SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1076 (42), Tuesday, June 7, 2005
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Attacks
 Mar City 
 Weekend
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg was witness to a series of violent nationalist and politically motivated incidents during the weekend. 
 
On Friday, the headquarters of the office of human rights group Soldiers' Mothers was broken into and robbed, while racist posters and slogans were plentiful at Saturday's Russia-Latvia football match. A Latvian journalist covering the game was beaten up and robbed.
 Ella Polyakova, head of Soldiers' Mothers, said used clothes collected for Chechen refugees had been strewn throughout the organization's office, the safe and drawers had been opened and their contents were turned upside down.
 She was in shock when she saw the mess left by unknown burglars in the group's office in central St. Petersburg, near the Vladimirskaya metro station, she said.
 "It looks to me as if somebody was trying to intimidate us, but was also looking for something," Polyakova said.
 The burglars didn't touch several bottles of champagne and boxes of candies. But two telephones and a computer monitor were taken.
 The thieves left the computer itself, but two flashcards dropped nearby led the tenants to think that the contents of the computer had been copied and taken away.
 Asked who she thought was behind the attack, Polyakova sighed and said the list of suspects is endless. 
 "We constantly find ourselves under huge pressure, as our organization is a thorn in many people's sides," Polyakova said. 
 Soldiers' Mothers opposes the armed conflict in Chechnya, educates potential conscripts and their families how to fight against hazing and bribes in the army and how to legally evade conscription.
 At the moment, the organization is involved in two high-profile court cases. One case involves marines who deserted saying they had been abused and hazed by their seniors in Kronshtadt. The other case involves alleged physical abuse of cadets at the Nakhimov Navy School.
 "Our office has been raided and robbed a few times before, and the attackers were never found, " Polyakova said. "But the barbarian style of this invasion was really disgusting."
 The rhetoric of posters and slogans at the World Cup qualifying football match at the city's Petrovsky Stadium on Saturday went far beyond being merely competitive toward a sports rival. 
 "Dead donkey ears," a reference to President Vladimir Putin's comment last month about what Estonia and Latvia were likely to get for their territorial claims, was among the most colorful insults. 
 Latvia has already accused the Russian fans of abusing the visiting sportsmen. 
 Krisvanis Klavins, spokesman for the Latvian Football Association, said that "there were three separate incidents involving Russian supporters abusing Latvia" and "many Latvian supporters were threatened by Russians," Reuters reported.
 Latvian sportsmen were addressed as "Nazis" and "fascists" by some fans. The slogan "Our MIGs in your Riga" looked like a political threat. The police didn't take any action against people holding offensive posters. About 3,000 police provided security at the match.
 The references to Nazis and fascists were to Latvia's tolerance of marches by Latvian veterans of a German Wafer SS unit that fought against the Red Army. Riga says their citizens were forced to fight on the German and Soviet sides during World War II and that the SS veterans had tried to preserve Latvia's independence.
 Klavins said he was hit from behind by a group of Russian fans as he was walking with some Latvians to the stadium, Reuters reported.
 "During the under-21 game, Russian fans were calling us 'fascists' and 'Nazis'. At the senior game, the crowd was chanting 'Latvia sucks'," he said.
 "I don't think it's appropriate to use such slogans in international matches. Also, many of our supporters were threatened by Russians."
 In a peculiar twist, the offensive insults of local fans were addressed to ethnic Russians. Most players in the Latvian team have Russian surnames - Stepanov, Astafyev, Smirnov, Isakov, Prokhorenkov - and are even ethnically Russian, which can't be said of all members of their rival team. The Latvian coach is Yury Andreyev.
 In a different incident, Arturs Vaiders, a sports journalist with the Latvian newspaper Diena, was severely beaten and robbed Friday night by a man in a car whom the reporter had asked to take him to his hotel after touring the city. 
 The driver took him to a different place, beat him up and robbed Vaiders of his credit cards and a digital camera. 
 The journalist is undergoing treatment in Riga's Galilees Hospital, where he will have to stay until the end of this week. 
 Yuly Rybakov, a human rights advocate and founder of the new human rights radio station Free Voice, said the dangers of growing nationalism are still underestimated by the Russian public. 
 The trend deserves much greater attention, as Russia's social and political environment provides a fertile ground for racism, extremism and nationalism, he said.
 "Widespread poverty, low life expectancy and plummeting population levels make most Russians feel weak as a nation, and all that isn't going to get any better in the near future," Rybakov said.
 Some Russians see aggression toward foreigners as some kind of a defense gesture, he added. 
 "To simply reproduce the current population level, every Russian family must have eight or nine children. Otherwise, migrants will eventually dominate the country. This prospect looks scary to many natives."

TITLE: Kremlin Plans English-Language Satellite TV Station
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - The Kremlin plans to launch an English-language satellite television channel in September that will provide around-the-clock news to audiences in Europe, the United States and Asia.
 
The channel, named Russia Today, appears to be the brainchild of Mikhail Lesin, a media adviser to President Vladimir Putin and formerly the press minister, and Putin's press secretary, Alexei Gromov.
 Lesin has often called for a channel that would counter Western criticism of Russia, and the RIA-Novosti state news agency announced Thursday that work had begun to create such a channel.
 Margarita Simonyan, a 25-year-old Kremlin pool reporter at Rossia state television, was named the channel's editor, Izvestia and Vedomosti reported Monday. 
 According to one of the organizers of the project, commercial banks will bankroll the channel, loaning it $25 million to $30 million by the end of the year, Vedomosti said. The person was not identified.
 The plan received a mixed welcome from media analysts, who warned that if it were merely a propaganda effort it would be a waste of money.
 Russia Today will also be broadcast in Russia and the former Soviet Union, RIA-Novosti said in a statement that its foreign bureaus sent to media organizations abroad.
 "RIA-Novosti is playing an active role in establishing Russia Today, which will provide viewers with up-to-date reports on the most important global events, reflect Russia's position on key issues in world politics, and inform people about events in Russian life today," the agency said.
 Reached by telephone Monday, a spokeswoman for RIA-Novosti in Moscow said she was unaware of the statement, but the agency's London office made it available to The Moscow Times.
 The channel could be aimed at answering criticism from the United States and Europe, including comments that the Kremlin's abolition of direct regional elections represents a rollback of democracy. 
 Simonyan, a native of Krasnodar, started her career as a reporter on a provincial television station in southern Russia seven years ago, according to her resume posted on the Rossia television web site. She moved to work as a Kremlin correspondent for Rossia's "Vesti" news show after heading "Vesti"'s bureau in Rostov.
 "A number of countries have channels like this, and it has been long overdue for Russia to have one as well ... to make its position known to Western countries and the rest of the world," Simonyan said late Monday.
 Russia Today has already begun recruiting staff, placing an advertisement in Britain's Guardian newspaper on May 29. "A new English-language 24-hour broadcast news channel based in Moscow is recruiting presenters and broadcast journalists in anticipation of a September 2005 launch," the ad said. "We are seeking trained journalists who have a passion for making live news with flashy and fresh thinking."
 Mike Payne, who answered an e-mailed inquiry addressed to the recruitment ad, confirmed Monday that it was for Russia Today.
 In an effort to suggest that the channel would be independent of the Kremlin, RIA-Novosti announced that a public council "made up of famous Russian and foreign public figures, journalists, artists, scientists and businessmen" would define the channel's editorial policy.
 Vedomosti said Russia Today was the brainchild of Lesin and Gromov.
 Lesin said through his secretary on Monday that he would not comment immediately, while Gromov could not be reached for comment.
 Vedomosti reported Monday that the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, Rossia television's parent company, would cooperate with Russia Today on some projects.
 Izvestia said a total of about 200 reporters from RIA-Novosti and Rossia would most likely form the backbone of the new channel, which the newspaper dubbed "the Russian CNN." The channel would broadcast from studios in a RIA-Novosti building, the paper said.
 Russia Today could start its coverage by broadcasting Putin's speech at the United Nations scheduled for September, Vedomosti reported.
 Igor Yakovenko, head of the Union of Journalists, said it typically costs $100 million per year to run a television channel in Russia. But that figure could be less in the case of Russia Today if Rossia and RIA-Novosti helped in its production, he said.
 Yakovenko said the money would be wasted if Russia Today did not win the confidence of its viewers. However, that it was logical for Russia to have a propaganda channel as long as it told the truth, and said that many other countries had similar media. He cited the U.S. government-funded Voice of America as an example.
 Manana Aslamazyan, director of Internews Russia, a media freedom watchdog, welcomed the idea of creating the channel. She said it was an ambitious project that could do much toward improving Russia's image internationally, but warned of difficulties the founders might encounter.
 "Once launched, the station will face competition from reputable well-established channels such as CNN International and BBC World, which work in accordance with certain standards of international news broadcasting that suggest timely, objective and balanced reporting," she said..
 Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank, said that the channel might simply put out a translation of Russian state television.
 "The main question is what the Kremlin wants Russia Today to look like. My feeling is that it will be an exported version of Channel One or Rossia. ... As a result, it is quite possible that no one will watch it," he said.

TITLE: New Times Loom for Fabled Lefortovo Prison
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - When Lefortovo is removed from the Federal Security Service and, placed like all other penitentiary facilities, under the jurisdiction of the Justice Ministry, the legend of the much-feared, high-security prison may finally draw to a close.
 
At Lefortovo, prisoners suffer extreme isolation, and routine prison regulations are followed to a depressing degree. But this also can make time spent there more tolerable, former inmates say.
 "I feel a strange pity for the place. After the FSB gives it away, the super-orderly Lefortovo will turn into a regular stinking jail," said writer Eduard Limonov, who spent 15 months in Lefortovo in 2002 and 2003 as the FSB investigated his radical National Bolshevik Party.
 Justice Minister Yury Chaika announced at a meeting with the Council of Europe's commissioner on human rights, Alvaro Gil-Robles, in late May that his ministry would be taking over Lefortovo and other penal facilities that have remained with the FSB.
 The transfer was a condition for Russia's admission in 1996 to the Council of Europe, which demanded that Russia separate investigating agencies from detention facilities where inmates could be subject to pressure from investigators. The Interior Ministry transferred its prisons and other penitentiary facilities to the Justice Ministry in 1998.
 "The one who is trying to prove your guilt is the one who is keeping you. He is also the one who eavesdrops on you and collects compromising material on you 24 hours a day," lawyer and human rights activist Karina Moskalenko told Gazeta.ru last week, saying that such practices violate the concept of a lawful state. 
 A spokesman for the FSB, Alexander Murashov, said the transfer of Lefortovo to the Justice Ministry would be done gradually and no deadline was imposed for its completion. Whether Lefortovo changes, will depend upon whether the prison personnel stay after the transfer is complete.
 "Regulations are all the same at any prison, but we manage to keep Lefortovo as a model facility, not like any other Russian prison," he said. 
 Murashov denied a request to speak with prison personnel or visit the prison. 
 Hidden behind a high fence crowned by concertina wire, Lefortovo's three-story building of yellow brick, shaped like a giant K if seen from above, has held many of the country's most famous prisoners, from political dissidents of the Soviet era to suspected spies of more recent years.
 Recent inmates include diplomat Valentin Moiseyev, who was accused of spying for South Korea; metals magnate Anatoly Bykov, accused of ordering the murder of a former business partner; Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who later defected to Britain; senior Yukos managers Platon Lebedev and Alexei Pichugin; scientist Igor Sutyagin, convicted of spying for the United States; and Mikhail Kodanev, a former co-chairman of the Liberal Russia party, who was convicted of ordering the murder of the liberal State Duma Deputy Sergei Yushenkov.
 But it was Limonov who gave the most detailed and vivid account of the prison in a book he wrote while there, "In Dead Men's Captivity."
 "Lefortovo is, I would say, a very lonely prison. They isolate you from everyone but your cellmate, and for people used to active socializing it is extremely difficult to stay in Lefortovo," Limonov said. Regular criminals whom he had met in Lefortovo preferred other Moscow jails despite much worse conditions and overcrowding, he said.
 Another writer who described Lefortovo was Nobel Prize laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In his seminal "Gulag Archipelago," he wrote that in the 1940s there were "psychic" cells in Lefortovo, painted all black inside and with an electric light that was never turned off. A roar from a wind tunnel built at the nearby Central Air and Hydrodynamcs Institute also tortured inmates, he wrote.
 Writer Yevgenia Ginzburg, who was kept in Lefortovo during Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s, wrote in her book "Steep Route" that loud tractor engines were often running in the courtyard of the prison to deaden the screams of prisoners being shot in the basement. 
 
 
<b>Quiet and 'Lifeless'
 </b>
Those who have been inside in recent years say that today it is the most quiet and tranquil prison in Russia.
 
&quot;I have been in hundreds of prisons, and Lefortovo is the only one that does not have that stale stink of tobacco inside,&quot; said Alexander Borodulin, a prison inspector at the office of the Russian ombudsman. &quot;No one screams inside and no one beats on cell doors.&quot;
 Limonov said the noisiest time is from 8 a.m. until noon, when inmates are allowed to take daily hourlong solitary walks in tiny cubicles in a fenced yard on the prison's roof. Radio music is switched on at full volume to prevent inmates from talking between the cubicles, he said.
 In their cells, inmates can switch the radio on or off and adjust the volume, he said. Also, they are allowed to have television sets.
 Lefortovo can hold 200 inmates but is rarely filled to half of its capacity, Borodulin said, adding that Lefortovo is perhaps the only prison in Russia where inmates enjoy the four square meters of space they are entitled to by law. 
 None of the inmates he saw during a visit to Lefortovo in December complained to him about bad treatment, he said. The ombudsman's office, which was established in early 1997, said it had never received a complaint from a Lefortovo inmate, while they receive plenty from those in other prisons.
 Most cells are designed to house three people but rarely are there more than two, Borodulin and former inmates said. There are also a few solitary cells and two cells for six inmates. In other Moscow prisons, dozens of people can be crammed into a single cell.
 Vladimir Linderman, another NBP activist who spent 19 days in Lefortovo in 2003, called the place &quot;lifeless,&quot; but said that the strict adherence to formal routine by prison personnel makes many abuses inherent to other prisons impossible.
 &quot;My cellmate was dreaming about getting into another prison where he could see other people. He tried to speak to the guards, but this is impossible. These people are like machines, polite by cold and formal,&quot; he said.
 Linderman said the FSB did not want anyone to know about his arrest, and only because the Lefortovo administration adhered to the rules and sent out his letters in a timely fashion was he able to inform his friends. 
 Former inmates said the guards took great pains to prevent inmates from even seeing other inmates. 
 While escorting them when they were called to interrogations or moved from one cell to another, the guards used tiny clackers to inform other guards of their movement. If two escorts were about to meet, one would put the inmate he was guarding into one of many black wooden cabinets that stand along the prison passages.
 Nina Silina, also an NBP activist, said that in the 15 months she spent in Lefortovo, only once did she see another inmate, apart from her cellmates, when she glanced through an open door into the interrogation room as she was led by.
 Both Limonov and Silina said that people without an intellectual background quickly sank into apathy in Lefortovo. Limonov said none of his three cellmates would go out for the daily walk or do physical exercise.
 &quot;Once my cellmate was a woman who would spend all her time in a bed, watching television,&quot; said Silina. &quot;That was all she did for weeks.&quot;
 While not allowed to see much, prisoners are closely watched, former inmates said. The prison passages are covered with carpets, which muffle the steps of the guards who peer into the cells through the inspection holes every two to three minutes, they said.
 The FSB also often plants informants in the cells, according to former inmates. Silina said she had spent nine months in a cell with a woman whom she later saw on television testifying against a Chechen woman, Zarema Muzhikhoyeva, who was convicted in 2004 on terrorism charges. Silina said she was confident the woman was an FSB informer.
 Edmond Pope, a U.S. businessman sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2000 on espionage charges and later pardoned by President Vladimir Putin, said that during the eight months he had spent in Lefortovo he had once tested his cellmate, whom he had suspected of being an informant. &quot;The informant forces you to talk about things that are of interest for investigators,&quot; he said by telephone from State College, Pennsylvania. &quot;I tested him and it worked: At the next interrogation, I understood that the investigator was aware of our conversation in the cell.&quot;
 In Lefortovo, inmates suffer from enormous psychological and mental strain because of the isolation, uncertainty and the prison's total control over their lives, Pope said.
 Pope said he never suffered any physical violence, but he saw other inmates taken from his cell for interrogation return with marks of physical abuse, such as bruises and scars.
 He said he had been subjected to more subtle forms of intimidation, such as having rocks or even drugs put in his food.
 None of the NBP activists said they were abused themselves or witnessed others being physically abused.
 
 
<b>An Uncertain Past
 </b>
Owned by the secret services for many decades, Lefortovo remains the most secretive prison in Russia. While journalists can get into other Moscow prisons, they have only been allowed inside Lefortovo once, in 1993 for a press conference.
 
Since the first years of Soviet rule, Lefortovo belonged to the secret police, which changed names several times until 1954 when it became known by the abbreviation KGB.
 In 1994, jurisdiction over Lefortovo was transferred to the Interior Ministry.
 In 1997, control over the prison was returned to the FSB.

TITLE: Yanukovych Questioned Over Funds </strong>
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV - Ukrainian investigators questioned former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych on Monday in connection with the alleged mishandling of government funds, an interrogation the opposition leader said was politically motivated. 
 
Yanukovych was summoned before anti-organized crime investigators to testify about last year's transfer of 4.8 million hryvna ($950,000) from the state budget to the airport in his hometown of Donetsk. 
 He turned up more than half an hour late for his scheduled questioning, and entered the police building with his lawyer, Olena Lukash. 
 &quot;In my opinion, authorities use such methods to distract society's attention from the growing problems in our country,&quot; Yanukovych said as he entered the building, adding that he considered his summons &quot;a political order.&quot;
 He emerged after more than three hours of questioning, repeating that he has nothing to fear &quot;because I don't consider myself guilty.&quot;
 No charges were filed against him, though Yanukovych acknowledged that he could be summoned again &quot;at any time, on any day.&quot;
 Police declined to comment. 
 Yanukovych had ignored two previous summons, complaining that the first was issued via the media. He didn't explain why he skipped the second summons, but this time Interior Ministry officials sent the notice to Yanukovych's lawyer and to the headquarters of his political party, Party of the Regions. 
 Yanukovych lost a bitterly contested presidential election last year after the Supreme Court annulled his victory on grounds of massive fraud and ordered a revote that was won by pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko. 
 He remains the main figurehead of the opposition. 
 Last month, Ukrainian prosecutors questioned Yanukovych over the business dealings of Borys Kolesnikov, a jailed regional official, but no charges were brought. 
 Yushchenko, inaugurated in January, has pledged to hold his former adversaries accountable for the corruption and links to organized crime that plagued former President Leonid Kuchma's decade-long tenure. 
 Yushchenko has pointed to Yanukovych's native Donetsk region, where voters turned out in force to support Yanukovych in last year's presidential race, as having one of the worst records of corruption.

TITLE: Solzhenitsyn Regrets Lack
 Of Democracy in Russia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Nobel Prize-winning writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn lamented the state of politics and government in a rare televised interview Sunday, saying it will take many years before the country has anything resembling democracy. 
 
The 86-year-old author, who rose to prominence for his accounts of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's repression and labor camps, criticized the parties that dominate politics. 
 Speaking on the &quot;Vesti Nedelyi&quot; program on state-run Rossiya television, he repeated his mantra that democracy must come from the bottom up - which he said was not happening in Russia today. 
 &quot;If they are going to take away our democracy, they can take away only what we have. But if we have nothing, then nothing can be taken away,&quot; he said. &quot;We have already taken everything from the people. ... We have nothing that resembles democracy. 
 &quot;We are trying to build democracy without self-governance,&quot; he said, according to a transcript of the interview. &quot;Before anything, we must begin to build a system so that the people can manage their own destinies.&quot;
 Solzhenitsyn, whose best-known works include &quot;One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich&quot; and &quot;Gulag Archipelago,&quot; appeared thin, but he spoke energetically and often gestured with emotion, though only with his right arm. 
 His profile as a moral arbiter and a literary star have declined since he returned to Russia in 1994, taking a train across the country and criticizing the corruption and poverty of post-Soviet Russia. He has kept a lower profile in recent years, giving few interviews and issuing few public statements. 
 In his last televised interview, in 2002, Solzhenitsyn lashed out at President Vladimir Putin for failing to crack down on tycoons who snapped up state enterprises in the scandal-tainted privatizations of the 1990s.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: The Repressed Recalled
 </b>

ST.PETERSBURG (SPT) - About 150 people on Saturday took part in a memorial meeting dedicated to victims of political repressions, Interfax reported.
 Former political prisoners, their relatives and human rights advocates gathered on Naberezhnaya Robespera for the meeting, organized by human rights group Memorial. Traditionally, the meeting commemorating victims of political repression takes place every year on the first Saturday in June. It has been held since 1987.
 
 
<b>Electricity Supply Eyed
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - City authorities are planning to conduct a series of control check-ups at the most socially important objects to estimate how well they are prepared for a electricity failure, Interfax reported.
 Citing Alexander Bobrov, head of the City Hall's committee for energy and engineering, the agency said that before the end of this year his office will complete the General Plan For Electricity Supply until 2015. Regular equipment tests will make an integral part of the program aimed at improving safety standards of energy supply. Bobrov said all the checks and testing procedures will be finished before the start of the heating season.
 
 
<b>Many Don't Read News
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Twenty-six percent of Russians and 24 percent of Muscovites don't read press on regular basis, according to a recent research of Yury Levada Analytical Center, Interfax reported. A survey showed that 28 percent of respondents strongly prefer reading regional lightweight commercial publications focusing on entertainment. Every fifth respondent out of almost 2,500 people polled by the Levada's center in May, said they prefer weekly publications, while another 12 percent said they read only local dailies with strong coverage of political and social events.
 The top five most popular publications in 2004 were "Argumenty i Fakty," "Komsomolskaya Pravda," "Speed-Info," "Moskovsky Komsomolets" and "Zhizn."
 
 
<b>Louvre Eyes Novgorod
 </b>

NOVGOROD (SPT) - The famous Louvre museum in Paris is planning to put on a joint project in collaboration with the Novgorod museum-estate and several other Russian museums, Interfax reported.
 The issue was discussed during a recent visit of a Louvre's top curator to Novgorod. Natalya Gormina, chief curator with the Novgorod museum-estate, told Interfax that the Louvre expressed significant interest in organizing a joint retrospective exhibition focusing on Russian art from the Middle Ages. The project's tentative title is "Holy Russia," and it is set to open in Paris in the first half of 2008. Russia's top museums, including the State Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery and the State Hermitage Museum are expected to take part in the exhibition.
 
 
<b>Plea to Antique Thieves
 </b>

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The city's law enforcement bodies have asked the thieves who stole antiques from the Kunstkamera museum on May 29 to anonymously return them, web site Fontanka.ru reported.
 The investigators said the items are fragile and at high risk of complete destruction.
 The police said the stolen objects can be returned through a mediator or deposit box. They can be contacted at 8-901-372-25-85 or 906-16-89.

TITLE: Putin Gives UES' Chubais a Dressing Down
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Saturday gave Anatoly Chubais a public dressing down over last month's power outage, accused Unified Energy Systems management of incompetence, and called for an investigation into the electricity monopoly's tax payments and spending.
 
Putin's comments prompted two top managers at UES subsidiary Mosenergo to resign. 
 &quot;I would like to draw the attention of the prime minister to the cynicism and obvious professional unsuitability of the leadership of Mosenergo,&quot; Putin said in televised comments at an expanded Security Council meeting, according to a transcript on the Kremlin web site.
 Mosenergo general director Arkady Yevstafyev, a longtime Chubais associate, and his deputy Vladislav Nazin resigned later Saturday, UES said in a statement.
 Power went out in large parts of Moscow, as well as in the Moscow, Tula, Kaluga and Ryazan regions, on May 25, stranding passengers on the metro, trams and trolleybuses and forcing businesses to close for several hours. A rolling blackout began after a fire and equipment failure at the Chagino substation south of Moscow late on May 24, and power was fully restored only about 40 hours later.
 Chubais, who attended the meeting, came under attack over his leadership of the company, despite Putin's acknowledging that revenues had risen at the company since Chubais took over in 1998.
 &quot;We did not stop UES from appointing new people to key posts in the electricity system,&quot; Putin said, as Chubais turned red. &quot;But ... it is not enough simply to be a good economist. ... One also needs to be a professional in order to understand the importance of each little cog in the country's huge energy system.&quot;
 Timely repairs on four &quot;cheap little&quot; transformers, which cost 180,000 rubles ($6,400) each, would have averted the outage, Putin said, citing a report by the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Atomic Supervision about the accident.
 UES had allocated the money but the repairs did not happen quickly enough, Putin said.
 Chubais said after the blackout that he would not step down unless the company's shareholders asked him to, noting that the government was the majority shareholder. 
 Prosecutors are investigating whether any officials at UES and Mosenergo were guilty of criminal negligence.
 Chubais is a founder of the pro-business Union of Right Forces party, or UES, and is credited with being the mastermind behind the country's 1990s controversial privatization program that transferred a large chunk of the country's wealth to a handful of well-connected businessmen.
 UES board member Leonid Gozman said Saturday that the company would improve its performance. &quot;The replacement of specific managers is just one small part of the efforts that will be made by UES and its subsidiaries,&quot; he said, RIA-Novosti reported. &quot;As a result of these efforts, Russia's energy system will become more reliable.&quot;
 Appearing to anticipate reports of antiquated equipment and a lack of investment at UES, Putin insisted that the company had the resources to modernize. &quot;Just don't speak today about insufficient funding or lack of money,&quot; he said angrily, stating that UES had posted a net profit of about 55 billion rubles, or $2 billion, in 2004.
 Putin also criticized the Industry and Energy Ministry for failing to control UES's activities and called for a financial investigation into the company that would answer how much it pays in taxes and how it spends revenues from the sale of noncore assets. 
 &quot;How is it that major pieces of real estate, in Moscow, in the city center, end up with owners on Cyprus?&quot; Putin said, apparently referring to the proceeds of UES asset sales. 
 Putin said he was &quot;surprised&quot; that Mosenergo had sought to hike electricity prices to prevent similar outages in the future. 
 &quot;In my view, this is simply a form of blackmail designed to pursue group and corporate interests at the consumer's expense - at the expense of the entire public,&quot; Putin said.
 Mayor Yury Luzhkov said Friday that the blackout had inflicted at least 1.7 billion rubles ($60 million) in damages to the Moscow Oil Refinery and other large enterprises in the city, and said that officials had yet to calculate losses caused to small businesses and emotional distress suffered by residents.
 In a letter to UES, Luzhkov said the damages bill also included revenues lost by the city's metro system and housing maintenance agencies, as well as environmental damage caused by discharges of untreated sewage into the Moscow River, UES spokesman Andrei Trapeznikov said Friday, Interfax reported.
 Trapeznikov said that UES was ready to set up a joint commission with the city government to discuss the economic consequences of the accident.
 Meanwhile, Andrei Malyshev, head of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Atomic Supervision, said Friday that the agency had found no traces of sabotage at the Chagino substation, contradicting a claim made last week by Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who said he was responsible for the outage.
 In the latest incident to hit power supplies, an electricity transmission station in North Ossetia was shut down Friday as a result of gunfire, Interfax reported. Emergency workers put out the fire that erupted at the station, but a backup station had to work in its place, the republic's energy utility said.

TITLE: Soros: Putin
 Said to Fire
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV - U.S. billionaire George Soros said Friday that former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma was advised by President Vladimir Putin to order troops to fire on opposition protesters during last year's pro-democracy Orange Revolution.
 
He also claimed that Putin advised Uzbek President Islam Karimov to order troops to fire at protesters in Andijan, where hundreds died in what authorities described as clashes with Islamic militants.
 The comments by the philanthropist who has funded myriad democracy projects in the former Soviet Union drew sharp response from the Kremlin, which called the allegations &quot;the fruit of his imagination.&quot;
 Soros, on a tour of several former Soviet republics including Georgia and Ukraine, said Putin had counseled Kuchma to have Interior Ministry troops fire on the millions of orange-clad demonstrators who jammed Kiev's streets following the first round of the presidential election.
 &quot;Fortunately, Kuchma did not follow the advice,&quot; Soros told reporters. He provided no evidence for his claim.
 Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the accusations as inappropriate and &quot;as a whole the fruit of his imagination.&quot; &quot;Of course they have nothing in common with reality,&quot; he said.
 The peaceful mass protests last winter helped usher Viktor Yushchenko into the presidency after he defeated Kremlin-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in a court-ordered repeat of the presidential vote.
 Many politicians loyal to Kuchma and Yanukovych have accused organizations that received funding through Soros' Open Society Institute of fomenting unrest in Ukraine and in similar uprisings in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.
 In the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, government forces opened fire on protesters who gathered in a square on May 13 after an armed crowd broke into a prison, freed inmates and occupied the local government headquarters.

TITLE: U.S. Couple Lose Adopted Boy
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW - A newly adopted 3-year-old boy was taken away from his American parents at the Ukraina hotel, where they were staying, after a woman called police to report that he was being abused in a hotel cafe, an official said Friday.
 
The boy was placed in a children's home, and prosecutors are considering whether to charge the couple with child abuse, said Viktor Pronin, an assistant to the prosecutor for Moscow's Dorogomilovo District.
 The U.S. Embassy issued a harsh rebuke to Russian authorities over their handling of the case, accusing them of &quot;double standards&quot; and possibly breaking the law. 
 The embassy said in a statement that authorities forcibly removed the child from the parents' custody and questioned the parents for &quot;many hours.&quot; It also said police and prosecutors failed to call in child welfare experts to help establish the true facts of the case.
 The embassy said it was revealing that Moskovsky Komsomolets had not mentioned any of this in a front-page article that it published Friday. 
 Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that the woman who called police claimed to have seen the adoptive mother grab the boy by the throat in an attempt to keep him quiet. It published the names of the couple and their photographs under the front-page headline &quot;A Boy for Beating.&quot; Other national media quickly picked up the story.
 &quot;While the U.S. Embassy is limited in its ability to respond to these allegations because of privacy laws, the article appeared intended to further inflame growing public hysteria over foreign adoptions, obscuring the facts and ignoring Russia's own laws designed to protect the innocent children,&quot; the embassy said.
 &quot;The unusual attention to and handling of this case by Russian authorities and the Russian press suggests that a double standard exists for Americans and other foreigners with respect to child welfare,&quot; it said.
 The embassy also said Moskovsky Komsomolets and police appeared to have violated Article 155 of the Criminal Code by revealing and publishing identities and details about the case without the consent of the adoptive parents.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: CoE Criticizes
 n STRASBOURG, France (AP) - The Council of Europe stepped up its criticism of Russia's human rights record and commitment to democracy Friday, urging Moscow to honor its obligations as a member of the organization.
 "There has been very little progress regarding the outstanding commitments, including those related to the formal abolition of the death penalty ... and the obligation to bring to justice those found responsible for human rights violations, notably in relation to events in Chechnya," said a report released by the council's Parliamentary Assembly. 
 
 
<style p_au>New Green Party 
 

MOSCOW (AP) - Environmentalists from across the country gathered in Moscow on Sunday for the founding congress of a new party called Green Russia. 
 St. Petersburg's Alexander Nikitin, a former naval officer who co-authored a report on environmental dangers in the northern submarine fleet, was expected to be among the party's new leadership. 
 
 Klebnikov Suspect 
 n MOSCOW (AP) - Prosecutors have arrested a third suspect in the killing of Paul Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition, Interfax reported Friday.
 Interfax said Faik Sadreddinov, a Moscow notary, was arrested last week. The agency gave no other details.
 Klebnikov, 41, was gunned down July 9 outside the magazine's office.

TITLE: Ivanov Talks of Retaliation 
 If Weapons Put in Space
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - Taking aim at the United States, Russia's defense minister on Thursday threatened retaliatory steps if any country puts weapons in space and said Moscow won't negotiate controls over tactical nuclear arms with nations that deploy them abroad, Russian media reported. 
 
While he mentioned no country by name, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's comments reflected persistent wariness in the Russian military over U.S. intentions, despite arms control deals and increased cooperation between the Cold War foes since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. 
 &quot;Russia's position on this question has not changed for decades: We are categorically against the militarization of space,&quot; Interfax quoted Ivanov as saying during a visit to the Baikonur space launch facility in Kazakhstan. 
 &quot;If some state begins to realize such plans, then we doubtless will take adequate retaliatory measures,&quot; Itar-Tass quoted Ivanov as saying. 
 The comments came as the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush reviews the U.S. space policy doctrine. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said last month that the policy review was not considering the weaponization of space. But he said U.S. satellites must be protected against new threats he said have emerged since the U.S. space doctrine was last reviewed in 1996. 
 Moscow's concerns about space-based weapons go back to the Soviet-era space race and U.S. President Ronald Reagan's 1980s plans for a &quot;Star Wars&quot; missile defense system. 
 In 2002, after the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, China and Russia submitted a proposal for a new international treaty to ban weapons in outer space. 
 But the United States has said it sees no need for any new space arms control agreements. It is party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits stationing weapons of mass destruction in space. 
 Ivanov's comment about negotiating controls over tactical nuclear weapons was also a clear reference to the United States, which has such arms in Europe. 
 &quot;We are prepared to start talks about tactical nuclear weapons only when all countries possessing them keep these weapons on their own territory,&quot; Interfax and Itar-Tass quoted the defense minister as saying. &quot;Russia stores its tactical nuclear weapons on its own territory, which cannot be said about other countries.&quot; 
 Agencies said Ivanov was responding to calls by former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn for a Russian-American agreement providing for accountability of each other's tactical nuclear stockpiles, which have not been addressed by a series of treaties reducing strategic nuclear arms. 
 Alexander Pikayev, a nuclear expert with the Committee of Scientists for Global Security, said Russia wants to keep its tactical nuclear weapons - and keep their number secret - to compensate for inferiority in conventional weapons. 
 The Bush administration has not publicly called for an agreement on accountability and control over tactical nuclear weapons, which do not threaten U.S. territory, Pikayev said. 
 However, a hawkish former top Russian military official, Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, said that Washington had three times tried unsuccessfully to raise the issue at talks, Interfax reported. 
 Ivashov spoke out strongly against any negotiations on tactical nuclear weapons, saying information about them &quot;is perhaps the only military secret that we have,&quot; Interfax reported.

TITLE: Baikonur Launch Site Turns 50
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - Five decades after Soviet engineers turned a wind-swept corner of the remote Central Asian steppes into a secret missile launch site, President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, commemorated the anniversary of the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Thursday. 
 What was once the linchpin of the Soviet space program, sending the first Sputnik satellite and then the first man into space, is now home to the Soyuz rockets that service the international space station, shuttling crucial deliveries, along with cosmonauts and American and European astronauts. 
 At a ceremony for the 50th anniversary, Putin hailed the cosmodrome's construction in the years after World War II as &quot;a heroic feat ... of the people who had just gone through a devastating war.&quot;
 &quot;Today, Baikonur is rightly considered the world's leading cosmodrome, and it's good that its unique potential is being actively engaged and is developing consistently,&quot; Putin said. &quot;It makes a key contribution to the international space station.&quot;
 Initially designed as a testing ground for a top-secret Soviet ballistic missile program, Baikonur was a key site in Moscow's space race with the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and saw many historic firsts in exploration. 
 Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth, blasted off from here in 1957, and cosmonaut Yury Gagarin, the first man in space, was launched from Baikonur in 1961. 
 After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan inherited the cosmodrome and now leases it to Russia, which uses it as its sole launch site for manned space missions. 
 In the past two years, Baikonur has been the only gateway to the international space station.
 This is because the U.S. space shuttle fleet was grounded after Columbia disintegrated during its return to Earth, killing all seven astronauts aboard. 
 The cosmodrome extends for 85 kilometers from north to south, and for 125 kilometers east to west. It has dozens of launch pads, five tracking-control centers, nine tracking stations and a 1,500-kilometer missile test range. 
 Shortly after their arrival Thursday afternoon, Putin and Nazarbayev visited a plant where Proton rockets and satellites are assembled. Later they met with veterans of space exploration. 
 They also laid the foundation stone of a new joint Russian-Kazakh launch complex, Baiterek, for the more environmentally friendly Angara vehicle.
 The Angara is meant to be an alternative to Russian boosters now in use, some of which use poisonous fuel and litter the countryside with the debris of burned-out rocket stages. 
 The $400 million complex is expected to be completed in 2008-09. 
 The Baiterek project is seen as the result of the Kazakhs' long campaign to minimize pollution from rocket launches from their territory.
 It is also viewed as a breakthrough in the oil-rich nation's ambitious plans to become Russia's partner in space exploration. 
 Russia pays $115 million annually for the use of Baikonur under a deal effective through 2050. The two leaders also held one-on-one talks during Putin's visit - his first to the region following the bloody suppression of a revolt in Uzbekistan last month and a popular uprising in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. 
 Both events have rattled Nazarbayev and the entrenched leaders of other Central Asian nations, most of whom are authoritarian-style leaders.
 Putin announced Thursday that Russia and Kazakhstan would set up a bank with $1.5 billion in capital to support projects involving the two nations, Interfax reported. 
 Russia will contribute $1 billion in capital, while Kazakhstan will provide the rest, and the bank will be based in Almaty.


TITLE: First Lady Talks About Putin
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin usually comes home at midnight, likes to drink kefir, or yogurt, and never discusses work with his family members, first lady Lyudmila Putin revealed in an interview published Wednesday. 
 
Putin, 48, also stressed the need to fight for the rights of women, who she believes face severe discrimination in Russia, according to the lengthy interview with three Russian newspapers. She acknowledged that she also had to fight for her rights in the Putin family.
 The president's wife also complained that her husband worked late hours, forgetting that &quot;one needs not only to work, but also to live,&quot; she was quoted as saying.
 &quot;He works too hard,&quot; Putin said. &quot;All members of the family know it and that is why those who want to communicate [with him] wait for his arrival at the table with a cup of the evening kefir.&quot;
 The Putins have two daughters, Katya and Masha.
 When President Putin comes home, he may tell his family members of the day's events but leaves political questions aside.
 &quot;If you ask a question about some of his work plans, it is useless, of course. Better not to bother,&quot; Putin said.
 Nor does he ask his family for advice.
 &quot;That has never happened,&quot; Putin said, adding that her husband probably still listened to what she had to say. &quot;But he never says: 'Here I took your opinion into account.'&quot; 
 Putin lamented that Russian women were discriminated against, noting there were no women in the Cabinet. 
 &quot;One can say that the world consists of men and women, but power belongs only to men.&quot;
 Putin admitted that, like many other Russian women, she also had to defend her rights in the family.
 &quot;In my family I have always stood up for my rights and the rights of all women, but I strive not to do it aggressively,&quot; she said. &quot;Aggressive [methods], in my view, are not acceptable at any place or time. And they only hurt us, women.&quot;
 And there was no question of who wore the pants in the Putin family. Putin described her husband as the ultimate head of the family, and said that he had cut short all attempts by some to lobby through his family.


TITLE: No Agreement
 On Kurils
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO - The foreign ministers of Japan and Russia failed last week to make any headway in resolving the countries' 60-year-old territorial dispute, but agreed to forge ahead with plans for a visit to Japan this year by President Vladimir Putin. 
 
On the first day of a two-day visit, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura for talks on a dispute over the Russian-held Kuril Islands, north of Japan, that are claimed by Tokyo. 
 &quot;This is not an easy issue to find a quick, specific solution to, but we will continue our dialogue,&quot; Machimura said after the talks on May 31. 
 Hopes were high, however, for a visit by Putin to Japan by the end of the year. 
 The two were also working on a communique pledging the two nations to work together in technology, investment and other areas. 
 Later Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori would travel to St. Petersburg in June to meet Putin.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Maskhadov Kin Freed
 </b>

MOSCOW (AP) - Seven relatives of late Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov have been freed more than five months after their abduction, the Memorial human rights group said Thursday. The relatives, who include Maskhadov's elderly sister and brothers, were blindfolded by unknown kidnappers and returned Tuesday to their homes in and around Grozny, said Dmitry Grushkin, a Memorial spokesman. 
 Chechen Deputy Prosecutor Alexander Nikitin confirmed that the relatives had been freed, Interfax reported. 
 Citing witnesses, Memorial said security forces under the command of Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov had kidnapped the relatives in December. 
 
<b>
 Magnate Wins Asylum
 </b>

MOSCOW (SPT) - Metals magnate Mikhail Zhivilo, who is wanted in Russia on murder charges, has been granted political asylum in France, Vedomosti reported Thursday.
 Zhivilo, 38, a former owner of Novokuznetsky Aluminum Plant, went to France in 2000 after being sought for questioning by the Federal Security Service in connection with a plot to murder Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev. Zhivilo was briefly detained in France in 2001 but then released. 
 Zhivilo applied for asylum in France in 2000 but was granted it only in April of this year, Vedomosti said. 
 
 
<b>Uzbek Violence Probe
 </b>

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) - Uzbekistan on Thursday reiterated its refusal to allow an international inquiry into the bloody suppression of last month's uprising in Andijan but promised to let foreign diplomats monitor its investigation. 
 Foreign Minister Elyor Ganiyev said that Uzbekistan proposed setting up a working group "consisting of representatives of foreign embassies in Uzbekistan, such as the United States, France, Russia and China as well as other states directly linked to the region." 
 
 
<b>Nashi and Putin
 </b>

MOSCOW (MT) - President Vladimir Putin met with leaders of nationalist youth group Nashi, the group's spokesman said Wednesday.
 Putin met with four Nashi leaders for more than an hour Monday, speaking about "a broad range of issues of domestic and foreign policies," spokesman Ivan Mostovich said. "It is a big honor for us that the president received us." 
 A Kremlin spokesman said any meeting would be listed on the Kremlin web site, but the site did not mention it. 
 
 
<b>Military Fraud Case
 </b>

MOSCOW (MT) - Moscow prosecutors on Wednesday appealed a decision by a Moscow region court Tuesday to release on probation a former chief financier of the Army, who is serving a prison sentence on abuse of office charges. 
 Georgy Oleinik was sentenced to five years in jail in 2003 for causing $70 million worth of damages to the Defense Ministry. Oleinik was accused of putting the ministry's money into a bank that defaulted in 1998.
 Oleinik was eligible for parole after serving half of his sentence. Prosecutors said Wednesday that Oleinik had not paid the damages ordered by the court, Interfax reported.

TITLE: Krasnoyarsk's Lost Boys
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: KRASNOYARSK - Every day, Oksana Korshunova drives to the 3-meter-deep sewage pipe about one kilometer from her house. She squats on the rim and stares into the charred hole, straining to imagine how her son, Maxim, got down there and what happened to him before he did.
 
She has gone over it day and night for weeks, a hideous loop of film that keeps replaying in the back of her brain.
 The 11-year-old came home from school, then dashed out to play with his friend Sasha from downstairs. It was 4 p.m., possibly 4:30, on April 16. How many times had Korshunova watched absently as her only son shuffled out the door? Listened to the boys' shouts and giggles filtering up through an open window, then dwindling into the distance as they picked up reinforcements and went over to the schoolyard to swing?
 That evening, when Maxim didn't come home for dinner, Korshunova went down to the courtyard, blinking into the empty dusk. She wasn't alone. Sasha's parents, Larisa and Pyotr Lavrenov, came down about the same time. Then the parents of Safar Aliyev, Galash Mamedgasanov and Dmitry Makarov walked up. None of the five boys had returned that evening.
 The parents alerted the neighbors and split up the work. They looked through all the neighboring courtyards, went up to the school, fanned out into the nearby junkyards and industrial plants. 
 Three days later, police joined the search, making their way up to the river, even sending motorboats out to deserted islands.
 Over the next few weeks, photographs of five skinny, smiling boys, ages 9 to 12, appeared all over the country. After an all-points bulletin was issued, 18,000 police officers from Siberia to Moscow checked more than 15,000 basements and attics and more than 45,000 homes. Thousands of wells were inspected; a psychic was commissioned. 
 The mystery ended May 8, when a pile of small bodies, burned so badly that they were little more than blackened bones and fragments of bones, was found at the bottom of the empty concrete sewage well. Or perhaps, that's when the mystery began.
 There are only two possibilities, police say. The boys climbed down into the pipe themselves and accidentally touched off a firestorm of methane gas and old fuel oil, perhaps while sniffing aerosol fumes or trying to light a small bonfire. (This imagines five boys crowding into a space barely a meter and a half in diameter.) Or they were killed somewhere else, and their bodies were torched in the abandoned collector.
 
 
<b>30,000 Missing a Year
 </b>
It is part of post-Soviet Russia's nightmare that there are many such mysteries, though few with such bleak endings. An estimated 30,000 children go missing each year, most of them runaways who flee the miseries of the nation's underfunded orphanages or the homes of alcoholic or abusive parents.
 
In 2003, authorities picked up 620,000 children wandering without supervision in the streets. More than 2,100 children were reported missing last year in the Krasnoyarsk region, home to 3.5 million people. Of those, 25 were found dead and 178 are missing.
 Many runaways make their way to Moscow, where those as young as 10 or 12 can be found by the half-dozen in railroad stations, basements and old bunkers. They forage for half-eaten hamburgers at fast-food outlets and stop passersby for spare kopeks or paid sexual assignations. Some can be seen simply standing on sidewalks crying.
 &quot;In most of these cases, these are not homeless children. They are neglected,&quot; said Boris Altshuler, who heads the Moscow nonprofit group Right of the Child. 
 &quot;Neglected means their parents don't give them food, they beat them. These children vote with their legs to leave the bad conditions of their families or to escape from an institution, and it's very important to know that many of these children escape again and again.&quot;
 
 
<b>'Boys Will Be Boys'
 </b>
Yet few think of the boys in Krasnoyarsk city's impoverished Leninsky neighborhood as runaways, though even parents acknowledge that the district's &quot;Blade Runner&quot;-like landscape of hulking, old factories, slowly crumbling into oblivion, might be enough to drive any child toward greener playgrounds.
 
True, one of the boys had talked of leaving home and had even tried once. And although a burnt aerosol can was found near the bodies, their parents and teachers say there were no previous hints of substance abuse. By all accounts, the boys had attentive, loving parents and little inclination to wander far from their front doors.
 &quot;Boys will be boys, of course. But these were normal children. These children were well-bred, they had good manners. Their parents were very involved in their schooling,&quot; said fourth-grade teacher Natalya Vikulova, who taught both Maxim and Sasha.
 She pulled out a grade book and pointed to a long row of 5s and 4s, the equivalent of As and Bs, next to the boys' names.
 &quot;There is nothing that can make me believe they ran away. And the children couldn't just burn themselves up like that in the bottom of a 3-meter hole. Five children together?&quot; Vikulova said. 
 &quot;My personal opinion is that something horrible occurred.&quot;
 Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov, visiting from Moscow to discuss the case, said May 14 that authorities were investigating it as a possible murder.
 &quot;We today cannot for sure establish the cause of death for every child. But the complexion of materials makes us believe that the case based on murder was opened correctly, with all the consequences connected with it,&quot; Kolesnikov told reporters.
 Police say it will be weeks before a positive identification can be made. But along with the bodies, police found a silver-plated chain like the one that held a tiny cross around Maxim's neck, the key to Sasha's apartment house door and a shoe and part of a sweater linked to some of the other boys.
 &quot;We believe that the remains that were found belong to the five children who disappeared on April 16. There's no doubt about it,&quot; Kolesnikov said.
 
 
<font size="-2"><b>Grisly Possible Motives
 </b></font>
As soon as the word &quot;murder&quot; came up, headlines began laying out various possibilities. Kidnapping by a gang of pornographic film producers or black-market organ dealers - neither scenario, unfortunately, unimaginable in today's Russia. The &quot;maniac variant&quot; was mentioned in several news reports.
 
In mid-May, the charred bodies of two 13-year-old girls were found in Volgograd, and three men were arrested in the case. 
 Here in Krasnoyarsk, police for years have been looking for a suspected serial killer responsible for leaving human body parts in various locations between 1999 and 2003, including the severed heads of two young boys. Even the search for the missing boys turned up more than the police had bargained for: search teams stumbled upon six other bodies, including that of a newborn child and two people who showed signs of violent deaths. They also discovered a 6-month-old child lying in a sewage pipe near a factory, nearly starved but alive.
 In a neighborhood such as this one, it is not hard to imagine that almost anything might be found. A once-top-secret chemical plant, now closed, sits next to the apartments where the boys lived. 
 Nearby are the city's central heating plant, a tire factory and the factory where Larisa Lavrenova works the night shift, operating a machine that makes plastic ketchup bottles.
 Most of the other factories have fallen into grand ruin. The road next to several adjoining apartment courtyards passes alongside enormous networks of rusting pipes, collapsed walls and broken mechanical hulks. The apartments themselves, originally built as Siberian labor camp housing in the Stalin era, are decrepit, chilly and badly lighted.
 
 
<b>An Accidental Blast?
 </b>
In such a place, an accidental explosion can't be ruled out. Still, parents say, the children had never before been known to stray so far from home. Moreover, there would barely have been room enough for them to squeeze into the pipe, certainly not enough to sit down. 
 
There wasn't even a ladder leading down into the pipe, though a burned log might have been used for climbing. Also, residents wonder, what kind of accidental fire would have burned so hot that it reduced their bodies to mere bones - a fire that authorities say would have had to reach about 500 degrees Celsius?
 It would have been possible, suggested Alexander Makarov, a reporter in Krasnoyarsk for Izvestia, if the boys tried to light a fire in the sewage collector and it ignited gasoline or black oil seeping through the connecting sewage pipes.
 &quot;From my sources among the forensic experts, I received the information that when the children were burning, they were still alive,&quot; Makarov said, &quot;which makes the possibility of an accident quite high.&quot;
 Yet, the parents contend that both they and the police peered into the sewage collector and searched the yard around it with dogs several times in the days and weeks after the disappearance, and there was no evidence of a fire nor anything at all in the bottom of the pipe.
 Police appear to be unsure whether the area was searched. Prosecutors said they were considering filing negligence charges against the police for their slowness in initiating a thorough search when the boys were first reported missing.
 &quot;I personally looked in the hole,&quot; said Mageram Gasanov, a neighbor. &quot;It was daytime. I saw the bottom of the well. There was nothing there.&quot;
 But the murder theory also poses problems, authorities admit. How could five strong, lively boys be rounded up in broad daylight with no one noticing?
 
 
<font size="-2"><b>An Odd Black Car
 </b></font>
Repeatedly, family members return to stories of a black car of a foreign make and with no license plate that a neighbor had seen in a nearby courtyard in the days before the boys' disappearance.
 
That links up with the story told by a young boy who had been playing with the missing youngsters earlier in the day. He told police that he had gone to buy a loaf of bread for his mother, then returned to see a man with a submachine gun herding the boys into a black, foreign-make car. But when a doubtful investigator said, &quot;Maybe you also saw flying saucers?&quot; the boy said he had made the story up.
 Now, family members and local journalists say, neither the boy nor his mother can be found. Parents of the missing boys say they believe the mother is afraid for her son's safety.
 Another problem in finding the truth, said Lavrenova, Sasha's mother, is that much evidence may have disappeared in the time it took police to launch an investigation. &quot;They didn't take it seriously. They were confident that our children had simply run away for a better place to play and they would come back soon,&quot; she said.
 &quot;How can they say that?&quot; her husband asked. &quot;Whenever he would ask for permission to go outside, I would say to him, 'Where will you be?' He would say either in the neighboring yard or the schoolyard. Because these are the nearest places where there are playgrounds.&quot;
 Korshunova said she has not slept for more than an hour or two at a stretch since Maxim went out that day. While her husband still tries to work at his security guard job, she and her mother sit for hours in their tiny living room in a tangle of overgrown tomato seedlings that no one has the heart to transplant outside. Every day, sometimes several times a day, she makes her way to the sewage collector and stares tearfully down inside, as if clues might be discerned somewhere on the blackened walls.
 &quot;Look at it yourself and see if it looks like a place a child would want to play,&quot; she said softly.
 &quot;No. Something else happened.&quot;

TITLE: Ruble Set to Appreciate
 By Up to 10% This Year
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW - Policymakers have raised their target for underlying appreciation of the ruble, boosted by high oil prices, to 10 percent in 2005, a top central banker said Monday.
 
In a move long awaited by investors, central bank First Deputy Chairman, Alexei Ulyukayev, said it and the Economy Ministry have agreed to up the target for the real effective appreciation of the ruble from an earlier goal of 8 percent. 
 The revision marks a long-awaited acknowledgement of the double-bind the authorities find themselves in, with inflation running ahead of target and a stronger real exchange rate hurting Russia's economic competitiveness. 
 Ulyukayev also forecast real effective appreciation of the ruble - a trade-weighted measure which strips out inflation differentials - at 7 percent in the first half of 2005, after 6.7 percent in the year to April. 
 &quot;For us a larger-than-expected real effective appreciation of the ruble ... does not represent any taboo. This is nothing terrible,&quot; Ulyukayev said, playing down the significance of the revision. 
 Russia's monetary policy targets both inflation and the exchange rate, with the central bank intervening occasionally on currency markets mainly to stem excessive appreciation driven by the petrodollars earned by the world's No.2 oil exporter. 
 But, say analysts, the competitive boost stemming from the 1998 ruble crash has largely been eroded by inflation and, in one sign Russian industry is losing out to foreign competitors, car maker AvtoVAZ recently said it would lay off 4,000 workers. 
 Ulyukayev said Russia's retail price index rose by 7.1 percent in the first 5 months of 2005, above the 5.3 percent level in the same period a year earlier. 
 The government has already effectively given up on its original target of curbing inflation to 8.5 percent this year, leading President Vladimir Putin to increase the pressure on policy makers to get prices back under control. 
 Analysts forecast inflation at 11.5 percent this year, a slight improvement on last year's outturn of 11.7 percent. 
 Ulyukayev said full-year inflation could be kept to 10 percent if food prices weaken later in the year. 
 Ulyukayev welcomed the use of Russia's oil-funded budget stabilization fund for repaying foreign debts after Russia struck a deal to prepay $15 billion in debts to the Paris Club of Western creditors.
 &quot;We certainly welcome use of the stabilization fund only to repay external debt,&quot; he said, referring to calls by some politicians to spend fund cash on infrastructure investments. 
 He also said a dual currency basket, set up by the central bank to manage day-to-day fluctuations in the nominal ruble rate against both the dollar and euro, had worked well during the latest bout of euro weakness on international exchanges. 
 &quot;The dramatic fall of the euro has shown that our basket is working quite successfully,&quot; Ulyukayev said, adding there were no current plans to change the basket's composition that is now $0.7 and 0.3 euros. 
 Ulyukayev forecast that the central bank's reserves of gold and foreign exchange - which are the highest for any country outside Asia - would rise to between $170-$175 billion by the end of this year. 
 Reserves last week hit an all-time high of $147.1 billion.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: 2 DaimlerChrysler Plants?
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - DaimlerChrysler, the world's fifth-biggest carmaker, may open two assembly plants in Russia, Interfax reported, citing Gerhard Hilgert, head of the company's operations in the country.
 DaimlerChrysler may decide this month to open an assembly plant at the Yelabuga automobile factory in Tatarstan, Hilgert told reporters in the Tatar capital Kazan after meeting with the republic's prime minister, Rustam Minnikhanov, Interfax reported.
 General Motors Corp. assembled Chevrolet Blazers and Opel Vectras at the plant from 1995 to 2001, the news service said.
 The company hopes to start manufacturing Mercedes Benz sedans at a facility in St. Petersburg by the end of the year, Chief Executive Officer Juergen Schrempp told President Vladimir Putin on May 23, according to a statement posted on the Kremlin's web site.
 
 
<b>Sual Borrows $425M 
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Sual Group, Russia's second-largest aluminum producer, received a $425 million loan from a group of banks led by Citigroup, BNP Paribas and ING Groep as it plans a $1.2 billion alumina project in the country's northwest.
 The five-year credit cost 1.7 percentage points above the London interbank offered rate, the lowest rate ever for a loan of this kind to a Russian miner loans, Sual said in an e-mailed statement.
 "The loan enables Sual to refinance its debt at significantly lower interest levels, Chief Financial Officer, Iosif Bakaleinik said in the statement.
 Sual said in April that it would team up with bigger Russian Aluminum to build a factory in the Komi republic that will produce as much as 1.4 million metric tons of alumina a year starting in 2008.
 The Komi complex will use bauxite to make alumina, then process the material into aluminum. Sual's bauxite production would almost double to 9.93 million tons a year by 2010 and the company's output of finished metal would rise almost 60 percent.
 
 
<b>LUKoil to Lift Output
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) -LUKoil, the country's biggest oil producer, plans to increase oil output by about two-thirds in the next 10 years, and be producing as much as 2.9 million barrels a day in 2014.
 The company also expects to boost gas production eight-fold by 2014, when it plans to produce at least 50 billion cubic meters of the fuel annually, Andrei Gaidamaka, deputy director of development, said Monday at a news conference
 Gas sales inside Russia are becoming more profitable as prices on the wholesale domestic gas market rise because of a supply shortage, Gaidamaka said. Most gas in Russia is sold with capped prices on the regulated market.
 LUKoil's reserves won't decrease during the period and will stay within the range of 20 billion barrels to 25 billion barrels, Gaidamaka said.
 
 
<b>Off the Rails 
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russian Railways, the country's rail monopoly, is demanding at least 650 million rubles ($22.9 million) from Mosenergo, Moscow's main electricity supplier, after power outages stranded passengers and cargoes last month.
 Rolling blackouts interrupted electricity supplies to the railway operator's network, causing at least 650 million rubles damage through June 1, Russian Rails said in a statement posted on its web site Monday.
 President Vladimir Putin blamed managers at Mosenergo, a unit of national electricity utility Unified Energy System, for the May 25 cuts, which left about 2 million people without electricity. Russian Rails carries 40 percent of the country's cargo and operates the world's second-biggest rail network after the U.S.
 "In connection with upcoming court hearings, the size of the loss will be carefully verified with reasons given," Russian Rails Vice President Khasyan Zyabirov said in the statement. 
 Mosenergo CEO Arkady Yevstafyev and Chief Financial Officer Vladislav Nazin resigned after Putin's criticism
 
 
<b>Gazprom Profit Up 17%
 </b>

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Gazprom, the world's largest natural-gas producer, said 2004 profit rose to the highest in four years as international sales surged amid higher fuel prices and the company's deferred tax charge shrank.
 Net income increased to 200.7 billion rubles ($7.1 billion), or 9.82 rubles a share, from 170.9 billion rubles, or 8.34 rubles, in 2003, the company said Monday on its web site. Revenue jumped 20 percent to 1.01 trillion rubles, according to consolidated earnings reported under Russian accounting standards.
 State-run Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of Europe's gas, said in January that 2004 exports rose 16 percent to a record $19.2 billion. Profit grew at less than a third of the rate in 2003, as Russia's biggest company by sales failed to curb costs.
 Net income is the highest Gazprom has reported since at least 2000, when it earned 286 billion rubles under international accounting standards after it benefited from revalueing assets.
 Gazprom's cost of goods and services sold in 2004 surged 59 percent to 638 billion rubles, led by a 22 percent increase in wages, to 118.8 billion rubles. Cost of materials rose 41 percent to 67.6 billion rubles.

TITLE: Networks Push for Extra Service
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Big Three mobile operators have all recently announced technological innovations that allow subscribers to receive information more simply by using their mobile phones to tap into interactive resources.
 
The most active company in this respect has been Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), which offered several such programs to consumers at the annual Svyaz-Expokomm-2005 trade fair.
 Firstly, MTS and hi-tech developer Research in Motion declared that they were starting work on introducing wireless platform BlackBerry wireless platform in Russia. BlackBerry's service is a solution for constant mobile access to e-mail and other forms of communications for corporate and individual users
 With the help of BlackBerry, MTS subscribers will be able to use a unified structure for work with e-mail, Internet browsers, text messages and telephone conversations.
 For corporate clients BlackBerry aims to offer a secure base for the so-called push-technology (everything is available at the push of a button), wireless access to e-mail and other corporate information. In a press statement, the developers describe BlackBerry Enterprise Server as highly integrated with Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and Novell Groupwise.
 For private users and small companies, there is a BlackBerry Internet Service, which provides access to 10 personal or corporate e-mail addresses, including Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and popular e-mail programs offered by Internet providers. 
 The second forthcoming innovation coming to MTS is i-mode, a push-technology interactive service for subscribers that collects a variety of entertainment, information, and other Internet services under one roof.
 Work on introducing i-mode in Russia started at the end of last year when MTS signed an exclusive agreement with Japan's No.1 mobile network provider NTT DoCoMo.
 In principle, i-mode offers the choice of access to all possible information and entertainment resources through a network of special portals.
 MTS' press service said that both these services will be available in St. Petersburg in the fall of this year.
 MTS' competitors have not been idle in this sector. Even before the end of last year MegaFon launched its own brand service package Megafon.Pro onto the market.
 The goal of the Megafon.Pro project is to unite all additional services provided by the operator in the northwest and eventually in the entire country. At the moment, the development of regional additional services is the task of subsidiaries in each region.
 Megafon's press service says that many of the services offered on the Megafon.Pro WAP portal will be oriented towards EDGE (a fast data transmission technology that has evolved from GPRS). This technology has already been launched in St. Petersburg and the next market player to use it will be BeeLine this year.
 Beeline, the operating brand of VimpelCom, has not lagged behind in the field of interesting innovations, last month unveiling its own set of mobile services called Chameleon.
 The service package offers information on demand. From time to time a mobile subscriber receives silent, free news messages, which he is under no obligation to interact with. However, if the sent information interests a subscriber, he/she can receive further details via his/her mobile phone at a price.
 Currently only a few channels are accessible on Chameleon. They include electronic versions of the popular magazine Cosmo, business daily Vedomosti, and Sport magazine, among others.
 Viktor Markelov, director of BeeLine products, said &quot;the service matches your mood. You get the information that interests you at that moment and that is why it is called Chameleon.&quot;


TITLE: Mobile Chiefs Seek to Allay Fears Over Phone Radiation
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Major mobile providers rejected claims that their network transmission equipment causes a risk to human health, nonetheless vowing to invest significant efforts to investigate the high radiation levels in certain areas of St. Petersburg.
 
Heads of the big three mobile operators, MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon, met Thursday with members of the public to discuss the question of transmitter base stations set up in residential areas.
 Many have accused the stations of attracting unnaturally high levels of radiation, which has allegedly had a detrimental effect on people's health, including loss of hair and increased cancer risks.
 Nikolai Demenchuk, deputy head of MegaFon Northwest, and Igor Zarudnev, head of VimpelCom (brand name BeeLine) in St. Petersburg, said that the operators already monitor the effects base stations have on the health of local residents.
 &quot;Our specialists always look at the radiation coming off the stations, and usually we prove that these stations do not have an effect on health,&quot; Zarudnev said, as cited by Interfax.
 &quot;It is possible, however, that the electromagnetic waves that base stations radiate can affect health in cases where other factors are involved - such as in areas with poor ecology. And we are ready to take part in research on this issue,&quot; Zarudnev said at the meeting, which was organized by Sotaweek analytical and research agency.
 Research conducted by Sotaweek found the amount of radiation given off by base stations in Russia is largely under the legal safety requirement levels. Federal regulations allow up to 0.1 watts per square meter of electric radiation in places where people may spend a whole day. The level is allowed to rise to 1 watt per square meter in places where people would not spend more than 2 hours.
 Sotaweek data, presented at the meeting, showed that radiation levels close to base stations reached 0.5 to 0.7 watts per square meter, yet they fell to 0.01 watts per square meter on the top floors of high-rises, the roofs of which accommodate mobile network base stations.
 &quot;This research was done to measure the actual levels of radiation from [mobile network] antennas and base stations, and to inform both sides of the debate about this,&quot; Denis Kuskov, head of Sotaweek, said Thursday after the meeting.
 Kuskov added that base stations emit much less radiation than TV antennas, the levels of the latter often being several times higher than legal requirements.
 In addition, Zarudnev pointed out that high-riser tenants themselves decide whether to allow a mobile network antenna or base station on top of their apartment block or not.
 &quot;It's simple to demand for all those stations to be taken down from residential houses, but then you will have a drop in the quality of the mobile networks, and that solution won't win any votes among the population either,&quot; Zarudnev said. 
 Mobile phone providers agreed that a possible solution may be to work with the government and concentrate on further research in the field of electromagnetic radiation.

TITLE: Firms to Face 90-Day Freeze 
 For Wrongdoing
TEXT: Companies are going to face a more extreme administrative sanction for legal violations then ever before. A law, signed by the Russian President on May 9, will empower the authorities to initiate an administrative suspension of operations for 90 days before the court.
 
In extreme cases, such as threatened harm to human life and health, material damage to the environment, trafficking of narcotic substances or money laundering, the law provides for an interim measure, such as a temporary ban on operations for up to five days before the case comes before the courts. What's more, the five-day suspension can be enforced by regulatory authorities at their own discretion.
 The need for clear legislative regulation in freezing company operations has long been a hot issue in business and state authority relations. To date, numerous laws and normative acts have raised complicated issues for proper suspension of company operations up. The recent increase in the activities of Russia's supervisory and controlling authorities has only added to business concerns. 
 A more structured official response arrived at the end of April, when the Duma adopted a specific law to deal with administrative violations (published in the official daily Rossiskaya Gazeta on May 13, 2005).
 What the law clarifies immediately is the cause and the extent of the punishment to which companies are liable. Suspension of operations is applied in almost 30 administrative cases and granted by the court for a period of up to ninety days. That amends previous rules that encouraged mostly non-judicial closure of operations. When the law comes into effect a judge's ruling on suspension of operations will be enforced by the bailiffs immediately following its adoption. 
 A company or individual entrepreneur judged to be party to any of the above will face a temporary closure of operations, as well as a termination of the freedom to use devices, items, buildings and structures, or carry out certain business activities. 
 Nonetheless, formally the suspension may be subject to early termination by a judge if the circumstances on the basis of which the punishment was imposed are eliminated.
 However, as mentioned earlier, the law also introduces the option of a short temporary ban that gives non-judicial regulatory authorities the power to suspend operations up to five days before the case is to be considered by the court.
 According to the law, a temporary ban may be applied in exceptional cases in order to prevent negative effects on human life in cases where they cannot be prevented otherwise. The interim measure is imposed in most cases by the head of a regulatory authority, which may create a basis for abuse of company rights.
 It is evident that potential negative effects may be done to a business if such power is exercised by non-judicial authorities. This strikes us as an extremely unfavorable legislative amendment, which in its nature contradicts the general meaning of the law: that any administrative dispute is to be controlled with judicial instruments.
 Though the bent of the law seems to be positive, the interim measure of a temporary ban may be very harmful for business activities.
 The practical aspects of the new law will be felt more distinctly once it comes into effect August 12 this year, ninety days from its official publication in Rossiskaya Gazeta.
 
 <i>Ivan Smirnov is a senior associate and Edward Zadubrovsky an associate at the St. Petersburg office of EY Law.</i>


TITLE: Saving Energy From Reform
TEXT: In retrospect, it was a good thing that the Moscow power system broke down on a warm spring day on May 25. Consequences would have been far more catastrophic had the outage taken place in the middle of Russian winter.
 
Investigations will determine the exact causes and sequences of events behind the outages, yet what happened naturally raises questions about the national electric holding Unified Energy Systems and its ongoing reform process. UES often blames functional shortcomings on outdated equipment and lack of funds, but as recently as four weeks ago, it offered to pay $972 million for two Bulgarian power plants that have little value for the Russian electricity supply. 
 While reform itself is not the reason for the recent Moscow blackout, it will not prevent similar problems in the future. Power system reforms worldwide have envisioned lower electricity prices and more investments with no safety risk, but so far, experience shows that prices have stayed the same, operational profits have been redirected into higher financial returns rather than investment in technology, and the overall reliability of power systems has decreased. Russia is in for a similar scenario.
 Both supporters and detractors of the reform agree that the Russian power system is badly in need of modernization at a very high total cost, in the range of $50 billion. UES argues that such capital can be raised only through reform, which foresees the establishment of a competitive power market and the privatization of generation assets. But let's consider the actual experience in other countries that underwent similar changes.
 The power markets currently in operation have been designed around unproven and implausible theoretical assumptions. Liberalization zealots, mostly from Britain and the United States - guys with degrees in accounting, not engineering - brought their wisdom in the 1980s and 1990s to a score of other countries, their overhead presentations providing the blueprint for new legislation. The initial power market designs had incredible flaws: They did not take into consideration power transport losses and grid capacity limitations. They overlooked the fact that generators operate in steps and not continuously, and that demand is almost entirely inelastic - or in other words, we turn on the light when it is dark, not because the power price is low. The ongoing refinement of market models to bring them in line with real life made them exceptionally cumbersome. The first description of the California market model took more than 100 pages. Enron made most of its money there not by selling electricity but by exploiting the discrepancies between market rules and technical realities.
 Interestingly enough, the same political forces that support power market liberalization, most notably in the United States, use the opposite argument to block environmental regulations such as the Kyoto Protocol. While requiring impossible 100 percent proof before agreeing to environmental legislation, they do not even demand a basic cost-benefit analysis before opening power markets. Ideology comes before facts.
 Another aspect of liberalization involves the operational goals of power companies. Old-style utilities provided reliable heating and electricity at regulated prices to other companies, which through their activity increased shareholder value and thus the wealth of society at large. With the extension of the maximum profitability requirement to power companies, the extreme rationalization that follows increases the probability of system failures. 
 In Germany after the 1998 market opening, all power utilities lowered their prices by halting investments. After only a few years, safety problems demanded new investments, and rates jumped back to earlier levels. Adam Smith's often-abused metaphor of the baker and butcher, who benefit society by caring for their own wallets, does just not apply to power systems. Smith worked by candlelight, before electricity could make its contribution to the wealth of nations. Today, writing under a bright table lamp, he would probably recognize that the public sector also has a role to play in the economy.
 Asset investments in power companies cost in the billions of dollars, and the timescale for amortizations, returns and the effect of any efficiency improvements is measured in decades. The biggest expenses at power companies are investment paybacks and fuel purchases, and lie outside their control. Therefore, after cuts in personnel, maintenance and equipment, the only realistic way left for energy companies to provide the huge and quick returns expected by portfolio investors is by gouging the market, the way Enron did in California. Power utilities are not dot-coms.
 Supply security tends to worsen under market conditions. Traditional utilities used to match fluctuating power demand by connecting the most appropriate and efficient generators and by switching the grid to the most reliable configuration at any given time. With the market, the grid must always be open to everybody to connect to the power plant of their choice, but the sum of all such operations becomes far less than optimal. From the United States to Europe, market opening brought large power flow increases on networks not designed for that purpose. The overall reliability reduction due to additional overloads was one of the reasons behind the 2003 blackouts in New York and Italy. 
 In power systems operating at their limit, satisfying the market and promoting safety are opposite goals, and striving for one means paying less attention to the other. A power network open to market transactions and at the same time fully safe to operate would be outrageously expensive. In the case of the Moscow outage on May 25, the appropriate equipment could likely have prevented cascade failures and contained the damage to a limited area. This equipment, however, would require billions of dollars in investments across Russia. Who would foot the bill? The state-owned Federal Grid Co., or the newly formed and soon-to-be privatized generation companies?
 The UES reform is based on bad math and bad engineering, and it disregards recent experience in other countries. As it is now defined, this reform will help redirect financial flows from equipment investments to portfolio profits, making the Russian power system less reliable. The Moscow blackout offers a good opportunity to rethink the reform. In the United States and Europe, the role of public utilities is currently being re-evaluated in a more positive light. It is high time to do the same in Russia.
 
 <i>Gianguido Piani is an independent energy expert based in St. Petersburg. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: A Drain on Russia's Energy
TEXT: When the power blackout hit Moscow on May 25, I was attending a presentation of the Russian contribution to the latest Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook on Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. The SIPRI Yearbook is translated and published with the help of the Moscow Institute of World Economy and International Relations, or IMEMO, one of Russia's best-known state-financed think-tanks dedicated to security, defense and foreign policy.
 
The presentation was at the IMEMO building on Profsoyuznaya Ulitsa. Most of the speakers, both Russian and foreign, were harping on the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction coming from North Korea and Iran. As the nearby orange metro line stopped running and the traffic lights went black, I asked the speakers to assess whether they thought a large-scale power failure in the Moscow region - which is full of various kinds of WMD like hazardous industrial plants, nuclear reactors and military bases - would be a danger comparable to a rogue state possessing nukes.
 A Russian government official responded that everything potentially dangerous in our country has reserve emergency power supplies, that nothing can possibly go wrong. As the power crisis in Moscow and the neighboring regions developed, it became apparent that many vital installations did not have any emergency power supplies. 
 Last February, former Deputy Energy Minister Vladimir Milov stated at a Moscow conference that only 10 percent of the Moscow regional power supply comes from sources outside the region. Moscow is the fastest growing regional economy in Russia, and electricity consumption has already surpassed its Soviet-era maximum, but no new generating capacity has been built. 
 Milov said Russia has one of the highest energy consumption rates per unit of GDP in the world. Now that production has begun to recover, economic growth has swiftly increased consumption, while artificially low, state-controlled electricity and natural gas prices have discouraged investment in conservation.
 Milov believes that this mismanagement of the Russian energy sector will continue since Vladimir Putin and many others in the Kremlin have a personal interest in keeping the inefficient Gazprom monopoly unreformed. By 2007, gas production in Russia will be in decline, and electricity production will at best stagnate. And the Kremlin's plan to take over oil production will most likely increase the energy havoc.
 The weakness and corruption in the Kremlin today are just as great a threat to Russia - and the world - as Soviet might was during the Cold War.
 
 <i>Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst based in Moscow.
 </i>

TITLE: The European Disunion
TEXT: With the French and Dutch &quot;No&quot; votes, the project of uniting Europe seems in danger to a degree not seen since the French voted down the European Defense Community in 1954.
 
Leader of the Rodina faction Dmitry Rogozin has seized on the opportunity to suggest replacing the EU with a &quot;Greater Europe,&quot; which would include Russia and other European powers - but not the United States. He accurately said the vote was motivated by fear of &quot;migrant labor&quot; but fantasized that it also had pro-Russian motivations, Interfax reported on May 30. Still, let's give Rogozin his due: He was proposing a way out of an impasse that moves his own country up a notch.
 If the United States had any common sense, it would take the occasion to put the Atlantic institutions forward as better venues for integrating Turkey - and also Ukraine and Russia. This, unlike Rogozin's idea, would truly help the EU, relieving it of an external burden that is tearing it apart.
 Rogozin's proposal has no chance. Europeans are hardly going to strip Euro-Atlantic institutions naked and instead unite with Russia. For all their irritation with the U.S. Administration, they are far more negative about Russia. They already fear that they are being united with too many poor and unstable societies to their east.
 This is ultimately why the French and Dutch voted against the EU Constitution. They feared it would give their elites free rein to continue with current plans, opening the doors to massive immigration by taking in new members, including, prospectively, Turkey. Turkey would provide what looks to many Europeans like an unlimited supply of immigrants. The United States has constantly pressured Europe to take in Turkey, as if to subcontract to the EU the costs and risks of managing and integrating Turkey. European elites resisted for a long time but in recent years have promised to proceed with Turkish membership. 
 To his credit, the wise, old former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, grandfather of the euro and the head of the constitutional convention, was against Turkish membership. He spoke frankly about the dangers and was booed down for being politically incorrect, overruled by younger elites who preferred to go with the flow. It is they, not he, who are the cause of the faltering of the European Constitution.
 The EU Constitution was meant to promote popular voting and common citizenship. But at the same time, the EU elites were extending citizenship to large groups of new people. This was what led to the problem. Despite all the criticisms of the voters for missing the point, in one respect they were on mark. The constitution would have made the EU more efficient. Increased efficiency was seen as necessary to keep the EU viable despite all its additional members. This in turn would have been interpreted by elites as a green light for going ahead with still more members in the Balkans and Turkey.
 It was one thing for all Western Europeans to be citizens together; they have comparable wage levels, the differences staying within the limits that have been shown historically not to give rise to large immigration trends. It's a somewhat different thing to include the Eastern Europeans; they are at the edge of the income differential that could make for destabilizing immigration levels. It's a totally different thing to include Turkey. 
 Eastern European labor trends should have been discussed frankly from the start by the EU elites. This would have meant acknowledging the problem, explaining that the small, shrinking population of the East European countries makes it unlikely that migration will reach damaging proportions, and providing careful escape clauses so the people could see that their rulers understood the matter and would not put the cohesion of society at risk.
 This would have laid the groundwork for discussing the Turkish case honestly. And an honest discussion would have led to the conclusion that the maximum possible for Turkey would be a special membership, without free movement of labor and without equal voting powers. Instead, fears of immigration were dismissed on simplistic economic grounds as ignoring Europe's need for migrant labor. So people voted &quot;No&quot; on the only thing they could - not Turkish membership, which was not put to them, but the constitution.
 The last time Europe went through such a crisis, in 1954, the solution was to keep the European institutions going forward along other lines and transfer the urgent military integration of Germany over to the broader Atlantic level through NATO. This provides pointers for the way out today.
 The EU should retract the promise of Turkish membership and guarantee that any future proposed expansion that could alter the basic nature of the Union would be subject to public referendums. EU officials need to put immigration and social stability explicitly on the list of membership criteria. Finally, Brussels needs to come up with extracts from the constitution that would be adoptable in the form of a treaty, retaining the streamlined voting formulas without controversial provisions for new competences.
 For Turkey, an option more viable than the EU route would be upgrading the Atlantic institutions - NATO, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the International Energy Agency - into a closer economic and security union, with some weighted voting and a common market but without common citizenship or free movement of people. These institutions already include Turkey. They can help meet its needs for further integration with the West. These institutions are also the ones big enough to accommodate Ukraine and Russia without losing their equilibrium.
 We are brought back to Rogozin's curious proposal. Like an old Soviet functionary, he talks in terms of scrapping the EU and taking Europe back to a pre-1914 system of great powers without the United States. In reality, the only Europe Russia has any chance of joining in the 21st century is precisely the wider Europe that includes America.
 The Soviet elite went through a long, difficult process of learning this in the 1970s and 1980s when it called for a Common European Home. Each time it tried the game of dividing Europe and the United States, it backfired, reinforcing European suspicions. The only way to advance the true interest of Russia was to understand that Euro-Atlantic integration was an &quot;objective historical process&quot; and accommodate to it constructively. The conclusion remains valid, even if each new generation of Russian politicians seems to need to learn it again.
 
 <i>Ira Straus is U.S. coordinator of the Committee on Eastern Europe and Russia in NATO, an independent nongovernmental international association that advances consideration of NATO expansion and transformation. He contributed this comment to The St. Petersburg Times. </i>

TITLE: Corruption Blights Business World Too
TEXT: Stories of businesses making easy money have abounded recently in the office where I work. For example, one journalist who knows his wines told me that he had visited a hypermarket that he had not been in for a long time because he was too busy. He was struck by the transformation - the wine department was in a muddle and the choices were miserable. The journalist admitted to being a choosy client and wanting to buy something classy, not necessarily top quality, but he couldn't find a thing. Looking around, he noted that the number of suppliers had been radically reduced.
 
I was confronted with the same thing myself, in one case in connection with wine. I don't know that much about wine, but at some point I became enamored with a particular French wine; it's cheap, but appeals to my organism, which demands it regularly. The wine is a dry red, and as is well known, good for the health. I drink a class regularly with my meals. But strangely the wine I liked suddenly disappeared from the hypermarket where I shop. And I was not the only one who liked that wine. Of course, I found a shop that always has it in stock, but I was still surprised that it disappeared from the hypermarket.
 I have mentioned earlier the strategies of large retail chains in connection with the scandal when the city's economic committee tried to interfere in their purchasing policies. I told how retailers insisted that producers pay for the fact that the presence of their goods on a shop's shelves can be seen as an advertisement for the producers brands. I said that this &quot;entry free&quot; was justified by the risks that a retailer accepts when they put some product on their shelves that may not be sold. And inasmuch as the range of goods sold in retail chains is gigantic- about 10,000 items -those risks are large.
 This model works and generates income on one simple but important condition- that the retailers make the maximum effort to satisfy demand. That is to say that on the one hand they fill their shelves with guides that consumers buy and on the other they strive to have everything in their shops that the consumers want. This explains the wide assortment of hypermarkets and supermarkets.
 But what happens in real life? It's clear that the disappearance from shops of goods that we want can be explained by saying that the retailers and the producers or suppliers have not agreed on conditions. And more often than not this has to do with the &quot;entry fee.&quot; And here's the catch. The entry fee only makes sense when the demand for the goods in question is unclear. But we are trying to explain why clearly popular goods disappear.
 The disappearance of my wine might be explained by the exotic demands of my organism and that it was unprofitable for the hypermarket to sell it, but the other journalist's account of how wines for which he knew there was mass demand disappeared cannot. And it can certainly not explain another fact - that good preserved beef has disappeared from a hypermarket belonging to one of the largest retail chains.
 It's impossible to say that this was a matter of taste because the quality of hams is probably the same for everyone.
 The scandal concerning the economics committee included the conviction that the retail chains were abusing the &quot;entry fee&quot; mechanisms. If these fees apply to thousands of branded items then collecting them will be a good source of income. And retailers will be tempted by easy money - why should they look for the best wares when they can simply profit from these fees and not worry too much about the quality of the goods on their shelves? In addition, the retailers count on shoppers being too lazy to go to different stores and will simply buy what is in their shop.
 There is some logic in this, but it is still most profitable for retailers to work on quality - that way their turnover will be higher. But the turnover is most interesting to the owners of the company. It's not they who are purchasing goods, it's not even the directors, but the managers they appoint. And the managers sometimes strive to bypass the entry fees and receive a backhander from producers that goes into their own pockets. It's clear the backhanders most often come from producers of low quality goods because it's the only way they can sell them. It seems that this is why their goods are on the shelves. It is another side of the problem of easy money; it's not only bureaucrats who take bribes.
 Everyone suffers for this - the company owners and the consumers. In search of good preserved beef, I went to the market and found a wide assortment of good hams. The prices were even lower than in the hypermarket. 
 It's the same with wine, sweet peppers and several other goods on sale in retail chains: their quality falls while their prices rise. I am not a fan of the format of modern retail chains, but life has become complex. 
 That good intentions are not always borne out applies not only to bureaucrats, but also to business.
 
 <i>Vladimir Gryaznevich is a political analyst with Expert Severo-Zapad magazine. His comment was first broadcast on Ekho Moskvy in St. Petersburg on Friday. </i>

TITLE: Code Red
TEXT: Last month, we reported here about Jeb Bush's courtroom efforts to crush the life of an abused, poverty-stricken 6-year-old girl in his gubernatorial satrapy of Florida. Later, against all odds, a jury of ordinary citizens thwarted the dynast's brutal will. But as befits a scion of the ruling family, Bush is now brushing aside this interference from the rabble and pressing ahead with his plans to strip the little girl of all public assistance.
 Bush's minions went to court earlier this year in a bid to cut off medical aid to Marissa Amora, who, at the age of 2, had been abandoned by Jeb's &quot;Department of Children and Families&quot; despite overwhelming evidence of horrific past abuse - and the imminent danger of more to come. More came. Within weeks, she was beaten almost to death; then Jeb's agents tried to stop her medical treatment and let her die. She survived their malign intervention and is now thriving with a new family - but still suffers from permanent, catastrophic damage caused by the entirely predictable beating she received after the DCF cast her aside.
 But late last month, the jury in the case issued a stern rebuke to these perverted Bush Family values: They awarded Marissa $35 million in damages for institutional neglect and for her future medical care, with the DCF ordered to pay the bulk of the costs. So, a happy ending, right? 
 Don't be silly - we're dealing with the Bush-Walker gang here. And for almost 100 years, from their ammo-dealing days in World War I to their heavy investments in Nazi Germany to their profitable hook-ups with Arab oil tyrants to their back-door buttressing of Saddam Hussein to their present-day bonanza of blood money gushing from the slaughter in Iraq, this clan of wingtipped thugs has always built its fortune on the backs - and the bones - of the poor. And no self-respecting Bush clansman would ever let some uppity little black girl and her foster mother make him look bad, no matter how egregious his failures.
 Jeb had three choices after the verdict. He could have simply accepted responsibility for his agency's horrible neglect and paid the full amount. Or he could have accepted responsibility but asked that the large award be reduced, as often happens in such cases, which would still leave Marissa with enough money to afford the extensive and costly health care she will need for the rest of her life. The first course would have been just and honorable; the second, pragmatic yet not inherently cruel. But honor, justice and responsibility have no place in the Bush clan's ruthless operations. So Jeb picked the third choice, the &quot;nuclear option.&quot; He asked an appeals court to throw out the entire award - even the damages levied against other, non-state parties in the case - leaving Marissa with absolutely nothing, The Palm Beach Post reports. 
 Filing for dismissal, Bush's lawyers blasted the jury for being too stupid to process the complex documentation of the case and acting instead on &quot;prejudice and sympathy.&quot; While any &quot;prejudice&quot; in the case would seem to lie with the lily-white governor's attempt to grind a black child under his heel, it's true that the jury probably did have some measure of sympathy for a 6-year-old girl who will have to be kept alive through a feeding tube for the rest of her days because Bush's bureaucrats failed to protect her from well-documented abuse. But sympathy is for &quot;girlie-men&quot; in the demented moral universe of the Bushist faction. Or as one of the Bush Family's old business partners once said, just before he launched an unprovoked war of aggression against Poland based on lies, propaganda and manipulated intelligence about a bogus threat to the nation: &quot;Close your hearts to pity. The stronger man is right. Be steeled against all signs of compassion.&quot; Power is everything, people are nothing, and the weakest go to the wall - that's the Kennebunkport Code.
 But of course you have to dress up your blood-and-iron philosophy with the prevailing pieties of the day if you want to snow the hoi polloi and weasel your way into power. And Jeb is one of the great whited sepulchres of our time, a master of the hypocritical arts, ever eager to hog the nearest camera and blubber teary platitudes about the &quot;culture of life&quot; - even as he feverishly signs death warrants in an apparent bid to surpass his older brother's record as the most bloodthirsty executioner in modern U.S. history. If Marissa were, say, a nice white woman in a vegetative state whose case had been taken up by powerful interest groups and ballyhooed into a national media carnival, then doubtless Jeb would even now be dabbing his eyes as he knelt for a photo-op at her bedside.
 But because Marissa is &quot;nobody&quot; - one of the poor, the powerless, the &quot;insulted and injured,&quot; in Dostoevsky's phrase - she can be flushed down the toilet and no one will notice. For the aim of Bush's legal maneuvering is clear: He wants to &quot;run out the clock&quot; on Marissa, litigating the case quite literally to death, until her family sinks beneath the overwhelming financial and physical burden of keeping her alive and her makeshift, overstrained support system eventually suffers the inevitable breakdown.
 It's a despicable strategy, a wicked strategy, but entirely in keeping with the Ruling Family's ethos, which has given the world a terror-spawning quagmire of murder and atrocity in Iraq - 10,000 Marissa Amoras, dead, mangled, orphaned, abandoned, abused, forgotten. And for what? For power. For money. For the Code.
 
 <i>For annotational references, see Opinion at www.sptimesrussia.com</i>
 
 


TITLE: 'Doubt,' 'Spamalot' Win Tony Awards
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK - &quot;Doubt,&quot; John Patrick Shanley's drama of suspicion and certainty set in a parochial school in the Bronx, was named best play Sunday as the 2005 Tonys celebrated the best of a busy Broadway theater season. 
 
&quot;Monty Python's Spamalot,&quot; an irreverent romp inspired by the British troupe's film, &quot;Monty Python and the Holy Grail,&quot; took the prize for best musical, as well as for director Mike Nichols and featured actress Sara Ramirez, who portrays the divalike Lady in the Lake in the zany spoof.
 &quot;Now for something completely different, let's not thank Eric Idle, who was the genius behind this, and Monty Python,&quot; said Bill Haber, the show's producer.
 Idle, ever the clown, slid through the crowd on stage and fell to the floor.
 A somewhat flustered Nichols told the audience he had forgotten what he intended to say, but went on to thank &quot;Spamalot&quot; creator Idle, &quot;from whom all blessings flow.&quot;
 Yet more Tony awards were won by &quot;The Light in the Piazza,&quot; a tale of young love in old Europe. It received six Tonys, including best score for composer Adam Guettel, grandson of the legendary Richard Rodgers.
 &quot;Doubt,&quot; the season's most honored play, already had picked up the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and several other play prizes.
 &quot;Doubt&quot; also collected two acting Tonys - for star Cherry Jones and for featured performer Adriane Lenox.
 The director of &quot;Doubt,&quot; Doug Hughes also won.
 


TITLE: Jackson Taken to Hospital
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SOLVANG, California - Michael Jackson was taken to an emergency room Sunday for treatment of a back problem that has plagued him throughout his molestation trial. He later left to the thunder of flashbulbs. 
 
Jackson, accompanied by a bodyguard, arrived at the Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital about 8 kilometers from his Neverland ranch at about 2:30 p.m., spokeswoman Raymone Bain said.
 &quot;Mr. Jackson's back has spurred up on him again,&quot; Bain said. &quot;It's pretty serious. It was serious enough for him to come over here.&quot;
 Although Jackson wasn't seen leaving the hospital, it was believed he departed shortly after 8 p.m. in a sport utility vehicle surrounded by a flurry of activity. His aides had erected white scaffolding outside the emergency room entrance to block the view of photographers gathered outside.
 As flashbulbs popped and dozens of fans screamed, &quot;We love you,&quot; the SUV and another vehicle drove slowly through a street packed with reporters and fans. Several chased after the vehicles and one photographer was led away by police. Olivia Kennedy, switchboard operator at the hospital, said the staff had been asked not to release any information about Jackson.
 Bain said stress contributed to the entertainer's back problem.
 &quot;He's under a tremendous amount of stress right now,&quot; she said at an impromptu news conference outside the hospital. &quot;Other than his back, he is doing fine.&quot;
 It was unclear late Sunday evening whether Jackson had been admitted to the hospital. Bain had offered no further updates since mid-afternoon.
 Jackson's health has been an issue throughout the trial. 
 The singer is charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy in February or March 2003. He is also accused of plying him with wine and conspiring to hold his family captive.

TITLE: Report Says Apple To Use
 Intel Chips
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SAN FRANCISCO - A stormy, decade-long relationship between Apple Computer Inc. and IBM is over, according to published reports. Apple CEO Steve Jobs was expected to announce Monday at the company's software developers conference in San Francisco that Apple will discontinue using microprocessor chips made by IBM in favor of Intel chips, according to CNET Networks Inc.'s News.com and The Wall Street Journal. 
 
Officials from Apple, Intel Corp. and IBM could not be reached Sunday to confirm the report.
 For years, rumors of Apple's wish to jump to Intel have been circulating. But two weeks ago, analysts were skeptical when The Wall Street Journal reported that Intel and Apple were in negotiations.
 One reason for the skepticism is that the move represents a significant risk for Cupertino, California-based Apple.
 Switching to Intel's x86 chips would force Apple's programmers to rewrite its software to adapt to the new processor.
 &quot;I don't know that Apple's market share can survive another architecture shift,&quot; Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood told News.com. &quot;Every time they do this, they lose more customers.&quot;
 News.com reported that Apple would begin the transition to Intel with its lower-end computers, such as the Mac Mini, in mid-2006 and higher-end models a year later.
 Apple's break with IBM stemmed from Jobs' wish that IBM make a larger variety of the PowerPC processors used in Macintosh systems. 


TITLE: Monroe Painting Gets $150,000
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES - A painting by Marilyn Monroe was auctioned off Saturday with her personal phone book with numbers for Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny and scores of other celebrities for more than $150,000. 
 
The 1962 painting of a red rose was initially inscribed to President Kennedy, but she never gave it to him, said Darren Julien, president and chief executive of Julien's Auctions, which organized the auction of Monroe memorabilia. 
 She later wrote a second inscription over the first: &quot;Happy Birthday Marilyn Monroe.&quot; 
 The small, brown leather phone book contains hundreds of typed numbers and addresses for everyone from her dry cleaner and doctor to famous friends such as Peter Lawford, Henry Fonda, Desi Arnaz and Jean Kennedy Smith, as well as ex-husbands Joe Dimaggio and Arthur Miller. <br> Five phone numbers are listed for Sinatra. 
 Her estate sold the phone book for $90,000 to GoldenPalace.com, Julien said. The painting went for $78,000 to collector David Davis, who runs an art gallery in Rhode Island.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Ebola Vaccine
 n WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canadian and U.S. scientists have developed vaccines that protect monkeys from the deadly Marburg and Ebola viruses and show promise for humans, a study published in Nature Medicine magazine said Sunday. 
 It will take five or six years to complete the research to show the experimental vaccines can be safe and effective for people exposed to the contagious viruses, which are almost always fatal, said Steven Jones, one of the Canadian-based scientists behind the study.
 Dutch company Crucell is working on commercializing a different type of Ebola vaccine.
 
 Plea for Democracy
 n FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida. (Reuters) - The United States called for new ways to support "fragile" democracies in the Western Hemisphere on Sunday but was immediately accused by Venezuela of seeking to impose a "global dictatorship." 
 En route to an Organization of American States meeting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested private groups should be able to raise concerns with the OAS to help monitor democracy. 
 The region's top diplomatic body has been criticized for its inability to resolve crises in Bolivia and Haiti. 
 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the U.S. of trying to impose a "global dictatorship" and said that it, not Venezuela, should face OAS scrutiny.
 
 Alpine Tunnel Closes
 n MILAN/LYON (Reuters) - An Alpine tunnel linking France and Italy will be closed indefinitely following a 600 degree Celsius truck blaze that killed two people, Italian and French officials said Sunday.
 The fire, on Saturday, occurred in the Frejus tunnel that cuts under the Alps just 160 kilometers south of the Mont Blanc tunnel where 39 people died six years ago in another fire.
 Fire fighters at Frejus took seven hours to extinguish the blaze in the 13-kilometer tunnel.
 
 Fatal Floods in China
 n BEIJING (Reuters) - Floods caused by torrential rain have turned vast tracts of farmland in south China into muddy lakes, razed mountain villages and destroyed more than 36,000 homes, possibly killing hundreds of people.
 Three days of rain in the provinces of Hunan, Sichuan and Guizhou caused floods and mudslides which had already killed at least 68 and left 62 missing, Xinhua news agency said.
 A resident of Hunan province had said Wednesday that the toll of dead and missing exceeded 200.
 
 UN Criticizes Nepal
 n GENEVA (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights body denounced Friday the use of children as soldiers or spies in Nepal's conflict where it said they are often killed or disappear.
 The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also accused Maoist rebels of "large-scale bombing, destruction and closing of schools."
 A "climate of fear, insecurity and impunity," due to the nine-year armed conflict between the rebels and government forces, was having a serious negative impact on children.
 Composed of 18 independent experts, the UN body issued its findings and recommendations after a three-week meeting held to examine the record of 10 countries including Nepal.

TITLE: Switzerland Votes to Join Schengen Zone
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GENEVA - Independent-minded Swiss voters gave the shaken European Union a vote of confidence Sunday, approving participation in an EU passport-free zone even though Switzerland has never joined the 25-member bloc. 
 
Same-sex couples also were granted more rights in the two-issue referendum, marking the first time the issue has been put to a national vote in Europe. 
 Signalling Swiss desire for closer integration with the EU, about 55 per cent of voters, or 1.47 million people, supported joining Europe's passport-free Schengen zone by 2007. 
 President Samuel Schmid hailed the result as backing for the coalition government's policy of developing closer links with the rest of Europe. 
 &quot;The government sees the people's yes to Schengen as a confirmation of a bilateral approach to Europe,&quot; Schmid told reporters in Switzerland's capital, Bern. The result goes against the prevailing mood in the EU, reeling from recent rejections by French and Dutch voters of a proposed constitution for the bloc. 
 In Brussels, Belgium, EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini welcomed the vote on behalf of the European Commission. 
 &quot;The ratification of these association agreements is an important step in the relations between Switzerland and the European Union,&quot; Ferrero-Waldner and Frattini said in a joint statement.
 &quot;On the one hand, freedom of movement will obviously be facilitated; on the other hand, the co-operation on internal security can be strengthened,&quot; they said. 
 The vote is &quot;an important positive signal for Europe at a time when Euro-skepticism - hopefully only temporarily - is gaining the upper hand,&quot; German Interior Minister Otto Schily said. 
 The Schengen zone allows travel through all participating countries without border checks. 
 The 15 current members are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. 
 Under Switzerland's system of direct democracy, the people's consent <br> is required on any major issue, including closer integration with the rest of <br> Europe. 
 Before Sunday's vote, experts predicted that French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution during the past week would encourage Schengen opponents, and opinion polls showed a rapid narrowing of the majority in favour of joining the zone. 
 The government has been in favor of joining the EU and its passport-free area, but many of Switzerland's German speakers - who make up about two-thirds of the population - had opposed greater integration with the bloc. 
 When Switzerland joins Schengen in 2007, customs controls will remain in place since the country remains outside the EU. 
 In the referendum's other issue, a larger majority - 1.56 million people or 58 percent - were in favor of granting more rights to same-sex couples.
 The vote means that starting in 2007, registered same-sex couples will receive the same tax and pension status as married couples, but they will not be allowed to adopt children or undergo fertility treatment.
 It is the first national vote in Europe on such an issue.

TITLE: Baghdad: Hussein Will Face
 Trial Soon on 12 Charges
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein will go on trial within two months on charges of crimes against humanity, with prosecutors focusing on 12 &quot;thoroughly documented&quot; counts, including the gassing of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq, a spokesman for Iraq's prime minister said Sunday. 
 
Saddam's trial could prove to be highly divisive in an already turbulent Iraq that shows signs of deepening sectarian divisions. Reflecting these tensions, the Shiite-led Iraqi government acknowledged Sunday that its forces may have targeted innocent Sunni Muslims in a drive to crush the insurgency in southwestern Baghdad and its suburbs.
 Starting the court proceedings against Saddam in two months would overlap with the writing of the constitution.
 &quot;There should be no objection that a trial should take place within that time,&quot; said Laith Kuba, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. &quot;It is the government's view that the trial of Saddam should take place as soon as possible.&quot;
 Kuba said the attack with chemical weapons on the Kurdish town of Halabja was one of the charges, but did not elaborate on the other 11. An estimated 5,000 people were killed in Halabja and 10,000 others were hurt in the gassing on March 16, 1988.
 In recent days, Sunni Muslim organizations have charged that many innocent Iraqis have been arrested in the drive to crush the insurgency and most were Sunnis, the minority that dominated the country during Saddam's rule and are believed to form the insurgency's backbone.
 &quot;There is an improvement in security and in the performance of the security forces, but members of the army and police do cause mistakes, which do happen,&quot; Kuba said.
 There were also some claims that &quot;soldiers took advantage and helped themselves to cash and other items. One doesn't rule it out. I think the army needs more disciplinary measures in these cases,&quot; Kuba said.
 Regardless of the complaints and the acknowledged mistakes, the crackdown - dubbed Operation Lighting - entered its second week Sunday and appeared to have somewhat blunted insurgent attacks in the capital.
 The charges of overzealous behavior by the military and police as they seek to roust the insurgents coincide with government efforts to include Sunni Arabs in the political process, and to get them involved in drafting Iraq's new constitution. Sunni approval is necessary for the charter's adoption in a national referendum.
 &quot;We should not forget the bigger picture, which is that the security forces have a duty to combat the [terrorist] cells that take out their anger and violence on the Iraqi people,&quot; Kuba said.
 Although the government has not provided fresh figures on the number of Iraqis arrested so far, the Interior Ministry said last Thursday that 700 people had been detained. 


TITLE: Nadal Predicted to Win Often After Open
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS - As a teen prodigy, Rafael Nadal's achievements match or surpass those of Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Mats Wilander, suggesting that his first Grand Slam title is unlikely to be his last. 
 
Then again, the Spaniard is the youngest French Open men's champion since Michael Chang, who never won another major title. 
 But few expect the 19-year-old Nadal to become a one-Slam wonder. He's too big and strong, too cool and creative, too pugnacious and precocious. 
 He's already the king of clay, thanks to a victory Sunday over Mariano Puerta in the Roland Garros final, 6-7 6-3 6-1 7-5. Now he'll set his sights on other surfaces, beginning with grass this week at Halle, Germany. 
 &quot;I know [grass] is not my best surface,&quot; Nadal said. &quot;It's a little bit fast. I need to improve some things in my game [to] play better in grass and in the fast courts.&quot;
 Nadal reached the third round at Wimbledon two years ago when he was just 17, then missed last year's tournament with an injury. With only an average serve, he won't be among the favorites when the tournament begins in two weeks, but his current 24-match winning streak suggests he's not to be discounted. 
 &quot;We are talking about someone who is going to write a page in the history of tennis,&quot; Puerta said. &quot;I think he's going to do some beautiful things. He's going to become a legend.&quot;
 Nadal is already drawing comparisons to Grand Slam greats: 
 n He's the youngest man to win a major title since Chang became the French champion in 1989 at age 17. Nadal is almost a month younger than Sampras was when he won the first of his record 14 major titles at the 1990 U.S. Open. 
 n He's the first man to win the French Open on his initial try since Wilander, who claimed the first of his seven Grand Slam titles at Roland Garros in 1982. 
 n His winning streak is the longest by a male teenager in the Open era, surpassing Agassi by one victory. Agassi has since gone on to claim eight major titles. 
 However many Nadal wins, his first will be well remembered. One testament to the quality of his performance: he had 54 winners and 28 unforced errors, a remarkable ratio. And for sheer entertainment, the final surprisingly surpassed his semifinal victory on his birthday against top-ranked Roger Federer. 
 He and Puerta kept each other scrambling as they chased drop shots, lobs, and sharply angled groundstrokes. Some of the best rallies came in the tiebreaker, with each point seemingly more spectacular than the last, and there was another series of frantic exchanges with Puerta on the verge of forcing a fifth set. 
 By then Puerta, an unseeded Argentine less than a year removed from a drug suspension that dropped his ranking to 440th, had the center-court crowd chanting his name. 
 &quot;Unfortunately, Nadal didn't let me play the fifth set,&quot; Puerta said. &quot;I could still be playing now, in fact. But it was a beautiful match all the same.&quot;
 Three times serving at 5-4, Puerta reached set point. On one, he lunged to his right to dig out a volley, then leaped to his left in a vain attempt to return another, dumping the ball in the net as he went sprawling in the clay. Nadal jumped in jubilation. 
 The last point of the game produced another exciting exchange. Nadal charged forward to scoop up a drop shot, and when Puerta slammed a shot back toward him from point-blank range, the Spaniard hit a reflex volley that Puerta couldn't handle. 
 In his postmatch news conference, Nadal recounted that final point of the game stroke by stroke. Then he grinned, raised both arms and made V-for-victory signs with his hands. 
 &quot;I can win the point, no?&quot; he said. 
 Two games later, Nadal had his title. He sank to the clay, rose and embraced Puerta at the net, then trotted to the other end of the court to accept congratulations from the king of Spain sitting in the first row. 
 &quot;He said it's incredible what I did,&quot; Nadal said. 


TITLE: Victory In
 City Keeps
 Hope Alive
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Russia overcame a resilient Latvia 2-0 in a World Cup qualifier in St. Petersburg on Saturday to keep alive their hopes of reaching next year's finals in Germany. 
 
Two second-half goals by FC Zenit St. Petersburg striker Andrei Arshavin and Dmitry Loskov gave the home team a deserved victory in Yuri Syomin's first game as national team manager. 
 After the game, Latvia accused the Russian home crowd of abusing visiting fans and said Latvian supporters had also been threatened (<i>see story, Page 1</i>).
 Arshavin, playing at his club ground Petrovsky Stadium, put Russia ahead shortly after the break and Loskov added the second from the penalty spot mid-way through the second half after Latvia keeper Andrejs Piedels brought down Vladimir Bystrov. 
 &quot;I'm just happy with the outcome,&quot; said a relieved Syomin, who replaced Georgy Yartsev two months ago following a string of poor results. 
 &quot;We played much better in the second half. Latvia also opened up their game after the interval and we were able to find more space in their defensive zone. That was the key to our victory.&quot; 
 The Russians came alive after the break, with the speedy Zenit trio of Arshavin, Alexander Kerzhakov and second-half substitute Bystrov tormenting Latvia's defence. 
 Arshavin opened the scoring in the 56th minute as he followed his own shot to knock in a rebound after a fine through-ball by Kerzhakov. 
 Then, Piedels tackled Bystrov inside the box and Loskov calmly doubled the score with a 78th-minute penalty, sending a capacity crowd at the 23,000-seat stadium wild. 
 The visitors had a few chances of their own, but came away empty-handed. 
 Just before Russia's first goal, speedy striker Maris Verpakovskis came close on two occasions, first missing with a dangerous header, then firing over the bar from a good position. 
 &quot;I think it was a good game, but we just couldn't keep up with Russia in the second half,&quot; lamented Latvia coach Yurijs Andrejevs. &quot;They also dominated us on both wings.&quot; 
 The win allowed Russia to move into joint second in Group 3, level on points with Slovakia.
 The Slovaks, however, lost ground on leader Portugal, which beat them 2-0 in Lisbon to go three points clear at the top with 17 points. Fernando Meira and Cristiano Ronaldo scored for the home side.
 Estonia also kept up its hopes of an unprecedented playoff spot in the same group with a 2-0 home win over Liechtenstein, which moved the Baltic nation up to 11 points, just three behind the Russians and Slovakians. After other games Saturday, Ukraine, the Netherlands and Croatia were all left eyeing a place in next year's World Cup finals but Ireland was left frustrated by an astonishing fight-back by Israel. 
 The Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden and Poland also boosted their chances on a day of 22 qualifiers, ahead of another 13 European games scheduled for Wednesday.
 <i>(SPT, AP, Reuters) </i>

TITLE: Hatton Outboxes Tszyu In
 IBF Welterweight Title Bout
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MANCHESTER, England - Kostya Tszyu sensationally lost his IBF light-welterweight title to unfancied Briton Ricky Hatton on Sunday after 11 thrilling rounds.
 
The 26-year-old Hatton wore down the Russian-born Australian with a high tempo display until Tszyu could take no more and stayed on his stool before the final round.
 Tszyu, who has held a version of the title for 10 years, refused to rule out retirement.
 Holder of the lightly regarded WBU belt, Hatton adopted his usual attacking approach from the opening bell in front of a raucous hometown crowd at Manchester's M.E.N Arena, unsettling Tszyu with some positive if undisciplined punches.
 The Briton took the first two rounds but his frenetic work began to backfire and the 35-year-old Tszyu threw the higher quality punches, including some good left hooks, in the next few rounds.
 Both fighters felt the canvas in the middle rounds but only after illegal low blows and Hatton found some renewed vigor in the closing stages to stun Tszyu, trapping him on the ropes with a series of punches in round 10 as he took charge.
 Tszyu only made the weight limit at the second time of asking ahead of the fight and he looked exhausted during the final round as Hatton's youthful power outshone his experience.
 When the fight ended, all three judges had Hatton ahead. American judge Dan Ackerman had it 107-102, Spain's Manuel Maritxater scored it 105-104 and Alfred Asaro had Hatton leading 106-103.
 &quot;I always said I was No. 1. If I can be half the fighter Kostya Tszyu has been, I will be doing a good job,&quot; said Hatton, who holds an unblemished 39-0 record.
 &quot;To beat somebody like Kostya Tszyu, that's end-of-the-rainbow stuff for me,&quot; he said. &quot;Winning a world title is something, but to beat somebody like Kostya Tszyu is absolutely fantastic.&quot;
 Tszyu left the door open for retirement and was gracious in what was only his second defeat in 32 bouts.
 &quot;I am a proud man and I am not saying it is the end of my career, maybe, maybe not,&quot; he said.
 &quot;Today I lost to the better fighter and it is no shame for me to say that. Ricky was better than me in everything.&quot;
 <i>(Reuters, AP) </i>