SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1134 (100), Thursday, December 29, 2005
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TITLE: Home Repair Shoppers in Gas Bomb Attacks
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova and Oksana Yablokova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A gas attack that made dozens of people ill at a home repair store this week looks likely to put a dent in the retailer’s holiday sales but is not prompting fears of a repeat a among shoppers or investors.
Unknown assailants planted capsules of mercaptan, a pungent but relatively harmless chemical, in Maxidom’s four stores in St. Petersburg, and the gas was released in two of them on Monday. 
Police say the retailer is the target of a business dispute.
Maxidom, which operates only in St. Petersburg, reopened its stores for business on Tuesday after getting the approval of health inspectors.
Retail insiders said the attack was the first they knew of on a Western-style store in post-Soviet Russia but it was probably a one-off incident.
“This is probably a new way of warning competitors, but it is unlikely to inflict heavy damage to Maxidom’s business,” said Tatyana Kapustina, retail and consumer market analyst with Aton.
Kapustina said that fact that no one was seriously injured meant the attack was unlikely to scare off shoppers or investors.
“I doubt that this kind of competitive rivalry will become widespread,” said Sergei Donskoi, a consumer sector analyst with Troika Dialog.
St. Petersburg police spokesman Vyacheslav Stepchenko said Maxidom had contact police about threats before Monday’s incident.
“They received several anonymous letters threatening major problems that would disrupt their work and lead to a collapse in holiday sales,” Stepchenko said.
The first capsules were discovered at 7:30 a.m. Monday when a cleaner in one Maxidom store unwittingly broke one by accidentally striking the box they were in. No customers were in the store at the time.
Two hours later, the smell of mercaptan — described as garlic or rotten cabbage — filled the air at a second Maxidom store.
“Nobody heard a blast, but suddenly dozens of people smelled a strong, nauseating scent that made them sick,” Stepchenko said.
Viktor Shilov, head of the toxicology department of the St. Petersburg Emergency Care Institute, said 68 people were brought to his clinic with symptoms that included vomiting, sore eyes, headaches and weakness.
“Most of the people were able to return home on Monday night, and the rest are in a stable condition,” he said. “It seems certain that they’ll leave the hospital within the next two days.”
Eleven people remained at the clinic on Tuesday morning.
After the incidents at the two stores, Maxidom security personnel and police searched the chain’s other two stores and found more boxes with capsules. The capsules in all four stores were rigged to timers.
Yelena Ordynskaya, an aide in the city prosecutor’s office, said investigators had opened an investigation into hooliganism.
Governor Valentina Matviyenko called the incidents disgraceful but stressed that they should not be viewed as terrorism.
Stepchenko said mercaptan is not a dangerous substance in limited quantities. 
“It is often used for training purposes in civil defense lessons,” he said.
“The target was the store itself, and not the customers,” he said. 
“The criminals aimed to scare people away from the stores and remove a business rival during the high season.”
Maxidom representatives said Tuesday that security had been beefed up at the stores, but declined further comment.
Maxidom is a popular home improvement chain that opened its first store in 1997.

Oksana Yablokova reported from Moscow.

TITLE: Moscow Says No Deal For Ukraine
AUTHOR: By Jim Heintz
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s energy minister on Tuesday firmly denied reports that Moscow was ready to compromise with Ukraine on demands that it more than quadruple the price it pays for Russian gas, a dispute that threatens to cut off about a third of the gas that the country of 48 million relies on for heat and industry. 
The statement by Viktor Khristenko came hours after Ukraine’s energy minister claimed that a compromise had been reached in the tense, politically charged dispute. 
President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko spoke by telephone Tuesday evening, Russian news agencies cited the Kremlin press service as saying. The reports said only that “bilateral relations” were discussed in the call that was made at Yushchenko’s initiative, but the gas dispute was likely to have been at the top of the agenda. 
About a third of Ukraine’s natural gas comes from Russia and Ukrainian officials say jacking the price up from the current $50 per 1,000 cubic meters could cripple Ukraine’s energy-intensive heavy industry and impede the country’s efforts to boost its economy. 
Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom gas monopoly argues that Ukraine should pay $220-230, more in line with world prices and portrays the demand as putting the gas sphere in line with market-economy demands. 
Ukraine doesn’t argue with the market-economy theory but is asking for the price increases to be phased in over a period of five years. 
However, Khristenko, in remarks shown on state-controlled Channel One television, said “no other offers will be made.” 
Gazprom says it is prepared to shut off gas to Ukraine on Jan. 1 if an agreement isn’t reached. 
Officials in both countries have raised the prospect of sending the issue to the Arbitration Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, which both sides recognize as a neutral body for resolving trade disputes. But the institute cannot undertake the case unless both parties request it. 
Earlier Tuesday, Ukrainian Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov said at a round-table discussion that an agreement had been reached for a gradual phase-in of gas price increases, his spokeswoman Lilya Klochko said. However, a Gazprom spokesman quickly denied that any agreement had been reached and Plachkov’s office could not be reached later for clarification. 
Despite Russia’s arguments that market forces demand the price increase, Gazprom is charging significantly less to some ex-Soviet countries. On Tuesday, the company reached agreement to sell gas to Belarus for $46.68 per 1,000 cubic meters — just 20 percent of what it wants Ukraine to pay. 
Belarus is closely allied to Moscow, while Ukraine’s relations with the Kremlin have been stiff since Yushchenko came to power in January on a platform of moving Ukraine into closer integration with the West. 
The dispute also has raised concerns about gas supplies to Europe — about half the natural gas consumed in the European Union comes from Gazprom and most of that is shipped in pipelines that cross Ukraine. 
On Tuesday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov claimed Ukraine has the right to take 15 percent of the Europe-bound gas shipments that cross Ukraine. 
Ukrainian companies “have the legal right to take 150 cubic meters of gas from every 1,000 as a transit fee” under the contract with Gazprom, he said in comments released by his office. 
Sergei Kuprianov, a Gazprom spokesman, called the claim “legally illiterate” and Khristenko said “there cannot be talk of 15 percent, or 10 percent or 2 percent.” 
Ukraine uses almost 80 billion cubic meters (104 billion cubic yards) of gas annually, receiving 25 billion cubic meters from Russia, and 36 billion cubic meters from Turkmenistan, pumped via Russia. Ukraine itself produces some 18 billion cubic meters. 
Plachkov said that Ukraine and Turkmenistan have signed a deal on gas imports, but declined to announce the price. 
News reports said Yushchenko will announce prices for the Turkmen gas in his New Year’s address to the nation. Natural gas is one of the key export commodities for Russia, whose economy heavily depends on exports of natural resources. 
As the price dispute intensified, Ukrainian officials began suggesting that the country hike the rent it charges Moscow for the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet facilities in Ukraine. The port in Sevastopol provides the Russian navy its only convenient access to the Mediterranean. 
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov sharply warned Tuesday that any rent increase could have “fatal” consequences. But his Ukrainian counterpart Anatoliy Grytsenko said no rent hike would be made unilaterally.

TITLE: African Student Killed Near Metro Station
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A St. Petersburg university student from Cameroon became the fourth victim of murder on Saturday in what many see as an ongoing wave of hate crimes that has rocked the city in the past three months.
Kanhem Leon, 28, a student of the St. Petersburg Water Communications University, died of knife wounds in an attack during the early evening on Saturday near the Avtovo metro station believed to have been carried out by a group of extremists.  
“There were about five Russian guys dressed in black and wearing heavy boots … one of them stabbed Kanhem twice, and he bled to death immediately,” said Kanhem’s friend, Negongo Chegevara from Namibia, who managed to escape the attack.
The scene of the crime — a pedestrian passageway to the south of the city center — is notorious for violent hates crimes, according to local residents interviewed by NTV television channel. 
“It’s become common for us to see skinheads attacking foreigners in our area … They move and act freely, as if at home,” said a male resident of the area who kept his face covered while appearing before the camera. 
The man said he had witnessed another attack which took place about 30 minutes prior to Kanhem’s murder. He was referring to an assault on a 22-year-old first-year student of the St. Petersburg Pharmaceutical Academy, Eddi Maina from Kenya, who managed to escape with four knife wounds before seeking treatment in hospital. 
Like Kanhem and Negongo, Maina was on the way to the metro from a student hostel about 200 meters away when he was attacked. 
“They ambushed me like guerrilla fighters,” said Maina by telephone from the Kashtushka Hospital on Monday. 
According to Desire Deffo, head of the Cameroonian community in St. Petersburg, the incident on Saturday was the second attack on Kanhem who had arrived in Russia in September. 
Oleg Zhukov, prosecutor for the Kirovsky district where the incidents occurred, said he was confident the murder would be solved quickly, referring to evidence that led directly to the culprits. He declined to elaborate what evidence had been found. 
Aliou Tounkara, head of the St. Petersburg African Union described the prosecutor’s remarks as “tongue-in-cheek rhetoric especially tailored to silence the media and the outraged public.”
“No wonder they would soon detain someone for violating residential registration rules so as to tell the media they have arrested the culprits,” said Valens Maniragena, an IP lecturer at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, citing the police controversial reports following the murder of Congolese student Roland Epasak in September.
Meanwhile on Tuesday morning, about 300 people including foreign students, members of the public and representatives of human rights organizations rallied in front of the St. Petersburg governor’s offices to protest against the rising wave of extremism, fascism, racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia in the city.
The St. Petersburg African Union sent a petition to Governor Valentina Matviyenko listing a series of demands aimed at improving the security of its members.
The much-needed measures, according to the protesting Africans, include the deployment of police patrols in areas known for racial attacks and a commitment from the governor to take the investigation of all hate crimes under her personal control. But the long-term plan should also include revision of foreign students’ residential allocation policy to avoid the crime infested areas.
The city’s prosecutor’s office says about 800 hate crimes have been registered this year, though it declined to give figures for previous years.

TITLE: Local Skiers Vie For Spot At Olympics
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Russian skier Darya Serova took first prize in the mogul rounds held within the Freestyle Russian Cup stages in Krasnoye Ozero in Korobitsino near St. Petersburg last week and with it the chance to represent her country at the Olympic Games.
“The only dream I have is to win the Olympic gold,” Serova said, with less than two months left until the Winter Games begin Turin, Italy. 
Skiers such as Serova, who have been shortlisted for the national team, continue to participate in other tournaments to vie for a place on the Olympic team.
At Krasnoye Ozero, the hot contest and cold weather made for breathtaking freestyle rounds.
Having been included into the U.S.S.R. winter sports listing in 1985, the freestyle (mogul and aerial competitions) was pronounced the Olympic sport seven years later in 1992. 
Extreme “ski ballet” is gaining popularity among young Russians, attracting not only boys but more and more girls, said Genady Belusov, general secretary of the Freestyle Federation and state coach of the freestyle Russian national team in Krasnoye Ozero on Saturday at the close of the competition.
Due to the bad weather conditions, the construction of the track for the dual mogul competitions was not finished on time races that were to be held on the second day of the championship on Friday Dec. 23 were put off until February when they will take place in Chusovoy.
However, the planned ski-cross and mogul competitions finished without any changes on Thursday and Saturday. 
In the junior group, the first prizes in freestyle were won by Alexei Smishlyayev, a skier from Chusovoy who also took the first prize in the mogul competition, and  Moscow skier Yelena Muratova, who came second.
After winning the first three prizes in the ski-cross competitions, Nadezhda Yalishcheva, Irina Levanina, and Natalia Safronova — all from St. Petersburg — showed that the city is home to Russia’s strongest female cross-country skiers. In the men’s ski-cross, Moscow’s Ivan Znamensky won the first prize. 
“In the Olympics, we have good chances in men’s mogul and women’s aerial [acrobatics] rounds,” Alexei Pokashnikov, Russia’s freestyle head coach, said. 
Pokashnikov said he trains his team in summer at Krasnoye Ozero because “the only place in Russia where the special facilities for water training [for aerial skiing] are available.”

TITLE: State Duma Passes NGO Bill
AUTHOR: By Henry Meyer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s upper parliamentary house gave overwhelming approval Tuesday to a bill placing restrictions on non-governmental organizations, a widely expected move that brings the politically charged measure to the president for his signature. 
The measure has been criticized from abroad and by organizations in Russia as impinging on the groups’ capacity to work effectively. Critics see the measure as part of a Kremlin campaign to increase control over society and stem dissent. 
The Federation Council voted 153-1 in favor of the measure, which President Vladimir Putin is expected to sign. The legislation was initiated in parliament’s lower house by the United Russia party, which dominates the legislature and is loyal to Putin.

TITLE: Outspoken Advisor Offers Resignation Over Freedom
AUTHOR: By Henry Meyer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — An outspoken economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin has offered his resignation, saying he could no longer work in a government that had done away with political freedoms, Russian news agencies reported Tuesday. 
Andrei Illarionov, the lone dissenter in a Kremlin dominated by Putin’s fellow KGB veterans, was stripped of his duties as envoy to the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations earlier this year. However, he had remained Putin’s economic adviser. 
Last week he charged that political freedom has steadily declined and said that government-controlled corporations have stifled competition and ignored public interests. 
“It is one thing to work in a partly free country, which Russia was six years ago. It is quite another when the country has ceased to be politically free,” the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted him as saying. 
Illarionov, who has also become increasingly critical of a return to inefficient state control of the economy, complained that he was no longer able to speak his mind. 
“I considered it important to remain here at this post as long as I had the possibility to do something, including speaking out,” he said, according to ITAR-Tass. 
“Until recently, no one put any restrictions on me expressing my point of view. Now the situation has changed,” he added. 
Illarionov, 44, a free-market  economist who worked in the Russian government in the early 1990s, was appointed an adviser to Putin in 2000. 
But he increasingly fell out of favor after he became a vocal critic of moves to restore state control over the strategic energy sector, in particular lambasting the effective nationalization of the Yukos oil empire of jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2004 as the “swindle of the year.” 
Illarionov said he had a number of reasons for his decision to resign but said that his main concern was the development of an increasingly state-controlled economy, with major public companies run by self-interested bureaucrats. 
“Six years ago when I came to this post I dedicated my work to increasing economic freedoms in Russia. Six years on, the situation has changed radically,” he said. 
“This is a state model with the participation of state corporations, which although they are public in name and status, are managed above all for their own personal interests,” said Illarionov. 
Russia’s biggest carmaker Avtovaz on Thursday elected a new board with top managers representing the state, cementing control of a key company after parallel moves to increase the state’s hold on the energy sector. 
Under Putin, Russia has moved to snap up chunks of the strategically important oil sector and the state now controls around 30 percent of the national oil industry. 
In Dec. 2004, the biggest oil fields of the embattled Yukos oil giant — once Russia’s No.1 producer — were transferred to the state to reclaim billions in disputed tax bills and this year, the giant gas monopoly Gazprom bought the privately held OAO Sibneft oil company. 
Illarionov said last week that after state-owned Rosneft took over OAO Yukos’ main subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, the unit’s revenues dropped and costs soared. 
The announcement of his resignation came as the Russian parliament gave final approval to controversial legislation that will impose strict curbs on human rights and other nonprofit groups. 
Critics say it is another step by Putin to tighten control of society after moves to put the state in charge of all national broadcasters, impose a Kremlin-loyal parliament and end the direct election of governors in Russia’s sprawling regions in favor of officials effectively appointed from Moscow.

TITLE: Beslan Probe Clears Authorities
AUTHOR: By Henry Meyer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prosecutors investigating last year’s bloody school hostage siege in the southern town of Beslan have uncovered no mistakes in the authorities’ handling of the crisis so far, the official leading the probe said Tuesday. 
Deputy Prosecutor-General Nikolai Shepel said in comments released by his office that a reconstruction of the events of the September 2004 raid had established that police and other security forces involved in the rescue operation did not bear any blame for the ensuing tragedy. 
Relatives of the victims, who have accused the authorities of incompetence over the deaths of more than 330 people and mounting a cover-up, responded angrily. 
“We didn’t expect anything else, the prosecutors are sticking to their version of events and ignoring victims’ testimony,” Susanna Dudiyeva, head of the Beslan Mothers’ Committee, told The Associated Press. 
The prosecutors’ preliminary conclusions sharply differ from those of an earlier probe by a regional legislative panel that blamed authorities for botching rescue efforts and urged that those responsible be punished. 
The results of a third probe by the national parliament are to be unveiled on Wednesday and if it backs up the criticism of the regional inquiry, it would put further pressure on the Prosecutor General’s office to amend its findings. Its final report has yet to be published. 
Militants attacked School No. 1 on Sept. 1, 2004 — the first day of school — taking more than 1,100 children, parents and staff hostage.

TITLE: Ex-Gamblers Recall Trials and Tribulations of Addiction
AUTHOR: By Carl Schreck
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Alexander received his paycheck five days ago, and several people started chuckling when he revealed how he’d been spending his money.
“I’ve just been hanging out and buying a bunch of stuff I don’t want,” said Alexander, slumped forward in his chair and pointedly avoiding eye contact.
But the snickering in the cramped room died down as Alexander, a graying man in his 40s, continued.
“It was easier when I was gambling,” he said. “I would lose all my money, so I didn’t have to pay anybody back or make a decision about what to buy. Maybe I’m not happy, but I’m not gambling. Maybe I’m wasting my money, but I’m not gambling.”
Alexander is part of a new wave of gambling addicts and one of 15 people who packed into a tiny, backroom library at the Danilovsky Monastery in southern Moscow for a meeting of Gamblers Anonymous last Monday. 
With slot machines and roulette wheels flooding streets, shops and metros, the country is seeing unprecedented growth in both gambling and problem gamblers. 
Vladimir admitted that he was a gambling addict. In fact, he has been making the admission regularly since he and a fellow gambler started up the first Gamblers Anonymous group in Russia four years ago next week. 
“I had quit drinking in 1990 when I saw a slot machine at GUM. I played and ended up winning the equivalent of a three-month salary. Then I started losing a lot,” Vladimir said. 
Vladimir, now 37, said he soon sold his car for gambling money and the tried to shake the habit by moving to Crimea.
“I tried everything I could to quit, but nothing worked,” he said. “I would play everything: slot machines, poker and roulette. When I was playing, I would never think about the fact that I have a child or that I need to pay for my mother’s apartment. I would only think about that after I walked out of the casino broke.”
Vladimir said the breaking point came on May 30, 2001, when he hocked his television and gambled away the proceeds. “I was walking around Moscow like I was drunk, but it wasn’t because of drugs or alcohol. I needed to play.”
He co-founded the first Gamblers Anonymous group, and it met for the first time on Dec. 21, 2001, with five participants. “Other gambling addicts are the only people who can really understand that it’s a sickness,” Vladimir said. “Everybody else just says ‘Be a man and pull yourself together.’”
He and other members of the group asked that their last names not be published in line with the organization’s commitment to anonymity.
Six Gamblers Anonymous groups now meet regularly in Moscow, while two others meet in St. Petersburg, one meets in the Moscow region and one meets in Kazan, Vladimir said. Ten to 15 people attend each meeting.
Vladimir said he had not gambled for four years and six months.
Not many gamblers, however, realize that they have a problem because the addiction is widely regarded as a personality flaw, said Oleg Zykov, head of the organization No to Alcoholism and Drugs foundation and a member of the Public Chamber. He likened public attitudes toward gambling to what attitudes were toward alcoholism before Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began addressing widespread alcohol abuse in the 1980s.
“When society began to change in the late 1980s, the problem of alcohol entered the public dialogue, and gradually alcoholism was recognized as a disease,” Zykov said. 
He predicted that public perceptions toward gambling would also inevitably change as the gaming industry comes under closer public and government scrutiny.
No comprehensive statistics on gambling addiction are kept, although lawmakers and Health Ministry officials say the number runs in the hundreds and thousands. Mental health professionals say the number of people seeking treatment for gambling has soared in recent years.
Zurab Kekelidze, deputy head of the country’s chief psychiatric hospital, the Serbsky Institute, was hesitant to give any estimates on the current number of gambling addicts in Russia. But he said that if “reasonable regulation” of the gaming industry was not implemented, the number in Moscow alone could reach 100,000 to 200,000 in the next five years.
The gaming industry is relatively new to post-Soviet Russians, “and a majority of them don’t have the psychological immunity to gambling like people in countries where the industry is developed,” Kekelidze said. 
“In America, gambling is widely seen as just a form of entertainment. Here, people still think that they have a realistic chance to win a lot of money.”
Kekelidze called recent legislation to ban slot machines in stores and metro stations “a step in the right direction.”
Samoil Binder, deputy managing director of the Association for the Development of the Gaming Business, said his organization has been discussing problem gambling trends in Russia for five years, but said without comprehensive statistics the problem could not be addressed effectively.
Binder said recent municipal laws removing slot machines from public places in Moscow was a positive move, but that politicians who inflate the number of gambling addicts were resorting to “pure populism.”
“There are no statistics to confirm such estimates,” Binder said.
The Gamblers Anonymous meeting at the monastery on Monday gave the participants a chance to vent about temptation and strategies for resisting over plates of cookies and cups of tea.
“I walked by a gaming hall the other day and stopped for a second,” said Alyona, the only woman in attendance. “I began to imagine that it was a public toilet — and I would never go into a public toilet under any circumstances. It worked, and I just walked on by.”
Solomon, the group’s leader for the evening who conceded that he would probably be in debt for the rest of his life, talked about the dreams of wealth that sometimes distract him. “Sometimes I picture myself winning so much money that I can pay back all the money I owe people plus a little extra on top. Then they will see what a great guy I am,” he said. “But then I catch myself and realize that it’s all a lie.”
The 90-minute meeting ended with everyone standing up, holding hands and saying a prayer. Participants handed over a little money for the refreshments.
Outside the monastery gates, Igor, 27, said he started attending the meetings a year ago and has since managed to put his life back on track.
“Everyone here has the same problems, and everyone understands you,” he said.
Igor began playing slots four years ago and immediately lost around $600. “I took a break after that, took a vacation and forgot about the money I lost,” he said. 
“But three or four months later I started playing again and lost $3,000.”
The pattern continued as he moved on to roulette and soccer bets — gambling that he financed by borrowing from relatives and even his boss, who loaned him $4,000.
“He asked me if I had a gambling problem, but I said ‘No way,’” Igor said. “My parents sent me money from America to pay back my debts, but as soon as I got it I gambled it away.”
His boss started withholding his paychecks, and Igor, $10,000 in debt, quit his job.
“I hated myself and didn’t even want to live,” he said.
His wife found a Gamblers Anonymous group on the Internet, and he last gambled on Dec. 26. He is now working to pay off $2,300 in debt that comes due over the next eight months.
Sobriety, however, has its obstacles. 
“I almost fell off the wagon nine months ago,” Igor said. “My wife and I had planned a vacation to Turkey with our son, but one day I walked into a gaming hall and sat down at the roulette table. I sat there for about 10 minutes, just watching and analyzing. But I understood that if I played, there would be no trip to Turkey. And who knew what the consequences would be?”

TITLE: Russia Readies Cash for Winter Olympics Bid
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia is prepared to spend 196 billion rubles ($6.75 billion) to develop the resort area of Sochi if it wins a bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Sports Minister Vyacheslav Fetisov held a news conference on Monday to reveal the city’s bid plan and said that the bulk of that sum would come from the federal budget. He did not specify exactly how much would come from the national coffers.
Fetisov and other officials said they viewed the games as a potential boost for the area, which is highly popular among Russian tourists but little-known internationally.
“The realization of the Olympic project in Sochi can be the locomotive of developing the whole region ... today Sochi gets 2 million tourists a year, and after nine years that could grow by three times,” Fetisov said.
Serei Sukhanov, deputy head of the Sochi city administration, added that Sochi could become “not just a Russian resort, but an international resort.”
The presentation indicated that Sochi intends to use the region’s unusual geography as a key attraction.
The city is on the Black Sea shore, 800 miles south of Moscow, and has subtropical vegetation, but the snow-clad Caucasus Mountains soar directly to the east.
Promotional slides shown at the news conference featured views of pleasure boats in a sunny harbor with the white mass of mountains in the background.
“It’s really a unique place on Earth ... none of the competing cities can offer this,” said Dmitry Chernishenko, general director of the bid committee.
The plan is to hold indoor ice events — hockey, speed-skating, figure-skating and curling — on flatlands around Sochi proper, with skiing, snowboarding and bobsledding centered around the nearby mountain resort of Krasnaya Polyana.
The layout would make for a compact games. The distance from the athletes’ village to any of the venues would be no more than about six kilometers (four miles), Chenishenko said.
The road leading to the snow-sport venues would be closed to private vehicles, ensuring smooth transport, and a light-rail system would be built from the airport to the snow-sports area, officials said.
Sochi is one of seven cities seeking the games. The others are Pyeongchang, South Korea; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Borjomi, Georgia; Jaca, Spain; Salzburg, Austria; and Sofia, Bulgaria.
The International Olympic Committee will name three or four of those cities as finalists in June, with the winner to be announced in July 2007.

TITLE: Ski Resort Open After State Feud
AUTHOR: Yevgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Orlinaya Gora ski resort, a popular destination for student skiers and snowboarders, will finally open its slopes to the public Friday, the resort’s managing company TAKT said Tuesday.
TAKT general director Ilya Voronin, whose company developed Orlinaya Gora on the land of the State Lesgaft Sport Academy in 1999, said that a conflict with the academy was the reason that they were unable to open the resort at the start of the winter season.
According to Voronin, a private security firm associated with the academy “trespassed on the grounds and took possession of strategic sites such as the transformer station and the energy unit.”
“Thanks to our friends and partners we found alternative power sources, such as a portable power station, and will soon be ready to greet the public,” said Voronin.
According to Pavel Bondarenko, TAKT’s chairman, TAKT has a leasing agreement with the academy until 2019.
Commenting on the conflict, Bondarenko said he can’t explain the reasons underlyng the academy’s actions but regards them as “an attempt to deprive the company of its business with the pretense that their educational establishment suffers because of them.”
“But if we hadn’t arrived on the scene, there would still be only a bog,” said Bondarenko.
TAKT has already invested $2.7 million, a sum which “could have been larger if the current conflict had not occurred,” Bondarenko added. Vladimir Taymazov,  vice-chancellor of Lesgaft Sports Academy, confirmed its presence on the premises in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
However, Taymazov said the company does not have the legal right to occupy the premises, as the lease agreement between TAKT and the academy expired in 2002. “The state wants to build a world-class sporting center and all sorts of businessmen want to entrench themselves in the area and get some of the money,” Taymazov said.
Meanwhile, experts predict a boom for the winter sports market, saying it is far from saturated.
“Interest in winter sports such as skiing and snowboarding is growing in leaps and bounds, and therefore there is a lots of potential for the development of new sports centers,” said Anton Nikolayev, cofounder of Alt Media Group, which specializes in advertisement at ski resorts.
In contrast to the 90 ski resorts in neighbouring Finland (a country with approximately the same population as that of St. Petersburg), the city and its suburbs have only ten such centers, Nikolayev said.

TITLE: Insurers Told to Stop ‘Gifts’
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The licenses of nine of the country’s largest insurance companies were threatened with being revoked on December 20, as federal insurance watchdog Rosstrakhnadzor tried to stop them offering clients discounts and gifts. Market insiders considered Rosstrakhnadzor’s demands fair but doubt if the ruling could be put into practice effectively.
From Nov. 15 through Jan. 31, insurers are renewing contracts for compulsory car insurance, with competition fierce to attract clients. An inquiry began after the federal antimonopoly service spotted the advertisements of Rosgosstrakh-Stolitsa insurance company. Offering their clients gifts of over 1,000 rubles “made us doubt whether OSAGOs tariffs were economically valid,” the service said.
Rosgosstrakh offered vouchers and expensive presents like mobile phone accessories and parking radar to its clients.
“Rosstakhnadzor’s accusations are the result of the unjustifiably high discounts up to 20 percent and gifts offered by some insurance companies to their clients”, said Sergei Spasennov, head of corporate and real estate practice at Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners.
Policy price, bonuses, as well as other terms of insurance are defined by law and violating this law causes market inequalities, he said.
“It is obvious dumping that distorts the balance in the car insurance market. In addition the cost of those presents seems to be included in the policy price and not financed by profit, which should be the subject of investigation by tax authorities,” Spasennov said.
Granting “presents” in the form of cash and goods “makes us doubt if the money has been legally comes from a legal source,” he said. 
“Tariffs for compulsory motor third party liability insurance policy are defined by law. The law does not allow any discounts with the exception of bonus for drivers, who do not get involved into car accidents for two years,” said Igor Ivanov, deputy director of Reso-Garantia insurance company.
Gifts to the clients are considered a form of discount and thus contradict to the law on compulsory insurance, he said. That was the reason for state controlling body interference into the market.
“We did not offer discounts for motor third party liability policy, but we happened to get into the list of companies who got warning from Rosstrakhnadzor,” Ivanov said.
He explained that as a result of mistake, a regional partner company mixed up information about Reso-Garantia voluntary and compulsory insurance policy prices and conditions in its booklet.
Another expert saw the root of the problem in the size of the gift.
“This is a compulsory insurance, that’s why offering discounts is not fully justifiable. Discounts are illegal, even if they are disguised in other forms. That is a definite position of insurance community,” said Yevgeny Gurevich, marketing director of Russky Mir insurance company. However, he added, “within the limits of the approved budget expenses the companies could retain some forms of clients stimulation like small inexpensive gifts.”

TITLE: Vodka Output Doubled
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Local alcohol producer Liviz has opened a new plant in St. Petersburg, doubling its production volume, the company said Monday in a press release.
“The volume of production can be compared to that produced at our base production facilities,” said Konstantin Vinogradov, press secretary at Liviz.
The new plant, located in the district of Krasnoye Selo, will employ 100 people and produce about 2.5 million decaliters of vodka annually, in addition to its present yearly rate of 3.2 million decaliters. Liviz invested about $3 million into the plant.
According to a report by Biznes-Analitika marketing agency, Liviz was the third largest alcohol producer in terms of sales in the first half of 2005, after Kristall and Veda. Liviz produces over 20 brands of vodka.
“We believe that the new plant will increase our productivity and maintain our market position,” Vinogradov said.
According to Rosstat data published on Dec. 15, from January through November this year, Kristall produced about eight million decaliters of vodka. Veda produced more than six million decaliters, and Russky Alcohol produced 4.3 million decaliters.
However it is hard to say how the new plant will affect Liviz’s market share. Other alcohol producers also plan to increase investment and production.
Earlier this year Kristall announced plans to increase production up to 15 million decaliters by 2007, while on Dec. 7 Veda announced investment of $25 million into marketing and distribution in 2006, with the aim of taking 15 percent of the Russian alcohol market by 2008.
“The competitiveness of alcohol producers is determined by the brand portfolio and not by the volume of production in itself,” said Maxim Chernigovsky, director of development at Peterburgskaya Shirota alcohol company.
Chernigovsky said that next year Liviz could also benefit from the new Law on Ethyl Spirit Turnover, which will be in force after Jan. 1. The Law requires authorized capital of no less than 50 million rubles from alcohol producers. 
The general trend will be an increase in the market share of large companies, Chernogovsky said.

TITLE: IT Business Solutions Adjust To Local Reality
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With the development of high-speed business over the last 15 years, IT business solutions are gaining in popularity, and not only with the country’s most advanced domestic and foreign companies.
According to IDC, a global provider of market intelligence and advisory services, in 2004, the IT market in Russia grew 27 percent, compared to 14 percent in Europe. 
“IT business solutions are very popular in Russia and the market is very dynamic,” said Konstantin Ankilov, analyst at iKS-Consulting agency. 
“Besides the big and medium-sized businesses where ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems are most in demand, small businesses also provide potential for development. High growth (around 50 percent) indicates that the market is still far from saturated.”
Having first started using the accounting systems to provide the company with sufficient management at all levels, more Russian enterprises now prefer ERP systems. 
“With slower rates of economic growth and increased competition, it is crucial for companies to improve their competitiveness, reduce costs and apply IT business solutions as tools synchronizing all company resources,” said Andrei Brandaus, director at M-Service company that distribute “1C” business software to more than 700,000 enterprises throughout the country. 
According to the experts, among the market leaders of ERP systems in Russia are SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft. Russian IT business solutions from “Galaktika,” “Parus,” and “1C” are also popular with many companies. Among the biggest advantages of Russian software, besides their cost, is the way they can adjust to Russian realities, and respond quickly to changes in legislation, said Andrei Mikhalchuk, general director at the North-West branch of the Parus corporation. 
Although analysts talk about Russia’s high rates of IT market growth, this growth is spread unevenly. As Mikhalchuk said, St. Petersburg is one to one and a half years behind Moscow in the application of ERP systems to business processes, whereas other regions lag two to three years behind Moscow. 
“Seventy percent of the market in St. Petersburg is still wide-open. And I assume it will take about 5 years to saturate it,” said Yelena Mirolyubova, head of the sales department at the North-West branch of Galaktika corporation which provides IT business solutions to large and middle-sized companies in Russia and the CIS . 
Having cooperated with many of St. Petersburg’s industrial enterprises, such as Electropult plant, and the fuel and energy complex TEK SPB, Mirolyubova said that now not only commercial companies are expressing an interest in ERP systems but also enterprises involved in instrument-making, shipbuilding and science-intensive industries. According to iKS-Consulting, as well as industry and mobile operators, business solutions are also provided specifically to oil and energy companies. Big companies often prefer to install different ERP systems at the same time, for example, a SAP product at the head office, and another software, such as Miscrosoft or Galaktika, at other branches. 
Although, in the opinion of distributors, Russian ERP systems are more easily understood and “closer” to Russian users, many foreign retail investment companies, such as supermarkets, usually prefer to use foreign products such as Oracle Retail.
According to Mikhalchuk, Russian IT products are technically very strong, but they lack good market promotion and well-organised technical support. 
“Unlike foreign ERP system providers that enter the Russian market with a lot of sales experience, business plans, promoted brands, and large investments, in most Russian companies everything still depends on the professionalism of a few managers,” he said. 
Moreover, corruption has also affected the ERP business.
“Unfortunately, besides technical characteristics and cost, kickbacks are also among the crucial factors that influence a company’s choice between ERP providers,” said Ankilov.

TITLE: Storm Clouds Gathering Over Baltic
AUTHOR: By Angelina Davydova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Baltic Sea countries are losing out to their Asian competitors because of underdeveloped cooperation, it was revealed at the 7th annual Baltic Development Forum, which took place last month in Stockholm.
 According to European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso,
“While things look relatively sunny in some corners of the Baltic Sea area, storm clouds continue to gather elsewhere. Look at competitiveness… all of Europe’s major economies are slipping down the competitiveness rankings, or even worse, stagnating pretty far down. Or how about research? The EU’s 500 largest companies cut research and development investment by 2 percent, while research investment in China is growing by 20 percent a year,” he said.
Participants agreed that the main problem facing the area is falling investment in Research and Development, growing competition from Asia and a lack of a successful model of cooperation in the region, as well as the branding of the region as a whole. 
“Europe is flourishing on openness and declining on protectionism,” said Pehr Gyllenhammar, of chairman of Aviva plc group. 
“A single market of financial services doesn’t yet exist. Neither does a free labor market. It’s a waste of money to protect domestic employment, it would be better to invest it in new technologies,” he added.
All these opinions got strong support from the analytical State of the Region Report 2005 on Competitiveness and Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region, prepared by Dr. Christian Ketels from the Harvard Business School and Stockholm School of Economics and Professor Orjan Solvell from the Stockholm School of Economics. By the “region” researchers take into account the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, the northern part of Poland and Germany and the Northwest of Russia. 
“There are increasing signs that we need to realize that high economic performance is no inherited right, but needs to be earned again and again year on year. In the report, there are already signs that the momentum is starting to cool and moving in a more negative direction for the region. Specific examples included a stagnant export position, the drop of inward FDI flows and the worsening position of business competitiveness as measured by the global competitiveness report,” according to Ketels. 
The report also points out the specific areas where countries can do more together than they can do alone: cluster development, improved efficiency of entrepreneurship, R&D, positioning the region and Russian integration.
“Russia provides an enormous economic opportunity to the other parts of the Baltic Sea Region, but it is one of the opportunities that it is hardest to realize. Working on concrete cross-border projects and with Russia’s Northwestern District in general is highly recommended. Northwest Russia should be integrated as a part of the region, and not as a partner in the region,” said Ketels. 
According to Natalia Taranova, an expert of the Baltic Research Center, Russia’s natural resources can complement the information-based economies of Baltic countries, especially since the future competitiveness of Russia is in any event dependant on information technologies, Taranova said. 
According to the Baltic Development Forum director Ole Frijs-Madsen, the high professional level of academic research in the Northwest Russia is widely acknowledged in Scandinavia, and it is understood that this potential should be used in the interests of the Baltic Sea region in general.
Although Russia provides a huge market with high growth rates, according to the Swedish Trade Council research, bureaucracy remains a central concern for further development and trans-border cooperation. On top of this are barriers hindering trade, travel and investment between Russia and its neighbors. Moreover many summit participants felt that the ability of Northwest Russia to integrate fully into the Baltic Sea region cooperation process is largely limited by the processes of centralization in the country itself.

TITLE: A Year for Democracy, On Purpose or Not
AUTHOR: By Svante E. Cornell
TEXT: The parliamentary elections in Chechnya orchestrated by the Kremlin on Nov. 27 were another step in President Vladimir Putin’s strategy to gain international legitimacy for his handling of Chechnya. While this may constitute a short-term victory, the elections do nothing to improve the deadlock in Chechnya and the rapidly deteriorating situation in the North Caucasus as a whole.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, if not earlier, Putin has painstakingly followed a five-step strategy for dealing with Chechnya. The first component was to isolate Chechnya and hinder both Russian and international media from reporting independently on the conflict. The second was to rename the conflict: Instead of a war, it was now an “anti-terrorist operation.” Third, Moscow sought to discredit the Chechen struggle and undermine its leadership by accusing the Chechen opposition collectively of involvement with terrorism. Fourth was the ‘“Chechenization” of the conflict: an attempt to turn it into an intra-Chechen confrontation by setting up and arming a brutal and corrupt but ethnically Chechen puppet regime in Grozny under the leadership of Akhmad Kadyrov, the former mufti of the republic. Finally, Moscow declared that the war was over and that a process of normalization was taking place, seeking to legally and politically return Chechnya to the Russian fold and making it an international nonissue.
The first step in normalization was a referendum on laws to elect a Chechen leadership, which was duly held on March 23, 2003. This was followed by an October 2003 presidential election that sought to legitimize the rule of Kadyrov over Chechnya. An unforeseen step was the early presidential election of August 2004, held due to the assassination of Kadyrov in May the same year (which failed to derail Moscow’s plan). The parliamentary election held this November sought to finalize the process of normalization. This process has garnered a modicum of international legitimacy, but it has blatantly failed to stabilize Chechnya. To the contrary, this misguided enterprise has spread the unrest in Chechnya to the rest of the North Caucasus, jeopardizing Moscow’s control over the region.
The main problem with Moscow’s strategy has been its total disregard for the realities in Chechnya. As a recent report by several Russian and international NGOs titled “A Climate of Fear” aptly suggests, the Kremlin has sought to create a “virtual Chechnya” through propaganda. In this Chechnya, life has normalized and the war is over; the only problem is that this Chechnya does not exist.
The real Chechnya, as documented by innumerable eyewitnesses and Russian as well as international NGOs, is a territory where basic human security does not exist. Federal forces and their subcontractors, the forces of Ramzan Kadyrov, commit atrocities against civilians with impunity while the increasingly radicalized resistance in turn uses indiscriminate violence in and outside Chechnya to increase the cost of the war to Moscow. The extreme brutality of Moscow’s campaign and the lawlessness that plagued Chechnya during its periods of de facto independence have led to a process of “Afghanization” at a wider social level. As in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, the human and material destruction and the collapse of civic norms and values have undercut the very functioning of society, creating a fertile breeding ground for radicalism among a young generation that has known nothing but violence and deprivation.
Thus Moscow’s political enterprise in Chechnya is at best a poor attempt at window-dressing. All four votes — the referendum, two presidential and one parliamentary election — have been farcical. Turnout figures have been widely inflated each time, masking the widespread refusal of the population to take part. In the referendum, the legal texts were drafted in Moscow and were not subjected to meaningful discussion or deliberation in Chechnya. No true opposition has been allowed to participate. The separatist opposition has been shut out of the process, making any form of reconciliation or conflict resolution impossible. In addition, many independent forces loyal to Moscow have also been shut out of the process by administrative and coercive measures — to safeguard the Kadyrov clan’s hold on power. In none of the elections was real choice available to the people. Freedom of assembly and freedom of the press have been severely restricted, and no true debate has existed. To cap it all, the armed groups ubiquitous in the republic have made any true political process impossible. 
The Nov. 27 election was no different: Its results were widely believed to have been predetermined. Only 2 percent of Chechens interviewed in a pre-election poll thought the popular vote would determine the result of the elections. And indeed, United Russia swept the vote despite much lower ratings in the few opinion polls that were conducted.
Like Moscow’s entire plan for the normalization of Chechnya, these elections did nothing to help restore stability and speed up development in the North Caucasus. Instead, their cynical character further alienated the population of Chechnya and neighboring regions. At a time when it is increasingly clear that Moscow fails to control not only Chechnya but the entire North Caucasus, this is a worrisome development. Even more disturbing is the Western response. 
In a statement betraying either outright cynicism or total ignorance, a European Union spokesman expressed hope that the elections would lead to peace talks — whereas Moscow’s entire purpose for the elections was to sideline any possibility of peace talks with separatists. Germany’s reaction was even more baffling, with Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier characterizing the elections as “progress.” Clearly, EU and German officials cared little here about European values. The elections were monitored neither by the OSCE nor by the Council of Europe. The irony is that the absence of election monitoring — based largely on an assessment that the elections did not even merit the attendance of monitors — gave European officials a free hand to renege on their own principles.
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan recently invited hundreds of OSCE and Council of Europe observers to their respective elections. The international observation missions, true to form, emphasized that all elections must be held to only one standard, that of the OSCE member states; hence, they did not state whether these elections constituted progress or not. Consequently, failing to meet these standards, the two governments faced strong European criticism that paid little attention to the significant progress both had made in their earnest but incomplete attempts at political reform.
Unlike presidents Ilham Aliyev and Nursultan Nazarbayev, Putin got it right: By staging an election so bad international monitors would not even attend, Russia effectively shielded itself from criticism and provided the opportunity for Western officials eager to appease Moscow to term it progress, instead of holding Russia to the international standards that Europe otherwise claims to hold so dear. 
In the long run this will not help Chechnya’s, Russia’s or Europe’s interests.

Svante E. Cornell is research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and the Silk Road Studies Program, a trans-Atlantic research and policy center affiliated with Johns Hopkins University-SAIS and Uppsala University.

TITLE: Traffic Jams as the City’s Growth Industry
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Çàñòðÿòü â ïðîáêå: to get stuck in a traffic jam.
If you have been driving around town — no, let me rephrase that: If you have been trying to drive around town this December, but instead have been whiling away the hours in traffic jams, it’s not your imagination. Traffic is outrageous. News services confirm that the roads are jammed as everyone tries to finish their business and do their shopping before the holidays. The bad news is that it will get worse before Dec. 31. The good news is that in early January all the owners of èíîìàðêè (foreign cars) will be off in the Canaries, and for a blessed two weeks the roads will be clear. 
Meanwhile, it’s a great time to brush up on your motoring — or idling — slang. 
First useful word: äâèæåíèå (traffic). In most cases you qualify the noun with adjectives expressing various levels of hysteria: Ñåãîäíÿ äâèæåíèå áûëî òÿæ¸ëîå/óæàñíîå/íåâûíîñèìîå! (Today the traffic was heavy/awful/unbearable!) Lately, Russians have taken to calling it òðàôèê, but this is dreadfully pretentious, used with a world-weary sigh in phrases such as Òðàôèê ó íàñ ñòàë óæàñíûì, íî â Ìàíõýòòåíå îí åù¸ õóæå. (Traffic here has gotten terrible, but it’s even worse in Manhattan.) On the news you’ll hear äâèæåíèå çàòðóäíåíî (traffic is moving slowly, literally “made difficult”), but you should know this really means: “No one on this stretch of highway has shifted out of second gear in an hour.” Then there are çàòîðû (jams) and ïðîáêè (bottlenecks, literally “corks”). These are caused by about a million cars trying to fit into two lanes of a tunnel at the same time, or about 500 cars trying to make a right-hand turn from the five left-hand lanes. Or they are caused by ÄÒÏ: äîðîæíî-òðàíñïîðòíîå ïðîèñøåñòâèå (a traffic accident). 
Sometimes the accidents aren’t too bad. Drivers used to say ïîöåëîâàëèñü áàìïåðàìè (literally “their bumpers kissed”) to describe a minor fender-bender; now they say ÷èðêàòü áàìïåðîì (to scratch someone with your bumper) or çàäåòü áàìïåðîì (to bang bumpers). Or you might also hear: Èíîìàðêà ïðèò¸ðëàñü ê Âîëãå. (The foreign car grazed the Volga.) A bit worse is: Ìåðñ ïîäðåçàë äåâÿòêó. (The Mercedes clipped a Model 9 Zhiguli.) Ïîäðåçàòü is also the word you use to describe someone cutting in front of you, that favorite maneuver of Muscovite drivers. Îí îáîãíàë ìåíÿ ñëåâà, ïîòîì ïîäðåçàë è ïîâåðíóë íàïðàâî. (He passed me on the left and then cut in front of me to make a right turn.) 
Worse is ñòîëêíóòüñÿ (to hit someone), as in this astonishing headline: Òðàìâàé âûåõàë íà âñòðå÷íóþ ïîëîñó è ñòîëêíóëñÿ ñ òðîëëåéáóñîì. (The tram went into the oncoming traffic and hit a trolleybus.) This habit of using the opposite lane of traffic whenever one is bored with one’s own lane — called colloquially âûåçä íà âñòðå÷êó — is the bane of life behind the wheel. Åäó ÿ ñïîêîéíî, íèêîìó íå ìåøàÿ, è — áàö! — íà ìåíÿ åäåò Äæèï. (I’m driving along, minding my own business, when BAM! There’s a Jeep coming straight at me.) If you can’t pull over, you have the worst accident of all: Îí âðåçàëñÿ â ìåíÿ. (He crashed right into me.) 
Today, even with fender-benders traffic is further slowed by the need to call the traffic cops — still called ãàèøíèêè even if the service is now ÃÈÁÄÄ — to write up the insurance report. Part of the report is çàìåðû (measurements). The very informative web site of the Russian traffic police notes solemnly: Âñå ëèíåéíûå ðàçìåðû îïðåäåëÿþòñÿ òîëüêî ñ ïîìîùüþ ðóëåòêè èëè ñêëàäíîãî ìåòðà. (All the linear measurements are made only with a rolled or folding tape measure.)  What this really means: If you’re behind the ÄÒÏ, once the tape measure comes out, pull out your cell phone and call the person you are driving to meet. ß çàñòðÿë â ïðîáêå! Áóäó ïîñëåçàâòðà! (I’m stuck in a traffic jam. I’ll be there the day after tomorrow!)

Michele A. Berdy is a Moscow-based translator and interpreter.

TITLE: What happened?
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In 2005, shadows fell on what was once St. Petersburg bright contemporary music scene. 
Apparently scared by the Orange Revolution in Ukraine a year ago, in which contemporary musicians helped rock the vote, the Kremlin flirted with Russian rock musicians, who, despite once being a defiant and independent bunch, were surprisingly happy to please the bosses, if the price was right — be it a concert for the Kremlin-backed youth group Nashi or a stadium show in Chechnya to demonstrate that everything is peaceful and calm in the rebellious republic.
With Russian rock stars suspiciously silent on current affairs, criticism of Kremlin policies came from St. Petersburg alternative bands Tequilajazzz and PTVP as well as from Western visitors such as Jane Birkin and Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier.
The year’s political excesses were finally topped by the murder on Nov. 13 of Timur Kacharava, a 20-year-old university student and anti-Nazi activist who was a musician with the punk band Sandinista!, by a group of suspected Russian nationalists. The place where Kacharava was killed outside a book store on Ligovsky Prospekt became a shrine where mostly young people brought flowers and candles.
Meanwhile, some well-known local musicians died due to health problems. Local punk legend Alexander Strogachev, better known as Alex Ogoltely, died of heart failure at the age of 43 on Sept. 16. Once a bass player with the punk band Avtomaticheskiye Udovletvoriteli, he formed his own band Narodnoye Opolcheniye in 1982.
Pavel Litvinov, the percussion player with art-rock band Auktsyon and a number of other rock bands died of a stroke on Dec. 15. He was 46.
The shameful 1990s practice of fake concerts was relaunched by dishonest promoters who attempted to sell the former Orbital member Phil Hartnoll’s DJ set as a fully-fledged live reunion of the now-defunct electronic British band, and an obscure British hip-hop duo as the famous virtual band Gorillaz. 
Not all genuine acts scheduled to perform in St. Petersburg made it to the city — the most famous non-visitors were R.E.M., Chumbawamba and Mogwai. Another of the year’s most notorious non-events was Elton John’s wedding that the Russian media thought (with no particular reason) was to take place in a palace near St. Petersburg.
Much anticipated, over-hyped Western acts Franz Ferdinand and the White Stripes did play concerts in St. Petersburg, but failed to give very good performances.
The year was also harsh for the local club scene. The best local rock club, Moloko, was kicked out of the basement it had occupied due to complaints — although the club announced it would reopen in another location in 2006.
Two other local clubs that hosted live music, Orlandina and Stary Dom, closed as well, the former due to a conflict with the local administration, the latter being transformed into a disco by its owners.
But there were musical highlights among the gloom in 2005, including concerts by such outspoken musicians  as Patti Smith and Jane Birkin, both of whom made their debuts in St. Petersburg this year. 
Producer and musician Brian Eno returned to the city where he once lived for a few months in the 1990s to launch his new album at the Marble Palace. 
And, of course, there was some fine music produced by local bands such as Iva Nova, La Minor and debutantes J.D. and the Blenders.

TITLE: They said it in The St. Petersburg Times
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: From musical influences to political opinions, the contemporary musicians who visited St. Petersburg in 2005 (and some who didn’t) spoke out. These are some of the more memorable quotes of the year. 
In the past 12 months The St. Petersburg Times spoke to scores of artists, both Russian and international. Here is what some of them said.
Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab/Monade):
“I think that setting out to be creative is a political act, an act of resistance in front of people like [President Vladimir] Putin, who don’t want people to be creative, they just want people to be sheep, feared, paralyzed. It’s about not being scared, just do it and no-one exactly knows what is going to come out of it. Do it.”
Brian Eno:
“I see a real difficult situation going on for people. You know, there’s [President Vladimir] Putin who undoubtedly in some respects has been very good for Russia, but it seems to me he’s becoming more and more like an old-style Russian leader. He’s becoming more and more authoritarian. So I think this is a problem, even though I can understand why people like him as well. He has pulled things together. But I hope he doesn’t go down that road.”
David Brown (Brazaville):
“There’s a girl in Moscow named Masha, who was our tour manager, I guess, when we were there last time, and she would always talk about the ‘Ugly Babylon’ in reference to various things, and I wrote a song about it.”
Martyn Jacques (The Tiger Lillies):
“If we talk about September 11, it’s totally acceptable to film people jumping out of a building. Real people. Over and over again. That’s totally acceptable. 
“I can’t sing a song where I profess my love for a sheep. That’s unacceptable. You can’t have that on television. It’s a silly song about falling in love with a sheep. There’s just a suggestion, ‘Perhaps there’s a sexual connotation with this relationship.’ Then it becomes a taboo. I think artists tend to work with real taboos.
“Why shouldn’t you be able to talk about the things that actually exist. I think people do actually like to have sex with sheep. I sing a song about falling in love with a sheep — why is it offensive when it’s true? I mean there are people who love to have sex with animals. And not just animals — dead people, anything, that’s actually real!” 
Jude Abbot (Chumbawamba):
“There’s a whole heap of things that can change the world and we’re one tiny part of that. I think we see ourselves as a big community out there that is made up of artists, activists, writers, teachers, whatever, all sorts of different people, and everybody is doing a little bit. We are not saying, ‘Our music will change the world,’ we are saying we’re part of a mass of people who are trying to do that.”
Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai):
“We’d already completed [the album] before [John Peel] actually died, so it wasn’t meant as a tribute, but it serves as one. [...] Listening to his radio show when we were growing up was really important, and a lot of music we were influenced by we heard about on that show.”
Peter Hammill (Van der Graaf Generator):
“Of course a number of people have cited me as an influence. I think it’s to do with attitude rather than music, although there are aspects of ‘Nadir’ that have attitude, clearly. Knowing three chords and bashing an electric guitar very loudly is good fun and creative.
“For better or worse, during the time I’ve been making music, there’s been a certain aspect of no compromise in terms of what I do, and of just doing what I do for its own sake. Which I think was central to the punk ethic generally, particularly when it started. And I think that that attitude, which has been the thing that has been influential on people of that era, and on subsequent people, is why people named me and Graaf as influences.
“This I think is the thing that musicians and artists pass on down through the generations, as much as the actual stylistic things. It’s a question of a way to behave, a way to present oneself, and a way to be true to what one actually tries to do musically or artistically.”
Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel/King Crimson/Tony Levin Band):
“I laugh to think that at the end of Peter Gabriel’s song ‘On the Air,’ I played a strong bass line, borrowed from a Shostakovich symphony. I don’t think many people in live audiences through the years noticed that, but probably the listeners in Russia would be aware of it. Hey, maybe we will do that song!”
Arto Lindsay:
“It actually made me very angry that [Brian Eno] was not paying enough attention when we were recording. In a sense it was kind of a marketing thing for him to put his name on the newest music. It was just a smart producer’s move. I mean, I think Brian is so interesting, and I learned so much from Brian’s work, but I don’t think that having recorded ‘No New York’ was... Well, he didn’t really have a creative input, it was more like he was a curator.”
Patti Smith:
“You know, I just can’t even imagine how I will feel to be there. I’m just an American coming to Russia. I really hated the whole idea of the Cold War when I was younger, which I thought was totally stupid. It didn’t even feel as if it had anything to do with the American people or the Russian people. It really felt like that our governments like to perpetuate the idea of enemies. Because that’s how they can build up military supplies, you know, it helps the economy and it’s good for greedy people, and this whole idea of us having a whole people like the enemy, it’s ridiculous. 
You know, now our government is trying to do it [again], we have a new enemy now — it’s terrorism. The governments love to have an enemy. I’m just glad we’re allowed to come in to your country, not only to visit but to get a chance to play music and share ideas, because I wanted to come in the ’70s, but it was impossible. 
So now I can come and even though I’m older, I promise you that we will have a strong energy, because we’re not a nostalgia band, we are not “Oh, that ‘70s band” getting old and fat, and lumbering through our songs. We, I promise you, are a strong band and we will do our best to be very present, and communicate in a present way and not in some nostalgic way. 
Jane Birkin:
“When the Chechen war came, and I saw the bravery of the mothers of the Russian soldiers who were fed up with watching their sons being shot to pieces in Chechnya I thought, They’re right. I’d read the Tolstoy novel [“Hadji Murat”] and I knew there’d been trouble in Chechnya, and I thought what bad luck to have a pipeline going to the Caspian Sea. When you’ve got petrol then you’re always in trouble. They’d been promised their liberty, they’d been promised to have an independent state. 
“To go back on that promise seemed to be such a terrible mistake. Afterward, as it turns out, this last year things have got worse and worse, because all the leaders that used to be reasonable and used to be able to talk because they wanted peace too were killed. So they’ve become more and more isolated. It’s a great tragedy. 
“So I don’t know, perhaps every tiny bit helps. I don’t want Russian people to die, and when I saw a Chechen children’s dance troupe in Paris, I thought, They’re not going to turn into wild fanatics, you know, these children are dancers, they’ve got their values, they’ve got their culture. [...]
“The best I can do is to try and help this small dance group be seen because it must be terrible to see your culture go. Your culture, your lifestyle… And to live in Grozny now, can you imagine? I just wish it would all stop. The Russians must be fed up with the war, the Chechens are certainly fed up with the war. And you know that in the end of history it will probably become a separate state anyway. I am not a politician but I do care. 
“But I do understand equally that it’s probably very annoying for Russians that here’s some stupid French person, English person speaking for the Chechen people, given that there’s propaganda in every newspaper, in every television show, and for them it’s just a whole lot of terrorists making their lives miserable. You never see both sides of it. 
“I only say this because I’m a great member of Amnesty International, if I’m trying to do what I can for Amnesty, then you cannot shut your eyes when you see those concentration camps, and filtration camps and torture. 
“If [the war] could stop, I would have thought it would be the Russian and the Chechen dream.”

TITLE: New Year Welcomes New ‘Nutcracker’ Festival
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: This year, beside the traditional winter performances of “The Nutcracker” that annually take place in many of the city’s theaters, the first International Christmas Festival named after the famous ballet will be held in St. Petersburg to honor the 165th anniversary of the birth of composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. 
“‘The Nutcracker,’ is everyone’s favorite winter show, not only in Russia, but, also, in Europe and the U.S., and is loved by people of different ages and nationalities,” said Nikita Dolgushin, artistic director of the festival. “At Christmas, everyone wants to believe in wonders and nothing can be more wonderful than this beautiful ballet fairy-tale.” 
The festive festival will take place at the State Opera and Ballet Theater of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, starting on Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7 and ending on “Old New Year” on Jan. 14.
Work on “The Nutcracker” began in 1891 when Ivan Vsevolozhsky, director of the Imperial Theaters offered choreographer Marius Petipa and Tchaikovsky the chance to create a new ballet based on Alexandre Dumas’s adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffman’s tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” 
It is hard to imagine now, but the first performance of “The Nutcracker” in 1892 was a complete failure. Neither critics nor the audience liked it. Since then, different versions of “The Nutcracker” have been performed numerous times all over the world. 
Beside “The Nutcracker” itself, music written for it  would also be partly included in ballets such as “Swan Lake,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Snowflakes,” danced by Anna Pavlova. 
“The Nutcracker” was choreographed at different times by Lev Ivanov, Vasily Vainonen, Fyodor Lopukhov and Maurice BÎjart. George Balanchine created the world’s best-known production of “The Nutcracker” in 1954.
Since the first performance the plot of the fairy-tale has been widely altered. The name of the heroine in Hoffmann’s original tale, Marie, was later replaced by Masha (in Russia), Clara, Marya and even Louise. In other performances along with mice, many other animals, such as bears, bulls, lambs, and even a dragon participated. And the Christmas setting has often been moved to Clara’s (or Masha’s) birthday celebration. 
The most talked-about recent production of “The Nutcracker” in Russia is undoubtedly the Mariinsky Theater’s version conceived by the contemporary artist Mikhail Chemiakin in 2001. As director, librettist, and designer of the sets and costumes, Chemiakin presented a phantasmagoric parade of costumes and dÎcor with armies of rats wearing long-nosed, Venice carnival-type masks, with giant hulks of meat hanging on the walls.
Non-traditional productions of “The Nutcracker” will be showcased during the new festival. The St. Petersburg State Children’s Theater, the only European ballet company where all the dancers are children, will present a performance where all the parts are played by children, staged by the theater’s artistic director Irina Safonova. 
Hosts the State Opera and Ballet Theater of St. Petersburg will present a production directed by Dolgushin, a famous dancer and choreographer. 
“It took me many years to start working on ‘The Nutcracker’,” Dolgushin said. “Through the years of my studies at the Vaganov Ballet Academy I used to play all the parts: children at the Christmas party, mice, soldiers, and, at last, the Prince. In my own interpretation of the ballet, most of all I wanted to stage a performance with children dancing [Masha’s and the Princes’s parts] because, for me, it’s vicious when adults play child characters.” 
Dolgushin thinks that not all adults are able to understand the true educational sense of his performance where Drosselmeyer chooses Masha from among other children as a child who will grow up into a really good person. And all the hardships she has to go through on her way to Wonderland are only Drosselmeyer’s “educational provocations.” Having rejected a traditional happy ending that, in his opinion, embodies “bourgeois values and philistinism,” Dolgushin provides his version with an open ending.
The Vanimuine Theater of Tartu, Estonia, does not follow the traditional libretto of “The Nutcracker” and will present another modern version. 
The company, which has in its repertoire performances staged both in classical and modern dancing genres, often works under the direction of different Scandinavian and European choreographers. The festival presentation of “The Nutcracker” is an interpretation by Per Isberg, a Swede who managed to mix the original plot of the ballet with the Swedish children’s classic “Peter and Lotta’s Christmas” by Elza Beskow. In the performance, the Nutcracker’s part is replaced by a traditional Swedish Christmas goat. Only the original music of the ballet remains unchanged.
The Samara State Opera and Ballet Theater, which has lots of historical connections with the St. Petersburg classical dancing school and is now directed by Dolgushin, presents another non-traditional version of the ballet created by the choreographer Igor Chernishev.  He rethought the Christmas fairy-tale plot and appealed to the topic of eternal love. In his version, a world of children, fairy-tales and dolls embodies the forces of good and love and is opposed to the evil world of heartless prudish adults.
An exhibition dedicated to characters from “The Nutcracker” depicted by the students of  St. Petersburg’s art academies, along with numerous works by Chemiakin will be displayed at the State Opera and Ballet Theater of the St. Petersburg Conservatoire during the week of the festival.

TITLE: Chocolate and Cars Are The Season’s Top Gifts
AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Businesses have been getting in the Christmas spirit ever since Charles Dickens — or rather the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future — transformed Ebeneezer Scrooge overnight into a funky, modern CEO who treated his workers to a big slap-up meal and entertainment.
Back in the day, Scrooge confined his corporate largesse to turkey and much-needed walking devices, but today’s bosses have a much wider selection if they want to wow their employees and outdo the competition.
There are scores of companies in Moscow organizing festive corporate events this holiday season, and the country’s burgeoning economy, mixed with a love of excess and the desire to go one better than your nearest rival, is feeding bigger and bigger parties.
You want a fountain made out of chocolate for a party — milk or dark, sir? No problem for TNK-BP, which had fountains bubbling full of milk and dark chocolate at this year’s Christmas party, which one employee speculated had set the firm back a cool $500,000.
Guests could help themselves to the chocolate whenever they wanted to, and unlike the gluttonous Augustus Gloop in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” there were no reports of anyone falling headfirst into the soup.
Supermarket chain Pyatyorochka will have a Salvador Dali theme for its party this year, said Sergei Knyazev of Knyazev Productions, who is organizing the bash. Instead of melted watches, a famous image from Dali’s paintings, the party will feature melted pyatorochki, or 5 kopek coins. 
The New Year tree will be hung upside down and is to be set aflame at the stroke of midnight.
Of course, there are holiday parties for employees, and then there are parties for corporate VIPs. Some of these events for top executives lean more toward bacchanalian bachelor parties than eggnog and “Auld Lang Syne.” 
Transport and construction companies are especially fond of such events, said Knyazev, who organized one last year for 30 people from a top transport company. A typical event, he said, is in a strip bar with a ratio of two girls to every executive, and lots of skimpy Santa outfits. 
In this case, the party featured a menu of aphrodisiac foods, and most of the food went on the girls rather than into the executives, he said.
Lotteries are big at office parties with prizes growing in proportion to the economy’s expansion, with mobile phones, laptop computers and other electronic goods now all the rage. 
Independent Media Sanoma Magazines, the publisher of The St. Petersburg Times, gave away a Mitsubishi Lancer at its party two weeks ago in Moscow. 
Back in the economically challenged late ‘90s, the company’s top prize was a Lada. 
In some companies’ lotteries, BMWs or four-wheel-drive cruisers are not uncommon.
Prizes for the bored executive are more difficult to choose. Knyazev’s latest lottery wheeze is a game of helicopter paintball, in which two teams are taken up in helicopters armed to the teeth with paint pellets and automatic weapons. They then chase a four-wheel-drive vehicle through a forest and see who hits it the most.
Knyazev originally wanted the two helicopters to fire at each other but was told it was too dangerous.
If all this Babylonian excess is a little too consumerist and businesslike for this time of year, then you could swap it all for a hair shirt and donate the money you would have spent on gifts to charity instead.
That’s exactly what accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers is doing this year. According to its Christmas cards, the firm is donating its holiday gift budget of $100,000 to New Year’s parties at several orphanages and to education for 100 special-needs children over the coming year.
Perhaps if Scrooge worked in Russia today, he would have tipped off the media about his imminent visit to Bob Cratchit’s house. Television cameras would then have captured the joyful moment as he entered the hovel, arms laden with gifts — and the accompanying press release would have reported glowingly on Scrooge, Marley & Co.’s efforts to feed the poor and help the disabled as part of its Yuletide social responsibilities. A note to shareholders would also point out that turkeys are tax-deductible at end of the financial year.
Humbug indeed.

TITLE: UN Aims To Pacify East Congo
AUTHOR: By Willy Kabwe
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KINSHASA — UN and Congolese forces have killed about 80 rebels in a week of joint operations and vowed to sustain the drive to bring peace to the violent east before next year’s elections, the UN said on Monday. 
A UN military spokesman said UN peacekeepers and Congolese government troops were pursuing Ugandan rebel fighters through the jungle after driving them from five camps south of Beni in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu district.
“It’s an ongoing operation, the Ugandan rebels are in full flight,” UN military spokesman Major Hans-Jakob Reichen said.
Over the last week, joint Congolese/UN units had also staged two separate operations to flush out local Congolese militias that have refused to disarm and carried out attacks in Ituri district, which lies to the north of North Kivu.
“Some 80 armed members of these ex-militia and rebel groups, both Congolese and Ugandan, have been killed in the last week,” Reichen said.
The three operations had involved in all 1,000 UN troops supporting 6,000 Congolese government soldiers.
They were launched following a ground-breaking December 18 national referendum in which Congolese overwhelmingly voted to adopt a new constitution aimed at paving the way for national elections by end-June next year.
The internal security drive is key to guaranteeing peaceful parliamentary and presidential polls in Africa’s third biggest country, which has seen decades of dictatorship, war and chaos.
“This is a momentum we will sustain right up to the elections,” Reichen said.
He said UN casualties reported in the week’s operations so far were an Indian peacekeeper killed and four more wounded.
A number of Congolese government troops had also been killed and injured in the fighting.
The UN’s 17,000-strong Congo peacekeeping force — its biggest in the world — is trying to establish order across the country in the wake of a five-year war estimated to have killed nearly 4 million people, mainly through hunger and disease.
The war officially ended in 2003, but bands of gunmen still intimidate civilians in large areas, particularly in the east whose mineral riches are believed to have fueled the conflict that at one point drew in six foreign armies.
Reichen said UN forces would be heavily involved after March in election preparations and wanted to use the coming months to help pacify pockets in the east where rebels and militias attacked government troops and terrorized civilians.
“There is no way we are going to let attacks by these groups go unpunished,” he said.
UN helicopter gunships and armored personnel carriers were supporting the operation in North Kivu against the rebel Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF/NALU).
“The ADF is a tough nut to crack, they are hardened rebels,” said Reichen, who estimated their strength at around 1,000. 
Uganda and neighboring Rwanda backed rebels in Congo’s complex five-year war and nationals from both countries still operate in militia groups across Congo’s east.

TITLE: Ariel Sharon To Undergo Heart Procedure
AUTHOR: By Ramit Plushnick-Masti
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM — Doctors next month will seal a small hole in Ariel Sharon’s heart that they said Monday led to his recent mild stroke, an announcement which drew further attention to the Israeli prime minister’s health as he campaigns for a third term. 
The procedure to seal the hole will almost eliminate the risk of a stroke similar to the one Sharon suffered on Dec. 18, said Dr. Haim Lotem, head of cardiology at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital. Doctors said the hole which allowed the stroke to happen, measuring less than an eighth of an inch, is a birth defect found in 15 to 20 percent of the population and often goes undiscovered.
“From our experience this is something that is only a minor birth defect. It doesn’t need to be treated unless it causes problems,” Lotem told reporters.
The 77-year-old Sharon, who is 5-foot-7 and weighs nearly 255 pounds, is surprisingly fit, considering his girth and age, Lotem said.
But the small hole in the partition between the upper chambers of Sharon’s heart apparently led to the blood clot that caused his stroke.
“A blood clot can find its way through such a hole through the heart in the direction of the brain and cause an event like the one the prime minister had,” said Dr. Dan Elian, an Israeli cardiologist.
The procedure has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, though it has been successfully performed on thousands of people of all ages worldwide.
Using a catheter inserted through a blood vessel, doctors will put an umbrella-like device over the hole to seal it, Lotem said. A small camera inserted through the esophagus will guide the doctors, he said.
If the condition is left untreated, small blood clots that usually enter the lungs and dissipate harmlessly can be forced through the tiny hole, even by a cough, and pumped to the brain, where blood vessels are narrow and susceptible to blockage, said Dr. Dan Zivoni, director of cardiology at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital.
“That is exactly what happened to the prime minister,” he told The Associated Press.
He said the corrective procedure is common — four were performed at his hospital this month. If, however, it includes introducing a tracking device into Sharon’s esophagus, Zivoni said, “that would require a general anesthetic.”
Doctors briefing reporters at Sharon’s office Monday described just such a procedure, but said a mild anesthetic would be used. They said the procedure should take about half an hour, allowing Sharon to resume his duties the same day.
The question of whether Sharon should turn over his responsibilities to his vice premier, Ehud Olmert, during the procedure, is being debated. Sharon has taken some criticism for not empowering Olmert during treatment for his stroke.
Doctors said Sharon could hardly speak the night he was taken to the hospital with the stroke, and therefore could not have made decisions.
According to Israeli law, if a prime minister is incapacitated, his chief deputy resumes power, but procedures are not spelled out.
Sharon left the hospital just hours after his bitter rival, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, won the race to replace him as head of the Likud Party.
The prime minister quit the hard-line Likud last month, and polls have showed Sharon, Israel’s most popular politician, gaining ground despite his stroke. If trends hold, Sharon’s new Kadima Party would be able to form a moderate coalition after the March 28 election, and Netanyahu’s Likud would head a hawkish opposition.
The doctors did not give an exact date for Sharon’s treatment, but it will be well before the March 28 election, they said. Sharon is now getting an injection of Clexane, a blood-thinning medication called Lovenox in the United States, twice a day until the heart procedure, Lotem said. 
Doctors have ordered the overweight prime minister, a meat lover, to go on a diet. On Monday they put an end to days of speculation about Sharon’s weight. At the time of the stroke, he weighed 260 pounds, and since then has lost 6 1/2 pounds.

TITLE: Top Taliban Commander Threatens Attacks
AUTHOR: By Noor Khan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A top Taliban commander said more than 200 rebel fighters were willing to become suicide attackers against U.S. forces and their allies — a claim dismissed as propaganda Monday by Afghanistan’s government, which said the hard-line militia was weakening. 
In an interview late Sunday the commander, Mullah Dadullah, ruled out any reconciliation with the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and claimed the country’s new parliament — its first in more than 30 years, inaugurated last week — was “obedient to America.”
Dadullah spoke to the AP via satellite phone from an undisclosed location. He said he was inside Afghanistan.
“More than 200 Taliban have registered themselves for suicide attacks with us which shows that a Muslim can even sacrifice his life for the well-being of his faith. Our suicide attackers will continue jihad [holy war] until Americans and all of their Muslim and non-Muslim allies are pulled out of the country,” he said.
Gen. Mohammed Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry, dismissed Dadullah’s claims of rebel strength as “propaganda” and said Afghanistan had enough security forces to deal with the rebels.
“The Taliban are isolated. The Taliban have no power. They are using land mines and terror activities ... or suicide attacks. These kind of operations show they are not strong and that they are weak,” Azimi said.
The hard-line Taliban regime was toppled by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 when it refused to turn over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and stop offering a haven to the group following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States.
Dadullah, who lost a leg fighting for the Taliban during its rise to power in the mid-1990s, is one of the hard-line militia’s top commanders, responsible for operations in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan — and as such, a man wanted by the U.S.-led coalition hunting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
The past year has seen an upsurge of violence in the volatile southern and eastern regions. More than 1,500 people have died nationwide, many of them rebels — the heaviest toll in the past four years.
In recent months there has been a spate of suicide attacks in Afghanistan, including one in Kabul in September outside an Afghan army training center that killed nine people. The attacks have fueled fears that the rebels could be adopting tactics used in Iraq.
In November, Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said intelligence indicated that a number of Arab al-Qaida members and other foreigners had entered Afghanistan to launch suicide attacks.
A senior government official said 22 would-be suicide bombers were believed to be in the country waiting for orders to attack.
Dadullah implied that the Taliban and al-Qaida were working together, and said mujahedeen from various parts of the world, including Arabs, were fighting in Afghanistan. He said the foreigners made up about 10 percent of the fighters.
“Both Taliban and al-Qaida have the same objectives,” he said, warning that anyone supporting the Americans and the government “will be dealt with.”
U.S. military officials in Afghanistan could not immediately be reached for comment Monday on Dadullah’s remarks.
In another sign that links between the Taliban and al-Qaida have continued, a tape of al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri surfaced this month in which he praised the Taliban chief Mullah Omar. 
In the tape, al-Zawahri claimed the rebel leader had won back control of extensive areas of western and eastern Afghanistan, though government and U.S. officials say the Taliban’s influence is in fact waning.

TITLE: Shoot-Out In Toronto, 1 Dead
AUTHOR: By Rob Gillies
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TORONTO — Gunfire erupted on a busy Toronto street filled with holiday shoppers Monday evening, killing a young woman and wounding six other people, police said. 
They said two suspects were arrested and at least one gun was seized shortly after the 5:30 p.m. Monday violence near the popular Eaton Center shopping mall, a downtown zone popular with tourists.
Witnesses said they dove for cover or took refuge in shops when they heard gunshots.
“Someone said they were shot and everyone went to the back of the store,” said Magnolia Sandoval, an employee at a camera store.
Police said they were investigating if violence was gang related. They did not immediately disclose if the two people arrested were suspected of opening fire or how many attackers were involved. It also wasn’t clear if the victims had been purposely fired on.
“I can’t say which of the individuals have been targeted and which are accidental,” Police Staff Sgt. Stan Belza said. “This is an extremely busy shopping day. There were a lot of people out there.”
Belza described the slain victim as a young woman, without giving her age.

TITLE: Chelsea Ends ’05 With Commanding Lead
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Striker Hernan Crespo scored in the 74th minute, and leader Chelsea withstood a two-goal rally by Fulham to win 3-2 Monday in the English Premier League. 
American Brian McBride scored to get Fulham within a goal in the 27th minute, and Heidar Helguson tied the match by converting a penalty in the 56th. It was the sixth goal of the season for the striker. 
But Argentina international Crespo volleyed spectacularly past Fulham goalkeeper Mark Crossley after winger Joe Cole’s cross looped over defender Zat Knight. 
The Blues improved to 16-1-1 and 49 points, nine more than second-place Manchester United, which beat West Bromwich Albion 3-0 on goals by Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand and Ruud van Nistlerooy. 
Liverpool ruined former striker Michael Owen’s return to Anfield by defeating Newcastle 2-0 to remain third with 34 points. 
Chelsea’s William Gallas scored his first goal of the season from close range in the third minute after a header from fellow defender Robert Huth. Midfielder Frank Lampard made it 2-0 in the 24th minute when his 22-yard shot deflected off Fulham’s Sylvain Legwinski to beat Crossley. 
At Old Trafford, Scholes put Manchester United in front in the 35th, before Ferdinand made it 2-0 10 minutes later. Van Nistlerooy scored in the 63rd. 
In Liverpool, midfielder Steven Gerrard scored his 12th goal of the season in the 14th minute on an assist from Peter Crouch, who capped the scoring in the 44th. 
Newcastle midfielder Lee Bowyer was shown the red card in the 66th after a tackle on Xabi Alonso that sparked pushing and shoving between the teams. 
Jose Antonio Reyes scored in the 58th minute to give visiting Arsenal a 1-0 victory over Charlton, which lost for the eighth time in nine matches. 
The Spain striker was unmarked just outside the six-yard box when the ball drifted to him from goalkeeper Thomas Myhre’s save of a shot by Thierry Henry. Reyes beat Charlton defender Luke Young, who was on the goal line. 
Ireland striker Robbie Keane converted a penalty in the 58th minute after he was held back by Birmingham City defender Matthew Upson in Tottenham’s 2-0 win at home. Substitute striker Jermain Defoe netted an added-time goal. 
Birmingham midfielder Muzzy Izzet was ejected for two yellow cards — the second for diving in the box. 
Jason Roberts scored two goals, and Henri Camara and Lee McCulloch one each for Wigan, which beat visiting Manchester City 4-3. Antoine Sibierski and Joey Barton scored for Manchester City. 
Finland striker Shefki Kuqi had both goals in Blackburn’s 2-0 victory at Middlesbrough. 
In Portsmouth, Gary O’Neil put the home club in front 1-0 in the 17th minute, but James Collins tied the match for West Ham in the 45th. Portsmouth winger Laurent Robert was sent off in the 88th for two yellow cards. 
Visiting Bolton and Sunderland played to a scoreless draw, and Everton was at Aston Villa in a late game.

TITLE: Bure Names Ice Hockey Olympians
AUTHOR: By Gennady Fyodorov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia have combined youth with NHL experience in a hockey squad aiming for their first Olympic gold medal for 14 years at February’s Winter Games. 
“We have chosen only the best of the best,” Russia’s general manager Pavel Bure told a news conference after he announced the 23-man squad on Friday. 
The Russians picked several veterans of the National Hockey League, including goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, defensemen Alexei Zhitnik and Darius Kasparaitis, and forwards Alexei Zhamnov and Alexei Kovalev. 
All five played on the Unified Team at the 1992 Games in Albertville when the Russians won a record eighth Olympic gold. 
They also have plenty of talented young players such as rookie sensation Alexander Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk and Yevgeny Malkin, the Russian league’s top scorer this season. 
Ovechkin, 20, has taken the NHL by storm this season after being picked first overall in the 2004 amateur draft. The Washington Capitals left wing leads all rookies in scoring with 18 goals and 16 assists. 
Kovalchuk, NHL joint top scorer in 2004, has been on fire again this season, notching 21 goals in 31 games. 
Malkin, a 19-year-old who plays for Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the Russian Superleague, is called Russia’s version of Mario Lemieux because of his size, talent and scoring ability. 
Aside from Malkin, Bure named three players from the Russian league — defenseman Dmitry Bykov and his Dynamo Moscow team mates, forwards Alexander Kharitonov and Maxim Sushinsky. 
The Russians have suffered from internal squabbles and player boycotts, and had several high-profile refusals for Turin including NHL All-Star forwards Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Mogilny and defenseman Sergei Zubov. 
“We only included those who really wanted to play for Russia,” said Bure, named the team’s general manager last month. 

Russia squad: 
— Goaltenders: Nikolai Khabibulin (Chikago Blackhawks), Yevgeny Nabokov (San Jose Sharks), Ilya Bryzgalov (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) 
— Defencemen: Andrei Markov (Montreal Canadiens), Daniil Markov (Nashville Predators), Alexei Zhitnik (New York Islanders), Darius Kasparaitis (New York Rangers), Fyodor Tyutin (New York Rangers), Anton Volchenkov (Ottawa Senators), Sergei Gonchar (Pittsburgh Penguins), Dmitry Bykov (Dynamo Moscow) 
— Forwards: Ilya Kovalchuk (Atlanta Thrashers), Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit Red Wings), Alexei Kovalev (Montreal Canadiens), Alexander Ovechkin (Washington Capitals), Alexei Yashin (New York Islanders), Viktor Kozlov (New Jersey Devils), Alexander Frolov (Los Angeles Kings), Maxim Afinogenov (Buffalo Sabres), Alexander Kharitonov (Dynamo Moscow), Alexei Zhamnov (Boston Bruins), Maxim Sushinsky (Dynamo Moscow), Yevgeny Malkin (Metallurg Magnitogorsk).

TITLE: Injured Safin Unlikely To Defend Australian Open
AUTHOR: By Julian Linden
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SYDNEY — Marat Safin is increasingly unlikely to defend his Australian Open title because of a knee injury, tournament director Paul McNamee said on Tuesday. 
Safin has not played since August and is facing a race against time to be ready for the Australian Open, starting at Melbourne Park on Jan. 16. 
The Russian announced his withdrawal from the Hopman Cup, one of the lead-up events for the Open, in a statement on his website. 
“Not playing this tournament, which was an important part of his preparation for Melbourne, certainly puts him behind the eight ball,” McNamee told reporters on Tuesday. 
“There is certainly a big question mark over his participation in the Open.” 
Safin won his first Australian Open in 2005, beating Roger Federer in the semi-finals then coming from a set down to defeat Lleyton Hewitt in the final. 
He has been plagued by knee trouble since tearing a ligament at Wimbledon and has not played since the Cincinnati Masters Series in August. 
McNamee said he was still waiting on news about Spain’s French Open champion Rafael Nadal after the world No. 2 withdrew from the Indian Open in Chennai. 
Nadal told organizers he was pulling out of next week’s season-opening event because of a foot injury that forced him to miss the Masters Cup. 
“There is no more information other than he’s pulled out of Chennai,” McNamee told Australian radio. 
“Fingers crossed there. He’s obviously the number two for Melbourne and a pretty big guy there.” 
Australian Open organizers are also hoping Maria Sharapova and four-times champion Andre Agassi will recover for the event. 
Sharapova withdrew from the Australian women’s hardcourt championships, which she had intended to use as a warm-up, because of a shoulder problem while Agassi is battling a long-term ankle injury. 
Players have been asking for the first grand slam of the year, which is traditionally held in the last two weeks of January, to be moved back to March when the weather is cooler and also to give them a longer break. 
It is not unusual for top players to miss the Australian Open through injury and this year’s casualties included defending champion Justine Henin-Hardenne, beaten finalist Kim Clijsters and Jennifer Capriati, the 2001 and 2002 winner.