossetians demanded that the regional leader, Alexander Dzasokhov, step down. In the meantime, it remains unclear whether Dzasokhov had headed the Beslan crisis headquarters. Several media reports said FSB deputy director Vladimir Pronichev took over the reins from Dzasokhov during the crisis.
Safranchuk said the Kremlin's plans favor firepower over intelligence, making the proposed policy more reactive than proactive. "The major security task should be to prevent terrorist attacks," he said. "But the focus is instead on building forces that would ideally minimize the impact of the attacks on infrastructure and, in some sense, on the reputation of the federal authorities."
TITLE: U.K. Businessman Charged
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A British businessman whose company installs raised floors has been charged with violating Russian patent laws and could face up to five years in prison if found guilty. He has been ordered to remain in Russia pending a resolution of the case.
The case against the businessman, Michael Wheller, was based on complaints from Russian competitors, who hold the patent in Russia and claimed damages of more than $400,000.
Wheller's lawyer said the case has no merit because such floors, which allow for cables to be laid underneath, have been used in offices for more than 30 years.
"It would be as if someone decided to get a patent on bicycles and demand royalties from producers and distributors," lawyer Maxim Smal said last Tuesday at a news conference.
Wheller, general director of the building installation company OfficeScape Projects Ltd., registered in Britain since August 1995, was charged by the Presnensky branch of the City Prosecutor's Office on Feb. 7 with conspiring with business partners in the sale and installation of a certain type of raised floors without the permission of the Russian patent holder.
According to a copy of the prosecutor's report, the patent holders, Sergei Kardashev and Vsevolod Glukhovtsev, filed a complaint on Oct. 11. A day later, a criminal case was opened against Valery Zverev, general director of Kontal, a Moscow-based company operating under the OfficeScape trademark.
Kardashev, deputy general director of a company called Department of New Technology, defended pressing criminal charges.
"They ignored our requests to stop selling [the raised floors], and we had no other choice but to take it to the authorities," he said by telephone.
Wheller was preparing to fly back to Britain on the day he was charged.
He said he does not plan to flee.
The British Embassy could give no comment.
TITLE: Tymoshenko Has Immunity
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said last week that Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will enjoy immunity from arrest if she travels to Russia despite a criminal case against her.
His statement retracted his warning last month that Tymoshenko could be arrested if she were to enter Russia and appeared to signal a softening of Moscow's attitude to Ukraine's new government.
Tymoshenko "won't have any problems if she wants to visit Russia," Ustinov said at a meeting with Russian media editors, Itar-Tass reported. "State leaders, including prime ministers, enjoy immunity worldwide."
Ustinov said his office would not drop its case against Tymoshenko. Prosecutors have accused Tymoshenko of bribing Russian defense officials and issued an international arrest warrant for her. Tymoshenko has denied the charges.
TITLE: Liberals Divided on Forming a New Party
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW - The latest effort by leading liberals to form a united front against President Vladimir Putin ended without agreement, with liberal parties Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, rejecting a proposal to set up a new party.
Liberals from Committee-2008: Free Choice, including chairman Garry Kasparov and Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov, said they had failed to persuade Yabloko and SPS in a closed-door meeting late Tuesday to form a new liberal party with new leaders.
Yabloko officials rejected the idea, sticking to their position of inviting liberals to join their party. Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky said he was prepared to rename his party Grusha, or Pear, if liberals would unite around it, Russian media cited journalist and Committee-2008 member Viktor Shenderovich as saying after the meeting.
"It is difficult to organize a new party, and - what's more - we cannot tell our 80,000 members that we are closing down the party," Yabloko deputy leader Sergei Mitrokhin said Thursday.
SPS deputy leader Boris Nadezhdin agreed by telephone Thursday that it was better to unite around well-known parties than set up a new one.
Mitrokhin complained that SPS was seeking "to use Yabloko's name but not its social-liberal ideology."
Irina Khakamada, who leads the Our Choice party, said she was holding talks with Ryzhkov and Kasparov, as well as with Yabloko and SPS.
"The most important thing is ... not to lose anyone on the way," she said.
TITLE: Aslakhanov Says Terrorism Is Growing
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Terrorism is expanding its reach in Russia, in part because of corruption and lawlessness in the government, the police and the military make it impossible for impoverished people to improve their lot, a Kremlin aide said Wednesday.
Aslanbek Aslakhanov, a former Soviet and Russian Interior Ministry official who serves as President Vladimir Putin's adviser on the North Caucasus region, said that terrorists were finding increasing numbers of recruits across Russia's south.
"Terrorist attacks aren't always politically motivated; sometimes they're carried out for revenge - against the corruption of authorities, the lawlessness of police and military structures, mass unemployment and the inability to feed one's family," Aslakhanov said in an interview.
"They try to do something [to improve their lot] and are not allowed to, and it's the bureaucrats who are to blame."
Aslakhanov, an ethnic Chechen, said Putin had given him the task of tackling poverty in the region by creating an international corporation that would attract investment to the North Caucasus, particularly Chechnya, where he said unemployment was as high as 90 percent.
He said government forces, which are supposed to ensure order, often helped fill terrorists' ranks.
"The excessive cruelty of certain police and military structures in the country, especially the abduction of people, their torture and execution and disappearance without a trace ... has an impact on the terrorist situation," he said.
Federal forces have been fighting rebels in Chechnya for the better part of a decade, but over the past few years there have been increasing police clashes with Islamic rebels in other regions of the North Caucasus.
Aslakhanov said he believed there were ties among the various groups - for example, some get extremist literature from a single source - but that "organization, strict discipline, subordination one to the other - these things still don't exist, thank God."
"They all use violence to achieve their goals, whether it's the creation of an independent state or liberation of people who have been arrested, or revenge," he said.
Aslakhanov, 52, rose through the ranks of the Soviet Interior Ministry and taught criminal policy and law at the Interior Ministry Academy from 1993 to 2000.
He withdrew from the race for Chechnya's presidency in October 2003 to take the Kremlin position.
TITLE: Activists: Chechnya Abuctions Ignored
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Human rights activists last Wednesday accused the federal government of turning a blind eye to the abduction of hundreds of civilians in Chechnya by federal troops and Chechen forces under the command of Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov.
Increasingly indiscriminate abductions have instilled among Chechen civilians a sense of terror more intense and overwhelming than they suffered during the military phase of federal operations, the activists told a news conference.
"If anyone thought, during the fighting in Chechnya, that it could not get any worse, he was mistaken," said Anna Neistat, a researcher with Human Rights Watch. "In some places in Chechnya, people who managed to survive two wars are so terrorized today that they do not leave their homes and are afraid to speak out."
Even if the abductions were carried out by local forces, such as those under the control of Kadyrov or other pro-Moscow Chechen commanders, under international law the responsibility for protecting human rights lies with the federal government, Neistat said.
Neistat and Alexander Petrov, the deputy head of Human Rights Watch's Moscow office, said they had recently returned from a two-week trip to Chechnya where they had researched 50 abduction cases from the second half of 2004. Kadyrov's militia carried out two-thirds of the abductions studied, while federal troops carried out the other third, Neistat said. In none of these cases had relatives of those kidnapped reacted by joining the rebels, she said.
The pattern of the abductions had also changed, Neistat said, from large groups of almost exclusively young men in cleanup operations to selected individuals, including many women, older people and teenagers.
"The kidnappers' motivations are also different," Neistat said. "Often they demand a ransom, while in other cases they torture people and demand they name rebels among their acquaintances. When the torture goes too far, victims usually disappear without trace."
In a report released Wednesday, human rights watchdog Memorial said it had tracked 396 abduction cases in Chechnya last year.
Memorial said half of the people were freed or ransomed, in some cases after having been tortured. Twenty-four people were found dead, sometimes with signs of torture, and 173 were still missing, the report said. Only in 10 cases had people been registered as legally arrested, between 10 days and several weeks after their abduction, it said.
Officials have presented often contradictory statistics about the number of kidnappings in Chechnya.
In December, federal human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said that over 1,700 criminal investigations into abductions had been opened in the republic over the first 11 months of 2004.
But Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov told Itar-Tass last month that only 168 people had been kidnapped in the republic last year. Also in January, Chechen Security Council chief Rudnik Dudayev told the agency that more than 500 people had been abducted in 2004.
The republic's chief prosecutor, Vladimir Kravchenko, told Interfax on Wednesday that seven Chechen law enforcement officers had been convicted for involvement in abductions in 2004.
Neistat also noted an increase in rebels' relatives being taken hostage, a practice supported by Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov after the Beslan hostage-taking raid last September.
In the recent abductions of eight relatives of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, she said, witnesses said the kidnappers had openly claimed they were acting under orders from Kadyrov.
Kadyrov has consistently denied any involvement in the abductions. He has recently threatened legal action against journalists and rights activists who have accused him of the abductions.
n Chechen Security Council chief Rudnik Dudayev on Thursday accused rights groups of overstating the number of abductions in Chechnya in a bid to draw attention to an upcoming conference.
"Let the figures quoted by rights organizations remain on their conscience," Dudayev said, Interfax reported.
Dudayev said 218 people were kidnapped in Chechnya last year and that rights groups have been overstating the figures to win publicity for a late March conference on Chechnya. (AP)
TITLE: Beslan Parents Urge Dzasokhov to Resign
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Parents of children killed in the Beslan hostage crisis renewed calls Thursday for the resignation of North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov, saying the regional government is rife with corruption and bribery and warning of repeat terror attacks.
Susanna Dudiyeva, 44, whose 12-year-old son was killed in the Sept. 1-3 crisis, said she and other relatives of the dead still had faith in President Vladimir Putin and believed that a high-level parliamentary commission would fully investigate the seizure. But she said Dzasokhov and other senior officials in North Ossetia's government should be fired for allowing the militants to easily seize the school with such a huge quantity of weapons and explosives.
We tell our children, 'Study hard and you'll grow up to be president,' Dudiyeva said at a Moscow news conference called to announce an open letter to Putin from a group of Beslan mothers. What? To be a president like Dzasokhov? The cemetery where our children are buried - that is Dzasokhov's business card.
Dzasokhov has steadfastly refused to resign, though he fired the regional government in the weeks following the crisis, which left more than 330 people dead.
Last month, hundreds of relatives blocked a main highway outside Beslan for more than three days, calling for Dzasokhov's resignation.
In the letter, the parents called on Putin to name a new president and bring law and order to our republic.
Dzasokhov's continued stay in the post of regional president is not only an insult to the dead innocent children of Beslan, but also a strong factor in the instability of all of Ossetia and, without a doubt, will contribute to the further aggravation of the internal situation, the letter said.
Dudiyeva said if nothing were done to clean up the government, more terrorist attacks would likely result. What do we pay taxes for? she said. If authorities don't change anything following this attack, then Russia has no future.
Contacted by telephone in North Ossetia's capital Vladikavkaz, Dzasokhov's spokesman Igor Dzantiyev said he had no comment on the demands.
The group of parents from Beslan traveled to Moscow to meet with survivors of other terrorist attacks, including the October 2002 hostage standoff at the Dubrokva theater. We came here for justice, said Emma Tagayeyeva, 42.
TITLE: Bagrov, Reporter on Chechnya, Told That He Will Be Deported
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - Authorities are planning to deport Yuri Bagrov, a Radio Liberty and former Associated Press reporter from the North Caucasus, in what his colleagues believe is retaliation for his independent coverage of the Chechen war.
Officials from the Interior Ministry's passport and visa office in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, summoned Bagrov last Wednesday to inform him of his pending deportation, Bagrov said Wednesday.
Officials told Bagrov that the head of the Federal Security Service's branch in North Ossetia, Alexander Tachko, ordered them to deport him on the grounds that he was residing illegally in Russia. The Leninsky district court in Vladikavkaz would issue a deportation order, Bagrov cited them as saying.
But he said the Interior Ministry officials told him that they could not find the article in the Criminal Code under which the order could be fulfilled. The officials said they planned to seek advice from FSB officials late Wednesday.
I had the feeling that the Interior Ministry officials were quite upset, since they thought the FSB was using them to do their dirty work, Bagrov said by telephone from Vladikavkaz. He said he did not know where he would be deported.
Major Vladislav Barakov, an Interior Ministry official familiar with Bagrov's situation, said by telephone that it was always possible to find the right article to deport him. But he said a court should make such a decision, and Bagrov could appeal any order.
Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, called in a statement Tuesday for President Vladimir Putin to ensure that local authorities protect [Bagrov], provide him with identity papers, allow him to continue working as a journalist and ensure that the charges against him are not politically motivated.
In December, a court convicted Bagrov on charges of intentionally using falsified documents to obtain Russian citizenship.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Agents Not in Jail
MOSCOW (AP) - Two agents who were sent back to Russia after being convicted of killing Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Qatar are not in prison, the Justice Ministry said.
"As of today, we do not have them in our institutions," Yury Kalinin, head of the Justice Ministry's penal department, said in comments broadcast on NTV television Wednesday night. "I have no information about them."
Kalinin also said authorities might exhume the body of Chechen rebel Salman Raduyev, who died in prison in December 2002, to address persistent reports suggesting he was killed.
Syria Missile Talks
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia is negotiating the sale of anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria, the Defense Ministry said last Wednesday.
The ministry said talks were under way on the sale of Strelets air defense missile systems, but did not say how many missiles would be sold or reveal any other details of the deal.
The statement came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said President Vladimir Putin told him Russia would go ahead with the sale of missiles to Syria despite Israel's misgivings.
The Defense Ministry said a sale would not violate any international agreements.
Activists Stay in Jail
MOSCOW (AP) - A court has extended the pretrial detention period for 39 activists from the radical National Bolshevik Party who briefly seized a Kremlin-controlled building to protest President Vladimir Putin and his policies, Interfax reported Thursday.
The Zamoskvoretsky district court ruled that the activists can remain jailed through April 14, Interfax said.
About 40 members of the unregistered party entered a presidential information administration building on Dec. 14 and blockaded themselves in a room.
Zoellick Criticizes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin has strengthened a Russian bureaucracy with a corrupt and parasitic history, a top U.S. official said last Tuesday in fresh U.S. criticism of the Kremlin's centralization of power.
"President Putin came in and was worried about the disintegration of Russia and given his background with the KGB. ... I think he thought that he was going to try to strengthen the Russian state," Robert Zoellick, who has been nominated to become the U.S. deputy secretary of state, said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"The real problem has been that he's ended up strengthening the Russian bureaucracy and the Russian bureaucracy has a long history with its own deep traditions and unfortunately they ... include a parasitic nature and a lot of corruption," he added.
Zoellick also argued that working with Russia on its bid to join the World Trade Organization could spur the Kremlin to reform.
14 Held in HIV Protest
MOSCOW (SPT) - Moscow police detained 14 of about 20 protesters who handcuffed themselves to the gates of the office of the Justice Ministry's prison directorate last week and demanded better care for HIV-positive inmates, Itar-Tass reported.
The protesters said the number of suicides by HIV-positive inmates increased in 2004 because the Justice Ministry had not provided them with adequate care, Ekho Moskvy radio reported.
TITLE: Who Really Needs Norilsk?
TEXT: When Norilsk Nickel privatized, turning the former state-owned giant into a private corporation, the way the city of Norilsk and the factory interacted began to change. In early 2004, the revolutionary idea that the city should exist independently of the factory resounded throughout Norilsk. Strangely enough, this took Norilsk's residents completely by surprise.
Until the phrase "bipolar city" entered the common parlance of local officials, the factory had gradually consolidated political power in an organized and purposeful way. The final phase of this process began in 2001, when Norilsk Nickel won the complete loyalty of the city council in addition to the traditional loyalty of the mayor. This combination allowed the plant in the three years that followed to shrug off its former "social responsibilities" to city residents. The city was on its own.
In late 2004, the company's management declared that it hoped for cooperation, mutual aid and friendly relations with the city administration. However, a standoff exists behind the scenes, and, despite all of Mayor Valery Melnikov's stated loyalty to the plant, no one has forgotten that he came to office with the slogan "Let's Get Norilsk Nickel!"
After calling for friendship and collaboration, the company has been observing the city's problems from afar, but with a certain interest. There even seems to be some poorly concealed competition between the city and the plant. The rivalry is often played out on the pages of the local press: Right after a story about the terrible conditions children face at a municipally funded summer camp comes a delightful account of children having fun at a camp sponsored by Norilsk Nickel. On the local television news, a report covering the leaky roofs and dripping pipes in city-maintained buildings is followed by a cheerful commercial singing the plant's praises.
The directors at the nickel giant, inspired by the idea of becoming world business leaders, are acting according to the laws of business. To stay competitive, the company has gotten rid of costly social programs and let go of organizations that are not directly connected to production. It has laid off thousands of "extra" workers. The fact that its decisions wind up putting a huge burden on the city budget does not seem to bother the Norilsk Nickel managers sitting in Moscow.
Obviously, however, the city's problems eventually become the factory's problems. To prove this, all we have to do is ask a very simple question: Who needs Norilsk?
No one doubts the historical justifications for creating a city in the Far North. The Soviet Union needed to exploit the abundant natural resources north of the polar circle to develop industry. Yet who needs Norilsk now that the conquest of the Far North has become simply another chapter in Russian history?
Does the government need Norilsk? No. It costs the federal authorities far too much to support the north and its residents. The government has frequently expressed its desire to relocate northerners to more productive and temperate climes.
City officials are interested in Norilsk, of course. However, the numerous city bureaucrats live off taxes paid by the plant, and they hardly notice city residents except when elections roll around. The administration often seems to see the public as an unfortunate bother.
What about Norilsk's residents? Do they need the city? Sure, but only some of them do. The majority of people live in Norilsk not because they really want to but because they somehow ended up here. Though the quality of life in Norilsk is comparable to that in other Russian regions, 90 percent of residents would like to move somewhere else according to polls.
There is only one option left. Norilsk Nickel needs the city. It supplies the plant's labor force: people living here with their families and their various social networks. Thanks to these people, the Norilsk mining and metals plant can run smoothly.
Mining and metallurgy cannot be outsourced. The continuous production cycle cannot be maintained and demand for highly skilled labor cannot be met by migrant workers. Norilsk Nickel will only be able to make quality products if it employs workers who live in Norilsk on a permanent basis. Unlike temporary employees, these people have an interest in developing and improving their city, which means they will in turn make things better for the plant.
However, the assertion that the plant needs the city is only correct if we assume that the city in question is in a near ideal state. Norilsk as it exists today - as cruel as this may sound - is of no use to anyone at all. This is because the size of its bloated social organizations and administration exceeds the actual demands of residents several times over. Thus, the city is confronted with the problem of "extra people."
Before the era of political reforms and economic crisis in Russia, people moved to the Far North to make some extra money, as wages were higher. They came to Norilsk for 10 to 15 years, made enough money to buy a car or an apartment and then left. When their Sberbank savings accounts became worthless in the 1990s, many Norilsk residents wound up with next to nothing. Not only did they not have enough money for a car or apartment, but they also couldn't afford a plane ticket south. The restructuring at Norilsk Nickel that began in the late 1990s left a large number of these people out of work to boot.
Those who were younger and more energetic managed to leave and establish themselves somewhere else. The city began to age. In 1994, the average age in Norilsk was 28. Now, after a little more than a decade, the average age has shot up to almost 40. Every year, Norilsk has to deal with more and more aging pensioners who do not work. With this burden on social programs, Norilsk looks less and less attractive to the federal government and to the plant- and even to its own residents.
Norilsk Nickel, which was in many ways responsible for creating this situation, has apparently chosen to pursue a rather contemplative and passive policy. The company is not taking any serious steps to change the current state of affairs at the plant. Moreover, Norilsk Nickel is gradually handing over its social commitments to the municipal government and thus slowly deepening the crisis in the region.
According to some calculations, after it goes through all its optimizing and restructuring, the company's polar division should employ approximately 20,000 people compared with today's 50,000. Another 20,000 Norilsk residents will work in other companies and organizations supporting the plant or in transportation, communications, health care and trade. Even if we include their family members, the total population of Norilsk should theoretically not exceed 100,000.
Yet Norilsk is currently home to more than twice that number of people. There are more extra people than necessary ones. Who will solve this problem? The people who have enough money or who absolutely need to leave, will leave. And sooner or later, Norilsk Nickel will have to face this problem. For the time being, the company has yet to recognize this fact. This year will be a tough one for Norilsk. Perhaps it will force Norilsk Nickel's management to take a closer look at its role in the life of city.
Vitaly Tolstov is editor of Norilchanin, an independent newspaper in Norilsk. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: International Syndicate Gives PSB a $90M Loan
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg-based PromStroiBank, or the Industrial and Construction Bank St. Petersburg, has received a $90 million loan from almost two dozen other banks, the bank announced late last week.
A syndicate of banks led by The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd., Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft and Standard Bank Group Ltd. initially intended to grant the Russian bank a $50 million loan, but in the end offered nearly twice that figure - a sum much higher than PromStroibank itself expected.
"Because the lenders showed high interest in the 364-day deal, the initial sum of $50 million was increased to $90 million," PromStroiBank said Friday in a press statement. The loan is intended for various clients of the bank to finance projects in a broad range of economic fields.
The privately owned bank will pay an interest rate of 2.95 percent higher than the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). Lenders will receive fees from 0.6 percent to 0.9 percent of the amount they provided.
In October 2004, an international syndicate arranged by Raiffeisenbank Austria and Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich prolonged by a year and widened the size of the first tranche of the syndicate loan granted to PromStroiBank in Oct. 2003. The amount was also increased from $13 million to $55 million.
The bank was founded in 1870 as Volga-Kama Bank and was re-established as the Industry & Construction Bank in 1990. Today, it is Russia's ninth-biggest bank in terms of assets and has branches in 21 regions of the country.
State-owned Vneshtorgbank last September signed a memorandum of understanding to initially buy 25 percent of the bank with the ability boost its stake to a majority.
n Raffeisenbank Austria and Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich led an international bank syndicate to give TransCreditBank a $50 million credit over 12 months with option of repayment extension, Raiffeisen said Monday in a press statement.
The credit, which will be used to finance TransCreditBank's customers, has been offered at a LIBOR +3 percent, and could be extended by a year, the statement said.
TITLE: Fitch Upgrades City's Rating
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: International agency Fitch Ratings assigned a national rating of AA with a positive outlook to the city of St. Petersburg on Friday.
"The rating reflects the city's enhanced revenue generating capacity as well as its diversified and dynamic local economy," said the rating agency's press statement.
"Between 2000 and 2004 St. Petersburg's economy grew rapidly, and for the last two years it has been outperforming the national Russian average," the statement said.
The rating of AA is the highest possible in the speculative grade category, yet one level short of the possible top investment rating (AAA).
"There is space for the city to improve its performance," said Fitch's analyst Andrei Piskunov.
"The rating takes into account the ongoing reform of social benefits, which may put additional pressure on the city's operating balance. In addition, the city's facing the need to increase capital expenditure to replace the highly depreciated assets of its utility and transport companies," he said.
Last year capital expenditure accounted for about 12 percent of the city's budget, which is by and large made up of tax revenue.
The increase in spending levels would be a positive factor for the city rating level, which is reviewed once a year, Piskunov said.
This is the first time that a national rating level has been assigned to St. Petersburg, which has asked the agency for the service in late fall last year.
The rating measures the issuer's credit risk relative to other issuers in the same country. Positive results can help to attract "cheap money," or lower borrowing rates on the issuer's ruble-denominated bonds.
On the sub-national level, only the Lipetsk region has been rated by Fitch in the same category as St. Petersburg, Piskunov said.
According to city analysts, however, he rating will have little impact on increasing trade activity in St. Petersburg.
"The St. Petersburg bonds market has been well-formed, and there is a group of major players who know the situation and do not pay much attention to the ratings," said Vladimir Malinovsky, head market securities analyst at Web-Invest bank.
"The assignment could have played an additional role in increasing borrowing activity, "Malinovsky said, "however, amid a general stagnation on the market it won't be a deciding factor."
"Rating assignments usually have a bigger impact with international investors. However, on the whole it is the domestic investors who trade in ruble-denominated bonds, and they usually already know the situation anyway," he said.
The city has been rated by all three international rating agencies that are active in Russia - Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch - although it has an investment grade rating only from S&P's.
"The investment climate in St. Petersburg is not much different from the one in Moscow, [which holds higher rating levels], so we hope that it will soon be reflected in the ratings as well," Malinovsky said.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Communal Tax Up
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The beginning of the year saw an average 25 percent to 29 percent rise in communal services fees, Interfax reported the head of Northwestern regional development Vladimir Yakovlev as saying Monday.
"On average the fees have increased by 26 percent," Yakovlev said at a meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov dedicated to the discussion of social issues and problems.
City Invited to Dock
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) -St. Petersburg has been invited to participate in the Baltic Cruise project, Interfax reported Monday.
The project, headed by director Ole Andersen, is aimed at a unified travel zone on the Baltic sea, which would attract high numbers of tourists to all countries of the region, Andersen said, speaking at an international cruise seminar.
To become a full member in the project St. Petersburg will have to transfer $30,000 to the project fund annually, as well as provide an equivalent of $38, 000 in personnel services, Andersen said.
According to preliminary estimates, project implementation will cause a 20 percent increase in the number of cruise ship passengers to the Baltic region, and a 4 percent profit growth for the region on the global cruise ship tourism market.
The Baltic Cruise project development began in September 2004 and will be finished by August 2007. About 10 countries are participating in the project. St. Petersburg is monitoring the project.
The lack of sea tourism in the city has been named as their reason for two international cruise ship operators leaving the city's port last year.
Traffic Rise in Pulkovo
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Passenger turnover at Pulkovo airport increased by 6.9 percent in January as compared to the same period last year, Pulkovo said Monday in a statement.
The passenger numbers rose to 237,360 people, out of whom 113,584 traveled on international flights.
There was also a 12.6 percent raise, to 126,776 people, in domestic flight traffic.
City Investment Up 40%
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The volume of foreign investment in St. Petersburg rose by 40 percent to $985 million in 2004, the city's economic development, industrial policy and trade committee said Monday, Itar Tass reported.
The most attractive sectors for foreign investment in the city were metallurgy and the food industry. The largest foreign investor presence was from the U.S., accounting for 24 percent of the entire amount of foreign investments.
The U.K. was second (13 percent,) followed by Finland and Cyprus, each accounting for about ten percent.
Member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States brought in $6.3 million into the city's economy, Ukraine accounting for $5.9 million of the amount.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Confiscation Legal
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia's Constitutional Court ruled that it's legal to confiscate profits made through transactions aimed at evading taxes, Interfax reported.
Such profits can be confiscated in full, Interfax reported, citing the court.
The ruling sets up a mechanism for possible nationalization of domestic companies, Interfax reported, citing experts, including Vadim Zaripov, an analyst at law firm Pepeliaev, Goltsbat and Partners.
Australian Nod to Rusal
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russian Aluminium, the world's third-largest aluminum producer, said Australian regulators approved the planned purchase of a stake in Queensland Alumina Ltd. for $401 million.
The transaction, backed by Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board, still requires approval from Queensland's shareholders and lenders, the company known as Rusal said in an e-mailed statement.
Kaiser Aluminum Corp., which sought bankruptcy protection in 2002 to deal with asbestos claims, said in October that Rusal was the successful bidder. The sale was the second that Houston-based Kaiser made to Rusal since entering bankruptcy in February 2002.
Yukos to Be Sued
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) -Yukos faces a lawsuit from an official at a unit of Rosneft that's aimed at forcing Yukos to drop its case in the U.S. bankruptcy court, business daily Vedomosti reported.
The Moscow Arbitration court on Thursday will hear a suit filed by Khabib Nurgamzaev, a private citizen, against Yukos that has sought protection from its creditors in the U.S., the Moscow-based company said in its fourth-quarter financial report, published on the web site last week.
Nurgamzaev is a security official at the state oil company Rosneft's Dagneft unit, based in Russia's southwestern republic of Dagestan, Vedomosti reported, citing unidentified Dagneft officials.
An official at Rosneft declined to comment, the paper said.
Nurgamzaev owns 100 Yukos shares, Vedomosti reported, citing an unidentified Yukos official. Nurgamzaev, who could not be reached for comment, would be due a dividend and part of the property from Yukos in case of its bankruptcy, according to Russian law, the paper said, citing the lawsuit's papers.
Kazakhstan Pays Eni
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Kazakhstan plans to pay a reported $615 million for 8.33 percent in an Eni SpA-led project that is developing the Kashagan oil field, the Caspian Sea's largest, Kazakh Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik said.
Kazakhstan "consented to purchase only half of" BG Group Plc's stake in the project, Shkolnik said Monday in a statement e-mailed by European Press Relations agency. "We are to complete the documents before late March," he said.
U.K.-based BG agreed in 2003 to sell a 16.7 percent stake in the field to CNOOC Ltd. and China Petrochemical Group for $1.23 billion.
Most of BG's Kashagan partners countered by saying they will exercise rights to buy BG's holding on a pro-rata basis.
Eni's oil unit, Agip SpA, leads the group of partners who plan to invest $29 billion in Kashagan.
Total SA, Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch/Shell Group, ConocoPhillips and Japan's Inpex Corp. hold stakes in the project.
TITLE: Mobile Operators Win Loyalty
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg residents are by far more satisfied with their mobile communication providers than with the banks and insurance companies operating in the city.
According to research conducted by the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) in December 2004, the quality of mobile networks in the city matches European levels, with MegaFon leading the race in the customer satisfaction index (SCI).
The research, administered by the school together with two European organizations as part of the European Performance Satisfaction Index rating, or EPSI, focused on the city's telecommunications, banking and insurance sectors.
Telecom providers scored an average of 75 out of the possible 100 on the SCI scale, a level that compares favorably to that of mobile network providers in most European countries, said Irina Selivanova, research fellow at the SSE.
Meanwhile customer satisfaction with the city's insurance and banking operators has been dropping, scoring a low of 63 and 61 points respectively. In Europe the figure was over 80.
The annual study was conducted in over 20 countries, with about 1870 participatants in Russia, SSE rector Jan Eklof said, adding that the study was initially administered by the European Union and the European Quality Control bureau.
With saturation of St. Petersburg's telecom market reaching 70 percent, it is obvious that the quality of network connection has considerably improved over the years, as it is the sole most important factor to win over customers, Selivanova said.
Most mobile operators offer St. Petersburg residents the option of using their telephones in the metro, something that is not possible or expected by residents of London or New York, Eklof said.
The availability of choice acted as a major positive factor in satisfying customer demands. Although MegaFon, the leader in customer satisfaction three years ago, continued to head the telecom sector, the distance between it and the other operators has narrowed.
"MTS, which started off low, wonderfully improved its performance," Selivanova said. "It strengthened its position and conducted a successful campaign to attract new customers and retain the old ones," she said.
"Besides MTS, the last three years have also seen the entrance of several new operators on the market that were able to start off successfully and rated highly among customers," Selivanova said.
However, one company that pulled down the score for the entire telecom sector for the lack of satisfaction among its customers, according to the research data.
If the average SCI score for smaller operators such as Beeline and Skylink ranked at 68 following the loyalty level of 69, Tele2's position was 62 and 63 respectively.
"Tele2 is losing out across all satisfaction indicators," said Selivanova, adding that the company's sourest point turned out to be the quality of its network connection.
The study analyzed companies in five basic categories: image, the ability to meet expectations, perceived value for money, quality of service (including, the overall politeness and availability) and network connection quality. The last two proved to be the most sensitive points.
Selivanova said all telecommunication companies have been informed about the results.
"Tele2 ... called us and received the maximum amount of information," she said Monday via e-mail.
No comment was available from Tele2's St. Petersburg office when it was contacted Monday, although the mobile network provider did acknowledge a familiarity with the results.
TITLE: Svyaznoi Ups Stakes in Telecom Retail Sector
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Mobile phone retail chain Svyaznoi has said it will more than double its store numbers nationwide, and introduce about 20 new high-end Svyaznoi 3 shops, with several in St. Petersburg, before the end of the year.
By 2006 the company aims to boost its market share - currently about 8 percent - to 16 percent, eventually reaching a market-leading 25 percent, Maxin Nogotkov, president of Maxus, which owns the Svyaznoi brand, said Saturday at a Stockholm School of Economics seminar in St. Petersburg.
Nogotkov said he expects Svyaznoi to operate more than 1,000 shops nationwide, up from its current 480, with a turnover of $1.3 billion by the end of this year.
RETAIL RULES
The retail market for mobile phones and services in Russia has considerably altered in 2004, with Euroset, the retailer with the largest number of shops, announcing $1 billion turnover for the year, Vedomosti reported.
In 2004 the country's largest players, including Euroset, Svyaznoi, and DIXI, were involved in large expansion programs in the regions. Euroset claimed total nationwide coverage by the end of the year and Svyaznoi vowed to match that this year.
The profitability of Russia's telecom retail sector has attracted the attention of one of Europe's largest mobile phone retailer, Greek-based Germanos, which looked into buying Euroset, among others, for a figure Maxus' Nogotkov named as $50 million.
The offer, as well as another that Germanos made to DIXI, was turned down by the Russian retailer as "unattractive," Vedomosti reported.
Nogotkov said that he estimated the actual value of Euroset at about three times Germanos' offer at $150 million.
"There is a unique situation in Russia: the mobile phone sales market is controlled by the retail chains rather than the network operators," Pavel Karaulov, managing partner at DIVIZION told Vedomosti. He added that the frequency with which Russian consumers change their mobile networks and operators contributes to the retail chains' success.
The retail sector is likely to enjoy windfall profits again this year despite the relatively-small approximate $12 commission per subscribed customer that retailers such as Svyaznoi get from network operators. Euroset said in a statement on its website that its mobile phone sales increased by 76 percent in 2004 to 30.3 million units.
Combined industry-wide revenue earned by retailers from mobile telecom services, including the use of payment cards and accepted cash payments, came to $1.116 billion, Euroset said.
By value, the market was worth roughly $4.305 billion last year. St. Petersburg accounted for 6.2 percent of all sales, Moscow for 20.1 percent and the rest of the country's regions 73.7 percent, Interfax reported.
SVYAZNOI 3
A new concept for Svyaznoi in 2005 will be the introduction of high-end Svayznoi 3 stores, Nogotkov said.
The project combines spacious reatil areas (200 square meters and larger - double the space of regular stores,) design and furniture modeled by British company Shop Work, and a larger product range focused on more expensive items.
"There will be less choice of $50 to $60 dollar phones. Instead, we will focus on models approaching $1,000, communicators, digital cameras, and other products" that currently need to be ordered from a catalogue at regular Svyaznoi stores, Anna Sverdlova, spokeswoman for Maxus, said Monday.
"What we offer with the Svyaznoi 3 project is something that is not yet matched on the Russian market," Nogotkov said. "It is going to split the consumer base [in that] we will keep Svyaznoi as a standard, budget brand, while the Svayznoi 3 project will provide for the growing upper-end of the market."
Both Svyaznoi and Euroset predict sales of about 33 million mobile phones valued at a total of $5.1 billion in 2005. Aggregate services sales could come to $1.265 billion.
TITLE: Mobile Phones Edge Towards 3G Technology
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Although the latest in mobile phone capabilities - 3G, third generation technology - has been in the U.S. and Europe for some time, the Russian market will greet it no sooner than mid 2006, government officials predict.
IT and Communications Minister Leonid Reiman, has said domestic mobile phone operators must concentrate on developing network infrastructure in the regions before licenses for running 3G in Russia will be issued.
In the meantime, major mobile operators have started introducing technologies that "approach" 3G in capacity, hoping to encourage consumer demand on the telecom market in a build-up to the arrival of 3G in Russia.
SPEED REVOLUTION
The main advantage of 3G technology is that it offers mobile handsets a connection speeds of 2 megabytes a second and faster, allowing a whole new range of services, Sotaweek.ru research reports.
With a high-speed Internet connection the technology allows for simultaneous video and audio transmission, the viewing of television and movies on a mobile phone handset, more and better music storage, multi-player Internet games, and more.
In Russia the embracing of 3G has been slowed.
The response to 3G demand from the IT and Telecommunications Ministry has so far been cautious. Leonid Reiman has said he considered it unwise to give licenses for 3G to domestic operators before 2006.
"We believe that from a consumer point of view, it is not sensible to issue the licenses at this moment," Reiman said.
He explained that the issuing of 3G licenses has been delayed because it was the government's view that operators need to concentrate on building up the telecom infrastructure in the regions first.
In 2006, when the initial demand for mobile connection will be "largely satisfied," operators could start looking at introducing new services, Reiman said.
The minister said that the market could mature when there was a developed infrastructure network, leading to an emphasis on quality and, hence, competition on service.
Nearly all the documentation for the carrying out the tenders are ready. "However, we would like to find that optimal point for market expansion at which the introduction of 3G will act as a stimulus to further development," Reiman said.
The distribution of 3G license tenders will be governed by the amount of investment operators are willing to put into the development of 3G in Russia.
"NEARLY 3G"
The technology available at the moment in Russia is often referred to by mobile operators as "nearly 3G."
GSM operators have been active in introducing Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution (EDGE), a technology that theoretically is capable of supporting a 384 kilobytes per second connection speed.
EDGE can be used on the existing GSM networks and it supports Universal Mobile Telecommunication System technology - a 3G mobile system news and information provider.
The structure of EDGE is the same as what TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), the current technology that GSM mobile operators use. TDMA can support several calls at once by opening multiple, simultaneous data channels at a frequency of 200 kilohertz.
Effectively to launch EDGE, mobile operators do not need to alter their networks' technical configurations but can still offer their subscribers high-speed multi-media services. No additional costs to upgrade the network are incurred.
ON THE EDGE OF WHERE?
Of the GSM operators, EDGE technology is so far available in the Volgograd region and will soon come to St. Petersburg with BeeLine, to Samara with MTS, and to Moscow with MegaFon.
For its part, CDMA operator SkyLink plans to begin offering EV-DO (Evolution Data Only) technology. When compared with the standard CDMA network, EV-DO technology is a much faster product lifting the presently available 153.2 kilobytes per second to 2.4 megabytes per second.
It has to be added, however, that the 2.4 megabyte figure is the speed at which data is transmitted to the mobile handset. The working capacity of a phone handset is limited to 1.6 megabytes per second.
Furthermore, speed is heavily affected by interference, distance from transmitting station, and the number of handsets connected at any one time.
A more realistic speed that such technology could offer, then, would be between 0.6 megabytes per second and 0.9 megabytes per second.
The new EV-DO technology cannot operate alongside the current network that SkyLink uses, it needs a separate 1.25 megahertz frequency band.
From March 1 this year, Delta Telecom, the company that runs the SkyLink brand, will switch off its NMT-450 network in St. Petersburg. The new EV-DO technology could be launched by fall.
That is not all. CDMA networks already have plans for the next expansion, called EV-DV (Evolution Data and Voice), which will allow handsets to exchange data at 5 megabytes per second.
SkyLink is currently working on developing a portfolio of services to go with EV-DV. The services will be aimed at the business end of the market (for the purpose of watching video over the phone it is enough to have the currently available 153 kilobytes per second.)
As an example, EV-DO could be used by for banking: the technology allows subscribers to connect to any banking terminals and carry out financial transactions.
SkyLink also intends to attract a number of commercial projects to the technology to be run by major system integrators.
LACK OF HANDSETS
In terms of network support - all sounds good. What about the handsets themselves, however: will they handle the new technologies?
In Russia, the leader in the number of handsets that support EDGE technology is Nokia. The company has released 20 models (from youth-orientated to smart-phone and communicator models) which support EDGE capabilities.
Samsung, LG and Amoi have just one model (although they arrive in Russia only half-legally, not being on sale within the country.)
The same situation applies to T-Mobile's MDA IV.
Motorola has five models that could work with EDGE but none of them are on sale yet. The same goes for SonyEriccson's two models - although the Z500I model could appear in the shops soon.
The new Siemens 75 series will equally support EDGE.
So, it seems that apart from Nokia there is not a lot to choose from, despite the fact that a switch to EDGE would not cause major headaches for manufacturers.
All that's requires is an alteration to the receiver.
At the moment no handsets support EV-DO technology. SkyLink has shown some EV-DO modems at trade shows but none of them are available on the shelves.
Delta Telecom's press secretary Kiril Voloshin said, however, that suitable handsets will arrive in time for the technology's launch.
KING OF THE "NEARLY"
Until 3G arrives the most popular available option will undoubtedly be EDGE technology, despite a slower connection speed. That's evident from the number of subscribers that GSM networks enjoy in comparison to SkyLink.
It must be noted, however, that among the high-end SkyLink subscribers the percentage that will actually use the new technology will be considerably higher.
TITLE: Success Lies in Youth, not Oil
TEXT: The audience consisted mainly of general directors, CEOs, marketing managers and people who generally work in the higher echelons of companies. They gathered on a Saturday evening for a seminar as part of a business education program to listen to "How to Build Business Success in Russia (and to maintain it)." The speakers were three men aged, on average, 27 years old.
The first speaker, Maxin Nogotkov, 28, founder of the retail chain Svyaznoi, a market leader in mobile phone retailing, started his business activities aged 14. Svyaznoi was founded when he was 18.
Next to speak was the CEO of one of the largest battery manufacturers in Russia, Mikhail Odintsov aged 28. He boomed with a smile about the company, a former state enterprise that is converting into a profitable company, and remained as sardonic as he was positive. In contrast again Mikhail Voronin, 22, spoke about how to make business out of corporate entertainment - no joke at half a million dollar turnover in 2004 for his firm Pedegiki.
As for solid facts, bullet-point style, I'm not sure how much the audience learned. Listening to the success stories of all three it was hard to pick out what that great secret was - all three speakers' stories differed as much as their industries, perhaps reinforcing the idea that success is something unique: it can be imitated, but not repeated.
When doing business in Russia, things like back-tax "threats," administrative interference and the less legal "Russian specifics" often have their place. But, few of them were mentioned as a concern by the speakers. Sure, complications had arisen, but they were overcome. The speakers did not complain, they explained; neither did they dwell on dreams, they investigated their chances. Although with quite different mindsets, all three looked for the way forward, were prepared to bank on a solid economic future in which they belonged.
At a time when the biggest excitement in the country and its most popular export is the "Saga of Yukos" and its Rosneft-Gazprom love story spin-off, it was not only refreshing to hear of brazen business success. It broadcast a claim that such businesspeople, young, creative, aware of international economics - and not just oil - should be the foundations for the country's future prosperity.
Yuriy Humber is business editor of The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: A Captive Chamber for a Captive Nation
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin recently gave a touching rationale for the new Public Chamber, stating, People have the right to make sure their voice is heard. The 10-page document approved by the State Duma in its second reading last Friday specifies the essentials of this new creation, outlining its mission, organization and responsibilities. Yet the question remains whether this body will become an effective vehicle for channeling society's interests and influencing government policy. This will depend on the answers to three very straightforward and pragmatic questions: How will the chamber be formed, operated and financed? Sadly, the bill on the Public Chamber responds by creating yet another arm of the all-mighty state to keep social interests at the mercy of the powerful bureaucracy.
Who has the right to assemble an organization with the mission of representing the interests of the entire society? Putin believes he is just the man for the job. The legislation stipulates that Putin will handpick 42 distinguished individuals to form the core of the organization. These individuals will then choose other members for the chamber. From the standpoint of organizational logic, this mechanism seems quite rational and reasonable. Someone, after all, has to start the process. However, it lacks one important feature - transparency - and makes the discretionary powers of the president absolute.
In his last state of the nation address, Putin made a very unambiguous statement about his vision for civil society in Russia. According to the president, some NGOs in Russia are not serving the interests of society but are advocating the private interests of their sponsors. While the president has the right to an opinion just like any other citizen, he hardly has the mandate to decide which interests should or should not be articulated within the social realm as defined by the Constitution. The failure of recent social reforms should prompt the president to see that he is perhaps not as omnipotent as it might appear from behind the Kremlin walls. While Putin may think that he knows what is best for society, it is up to the people themselves to define the parameters of social organizations. Even in its currently weak and underdeveloped form, civil society in Russia is fully capable of figuring out how it should be organized, without any help from Kremlin officials.
Moreover, hand-picked chamber members, as the bill stipulates, make the body extremely vulnerable to what is known as adverse selection bias, a problem when those with higher risks seek out extra insurance and protection. The chain of appointments does not involve broad public initiative at any stage. The president selects the first members. They then make their choices based on the available supply of candidates from nongovernmental organizations. This tightly controlled competition for membership in the chamber will trigger demand from organizations that lack other, independent sources of social and financial support. They will crowd out potential members from truly strong organizations that do not need the legitimacy chamber participation may provide. Ultimately, this will force the chamber to admit candidates who value loyalty to the state over loyalty toward their constituencies.
The way the new chamber will operate also gives cause to doubt its potential to become a vital social organization. The bill proposes that the chamber meet at plenary sessions twice a year, while the everyday business of its operations will be executed by a small group of administrators. A government-appointed official will head this executive body. While it is not uncommon for public chambers in other countries to be closely associated with government, none is run by a centrally appointed executive who is directly accountable to the prime minister and ultimately to the president.
The Russian authors of the chamber bill often point to the French Economic and Social Council, which has proven to be effective in enabling strong relations between the state and society. However, since its founding in 1958, the Conseil Economique et Social has held plenary sessions twice a month, and during each session, it examines one or two draft recommendations. The council's day-to-day operations are managed by a secretary general, an official appointed by the council's board. The Economic and Social Council takes its pride and strength from being an institution completely independent from all branches of government.
Financial independence is another goal the new Public Chamber will likely never achieve. All it can count on is a separate line item in the federal budget. Lawmakers decided to allocate a portion of taxpayers' money to the chamber on a year-to-year basis. Therefore, every year the chamber's funding will come up for approval and revision by the legislature. This provision deprives the organization of long-term financial stability, which can be achieved only through independent and committed endowment.
Organizations shaping civil society throughout the world are supported by private corporations and individual donors. The interests of various institutions sometimes come into conflict with one another and often challenge state policy through organized lobbying and advocacy of group interests. Putin, however, does not want private business to fund civil society organizations. On the contrary, he firmly believes that it is in the capacity and mission of the state to nurture, breed and control them. However, this position seems terribly divorced from reality. Harsh social reforms, which recently brought about unrest in most of Russia's regions and major cities, demonstrated that civil society is more than a collection of organizations loyal to the president.
The administration wants to make sure that NGOs produce no challenges to its policies and that they can be used to mobilize support if necessary. In the typology of political regimes offered by well-known American political scientist Adam Przeworski, the decision to create the Public Chamber resembles the framework of a classic authoritarian regime. To illustrate this point, we only need to recall that the only thing vaguely resembling a critique of the legislation the Duma standing committee offered centered on the definition of social expertise and social control. The committee asked for these items to be defined explicitly in order to avoid potential unwanted enquiries and challenges from members of the chamber.
In democracies, nongovernmental organizations are often viewed as the engine of social development and learning. Autocracies tend to force civil society to serve the state. Judging by the blueprints for the new Public Chamber, it appears that this institution will be deprived of real independence and therefore will support the state rather than protect the interests of its citizens.
The idea of creating a vehicle for advancing the public's wants and needs is in itself very noble and very necessary in today's Russia. However, the state in its current form is not credibly committed to taking people seriously. Putin's administration is operating under the false premise that it has the right to full control of civil society. The administration has already made its way into the State Duma, stunted political competition and party development, suppressed the independent media, destroyed the legitimacy of regional leaders and eliminated single mandate electoral districts. Now, with creation of the Public Chamber, the executive branch will be at liberty to manipulate society's demands and mobilize public support.
Or so it believes. According to several independent public opinion polls conducted over the last two years, only 8 percent of pro-Putin voters believe that the threat of terrorism decreased during his first term in office, only 11 percent think that the crime rate is falling, and a mere 3 percent agree that the gap between rich and poor has narrowed. While the president's personal approval rating remains high, it has recently started to slide downward. When all the corridors of power lead to one office, the political system overall becomes increasingly unstable and vulnerable to external shocks. Russians have already begun to feel the gap between what they expect and what the state delivers. The Public Chamber is unlikely to be able to address these grievances.
Alexei Sitnikov is senior researcher at the Institute of Open Economy in Moscow. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times.
TITLE: State Should Give Up the Concept of 'Medicine for Beneficiaries'
TEXT: The provision of medicine to beneficiaries is of great concern. Media reports in January and February show that medicine has not been supplied to pharmacies on time, or that the full range of medicines has not been provided or that the amounts are too little. Thousands of prescriptions have been put on hold. In addition, the retail prices of many of the medicines supplied to beneficiaries are 20 percent to 40 percent higher than their market value. The picture is more or less the same across the country.
According to the deputy head of the St. Petersburg health committee, Alexander Nagibovich, in January the city received about 80 percent of medicines named on a federal list. That is if one counts them by name. If you count them by volume, in comparison to what was ordered, some medicines were received at only 60 percent of the required volume and some at only 5 percent. The average supply of the medicines is only about 31 percent, he said.
The head of Leningrad Oblast's health committee, Alexander Grinenko, made even harsher criticism of the work of Protek, the federal supplier of medicines for beneficiaries in the Northwest region. Many vital pharmaceuticals have been provided in minimal amounts - only 40 to 50 packets for the whole oblast. Meanwhile some medicines have been delivered in far larger volumes than was ordered - and with huge bills attached to them. A close inspection led us to the conclusion that we have been flooded with certain unnecessary medicines in volumes that are higher than could be utilized in a year. We will return them to Protek, he said.
The shortages and unsynchronized deliveries could become a regular occurrence. Grinenko said that Protek had warned that some medicines would not be supplied in the first quarter of the year and might not even be provided in the second quarter. A spokesman for Protek, Andrei Larichev, confirmed this and said that many producers have refused to sign supply contracts because they are not happy with the conditions the government is offering.
The solution has been an emergency one - under pressure from local authorities, state pharmacies have started to make up the deficits by dipping into their own stores, which would normally have been sold to the general public at market prices.
The main cause of this scandalous situation is the vicious system of supply of medicines to beneficiaries. The fundamental shortcoming of this system is the understanding of what qualifies as medicine for beneficiaries, which stimulates the need to organize a special system of sales and distribution. Health and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov has tried unsuccessfully to improve this system, showing once again that to put things in order you need to deal with the whole orchestra [as opposed to just one section or instrument].
Zurabov's main mistake was to create a non-market, administrative system of purchases and distribution of medicine for beneficiaries in the pharmaceutical sector, which operates on market principles. The state wants to buy medicine for beneficiaries from producers at prices that will remain fixed for a year. But price-fixing works only where there are natural and technological monopolies, for instance in the energy sector, but not in dynamic, competitive market sectors such as the pharmaceutical industry. That is, the state may be able to agree with producers to buy medicine at a fixed price, but it will of necessity be a rather inflated one in comparison to the market price because the partners need to cover for the element of risk.
The only way of bringing order to the sector is through radical reform. First of all they will have to give up the concept of medicine for beneficiaries. And accompanying that they will have to eliminate the system of distribution. All medicines sold in pharmacies should be available only at market prices. The state should pay for beneficiaries' prescriptions with obligatory monitoring by insurance companies. International experience has convincingly shown that this is the most effective way to avoid abuse. The full replacement of medicinal discounts with cash payments would not work - we need to help those who are really ill, not simply those who formally are classed as beneficiaries.
The refusal to accept a state order creates specific problems that the state must expend energy and money on. It must safeguard the stocks in pharmacies (perhaps in special warehouses) of rare, and infrequently used medicines, which are therefore not commercially profitable, but ones that people need, and also medicines that must be in constant supply, for instance, insulin.
There is a strong suspicion that the reason for the lack of administrative drive in this area is the reluctance of top officials to take away a feeding trough from their firms. It is well known that the system of distributing medicines for beneficiaries is one of the more criminal areas of the country's economy. Without radical reform, it cannot be brought to order.
Vladimir Gryaznevich is a political analyst with Expert Severo-Zapad magazine. His comment was first broadcast on Ekho Moskvy in St. Petersburg on Friday.
TITLE: Sword Play
TEXT: 'You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.
This was the essence of Operation Gladio, a decades-long covert campaign of terrorism and deceit directed by the intelligence services of the West - against their own populations. Hundreds of innocent people were killed or maimed in terrorist attacks - on train stations, supermarkets, cafes and offices - which were then blamed on leftist subversives or other political opponents.
The purpose, as stated above in sworn testimony by Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra, was to demonize designated enemies and frighten the public into supporting ever-increasing powers for government leaders - and their elitist cronies.
First revealed by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in 1991, Gladio (from the Latin for sword) is still protected to this day by its founding patrons, the CIA and MI6. Yet parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have shaken out a few fragments of the truth over the years.
These have been gathered in a new book, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, by Daniele Ganser, as Lila Rajiva reports on CommonDreams.org.
Originally set up as a network of clandestine cells to be activated behind the lines in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, Gladio quickly expanded into a tool for political repression and manipulation, directed by NATO and Washington. Using right-wing militias, underworld figures, government provocateurs and secret military units, Gladio not only carried out widespread terrorism, assassinations and electoral subversion in democratic states such as Italy, France and West Germany, but also bolstered fascist tyrannies in Spain and Portugal, abetted the military coup in Greece and aided Turkey's repression of the Kurds.
Among the smoking guns unearthed by Ganser is a Pentagon document, Field Manual FM 30-31B, which details the methodology for launching terrorist attacks in nations that do not react with sufficient effectiveness against communist subversion. Ironically, the manual states that the most dangerous moment comes when leftist groups renounce the use of force and embrace the democratic process. It is then that U.S. army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger. Naturally, these peace-throttling special operations must remain strictly secret, the document warns.
Indeed, it would not do for the families of the 85 people ripped apart by the Aug. 2, 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station to know that their loved ones had been murdered by men inside Italian state institutions and ... men linked to the structures of United States intelligence, as the Italian Senate concluded after its investigation in 2000.
The Bologna atrocity is an example of what Gladio's masters called the strategy of tension - fomenting fear to keep populations in thrall to strong leaders who will protect the nation from the ever-present terrorist threat. And as Rajiva notes, this strategy wasn't limited to Western Europe.
It was applied, with gruesome effectiveness, in Central America by the Reagan and Bush administrations. During the 1980s, right-wing death squads, guerrilla armies and state security forces - armed, trained and supplied by the United States - murdered tens of thousands of people throughout the region, often acting with particular savagery at those times when peaceful solutions to the conflicts seemed about to take hold.
Last month, it was widely reported that the Pentagon is considering a similar program in Iraq. What was not reported, however - except in the Iraqi press - is that at least one pro-occupation death squad is already in operation. Just days after the Pentagon plans were revealed, a new militant group, Saraya Iraqna, began offering big wads of American cash for insurgent scalps - up to $50,000, the Iraqi paper Al Ittihad reports.
Our activity will not be selective, the group promised. In other words, anyone they consider an enemy of the state will be fair game.
Strangely enough, just as it appears that the Pentagon is establishing Gladio-style operations in Iraq, there has been a sudden rash of terrorist attacks on outrageously provocative civilian targets, such as hospitals and schools, the Guardian reports.
Coming just after national elections in which the majority faction supported slates calling for a speedy end to the American occupation, the shift toward high-profile civilian slaughter has underscored the urgent need for U.S. forces to remain on the scene indefinitely, to provide security against the ever-present terrorist threat. Meanwhile, the Bushists continue constructing their long-sought permanent bases in Iraq: citadels to protect the oil that incoming Iraqi officials are promising to sell off to American corporations - and launching pads for new forays in geopolitical domination.
Perhaps it's just a coincidence. But the U.S. elite's history of directing and fomenting terrorist attacks against friendly populations is so extensive - indeed, so ingrained and accepted - that it calls into question the origin of every terrorist act that roils the world. With each fresh atrocity, we're forced to ask: Was it the work of genuine terrorists or a black op by intelligence agencies - or both?
While not infallible, the ancient Latin question is still the best guide to penetrating the bloody murk of modern terrorism: Cui bono? Who benefits? Whose powers and policies are enhanced by the attack?
For it is indisputable that the strategy of tension means power and profit for those who claim to possess the key to security. And from the halls of the Kremlin to the banks of the Potomac, this cynical strategy is the ruling ideology of our times.
For annotational references, see Opinion at www.sptimesrussia.com
TITLE: Bush Mends Fences In Europe Over Iraq War
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BRUSSELS, Belgium - U.S. President George Bush dismissed the rift with Europe over Iraq as a "passing disagreement of governments" on Monday and urged greater trans-Atlantic cooperation, including more support for the fledgling Iraqi government.
"Now is the time for the established democracies to give tangible political, economic and security assistance to the world's newest democracy," Bush said in a speech intended for both European and American consumption.
Bush began a five-day European trip in Brussels, home to both the European Union and NATO. He also planned to dine privately with French President Jacques Chirac, one of his most outspoken critics on the Iraq war.
Despite his appeal to bury differences, divisions remain over postwar Iraq, how to confront Iran's nuclear ambitions, a European proposal to end a 15-year arms embargo with China and a treaty on global warming spurned by Washington.
Aides conceded that much work needed to be done. But the president's words were clearly conciliatory. And his advisers said it was hoped they would lead to greater, and cooler, dialogue.
"As past debates fade, and great duties become clear, let us begin a new era of trans-Atlantic unity," Bush said in a prepared speech. Excerpts were released before delivery.
"No temporary debate, no passing disagreement of governments, no power on earth will ever divide us," he said.
The site for Bush's speech was the Concert Noble, a 19th-century government building used for banquets and meetings.
"Our greatest opportunity, and our immediate goal, is peace in the Middle East," said Bush, who supports a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The president made a courtesy call on King Albert II and Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. Later, he was to meet with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
"Great to be back," Bush exclaimed as he walked across a courtyard toward the office of the prime minister, who opposed Bush's decision to launch a war in Iraq. Bush attends meetings of both the European Union and NATO on Tuesday, visits Germany on Wednesday and goes to Slovakia on Thursday. While in Slovakia, Bush will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin has alarmed Western leaders with his crackdown on political dissent and rolling back of some democratic reforms.
An alliance of 88 environmental, human rights, peace and other groups planned two days of protests in Brussels to demand "no European complicity" in a U.S.-designed world order.
TITLE: 'Gonzo' Writer Thompson Kills Himself
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ASPEN, Colorado - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide.
Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time.
Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.
Thompson is credited alongside Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese with helping pioneer New Journalism - or, as he dubbed it, "gonzo journalism" - in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story.
Thompson, whose early writings mostly appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, often portrayed himself as wildly intoxicated as he reported on such historic figures as Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
"Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist," Thompson said in 2003. "You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it."
Thompson was a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era, and once said Richard Nixon represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character."
Thompson was portrayed on screen by Johnny Depp in a film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
That book, perhaps Thompson's most famous, begins: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
"He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity of years," said Paul Krassner, the veteran radical journalist and one of Thompson's former editors.
"It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible," quipped Krassner, founder of the leftist publication The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International (YIPPIE) party.
"But every editor that I know, myself included, was willing to accept a certain prima donna journalism in the demands he would make to cover a particular story," he said.
The writer's compound in Woody Creek, near Aspen, was almost as legendary as Thompson. He prized peacocks and weapons; in 2000, he accidentally shot and slightly wounded his assistant trying to chase a bear away.
Thompson's heyday came in the 1970s, when his larger-than-life persona was gobbled up by magazines. His pieces were of legendary length and so was his appetite for adventure and trouble; his purported fights with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner were rumored in many cases to hinge on expense accounts for stories that didn't materialize.
TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Spain Backs EU Accord
BRUSSELS (AFP) - EU leaders hailed Spain's overwhelming "yes" to the bloc's constitution, but admitted the low turnout was worrying while analysts stressed the huge challenges ahead in votes in other EU states.
The European Union's executive arm reiterated that the Spanish referendum si should give a boost to campaigns in a string of other countries due to hold ballots over the next 18 months.
Nearly four in five Spanish voters backed the historic text in a referendum on Sunday, the first country to vote on a document designed to prevent decision-making gridlock in the expanding EU.
Bush Inhaled
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George Bush indicated in interviews secretly taped by a friend before he became president that he had used marijuana but would not admit it for fear of setting a bad example for children.
Portions of the tapes, recorded from 1998 to 2000 by author Doug Wead without Bush's knowledge, were aired on ABC News on Sunday and published by The New York Times. Their authenticity was verified by the media outlets but has not been independently checked.
"I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried," Bush purportedly says on the tape.
White House officials did not dispute the tapes' veracity and indicated the president was disappointed by their release.
Airport Mystery Illness
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - One of Australia's main airport terminals was shut on Monday after 53 people suffered nausea, vomiting, dizziness and respiratory problems, but officials said they could not find the cause of the illnesses.
Forty-five people were taken to hospital and hundreds of travelers left stranded when the Virgin Blue domestic terminal in Melbourne was evacuated.
"Our rescue and fire units evacuated the terminal when several people exhibited similar symptoms," said a spokesman for Airservices Australia. "What is causing it is simply not known."
Ambulance officials said 53 people fell ill at the terminal and 45 were taken to a hospital decontamination unit. Thirty-five people have since been released from hospital.
Paramedics dressed in head-to-toe protective clothing treated people in a field hospital outside the terminal. Most of the sick were airport workers.
Airport officials initially said they believed the cause of the illnesses could be a chemical leak, but fire brigades searched the terminal and found no source for the illnesses.
Israel Frees Palestinians
JERUSALEM (AP)- Israel freed 500 Palestinian prisoners in a good-will gesture Monday, a day after the government gave final approval to a pullout from Gaza and a revised route of the West Bank separation barrier that would encompass at least 6 percent of land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.
With the historic Cabinet vote, Israel began charting its final borders, bypassing negotiations and angering the Palestinians. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the decision to leave Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank was the hardest he ever made but would ensure a better future for Israel.
Sharon also signed an order saying Israeli civilians would have to leave the areas slated for evacuation by July 20. Those remaining would be removed by force over a period of two months.
TITLE: Stars Shine Brightly at All-Star Game
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DENVER, Colorado - Shaquille O'Neal had dance moves for the crowd, a cell phone in his shoe and hugs for everyone except Kobe Bryant.
O' Neal kept things light Sunday night, adding a bit of comic relief to an otherwise nondescript All-Star game, which concluded as a 125-115 victory for the East.
"You smile, you act crazy and silly. And I think people like me because I'm different," said O'Neal, who finished with 12 points, six rebounds, three steals and three blocked shots. "I've always been a class clown type of guy. It comes natural."
During pregame introductions, O'Neal strutted into the spotlight and did a little dance that included a funky, wavy break-dance move with his arms.
Before the opening tip, he had handshakes and hugs for all of his Western Conference opponents except Bryant.
The former Lakers teammates didn't acknowledge each other and only came in contact twice during the game - once when Bryant made a nice, left-handed shot over O'Neal and once when Shaq knocked the ball away from Bryant, but got called for a foul.
Bryant finished with better numbers - 16 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three steals - and was the most intense player in the fourth quarter.
But this show was clearly not his. In fact, he was the only player booed during pre-game introductions, likely a residual effect both from rape accusations made against him in Colorado two summers ago - charges were dropped last September - and from his fractured relationship with O'Neal.
The All-Star game is not really basketball. At what other game, after all, does a player do a television interview from the bench where he shows off a cell phone imbedded in his size 22 shoe?
"It's big, you can take it anywhere, make people look at you," O'Neal explained. "And it prevents muggers. Kick them right in the [behind] with that Shaq shoe phone."
TITLE: SPORTS WATCH
TEXT: Pole Vault Record
BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) - Yelena Isinbayeva set her second world record for the women's pole vault in a week and became the first woman to clear 16 feet indoors last week when she took the mark to 4.88 meters at the Norwich Union Grand Prix meet in Birmingham.
Isinbayeva beat the mark of 4.87 she set at Donetsk, Ukraine six days ago. It was the 11th career world record for Isinbayeva who set the outdoor world mark of 4.91 when she won the Olympic title in Athens last August.
"I was tired going into the event but the crowd was so good it pushed me over the bar. This result has given me the confidence to push for even greater heights." Isinbayeva said.
CSKA Beat Benfica
KRASNODAR (AP) - Vasiliy Berezoutsky and Vagner Love scored a goal each to lead CSKA Moscow over Benfica 2-0 last week in the UEFA Cup round of 32.
CSKA, playing its first match since finishing third to Chelsea and Porto in the European Champions League group stage in December, opened strongly and seized the initiative.
Brazilian striker Love and midfielder Rolan Gusev were close to opening the scoring four minutes into the game but failed to control the ball and capitalize on a 2-on-1 advantage in the penalty area.
In the 60th minute, Love beat Benfica goalkeeper Quim with a left-footed drive off Elvir Rakhimic's pass to make it 2-0.
TITLE: Mauresmo Beats Williams To Win Diamond Games
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ANTWERP, Belgium — Top-seeded Amelie Mauresmo beat Venus Williams 4-6 7-5 6-4 on Sunday to win the Diamond Games for her first victory of the year, denying the American a $1.3 million gem-encrusted racket.
Williams, who complained afterward of a stomach injury, needed to beat Mauresmo to win the gold-and-diamond trophy, which goes to the first three-time winner in any five-year span. Since she won the title two of the last four years, Williams will have a last shot at the trophy next year.
Mauresmo trailed almost throughout the three-set thriller at the sold-out, 14,600-capacity Sports Palace and fought from behind in the last two sets, belying her reputation for struggling under pressure. “I sought a way to get back in it. That was so satisfying,” Mauresmo said.
In the tense final game, she needed five match points before finally pulling off the victory when she hit a shot past Williams at the net.
The 25-year-old Mauresmo now has 16 career titles and closes in again on WTA No. 1 Lindsay Davenport, a position she briefly held last year.
At 5-4 in the second set, Williams was serving for the tournament trophy and seemed ready to post an easy straight set win. But Mauresmo prevailed, and then produced some of the finest tennis of the week.
But it appeared that Williams would pull out her second chance, going up 4-2 in the final set. Yet again, Mauresmo survived and wrapped up the last four games.
“She played great and deserved the title,” Williams said.
She added her stomach muscles troubled her during the final, forcing her to pace herself. Such an injury cost her six months of the 2003 season.
“It is the same, but it is different. I don’t think I’ll be out for six months,” she said.
Despite the collapse, Williams is ready to return and try again for the unique trophy, studded with 1,702 diamonds.
“I cannot wait to come back,” she said.
Both players showed jitters early, and they exchanged two service breaks to end up tied at 4.
From there, Williams took the first set in 34 minutes when Mauresmo committed an error on set point. Williams clenched her fists, knowing the racket was only one set away.
The quality of serves improved in the second, and Williams forced what seemed to be a decisive breakthrough in the fifth game. But there were problems when she went for the set up 5-4. Two bad volleys, one unforced error and an unlucky let call later, Mauresmo was back in the match.
The Frenchwoman turned everything around when she broke Williams again to force a deciding set. But she lost her momentum when Williams broke her to start the third set.
In a thriller, Williams went ahead 4-2 but then lost four games in a row as her game unraveled.