SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1121 (87), Friday, November 11, 2005
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TITLE: Thousands in Azerbaijan Protest Election
AUTHOR: By Judith Ingram
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAKU, Azerbaijan — Thousands of demonstrators jammed a square in Azerbaijan’s capital Wednesday, charging fraud in last weekend’s parliamentary elections and calling for the government to resign. 
The protesters entreated the United States to press the oil-rich former Soviet republic to institute full democracy.
“Our struggle can end only in victory,” Ali Kerimli, one of the three major opposition leaders, told the crowd.
The thousands rallied in answer to a call by the opposition movement following Sunday’s parliamentary elections that international observers said did not meet democratic standards. Many in the crowd also called for the government to resign.
Some 15,000 protesters walked down a four-lane road, closed to traffic, under a sea of orange flags — a color they borrowed from Ukraine’s protests that forced a new election after charges of fraud.
But the numbers were well short of the 30,000 to 50,000 the opposition had hoped for.
The Central Election Commission, meanwhile, awarded a legislative seat to Kerimli after a recount — raising the possibility that the government could try to defuse the protest movement by awarding a few more parliamentary seats to the opposition.
President Ilham Aliev’s office also announced the firing of two regional governors accused of interfering in the elections, and prosecutors said four election officials from local commissions had been detained on suspicion of falsifying ballot results and abuse of office.
The ruling New Azerbaijan Party on Tuesday claimed victory, winning 63 of the 125 seats in the legislature, according to preliminary official results.
Aliev’s spokesman, Azer Gasimov, accused the opposition of exaggerating the foreign observers’ criticism. He emphasized that the observer mission led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe had pointed to Azerbaijan’s failure to meet some — not all — international election standards.
The Azadliq, or Freedom, opposition coalition called its next rally for Saturday.
In a show of force, 300 riot police wearing helmets and armed with shields stood in rows on the square, while others stood on nearby rooftops. Many plainclothes agents appeared to be mingling in the crowd.
“Police, let us vote for freedom!” shouted knots of young men who stood a few feet from the riot police.
Patriotic songs were piped through a loudspeaker in the square, framed by two huge billboard portraits of late strongman leader, Geidar Aliev, father of the current president.
The Aliev family has dominated for decades, and the opposition has built much of its base on popular dissatisfaction with the corruption and poverty that grip the Caspian Sea nation in spite of its great potential oil wealth.
One protester’s sign read: “President Bush, Don’t Fail Us Now!” Another poster demanded: “Stop trading our democracy for oil.”
The opposition fears that the U.S. interest in Azerbaijan’s energy riches will trump its stated commitment to expanding democracy around the world. Azerbaijan is the starting point for an oil pipeline to the Mediterranean, a project Washington strongly backed as a way of reducing dependence on Middle East oil.
While the Azadliq coalition, which called the march, is trying to emulate the movements that brought opposition leaders to power after disputed elections in Georgia and Ukraine, it lacks some of their strengths, including organization and loyalty. 
The coalition also has been pushed far to the margins of political life, in part through the detention of its activists and frequent bans on demonstrations. 
But it has been buoyed by Western observers’ criticism of the polls for falling short of democratic standards and the reversal of some results. The Central Election Commission annulled Sunday’s vote in two electoral districts and ordered a recount in a third. 
The commission annulled the results in 12 of 44 precincts in Binaqadi district, where the governing party contender had been declared winner. 
As the opposition candidate was leading in all the precincts that were not annulled, the commission’s decision apparently unseats the ruling party candidate. 
But Aliev’s New Azerbaijan party will retain a majority with the support of government-affiliated independent lawmakers.

TITLE: Chamber Rules On Lawyer In Yukos Case
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The qualification commission of the St. Petersburg Lawyers’ Chamber has refused to strip lawyer Yury Schmidt of his license. Schmidt was one of the ten lawyers defending the former head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, having previously attracted international attention for his successful defense of ex-submariner and environmental expert Alexander Nikitin, who faced charges of treason for alleged espionage in 1998.
Schmidt’s disqualification was requested by the Moscow Department of the Federal Registration Service, which had previously — and unsuccessfully — asked for three lawyers in the Yukos case, Anton Drel, Denis Dyatlov and Yelena Levina to be barred.
The lawyers were accused of “violating Khodorkovsky’s rights,” “acting against professional ethics,” and “deliberately procrastinating,” in Khodorkovsky’s appeal. 
“These accusations were pure nonsense,” Schmidt said at a press conference on Thursday, immediately after the St. Petersburg Lawyers’ Chamber ruling. 
“When Genrikh Padva, who was due to represent Khodorkovsky in court on the date scheduled for the appeal, suddenly fell ill, there was nobody to replace him for one simple reason: Padva was the only lawyer legally assigned for that action, and all the others didn’t have the right to replace him there,” Schmidt said. 
“None of the remaining nine lawyers would even have been allowed in the building. We needed time to either wait for Padva to recover — which is what eventually happened — or for another lawyer to be authorized,” he said. 
Schmidt went on to comment damningly on the current state of the Russian justice system.
“Evenhanded justice doesn’t exist in Russia anymore,” he said. 
“If the state has an interest in the case, it is sure to be twisted, infringed and turned upside down. In the Soviet period, prosecution served the ruling party, and it still does. The only difference is that the Communist Party has been replaced by the United Russia [party].”
Earlier this month, Schmidt and Moscow human rights advocate Lev Ponomarev presented a report on access to professional legal assistance in Russia at the OSCE International Conference on the role of lawyers in ensuring fair judicial examination held in Tbilisi on November 3-4.
Speaking at the conference, Ponomarev stressed that the repression of lawyers is becoming commonplace in Russia, both in the capital and in the provinces. 
“During the Khodorkovsky-Lebedev trial, lawyers dealing with the case were subject to searches and were themselves forced to appeal to legal advocacy organizations to protect their rights,” Ponomarev said in his speech as quoted at www.khodorkovskytrial.com.
Later this month, Schmidt will travel to Krasnokamensk, 500 kilometers away from Chita, to see Khodorkovsky and continue work on their appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The appeal is due to be submitted by the end of the year.
To appeal the Khodorkovsky-Lebedev verdict, his lawyers will have to prove that the prosecutors violated article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial. In Schmidt’s opinion, the chances that Khodorkovsky will get the support of the Strasbourg court are “excellent.”
“I just don’t see them turning our case down,” Schmidt said. “And if they do, it would only mean one thing: the European Court is somehow turning into [Moscow’s court].”
“Instead of being sent to a prison in Moscow or in a neighboring region, [Khodorkovsky] was sent to a jail that is 7,000 km away from Moscow, which you can only reach by a six-hour flight and another half-day drive by car along a bumpy road,” Schmidt said. “This is not what you call accessible legal aid.”
The lawyer said Saddam Hussein was being treated more humanely than Khodorkovsky. “When Saddam’s lawyers asked for an additional three months for him to familiarize himself with the case materials, they got a month and a half, but Khodorkovsky wasn’t granted a single hour of the eight weeks he requested,” he said.
In Schmidt’s opinion, Western politicians are demonstrating embarrassing indifference to the Khodorkovsky trial, which comes as a sharp contrast to the Nikitin case.
“During the four years of the Nikitin case, U.S. congressmen, European ministers and other high-ranking politicians were enthusiastic, keen to meet us en masse and sending numerous letters of support,” Schmidt recalls. “Now, their reaction can be described as being quite sluggish and inert. It is difficult to get through to American congressmen, and I have to make do with their assistants.”
Looking back to his victory in the Nikitin trial, Schmidt said the current political environment and the conditions of the Russian justice system would have made it much more difficult to win the case in the present climate. 
Yury Vdovin, a prominent Russian human rights advocate and deputy head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Citizens’ Watch human rights organization said Russia has returned to the disgraceful practice of imprisoning people on political grounds.
“We aren’t talking about just one or two cases; Russia’s political prisoners can be counted by the dozen,” Vdovin said. “Take, for instance, the environmentalist Sutyagin, the scientist Danilov or the group from Limonov’s National Bolshevik Party, who were sentenced to a hefty eight years in jail for ‘mass disorders,’ which in reality meant crushing a few chairs in a government building.”
Vdovin said Russia’s human rights advocates should begin compiling  a full list of political prisoners and making it available to the general public.

TITLE: Homeless Soccer Team Sets Off for Gdansk
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Homeless people from St. Petersburg will be traveling to Poland next week to take part in the European Homeless Soccer Cup, to be held in Gdansk on November 18-21. The St. Petersburg team, assembled and managed by Put Domoi, a twice-monthly magazine that is sold by the city’s homeless who receive 50 percent of the sales, has been taking part in international soccer competitions for the last three years. 
Arkady Tyurin, editor of Put Domoi, told reporters this week that locals will play against teams from Germany, Holland, Denmark and other countries.
The St. Petersburg team first traveled overseas in the summer of 2003 to take part in the World Homeless Soccer Tournament in Graz, Austria, where they finished 13th out of 18 teams. The next year the team took fifth place out of 27 teams during the World Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The team continues to train intensively, and the last game before they depart for Poland is scheduled for November 13 at the gymnasium of the St. Petersburg Forestry Academy.
The purpose of these tournaments is to use the positive power of soccer to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness and poverty worldwide. Social integration programs centered around sports have been practised successfully by organizations like the English soccer street league for a number of years.
“These competitions have already proved to be a very efficient tool,” Tyurin said. “They stimulate people and give them new energy to try and look for a job, training or rehabilitation program.”
According to the organizers of the Russian squad, the term “homeless” is interpreted relatively broadly during the selection process, and doesn’t mean the team’s players literally live on the streets of St. Petersburg.
Most of them find refuge in homeless shelters and rehabilitation centers or live with relatives and friends. Some of the players are being treated from alcohol and drug addiction.
Despite large numbers of homeless people, who can be frequently spotted around St. Petersburg, the team is incomplete and welcomes new members. Last year the team finished 12th during the World Cup due to a shortage of players.

TITLE: Russia, U.S., EU Work On Iran Nuclear Proposal Plan
AUTHOR: By Francois Murphy
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: VIENNA — Russia, the United States and the European Union stepped up attempts on Thursday to end months of deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program. 
The powers sought to draft a proposal aimed at satisfying the world that Iran’s nuclear intentions are peaceful, but diplomats doubted that Tehran would accept it. 
France, Britain, Germany and the United States support the idea of a proposal that would let Iran keep part of its nuclear fuel production program if the most sensitive part — enrichment — was scrapped and moved to Russia, diplomats say. 
UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said he hoped a deal would be reached soon. 
“He hopes that in the coming days the international community will be able to coalesce around a solution that is acceptable to all parties, including Iran,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement. 
But diplomats were sceptical that Iran would join the proposed Russian joint venture, as that would require Tehran to renounce enrichment, which it says it will never do. 
Enrichment purifies uranium for use as fuel in power stations or, if it is enriched further, for use in bombs. 
“What ElBaradei said may be wishful thinking,” an EU official said on condition of anonymity. “Perhaps the Iranians will make a deal with us, but I think we will be surprised if that happens.” 
Washington accuses Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons under cover of its atomic power program, which Tehran denies. 
Under the plan, Iran could continue with uranium conversion, the step before enrichment, something the West had previously wanted Iran to renounce as well. 
Talks between the EU and Iran collapsed in August after Iran resumed conversion activities. 
Senior EU officials met Russian and Chinese envoys in Vienna on Thursday, an EU official said, adding that they would meet ElBaradei and speak to senior U.S. officials by telephone. 
The head of South Africa’s delegation to the IAEA said that if Iran accepted an offer, other states would back the plan. 
“If Iran agrees, then everybody will support it,” Abdul Minty said. 
ElBaradei said he was prepared to go to Tehran if it helped. 
“Dr ElBaradei has a standing invitation to visit Iran, and while he has no plans to do so at present, he is ready to travel to Iran at an appropriate time if it will help facilitate a solution,” the IAEA statement added. 
The New York Times said on Wednesday that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wanted Iran to be given a deadline of two weeks to reply, before IAEA governors meet on Nov. 24. 
Meanwhile Germany’s designated foreign minister said that Iran was not being fully open with UN inspectors about the extent of its nuclear development program and may still be hiding something. 
“There is a lack of transparency. That is clear,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin. 
“We still have some suspicions that there are developments being pursued  [by Iran] that go against this principle,” he said.

TITLE: Putin Vows To Start Reforming the Army
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin promised on Wednesday to keep the military strong but also emphasized the need for reforms, saying the armed forces must be prepared to combat any threat.
“In channeling serious resources to the army, we will understand that the armed forces are a most important attribute of statehood, the guarantor of the sovereignty of our country,” Putin said at a meeting with military commanders.
“They must be prepared to ... defend Russia against any attempts at military-political pressure and blackmail by force,” Putin said in televised comments. “And unfortunately, we do see such methods of foreign policy — they still exist in the world.”
Putin said the capability of the armed forces had been increased this year and that progress was made in improving nuclear deterrence, Interfax reported. “The Army and Navy are worthily fulfilling the task of safeguarding Russia’s security and defending its national interests,” he said.
He also reiterated his praise of the law enforcement officers who battled militants last month in Nalchik, saying the attackers “were taught a harsh lesson they deserved” and calling it a result of improved coordination. At least 139 people were killed, including 94 accused attackers, according to official tallies.
But Putin reaffirmed the need for long-planned military reforms, saying the armed forces must be ready to decrease the normal term of compulsory service from two years to one year by Jan. 1, 2008 — “without lessening the combat-readiness of the Army and Navy”— and to rely increasingly on professional soldiers. He acknowledged that hazing was “a serious problem” in the military, Interfax said.
Putin said military pay and pensions would increase by 67 percent over the next three years. With oil prices high, Russia has enjoyed years of strong economic growth and recently boosted its planned budget for 2005, with officials saying a significant part of the additional spending will go to the military and law enforcement.
Putin said Russia would spend half as much money again on weapons and equipment purchases in 2006 as this year.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said the armed forces would get six intercontinental ballistic missiles next year.
At the same time, he said, insufficient military spending means most resources go to maintaining nuclear deterrence and the effectiveness of permanent-readiness units, leaving other parts of the military underfunded. He said “a lack of financing has led to a serious lack of supplies, especially in the Navy and Air Force,” Interfax reported.
Ivanov said that the size of the armed forces was to be cut to 1.1 million servicemen by the beginning of 2011, from 1,134,000 today. He also said 857 servicemen had died outside combat this year, more than half of them in traffic and other accidents.

TITLE: Bill Will Force NGOs To Reregister
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The State Duma is taking steps to force all nongovernmental organizations to reregister ahead of upcoming national elections, and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia face a very real threat of being shut down.
Remaining NGOs would be brought under close state control, according to a bill submitted to the State Duma late Monday. 
The bill, titled “Amendments to Several Laws of the Russian Federation,” appears to have a good chance of passing because it is being sponsored by a group of deputies from all four Duma factions.
Deputy Alexei Ostrovsky, a member of the Liberal Democratic party and one of the bill’s sponsors, said the legislation should help the government crack down on politically active NGOs that receive foreign funding and might use the money to promote an Orange Revolution.
Ostrovsky linked the bill to comments made by President Vladimir Putin during a meeting with human rights activists on July 20. Putin told the meeting that he would not tolerate foreign money being used to finance the political activities of nongovernmental organizations. 
Government officials have repeatedly accused Western countries of helping bankroll Ukraine’s Orange Revolution last year and Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003 through NGOs, and the Kremlin is worried that Duma elections in 2007 and the presidential vote in 2008 could trigger a similar popular uprising.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a budget bill last Friday that would provide $4 million for the development of political parties in Russia, RIA-Novosti reported.
NGOs on Tuesday decried the Duma bill as unconstitutional and said it attempted to silence critical voices and limit civil freedoms.
“It would be used as a tool against NGOs that criticize government policy,” said Alexander Petrov, head of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch. “We might have to work from abroad as in old Soviet times.”
Under the bill, Human Rights Watch would have to close its Moscow office, said Alla Tolmasova, a lawyer with the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights who has studied the legislation. 
The bill would bar foreign NGOs from having representative offices or branches in Russia, she said.
Foreign NGOs could only operate by opening financially independent organizations that rely on grants like Russian NGOs, said Oleg Orlov, the head of the Memorial human rights group.
If Human Rights Watch had to do that, it would have to pay a large portion of the grants as taxes, Petrov said. Only a limited, government-approved list of foreign donors are allowed to issue tax-free grants in Russia, he said.
The new funding arrangement would also mean that foreign NGOs would be unable to hire expensive lawyers to challenge the possible pressure from the authorities, Orlov said.
Ostrovsky said that if the bill became law, the 450,000 NGOs currently registered in Russia would have one year to reregister with the Justice Ministry’s Federal Registration Service. The service will in turn be required to make sure the NGOs do not use foreign grants to fund political activities, he said. 
Orlov complained that the bill would allow registration officials to demand NGOs to open up their financial records at any time. 
The financial oversight would come in addition to checks by tax authorities and further distract NGOs from their activities, he said.

TITLE: Antarctic Expedition Sets Off
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg scientists taking part in the Antarctic expedition which sets off from St. Petersburg on Friday will be researching the Earth’s ozone layer, and continuing observation of the unique Lake Vostok.
About 150 scientists will leave the city on board the Academician Fyodorov ship to carry out oceanographic and ecological research in the area between the Antarctic Continent and Africa, Interfax reported.
The scientists will also be studying marine organisms and sea ice from six Russian bases on the continent — the Novolazarevskaya, Vostok, Progress, Mirnyi, Molodyozhnaya and Druzhnaya.
The research expedition — the 51st of its kind — will last 185 days, and in early December the Academician Alexander Karpinsky ship will join the expedition in order to carry out geological and geophysical research. 
The Vostok Lake is located under a 4-kilometer deep layer of ice, although its upper surface is just 252 meters below sea level. 
The boring of a hole to the Lake, suspended since 1999, will be continued, and the scientists plan to recover a 50-meter thick section of ice from a depth of around 3,623 meters.

TITLE: Estonian Minister Refused Entry Visa
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Prime Minister of Estonia Andrus Ansip said Russia’s refusal to give a visa to the head of the Estonian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Urmas Paet, for his trip to St. Petersburg was unprecedented.
“This is another story which causes regrets,” Ansip said. 
“This is an unprecedented case. I haven’t heard of a similar situation with an official of any other country,” Ansip said at a press-conference in Tallinn on Thursday, Interfax reported.
Ansip said Paet had received an invitation to take part in a round table conference on border collaboration between Estonia, Finland and Russia’s Northwest two weeks ago. 
The Estonian Regions Minister Jaan Ounapuu also received an invitation.
“Unfortunately, right before the start of the conference, the Russian Embassy called our Foreign Affairs Ministry to say that the level of the conference did not meet the level of Foreign Affairs minister,” Ansip said.
He said participants in the conference included the special representative of the Russian president Sergei Yastrezhembsky, St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko, and other Russian officials with whom Estonia would like to forge links. 
“I don’t understand what Russia was trying to demonstrate, and I hope this attitude will change,” Antip said, adding that Estonia would inform its partners in the European Union about the incident.
Sergei Yastrezhembsky told journalists in St. Petersburg on Thursday that he did not know why Paet’s visa application had been rejected, Interfax reported.
He said the rejection could be a result of the event being intended for representatives of regional authorities.
“On our initiative we invited representatives of regional authorities from the territories bordering on Estonian and Finnish regions,” Yastrezhembsky said.
A source at the Russian Foreign Affairs ministry told Interfax that Estonia had requested a visa for Paet only two days before the event and “the visa could only have been given if all the valid rules for receiving high-ranking foreign officials in Russia were violated.”
The diplomatic rules for visits by officials to Russia require that transport, communication and guard services be provided.
In this case, there was no such official invitation and the Russian side could not provide an appropriate level of  reception for Paet, the source said.

TITLE: Hi-Tech Import Duty Scrapped
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Tuesday that the government would temporarily drop import duties on a wide range of high-tech equipment to help Russian firms save cash and modernize production.
The nine-month scrapping of duties — likely to take effect Feb. 1 and cover 630 out of 1,200 import categories — will reap an estimated $500 million in savings for domestic industry, he said.
“That would help companies import equipment that isn’t produced in Russia,” Gref said at a news briefing. 
He declined to name specific equipment affected by the decision but said that the oil sector would be among the beneficiaries.
Gref stressed that the measure would be temporary and that Russia was sticking to trade commitments related to its negotiations on membership in the World Trade Organization.
Analysts welcomed Gref’s announcement.
“It can be a very effective measure,” said Peter Westin, chief economist at MDM Bank. The decision could boost domestic spending on research and development, he said, as well as help increase the competitiveness of Russian companies.
The removal of import duties could be particularly helpful to oil companies as they modernize refineries, said Valery Nesterov, an oil and gas analyst at Troika Dialog.
Gref also said the government was considering temporarily lifting duties on future exports of liquefied natural gas. Although Russia has not yet started production of LNG, state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom has requested exemption from export duties, Gref said.
As the gas giant prepares to start developing the giant Shtokman field in the Barents Sea, it wants to create more attractive investment conditions for the foreign partners that are expected to participate in the project, Gref said.

TITLE: Tax Reforms Leave Business Unsatisfied
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Most managers running businesses in Russia are not satisfied with reforms to tax administration. Businesspeople complain about the inconsistent application and interpretation of tax laws, the excessive number of audits, and disputes with authorities, according to a recent survey published by Ernst & Young.
Entitled “Hope and Disappointment,” the survey reviews general trends in tax regulation in 2005 with the largest Russian and multinational companies operating in Russia participating in the poll.
The main problem, according to the survey, is tax administration, while tax legislation and the settlement of tax disputes in courts are mainly regarded favorably by investors.
80 percent of respondents had some form of tax dispute with the authorities in the last three years. 92 percent of disputes were taken to court, and 90 percent of these cases were concluded in favor of the survey respondents.
“The fair arbitration of tax disputes by Russian courts is one of the most substantial achievements of tax reform to date. Excluding some politically motivated cases, tax dispute hearings are generally efficient, and judges appear competent in dealing with the particular tax issues concerned,” said Petr Medvedev, a partner at Ernst & Young and Head of Tax in the CIS.
Despite frequent tax disputes, 67 percent of respondents said they have a neutral relationship with the authorities and 24 percent claim they “enjoy a good rapport.”
Foreign companies are more likely to have a low opinion of the tax regime. While 65 percent of foreign multinational respondents said it negatively affects foreign investment, nearly half of the Russian respondents claimed it did not, the survey said.
Businessmen’s concerns are well founded, said Maria Andreyeva, head of tax practice at Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners law firm in St. Petersburg. According to statistics from the ministry for internal affairs, the number of tax crimes increased by 47 percent in the first half of this year, compared to the same period last year. The number of tax disputes in the courts increased by 62 percent while the number of convicted persons rose 28 percent, Andreyeva said.
“The government is gradually taking steps to improve the tax climate in Russia, however those steps are clumsy,” she said.
A recently adopted law, in force from Jan. 1 2006, stipulates that tax authorities could levy sanctions upon individual entrepreneurs and companies without going to court, if the penalty does not exceed 5,000 rubles and 50,000 rubles for each tax respectively, Andreyeva said.
Amendments to the Tax Code that are currently being discussed in the State Duma also “do not help improve the administration of tax, nor the country’s investment climate, and in some cases even worsen conditions for the taxpayer,” Andreyeva said.
The draft stipulates a maximum period of tax investigation of a year, which will only ensure the practice of endless tax investigations. Instead of one investigation the draft allows two inquiries per year.
Positive changes include the introduction of unified standards of filing tax documents and receiving certificates, possibility of appealing against the rulings of tax authorities, as well as the authorities’ obligation to pay state fees when appealing to court.
“It would prevent tax inspectors from filing an appeal unless they expect to win the case,” Andreyeva said.
However the problem of compensating expenses caused to taxpayers by the actions of tax authorities remains unclear.
“The survey’s results are rather predictable. All features of the tax system are well known,” said Alexander Sidorenko, Grant Thornton Trid partner.
However he said that special research is still needed to say if these results could be extended to small and medium-size companies.
“To win in the arbitration court the company needs money and professional lawyers. Large companies have wider opportunities in this respect and I assume that the percentage of favorable court decisions is lower for smaller companies. For such companies and individual entrepreneurs it is better to avoid the courts altogether,” Sidorenko said.

TITLE: Oil-Rich Leaders Leaving Investors
AUTHOR: By Andrew Hurst
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: The country’s leaders are being lulled into a sense of complacency by an oil price boom that has brought cash flooding into the economy, sapping their drive to attract foreign direct investment into key productive areas.
Economists say Moscow’s increasing coolness toward foreign investors, especially in the oil and gas industry — now seen as the preserve of Russians, with outsiders in a subordinate role at best — could cost it dearly in the future.
“Russia is diving into complacency from the highest springboard,” said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank. “And it’s all built on fragile oil flows.”
The hardening attitude singles Russia out from top emerging economies, which have made attracting inward investment, especially in manufacturing, a top priority. It has also coincided with a halt to economic reforms.
Brazil and China, often grouped with Russia as nations likely to play a pivotal future role in world economic affairs, are actively wooing foreign direct investment, or FDI. “They [the Russians] have an extremely casual attitude to FDI,” said a senior official at a major bank. “It’s unique for such a large emerging economy.”
China attracted $5.25 billion in FDI in September alone, more than Russia got in all of 2004. Brazil’s FDI in the first nine months of this year was just short of $12 billion.
Perhaps Russians cannot be entirely blamed for believing they are in a practically unassailable financial position as money gushes from their oil industry.
The country has never been so flush with cash. Foreign exchange reserves have shot up to a record $164 billion as billions of dollars are flowing into the stabilization fund, due to hit $50 billion by the year’s end.
A recent biennial conference in Moscow organized by the World Economic Forum proved to be a low-profile affair. The new mood of self-sufficiency was summed up by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov’s failure to show up at a news conference.
The contrast could hardly have been greater with an earlier Forum event in October 2003, when President Vladimir Putin fielded questions in a frank exchange with foreign investors.
That gathering was held only days before the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of oil firm Yukos. His imprisonment and the de facto nationalization of part of his company was widely seen as a watershed, signaling the Kremlin’s determination to be the arbiter of the oil and gas industry.
“They [the government] don’t need to attend these meetings to get money,” said an adviser to a government minister who asked not to be identified. “They believe if they [foreigners] want to come, they will beg us to let them invest.”
Although FDI inflows are meager, hot money has flooded into the stock market, up nearly 60 percent so far this year.
Russian companies are raising billions of dollars through syndicated loans, bonds and initial public offerings, mostly in London, but economists say these funds do not bring with them the new skills that Russia requires.
“It’s not the type of investment Russia needs,” said one international bank economist in London. “Other elements ... are much more important, like skills and technology transfer.”
Foreign investment in retail and services has risen, but since BP bought a 49 percent stake in oil firm TNK in 2003, the door has firmly closed on foreigners buying big natural resource companies.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: St. Pete Port Share Sold 
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Chupit Ltd. won an auction for 48.8 percent of Russia’s OAO St. Petersburg Sea Port with a bid that matched the starting price of 802.5 million rubles ($28 million), Interfax reported, citing an unidentified State Property Fund official.
Chupit will have to announce who it represents “in the near future,’’ the news service cited the official as saying.
Other bidders were Jysk Staalindustri, representing Novolipetsk Iron and Steel, and Nezavisimaya Transportnaya Kompaniya, Interfax said.
Russian Aluminium was expected to bid but didn’t, the newswire reported, citing company spokeswoman Vera Kurochkina.
The port is part of a loading complex that feeds both the Gulf of Finland on the eastern edge of the Baltic Sea and the harbor of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city. It is controlled by a unit of Novolipetsk, Russia’s fourth-largest steelmaker, Vedomosti newspaper reported in September.

Pyatyorochka Price Freeze
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The largest national retail chain, Pyatyorochka, will freeze prices in its St. Petersburg shops until Jan. 31., Vedomosti reported Wednesday.
The Agrotorg company that operates the chain notified all local suppliers that purchasing prices would not increase this year. 
As a rule, food prices increase 7 to 8 percent a year, mainly in December. By holding prices down Agrotorg hopes to benefit from a higher turnover.

TITLE: Vikings Inspire Nordic Alliance
AUTHOR: By Alister Doyle
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: Russia predicted closer cooperation with neighboring Norway on developing oil and gas resources in the Arctic on Thursday and played down disputes over fisheries and a maritime boundary. 
Russia and Norway, the world’s number two and three oil exporters respectively behind Saudi Arabia, are both looking north for new finds. By some U.S. estimates, the Arctic could hold a quarter of the world’s undiscovered petroleum reserves. “I am convinced that there will be a closer cooperation between the two countries in the energy sector,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Stoere in Harstad in the Arctic Circle. 
Lavrov said cooperation could include both production of oil and gas and specialized equipment for work in the Barents Sea region where costs are high because of factors including freezing cold, winter darkness and risks of icebergs. 
He noted that Norwegian energy groups Statoil and Norsk Hydro were on a short-list of five foreign companies, along with Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Total, to help Russia’s Gazprom develop the vast Shtokman natural gas field in the Arctic. 
Lavrov and Stoere said they would work to avert new disputes over fish stocks in the north Atlantic and to resolve a three-decade dispute over fixing a maritime boundary north off their coasts. 
Stoere said the bilateral relationship was going through the most rapid and dynamic development, referring to issues including energy, trade and culture. 

FROM VIKINGS TO COLD WAR 
The two met on the fringes of talks by ministers from the Nordic nations and Russia aimed at reviving the cultural and trade ties that date back to Viking times but had been interrupted for decades by the Cold War. 
Nordic nations and Russia see their talks in Harstad as a way of reviving once thriving relations. 
Before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia, six European nations had consulates in the village of Hammerfest on the Arctic tip of Norway to help promote trade with Russia in timber, minerals and fish. 
Stoere and Lavrov said they had averted a diplomatic crisis last month when a Russian trawler escaped from the Norwegian coastguard with two Norwegian inspectors held on board after they tried to arrest the vessel. 
The inspectors, who accused the trawler of illegal fishing in the North Atlantic, were freed after they reached Russian waters. The trawler captain denied the charges. 
The two ministers also said they would try to break deadlock in a long-running dispute about where to draw the maritime boundary north of their common land border. The area could contain oil and gas reserves. 
But they said they had no plans to fix a deadline for talks. 
“You sound like a person from the old Communist days — five-year plans to be implemented in half a year,” Lavrov told a Norwegian reporter who asked whether Moscow might set a six-month deadline before seeking international arbitration.

TITLE: Disputed Purchase Still Haunts Rosneft
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Rosneft said on Wednesday that the rekindling of an old dispute relating to the 2003 acquisition of Severnaya Neft, or Northern Oil, would not hinder the oil major’s future plans to hold an initial public offering. 
“We treat the purchase of Severnaya Neft as a legal and clean deal,” Nikolai Manvelov, the head of Rosneft’s information department, said Wednesday.
Rosneft’s comments followed a report in the Financial Times on Wednesday that said businessman Suren Yegiazaryan effectively continued to dispute the 2003 Rosneft/Severnaya Neft deal, which caused much controversy at the time.
Among the most vocal critics of the deal in 2003 was now-jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who famously disputed the legality of the acquisition during a meeting of the country’s leading businessmen with President Vladimir Putin. And it was at that meeting that Putin delivered what seemed to be a warning to Khodorkovsky, hinting that there was reason to look back at how the oil majors accumulated their assets. 
Rosneft plans an IPO at some point in 2006. The offering comes after state-owned Rosneft snapped up Yukos’ key production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, in a controversial auction last year.
Yegiazaryan claims he had once owned 20 percent of Severnaya Neft but was defrauded of his shares at an unspecified time before the Rosneft takeover occurred. 
Based on Rosneft’s purchase price of $600 million, which analysts then considered to be too high, Yegiazaryan claims he was defrauded of assets worth $120 million.
Yegiazaryan is now seeking compensation from previous owners of both Rosneft and Severnaya Neft, including former Deputy Finance Minister Andrei Vavilov, said Vavilov’s lawyer Alexander Muranov in an e-mail Wednesday.
Based on Yegiazaryan’s claims, an investigation into the affair was opened last December in Switzerland, but Vavilov, who now holds a seat in the Federation Council, is not involved in the investigation.
Yegiazaryan is thought to have attempted to seek a settlement over the matter with both Vavilov and Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov, according to the Financial Times report. 
Yegiazaryan, who currently resides abroad, is a relative of State Duma Deputy Ashot Yegiazaryan, who was head of the now-defunct Unikombank. 
In the 1990s, Unikombank was involved in a $237 million scandal over a deal to supply MiG fighter jets to India. Vavilov was also implicated in the scandal. Federal funds intended for MiG producer MAPO Group to build the jets went missing. MAPO’s accounts at the time were handled by Unikombank.
Ashot Yegiazaryan did not return requests for comment on Wednesday.
A source familiar with the situation at Severnaya Neft said Wednesday that Suren Yegiazaryan’s claims were nothing but a media campaign against Rosneft.
“The episode when Yukos groundlessly criticized Severnaya Neft is well-known, so it could be part of the same campaign that was conducted in the West against Rosneft,” the source said, referring to numerous attempts by Yukos’ owners to argue that the Russian government, in seizing Yugansk, illegally seized assets and income.

TITLE: Black Marketeers Peddle Last Year’s Taxpayer Database
AUTHOR: By Anastasiya Lebedev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The black market has a hot new item for sale — a database listing Moscow taxpayers’ 2004 incomes along with contact information, Vedomosti reported on Tuesday.
Available both online and in disc form for as little as 1,400 rubles ($49), the database contains last year’s tax data leaked from the Federal Tax Service, the report said. It is the third such list of sensitive information to go on sale since November 2004.
Uncovered at a kiosk at Savyolovsky market in Moscow by reporters — who were able to verify their own incomes — the appearance of the newest, 2004 version of the database highlights a lack of official action in dealing with the issue.
Federal Tax Service spokeswoman Yelena Tolgskaya was unable to confirm a leak, adding she was confident the service’s information protection system was secure. But an outside party should handle any investigation into the matter, she said.
Law firm Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners advises complaints be directed to the Prosecutor General’s Office, said Yelena Ovcharova, a senior lawyer at the firm, confirming the disclosure of tax information is a criminal offense in Russia.
The prosecutor’s office would have to take action if people registered their complaints, leading possibly to a criminal investigation and charges against the tax officials behind the leak, she said. 
“The problem is that people frequently just give up and don’t complain,” Ovcharova said.
The Prosecutor General’s Office could not immediately provide information on how often it received such complaints.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: BP To Bid For Refinery 
LONDON (Bloomberg) — TNK-BP, BP Plc’s Russian venture, plans to bid for control of Lithuania’s oil refinery as the existing owner of the stake, Yukos Oil Co., struggles to survive $28 billion in back tax claims in Russia.
TNK-BP, in which BP holds 50 percent, plans to compete with ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, and Lukoil, Russia’s biggest oil producer, for the controlling stake in Lithuania’s AB Mazeikiu Nafta. PKN Orlen SA, Poland’s biggest oil refiner, and KazMunaiGaz, Kazakh state-owned oil company, also are interested in the asset.
“We are a logical buyer as a Russian company,” Robert Dudley, chief executive of TNK-BP, said Wednesday at an investment forum in London organized by the Energy Exchange Ltd. “It’s a good refinery, well maintained.” Bids are due to begin this week, he said. 
The refinery will require $300 million investment to improve its fuel quality and to build a pipeline to Butinge, its oil port on the Baltic Sea, Dudley said. TNK-BP ``hasn’t committed to any investment yet,’’ he said.

Tele2 Buys Lipetsk
STOCKHOLM (Bloomberg) — Tele2 AB, Sweden’s second-largestphone company, has bought Russian phone operator Lipetsk Mobile to further expand in the country.
Lipetsk Mobile has a license for a network based on the global system for mobile communications, or GSM, technology, Stockholm-based Tele2 said in a statement distributed by Waymaker Thursday. No financial details were disclosed.
Nordic phone companies are seeking acquisitions abroad to spur growth as competition increases in the saturated Nordic market. Tele2 acquired FORA Telecom BV in 2001 and has since gained wireless licenses in regions with 34.5 million people, including the Lipetsk purchase.
“The acquisition of Lipetsk Mobile with its GSM license is another step in the expansion of Tele2 in Russia,” following the introduction of GSM mobile  into twelve regions, Tele2 Chief Executive Officer Lars-Johan Jarnheimer said in the statement.

Bank of Moscow Bonds
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Bank of Moscow, a lender controlled by the city’s government, plans to sell $200 million of bonds, according to an e-mail from one of the underwriters.
The bonds will count as lower Tier II, according to the e-mail, which was sent to investors. Lower Tier II is a form of capital that regulators require banks to hold to cushion depositors from losses.
Barclays Plc and Merrill Lynch & Co will manage the sale, the e-mail said.

Rosneft Sues Yukos
MOSCOW (SPT) — Rosneft has sued to make Yukos Oil Co. re-pay the $645 million Yuganskneftegaz owes Group Menatep, Vedomosti newspaper reported, citing court documents. Rosneft claims Yukos made Yugansk, which it once owned, responsible for the debt in order to “malicously’’ hinder the sale of the unit, the newspaper said. Rosneft bought Yugansk after the government forced its sale to pay back taxes.
Group Menatep, Yukos’s biggest owner, said the oil company’s units were made responsible for the debt to protect Yukos from the risk of having to immediately pay back loans, Vedomosti said, citing Tim Osborne, Menatep’s managing director.

TITLE: Is There a Doctrine in the House?
AUTHOR: By Richard N. Haass
TEXT: What policy should the United States adopt toward China’s rise? How should it greet India’s emergence, Japan’s new assertiveness, Europe’s drift or the possible decline of Russia? How can the United States reduce terrorism, promote trade, stop nuclear proliferation and increase freedom?
These are among the toughest questions on the U.S. foreign policy agenda, and right now Washington is trying to answer them without a compass. Containment, the doctrine of resisting communist expansion, survived some four decades of challenge, but could not survive its own success. What  America needs is a foreign policy for both the post-Cold War and the post-Sept. 11, 2001 world.
That a guiding principle is needed cannot be doubted. A doctrine allows us to map out strategies and determine priorities. Those strategies and priorities in turn guide decisions of long-term importance, like where to invest the country’s intelligence and diplomatic assets, as well as how to deploy its military forces and channel its assistance programs. A doctrine also helps prepare the public for the commitments and sacrifices that may be required — and it signals U.S. priorities and intentions to outside governments, groups and other players.
There has been talk of a “Bush doctrine” during the current U.S. presidency, but in truth U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration has not applied a coherent policy so much as it has employed a mix of tactics, including counterterrorism, preemption, unilateralism and the promotion of democracy.
Counterterrorism is narrow in scope and provides no guidance for dealing with the opportunities and challenges globalization poses, like expanding trade or combating disease. Preemption (or prevention, to be more precise) is relevant to an even narrower set of circumstances and cannot be a regular feature of policy given the uncertainty and controversy it entails. Unilateralism is not viable because most of today’s pressing problems are global ones that cannot be solved by the United States alone, given the limits of its power.
The promotion of democracy is a more serious proposition, but to make it a doctrine would be neither desirable nor practical. Too many problems, including some that threaten the lives of millions, will not be solved by the emergence of new democracies. Into that category falls the necessity of dealing with today’s (as opposed to tomorrow’s) terrorists, the emergence of Iranian and North Korean nuclear capacities, and genocide.
Promoting democracy is one U.S. foreign policy goal, and rightly so, but when it comes to relations with China, Egypt, Russia or Saudi Arabia, other national security interests must bear equal or greater weight. Moreover, promoting democracy is too difficult to be a truly viable doctrine. In Iraq, where the United States used military force to oust a regime and occupy a country, the costs have been too high and the results too uneven to furnish any kind of model for future operations.
What, then, is the appropriate foreign policy doctrine for the United States? I would suggest “integration.” Based on a shared approach to common challenges, it means that the United States would cooperate with other world powers to make effective international arrangements and to take collective action. And those relationships would be expanded to include other countries, organizations and peoples, so that they too can come to enjoy the benefits of physical security, economic opportunity and political freedom. Finally, the United States should offer rogue states the advantages of integration into the global economy in exchange for fundamentally changing their ways.
Containment was the right doctrine for the Cold War. But for the current era, the United States must find a way to bring others in, not keep them out. Integration meets that criterion, along with all the others required of a new doctrine. It reflects existing international realities, addresses U.S. national security challenges, sets forth ambitious but achievable objectives and provides “first order” guidance that policymakers can consistently apply. It is also domestically supportable.

Richard N. Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations.  This comment first appeared in The New York Times.

TITLE: A Citizen Militia Breeds a Civil Society
TEXT: During President Vladimir Putin’s tenure in the Kremlin, a number of radical reforms have been introduced. We have a new national anthem. The military has a new flag, and officers have new service caps. Now the reformers are turning their attention to national holidays: Nov. 4 has replaced Nov. 7 as the big fall holiday.
What is traditionally celebrated on Nov. 4, you ask? The day of Our Lady of Kazan. But since there are 20 million Muslims in this country, we can’t call the holiday by that name. This may be the first case in history when a holiday has been observed under an assumed identity. Instead we celebrate the day when a militia led by Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky expelled the Poles (and various others) from Kitai-Gorod.
By establishing this new holiday, the Kremlin has created the impression that for 400 years Russia didn’t celebrate the early-17th-century ending of the Time of Troubles. Now, Putin has finally brought that chaotic period to a symbolic end and stuck it to the Poles (who named a street in Warsaw after Dzhokhar Dudayev) in the bargain. 
This raises an important question. The end of the Time of Troubles is an extremely significant date in Russian history. Did we really need Putin to remind us of this? Of course not. Russia used to commemorate the end of the Time of Troubles on Feb. 21, the date of Mikhail Romanov’s election to the throne. Why not restore this holiday? It wasn’t observed during the Soviet era, but it was for three centuries before that: The election of Mikhail Romanov  brought the Time of Troubles to a close, we decided, period. We celebrate Victory Day on May 9, the day it became a fact — not on the day when the Nazis retreated from Khimki.
Very often, the authorities have no assurance that the new symbols they concoct will take root. When asked about the new Nov. 4 holiday, Metropolitan Kirill, head of the foreign relations department at the Moscow Patriarchate, remarked that this was the day when civil society made its appearance in Russia.
I couldn’t agree more. A citizen militia is an expression of civil society. But do you really think the state would allow a citizen militia today?
Imagine that the victims of police brutality in Blagoveshchensk in December 2004 had formed a citizen militia. What would they have been called? Terrorists. Or imagine that in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, where seven guys were greased at the dacha of the president’s son-in-law, angry friends and relatives of the victims had created a militia. They’d have been dubbed allies of Shamil Basayev.
Recently I suggested that one way to solve the problems in the North Caucasus would be to create citizen militias in North Ossetia and Dagestan — or, rather, to admit that such militias already exist. There are plenty of people in the North Caucasus who are as willing to fight for Russia as against it. Tsarist Russia didn’t subdue the Caucasus by forcing the highlanders to lay down their arms, but by allowing them to fight on the Russian side. These days anyone inclined to take up arms is most likely going to kill Russians. Even if a fighter sides with Russia and picks up his gun to avenge the victims of terrorist attacks in Beslan or Botlikh, he’s the first to be nabbed by the cops.
And what’s the reaction? Even the moderate commentators now talk of the rise of nationalism in the North Caucasus. This in a country that celebrates the formation of a citizen militia as the dawn of civil society. Militias were possible 400 years ago, but not now. Today Russia’s territorial integrity is defended by paid-off cops who escort trucks full of terrorists to their destination; by colonels who go into the oil business with terrorists; and by prosecutors who blandly insist that 32 fighters were somehow crammed into a single army truck.
Before you start conjuring up the spirit of Minin and Pozharsky, you’d better be damned sure that the current residents of the Kremlin are behaving better than Sigismund’s Poles.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.

TITLE: Direct action
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: While the Russian film industry has frequently made news recently with such blockbusters as “Company 9” in an attempt to compete with Hollywood, something refreshing has appeared from the radical, no-budget side of film-making in the form of “Dust” (Pyl), made by the Svoi 2000 collective for the trifling sum of just $3,000. 
All the parts are played by non-actors with the remarkable exception of Pyotr Mamonov, a rock musician (formerly of the perestroika-era band Zvuki Mu) who became a theater actor and director who puts on his own productions. 
In the film, Lyosha (Alexei Podolsky), an overweight 24-year-old who leads a boring life in a miserable Soviet apartment under the eye of his babushka, chases the image of his “real,” perfect body, a glimpse of which he saw during a mysterious FSB medical experiment. In the course of the film he passes through bleak landscapes and empty alleys of the contemporary Moscow meeting all kinds of people.
Written by Marina Potapova, “Dust” was directed by Sergei Loban and shot with a digital camera by Dmitry Model.
According to Potapova, the film’s story originated with the lead performer, Podolsky, who was in a punk band in the 1990s that performed funny songs about abortions, and is in real life a gastroenterologist. 
Podolsky first appeared as an actor in a hilarious video that Loban directed for the Moscow band Korabl in 2002.
“He attracted us with his figure and his presence, with his whole appearance,” wrote Potapova. 
“He’s a full-fledged character. You don’t need to add much to him.”
Despite using mostly untrained actors, there are few of the false notes in “Dust” that can be seen in other low-budget Russian films. 
“We did very many takes, an unthinkable number of takes,” wrote Loban. “Then when editing the film, we put sound from the good takes on the takes that looked good.”
He said that working on a budget close to zero was not a conceptual move.
“It just was the only way to do it. We calculated that we had enough possibilities to do a full-length film. We are not that poor; we had a camera, a computer for cutting and had stashed $3,000 in a pot. It’s O.K.”
In the course of the film two gangsters in different stolen cars ask the hero about how to drive to Gnezdikovsky Pereulok, which most critics saw as a nod to Goskino (the State Film Department), which is located there, but Loban claims it was unintentional. 
“The Goskino hint was an accident. With the address ‘Gnezdikovsky Pereulok’ I meant something different, I simply got mixed up,” he wrote.
“There is nothing serious about this Goskino hint,” added Potapova.
“Sure, one can suggest that gangsters go to Goskino to get some of the state budget, but it’s unnecessary.”
When asked about contemporary Russian cinema, Loban was ironic. 
“I like everything about contemporary Russian cinema, because everything is disgusting,” he wrote. “It should stay like this. It will be worse when there are some good films, because then it won’t be clear what to do. The last film that I really liked was [the late director Nikita Tyagunov’s 1991] ‘Noga’ [Leg].” 
Potapova wrote she is not interested in what’s happening in the Russian film industry.
“I don’t care about the contemporary Russian cinema at all. I virtually don’t watch it and can’t make judgements. The very best what I managed to see was a St. Petersburg independent film called ‘Yatinsotests’.”
Loban wrote that while making “Dust,” he was influenced by hyperrealism, citing Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne’s “Rosetta,” Xavier Beauvois’s “Don’t Forget You’re Going to Die,” Jacques Audiard’s “A Self-Made Hero” and Erick Zonca’s “The Dreamlife of Angels” — as well as Mike Judge’s “Beavis and Butt-Head.” 
He also cited Mika Kaurismaki’s “Zombie and the Ghost Train” as his favorite film.
Potapova shares Loban’s love of the Dardennes’s “Rosetta,” but also cites Todd Solondz’s “Palindromes” and “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” Roman Polanski’s “The Tenant,” Vincent Gallo’s “Buffalo ‘66,” and Darren Aronofsky’s “Pi.” She also likes the work of directors Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock.
Although the two describe themselves as anarchists, Loban and Potapova claim they are not involved in direct political activism.
“It is the cameraman who is involved in video activism, taking part in different anarchist initiatives. Loban and I are somewhat far from it,” said Potapova.
“But politics is everywhere, you can’t divide politics from life. Whatever we do it has something to do with politics. To live means to be involved in political activism.”
Ironically, the FSB characters in the film are played by left-wing political activists Pavel Bylevsky and Dmitry Pimenov, who both have had problems with the modern-day successor to the KGB. In the late 1990s Pimenov hid in Prague fearing arrest after being suspected of a terrorism offence.
“These people know how the FSB men behave, they have come across them and can play it well,” wrote Lobanova.“Pimenov likes to act like this and frequently plays an FSB man when visiting someone or just walking around. Both are also great people, it would be a shame not to film them.”
As well as the FSB, the Soviet intelligentsia — the so-called “men of the 1960s” — are satirized in “Dust.”
“In 2000 we had to deal with the special services and human rights activists, when the anarchists that we knew were under investigation accused of creating the terrorist organization NRA [New Revolutionary Alternative] and everybody who knew them even slightly, were interrogated. We spoke to human rights activists as well, contemplating various ways of acheiving political asylum.
“All these men of the 1960s, they are still alive, but not only that, contemporary politics and culture are being built upon on those ‘60s concepts and illusions. The idea [in the film] was to show ... how people manage to live every day in their own world, in their own concepts, in their own paradigms. But chaos reigns everywhere, doesn’t it? All people move chaotically, and contacts between them are virtually impossible. They only happen on a very conditional level.”
“Dust” drew comparisons to the perestroika-era film “ASSA,” but Loban and Potapova disagree, although Loban acknowledged that the “ASSA” message — “one can’t live like this anymore” — can be applied to “Dust.” 
“One can’t live like this anymore — absolutely true,” he wrote.
“But not in the sense of the organization of society (as in “ASSA”). In our case it deals with personal, existential experience.”
Like “ASSA,” “Dust” closes with the Kino song “Peremen!” (Changes!). But whereas in “ASSA” the film showed the band performing the song with fans in the audience raising lighters, “Dust” has a man (Alexei Znamensky) interpreting into gestures.
“The song ‘Peremen!’ is performed in the language of gestures. This is not to confused with sign-language. There is such a genre: ‘gesture singing’,” wrote Loban.
“Gesture singing is common among the hearing-impaired.”
Znamensky won a song contest in 2003 where he ‘gestured’ a song by Italian pop singer Adriano Celentano.
“The language of gestures is like an internal language, like the language of the body, which the hero desires [in the film],” wrote Potapova. 
“It’s a purely physiological rush for changes, for the better. Words lie. Thoughts lie. But when you feel pain — you feel pain, exactly. When you are taken by anxiety and fear, they are real processes. Love, fear. And changes are an absolutely real thing. The hero, who is unable to comprehend what’s happening, ‘sings’ in a language of gesture and action throughout the film.”
“‘Cigarettes are in hands, tea is on the table, that’s how the circle closes. And there is nothing else — everything is within us’,” wrote Potapova, quoting lyrics by Viktor Tsoi, Kino’s late singer and songwriter.
“What demands changes are ‘eyes,’ ‘hearts’ and ‘pulsating veins.’  It sounds a bit pompous, of course.”

“Dust” (Pyl) is on show at the Modern Art Center (formerly Priboi Cinema) through the end of November. The center is located at 93 Sredny Prospekt (Vasilyevsky Ostrov). M: Vasileostrovskaya/Primorskaya. Tel. 322-4223. www.dust.kinoteatrdoc.ru

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Rock musicians, including some popular names, were happy to serve the state for a hefty pay check by appearing at an open-air rock festival called Phoenix in Gudermes, Chechnya early this week. But Yury Shevchuk, singer with the group DDT, criticized the event as propaganda.
“Any cause for peace is good, but the large fees offered to the musicians in this case has a bad smell,” Shevchuk was quoted by the website Newsinfo as saying.
“There’s too much politics and pomposity around it. I see the authorities’ decision to promote concerts in Chechnya as an attempt to prove to the rest of the world that there is peace and prosperity in Chechnya. But we know that in reality it is not like that.” See report, this page. 
French trumpeter Erik Truffaz performs in the city this week. He will be backed by his band Ladyland, named after Jimi Hendrix's album “Electric Ladyland.”
Described as the “Miles Davis of France,” the innovative musician fuses cool jazz, Arabic music and hip-hop. 
However, in the opinion of Rolling Stone critic David Fricke, “Truffaz plays less like Miles than a jazz-rock [Brian] Eno, making rapturous atmospheres from a minimum of notes.”
His most recent album, “Saloua,” released earlier this year, features Tunisian vocalist Mounir Troudi and poet/rapper Nya.
Truffaz and Ladyland will perform at Cappella on Saturday.
Metamorphosis, the “chamber-punk” quartet comprising of Austrian, Czech and Turkish musicians that performed at Platforma last Sunday, has remained in the city where its guitarist Richard Deutscher is based to rehearse for its next album. As well as that, two of the band’s members, guitarist Martin Alacam and violinist Christoph Pajer, will get together with the locally-based British drummer Marcus Goodwyn for a concert. The trio will perform under the name GAP (an abbreviation of the members’ last names) at GEZ-21 on Saturday.
Apocalyptica, a Helsinki, Finland-based cello quartet that behas come famous for its unlikely Metallica covers, will perform at Music Hall on Sunday.
“Sometimes we feel like we are a karaoke band,” said Apocalyptica’s Eicca Toppinen in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times when the band first came to St. Petersburg in May 2000. 
“Often there are a lot of Metallica fans who know most of the songs, and sing along to them.”
Dva Samaliota will hold its first local concert after its European tour at Platforma on Saturday, while Deti Picasso, a Moscow-based indie rock band whose vocalist, Gaya Arutyunyan, sings in Armenian, will perform at Manhattan on the same night.
Billy’s Band, the popular local act that started out playing Tom Waits covers at places like Molly's Irish Pub, returns to its Waits years by releasing an album called “Being Tom Waits.”  It will be launched with two concerts at Estrada Theater on Friday and Saturday. Billy’s Band will also play a club gig at Platforma on Thursday.

TITLE: Art and artifacts
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Vadim Voinov does not make the sort of art one normally finds in the halls of the State Hermitage Museum. But the 65-year old St. Petersburg artist, who has mounted an exhibition called “The State Hermitage Under a Full Moon” in its General Staff Building, is also a professional art historian, museum worker, archeologist and gallery-founder. 
He has chosen a very curious place for the event. According to the show’s press release, Voinov decided to hold the exhibition in the unrestored, semi-ruined interiors of the fourth floor of the General Staff, rather than in its conventional gallery spaces. 
“The combination of premises similar to those in which I found the material, and the material itself, form a model for ‘in situ’ art and strengthen the feeling of authenticity,” the artist said, referring to the recovered objects central to his artworks. 
As an experienced archeologist, Voinov has special interest in old  objects that he collected in deserted houses. 
From 1979 Voinov’s archeological fetishism evolved into  art. He calls the works which result from this technique “function-collages.” 
The current exhibition is a kind of retrospective and features both old and new works. 
The greater part of the display is allusions, quotations, and ironic references to the Russian Avant-garde, Soviet ideology or Post-Soviet topics. 
Sometimes it is witty, sometimes it is weak. There are 73  collages in the display and there are many repetitions but the works benefit greatly from the original surroundings in which they are displayed.
Besides collages, some playful interpretations of interior elements such as cornices, air vents, and sockets are also on display. 
For example, at the entrance to the show there is the amazing work “Elemental Object: Hair of the Gorgon Medusa,” which is, in fact, electric cable. 

“The State Hermitage Under a Full Moon” runs through  28 Feb. 2006 at the General Staff Building of the Hermitage. 
www.hermitage.ru

TITLE: Smelly vision
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A world-class painting in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, Caravaggio’s late-16th Century masterpiece “The Lute-Player,” has been given a new lease on life at the center of an extravagant experiment.
As a rule, the sense of smell is not employed in the perception of paintings. But Italian perfume-maker Laura Tonatto and art historian Alessandra Marini came up with the idea that, although smell of objects to be depicted cannot be reproduced in a painting, it could be artificially restored later. With “The Pictures and Scents of Caravaggio,” that is exactly what they have done — four hundred years later.
Caravaggio’s painting — depicting a youth posing with lute and surrounded by flowers and fruits — was chosen by Tonatto and Marina because it can be interpreted as an allegory of the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste — and smell. 
Caravaggio unites genres of portraiture and still-life in one composition. Tonatto and Marina (thankfully) chose the still-life objects — six flowers (iris, camomile, jasmine, orange leaf, sweetbrier and damask rose) and three fruits (fig, plum and pear) — as the subjects for “aromatization.” In front of the painting there are nine plastic cylinders on a table, which contain aromatic essences — perfumed iris, sharp jasmine, sweet pear, and so on. All these separate smells are mixed in the last tube and given the name “Caravaggio.”
Since this is the Hermitage and not the perfume counter of a department store, the creators of the project offer an art-historical rationale behind it. 
They try to demonstrate that a whiff of authentic air is directly connected with the moment of creation of the original. 
But “The Pictures and Scents of Caravaggio” may be nothing more than a witty marketing ploy. After all, a limited series of “Caravaggio” perfume is being released. 
 
The “The Pictures and Scents of Caravaggio” runs through Nov. 20 at the Hermitage, room 232.www.hermitage.ru

TITLE: Different strokes
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Works by some of Russia’s most famous 19th century artists demonstrating a less well-known side of their versatile artistic talents form a new exhibition at the Mikhailovsky Castle of the State Russian Museum. Known for their oil paintings, artists such as Karl Bryullov, Orest Kiprensky, Alexei Venetsianov and Pavel Fedotov, were also accomplished draughtsmen and watercolorists. 
“Drawing and Watercolor in Russian Art in the 19th century” is the second in the museum’s grand-scale project “Three Centuries of Russian Drawing,” an attempt to trace the evolution of Russian art through this particular genre.
Russian Museum director Vladimir Gusev said the exhibition provides a new insight on the gallery’s collection of Russian art from the first half of the 19th century.
“We rarely display drawings, and the current project is meant to compensate for this involuntary neglect,” Gusev said. “Our curators made a special effort to exhibit less well-known works, but genuine masterpieces which have long remained obscure to the general audience.”
The project was launched in March with an exhibition of 130 Russian drawings and watercolors from the 17th century. The earliest item in the first show, Alexei Zubov’s decorative frame for a poem dedicated to  Peter the Great, dates from 1712. 
The Russian Museum, which holds the world’s largest collection of Russian art, boasts a rich and extensive archive of drawings and watercolors exceeding 100,000 pieces.
This time, the museum is exhibiting nearly 200 works by some of Russia’s most admired artists.
“In the first half of the 19th century, sketches represented a special layer of culture: being a more accessible and affordable genre, drawing reached out to a more general audience and served as a virtual bridge between people of different levels  on the social ladder,” said Yevgenia Petrova, the museum’s deputy director.
During that period, the virtuosity of Russian artists had reached such heights that legends began to emerge. If one of these legends is to be believed, one of the students of the Russian Academy of Art was spotted drawing a complete human figure from head to toe in a single stroke on the wall of a cafÎ in Rome.
At that time, drawing also served as a substitute for photography, documenting landscapes, architecture, social life and ethnographic studies of various peoples.
“Sketches were then no less popular and recognized than oil on canvas, probably because watercolors and graphic sketches harmonized with the way of thinking and emotional state of many people of what we now call the ‘Pushkin Era’,” Petrova said.
Most artists could enjoy much greater liberty and afford to be more frivolous or down-to-earth in these lighter genres.
“For instance, Alexei Venetsianov left many works depicting scenes of city life,” Petrova said. “There are many sketches depicting street scenes around Gostiny Dvor, Sennaya Ploshchad and its market, merchants mingling with customers.”
Many celebrated Russian writers of the time, such as Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, and Krylov, left excellent sophisticated sketches which accompanied their verse and prose.
“Sketches of this period are renowned for that special juxtaposition of nobleness and informality,” Petrova said. “Aristocratic and casual at once, witty and fine sketches addressed the problems that ailed Russian society. Printed as illustrations and lithographic prints, they reached out to a mass audience.”
The exhibition runs through Feb. 20.

www.rusmuseum.ru

TITLE: Wacky races
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Driving on Russia’s roads has never been much fun but devotees of “off-road” racing  have found that the Russian countryside is the perfect terrain for their sport.
Starting as a club movement 10 years ago, off-road events called “trophy-raids” in Russia, have gained worldwide popularity with big competitions, such as the Ladoga Trophy, that take place from April to October. 
For people not in the know, it’s hard to imagine what trophy-raids are. Unlike other car races, speed is not a crucial factor. Driving fully modified monster jeeps that look more like tractors that move at an average speed of 2 kilometers per hour across impassable woods, steep slopes and deep marshes, it  seems more like a death race than an average sporting tournament. 
This year’s Ladoga Trophy attracted 162 crews  with 324 participants from 13 countries including Germany, Poland, the U.K., Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine. The winners in the TR2 class were Andrei Kuznetsov (pilot) and Alexei Alexandrov (navigator) of Russia.
Alexandrov, an experienced off-road racer, is sure that the off-road competitions held in Russia has no equivalent abroad. 
“Many foreign teams who come to the trophy-raids here have just no idea what they are,” he said. “Trophy-raids in other countries like, for example, Malaysia, are held in specially made open pits but not in the woods where routes are laid.” 
Despite enjoying the competitions, Alexandrov has no illusions that because they cause irreparable damage to natural sites, such trophy-raids would be illegal anywhere other than Russia. 
“When 150 crews, as in the Ladoga-Trophy competition, pass through a marsh, they bring all the peat and trees out of it. So it just ceases to exist. And, taking into consideration that marshes can only be restored after about 10 years, it could happen only in Russia.”
For Alexandrov, who is very experienced in different kinds of sport, taking part in extreme off-road races is a new challenge. A professional first-degree skier, Alexandrov, has, also, been involved in gliding and captained the yacht “Alphei.” 
More than 15 years ago he became involved in classical motor rallying and has attained the title of “master of sports” in motor racing. In regular motor rallying competitions, Alexandrov, takes the role of navigator.
In order to survive unbearable conditions during the race, all cars are totally modified and look  more like tanks than just common vehicles. 
Alexandrov says that besides the Land Cruiser he navigates in the competitions, among other popular models taking part in the trophy-raids are Land Rovers, Suzuki jeeps and UAZ jeeps from Russia. However, Nissan Patrols or Lada Nivas are rarely used in the off-road racing.
The trophy-raids test the vehicles to the limit. Often getting stuck in swamps and deep mud, the 2.5-ton vehicles need to be winched out by navigators who wade into water up to their necks. 
“It really kills the car,” says Alexandrov. “Concentrating only on the result and aiming to win the race, we have to overcome all the barriers in our way. Neither broken windows, nor smashed doors in the car can cool our enthusiasm to do our best in a race.” 
He says that’s why only “crazy,” foolhardy people who enjoy risk-taking participate in trophy-raids.
Off-roaders are people of different professions and ages — from 18 to 68 years. And although most of them are men, there are a few brave women who compete in the races. However, Alexandrov thinks that female participants are still very rare and “exotic” in the sport.
Because not much money can be made in the sport, trophy-raids gather wealthy enthusiasts most of whom spend considerable amounts of money on preparations for, and participation in, the races. 
“The average budget for a crew participating in trophy-raids is $50, 000 per year,” says Alexandrov. “So not even large prizes can cover the expenses.”
Apart from the championship of Russia where participants are required to have special category “D” and “E” sport driving licenses, other big tournaments, like the Ladoga-Trophy, are open for all comers willing to take part in them without any qualification restrictions.
That seems reasonable to Alexandrov, who explains that there is almost no training that can be provided for trophy-raids. 
“I could probably teach basic off-road racing for beginners in a week,” he says. “But it would hardly help during the race where how things go depends on how ‘crazy’ the sportsman in question is taking part in this sheer madness.”
Participating in classical motor rallying as well as trophy- raids and other risky sports, Alexandrov thinks that some ways of getting a dose of adrenaline are totally unacceptable. He says “Russian Roulette” street motor races that are held in Moscow at night fall into this category.
“I even watched the commercials for street races on TV,” he says. “It’s really incredible to officially promote illegal races — a tournament for killing machines in which no professional sportsman would take part.”
As a professional road racer, Alexandrov has something to say about everyday transport problems in Russia as well. 
“I think that if drivers at least start parking in the proper parking places and don’t enter busy crossroads — that would ameliorate the traffic problems and decrease the number of road accidents.” 
He also points to the lack of driving skills many motorists have in Russia which is, in his opinion, caused by bad quality driving courses that would-be drivers attend to get a license. 
“The driving courses are so short that they can’t provide their students with all the necessary knowledge and practical skills enabling them to start driving without any risk,” he says. 
“I think that it’s rare to find really good drivers in Russia. Every driver should take extreme driving courses in order to survive on modern city roads.”

TITLE: Long Flight Record Set By Boeing
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — A Boeing jet arrived in London from Hong Kong on Thursday, breaking the record for the longest nonstop flight by a commercial aeroplane. 
The 777-200LR Worldliner — one of Boeing’s newest planes — touched down shortly after 1 p.m. at London’s Heathrow Airport after a journey of more than 11,664 miles. The previous record was set when a Boeing 747-400 flew 10,500 miles from London to Sydney in 1989.
A representative of Guinness World Records, which monitored the flight, presented Boeing’s Lars Andersen with a certificate confirming it was the longest nonstop commercial flight.
Captain Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann, who was at the controls when the plane left Hong Kong, said the trip east across the Pacific had been bumpy.
“But we had a great ride across the United States ... and across the Atlantic we saw our second sunrise of the trip,” she said.
The jet spent 22 hours and 43 minutes in the air.
Andersen said the Hong Kong-to-London flight showed the future of air travel.
“With the 777-200LR, we are changing the world,” he said. “Passengers can fly commercially between just about any two cities nonstop.”
The plane had four pilots and was carrying 35 passengers and crew, including Boeing representatives, journalists and customers.

TITLE: Jordan Rocked by Terror Blasts
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: AMMAN, Jordan  — The Al Qaeda group led by America’s deadliest foe in Iraq on Thursday claimed bombings that ripped through luxury hotels in Jordan’s capital and killed 57 people.
In Wednesday night’s near-simultaneous attacks, two bombs turned crowded wedding parties into scenes of blood and panic at the Grand Hyatt and the nearby Radisson SAS in central Amman. A third blast targeted a Days Inn hotel.
Security officials said they believed all three explosions were the work of suicide bombers, but gave few details.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said in a statement on an Islamist website that “a group of our best lions” had carried out the attacks, the worst to hit Jordan in its modern history.
“Some hotels were chosen which the Jordanian despot had turned into a backyard for the enemies of the faith, the Jews and crusaders,” said the message in a reference to King Abdullah. Its authenticity could not be verified.
The United States has put a $25 million bounty on Zarqawi, who comes from a town north of Amman.
King Abdullah blamed a “deviant and misled group.” Foreign Minister Farouq Kasrawi said the attacks would not alter the policies of the kingdom, which is a close U.S. ally.
Al Qaeda in Iraq’s statement said: “Let the tyrant of Amman know that his protection...for the Jews has become a target for the mujahideen and their attacks, and let him expect the worst.”
Jordan is one of two Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel. It helped the United States in the war on Iraq. King Abdullah is a frequent visitor to the White House.
Its stance is praised more in the West than at home, where the U.S.-led war in Iraq and Washington’s support for Israel are much resented by Jordan’s majority Palestinian population.
Jordan, a small desert country sandwiched between Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had previously escaped major attacks. The authorities say their vigilance has foiled many earlier bomb plots.
A Jordanian cabinet statement said the blasts had killed 57 people and wounded 110.

TITLE: State of Emergency Calms French Violence
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — Violence in France fell sharply overnight, the police chief said Thursday, one day after the government toughened its stance by imposing emergency measures and ordering deportations of foreigners involved in riots that have raged for two weeks. 
 In the past two nights, there was a notable decline in the number of car burnings — a barometer of the intensity of the country’s worst civil unrest in nearly four decades.
National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said there was a “very sharp drop” in violence overnight. While youths have been battling riot police with rocks and firebombs, “there were practically no clashes with police,” he said.
The government ordered a 12-day state of emergency that went into effect on Wednesday in an effort to quell the rioting. And Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said local authorities had been told to deport foreigners convicted so far for their roles.
A French anti-racism group, SOS-Racisme, called the measure illegal. The group’s president said he had asked France’s highest administrative body, the Council of State, to intervene.
“Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal is illegal,” Dominique Sopo said. SOS-Racisme said it considers Sarkozy’s measure a mass deportation, while French law requires that each expulsion be studied on a case-by-case basis. The body has 48 hours to respond.
Police detained 203 people overnight, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. More than 2,000 people have been detained since the violence broke out. A municipal police officer and a firefighter were injured.
Some cities, including the Riviera resorts of Cannes and Nice, imposed curfews on minors.
Hamon said the rioting, which had spread throughout France, now appeared to be concentrated in certain cities, including Toulouse, Lille, Lyon, Strasbourg and Marseille.
The violence began Oct. 27 in the northeastern Paris region of Seine-Saint-Denis among youths angry over the accidental deaths of two teenagers, one of Mauritanian descent and the other of Tunisian descent. But they grew into a nationwide insurrection marked by extensive arson and clashes with police.
The emergency decree empowers officials to put troublemakers under house arrest, ban or limit the movement of people and vehicles, confiscate weapons and close public spaces where gangs gather. For much of France — including Paris — the state of emergency had no perceptible effect.
But the fact that such extraordinary measures were needed has prompted national soul-searching about France’s failure to integrate its African and Muslim minorities — seen as a key reason behind the rioting. Rioters included the French-born children of immigrants from France’s former colonies in North and West Africa.
President Jacques Chirac acknowledged problems with a lack of equality.
“Whatever our origins, we are all the children of the republic and we can all expect the same rights,” he said Thursday in just his second public comments since the rioting began. “Everyone has a right to respect and equal opportunities.”
Arsonists attacked again overnight, on the 14th straight day of violence. However, car burnings fell again overnight to 482 from 617 the previous night, Hamon said. The peak in car arson was overnight between Sunday and Monday, when 1,408 vehicles were torched. The number has steadily dropped every night since then.

TITLE: Blair Fights Back After Vote Fails
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Prime Minister Tony Blair withstood severe criticism Thursday over his first-ever legislative defeat and slapped back at Parliament, accusing lawmakers of failing to take the threat from terrorism seriously enough. 
With the leader of the main opposition party calling for his resignation and newspapers predicting it, Blair went on the offensive, criticizing lawmakers who on Wednesday voted down his plan to let police detain terrorism suspects without charge for up to 90 days.
“The prime minister expressed his view [during a Cabinet meeting] that in his opinion, there was a worrying gap between parts of Parliament and the reality of the terrorist threat and public opinion,” Blair’s official spokesman said, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity in accordance with government policy.
Blair had tried to push the measure through the House of Commons despite warnings from lawmakers, who were anxious about its repercussions on civil liberties and voted instead to extend the maximum detention period to 28 days from the current 14 days.
Blair met with police and security officials in his Downing Street office on Thursday and remained steadfast in his view that the powers they had requested were crucial to stopping terrorism, said the spokesman.
He said the security meeting was “sobering.”
The measure was drafted after the deadly July suicide bombings on London’s transportation network, part of a bill that aimed to tackle Muslim extremism with provisions that also include bans on glorifying terrorism and giving or receiving terrorist training.

TITLE: Vitali Klitschko Retires With Injured Knee
AUTHOR: By Roy Kammerer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN — Vitali Klitschko tried to get back in the ring for almost a year. In the end, the WBC heavyweight champion’s body told him it was time to quit. 
Facing a six-month recovery after tearing a ligament in his right knee, Klitschko retired Wednesday — four days after he pulled out of a title defense against Hasim Rahman in Las Vegas. 
“Unfortunately, I’ve been fighting injuries recently more than facing rivals in the ring,” Klitschko said in a statement. “The decision to stop was hard to make. But I would like to end my career on top and with my retirement make the way free for my successor.” 
The WBC said earlier this week that Rahman would be given Klitschko’s title if the Ukrainian failed to defend it within three months. On Wednesday, WBC president Jose Sulaiman said the organization’s Board of Governors will vote on awarding the title to Rahman. 
Thirty four-year-old Klitschko hurt his knee while sparring last week in preparation of the bout against Rahman. Klitschko said the knee was examined Tuesday, and that he underwent arthroscopic surgery in Inglewood, California. 
“He was very dejected,” Klitschko’s personal manager Bernd Boente said. 
Bob Arum, who was supposed to promote Saturday’s Klitschko-Rahman fight, said he talked to Klitschko Tuesday night and tried to talk him out of retiring. But he said Klitschko had no desire to go on. 
“He said he was 34 and his body was betraying him,” Arum said. “He didn’t want to put up with these betrayals from his own body anymore.” 
Boente said the 6-foot-8 heavyweight had expected the training injury to lead to a minor operation — and was shocked when he awoke from the surgery. 
“Mr. Klitschko will have to take a six-month break. With this serious injury, it’s impossible for him to box — the knee is completely unstable,’’ said surgeon Neal Elattrache of the Kerlan-Jose Clinic. 
Klitschko’s retirement also means the top heavyweight champions are all controlled by promoter Don King, who said he wanted Rahman to defend the title against James Toney and for the winner to join the other title holders in a tournament to crown a real heavyweight champion. 
Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali’s younger brother, got back into contention in the division when he beat Samuel Peter in a unanimous decision in September in an IBF elimination bout. The victory made Wladimir the mandatory challenger to IBF champion Chris Byrd. 
Vitali, who hadn’t fought since stopping Danny Williams in the first defense of his title last December, was first supposed to have met Rahman in April. But the fight was postponed when Klitschko pulled a thigh muscle, and initial attempts to reschedule it were stopped when he injured his back. 
Sulaiman said earlier this week that the latest cancellation was the fourth time Klitschko (35-2, 34 knockouts) has backed out of a fight with Rahman (41-5-1 , 33 KOs), and hinted that he might be looking for excuses to stay out of the ring with the American. 
Rahman, a former heavyweight champion, grew so tired of waiting to meet the Ukrainian that he fought Monte Barrett in August. He won on a decision to become the WBC interim champion. 
Klitschko is the second WBC heavyweight champion in a row to retire while holding the title. Lennox Lewis quit in February 2004 after beating Klitschko in his last fight. Klitschko’s other loss, when he also was forced to quit because of an injury, came in April 2000 to Byrd. 
Klitschko stopped Corrie Sanders in the eighth round in April 2004 to win the WBC belt. 
The Klitschko brothers, sons of a teacher and Air Force officer, are inseparable. They turned professional together in 1996 after Vitali became the military champion and Wladimir the 19-year-old Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist. 
Don King, among others, sought to  recruit them, but the brothers signed with German promoter Hans-Peter Kohl. They quickly became huge stars in Germany, cultivating the image of gentlemen as they earned doctorates from the University of Kiev. 
They made a series of commercials in Germany, likely making them among the world’s best-paid boxers. In the Ukraine, they also rank among the country’s biggest sports idols, and Vitali and members of his camp said the boxer may now take up politics. 
Vitali backed last year’s “Orange revolution,’’ in which pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was elected president of Ukraine over a Russian-backed candidate. There have been constant rumors Vitali will run for mayor of Kiev. 
“He and his brother played leading roles in the Orange Revolution — a political career is possible,’’ Boente said.

TITLE: Syomin Throws In The Towel
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Russia coach Yury Syomin has quit after his team failed to qualify for the World Cup Finals. 
Syomin, 58, announced his resignation on Tuesday after meeting Russian Football Union chief Vitaly Mutko. 
“I’m more of a club coach,” Syomin said. Before the national team job, he had spent 16 years coaching Lokomotiv Moscow, winning two Russian Premier League titles. 
Russian media reported he had been offered a long-term contract by Dynamo Moscow, which fired its Brazilian coach Ivo Wortman on Monday following a string of poor results. 
Wortman was sacked along with his backroom staff, and Andrei Kobelev will take charge of the team for the final game of the season against Krylya Sovietov Samara on Nov. 19, according to Sport-Express. Syomin took over from Georgy Yartsev as national team coach midway through the qualifying campaign but was unable to steer the Russians to next year’s finals in Germany. 
Russia finished third in European qualifying Group 3 behind Portugal and Slovakia following a 0-0 draw against the Slovaks last month in Bratislava in their final qualifier. 
“We have already begun the search for a new coach,” said Mutko, although he denied media reports he was primarily looking for a foreign manager to lead Russia. 
No replacement for Syomin was announced. 
“The coach’s nationality will not play a significant role. What matters is his qualifications for the job.”
Russia’s best performances under Syomin were September’s 0-0 draw with eventual group winner Portugal, and a 2-2 friendly draw away to Germany in June. 
“In the Portugal match, we saw a prototype for future Russian teams,” Mutko said. 
Syomin was an assistant to two national coaches in the 1990s, combining those jobs with his Lokomotiv role. 
He took a one-year break from Loko in the early 1990s to coach New Zealand’s Olympic football team.
As a player, he appeared for top-flight clubs, including Lokomotiv and fellow Moscow sides Spartak and Dynamo, but never represented his country.
Russia had not lost a single game during Syomin’s six-month reign.
Last month, Serbian coach Bora Milutonivic, the only manager in history to take five national teams to World Cup Finals, told Sport-Express that he would like to be considered for the Russia job.
Syomin has already been introduced to several of the Dynamo players and has signed a preliminary agreement with the club’s billionaire owner, Alexei Fedorychev, according to a report Tuesday in Sport-Express.
Also, negotiations were underway at Dynamo to sign FC Zenit St. Petersburg’s Andrei Arshavin, Vyacheslav Malafeyev and Alexander Anyukov as well as and Lokomotiv’s Marat Izmailov and Malkhaz Asatani, the paper said. 

(Reuters, AP, SPT)

TITLE: China Lowers Olympic Medal Expectations
AUTHOR: By Paul Radford
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BEIJING — China, host of the next Summer Olympics, said on Thursday it would be impossible to overtake the medal hauls of the United States and Russia, not just in 2008 but for the foreseeable future. 
Cui Dalin, China’s deputy sports minister, played down prospects of a huge medals haul for the hosts at a news conference on the eve of celebrations to mark 1,000 days until the opening of the Beijing Olympics. 
“Not only in 2008 but beyond, it’s impossible to overtake the U.S. and Russian teams,” he said. 
He pointed out that although China had collected its best ever tally of 63 medals last year in Athens, the U.S. had won 103. “Elite sport in the U.S. is very strong,” he said. 
“They are an elite power. The difference is obvious. 
China finished second to the U.S. in the medals table in Athens, causing a number of surprises in sports where they had never been considered strong and edging traditional power Russia into third place in the medals table. 
But Cui said that although China won 32 gold medals to Russia’s 29, the Russians had collected 92 medals overall and were still a stronger team. 
“Finishing ahead of Russia was a happy coincidence,” he said. 
“There were six team sports in which China and Russia were in the final and, fortunately, China won all six. 
“If we had won only three of those, Russia would have still been ahead.” 
Cui said he placed China on the same level as the second tier of sporting nations made up of Australia, Japan, Germany and France. 
Though the U.S. topped the medals table in Athens with 35 golds, the fact that China finished just three behind prompted widespread speculation in the sporting world that the Chinese would easily dominate the Beijing Games four years later. 
Chinese officials have been busy playing down such speculation ever since.
 Cui said China’s goal was to improve on its Athens medal tally but he considered that to be a great challenge. 
“Our all-round strength is still not so high,” he said. “There are some sports in which we are still relatively weak like athletics, swimming, rowing, sailing and canoeing and we don’t do very well in ball games like basketball, soccer and volleyball.” 
Cui said China had 2,000 athletes training for the Olympics from which it would select a team for Beijing of more than 400 for the first time. 
China collected some unexpected medals in Athens, notably the gold won by tennis women’s doubles team Sun Tiantian and Li Ting. 
“That was the most surprising one,” Cui said. “Our performance level in tennis is quite low compared to other countries. But I think this type of case could happen again in Beijing.”