SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1047 (13), Friday, February 25, 2005
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Expert Calls Faberge Egg 
 A Forgery
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: One of the 15 Faberge eggs bought from the estate of U.S. billionaire Malcolm Forbes last year by Russian magnate Viktor Vekselberg is a fake, St. Petersburg jewelry expert Valentin Skurlov says.
 
Vekselberg scooped up the treasures in a surprise last-minute intervention before they were due to be sold by auctioneer Sotheby's. The cost of the deal was not revealed, but media reports say Vekselberg paid more than $100 million for the 180 items in the collection, including the eggs.
 Authentic eggs were once made by court jeweler Carl Faberge for the Russian royal family, who gave them as gifts on special occasions, but Skurlov said Tuesday he is certain one is not genuine.
 "There are at least 10 aspects that prove that the egg called Spring Flowers was not made by Faberge craftsmen and is a fake," Skurlov, who has worked as a consultant for Christie's auction house and the Russian Culture and Press Ministry, said in a telephone interview.
 The Faberge Easter egg Spring Flowers is covered with red enamel in the form of a purse. It received its named because of its trademark Faberge surprise inside - in this case a basket of flowers.
 Among the aspects raising suspicion about the origin of the egg are that its history had not been the documented until 1961, when it first appeared on the antiques market, Skurlov said in a telephone interview.
 In lists of Faberge eggs compiled in 1917, the year the Tsar abdicated, the egg is described as being made of silver and decorated with a sapphire. However, the egg bought by Vekselberg is made of gold and has no sapphire, he added.
 The technical attributes of the egg, which bears the trademark of Faberge's craftsman Mikhail Perkhin, "do not reflect the highest quality work of Perkhin." On the contrary, the egg is of low quality, Skurlov said.
 In addition, Spring Flowers, which has been exhibited as an imperial egg, has an inventory number on it. Traditional Faberge eggs belonging to the royals had no inventory numbers. 
 Such marks were put only on the eggs that Faberge sold, he said.
 Skurlov said he and other experts took Spring Flowers off the list of imperial eggs in 1997.
 Tatyana Faberge, a granddaughter of Carl Faberge, shares Skurlov's opinion about the Spring Flowers egg. She wrote her opinion of it in an article co-authored with Skurlov in January. The article is printed on antiques web site www.rnm.ru. 
 Andrei Shtorkh, a spokesman for the nonprofit foundation Bond of Time created by Vekselberg to manage his collection, said Thursday the foundation had "big doubts about the quality and reliability of Skurlov's opinion about Spring Flowers being fake."
 Shtorkh said Skurlov is not a real expert, but an archive consultant on jewelry. Skurlov has not inspected the egg closely and has not had the opportunity to perform an examination of it, he said in a telephone interview from Moscow.
 "Declarations of the kind should be made only by real experts after an official examination," Shtorkh said.
 When Vekselberg was buying the collection he didn't have an official examination of the objects conducted, but he and the foundation relied on examinations that must have been performed by the Forbes family and Sotheby's auction house, which had been about to auction the eggs before Vekselberg intervened.
 No comment was available from Sotheby's on Thursday.
 The Forbes family could not be reached for comment.
 Shtorkh said the foundation had never considered Spring Flowers, which was valued at about $1 million, as an imperial egg because it had long been known that it was not.
 The foundation is considering commissioning an expert examination of the egg.
 Marina Lopato, keeper of the State Hermitage Museum's jewelry collection, said other experts disagree with Skurlov, but "there are no grounds not to trust Skurlov's version."
 The eggs were displayed in the Hermitage from Dec. 6 to Feb. 13. 
 Before the Forbes family sold the egg to Vekselberg, experts could probably not ever see the egg closely, she said.
 Lopato said the foundation could have an independent evaluation made of the egg.
 "However, if Vekselberg is not interested in deciding whether the egg is genuine, then he will not want to have this done," Lopato said.
 If Spring Flowers is confirmed as a fake, it would be worth little more than 20,000 euros ($26,000), Skurlov said.
 The first Faberge egg was created in 1885 as an Easter present for Tsarina Maria Fyodorovna. It was so well received that it became an annual tradition for the imperial family. Each year Faberge attempted to outdo the previous year's masterpiece.
 Of the 50 imperial eggs made, only one, was retained by the family after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The Order of St. George egg, created in 1916, was smuggled out by Maria Fyodorovna, the same woman for whom the first egg was made.
 The Soviet government sold many of them off in the 1920s and 1930s to raise hard currency.

TITLE: Apply Early for U.S. Visas, Consulate Says
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg is warning businesspeople planning to travel to the United States this summer to file their visa applications early to avoid delays.
 
"This year the visa section [of the consulate] is expected to process an all-time high number of applicants," Jeffrey Vick, head of the consulate's visa section, said in a letter to businesspeople.
 In other years, applicants have had wait up to six weeks for visa appointments during the busy summer travel season, he said in a written reply to questions. 
 Last year the consulate processed about 18,000 applications for nonimmigrant visas, with peak loads on the consulate being in early winter (leading up to the New Year holidays) and in late spring.
 The higher number of visa applicants expected this year is related to a noticeable "increase in business activity, especially in specific sectors such as technology, industry, and other commercial activity."
 "Additionally, we have seen an increase in demand for seaman's visas and summer work and travel visas," Vick said Wednesday in response to written questions. "We expect demand for exchange visitors' visas to rise due to the increasing popularity of the Summer Work and Travel program." 
 About 80 percent of applicants who apply for nonimmigrant visas in St. Petersburg receive one, he added. 
 Some of the main reasons why applicants fail to be issued visas are that applicants fail to prove they have good reasons to return home after their visit or they somehow try to deceive the consulate, he said.
 "U.S. immigration law assumes that every applicant for a non-immigrant visa nevertheless actually intends to immigrate to the U.S," Vick said. "Therefore, it is up to the applicant to demonstrate to the satisfaction of a consular officer that he or she has sufficient ties to their home country to preclude remaining in the United States without the proper authorization."
 Younger people usually find it harder to prove that "they have the kinds of responsibilities back home that would overcome our presumption [as required by law] that they intend to immigrate," than do older applicants, he added. 
 "After all, a 25-year-old is less likely than a 35-year-old to be married with children, and be immersed in a career that has brought them satisfaction and material comforts," he said.
 However, young people still can get visas; for instance, the visa section recently approved a visa for a 24-year-old single woman who lives with her parents, because she was a key player in the development of a local business that is establishing ties in the U.S., Vick said 
 Applicants should understand that the vast majority of refusals "are not permanent," and they are simply based "on the inability of the applicant at the time of the interview to overcome the presumption of intent to immigrate," he said. 
 Each time an applicant comes in for a visa consular officers take a new look at their situation, including their travel history to the U.S., and makes a decision based on the information at hand.
 However, refusals based on an applicant's presentation of false documents, or misrepresentation of the circumstances they live in "can result in long-term exclusion from the possibility of receiving a visa," he warned. 
 Vick conceded that the rather long time (up to six weeks) that some applicants have to wait for an interview, especially in the high season, is due to "a new requirement to interview all applicants."
 As a result of the new requirements the consulate has employed more staff than ever before. 
 Vick did not reveal the number of staff involved in interviews.
 Even with more staff there is still a physical limit on how many interviews can be conducted in one day, because of limited space inside the consulate's building on Furstatskaya Ulitsa, he said. 
 The consulate is searching for new premises, although the move has been prompted by security concerns and the desire for more space, rather than the need to process more visas. 
 The visa section said it expected to process applications more efficiently than last year but still "strongly advises prospective applicants to always plan their travel well in advance, and try to make their visa appointment as early as possible [even if they don't have all the details of their trip finalized] to avoid a possible delay."
 "Delays for science and technology workers have been drastically reduced," Vick said.
 Natalya Borodina, representative of the VIP section at leading city travel agency Neva Tours, said her company receives a good service from the U.S. consulate on visa issues.
 About 85 percent of clients receive a visa, though the process may take a while and require certain documents to be gathered. 
 Those who miss out tend to be people who have either had problems with the consulate before or try to use a tourist company to get to the U.S. whereas they have ulterior motives for traveling there.
 Because the U.S. is an expensive destination, demand for individual tours is not very high and sometimes sinks as low as two or three individual tours a month. 
 Steven Caron, general partner of Sindbad Travel tourism agency, which organizes Summer Work and Travel programs to the U.S. for students in the St. Petersburg area, said the agency is very satisfied with the consulate's performance.
 This year the number of applicants for the program has doubled to between 600 and700 students. The consulate has been very helpful "by planning to process students' visas in April and May before the big summer rush," he said.

TITLE: Visa Requirement for Sea Visitors Dropped
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The national tourism industry has succeeded in convincing the State Duma to drop an amendment that would have forced cruise-ship passengers to obtain a visa or stay onboard during visits to Russia, the Russian Union of Tourism Industry, or RST, said Thursday.
 
It was one of many proposed amendments to the law that are generally seen as making visiting, working or residing in the country even more difficult.
 Lawmakers agreed not to proceed with the amendment after a meeting in December between Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, head of the federal tourism agency, Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and Vladimir Pligin, head of the parliamentary committee for constitutional legislation.
 If cruise-ship passengers were compelled to get visas, the costs to the St. Petersburg economy would have been of the order of $260 million - the amount of money foreign tourists are expected to spend in the city this summer, tourism industry representatives said.
 "We are very glad this amendment has been dropped," said Olga Banbergen, a representative of international tourism company Baltic Tours, which operates cruises to Russia.
 "It will allow us to bring more tourists to St. Petersburg," she said Thursday in a telephone interview. "The city is very popular with foreign visitors, including tourists from Finland, Scandinavia and especially Germany. Last year, for instance, the Finnjet ferry was even overbooked, which led to some space on the ship that usually is not used for passengers being remodeled so it could be used as cabins."
 Cruise-ship passengers have not been required to have a visa to enter Russia since 1968 when the Soviet Union joined an international convention on simplifying the visa regime for cruise travelers. 
 Passengers were allowed to stay in the U.S.S.R. without a visa for 48 hours. The same rule applied in other participant countries, where neither Soviet nor any other foreign passengers of cruise ships needed a visa. They could stay ashore for 72 hours. However, the Soviet Union sent few citizens abroad, fearing they would either leave or be recruited by foreign intelligence agencies.
 In the last few years, especially after the terrorist attacks on the United States of Sept. 11, 2001, many countries in Europe and the U.S. introduced visa requirements for cruise passengers from Russia. This was followed by the amendment, introduced by Pligin, to require visitors to Russia to have visas.
 He now says that the planned requirement will be dropped because Russian border control services have the technical ability to continue allowing cruise liner passengers to visit Russia without visas.
 "Scandinavian countries, for instance, are successfully using a technology of passport scanning that could be adopted in Russia," Kommersant quoted Pligin as saying Thursday. "For this reason, when discussing the second reading of the amendments, we decided to keep the visa-free regime in force." 
 In 2004, 250,000 cruise line and 150,000 ferry ship passengers came to the city, up from 205,000 visitors in 2003.
 In 2005, RST expects the number of cruise passengers visiting the city could top half a million with 900 ships scheduled to visit compared to last year's 580.
 "It's good that we have succeeded in solving this problem quite swiftly, acting in close coordination with the sea port administration and City Hall," Sergei Korneyev, head of the St. Petersburg branch of RST, said Thursday in a telephone interview. "Right after the initiative to amend the law was introduced all of us wrote a letter to the State Duma explaining how damaging this could be. If we act together like this in the future it can only be good for the city.
 "The visa regulations for St. Petersburg should be stable with no changes introduced to make things more complicated," he said. "Foreign tourism operators see visa issues as some of the main obstacles to developing tourism in Russia. It's good that this time we acted quickly to resolve everything because cruise tours are planned well before the summer."
 The most recent development in the cruise shipping tourism industry to St. Petersburg was announced this week as Estonian-based ferry operator Tallink decided to move Fantaasia, the ferry that until December operated between St. Petersburg, Helsinki and Tallinn, to the Mediterranean market, Delovoi Peterburg reported Tuesday. Tallink blamed rising port fees in St. Petersburg, but local authorities insist the reason was a drop of clients in the winter season that made the line unprofitable.
 The line will restore a service in spring, the report said.

TITLE: Call for Putin to Testify at Starovoitova Assassination Trial
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Defense lawyers in the Galina Starovoitova murder trial have called for President Vladimir Putin to testify about a 1998 conversation he had with her assistant Ruslan Linkov after the killing.
 
Linkov, who was injured in the apparent contract killing of Starovoitova, a liberal State Duma deputy, in November 1998, has called the move a ruse to drag out the trial.
 Seven suspects are charged with taking part in the assassination.
 In calling for Putin, who at the time was director of the Federal Security Service, to testify at the St. Petersburg court, the defense referred to articles published in the newspaper Novy Peterburg. The paper is controlled by Yury Shutov, a former City Duma member who has been charged with organizing at least eight contract killings. Shutov is in detention while he is being tried on the charges.
 "[Shortly after the assassination] Linkov was unexpectedly visited by Putin, head of the FSB," Novy Peterburg said in an article published this month. "They had a tete-a-tete conversation for 56 minutes, after which Putin went to the corridor, carefully shut the door, nodded briefly to everyone and left.
 "After Putin left, other law enforcement officers were allowed to visit a half-dead Linkov, whose face had a gray-blue color. He announced unexpectedly and categorically that he had forgotten everything, and that he wouldn't recognize anyone or reveal anything." 
 The newspaper speculated that the FSB had played a role in Starovoitova's assassination.
 Linkov dismissed the newspaper report and described the call for Putin to testify as a way to drag out the trial, which began last winter.
 "I have known Putin since 1990, when I worked as an assistant to Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, and later as a journalist. So it is correct to say that we know each other," Linkov said by telephone Tuesday. 
 "Putin visited me in the hospital as someone who knew me and as the head of the responsible law enforcement agency. He kept assuring me that they would find the killers and those who ordered the assassination. That's all he said. I have spoken to many people, including [former U.S. Vice President] Al Gore and [former British Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher. If we call them all to court, it will last forever."
 "The problem is that the defense ... doesn't have any evidence to present," Linkov added. "So instead, they are trying everything to drag out the trial. Last month, all the lawyers kept getting ill one after another, and now they call witnesses that they know will never show up in the courtroom."
 Last July, one of the defendants testified that Mikhail Glushchenko, a reputed boss of the Tambov crime group who served in the Duma as a member of the ultranationalist LDPR, had ordered the killing, RIA-Novosti reported.
 Linkov has named Glushchenko, who is thought to be living abroad, as one of those who might have ordered the assassination.
 The seven suspects on trial - Yury Kolchin, a former employee of the military intelligence General Staff's Main Directorate, Igor Lelyavin and his brother Vyacheslav, Vitaly Akishin, Igor Krasnov, Anatoly Voronin and Yury Ionov - are all natives of the Bryansk region town of Dyadkovo.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Matviyenko's Address
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Governor Valentina Matviyenko's annual address will be delivered to the Legislative Assembly on March 30, Interfax reported Tuesday.
 The address will include a list of goals for the city's social and economic development that was approved by the city parliament in the first reading, Interfax cited Andrei Chernykh, a Legislative Assembly lawmaker, as saying.
 The most important goal mentioned on the list is to raise the standard of living of St. Petersburg citizens, Chernykh said.
 
 
<b>Police Eye Skinheads
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City police are monitoring the activities of more than 400 skinheads in the city, Interfax reported Tuesday, citing sources in law enforcement agencies.
 "It is impossible to name the exact number of skinheads in St. Petersburg, Interfax quoted Andrei Stanchenko, head of a special police department, as saying. "In principle, these are small groups acting autonomously, attempting to enforce a certain discipline. But, as a rule there is no strict hierarchy because the leaders change quite often - somebody enters the army and somebody goes to jail," he said.
 Last year in the city 510 crimes were committed in relation to foreign citizens, including 25 killings, he said.
 "The behavior of foreign citizens provokes groups of young people to commit acts of hooliganism. After foreign citizens, mostly people from Asia and Africa, see a group of young people, they start running away. This attracts attention to themselves and they become the subjects for an attack," Stanchenko said.
 
 
<b>Youth Groups Unite
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - The youth branch of Yabloko and the newly formed city-based group Moving Without Putin have decided to form a coalition, Interfax reported Tuesday.
 "We will form a coalition and other youth organizations will be able to join this coalition," Interfax cited Ilya Yashin, head of the youth branch of Yabloko, as saying. "We might be able to talk about an organization of some kind later." 
 
 
<b>Israeli Student Beaten
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A group of criminals beat up an Israeli citizen who is studying at the city's Pavlov Medical University on Wednesday, Interfax reported.
 "Early Wednesday morning the student was on his way with two friends to a cafe located in the Petrograd district. He fell behind. At that moment a group of unidentified people, about nine of them, attacked him," an unidentified source in the city police said.
 The attackers wore black clothes, high boots and had short hair, the police said.
 One suspect was detained. 
 
 
<b>Finn Murdered
 </b>

NOVGOROD (SPT) - A Finnish citizen has been killed in the Lyubytsky district of the Novgorod region, Interfax reported Thursday.
 The man is believed to have worked for the firm Baltprom, but his name had not been released Thursday evening.
 
 
<b>Estonian Minister
 </b>

TALLINN, Estonia (Reuters) - Estonia's president approved Rein Lang as the Baltic state's new foreign minister on Monday, resolving a political impasse that at one stage threatened the survival of the center-right coalition government. 
 Lang, 47, a businessman and veteran politician with strongly pro-European Union and business views, replaces Kristiina Ojuland, who was sacked after confidential government documents went missing from her ministry. 



TITLE: Report: India Offers $25Bln in Investment
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - India has offered the government the prospect of $25 billion in investments into Russia's oil and gas industry as New Delhi seeks to secure supplies and a stake in Yuganskneftegaz, Russia's two leading business dailies reported Tuesday.
 
If the mammoth investment eventuates, it will be the single largest foreign investment in the Russian economy.
 India's Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry made the proposal in a letter sent to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov last week, Vedomosti said, citing a government official.
 Kommersant reported that Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar presented the investment offer to Russian officials as part of India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp.'s attempt to purchase a stake in Yugansk.
 Aiyar held talks in Moscow with Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Rosneft President Sergei Bogdanchikov on Monday and Tuesday.
 The Russian side agreed to look at proposals for Indian companies to work with Gazprom, Rosneft and Transneft, the Industry and Energy Ministry said in a statement after the meetings.
 &quot;Russia is ready to look at proposals from the Indian side on participation in projects,&quot; Khristenko said in the statement. 
 &quot;We are satisfied with the level and character of Russian-Indian relations and we must maintain and develop these relations.&quot;
 ONGC is negotiating with Gazprom over a string of major oil and gas deals that could see the Indian firm invest up to $20 billion in the next few years, ONGC chairman Subir Raha said in an interview with Reuters.
 &quot;The investment may go up to $20 billion or more for a period of five years or so, and if we reach an agreement, we could begin as early as next year,&quot; Raha said. 
 &quot;What we are saying is, Gazprom has a huge amount of gas and we have the money.&quot;
 The two companies signed a memorandum on Monday to jointly develop energy projects in India, Russia and other countries. 
 Yugansk, a former Yukos asset auctioned off by the government, offers a tempting opportunity for India and China as they seek to forge closer ties with Russia and to secure access to one of the country's foremost oil producers. 
 Raha declined to comment on the progress of ONGC's purchase of a stake in ex-Yukos unit Yugansk, or in projects such as Rosneft's vast Vankor field in Siberia, but he stressed ONGC was keen on equity participation rather than joining any particular projects, Reuters said.
 Raha said he was not enthusiastic about a loan-for-oil deal of the kind concluded by China National Petroleum, which lent Rosneft $6 billion in return for 48 million tons of crude by 2010.

TITLE: Fight Piracy, Broadcasters Told
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Culture and Press Minister Alexander Sokolov signed an agreement with three leading royalty-collecting organizations on Tuesday in a bid to extend the country's fight against rampant piracy to music broadcasters.
 
&quot;We are dealing with a legal vacuum. ... The time has come to come together and cooperate,&quot; Sokolov said.
 Under the agreement, the Russian Authors' Society, the Russian Phonographic Association and the Russian Society for Performers' Rights will team up with government officials and copyright holders to fill legislative loopholes that hinder Russian composers and musicians from receiving remuneration for performances of their work.
 Today, radio and television stations can apply for broadcasting licenses without showing that they have agreements with organizations entitled to collect royalties.
 While official attention has been focused on more high-profile DVD, CD and video bootleggers - as Russia tries to meet international concerns during negotiations for entry into the World Trade Organization - thousands of television and radio stations play music without signing the necessary agreements with the artists themselves or collecting societies.
 Broadcasters are as much to blame as other pirates, argued Viktor Osipov, general director of the Russian Society for Performers' Rights.
 &quot;The pirates are in your car radio, they are in your home in your television set,&quot; he said.
 No figure was given for damage done to Russia's copyright holders, though Vadim Botnaryuk, general director of the Russian Phonographic Association, said that 30 million euros ($40 million) in royalties were collected in Holland, which is a fraction of Russia's size, last year.
 He noted that Swiss taxi drivers pay about 25 euros ($33) per month for the right to play music in their vehicles.
 While a government committee currently chaired by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov was created in winter 2002 and charged with clamping down on intellectual property violations of all kinds, attention has been so far focused on audiovisual pirates.
 Nonetheless, Sokolov, who returned last week from a meeting with film studio representatives in Hollywood, said the problem still cost U.S. studios and record companies dearly - some $1.7 billion in 2004.
 Pirates in China, the world's counterfeit capital, cost them $2.5 billion in the same year, he said.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Aeroflot Boosts Freight
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Aeroflot, the country's largest airline, said 2004 revenue from cargo shipments rose 48 percent to $198 million as it carried more goods farther.
 Aeroflot carried 143,000 tons of cargo last year, 85 percent more than the previous year, the Moscow-based airline said in an e-mailed statement Thursday. Its volumes reached 842.5 million ton-kilometers last year, 3.7 times more than the previous year. The airline, which operates four DC-10 cargo planes, filled 70.1 percent of its cargo space, 6 percent more than the previous year.
 Aeroflot started regular cargo flights between Helsinki and Moscow and increased the number of flights to Hong Kong, Shanghai and other Chinese cities last year. Passenger planes carried almost half of all cargo, or 84,500 tons, an 8 percent increase from the previous year. The shipments generated revenue of $89.5 million - a 15 percent increase.
 
 
<b>Vostok Increases Shares
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Vostok Nafta Investment, a Swedish company that invests in the energy industry of the former Soviet Union, increased its holdings of the Russian-traded shares of Gazprom to 90.8 percent of its fund, on optimism the government will end a ban on foreigners directly owning the stock.
 Stockholm-based Vostok Nafta, a money manager that oversees $800 million, bought 25 million of Gazprom's Russian shares in the three months to Dec. 31, increasing its holding to 300 million shares, the company said in a report posted Thursday on its web site.
 Shares of Gazprom, the world's biggest natural gas producer, accounted for 87.4 percent of the fund on Sep. 30.
 Russia has pledged to lift restrictions on foreign ownership of Gazprom after the gas producer takes over Rosneft, the state-owned oil company. Plans to lift the restrictions have been delayed after Rosneft in December paid $9.3 billion for control of Yuganskneftegaz.
 The market's view of Gazprom will improve in a year's time, not only because of a liberalized share market making it into one of the largest blue chips of the global emerging markets universe, "but because of a new trend in the fundamentals of the company," Vostok Nafta said in Thursday's report.
 
 
<b>Transaero Seeks IPO
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Transaero Airlines plans to offer its shares to investors in 2007, the company's general director Olga Pleshakova said, Prime-Tass news service reported.
 Transaero is Russia's third-largest airline. It's now choosing the organizer of the sale, Pleshakova said.
 The air carrier expects profit to reach as much as 160 million rubles ($5.8 million) this year, Pleshakova told Prime-Tass.
 
 
<b>Less Tax for Majors
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia may agree to lower taxes on companies by 500 billion rubles ($18 billion) in 2006 to 2008, Vedomosti reported, citing Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
 The government may lower overall taxes by between 150 billion and 200 billion rubles a year over the next three years as part of its tax reform, the newspaper cited Kudrin as saying yesterday at a meeting with executives in Moscow.
 Russia may cut its 18 percent value added tax to between 13 percent and 15 percent, Kudrin said. The ministry will also look into lowering the tax to 16 percent while keeping a beneficial rate for some companies of between 10 percent and 12 percent. 



TITLE: Orient to Instill Russian Vision
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: British hospitality chain Orient-Express Hotels, which has recently acquired a 93.5 percent stake in St. Petersburg's historic Grand Hotel Europe in a $100 million deal, has announced its first steps as the property's owners and managers. 
 
Orient-Express has earmarked $30 million to be spent on the hotel in the next few years, said Pippa Isbell, the company's vice president for public relations. This year, the company will spend about $5 million.
 The hotel's new general manager Thomas Noll, said the first key investment this year will be made into updating technology such as television, wireless Internet, electricity supply and outdoor lighting. 
 The managers plan to work on room renovation, increasing the number of suites, as well as bring in an Orient-Express designer who will work with a local artist to create a more traditionally Russian interior and spirit at the hotel.
 &quot;We are very much about experiences. Our philosophy as a business is to maintain the spirit of the place in which our hotels are located,&quot; Isbell said. &quot;In this respect the Grand Hotel Europe is very much what the city of St. Petersburg is all about, and we won't change that.&quot;
 In terms of experiences on offer to guests, Noll mentioned several ideas, including a luxury boat to tour the canals or a troika horse ride to the Hermitage.
 The company perceives Russia as a rapidly expanding market with great potential.
 &quot;What we have found in Orient-Express is that there are a lot of Russian people traveling [around the world] and we have started to see them in our [other] hotels,&quot; Isbell said. 
 Although the share of Russian travelers varies according to the destination, the company has noted a lot of Russian visitors in their properties in Portugal, Italy and Spain, as well as in Peru and South Asia.
 Orient-Express hopes that the presence of its brand in Russia will transfer to the popularity of its hotels at other destinations.
 &quot;One of the things we are happy about with the acquisition of the Grand Hotel Europe is the opportunity for us to have a higher profile in Russia generally,&quot; Isbell said.
 Until the beginning of this year Grand Hotel Europe was managed by Germany's Kempinski Hotels &amp; Resorts. British-owned hotelier chain Orient-Express paid about $100 million to acquire Kempinski's stake in the property in what was the largest-ever secondary property market deal in Russia.
 Orient-Express owns and manages 48 properties, including hotels, restaurants, tourist trains and river cruises in 28 countries. Among the most famous is the legendary train Venice Simplon-Orient-Express connecting London and Istanbul via Paris, Venice, Rome, Florence, Prague, Budapest, Innsbruck and Vienna. 
 Orient-Express doesn't usually build its hotels, preferring instead to buy historical or original properties. The Grand Hotel Europe, which celebrates its 130th anniversary this year, is the oldest luxury hotel in the city.
 &quot;Generally we will continue to look [for further acquisitions] in Russia,&quot; Isbell added. &quot;Moscow is a great city, and one day we may have a hotel there too, but St. Petersburg is a great experience for foreigners coming to visit, which is why we have decided to start our operations here.&quot;
 Most of the Orient-Express' marketing activities are concentrated on the U.S. market, which brings its greatest share of clients. The Grand Hotel Europe will maintain this strategy. 
 Orient-Express banks on a large percentage of individual leisure travelers who stay in their properties around the world.
 &quot;They are prepared to pay higher rates for a high quality room, so we will work on creating more suites in the hotel,&quot; general manager Noll said.
 As head of the Russian branch of the internationally respected gastronomic association Chaine des Rotisseurs, Noll is going to look closely into the hotel's cuisine. He will start with the Caviar Bar.
 &quot;Caviar and vodka are the magic words for foreigners, so by promoting it more and advertising it more we can bring more foreign guests there,&quot; the general manager said. &quot;The interior decor as well as the menu should become more Russian.&quot;
 It was also Noll's decision to start training Russia's first vodka sommelier. After the training, which could take three to four months, the sommelier should be able to advise the guests on more than 70 vodkas that the bar has available and appropriate complementary snacks.
 After Kempinski's contract for the hotel's management expired, the company relocated some staff to its other hotels. The Orient is now looking to replace several positions, including the executive chief and restaurant manager.
 Noll stressed the Orient would like to retain as many staff as possible.
 &quot;The previous company made a big investment into their training, and they have substantial experience in their field,&quot; the general manager said.

TITLE: Stroimontage Looks To More Foreign Projects
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Claiming a lack of potential on the domestic real estate market, St. Petersburg-based Stroimontage will continue to invest in foreign construction projects and diversify its business activities to aerospace technology and medicine, the firm's management said Tuesday.
 
Bucking what many analysts say is a current trend of high investment returns in the domestic and especially Moscow construction sectors, the St. Petersburg construction and development company said it will focus on multi-national development and new business sectors. 
 &quot;Our aim was to occupy 10 percent of the city market by the end of 2005,&quot; said Sergei Filipov, the newly appointed head of Stroimontage in St. Petersburg.
 &quot;However, after the summer crisis the banks showed little interest in invest ing [in real estate], the land distribution rules changed, and, judging from the general stagnation in the city residential market, we will just maintain our current construction pace,&quot; he said at a news conference.
 Stroimontage builds about 100,000 square meters of real estate in the city annually.
 Stroimontage president Artur Kirilenko said one of the prime goals of the company is the completion of its building project in France by 2008.
 &quot;We would have completed [construction] even earlier were it not for a half-year delay we faced from the town government, which decided to re-organize its general plan,&quot; Kirilenko said.
 Stroimontage entered the French market in 2003 as Stroimontage de Paris (recently renamed as Hermitage Immobilier) to develop a 1.5-hectare site for residential housing in the Paris suburb of Massy.
 With apartment costs starting at $3,600 per square meter, the housing is aimed at middle class earners. The entire Parisian project is estimated to cost between $85 million and $90 million, the company said earlier.
 &quot;With the completion of the French complex, as well as overcoming certain emotional and psychological barriers, we [will] certainly plan to expand further into global markets,&quot; Kirilenko said, adding that it was too early to name specific places.
 Stroimontage's designs on projects abroad, unusual among Russian-based construction and developing firms, have met with some skepticism among industry insiders. Some described the move as &quot;against the flow,&quot; given the profit margins real estate has enjoyed in Moscow, which has attracted several foreign firms.
 &quot;This is rather a bold move,&quot; Michael Lange, managing director for the CIS at Jones Lang LaSalle, said in an earlier statement. &quot;It will be interesting to see how they perform.&quot;
 While certain city realtors went as far as labeling Stroimontage's plans as a mere publicity stunt, the company pointed to real benefits of construction abroad, such as more favorable bank loans.
 &quot;[The project in Massy] has opened new financial horizons for the company,&quot; Kirilenko said. 
 &quot;Whereas [St. Petersburg-based construction corporation] LSR issued obligations to finance its Severniy Gorod (Northern City) development at an 18 percent to 30 percent borrowing rate, Stroimontage was able to secure financing in France at 5 percent to 8 percent annually.&quot;
 LSR Group reportedly accounted for almost 50 percent of all city construction last year.
 Stroimontage said it will diversify its Russian business activities to the fields of aerospace technology, medicine and ecology.
 &quot;The scientists are in a sad financial state in the country. We want to see if we can find and finance the genius ideas they might be nursing,&quot; Kirilenko said.
 Stroimontage will also be pursuing medical and technology avenues. 
 As an example Kirilenko cited Stroimonatge's partnership with the Senchin institute in Moscow, which specializes in breast cancer research. 
 The institute has developed a new drug, which is currently undergoing state certification. 
 Despite skepticism, the company's track record proves its plans should not be easily dismissed. 
 Founding partners Kirilenko and Sergei Polonsky built up a business with an annual turnover of $310 million. 
 Both Kirilenko and Polonsky appeared on the Russian millionaires list, published by Finans Magazine this month.

TITLE: Svyazinvest Sale on Hold
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: The privatization of Russian telecom holding company Svyazinvest may not happen until 2006, Telecoms Minister Leonid Reiman said on Tuesday, pushing shares in regional operators lower.
 
&quot;Maybe this year, maybe next year. You can see, it is already February and there aren't any documents yet. That is why. There is no decree or order,&quot; Reiman said during a trip to St. Petersburg.
 Reiman had previously said the sale of 75 percent minus one share in the company was likely to take place in the second half of 2005.
 Reiman's comments suggested officials have not yet finalized their gameplan for the sell-off of Svyazinvest, which controls seven regional telecom firms, Moscow fixed-line operator MGTS and long-distance monopoly Rostelekom.
 Shares in regional players weakened across the board, with Sibirtelecom and Uralsvyazinform hardest hit, falling by around 3 percent.
 Rostelecom was also down 2.7 percent amid continuing uncertainty over whether it will be included in the privatization or kept in state hands due to its strategic role in providing communications to Russia's armed forces.
 Web Invest telecoms analyst Alla Petrova said she expected the weakness to be short-lived, however, as the delay was unlikely to throw the entire Svyazinvest privatization into doubt.
 &quot;Unfortunately officials sometimes make speculative statements that do not necessarily reflect the reality of the situation,&quot; she said of Reiman's announcement. &quot;Unless there are some real grounds for the delay, the privatization will be carried out this year.&quot; 
 &quot;Before the sale the market remains highly sensitive, that's why it reacts so drastically,&quot; she said. 
 The market was back up Thursday, exceeding the 690 point mark at the close.
 Among contenders for Svyazinvest are telecoms company Telekominvest and conglomerate Alfa Group, as well as telecoms group Sistema.
 Reiman has put a price tag of $2 billion on Svyazinvest, but Sistema president Yevgeny Yevtushenkov has said he would be ready to bid $3 billioon to $4 billion.
 <i>(Reuters, SPT) </i>

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: <b>Lithuania Transit Rise
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Lithuania postponed a plan to raise fees for transporting rail cargoes across its territory that would have hit Lukoil and other Russian companies shipping goods to Kaliningrad.
 The country postponed to April 15 the final decision on the 15 percent hike, originally planned to come into force on March 15, Lithuanian Railways chief executive Iona Birziskis said Thursday.
 "We are expecting an official notification from Lithuania," Russian Railways Chief Executive Gennady Fadeyev said.
 The increase would have cut earnings of Russian companies that send products to Kaliningrad, an exclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. The raise would be the third in the last 12 months and would put the total fees increase at 41 percent.
 Lukoil, which pumps about a fifth of Russia's oil, is shipping some petroleum products to Kaliningrad to local customers and for exports. The cargoes cross a 242-kilometer Lithuanian stretch to reach Lukoil's port on the Baltic Sea, close to the town of Kaliningrad. 



TITLE: Don't Believe What Kremlin Says About Constitution
TEXT: Despite the word's newfangled interpretation, oligarchy in Greek means &quot;the rule of the few,&quot; the well off few who wield not only economic power, but also political power. Oligarchs are not millionaires sitting behind bars or pining away in emigre exile. They are the wealthy who send other millionaires to jail or force them to flee the country. Or, to rephrase President Vladimir Putin's well-known statement regarding the need to &quot;distance&quot; oligarchs from power, real oligarchs are not those who are distanced. They are the ones doing the distancing.
 
Oligarchs are always divided up into rival clans, gangs and cliques, and the interests of these various groups are addressed and balanced behind the scenes. One of the most hotly debated issues is who gets to be the leader, the prime oligarch. Russia's current prime oligarch, Putin, was the product of a compromise between the interests of several clans prominent toward the end of Boris Yeltsin's presidency, namely the Family surrounding Yeltsin, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and company, and Petersburg economists linked to former Chief of Staff and current head of UES Anatoly Chubais. The Family has since disappeared, its turf divided up between two cliques, the Petersburg Chekists and the Petersburg lawyers. 
 The rapidly swelling ranks of the recently forged Chekists or <i>siloviki </i>can no longer be contained in a single clan. Splinter groups have started to form. The most obvious internal conflict is unfolding at the second level of command. It includes the backroom battle between Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev and Chairman of the State Anti-Narcotics Committee Viktor Cherkesov. Patrushev is supported by presidential advisor Viktor Ivanov, and Cherkesov by Deputy Chief of Staff Igor Sechin. In the other, economic ring, the tug of war between Gazprom and Alexei Miller, and Rosneft and Sergei Bogdanchikov continues. Sechin is Bogdanchikov's patron, and Ivanov is Miller's.
 Both of these siloviki subgroups still agree - as do other oligarch clans - that Putin is the best president for their purposes. The problem of 2008 is the same for all of them: How can they keep Putin in power after his second term comes to an end?
 Both subgroups have their own emergency presidential candidate waiting in the wings.
 Viktor Ivanov has been grooming State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov - Ivanov's commercial partner from when they worked together in the Petersburg city administration - as Russia's potential next president. Sechin is lobbying for current Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. You could call the Sechin-Ivanov clique, which has divided off from the rest of the siloviki, the &quot;Petersburg linguists,&quot; as Sechin and Sergei Ivanov both moved from the translation section of the philology department at Zhdanov State University into the foreign intelligence business. 
 Sergei Ivanov nearly became prime minister on two occasions, fall 2000 and spring 2004. To prevent his appointment in October 2000, Ivanov's rivals conducted an undercover operation. A document stamped &quot;Highly Confidential&quot; was leaked to the press and published by the newspaper Stringer. It was titled, &quot;The Tactical and Technical Basis for Transferring Power from the President to His Successor and Simultaneous Reinforcement of the State's Role in Society.&quot; It was easy to figure out that the &quot;Andropov II&quot; and &quot;successor&quot; mentioned in the document referred to Sergei Ivanov. The document described how Putin would appoint Andropov II prime minister and then voluntarily anoint him his successor. The second time Ivanov was blocked from taking over as head of the Cabinet, word got out about unsuccessful military maneuvers, during which missiles refused to fire properly, and the arrest in Qatar of military intelligence agents who were accused of assassinating Chechen President Zemlikhan Yandarbiyev. 
 Until very recently, these candidates were chosen more or less theoretically and just in case. First of all, this was because 2008 still seemed a very long way off. Secondly, no one had any doubts about Putin. The question was merely whether he would push for a third term, leaving Gryzlov and Sergei Ivanov as backups, or whether Putin would become prime minister. Then, the oligarchs would only need to agree on who would be president, and either Gryzlov or Ivanov would do the trick. However, since the monetization of benefits and the beginning of other unpopular and impending social reforms - the most dangerous promises to be housing and utilities reform - the Kremlin oligarchs have started questioning whether it is a good idea to keep focusing solely on Putin. If his ratings continue to fall, the coalition of ruling clans might find it more to their advantage to let Putin take the fall and find a new favorite before parliamentary elections in 2007. They have roughly a year to think it over. If they decide to change the Constitution to suit Putin or his successor, they need to start the process no later than early fall 2006.
 It is theoretically possible to make Putin prime minister without changing the Constitution, but were this to happen, the oligarchs would need to find someone dependent and unassuming to become president. This figure already exists in the person of Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov. Something along these lines was already discussed, but it appears that the oligarchs have dismissed this option.
 Inevitably, the Constitution will have to be rewritten. The changes may be minor, such as allowing presidents to serve for more than two terms. They could, however, be significant and could shift the balance of power in favor of the prime minister. Yet there is also a third, far more radical option: Russia could adopt an entirely new Constitution in order to make Putin's next term count as his first, not his third.
 Rumor has it that spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky is working on this scenario at the very minute, at the request of Dmitry Medvedev, presidential chief of staff and head of the Petersburg lawyer clan.
 Then there is political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky's alternative for changing the Constitution, which envisions a new parliamentary republic. The parliamentary republic with its figurehead president could be used either way. It could be turned against Putin or used to support Putin. Belkovsky himself says that he sees Putin as the ruling prime minister and Gryzlov as president. In any case, the parliamentary republic plan would make the 2007 State Duma elections far more important than the 2008 presidential election. The way parties are structured and elections are conducted would absolutely have to change. Instead of the now discredited United Russia, two or three pro-Putin - or pro-Gryzlov or pro-Ivanov - parties would have to be created. Russia could return to elections decided by absolute majority.
 It is far from clear, however, what the other groups in power think about these constitutional reforms and specific personnel decisions. For the time being, Putin remains a unifying factor. He continues to be supported by Luzhkov and his gang and by the Petersburg Economists. If forced to switch to a new prime oligarch, Chubais, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref will back Sergei Ivanov, while the Moscow City Hall group will waver. They and the Petersburg economists do not have their own realistic candidate to put forward, because Luzhkov is not in the best of health, and former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov is getting on in years.
 No matter what happens, the constitutional changes will represent the interests of the majority of Kremlin oligarchs.
 What, then, should we make of Putin's promise not to touch the Constitution, not to change it to allow a third term or any other reforms? Secret service agents give their word only in order to hide their thoughts. Let's not forget that from 2002 to 2003, Putin pledged at least six times not to suspend direct gubernatorial elections. But then in 2004, he did just that.
 
 <i>Vladimir Pribylovsky, president of the Panorama think tank, contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Kremlin-Free News a Sight for Sore Eyes
TEXT: Information has become a rather rare commodity these days, especially if one looks for objective coverage of events in Russia. The state-owned television channels Channel One and Rossia and even NTV, independent in name only ever since it was taken over by state-controlled monopoly Gazprom, are unable to present a balanced picture for their viewers.
 
The only balanced Russian-language television news is on RTVI, a channel that broadcasts its programs on a satellite frequency - until recently it was available only on subscription. A subscription is not expensive at about $100. The real problem is that to watch it a viewer located in Russia has to get a satellite dish, a decoder and, most difficult of all, to find a provider who will offer the subscription. The last item is elusive because the nearest provider is in Tallinn, capital of Estonia. But from the end of February things will change - RTVI has gone free-to-air. This was advertised the other day with a slogan on my TV screen saying: &quot;The Only News With No Censorship from the Kremlin.&quot;
 I guess Vladimir Gusinsky, the former head of Media-MOST to which NTV once belonged and who launched RTVI a few years ago, has decided to start an information war against President Vladimir Putin. Gusinsky appears to be fed up with national mass media outlets telling viewers just a small part of the truth. 
 If this is why he has changed his mind over how to broadcast RTVI, I completely support the idea, because manipulation of information in the national media is reaching an unprecedented scale.
 As an example of such manipulation I would cite the federal police report on the number of terrorist attacks in Russia in 2004. Believe it or not, but the police were brave enough to tell the public that the number of such attacks were half those committed in 2003. They did not say a word about the new and extremely violent and unprecedented terrorist attacks - the deadly seizure of the school in Beslan or the explosion in the Moscow metro.
 About 500 people were killed by terrorism in Russia last year with a substantial number of the dead being innocent children, a fact that the police and Federal Security Service should analyze and explain to the public. But, instead of this, the law enforcement agencies use the media to assert that the drop in terrrorism was about 52.8 percent, that 250 terrorist acts had been prevented, that the police had confiscated 170 kilos of explosives and 662 explosive devices. As a result of such clever presentations, the public is likely to think that the law enforcers are doing a great job.
 They probably are, but if the police and FSB work so well according to their report, then why did all those children die?
 I am quite sure RTVI would ask this question, but I have great doubts that the state-controlled channels would do so.
 The appearance of RTVI in a free-to-air format will be a significant breakthrough on the national media market. It's a shame though, that up to now the number of viewers of this outlet is very small. After all, satellite or cable television services are not as wide spread in Russia as they are in the rest of Europe. The national monopoly NTV-Plus on the domestic satellite TV market has only about 300,000 subscribers and, of course, does not broadcast RTVI.
 Objective television news is available only for a few thousand Russians, who, unfortunately, are too far and few between to make the Kremlin rethink its policy on information.

TITLE: CHERNOV'S CHOICE
TEXT: Tequilajazzz will perform its traditional winter concert at Moloko club this week, but the popular alt-rock band, which appears at the basement underground club twice a year, is afraid that the tradition might end.
 &quot;I'm afraid it will be our last concert at Moloko,&quot; said frontman Zhenya Fyodorov. &quot;The club probably won't exist beyond May.&quot;
 Fyodorov is busy adding the finishing touches to the debut album by Optimystica Orchestra, a spinoff project in which he collaborates with members of Markscheider Kunst, Leningrad and cello player Seva Gakkel.
 He also revealed that Tequilajazzz and the Optimystica Orchestra, as well as Markscheider Kunst, are planning to embark on a group tour to the U.S. in mid-April.
 Tequilajazzz will play at Moloko on Friday.
 <strong>Moloko</strong>, which has been involved in a wrangle with city authorities over its premises in recent years, will remain open for at least several months before probably moving to a new location. 
 &quot;The [legal] problem still exists. We've lost all the court hearings, so time is running out,&quot; said the club's director Yury Ugryumov.
 &quot;But, KUGI [the Property Committee] has softened its position. They said 'We don't want to see you here, but we'll find another place for you.' They promised not to touch us before that, so it is status quo for now.&quot; 
 Ugryumov added that the committee has been influenced by massive popular support for the club. 
 Another, less-notable underground rock club was shut down earlier this month.
 <strong>Orlandina</strong>, a dingy joint on the Petrograd Side, was closed by the Petrograd District Adminitration, according to the club's web site.
 Officially closed on Feb. 1, the club had existed for almost three years and had hosted hundreds of concerts, mostly by alternative rock, punk and heavy metal acts.
 The &quot;Beatle fan&quot; community will honor <strong>George Harrison</strong> on what would have been the late Beatle's 62nd birthday. Promoted by Kolya Vasin, arguably Russia's best-known Beatle fan and keeper of the tradition of celebrating the Fab Four's birthdays since 1971, such events usually involve local bands and musicians performing mainly Beatles songs. Annoying if you don't care about The Beatles, nice if you love them. 
 George Harrison's birthday will be celebrated at the Courier Disco Club on Friday.
 On the jazz scene, the <strong>10th Guitar Jazz Festival</strong> opens this week. Organized by one of the best local jazz venues, the JFC Jazz Club, it takes place over four nights, from Tuesday to Friday, and features some of the finest local musicians.
 It appears there are no international rock or pop acts performing in the city this week, except <strong>Melvil Poupaud</strong> (see page iii). 
 The French filmmaker, actor and musician will screen some of his film work and perform his songs at Platforma on Thursday.
 Good local bands performing this week also include the alt-rock instrumental trio <strong>Skafandr</strong> at Fish Fabrique on Friday and the garage band <strong>Chufella Marzufella</strong> at Moloko on Saturday.
 <i>- By Sergey Chernov</i>


TITLE: In a restaurant far, 
 far away...
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: If you are in the center of town and are looking for a quick bite to eat, don't read any further. 
 
Trans Force is located in a shopping mall far, far away, on Prospekt Prosvesheniya, in the north of St. Petersburg, the hugely populated area where a quarter of the city are reputed to live. The northern reaches are characterized by high-rise developments for the <i>nouveaux riches</i>, vast arcade complexes with giant flashing advertisements and other similar architectural monstrosities. 
 Here, you think, as you gaze around you at the unregulated chaos, anything is possible. Only in such an environment could an establishment like Trans Force, the restaurant arm of marine technology giant Transas, not seem out of place.
 We had some trouble finding it, so more specific directions are in order. Coming out of Prospekt Prosvesheniya metro station, you will find a huge shopping center on the left. Ignore the first entrance and walk counter-clockwise all the way around the building until you find the entrance with Trans Force written above the door. The restaurant is on the third floor. Hand in your coat. 
 From there on it all gets a little weird. Trans Force is a theme restaurant with an obsessive delusion: it thinks it is a spaceship. To begin with, you buy a small card, which enables you to order and pay for your food. A dark, metallic tunnel leads you into the core of the vessel. On the way, you pass members of staff (although, as you will see, Trans Force has done everything possible to render staff obsolete) who are wearing flimsy, luminous, transparent cotton jumpsuits like I hope I won't be wearing at any point in the future.
 The tunnel opens out into a large room, where doors like airlocks and walls designed like bulkheads reinforce the illusion. The layout of the restaurant is highly functional - you could be in the canteen of the Death Star; the most striking feature, though, is the far wall, which is made to look like the windows of a vast space cockpit. Through these, computer generated landscapes perpetually fly past, so with a bit of imagination, you can really believe that you are eating dinner while whizzing through frozen Arctic landscapes or under giant bridges.
 Trans Force differs from other theme restaurants, in that its creators have endeavored to make its design elements go more than just skin deep.
 That's why it doesn't really matter that there isn't a menu in English, or a menu at all, for that matter. If all goes well you will never have to talk to a waitress. Instead, a control console and screen on every table allow you to scroll through the items on offer and choose your food by name or by photograph and place an order, without ever speaking to anybody. The system works surprisingly well, and also means you can monitor your bill. As a last resort, there is a button to press to summon one of the waitresses, who are very efficient. If it all gets to be too much (and it will), there is more. Side rooms leading off the main hall are mini entertainment centers, where a dozen or so people can strap in and blast off on a collective computer arcade game.
 The menu, if you are interested, is made up of dull-fusion-plus-so-so-sushi, and attempts have been made to liven up average dishes with names like Spetsnaz Salad (95 rubles, $3.27) and Women's Battalion Salad (133 rubles, $4.58). 
 The computerized menu has an built-in flaw which victimizes cocktail lovers. As far as I could see, since one has to press a key to cycle down the menu in order to choose one's selection, and since the drink menu is quite long, someone ordering a tequila sunrise, for example, would have to press the button about 150 times. Perhaps ordering two at once would reduce the chances of repetitive strain injury.
 The dance music is too loud. The disco lighting is annoying. The food arrives when it likes and is very expensive for what it is. All of this is beside the point: because Trans Force isn't designed to appeal to me, but to the well-heeled new Russians who will no doubt come here in droves and also to the other Trans Force branches which threaten to open in the city in the not-distant-enough future. 
 Perhaps it is worth just one visit. For an international high-end technology firm to branch into the restaurant business is something of a novelty to say the least and it isn't surprising that it succeeds more with technology than with food. 
 What is more, it opens up mind-boggling possibilities. What is next? NASA nightclubs, anybody? McDonalds spaceships? 
 Trans Force is a concept no less far fetched than either of these, reminding us that, after all, &quot;the future is now.&quot;

TITLE: Monkey business
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The advertizing campaign for Gorillaz concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg on March 4 and 5 proved to be another in a series of misleading announcements, as the band in question turned out to be the less-known British act Phi-Life Cypher. 
 
The situation already caused controversy when Gala Records, a Moscow-based record company, issued a statement last week claiming that Damon Albarn's Gorillaz has nothing to do with the concerts. Gala Records is the Russian representative of EMI, which has Gorillaz on its roster.
 &quot;As vice president of EMI U.K. Kevin Brown said, Gorillaz is not planning to perform anywhere in near future,&quot; wrote Gala Records' director Alexander Blinov in the statement.
 &quot;Any use of the Gorillaz logo and name in adverts, press releases and previews of the events under question is unlawful and misleads fans of the genuine Gorillaz.&quot;
 The concerts are promoted from St. Petersburg by booker and DJ Samir Askerov and Jet Set Holding that includes the club Jet Set. 
 Russian-language news releases for the events widely cite the official biography of Phi-Life Cypher and use the band's photo but refer to it as &quot;Phi Life Gorillaz,&quot; presenting them as &quot;the full and only lineup of the virtual band Gorillaz.&quot; 
 An early posting to journalists from Jet Set's press office claimed that Gorillaz had changed its name to &quot;Phi-Life Gorillaz.&quot; An ad in &quot;Ne Spat'!,&quot; a listings magazine in Moscow, refers to the band simply as &quot;Gorillaz&quot; and used its logo and the cover art from Gorillaz's eponymous 2001 album.
 But even faced with the statement from Gorillaz's record company, promoter Jet Set insisted that they had the right to promote the name &quot;Gorillaz.&quot; Its counter statement claimed, &quot;Jet Set Holding has all necessary documents to confirm the arrival and the legal ground for using name 'Phi Life Cypher Gorillaz.' We are ready to offer these documents to any publication on demand.&quot;
 However, when The St. Petersburg Times asked for the documents, no reply was received. 
 Futhermore, the statement, signed by Jet Set's management team, noted that the holding's lawyers will check if Gala Records' claims apply to the Criminal Code, article 129 - the article covering libel. &quot;We welcome [the suit], let them go ahead,&quot; said Maria Yezhukova, Gala Records' marketing director, by phone this week. 
 &quot;It could well end in court. We gave the contact information of the promoters to EMI, and they will start dealing with it themselves.&quot;
 Phi-Life Cypher is a hip-hop band from Luton, near London, that consists of MCs Life and Si-Philli on the microphone and DJ Nappa on the decks.
 The London-based hip-hop label Zebra Traffic, which has a contract with the band, confirmed that Phi-Life Cypher will perform in Moscow and St. Petersburg on the dates, but that Gorillaz will not be involved.
 &quot;It is only Phi-Life Cypher (Life, Si-Phili and DJ Nappa only) who are going to Russia,&quot; wrote Zebra Traffic's Tom Simpson via e-mail.
 According to Simpson, Phi-Life Cypher were connected with Gorillaz in the past, but definitely not as part of Damon Albarn's band.
 &quot;They did do a remix of [Gorillaz hit] 'Clint Eastwood' and also appeared on a track called 'The Sounder' (that came out on a Japanese only Gorrilaz B-sides album). They also supported the band on a tour of Japan and did the Brit Awards Live here in the U.K.,&quot; he wrote.
 &quot;But that is all, I think. They are no longer working together as far as I know.&quot;
 The British agent for Phi-Life Cypher, Serena Parsons of the Primary Talent International, wrote this week that she was not aware of the Russian advertizing campaign using the name Gorillaz and would ask her assistant to check it out.
 &quot;Just because [Russian promoters] bring all kinds of stuff, whatever, and there's a hoax all the time, it's easy to imagine that they can bring some 'Chimpanzeez' or 'Orangutanz' under the disguise of Gorillaz,&quot; said Moscow music writer and promoter Artyom Troitsky.
 &quot;Gorillaz is a virtual band, and it's not clear who has any relation to it except for Damon Albarn himself, so there is room for deception.&quot;
 &quot;To a substantial degree, the weak point here is British artists themselves, because even if the local public are ready to consume anything, to the British it shouldn't look right because it's obviously not fair play,&quot; he said. &quot;But if they don't object to it, the Russian plague [of misleading promotion] will spread further.&quot;
 The team of promoters behind the Gorillaz/Phi-Life Cypher controversy, Samir Askerov and Jet Set Holding, also mispresented DJ Phil Hartnoll's appearance in St. Petersburg late last month. 
 A DJ set by a former member of Orbital, the British electronic band that split last summer, had been advertized as a &quot;full live performance&quot; by Orbital, who, as the promoters claimed, would reunite specially for the occasion.
 Earlier this month, Jet Set advertized a DJ set from President Bongo and Buckmaster, members of Gus Gus, as a concert by the full band but then corrected its program because this conflicted with local promoter Light Music, which is planning to bring Gus Gus as a live band to its annual Stereoleto Festival in July.
 According to Troitsky, such situations should be dealt in court.
 &quot;Any person who paid money for, say, an 'Orbital reunion' or a 'Gorillaz's concert' and who discovers that he or she will be palmed off with a fake, can sue the promoters,&quot; he said.
 &quot;It's a winning case, and if there are several lawsuits with large sums paid out in compensation, it will leave those conmen without any desire to promote concerts for good.&quot;

TITLE: In vino veritas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Since 1945, the wines of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild have featured distinctive labels created by the most sought after of contemporary artists, including Marc Chagall, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and Vassily Kandinsky.
 
Now, the owner of the prestigious vineyard, Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, is exhibiting her stunning collection of wine labels with the original artwork commissioned for them at the State Hermitage Museum. The display, called &quot;Mouton-Rothschild: Art and the Label,&quot; features about 60 sketches that can be seen until March 5.
 &quot;This exhibition brings together two different arts: the art of painting and the art of taste,&quot; said Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky before the exhibition's Tuesday opening. 
 The noble French vintner creates grand wine, which deserves a no less grand presentation.
 The first label was commissioned in 1924 when Chateau Mouton-Rothschild's flamboyant 22-year-old owner Baron Philippe invited the well-known poster designer and cubist artist Jean Carlu to create an original label. But, for various reasons, the tradition did not take off at that time, and the next label didn't appear until the end of World War II.
 In 1945 the baron commissioned a special label to commemorate the end of the war. Artist Philippe Julian centered his design around Winston Churchill's &quot;V for Victory.&quot; At first, commissions to draw a new design were divided between a narrow circle of Rothschild family friends, including the likes of Jean Cocteau, but soon things changed. In the mid-1950s George Braque offered his services to the Rothschilds and designed the label of the 1955 vintage.
 The acclaimed Russian-born artist Ilya Kabakov is responsible for the most recent label, the 2002 vintage.
 Most of the labels offer variations on a sheep theme in a pastoral scene - a direct reference to the Chateau's name: &quot;mouton&quot; means sheep in French. But the exhibition makes it clear that the artists had a<i> carte blanche</i> in how to approach the theme. Compare the Bacchanalian dances on Dorothea Tanning's label with the graceful female hands in Henry Moore's design and the charming sheep cartoon submitted by Salvador Dali for the 1958 vintage. The artists proved uninhibited by the commission, which led, in one case, to a scandal.
 The label designed by the Swiss erotic artist Balthus for the 1993 Chateau Mouton Rothschild became notorious. A Californian political group called the Sexual Assault Response Team demanded the label featuring a picture of a nude young girl be removed. The protesters regarded the image as child pornography (see illustration, page i).
 De Rothschild gave in to the pressure, and Balthus' design was removed from bottles exported to the U.S. But the baroness refused to replace the erotic image with another artist's label, so the drawing was replaced with a blank space. Wine collectors (and other interested customers) had to smuggle the original bottles into America.
 The idea of making her collection of original sketches into a touring exhibition came to de Rothschild in 1981 on a private visit to the U.S.
 &quot;I witnessed a curious scene in someone's house in Beverly Hills: I saw them making a poster with our wine labels,&quot; de Rothschild recalled at the Hermitage on Tuesday. &quot;And then I thought: if people find it interesting looking at small labels made in a printing house, then wouldn't it be a good idea to show the original sketches to the public.&quot;
 The artists traditionally don't receive a monetary fee for their designs. Payment comes in the form of ten boxes of wine. Each box contains 12 bottles. Half of the bottles bear the labels drawn by the artist, and the other half are the artist's choice of other vintages.
 Prices for a bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild range from $150 to more than $6,500. 
 When choosing an artist to design a label, de Rothschild relies on her own artistic taste. &quot;Of course, I can't represent all the major [art] trends, but I have a son who will follow my footsteps in the family business,&quot; de Rothschild said.
 The exhibition, which has already been shown in London, Berlin, Brussels as well as the U.S., Japan, China and Canada, is traveling to the Pushkin Museum in Moscow in March.

TITLE: Bohemian rhapsody
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: At the mention of Prague, everyone's faces clouded over. One of us exhaled resignedly, another's mouth crumpled in distaste. The Czech capital seemed vulgar and unwelcoming to us from here, 200 kilometers south, in the small, absurdly picturesque town of Cesky Krumlov, barely 30 kilometers from the Austrian border. 
 We were huddled around a thick oak table beside an open fire on a snowy New Year's Eve, three Englishmen, an American and a Swede, clinking mugs of hoppy beer, while beside us a robust teenager smashed knotty logs to pieces on the flagstones with a fearsome ax. From this cozy corner, returning to the capital seemed a distinctly unappetizing prospect.
 
Although the majority of the Czech Republic's millions of foreign visitors still fail to get beyond central Prague, people are now beginning to realize that the country does in fact have more to offer than the capital's famous beauty. 
 The hilly, forested Czech countryside, spangled with delightful medieval towns and castles, is among the most attractive anywhere in Europe, and the area around Cesky Krumlov rates as one of the most beautiful in the country. Known as the Sumava, it is a highland area of deep forest and rounded hills, located along the Austrian border in South Bohemia. It forms a natural boundary between the Germanic and Slavonic worlds, and is one of the most sparsely-populated parts of Central Europe. Krumlov is a UNESCO-protected medieval settlement of about 14,000, lying in the center of the Sumava, on the upper reaches of the Vltava river.
 While it cannot claim to be off the beaten track - in summer the town is popular with Austrians and Germans, and is also heavily-frequented by backpackers - in winter it remains empty and peaceful, refreshingly free of the swarms of tourists and stag-night bingers which have turned parts of central Prague into year-round no-go zones. 
 After about four hours on a connecting train from Prague, we descended from Krumlov's hilltop station into the town below on a crisp evening, the tang of wood smoke in our noses.
 Upon entering the town we crossed a stone bridge spanning a sunken stream, and passed under the archway of the late 16th century Budejovick&aacute; Gate, surmounted by the stone emblem of the town, at which point the outside world disappears. 
 As if you had stepped through a magical portal, you suddenly find yourself upon an unevenly cobbled street, snaking off ahead between crooked buildings. 
 Three of us were old hands, but our other companions were experiencing this disorientation for the first time. Small shops straggled around a dogleg and slowly downhill as the town uncoiled temptingly before us, past enticing angled alleyways and red-tiled townhouses, until eventually we arrived at a wooden footbridge spanning the Vltava. 
 From here, the river runs high and fast past a jumble of balconied buildings stumbling down the opposite riverbank, some of which are dipping their toes into the water. Behind, the core of the old town straggles uphill to the steep-roofed Church of St. Vitus, begun in 1407, with its slim, rocket-like octagonal tower. 
 To the right, Krumlov's magnificent castle rears up from a sheer crag, closer to an Italian chateau than to a fortress in its astonishing Renaissance finery. Across the bridge, a narrow street leads to the main square, N&aacute;mest&iacute; Svornosti, where the pinks, greens and blues of the ancient frontages echo those of Prague's Old Town Square. N&aacute;mest&iacute; Svornosti has been the focal point of the town for over seven centuries.
 The town's street plan has changed little since then, as very few new buildings appeared in the old center after the beginning of the 19th century. The topography of the town, with its many footbridges and narrow alleys, can initially make orientation a fiendish proposition. This is due in the main to the meander of the Vltava as it approaches from the south, flings itself to the west, bends around in a great loop beneath the castle and doubles back upon itself tightly, encircling the central section of the old town, before again setting off on a westward curve. 
 The Czech composer Bedrich Smetana memorably paid tribute to this river in &quot;Ma Vlast,&quot; a 12-minute long composition which recreates the Vltava's journey, from its playful youth in these foothills to its stern majesty as it flows through Prague.
 Although the river has been the lifeblood of Krumlov since its earliest days, the strength of its current and its close proximity to the town's buildings has meant that it has always been a potential destroyer. The damage caused in Prague by the floods of 2002 was well documented, but the havoc wreaked upstream was less well publicized, despite being considerably worse than that inflicted on the capital. Many of the shops, pubs and restaurants close to the river were inundated and the financial repercussions were devastating. Krumlov was back on its feet much quicker than could have been expected, however, and little trace remains of the damage.
 After a heavy lunch of roast duck and treacly beer, we strolled up to the castle to shake the previous night's lingering cobwebs from our heads. From Latran, Krumlov's main artery, a wide, sloping outer courtyard leads up to a cobbled bridge above a narrow, sheer pit, in which the fortunate may catch a glimpse of two brown bears. Bears have been kept in the pit since 1707, and have become a symbol of the town and its castle. The castle itself, the second-largest in the country after Prague Castle, consists of four courtyards, the second of which is the oldest in the complex. 
 Here a merry snowball fight erupts with some Japanese tourists, and we linger in the ankle-deep snow beneath the town's most eye-catching building, its famous &quot;Hradek&quot; with a cylindrical bell tower. The tower, with its golden flaglets and astonishingly colorful frescoed exterior, was originally built in 1257, although it first acquired its present embellishments during the 16th century, when the whole castle was given a Renaissance makeover for Vilem of Rozmberk by Italian architects, who were also responsible for many of the unique facades in the town below. Later, in the early 18th century, under landlord Josef Schwarzenburg, further improvements were made in the &quot;Wiener&quot; rococo style. 
 At the back of the castle, a steep, narrow ravine divides the crag it stands upon from the surrounding hills. This gap is spanned by the stone Plastovy Most, an astounding piece of architecture. High arches support triple arcaded galleries, the upper of which bears a cobbled carriage way from the castle's final courtyard up to the castle's lovely mansion gardens. 
 Here visitors can see the castle's theater and a baroque summer house, as well as gaining access to the lovely countryside beyond. We remained on the bridge, however, rueing our imminent departure, and soaking up the aerial view of the river's curling hairpin below us. It is this unusual geography that gives the town the name &quot;Krumlov,&quot; which came originally from the German &quot;Krumme Aue,&quot; meaning &quot;crooked meadow&quot; (&quot;Cesky&quot; means simply &quot;Czech&quot;). 
 The name's German origins are not misleading: the town had a large German population until 1945, when the vengeful Czechs forcibly expelled all German-speakers from the country, thus shedding the country of almost 3 million largely right-wing voters and effectively opening the way for the Communist takeover of 1948. 
 Krumlov's German-speaking population were not the first to have been expelled from the town, however. The town's most famous exile was probably the Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele, who at the age of 22 lived and painted in Krumlov for a few months in 1912 before being arrested for &quot;immorality and seduction&quot; and banished from the town. The suspicion of the townsfolk had been aroused by his habit of whisking young Krumlov maidens off to his studio to sit for him as nude models. The resulting watercolors had a clearly erotic quality in keeping with Schiele's personal style, which often took the form of allegorical portraits of death and sex. 
 Ironically, the town's principal art gallery is now dedicated to Schiele, and exhibits a sizable number of his paintings and sketches amongst its possessions.
 Schiele's rehabilitation is perhaps evidence of a change in attitudes towards outsiders; these days travelers hardened to the indifference of Praguers are bewildered by the relaxed and friendly attitude of Krumlov residents, who seem happy to share both tables and conversations with tourists. 
 Even given Krumlov's beauty and friendliness, however, it is the small details which often imprint themselves most clearly upon the memories of visitors. A friend once told me that one of the reasons he likes Cesky Krumlov so much is because there are no plastic door-handles. 
 That may sound like casual frippery, but he meant it in earnest. Believe it or not, what he said is absolutely true. There <i>are</i> no plastic door-handles in Cesky Krumlov. What the visitor finds instead are handles and latches made - presumably locally - from wood or iron according to traditional methods. These are found everywhere in the town, from backpacker hostels to toilet doors in bars and pubs.

TITLE: Ailing Pontiff Rushed Back Into Hospital
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VATICAN CITY- Pope John Paul II was rushed to hospital in an ambulance Thursday suffering from a relapse of the flu, a fever and congestion, the Vatican said, a day after the pontiff made his longest public appearance since being discharged from the clinic two weeks ago.
 
The 84-year-old pontiff had the same symptoms of the breathing crisis that sent him to Gemelli Polyclinic on Feb. 1, a Vatican official said on condition of anonymity.
 Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the pope was taken to the Rome hospital for &quot;necessary specialized assistance and further tests.&quot; He was taken by ambulance at 10:45 a.m., officials said.
 Vatican officials played down the seriousness of the hospitalization, saying a patient of the pope's age is always at risk from the flu. The pope also has Parkinson's disease and crippling knee and hip ailments.
 But aides said on condition of anonymity that the pope had a fever, congestion and had suffered a relapse of breathing problems.
 The Italian news agency ANSA reported that the pope arrived conscious at Gemelli in a private ambulance. He was taken inside in a stretcher, the report said, and quoted people who saw him enter the hospital as saying his face looked &quot;quite relaxed.&quot; The news agency said he did not need a tube inserted into his windpipe to assist breathing.
 A medical health bulletin was to be issued Friday morning, and no details on the pope's health were expected to be released before that, the Vatican said. Thursday's hospitalization was the pope's 10th since his election in 1978.
 Rome has been particularly cold, wet and windy in recent days. The pope has twice appeared at his open studio window to address crowds in St. Peter's Square since his Feb. 10 discharge from the hospital, where he had been treated for breathing difficulties following a bout with the flu.
 But the pope failed to show up Thursday morning for a scheduled meeting on new candidates for sainthood. No explanation was given for his absence and the ceremony went ahead, presided by the Vatican's No. 2 official, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
 The pope had been convalescing after his hospitalization but had appeared to be making a rebound. At each new public appearance, he appeared stronger, more alert, and his voice was clearer.
 On Wednesday, the pope wheezed and looked gaunt but managed to make his longest public appearance since leaving the hospital.
 The Vatican originally had planned for the frail pontiff to address pilgrims in St. Peter's Square from his apartment window but decided instead on a video hookup because of the rain and winds.
 In all, the pope followed the audience for 30 minutes. Fully alert, he waved and gave his blessing at the end.
 Because of his ailments, there has long been speculation that John Paul might consider resigning. That debate was fueled during his hospitalization when Cardinal Sodano declined to rule out that possibility, saying it was up to the pope's &quot;conscience.&quot;
 The Gemelli Polyclinic has taken in John Paul so often that the hospital has been dubbed by the Italian press &quot;The Third Vatican,&quot; after the seat of the Holy See on St. Peter's Square and the pope's summer residence in the town of Castel Gandolfo.

TITLE: Palestine Parliament Approves Cabinet
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Palestinian parliament on Thursday approved a Cabinet dominated by professional appointees, in a major move toward long-promised government reform.
 
The 54-12 vote, with four abstentions, ended days of wrangling between rebellious legislators and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, who initially sought to reappoint political cronies from the Arafat era.
 On Wednesday, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas intervened in the dispute between parliament and his prime minister, and persuaded legislators from his Fatah Party to support a Cabinet largely consisting of ministers chosen for their expertise, not political loyalty.
 The crisis strengthened Abbas and weakened Qureia, who may not survive as prime minister beyond parliamentary elections in July, after which a new Cabinet would be formed. After Yasser Arafat's death in November, Abbas and Qureia cooperated during a transition period, but relations have cooled since then.
 Abbas won Jan. 9 presidential elections in part on a promise to reform the government and the security services, and the new Cabinet could help him in the job.
 Virtually all the new ministers are experts in the field they are to oversee, including 10 with doctorates, a medical doctor, a lawyer, several engineers and several with master's degrees.
 The names were chosen in Wednesday's meeting between Abbas and Fatah legislators, said Abbas Zaki, a top Fatah official. &quot;We had about 100 names of top professionals, and we chose them one-by-one, not through voting, but by consensus, as the best to handle these posts,&quot; he said.
 The method stood in stark contrast to the formation of Cabinets in the Arafat era, when he would choose the ministers based on loyalty.
 &quot;It's a turning point in the rationale, the approach and the methodology of forming Cabinets, in going beyond political patronage... and to look for people who can deliver,&quot; said legislator Hanan Ashrawi.
 Among the key appointments are Nasser Yousef, a tough ex-general, as interior minister who would oversee security reform and try to rein in Palestinian militants. Nasser Al-Kidwa, the former Palestinian representative to the United Nations and an Arafat nephew, was chosen as foreign minister.
 Salam Fayyad, the Palestinians' widely respected finance minister for the last three years, will keep his job. Saeb Erekat will continue in his role as chief negotiator with Israel, but will lose his Cabinet position.
 In Israel, meanwhile, the Yediot Ahronot daily reported Thursday that police expect most Jewish settlers will resist evacuation from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, and are girding for an array of extreme scenarios that include attacks on Israeli and Palestinian public figures, and threats of mass suicide.
 Police didn't comment on the report.
 The report, citing a secret document police submitted to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, said that contrary to their public declarations, police don't expect most settlers to leave voluntarily.


TITLE: Washington Ready to Test Bird Flu Vaccine
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON - The federal government is getting ready to test a bird flu vaccine and stockpiling both vaccine and antiviral drugs as the threat grows that a deadly strain of avian influenza will begin spreading from Asia.
 
Two million doses of vaccine are being stored in bulk form for possible emergency use and to test whether it maintains its potency, officials said Wednesday.
 United Nations officials warned that the Asian bird flu outbreak poses the &quot;gravest possible danger&quot; of becoming a global pandemic.
 Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the National Press Club this week that &quot;it is a worrisome situation,&quot; though she also said the United States &quot;is not immediately on the brink of an avian flu epidemic.&quot;
 The flu has affected poultry in eight Asian countries, with 45 human deaths among people who caught the illness, a strain of flu known as H5N1.
 So far, humans appear to have caught this flu from chickens and other poultry, and the virus is not known to have spread from person to person.
 What health authorities most fear is that the virus will mutate into a form that can pass easily from one human to another. That's when a global threat would be most likely. In Europe, a program called Flupan is under way with Sanofi, European Union agencies and the University of Reading in England working on a bird flu vaccine for clinical study.

TITLE: Bush Plugs
 New York
 Games Bid
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - U.S. President George W. Bush boosted New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics, sending a message of assurance Wednesday to an International Olympic Commission group that the U.S. government was prepared to help cover security costs - which soared above $1 billion in Athens last year. 
 
Later, the group was wooed by Meryl Streep, Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg and heard Wynton Marsalis play at a Jazz at Lincoln Center performance - followed by a surprise fireworks display. 
 &quot;Our city is your city,&quot; Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the group, &quot;but the honor is ours.&quot;
 The evening of entertainment followed a day of meetings at the Plaza Hotel, which is the IOC Evaluation Commission's temporary home. 
 In a morning session featuring the Bush videotaped greeting, Governor George Pataki and Bloomberg answered questions from the commission on issues from security to financing to construction of a new stadium considered key to the city's bid for the Summer Games. 
 The pair were accompanied by Roland Betts, a Yale classmate of Bush and the president's choice as a member of the board of directors for the New York Committee on the Olympic Games. He spoke with the IOC panel about the government's commitment to covering spiraling security costs for the Games. 
 &quot;The federal guarantee is not tied to a number,&quot; Betts told a morning news conference. 
 The government was financially committed to &quot;whatever degree necessary to make it work,&quot; Betts added. 
 That's a number likely to grow larger across the next seven years. The cost of security for last year's Athens Games, the first in the summer since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, totaled $1.44 billion. Just two years earlier, in Salt Lake City, the total security bill was $310 million. 
 Bush's videotaped greeting to the Evaluation Commission came as the president was traveling in Europe. Betts described it as &quot;very warm, very friendly and very well received&quot; by a commission that's already met with Queen Elizabeth II of England and King Juan Carlos of Spain. 
 The evening's entertainment included musical performances and a selection of clips of New York City scenes in movies, shown to the group in a room with views of Central Park South and Broadway. 
 &quot;We have Asian people making pizza, we have Italian people serving soul food,&quot; Goldberg told the group. &quot;You are not going to see that any place else.&quot;
 The commission will not speak with the media about the New York bid until Thursday, when its four-day stay is complete. The commission already has visited London and Madrid, with stops to come in Moscow and Paris, before the winning city is announced July 6 in Singapore. 
 Pataki told the IOC group that he couldn't attend the mayoral dinner because of a conflict upstate: an event marking the 25th anniversary of the U.S. hockey team's gold medal victory in 1980. The governor also expressed his support for a new stadium on the West Side of Manhattan.