SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times DATE: Issue #1165 (31), Friday, April 28, 2006 ************************************************************************** TITLE: President, Merkel Start Talks AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: TOMSK — President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened a Russia-German business forum in the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday, an event intended to cement trade ties between Russia’s oil-field economy and its biggest trade partner. BASF AG and OAO Gazprom, meanwhile, announced a share-swap deal that gives the German chemical giant a foothold in a western Siberian gas field and gives the Russian state-controlled gas monopoly a stake in BASF’s natural gas marketing and distribution in Europe. “As you can see, we are absolutely open for our partners in areas of extraction, just as they are open for cooperation with us in the area of sales and demand,” Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said at the forum. “European consumers can be fully confident that all demand for gas that Europe will have can be fully covered based on our extraction possibilities,” he said. The forum comes as Russia’s reputation as a reliable energy supplier for Europe has been shaken by a New Year’s gas dispute with Ukraine and recent blunt statements by top gas executives, Putin and other officials have indicated Moscow’s intention to seek out new markets for Russia’s coveted energy supplies. At the same time, however, Kremlin officials have sought to assure Germany — one of the largest European customers for Russian gas — and all of Europe, that Russia is committed to stable gas supplies. “The widening of long-term and equal cooperation between Russia and its international partners is one of the priorities of the economic policy of Russia,” Putin told the forum. “The stable improvement of the economic situation in our country opens up new possibilities for this.” At the opening of the forum, Merkel said she and Putin had discussed energy issues. “We have had links for over 40 years that have always been reliable,” Merkel said. “We intend to build on that.” A day earlier, Putin called for Russia to tap into new energy markets in Asia and accused other nations of trying to hem in Moscow, although he assured Europe that it could rely on its Russian gas contracts. The call followed similar recommendations from high-ranking officials at Gazprom and the state-controlled Transneft pipeline company that Russia should diversify its markets away from an over-reliance on Europe. The blunt warnings to Europe also followed moves by British regulators to tighten laws amid rumors that Gazprom was considering acquiring Britain’s biggest gas distributor. At the forum, Merkel raised the issue of foreign investors being allowed to invest in so-called strategic assets in Russia. Last year, a bid by Germany’s Siemens AG for engineering group Power Machines was rejected by Russian regulators on security grounds, despite the deal’s initial blessing by Putin. Among its defense contracts, Power Machines builds engines for nuclear submarines. Siemens ultimately acquired a minority stake in Power Machines. “Our goal is not to limit foreign access but to liberalize the process, to make it more transparent and regulated,” Putin told the forum. He also defended the idea that certain mineral reserves — oil, gas or coal, for example — need to remain under Russian government control. “We have some reserves that are similar in size to all of that in Canada,” he said. “Such reserves require special attention.” While Russian news agencies reported that a deal between Gazprom and German energy company E.On had been delayed “for technical reasons,” Gazprom and BASF did reach a deal on giving BASF subsidiary Wintershall a stake of 35 percent minus one share in the Yuzhno Russkoye gas field. TITLE: Putin Does an About-Face on Baikal Pipeline AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina and Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: TOMSK/ST.PETERSBURG — President Vladimir Putin abruptly shifted course Wednesday when he called for rerouting the proposed Far East oil pipeline away from Lake Baikal. His remarks stunned Semyon Vainshtok, the president of pipeline monopoly Transneft, who had just made the case for the safety of the planned route, which was to come within 800 meters of the lake. Environmentalists, equally stunned, were elated. Baikal contains 20 percent of the global resource of drinkable water. “The pipeline system we are talking about must go along the watershed, north of Lake Baikal’s watershed,” Putin said at a meeting with Siberian governors and Cabinet ministers in Tomsk ahead of the arrival of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “If there is the tiniest danger of polluting Baikal, then, taking into account future generations, we must do everything not simply to minimize this danger but to eliminate it,” Putin said. The pipeline, which would link oilfields in Eastern Siberia with the Pacific Ocean, is central to Russia’s plans to expand exports to China, Japan and South Korea. It would span more than 4,100 kilometers, cost more than $11.5 billion and have a shipping capacity of 80 million tons of crude per year. The plans to build what would be the world’s longest pipeline caused a wave of nationwide protests, even surpassing the massive 2000 campaign against the import of spent nuclear fuel. Since April 21, meetings and marches of protest against Transneft’s chosen route have been held in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, Angarsk, Ulan-Ude, Nizhny Novgorod, Severo-Baikalsk, Rostov, Kazan and Novosibirsk, with another event scheduled to take place in Tomsk on April 29. Last weekend, the St. Petersburg branch of Greenpeace organized a poll on the corner of Malaya Konyushennaya Ulitsa and Nevsky Prospekt, with the chance to vote for or against the construction of the pipeline. “The vote only lasted for an hour but it drew a lot of attention, with over 400 people taking part,” said Dmitry Artamonov, head of the local branch of the organization. “Only 17 voters supported the construction, with 391 people, an overwhelming majority, deciding against it. The result is very telling: people find it unthinkable to sacrifice the unique lake for the short-lived profit of the oil industry.” Another local meeting against the plan followed on Tuesday. The protesters gathered by the Lenin statue outside the Finland railway station. It was unclear what prompted Putin’s apparent change of heart. Seventy-three lawmakers of the State Duma had sent an appeal to the president asking him to reconsider. The document was signed mostly by members of “Rodina,” the Communist Party and independent parliamentarians. The Union of Right Forces, or SPS, had issued a statement on the topic, calling the chosen route “a glaring irresponsibility on the edge of insanity.” “In the future, drinkable water will become more precious than oil,” reads the statement. “The profits the construction may bring don’t match the high risks it would involve.” Peter Westin, MDM Bank’s chief economist, said the public would like Putin’s move, calling it “good political strategy.” Last July, Putin took aim at ecologists who, he said, were trying to derail a project with huge economic implications. “As soon as we start doing something, one of the arguments in the attacks against us is always environmental problems,” Putin said at the time. At Wednesday’s meeting, during a discussion of problems facing Siberia, Putin raised the issue of the Far East pipeline. After Vainshtok defended the route and Transneft’s ability to shield Baikal from any danger, Putin suggested hearing what the experts had to say. Leading geologist Nikolai Lavyorov, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, stood up. Pointing to a map of Baikal’s basin, he said that rerouting the pipeline at least 40 kilometers from the lake’s shoreline would ensure that if there were an accident, pollutants would head north, away from the lake. Then Putin suddenly stepped forward and, using a marker pen to indicate the spot on the map, declared: “The route will go to the north of the area pointed to by academician Lavyorov. Let’s consider it a done deal.” Vainshtok, who appeared in a state of shock, said he was taken aback by Putin’s decision but that “I am a soldier, and the president is the commander-in-chief. Orders are not discussed.” He added: “The position of the president is that even though we have a high level of technology, if there is the slightest chance of danger, then ecological safety must come first.” Vainshtok also said he could not immediately estimate how the route change would affect the project’s cost or length. Transneft vice president Sergei Grigoryev said the state enterprise would need up to 1 1/2 months to redesign the section of the pipeline that would run near Baikal. “It’s easy for those scientists to draw things on the map,” Grigoryev said. “We actually have to walk the entire route.” Grigoryev said the final path of the pipeline was unlikely to be any of the three originally mapped out by Transneft and government officials. “But, yes, we are to go beyond the watershed line,” Grigoryev said. “If the head of state says so, we will do it.” Environmentalists, meanwhile, could barely contain their glee. “It is an absolutely right and a long-awaited decision,” said Igor Chestin, head of WWF Russia, an environmental group. “And we should not forget that as a result there are no losers in this.” TITLE: Iran Must Stop Enrichment Immediately AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: TOMSK — The leaders of Russia and Germany urged Iran to fulfill its international nuclear obligations Thursday, a day before a UN Security Council deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium. Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that no one could make Tehran give up its nuclear technology, and he warned that the United States and its European allies will regret their decision if they “violate the rights of the Iranian nation.” “The Iranian nation has acquired nuclear fuel production technology. It didn’t get assistance from anybody and nobody can take it back,” Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in western Iran. President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in the Siberian city of Tomsk that the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program could be resolved only through diplomacy. “It’s still too early to run ahead and say what decision we might take together,” Putin said. “The main thing is ... that whatever decision is taken is a consensus decision.” Both leaders said Iran must adhere to its international obligations but did not elaborate. The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will present a report Friday on Iran’s implementation of the Security Council demand. Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for nuclear power or material for nuclear warheads. If Iran does not comply, the Security Council is likely to consider punitive measures against the Islamic republic. Russia and China, however, have been reluctant to endorse sanctions. Iran has thus far rejected the demand and issued its toughest warning on the issue Tuesday. Nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said that if the Security Council imposes sanctions, Iran would stop cooperating with the IAEA and conceal its nuclear activities. “Our position is clear and well known. We are for the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” Putin said. “But we believe that Iran must have an opportunity to develop modern technologies and peaceful nuclear energy.” Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the IAEA report should not be seen as an ultimatum for Tehran. “The procedure for referring and examining the report is not an ultimatum,” Lavrov said. “It has a working character and therefore, there is no time limit.” Merkel also called for a diplomatic resolution. “We are very interested for the world community, as it has been from the start, to work together and show Iran that we want to work by diplomatic methods,” she said. “But it is necessary for Iran to keep to the agreements that it has committed itself to.” “We are not talking about banning Iran from using nuclear energy for civilian goals, but it must keep to its obligations and agreements,” Merkel added. China’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, stressed the need for restraint as the crisis reached a crucial stage. “We hope the relevant parties can keep calm and exercise restraint so as to avoid moves that would further escalate the situation,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang. Qin said the problem can still be “resolved through dialogue and diplomatic means, which is the correct choice for all parties concerned.” TITLE: Iran Must Stop Enrichment Immediately AUTHOR: By Alex Nicholson PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: TOMSK — The leaders of Russia and Germany urged Iran to fulfill its international nuclear obligations Thursday, a day before a UN Security Council deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium. Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that no one could make Tehran give up its nuclear technology, and he warned that the United States and its European allies will regret their decision if they “violate the rights of the Iranian nation.” “The Iranian nation has acquired nuclear fuel production technology. It didn’t get assistance from anybody and nobody can take it back,” Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in western Iran. President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in the Siberian city of Tomsk that the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program could be resolved only through diplomacy. “It’s still too early to run ahead and say what decision we might take together,” Putin said. “The main thing is ... that whatever decision is taken is a consensus decision.” Both leaders said Iran must adhere to its international obligations but did not elaborate. The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will present a report Friday on Iran’s implementation of the Security Council demand. Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for nuclear power or material for nuclear warheads. If Iran does not comply, the Security Council is likely to consider punitive measures against the Islamic republic. Russia and China, however, have been reluctant to endorse sanctions. Iran has thus far rejected the demand and issued its toughest warning on the issue Tuesday. Nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said that if the Security Council imposes sanctions, Iran would stop cooperating with the IAEA and conceal its nuclear activities. “Our position is clear and well known. We are for the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” Putin said. “But we believe that Iran must have an opportunity to develop modern technologies and peaceful nuclear energy.” Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the IAEA report should not be seen as an ultimatum for Tehran. “The procedure for referring and examining the report is not an ultimatum,” Lavrov said. “It has a working character and therefore, there is no time limit.” Merkel also called for a diplomatic resolution. “We are very interested for the world community, as it has been from the start, to work together and show Iran that we want to work by diplomatic methods,” she said. “But it is necessary for Iran to keep to the agreements that it has committed itself to.” “We are not talking about banning Iran from using nuclear energy for civilian goals, but it must keep to its obligations and agreements,” Merkel added. China’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, stressed the need for restraint as the crisis reached a crucial stage. “We hope the relevant parties can keep calm and exercise restraint so as to avoid moves that would further escalate the situation,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang. Qin said the problem can still be “resolved through dialogue and diplomatic means, which is the correct choice for all parties concerned.” TITLE: State Duma’s 100th Birthday Attracts Lawmakers to City AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: State Duma legislators got a rude awakening Thursday as they approached the Tavrichesky palace to celebrate the 100th anniversary of parliamentarism in Russia. Gathered around the palace was a group of national bolshevik protestors holding posters that read “This Duma is a shame for Russia”, and “The worst parliament in the history of Russia”, and calling for the resignation of Russia’s leaders. Between 1906 and 1917 the Tavrichesky palace housed the first four sessions of Russia’s Duma. As a political institution the Russian Duma resumed its activities in 1993, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent adoption of the new Russian Constitution. This week members of the current Duma made a collective pilgrimage to the alma mater of the country’s parliamentary tradition. A group of national bolsheviks gathered on the roof of a nearby building holding posters and yelling out slogans. Four activists, who chained themselves to the fence that surrounds the Tavrichesky palace, were detained and taken to the nearest police station. During the jubilee session on Thursday, the Duma passed a statement addressing the parliaments and peoples of the world. The document outlined the history of the parliamentarian movement in Russia and its changing role in the political process. “Having acknowledged the immense role played by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Interparliamentary Assembly of CIS countries and democratic institutions ensuring the observance of human rights, the State Duma finds it necessary to stress the need for diversity, as well as for intolerance towards double standards in international politics,” the statement said. The incident involving the national bolsheviks was not the only scandal linked to the festivities. When Nino Burjadadze, the speaker of Georgia’s parliament, told the audience that with regret she was unable to present the lawmakers with good Georgian wine — the country’s most profitable export — because of the recent embargo, her words were met with whistling. Before the session started, Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov and chairman of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov attended the unveiling of a commemorative plaque to mark the anniversary. “It was here in the Tavrichesky palace that Russia’s first Duma began its work 100 years ago, striving to solve the crucial issues of the day related to the country’s development,” Gryzlov said. “Today, we are restoring historical justice.” Earlier this week, at a round-table devoted to the history of the Russian parliament, Vadim Tyulpanov, the speaker of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, said that vague laws, which leave too much room for interpretation and abuse, are among Russia’s most ailing and long-standing problems. “Laws are often left to the interpretation of the local executive, who adapt them to its needs,” Tyulpanov said. The celebrations were marred by the sudden death of Valery Kuzin, a representative of Ust-Ordynsky district in Buryatia and a member of the United Russia faction. Kuzin’s body, with no sign of physical abuse, was found in his room at the Pribaltiiskaya hotel at around 11 a.m. on Thursday. TITLE: Russia Bans Import of Poultry AUTHOR: By Judith Ingram PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia has banned all imports of poultry and poultry products in connection with violations of veterinary regulations, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday. The ministry said it had withdrawn all permission for imports this year as of Thursday, and that it would institute a simplified procedure for issuing such permission. It cited instances of products off-loaded without import permission; discrepancies between shipments and accompanying documents; the discovery of fake products; failure to observe regulations on storing different kinds of raw meat in a single enterprise; and attempts to import shipments with counterfeit documents from the ministry’s inspector’s office. It did not mention which countries were involved in the alleged violations. It was unclear how long the ban would be in effect, but it could have a big impact on foreign poultry suppliers, which account for 47 percent of the Russian market, according to 2004 figures from the U.S. Egg and Poultry Council. Russia is the largest market for U.S. poultry, which provides 73 percent of all imports or some 34 percent of all poultry consumed here. TITLE: Russia Mourns Victims Of Chernobyl Disaster AUTHOR: By Oksana Yablokova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — Thousands across the nation marked the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe Wednesday with rallies and memorial services. In Moscow, about 500 relatives and friends of firefighters who died after putting out the fire at the reactor gathered at the Mitinskoye Cemetery to pay tribute to their loved ones, who had been buried in sealed coffins to prevent radiation from spreading into the soil. Dozens of Chernobyl liquidators also attended. The graves of each of the 28 firefighters at the cemetery — who died in the first days and weeks after the disaster and had no idea they were being exposed to excessive levels of radiation — were blanketed with flowers and wreaths. “Here lie all those people who were the first to participate in the cleanup,” Ivan Kovalenko, an engineer who took part in the effort, said, RIA-Novosti reported. “These are firefighters and all others ... who were there. They were told that it was just an ordinary fire, and they did not know how huge the radiation there was.” Relatives and friends brought cakes and painted eggs to the graves on the occasion of Orthodox Easter, which was Sunday. The memorial culminated with bells ringing in a nearby chapel built especially for the Chernobyl victims. For the widows of the firefighters, the trip to the cemetery Wednesday was the same one they take every year. Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin talked to his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yushchenko, by telephone Wednesday. The two leaders asked one another to extend their gratitude and wishes of good health for those liquidators living in Russia and Ukraine, said a statement posted on the Kremlin web site. Russia is home to 180,000 liquidators, many of whom are afflicted by such ailments as cancer, heart disease, organ failure and other problems. Earlier in the day, police broke up an unsanctioned rally of Greenpeace environmentalists who had chained themselves to the gate around St. Basil’s Cathedral. The activists were protesting Russia’s plans to build 40 nuclear reactors by 2030. Wearing yellow T-shirts that read “No to Chernobyl!” and “No more Chernobyls!” the young men and women remained on Red Square until police and Federal Guard Service officers cut the chains of the handcuffs and dragged the protesters to a nearby police station. Besides the Greenpeace activists, police also detained a group of journalists and cameramen, saying they were taking photographs and video images without permission from the Federal Guard Service. All were later released. Memorial services were also held in other cities. In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, Krasnoyarsk sent 800 men to mop up the remains of reactor No. 4. On Wednesday, residents of the west Siberian city commemorated the 200 who have already died. In St. Petersburg, a group of five Chernobyl veterans suspended their hunger strike to commemorate the anniversary, Interfax reported. They had gone on a hunger strike April 5 demanding that their monthly payments be adjusted to keep up with inflation. TITLE: Shanghai Group to Begin Holding War Games AUTHOR: By Charles Hutzler PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: BEIJING — Defense ministers from China, Russia and four Central Asian nations agreed to hold joint anti-terrorism drills next year as they gathered Wednesday to discuss regional security, including the threat from Islamic militancy. Armed forces from the six nations will stage the military exercise in Russian territory, in the Volga-Urals Military District, which borders Kazakhstan, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters after the meeting. Air forces and precision-guided weapons would likely be featured, he said. The joint exercise would be the largest staged by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The group, which was formally established five years ago, was founded to build confidence among the member nations and grapple with militant Islamic groups. China and Russia, which dominate the grouping, have used it to further their economic and political priorities in Central Asia, especially in countering the presence of U.S. bases there. Ivanov and the defense minister of Kyrgyzstan, in separate comments to reporters, said that the group’s military cooperation was aimed at fighting terrorism and other emerging, non-traditional threats, not the United States. “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not a military alliance,” Ivanov said. According to its charter, he said, the group “is entitled to use collective force to deal with threats and challenges, especially the new threats and challenges posed by terrorist forces in large numbers and equipped with advanced weapons and new technology.” Military cooperation within the group escalated following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, with the launching of small-scale war games and the signing of an anti-terror convention among the members. TITLE: City Welcomes 2 Waves of Fun AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: Last week saw the opening of two water-related attractions in St. Petersburg. As well as being unique to the region, it is hoped the projects will attract more tourists to the city. On Tuesday the Waterville aquapark opened at the Pribaltiiskaya hotel on Vassiliyevsky Island. The city’s first aqua-park occupies an area of 14,000 square meters, of which water makes up 1,300. Waterville director Vladislav Smirnov said that the company invested about $32 million into the park’s construction, Interfax reported Tuesday. Smirnov expects over 1,000 people to visit the aquapark daily. A day ticket for adults will cost 700 rubles, for children — 490 rubles. Waterville will operate throughout the whole year. The air temperature will be around 30 degrees, the water temperature — 28 degrees. Waterville has six water slides and six pools, bars and restaurants, saunas, solariums, beauty salons, a fitness center, a sports shop and a children’s playroom. “The idea behind the aquapark comes from the fact that St. Petersburg is a city of summer tourism. As part of attracting locals and tourists during the winter we identified an new niche in the market,” said the general director of the Pribaltiiskaya hotel Andrei Yakunin. A local expert said that the aquapark would mainly attract Russian tourists from other regions. “Finnish aquaparks are very popular among Russian tourists who live in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast. But for people living in eastern parts of the country it is inconvenient to get there and relatively expensive. Now they will receive all this in Russia and at much cheaper rates,” said Nikita Savoyarov, head of tourism consultancy ET Consult and expert at the Russian Tourism Industry Union. It will become particularly popular if EU countries go through with their plans to increase the cost of visas from 35 euros to 60 euros from January next year, Savoyarov said. To attract tourists from the regions, the Pribaltiiskaya hotel could offer package tours including hotel accommodation, a visit to the aquapark and several city museums; it could also sell season tickets for multiple visits, Savoyarov suggested. As well as attracting tourists, the aquapark will provide work for entertainment companies and infrastructure operators, Savoyarov said. Earlier this month the chairman of Smolny’s Committee for Investment and Strategic projects, Maxim Sokolov, said that 3.5 million tourists are expected to visit St. Petersburg in 2006. Last year 2.96 million people came to the city. To increase the number of incoming tourists, local authorities will implement a “special information policy,” which includes the opening of representative offices in foreign countries, marketing campaigns, and the launching of direct air routes between St. Petersburg and other large cities, Sokolov said. This year three new hotels will start operating in the city. Over 20 new sites suitable for the location of hotels have been found. “By constructing new hotels we expect to increase the number of tourists by up to five million a year,” Sokolov said. Savoyarov said that, according to the World Travel Organization, the number of incoming tourists in St. Petersburg is growing at about seven percent a year, but the threat of terrorism, problems with infrastructure and transportation could mean the city gets less tourists than forecast. Another first for the city came on Wednesday with the opening of an oceanarium at Planeta Neptune shopping and entertainment center in the Admiralteisky district. The project was commissioned by the Rubin joint stock company — affiliated to the Rubin construction bureau — which specializes in the designing of submarines. The company invested $36 million into the project. Originally an idea of Igor Spassky, Rubin’s general constructor and chairman, the company has been working on the project for about four years. “Our complex is, obviously, one of the best in the world,” Spassky said at the opening ceremony Wednesday. Occupying 4,700 square meters and containing 1,000 tons of water, the oceanarium is divided into seven zones of various climate and landscape. It is the largest oceanarium in Russia and Eastern Europe. It will house around 5,000 fish of around 120 different species, including over 20 sharks. Next year the complex will open a penguinarium, importing the animals from South Africa and New Zealand. “All of the oceanarium’s fish are bought through leasing schemes, which allows us to economize on taxes. Besides, we are going to insure the fish,” Spassky said. TITLE: Nissan Confirms Plant Amid Labor Shortages AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: The drawn out saga of St. Petersburg’s next carmaker is finally coming to a conclusion with the announcement this week by Nissan that it will invest $200 million in the construction of a plant in the city. Commenting on the Japanese carmaker’s decision, city governor Valentina Matviyenko said that City Hall was in a position to offer favorable terms. “Negotiations with Nissan have been going on every day for the last eight months. We managed to offer better terms than other regions. We also committed ourselves to providing the infrastructure they need,” Interfax quoted Matviyenko as saying Tuesday. Maxim Sokolov, chairman of the Committee for Investment and Strategic projects, estimated that City Hall would spend about $18.25 million on infrastructural improvements. The plant will start operating by 2009 in the Vyborgsky district of St. Petersburg, nine kilometers from Gorskaya railway station. “About 150 hectares of the 200 hectares available will be offered to Nissan. The other 50 hectares have been designated for logistical purposes,” Interfax cited Sokolov as saying. The nature of the site allows the production facilities of affiliated firms to be located near the plant, he added. According to local authorities, the city will benefit from increased revenue from taxation, the creation of new jobs and orders for local companies, including manufacturers of components. However, at the moment the exact benefits are difficult to estimate. “The decision concerning the use of local construction companies to build the plant, as well as what share of orders should be reserved for local companies, completely depends on City Hall,” said Lev Kaplan, vice president of the St. Petersburg Union of Construction Companies. “But the chance that any St. Petersburg company will become a general contractor is very small. Our companies, even large ones, do not have world brands, and participation in tenders demands huge bank guarantees, which very few firms are in a position to attain,” he said. At the moment the Union is preparing a list of reliable construction companies and vendors so City Hall can promote local firms as counteragents to foreign investors. Kaplan proposed the investment contract should include the share of components to be ordered from Russian producers and the particular firms that would participate in planning and construction. According to the announcement, the plant will produce 50,000 cars annually, focusing on several popular models. Last year Nissan sold 46,485 cars in Russia. The most popular Nissan models in Russia are Almera, Primera and the off-road X-Trail brand. The plant will employ 750 people. A recruitment expert said that the arrival of Nissan would have an important effect on the local labor market, creating difficulties and increasing competition for specialists. “Demand for production workers, especially with experience in the car industry, already considerably exceeds supply,” said Oksana Pochtivaya, Operations Manager at ANCOR. The city’s Toyota plant recently encountered such problems. With the exception of support staff (secretaries and accountants), Nissan could face problems attracting all levels of production worker, Pochtivaya said. Increasing salaries and poaching specialists is a possible solution, she said. Pochtivaya suggested inviting specialists from other regions and providing them with places to live as one of the possible solutions. “Key figures could be poached. As for other types of employee, companies might start hiring young graduates, educating them and keeping them on board with various motivational factors,” Pochtivaya said. As for the financial side of the project, at the moment Nissan is negotiating with the ministry for economic development and trade to get “industrial assembly” status, which would allow tax concessions. The respective agreement could be signed by mid-June. “Industrial assembly status would not affect the tax Nissan contributes to the city budget. According to the Russian government decree N 166, industrial assembly plants get zero level custom fees across several product categories,” said Andrei Goltsblat, managing partner at Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners. With such a level of investment, Nissan could also get “strategic investor” status, which allows profit tax concessions and property tax concessions, Goltsblat said. TITLE: IN BRIEF TEXT: Shipbuilding Profit ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — One of Russia’s largest shipbuilding companies, Severnaya Verf (Northern Shipyard), reported a $9.4 million profit for 2005, Interfax reported Tuesday. The completion of a 956EM torpedo-boat ordered by the Chinese navy in December contributed significantly to this result, Interfax cited Severnaya Verf director for economics and finance Sergei Yurchuk, as saying. Fruits of Labor ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — One of Russia’s largest importers of fruit, Sunway Group, plans to invest $98.65 million into the development of its business during the period from 2006 to 2008, the company said Tuesday in a statement. The plans include the reconstruction of seven logistic terminals (in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, Samara and Nizhny Novgorod), the acquisition of plantations in Ecuador and Morocco, and the purchase of refrigerators and trucks. In 2006 Sunway will complete a $15 million logistics terminal in St. Petersburg. TITLE: Ukraine’s Gas Traders Revealed AUTHOR: By Stephen Boykewich PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom’s Izvestia newspaper announced with a flourish Wednesday that two Ukrainian businessmen, Dmytro Firtash and Ivan Fursin, were the beneficiaries behind the mysterious other half of RosUkrEnergo. Citing what it said were excerpts of a PricewaterhouseCoopers audit of the secretive gas trader, the newspaper named the men in a front-page article written in a sarcastic, anti-American tone that attempted to link them to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. The audit named Firtash and Fursin as the owners of Centragas, a company that owns the 50 percent of RosUkrEnergo not owned by Gazprom. Centragas is held by Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank for beneficiaries who had refused to be named. Centragas confirmed Izvestia’s report in a statement late Wednesday, saying Firtash owned a 90 percent stake in Centragas, and Fursin a 10 percent stake. Firtash is director of the Cyprus-based investment company Highrock Holdings, as well as board chairman of Estonian fertilizer factory Nitrofert, according to anti-corruption watchdog Global Witness. Fursin owns an Odessa bank and a movie theater, and is also president of a branch of Highrock Holdings, according to Izvestia. Izvestia said Highrock was owned by Semyon Mogilevich, a Ukrainian-born businessman wanted by the FBI and reputed to be a major figure in organized crime. The revelation came after Gazprom had for months redirected inquiries about RosUkrEnergo’s ownership to Ukrainian officials. Yet the article appeared to raise far more questions than it answered — in particular, about the timing and motives behind its publication. Written under the name “Vladimir Berezhnoi,” the article attacked the U.S. Justice Department, which was reported last week to be investigating RosUkrEnergo’s then-unknown beneficiaries. “The internal problems of their own country, evidently, have long since been resolved (the only thing left is to execute the terrorist Moussaoui), and thus they have the time and desire to meddle in other people’s affairs,” the Izvestia article said. Several staff members at Izvestia contacted by telephone Wednesday identified Berezhnoi as a freelance writer. But a source at Izvestia said on condition of anonymity that Berezhnoi did not exist, and that the article had been written by an Izvestia staff member under a pseudonym after a Gazprom representative showed him the PwC audit. A search of Izvestia’s archives revealed no other articles published under the name Vladimir Berezhnoi, and a Russian-language Internet search revealed no articles in other publications written by a journalist of that name. Galina Zhukova, a member of Izvestia’s editorial staff, asked that questions for Berezhnoi be submitted to her by e-mail, and said that Berezhnoi would reply the same way if he chose to respond. Questions submitted by e-mail had not been answered by late Wednesday evening. Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov confirmed that Gazprom had possession of the PwC audit of RosUkrEnergo, though said he could not comment on how Izvestia had seen it. He also said the revelation of Centragas’ beneficiaries in no way changed Gazprom’s position. “We have already said that our partner in the project is Raiffeisen, and that all other questions should be directed to the Ukrainian side,” Kupriyanov said. “As for our part, we’ve always been open and transparent.” A PwC spokeswoman confirmed that the company had audited RosUkrEnergo but could not provide details. Earlier this week, Raiffeisen said it would likely withdraw from the arrangement under which it holds 50 percent in RosUkrEnergo once the beneficiaries came forward, according to a report published Tuesday on the web site of the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. “I am assuming Raiffeisen will withdraw once the true owners have introduced themselves in public,” Herbert Stepic, head of Raiffeisen International, said Monday. There has been much speculation about Firtash’s possible connection to RosUkrEnergo. A report published this week by Global Witness, which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for its work tracking corruption in the natural resources sector, noted that Firtash had registered and was closely associated with Eural Trans Gas, another secretive gas trader that served as the immediate predecessor to RosUkrEnergo. “It obviously clarifies who these people are,” Tom Mayne, a researcher at Global Witness, said by telephone from London. “What we still don’t understand is what these men bring to the table.” Mayne also said the revelation would likely increase pressure on Yushchenko to explain why RosUkrEnergo had been given exclusive rights as Ukraine’s gas trader. Many observers have questioned why the trader was being employed at all, rather than having Gazprom sell gas directly to Ukrainian gas monopoly Naftogaz Ukrainy. The Jan. 4 deal that ended the gas standoff between Russia and Ukraine has been a major bone of contention between Yushchenko, who has denied any knowledge of who is behind RosUkrEnergo, and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, his erstwhile Orange Revolution ally. Tymoshenko has accused Yushchenko of concealing his knowledge of RosUkrEnergo’s beneficiaries, while Yushchenko has fired back that critics of the trader only want it replaced with their own favored company. Yushchenko’s spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday. The Ukrainian government will make official decisions regarding the gas trader only after the PwC audit is officially published, Fuel and Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov said Wednesday, Interfax reported. “We have signed contracts, we are satisfied with the price. ... Ukraine will work and consume gas, just as agreed,” Plachkov said. Izvestia sought to stress purported links between Firtash and the Ukrainian president, saying Firtash was friends with former presidential aide Alexander Tretyakov. It also related Ukrainian media reports that Firtash had endeared himself to the president by flying Yushchenko’s American relatives to Kiev for his inauguration. But Ukrainian political commentator Boris Pogrebinsky said the links were tenuous. Firtash’s arranging the flight is “the only information known to me from any source making some connection” between the two, Pogrebinsky said. Pogrebinsky also said that while Tymoshenko might seek to use the information as a way to press her case to regain the prime minister’s job, there would be little public reaction in Ukraine — even if Yushchenko were publicly linked to Firtash and Fursin. “But the public doesn’t react harshly to indications of corruption. This is far too complicated a matter for the general public,” Pogrebinsky said. TITLE: Highland Gold Cuts AUTHOR: By Yuriy Humber PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: LONDON — Highland Gold said Wednesday that it would cut close to 10 percent of its work force of 3,600 to reduce costs after posting a loss last year. The company posted a loss of $7.17 million in 2005, hit by an increase in costs of close to 50 percent and a drop in production at its main mine in Khabarovsk. The British-listed company recorded a net profit of $5 million in 2004. The company also said chief financial officer Denis Alexandrov would step down with effect from May 1. “2005 was a difficult year for us, especially in the first half,” Ivan Koulakov, corporate director and shareholder, said in a conference call Wednesday. Highland’s results follow a fall in profit Monday at rival gold-mining company Peter Hambro, which also blamed the decline on high energy and equipment costs. Highland’s job cuts come as its main unit, Mnogovershinnoye, in Khabarovsk, suffered a drop in production of almost one-quarter in the first half of 2005. At its second mine in the Chita region, Darsun, technical problems delayed the start of production until the fall. The company started restructuring its business last summer, when it brought in several foreign executives to strengthen the company’s exploration and financial teams, Koulakov said. For 2006, the company said it expected better results as gold trades close to 25-year highs. “The results for 2006 will probably correlate with the growing price for gold,” Henry Horne, Highland’s recently appointed CEO, said Wednesday. The company may augment production to as much as 215,000 ounces this year. Production fell last year by almost 20 percent to 160,2 ounces. But Vladimir Katunin, a metals analyst with Aton, said the planned increase in production this year would bring Highland back only to 2004 production levels. “The company’s development has been stunted by a bad 2005, and investor attractiveness may have taken a knock,” he said. In addition to its Khabarovsk and Chita mines, Highland Gold also has a 50-50 Taseyevskoye production joint venture in Chita with Canada’s Barrick Gold. Barrick owns 20 percent of the firm, with the Fleming family holding a further 19.5 percent. Nearly half of Highland’s shares trade publicly in London, with company management owning the remainder. TITLE: GM-AvtoVAZ Moves a Step Closer to Split AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: MOSCOW — General Motors’ joint venture with AvtoVAZ appears to be on the verge of collapse, as the Russian state-controlled carmaker has asked GM to either sell its 41.5 percent stake in the venture or buy out AvtoVAZ’s stake, Vedomosti reported Wednesday. A divorce would end Russia’s first post-Soviet international car project, in which GM and AvtoVAZ each hold 41.5 percent and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development holds the remaining 17 percent. A spokesman for AvtoVAZ board chairman Vladimir Artyakov confirmed Wednesday that the parties had been in talks. “At present, negotiations are under way on how to optimize future activities,” Ivan Skrylnik said by telephone Wednesday. “The parties are exchanging their views on the future.” He declined to comment further, saying the sides had agreed not to disclose the nature of the talks. Vladimir Yakushenko, a spokesman for AvtoVAZ general director Igor Yesipovsky, who also chairs the board of the GM-AvtoVAZ venture, said by telephone from Tolyatti that he did not know of any concrete proposals. Marc Kempe, a spokesman for GM Europe, declined to comment on the newspaper report, saying GM did not “publicly speculate” on the future of its joint venture. It was only “natural” that after several years of cooperation, the carmakers might be discussing the venture’s future, he said. “There are lots of good reasons to continue as it is,” Kempe said. A spokesperson at GM’s Russia office declined to comment. Warren Browne, head of GM in Russia and the CIS, was out of the country Wednesday. Richard Wallis, spokesman for the EBRD in Russia, also declined comment Wednesday. In its report, Vedomosti cited a source close to “the management of a Russian concern” as saying that AvtoVAZ had asked GM in early April to end their partnership. GM was the first Western carmaker to come to Russia after the Soviet collapse, and its partnership with AvtoVAZ was viewed as a pioneering effort to revive the country’s car industry. GM CEO Rick Wagoner traveled to Russia in 2001 to ink the $330 million deal with then-AvtoVAZ head Vladimir Kadannikov and EBRD first vice president Charles Frank. In December, Russian arms trader Rosoboronexport took control of AvtoVAZ and announced it was considering pulling out of the venture, saying AvtoVAZ was losing money on it. AvtoVAZ supplies car parts to the joint venture that makes Chevy Niva sport utility vehicles and Chevy Viva sedans. In February, the Tolyatti-based venture halted production for about a week over a dispute about the price of parts supplied by AvtoVAZ. A few days after production restarted, the venture raised Chevy Niva prices by 3,500 rubles ($125). Last week, the price was hiked by another 4,000 rubles. In February, the venture said production this year would fall by 9 percent to 47,000 vehicles. Besides its venture with AvtoVAZ, GM assembles its own models at a car plant in Kaliningrad and has recently been reported to be considering its own production facility in the country. As recently as February, GM-AvtoVAZ general director Richard Swando said the venture was a “jewel” and should be cherished. TITLE: Averting a War of Necessity AUTHOR: By Ivan Safranchuk TEXT: Diplomats from the United States, European Union and Israel involved in the Iranian uranium-enrichment affair say they want the international community united so that Iran understands that nobody — absolutely nobody — will come to Iran’s defense if sanctions are imposed. This united front, it is expected, would lead to an end to Iran’s nascent nuclear reactor program. Russia and China have yet to accept this logic. The question yet to be answered, which may sound naive to diplomats but is critical for understanding the impasse, is: What will happen if Iran doesn’t back down even in the face of united international opposition? Diplomats believe Iran has no choice. But if the Islamic Republic is as reckless as many fear, then anything is possible, including war. Exacerbating difficulties is the fact that there are two competing messages being broadcast. On one hand, Iran is told that it has no choice but to agree to the terms laid down by the international community. But within the international community, the beginnings of a consensus have emerged: War, according to this «in-house» thinking, is not an option; or, if it is an option, it is a remote option that will not be pursued until many diplomatic efforts have been exhausted. Surely, in this day and age, Iran hears both messages — the one the international community would like it to hear, and the one that’s only for internal consumption. If so, the deterrent of war looks less like a deterrent and more like an empty threat, particularly in light of the Iraq war and Western reluctance to get enmeshed in another Middle Eastern imbroglio. Of course, nobody can be sure Iran won’t deliberately go to war to defend its uranium-enrichment program. But even if Iran doesn’t want to go to war, it may wind up leading the world down this path anyway. Unconvinced that the international community is willing to use force to impose its will, the Iranians may push the envelope so far that by the time they are ready to step back from the edge, it will be too late. To some, this may not be all bad. War with Iran, after all, is an option. Any government involved in this issue is ill-advised if it believes this option is not on the table. Along these lines, it is worth discussing this option not only in terms of military tactics but in terms of strategic consequences. Below is a list of reasons why war with Iran is particularly unwise. First, Iran may forge a peace accord with al-Qaida. They are enemies now. But Iran enjoyed lots of common ground with radical Islamism from the 1950s to the 1970s and in the early 1980s. After the 1979 revolution, Tehran memorialized one of Sunni Islam’s key radical philosophers, Qutb. Then, in the 1980s, the two parted ways. But there is nothing, particularly now, preventing them from reconciling. Such a reconciliation would be a disaster for the war on terror. Second, Iranians are young; the average age is 24. Young Iranians are particularly hostile to the West and are generally supportive of the new president’s populism. But they are also progressive; they want development and a new future for their country. They lack access to many external information sources, and this ignorance of other perspectives shapes their views. But they are open to new ideas, new opinions. This new generation offers hope that a better Iran may emerge over the next two decades, as these people reach their 40s and assume the leadership of their country. But it is critical to bear in mind that these young people are also patriotic. They would be unlikely to forgive the West for a war with their fathers, especially if they lose. And they would probably lose. The West would likely win a war against Iran, but this would be a Pyrrhic victory. Third, there’s no moral case for war with Iran so long as Iran has elections. While Iranian politics are hardly democratic, the reformers won with the 1998 election of President Mohammad Khatami. Now that tide is turning, as conservatives make up lost ground. This is a trend, a conservative correction after a century of liberal evolution, that has swept the United States, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Iran is simply playing catch-up. War with Iran is still but an option. The threat of war — which is intended, in fact, to avoid armed conflict — is compromised by the ongoing debate that another war in the Middle East would be disastrous. This gives Iran the freedom to maneuver and, in turn, raise the geopolitical stakes. In the end, this escalation may turn a war of choice into a war of necessity. Ivan Safranchuk is head of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. TITLE: Three-Sided Barricades AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina TEXT: Not long ago I traveled on horseback in Kabardino-Balkaria across a border area called Khaimash. This area is famous for an incident in which the republic’s construction minister went for a drive in the country and was stopped by Shamil Basayev. A woman with the minister who had once been with the rebels told Basayev there were children in the car. Basayev let the minister go. Today it’s a sad sight: sheep folds in ruins, cut barbed-wire fences, an alpine meadow without cows. Who will have the run of the pastures in these parts — the cows or Basayev — will be determined this summer. The new president of Kabardino-Balkaria, Arsen Kanokov, is a terrific president. He works 16 hours a day. He has created a fund to guarantee foreign investment in the republic for up to $100 million — and that’s his own money. He needed to do this to reassure investors. So what’s the future of this region with this wonderful new president? It has no future. On Oct. 13 there was an uprising in Nalchik, the capital. Men had been dragged out of a mosque as they were praying, and crosses had been shaved on their heads. They couldn’t take it anymore and went on a rampage to kill police. After the uprising, 2,000 people went through the police meat-grinder, and the rest fled. The bodies of the Muslims have still not been released. One of the widows told me: “I asked my 16-year-old son if he was prepared to die for Allah. He said, ‘I don’t know, Mama, I’d like to live a bit first.’” Now he’s on the run. So that he won’t be killed. And what are these 100 to 200 people who consciously prefer paradise to torture in the Interior Ministry’s organized crime and terrorism division? They are an end to any investment in the region. During the winter the Muslims still had hope. They wrote and asked for the bodies to be released to them. The head of the Kabardino-Balkaria Jamaat, Musa Mukozhev, had not approved of the uprising; it was organized by his associate, Anzor Astemirov. Now it seems that the situation has changed. He too speaks of jihad. Kanokov plans to sell the pastureland in the mountains and provide loans for 2,000 cows. But even though he has replaced the republic’s interior minister and tried to rein in the police, he doesn’t control the local branches of the so-called power agencies in the republic. They aren’t even controlled by the Kremlin. They are controlled by a kind of collective beat cop. The odd thing is that the beat cop knows exactly what’s happening. “What will happen?” I asked a police officer I knew. “It will be like Chechnya,” he said with a sigh. “But you provoked this yourselves!” “We know. But what else could we do?” It’s terrible when power is in the hands of scoundrels and thieves. But it’s even worse when a decent person can’t fix the system. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have enough of something — will power, strength — or if it’s just not possible. Kanokov is doing everything so that cows will have the run of the pasture in the mountains, and the collective beat cop is doing everything so that Basayev has the run of the mountain pastures. We were riding our horses through an alpine meadow when one of the other riders said, “Now the republic will be in three groups: cops, devout Muslims and everyone else.” Someone else immediately countered: “When you put up barricades, there are never three sides. Do you know what happens to the people caught in the middle?” Now all Kabardino-Balkaria is waiting for is for the mountains to be covered with thick foliage. It’s good cover for military operations. Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio. TITLE: Waltzing through Vienna AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: Thriving on the contrast between baroque extravaganza and the the decadent opulence of jugendstil, Vienna, once the capital of the powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire, has preserved its imperial grandeur. Nobles never rush, and this stately European capital carries itself with regal grace. Vienna’s compact historical center is best explored on foot as most major sights are within a reasonable — and most enjoyable — walk. A good place to start is at the 13th-century tile-roofed Stephan’s Cathedral, where tourists and cars collide with horse-driven carts. The surrounding streets leading to the Hofburg complex, home to the treasuries and the state apartments captivate you with the exuberance of quintessential baroque. Graben, Herrengasse, Kohlmarkt, Naglergasse and Michaelerplatz — this is the heart of courtly Vienna. Viennese cafes — highly concentrated in this area — are often as much a visual attraction as they are a gastronomic delight. Cafe Central, arguably the grandest in town, is located in the spacious, brightly lit vaulted halls of Palais Ferstel. As legend has it, the scenario for the Bolshevik revolution was shaped in these walls as Trotsky munched biscuits with his morning coffees. The oldest cafe, Frauenhuber, which claims to have had Mozart play there, is very close to the Vienna Staatsoper. For the city’s best melange, head to cafe Leopold Hawelka but beware that this place doesn’t serve snacks, except for breakfast (until 11 a.m.) and hot jam-filled buns (after 10 p.m.). Top local treats include super-rich chocolate Sachertorte, Topfenknodel (curd cheese dumplings) and Apple/Cherry/Cheese/Apricot Strudel. Eventually, some visitors may find this baroque feast slightly intoxicating. This may be the time to switch on to Gustav Klimt’s vivid fusion of sensual curves and geometric ornaments. Klimt’s most celebrated works, including “The Kiss” and “Judith I” are displayed at the Belvedere gallery. Incidentally, the image of Judith, the femme fatale who seduced the Assyrian commander Holophernes, got him senselessly drunk and beheaded him, is strikingly present at a number of Viennese art galleries. The Kunsthistorisches Museum displays a numbers of interpretations of the subject by different artists, and you can find several of them grouped in one hall, creating a powerful impression. Judith carries a triumphant, proud, vindictive expression or even a jubilant bliss, her eyes flitting to the side with a half-hidden smile. The gem of this vendetta parade is “Judith with the Head of Holofernes” by Lucas Cranach, painted in 1503: the heroine is a stylish beauty in a fashionable red hat, not a drop of blood on her sterile sword, her face inscrutable, betraying nothing but self-composure. The museum contains world’s largest collection of works by Jan Bruegel, including the famous “The Tower of Babylon.” It’s grand staircase, adorned with dark marble pillars, is decorated with Klimt’s pale enigmatic females. Other highlights include Johannes Vermeer’s “The Artist’s Studio” (1665), Raphael’s “Madonna in the Meadow” (1571) and Giuseppe Archimboldo’s “Summer” (1563). Jugendstil aficionados may want to start with the Secession building housing Gustav Klimt’s extraordinary 1902 Beethoven Frieze inspired by Richard Wagner’s analysis of Beethoven’s stirring 9th symphony. The 34-meter long fresco, adorning the walls of a white-washed basement hall of the building, juxtaposes floating female nudes, the Giant Typhoeus — an enourmous winged monster with the head of a monkey and snake-like extremities — and the three ill-shaped Gorgons symbolizing sickness, madness and death. You’re best-advised to travel to this museum on the metro. As you get off at Karlsplatz, don’t miss the station’s two charming symmetrical pavilions, designed by Otto Wagner and dating from the early 1900s. The golden leaves in the decoration of the Secession building are visible from the station, and it takes a couple of minutes to get there. Then stroll along Linke Wienzeile up to the Wagner Apartments. No. 40 has pink majolica ornaments with a flowery theme, and no. 38 is covered with glittering gilt designs. On the way back, cross the street to pay a visit to Vienna’s premiere street market. Scents of exotic spices surround the tents of Naschmarkt, and the place is packed with food stands selling full-flavor ethnic food at bargain prices. Jugendstil offers many more marvels. This architectural style can be found in abundance in the area between Schwedenplatz and Stephan’s Cathedral, especially at the Hoher Markt. An absolute must-see is Franz Matsch’s 1911 Anker Clock, made of bronze and copper and noted for its ornate moving figurines — sculptured versions of historical personages including Empress Maria Theresa, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the composer Joseph Haydn — which proceed at a slow ceremonial pace, succeeding each other in relays with the change of every hour. One of the most original examples of Jugendstil architecture is Otto Wagner’s astounding 1907 Kirche am Steinhof with shiny golden dome, sophisticated stained glass and Jugendstil angels decorating its facade. A pilgrimage there takes a fifteen-minute drive on bus no. 48 from the city center. The church was built on the territory of a renowned psychiatric hospital, and to get to the sight the visitors have to walk up the hill along the ward’s buildings. Robust guards in doctor’s smocks, their rolled sleeves exposing mighty muscles, give visitors such a penetrating look, they instinctively switch a mental check-up on, beginning to wonder whether all is well with them. Some of the patients are allowed to leave the ward. The deserted-looking sight, deadly quiet even at the busiest time of day has an eerie chill. An attentive look around is likely to leave you with a bitter aftertaste. As we passed one of the buildings with “Kuche” plaque on it, we met an empty gaze of a hand-made soft toy incarnation of Santa-Claus, hanging on the gallows. A drawing, attached to it, read “Merry Christmas”. Many people visit Vienna for the classical music. Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Mahler and Strauss created some of their finest works here. The Vienna Philharmonic, located in the terracota-colored Musikverein building still rivals the Berlin Philharmonic for the unofficial title of the world’s best symphony orchestra. The imposing neo-Renaissance building of the Vienna Staatsoper is just a stone’s throw away. The repertoire is dominated by the works of Verdi, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Puccini and Mozart. Audiences with a taste for traditional stagings will enjoy their recent take on Puccini’s “Tosca,” while those seeking bolder interpretations should see the rendition of Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Hollander,” where Senta empties a canister of oil over her head and sets herself on fire instead of throwing herself into the sea in the finale. You can buy tickets online at http:/www.wiener-staatsoper.at. Prices range from 2 euro standing places to 197 euros premier parterre seats. The best deal for budget-conscious opera goers is a 10 euro seat. Although most 10-euro seats are marked with a “restricted view” sign — a euphemism for zero visibility — there are some fortunate exceptions. Aim for the last row seats in the parterre or the first circle boxes (usually seats 6&7) which allow you to see over three quarters of or, in some cases, a full view of the stage. These seats go first, so you need to check in advance. Physically fit and strongly cash-stripped audiences opt for standing parterre but these are sold only prior to the performance. For a typical Viennese meal try Wiener Schnitzel or Tafelspitz (boiled veal served with horseradish and apple sauces) in one of the beisl (taverns). Resist the tempting posters advertizing heurigens in the city center, and stay away from the glitzy Grinzing: these touristy joints break too many rules to be able to give you the real thing. Authentic heurigens, which can be found in the countryside, serve their own wine and a choice of home-made cold dishes, including meats, cheeses and aufschtricht (spreads). TITLE: Chernov’s choice AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov TEXT: Twelve months ago Boris Grebenshchikov, a Russian rock legend who founded his famous band Akvarium in 1972, led a group of rock musicians to meet Vladislav Surkov, the head of the presidential administration and a man who is frequently referred to as “the Kremlin’s gray cardinal.” A few months earlier, the Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko had been brought to power in Ukraine with the aid of local rock and pop celebrities who performed on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square. Leningrad’s Sergei Shnurov, vocalist Zemfira Ragazanova, bands Chaif and B2 duly came to see the Kremlin boss, at least appearing to indicate that they would not inspire the masses against the current authorities. According to Grebenshchikov, one of the questions discussed was the lack of rock music on Russian television, which is dominated by pop singers and music talent shows such as “Fabrika Zvyozd,” or “Star Factory” (the Russian variant of “American Idol”). Grebenshchikov said Surkov was as unhappy about the situation as the rock musicians invited to the secret meeting. Earlier this month, there was a no less interesting meeting. Musicians Yury Shevchuk of local band DDT, Konstantin Kinchev of Alisa and a couple of other, less-known “Orthodox Christian rockers” met Russian church hardliner Metropolitan Kirill and some other priests to discuss a number of problems concerning religion, morals, art and youth. In an almost Freudian way, however, the television issue popped up here too. According to web publication Pravaya.ru, Kinchev attacked “Star Factory” as “real Satanism,” while Shevchuk addressed Metropolitan Kirill with the words, “You often see [Russian president Vladimir] Putin; whisper to him that there should be more rock on television.” In the late 1980s and early 1990s Russian rock bands were on television all the time; now the former spokesmen for a generation seem to feel like fish out of water and be ready to do just about anything to get on the box. But where is the talk of revolution? On a smaller, more pleasant scale, the bar Novus continues to attract expats, artists and students with its good atmosphere and music. Look out for Pablo Diablo, possibly the only local DJ to throw the odd The Fall track into his set of unmistakable Anglo-American punk and post-punk gems. He performs at Novus on Tuesdays, between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Some of Novus’s regular clientele moved to this new venue from Datscha, which seems to be losing its momentum after two years of huge success. The scene, however, appears to be awaiting the emergence of a new bar with music, which is expected to open next month under the guidance of Dva Samaliota’s bass player and vocalist Anton Belyankin, the co-founder and former co-manager of Datscha. In fact, it will open next door to his former bar with a gig by Moscow band Korabl on May 19. TITLE: A new prince at the Mariinsky AUTHOR: By Kevin Ng PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: Last Sunday, the performance of “Giselle” at the Mariinsky Theater starred two of the most promising up-and-coming Mariinsky Ballet dancers both in their early twenties, in the lead roles. Olesia Novikova, who was prominently cast in the Mariinsky International Ballet Festival last month, danced the title ballerina role. Her lover Albrecht was danced by the talented 21-year-old dancer Vladimir Shklyarov, who was actually making his debut in this role. Now in his third season with the Mariinsky Ballet, which he joined in 2003 from the Vaganova Academy, Shklyarov has made swift progress. Shklyarov, who celebrated his 21st birthday in February, has danced leading roles in several 19th century classics — the Prince in “The Sleeping Beauty”, the Prince in “The Nutcracker” and James in Bournonville’s masterpiece “La Sylphide.” The dancer has a large repertoire, including works by the 20th century masters Balanchine and Forsythe. This reviewer first saw him in the Mariinsky Theater in August of 2004 when he gave an exciting performance as one of the two male soloists in the William Forsythe ballet “Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude.” He demonstrated a pure classical line and strong technique. At present, Shklyarov is rehearsing for Pierre Lacotte’s ballet “Ondine” which will receive further performances this coming week, after its premiere last month which opened the Mariinsky International Ballet Festival. He is due to dance the Sicilian sailor Matteo in the performance on May 5 with Olesia Novikova. Besides “Ondine,” Shklyarov is also rehearsing Balanchine’s technical showpiece “Tchaikovsky Pas De Deux” with Alina Somova. Though Shklyarov didn’t dance during the Festival, he was very busy rehearsing “The Sleeping Beauty” with Evgenia Obraztsova when we met for an interview. Obraztsova is another 21-year-old rising star of the Mariinsky Theater, interviewed on these pages in December of last year. They were rehearsing for a guest engagement in Florida at the end of March with the American company Space Coast Ballet. Significantly, this was Shklyarov’s first ever guest engagement outside the Mariinsky Ballet, although in January he went to Washington DC to represent the Mariinsky in the International Ballet Academy Festival at the Kennedy Center featuring the world’s greatest ballet academies. So how did this invitation come out? “Actually,” he explained, “the Florida company invited Evgenia Obraztsova as a guest, and Evgenia suggested that I dance as her partner.” Not surprising, perhaps, as both have danced together a number of times, forming a wonderful partnership, memorably in “La Sylphide” last season. “This is going to be Evgenia’s debut in “The Sleeping Beauty”,” Shklyarov added, “as she hasn’t yet danced the ballerina role at the Mariinsky Theater.” Shklyarov himself has already danced the Prince, Desire, in “The Sleeping Beauty.” Most recently, on March 1, he made his debut in the Mariinsky’s reconstructed version of the Imperial 1890 version of “The Sleeping Beauty”. “Since then, unfortunately, I’ve been suffering from back pain for a while, but I am feeling better now.” “Evgenia and I will spend a week in Florida and give two performances. If I have any free time after performances and rehearsals, I am looking forward to doing some swimming and sunbathing. It’s actually 30 degrees Celsius out there. Evgenia has kindly reminded me to bring my swimming trunks.” During the week that we met, Shklyarov and Obraztsova were rehearsing for their “Sleeping Beauty” performance with Sergei Berezhnoi, a ballet master of the Mariinsky Theatre. “Berezhnoi has been my teacher since I joined the Theater 3 years ago. He is a wonderful teacher,” Shklyarov said. The Florida production is based on Konstantin Sergeyev’s 1952 version for the Mariinsky Ballet (then called the Kirov Ballet). Shklyarov has danced this version too, most recently on the Mariinsky Ballet’s tour to the U.S. last autumn. Does he prefer this version or the reconstructed Imperial version of 1890? “I personally prefer Sergeyev’s version. I think it’s more logical, and the choreography is more sensible. However, I prefer the lavish costumes in Vikharev’s reconstruction of the Imperial version.” Discussing ballet in general, Shlyarov commented, “Acting is actually as important if not more so than the technique. I cannot say that I am a good actor myself. But my attitude is that dancers should also be good actors. Sometimes it’s easy to forget about the theatrical side if we concentrate too much on the technique.” TITLE: Out of the shadows AUTHOR: By Nadine Meisner PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times TEXT: There were plenty of international ballet names among last week’s contenders for a Golden Mask award — the Bolshoi ballerina Svetlana Zakharova, for example, and the U.S. choreographer William Forsythe. But what was this alongside these glossy players? Contemporary dance? Not just one token representative, but almost an equal number of these home-grown, slightly scruffy cousins, with only a few rubles in their pockets, but a lot of determination. They were even given a special category: Best Contemporary Dance Production. Two decades ago, this would have been unimaginable. Back then, the ballerina, fluttering her swan arms by the lake, reveled in her supremacy. She may have been the antithesis of proletarian reality, but the Soviet government endlessly exploited her as a cultural export. Dangled before ecstatic Western eyes on Kirov (now Mariinsky) and Bolshoi tours, she represented the Soviet Union’s artistic superiority. Ballet was one of the most potent symbols of Soviet might. But other things were happening elsewhere. In the West, the 20th century was the era of modern dance, a new invention allowing dancers to go barefoot and celebrate angular, weighty expressiveness. One of its pioneers, Isadora Duncan, first toured Russia in 1904 and even opened a school in Moscow in 1921. But even then, repression was quickly tightening its grip. If the West was going to embrace modern dance, Soviet conservatism and the Iron Curtain ensured that such decadent Western experimentation never filtered through. Occasionally, once the ‘60s had started and life had loosened up a little, a foreign troupe might visit, such as Alvin Ailey’s African-American dancers. Or a Russian ballet choreographer, such as Boris Eifman (a Golden Mask nominee this year), might attempt a more contemporary approach. But in other instances, modern dance in the Soviet Union meant something akin to show-dance, the kind of movement you might see in musicals or cabaret. By the late 1980s, though, with Gorbachev’s reforms, new artistic forms were stirring. At first, aspiring dance-makers tried to invent their own language from scratch. But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it was inevitable that not only would Western performers become frequent visitors, but that Russians would travel. In 1992, when the choreographer Olga Pona glimpsed a television news item about a foreign dance teacher visiting Moscow, she was so hungry to make contact that she dropped everything to travel by rail for two days, even though the teacher was already halfway through her two-week course. Together with her then-husband, Vladimir, Olga Pona founded the Chelyabinsk Theater of Contemporary Dance with a tabula rasa — no history to reject, no precedents to follow. She became one of the pioneers of a flourishing contemporary dance culture in the Urals, including the establishment of a contemporary dance department at Yekaterinburg Humanities University. So why such mold-breaking energy in the Urals? “Nobody knows the answer,” Pona said shortly before the Golden Mask award ceremony. “Maybe it’s because we are far from the centers of control and feel we can do what we like.” Another pioneer, however, is based in the chief center of control. Sasha Pepelyayev was one of the first to travel abroad, heading for the Netherlands, although he now works in Moscow. Both he and Pona have come a long way from their humble beginnings — the two choreographers were both nominees at this year’s Golden Mask festival, and their pieces, performed on various stages over the past few weeks, offered insight into the evolving world of Russian contemporary dance. The dancers in “A Little Nostalgia” navigate around suspended tubes.In Pepelyayev’s “Doors,” the titular doors — real ones and virtual ones — line up on stage or float up the back wall; performers mix gesture with speech, madcap activity with dance numbers. The result is a multi-dimensional show far removed from traditional norms of dance. In Pona’s “A Little Nostalgia,” the dancers move around suspended tubes. They might be in a forest, their actions creating a dream-like atmosphere and revealing an approach completely at odds with the late Yevgeny Panfilov’s “A Cage for Parrots,” presented on the same Golden Mask program. Where Panfilov’s choreography is clearly based on ballet steps — strange that he should win the best contemporary production category — Pona creates vernacular movement derived from her piece’s theme. It confirms the idea that, unlike ballet, today’s contemporary dance is not about learning a single technique, but about enabling the body to move in different ways. Pieces like “Doors” are similar to European dance-theater — pieces that are created from a concept, pieces that use various means of communication, pieces where the dance looks raw and gestural and is driven by an underlying intent. The pure-dance approach, where patterns of dance are largely an end in themselves, belongs to the opposite end of the spectrum. This tends to be favored by certain British and American choreographers such as Trisha Brown, but has not been picked up by Russians. As Anna Abalikhina, nominated in the festival both as a dancer and as co-creator of the duet “Flies,” recently explained: “I like dancing, but not dancing for no reason.” Yet in at least one respect, Russia’s contemporary dance scene is no different from those of other countries. Contemporary dance lives in poverty everywhere. In Russia, most artists have to be self-funding, unless they are able to attract sponsorship (difficult for a low-profile art-form) or, like Sasha Pepelyayev, to find foreign co-producers. Pona is in a rare position, since on forming her company in 1992 she persuaded the city of Chelyabinsk to give her 12 dancers a tiny but regular salary. TITLE: They’re musicians, really AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov PUBLISHER: Staff Writer TEXT: …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, a loud, guitar-smashing band with prog-rock tendencies from Austin, Texas, made its debut in Russia by performing live in Moscow and re-releasing its most recent album for Russian audiences last week. Grammy-winning classical violinist Hilary Hahn, who soloed on the album’s instrumental track “To Russia My Homeland,” influenced by 19th century Russian composers, flew in for just one night to join the band on stage. Originally released in January 2005, “Worlds Apart” takes a glance into American culture and the American psyche while looking for the origins of contemporary conflicts. “It’s definitely a post-9/11 album, after the shock of all the events surrounding that whole incident that happened here in America, and we experienced it at first hand — we were flying a lot at the time,” said the band’s founding member Conrad Keely, speaking by phone from his home in Austin. “It was just definitely something that was on everyone’s mind and I think the track ‘Worlds Apart’ was definitely a statement about American culture and how I thought it was perceived in a fairly negative light worldwide, and basically saying that, well, you know, we shouldn’t be surprised because of the way we present ourselves in the media. It’s just a bit kind of over-obsessed with leisure and entertainment, it’s kind of vacuous, it’s kind of a culture that’s getting to a sort of indulgence.” “But I was at a really serious point in my life, I think, as far as writing is concerned. I don’t usually write about things that are political — I was just compelled to at that point.” Describing the album, Keely refers to Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” — “the final chapters where he talked about the reasons that there are wars, and, you know, the mass migrations and the cause of war,” — although the title is actually a reference to a now-defunct television show. “It was a reality show where they take an American family and make them live with an indigenous, native tribe in some remote part of the world,” said Keely. “What struck me was that we in the post-industrial world take so much for granted, and other people have nothing. At times it was really difficult for the modern family to adjust, to cope with the culture shock of basically living off the land. It was a great show and it got cancelled. They don’t show it anymore.” Though the album has definite political overtones, Keely said he normally prefers to write about personal relationships. “I generally tend to talk about interpersonal relationships, relationships that I have with people that have affected me. Also, we’re really influenced by cinema and often our subject matter has to do with the movies we have seen, that inspired us visually, because I always think the ideas of visual art and audio art kind of coincide, they can be influenced by one another.” Keely said he prefers Hollywood movies which he, rather boldly, compares to the paintings of the great masters of the past. “I love mainstream Hollywood films! Yeah, like “Lord of the Rings,” I really like Pixar movies like “Finding Nemo” and “Monsters, Inc.” In fact, if you were to label me, I’m definitely more of a low-brow movie watcher. I don’t really like art films, I don’t like films that are too cerebral, I don’t like Godard or any of those French guys. I like really schlocky, big-production Hollywood films, because I think, in a way, that’s really like the high art of this time, especially with digital animation and stuff. It reminds me of paintings by Botticelli or something like that. It’s like the popular art of the Renaissance reflected in the popular art of the 20th century.” Keely grew up listening to The Beatles and Pink Floyd as well as classical music, he said. “I grew up with the music of The Beatles, pretty much like everyone in my generation did, but I also grew up with the 1970s music of Pink Floyd, and ABBA, and Led Zeppelin, so I had a definite prog-rock background. I also was, when I started to play piano, really influenced by classics, because usually when you start studying piano, you play classical music. So right away I developed a real appreciation for Bach and Mozart and Vivaldi. And I don’t think it ever occurred to me in my mind that there should be any difference between rock music and classical music. I guess when I played the piano, when I would play one of their pieces, like a Mozart piece, I would rock it out, I would play it really hardcore, you know. “So in my mind Mozart was rock and roll. Bach was rock and roll. Bach was like jazz. I didn’t see there was any difference. It was later that it occurred to me that people who were into rock music weren’t interested in classical music. I was actually quite surprised by this, and actually disappointed. For one, I thought they were missing out on a great tradition, and for another, I thought they just really complemented each other so perfectly — rock music and classical music go so great together.” Keeley’s musical tastes remain eclectic. At the moment his favorites include The Congos’ Lee “Scratch” Perry-produced, 1977 album “The Heart Of The Congos” (“intense, awesome reggae music!”), the boy choirs from Bruno Coulais’s soundtrack to Christophe Barratier’s 2004 film “Chorists” (Les choristes) and Balkan/gypsy-folk-influenced music by Goran Bregovic, especially his treatment of an old Gypsy song, “Ederlezi,” from Kusturica’s 1988 film “Time of the Gypsies” (Dom za vesanje). Keely said the band’s eclectic style has acquired some country music influences recently. “I think if our fans found the music of ‘Worlds Apart’ eclectic, they’re going to find this stuff even more so. We have one song that is really country and western, because we’ve been really getting into old country music like that of The Carter Family, and Hank Williams and Bill Monroe, old bluegrass, just the old sound of Western swing music. And also gypsy swing music like Django Reinhart. So that’s one of our influences lately.” Trail of Dead is built around Keely and Jason Reece, who first met in Hawaii, then moved to Olympia, Washington, before finally settling in Austin, a place that Keely described as an ongoing party where one finds it difficult to get things done. The two formed Trail of Dead in 1994, originally as a duo. Since then it has grown into a six-piece band, with Keely and Reece switching between drums, guitars and vocals. The band’s one-off Russian concert that took place in Moscow’s spacious Apelsin club stood out, according to local music fans’ blogs and the show promoter, Avant Music, an organization set up to fight Russia’s “musical provincialism.” “It was an outstanding event for the whole of Russia in the past few years, I believe,” said Avant Music’s Maxim Silva-Vega by phone this week. “There was everything in there, from hardcore to symphony chamber music, from Mexican songs to post-rock, very diverse music of all sorts.” Though the band is notorious for closing its shows by smashing its instruments on stage, the Moscow concert saw Keely only breaking a guitar that he himself had brought along, as the rest of the equipment was rented by the local promoters. However, Keely said he is reconsidering the band’s destructive approach. “I don’t even know that necessarily moving around the way that I used to is important. Maybe I’m disenchanted with the whole idea of rock and roll for rock’s sake. “I kind of want to explore the idea that rock can actually convey messages and enlighten people, rather than that it’s just for this kind of mono-syllabic mass of Neanderthals. “Because it was getting kind of depressing, you know. You meet these people after the show and all they wanted to do was just to ask you to break something or smash a guitar. I would much rather have a conversation about music. [Laughs] They must have forgotten that we’re musicians, you know.” “Worlds Apart” is out on Universal Music Russia. www.trailofdead.com TITLE: Iraq’s Vice-President’s Sister Slain AUTHOR: By Thomas Wagner PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq — A sister of Iraq’s new Sunni Arab vice president was killed Thursday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad, a day after the politician called for the Sunni-dominated insurgency to be crushed by force. In southern Iraq, a bomb hit an Italian military convoy, killing four soldiers — three Italians and a Romanian — and seriously injuring another passenger, officials in Rome said. The bomb struck the convoy near an Italian military base in Nasiriyah, a heavily Shiite city 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, said local Iraqi government spokesman Haidr Radhi. Elsewhere, a U.S. jet fired two missiles at insurgent positions in Ramadi, U.S. officers said. Fighting also broke out northeast of Baghdad between Iraqi forces and insurgents, killing several Iraqi policemen and civilians. The violence came as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited Baghdad to meet with officials in Iraq’s new government. Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite hard-liner recently tipped as Iraq’s future prime minister, is trying to form a national unity government aimed at stopping a wave of sectarian violence. Al-Maliki has 30 days to assemble a Cabinet from divided Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. The most contentious question will be filling key ministries that control security forces amid demands to purge them of militias. Mayson Ahmed Bakir al-Hashimi, 60, whose brother, Tariq al-Hashimi, was appointed by parliament as vice president Saturday, was killed by gunmen in a sedan as she left her southwestern Baghdad home with her bodyguard, said police Capt. Jamel Hussein. The bodyguard also died. It was the second recent killing in Tariq al-Hashimi’s immediate family. On April 13, his brother, Mahmoud al-Hashimi, was shot while driving in a mostly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad. Mayson al-Hashimi had worked on the government’s audit commission and was married with two grown children. The television station Baghdad, owned by the vice president’s Iraqi Islamic Party, showed family photos of her wearing an orange headscarf and footage of her bullet-riddled white SUV, while playing mournful music. “What astonished us is that they targeted a woman. This shows how wicked the attackers are,” Ziyad al-Ani, a senior official in the Iraqi Islamic Party, told The Associated Press. He said the killings “by the enemies of Iraq” will fail in their goal of driving al-Hashimi and his party from government. The party is one of three major Sunni political groups in the Iraqi Accordance Front, which won 44 seats in the Dec. 15 parliamentary election. On Wednesday, Tariq al-Hashimi called for Iraq’s insurgency to be put down by force. Shiites had demanded that Sunni officials make such a statement to demonstrate their commitment to building a democratic system. Al-Hashimi also shrugged off a video released this week by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, during which the al-Qaida in Iraq leader tried to rally Sunnis to fight the new government and denounced Sunnis who cooperate with it as “agents” of the Americans. “I say, yes, we’re agents. We’re agents for Islam, for the oppressed. We have to defend the future of our people,” al-Hashimi said at a news conference with President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his fellow vice president, Shiite Adil Abdul-Mahdi. TITLE: Baby-Killing Mother To Go on Trial in Germany AUTHOR: By Kerstin Rebien PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: FRANKFURT AN DER ODER, Germany — A German mother accused of killing nine newborn babies over the course of a decade and burying them in flower pots went on trial on Thursday in a case that has shocked the nation. Lawyers for the 40-year old woman, identified as Sabine H. from the eastern city of Frankfurt an der Oder, said at the start of the trial that their client would not take the stand to defend herself. The unemployed dental assistant is charged with eight counts of manslaughter as the statute of limitations on the first of the nine deaths has expired. She faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Police in the eastern state of Brandenburg discovered the bones of nine newborns buried in flower pots, buckets and a fish tank after a neighbor of the woman’s parents stumbled upon the remains of some of the babies while clearing out their garage last July. The woman has told investigators that she was alone when she gave birth to the babies and in most of the cases under the influence of large amounts of alcohol. She admits to having left the first two to die, but denies intentionally killing them and says she cannot remember the circumstances of the last seven deaths because she was in a drunken stupor. “I did not kill them deliberately. I just left them alone and didn’t take care of them,” she said of the first two babies in a pre-trial deposition that was read out in court by chief judge Matthias Fuchs. The deaths of the babies, which occurred between 1988 and 1998, have been described as postwar Germany’s worst series of child killings and sparked shock that the crimes went undetected for so long. The woman has said that her former husband, who fathered the seven girls and two boys that died, spent long periods away from home because of their marital problems and was not aware of her pregnancies. The couple had three children that are now grown before the deaths took place and the woman has one two-year old child by another man. A day after her arrest last year, Sabine H. spoke of a “vicious circle” that began with her fourth pregnancy in 1988. Her husband had been against having more children, she said, and she had kept the pregnancy secret from him, eventually giving birth over the toilet where the baby allegedly drowned. The woman said she then began drinking heavily to banish the vision of her “blue faced” baby from her mind. She did not consider getting abortions over the years because of fears that a doctor would discover her prior births. TITLE: Blair Shrugs Off Talk Of “Triple Whammy” Crisis AUTHOR: By Katherine Baldwin PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: LONDON — British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday shrugged off as media hype suggestions his government was in crisis over incompetence and sleaze. But parliamentarians in his Labour Party said they feared the troubles engulfing three ministers could lead to a dismal showing in local elections on May 4. Worse-than-expected results could hasten calls for Blair to step aside for Finance Minister Gordon Brown. At its weekly meeting, the cabinet rallied to the support of Home Secretary (interior minister) Charles Clarke, fighting to save his job after a damaging bungle over the failure to deport hundreds of foreign criminals on release from jail. On Wednesday, dubbed “Black Wednesday” by the media, Clarke said he had offered to resign over the mistake, Blair’s deputy admitted to having an affair and his health minister was jeered by angry nurses over flagship hospital reforms. Newspapers filled their front pages with the “triple whammy” but Blair brushed aside the coverage. “Living in the media culture we have today ... there’s no problem that isn’t a crisis, no difficulty that isn’t a catastrophe, no week that’s not going to end up being the most terrible thing that’s ever happened,” Blair told BBC television. “In the end you do the job, you get on with it, you don’t complain or whinge about what’s in the press every day and you know me well enough to know there’s a resilience that will see through the next day’s headlines,” he added. At the cabinet meeting, Clarke had to explain why 1,023 foreigners, including murderers and rapists, were released after serving their prison sentences when they should have been considered for deportation. He has admitted to a “systemic failure.” Blair is struggling to rebuild support for Labour, a year after he overcame criticism of his decision to wage war on Iraq and won a third straight election, albeit with a smaller majority. According to one opinion poll this week, Labour support has fallen to its lowest point since 1987, when Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party was in power. Labour MPs say they fear the latest crises could lose the party even more votes next week. “This is not what you would want at all,” Labour MP Ian Gibson told Reuters. “There are a lot of rumors this is not playing out very well (with voters).” Analysts said these were tough times for Blair but noted he had emerged from serious scrapes in the past. “He’s been in really tight corners over the last four years quite regularly and I think he’s just used to negotiating them,” said Mark Wickham-Jones, a politics lecturer at Bristol University. Blair has endured weeks of opposition attacks over Labour’s admission it accepted big loans from 12 businessmen, some of whom were later nominated for seats in the unelected upper house of parliament, the House of Lords. Blair pledged his government would be “whiter than white” when he took power in 1997 after sleaze allegations helped to bring down the previous Conservative government. TITLE: Arsenal to Face Stylish Barcelona PUBLISHER: Bloomberg TEXT: BARCELONA — Barcelona, led by world player of the year Ronaldinho, advanced to its first Champions League final in 12 years after a 0-0 draw at home to AC Milan’s old guard yesterday. Barcelona’s 1-0 win at San Siro stadium last week was enough for a berth in the May 17 final against Arsenal, which eliminated Villarreal the day before. The Spanish team survived a scare in the 67th minute when Milan’s Andrei Shevchenko scored only for the goal to be canceled for a foul. “It was time for some joy,’’ Barcelona captain Carles Puyol told reporters as fans gathered on Las Ramblas avenue to celebrate. “We had to suffer.’’ Barcelona has drawn admirers for its attacking style of play that has taken the limelight from archrival Real Madrid, European soccer’s most successful team which won three Champions League titles between 1998 and 2002. Barcelona saw off a more experienced Milan side, captained by 40-year-old Alessandro Costacurta and with more than half of its players aged 30 or above. Costacurta, replaced with 35-year- old Cafu after 63 minutes, was a teammate of both Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard and Milan counterpart Carlo Ancelotti in the Milan team that won the 1989 and 1990 European Cup. ``They asked a lot of us and we had to work hard,’’ Rijkaard, whose squad is mostly in their 20s, told reporters. ``We had to be very careful.’’ In a game as tight as the first leg, Barcelona’s best chances fell to Juliano Belletti, who failed to connect with Ludovic Giuly’s 53rd-minute cross, and Henrik Larsson, whose diving header 20 minutes later was parried by goalkeeper Dida. While Ronaldinho struggled to have the same impact as against Chelsea and Benfica in the previous rounds, Shevchenko thought he tied the two-part semifinal when he headed in from a long-range pass only for referee Markus Merk to disallow the goal for a foul on Puyol. “I don’t know how a referee at this level could rule that out,’’ Ancelotti said. “Mamma Mia, we feel hard done by.’’ After the game, players from both teams shook hands, embraced and swapped jerseys as Barcelona’s club song boomed out from the Camp Nou stadium’s sound system. Barcelona’s players saved their rejoicing until they were in the locker room, midfielder Andres Iniesta told reporters. “There was a lot of shrieking,’’ he said. At the final in Paris, Rijkaard will seek to emulate Ancelotti and become the fifth man to win Europe’s top club competition as player and coach. The others were Miguel Munoz, Giovanni Trapattoni and Johan Cruyff, who coached Barcelona to its only European Cup success in 1992. The final — Barcelona’s first since losing to Milan in 1994 — will pit the two teams that played the most attractive soccer during the 32-team tournament, according to Barcelona president Joan Laporta, Arsenal and Barcelona. TITLE: Mixed English Feelings Over Scolari Approach AUTHOR: By Trevor Huggins PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: LONDON — English football was preparing on Thursday for World Cup winner Luiz Felipe Scolari to be offered the job of national team manager after a wave of speculation was met by a tight-lipped Football Association. FA chief executive Brian Barwick flew out on Wednesday to Lisbon for talks with the Brazilian, currently coach of Portugal, and officials from the Portuguese soccer federation, media reports said. England are looking to replace their first foreign manager, Sweden’s Sven-Goran Eriksson, who will step down after the World Cup. Scolari’s contract with Portugal expires after the finals in Germany. The 57-year-old coach, who led Brazil to their 2002 World Cup triumph and took Portugal to the final of Euro 2004, knocking out England on both occasions, has become a surprise front-runner. Englishmen Steve McClaren, Alan Curbishley and Sam Allardyce, along with Martin O’Neill of Northern Ireland, were early favourites. The speculation over Scolari was batted away by an FA spokesman, who said: “We are not commenting on any individuals until we have something to announce.” Should the talks in Lisbon bear fruit, a decision to appoint Scolari would still need to be approved by the FA Board, who are due to meet next Thursday. A proven winner with a wealth of international experience, and reported to be offered an annual salary of 3.0 million pounds ($5.35 million), saving the FA two million pounds a year on Eriksson’s estimated wages, Scolari’s appointment would still cause some controversy. The man known back in Brazil as “Big Phil” would not be welcomed by those who want a home-grown candidate to take over from Eriksson. The tone was already being struck on Thursday by Howard Wilkinson, chairman of the League Managers Association and a former caretaker England manager. “Everybody talks well of him but I think in the long term it sends out the wrong messages from the Football Association to English coaches and I think the ramifications of that will be seen in the years ahead,” Wilkinson told Sky Sports. “The Football Association has a responsibility to do what it thinks is in the best interests of English football... It’s my opinion that this is not or would not be.” Scolari has no doubts about his ability or his interest in the job. In a recent interview the Brazilian said: “I am a good coach and I am doing a very good job in Portugal. “The national team in Portugal is maybe better than before. I know I am a good coach. I am a man of the world. I have worked in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Brazil and now I work in Portugal. I am happy in any country.” Asked if he would like the England job, Scolari said: “I (would) like the job, yes. But I know if I want to coach the English national team I need to learn the language more and I need to know more about the national team job.” Scolari had been 16-1 in betting on who would succeed Eriksson but the odds were slashed to 5-2 on Monday after weekend media reports strongly linking him with the job. TITLE: Men Still to Get More Money at Wimbledon AUTHOR: By Krystyna Rudzki PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: WIMBLEDON, England - Wimbledon insists it’s fair to pay the men more than the women. The women call it sex discrimination. The All England Club said Tuesday the men’s champion will receive $1.170 million and the women’s winner $1.117 million — a 4 percent increase for both in British currency. Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam tournament with unequal prizes for the two champions. “This issue is one of a judgment on fairness,” All England Club chairman Tim Phillips said. “We believe that what we do at the moment is actually fair to the men as well as to the women.” WTA Tour chief executive Larry Scott accused Wimbledon of a “Victorian era view.” “In the 21st century, it is morally indefensible that women competitors in a Grand Slam tournament should be receiving considerably less prize money than their male counterparts,” he said. Venus Williams, the defending champion and three-time winner, said the women simply want to be treated equally. “This is not just about women’s tennis but about women all over the world,” she told BBC Radio before Wimbledon’s announcement. “At Wimbledon we would like to have equal prize money to prove that we are equal on all fronts.” Billie Jean King, who won a record 20 Wimbledon titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles, was baffled by the decision. “Over the years Wimbledon has always been one of the leaders in our sport in so many areas,” King said. “Because of that, it is truly amazing to me that all of these years later they still have not stepped up and done the right thing on the prize money issue.” The French Open said this month it would pay the men’s and women’s champions the same for the first time, although the overall prize fund is bigger for the men. The two other majors, the Australian Open and U.S. Open, have paid equal prize money for years. Overall, prize money for the June 26-July 9 Wimbledon championships will be $18.5 million, a 2.9 percent increase from last year. Maria Sharapova, ranked No. 3, won Wimbledon in 2004 and is one of the game’s most prominent players. “Women’s tennis players are getting as many sponsors and media coverage as the men,” Sharapova said. “I understand that our TV ratings at the Grand Slams are pretty much equal to and often better than the men. So I don’t understand the rationale for paying the men more than us.” Phillips said because top men rarely play in Grand Slam doubles events, they earn less overall than women. In addition, the men play best-of-five set matches while the women play best of three. “It just doesn’t seem right to us that the lady players could play in three events and could take away significantly more than the men’s champion who battles away through these best-of-five matches,” Phillips said. “We don’t see it as an equal rights issue.” With $53,600 difference in prize money between the men’s and women’s winners, Phillips said the issue was one of principle. “Obviously, it’s something that could be done and we could respond to the pressure that we come under by doing something that we fundamentally don’t think would be fair on the men,” he said. “We also would point that the top 10 ladies last year earned more from Wimbledon that the top 10 men did.” Also Tuesday, Wimbledon said it was being sued by Adidas over the size of its three-striped logos on players’ clothing. The German sporting goods manufacturer is seeking an injunction against the new rule, which specifies that logos be no larger than 4 square inches. The rule takes effect June 26, the first day of Wimbledon. Adidas is also suing the U.S., Australian and French opens and the International Tennis Federation. Ian Ritchie, chief executive of the All England Club, said Wimbledon would “vigorously defend” the case, which he described as “totally without foundation.” Organizers added that this year’s tournament won’t use Hawk-Eye computer technology to review disputed line calls. TITLE: O’Sullivan Stays on Course For Third Crucible Crown AUTHOR: By Nick Johnson PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: SHEFFIELD, England — World number one Ronnie O’Sullivan secured his place in the semi-finals of the world championship after beating Mark Williams 13-11 on Wednesday. Defending champion Shaun Murphy missed out on a place in the last four, however, when he suffered a 13-7 defeat at the hands of Peter Ebdon. O’Sullivan acknowledged he had been pushed all the way by Williams after the Welshman, twice the world champion, came back from 10-6 down to level at 11-11. “I didn’t expect to win because he put so much pressure on me and looked so comfortable,” O’Sullivan said in the post-match press conference. “He’s a class act and there’s a big mutual respect there, so it was a shame there had to be a loser. Playing the way I did was a great confidence-booster.” Williams backed O’Sullivan to win the title for a third time. “I think I’ve lost to the winner of the competition,” said Williams. “I can’t see anyone beating him.” Ebdon, who resumed with a 10-6 lead going into the final session, ended Murphy’s reign by taking three out of the opening four frames. The 35-year-old Englishman, who is now based in Dubai, believes he can reclaim the title he won four years ago after working hard in the build-up to the tournament. “I believe I deserve it because I’ve worked hard and hopefully I’m coming into form at the right time,” Ebdon told reporters. Ebdon paid tribute to the way Murphy has conducted himself since winning the title 12 months ago. “He’s been an outstanding world champion and I really appreciate everything he’s done for snooker over the past year,” Ebdon told reporters. A dejected Murphy said: “Last year I potted everybody off the table, but I’ve not scored all the way through the tournament.” Hong Kong’s Marco Fu became only the second Asian player to reach the semi-finals at The Crucible, following in the footsteps of James Wattana, when he beat Irishman Ken Doherty 13-10. Scotland’s Graeme Dott beat Australian qualifier Neil Robertson 13-12 to book his place in the last four. TITLE: Forsberg Helps Flyers Cut into Sabres’ Lead PUBLISHER: Reuters TEXT: NEW YORK — Peter Forsberg scored twice to guide Philadelphia to a gritty 4-2 win over Buffalo on Wednesday, the Game Three victory enabling the Flyers to reduce the Sabres’ advantage in their Eastern conference quarter-final to 2-1. Forsberg led Sweden to a gold medal at the Turin Olympics and his inspirational performance in front of a packed Wachovia Center crowd showed why he has long been considered the NHL’s most complete player. In other Eastern Conference quarter-final games, the Carolina Hurricanes rebounded from a pair of home losses to edge the Montreal Canadiens 2-1 in overtime, while the New Jersey Devils beat the New York Rangers 3-0 for a third straight victory. In the Western Conference, the Colorado Avalanche also surged 3-0 ahead in their quarter-final series with a 4-3 overtime win over the Dallas Stars. Following two ill-tempered losses in Buffalo, including a Game Two 8-2 mauling on Monday, the Flyers returned home in desperate need of a victory. Ales Kotalik gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead just two minutes into opening period before Forsberg fired his team into life with a flying check on Daniel Briere that resulted in a two-minute charging penalty. The hit appeared to act as an inspiration for the Flyers, with Brian Savage scoring a shorthanded goal to pull Philadelphia level heading into the first intermission. Forsberg then tallied twice in the second frame, the first unassisted and the second on a powerplay to put the Flyers in front to stay at 3-1. Tim Connolly reduced the lead to one goal when he scored to open the third before Simon Gagne sealed victory with an empty net marker. “He (Forsberg) sets a higher standard for himself than anybody,” Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock told reporters. “He set the tone. “That’s what we’re going to need. Buffalo has so much depth up front, they’re hard to play against.” The Flyers will have a chance to even up the series in Game Four at home on Friday. In Montreal, Eric Staal scored on a powerplay 3:38 into overtime to lift the Hurricanes to a 2-1 win. After giving up six goals in each of their two losses in Raleigh, Carolina coach Peter Laviolette took a gamble and went with Cam Ward in the net instead of Martin Gerber. The 22-year-old rookie responded with a sparkling display in his first post-season start making 27 saves, many of them spectacular. Richard Zednik scored for Montreal in regulation while Rod Brind’Amour forced overtime with his goal midway through the third. Game Four is set for Montreal on Friday. TITLE: Packers’ Favre Says He’ll Play Another Year AUTHOR: By Mark Maske PUBLISHER: wp TEXT: GREEN BAY, Winsconsin — Quarterback Brett Favre has decided to return for one more season with the Green Bay Packers. The team announced yesterday that Favre had informed the club of his decision Tuesday. “The Green Bay Packers are very pleased that Brett has come to this decision, and look forward to a successful 2006 season,” Packers General Manager Ted Thompson said in a written statement released by the team. Favre previously said that if he returned, next season would be his last. The Packers put their plans for the future on hold for months while Favre mulled his options and, at times, spoke as if he was planning to retire. Former Packers coach Mike Holmgren said last month that when his current team, the Seattle Seahawks, faced the Packers at the end of the regular season, he believed that Favre would retire, but he’d changed his thinking since then and had become increasingly convinced that Favre would play another season. It will be Favre’s 16th NFL season and 15th with the Packers. He is coming off his worst season, having thrown a career-high 29 interceptions while the Packers went 4-12. He said during the offseason that he wanted the Packers to be active in free agency in an attempt to return to competitive status, but Thompson took a mostly conservative approach until the Packers agreed yesterday to a seven-year deal with cornerback Charles Woodson worth as much as $52.7 million. Woodson, formerly of the Oakland Raiders, also had been negotiating with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Packers have the fifth overall selection in the draft Saturday, and Thompson has said he would not hesitate to use that choice on a quarterback if he feels that’s the best player available at the time. The Packers used a first-round pick last year on quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Packers officials had hoped Favre would decide before the draft but had postponed a deadline tied to a $3 million roster bonus in Favre’s contract until training camp in case it took him that long to make up his mind. Favre, who turns 37 in October, will be playing for a new head coach after Thompson fired Mike Sherman following the season and replaced him with Mike McCarthy. TITLE: Kobe Bryant Leads LA Lakers To Victory Against Suns to Tie Series AUTHOR: By Bob Baum PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: PHOENIX — Two games into the playoffs, Kobe Bryant is as much a leader as he is a scorer. And he has the Los Angeles Lakers tied in their first-round series with the Phoenix Suns. Bryant had 29 points and 10 rebounds, Lamar Odom scored 21 and the Lakers held off a late rally to beat the cold-shooting Suns 99-93 on Wednesday night. “Kobe was leading us perfect tonight,” the Lakers’ Kwame Brown said. “Everybody expects him to come out and score 40 because it’s the playoffs, but he did what a leader and general should do.” Expect coach Phil Jackson to stay with the game plan for Game 3 on Friday night in Los Angeles. “During the regular season, when everyone was trying to learn the offense, Phil and I both knew I was going to have to shoulder the scoring load,” Bryant said. “Now in the playoffs, everyone has a rhythm for the game and we can start attacking as a union. “It’s not me trying to go out there and score 40 or 50 points.” In other NBA playoff games, Detroit topped Milwaukee 109-98 and Dallas beat Memphis 94-79 to take 2-0 series leads. The Arizona Republic, quoting an an unidentified league source, reported Wednesday morning that Nash would repeat as the NBA’s most valuable player. He looked the role for a good portion of Wednesday night’s game, finishing with 29 points. Raja Bell added 23, but the Suns shot 43 percent — 34 percent in the first half. Los Angeles led by as many as 17 late in the second quarter and early in the third after Phoenix went nearly 7 1/2 minutes without a point. “We’ve really struggled to be ourselves regardless of how they play us,” Nash said. “We’ve got a little bit of, I don’t know if it’s playoff anxiety or what. We really just need to get back to being ourselves.” The Suns excel at high speeds, and they were tentative and clanked shot after shot off the rim in the first half. “For whatever reason, it looks like it’s almost a weight on our shoulders or whatever,” Phoenix coach Mike D’Antoni said. “We just need to get out there and run. We’ve got to bust through some barriers there for whatever reason.” Bryant’s emphatic stuff with 3:13 left put the Lakers ahead 92-83. Nash was called for a foul on the play, but Bryant missed the free throw. Bell scored six in a row, the last a 20-footer at the shot clock buzzer to cut the lead to 92-89 with 1:51 to play. But he missed a 3-pointer that would have tied it. Smush Parker scored inside and Luke Walton sank two free throws to put Los Angeles ahead 96-89 with 34.5 seconds to go. “There were some dramatic plays down the stretch, and I thought our composure was not what I like,” Jackson said. “But we were able to sustain the effort and get a couple of terrific plays — one from Smush and one from Kobe. I thought defensively it was our night, and that was the best thing about it.” Bryant finished 12-for-24 shooting after going 7-for-21 in Game 1. “He stayed very well inside of what we’re trying to do,” Jackson said. Odom shot 9-for-12, 3-for-5 from 3-point range. TITLE: Bonds Closes on Babe Record PUBLISHER: The Associated Press TEXT: SAN FRANCISCO, California — Barry Bonds made Billy Wagner his newest victim, not that it helped the San Francisco Giants all that much. Bonds tied the score in the ninth with a pinch-hit, two-run homer off New York’s closer. But the Mets went on to a 9-7 win Wednesday when Chris Woodward lined a go-ahead double in the 11th inning and scored on Jose Reyes’ single. “He’s not the old Bonds, but he can still hit,” Wagner said. Bonds’ 711th homer left him three behind Babe Ruth for second on the career list, trailing only Hank Aaron (755). Wagner became the 418th pitcher to surrender a homer to Bonds, who hit a pinch-homer for the first time since Aug. 23, 2001, at Montreal. It was Bonds’ third homer of the year and second in as many games. “Especially off Billy, it’s crazy,” Bonds said. “I haven’t hit a ball like that off him ever. Ever.” In other games, it was: St. Louis 4, Pittsburgh 3; Florida 7, Chicago 5; Milwaukee 5, Atlanta 4; Cincinnati 5, Washington 0; Arizona 3, San Diego 2; Philadelphia 9, Colorado 5; and Houston 8, Los Angeles 5. At San Francisco, Bonds remained in the game to play left field, and appeared to have difficulty chasing Woodward’s double off Scott Munter (0-1). Darren Oliver (1-0) got the final out in the 10th and worked the 11th.