SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times DATE: Issue #1140 (6), Friday, January 27, 2006 ************************************************************************** TITLE: Extremists Held For Stabbing AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: City Prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev on Thursday said 22 people have been charged with the murder of Vietnamese student Vu An Tuan, who was stabbed to death in October 2004, and the case has been sent to court. Vu An Tuan, a 20-year-old student at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, was attacked by about 18 armed youngsters as he walked to the metro after attending a birthday party at a hostel of the Pavlov Medical Institute on Petrograd Side. As he attempted to run away, the attackers chased him and stabbed him to death. Zaitsev said the 22 suspects were charged with having committed a racially motivated murder as part of an organized group. Vu An Tuan’s murder is believed to have played a significant role in large numbers of foreign students leaving the city. There are now about 13,500 foreign students in St. Petersburg, down from 15,000 in 2003. “The media made a very big deal out of the murder, and bad news traveled very fast,” said Igor Maksimtsev at a news conference at the Rosbalt News Agency last month. Maksimtsev is the deputy rector for international affairs at the St. Petersburg University of Economics and Finance and a member of the City Council for Foreign Students’ Affairs set up by Governor Valentina Matviyenko a year ago. “The media reported the murder but said very little or nothing at all about the outrage it caused in society and the response by the authorities and law enforcement agencies,” Maksimtsev said. The city prosecutor’s office has also completed its investigation of the murder of Congolese citizen Ronald Epasak, a 29-year-old third-year student at the St. Petersburg Forestry Academy who was killed in September 2005. “It’s been proven that the Epasak and Vu An Tuan cases were both hate crimes inspired by ethnic intolerance,” Zaitsev said Thursday. Zaitsev said that 39 foreign citizens were murdered in St. Petersburg in 2005, but only two of those crimes qualified as hate crimes. Asked to estimate the scale of extremism and give an estimate as to the number of extremist groups operating in St. Petersburg, Zaitsev said that he finds it difficult to distinguish between extremism and simpler cases of “hooliganism.” “As an example, the suspects in the Vu An Tuan and Epasak cases don’t belong to structured extremist organizations with specific ideologies or other attributes [of extremist organizations],” Zaitsev said. “But it has been proven that they have a keen interest in nationalist ideology.” “One scenario is all too common here: teenagers with no occupation and a great love of booze get together looking for some kind of entertainment,” he said. “They get drunk and rob people on the street. Sometimes these people happen to be foreigners.” When foreigners are attacked on the street, theft is usually the motive, Zaitsev said. Of the 1,072 crimes against foreigners registered in St. Petersburg in 2005, 80 percent involve robbery, according to the prosecutor’s office. Zaitsev said that European-looking foreigners are robbed much more often than people with African or Asian appearance. Germans, Ukrainians, Finns, French people and Americans are most often the victims of such crimes, according to the prosecutor’s office statistics. Hooliganism is the usual charge made against those who attack foreign citizens in St. Petersburg, with law enforcement agencies apparently reluctant to level more serious charges when racist motives are alleged. The city prosecutor’s office has been criticized by human rights advocates for ignoring such motives, even if witnesses have reported that attackers were chanting such phrases as “Russia for the Russians.” Boris Pustyntsev, head of the St. Petersburg human rights group Citizens’ Watch said the authorities tend to downplay the extent and scale of extremism in the country to mask their inability to cope with the problem and respond to the challenges its presents. Sociologist Roman Mogilevsky, head of the Agency for Social Information, said that combating extremism requires a major effort, and that the local community is showing signs that it is prepared to pull together to achieve that task. “People have come to understand that aggression in the street is becoming their problem too and they can’t afford to turn a blind eye to the problem anymore,” Mogilevsky said Thursday. “As more people start feeling threatened, public outrage at extremism grows.” According to a poll conducted by the agency in November last year, 96 percent of locals reacted negatively to attacks on foreign students. Only 2 percent said they were indifferent, and a further 1 percent welcomed the attacks. Mogilevsky said economic instability, low standards of living and a lack of interaction with people of different ethnicities lead to ethnic intolerance and high levels of xenophobia in the city. The agency’s 2005 survey showed that many citizens have negative views not only of different ethnic groups, but also of other countries. The United States led the ratings as the most unpopular country with 17.2 percent of those surveyed. Georgia came second with 13.8 percent, followed by Iraq (11.4 percent), Ukraine (10.2 percent) and North Korea (10.0 percent). TITLE: Local TV To Air Nationally AUTHOR: By Stephen Boykewich and Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: St. Petersburg’s biggest television channel, Channel 5, promised to break Moscow’s monopoly over the airwaves after it won national broadcast rights in a tender Wednesday, beating out five competitors. “People will be able to find out through our channel what is happening in the entire country, not just in Moscow,” Alla Manilova, head of City Hall’s Press Committee said, Interfax reported. Manilova characterized current national television as “standardized views formulated by members of the Moscow elite.” The channel was widely tipped to win the tender, held by the Federal Contest Commission for Television and Radio Broadcasting, due to support for its bid by Governor Valentina Matviyenko and reports of Kremlin support. Commission officials insisted the decision was made independently. Petersburg, also known as Channel 5, which is jointly owned by Severstal Group, Bank Rossii and Baltic Media Group, beat out Ren-TV, STS-Media’s home-themed Domashny, military channel Zvezda, the National Television Syndicate, and NIK: Children’s Television. Each of the six competitors paid 572,000 rubles ($20,500) to participate in the tender, and Petersburg will now pay a one-off licensing fee of 28 million rubles ($1 million). The channel is regaining a nationwide reach it had from its founding in 1938 until 1998, when it became a private local broadcaster and was replaced by Kultura nationally. Governor Matviyenko couldn’t hide her triumph talking to reporters on Tuesday. “We should have got our federal coverage back long ago, and the city lost it undeservedly,” she said in a televised speech on Tuesday. “The decision should be seen as St. Petersburg assuming state functions.” Media professionals said the channel would likely retain its current mix of informational and entertainment programming, but were divided on whether its new reach would make national television more diverse. Yelena Zelinskaya, vice president of Media-Soyuz, a pro-Kremlin journalists’ association, said she was “elated” by the decision. “St. Petersburg has its own school of journalism, its own language,” Zelinskaya said Wednesday. “The views of St. Petersburg journalists and public figures … will have an enormous impact on public life.” Igor Yakovenko, head of the Russian Union of Journalists, sharply disagreed. “I fear that when it goes national, the channel will present the same picture the other national channels do,” Yakovenko said, Interfax reported. “There will be no more pluralism because of this.” Tatyana Troyanskaya, a cultural correspondent with the Ekho-Peterburg radio station, said that, in its current condition, the channel is not up to the challenges that will be presented by its federal range. “The best thing about this channel is the films they show; the screening of Oscar-winning films is particularly good — but these films are not their own products,” she said. “I also find it embarrassing that there are hardly any successful arts and culture programs there, in the self-proclaimed cultural capital,” Troyanskaya said. The president of the St. Petersburg Union of Journalists Andrei Konstantinov said that he feared the channel would lose its local character, though he welcomed the chance to “redress the historical injustice” of the city being portrayed as “the bandit capital” on national television. Nikolai Donskov, chief editor of the St. Petersburg bureau of Novaya Gazeta, drew attention to what he called the highly political nature of the decision. “Since the channel lost its federal reach in 1997, many politicians have promised to restore it; Valentina Matviyenko even publicly set a deadline for this goal, promising the channel would regain its federal status by the autumn of 2006,” Donskov said. “Yes, the channel’s content is remarkably unexciting, but much worse could be expected from a mouthpiece for the [presidential] administration, and that’s exactly what the channel is bound to turn into. Essentially, it was those same administrative resources that got it back on track,” Donskov said. TITLE: Russia Cleaner Than You Think, Study Says AUTHOR: By Maria Levitov PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — Take a deep breath and a swig of water. Russian air, water and sanitation systems are among the best in the world, according to a study that will be released Thursday at the World Economic Forum. Russia, in 32nd place, ranks a few notches behind the United States (28) and above Poland (38) in the 2006 Environmental Performance Index, compiled by researchers from Columbia and Yale universities. Russia’s environmental health — measured by indoor air pollution, the prevalence of smog outside, the quality of drinking water, child mortality and adequate sanitation — is approaching its optimal level, or 92.3 out of a possible 100, according to the report, which will be presented at the annual gathering of world and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland. The forum opened Wednesday. “Policy choices matter. Good governance emerges as a critical driver of environmental performance,” Daniel Esty, an author of the report and the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, said in a statement. While below the 97.9 awarded to New Zealand — which topped the overall list of 133 countries — Russia’s environmental health scored better than many of its closer neighbors, including Romania (61.2) and Georgia (61.8). Environmental health is one of six categories that the study used to rank the countries. Other categories included water resources, sustainable energy and natural resources. Environmentalists not involved with the report warned that it might be too early to celebrate Russia’s environmental health. They noted that the EPI skewed the picture by presenting Russia’s data in average terms. “If we calculate the average amount of trees, clean water and good air per person, Russia will come out to be the most environmentally sound country in the world,” said Vladimir Chuprov, a representative of Greenpeace Russia. Also, Russia’s environmental concerns differ starkly from region to region because of its sheer size and vast amount of sparsely populated land, Chuprov said. The EPI gives Russia’s water resources a nearly perfect 98-point rating, which Chuprov said was not representative of pollution levels in the lakes and rivers that run through highly industrial regions. Recent studies have found dangerously high levels of petroleum products in the Okhinka River, on oil-rich Sakhalin Island, Chuprov said. The air quality in manufacturing towns such as Murmansk, Volgograd and Taganrog is also a matter of concern, he said. When rating Russia’s lakes, streams and rivers, the EPI considered only the over-consumption of water and the presence of dangerously high nitrogen levels in the water. The report’s authors acknowledged that the unavailability of certain data for all countries presented problems for their analysis. “We lack reliable measures for many critical issues including: basic air pollutant emissions, ... human exposure to toxic chemicals and heavy metals, and hazardous waste management and disposal,” the report said. Despite these data gaps, the EPI can be used to identify issues that should attract greater attention by policymakers, it said. “Among the middle-rank countries, performance is often uneven. Russia, for example, has top-tier scores in water but disastrously low sustainable energy results,” the report said. Russia lags far behind in renewable energy production as a percentage of total energy consumption. The index gave it a ranking of 15.5 out of a possible 100 in that area. The United States also fell into the middle group, with a score of 69.7 for sustainable energy. It received top marks on overall environmental health, but was ranked near the bottom on its management of productive natural resources. TITLE: Traffic Accidents Cause Major Dent in Economy AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — The woman lay prone, arms akimbo and legs spread, with blood-stained snow beneath her head and a checked handbag and a blue plastic bag crumpled nearby. It looked as if she had been rushing somewhere. She had ignored the crosswalk located just a few meters from where she was struck by a white minivan on Leningradsky Prospekt, witnesses said. Blood smears on a metal pole showed she had hit it before landing in the snow. Pedestrians stopped to stare as her body lay uncovered in the snow for more than an hour after the accident on the stretch of road between the Dynamo and Aeroport metro stations last month. “I wanted to give her first aid,” said the driver of the minivan, a GAZel Sobol, who refused to give his name. “It was too late.” Seeing a body on the street of the capital is one of the most visible signs of what President Vladimir Putin calls a main threat to the future of the country — car accidents. Accidents have steadily grown by 8 percent per year for the past three years, fueled in part by a surge in the number of cars on the roads. The economic cost is enormous, shaving 1 to 2 percent off the gross domestic product every year. Nearly 35,000 people died and 250,000 were injured in car crashes in 2004, the last full year for which traffic police figures were available. In the first nine months of 2005, 130,168 accidents resulted in 23,773 deaths and more than 171,000 injuries. Britain had 3,368 car accident-related deaths in 2004, a significant drop from 4,753 in 1991, according to a European Commission web site. Estonia had 170 in 2004, compared with 490 in 1991. While deaths are rising in the United States, with 42,643 in 2003, the country’s population is more than double Russia’s. A reporter watched as a crew from the television program “Dorozhny Patrul,” or Road Patrol, filmed the scene of the accident on Leningradsky Prospekt quickly and without emotion. Andrei Chereshnev, the editor of “Dorozhny Patrul,” said that when he joined the show 10 years ago, 40 percent of the airtime was devoted to crime, 40 percent to traffic accidents and 20 percent to fires and other accidents. These days, however, traffic accidents account for 70 percent. “Drivers have become angrier,” Chereshnev said. The woman killed on Leningradsky Prospekt was an example of the most common accident: 43.5 percent of incidents involve vehicles hitting pedestrians, police statistics indicate. The rest involve car crashes (29.3 percent), turnovers (13.1 percent) and a category labeled as “other” (14.1 percent). Putin, speaking in November at a State Council meeting called to discuss traffic accidents, said most accident victims were under 40 — the age group of workers and children that the country desperately needs to ride out a post-Soviet demographic crisis. “This is an absolutely irreplaceable loss for the country,” Putin said. The economic cost of Russia’s accidents and injuries is 1 to 2 percent of GDP, according to a report by the World Health Organization in 2003. Putin put the figure at 2 percent, or about $11.5 billion. The cause of so many accidents is easy to guess, as part of it relates to Nikolai Gogol’s old adage that there are two problems in Russia: fools and roads. “We meet an extremely low culture of behavior on the roads,” said Putin, whose cortege is considered by many drivers to be a specific aspect of low culture because it blocks streets and stops traffic at least twice a day. Putin said measures should be taken to cut the accident death toll by 1 1/2 times by 2012. More than half of all accidents are the fault of drivers, said Larisa Melnikova, who has advised the State Duma on road safety. She said simple measures such as fining drivers for not wearing seatbelts would be a quick way of reducing deaths and injuries. Many deaths are also due to the slow response of ambulances. The Congress of Russian Paramedics estimates that up to 70 percent of car crash victims die because ambulances fail to reach them in a timely manner. TITLE: Hazing Case Results In Amputation AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — A 19-year-old conscript has been left fighting for his life after a brutal New Year’s hazing that forced doctors to amputate his legs and genitals. Andrei Sychyov was among eight conscripts who were beaten by six drunken senior servicemen, including two officers, at an armed forces academy in Chelyabinsk on New Year’s Eve, prosecutors said. Sychyov, who was drafted from the nearby Sverdlovsk region only six months ago, was tied to a chair and beaten for at least three hours. Chief Military Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov called the hazing the worst he had ever seen and announced that he would personally see the case to trial. “His legs and genitals were amputated, and doctors are still fighting for his life,” Savenkov said, Interfax reported. “During the more than 20 years that I have served as prosecutor, I have not seen a more cynical and audacious crime against servicemen,” Savenkov said. All six servicemen believed to have participated in the hazing have been detained. The soldier suspected of brutally beating Sychyov, Sergeant Alexander Sivyakov, has been charged under the Criminal Code statute with “abuse of office that led to the infliction of serious harm to someone’s health.” If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Sivyakov, after drinking heavily on New Year’s Eve, forced Sychyov to sit in a chair and beat his legs for three hours, the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement. TITLE: Museum to Replace House of Friendship AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: City Hall signed a multi-million dollar deal with billionaire Viktor Vekselberg’s Link of Time foundation last week, granting the organization a lease on the 19th century Shuvalovsky Palace on the Fontanka embankment. The palace is currently home to the Center for International Cooperation, also known as the House of Friendship. As part of the deal, the foundation, which plans to open a new museum of private collections at the palace, has undertaken to invest $10 million in a comprehensive renovation of the building. The foundation will also provide a further $1.5 million for repairs to the new headquarters of the House of Friendship, said Natalya Gordeyeva, deputy head of City Hall’s Property Committee at a news conference at the Rosbalt news agency last Friday. The new premises have yet to be selected, but Gordeyeva said they will be centrally located. The deal provides Link of Time with a 49-year lease on the palace, the longest term allowed by the Russian government for buildings of historical significance. The House of Friendship will not be leaving immediately. According to the terms of the agreement, the organization should move by Oct. 1 of this year, while renovations to the Shuvalovsky Palace are due to be completed in January 2009. “The main reason why we were given the right to rent the Shuvalovsky Palace is the building’s depressing, crumbling condition,” Andrei Shtorkh, a spokesman for Link of Time said in a telephone interview last Monday. “The funds allocated by both local and federal government were not enough to cope with all its needs.” Shtorkh said the foundation is planning to create another museum of private collections in Moscow, but hasn’t yet been able to find a suitable location in the Russian capital. In 2005, Russian energy tycoon Vekselberg acquired the largest existing collection of Imperial Easter eggs created by Carl Faberge, comprising over 200 items and worth over $100 million. As the Center for International Cooperation, the Shuvalovsky Palace served as a host venue for dozens of international events, including arts festivals. Natalya Yeliseyeva, chairwoman of the St. Petersburg Association for International Cooperation, said the Shuvalovsky, with its sumptuous interiors and warm atmosphere, helped to create a positive image for the city, and that this could be lost as a result of its relocation. “The House of Friendship has earned a very good international reputation,” Yeliseyeva said last Friday at the Rosbalt agency. “The move will be a mess, and the city is going to lose a respected venue.” The association and the international humanitarian organizations it works in partnership with have been able to rent the Shuvalovsky at prices below the market rate for international cultural and charitable events. “The House of Friendship is one of the city’s symbols, just like the Yeliseyevsky Food Halls and the old bakeries,” said Vera Brovkina, chairman of the St. Petersburg Council for Peace and Harmony charity organization. “Our partners were shocked to hear that it will be relocating.” The palace is known among local and foreign musicians as a reasonably priced venue with excellent acoustics. Swedish conductor Kristofer Wahlander, the founder of the St. Petersburg Festival Orchestra and artistic director of the Nordic Music Festival, praised the acoustics of the Shuvalovsky’s concert hall. “The acoustics are simply marvelous there, beautifully suited to chamber performances as well as concerts by orchestras like ours, with 70 members,” Wahlander said in a telephone interview. “I hope that it will be possible to continue the tradition of hosting concerts there under Vekselberg’s rule.” TITLE: New Economic Zone Gets Money and Mixed Reaction AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: A new special economic zone, which local government officials say will help double high-tech production in the city, has been viewed with skepticism by local experts. On Jan. 18 the federal government signed an agreement with St. Petersburg’s government to introduce a special economic zone in Noidorf area (30 hectares) and in Novo-Orlovsky park area (130 hectares). “The special economic zone will create an attractive climate for investment and business, providing additional jobs, investment and tax revenue, contributing to the development of the high-tech industry and increasing city competitiveness,” Vladimir Blank, chairman of the committee for economic development, industrial policy and trade, said Tuesday at a meeting with the St. Petersburg Union of Industrial Companies and Entrepreneurs. Blank indicated 12 percent unified social tax concession and the simplification of export and import procedures as the main advantages of the zone. City laws also allow four percent profit tax concession and 1.1 percent property tax concession. City officials have already agreed that Finnish company Technopolis Oyj will invest 220 million euros into techno-park at Noidorf. According to Blank, high-tech companies comprise 30 percent of the city’s industrial production. He called for the doubling of this figure. But experts disagreed over the likely appeal of the project to investors. According to Viktor Naumov, head of intellectual property and IT protection group at DLA Piper’s St. Petersburg office, as well as the concessions, implemented on both a regional and federal level, companies benefit from the very fact of being located in the techno-park, where “all services are significantly cheaper. ” “All this combined makes it economically very interesting,” Naumov said. “The zone’s location is very convenient for foreigners. It is near the university. After the ring road is completed, Noidorf will be easy to reach. It will be within 20 minutes from the airport,” he added. A number of foreign companies, leading software developers, which so far are not represented in the region, are interested in the project, Naumov said. However, he warned, “those companies who had already acquired property in the city and invested into infrastructure would not move their assets.” “One special economic zone cannot solve all the sector’s problems. It would be more reasonable to support the whole industry,” Naumov said. President of software developers association RUSSOFT Valentin Makarov saw the zone’s proximity to the port and other lines of communication as an advantage for high-tech producers involved in assembling. “The main benefit is the simplification of import duty. For companies importing expensive components and equipment it is more important than all the other tariffs combined,” he said. However, he continued, “a favorable customs regime would not really help software developers. State management of the zone almost guarantees that it will not become an IT park able to attract business.” “I do not see any reason why large software developers would come to such zones. They could rent offices in the city,” Makarov said. In relation to IT firms he regarded the unified social tax concession as insignificant when set against higher spending on logistics, transportation of personnel and loss of comfort. Makarov said that the industry needs tax concessions for all exporters of high-tech products and services, which is lobbied at the moment by the ministry for IT and communications. Companies also need IT parks that provide the total range of services for innovative business: a small company incubator, educational center, investment funds and presence of consulting firms, Makarov said. Investment into the zone’s infrastructure is estimated at about $53.6 million for the next five years with half of the costs to be financed by the federal budget. Companies will be able to register in the zone from March of this year, while land is available for residents to rent, with the opportunity of buying it outright after 20 years. TITLE: Store Goes Online In Moscow AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: St-Petersburg-based retailer Technoshock plans to occupy 25 percent of Moscow’s online market when it launches its first internet store in the capital, the electronics and household appliance company said Wednesday in a statement. “There are about 2.8 million regular internet users in Moscow. We are convinced of the project’s profitability despite large market players like M.Video, 003.ru, Byttekhnika.ru, Kholodilnik.ru, M3X.ru and EHouse holding,” the statement said. Technoshock aims to sell about 10,000 items online. According to the company, in St. Petersburg, where the company already has an online store as well as 14 ordinary supermarkets, the average number of internet users stands at about 850,000. No more than 220,000 people use the internet in other regions. Anton Nikolsky, executive director of the National Association of Internet Traders, estimated internet trade in Russia at about $1 billion, which accounts for no more than one percent to 1.5 percent of total retail turnover. “Entering the Moscow market is feasible for a new company but a difficult task. Competition is tough in all segments, especially in household appliances and computers,” Nikolsky said. Technoshock will need a large advertising budget to compete with large, cut-price stores that enjoy a stable reputation, Nikolsky said. “To promote a web site you need to organize company banners in significant places like Mail.ru, RBK, Lenta and it costs a lot,” he said. The advertising budget could exceed $1 million. Technoshock will face competition from the online operations of traditional retailers. “M.Video operates several affiliated web sites, which use the company’s logistic system. It will be hard to compete with them,” Nikolsky said. Marketing director at software developer Reksoft, Viktor Kozlov, said that over the last two years retailers have turned their attention to online commerce because of increasing competition in offline retail and the growing number of internet users — 21.7 million people, according to the Fund for Public Opinion. However Kozlov regarded Technoshock’s ambitions with skepticism, saying that the number of retail companies who order software for their online projects remains small. “Usually retailers have insufficient funds and work with small web studios without experience of developing multi-functional internet-shops,” he said. Such projects suffer from small turnover and low web site hits. “Online commerce is a separate business that differs dramatically from traditional retailing. Using an offline approach is condemned to failure,” he said. TITLE: IN BRIEF TEXT: Port Traffic Down ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — In 2005 the throughput of the St.Petersburg Commercial Seaport JSC amounted to 13.14 million tons, a 10 percent reduction compared to 2004, the port’s press service was quoted by Seanews.ru as saying Tuesday. The fall in throughput was a result of disruption to the work schedule caused by worker strikes, the site said. In 2005 the group paid 640 million rubles ($22.9 million) in taxes and fees, which was 31 percent more than the same period last year. Ust-Luga Visit UST-LUGA, Leningrad Oblast (SPT) — President Vladimir Putin called the Baltic port of Ust-Luga a major infrastructure project on a European scale while visiting the site Tuesday. “The port of Ust-Luga is extremely important for us. This is one of the biggest infrastructure projects of the decade,” he was quoted by Interfax as saying. Putin spoke of the need to implement several projects, including construction of a container terminal and a vehicle and rail ferry to Germany via Kaliningrad region. “If we do all that, next year we will be handling 10 million tons of cargo and by 2010 around 32-35 million tons,” he said. Baltic Wobble VILNIUS (Bloomberg) — Estonia and Latvia would not commit themselves Thursday to support Lithuania’s plans to build a nuclear reactor, the Baltic News Service reported, citing the newspaper Lietuvos Rytas. The three Baltic countries were expected to sign an agreement Thursday in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. Latvian Economy Minister Krisjanis Karins has not received permission from his government to back the project and his Estonian counterpart, Edgar Savisaar, a supporter of the reactor, is not traveling to Vilnius, BNS said. The agreement proposed all three countries would make equal contributions to the nuclear plant project. They were expected to examine long-term electricity sale contracts and a policy for selling power to third parties. Railway Bonds MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian Railways, the country’s rail monopoly, planned to sell 10 billion rubles ($360 million) of bonds Thursday, Standard & Poor’s said. The bonds will mature in 2009 and the coupon will be set at the time of sale, S&P said in the statement Thursday. Moscow-based Russian Railways, which moves about 40 percent of the country’s cargo, is carrying more goods as Russia’s economy expands and global demand for raw materials rises. Mineral Share Sale LONDON (Bloomberg) — Amur Minerals Corp., a British Virgin Islands-based mining company, plans to raise 4.6 million pounds ($8.2 million) in a London share sale to fund nickel exploration in eastern Russia. The company plans to sell 14 million shares in February and list them on London’s Alternative Investment Market, according to a report sent to prospective investors by its adviser Fox-Davies Capital. The sale will give the company a market capitalization of as much as 31.1 million pounds, the report said. Amur holds the 950 square kilometer Kun-Manie exploration license in Russia. The site contains nickel and other metals valued at as much as $80 million, the report said. TITLE: LUKoil Unveils Caspian Reserves, Capacity Boost AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — LUKoil said Wednesday that it had struck new oil and gas reserves in a Caspian offshore field, bought a production association with significant reserves in the same region and hoped to acquire Yukos’ stake in Lithuania’s Mazeikiu refinery. The announcement of new reserves and plans to boost refining capacity, made at a briefing in London, came after a prolonged rally for the company’s shares this month, driven partly by the expectation of good news from the oil major. LUKoil estimated the probable and possible reserves in its new North Caspian field at 600 million barrels of oil and 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas, and said it could eventually produce 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The company also said it had spent $261 million on acquiring a controlling stake in Primoryeneftegaz, a production association that holds licenses to gas fields near Astrakhan with a total of 2.76 billion barrels of oil equivalent in probable and possible reserves. Over the next 30 years, peak production from the association’s Central Astrakhan field could reach 20 billion cubic meters of gas and 8 million tons of gas condensate per year, LUKoil said in a statement. The new reserves, if confirmed, would enable LUKoil to overtake ExxonMobil as the world’s largest privately owned oil and gas major. LUKoil vice president Leonid Fedun told reporters that the company had submitted a bid to the Lithuanian government to buy Yukos’ stake in the Mazeikiu refinery and was waiting for a reply. Lithuania has said it wants to buy the stake from Yukos and then sell it on to a strategic investor. The bid is part of LUKoil’s drive to boost its refining capacity in Russia and Europe equally, by a combined total of 400,000 bpd to 500,000 bpd, Fedun said. “We really lack refining capacity, that’s why we’re making attempts to acquire Mazeikiu,” he said, Reuters reported. Fueled partly by the general shares rally on Russian markets and partly by speculation about LUKoil’s news, the company’s shares have risen from $60 to $78 this month. Analysts welcomed the moves, but said they were largely of a long-term nature and unlikely to overly impress investors, who tend to pay closer attention to short- and medium-term developments. Dmitry Lukashov, an oil and gas analyst at brokerage Aton, said the discoveries and acquisitions were significant, but noted that more clarity was needed on classifying the new reserves. “I think the news is rather positive,” said Kakha Kiknavelidze, an oil and gas analyst at UBS. “The new field and the purchase of gas fields show that LUKoil can replace its reserves at an attractive price. It also improves the company’s long-term prospects.” TITLE: Putin Strengthens Atomic Alliance AUTHOR: By Yuriy Humber PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia strengthened its commitment to atomic energy on Wednesday, as President Vladimir Putin welcomed Uzbekistan into an emerging nuclear alliance. Known to have extensive uranium-ore reserves, Uzbekistan will give Russia “additional long-term possibilities for the building of a stable nuclear fuel energy base,” Putin said at the Eurasian Economic Community summit in St. Petersburg, Interfax reported. His comments came just two weeks after Putin met with his Kazakh and Ukrainian counterparts to forge a nuclear energy alliance that could follow Soviet-era lines. “Russia is firmly determined to widen its cooperation within the Eurasian Economic Community in the field of global energy safety. One of the priorities here is the development of collaboration in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy,” Putin said. Uzbekistan’s entry brings the number of EEC members to six. Putin pitched Russia as a site for one of a handful of international nuclear fuel cycle service centers that would be overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, in line with a recent proposal by the nuclear watchdog. Having a center on Russian soil could help solve domestic nuclear fuel supply issues and prove lucrative, earning Russia tens of billions of dollars, analysts said. With the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited the bulk of the union’s nuclear assets, but it has faced problems with its uranium-ore supply because most uranium mining took place in the Central Asian republics. “Uzbekistan was a major base of uranium ore in the Soviet Union. Bringing it on board is a weighty contribution” to Russia’s ability to rebuild its nuclear energy capabilities, said Gennady Pshakin, an expert on the nuclear industry who heads a nonproliferation analytical center in Obninsk, near Moscow. A stronger CIS nuclear energy block would also help Russia lobby internationally to have a nuclear fuel processing center on its territory, Pshakin said. Such a center would enrich uranium to be used as fuel at power stations and also recycle the irradiated waste that is produced by nuclear power stations when they burn uranium or plutonium. Besides supporting a multibillion-dollar business with potential clients including Iran, China and India, Russia would work on diminishing its own large stockpiles of irradiated fuel, Pshakin said. Last week, the head of the State Duma subcommittee for nuclear energy, Victor Opekunov, said Russia’s nuclear power plants had almost reached their capacity for storing spent uranium. “There will be a crisis if nothing is done,” he said. Almost 2,500 tons of irradiated fuel is stored globally, according to the IAEA. While some corporate nuclear fuel cycle facilities already operate in Europe, Putin backed the idea of having international centers open to all countries. “We have all the things necessary to accommodate [a processing] center, but who will be prepared to let us have it?” Pshakin said. TITLE: $4Bln Algerian Arms Deal AUTHOR: By Lyuba Pronina PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia is set to sell $4 billion worth of arms to Algeria, in what would be its largest post-Soviet defense export deal. “The work on the package of contracts for the delivery of a large part of Russian weapons to Algeria is practically complete, and they are likely to be signed in February,” Interfax quoted an unnamed source in the defense industry. The multibillion-dollar list of weapons includes 36 MiG-29SMT and 28 Su-30 fighter jets, eight divisions of S-300MPU2 Favorit air defense systems and a batch of T-90 battle tanks, the source said. Along with the four deals, Russia will sign a few more contracts for the upgrade of Soviet-made arms already in Algeria’s possession, the source said. The news was confirmed by an independent defense source, who said the package of contracts had already been ratified and was expected to be signed during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the North African country late next month or in March. MiG, Irkut, which makes Sukhoi fighter jets, and the Almaz-Antei air defense concern refused to comment, as did Rosoboronexport, the state-owned arms selling agency. The weapons will be paid for in a “complicated scheme involving striking off part of Algeria’s Soviet debt,” the source told Interfax, without specifying the period over which the arms would be delivered. In addition to the upcoming contracts, Algeria may buy up to 50 Yak-130 combat trainer planes and about 30 Tunguska-M1 air defense systems, the source said. “If signed, it will be the largest arms deal for post-Soviet Russia; it will be grandiose,” said Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based defense think tank. TITLE: Efes Buys Into Krasny Vostok PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: ASTANA — Turkey’s Efes Breweries International said Wednesday that it had signed an agreement to buy 92.34 percent of Russian brewery Krasny Vostok in a deal putting Krasny Vostok’s enterprise value at about $390 million. Efes said in a release that the deal was subject to regulatory approval. Krasny Vostok has a 3 percent share of the Russian market by volume, its annual brewing capacity is 10 million hectoliters and it operates two breweries — one in Kazan, in central Russia, and one in Novosibirsk, in Siberia. “[The acquisition] will enable us to solidify and build on our fourth position within the dynamically consolidating [Russian] market through increased capacity, extensive geographical coverage, lower cost base and higher sales volume,” said CEO Ahmet Boyacolu. Efes has long been looking for either an acquisition or a greenfield project in Siberia or the Far East to cut transportation costs in a country that stretches across 11 time zones but has poor infrastructure. EBI, which derives about 80 percent of its revenues from Russia, has three breweries in the country: in Moscow, in Ufa in the southern Urals and in Rostov in the south. Krasny Vostok also owns three malting facilities in Kazan, with an annual capacity of 93,000 tons. TITLE: Spies and Casting the First Stone TEXT: The Daily Telegraph With a former KGB colonel in the Kremlin, it is hardly surprising that Britain has been implicated in a spying scandal worthy of the Cold War. The star of the show is a fake rock containing a transmitter through which a Russian contact allegedly passed classified information to British diplomats. While all this is richly comic, it has embarrassed the British government. Rather than denying the allegations, the Foreign Office yesterday declared itself “surprised and concerned,” while British Prime Minister Tony Blair attempted to laugh the whole thing off. But it does have grave implications, both for bilateral relations and for Russian nongovernmental organizations attempting to monitor abuses of power by the Kremlin. Having named four British diplomats, Moscow could well expel them. Ministers will then have to decide whether to reply in kind. The FSB, the KGB’s successor, accused the British of financing NGOs, reflecting President Vladimir Putin’s determination to blunt all opposition to his rule. The president is supposedly heeding the warning given by the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Given his overweening power, that amounts to paranoia. Blair may try to pass off the “rock” incident as a joke. But the man he early identified as an ally has become an increasingly unreliable partner, whether over confronting Iran’s nuclear ambitions or as a natural gas supplier. The electronic rock has its funny side. But it also symbolizes a serious cooling of relations between Moscow and the West. The Guardian The FSB did not paint this as a John Le CarrÎ spy novel-type operation to recruit highly placed agents but rather one to fund Russian nongovernmental organizations, which of course weren’t around in the old days but are subject to Soviet-era smearing now. Not surprisingly, there has been no confirmation from the British government. It is no secret, though, that Britain, like the rest of the European Union and the United States, supports the development of civil society, free media and an independent judiciary in Russia — and rightly so. But this is done openly by bodies such as the Westminster Foundation, the European Commission and the Ford Foundation, not MI6 or the CIA. It is hard to know exactly what is going on. Still, this is all probably linked to the Kremlin’s crackdown on NGOs, more evidence of the “authoritarian drift” and “managed democracy” which have become bones of contention between Putin and his normally over-indulgent Western friends, especially since he took over the presidency of the Group of Eight earlier this month. Putin’s reply is that stricter regulation is needed to stop Russian groups being used and subverted by foreign elements. How very convenient, then, to discover that the cack-handed Smileys of the post-Cold War era are doing just that. That is surely no coincidence. The Times of London Whatever the wisdom of British operations in Moscow, there is a much more serious side to the slew of allegations from Russia about the British presence. They mark yet another aggressive move from Putin. We must assume this is the face of Russia for years to come. Of all the spying accusations, the nastiest in its implications is that Britain has been supporting human rights groups. The sums of money are hardly large. Russian state television accused the British Embassy of transferring $41,000 to the Moscow Helsinki Group, a leading human rights group that has repeatedly criticized Putin. The Foreign Office has said that it has indeed supported rights groups, but that all its efforts were well-known and “proper.” The Moscow Helsinki Group said it had not received British funding since 2004 and that Russia’s complaints are a pretext for cracking down on such groups. That is surely right. Of all the steps Putin has taken that have cut away at hopes that Russia was moving toward democracy, his assault on human rights groups has been among the worst. If Putin chooses to make this into a big confrontation, it will show that, taking his cue from the extreme cold gripping Russia, he wants to move his relations with Europe to a new degree of chill. Time Magazine On Monday night, Russian state television identified four members of the British Embassy staff whom it — and the FSB — claimed are spying inside Russia. Watching the FSB secret footage of the alleged spies was as thrilling as a new James Bond saga movie. The British spying equipment was allegedly concealed in a simple Russian stone and used for two-way communications with still unidentified Russian traitors. And the British diplomat, pretending to be relieving himself in a Russian public park as an excuse to pick up the malfunctioning stone, was about as convincing a menace as Bond seducing yet another Russian female agent. The program also charged that the alleged diplomatic spies made financial transfers to several Russian NGOs, including the Moscow Helsinki human rights group that has operated since 1976. The entire incident is baffling. It’s no secret that even friendly countries spy upon each other. But casting NGOs in an enemy role does seem novel. Earlier this month, Putin signed a new restrictive law placing NGOs in Russia, either foreign or domestic, under tight state controls. In a classic touch of absurdity, the FSB feature on Western spying and using NGOs to hurt Russia came immediately after the clip announcing the release of “The First Circle” television serial, based on the famous novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn on Soviet labor camps, packed with innocent people arrested as alleged foreign spies. The Cold War may be over, but you’d hardly know from watching Russian television. TITLE: A Strange Strategy for Jewish Defense AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina TEXT: Alexander Koptsev, a Muscovite with a fondness for racist web sites and violent computer games, is accused of grabbing a knife on Jan. 11 and heading to the Chabad Synagogue, where he purportedly stabbed eight men before being wrestled to the floor. The leaders of Kremlin-friendly Jewish organizations, from Russia’s chief rabbi, Berl Lazar, to Vyacheslav Kantor, head of the Russian Jewish Congress (yes, the same Kantor who threw the first stone in the legal assault against Mikhail Khodorkovsky), unanimously called on the state to protect the Jewish population from anti-Semitic extremists. If you want to get a sense of the public conscience, you focus not on the actions of a lone psycho, but on how society responds. Ethnic conflicts are symptomatic of the end of an empire. The collapse of the Soviet Union began with Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku and the Meskhetian Turks. In this sense, Russia today is sitting on an ethnic powder keg. When the women from the largely Avar village of Moksob in Dagestan went down to the river Aksai last summer for a swim, they found that the Chechen women from the neighboring village of Novoselskoye were washing their clothes upstream. Words were exchanged, and before long the conflict escalated into a brawl involving hundreds of men from both villages. A Chechen man raped a girl in the village of Remontnoye, Rostov region. In retaliation some 200 Cossacks laid siege to the village. When a Kalmyk man was shot dead last August during a bar fight with several Chechens in the village of Yandyki, Astrakhan region, hundreds of local Kalmyks went on a rampage, burning homes and beating local Chechens. The spark that lights the blaze in these situations is always the same. A disagreement about laundry escalates into a deadly brawl. Villages like these are a hair’s breadth from the kind of carnage we saw in Nagorno-Karabakh. In the Koptsev case, the spark that ignites such ethnic unrest was missing. Imagine that instead of Koptsev we were dealing with a knife-wielding Ossetian in an Ingush mosque, or an knife-wielding Ingush in a Vladikavkaz church. At a minimum such an attack would have brought thousands of people into the streets, and might even have led to renewed fighting between the two peoples. One thing’s for sure: The police would never get their hands on the assailant. He’d be cut to ribbons by the mob. The attack on the Chabad Synagogue didn’t lead to pogroms or the organization of Jewish self-defense brigades. Instead, this violent outburst of fascism was followed by a call for the state to police the Internet. The real ethnic conflicts that are tearing this country apart almost never make the evening news. The big two state-controlled television stations scarcely reported on the ethnic cleansing in the Chechen village of Borozdinovskaya, or the storming of the regional government headquarters in Karachayevo-Cherkessia by ethnic Abazin activists, or the trial in Vladikavkaz in which Ossetian jurors acquitted several Ossetian men who had kidnapped their Ingush business partner. The accused got off by declaring that the kidnapping was an act of revenge for Beslan. I’m not saying there’s no anti-Semitism in Russia. There is, especially at the top. But it comes nowhere close to the level of ethnic tension that prevails in the south. You can blow anti-Semitism out of proportion, of course, frightening people and convincing them that only a third Putin term will prevent the nationalists from coming to power. In this sense the diehard anti-Semites left over from the old Soviet KGB are killing two birds with one stone: keeping the current regime in power, and giving the Jews a good scare in the process. What I’d like to know is why Jewish organizations keep playing into the hands of people far more dangerous than any Koptsev. Kantor’s strategy for defending his people’s interests looks a lot like Ramzan Kadyrov’s. Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio. TITLE: Chernov’s choice AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov TEXT: Ukraine’s Okean Elzy, ambassadors of the Orange Revolution, will open its Russian tour in St. Petersburg this week. The band that was active in the events on Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti had to postpone its Russian tour last year as it felt it should stay in its country during and soon after the events that turned Ukraine towards Europe. Europe, in its turn, grew more attentive to Ukrainian music. Three songs by Okean Elzy, which released its fifth album “Gloria” in September, have been charted in Europe recently. Formed in 1994, the band sings exclusively in Ukrainian and helped make the language — which some deride as amusingly “corrupted” Russian — sound cool with Russian audiences. “I write in Ukrainian just because it’s easier for me to write in my native language,” said Okean Elzy’s singer and songwriter Svyatoslav Vakarchuk in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times this week. There is another reason why Ukrainian bands such as Okean Elzy and Vopli Vidoplyasova relevant and interesting. Speaking to this newpaper, Moscow music critic Artyom Troitsky said he did not see any signs of a political protest movement in the Russian rock music scene, describing musicians as conformists. Okean Elzy proved that even non-political bands can spearhead a protest movement if a revolutionary situation arises. The band will perform at Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Tuesday. See article, pages i and ii. Local promoters are slowly getting over the long period of inactivity caused by the lengthy New Year and Christmas holidays. This week, two popular Finnish bands will perform in the city. Even though Finland has quite a few interesting and innovative bands, the country has lately acquired an international reputation as a home for heavier styles, such as goth rock, false and pretentious. The mascara-wearing Finnish goth rockers, H.I.M. and The Rasmus will be the first of more or less well-known international acts to tour St. Petersburg this year. The British music magazine NME ran an interview with H.I.M.’s frontman Ville Vallu earlier this month. “In spite of making quite awful music, Ville is a lovely chap,” wrote the magazine. H.I.M. and The Rasmus will perform at the Ice Palace on Thursday. The less high-profile Finnish goth rockers, Two Witches, will perform at Red Club on Sunday. Popular underground club Moloko will not reopen until April, said director Yury Ugryumov. “We were held up by the fact that the country didn’t work after Dec. 20,” said Ugryumov explaining that the club, which is planning to open at a new location after it was closed following a long dispute with city authorities last year, has to receive many permits from state offices. “To be optimistic, it will open in April,” said Ugryumov adding that the old telephone number for Moloko is already working at the new place. Meanwhile, Markscheider Kunst, whose concerts opened — and closed — Moloko’s old location, will perform at Red Club on Saturday. TITLE: Going underground AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: The St. Petersburg Metro is celebrated with a fascinating new exhibition. Russia boasts arguably the world’s most opulent and sumptuous underground train systems, with columns carved in marble, quirky Soviet monuments, jaw-dropping mosaics and sophisticated chandeliers. The Moscow metro is one of the country’s major tourist attractions, but St. Petersburg’s system is no less of a marvel. An exhibition, “St. Petersburg’s Metro: From an Idea to Fulfillment” in Nevskaya Kurtina of the Peter and Paul Fortress, puts St. Petersburg’s metro, which began operating in 1955, into the context of the international history of underground transit systems, as well as celebrating its achievements and divulging a few secrets. One of this exhibition’s strong points is that it gives visitors an opportunity to look behind the scenes of the metro. It is fun to hear the show’s curators reveal the stories of ambitions projects never fulfilled: bold designs that were accused of “Formalism” and rejected, and over-decorative designs that were despised for vulgarity only to be left on the drawing board. But, in addition to carrying passengers around the city, the Soviet metro was a political instrument. It was a billboard for the totalitarian regime and soothed harassed commuters with patriotic ornament and decoration. Even its Soviet-era name was famously full of mythologizing bombast: The Leningrad Metro in the name of Lenin with the Order of Lenin (the name can still be seen emblazoned on a well at the intersection of Ploshchad Vosstaniya and Mayakovskaya stations). Narvskaya station, inaugurated in 1951, was initially to be called Stalinskaya and the station was originally decorated with a giant mosaic panel showing Joseph Stalin stretching his hand towards the masses in a welcoming gesture. The Stalinskaya project was put forward in 1949/1950 to coincide with the Soviet tyrant’s 70th birthday. The mosaic was removed the day following the so-called “Secret Speech” made by Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, when Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s personality cult. But the metro authorities couldn’t bring themselves to destroy the mosaic which was a compelling example of propaganda art. A large color photograph of the panel is displayed at the exhibition. Remarkably, the pieces of which the mosaic was comprised were kept in large sacks in a warehouse and have survived to this day. There has even been talk of reassembling the mosaic for display but no curator has yet been brave enough. At first glance, the exhibition may look like a rather uninspiring bunch of maps, plans, newspaper cuttings, photographs and color drawings. But its main asset is its precious content, which deserves a closer look. “The Soviets were deservedly proud of the metro, and they held nationwide design competitions for every new station that was built,” said curator Vladimir Avdeyev. “St. Petersburg architects wanted the local metro to be different from the one in Moscow and give it a special style, reflecting the city’s austerity and grace. The desire to differ from Moscow was painstaking.” In Moscow, the most ornate and richly decorate stations are Mayakovskaya and Ploshchad Revolutsii, and stations on the circle line. To see the most imposing stations in St. Petersburg, travel from Ploshchad Vosstaniya to Avtovo. Each station had a special theme. For example, Vladimirskaya is meant to trumpet the successes of Soviet youth. And a winning design by Alexander Zhuk, with bas-reliefs and panels depicting dancing proletarian youth amid waving red flags did survive political fluctuations. “ Moscow architect presented this amusing design showing what could be best described as ‘boyars entertainment’,” Avdeyev said, pulling a face at another Vladimirskaya design on display. “These young people are even dressed in some sort of a pre-Revolutionary fashion.” The only local metro station designed by a Muscovite was Pushkinskaya, although its architect, Leonid Polyakov, was a graduate of St. Petersburg’s Academy of Fine Arts. Pushkinskaya is a favorite of St. Petersburg metro employees, Avdeyev said. This is the only station in the entire metro network with no advertisements on its walls. The reverence, however, may also be partly provoked by love of Pushkin, Russia’s most worshipped poet. Structured in chronological order, the exhibition starts with rare prints and designs of the first underground stations in London and Paris, where metro systems were pioneered. Amazing cross-section diagrams of London’s Piccadilly station and the Opera station in Paris as well as pictures of the interiors of the first stations in Hamburg, designed by Villeroy & Boch, the famous manufacturers of household appliances, are also on display. “The London metro was launched in 1863, the same year, when a konka, a horse-drawn tram, started operating in St. Petersburg,” said curator Galina Nikitenko. The first mass transit plans for St. Petersburg date back to the end of the 19th century. The exhibition shows designs for some of the most ambitious of them, including a 1889 designs by architect Pyotr Balinsky that required one of the above-ground stations to be located on Ploshchad Vosstaniya near Moskovsky Vokzal, the city’s main railroad terminal. Balinsky’s project embraced 72 kilometers of above-ground railways and would have cost 190 million rubles to construct. Nobody had that kind of money, foreign investors were a myth, and the plan never materialized. Ploshchad Vosstaniya continued to be the focus of unrealized transit schemes a century later. The huge hole behind Moskovsky Vokzal is all that has so far has come of the stalled multimillion dollar VSM (high-speed train) project of the mid-1990s. But there were also technical problems with 19th Century Balinsky’s project. “Soil in St. Petersburg is tricky and difficult for any construction project,” Nikitenko. “Underground water was too high to make the construction possible, while no efficient engineering solutions existed at the time.” One of the most unusual transport systems which was built in St. Petersburg before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was a suspended railroad. The line operated in the nearby town of Gatchina from around 1900 but was not restored after the Soviets came to power. The route of suspended railway was only 213 meters long, and each carriage accommodated up to twenty passengers. Located nearby the Gatchina palace, it was meant to serve noble clientele but everyone was allowed on board. A special stand is devoted to this exciting project, Russia’s only metro system at the time. If you have a keen interest in Russian metro, visit www.metro.ru. The exhibition runs through Feb. 27. TITLE: A tolerant nationalism AUTHOR: By Ronald Grigor Suny PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: As Georgia searches for its path after a decade and a half of crisis, the descendants of this small country’s first nationalists would do well to look to their own past, says Stephen F. Jones in a new political history. Georgia is a country much in the news lately, what with the success of its Rose Revolution and the overthrow of President Eduard Shevardnadze, the visibility of Shevardnadze’s energetic and charismatic successor, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the visit to Tbilisi last year by U.S. President George W. Bush. To those who read the headlines, Georgia would seem to be emerging from a devastating decade and a half of civil and ethnic war, political corrosion, territorial breakup and widespread corruption. For those who pay greater attention, however, the situation appears not so rosy and the country’s problems seem chronic and intractable. The initial euphoria of November 2003 has since been replaced by greater sobriety, even disillusionment. For many, the bloom of the Rose Revolution has faded. Yet pessimism about Georgia’s future may be premature. That small country has faced far more dire crises than it is experiencing at present. Its history is replete with invasions and conquests by larger imperial powers, with near extinction, division and dispersion. And over and over again, as nationalists proudly proclaim, it has managed to rebound. As Czech writer Milan Kundera has famously said, “A small nation can disappear, and it knows it,” but Georgia, like its neighbor Armenia, has made a habit of defying the odds. Georgians are at one and the same time an ancient people with a distinct cultural and linguistic history and a relatively new nation, formed in the bosom of several empires. Until tsarist Russia annexed them in the early 19th century, the Georgian lands were seldom unified. The first nationalists — products of Russian education and European learning — took pride in their language, founded newspapers and actively promoted Georgian literature. But unlike the chauvinistic nationalism that would appear at the end of the Soviet empire, the most widespread popular movement in Georgia before and during the revolution of 1917 was a European-style social democracy based on ethnic tolerance, democratic institutions and social justice. These intellectually distinguished, moderate Marxists dominated Georgian politics from the 1890s through the establishment of an independent state in 1918 and up till the Bolshevik invasion of 1921, which forced them to flee to the West. Stephen F. Jones of Mount Holyoke College has been researching Georgian social democracy for a quarter century. As a fellow traveler along the byways of Caucasian historiography and a peer reviewer of an earlier version of this book, I have long been impressed by his unparalleled knowledge of both language and country. In what is likely to be the first of two volumes (the second will cover the brief period of independence prior to Soviet annexation) Jones explores what has been generally written off as a rather esoteric subject: a socialist movement in a small, remote country a century ago. Whatever interest this movement has sparked has been largely due to one of its dropouts, the young Josef Stalin, who broke with his comrades and left Georgia to make a career in Russia with the more radical wing of the Social Democratic Party, the Bolsheviks. Yet it was the measured, democratic Mensheviks who won the factional struggle in Georgia. And it was the Mensheviks of Georgia who adopted a winning strategy that would later be followed in Third World revolutions: They were the first Marxist movement to mobilize the village peasantry into a revolutionary force. At the outset, in the 1890s, social democracy was confined to small circles of intellectuals, many of them educated in the same Orthodox seminary where Stalin studied. These passionate activists argued that Georgia, as a borderland of the Russian empire, suffered from dual oppression by the Russian bureaucratic autocracy and the emerging capitalist market economy dominated by the local Armenian bourgeoisie. Revolutionary socialism, heavily tinged with anti-colonial nationalism, was the means to bring an end to both. After years of propaganda work and legal agitation, the socialists forged ties with the embryonic working classes of Tbilisi, Baku and Batumi. In response to the first Russian Revolution, in 1905, thousands of Georgian peasants, inspired by the workers and under the influence of the social democrats, boycotted their landlords and set up a short-lived independent government, free of tsarist authority and controlled by the peasants and their leaders. The 1905 revolution proved to be a harsh passage for the peoples of the South Caucasus. A civil war broke out between militant workers and peasants, on one side, and the armed might of the Russian government, on the other. Assassinations of officials, armed resistance and sensational robberies by revolutionaries were matched by state terror, punitive expeditions and mass executions. Here Stalin learned to fight violence with violence, a formative lesson on which he would draw with greater ferocity in the next revolution. Although the Mensheviks also fought in this losing war with tsarism, the lesson they learned was the need for greater caution. In the years between 1907 and 1917, the Georgian socialists won elections to the Russian State Duma and emerged as leaders in the legal opposition to autocracy. When revolution broke out in 1917, men like Nikolai “Karlo” Chkheidze and Irakli Tsereteli appeared at the head of the Petrograd Soviet. Back home in Georgia, the grand old man of social democracy, Noe Zhordania, became the acknowledged leader of the Tbilisi Soviet and, later, the elected president of the independent republic. In contrast to other Marxist parties in power, however, the Georgians established a successful democratic government. Although their rule was not free of ethnic conflict and violence — after all a civil war was raging in Russia at the time — they managed for almost three years to keep their fragile state from falling apart without resorting to authoritarian rule and widespread terror. Jones splendidly tells the story of how the Georgians taught Russian socialists the value of working with peasants and participating in elective institutions. Yet for all their intellectual acumen, courageous resistance and steadfast adherence to democracy in the heat of revolutionary turmoil, the Mensheviks of Georgia fell victim to the Red Army in 1921. They ended their days squabbling with one another in the suburbs of Paris, dreaming and conspiring to return to power in Georgia, but not living long enough to see the Soviet Union’s collapse. When Georgia reemerged as an independent state in 1991, the social democrats were nowhere to be seen. Post-Soviet Georgians had no interest in any form of socialism, and were smitten instead by the exclusivist nationalism of the former dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia, which rapidly led to secessionist rebellions in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and a destructive civil war on the streets of Tbilisi. Shevardnadze succeeded Gamsakhurdia and, having forsaken his communist past, soon placed a picture of the Virgin Mary over his desk. Saakashvili in turn overthrew Shevardnadze and quickly adopted a new national flag with five red crosses. Today, Georgians are once again reconstructing their sense of themselves and their nation. While some form of nationalism will be required to hold Georgia together, a people so enamored of and haunted by their history might better profit by turning back to an earlier tradition of tolerance, democracy and — dare I say it — socialism. Of course, they will have to call it something else. Ronald Grigor Suny is a professor of history at the University of Michigan and the author of “The Making of the Georgian Nation” and “The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the U.S.S.R. and the Successor States.” TITLE: Identikit sushi AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: Salvador 21 Ulitsa Mayakovskogo. Menu in English and Russian. Credit cards accepted. Dinner for two without alcohol 1,256 rubles ($45). If you were to randomly throw a dart at a list of St. Petersburg restaurants, the chances are you’d hit a sushi bar. A rabid mania for raw fish and rice in these parts has already been with us for years, but now it seems to have gone into overdrive. You can get good quality ready-made sushi at numerous supermarkets in the city, there are sushi bars crammed into all manner of tiny nooks and crannies in the center of the city, and sushi bars have even been opened at several gas stations. Soon you won’t be able to walk down Nevsky Prospekt without someone thrusting tuna rolls and sashimi at you, and you’d probably have to go to the Land of the Rising Sun itself to find more sushi eateries per square kilometer. The bizarre thing about all these new sushi restaurants is that they’re difficult to tell apart. It’s as if the formula for opening a sushi eatery in the city center has been set in stone. Build it on the first floor and furnish it in dark woods. Knockout the Soviet or pre-Soviet window frames and put in vast panes of glass giving a good view of the street. Offer good service, and recruit no staff over the age of 25. Ideally the personnel should look suitably “oriental,” with Buryat students often fitting the bill. Attempt nothing too outrageous in the color scheme — stick with gray, giving the place an industrial-lite look which, in turn, creates the impression that your sushi has been prepared by Japanese scientists in conditions of perfect hygiene. Add lounge music, white crockery, hot hand towels, Fashion TV, and knives and forks on request. If it wasn’t for the fact that the menu also offers European cuisine, the recently opened Salvador would be a perfect identikit match for this sort of eatery. True, there are a few splashes of color, notably the Daliesque lip-shaped red settees (hence “Salvador”), but otherwise you’d be hard pushed to tell this restaurant apart from numerous others throughout the city. But what about the food? Does that at least set it apart? As far as the sushi goes, the answer is no, which isn’t to say that there’s anything wrong with it. The miso soup (50 rubles, $1.80) was, well, like the miso soup in any of the other Japanese restaurants around the city — decent, not too salty, but, according to those in the know, not a patch on the real thing. When you order miso soup in St. Petersburg, the only question is whether or not there will be something floating in it (at Salvador it was tofu cubes and seaweed). The tiger prawn, salmon and tamago sushi (from 39 to 44 rubles, $1.40 to $1.60) were also on a par with the reasonably good standards to be found elsewhere. Where Salvador did excel was with its dragon roll, a twisting combination of eel and crab meat (345 rubles, $12.30) — the portion of eel was generous, and the crab gave it a moist and succulent taste. As for the European menu, the Finnish fish soup (155 rubles, $5.50), which comprised salmon, shrimps, potatoes, carrot, avocado, cream and white wine, was filling, although the portion could hardly be described as generous. The dranniki — potato pancakes with pork, onion, mushrooms, paprika in a cream and cognac sauce — were deliciously prepared, with the pancakes fried to a crunchy golden brown. Again the serving wasn’t copious. If they’re all the same, then, why are there so many of these sushi joints? Well, the simply answer is because they’re all pretty good. In the final analysis, you wouldn’t go out of your way to eat at Salvador, but you’d be pleased if it was a short walk from your apartment or place of work. TITLE: Orange heroes AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: A band made famous by its support for Ukraine’s Orange Revolution is to perform in Russia aspolitical tension mounts between the ex-Soviet nations. The musical heroes of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution are to tour Russia amid ongoing political tension between the former Soviet neighbors. Okean Elzy, Ukraine’s top band, which inspired thousands of protesters during the Orange Revolution by performing on Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in late 2004, is visiting St. Petersburg as part of a Russian tour to promote its fifth album “Gloria.” Alongside such Ukrainian bands as Vopli Vidoplyasova and Tanok na Maidane Kongo, Okean Elzy showed that rock music can still influence political events. However, the group actually performs a kind of romantic pop-rock devoid of political content. Singer and songwriter Svyatoslav Vakarchuk says a band does not have to be political to fight injustice — it just has to be honest. “It’s not necessary to sing about the revolution for you to go and support the choice of your people,” said Vakarchuk, speaking to The St. Petersburg Times by telephone from Kiev this week. “It is two different things — to be a politician and a citizen of your county,” Vakarchuk said. People gathered on the Maidan in November and December 2004 to protest the falsification of presidential election results in favor of pro-Moscow candidate Viktor Yanukovich. The protest finally led to a revote and victory for pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Although there was always the possibility that the protestors could have been violently dispersed, Vakarchuk, whose band performed six or seven times on a concert stage put up on the Maidan, said he ignored such fears. “You know, I felt that I should be there; I didn’t think about anything else,” he said. Vakarchuk’s high profile during the Orange Revolution led him to be appointed as an advisor to Yushchenko on youth issues and arts policy. Okean Elzy was due to perform in Russia a year ago, but postponed the tour because the band felt it was needed in Ukraine during the political upheaval. According to Okean Elzy’s fan web site, Vakarchuk announced the postponement at a concert in Odessa, Ukraine, in November 2004. “Okean Elzy only does what it likes and performs for free to support Yushchenko, because we are for Yushchenko! Even if we have to sing in the street and cancel the whole Russian tour we will be supporting Yushchenko,” he was quoted as saying. The band’s current Russian tour is almost exactly what was planned in 2004, and ends with a stadium show at Luzhniki in Moscow on Feb. 25. “What is happening now should have happened a year ago,” he said. “We had to postpone some concerts that had been already announced, but some were not even announced because we understood that we didn’t know what would happen in Ukraine and that we should be here constantly.” Although Vakarchuk said he was unhappy about the Kremlin’s involvement and the coverage of the events at the Maidan on Russian television channels, he said there was nothing “anti-Russian” about the protests. “I watched [the Russian channels] and it was very unpleasant for me that certain things were altered consciously,” he said. “Somehow, the revolution was given an anti-Russian association, even if in reality it had nothing to do with that. “I think that the revolution itself brought about a lot of clarity in relations [between Ukraine and Russia],” Vakarchuk said. He said that there were long-standing issues between the countries that needed to be resolved. “Although we are resolving them painfully, it doesn’t mean that everything is bad and we have to treat each other badly. It means there were some things that should be treated surgically. We are doing it now and it will lead us to the point where everything will be good, and we’ll live together happily as friends.” Although the Kremlin backed Yanukovich and tried to influence the election by all possible means — Russian President Vladimir Putin even congratulated him on his “victory,” twice — Vakarchuk said that the confrontation is over. “It’s mostly all over, and you should remember that the first city that our president visited officially was Moscow. That said it all. He even promised to do this during the election campaign.” However, relations between Russia and Ukraine soured again last month when Russia temporarily cut gas supplies to Ukraine as part of a price dispute in what the press is calling a “gas war.” Vakarchuk objects to such journalistic shorthand. “Let’s not use words like ‘war,’ because neither I, nor you, I hope, know what war is,” he said. “ Ukraine simply should stand, just as Russia, on the principles of its national interests, and the two countries should defend their national interests and their states in general.” Vakarchuk said he received support from his friends and fans in Russia during the Orange Revolution. “Our friends supported us a lot, and when we had to postpone the tour, even fans that were, of course, unhappy about the lack of concerts, understood that we were doing our bit in our own place. I’m very happy about it.” Imperial sentiment toward Ukraine has deep roots in Russia where many felt betrayed by the Ukrainians’ choice to move closer to Europe and the rest of the world. “It’s not my problem, and not Ukraine’s problem,” said Vakarchuk. “I treat Russia with a great respect as a great country — the word respect fits perfectly here, because likewise I wish that Russia would treat my country with the same respect.” The most dangerous problem, at least as far as the Russian media is concerned, seems to be the possibility that Ukraine could join NATO. Vakarchuk dismisses Russia’s concerns. “So what? Is NATO something scary? Well, I was at NATO headquarters and did not see any military men there,” he said. “I simply went there to see what it is like with my own eyes. I think that such unions as NATO don’t have the image that was given to them during the cold war 20 or 30 years ago anymore. There is no Cold War anymore. The accent has shifted. Russia and America fight international terrorism now, so what is the danger of NATO? I can’t comment about the possibility of joining NATO, it’s not my prerogative, I am just saying I don’t understand where the danger lies in it." Yushchenko thanked the artists who supported him on the Maidan by awarding Vakarchuk and several other musicians the title “Honored Artist of Ukraine” when Ukraine celebrated its 14th year of post-Soviet independence in August. Inherited from the Soviet Union, such titles used to give artists an appreciable surplus to their fixed salaries in the planned economy, but do not mean much more than titillating egos today. Oleg Skripka of Vopli Vidoplyasova and Sergei Fomenko of Mandri famously rejected the honor. Skripka was quoted as saying that the “authorities are discrediting themselves” at a press conference soon after. Vakarchuk disagreed with Skripka's stance. “I didn’t accept anything, I simply didn’t reject it,” he said.“But at the same I stated absolutely publicly that I did not need this title. I didn’t ask for it and I am not going to use it for any goals. Of course, I would cancel these titles — all of them altogether. But there are different opinions, you see?” In the year since the Orange Revolution, Ukraine has been in the grip of continual political upheaval, with Yushchenko at one point dismissing the entire government as his poll ratings plummeted and post-revolution optimism wore off. Vakarchuk said that such crises only prove that Ukraine is finally a democracy. “You know, you have a nice birthday party in the evening, but the next morning you wake up and feel certain emptiness,” he said. “It’s normal that there is a lot of, say, public confrontations now everywhere. It only proves that we live in a democratic country, and that’s all. And that our press writes whatever it likes only means that it writes what it wants, not what it is told.” Okean Elzy performs at Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Tuesday. www.okeanelzy.com TITLE: China Gives Support To Plan on Iran AUTHOR: By Chris Buckley and Lindsay Beck PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: BEIJING — China opposes sanctions against Iran’s nuclear ambitions and urges countries to consider a Russian compromise, a Chinese spokesman said on Thursday, as Tehran’s nuclear negotiator held talks in Beijing. “We oppose impulsively using sanctions or threats of sanctions to solve problems. This will complicate problems,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a news conference. In Moscow on Wednesday, the Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani said referring Iran’s nuclear activities to the UN Security Council would prompt Tehran to start uranium enrichment. But he also signaled interest in a Russian proposal to enrich Iranian uranium on Russian soil — a compromise backers say would give Iran nuclear power but restrain any moves to make weapons. Chinese spokesman Kong said Russia’s offer should be seriously considered. “We think the Russian proposal is a good attempt to break this stalemate,” Kong said. He said Larijani held morning-long talks with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing. The Iranian diplomat was to meet State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan in the afternoon and hold a news conference in the evening. Earlier this month, Iran removed UN seals on uranium enrichment equipment and resumed nuclear fuel research. It says it does not want nuclear weapons, and has the right to enrich uranium at home. The United States and its European Union allies, who fear Iran might move to developing nuclear weapons, say the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should turn Iran over to the United Nations’ Security Council. Russia and China — who wield veto power in the Council along with the three other permanent members — have urged other solutions to the standoff. The other members are the United States, Britain and France. China is also hosting stop-start six-party talks, including Russia and the United States, aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Kong said all the countries involved should “intensify diplomatic efforts” to broker a solution before the IAEA meets on February 2 to debate sending Iran to the Security Council. The Council’s veto-wielding permanent members plus Germany plan to meet in London on Monday to try to resolve differences over what to do about Iran. Larijani’s visit came just a day after the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick left China following a three-day visit. On Wednesday, Zoellick gave a positive assessment of China’s role in the nuclear stand-off, saying Washington and Beijing had no major differences on the issue. Kong, the Chinese spokesman, declined to directly endorse that assessment, simply repeating Beijing’s general stance. Analysts say despite its objections, China would be more likely to abstain from a vote than use its veto. But Kong said Iran should have the right to peaceful nuclear power. “All Non-Proliferation Treaty countries’ rights to peacefully use nuclear power should be respected, but we must emphasize that these countries should also strictly abide by the relevant regulations,” he said. TITLE: Abbas to Ask Hamas to Form Government AUTHOR: By Sarah El Deeb PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will ask Hamas to form the next Palestinian government after the Islamic militants swept parliamentary elections, and the defeated Fatah Party will serve in the opposition, a senior Fatah legislator said Thursday. A Hamas-only government, without Fatah as a moderating force, is sure to throw Mideast peacemaking into turmoil. The Islamic militants, who carried out dozens of suicide bombings and seek Israel’s destruction, have said they oppose peace talks and will not disarm. Israel and the United States have said they will not deal with Hamas. Earlier Thursday, top Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal told Abbas his group is ready for a political partnership. However, Fatah does not want to join a Hamas government, said Fatah legislator Saeb Erekat. “We will be a loyal opposition and rebuild the party,” Erekat said, after meeting with Abbas. Abbas will ask Hamas to form the next government, Erekat said. Officials in both parties said Hamas appeared to have captured a large majority of seats in Wednesday’s elections. The Central Election Commission said the vote count had not been completed and that it would make an official announcement Thursday evening. Abbas, who favors peace talks with Israel, has said he would resign if he could no longer pursue his agenda. Aides said he planned a major speech Thursday night. Israel and the United States have said they would not deal with a government led by Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings and which they consider a terrorist group. Acknowledging the Hamas victory, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and his Cabinet ministers resigned Thursday — hours before official voting results were released. “This is the choice of the people. It should be respected,” Qureia said. “If it’s true, then the president should ask Hamas to form a new government.” The Cabinet remained in office in a caretaker capacity. Under the law, Abbas must ask the largest party in the new parliament — presumably Hamas — to form the next government. Abbas was elected separately a year ago and remains president. Hamas capitalized on widespread discontent with Fatah’s corruption and ineffectiveness. Much of its campaign focused on internal Palestinian issues, while playing down the conflict with Israel. Israeli officials declined comment on the outcome, but senior security officials gathered Thursday to discuss the results. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert scheduled talks with senior officials later in the day. Olmert said Wednesday, before Hamas claimed victory, that Israel cannot trust a Palestinian leadership in which the Islamic group has a role. “Israel can’t accept a situation in which Hamas, in its present form as a terror group calling for the destruction of Israel, will be part of the Palestinian Authority without disarming,” Olmert said in a statement issued by his office. Reactions to the Hamas victory streamed in from around the world. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, according to news reports, called it a “very, very, very bad result.” But Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union’s external relations commissioner, said Hamas must be “ready to work for peace” with Israel if it joins the Palestinian government. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan congratulated the Palestinian people on the peaceful elections, which he views as an important step toward a Palestinian state. President Bush told The Wall Street Journal in an interview Wednesday the United States will not deal with Hamas until it renounces its position calling for the destruction of Israel. Hamas said before the election it does not want to govern alone, and would prefer to bring Fatah into a coalition. Hamas officials said the group would declare its intentions after official results are announced. Hamas’ exiled supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, called Abbas from Syria to discuss the results. “He stressed Hamas insists on a partnership with all the Palestinian factions, especially our brothers in Fatah,” Hamas said on its Web site. Before the election, Hamas had suggested it would be content as a junior partner in the next government, thus avoiding a decision on its relationship with Israel. Throughout the campaign, leaders sent mixed signals, hinting they could be open to some sort of accommodation with Israel. Its apparent victory will now force it to take a clearer position on key issues, including whether to abandon its violent ideology. Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas candidate who won election in the northern Gaza Strip, sent mixed signals about the group’s plans. He said peace talks and recognition of Israel are “not on our agenda” but the group is ready for a partnership — presumably with Abbas. Fatah’s official position wasn’t immediately clear. Officials appeared to be in shock, turning off their phones and avoiding reporters. There was no reaction from Abbas. One defeated Fatah candidate, Nabil Amr, said he did not expect his party to accept a junior position in a Hamas-led government. “I don’t think Fatah can participate in a lower position,” said Amr. TITLE: Cheney, Rumsfel Could Testify in EU Probe AUTHOR: By Constant Brand PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: BRUSSELS — A European Parliament investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons could ask Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to testify, although it has no legal power to subpoena them, a member of the panel said Thursday. “Very senior people” would be asked to answer the allegations of human rights violations on EU territory, said Sarah Ludford, vice president of an investigation into the alleged prisons being conducted by the parliament. “I don’t see why we should not invite Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney,” Ludford said. “I’m sure they would be very welcome and they would be heard with great interest, or [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice perhaps, why not?” Ludford, a British Liberal Democrat party member, acknowledged that the parliament had no legal power to subpoena them. “I would not be over optimistic, but I don’t think it’s completely off the planet to think that they might come to see us,” she said. The parliament committee held its first meeting Thursday, electing Portuguese Conservative Carlos Coelho as its president. “I hope that we will be inviting very senior people from governments, from non-governmental organizations and people who have knowledge of the intelligence community,” Ludford said. “If they are seen not to cooperate then I think we can draw conclusions.” The 732-member EU legislature agreed two weeks ago to launch its own investigation. Allegations the CIA hid and interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe were first reported Nov. 2 in The Washington Post. Human Rights Watch has said it has circumstantial evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania. Both countries have denied any involvement. Secret prisons on European territory and extraordinary rendition — the practice of transporting criminals or terror suspects to countries where harsh interrogation methods are permitted — would breach human rights treaties which all EU countries signed up to. The work of the 46-member committee is the first inquiry conducted by the EU. Several EU countries have launched their own investigations, as has the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights watchdog. The EU parliament committee was given a mandate to find out whether the CIA or other U.S. agencies or other countries carried out abductions, extraordinary rendition, detention at secret sites, and torture of prisoners in EU countries or have used EU countries to transfer prisoners. “It’s high time we start the investigation,” said German Socialist Wolfgang Kriessl-Doerfler. “I assume that all governments have an interest to cooperate with us, to clear up the questions ... no secret service of the world may commit on European soil human right violations.” Coelho refused to be drawn on specific names he would favor, but said the committee as a whole would decide who to ask to attend the meetings, after which a report will be drafted and presented to EU governments. The committee’s work is to last for four months, he said. “We will be looking at these events which ostensibly were conducted by the CIA or other secret police forces on our territory,” Coelho told the committee. “There may be citizens who may have been victims ... this is a very sensitive issue,” He said he hoped the investigation would lead to further prove the existence of the secret prisons and find out if any of the 25 EU governments were involved. A preliminary report by the Council of Europe, drafted by Swiss Sen. Dick Marty, accused European governments of turning a blind eye to breaches of human rights. TITLE: Super Mario Hangs Up His Skates For the Last Time AUTHOR: By Alan Robinson PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: PITTSBURGH — Mario Lemieux made a career out of comebacks — from cancer and a heart problem, agonizing back pain, a rare bone infection, a self-imposed one-season layoff and, five years ago, from the boredom of retirement. Finally, he found something that prevented him from returning to the Pittsburgh Penguins yet one more time: A heart that still loves to play the game, but is not physically well enough to do so. Lemieux, arguably the most talented player in NHL history if not the most accomplished or highest-scoring, retired Tuesday for the second time from a sport he played as well as any. Even if his own body wouldn’t let him play nearly as much or as well as he wanted. His Hall of Fame talent eroded by an irregular heartbeat that doctors have been unable to fully control and may need corrective surgery, Lemieux said Tuesday it is time to join an ever-growing list of stars who have retired this season: Mark Messier, Ron Francis, Scott Stevens, Ziggy Palffy and Al MacInnis. “I have two main reasons for retiring,” Lemieux said, occasionally wiping tears from his eyes as his family and numerous Penguins players did likewise in a packed interview room. “The first is I can no longer play at a level I was accustomed to in the past. That has been very, very frustrating to me throughout this past year. “The second one is realizing my health, along with my family, is the most important thing in the world.” The 40-year-old Penguins owner-player learned in early December he has atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can cause his pulse to flutter wildly and is being treated with medication. He returned Dec. 16 against Buffalo, but the problem flared up again in the third period and he hasn’t played since. Lemieux, the NHL’s seventh-leading career scorer with 1,723 points, practiced the last several weeks with the intent of playing again. But several repeat episodes of racing heartbeats convinced him it’s time to leave at a time when new stars such as Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin are transforming the NHL into a faster, younger man’s game. “If I could play this game at a decent level, I’d come back and play,” said Lemieux, whose latest bout with a fast pulse came only Monday night. “This is really a new NHL and it’s built on speed and young guys.” Still, Lemieux was hardly an embarrassment on the ice this season — to the contrary. He had seven goals and 15 assists in 26 games, a nearly point-per-game pace that would have been among the best in the league in 2003-04. He also had six multiple-point games, including a five-point game Oct. 27 against Atlanta. But that wasn’t good enough for Lemieux, who lifted what was one of pro sports’ worst franchises in the mid-1980s to Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992 and won six scoring titles and three MVP awards. Lemieux also was the first major pro sports star to buy the team for which he played, assembling a group that bought the team in federal bankruptcy court in 1999. He insisted the stress he’s under as an owner — the franchise is up for sale during a terrible season and may relocate without a new arena — did not affect his decision to retire as a player. “It’s been a big part of this year,” Lemieux said of his heart condition. “Even to this day, I am not feeling 100 percent.” Lemieux’s final farewell as a player follows long after a one-year layoff in 1994-95, the season after he was successfully treated for cancer of the lymph nodes, and a 44-month retirement from April 1997 to December 2000. Then, a year after he and his investors purchased the team in federal bankruptcy court partly to protect the millions of dollars owed him by the franchise, Lemieux stunned the NHL by coming out of retirement. He played exceptionally well after returning at age 35, getting 35 goals and 76 points in 43 games and leading the Penguins to the Eastern Conference final in their last playoff appearance. However, injuries caught up to him again, and he was limited to 24 games in 2001-02 by a hip injury — though he did captain Canada to an Olympic gold medal — and 10 games in 2003-04 by another hip problem. When he returned last fall following the labor standoff that shut down the 2004-05 season, the 13-time All-Star game choice felt a little slow and out of step for the first time in his career. “I’m sorry I didn’t feel any better or play any better, but that’s what happens at the end of careers,” he said. Lemieux’s retirement is certain to rekindle this decades-old debate: Was Wayne Gretzky or Lemieux better? Lemieux had fewer goals than Gretzky (690 to 894) and fewer assists (1,033 to 1,963) but played nearly 600 fewer games than The Great One. Gretzky’s 1.92 points per game pace is slightly better than Lemieux’s 1.88, but Lemieux played for years with less talent around him than Gretzky enjoyed. Also, severe back pain that routinely left Lemieux unable to lace up his skates meant he only twice came close to playing a full season past the age of 23. “How many more points would he have had if he stayed reasonably healthy?” Hall of Fame forward Bryan Trottier said. “Four hundred? Five hundred? Six hundred? We’ll never know. No disrespect to Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Mark Messier, Bobby Orr, Gilbert Perreault ... but Mario did things nobody else could ever do.” At least No. 66 has someone to pass the mantle to — Crosby, the Penguins’ rookie superstar in waiting and the team’s leading scorer. “It’s just tough to see him leave,” Crosby said of the man who turned comebacks into an art form. “He’s had such an impact on the game. He’s really got a passion for the game. I don’t think anyone ever should have to deal with so much.” TITLE: Unseeded Cypriot Into Aussie Open Final PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: MELBOURNE — Unseeded Marcos Baghdatis extended his remarkable run at the Australian Open, rallying Thursday to beat No. 4 David Nalbandian 3-6 5-7 6-3 6-4 6-4 and reach the final. With the crowd screaming support, the 54th-ranked Baghdatis guaranteed that he will more than double his career winnings. He will play either top-seeded Roger Federer or No. 21 Nicolas Kiefer in Sunday’s final. Baghdatis, a former world junior champion from Cyprus, was serving for the match at 15-15 when rain began pouring down, forcing organizers to close the roof on Rod Laver Arena. After workers toweled off the surface, the 20-year-old Baghdatis missed his first match point on a backhand that was ruled long. Nalbandian hit a forehand into the net to set up a second chance, and Baghdatis finished it off with his 15th ace, dropping to his knees and bowing his head. “Just amazing,” said Baghdatis, who hadn’t made it past the fourth round of his first five Grand Slam events. “I have to wake up. “Everything was going in. I was just in my own world I think.” He won 17 of the last 21 points. The stadium was awash in blue-and-white — looking more like Greece’s national day than Australia’s — in support of Baghdatis. The dozens of chanting fans who showed up for every one of his matches had plenty of company this time in a city with a large Greek population. Baghdatis broke Nalbandian, the reigning Masters Cup champion and 2002 Wimbledon runner-up, early in the first set before the Argentine started ripping winners from both sides. Nalbandian jumped ahead by a set and 5-1 in the second before Baghdatis started rallying. The crowd erupted in thunderous cheers as he tied it at 5-5. He was serving at 15-40 in the next game when holiday fireworks started thundering nearby. The startled Baghdatis hit a forehand crosscourt winner before twisting his ankle while losing the next point and the game. Baghdatis bounced up quickly. Nalbandian held serve to take the set, but Baghdatis continued to claw back, seemingly oblivious to the pressure, soccer kicking a ball eight times at one point. He survived an early break to take the third set and broke Nalbandian for the only time that he needed in the fourth, holding serve the rest of the way. Never-say-die Baghdatis, with his infectious smile and quirky service routine of using his racket to bounce the ball once between his legs each time, rallied twice from service breaks in the fifth set. The umpire had to repeatedly ask the crowd for quiet. Serving at 4-4, Nalbandian double-faulted, then committed three straight errors to give Baghdatis his eighth service break. Baghdatis held serve for the match. Tournament bad boy Kiefer was planning to keep his emotions bubbling just below the surface when he was due to meet Federer in the semi-final of the Australian Open late Friday. Kiefer, playing in his first grand slam semi final, has already been fined a total of $6000 in the tournament so far for a litany of offences including verbal abuse, unsportsmanlike conduct and audible and visible obscenities. But the fiery German said he has no plans to keep a cool head against Federer. “I need my emotions. When I don’t show any emotions, I am not happy,” Kiefer told Australian television. Kiefer, who is still taking pain killers after injuring an ankle at the Kooyong invitational tournament prior to the Australian Open, said his fighting qualities could make the difference against Federer. Federer, who has swept all before him over the past two years compiling a 155-10 record, has not looked as comfortable as expected in this year’s tournament. He needed five sets to beat Germany’s unseeded Tommy Haas, who beat him at Kooyong, in the fourth round before a tight four-set victory over world No.5 Nikolai Davydenko of Russia on Wednesday in the quarter-finals. “I told you, we all knew Haas was able to play well, especially here in Australia,” Federer had told reporters. “Davydenko is obviously a little bit under the radar because he doesn’t get maybe the attention he deserves. But I knew they’re both very good and tough players.” TITLE: Eriksson To Quit After World Cup PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: LONDON — Dutchman Guus Hiddink would be interested in succeeding Sven-Goran Eriksson as England coach, his agent said on Wednesday. Eriksson is to leave after the World Cup starting in June and Hiddink, who is in charge of Dutch club PSV Eindhoven and the Australia national team, is one of the leading foreign managers being tipped to replace the Swede. “There’s been no contact but he would definitely be interested in hearing from the [English] Football Association,” Hiddink’s agent Cees van Nieuwenhuizen told the BBC. “The whole football environment in England, from a professional level, can be considered as the best in the world — maybe not the way they play football every now and then — but the exposure of English football all over the world is a big thing.” Van Nieuwenhuizen said former Netherlands and South Korea coach Hiddink would not be deterred by the media intrusion that Eriksson blamed for his departure two years before the end of his contract. “He has been dealing with [the media] when he was with Real Madrid and Valencia in Spain. He has been dealing with it when he was in Turkey with Fenerbahce. “We don’t live too far away from England so we follow the media in England and we know what’s going on there, but that would definitely not be a reason for him to say ‘no’ beforehand.” TITLE: Mauresmo, Henin-Hardenne Meet in Melbourne Showdown AUTHOR: By Julian Linden PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: MELBOURNE — A heart-breaking injury to newly-crowned world number one Kim Clijsters on Thursday vaulted Amelie Mauresmo into the Australian Open final. She will face former champion Justine Henin-Hardenne in Saturday’s final after the Belgian beat fourth-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova 4-6 6-1 6-4. Clijsters, plagued by injuries for the last two years, fell heavily hurting her right foot and was forced to quit with Mauresmo leading 5-7 6-2 3-2. For the Belgian it was a slice of cruel luck, but one which gives Mauresmo a chance to win her first grand slam. “It’s very strange,” third seed Mauresmo said in a courtside interview. “We had such a great battle till she twisted the ankle. “It’s a little bit of an unfinished match. I hope she gets better and it’s not too bad but that’s the way it is.” The only previous time Mauresmo had reached a grand slam final she was easily beaten by Martina Hingis in Melbourne in 1999. On Saturday she will face an equally-tough challenge when she plays Henin-Hardenne, who earlier on Thursday fought back gamely to beat Russia’s Maria Sharapova 4-6 6-1 6-4. Henin-Hardenne, who was unable to defend her 2004 Melbourne title last year through injury, extended her winning streak in Australia to 20 matches. Clijsters has been plagued by injuries since she lost the 2004 Australian Open final to Henin-Hardenne but thought her luck had taken a turn for the better when she won last year’s U.S. Open. But she hurt her back and hip during a warm-up event in Sydney earlier this month and failed to regain full fitness during the championship. “I’m not the kind of player who is going to quit for nothing,” Clijsters told a news conference. “I really felt like I was ready from the first ball. I think I played a lot better, too. That’s what makes this even more frustrating.” French Open champion Henin-Hardenne fought back determinedly to overcome former Wimbledon champion Sharapova. After splitting the first two sets, the eighth seed served for the match in the ninth game of the decider. She faltered slightly before recovering to break the Russian in the next game and claim the match with a blistering backhand winner down the line.