SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1171 (37), Tuesday, May 23, 2006
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TITLE: Police Kill Suspect in Racist Attack Investigation
AUTHOR: By Carl Schreck and Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Police shot and killed a 21-year-old man wanted for several racist attacks after he lunged at arresting officers with a knife, prosecutors said Friday.
A police officer shot Dmitry Borovikov, a founder of the extremist group Mad Crowd, once in the head at around 10 p.m. Thursday, St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Yelena Ordynskaya said.
“The officer fired a warning shot in the air, but [Borovikov] tried to stab him, and the officer was forced to take action,” Ordynskaya said.
Borovikov died later in hospital. Prosecutors are investigating whether the use of deadly force by the officer was justified, a standard procedure whenever an officer uses a weapon.
Nikolai Kuryanovich, a member of the Liberal-Democratic faction at the State Duma, told Echo Moskvy Radio station he is planning to file a report to the General Prosecutor’s Office asking for a more detailed investigation into the use of firearms in the case.
“The force against Borovikov was clearly inappropriate,” the lawmaker said. “The prosecutor’s office has to look into it.”
Ordynskaya said a federal warrant had been issued for Borovikov’s arrest in April 2005 in connection with his suspected role in several racist attacks. She declined to give details because of the ongoing investigation.
Interfax, citing an unidentified police official, reported that Borovikov was a suspect in the shooting of a Senegalese student Lamzar Samba last month. Samba, a fifth-year St. Petersburg Communications University student, was killed by a single gunshot to the neck as he left Apollo, a nightclub popular among African students, on April 7. 
Samba was also an activist with African Union, a St. Petersburg-based non-governmental group aimed at coordinating, representing and helping the local African community.
Police have linked Borovikov to a gun that may have been used in Samba’s murder, Interfax and St. Petersburg news web site Fontanka.ru reported.
The police on Monday detained five suspects — allegedly members of an extremist gang — in connection with the murder of the Senegalese student and several other extremist crimes, Ordynskaya said. The suspects are likely to be facing organized crime charges, the police press-office said.
During searches at the apartments of the detainees the police found extremist literature. Medical examinations of the suspects showed that some of them have tattoos of swastikas and extremist or racist slogans. Two of the suspects are students of local universities: one studies at the Baltic International Tourism Institute, while another is a student of the Herzen Pedagogical University.
Borovikov’s home address is 4 Boitsova Pereulok, Interfax reported. It was in the courtyard of that building that Khursheda Sultanova, a 9-year-old Tajik girl, was stabbed to death in 2004. It was unclear whether Borovikov is suspected of involvement in the crime.
A St. Petersburg court sentenced five Mad Crowd members to prison terms in December 2005: three got three years on charges of participating in racist attacks and two received two years on charges of inciting racial hatred and forming an extremist organization. Police have put out an arrest warrant for another Mad Crowd leader, Ruslan Melnik.
Recent events have demonstrated that St. Petersburg’s extremist groups communicate with each other. The Mad Crowd investigation showed that Melnik was a close ally of Dmitry Bobrov, leader of the local neo-Nazi group Schultz-88, who was sentenced to six years in jail in Dec. 2005 for inciting racial hatred and forming an extremist organization.

TITLE: Venezuela Eyes Russian Sukhoi Fighter Planes
AUTHOR: By Ian James
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela will offer to sell its fleet of 21 U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to any country it chooses, including Iran, while looking to buy new warplanes from Russia. 
Chavez made the remarks in a speech late Saturday in rural eastern Venezuela, backing suggestions by one of his top generals that he should consider selling the F-16s to Iran. The government released a partial transcript on Sunday. 
Chavez noted that Gen. Alberto Muller had suggested the idea last week in response to Washington’s refusal to sell the country parts to upgrade the jets. 
“So Muller said, ‘Let’s sell them to Iran.’ That could be,” Chavez said. 
The Venezuelan leader said Sunday that he is considering a deal to buy an unspecified number of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30 and Su-35 jet fighters. 
“The Sukhoi 30 and Sukhoi 35 are very superior to the F-16s,” said Chavez, who a day earlier described the Russian planes as “100 times better” and said he hoped to finalize a deal during an upcoming trip to Moscow. 
Venezuela’s military also is turning to Russia to buy helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, which are to begin arriving soon. 
Chavez rejected U.S. claims that Venezuela is legally bound to seek U.S. permission to sell the F-16s under the terms of the sale contract. 
“Now they say in the United States that we can’t sell those planes. What can’t we sell? We will sell those planes to whomever we want, if someone wants to buy them,” Chavez said. “Those planes are ours; they don’t belong to them anymore.” 
“What’s more, we’ll give them to whomever we wish,” said Chavez, whose increasingly close ties to Iran have alarmed the government of U.S. President George W. Bush. 
Iranian Embassy officials have said there are no formal plans to buy Venezuela’s planes for now. Defense Minister Orlando Maniglia played down Muller’s comments last week, saying there was no formal proposal to sell planes to Iran. 
Venezuelan officials have been publicly discussing the future of the F-16s publicly since the U.S. government announced last week it was blocking new weapons sales to Venezuela, accusing Chavez of failing to cooperate in counterterrorism efforts and citing his close ties to Iran. 
U.S. officials also have suggested the idea of selling planes to Iran didn’t appear practical, with State Department spokesman Sean McCormack last week calling the talk “overheated rhetoric” and reiterating that Venezuela was bound to seek U.S. approval for any transfer of the planes. 
Chavez did not mention his plans for the F-16s during his weekly broadcast Sunday, but he said, “the United States is failing in its attempt to blockade us, to disarm us.” He took sharp issue with a remark by McCormack last week that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi could give him some pointers on cooperating against terrorism. 
“They attack us as terrorists,” Chavez said during his program. “It must be remembered that the first great terrorist on the planet is named President George Bush.” 
Chavez accused the U.S. of “preparing an attack against Iran,” and of protecting terror suspects like Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles, who is being held in the U.S. on immigration charges but is wanted in Venezuela on charges of masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jet that killed 73 people. 
Chavez, meanwhile, greeted the Iranian ambassador during his weekly broadcast. 
“We are with you, against the imperialist menace,” Chavez told the Iranian diplomat through a televised link, reiterating his stand that Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear energy despite U.S. concerns about its nuclear program.

TITLE: Judge Reads Testimony From Child Hostages in Beslan Case
AUTHOR: By Yuras Karmanau
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia — A judge on Monday read the testimony of senior officials that were given the task of rescuing hostages in the Beslan school siege, in which 331 died. Victims and their relatives accused authorities of a cover-up. 
High-ranking officials including the former regional president, Alexander Dzasokhov, and the former local head of the Federal Security Service, Valery Andreyev, had testified that authorities negotiated with militants in an attempt to secure the hostages’ release and that government troops never targeted civilians during the storming of the school in September 2004. 
Victims and their relatives, however, dismissed the official testimony as false. They claimed authorities did not do enough to save the hostages and that many had died not at the hands of militants, but of the authorities — because of heavy weapons used during the rescue operation. 
The testimony was read on the fifth day the judge spent delivering the verdict against Nur-Pashi Kulayev, the sole alleged attacker standing trial. Prosecutors have called for the death penalty for Kulayev, who has admitted to participating in the attack but denied killing anybody. 
Judge Tamerlan Aguzarov has already established that Kulayev participated in crimes including murder, committing a terrorist act and the seizure of hostages, but the formal conviction will be announced only after all circumstances of the crime are pronounced by the court. 
Court officials and prosecutors, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak on the record, told The Associated Press that they expect the verdict to be announced this week. 
Earlier Monday, Aguzarov read testimony of a juvenile hostage identified only by his last name, Chepirov, who testified militants acted aggressively, fired in the air and harassed hostages. “On the second day they stopped giving (hostages) water and they started drinking urine,” Aguzarov read. 
Most victims died on the third day of the crisis, in a hail of gunfire and explosions that erupted after one of the bombs the attackers rigged at the school went off and security forces tried to free hostages. 
Survivors of the attack and the victims’ families, however, believe many deaths were caused by the botched rescue operation, in which tanks and flame-throwers were alleged used. They have repeatedly expressed frustration and anger that no senior official has been prosecuted. 
“Tanks were used during the storming, because authorities were afraid of losses on their side and no one was thinking about the hostages — (authorities) had given up on them a long time ago,” said Ella Kesayeva, head of the Voice of Beslan local activist group. 
“For 40 minutes special forces ... did not come near the school and meanwhile people were being burnt alive there,” Kesayeva said. 
Rita Sidakova, 47, blamed authorities for the death of her only daughter in the ordeal. 
“My daughter was burnt alive and she wasn’t burnt because troops were saving hostages, but because troops were destroying civilians,” Sidakova said.

TITLE: Rice: U.S. to Press on Reform
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: BOSTON, Massachusetts — Russia should be pressed on democratic reforms, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview published Sunday, adding that Moscow should not intimidate its neighbors. 
“We still have a good relationship with Russia. We work together on all kinds of issues,” Rice said. “We’ve come a long, long way from when there was a hammer and sickle above the Kremlin,” Rice said in an interview published Sunday in the newspaper of Boston College, where she is to speak Monday. 
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said on May 4 in Vilnius that Russia was using energy as a weapon against former republics of the Soviet Union and meddling in their politics. 
Days later President Vladimir Putin referred to the United States as a wolf with a limited point of view. 
“These are things we’ve been saying and talking about for some time,” Rice said. 
“They perhaps got put together in the vice president’s speech, but these have been issues with the Russians and we’ve been vocal about them,” she said. 
“There are some protections for individual freedoms, but we have to worry that the kind of institutionalization of democracy that is so important — with a free press, with a judiciary that’s independent, with a legislature that is a real legislature. That is what has not taken place and indeed where there have been some reversals in Russia ... we have to speak the truth as we know it,” Rice said.

TITLE: Hundreds Protest Against Fraud Case
AUTHOR: By Anastasiya Lebedev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Hundreds of people who lost their life savings and, in some cases, their homes in a nationwide real estate scam rallied outside the White House on Friday, and some set up tents in the hope of staying all weekend.
After two failed attempts to break up the gathering, helmeted riot police swooped down on the camp early Saturday, tearing down the tents and detaining about 50 people.
Large anti-government protests are rare under President Vladimir Putin, and Friday’s gathering was the first to incorporate tents — an enduring symbol of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.
On Friday afternoon, middle-aged and elderly protesters sat on the sun-splashed lawn across from the White House and in a dozen or so tents, holding banners and bickering over water, which was in short supply. Many chanted “Shame!” and “Down with corruption!”
The target of their anger was a residential construction firm called Sotsialnaya Initsiativa, which they said collected more than 15 billion rubles ($555.3 million) between 2003 and 2005 after they promised customers affordable, new housing. More than 50,000 families are believed to have paid for apartments that were never built or that were sold to multiple buyers. 
The former head of Sotsialnaya Initsiativa, Nikolai Karasyov, was arrested and charged with large-scale fraud in January. 
Police cordoned off the area on Friday, allowing people out but not in. An organizer, Sergei, said as many as 1,100 people were present at the beginning of the protest, but some had left to use toilets outside a nearby metro station and were not allowed to return. Sergei would not give his last name, saying police could charge him for organizing an unsanctioned protest. 
The protesters distributed a list of demands, calling on the federal government to accept responsibility for the fraud and asking that it guarantee apartments or cash refunds. They also asked that any municipal officials who purposely or negligently allowed Sotsialnaya Initsiativa to perpetrate the fraud be prosecuted.
City Duma Deputy Sergei Mitrokhin of Yabloko arrived at the protest in the afternoon and offered to mediate between the protesters and the federal government. He took three protesters into the White House but was not able to find a federal official willing to negotiate with them, protesters said.
Anastasia Antonycheva, a spokeswoman for the apartment buyers, said the protesters had not appealed to Mitrokhin or any other politician to mediate and that they wanted a response from higher-ranked officials.
Sergei said Regional Development Minister Vladimir Yakovlev had offered to meet with them on Monday but they wanted someone with more clout.
OMON riot police and regular police tried to disperse the crowd twice but could not get past a chain of screaming protesters, Antonycheva said. She said the officers backed off when protesters asked them for protection.
Late in the afternoon, police formed two lines around the area so that protesters could no longer talk to a crowd of some 150 supporters gathered outside the cordon, Antonycheva said by telephone.
As the ranks of riot police armed with truncheons grew, police warned the protesters to leave before midnight. But people wrapped in blankets sat on the ground near the tents, singing and shouting defiantly: “We’ve got nowhere to go,” The Associated Press reported.
Riot police forcibly cleared the camp just after midnight, dragging protesters to waiting buses. About 50 people were briefly detained and fined 400 to 500 rubles for participating in an unsanctioned rally, Itar-Tass reported, citing police. Gazeta.ru said its reporter was detained along with some 30 protesters and taken to Presnensky police station. All were released within two hours, it said.
Defrauded homeowners have held a series of protests and hunger strikes in Moscow and the Moscow region since last fall. Friday’s protesters came from those two areas as well as Voronezh and Orenburg, Antonycheva said. Some protesters were victims of other apartment scams, she said.
Only two other large anti-government demonstrations have been held during Putin’s six years in power. 
Earlier this year, drivers staged national protests over the conviction of a driver in the car-crash death of Altai’s governor, and the fact that officials’ cars with flashing blue lights are given a priority on the roads. The driver’s conviction was later overturned. 
Early last year, unpopular reforms replacing state benefits with small cash payments sparked street protests across the country.
A makeshift tent camp in Kiev’s main square played a major role in protests that eventually toppled the long-serving regime of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2004. The Kremlin has said a similar uprising would not take place in Russia.

TITLE: Malaysians Fight For Ticket on Space Trip
AUTHOR: By Anna Smolchenko
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The first Malaysian to rocket into space will be a dentist. Or an orthopedic surgeon. Or maybe a pilot or an engineer. 
One thing can be said for sure about the next international guest on the Russian spacecraft: He — or she — will have beat out a lot of people for the distinction of being the first person from the mostly Muslim, Southeast Asian nation to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.
For now, only the finalists are known, with Federal Space Agency and Rosoboronexport officials introducing Muhammad Faiz, 34; Faiz Khaleed, 26; Sheikh Muszaphar, 34; and 35-year-old Vanajah Siva, the only woman in the group, in a news conference on Friday. 
The news conference, at Rosoboronexport’s central Moscow headquarters, included a backdrop consisting of Malaysian and Russian flags and the state-owned arms trader’s logo. Below the logo was the slogan “Total Solutions for Defense,” in English.
In August or September, space officials, with the Malaysian government, will select their newest astronaut and a backup. 
It’s been a long and tortuous trek for the four would-be space travelers. 
Back in 2003, as part of an arms deal in which Moscow sold Kuala Lumpur 18 Sukhoi fighter jets worth more than $900 million, Malaysian authorities invited everyone in the country over 21 to apply for a chance to go to space.
They received 11,000 applications. Those applications were whittled down to 894 candidates. Candidates endured numerous challenges, including survival tests in the jungle and at sea. The four finalists were announced in March by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
Two weeks ago, the finalists began a round of medical tests at Star City, outside Moscow.
After Malaysia’s first angkasawan, or astronaut, is announced, the winner and runner-up will start a year-long training program. The program includes another survival test — this one in Siberia. 
The launch is scheduled for September 2007, said Yury Nosenko, deputy head of the Federal Space Agency. Once in space, the Malaysian astronaut will travel to the International Space Station.
The Malaysian-Russian flight comes as Rosoboronexport is moving into other business sectors. Last year, the firm took control of ailing carmaker AvtoVAZ and the country’s helicopter makers.
It is now reportedly in talks to acquire a stake in VSMPO-Avisma, the large titanium producer, and two military shipyards in St. Petersburg.
Russian and Malaysian officials at Friday’s briefing said they hoped the project would help boost bilateral military cooperation.
“I would like to see more cooperation beyond this cosmonaut program,” said Tan Sri Subhan Jasmon, secretary general of Malaysia’s Defense Ministry.
As for the finalists, flying into space on the Russian craft would be the culmination of a childhood dream. 
“Ever since I was 10, I wanted to go to space,” said Muszaphar, the orthopedic surgeon. One of his chief goals, if he’s tapped, would be to get Malaysian children to “change their mindset about science and space.”
The space flight is also a matter of national pride.
“We would like to show the world that Malaysia is capable of sending a cosmonaut into space,” Faiz said.
Earlier this year, a Brazilian astronaut hitched a ride on a Russian spacecraft. It was the first time a Latin American had been to space.
Siva said the Malaysian space traveler would bring samples of Malaysian cuisine. 
She lamented that more women had not applied to go to space; the engineer was one of 146 women out of nearly 900 candidates.
“From the very beginning, there was not enough participation by women,” Siva said.
Siva said she took off two months from her job at a Canadian-owned factory, Teknion Furniture Systems. At the end of the month, she must go back. 
If she is selected, Siva said, she’ll quit her job to return to Russia. 
Siva said it wasn’t hard to compete with men, but called the jungle “bad.”
“It’s basically competing with myself,” she said, adding that she was looking forward to testing her mettle further. The final training, far from civilization, will feature jumping into icy water, she said.
Asked if she aspired to be Malaysia’s Yury Gagarin, Siva said she’d rather follow in the footsteps of the first woman to go to space: “More like Valentina Tereshkova.”

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Workers Attacked
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Seven laborers working on a bridge in the Krasnogvardeisky district suffered a severe beating from a group of well-armed youngsters on Monday, Ekho Moskvy radio station reported. 
Twenty local youths, armed with heavy chains, baseball bats and steel armature carried out an attack on the workers. The motives behind the attack have not yet been established. 
The victims sustained severe injuries and were taken to local hospitals. The police have already detained five suspects, all of them unemployed locals, and the prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal investigation.

Antique Books Seized
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Nine antique books and more than half a million rubles ($18,500) were confiscated from a 55-year-old U.S. citizen at Pulkova Airport customs on Monday, Fontanka.ru reported.
The man, who used the Green channel to pass through customs, was carrying the books without any accompanying documents. 
The books were sent for an expert investigation that showed that they were in the cultural valuables category and cannot be taken out of the country without special permission.

Police Bust Vandals
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The local police have detained several vandals who defiled a chapel at the Smolenskoye Cemetery, Ekho Moskvy radio station reported. 
The hooligans drew Satanist symbols in black paint over the main entrance to the St. Ksenia Chapel. Ksenia Petersburgskaya is one of the city’s most worshipped saints. The vandals — all unemployed locals with criminal records — were arrested at the cemetery’s exit and then taken to Police Station No.30.

TITLE: Finnish Victory Puts Russia in Second Place
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ATHENS — Finnish rockers Lordi won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest late Saturday — a stunning upset in a competition better known for bland dance music and bubble-gum pop. 
The cartoon metalheads, who sport latex monster masks and spark-spewing instruments and sing about “the Arockalypse,” fought off a strong challenge from Russian heartthrob Dima Bilan to take the 51st annual music prize. Some Russians complained Sunday that the vote was skewed against their country.
“This is a victory for rock music, and also a victory for open-mindedness,” the lead singer of Lordi, Mr. Lordi, told a news conference after the win — Finland’s first. 
“We are not Satanists. We are not devil-worshippers. This is entertainment,” he added. 
Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Hari Mata Hari was third in the contest, which was decided by phone and text message votes from viewers in 38 European countries. 
The phantasmagoric Finns, who scandalized some compatriots when their song “Hard Rock Hallelujah” was chosen to represent the Nordic nation, was the surprise hit of the competition. 
Combining crunchy guitars, a catchy chorus and mock-demonic imagery, Lordi is reminiscent of U.S. ‘70s stars KISS — an inspiration acknowledged by Mr. Lordi, who comes from Lapland, in Finland’s far north. 
Band members never appear without their elaborate masks and makeup, and do not reveal their true names. 
Lordi beat an unusually eclectic 24-nation field, which ranged from the perky pop of Danish teenager Sidsel Ben Semmane and Malta’s Fabrizio Faniello to the balladry of Ireland’s Brian Kennedy and the country-pop of Germany’s Texas Lightning. 
Lordi received 292 points, the highest score in the contest’s history. Many Finns were delighted. 
“I think it was so great, because we are always the losers in Eurovision, and now we’ve got the most points ever in Eurovision history,” said Nina Nezeri, 26, who was watching the televised contest at home in Helsinki with a group of friends. 
“It’s a good song. They look scary and everything, but it’s a good song.”  
Since 1956, Eurovision has pitted European nations against one another in pursuit of pop music glory. Previous winners include ‘60s chanteuse Lulu, Sweden’s ABBA — victors in 1974 with “Waterloo” — and Canada’s Celine Dion, who won for Switzerland in 1988. 
Some 13,000 fans from across the continent packed Athens’ Olympic arena for the three-hour contest, broadcast live in 38 countries to an audience estimated at 100 million.  
“It’s the campiness, the glamour, the glitz, the sparkles. We come every year,” said Jude Habib, a communications consultant from London, attending her fourth Eurovision with friend Mandy Norman. 
“Our friends think we’re mad,” she said. “But for one week a year, we can be completely silly.” 
Eurovision victory is no guarantee of fame. Dion and ABBA went on to glory — as did Olivia Newton John, who lost to ABBA while competing for Britain in 1974. Other winners have sunk without trace, victims of the “curse of Eurovision.” 
Athens is hosting the event because Greece won last year in Kiev, Ukraine. 
The show opened in true Eurovision style, with a garish musical number inspired, organizers said, by Greece’s rich history, mythology and sparkling seas. The hosts, Greek pop singer Sakis Rouvas and American “Access Hollywood” correspondent Maria Menounous, were flown in from the wings onto a set inspired by an ancient theater. 
U.S. broadcaster NBC announced plans earlier this year to replicate the formula — a forerunner of “American Idol”-style talent contests — in the United States, with acts from different U.S. states competing for viewers’ approval. 
The European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, said it was in talks with NBC over rights. If successful, the American version could go ahead as early as this fall, said the group’s director of television, Bjorn Erichsen. 
On Sunday, some callers to Ekho Moskvy radio proclaimed Dima Bilan’s superiority to Lordi; one woman said the result was the latest in a series of anti-Russian moves by Europeans. 	
“‘We are First!’ That’s exactly how many Russians are reacting to the results of the international contest,” the anchorwoman for state-run Channel One — which broadcast the contest live — said as the channel led its noontime newscas	
“Many specialists considered the vote for the victor to be a protest vote,” she asserted. “The sense is that the contest was more about circus performers, clowns and pyrotechnic effects, and not a song contest,” YurY Aktsyuta, a top music producer at Channel One, said in televised comments. 	
“I will never believe that the song by the Finnish group Lordi was better and stronger as a song than ours,” he said. “I think that Russia was the winner and the voting was a protest vote, to some extent, but it was unclear what the protest was for.” 
Meanwhile, Bilan — whose performance of “Never Let You Go” featured a white-clad actor climbing out of a white piano — had a more diplomatic response to the results, which was one of the highest finishes for a Russian performer in the history of the contest. 
“I’m so proud for my country. I’m unbelievably happy, and there were so many interesting performers,” Bilan said. “To be recognized practically all over Europe is very pleasing.”

TITLE: Orthodox, Muslims Slam Film
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian Orthodox and Muslim leaders have formed a united front blasting the new movie “The Da Vinci Code” as blasphemous and an act of “spiritual terrorism.”
The Hollywood hit starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou was released in Russia on Thursday, including at 75 Moscow movie theaters.
The Moscow Patriarchate has warned that opposition to the movie in the Orthodox community is so great that there are likely to be “extreme forms of protest,” declining to elaborate on what that might be.
Father Dmitry Smirnov, who heads the patriarchate’s military liaison division, appeared to stoke the controversy Thursday when he called on Orthodox Christians to protest the film at the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“I am ready to sue those who arrange the showing of this film in our country,” he said.
Also on Thursday, 15 Orthodox Christians descended on the Oktyabr multiplex on Novy Arbat to pray for moviegoers and protest the movie. After their prayer, the protesters torched a huge poster advertising “The Da Vinci Code.”
The Council of Muftis of Russia, meanwhile, has rebuked the film for “insulting the senses of believers” and “imposing false information regarding the history of traditional religions.” 
Leaders of lesser-known Muslim groups have also made their voices heard. “Such creative works that distort spiritual values I consider to be spiritual aggression, spiritual terrorism,” Nafigulla Ashirov, leader of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of the Asian Part of Russia, said of the movie in a statement last week.
And the Central Spiritual Board of Russian Muslims equated the release of the movie with the recent publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. The cartoons provoked fierce protests across the Muslim world.
Earlier this year, Talgat Tajuddin, head of the Central Spiritual Board, called on Muslims to “thrash” gays if they held a parade in Moscow this May.
Curiously, Roman Catholic officials were more muted about the film, which depicts the Vatican as covering up the story of Jesus’ family.
Igor Kovalevsky, the secretary-general of the nation’s Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the decision to see — or not to see — the film was a matter of “personal conscience.” 
Sergei Mozgovoi, head of the Liberty of Consciousness Institute, a Moscow think tank, called the Orthodox and Muslim clerics’ inflammatory rhetoric nothing more than a publicity ploy.
“It has very little to do with the real problems that Russian believers face,” Mozgovoi said. He added that the anti-“Da Vinci Code” alliance that has emerged between Orthodox and Muslim clerics indicates that the real dividing line in Russian religious life separates the religious and secular worlds, not Muslims and non-Muslims.
Boris Makarenko, an analyst at the Center for Political Technologies, explained the particularly harsh comments that had come from the Muslim community on the grounds that Muslims are less tolerant of dissent than others. 
“They need to be harsh to be appreciated by their flock,” he said.

TITLE: Democrats, Reformers To Unite for 2007 Vote
AUTHOR: By Francesca Mereu
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Leading democratic parties and reformers are looking to combine forces in advance of the 2007 parliamentary elections, creating a single party to challenge United Russia.
“If the democrats fail to get into the State Duma in 2007, Russia runs the risk of having a nationalist, xenophobic and imperialist president,” said Boris Nadezhdin, a deputy leader of the Union of Right Forces, or SPS. “Everyone now understands that it is necessary to unite to prevent such a scenario.”
In addition to SPS, also taking part in the talks to form a single party are Yabloko; the Republican Party; the new People’s Democratic Union, founded by former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov; the Party of Development of Enterprise; and Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion-turned-liberal reformer. 
It is unclear what the party’s name will be or which leading reformers will join it, Nadezhdin said. He added that it was unknown whether Kasyanov, who plans to run for president in 2008, will join the new party.
Kasyanov could not be reached for comment. The people’s Democratic Union has attracted the likes of former presidential candidate and SPS co-chair Irina Khakamada, and former SPS member Ivan Starikov.
Kasyanov accused President Vladimir Putin’s government of intimidating successful business owners, censoring the media, applying the law selectively and steering money away from the relatively impoverished provinces and toward Moscow.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent Duma deputy and head of the Republican Party, said his party, SPS and the Party of Development of Enterprise would combine forces for December’s regional elections in Perm, Interfax reported. 
It is not known under which banner the candidates will run.

TITLE: Interpol Unblocks Warrants
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — Interpol has backed Russian arrest warrants for self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky and several other criminal suspects wanted in Russia, Itar-Tass reported. 
Deputy Interior Minister Andrei Novikov said Interpol’s move would provide Russia with “additional arguments for nations giving shelter to those who are being sought,” Itar-Tass reported late Thursday. 
An official at Interpol’s Paris headquarters said in a telephone interview that the agency had just ended the legal review of its so-called “red notices” related to Russia — Interpol notifications to member countries that the country in question has issued an arrest warrant. 
The legal review of the notices, conducted following a legal challenge, has concluded that there are no problems with them, said the Interpol official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 
He said that the hold on the notices was therefore lifted. The official would not say on what basis the Russian warrants had been challenged. 
Itar-Tass said the Interpol red notices referred to Berezovsky, his associate Yuly Dubov, Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin, Yukos chief legal expert Mikhail Gololobov and Menatep bank department head Natalya Chernysheva.

TITLE: Shell’s Sakhalin in River Strife
AUTHOR: By Tom Bergin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — A consortium led by Royal Dutch Shell has not fully complied with environmental guidelines when laying pipelines in east Russia, documents showed on Sunday.
The consortium denied, however, that it misled the public and potential lenders who are mulling $6 billion to $7 billion in loans for the project.
Documents obtained by conservation group WWF and seen by Reuters, showed that contractors working for Shell-led Sakhalin Energy did not follow all the environmental guidelines agreed with potential lenders when laying pipes across two rivers on Sakhalin Island in December.
One report noted 10 instances of non-compliance at a river crossing, while another noted five instances at a second river.
A spokesman for Sakhalin Energy, Matthew Bateson, confirmed the authenticity of the reports, which were compiled by independent monitors hired by the consortium.
Sakhalin Energy is building one of the world’s largest oil and gas projects on Sakhalin Island off Russia’s east coast.
The $20 billion development is also one of the most environmentally challenging because the oil and gas lies under the feeding grounds of critically endangered whales and must be exported via a new pipeline that will cross 1,100 rivers and streams.
The consortium, which also includes Japan’s Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp., has sought a $6 billion to $7 billion finance package from international government-backed lenders for the project, which is already more than half completed.
The package hinges on a decision, expected in the coming months, by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on whether the project meets strict environmental standards.
As part of its effort to secure EBRD consent, Sakhalin Energy, which is 55 percent owned by Shell, provides the bank with updates on the river crossings and publishes what it says are unvarnished reports on its web site.
However, the “Winter Crossings Report” on its web site for December 15-28, 2005, covering the period during which the two rivers referred to in the leaked reports were crossed, does not make reference to the 15 instances of non-compliance that the independent monitors noted.
WWF said Shell had tried to mislead the EBRD and green groups.
“It appears they have hidden the truth ... WWF does not see how the EBRD can trust Shell to deliver this project to meet acceptable standards,” said James Leaton, senior policy adviser at WWF’s U.K. unit.
Sakhalin Energy’s Bateson offered no reason why the non-compliance was not mentioned in the river crossing reports on the web site but denied there had been any attempt to mislead.
“The reports reflect the comments received from external observers and Sakhalin Energy has not altered or suppressed any information in its public reporting during the river crossing activities,” he said.

TITLE: Cooling Gas Controversy
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia sought on Monday to take the heat out of controversy in Europe over recent disruptions to its gas exports, calling on the eve of a European Union-Russia summit for a calmer energy dialogue.
In a letter to senior EU officials, Energy and Industry Minister Viktor Khristenko said there was “no reason to doubt” Russia’s commitment to supply it gas and other forms of energy.
The letter seemed designed to soothe nerves frayed by a New Year gas pricing dispute between Russia and Ukraine that hit supplies to Europe, which relies on Russian state-controlled monopoly Gazprom to meet a quarter of its gas needs.
President Vladimir Putin hosts European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, part of a diplomatic build-up to July’s Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg.
“In the countries of the European Union a debate is continuing about the reliability of Russian gas deliveries, and over Russia’s intention to diversify its energy export routes,” Khristenko wrote in the letter, made available to Reuters.
“In our view, these questions are acquiring an overly politicised tone which is misleading public opinion in European countries.
“Bearing this in mind, it would be sensible to take some joint steps which would bring calm to the energy debate as a whole, making it more objective.”

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Samsung Plant
KALININGRAD (Bloomberg) — Samsung Electronics, Asia’s largest maker of mobile phones, may build a factory in Russia’s Kaliningrad region to build home appliances, Interfax said, citing a Russian Energy and Industry Ministry official it didn’t name.
Samsung executives visited Kaliningrad yesterday to discuss Kaliningrad’s offer to provide tax breaks and other incentives to lure the South Korean company, the Russian news service reported Monday.
The investment will “far exceed” the 150 million rubles ($5.6 million) needed to qualify for the tax breaks, the unidentified official told Interfax. 

Lenta Store
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The St. Petersburg operator of cash & carry shopping centers Lenta opened its tenth shop in the city on Friday.
The new 12,000 square meter shop on Vasiliyevsky island offers about 15,000 different types of product; customers are served by 40 cash registers, with parking for 400 cars, RBC reported Friday.
The company did not disclose the amount of investment. Previously Lenta invested $20 million to $22 million into each new store, RBC reported.

Deal Cast
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Northwest’s largest industrial construction company, Kirovsky Zavod, and German company Hormann-Rawema signed an agreement for the construction of a casting plant, Interfax reported Monday.
Kirovsky Zavod will invest 30 million euros into the construction of the plant, which will start operating by the end of 2007, producing 20,000 tons of castings annually.  Hormann-Rawema will provide production technology.

Lenenergo bonds
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Lenenergo will issue bonds for 3.5 billion rubles from August to December 2006, the company’s general director Valery Chistyakov said Friday at a press briefing.
The new resources will allow the development of the power system in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Interfax reported Friday.
The auction to sell a 12.5 percent stake in Petersburg Generating Company, which is owned by Lenenergo, will be held in July-August.

Expanding Drugs
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Drug store operator Pharmakor will increase its turnover to $150 million this year, opening 60 new stores in St. Petersburg and the regions, RBC reported Thursday.
Last year Pharmakor’s retail turnover was $105 million. This year its total number of stores will increase to 260. 
The company invests about $250,000 into each store it acquires as its own property and $50,000 to $70,000 in the case of renting.

Merger Made
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Food retailers Pyatyorochka and Perekryostok have completed their merger, Interfax reported Friday.
The Alfa-Group and affiliated companies received 54 percent of the new company, whose largest individual shareholder is Alfa-Group chairman Mikhail Friedman (21.6 percent).
As a result of the merger company sales should increase to $6 billion by 2008, with a total of 880 stores.

TITLE: Nazarbayev, Putin Strike Gas Deal
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: SOCHI — President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, on Saturday reached a compromise agreement on prices for Kazakh gas during a meeting in Sochi.
“We have made significant progress in resolving energy cooperation issues,” Putin said at a meeting at his Bocharov Rochei residence on the Black Sea.
“Our specialists have reached agreement on extraction, processing and transportation of Kazakh gas,” Putin said in televised comments. “We have also agreed on prices.”
Putin did not give any details of the price reached, or specify which Kazakh gas fields he was referring to. 
Russia and Kazakhstan reached agreement earlier this year on the development of Kazakhstan’s Imashev gas field. The details of the agreement were not published, but analysts believe the field is shared equally by Gazprom and Kazakh state-owned oil and gas firm Kazmunaigaz.
Putin, who was meeting Nazarbayev for the fourth time this year, said bilateral ties were becoming ever closer.
“This concerns cooperation in the transport and energy spheres as well as other areas including national security,” he said. Putin said the two leaders had agreed on “further steps related to the construction of the armed forces.” 
“We agreed to maintain military-technical cooperation, primarily in expanding Russian military hardware supplies to our Kazakh partners,” Putin said, Itar-Tass reported. 
(AP, SPT)

TITLE: Transneft Beneficiaries To Be Disclosed
AUTHOR: By Maria Levitov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Prosecutor General’s Office has demanded to know who the beneficiaries of pipeline monopoly Transneft’s preferred shares are, brokerages said Friday, two weeks after the shares were frozen by a Moscow court.
Detailed information about the owners of Transneft’s preferred shares must be disclosed because of an ongoing criminal investigation into abuses by former Transneft managers during the company’s privatization, senior investigator Roman Sokolov said in a letter sent to several Moscow brokerages last week. 
Several brokerages said they would reveal the information, while one bank said the demand would “worsen sentiment” around Transneft shares.
“By law, we are required to comply with the Prosecutor General’s request,” said Vladislav Kochetkov, a spokesman for Finam investment company. It was the first time Finam had received this kind of request, Kochetkov said Friday.
Badri Gobechiya, general director of Otkrytie Investment Group, said he would also disclose the information.
The state holds 75 percent of Transneft in ordinary shares, which provide voting rights. Owners of preferred shares, who do not hold voting rights but are paid dividends before common stock holders, are not publicly known.
The investigation would not affect Transneft’s daily operations, Transneft vice president Sergei Grigoryev said Friday. The company’s top managers do not own any shares, he said.
On Thursday, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko confirmed to reporters that the government was considering merging Transneft with state-owned oil products pipeline firm Transnefteprodukt. 
Transneft did not initiate the merger, Grigoryev said Friday, but as with other decisions, the company would go along with the state’s plans.
Stephen Dashevsky, head of research at Aton brokerage, said he doubted there was any direct link between the possible merger and the shares investigation. While it was difficult to understand what the prosecutors were really after, Dashevsky said, the affair was likely to send a warning to investors in state-run companies. “The theory that investing in state-run enterprises is risk-free is wrong,” Dashevsky said. 
A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office declined to comment Friday on the letter to brokerages, saying that it could hinder the investigation.
Investigators might take a long time to go through thousands of accounts and share transactions, but could turn up few results, Alfa Bank said in a research note Friday. “This could mean increased uncertainty over when the investigation will end and what results it is supposed to achieve exactly,” the bank said.
Deutsche UFG said in a note Friday that asking brokerages to disclose beneficiary owners of a company’s shares “is an unprecedented case for the Russian stock market, which in our view will likely further worsen sentiment surrounding Transneft shares.” 
“If some documents prove to be incorrectly written, then it could provide the prosecutor’s office with grounds to challenge some transactions in the courts,” Deutsche UFG said.

TITLE: Duma Gives Nod To Russo-Kazakh Bank
AUTHOR: By William Mauldin
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW —The State Duma on Friday ratified an agreement to form a Eurasian Bank for Development to finance projects in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Russia will provide $1 billion in capital, with Kazakhstan chipping in another $500 million. Under an agreement drawn up in January in Kazakhstan, the bank will finance large projects in such sectors as energy, transport and manufacturing.
Al Breach, a Russia strategist at UBS, said it was the “logical next step” for Russia and Kazakhstan to work together to improve their infrastructure. “They have amazing balance sheets, and now they want to be bankers,” Breach said. “It’s a sign of the times.”
“There is a need for project finance, particularly in Russia and Kazakhstan, because commercial banks are too small,” said Richard Hainsworth, CEO of RusRating. “The only other way to finance such projects would be through the big global commercial banks, which has implications for national pride and goals.”
As long as such development banks use their capital to fund financially sound projects, they tend to succeed, experts say. The problem comes when powerful politicians divert the funds for “pork-barrel” projects that don’t end up making money.
“Development banks in the world are not particularly successful; their track record has been quite poor,” Hainsworth said, adding that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was an exception to this rule.
The Duma’s approval of the Eurasian bank came on the eve of a meeting Sunday and Monday of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which recently said it would concentrate less on Eastern Europe and more on Russia and the CIS.
The EBRD has said the bank would increase its financing of Russian projects from 26 percent of its total in 2005 to an estimated 41 percent of the bank’s total financing in 2010. Recent EBRD projects include a billboard-advertising company in Russia and a plastic container-top factory in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The EBRD had no immediate comment on the competing Eurasian bank.
The creation of the Eurasian Bank for Development is the most significant step taken by the Eurasian Economic Community, which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Those countries will also have the option of becoming shareholders of the Eurasian bank.
 In separate news Friday, Moody’s said it might upgrade the credit rating of the Development Bank of Kazakhstan, which has a rating of Baa3.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Tanker Attacked 
CONAKRY, Guinea (Bloomberg) — A tanker owned by Primorsk Sea Shipping, Russia’s third-largest shipping company by capacity, was attacked and its crew robbed off the coast of Guinea.
Two high-speed boats approached the Shkotovo, which was 60 miles off the Guinean port of Conakry, and took an undisclosed amount of cash yesterday afternoon local time, Nakhodka, Russia-based Prisco, as the company is known, said in a statement. The vessel was undamaged and is continuing to make deliveries to fishermen in the Atlantic Ocean, it said. None of the crew were harmed.
Twenty-two pirate attacks were reported worldwide in March, according to the latest report from the International Maritime Organization, the same number as in February.

U.S. Afghan Purchase
LONDON (Bloomberg) — U.S. military officials have asked Russian weapons suppliers to quote for a vast quantity of ammunition for the Afghan army, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The idea is to equip Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai with a massive arsenal in case a Democratic president should take over in Washington in 2008 and withdraw U.S. troops, the newspaper said.
The requested quote is for 78 million rounds of AK47 cartridges, 100,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 12,000 tank shells, and a sale might be worth $400 million, the Telegraph said, adding that Russian officials at first refused to believe the request was genuine.
The matter is being rapidly processed in Russia and deliveries by Rosoboronexport, the country’s sole agency for military exports, could begin before the end of the year, the newspaper said.

TITLE: Psychometric Tests Put Employees on the Couch
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: More and more companies and recruiting agencies have begun using psychometric tests to help assess job applications. While in terms of procedure, technique and accuracy, such testing varies widely, it is still noticeably influential among employers when the latter come to make a decision.
Although, according to Russia’s Labor Code, a job application cannot be turned down on account of a psychometric test, many recruiters admit that such cases are far from exceptional. 
Among the problems hindering the use of psychometric tests, analysts cite the following: the wide variety of testing systems; a lack of professional HR managers prepared to carry out the necessary personnel assessment; the non-professional approach of psychometric tests; and the misinterpretation of test results. 
One of the reasons why many of the psychometric tests used in Russia are not efficient is because they are translated into Russian from other foreign languages. Both because of mistakes in translation and various cross-cultural differences, the tests turned out to be irrelevant in this country. 
“Many of the literally-translated tests lose up to 70 percent of their efficiency,” said Olga Andreyeva, business development manager at Coleman Services. 
As well as the need for better translation, the tests should be adapted culturally, something “that includes the verification of the psychological context of the test, the statistical assessment criteria,” said Valery Romanov, assessment and testing specialist at ANCOR.
A complex approach to personnel assessment is the only way to get a relevant psychological profile of the applicant. In contrast to psychometric testing, which can take up to 30 hours to complete, recruiters affirm that a quick psychological test never produces good results.
“The employers usually lack time and use various “five-minute” tests widely available throughout Russia,” said Andreyeva. “However, they are usually just a substitute for real testing and have almost zero efficiency.”
To prove the validity and reliability of psychometric testing one needs to conduct trials controlled by specialists. Olga Gozman, general director at Begin Group, said that tests should only be purchased from authoritative institutes and laboratories that can guarantee trustworthy results. 
However, many analysts suppose that attempts to assess the human psyche, as complicated as it is, can never really succeed, and trying to do so at a job interview throws up even more ambiguous results. 
“In my opinion, individual psychological factors are not among the most decisive factors governing success in any particular profession,” said Gozman. “Good results can be achieved by people with completely different psychological profiles. Operating in different ways, various employees can get the same result.” 
Therefore, the thorough assessment of professional skills, such as knowledge of foreign languages, as well as logic, memory and psychomotor testing, have been proved to be very effective and usually give a more exact profile of the applicant’s professional competence. According to Alexander Selivanov, leading assessment specialist at wholesale generating company OGK-1, the reliability of tests assessing logic and understanding is about 50-70 percent, while the reliability of psychological questionnaires is only about 40 percent. 
“We usually test our applicants’ general professional knowledge and skills and conduct a short test on logic that helps reveal a candidate’s speed of reaction, decision-making abilities in non-standard situations and ability to meet deadlines,” said Olga Kapralova, PR and marketing specialist at Intercomp.
At the same time, Romanov is convinced that psychological tests are a must for those applying to such “psychologically saturated” vacancies as managers or shop assistants, who need good communication skills, and policemen, firemen and so on, who take extreme risks at work. 
“The psychometric tests used at the interview should vary according to the position the candidate applies for and the personal qualities that need to be checked,” said Yuliya Filatova, general manager at Avenir.
Another important step is the comparison of the applicants’ test results with other staff profiles, in order to understand how the new employee will influence the other members of the work force. 
“While choosing among the psychological tests it is crucial to remember the company’s general level of development and the management principles it uses,” said Oksana Kalny, HR manager at Coruna Branding Group.
Yet even the most perfect testing systems are not effective without a good HR manager, recruiters say. It is a good psychologist or an experienced recruiter who can assess the candidate in the best way. 
“Psychometric testing combined with an in-depth hour-long personal interview conducted by a qualified psychologist (or trained psychoanalyst) would achieve 90 to 95 percent objectivity in assessing a person’s profile,” said Yury Mikhailov, managing partner at Consort Petersburg.
Among the other systems of assessment popular in Russia involves the latest technology, computer programs that can verify whether a person is telling the truth at an interview. The program “K-factor” supplied by NEMESYSCO, checks the candidates’ predisposition to stealing, bribing, fraud, drugs and alcohol addiction and gambling among other things. It analyzes only the applicant’s past experience and guarantees 98 percent accuracy. The computer program, which costs 38,000 rubles ($1,434) is especially popular with the banks and investment, commercial and security companies. 
“There is no reason to test every employee with ‘K-factor’,” said Anna Boronina, PR director at Securicop Okhrana. “You only need to check the risk group that is special in any company.”

TITLE: Striking a ‘Precise’ Deal With the Trade Unions
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In the mid-1990s it was commonplace to see miners striking near the Kremlin and blocking highways with their claims. They demanded their due from state employers who had failed to pay them for months on end.
Although these events had seemed consigned to that turbulent post-Soviet decade, we’ve recently been reminded of trade union power. Now they target a new enemy — private employers — with a new demand: a pay rise.
Sergei Spasennov, head of corporate and real estate practice at Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners, related the new wave of vigorous trade union activity with the high demand for workers, engineers and technical specialists in large industrial centers.
“Most new companies, including foreign firms, often face an impasse — they do not fire the employee who demands more money but start negotiating. That employee is an essential part of the production plan,” Spasennov said.
“The trade union movement emerging in Russia could affect both wages and the terms of labor agreed between employer and employees,” said Alexei Zelentsov, regional director of Kelly Services in the Northwest.
Labor agreements are less subject to change, Zelentsov said, because “large foreign companies usually have good lawyers and arrange agreements that fit in with local legislation as much as possible.”
Zelentsov defined trade union activities as chaotic and unstable because they attract “people interested in political careers rather than protecting workers’ rights.”
“Look at the experience of the U.S. and Europe. Trade unions are very strong there. They actively protect their workers’ interests and lobby for the introduction of laws beneficial to them in the legislative branch of power,” Zelentsov said.
In the Northwest region, Ford workers are in the vanguard of the battle. In September last year they demanded a 30 percent increase in salaries. They went on strike for the first time in November and have regularly continued since then, combining negotiations with strike action.
According to the last agreement, from April 1 salaries increased by between 14.25 percent and 17.5 percent.
Before Ford it was St. Petersburg’s dockers who organized several rallies and strikes to increase salaries and amend labor contracts. According to local media, the dockers managed to increase the average salary to 24,000 rubles ($905) and negotiate compensation for personnel made involuntarily redundant.
In January, Heineken workers demanded both a 50 percent increase in salaries and the introduction of permanent labor contracts. The average worker’s salary was 13,000 rubles ($490), and about 30 percent of employees had short-term labor contracts.
Workers at Scania tried to organize a trade union, but the organization disappeared not long after it had emerged.
Disappointed by the ineffectiveness of negotiations, employees at Caterpillar appealed to the prosecutor’s office, complaining about violations of human rights at the plant.
“In Eastern Europe, in the industrial regions of Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic where unemployment reaches over 20 percent, trade unions have been operating for a long time. But they aim primarily at the development of their companies, because they have experienced strikes that lead to the collapse of the business and serious social problems,” Spasennov said.
In Russia, on the other hand, as a result of “conservative” legislation, even a law abiding employer who pays an above average wage, observes all the requirements of the Labor Code and even provides social remuneration, is open to trouble, he said.
“A trade union can demand more based solely on a decision agreed to by a majority of employees. If negotiations fail, then strike action would be quite legitimate,” Spasennov said.
Nevertheless, arguments in favor of more active trade unions are not difficult to come by.
Sergei Khramov, chairman of Sotsprof, an association of Russian trade unions, said that employers “could benefit from the dialogue with a reliable social partner” and called against interfering with trade union activities.
Recently a number of trade unions from the northwest joined Sotsprof, including those at Ford, Caterpillar and Heineken.
On Tuesday, at a meeting with the St. Petersburg International Business Association, Sotsprof will “explain that a trade union is a social partner that can provide a company with stability in an increasingly competitive environment,” Khramov said.
Beneficial compromise is the main goal of any reasonable trade union, Khramov said. One of a trade union’s major demands is the signing of a collective labor agreement.
“A collective labor agreement is very beneficial for employers. An employee gets a document that guarantees the payment of their salary. An employer gets a guarantee that an employee makes no demands for higher pay and that they will fulfill production targets,” Khramov said.
Any additional spending that result from the collective labor agreement could be treated as prime costs, he suggests. In any case, the trade union will be answerable for any abuse of contract.
Khramov did not regard going on strike as an extreme measure. 
“Any trade union should potentially be able to organize a strike. However, if a strike occurs it means that previously the trade union had not worked very well,” he said.
He regarded the action taken by Ford’s trade union as quite logical. “Production output would double. It is reasonable to demand a 30 percent increase in salary, considering that wages represent 15 percent of production costs,” he said.
A strike is a “precise tool” that demonstrates the force of the trade union and leads to a compromise with the employer, Khramov said. “It allows a renewed dialogue between two strong partners,” he said.
However, Khramov said that other methods of interaction exist, which Sotsprof will analyze at the upcoming meeting with employers.
Spasennov identified one of the reasons of discontent as the intense workload required by foreign employers. Workers who are not used to such heavy work quickly demand an increase to what is an already high salary.
“Interaction with a trade union requires knowledge of a worker’s mindset, the control of informal leaders and a clear definition of the union’s goals,” Spasennov said.
He advised paying special attention to disciplinary penalties and dismissals. 
“A company that violates their own codes could face serious problems if a trade union files complaints to the prosecutor’s office and persuades workers to apply to court,” he said.
“If this happens, the popularity of the trade union skyrockets. One mistake could result in a serious force not to be dismissed in the future,” Spasennov said.
The common failings attributed to companies include unpaid extra-work, poor safety control and poor food and conditions of work, he said.  State inspections usually complicate business’s operations and increase the trade union’s rating.

TITLE: In the Business of Helping Out
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A St. Petersburg club, “Svoe Delo” (“Your business”), is becoming a more and more popular meeting place for businessmen to get the advice they need to survive in the rough and tumble of the Russian market. 
“Your business” is a non-commercial organization of around 200 members that assists the “self-starting” businessmen, as well as their more experienced colleagues, to fulfil their business plans, including the setting up, running and expansion of new companies.
Every week the club plays host to businessmen working in such varied areas as commerce, real estate and the service industry, to share their ideas and brainstorm around problems of a particularly “insoluble” nature. Among issues that often come up for discussion are “how to find your business niche,” “how to start a business from scratch without any initial capital,” “how to double turnover,” and “how to learn to find non-standard business solutions.”
The purpose of the club is “to join together those “honest” businessmen who work without doing damage to other people and the environment, and without resorting to “combative” advertising that use human vice and weakness to promote their products and services.” 
Developing oneself through tackling practical business problems in a team is the club members’ credo.
The club was founded four years ago by Sergei Sidorenko, a reserve lieutenant colonel and owner and general director of the “Smolenka” trade house. Having run three companies involved in real estate, commerce and finance, Sidorenko decided to start supporting other businessmen and launched a new project — a club for beginners in business who are always welcome to come with their problems, to ask for advice and get it absolutely free of charge. 
“I get bored just doing business,” said Sidorenko. “However, while doing it, you always learn something and I want to share my experience with others.”
Not only does the club welcome beginners, but also employers and entrepreneurs who come looking for personnel or business partners for their companies. 
The club cooperates with different social and educational organizations, such as the Rotary Club, the Russian American Fund “Center for Citizen Initiatives,” the British Council and others that provide their members with the information on educational programs and internships in Russia and abroad. 
Keen to collaborate with Russia’s other clubs for businessmen, “Your business” members recently went to share their experience with colleagues in Moscow and, in the future, plan to launch themselves on the international business stage and start work with the foreign branches of similar clubs.
The meetings of the club “Svoe Delo” are held every Wednesday at 6 p.m at the office of the support center for businessmen “Vasileostrovsky” 59/1, 6 liniya, Vasiliyevsky Island. 
Entry is free.
www.vascpp.ru

TITLE: Picking the Best Man to Lead
AUTHOR: By Robert Bruce Ware
TEXT: Russian democracy has come under sharp scrutiny in the run-up to the Group of Eight summit, hosted this summer in St. Petersburg by President Vladimir Putin. In a speech in Lithuania this month, Vice President Dick Cheney said Russia had “unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people” and had set a political course that could undermine Russia’s relations with other countries. 
Even harsher assessments have emerged from across the American political spectrum, in reports issued separately by John McCain and by John Edwards with the Council on Foreign Relations. The war of words has escalated on both sides, with McCain urging President George W. Bush to boycott the summit and senior Russian officials lashing back with Cold War-style rhetoric.
Yet recent events suggest that the state of Russian democracy is more nuanced than these assessments have allowed. For example, in the volatile North Caucasus region, the Kremlin has appointed some leaders who are highly principled and genuinely popular. Because of the intense factionalism of this region, some of these leaders could not have been elected to office. Paradoxically, some of these Kremlin appointees have greater popular support, greater capabilities, and greater chances for success than their corrupt and ineffective predecessors, even though their predecessors were “elected” to office.
In February, for example, the Kremlin installed Mukhu Aliyev as president of Dagestan. Aliyev, who holds a doctorate in philosophy, resides in a three-room apartment and owns no automobile. Yet he is a leader of exceptional integrity and experience who has managed to hold himself aloof from the factionalism and corruption that have overwhelmed Dagestan’s once vibrant, young democracy. For this reason he enjoys broad popular support, estimated plausibly by one local leader in the vicinity of 90 percent. The irony is that Aliyev was unelectable precisely because he had refused to join with any factions and had chosen to remain innocently impoverished. 
As Dagestani politics grew increasingly corrupt, Aliyev was in danger of being marginalized. The Kremlin’s appointment of Aliyev ensured the popular support and legitimacy that no election could have achieved.
At the beginning of September 2004, nearby North Ossetia was thrown into political crisis by the hostage atrocity that left 331 captives dead in a school in the town of Beslan. The crisis underscored the fecklessness of Alexander Dzasokhov’s regime. Under pressure from the Ossetian public, as well as from the Kremlin, Dzasokhov resigned in 2005.
As his replacement, the Kremlin appointed Taimuraz Mamsurov, the 51-year-old speaker of the North Ossetian legislature. In contrast to Dzasokhov, Mamsurov gained stature, during the Beslan crisis, when he rejected an opportunity for the release of his two children from the besieged school, saying that he would never be able to look his neighbors in the eye. Like Aliyev in Dagestan, Mamsurov is a principled and popular leader. As in Dagestan, the Kremlin served the interests of most local people when it replaced an elected leader with an appointee.
Other Kremlin appointments in the region have been less auspicious. The worst occurred in Ingushetia in 2002 when Moscow forced the resignation of the popular and effective President Ruslan Aushev. In his place the Kremlin installed Murat Zyazikov, who had made his career in the Federal Security Service. Without a local political base, Zyazikov relied on the security services to combat Islamist extremism. The result was escalating police brutality that only served the cause of radicalism.
In Kabardino-Balkaria in 2005 the Kremlin appointed Arsen Kanokov, a Moscow billionaire who has never held any job in his ethnic republic apart from the presidency. In Chechnya, in 2004, the Kremlin allowed the apparently fraudulent election of Alu Alkhanov. Despite this inauspicious start, Alkhanov is a widely respected leader, with a reputation for integrity and courage. He has the support of the vast majority of Chechens, who credit him with progress toward stability and economic recovery. At the same time, Moscow has also tolerated Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, who has overseen security forces that operated brutally beyond Alkhanov’s control. Yet in recent weeks there have been indications that Moscow may be ready to reign in Kadyrov and throw stronger support to Alkhanov.
While the record of Kremlin appointments in the North Caucasus has been mixed, it has sometimes provided genuine administrative improvements. Moreover, there are signs that the Kremlin is learning. Moscow not only picked the best man for the job in Dagestan, but it did so with finesse that impressed people in the republic. If appointments like this are seen by local populations as serving their own best interests, then they cannot be hastily dismissed as anti-democratic. 
American leaders have a history of unrealistic assessments of Russia. Political rhetoric that plays well in America may not serve the interests of democracy in Russia.

Robert Bruce Ware is a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardville who studies the North Caucasus.

TITLE: Markets Find the Energy to Surge
AUTHOR: By Ellen Kelleher
PUBLISHER: Financial Times
TEXT: Peter the Great, he may not be. But some investors welcome the reign of Vladimir Putin as markets in Russia have been more stable since he assumed his country’s presidency at the turn of the millennium.
Even though his U.S. counterpart George Bush has been attacking his country’s democratic record and it looks as if the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg this July could be tense, fund managers remain keen on Russia. They hope to capitalise on the rising price of energy by pumping money into oil and gas companies there.
These days, a large chunk of funds dedicated to emerging European markets is in Russian equity and bonds. And despite a slight sell-off this week — the RTS, the main Russian equity index, fell about 11 per cent — managers remain bullish.
Why? The Middle East is no longer an appealing place as the insurgency in Iraq rages. And the strength of the rouble and Russia’s foreign exchange reserves also point to stability. So, Russian energy groups are witnessing an upsurge in interest from energy enthusiasts.
“Russia is benefiting massively from the bull market and people are more interested in putting money there now that the Middle East is more or less off-limits,” says Ghadir Abu Leil-Cooper, a manager with Baring Asset Management.
Although energy is still most fashionable, metals, chemical and in particular, timber companies are becoming more important in the economy. About a quarter of the world’s forests are in Russia, so timber has strong prospects.
In the last year, the RTS has risen 162.7 per cent and in the past three years, it is up 302 per cent.
Perennial favourites include blue-chips such as Gazprom and Lukoil, the two energy giants, and Bank of Moscow.
Despite the strong rise in Russian equities, they remain reasonably priced but the debt of some of these companies is starting to look overvalued.
“The return on the debt of Russian blue-chips such as Lukoil and Gazprom is not particularly rewarding in comparison with that of companies in western Europe,” says Sergei Stankovski, a director at Barclays Capital.
Also, analysts warn that investors should be wary about putting too much money in funds where Russian investments dominate as their performance is tied closely to energy prices. The sell-off in Russian companies this week mirrors the fall in the oil price, for example.
“If we do see oil and gas prices fall, this could have a serious impact on Russian stocks,” says Justin Modray, a spokesman for Bestinvest, the financial adviser.
Modray suggests investors with an interest in Russia and other emerging European countries put money in global emerging markets funds, which have more varied holdings.
“These are usually a better option for most investors as they provide greater diversity and are hence less reliant on any one sector,” he says.
Some specialist emerging European markets funds, which depend more on energy prices, are also appropriate.
A favourite of Modray’s is Jupiter’s Emerging European Economies fund, run by Elena Shaftan. The Jupiter fund is up 96 per cent in the last year and 252.45 per cent in the last three years, according to data from Bestinvest.
Shaftan this week said she thought the correction in emerging European markets was a sign of people’s jitters about the prospect of higher interest rates in the US.
“This sell-off had absolutely nothing to do with the region’s fundamentals, which remain strong,” she said.
“The Russian market, for example, has risen nearly threefold since the start of 2005 — it is entirely reasonable to expect periods where some of this might be given back.”
But if history is a guide, investors should approach the Russian market with caution. The shadow of the Yukos affair hovers. Two years ago, foreign investors lost hope in Russia’s markets after the country renationalised the main part of the oil company once controlled by Mikhail Khordokovsky, the flamboyant tycoon.
And of course, one cannot forget the Russian financial crisis in August of 1998 when Russia defaulted on its debt and prompted the near collapse of the U.S. hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.
But some still argue the benefits outweigh the risks. The economy is on the rise, the country’s debt is being paid off and oligarchs — influential billionaires who made their fortunes in privatisation deals — no longer have the same influence.
“Investors are making money in Russian government bonds,” says Stankovski. “They are forgetting about what happened in 1998. They are seeing the benefits of restructuring and energy prices. The country’s debt is being paid off. The risks are not the same.”

TITLE: Unpleasently Affluent
AUTHOR: By Alexei Bayer
TEXT: There have been periods in human history when being rich was not particularly pleasant. Take the Middle Ages, when wealth was believed to be incompatible with Christian salvation. St. Francis of Assisi, a young man from a good family, distributed his property to the poor and took a vow of poverty. There was also Enrico Scrovegni of Padua, who built a luxurious chapel and hired Giotto to paint it with religious subjects in order to expiate the sins of his father, Reginaldo, whom Dante had consigned to hell as a usurer in the Divine Comedy.
Fortunately, the Protestants were able to reconcile religious faith with the pursuit of happiness, especially of the pecuniary kind. In the United States today, being successful in business has become all but synonymous with righteousness, while having lots of money is a sure sign of divine grace. It is a great time to be rich in America. Since everything you own comes from the Lord, you owe little or nothing at all to Caesar. Not surprisingly, the pious Bush administration has been busy cutting income taxes for the richest 5 percent of the population.
On the other hand, I believe that it is difficult to be rich in Russia. In the early post-Soviet period it was actually dangerous, with gangsters, racketeers, extortionists, hired killers and other unpleasant characters. Then, in 1998, came the default, which quickly destroyed a sizeable portion of the newly accumulated wealth.
Unlike America, where you’re often asked “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” the wealthy are not held in high regard in Russia. Whether it is an outgrowth of the communist mentality or reaches deeper into the collectivist past of the village commune is difficult to say. Worse, if your fortune happens to come from natural resources, you are also regarded as a thief, who somehow managed to appropriate an asset that, by rights, should belong to the entire nation. And if, as part of the bargain, you are not an ethnic Russian but a “person of a Caucasus nationality” or a Jew, you’re certainly not going to win any popularity contests.
Moreover, the Russian version of Caesar is both insatiable and comes in many guises, ranging from corrupt government official to the tax police and Kremlin satraps who, at any time, can take away your business and send you packing to the Chita region. This is not yet Nikanor Ivanovich’s dream from Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita,” where the rich are detained in a large auditorium for weeks and shaken down for gold, hard currency and other hidden assets, but it is starting to come uncomfortably close.
Then there is the existential angst. For all of its putative religious revival, Russia remains a profoundly atheistic society. Whatever can be said of the populist “McChristianity” practiced in the United States, most Americans are sincere in their religious faith. They are confident in the knowledge that the Lord has not only bestowed wealth upon them on this earth, but that He will keep taking care of them in the afterlife.
Now, imagine yourself as a wealthy Russian. You have survived the lawless early 1990s, squirreled away sizeable offshore bank accounts, moved your family to safety in London, and even paid off the voracious members of officialdom. You have everything your heart desires — villas, expensive gadgets, beautiful women, fancy hobbies. The world is your oyster. The only thing that spoils your enjoyment is that all of it will — quite soon — come to an end.
A Russian friend once called me from Norilsk, asking me to bring a package from New York. He and his friends — all young, wealthy, hard-living Muscovites — had found an American doctor who had guaranteed to keep them active and virile into their 100s. Poor guy! As I hauled a huge suitcase full of vitamins, herbal supplements and bee pollen halfway across the globe, I just couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
Alexei Bayer, a native Muscovite, is a New York-based economist.

TITLE: A War of Words Won’t Crack This Code
AUTHOR: By Tim Rutten
TEXT: Covering religion is something the American media do badly, and reporting on controversies involving religious ideas is one of the things they do worst of all.
That deficiency probably has helped turn this weekend’s release of the film based on Dan Brown’s better-than-bestselling novel, “The Da Vinci Code,” into even more of a trial than it needs to be — albeit a very temporary one, given the movie’s reviews. To have real legs, a story employing the adjective “controversial” needs conflict. One side has to do or say harsh things to the other; the other needs to respond in kind — maybe even escalate the stakes — and, bingo, you’ve got one of those sequences that fill white space and dead air with stories and commentaries on stories and stories about commentaries on stories and commentaries on …. Well, you get the point, because you’ve been there before.
The problem with the “Da Vinci Code” story as controversy is that the outraged side just refuses to play ball. The primary victims of the foolishness committed in the book and continued on screen are the Catholic Church and Opus Dei, a deeply conservative and rather unwholesomely secretive organization of mainly lay believers given to education, hard work and a couple of creepy spiritual practices. Brown and his cinematic confreres have produced a cartoon that depicts the church as deceitful, corrupt and conspiratorial and Opus as murderous, corrupt and conspiratorial. These are moral, though thankfully not legal, slanders — at least not yet, though you never know what this desperate Congress will do. 
The media, always mindful of the pathos to be wrung from a good auto-da-fÎ, have zealously circled the globe searching for outraged Catholics. So far, what they’ve got are a Nigerian cardinal in the Vatican curia, who grumbled that somebody, somewhere ought to take legal action, the urging of a boycott in China, a ban in Manila and a couple of Indian Catholics who threatened to set themselves on fire outside a theater when the film opens there. (They didn’t; apparently, somebody reminded them that the church they’re defending inconveniently forbids suicide.) 
For its part, Opus Dei convened a team of “crisis managers” under the direction of its “global communications director,” Juan Manuel Mora, and charged them — according to the Wall Street Journal — with converting the film’s release into “a marketing opportunity.” They overhauled the organization’s website, http://www.opusdei.org, which last year received 3 million hits, as opposed to 674,000 the year before Brown’s book came out.
The collective Catholic response to the book and film probably were best summed up by a Jesuit theologian who responded to an earnest radio interviewer’s long and suggestive question this way: “I don’t mean to sound obtuse, but are you asking me whether a novel is true?”
Meanwhile, media attempts to deputize the usual evangelical Protestant firebrands into one of those reliably copy-worthy anti-blasphemy posses also have been generally fruitless. You almost can hear frustrated assignment editors and producers muttering to themselves: What’s the matter with these guys? Don’t they care that this cockamamie movie says Jesus had sex with Mary Magdalene? Can’t they see this is another battle in the war against Christmas? Didn’t they learn anything from those Muslims?
Actually, there is an interesting story about religion in America here, but it isn’t one that lends itself to the standard-issue, good-guys-and-bad-guys, talk-show formulation.
So far, “The Da Vinci Code” has sold 60.5 million copies, 21.7 million of them in the United States. We’re frequently reminded that America is the most religious country in the developed world, with churchgoing rates unrecorded in any other Western nation for decades. Moreover, militantly assertive Christianity has become a political force demanding to be heard from the corridors of the Capitol to the local school board.
So, who’s buying this book? Are there really that many secular humanists who don’t care whether their prose has pronouns with antecedents?
Actually, the attitudes that make Americans so “religious” are the same ones that have made them such a ready market for the “Da Vinci” flimflam. This country is suffused with religious sentiments and impulses, but Americans are abysmally — even willfully — short on religious knowledge. All the periodic hand-wringing over this country’s crisis of faith or creeping secularism notwithstanding, the problem with Americans is not that they don’t believe anything; it’s that so many think they can believe anything — and that believing one thing doesn’t preclude belief in another.
You can’t go to a dinner party nowadays without encountering somebody who describes himself as “spiritual” — whatever that means. (Tell the truth: Haven’t you ever wanted to throttle somebody who tells you how they made over their yoga studio to include a “meditation altar” with crystals, Buddha and Virgin of Guadalupe icon?) Americans are religious because they’ve come to treat belief as an adjunct to the consumer society, sort of like the potato chip aisle in the local grocery.
In such an inner landscape, why not entertain the possibility that Jesus scored? After all, it could have happened.
Here’s the other point on which the “Da Vinci” phenomenon does tell us something interesting about ourselves. One of the curious things about Brown’s scam is that he insists that his story is based on fact, insisting in the face of all credible evidence that several other book-length frauds are true and that patently unreliable ancient manuscripts are trustworthy and, more important, say things that they don’t.
Brown’s claims for his book and, by extension, the film adaptation belong to a strong new current in American life — the culture of assertion, which increasingly pushes logical argument out of our public conversation. According to this schema, things are true because I believe they are true and you have to respect that, because it’s what I believe. Thus, the same sensibility most likely to take offense at this film — that of the religious assertionists — is the same one that makes things like creationism an issue in our schools and the demands of biblical literalism a force in our politics. Brown and his foolishness are, in fact, a part of this same culture of assertion and not of some wider secular one.
Kevin Phillips, the Republican political strategist who devised the GOP’s Southern strategy in 1968, has written a great deal recently about the culture of assertion’s infiltration of his party’s politics. “Besides providing critical support for invading Iraq — widely anathematized by preachers as a second Babylon,” he wrote last month, “the Republican coalition has also seeded half a dozen controversies in the realm of science. These include Bible-based disbelief in Darwinian theories of evolution, dismissal of global warming, disagreement with geological explanations for fossil-fuel depletion, religious rejection of population planning, derogation of women’s rights and opposition to stem cell research…. No [other] world power in modern memory has become captive of the sort of biblical inerrancy that dismisses modern knowledge and science.”
Not to mention the demands of classical logic.
The bottom line is that faith-based credulity and religious ignorance have sent Dan Brown and, despite the bad reviews, probably Sony Pictures laughing all the way to the bank. Unfortunately, when it comes to the way those same qualities act on our politics and national life, the joke is on all of us. 

Tim Rutten is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where this column first appeared.

TITLE: Making the Cut
AUTHOR: By Michele A. Berdy
TEXT: Ñòðèæêà: haircut, or the male expat ordeal

Apparently many of Moscow’s male expats are having a perpetual bad hair day. They go to the barber, sit in the chair, watch their locks fall to the floor, and walk out looking like a recruit — or worse, like a guy named Bobo with brass knuckles in his pocket and a knack for breaking kneecaps.
My Russian male informants were not very helpful. One said his sole communication with the barber consists of the word: Çäðàâñòâóéòå! (Hello!) Another began to pull at his hair and said, ß îáúÿñíÿþ íà ïàëüöàõ è ãîâîðþ: “Òàê... è òàê... è òàê...” (I explain with my hands and say: “Like this... and this... and this”). Thank heaven their barbers’ skills include clairvoyance.
When you go to a ïàðèêìàõåðñêàÿ (barber shop) or, in these days of unisex hair salons, ñàëîí êðàñîòû (beauty salon), the first thing the ïàðèêìàõåð (barber, hair stylist) will do is lead you to the sink: Ñíà÷àëà ïîìîåì ãîëîâó (First we’ll wash your hair, literally “your head”). 
Tell the barber when you last got a haircut, so he can figure out what the cut originally looked like. ß ïîñòðèãñÿ ïÿòü íåäåëü íàçàä. (I got my hair cut five weeks ago). If you just want a trim, you can say: Ïðîñòî ïîäðîâíÿéòå âîëîñû. (Just even it out). Or: Ïîñòðèãèòå, ïîæàëóéñòà, íà îäèí ñàíòèìåòð. (Take off one centimeter). Men, pay attention: Here the key word is the preposition íà (by). Don’t say äî îäíîãî ñàíòèìåòðà (down to one centimeter) unless you want an induction cut (the Bobo the Thug look).
You might say: Îñòàâëÿéòå âîëîñû ñâåðõó ïîäëèííåå, à ñ áîêîâ ïîêîðî÷å. (Leave the hair longer on top and shorter on the sides). You can also say: ß íîøó ïðîáîð íàïðàâî/íàëåâî (I wear my hair parted on the right/left). Or: Îñòàâëÿéòå ÷¸ëêó ïîäëèííåå. (Leave the bangs longer). The barber might ask: Âèñêè ñòðè÷ü ïðÿìûå èëè êîñûå? (Do you want the hair at the temples cut straight or at a diagonal?) — although I gather the diagonal look is definitely out these days. Or: Îòêðûòü óøè? (Do you want the hair cut around your ears, literally “to open up your ears”).
If you don’t want to look like a conscript, keep those ears open for the phrase ñíÿòèå íà íåò. This means tapering down to zero length with clippers. If you want tapering, but not too short, say: Ñíèìàéòå ìàøèíêîé, íî íå î÷åíü êîðîòêî. (Use the clippers, but don’t cut it too short). If you want some hair at the back of your head, say: Ïîñòðèãèòå êîðî÷å, íî ñ îêàíòîâêîé. (Cut it shorter, but with a shaped line at the back).
If you have really thick hair (ãóñòûå âîëîñû), you might say: Óáèðàéòå îáú¸ì (literally, “take away some of the volume”). Or, if you want to impress your barber, say: Ïîôèëèðóéòå, ïîæàëóéñòà, âîëîñû ñâåðõó (Thin out the top).
Apparently, names of styles are passe these days, but you might try asking for êëàññè÷åñêàÿ ñòðèæêà (a classic cut, similar to what is called the businessman’s cut in the United States). If you want a buzz cut, ask for  åæèê (literally “a hedgehog”). Or, if you want one side longer than the other, ask for àñèììåòðè÷íàÿ ñòðèæêà (literally “an asymmetrical cut”).
After the haircut, in good salons you’ll once again hear: Äàâàéòå åù¸ ðàç ïîìîåì ãîëîâó. (Let’s wash your hair again). Then comes ñóøêà (blow-drying) and óêëàäêà — (styling). For men this is usually done ðóêàìè (by fingering it into place, literally “with my hands”), but sometimes just ôåíîì (blow-dried). 
If you’ve managed to keep some hair, your stylist might ask: Óêëàäûâàòü ìóññîì èëè ãåëåì? (Should I style it with mousse or gel?) If this idea makes you sick, cheerfully say: Íè÷åì! (With nothing at all!)
Then look in the mirror and say: Îòëè÷íî! Òîëüêî â ñëåäóþùèé ðàç — ïîäëèííåå! (Looks great! Only next time — leave it longer!).

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

TITLE: The Gates of Eden
AUTHOR: By Chris Floyd
TEXT: Beneath the thunder of the mighty cataclysms unleashed by the Bush administration — the war crime in Iraq, the global torture gulag, the epic corruption, the gutting of the U.S. Constitution, the open embrace of presidential tyranny — a quieter degradation of American society has continued apace. And this slow descent into barbarism didn’t begin with President George W. Bush, although his illicit regime certainly represents the apotheosis of the dark forces driving the decay.
With the world’s attention diverted by the latest scandals and shameless posturings of the Bush faction — domestic spying, bribes and hookers at the CIA, military units roaring down to the border to scare unarmed poor people looking for work — few noticed a small story that cast a harsh, penetrating light on the corrosion of the national character.
Earlier this month, the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College London released its annual World Prison Population List. And there, standing proudly at the head of the line, towering far above all others, is that shining city on the hill, the United States of America. But strangely enough, the Bush gang and its media sycophants failed to celebrate — or even note — yet another instance where a triumphant America leads the world. Where are the cheering hordes shouting “U.S.A! U.S.A!” at the news that the land of the free imprisons more people than any other country in the world, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of its population?
Yes, the world’s greatest democracy now has more than 2 million of its citizens locked up in iron cages, an incarceration rate of 714 per 100,000 of the national population. The only countries within shouting distance are such bastions of penological enlightenment as China (1.55 million prisoners, plus some unsorted “administrative detainees”), Russia (a wimpy 763,000) and Brazil (330,000), whose exemplary prison management has been on such prominent display this week.
But although the U.S. prison population has soared to record-breaking heights during Bush’s presidency, America’s status as the most punitive nation on earth is by no means solely his doing. Bush is merely standing on the shoulders of giants — such as former President Bill Clinton, who once created 50 new federal offenses in a single draconian measure. In fact, like the great cathedrals of old, the building of Fortress America has been the work of decades, with an entire society yoked to the common task. At each step, the promulgation of ever-more draconian punishments for ever-lesser offenses, and the criminalization of ever-broader swathes of human behavior, have been greeted with hosannahs from a public and press who seem to be insatiable gluttons for punishment — someone else’s punishment, that is, and preferably someone of dusky hue. 
The main engine of this mass incarceration has been the 35-year “war on drugs,” a spurious battle against an abstract noun that provides an endless fount of profits, payoffs and power for the well-connected while only worsening the problem it purports to address — just like the “war on terror.” The war on drugs has in fact been the most effective assault on an underclass since Stalin’s campaign against the kulaks. 
It was launched by Richard Nixon in 1971, after urban unrest had shaken major U.S. cities during those famous “long, hot summers” of the ‘60s. Yet even as the crackdowns began, America’s inner cities were being flooded with heroin, much of it originating in Southeast Asia, where the CIA and its hired warlords ran well-funded black ops in and around Vietnam. At home, gangs reaped staggering riches from the criminalization of the natural, if often unhealthy, human craving for intoxication. President Ronald Reagan upped the ante in the 1980s with a rash of “mandatory sentencing” laws that put even first-time, small-time offenders away for years. His term also saw a new flood — crack cocaine — devastating the inner cities, even as his covert operators used drug money to fund the terrorist Contra army in Nicaragua and run illegal weapons to Iran, while the downtown druglords grew more powerful. The U.S. underclass was caught in a classic pincer movement, attacked by both the state and the gangs. There were no more long, hot summers of protest against injustice; there was simply the struggle to survive.
Under Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton, the feverish privatization of the prison system added a new impetus for detention. Politically wired corporations needed to keep those profit-making cells filled, and the politicians they greased were happy to oblige with “tougher” sentences and new crimes to prosecute. Now Bush Jr. is readying another front in the war on the underclass, promising this week to build 4,000 new cells for immigrant detainees — having prudently handed Halliburton a $385 million “contingency” contract back in February to build, lo and behold, “immigrant detention centers” should the need for them arise, The New York Times reports. 
Like the war on drugs, the equally ill-conceived war on immigrants will be directed at the poorest and most vulnerable, not the “coyote” gangs who profit from human trafficking — and certainly not the U.S. businesses and wealthy homelanders who love the dirt-cheap labor of the illegals. Those for-profit prisons will soon be filled to bursting with this new harvest.
A nation’s true values can be measured in how it treats the poor, the weak, the damaged, the unconnected. For more than 30 years, the answer of the U.S. power structure has been clear: You lock them up, shut them up, grind them down — and make big bucks in the process.

TITLE: Russia Set to Grapple With an Atomic Dilemma
AUTHOR: By Yuriy Humber
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — For the last decade, the atom has been Russia’s least-lauded, most-hush-hush energy export.
But now, just as a global renaissance in atomic power offers the chance of billions of dollars’ worth of contracts, the country’s nuclear industry finds itself stuck with a dilemma. Without private funding, ambitious expansion plans may never be realized, but allowing in the private sector would open up the nation’s most secretive industry to unprecedented scrutiny.
President Vladimir Putin last week lent extra impetus to the drive to develop the industry, urging in his state-of-the-nation address that work on next-generation reactors be given high priority.
Key to the industry’s efforts to attract investment are officials such as Anna Belova, a corporate restructuring guru who is one of a team of reformers brought in by former Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, the new head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency.
The stakes are high. Last year, it was disclosed that the industry earned over $2.4 billion from the sale of nuclear fuel alone. And that is just the tip of a very big iceberg, as Kiriyenko has announced plans to build up to 40 nuclear power plants in Russia over the next two decades in an effort to boost atomic power’s share from one-sixth to one-quarter of national power generation.
The major new plans come as world leaders fret over rising oil and gas prices and begin to turn back to nuclear energy as a power source.
If the atomic energy expansion comes off, “Russia’s whole economic picture changes,” Belova said at an energy forum last month in Moscow, where atomic energy agency officials put forward plans to invite strategic private investors to help finance the new reactors.
In her former role as deputy railways minister, Belova was applauded as being the driving force behind the successful consolidation of the country’s dinosaur-like state railway enterprises into a single commercial entity, Russian Railways, or RZD.
Now Belova is at the heart of a similar drive at the agency. 
Reforms could be even more difficult to implement than for the railways, however, as the country’s nuclear industry is currently a collection of disparate enterprises, factories and institutes, some of which have already been turned into commercial entities with their capital divided into shares, while others have remained virtually unaltered since Soviet times.
“The path for the sector’s development and transformation is currently under consideration,” said Belova, whom Kiriyenko has appointed as an adviser to the agency and as a deputy director of Tekhsnabexport, or Tenex, the country’s state-owned nuclear fuel trader. 
The key decisions on the nuclear agency will be made in the second half of May, Belova said at the energy forum.
The main step forward would be to make civilian nuclear power “much more market-driven,” as the sector has in the past not been seen “as having the potential to be an efficient and competitive business that could operate internationally and transparently,” Belova said.
The nuclear industry “has several markets and several products to offer ... that Russia can offer on the domestic and global market,” including uranium-ore mining, uranium enrichment for nuclear fuel and atomic power station construction, she said.
“Russia is looking to transform its energy facilities into a market. Why shouldn’t atomic power be a part of that?” Belova said.
Strategic Investors
Industry managers say that to boost the industry’s share of domestic power generation and win contracts abroad, large investments will be required — including, some say, given the limits on federal budget spending, from the private sector.
“We need to base our thoughts on attracting investors,” Valery Govorukhin, deputy head of Tenex, said at the energy forum.
Ideas touted by the nuclear lobby include allowing a select number of companies to act as strategic investors in future projects — an idea that would have been anathema in the past.
A Federal Atomic Energy Agency presentation at the forum laid out a possible blueprint for public-private cooperation: The state would contribute about 55 percent of costs for new construction projects, while the nuclear agency would fund another 20 percent, leaving the remainder open to strategic private investors.
“I think it would be acceptable to attract equity investment for individual projects, especially in the construction of atomic-power generation facilities,” Belova said, adding that such a possibility could be some years down the line.
Companies whose products are highly sensitive to electricity prices could potentially be strategic investors in atomic-power projects, equity analysts said, since they could thereby secure cheap, long-term energy deals. 
Kiriyenko’s spokesman Sergei Novikov said in a recent interview that “several companies have expressed an interest in such projects,” without elaborating.
Aluminum producer SUAL has said it is interested in joint ventures with the nuclear agency, since electricity accounts for more than one-third of aluminum production costs. 
Another Kremlin-favored potential partner for the agency could be Gazprom, whose CEO Alexei Miller last month said was interested in getting involved in atomic energy “in the foreseeable future.”
A source at the Federal Atomic Energy Agency said Kiriyenko’s team had proposed consolidating the industry into a single vertically integrated holding with six subdivisions: uranium mining; uranium enrichment into fuel; power station construction; management of atomic reactors; nuclear fuel reprocessing; and nuclear machinery manufacture. 
TVEL, the state-owned domestic nuclear fuel monopoly, would form the basis for the holding, said the source, who requested anonymity as the proposals have not yet received final approval.
Once the nuclear industry is incorporated into registered companies with share capital, managers would have the chance to attract loans, apply for project financing and possibly raise capital through a share issue, said Victor Opekunov, chairman of the subcommittee for nuclear energy of the State Duma’s Energy, Transport and Communications Committee, in a recent interview.
A Publicity-Shy Industry 
In an industry whose global image changed irrevocably with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Russia’s publicity-shy nuclear sector has steadily collected undisclosed profits by supplying about 40 percent of the world’s nuclear fuel. Although the construction of nuclear power stations in Russia was effectively halted, the industry was able to keep engineering advances ticking over by scoring contracts to build reactors abroad in India and Iran.
Yet today, as world uranium prices soar on supply shortages and power-hungry emerging-market economies lead the search for new ways to meet growing electricity demand, atomic energy is enjoying a renaissance. And as the atomic energy industry becomes more profitable, the curtain of secrecy that has shrouded the sector is gradually being lifted.
Hopes that atomic energy could emerge as the state’s next-biggest cash cow after oil and gas suffered a setback last year, however, when Russia lost out on a $3.5 billion contract to build a state-of-the-art nuclear reactor in Finland.
Adding to Russia’s disappointment was the fact that the Finnish reactor would also have provided a lucrative market for Russian nuclear fuel, as most builders of reactors also supply them with fuel.
“It was a setback for us — that was plain to everyone,” said Gennady Pshakin, a nuclear industry expert at the Obninsk Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, near Moscow. “In fact, when Kiriyenko came in, it was the first thing he asked. ‘Why did we lose that? Where do we have a project that we can sell abroad?’ And it appeared that we didn’t have one.”
After Putin tapped Kiriyenko, a reformist Yeltsin-era prime minister, to head the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, he also set for the agency the goal of raising atomic energy’s share of national power generation from 16 percent to 25 percent by 2025.
Kiriyenko’s response was to unveil an ambitious program to build 40 nuclear reactors at home and 60 abroad over the next two decades.

A Publicity-Shy Industry 
Nuclear experts in the United States and Europe have welcomed Kiriyenko’s appointment and expressed hopes that U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation could be revived after years of stagnation.
“The United States had a very positive experience with Kiriyenko when he was prime minister,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear weapons nonproliferation expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. 
“As someone not directly from the nuclear field, he’s free to have new thoughts, which wasn’t true of his predecessors,” Wolfsthal said.
New thinking in atomic energy is needed from governments globally, according to some industry executives.
John Tramuto, a vice president of U.S. utilities firm Pacific Gas and Electric, told the Moscow energy forum that a key factor holding back the development of atomic power was uncertainty among governments about how much private-sector investment to allow into the industry.
As well as being financially sound, Kiriyenko’s plans for Russia’s atomic industry will need to address environmental and safety concerns among local authorities and the wider public, which has been reluctant to accept nuclear power after the Chernobyl tragedy. 
In an interview with the Yuzhny Reporter newspaper in Volgodonsk, where the nuclear agency plans to build new reactors, Kiriyenko last month acknowledged that local feelings would have to be taken into account.
“We need a major consensus — we won’t go against the regional authorities and the public. If I arrive to see a huge rally at the gate of the plant, it’s clear” what public opinion will be, Kiriyenko said, the paper reported. 
Yet, with the power stations plowing tax rubles into the federal and regional budgets, and energy needs spiraling, Kiriyenko said he felt confident the expansion program would go ahead.
Although the overall expansion plan is long-term, Kiriyenko may be under more immediate pressure to achieve results. According to an industry source familiar with the situation, Kiriyenko has been given one year to show that the nuclear industry can be turned around. 
Experts say Kiriyenko’s plans depend on increasing uranium production and securing strong injections of private capital into the industry, which would require a change in federal law.
Building as many as 100 reactors would require an overhaul of the entire industry, including in construction, manufacturing of nuclear reactor equipment and “picking a standard, commercial power station design that we can offer abroad,” said Pshakin, the nuclear institute expert.
“We have an idea of what can be done technically,” Pshakin said. “But it all comes down to one thing — money.”

TITLE: Iraqi PM Vows Use of ‘Maximum Force’
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — Iraq’s new prime minister promised Sunday to use “maximum force” if necessary to end the brutal insurgent and sectarian violence wracking the country, while a suicide bomber killed more than a dozen people at a restaurant in downtown Baghdad.
Although he focused on the need to end bloodshed, Nuri al-Maliki also had to address unfinished political negotiations at a Cabinet meeting on the government’s first full day in office.
Al-Maliki said the appointment of chiefs for the key Defense and Interior ministries should not “take more than two or three days.” He is seeking candidates who are independent and have no ties to Iraq’s myriad armed groups.
The two ministries, which oversee the army and the police, are crucial for restoring stability, and al-Maliki needs to find candidates with wide acceptance from his broad-based governing coalition of Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
Failure to set the right tone could further alienate the disaffected Sunni Arab minority, which is the backbone of the insurgency. Or it could anger Shiite militias, some of which are thought to number in the thousands.
“We are aware of the security challenge and its effects. So we believe that facing this challenge cannot be achieved through the use of force only, despite the fact that we are going to use the maximum force in confronting the terrorists and the killers who are shedding blood,” al-Maliki said.
Disarming militias, whose members are believed to have infiltrated the security services, will be a priority, he said, along with promoting national reconciliation, improving the country’s collapsing infrastructure and setting up a special protection force for Baghdad.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the new government must “get the security ministries to transform in such a way that they will have the confidence of the Iraqi peoples.” 
“The next six months will be truly critical for Iraq,” he said.

TITLE: Saddam, Judge Clash At Trial
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD — Guards forcibly ejected a defense lawyer from the courtroom and the chief judge shouted down Saddam Hussein on Monday in a stormy start to a new session of the trial of the former Iraqi leader and members of his regime.
The squabble began when chief judge Abdel-Rahman informed defense lawyer Bushra Khalil that she would be allowed to return to the court after being removed from a session in April for arguing with the judge. But when she tried to make a statement, he quickly cut her off, saying, “Sit down.”
“I just want to say one word,” she said, but Abdel-Rahman yelled at guards to take her away. Khalil pulled off her judicial robe and threw it on the floor in anger, then tried to push the guards who were grabbing her hands, shouting, “Get away from me.”
As she was pulled out of the court, Saddam objected from the defendants’ pen, and Abdel-Rahman told him to be silent. “I’m Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq. I am above all,” Saddam shouted back. 
“You are a defendant now, not a president,” the judge barked.
Recent sessions of the trial have been remarkably orderly because Abdel-Rahman has taken a tough line to put a stop to frequent outbursts by Saddam and his co-defendants. He first removed the Lebanese-born Khalil, the only woman on the defense team, in an April 5 session after she objected to a video of Saddam shown by prosecutors.
After the outbursts Monday, the court resumed hearing defense witnesses.

TITLE: Air Attack Kills 60 Afghan Rebels
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — U.S.-led coalition aircraft bombed a rebel stronghold in southern Afghanistan, killing about 60 suspected Taliban militants and 16 civilians, an Afghan governor said Monday.
The coalition confirmed the strike on the village of Azizi in Kandahar province late Sunday and early Monday and said about 50 militants were killed. U.S. commander Lieutenant General Karl W. Eikenberry said the military was investigating whether some civilians had also died.
The new deaths brought the toll of militants, Afghan forces and coalition soldiers killed to more than 265 since Wednesday, when a storm of violence broke out in the south — among the deadliest combat in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001.
“These sort of accidents happen during fighting, especially when the Taliban are hiding in homes,” he said. “I urge people not to give shelter to the Taliban.” 
U.S. military spokesman Colonel Tom Collins said the coalition forces targeted a Taliban compound and “we’re certain we hit the right target.”
“It’s common that the enemy fights in close to civilians as a means to protect its own forces,” he added.
Many of the wounded sought treatment at Kandahar city’s Mirwaise Hospital. One man with blood smeared over his clothes and turban said insurgents had been hiding in an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, in the village after fierce fighting in recent days.
“Helicopters bombed the madrassa and some of the Taliban ran from there and into people’s homes. Then those homes were bombed,” said Haji Ikhlaf. Another survivor from the village, Zurmina Bibi, who was cradling her wounded 8-month-old baby, said about 10 people were killed in her home, including three or four children.
“There were dead people everywhere,” she said, crying.
A doctor, Mohammed Khan, said he had treated 10 people from the village. Moments later, a pickup vehicle pulled up at the hospital with five men lying wounded in the back.

TITLE: Britain Expects Troops Out of Iraq by 2010
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BAGHDAD — British officials said they expected all foreign combat troops to withdraw from Iraq within four years, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair flew into Baghdad to show support for its new government on Monday. 
It was the firmest statement yet from one of the two main allies in the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein on a date for pulling out troops from Iraq. Washington has said it is too soon to discuss such a timetable. 
Blair later met new Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone and said Iraq was at a “new beginning” after a process since the 2003 invasion that he admitted had been longer than he had hoped.
“It’s been longer and harder than any of us would have wanted it to be but this is a new beginning,” Blair told a joint news conference in the fortified Green Zone. As he arrived the Green Zone, two bomb attacks killed nine people in other parts of Baghdad.

TITLE: Palestinian President Promises to Avoid Civil War
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: GAZA CITY — The head of the security services Sunday became the latest bomb target of increasingly vicious factional violence, prompting a vow by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to avoid a descent into civil war. 
Rashid Abu Shbak escaped unharmed when a 70-kilogram device was discovered on the road outside his home in the south of Gaza City shortly before he had been due to drive to his office.
Abu Shbak is one of the most powerful figures in Palestinian Authority president Abbas’s Fatah movement and was only named to his newly created post of director of internal security last month — an appointment hotly contested by the government of the radical Islamist movement Hamas. 
The apparent assassination attempt Sunday came just a day after Tareq Abu Rajab, head of the intelligence services, was seriously wounded and his bodyguard killed in a blast in Gaza.
The targeting of Abu Shbak and Abu Rajab further fuelled projections the Palestinians are heading for a civil war, something Abbas said he would never allow. “Civil war is a red line which no one would dare to cross,” he said after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni at a conference in Egypt.
“Skirmishes take place, but a civil war is forbidden,” he said. Even though Hamas thrashed Fatah in January’s parliamentary elections and subsequently formed its first government, responsibility for the security forces remains in the hands of Abbas in his role as president.
Hamas has become resentful of the conduct of the security forces which are stuffed with Fatah followers and have made no progress in tackling the security chaos in Gaza.
While Abbas was in Europe last week, Hamas seized its opportunity to roll out thousands of members of a volunteer paramilitary force which had been explicitly vetoed by the president.
Fatah responded by beefing up its own security forces, inevitably raising tensions which have already boiled over into clashes between the two sides.
The Israeli government has no dealings with Hamas — which refuses to renounce violence or recognise the Jewish state’s right to exist — but is under pressure not to extend the boycott to Abbas.

TITLE: Jewish Settlements on West Bank Expanded Against U.S. Wishes
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEITAR ILLIT, West Bank — Officials said Sunday that Israel has approved plans to expand four Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a practice the United States has opposed in the past.
The settlements slated for expansion lie within areas that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hopes to incorporate within Israel’s final borders. The U.S., which opposes settlement activity in the West Bank, has not endorsed Olmert’s plan.
News of the settlement expansions came shortly before Olmert was scheduled to leave for Washington for talks with President Bush. 
Olmert’s plan to withdraw from dozens of isolated settlements in the West Bank while beefing up large settlement blocs is expected to be on the agenda at Tuesday’s meeting at the White House. 
Othniel Schneller, a lawmaker with the ruling Kadima Party, said Israel’s Defense Ministry signed orders months ago to expand the boundaries of Beitar Ilit and Givat Zeev, near Jerusalem, and of Oranit and Maskiot.
Although Israel frequently builds new housing in existing settlements, the expansions of settlement boundaries were the first in years, the settlement watchdog group Peace Now said.
Israel’s Defense Ministry, which oversees settlement activity, said the expansion orders were signed by former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.
But it said the ministry was “re-examining” the approvals under the new defense minister, Amir Peretz, a moderate who took office this month. Israeli media reports, however, said Peretz also has approved the orders.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat urged Peretz to rescind the orders.
“This Israeli government should stop this, not approve this,” he said. “This act of expanding settlements, is a choice for more obstacles and more problems and more violence. I really hope that the new government will stop this.”

TITLE: Montenegro Votes to Gain Independence
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro — Montenegro’s prime minister proclaimed victory Monday for the pro-independence camp in a referendum held Sunday on splitting from Serbia, a move that would mark the final break-up of the former Yugoslavia. 
“Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you that tonight, by the decision of the people of Montenegro, an independent Montenegro has been renewed,” a jubilant Milo Djukanovic told his supporters early Monday.
Earlier, unofficial projections showed Montenegrins voted narrowly to declare independence, putting the last nail in the coffin of the old Yugoslavia.
Djukanovic said that 55.5 percent of those who had voted — just marginally above the 55 percent majority required for the referendum to be valid — supported independence.
“This is the most important day in the history of Montenegro,” said the prime minister, a long-time advocate of independence.
Despite the divisions between loyalists to Serbia and those favoring independence, there were few signs of trouble during Sunday’s vote, as Montenegrins turned out in record numbers.
At least 86.6 percent of the former Yugoslav republic’s 485,000 eligible voters cast ballots, according to independent monitors.
Serbian leaders did not comment on the unofficial projections while pro-Serbian parties in Montenegro refused to admit defeat.
“The result is not final until the referendum commission publishes it, until everyone accepts the results,” said the pro-Serbian faction leader in Montenegro, Predrag Bulatovic.
But revellers set off fireworks and fired guns and drivers sounded their horns in celebration of the news.
Djukanovic said that 99 percent of the votes had been counted and that the “yes” camp was 45,000 votes ahead of the unionists. He also insisted that the final outcome would not be affected by the remaining ballots.

TITLE: New Orleans Re-Elects Katrina Mayor
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW ORLEANS — Newly re-elected Mayor Ray Nagin immediately began trying to mend ties with political opponents and crucial leaders on Sunday as he looked ahead to another four years to oversee reconstruction of this major American city. 	
Nagin said he reiterated his desire to work together in conversations with U.S. President George W. Bush and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. 
The president called to congratulate Nagin and said he would rather finish rebuilding with the mayor because the two men had weathered Hurricane Katrina together, Nagin told fellow parishioners at St. Peter Claver Church.
Nagin said he pressed Bush to help accelerate the rebuilding and to help with the removal of tons of debris still littering neighborhoods. He also raised questions about the pending end of federal aid for some evacuees still living in Houston and other cities.
Still staggering after Hurricane Katrina, many neighborhoods remain uninhabitable, debris-filled ghost towns nine months after the storm ravaged the Gulf Coast.

TITLE: More Women Preventing Periods With Pills
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TRENTON, New Jersey — For young women with a world of choices, even the menstrual period  is optional. 
Thanks to birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives, a growing number of women are taking the path chosen by 22-year-old Stephanie Sardinha.
She hasn’t had a period since she was 17. “It’s really one of the best things I’ve ever done,” she says.
A college student and retail worker in Lisbon Falls, Maine, Sardinha uses Nuvaring, a vaginal contraceptive ring. After the hormones run out in three weeks, she replaces the ring right away instead of following instructions to leave the ring out for a week to allow bleeding. 
She says it has been great for her marriage, preventing monthly crankiness and improving her sex life.
“I would never go back,” said Sardinha, who got the idea from her aunt, a nurse practitioner.
Using the pill or other contraceptives to block periods is becoming more popular, particularly among young women and those entering menopause, doctors say.
“I have a ton of young girls in college who are doing this,” says Dr. Mindy Wiser-Estin, a gynecologist in Little Silver, New Jersey, who did it herself for years. “There’s no reason you need a period.”

TITLE: Brazilians Power CSKA to Victory in Cup
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — CSKA Moscow kept hold of the Russian Cup on Saturday after its Brazilian strikers Jo and Wagner Love swept the club to a 3-0 victory over rival Spartak.
Jo opened the scoring two minutes before the end of a fast and furious first half, driving a free kick through the wall and out of reach of Spartak keeper Wojciech Kowalewski. 
Spartak, who has not won a game against CSKA since 2001, tried hard to level but never looked dangerous and its misery was compounded when midfielder Santos Mozart was shown a red card for fouling fellow Brazilian Dudu two minutes from time. 
Love made it 2-0 with a solo effort in the 90th minute when he picked the ball up in midfield and foxed the goalkeeper. 
Jo, the Russian Premier League’s top scorer with 11 goals in nine matches, then finished off Spartak with a clean strike from just outside the box in injury time. 
Spartak’s caretaker coach Vladimir Fedotov praised his opponents. 
“We simply lost to a better team,” said former CSKA striker Fedotov. 
CSKA coach Valery Gazzayev added: “It’s not enough to play well, it was also important to show the team spirit and fight to the end.”
In 2005 CSKA beat first division Khimki 1-0 in the Cup final less than two weeks after lifting the UEFA Cup, the first Russian club to win a major European trophy. 
Saturday’s victory was CSKA’s eighth cup triumph, putting it ahead of city rivals Dinamo and Torpedo, both on seven. Spartak has won a record 13 finals since the competition began in the Soviet Union in 1936.

TITLE: Dynamo Loses To Khimki
AUTHOR: By Martin Burlund
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With heads bowed, Dynamo St. Petersburg left the court at Yubeleiny Stadium on Saturday after losing the fifth and final game of the Russian Superleague semifinal series to BC Khimki Moscow Region. 
The 56:65 loss means that the final will be an all-Moscow affair after CSKA Moscow won the other semifinal series against UNIKS Kazan.
Dynamo, led by Croatia’s Ognjen Askrabic with 10 points and six rebounds, failed to hit 15 out of 17 three pointers leaving long shot accuracy to Khimki.
In common with previous matches in the semifinal series, Dynamo’s star player, Kelly McCarty of the U.S., failed to make much impact and scored just four points, hitting one field goal of five tries despite playing for most of the game. 
“We play our best every game — just this last game we came up short,” McCarty said.
Head coach Fotis Katsikaris told Dynamo’s website “we were very close and had a good opportunity to go to the final, but everything went wrong in the last part of the game.” 
Dynamo’s loss ended a disappointing season for the St. Petersburg team, which was expected to conquer the FIBA League, but came fourth, and could now suffer the same fate in the Russian Superleague if they lose to Kazan in the game for third place.
“We have worked the whole season for this, but we have failed to capitalize on our opportunities,” Katsikaris said.

TITLE: Pistons Outgun Cavs in Series Comeback
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: AUBURN HILLS, Michigan — In a single half, the Detroit Pistons taught LeBron James everything he needs to know about defense in the playoffs — and finished off yet another series comeback.
While Detroit moves on to its fourth straight Eastern Conference finals, the 21-year-old Cleveland Cavaliers superstar is left to ponder his dizzying lesson. 
“They trapped me, they went under screens, they went over screens,” said James, who was held to one second-half field goal Sunday in the Cavs’ 79-61 Game 7 loss to Detroit. 
“I’ve seen almost every defense that I could possibly see for the rest of my career in this series. That’s why they’re Eastern Conference champions, and that’s why they keep winning.”
Playing in his first postseason, James was sensational at times for Cleveland, pushing the NBA title favorites to the brink of elimination.
“There’s nobody on his level that can get his teammates involved like he does,” said Tayshaun Prince, who led the Pistons with 20 points.  “He sees the plays before they even happen, and no one else does that. That’s the reason this went seven games.”
James and the upstart Cavaliers were rendered helpless when it mattered most.

TITLE: Hingis Back On Top Form
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROME — Martina Hingis beat 16th-seeded Dinara Safina 6-2, 7-5 Sunday in the Italian Open final for the 41st title of her career, but first since winning in Tokyo more than four years ago.
She returned in January after nearly three years out of the game with foot and ankle injuries.
“I lived a different life and experienced a lot of things, and that probably helps me today in those moments,” Hingis said. “If I could turn back time, of course I would have continued to play. But at that point it wasn’t possible — the pain and the operations. Right now, I’m very happy.”

TITLE: Hingis Back On Top Form
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROME — Martina Hingis beat 16th-seeded Dinara Safina 6-2, 7-5 Sunday in the Italian Open final for the 41st title of her career, but first since winning in Tokyo more than four years ago.
She returned in January after nearly three years out of the game with foot and ankle injuries.
“I lived a different life and experienced a lot of things, and that probably helps me today in those moments,” Hingis said. “If I could turn back time, of course I would have continued to play. But at that point it wasn’t possible — the pain and the operations. Right now, I’m very happy.”

TITLE: Women’s Basketball Wants Tennis Success
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — David Stern wants the WNBA to look to women’s tennis for inspiration. 
“In the early days, people would say ‘Why would I watch a women’s team? They can’t dunk, they can’t run as fast as the men do,’” the NBA commissioner said. “Our response was there isn’t a woman on the tour today in tennis that can play on the men’s tour. But it doesn’t mean the women’s tour isn’t the best competition among world-class athletes.” 
Speaking before the start of the league’s 10th season, Stern said that he envisions the WNBA as a parallel to the NBA, much the way the women’s tennis tour is to the men’s.
“That’s the better model, rather than some model where you say you don’t like a particular woman player because she isn’t as good as Michael Jordan,” he said. “She never claimed to be. She’s just the best woman player in the world and it’s just a different standard and different game.”
The WNBA began anew Saturday with four games, the defending champion Sacramento Monarchs among those playing. They were to receive their rings before hosting Diana Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury on national television. 
After expanding to 16 teams in 2000 and then dropping to 13 four years later, the league added a 14th team again this season. Stern is confident the league will keep growing and could have 20 to 24 teams 10 years from now.
“As women’s sports continue to grow, the season will be longer, the number of teams will increase,” he said.
As many as 36 games will broadcast on ABC and ESPN2 this year, and the New York Liberty are the first team that will have all its games televised locally. 
“We have very good exposure locally and nationally,” Stern said. “As long as we keep it, I don’t want to force it artificially. I think it’s great programming, and more and more people are going to decide it’s great programming.”
Although the league as a whole is still not profitable, Stern and WNBA president Donna Orender have said it is very close to breaking even and added that some teams may already be there, though neither would get into specifics.
Reflecting on the start of the league, Stern said the WNBA took root with the success of the U.S. women’s team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
“I had been focusing on it for at least a decade before that,” Stern said. “And thought that if the U.S. won the gold medal that we would have ignition here. I was feeling very good about it. I thought coming out of Atlanta was the best possible time to start a league.”

TITLE: Sweden Wins Hockey Worlds
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RIGA, Latvia — Sweden shut out defending champion Czech Republic 4-0 Sunday to win ice hockey’s world championship, becoming the first country to win that title and Olympic gold in the same year. 
It was the eighth world title for Sweden, which had eight Olympic champions on its roster. In the Winter Olympics, Sweden beat Finland in the final. 
No team had managed the elusive double in international hockey. There have been six previous times when the Olympics and world championships were played as separate tournaments in the same year.
“It’s fun to be part of hockey history,” coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson said. “I think we played more or less a perfect game today. After taking a 2-0 lead we had a good control of the game.”
In the bronze-medal game, defenseman Petteri Nummelin set up three goals to lead Finland over Canada 5-0.
Sweden was missing one of its top goal scorers, Mika Hannula (four goals), who was suspended one game after cross-checking Sidney Crosby into the boards in the semifinals against Canada.
But the team managed fine without him. Jesper Mattsson, Fredrik Emvall, Niklas Kronwall and veteran Jorgen Jonsson, playing in his 11th worlds, gave Sweden a 4-0 lead after the first two periods, which held until the end.

TITLE: Gunman Kills His Family At Church Service
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — A man barreled into a church service and opened fire, killing four in-laws and wounding another, then abducted his wife and her three children, authorities said. 
Anthony Bell, 25, of Baton Rouge, was arrested hours later Sunday at a nearby apartment complex, where his wife was found dead, police said. The children, including an infant, were unharmed.
“This is going to be one of the worst days in the history of our city,” said Police Chief Jeff LeDuff. “This is senseless. This is a total waste of human life.”
Bell was charged with murder in the deaths of his wife and her grandparents, great aunt and a cousin, officials said. He also was charged with kidnapping and attempted murder.
His wife’s mother, church pastor Claudia Brown, was hospitalized in serious condition, police said.
Hours later, officers responding to a 911 call about a shooting at the apartment complex found 24-year-old Erica Bell dead and Anthony Bell holding the baby, LeDuff said. He was arrested without incident.
Authorities said neither he nor his wife lived at the complex, and it was unclear whether she was killed there.
Police later said Anthony Bell had called 911, reporting that his wife had committed suicide, according to an affidavit.
The other children were apparently dropped off somewhere else before their mother was killed, LeDuff said. It was unclear whether Anthony Bell was the children’s father.
LeDuff said he did not know a motive for the shootings, but a relative said Anthony and Erica Bell had domestic problems in the past.
“She was getting on with her life and wanted to keep worshipping and following God, and he just wanted to run on the streets,” said Jeffrey Howard, Brown’s brother. “He was in and out of her life a lot.”
Howard said the pastor had been shot in the back of the head but was able to identify her attacker.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Al Gore Stars at Cannes
PARIS (AP) — The United States is emerging from a “bubble of unreality” about the problem of global warming, former vice president Al Gore said Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. 
Gore was in Cannes to promote the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” which chronicles his efforts to bring the dangers of climate change to greater attention.
“I think that up until fairly recently the United States has been in a bubble of unreality where global warming is concerned,” he said, speaking before the Cannes premiere of the film, which debuted at last winter’s Sundance Film Festival and opens in U.S. theaters Wednesday. 
Gore said he believed Americans were ahead of U.S. politicians in their thinking about the issue.

Unfriendly Neighbors
LONDON (AFP) — The French have been voted the world’s most unfriendly nation by a landslide in a new British poll. They were also voted the most boring and most ungenerous. 
A decisive 46 percent of the 6,000 people surveyed by travellers’ website Where Are You Now (WAYN) said the French were the most unfriendly people on the planet, British newspapers reported.
Germans have no to reason to celebrate the damning verdict. They came second on all three counts.
WAYN’s French founder, Jerome Touze, told the papers he had been stunned by the thumping condemnation of his compatriots.
“I had no idea that the French would emerge as such an unfriendly country,” he said. “I think our romantic ‘moodiness’ is misunderstood and I will be sure to pass on the message to my family and friends back in France to be a bit more cheerful to tourists in the future.”

Apes, Birds Plan Ahead
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Apes that remember to carry the right tools to retrieve treats and scrub jays that hide food a second time when they think a rival is watching prove animals can think ahead — a trait once believed to be uniquely human, scientists have found. 
Two carefully planned sets of experiments to be published on Friday in the journal Science show intelligent birds and great apes can plan into the future in a way that transcends simple food caching, as squirrels, foxes and other animals do.
“Planning for future needs is not uniquely human,” Thomas Suddendorf of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, wrote in a commentary.
“Apes and jays can also anticipate future needs by remembering past events, contradicting the notion that such cognitive behavior only emerged in hominids.”

Bear Roams Bavaria
BERLIN (AFP) — A bear has been reported in Germany for the first time since 1835, police at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps said, following the discovery of seven sheep carcasses. 
The animal crossed into Germany from Austria, where about 30 bears live, and was spotted near the border on Thursday after destroying a beehive.
The German section of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature said that the last wild bear seen in Germany was one killed in 1835 in western Bavaria.
The regional authorities have mobilised teams to find the bear, anaesthetise it briefly, identify it and release it, a spokesman said.
Regional environment minister Werner Schnappauf said the bear “was welcome in Bavaria” and urged people not be afraid of it.