SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times DATE: Issue #1131 (97), Friday, December 16, 2005 ************************************************************************** TITLE: Probe Blames Terrorists Alone PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: MOSCOW — The head of a probe into Russia’s Beslan school tragedy has said terrorists alone were to blame for it, remarks that suggested bureaucrats accused of failing to stop the raid could be exonerated. Some 330 people — half of them children — died after Chechen gunmen took them hostage in a school in southern Russian for three days in September 2004. Most died in a series of sudden explosions and firefights at the end but it is still not clear what sparked the carnage. Many surviving hostages blame local officials for failing to stop the gunmen reaching Beslan, and for allowing the tense stand-off to end in a bloodbath. But Alexander Torshin, a senator who heads the official investigation, was quoted on Thursday as saying it was a mistake to blame anyone other than the rebels loyal to Chechen leader Shamil Basayev who launched the attack. “Why is the public so interested in seeing guilty bureaucrats punished and not in the arrest, say, of the masterminds behind the terrorist act,” he told the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta. “Basayev is still at large and we do not know if he is planning any more outrages.” His comments contradict an investigation by local parliamentarians in the North Ossetia region which concluded last month that the bloodshed was “first and foremost the fault of law-enforcement bodies.” Ossetians have long argued that corrupt officials either ignored or colluded in the rebel group’s journey to the school, and then failed to organize an effective response. Torshin accepted officials would have to answer for failing to stop the raid, but said concentrating on their guilt was bizarre. “The blame for the most bloody terrorist act in Russia’s history lies with the terrorists... This should not be forgotten,” he said. “It’s as if on September 1 they came to the school not with guns and explosives but with bunches of flowers. If people talk about those who are guilty these days, people only look for them among the security forces.” His comments chimed with the hard-line approach of President Vladimir Putin who considers the 11-year Chechen war and related raids to be attempts by international terrorists to destabilise Russia, rather than a battle for independence. After the siege, Putin demanded — and received — extra political powers to allow him to stop guerrilla attacks, although he has promised that officials will be punished if they are found guilty by Torshin’s probe. Basayev himself has said the raid was a security services’ sting that went wrong after rebels ignored where a Russian agent wanted them to go, and seized the school instead. TITLE: ASEAN Delays Russian Entry AUTHOR: By Michelle Nichols PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Leaders at the first Association of South East Asian Nations, or ASEAN, summit on Wednesday postponed any decision on letting Russia become a full member of the organization as President Vladimir Putin addressed the gathering. Australia urged its partners in ASEAN to pause on Russian entry into the grouping, moments before Putin was due to address the summit. “I think what we should try and do is settle in the existing architecture,” Australian Prime Minister John Howard said before taking to the red carpet, along with 15 other regional leaders, for the inaugural East Asian summit in the Malaysian capital. Russia is eager to join the East Asian community, which some leaders say could sow seeds for a pan-Asian free trade bloc. The grouping comprises 10 southeast Asian states and Japan, China, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand — an area encompassing about half the world’s population and one-fifth of global trade. Putin, in a brief speech to the summit as an observer, made the case for closer ties with ASEAN and said Russia would not seek “unilateral benefits” from its cooperation. “Russia has always had and always will have long-term political, economic and, in the broader sense, civilization interests in this region,” Putin said, according to a version of his comments posted on the Kremlin’s web site. “Becoming involved in the integration processes taking place in the region will contribute to creating favorable external conditions for our country’s overall socio-economic development, above all in Siberia and the Russian Far East.” Putin also reiterated that Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization were eager to work more closely with ASEAN on counter-terrorist activities. On Tuesday, Putin signed two cooperation accords with ASEAN and a separate agreement with Malaysia to cut tariffs on 438 Malaysian products, including wood, palm oil, tea and a range of chemicals. With no clear consensus about the shape of an East Asian community from its existing members, however, Australia was not alone in feeling that immediate Russian entry was a bridge too far. Expectations were set low for the summit, which has been convened as a way of building more bridges with the rest of Asia and closing wealth gaps in the region. There are also hopes it might galvanize the region into an economic and trading community that could give Asia a stronger voice in global trade talks. Unlike other major international forums, it excludes the United States and the European Union. “I will be emphasizing the crucial importance of the Doha trade round and encouraging my fellow heads of government to express strong views on the need to achieve progress on that front,” Howard told reporters. The Doha round of WTO talks, now facing stalemate between rich and poor nations over agriculture, is an area where Australia as a major exporter of farm goods sees eye to eye with many Asian countries and lines up against the European Union. “I dare say terrorism and the potential impact of a flu pandemic will also figure in the discussions,” Howard added. The summit also touched on energy security, a major concern for the region given its thirst for oil and gas. This could be the key to Russia’s eventual inclusion in the grouping. Russia sees the Asian region as a growing market for its oil and gas, perhaps taking as much as a third of exports by 2020. “We have plans to develop our resources in eastern Siberia and to provide oil and gas to Asia, and through Asian markets to the United States,” Yelena Danilova, director of foreign economic relations at the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, said Tuesday. ASEAN also comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Putin flew from Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday to Novosibirsk, where he attended a council devoted to the subject of banking in the Siberian Federal District. Other participants included Central Bank head Sergei Ignatyev, Alfa Bank president Pyotr Aven, Sberbank president Andrei Kazmin and Vneshtorgbank head Andrei Kostin. TITLE: Hoaxer Starts Rogue Elephant Hunt AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: Police spent last night scouring the city on the trail of an imaginary runaway elephant reported to be strolling around the city by a hoax caller. An unknown man called the police at approximately 1.30 a.m. on Thursday to say that an elephant, which belonged to a Finnish company, had broken free from its cage while being transported through the city in a large truck. The caller said that the animal made good his escape on the corner of Ulitsa Orbeli and Vtoroi Murinsky Prospekt in the Vyborgsky district. The caller’s tone of voice was convincing enough for police to put substantial forces on the trail of the escapee. However, once the police were on their way, the hoaxer called again to report he had located and stopped the elephant outside 16 Ulitsa Orbeli. Officers who arrived at the given location found neither the caller nor an elephant. A thorough search of the surrounding area yielded nothing. The police have now forgotten the big game catch and are focusing instead on finding the hoax caller. Galina Afanasiyeva, spokeswoman for the city zoo, said staff had been amused when the story broke. “Elephants are very dangerous animals, and they are guarded extremely well, especially during a journey,” she said. “There are no elephants in the city at all, and as far as we know, no deal has been made to acquire one by our zoo or any of the circus or theatrical companies in the region. “They are such rare and expensive animals. They simply can’t be driven around St. Petersburg in a shabby truck. Of course it was a hoax,” she said. Were an elephant to actually take a stroll around the city, a heavy-handed police response might not be the best solution, Afanasiyeva said. “With proper care, elephants are the friendliest creatures, and have good relations with humans: one of our elephants even starred in a movie. But when scared and stressed, these animals get out of control and can be very destructive and dangerous.” Leningrad Zoo had three elephants during the Soviet era. The last one died in 1982. TITLE: 2 More Charged With Murder AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: The city prosecutor’s office has charged five suspects with the murder of 20-year-old anti-fascist student Timur Kacharava. The charges do not yet include the incitement of racial, religious or national hatred, though these may follow, said St. Petersburg prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev at a news conference on Thursday. Zaitsev also said that the investigators identified two more suspects who are still at large. “They fled the city after they received information about arrests of their gang,” Zaitsev explained, and promised more arrests in connection with the murder soon. “We believe there were at least ten assailants.” Kacharava was stabbed to death outside the Bukvoyed bookstore on Ligovsky Prospekt opposite the Moskovsky Railway Station at around 7 p.m. on Nov. 13, when about ten teenagers armed with knives attacked him and his friend Maxim Zgibai, another student. Kacharava received five wounds in the throat and died before the ambulance arrived at the scene. One of the suspects has admitted stabbing the student, while the other four admitted taking part in the attack but said they did not use knives, Zaitsev said. Fascist paraphernalia was found during police searches of the suspects’ apartments. All of the suspects are under 18 years of age. One is still in high school while another two are college students. An outspoken pacifist and anti-fascist who regularly took part in democratic meetings and events, Kacharava drew additional attention as a musician. He was a guitarist with two local punk bands, “Sandinista!” and “Distress,” known for the provocative wit of their lyrics. Speaking to The St. Petersburg Times after Kacharava’s death, friends of the victim said they were convinced his murder was linked to his anti-fascist activities. They also said Kacharava had complained of being followed by members of local neo-Nazi and skinhead groups, leading them to believe that the murder was planned. Speaking at the news conference, Zaitsev said that this was a possibility. “We have serious reason to believe the murder was planned,” Zaitsev said. “There was a fight on Nov. 9 outside Chernyshevskaya metro station between anti-fascists and their enemies. It took place in the evening, after a concert dedicated to the “Day of Tolerance.” Witnesses recalled seeing Kacharava take part in the fight. The city prosecutor said it was yet to be seen whether the suspects belong to an organized and possibly armed extremist group. “These guys certainly had a substantial amount of extremist and fascist paraphernalia, but it isn’t yet clear whether they are guerillas or just have a keen amateur interest in this,” Zaitsev said. On Wednesday the St. Petersburg city court sentenced three members of the extremist youth group Mad Crowd to three years in prison this week for a series of attacks inspired by racial hatred. At the same trial a further two extremists from the same organization received two years in prison on charges of inciting racial hatred and forming an extremist organization. The group’s leader, Ruslan Melnik, is still wanted by the police. Recent events have demonstrated that St. Petersburg’s numerous extremist groups often communicate. The investigation into Mad Crowd proved that Melnik was a close ally of Dmitry Bobrov, leader of the local neo-Nazi group “Schultz-88”, who was sentenced to six years in jail earlier this month for inciting racial hatred and forming an extremist organization. TITLE: Chechen Parliament Asks Russia to Rename Grozny AUTHOR: By Artur Magomadov PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: GROZNY, Russia — Chechnya’s parliament on Wednesday asked the Kremlin to rename the war-ravaged provincial capital after the Moscow-backed Chechen president who was assassinated in a rebel bombing last year. Parliament voted unanimously to ask President Vladimir Putin to rename the capital Akhmad-Kala in honor of Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed in a bomb blast in a Grozny stadium in 2004. Grozny, traditionally translated as “terrible,” was built by the Russians as a fortress when they conquered Chechnya in the 19th century. Chechnya’s parliament speaker said the name raised dark associations for most Chechens. “The fortress of Grozny was founded to project power and subdue the people,” Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov said in a telephone interview. “The people have seen many perils since the fortress was founded.” In two wars over a decade, Grozny has been pulverized by relentless Russian troop and artillery strikes that turned most apartment buildings into blackened ruins. Putin briefly visited Chechnya on Monday and pledged to help rebuild Grozny, where Kadyrov’s 29-year-old son, Ramzan, now serves as deputy prime minister and is widely assumed to become the next president. Late Wednesday, Russian news agencies quoted Kadyrov as saying that he opposed the idea of renaming the Chechen capital. “I don’t see any reason for renaming Grozny,” he was quoted as saying by ITAR-Tass and Interfax. “If we want to commemorate the memory of [my father], then the best method is to rebuild the ruins that are here in Grozny.” Kadyrov’s widely feared paramilitary unit is blamed for abducting civilians, and he reportedly controls a large chunk of Chechnya’s oil wealth. He is widely expected to succeed Chechnya’s current president, Alu Alkhanov, after he turns 30, the minimum age for presidents under local law. Several rights activists also slammed the proposal for renaming the city. “The deeds of Kadyrov — both the father and the son — have brought suffering to many Chechen families,” said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of Russia’s leading rights organization, the Moscow Helsinki Group. “It is an insult.” Russian forces retreated from Chechnya in 1996 after a 20-month war that left the Caucasus region de facto independent. They returned in 1999, after Chechen rebels raided a neighboring region and some 300 people died in apartment bombings blamed on the separatists. Large-scale combat operations in Chechnya have ended, but rebels continue to target police and security forces in regular raids and land-mine explosions. TITLE: IN BRIEF TEXT: Nigeria Frees Sailors MOSCOW (AP) — A Nigerian court set 13 Russian sailors free after convicting them of stealing crude oil and sentencing them to time already served, Itar-Tass reported Wednesday. The sailors were held in pre-trial detention for nearly two years before being released on bail in September. Prosecutors said their ship was carrying 11.3 metric tons of crude oil stolen from Nigerian pipelines when it was stopped by Nigerian authorities in October 2003. Two Agents in Prison MOSCOW (SPT) — Two Russian intelligence officers found guilty of killing a former Chechen rebel leader in Qatar are in prison in Russia, a senior Justice Ministry official said Wednesday. A Qatar court found the men guilty of killing Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev in the capital, Doha, in February 2004 and sentenced them each to 25 years in prison. At Russia’s request, Qatar later sent the men home to serve out their terms. Speculation had arisen that the men would be freed, but Saak Karapetyan, head of the Justice Ministry’s department of international law and cooperation, said Wednesday that they were in prison. “These people are where they should be,” he said, Interfax reported. TITLE: Daimler St. Pete Plant on Hold AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: DaimlerChrysler has put its plan to make cars in Russia on hold, a potential blow to St. Petersburg, which had hoped to secure hundreds of jobs at a new assembly plant in the region. The world’s fifth-largest carmaker said Wednesday that setting up production in Russia was not currently viable given the conditions Russia was willing to offer. “Currently, the conditions for local production are not fulfilled,” Jochen Schaefers, a company spokesman, said from Stuttgart. He referred to “tax regulations for local production,” as one of the bones of contention, but refused to elaborate. “They want special treatment,” said Svetlana Yarkova, a spokeswoman for Mikhail Oseyevsky, a St. Petersburg vice governor in charge of economic affairs. Yarkova confirmed that Daimler had been considering sinking $100 million into Russian production facilities, a figure previously reported by media. Federal government officials have said granting special treatment to any carmaker would not be fair to other foreign auto companies already in the country. Ford and Toyota have both chosen St. Petersburg as a location for assembly plants in recent years, committing $230 million and $140.5 million in investment, respectively. But in contrast to Ford and Toyota, DaimlerChrysler had been toying with the idea of producing its luxury Mercedes model in Russia. That it is a luxury model may be one of the sticking points, analysts said. A luxury manufacturer like Mercedes tends to use a different type of production method than that used by makers of more down-market models, Daimler’s Schaefers said. He said a luxury carmaker usually imports ready-made components, and puts the pieces together in the local assembly plant afterward. DaimlerChrysler would be obliged to pay duty on those parts, unlike other carmakers, which are set to benefit from new legislation passed in April to encourage firms to produce cars locally. That legislation obliges manufacturers to gradually increase the proportion of domestically produced parts to at least 30 percent within four and a half years if they want to import key car components duty free. Stanley Root, head of the automotive division of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Moscow, said Daimler probably did not plan to make 25,000 cars per year in Russia and therefore did not make use of the new localization regime. “When you produce a very sophisticated model, you have low volumes and cannot benefit from the new localization regime, which requires mass production,” he said. In May, Jurgen Schrempp, then the chairman of the German-U.S. auto giant, told President Vladimir Putin he hoped that the first Mercedes would roll off the assembly line this past fall. That time frame took many car analysts by surprise, but some said it would be possible if the carmaker started assembling cars from components imported from abroad. TITLE: Renaissance Leads Northwest As Insurance Industry Consolidates AUTHOR: By Yevgenya Ivanova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: The Moscow-based insurance company, Renaissance Strakhovanie, is to acquire 100 percent of Neva Progress, one of the Northwest’s leading insurers, the companies confirmed Wednesday. Renaissance expects its premiums to reach a total of $250 million by the end of 2006, a figure which would make it one of the ten largest insurance companies in the country. “We are satisfied with the deal,” said Boris Yordan, head of Sputnik Group, Renaissance Strakhovanie’s main shareholder. “For us, the insurance market is a strategic investment, and Progress Neva is one of the most promising companies in the key Northwest market,” he said. Market insiders saw this development as another step in the consolidation of the Russian insurance industry. Recently, the insurance market has seen many large companies buy up smaller regional outfits. According to Alexander Kulikov, the director of the St. Petersburg branch of Spasskie Vorota insurance company, “the buyout of Progress Neva, which can hardly be called ‘insignificant,’ represents the next stage [of consolidation], when large market players buy up large regional companies.” Kulikov welcomed the move. “The big insurance company will benefit both the state and clients needing insurance,” he said, adding that in the future the Russian insurance market will be shared between ten to fifteen big players. The entrance of a Moscow-based company into the St. Petersburg market is both logical and natural, said Andrey Sumbarov, president of the regional union of insurers, in an interview Thursday. Renaissance does not yet have a strong presence in the city’s market, but this acquisition will help the company attain a bigger share of what is a very attractive market, Sumbarov said. “I think that for such a major company, it is economically beneficial to buy out a local firm rather than just opening new branches in the region,” he said. TITLE: S.Korea Takes Stake in Oil Field PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea entered the race for a bigger slice of Russian resources on Wednesday, taking a 40 percent stake in an oil field that may hold billions of barrels of reserves and stepping up the challenge to other Asian importers. A South Korean consortium led by state-run Korea National Oil Corporation, or KNOC, signed a contract to take over the stake from Russia’s state oil firm Rosneft, the operator of the block in the Sea of Okhotsk off the Western Kamchatka peninsula, KNOC said in a statement. Rosneft now holds the remaining 60 percent stake. Preliminary exploration work by the Resources Ministry has shown the block holds 3.7 billion barrels of probable oil reserves. TITLE: IN BRIEF TEXT: Pyaterochka Buys Rival ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Pyaterochka Holding NV, Russia’s largest supermarket chain, bought stores from rival Kopeika for $90 million on Thursday, to expand in the Moscow region, the country’s richest and most populous. On the same day shares rose 8.5 percent to $15.25 as of 10 a.m. in London. Pyaterochka, based in St. Petersburg, bought 14 stores in the Russian capital, nine in the city’s suburbs and two in the town of Vladimir from Kopeika, which is controlled by UralSib Financial Corp., a Moscow-based investment bank. The grocer plans to sell 3 billion rubles ($105 million) of bonds to pay for the acquisitions, it said in a statement issued by the Regulatory News Service. Port Investment ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Chupit Ltd., a company controlled by Vladimir Lisin, Russia’s second-richest man, plans to invest eight billion rubles ($280 million) in developing St. Petersburg Sea Port until 2010, the port said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement. Chupit won an auction for 48.8 percent of the port with a bid that matched the starting price of 802.5 million rubles ($28 million) on Nov. 10. It already held a controlling stake in the port. The port is part of a loading complex that feeds both the Gulf of Finland and the harbor of St. Petersburg. Chocolate Checks In ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Grand Hotel Europe launched its production of an elite chocolate, called Dominique’s, Interfax reported on Wednesday. The new chocolate factory was opened in December, Interfax quoted the hotel general manager Thomas Noll as saying. The Grand Hotel Europe invested $135 million, and the production capacity is 1 ton per month. Five sorts of chocolate bars and 11 different varieties of chocolates will be sold at the hotel. The raw materials, according to Thomas Noll, are being delivered by the Belgian producer of chocolate materials Barry Callebaut. The new chocolate is expected to be sold at a price of $75 per kg. TITLE: Putin Urges Banks to Step Up Reform PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: NOVOSIBIRSK — Russia’s state controlled banks should modernize in order to play more active role in the economy, President Vladimir Putin told a banking conference in Siberia on Wednesday. “A significant number of banks created with the state participation are weak and are not able to service large-scale projects,” Putin said in an obvious reference to so-called “national projects” in housing, education and health care. The “national projects,” intended to translate the flow of cash from oil and gas export into improved living conditions for millions of Russians, are expected to become the focus of Putin’s second presidential term ending in 2008. The Kremlin, which increasingly advocates strong government involvement in economy, sees strong and effective state banks as a condition for the success of the projects. Making state-owned banks more effective is also part of the Kremlin’s plan to consolidate the banking sector. According to the Central Bank Russia has about 1,210 banks, most of them are tiny and serve as corporate treasuries. The number of small banks is gradually decreasing with about 40 of them disappearing this year. Two state-controlled banks, Sberbank and Vneshtorgbank, dominate corporate and retail banking sectors in Russia. The state also controls a number of smaller banks. TITLE: Job Quality Has Fallen: World Bank AUTHOR: By Anastasiya Lebedev PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: Russia’s top earners are paid 11 times more than the lowest-paid workers, making for one of the greatest wage inequalities in the former Soviet bloc, the World Bank said after releasing a report last month on job opportunities in the region. Unlike in many other transitional economies in the region, employment in Russia is relatively high at 65 percent — equal to the average for the original 15 European Union states, said Jan Rutkowski, co-author of the report “Enhancing Job Opportunities in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.” However, Rutkowski noted that Russia’s main problems were underemployment and low-quality employment — meaning temporary, unstable, low-paying jobs with no job security or protection of labor rights. The report, based on studies from the early 1990s to the present, says many jobs in Russia have transformed from secure and long-term positions into self-employment and informal employment, which together account for 40 percent of jobs, according to World Bank estimates, a much larger proportion than in other transitional economies. Such employment is marked by low productivity and low security, Rutkowski said. Tracing the patterns of job creation and destruction, the report notes that the majority of new jobs are highly concentrated in just a few locations, while everywhere else work remains scarce. TITLE: Gazprom Accuses Kiev of Dragging Its Feet, Plans Sharp Price Increases PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: A fight over gas prices between Russia and Ukraine turned ugly Wednesday, as Russia’s natural gas monopoly said it would sharply increase prices for Ukraine in 2006, accusing Kiev of dragging its feet during negotiations. “The talks with Ukraine have dragged on for more than nine months and, regrettably, no progress has been reached,” Gazprom’s deputy board chairman Alexander Medvedev said in televised remarks. Medvedev said that Gazprom now planned to charge Ukraine a European price of $220 to $230 per 1,000 cubic meters, taking into account a Ukrainian transit fee. Kiev had been paying $50, and had balked at Gazprom’s proposal to triple that price. “Ukraine has wasted time in these talks, and now there can be no talk of $160,” Medvedev said. Under the new scheme, Ukraine would be charged a floating price for gas based on market prices for a basket of oil products, he said. TITLE: IN BRIEF TEXT: Gazprom’s Germany BERLIN (Bloomberg) — Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas export monopoly, is interested in buying German municipal utilities to gain access to household customers, Der Tagesspiegel newspaper said, citing the head of Gazprom’s German operations. The company also wants to expand its existing holdings, said Hans-Joachim Gornig, according to an article which was due to be published in Friday’s edition of the newspaper. Gazprom holds stakes in Wingas GmbH and VNG Verbundnetz Gas AG, operators of natural-gas networks in Germany, Tagesspiegel said. Gazprom holds 51 percent in the venture, and E.ON AG and BASF AG each hold half of the remaining shares. IFC Mining Boost NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — The International Finance Corporation, the private investment unit of the World Bank, will lend $39 million to help build Bema Gold Corp’s Kupol gold and silver mine in Russia. The IFC will make two separate loans to the mine’s operating company, Chukotka Mining and Geological Corporation, it said in a statement posted Wednesday on its site. Kupol is located in the Arctic Circle, in the Chukotka autonomous region of eastern Russia. Chukotka Mining is 75 percent-owned by Vancouver-based Bema. The government of Chukotka owns the rest. Obsolete Satellites MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia plans to replace almost all of its 95 satellites and launch at least 70 new-generation satellites within a decade, Interfax reported Thursday, citing an unidentified space official. Two-thirds of the country’s military, civilian and dual-use satellites are operating longer than they were designed for and the rest will reach that point within three years, the news service said. Russia has no weather satellites, “practically no spy satellites” and just one functioning earth-monitoring satellite, Interfax said. TITLE: Rain or Shine, It’s Still Putin Next Time AUTHOR: By Jeffrey S. Lindstrom TEXT: Vladimir Putin will not step down as president in 2008 nor will he need to change the Constitution — and all discussion about such occurrences for the next two years, albeit necessary and useful, will have very little chance of affecting actual events. In the end, Putin still might be the best choice and, if not, Russians will most likely remain indifferent to a third term in any case. Democracy in Russia today is not sufficiently consolidated to provide a political and socio-economic environment conducive to a peaceful transition of executive power. Russia’s current version of democracy does not compare easily or well with democracies in the West, which are deeply rooted in liberal tradition and thought; Russia’s path of development may not, in fact, be pursuing the same ends. The legacy of totalitarianism is pernicious, more gravely affecting Russia’s present transition than many dare to consider. History has never been kind to Russia, and 2008 will not buck the trend. The most important election that year will undoubtedly be that for the U.S. presidency, where a transition of power will not depend on or be delayed by constitutional change. Beyond that, the world will be mesmerized in 2008 by the grandiosity of the Olympics hosted by China. This will distract attention from many of China’s nasty problems; most discussions will concern whether or not China can maintain a totalitarian political state in the face of extensive economic change. Russia’s fate will continue to appear vague and complex, and democratic challenges in Russia itself will be an afterthought to the dynamic Chinese puzzle. The chance of a viable Putin-replacement candidate rising out of the muck and mire of the muddled Russian transition is very small. The absence of any strong opposition party in Russia precludes the need for manufacturing such a candidate. If Putin, as some believe, is tutoring his successor, then it follows that in 2008 he will accept retirement in a struggling Russia. But try to imagine a retired Putin in two years — championing some social cause in Russia or, even more unlikely, traveling the world with a humanitarian agenda — and it follows that even if a suitable successor were to be found, Putin would not be ready for retirement in a fledgling democratic Russia. If your imagination can stretch that far, before picturing a new president, try picturing a new Russia in two years where there are at least two legitimate candidates running for president who are not communist or fascist. If such a possibility existed, the contenders would be apparent by now. The fact that names such as Kasparov, Khodorkovsky and Kasyanov are desperately being thrown around now strengthens the argument. Because the concern at hand is not who will run against Putin, but who will run instead of him. We only return to the highly unlikely “retirement” scenario for any hope of a non-Putin ending. Instead, it is far more likely that the most popular campaign slogan of 2008 will be the overused catch-all explanation Eto Rossia (That’s Russia!) after Putin sidesteps the Constitution for a third term. Threats of public unrest, protest or even disgruntled discussions over the Putin administration tinkering with the Constitution will be minimal. This is true even though, in 24 months, there will be no noticeable positive changes in regards to pension arrears, rampant alcoholism, military ineptness and environmental degradation. In most democracies these would be reasons for a new leadership, but in Russia, as is usually the case, these faults will not be attributed to Putin’s failed leadership but instead to his administration, of which the need for a new prime minister will be agenda item No. 1. By 2008, Putin will have the ultimate reason in Russia to remain president without changing the Constitution: economic crisis. With every economic adviser’s reputation by then discredited (the fallout from the oil bubble bursting) and no desire to return to “the Chubais days,” the people of Russia will come close to begging for a third term. All Putin needs to do is provide a reasonable argument for why changing horses in midstream is not wise during times of economic uncertainty. A majority of the voting populace will be more concerned about maintaining their cars, halting the slide in a (by then) dwindling real estate market and regaining access to lines of credit (that will dry up soon). Putin will not need a “yes” vote but simply an “I don’t care.” In a time of uncertainty, apathy is one of the only certainties in Russia. Perhaps the least appealing of all reasons for Putin to continue after 2008 as president is the fact that Russians are tired of the perceived triumphalism of the West; many will likely acquiesce to a third term out of spite. Foreign assistance over the past 15 years has left an ugly track record of failed utopian experiments that will provide considerable cannon fodder on the campaign trail (a path that stretches little further than the Third Ring Road). Many observers have concluded that the current bill before the State Duma that may restrict the operations of foreign-based NGOs in Russia is a result of Western tampering in the most recent Ukrainian presidential election. Putin has no interest in allowing that to happen in his backyard. During the lame-duck years of the George W. Bush administration, there will be little U.S. concern about Russia’s feelings and even less tolerance for alternative opinions. Putin has everything he needs to glibly stride past foreign onlookers to another term with Russians applauding all the way. With no clear policy toward Russia, the United States and its allies are helpless to influence real opposition to Putin’s unconstitutional third term — and Putin will use this, ironically, to demonstrate Russia’s strength in 2008. Finally, political inclusiveness is a critical element in creating democracy. All nascent democracies struggle to foster it, and even established democracies fail to maintain it evenly and all the time. Russia’s overwhelming size and declining population play against the establishment of a well-connected and informed polity — and these realities will not change any time soon. By all accounts, Russia’s population will continue to fall, infant mortality will continue to rise, and the spread of HIV will continue to alarm. Rhetoric about a new president equipped to deal with these long-term challenges amounts to wishful thinking. All that said, the picture is not unrelentingly grim. The inevitability of a third term for Putin does not necessarily signal a return to totalitarianism in Russia. The particular and peculiar Russian path toward representative democracy may not be to the liking of the West, but that is beside the point. Moreover, the near certainty over the outcome of the presidential election in 2008 does not require the “silent majority” to refrain from debate or discourage it from hoping for change. Even if Putin’s intentions were deviously anti-democratic (which they most likely are not), time is working against the “managed democracy” approach. Putin is no Hugo Chavez. And while his autocratic tendencies seem frightening at times, he is no Pinochet. Putin’s failures in handling the Kursk tragedy, the Moscow subway bombings and the Beslan massacre are not only signs of a deteriorating closed hegemony but, more encouragingly, indicators that the costs of repression have become more burdensome than the costs of toleration. Yet, 24 more months is not enough to expend Putin’s political capital. A third term, however, under the consistent scrutiny of a tiring public will thoroughly exhaust his resources. Start preparing for 2012. Jeffrey S. Lindstrom is the director of the Institute of Sustainable Development in Vladivostok. TITLE: How Not To Gain International Respect AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina TEXT: Back in mid-October, we were all glued to our television sets watching the heroic tale of the poacher Valery Yarantsev, captain of the trawler Elektron. Inspectors from the Norwegian coast guard boarded the Elektron off Spitzbergen and found its hold full of illegal cod. Rather than sailing to the Norwegian port of Tromso as ordered, Yarantsev bolted for Russian waters, taking the inspectors with him. The Elektron was fishing illegally in Norwegian waters. By sailing away with Norwegian government officials on board, Yarantsev added kidnapping to his rap sheet. The Russian government nevertheless deployed Navy ships and the state-owned media in his defense. On Dec. 5, North Korean border guards fired on a Russian cargo ship, the Ternei, then seized the vessel. The Ternei was obviously not involved in illegal fishing. It entered North Korean territorial waters on its way from the South Korean port of Busan to Vladivostok in order to weather a major storm. Four days later, the Ternei was escorted to a North Korean port. When the Ternei was seized, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko was on an official visit to North Korea. Matviyenko held her tongue. The state-owned media, which had led the way in defending Yarantsev, passed over the Ternei incident in almost total silence, even though the actions of North Korea’s border guards violated maritime law and plain old common sense. North Korea is a rogue state. When North Korean fishermen wash up on the coast of the Primorye region, even our sadistic border guards don’t shake them down. They fix up their boats, confiscate their fish and quietly send them on their way. If the fishermen were officially deported to North Korea, they would be shot on arrival. And if they were held in Russia, their families would be shot. In North Korea, people are dying from starvation. Meanwhile, its leader, Kim Jong Il, has fresh air piped 10 kilometers to his palace from an ancient pine grove. I’m happy for the North Korean border guards who boarded the Ternei. At least they got a decent meal. In fact, they nearly ate their way throught the ship’s stores. Only then did the Russian Foreign Ministry issue a blase statement about doing everything in its power to ensure the release of the Ternei and its crew. Is Russia obliged to North Korea in some way? No. Kim has made a laughing stock of President Vladimir Putin. On the eve of the G8 summit in 2000, Putin announced that he had convinced North Korea to abandon its nuclear missile program. Kim then dismissed this as a joke. Russia recently landed in another international scandal because of North Korea. Putin flew to South Korea to finalize an agreement on building a natural gas pipeline, but he came away empty-handed because Russian negotiators had inserted two little words into the text without South Korea’s knowledge: North Korea. The Ternei incident is a repeat of the arrest of Russian sailors off the coast of Nigeria. They were detained on trumped-up charges shortly after the nephew of yet another Nigerian Cabinet “minister” was arrested in Moscow with yet another shipment of heroin. The Russian government didn’t lift a finger to help the sailors for ages, even though they were being held in a country whose civil servants are so corrupt and thuggish they make Aslan Maskhadov’s Ichkeria look good. We wonder why we’ve lost the respect of other countries. Who could respect a country that doesn’t even retaliate when North Korea illegally detains its citizens? Russia has systematically sided with rogue states, even when they are implicated in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister. Even when they commit crimes against Russia. And for all our efforts, we haven’t even earned the respect of the rogue states themselves. Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio. TITLE: Devilish passion AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas and Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: Director Vladimir Bortko has succeeded where other Russian directors have failed and brought a famously unfilmable classic to the screen. The script was written nine years ago, shooting finished in March and posters appeared nationwide last month, promising that a televised version of “The Master and Margarita” would air in December. Finally, the director and producers announced that the first episode airs Monday on the Rossia television channel. It’s been a long wait, but Russians are about to see Mikhail Bulgakov’s cult novel filmed in their own language. St. Petersburg director Vladimir Bortko denied that he felt any butterflies before snippets of the big-budget miniseries were presented to journalists in Moscow last week, pointing out that he has been in the film industry for almost 30 years and that he had “gotten bored of being nervous.” Although the novel is set in Moscow in the 1930s, the series was largely shot in St. Petersburg, with the crew traveling to the capital for only a few signature episodes. Bortko has said that St. Petersburg provided the perfect backdrop for the film. “Naturally, there are scenes that can only be filmed in Moscow such as, for instance, those set in Patriarchs Ponds, Pashkov House, or the Alexandrovsky Garden — but that’s about it,” Bortko told reporters in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the film shoot in 2004. “But Moscow has gone through massive reconstruction since the novel was written, and the landscape has generally very much changed. Much to the regret to our crew, the Bulgakovian Moscow of 1930s is easier to find in central St. Petersburg because it has been much better preserved.” When the film was planned, it seemed unlikely that genuine locations around Patriarchs Ponds could be used. In 2003, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov lobbied for an ambitious plan to construct a giant shopping center with underground parking at the site. He also wanted to place monuments to Bulgakov and his characters there. But the plan failed after Muscovites took the streets in protest and blocked construction work to preserve the site. If anyone can successfully film a novel that many Russians name as their favorite, it would seem to be Bortko, who shot an acclaimed television version of Bulgakov’s story “Heart of A Dog” in 1988, and scored both critical success and high ratings with his adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” in 2003. A presentation last week at Moscow’s Central House of Writers gave a taste of what the 10-episode series will look like. Video screens showed the famous first scene, where the devilish Woland, played by veteran actor Oleg Basilashvili, lectures the poet Bezdomny and the literary journal editor Berlioz about Jesus Christ. The director chose to film the fateful encounter at Patriarch’s Ponds in sepia tones, as he did for all the 1930s scenes, while the scenes set in Biblical Jerusalem and the magic episodes were filmed in color. Other extracts showcased the special-effects scenes that fill 164 minutes of the series’ total running time and consumed much of its $5 million budget. There was a chance to see Margarita flying to the ball on a broomstick, a performance of “black magic and its exposure” led by Woland and, most crucially of all, the giant talking cat Behemoth. The director said that the difficulty of recreating this character was one of the factors that made him refuse an offer to film “The Master and Margarita” in the 1980s. In the series, Behemoth is played alternately by a real trained cat, by the diminutive actor Vano Miranyan in a furry cat suit and — for his human incarnation — by actor Alexander Bashirov. Russian special-effects studios also created an animated cat figure, whose gestures and voice were created by actor Semyon Furman. “Compared with Hollywood, this is probably the Stone Age,” Bortko said of the special effects in an interview before the presentation. “I don’t know, but I hope it looks modern. It’s hard for me to say now what a viewer will think of it if he expects something like ‘Titanic’ or ‘The Matrix.’” When talking about the completed work, the director cringed at the mention of the word serial, or drama series, a term that has been tarnished by countless look-alike gangster or police shows. “The Master and Margarita” is a “just a very big film,” he insisted. The multistranded plot, with each strand gaining new depth from the juxtaposition of its two settings, Moscow and Jerusalem, makes the book impossible to abbreviate without turning it into nonsense, he believes. “As for calling it a serial, it’s as much a serial as I am a Japanese man.” Bortko said that he wrote the screenplay using only Bulgakov’s words and that almost all of the novel made it into the film, although there is no voiceover. The film also follows the author’s narrative technique in alternating between Jerusalem and Moscow. Although this faithfulness will please connoisseurs, the series will be understandable for someone who hasn’t read the book, the director said. The 71-year-old Basilashvili, who plays Woland, is a household name for his performances in such classic Soviet comedies as “Autumn Marathon” and “Office Romance.” But he is far from the only star in a production that enlisted the cream of Russian actors for even relatively small roles. Viewers will be familiar with Alexander Abdulov, who plays the ex-choirmaster Korovyev, and Valentin Gaft, who plays the Jewish high priest Kaifa, to name just two. Bortko said that the performance of Sergei Bezrukov as Yeshua would convince any unimpressed by the ubiquitous thespian’s recent work that “in front of you now is, to put it mildly, a super-good actor.” “There are two different ways to make a film,” Bortko said. “One of them is pure cinema, when with the help of pictures you tell everyone your view of the world, and the second way is to tell a story — what they usually do in Hollywood. I do it the second way, and for that you always need very good actors, and very good actors are usually stars.” The two title roles, though, are taken by an actor and actress with lower profiles than some of the other performers. Margarita is played by Anna Kovalchuk, who is best known for playing the lead role in the NTV detective series “Secrets of the Investigation,” while Alexander Galibin, who plays the Master, starred in numerous films in the 1980s before dropping out of screen acting for almost a decade. Some have commented on the couple’s resemblance to Bulgakov and his third wife, Yelena Shilovskaya, although at the presentation the lead actor denied that he was playing the author. To publicize the miniseries, Rossia is organizing a parallel arts festival in Moscow called “Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” which started last week and runs through late December. Events will range from poetry readings to performances of Soviet-era avant-garde music. An exhibition of Stalin-era memorabilia called “We Will Hang a Star on the Fir Tree” will open at the Shchusev Architecture Museum on Thursday, displaying photographs, archival film, household objects and a reconstruction of a New Year’s tree circa 1936. Rossia general director and series co-producer Anton Zlatopolsky called the production “the most difficult one in terms of time taken and nervous energy” that the channel has ever undertaken in the genre. The director was working “at the limit of human capabilities,” he said. Although Bortko’s series took less than a year to shoot, his plans to film “The Master and Margarita” date back nearly a decade. He wrote the script back in 1996, then in 2000, the Kino-Most film studio, associated with NTV, chose him to direct the series but at the last moment the company failed to reach an agreement with Sergei Shilovsky, grandson of Bulgakov’s wife and the owner of the book’s copyright. Zlatopolsky said that when Rossia commissioners decided to revive the project, they found that the Russian rights had been sold only six weeks before to the film production and distribution company Central Partnership. Luckily, the two organizations managed to come to an agreement, and filming for Bortko’s series began last June. Mysteriously, other attempts to screen the novel or even stage it in the theater have failed for various reasons. The legendary St. Petersburg theater director Georgy Tovstonogov had in mind a production which would combine Bolshoi Drama Theater actors with performers from the Mariinsky Theater, but he died before the idea had a chance to take shape. In the Soviet era, Eldar Ryazanov’s movie idea was refused on ideological grounds. Directors Igor Talankin and Elem Klimov were also unsuccessful. Their proposals were rejected by the Soviet culture bosses because of censorship restrictions and because Bulgakov was regarded as an “unreliable element” by the ideologists overseeing country’s culture. Completed just before his death in 1940, “The Master and Margarita,” was banned until the mid-1960s. In the 1990s, Yury Kara made a filmed version, giving the role of Woland to Gaft, who plays Kaifa in Bortko’s miniseries, but this has never seen the light of day. The only screen versions to date have been a joint Italian-Yugoslav production and a film and a television series from Poland. Living up to its mystical reputation, the novel’s screen version has survived notable cast reshuffles. Oleg Yankovsky refused to play Woland, who is an incarnation of Satan, on the grounds that he did not know how to approach his character, and, perhaps more importantly because a human being can’t possibly portray either God or the Devil. “How on earth is one supposed to play the Devil: go round goggling their eyes and trying to look important? That doesn’t suit me,” Yankovsky told reporters. Over the years of attempts by various directors to make a film version happen, a number of actors turned down the projects on the grounds of similar superstitions. On several occasions, actors who had originally agreed to be in a film version suffered heart problems or were victims of theft and withdrew from the projects because they felt their misfortunes were somehow connected with Bulgakov’s characters. “It hasn’t been that simple with this story: many people just can’t take it as an ordinary fiction,” said St. Petersburg composer Andrei Petrov, who had been commissioned to write the soundtrack for Bortko’s “Master and Margarita” when it was backed by NTV. “Quite a lot of actors got overly sensitive, probably out of a perception that starring in such a film is equal to playing with magic. Naturally, they started looking for some special signs, which could tell them whether they should get involved.” Alexander Kalyagin, who had first agreed to star in Bortko’s film as Berlioz, a character who is decapitated in the novel, eventually refused to take part, reportedly after a heart attack. “Many people advised the director not to touch the ‘diabolic matters,’ or ‘deal with supernatural forces,’ perhaps because they were superstitious,” Petrov said. “They were saying that something strange that makes you scared and send shivers down your spine surrounds the novel. Several actors have refused to star in the film for that very prejudice.” Petrov’s score has not been used in the new film and Bortko turned to composer Igor Kornelyuk, who provided a new soundtrack . The failure of any Russian director to complete and release a filmed version of “The Master and Margarita” to date has led some to prophesy disaster for Bortko, too. While some believe that Russian film versions are jinxed, Bortko has no time for mystical explanations. Instead, the director said that filming went smoothly. “People often ask me whether there were any mystical happenings. I say, yes, you should write that there was one: We started on time and finished on time. That was very mysterious.” “The Master and Margarita” (Master i Margarita) airs Monday on Rossia at a 8.55 p.m. For a full program of the “Manuscripts Don’t Burn” festival, see www.masterimargarita.ru/news TITLE: The Word’s Worth TEXT: Ah, the holiday season is upon us. Trees are decorating the squares, streets are lit by flashing lights, and you are planning to max out your credit cards and happily eat your way to mid-January. If you’ll be in Russia, prepare for some serious partying. The Russian version of a good party is çàñòîëüå, a simple but packed word that means “the act and art of sitting around the table”: a long evening around a table laden with food and drink, filled with toasts, stories, conversation and jokes. This is very different from the American holiday cocktail party that is anathema to Russians: two hours of standing around trying to balance a plate of finger food and glass of egg nog while making polite chitchat with boring strangers. Áîæå óïàñè! (God forbid!) If you are the host or hostess for a traditional çàñòîëüå, it’s good to know the dinner table lingo. First, you have to pry the guests away from the canapes in the living room and get them to the table. Ïðîøó âàñ ê ñòîëó! is the polite phrase for “Please be seated.” Then you will have to urge them to dig in. I’ve never figured out why guests sit staring at platefuls of salads and platters of çàêóñêè (starters) with hands frozen in their laps as if they were vegans at a barbeque. Óãîùàéòåñü! (Please help yourself!) you say encouragingly. The shy ones can be cajoled with the very polite and slightly coquettish Ðàçðåøèòå çà âàìè ïîóõàæèâàòü? (May I serve you?) Among friends, you can pick up the serving spoon and their plates and say, Ìîæíî âàì ïîëîæèòü? (May I put some on your plate?) With family, you can simply say, Äàâàéòå òàðåëêó (Pass me your plate) and start piling it on. Then there’s the fluid concept of ÷óòü-÷óòü. As we all know, ÷óòü-÷óòü means “just a little bit,” but when you are a host, you are supposed to pretend that ÷óòü-÷óòü really means “as much as I can load on your plate before you shriek.” If you’ve done your job in the kitchen well, once guests finish the first round, they’ll be ready for more. Ìîæíî åù¸ âàì ïîëîæèòü? (May I give you some more?) you ask. With friends, you can be blunter: Êòî õî÷åò äîáàâêè? (Who wants seconds?) One of my friends just asks: Ïîâòîðèì? (Literally, this means “Shall we repeat the process?”) After a few rounds of this ritual, when you try to ply your guests with yet more food, they will show the universal sign for “If I eat any more, I’ll explode”: hand on protruding belly, expression of horror on face. Îé, íåò — áîëüøå íå ìîãó. (Oh no, I can’t eat any more). Or the more explicit: Íàåëñÿ. (I’m full.) Or the pained: Îáúåëñÿ. (I’m stuffed.) At some quiet point in the evening, someone may sigh contently: Õîðîøî ñèäèì. This phrase comes from the movie Îñåííèé ìàðàôîí (Autumn Marathon) and literally means “We’re sitting well.” What it really means is: I’m having a wonderful time — the food and drink hit the spot, the company is delightful, and I wish this could go on forever. If you hear that, you know your party has been a success. Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter. Sergey Chernov is on vacation. TITLE: A star is born AUTHOR: By Kevin Ng PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: PARIS — A young ballerina from the Mariinsky Theater is becoming an international star on stage and screen. Yevgenia Obraztsova, 21, has found herself very busy after a recent promotion from coryphee dancer (a rank above corps de ballet) to second soloist. She is currently making a guest appearance at the Baltimore Ballet in “The Nutcracker,” while last week she made a fine impression during the Mariinsky’s season in Paris dancing in four different programmes. She is also striking out in movies with a role in “Russian Dolls,” directed by Cedric Klapisch. Endowed with a well-proportioned body and a beautiful face, her dancing is lucid and has a youthful freshness and radiance. Obraztsova met with The St. Petersburg Times in a restaurant near the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris last week where the Mariinsky Ballet were performing part of the company’s Balanchine programme. Obraztsova was surprisingly unfatigued by her hectic routine, but was glad to be relaxing in the restaurant for an hour. “Paris is a wonderful and beautiful city,” the dancer said. Paris was one of the locations for “Russian Dolls,” which was released earlier this year and is now available on DVD. The film is a sequel to Klapisch’s earlier hit (known variously as “L’Auberge espagnole,” “Euro Pudding” or “The Spanish Apartment”) about the romantic adventures of an international cast of langauge students. How did Obraztsova get this acting role? “One day I was in the Mariinsky Theater, and the director of the film came up to me and asked: ‘Can you please do something in front of the camera? Just say something like, Hello, my name is Yevgenia.’ I followed his suggestion, and he said to me, ‘OK, I hope to see you.’ In the film, I spoke in English as well as Russian. It was great, and I really hope to get another acting role in future.” A lot has happened to this young star in the last six months. Last month Obraztsova danced for the Rome Opera Ballet in a new production of “Cinderella” with another guest artist, Giuseppe Picone. Carla Fracci, the renowned Italian ballerina who is now the company’s artistic director, extended the special invitation to Obraztsova. “Perhaps Carla Fracci heard about me winning the Moscow International Ballet Competition. I think that [Mariinsky principal dancer] Andrian Fadeyev recommended me to the Rome company to dance Cinderella. He guested in Rome earlier this year.” This is a big milestone in Obraztsova’s career. “It was the first time I had been a guest at another company. I had not danced with a partner from outside the Mariinsky Theater before,” Obraztsova said. More significantly, it was her first created role, and in a full-length ballet at that. “This production is based on an earlier La Scala production of 1956, but some of the choroegraphy has been revised by Carla Fracci this time.” Obraztsova added: “The classical choreography wasn’t hard for me at all. What was more difficult was to be alone abroad for the first time, and for four weeks. I seem to have lost half my weight! The first two weeks were hard, but after that I felt very much at home in the last two weeks. Giuseppe Picone is a perfect and wonderful partner. I like him so much. “I was slightly nervous for the premier, but I danced with more and more confidence in the other three performances.” Obraztsova said she had an extremely busy schedule during the engagement. “I had no time to do any sightseeing in Rome.” Barely a week after her return to St. Petersburg, Obraztsova left for Paris with the Mariinsky Ballet. On the last day of the Paris tour, right after her performance in Mikhail Chemiakin’s production of “The Nutcracker” with Fadeyev on the previous night, she flew to the U.S. for her engagement with the Baltimore Ballet. “I will only spend five days in Baltimore, dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy in their production of ‘Nutcracker’,” Obraztsova said in Paris before she left for the States to perform in Baltimore last Saturday and Sunday. Obraztsova returns as a guest with the Rome Opera Ballet in April. “I’ve been invited to dance in a new production of ‘Faust’ to be created by [artistic director of the English National Ballet] Wayne Eagling.” Fadeyev will again be her partner. Obraztsova’s rising profile was boosted in June when she won the gold medal in the senior women’s category at the Moscow International Competition. Was she surprised by her triumph? “Of course I was surprised, and I am so glad that I succeeded. [Mariinsky ballet director] Makhar Vaziyev was very happy that I had won,” Obraztsova said. “After the competition, I flew immediately to Washington to join the Mariinsky tour.” Obraztsova’s coach is the well-known former Mariinsky ballerina Ninella Kurgapkina, who also coaches Mariinsky prima ballerina Uliana Lopatkina. “Kurgapkina is a great teacher,” Obraztsova said. “She is wonderful. She always tells me what do with my legs, my face, my hands; and she has taught me a lot about acting.” Her regular dancing partners include Andrei Merkuriyev, Vladimir Shklyarov, Igor Kolb, and Fadeyev. “I dance with Merkuriyev the most often,” Obraztsova said. “I like Fadeyev a lot; I’ve danced Juliet with him twice.” Obraztsova’s Juliet (in Lavrovsky’s version of “Romeo and Juliet”) is distinguished by her naturalistic acting. “Juliet has more acting than dancing in the role,” Obraztsova said. “Technically it’s not too difficult, although I wouldn’t describe the first act as easy. I can really imagine myself living in Verona as Juliet.” Despite her labor-intensive vocation and busy professional schedule, Obraztsova has wide interests outside ballet. “I try to draw, and I like art very much,” she said. “I also like classical music and jazz, but not so much pop music. I watch old classic films too.” Obraztsova looks eagerly towards future work. “I really hope to dance ‘The Sleeping Beauty.’ I’ve learnt Aurora throughout the past year, rehearsing with Vladimir Shklyarov. He’s helped me a lot. I am ready now and am waiting for my debut.” TITLE: WTO Talks Deadlocked PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: HONG KONG — Developing nations cranked up pressure on the rich to open their long-protected markets as world trade talks foundered on Thursday, while the United States and Europe blamed each other for the deadlock. As World Trade Organization (WTO) nations haggled in Hong Kong, over 1,000 anti-globalization demonstrators marched peacefully under the watchful eyes of riot police a short distance away, but they promised a more aggressive demonstration on Friday. “Today our actions are peaceful ... tomorrow we will show a different phase of this struggle to smash the WTO,” said Park Min-ung, general secretary of the Korean Peasants League, a group representing South Korea’s 4 million farmers. Inside the convention center, the World Bank added its voice to the indignation expressed by lesser-developed countries over their treatment at the meeting. “In the three days the meetings have taken so far, the rich countries have transferred more than $2 billion to their farmers in various forms of support,” World Bank Vice President Danny Leipziger said in a statement. “In the same period, the 300 million poorest people in Africa have earned less than $1 billion between them.” Poor nations slammed Washington and Tokyo for balking at a deal that would allow their exports in free of duties and quotas, saying that after years of prescribing liberalization for others it was time they “swallowed their own medicine.” One official said U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman “went ballistic” over that statement, which was issued by Zambian Trade Minister Dipak Patel on behalf of the poorest WTO countries. The United States also came under fire over the $4 billion a year in subsidies enjoyed by its cotton farmers, and won little respite when it announced its willingness to offer duty-free access to cotton from impoverished West African states. “They export cotton. Why would they import any of our cotton? What they need to do is halt the subsidies,” said Francois Traore, president of the African Cotton Producers Association. TITLE: Iraqis Vote For First Permanent Parliament AUTHOR: By Luke Baker PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: BAGHDAD — There may not be the same sense of history this time round, but the joy and determination of Iraqi voters emerging from dictatorship is still evident. Young and old, able-bodied and infirm, they streamed to polls for the third time in 11 months on Thursday, this time to elect a four-year parliament. While not as novel as the first post-Saddam Hussein election in January, participation was more widespread. Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the earlier poll for an interim assembly, flocked to vote this time, determined not to miss out on power again. “I’m delighted to be voting for the first time,” said 21-year-old driver Jamal Mahmoud in Ramadi, a Sunni Arab city west of Baghdad that has been at the front line of the anti-American insurgency for the past two years. “This election will lead to the American occupation forces leaving Ramadi and Iraq,” he said. That may still take some time, but the vote does complete the U.S. timetable for shunting Iraq toward democracy, nearly three years after American troops toppled Saddam in April, 2003. Once a new government is in place, which could take several weeks, the groundwork for withdrawing foreign troops may be laid down, including plans for improving Iraqi security forces so they can fight insurgents on their own. On Thursday it wasn’t serving Iraqi soldiers who were heading to the polls -— they voted earlier in the week — but veterans of some of Saddam’s wars, determined to see change after decades of sanctions and hardship. Hadi Mishaal, who suffered spinal injuries while fighting U.S. forces after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991, struggled to a voting station in Baghdad, propped up on a single crutch. He came with his wife, hobbling more than 2 kilometers to make sure he was one of the first to vote in his district. “I am trying to get to the voting station. I just want leaders that will help me,” said Mishaal, 55, who said he had never received a war pension. “I have no money. I have nothing.” While there was sporadic violence, including a mortar attack in Baghdad, voting appeared to go smoothly in a secure, if tense, atmosphere. Turnout began slowly, but picked up steadily. “Ballot boxes are a victory of democracy over dictatorship,” said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, capturing something of the moment as he cast his vote in the protected Green Zone. “The real triumph is that people are casting ballots, whoever they choose, and that they’ve chosen voting over bombs.” BALLOT OF BLOOD In Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city in northern Iraq where Kurds, Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmen are vying to prove their demographic strength, there was celebration and defiance. Hussein Garmiyani, a Kurd dressed in traditional clothing, was an early voter in the Shorja district. He jabbed his finger with a pin and cast his ballot in blood. “I was a victim of the Anfal campaign,” he said, referring to Saddam’s purge of the Kurds in the 1980s. “These past years were years of blood and I signed for freedom with my blood.” At another voting center, around 50 people, all in Kurdish baggy trousers, held flowers as they waited for it to open. Some of the most dramatic scenes were in western Iraq, in the cities of Ramadi and Falluja, both once heartlands of the insurgency, where voters disdained January’s election. This time they turned up in strong numbers — so strong that ballot sheets ran out in some voting stations. “We have huge numbers of voters waiting at stations, but we don’t have enough ballot papers,” said Najib Mahmood, an official with the Electoral Commission in Falluja. Earlier, some Falluja residents had complained that voting stations were too far away from their homes, so the Electoral Commission laid on cars for those unable to walk. “The problem is, we don’t have enough cars to cope with the number of voters,” said Mahmood, describing a complete turnaround in sentiment from January, when just two percent of those registered in Anbar province cast ballots. In the far south of Iraq, in impoverished Maysan province, which straddles the marshlands formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, there was hope among the Shi’ite population, which frequently suffered the wrath of Saddam. “This is a day of freedom for us,” said Selima Khalif, an elderly woman. “We are so happy. The most important thing we need is security. We want our children to get a better life.” Families walked together to vote with her, and others came on bicycles, keen to make their ballots count. And in Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city in the north, where a year ago security collapsed and the police force deserted, there was a renewed sense of hope and determination. “I came to vote because I want the Americans to leave Iraq,” said Khazal Mohammed Said, 47, a sheep trader. “There is no Iraqi Muslim who wants a foreigner to occupy this country.” TITLE: IN BRIEF TEXT: Sydney ‘Lockdown’ SYDNEY (Reuters) — An emergency session of parliament passed special laws on Thursday allowing Sydney police to “lockdown” parts of Australia’s biggest city to stop racial unrest. After two nights of racial violence in Sydney’s beachside suburbs this week, the New South Wales state parliament also increased the penalty for rioting from 10 to 15 years and doubled the sentence for affray to 10 years. EU Tackles Iran BERLIN (AP) — European Union leaders will address the Iranian president’s denial of the Holocaust as a “myth,” Germany’s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Thursday, warning that patience is running out with Tehran. The German government has condemned the remarks by Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and called on the United Nations as well as the EU to follow suit. Berlin says the comments will also weigh on talks over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program. The EU summit which began Thursday in Brussels is addressing Ahmadinejad’s statements “also at our urging,” Steinmeier said in the German parliament. The remarks showed “with how much irresponsibility and cynicism the Iranian government currently regards the situation of Israel and the Near East.” Lebanon Buries Tueni BEIRUT, Lebanon(AP) — Tens of thousands of Lebanese — men and women, Christians and Muslims — shouted insults at Syria on Wednesday in an outpouring of anger as yet another assassinated anti-Syrian campaigner was buried. Lebanon was brought to a halt by a general strike called in mourning for editor and lawmaker Gibran Tueni, who was killed along with two bodyguards Monday in a car bombing, but neighboring Syria largely ignored the events. Damascus has denied involvement in the slaying. Jimmy Page Honored LONDON (Reuters) — Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has been honored by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II — but the award was for his work with poor Brazilian children rather than his music. The 61-year-old rocker went to Buckingham Palace on Wednesday to receive the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, from the queen. Page said he was overwhelmed to be given the accolade, recalling how he first became involved with Brazilian children in 1994 when fighting broke out among street gangs while he was in Rio de Janeiro promoting an album. Bush: ‘I’m To Blame’ WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. President George W. Bush took the blame on Wednesday for going to war in Iraq over faulty intelligence but said he was right to topple Saddam Hussein and urged Americans to be patient. “It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I am also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities and we’re doing just that,” he said. But he said, “My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision” because he was deemed a threat and that in any case, “We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator.” TITLE: Cuba Kept Out of The Ball Game PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government is keeping Cuba out of the inaugural World Baseball Classic, citing the standing embargo against the communist island nation. The Treasury Department told Major League Baseball of its decision Wednesday, according to Pat Courtney, a spokesman for the commissioner’s office. The sport’s first World Cup-style tournament was jointly organized by the commissioner’s office and the players’ union. It includes 16 teams and runs from March 3-20 in the United States, Puerto Rico and Japan. Organizers will work to have the decision reversed, said Paul Archey, the senior vice president of Major League Baseball International, and Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association. A permit from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is necessary because of U.S. laws governing certain commercial transactions with the Fidel Castro-controlled nation. “We are very disappointed with the government’s decision to deny the participation of a team from Cuba in the World Baseball Classic,” Archey and Orza said. “We will continue to work within appropriate channels in an attempt to address the government’s concerns and will not announce a replacement unless and until that effort fails.” In Cuba, top sports officials met late Wednesday to discuss the issue, but no statement was immediately issued. Organizers had said the Cuban team likely would have included only players currently residing in Cuba and not defectors such as Jose Contreras, Orlando Hernandez and Livan Hernandez, who have become major league stars. In the tournament schedule announced last week, Cuba was to play its three first-round games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, facing Panama on March 8, the Netherlands on March 9 and Puerto Rico the following day. If the Cubans advanced, they would also have played their second-round games in Puerto Rico. “It is our policy that we do not confirm, deny or discuss licenses,” Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “Generally speaking, the Cuba embargo prohibits entering into contracts in which Cuba or Cuban nationals have an interest.” Representative Jose Serrano, a New York Democrat, said Tuesday that he is circulating letters to be sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary John Snow asking that Cuba be allowed to play. “Let’s leave the politics out of this,” Serrano said in a statement. “The World Baseball Classic should not be tainted by our grudge against Cuba’s government. Cuba produces some of the finest baseball talent in the world and they deserve to participate.” At last week’s news conference in Dallas to announce tournament plans, Orza sounded nearly certain that OFAC would grant a permit. “I do not think that is a serious impediment,” Orza said, adding he was “very, very confident that the Cubans will play.” TITLE: Snowboarders Compete in City AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: Although its organizers must have hoped for frostier weather, the Snowboard Europe Cup Championship stage will be held in Tuutary Park in St. Petersburg’s suburbs, on Saturday through Tuesday. During the four days of the tournament more than 100 snowboarders, including competitors from Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Germany and Slovenia, as well as Russia, will take part in Big Air, Parallel Slalom, and Jibb Style competitions. At the four Big Air rounds the participants are expected to demonstrate jumps that should not only be long and entertaining for spectators but, also, according to the championship rules, be dynamic and include complicated tricks. The first of two rounds in snowboard Parallel Slalom held within the framework of the championship starts the tournament in one of the most exciting snowboarding styles. In order to win first prize, two boarders complete two separate but identical routes and demonstrate slalom skills. . The “unofficial” Jibb Style round of the championship presents one of the most popular snowboarding styles. Jibbing is riding on something other than snow, such as rails, trees, logs and rocks. A special snowboarding park provided with the jibbing facilities will be constructed in Tuutary Ppark for the championship. TITLE: Fedorov To Skip Olympics PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus Blue Jackets forward Sergei Fedorov will not play for Russia in the Turin Olympics. Fedorov, a six-time NHL All-Star who turned 36 on Tuesday, said he needed the time to recuperate from a nagging injury and to adapt to his new team. “I don’t think it is appropriate to delay my decision about the Olympics any further,” Fedorov said in a statement released through IMG, which handles his business affairs. “As much as I would enjoy representing my country in Italy, I’m afraid that at this point in the season my focus has to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets.” Fedorov joined the Blue Jackets in a Nov. 15 trade with Anaheim. The NHL’s Olympic break is Feb. 13-27. Fedorov had a goal and five assists in six games in the 1998 Olympics, helping Russia win the silver medal. Heading into Tuesday night’s game against Philadelphia, the native of Pskov, Russia, has one goal and five assists in 16 games while recovering from a groin injury that has plagued him all season. “I feel that the most important thing is for me to continue to work towards being 100 percent healthy,” Fedorov said. “My main priority and responsibility is to the Columbus Blue Jackets and I don’t believe participating in the Olympics, which is a short, intense tournament, would be the best thing to do.”