SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1174 (40), Friday, June 2, 2006
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TITLE: Journalists Shut Out of World Press Event
AUTHOR: By Martin Burlund
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Despite press freedom coming under fire in Russia, 1,700 editors, directors and other media professionals from 110 countries will gather in Moscow on Sunday for the World Newspaper Congress (WNC). 
But in choosing Russia as host, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) will have to do without some of their colleagues.
For a foreigner to participate in WNC, a Russian visa is required. Yet Russian authorities, by denying visas, have prevented certain journalists from entering the country.
One such journalist, Vibeke Sperling, is a veteran Danish correspondent who worked in Russia and the Soviet Union for 25 years. 
She is dismayed by WAN’s decision to hold the congress in a country where freedom of the press is largely restricted, according to watchdog Journalists Without Borders and think tank Freedom House.
“I find it worrying that this conference is being held in Moscow,” Sperling said by telephone from Copenhagen on Wednesday. However, the journalist added she hopes the conference will draw attention to the problem of press freedom in Russia.
Sperling has been repeatedly denied a visa to Russia since October 2003. This year, she will not be able to attend the congress even though the management of her newspaper, the Danish daily Politiken, has pressured Russian authorities to grant her a visa. “The answer from the Russian embassy [in Copenhagen] was ‘no reason whatsoever’ for denying me a visa,” Sperling said.
She says she has never experienced Russia to be as closed as it is today — including during the Soviet era.
“Back [in the Soviet era], I waited for a long time in order to get a visa, but I always got it,” she said.
Sperling believes her visa problems stem from her coverage of Chechnya and her reporting on the decline of press freedom in Russia.
But Sperling’s case is hardly unique.
In the Czech Republic, war reporter Petra ProchÇzkovÇ has been banned from traveling to Russia; in May she was denied a visa, according to her colleagues at Czech Television Channel Ceska Televize. 
ProchÇzkovÇ has been denied entry to Russia for more than five years, although Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic’s former president, has intervened on her behalf. She is currently reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) estimates that at least ten journalists are on the so-called Russian visa “black list,” according to the Danish newspaper Information.
Timothy Balding, chief executive officer of WAN, said in an email interview Thursday that he had not been informed of the visa denials by the journalists affected and that, had he known of the cases, the conference might not have been held in Moscow.
“WAN made it absolutely clear to the Russian authorities from the start of planning for the conference, more than two years ago, that the refusal of any visa on political or ‘security’ grounds might be a case for the cancellation of the event.”
Balding even received personal assurances from the Russian government that Sperling would not have any problem obtaining a visa for the Moscow event.
Larry Kilman, WAN spokesman, said that he is sorry that journalists are being kept away from the industry event, and that WAN would have protested had they known of these cases; the journalists affected, however, did not contact WAN following the rejection of their visa applications.
Nonetheless, Kilman is keen that the congress be held in Moscow.
“Of course there were a lot of participants who complained about the conference taking place in Russia, because of the problems with press freedom in the country, but the benefits far outnumber the problems,” Kilman said by telephone from Paris on Wednesday.
“Russian publishers will benefit from this conference… because bringing an international conference to Russia will give the local press community, which lacks funds, a presence. Another reason is that we want to support any progress on press freedom, and some of the Russian publishers believe that bringing WNC will help making progress on press freedom in the country.”
Sperling, however, does not believe that the Russian press is going to become more free in the near future. She said she has little hope that she would be granted a visa any time soon.
“If we look back at Russia’s history, it is well known that the leaders hand over power to new leaders who resemble them, which means that the people of Russia will have no real choice in future elections, so I do not think that the press freedom will improve much,” Sperling said.
But Dmitry Ruschin, associate professor at the journalism faculty of St. Petersburg State University, defended the state of press freedom in Russia.
“Speculation [on press freedom in Russia] in the western world is far from the reality of what is here in Russia. It’s possible for anybody to search for information on the Internet and to express their point of view on radio stations such as Ekho Moskvy, although it is true that what is televised is restricted by the authorities,” Ruschin said Wednesday.
Ruschin said that press freedom exists, despite presidential and local authorities’ influence, which he described as a problem.
MÊrta-Lisa Magnusson, lecturer at Copenhagen University, has also experienced difficulties in working with the Russian authorities. 
In 2000 she was denied a visa to Russia when she wanted to attend a meeting concerning Chechnya, a region which she has covered extensively in the Danish press. 
She says that Russia has a huge problem concerning the war-torn region, where she says journalists are allowed to report only in the company of Russian forces.
“This is the big question for the WNC — what do the Russian authorities have to say about Chechnya,” Magnusson said by Thursday in a telephone interview from Denmark.
Magnusson obtained a tourist visa last year to St. Petersburg, but will not attend the congress in Moscow on Sunday.

TITLE: Governor Saves Jobs At Prison
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The young prisoners of the juvenile penal colony in Kolpino, 30 kilometers south of St. Petersburg, have received a helping hand from Smolny after the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly redirected funding from the colony’s workshop to the Assembly’s canteen and other premises.
Work therapy is widely used in the country’s prison system. Official statistics provided by the Kolpino colony claim than only 1 percent of the inmates who have been through the work therapy programs return to crime, while 86 percent are believed to present no danger to society by the time they are released.
The workshop has been running for the past ten years producing a diverse range of goods. Several years ago the young inmates were making coffins, packaging herbal tea and producing cardboard files. Now they make children’s toys. 
Despite the widespread use of juvenile labor in the Russian penal system, the work is often unpaid or receives only a nominal reward. The Kolpino colony, where the working inmates get a monthly wage of up to 1,500 rubles ($45), has been seen as a major success, often being presented as a model institution.
“Before the workshop started, we had a much more unstable environment, complete with violence and attempted escapes,” said the colony’s head, Colonel Alexei Gerasimov at a news conference last week. “With regular work shifts it is easier to maintain order. And the money that  the boys earn here does help: some of them who are serving for robbery or theft are able to pay back damages.”
Earlier this month the colony’s authorities were crying foul at the city parliament’s budget committee’s decision to allocate the 9.6 million rubles ($354,000) that had been intended for the workshop’s funding to other purposes, including “lawmaking activities” and maintenance of the assembly’s canteen.
The work is provided to the inmates by a private enterprise, New Generation, which receives compensation from City Hall.
The parliamentarians took the decision to end this practice as they felt there should have been a tender for the allocation. The lawmakers also said there was not enough control over the funds.
“I am so ashamed by that decision,” said Natalya Yevdokimova, head of the Social Affairs Commission of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. “Their key argument that budget money was being given to a commercial organization without a tender is nonsense. Potential competitors simply do not exist,” she said.
Governor Valentina Matviyenko ended the dispute this week by making a promise to replace the workshop’s funding with money from the city’s reserve fund.
A day at the prison colony starts at 6.30 a.m. and involves a 4-hour shift at a workshop in the morning and school lessons in the afternoon. The workshop doesn’t get many orders, so the colony authorities have to take on almost anything they are offered, and the inmates have to volunteer for work in the program. At present, 140 of the Kolpino colony’s 230 prisoners are employed by the workshop.
Anna Sirota, co-director of an award-winning 2005 documentary “Love Letters From A Juvenile Prison,” partly filmed at the colony, said most inmates didn’t appreciate the job opportunities.
“It was an occupation for newcomers, and you would never see a veteran inmate doing it,” she said. “It pays pennies, and it is hard work.” 
Coffin-making, Sirota said, was considered by many of the inmates to be a plum job.
“It paid best of all, and the master in the workshop was kind-hearted, sneaking in some alcohol and cigarettes, and passing uncensored letters to mothers and girlfriends,” Sirota said. The Kolpino colony is an unorthodox organization in other respects.
In 2004, the young inmates put on a theatrical performance loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “The House Of The Dead”, produced by amateur director Yevgeny Zimin with the help of two prominent local actors Valery Kukhareshin and Sergei Byzgy.

TITLE: Russia, China Welcome Iran Offer
AUTHOR: By Edith Lederer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS — Russia and China welcomed a U.S. offer Wednesday to hold talks with Iran if it suspends uranium enrichment, but China said Washington’s offer should be unconditional and Tehran should be offered security guarantees as a carrot. 
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin and China’s UN Ambassador Wang Guangya both said the announcement by President George W. Bush showed that the United States is more serious about finding a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and ambitions. 
The two countries, which have close economic and security ties to Iran, have been the strongest opponents of a proposed Security Council resolution backed by the United States, Britain and France that could lead to sanctions and possible military action if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment. 
But the comments from the Russian and Chinese ambassadors indicated that serious differences remain ahead of Thursday’s meeting in Vienna of foreign ministers from the five veto-wielding permament members of the Security Council and Germany, where Bush’s offer and a package of incentives to Iran to suspend enrichment and disincentives if it refuses will be on the table. 
“I think that certainly it is a welcome move but I do hope that these direct talk will not have any preconditions,” China’s Wang said. “I think that it in a way proves that the United States is more serious about the negotiations than about other options, but I do hope that this offer could be less conditional.” 
Wang said direct talks, without preconditions, would be helpful in resolving all the “difficult issues” raised by Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which Tehran insists is part of its pursuit of nuclear energy for electricity but the United States and its Western allies believe is a cover for nuclear weapons. 
At their last meeting in New York on May 8, ministers from the six countries agreed to present Iran with a package of incentives and disincentives. Political directors from the six countries met in London last week to look at the package of incentives on trade, economic cooperation and political dealings that the European Union proposed to Iran in August, and the possible sticks if Tehran doesn’t agree to suspend uranium enrichment. 
Wang made clear that China was not satisfied with the package. 
“First of all, these carrots have to be very attractive and also agreeable by all parties,” he said. “As far as sticks are concerned, I think sticks have to be appropriate. ... If parties are not cooperating, I think we can talk about some political pressure. I think for China, we don’t want to get into those specific details about what measures we might take.” 
Are security assurances to Iran — which diplomats have said Washington opposes — a necessary carrot? 
“I think it is, yes,” Wang said. 
He noted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Iranian people have the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. 
If that right is recognized, Wang said, the Iranians should be allowed to perform “certain activities that are in the research and development areas as far as the peaceful” pursuit of nuclear energy is concerned.

TITLE: Rolling Stones Gig Delayed to 2007
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Rolling Stones will not perform in St. Petersburg this year, the concert’s promoters said Wednesday.
Previously scheduled for the Kirov Stadium on June 13, Russia’s one-off concert, which was to be part of the European leg of the band’s A Bigger Bang World Tour, will be postponed until next year, the promoter PMI Corporation said in a statement.
“The medical commission that examined Keith Richards, who had received a head injury, ruled out any performances by the musician for the next six weeks,” PMI said.
“Therefore, the band will postpone several European concerts of its 2006 tour until next year.” According to PMI, the new St. Petersburg date and venue for the show may not be announced until the end of July.
“Tickets bought in St. Petersburg should be returned between June 13 and Sept. 1,” said PMI’s press officer Yulia Kolomiitseva on Thursday.
Money for tickets will be refunded at the box office of the Ice Palace, rather than at the concert’s originally scheduled venue, the Kirov Stadium, she said.
Last week, the veteran rockers postponed the first 15 dates of the European leg of their current tour due to Richards’ health problem; the guitarist reportedly fell out of a coconut tree while on holiday in Fiji on April 27. Richards, 62, underwent brain surgery on May 8.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Regatta On Neva
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) – The city is holding the International “Sails of the White Nights Regatta” between June 1 and 12, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
A competition of this class is being hosted in St. Petersburg for the first time, the agency reported.
According to Interfax, the races will be held in the historic center of the city, in the Neva delta between the Hermitage, the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Strelka of Vasilievsky Island. 
Twelve teams from Russia, Finland, France, Sweden, Germany and Denmark are planning to take part. 

Rights Lawyer Attacked
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) – Ivan Pavlov, the head of the St. Petersburg-based Institute for Freedom of Information Development, or IFID, was attacked Wednesday by unidentified assailants, according to an Annews.ru report. 
As a result of the incident, which took place on Ulitsa Konstantina Zaslonova at around 11 a.m., the 35-year-old lawyer was hospitalized with head injuries, concussion and possible damage to the spleen, the website reported. 
IFID’s website said Pavlov planned to present a report on Thursday at a Federation Council seminar on increasing transparency in state bureaucracy. The police are currently investigating the case.

TITLE: Arrest of Mayor Could Signal New Political Era
AUTHOR: By Francesca Mereu
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Volgograd’s prosecutor opened a criminal case Wednesday against Mayor Yevgeny Ishchenko, possibly laying the groundwork for the end of direct mayoral elections, political analysts said.
Ishchenko was the first mayor of a big city to be arrested and charged with abuse of office and conducting illegal business.
Political analysts said the Kremlin was looking to secure loyal city leaders to guarantee a good showing for United Russia in State Duma elections next year and a smooth handover of power to President Vladimir Putin’s designated successor in 2008.
Ishchenko is a member of United Russia.
“Since the scrapping of direct gubernatorial elections, the Kremlin has been trying to find a way to put an end to mayoral elections,” said Maxim Dianov, head of the Institute for Regional Problems. “This arrest could give them the chance to follow through on that plan.” 
Volgograd Governor Nikolai Maksyuta said Wednesday that he had given orders to appoint an acting governor, Gazeta.ru reported. “Today my deputy will appoint an acting [mayor],” he said from Moscow. “Tomorrow, when I come back, I will finish the job.”
Maksyuta added that the law permitting direct elections of mayors should be changed “in order to get some subordination.”
In Volgograd, a statement from the prosecutor’s office said that Ishchenko “for the past three years has used his power in a way that conflicts with the duties of his position,” Interfax reported.
The prosecutor’s statement added that Ishchenko gave Tamerlan, a firm that owns Pyatyorochka supermarkets, tax breaks and other advantages.
Prosecutors also accused Ishchenko of doling out in 2005 and 2006 unwarranted bonuses to city employees.
In April, United Russia deputies drafted legislation allowing governors to confiscate the powers of mayors who managed their cities poorly.
Under the proposal, mayors would lose most of their powers in the event of natural disaster, debt exceeding 30 percent of the city’s revenue intake or mismanagement by the city of federal subsidies.
The Duma is expected to consider the legislation before the end of its spring session.
Dianov said governors, who are appointed by the Kremlin, had lost interest in cultivating rural voters. Those voters, who comprise one-third of the country’s voting population and will play a key role in upcoming elections, are controlled by mayors of small cities and towns.
“The Kremlin fully controls the governors, who will work to guarantee a good showing for United Russia, but they don’t have the complete control of the mayors,” Dianov said.
The Kremlin, Dianov said, wants authority over big-city mayors because they control a large portion of the revenues that flow into federal coffers.
The arrest of the mayor of Volgograd, a city of 1.2 million, would make it easier for the presidential administration to justify scrapping mayoral elections as part of an anti-corruption campaign, Dianov said.
Mikhail Kuznetsov, the governor of the Pskov region, said as much Wednesday when he called for the Kremlin to abolish mayoral elections.
“Only when mayors are elected by governors will it be possible, first, to guarantee a high level of responsibility at all levels of government, and secondly, to stop shaking public opinion with fabricated criminal cases,” Kuznetsov said, Interfax reported.
Ishchenko, perceived at home as closer to Moscow businessmen than local entrepreneurs, had battled with the local branch of United Russia, said Yury Korgunyuk, an analyst at the Indem think-tank.

TITLE: Jury System Favors Defendants
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — If, heaven forbid, you are charged with a serious crime in Russia, demand a jury trial and your chances of being acquitted will jump at least fivefold.
“This is because the jury is the only body in the Russian legal system that believes in the presumption of innocence,” said Sergei Kvasov, a defense lawyer who has successfully defended people accused of terrorism in Dagestan.
Over the past few months, juries have acquitted a number of defendants in high-profile cases, sending shockwaves through the media and reigniting a debate about whether ordinary Russians are ready for jury trials.
On May 5, a Moscow City Court jury cleared two men accused of killing U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov in 2004 — despite evidence such as records of cell phone calls by the defendants near the murder site and the fingerprints of one on a nearby car.
On May 12, a Dagestani jury acquitted a man accused of plotting to bomb a major local highway. Three days later, a jury in the region’s capital, Makhachkala, acquitted four men of charges of killing the region’s information minister and six other people in eight bombings last year.
A St. Petersburg jury in March cleared a young man of murder charges in the stabbing death of a 9-year-old Tajik girl, finding him guilty instead of mere hooliganism.
Lawyers and other legal experts say these acquittals and hundreds of others are due to shoddy investigations, poor trial work by prosecutors, and juries that are ready to give defendants the benefit of the doubt. 
Furthermore, under the existing evaluation system, the promotion of police officers depends on the number of solved cases they send to court, not the outcome of the trials.
Since 1993, when jury trials were reinstated after a break of more than seven decades, the acquittal rate has been much higher for defendants tried by jury than by judges. 
Last year, every sixth person tried by a jury was acquitted, while only 3.6 percent of those tried by judges were cleared, according to statistics provided by the Supreme Court. In previous years, the difference was even greater.
As a result, 44 percent of Russians would encourage friends and relatives to opt for a jury trial if they ran afoul of the law, according to a national survey of 1,594 people conducted by state-run polling agency VTsIOM this month. Only 26 percent said they would advise against a jury. The survey’s margin of error was 3.4 percent.
One big difference between jury and judge trials is that jurors do not read case materials, as judges do, and only base their verdicts on the evidence presented in court.
“Most criminal cases include a mountain of evidence implicating defendants but obtained in violation of legal procedures. Such evidence is not allowed to be shown to a jury,” said Sergei Nasonov, a member of the Independent Council of Legal Experts and a professor at Moscow State University.
The cases themselves are often poorly constructed and lacking in strong evidence, Nasonov said.
That may be why the Klebnikov jury refused to convict the suspects despite a lengthy investigation into his death. 
Supreme Court Chief Justice Vyacheslav Lebedev complained in April that too many defendants were being acquitted in jury trials and placed the blame on shoddy investigations.
In many terror-related cases in Dagestan, the bulk of evidence against defendants is their confessions, which in court they usually claim were given under torture. For example, prosecutors presented no evidence other than confessions in the trial of the four men who were acquitted on May 15, Kommersant said.
“Juries consist of people who routinely face and fear abuse, violence and extortion from the police. When a defendant tells them from a cage that he has been tortured, beaten and threatened, the jury tends to believe him,” said Kvasov, the Dagestani defense lawyer.
Further hamstringing prosecutors are their “colorless” personalities and the barely understandable legal lingo that they use in the courtroom, Nasonov said. They have not been trained to present their cases in the charismatic style of the defense lawyers, who have to compete with one another for clients.
“The general expectation of prosecutors, based on their experience, is that judges will play with them against defendants, and this is still largely true, even in jury trials,” said Ruslan Koblev, a defense lawyer in the Klebnikov case.
“This attitude debilitates prosecutors. They make many mistakes that jurors do remember when they consider the verdict.”
Authorities in the North Caucasus have grown increasingly vocal in their desire to ban jury trials, insisting that jurors are showing leniency toward terrorists and criminals.
Some cases seem to back their claims. Mairbek Shebikhanov, whose body authorities identified among the slain Beslan hostage-takers, was acquitted by an Ingush jury just two months before the September 2004 school attack. He had been accused of participating in an attack on federal forces in Ingushetia.
After the acquittal, Ingush President Murad Zyazikov publicly proposed banning jury trials in the North Caucasus. Dagestani Interior Minister Adilgirei Magomedtagirov echoed his remarks and went one step further, suggesting that it would be more expedient to kill terror suspects on the spot than to bring them to court, where they might be cleared.
Interestingly, jury trials in imperial Russia were banned in terrorist cases after a jury acquitted Vera Zasulich, a revolutionary who attempted to assassinate St. Petersburg Mayor Fyodor Trepov in 1878. The ban was imposed just 14 years after the first jury trials were introduced in Russia.
Chechnya is the only region without jury trials. The first are to begin in 2007.
Widespread prejudices such as xenophobia also appear to be driving factors behind several controversial acquittals, including the cases of Captain Eduard Ulman and former Colonel Yury Budanov, who were cleared by juries despite their admissions that they had killed Chechen civilians. Their trials were held outside Chechnya, and not a single Chechen was allowed onto the juries, despite requests from lawyers for the victims. Budanov was later jailed after being found guilty by a judge.
Ruslan Khasanov, another defense lawyer in the Klebnikov trial, said the judge flatly rejected all of his attempts to have at least one native of the Caucasus on the jury.
Manipulating the composition of the jury is one of many methods used by judges to try to influence the verdict, legal experts say. Another ploy is to craft questions that the jury needs to answer before it issues a verdict, such as in the case of Igor Sutyagin, a scientist sentenced by a jury to 15 years in prison in 2004 on high treason charges.
“The jury was asked whether it had been proven in court that Sutyagin was collecting information and whether it had been proven that he got paid for this work from foreign sources,” said Nasonov, who was not involved in the case. 
“But there were no questions on the list about whether it had been proven that he was collecting information from classified sources and whether it had been proven that he was doing so with the intent of harming Russia’s interests.”

TITLE: Health Chief Tackles Smokers
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The fight for a smoke-free Russia should be the country’s fifth national project, chief epidemiologist Gennady Onishchenko said Wednesday, No Tobacco Day.
Onishchenko said smoking, along with alcoholism and AIDS, posed a serious threat to the nation’s well-being.
Every year, 375,000 Russians die of illnesses related to smoking, Interfax cited Onishchenko as saying. 
World Health Organization statistics show that more than 60 percent of Russian men over 15 smoke. In France, that figure drops to 30-39 percent, and in the United States to 20-29 percent.
“What’s scariest is that there has been a sharp rise in smoking among women and teenagers,” Onishchenko said. “That is a serious threat to the nation’s health.”
He called for Russians to lead healthier lives and for abolishing product placement advertising, which shows smoking in movies and television programs. He also suggested increasing cigarette prices. Authorities have already banned cigarette advertising on television.
Federal authorities are also looking to tighten the law on smoking in public, Kommersant reported this week. A measure set to be debated in the State Duma would ban smoking in restaurants, bars and certain areas of airports.

TITLE: GM Unveils Petersburg Plans
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: American carmaker General Motors signed an investment agreement with City Hall and the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade on Monday, confirming the construction of a plant in St. Petersburg.
The new plant will be located in the Shushary area, near Toyota’s own projected plant. Earlier another Japanese producer, Nissan, announced that it was to construct a plant in the Primorsky district.
GM will start construction by mid-June, at first investing $115 million into the project, Interfax reported German Gref, Minister for Economic Development and Trade, as saying Tuesday.
Later GM will double its total investment, Gref said. According to the minister, the plant will produce three GM models, although precise details will only be announced mid-June.
GM signed the agreement in accordance with the Russian government decree N 166 on custom tariffs for car components imported to Russia for industrial assembly.
Usually such agreements are signed for eight years and list the components that will be imported on preferential terms. Two years after organizing the production process the investor is obliged to decrease the cost of imported components by 10 percent, two years after that – by another 10 percent and a year after that — by a further 10 percent.
In terms of the concessions granted by local government, vice governor Mikhail Oseyevsky said that GM received the same as any foreign company establishing local assembly, Interfax reported Tuesday.
“The event is particularly topical because the industrial structure in St. Petersburg is changing. Unfortunately, lighter industries are becoming less competitive and are decreasing in number. Military orders are more limited and the volume of production is also decreasing,” the press service for local government cited governor Valentina Matviyenko as saying Tuesday.
The new plants will provide the city with new workplaces for technical and engineering specialists, as well as tax revenue to the local budget, she said.
In a statement released Tuesday Vladimir Blank, chairman of the Committee for Economic Development, Industrial policy and Trade, linked GM’s decision to City Hall’s investment policy.
Last year foreign investment into St. Petersburg increased by 44 percent compared to 2004 and direct foreign investment increased 2.2 times.
During the last two years St. Petersburg has attracted investment from Toyota, Elcoteq, Severstal, Bosch, Russky Standart, Pepsi, Knauf and Alcan.
Blank indicated certain factors that have increased the city’s attractiveness to investors. They included the introduction of a general city plan, the law on tax concessions and the development of new territories.
In 2006, Smolny will triple spending on infrastructure and capital investment compared to 2003, with total spending rising to 26.8 billion rubles ($1 billion).
The city is carrying out a special program to develop the labor market. Special economic zones are still due for completion.
“This year the most important areas of work will include a decree on prolonging payments related to the purchase of land and amendments to the law on tax concessions,” Blank said.
“This law should free those investors who spend over 3 billion rubles ($111,111,110) on production facilities from property tax for a period of five years as well as decreasing profit tax by four percent. The current law only allows these concessions over three years. It would not only apply to industrial investors,” Blank said.
“I think this decision has more to do with geography than law. A number of companies have found that logistically Leningrad Oblast is more convenient than other regions,” said Mikhail Zak, head of analytical department at Veles Capital investment company.
He singled out the ability of Leningrad Oblast officials to successfully negotiate with investors such as Ford as being particular advantageous.
Zak said that GM could produce 20,000 to 25,000 cars annually at first, increasing production to 100,000 units or more as investment grows.
Locally produced cars will be a substitute for imports, Zak said.
“As Russia closes in on WTO membership, car imports will be the subject of new bans, which will allow companies to realize more locally-produced units,” he said.
As for tax concessions, they do affect profitability, Zak said, but the question is to what extent, because their terms of agreements are usually undisclosed.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Alcohol Ban
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The city parliament has banned the sale of strong alcohol from 11 p.m. till 7 a.m. The law, approved Wednesday, comes into force on Nov. 1 and will apply to beverages containing over 15 percent of alcohol, Interfax reported. 
The law introduces a requirement for alcohol sellers to have an authorized capital of over 500,000 rubles ($18,330). By Apr. 1, 2007 such firms must obtain a license, at a cost of 100,000 rubles.

Wooden Finish 
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Swedwood-Tikhvin, a subsidiary of the IKEA group, will complete the construction of a furniture assembly plant in Leningrad Oblast by September, Interfax reported Wednesday citing the regional government press service.
The plant will assemble cupboards and shelves, producing 167,700 units annually. The pay-back period is nine years. The company will invest 12 million euros ($15 million) into the project.
The plant’s first division (wood processing) started operating in 2002.

Wheeled Away
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) —Toyota will revoke around 9,000 Avensis cars and 10 Corolla cars, which were sold in Russia, because of a defect with the wheels, Interfax reported Tuesday.
According to Toyota Motor Russia, no accidents related to this defect were registered in Russia. Nevertheless, the company will inform owners of defective cars about the associated problems and replace the mechanism free of charge.
Last year the company sold 8,612 Avensis cars in Russia.

Generating Profit 
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Territory Generating Company N 1 will pay out 250 million rubles ($9.3 million) in dividends for 2005, at 0.25 rubles per ordinary share of 0.01 rubles nominal cost, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The company earned a net profit of 587 million rubles ($21.7 million) last year, with revenue amounting to 5.45 billion rubles ($202 million). By 2010, TGC-1 expects to increase net profit to 3.699 billion rubles, and its revenue up to 31.327 billion rubles. In 2015 net profit will increase to 5.493 billion rubles, and revenue to 43.647 billion rubles.
This year net profit is expected to be 539 million rubles and revenue 20.44 billion rubles. TGC-1’s authorized capital stock is 10 million rubles.

New Figure
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — An academy of figure skating opened in the city’s Primorsky district Wednesday. Its first students are expected on June 1, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Construction started in November 2002. The project cost 594 million rubles ($22 million), of which 179.2 million rubles came from the federal budget.
The Academy will have three ice rinks: two standard areas of 30 meters by 60 meters and one children’s rink of 20 meters by 25 meters. The complex will hold 2,000 spectators and be equipped with the latest medical equipment, a swimming pool and cafe.

Grocer Loan
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russian supermarket chain Pyaterochka has hired ABN Amro Holding, HSBC Bank, Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich and WestLB AG to arrange an $800 million loan.
Part of the loan, which will mature in three years, will be used in connection with the food retailer’s merger with Perekriostok and to develop the combined company, a Regulatory News Service statement released Tuesday by Pyaterochka shows.
The debt will be syndicated to a wider group of lenders in the “coming weeks,” the company said.

Transferring Turnover
MOSCOW (SPT) — Annual turnover for money transfer network Unistream has reached $1 billion, the company said May 22 in a press release.
The figures for the period from May 2005 to May 2006 suggest the firm will grow four times more this year than was expected.
“Our strategy is to reach a position of leadership on the global money transfer market, and stepping up the amount of transactions is a part of the strategy,” said Souren Hayriyan, the CEO for Unistream.

TITLE: Frank Advice Exchanged
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: ST. PETERSBURG — A closed workshop to inform Russian companies about raising capital on EU markets was held in St. Petersburg on Tuesday. 
The event was organized by Deutsche BÚrse AG (the managing company of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange), Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (one of the leading German banking institutions), the international law firm Beiten Burkhardt, the international auditing company BDO, and the St. Petersburg Currency Exchange.
According to Robert Michels, an expert from the Frankfurt office of the law firm Beiten Burkhardt, “IPO (Initial Public Offering) is currently a burning issue in Russia. As a result, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, allowing issuers to benefit from low cost capital and have access to a broad and expanding investor base, has come under the spotlight of Russian business people. Stocks from 35 Russian companies are already tradable on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, with a trading turnover of 8 billion euros in 2005.”

TITLE: Russia Will Resist U.S. Pressure on Bank Rules
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW  — Moscow will not yield to pressure to allow U.S. banks to open branches in Russia, one of several sticking points in negotiations on the country’s accession to the World Trade Organization, top officials said Thursday.
The United States, with which Russia is seeking to reach agreement on WTO accession, has been pressing Moscow to loosen its rules, which currently stipulate that foreign banks can only open subsidiaries that are regulated by the Russian Central Bank rather than branches covered by U.S. regulations.
“I do not see Russia retreating and giving in to the U.S. pressure,” Yekaterina Mayorova, a top trade negotiator with the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, was quoted as saying by the RIA-Novosti agency.
Meanwhile Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov suggested that Washington would eventually retract its demand — which he said would make Russia the first country to join the WTO without agreeing to let foreign banks open branches.
Richard Hainsworth, of the Rusrating agency, said the Russian restrictions were largely irrelevant since foreign subsidiaries had already been permitted to open outlets throughout the country, meaning that foreign banks were already competing with Russian banks.
He said that the proposed U.S. changes would potentially allow money launderers to take advantage of looser regulations in some other countries.
While WTO talks have dragged over financial services reforms, access to the aviation industry and intellectual property protection, Chris Weafer, chief strategist with Moscow’s Alfa Bank said there were larger non-trade, political issues that were clouding the talks.
Moscow has refused to support the U.S. push for international sanctions against Iran and the U.S. position in WTO talks is widely seen as punishment for what is seen as Russia’s stubborn stance on Iran’s nuclear program.

TITLE: State Seeks Vodka Factory
AUTHOR: By Maria Levitov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — State-owned vodka brands manager Soyuzplodoimport is shopping around for a liquor factory, the company said Wednesday.
The plans, aimed at giving government brands a boost, left the market guessing whether Soyuzplodoimport had its eye on the country’s third-largest liquor factory, the troubled Liviz factory in St. Petersburg. The factory made headlines last Friday when the Federation Council expelled Liviz owner Alexander Sabadash, a senator representing the Nenets autonomous district.
Soyuzplodoimport does not currently own any factories. Its vodkas, including the Stolichnaya, Moskovskaya and Russkaya brands, are produced by six licensed manufacturers. 
“Under the conditions of stringent competition, manufacturers prefer to develop and promote their own brands on the market,” Soyuzplodoimport said in a written response Wednesday.
Manufacturers’ interest in state-owned brands has been on the decline over the past two years. A factory purchase would allow Soyuzplodoimport to set up large-scale production of traditional brands and work with new products, the company said.
While engaged in a long-running legal battle for the rights to the Stolichnaya brand abroad, Soyuzplodoimport does not want to lose out on the booming liquor market at home. 
Vodka sales exceeded $14 billion last year, when Russians consumed 247 million decaliters of the drink, according to consultancy Business Analytica. 
Soyuzplodoimport said it was looking at several factories, but it was “too early to talk specifics.” 
The market was rife with speculation this week that Soyuzplodoimport planned to snap up Liviz, which is currently going through turbulent times. A Liviz spokesman declined to comment due to the plant’s “difficult situation.”
Last week, prosecutors searched the plant and the company’s director was arrested on suspicion of tax evasion. Liviz owner Sabadash was stripped of his Federation Council seat after being accused of carrying out business activities, which senators are forbidden to do.

TITLE: Boeing Pledges $27Bln For Russia Investments
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — U.S. planemaker Boeing is planning on sharply raising its investments in Russia, to $27 billion over the next 30 years, the company announced in a statement Wednesday, as it continues to spar with arch-rival Airbus over a $3 billion contract from state-owned airline Aeroflot. 
Sergei Kravchenko, Boeing’s head in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, said his firm would spend $18 billion on titanium products, $5 billion on intellectual, engineering and service projects and $4 billion on contracts with other Boeing divisions, according to the statement.
Boeing says it has invested around $3 billion in Russia in the decade up to 2005.
“We have extensive experience of investment and partnership with the best representatives of the Russian industry,” he said. “We see huge potential in expanding this bilateral cooperation and equal partnership.”
Chicago-based Boeing and its European rival Airbus are competing for a $3 billion plane order from Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline, which last year said it would choose between Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and Airbus’ A350. 
Airbus senior vice president Axel Krein said Feb. 21 that his Toulouse, France-based company was in talks with Russian officials on $25 billion worth of partnerships including development of new aircraft. 
“This is not a reply to Airbus’ $25 billion proposal,” Kravchenko said. “These are concrete plans for cooperation work we already have in Russia.”
Boeing’s design center in Moscow contracts out work, with 1,200 Russian engineers helping develop wing flaps and the nose section of the planned 787 model.
Boeing planes account for 81 percent of the foreign jet fleet of the post-Soviet CIS, including 76 percent of Russia’s currently operating 97 foreign-made jets.
Apart from selling and servicing its planes, Boeing also buys titanium parts from Russia.
In April, Boeing and Russia’s VSMPO-Avisma, the world’s biggest titanium producer, formed a joint venture to supply the U.S. company with components for its new Dreamliner jets. 
Boeing has said annual orders for titanium products for its B-787 Dreamliner jets would reach about $1.5 billion in the next few years.

(Bloomberg, Reuters, SPT)

TITLE: S&P: Only Stronger Banks May Survive
AUTHOR: By William Mauldin
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The larger, stronger Russian banks will weather future economic storms that could be fatal to many smaller banks, Standard and Poor’s said in a report released Thursday.
These big Russian banks — including Alfa Bank, Gazprombank, International Moscow Bank, MDM Bank, Rosbank, Uralsib, and Vneshtorgbank — are growing rapidly during the current favorable economic environment and expanding into the mostly uncharted consumer lending market. 
These banks would likely survive an economic downturn, while many of Russia’s approximately 1,000 smaller banks would simply disappear.
S&P does not rate Sberbank or Bank of Moscow, but the ratings agency said those banks would also fit the mold of other large banks discussed in the report.
“Success is never guaranteed, and this relates to large banks and big banks,” S&P analyst Yekaterina Trofimova said, emphasizing that the banks mentioned in the report were not the only ones that would prevail. “It is still uncertain who will be the long-term winners.”
The S&P report does not predict a rise in bank mergers or acquisitions in the near future because of the high cost of such transactions, but Moody’s analyst Vladlen Kuznetsov said pressure from deep-pocketed foreign and state-owned banks could trigger mergers.
 “The medium-sized and large private Russian banks that have chosen a universal banking strategy are most likely to merge, be acquired or become niche-oriented since it will be difficult for them to withstand competition from the large state-owned banks and the foreign banks that are likely to appear in the Russian market,” Kuznetsov said in an e-mailed response sent on Wednesday.
The S&P report, which also studied banks in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, said smaller Russian banks would have more trouble moving into consumer lending, an area that is forecasted to grow quickly. 
Currently, consumer lending constitutes 22 percent of outstanding Russian loans, compared with 23 percent in Ukraine and 35 percent in Kazakhstan.
“Not all of them will be able to be successful in retail, because retail is extremely expensive. This is not an easy business,” Trofimova said.
Banks need large branch networks and heavy marketing to attract retail business, and growth would most likely come in credit cards, car loans, and, above all, mortgages.
Trofimova said Russian banks were blessed with some of the best management in Eastern Europe and the CIS, but she warned that “opaque ownership structures” at many banks might hold them back. 
Several larger banks have just a few main shareholders, and most of these can no longer make meaningful capital contributions to their banks.
Some Russian banks, such as Alfa, have recently decided to limit proprietary trading, Trofimova said, but Russian banks continue to trade more than their peers in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

TITLE: The Philosophy Behind the Nationalism
AUTHOR: By Andreas Umland
TEXT: Ultranationalism among Russian youth, along with nascent official activity against xenophobia, is receiving increasing attention from Russian and Western observers. Alarmed by the growing number of victims among foreign students, visitors from abroad and immigrants from Asia, Africa and the Americas, the administration of President Vladimir Putin has started to take action against escalating skinhead violence. The Kremlin-directed mass media reports now on a daily basis about attacks on foreigners and the prosecution of offenders. There is also regular information about different campaigns (such as concerts, demonstrations and meetings) to increase tolerance and mutual understanding among youths.
The government’s change of course from an overarching disregard of the proliferation of neo-Nazi subculture during Putin’s first term to a more robust reaction to it in his second seems less determined by a change in attitude in the Kremlin than by utilitarian considerations. The increasingly violent behavior on the part of these ultranationist youth groups creates an image problem for Russia. Furthermore, the Kremlin seems to consider large-scale immigration as an instrument for dealing with the country’s dire demographic situation; on that front, animosity toward outsiders isn’t particularly positive. Whatever the reasons, the fact that the state has recently begun to acknowledge the problem openly is a welcome development.
On the other hand, less manifest yet similarly illiberal tendencies in public and elite discourse continue to develop and appear to be gaining influence in mainstream politics, civil society, mass media and higher education. Along with the Putin administration’s own gradual curtailment of democratic procedures and propagation of a relatively moderate form of nationalism and an intellectually refined form of deep anti-Westernism and, especially, anti-Americanism have become common in Russian expert commentary and analysis related to international affairs and contemporary history.
The country’s publishing market is flooded with anti-liberal diatribes outlining bizarre visions of a Russian rebirth and apocalyptic worldviews. Their authors include names such as Sergei Kurginyan, Igor Shafarevich, Oleg Platonov, Maxim Kalashnikov (alias Vladimir Kucherenko) and Sergei Kara-Murza. Moreover, many, if not most, weekly or daily political programs on national television offer a Manichean worldview in which the United States is responsible for most of Russia’s (and often humanity’s) problems. Prime-time analytical programs like Mikhail Leontyev’s “Odnako,” Gleb Pavlovsky’s “Realnaya Politika,” Alexei Pushkov’s “Post Scriptum” and Alexei Pimanov’s “Chelovek i Zakon” conclude the majority of their international and some of their domestic reports with the assertion that U.S. elites are involved, directly or indirectly, in hidden malicious activities against Russia and other countries. This discourse goes far beyond the common criticisms of the policies of U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration and is characterized by a paranoid interpretation of current history and, occasionally, by pathological animosity toward U.S. politics, values and culture.
Perhaps the most prolific commentator here, both in print and on television, is mystic philosopher Alexander Dugin, who has transformed himself from a lunatic fringe figure with open sympathy for various permutations of inter-war fascism in the 1990s to a “radically centrist” Putin supporter and well-regarded guest commentator in mainstream media. Apart from regular appearances on national television talk shows, Dugin also hosts the political program “Vekhi” on the new Orthodox television channel “Spas” — an interesting venue considering his interest in Western European occultism in the 1990s. He is also a frequent contributor to newspapers like Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Literaturnaya Gazeta and Krasnaya Zvezda.
Dugin is notable as an anti-liberal thinker in that, while most nationalist writers remain within the limits of traditional Russian anti-Westernism, Dugin’s writings and comments are informed by his intimate knowledge of a broad spectrum of non-Russian forms of anti-liberalism, including West European integral traditionalism (such as René Guenon, Julius Evola and Claudio Mutti), European and U.S. geopolitics (Alfred Mahen, Halford Mackinder and Karl Haushofer), Germany’s so-called “Conservative Revolution” (including Carl Schmitt, Ernst Jßnger, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck) and the francophone, neo-Gramscian “New Right” (such as Alain de Benoist and Robert Steuckers). Generally, however, he downplays the influence of these writers on his thinking, instead using the term “neo-Eurasianism,” an explicit reference to a reputed Russian emigre intellectual movement of the 1920s and 1930s.
Dugin melds these influences to draw a picture of an ancient conflict between two civilizations and between two contradictory ideas. On one side are the free-market, capitalist, Atlantic sea powers (he calls them “thallocracies”) in the tradition of the ancient states of Phoenicia and Carthage, which are now headed by the United States; on the other are the autarchic Eurasian continental land powers (labeled “tellurocracies”), begining with the mythical country of “Hyperborea” and running through the tradition of the ancient Roman Empire to its main representative today, Russia. The secret orders, or “occult conspiracies” of these two antagonistic empires — Eternal Rome and Eternal Carthage — are continuing their age-old struggle, an occult Punic war that has often remained hidden from many of its participants and even its key figures, but has nevertheless determined the course of world history.
Which brings us to what it all means, in Dugin’s opinion, for Russia today. He says that the confrontation is now entering its final stage, the “Great War of the Continents,” which will require a Russian national rebirth via a conservative and permanent revolution. The new order Dugin envisions will be informed by the ideology of National Bolshevism and an exclusively geopolitical approach to international relations. Victory in this “Endkampf,” or final battle, as the term was introduced in German in the Third Reich) against Atlanticism will create a “New Socialism,” bringing territorial expansion and the formation of a Eurasian bloc of fundamentalist land powers (including, perhaps, even a traditionalist Israel!) against intrusive, individualistic Anglo-Saxon imperialism.
Ideas like these have led observers to label Dugin a nonserious thinker, if not simply a bizarre, temporary phenomenon on Russia’s political landscape. The problem is that, despite the many phantasmagoric elements in his writings, Dugin has established himself as the leader of an influential intellectual movement, “neo-Eurasianism,” that reaches beyond the lunatic fringe. And he’s got an influential following. The High Council of Dugin’s International Eurasian Movement, for instance, includes political figures like Culture and Press Minister Vladimir Sokolov, presidential aide Aslambek Aslakhanov, Federation Council Deputy Speaker Alexander Torshin and Federation Council International Affairs Committee chairman Mikhail Margelov. The organization also includes representatives, mainly academics, from a number of other CIS member countries, as well as some marginal Western intellectuals.
While anti-Americanism was a recurring feature of Russia’s 20th-century views on international affairs, the current manifestation differs in terms both of the quantity and quality of these views. Anti-Americanism has become one, if not the major, feature of Russian foreign affairs journalism, incorporating many of the more extreme ideas provided by Dugin and other anti-Western theorists. This opposition to “American imperialism,” in turn, serves as a justification for Putin’s illiberal policies and provides the glue that holds Russia’s elites together.

Andreas Umland is German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) lecturer at the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kiev.

TITLE: Let’s Hope No One Sues Me
AUTHOR: By Masha Gessen
TEXT: Is something bothering you? Are you worried or upset? Write your president. Maybe he’ll intervene. At least you’ll feel better.
Thirty Russian entertainers have signed a letter asking the president and parliament to increase penalties levied against media outlets that publish lies. To be precise, they said: “We are asking that urgent measures be taken to draft and introduce into Russian law pertaining to mass media as well as to relevant civil and civil procedural laws, amendments that will be directed at reinforcing the protections and guaranteeing the defense of honor, dignity and the business reputation of citizens and the defense of private life.”
That’s just the sort of language actors and singers like to use: dry, incomprehensible legalese. Wrong. They usually sound more like this: “It’s time to stop letting them get away with murder. If you want to lie, go ahead and lie. And then pay for it.” These are the words of Alexander Abdulov, a popular actor who introduced the letter at a news conference last week.
Abdulov himself had fallen victim to the meddling media. The tabloid Express-Gazeta printed an article claiming that Abdulov had been secretly married for 10 years. Abdulov sued. Just the week before the letter appeared, a judge ordered the tabloid to pay Abdulov 100,000 rubles ($3,700) in damages. That’s a lot of money. So why is Abdulov still on the warpath? Is he just greedy? Probably, but not in the way you’d think.
Another person present at the same press conference was Lyudmila Narusova, a senator who has moonlighted as a television talk show host and who has a long-standing friendship with President Vladimir Putin. She promised to introduce relevant legislation into parliament in the very near future: “Newspapers with huge and highly profitable press runs will be burdened with payments not of 10 rubles, which is nothing but a checkmark to show that a lawsuit has been resolved, but in amounts commensurate with their incomes.”
I apologize for all this language. Now let’s get real.
Authoritarian regimes love libel laws. They all use them for the same purpose: to shut down newspapers and other media outlets by levying multimillion-dollar judgments, fines equaling a publication’s annual budget — literally “commensurate with their incomes.” This use of libel laws is ingenious in that it kills two, three or even four birds with one stone.
First, it shuts down the annoying media outlet. Second, it does so through the courts, which serves to demonstrate that the country has a court system. Third, it shows that there are media and even media-related controversies. All of this happens without the apparent involvement of the executive branch. And fourth — and best of all — it scares the hell out of other media, which start to tiptoe around any and all facts lest they be taken to court for spreading false information.
There is really nothing to stop this sort of use of the libel laws that Russia already has, and there is even precedent: If the Kommersant publishing house had indeed been forced to pay the $11 million in damages awarded over its coverage of Alfa Bank’s cash crisis in 2004, there would be no Kommersant today. So the amendments are needed to serve not so much as a legal instrument as an order for potential litigants and the courts to spring into action. That is why the amendments need to be presented in a highly public way, which is where the 30 entertainers came in: They were apparently simply asked to sign a letter with which they all more or less agreed anyway.
Now Moscow Times readers just have to hope Alexander Abdulov doesn’t take me to court for saying he is perhaps a little bit greedy, Lyudmila Narusova doesn’t object to being characterized as a longtime friend of Putin’s and “someone from the Kremlin” doesn’t sue over my writing that he thought this whole thing up.

Masha Gessen is a Moscow journalist.

TITLE: Go ahead — punk!
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Famed for a punk rock version of the novelty song ‘Nellie the Elephant,’ the U.K.’s Toy Dolls have been performing for 30 years. The band’s cryptically-named frontman Olga speaks out about the enduring appeal of punk.
The Toy Dolls, a trio of grown men sporting cartoonish spectacles and fooling around on stage, return to Russia to perform a pair of concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow this week. 
The veteran British punk band, which first came to Russia to perform at a Moscow punk festival with the Stranglers in 1997, has just returned from a brief Norwegian tour. It was the first time the band has performed live in a while, and the band has also recently undergone a lineup change.
“It was our first gig that we had for a few months and we got a new drummer, so it was his first gig, but it was fantastic. Very small places for 300 or 400 people, but it was sold out, it was very, very nice,” said Toy Dolls frontman Michael Algar — normally referred to as Olga —  speaking by phone from his home in London this week.
Together with guitarist and singer Olga, the band now features Tommy Goober on bass and The Amazing Mr. Duncan on drums.
Scheduled to perform in St. Petersburg on Friday, the Toy Dolls will then go to Moscow to perform at Apelsin Club on Saturday.
The Toy Dolls, which played its first gig at Millview Social Club in Sunderland in northern England in October 1979, was different from the other early British punk bands in several ways.
“We’ve never really called ourselves a punk band,” said Olga. “We are essentially punk, but we just call it ‘Toy Dolls’ music. I think the difference was in things we were singing about. We’ve never sung about anything political, for one, and we’ve always liked to look at the brighter side of life rather than sad things. And we concentrate on doing a performance as well, so you got like a stage show.”
Avoiding politics in songs does not mean the band members are not interested in politics, according to Olga.
“We’ve all got political beliefs and views, but we just don’t include them within the band thing, because this is like escapism for an hour and a half,” said Olga. “We don’t tell people, ‘Forget about politics and news and everything,’ we just say, ‘Just for one and a half hours it's nice to escape from that.’ But we do have got different views, we just don’t include them within this ‘Toy Dolls music.’
According to Olga, it was the miserable situation he found himself in when at school that made him a punk rocker.
“To be honest, really, I wanted to be a performer,” he said.
“I wanted to be bass player, that was the main thing. I think it's just mainly through being bullied at school. I just wanted to prove that I could actually do something, because I got bullied at school for years and years. And that was the first thing. So I got the first guitar when I was 12 or 13.”
Olga, who enjoys a reputation as a sophisticated guitar player, said his early influences were Chuck Berry and early Dr. Feelgood as well as Sham 69 and the other early English punk bands. Unusually, he also has a good word to say for ABBA and classical music.
“I love ABBA, absolutely fantastic,” he said. “And I love classical as well, Mozart and Strauss, I like all that kind of thing.”
Olga said he got his stage name when he was a child because it sounds like his last name.
“My second name is Algar, and I think from school everyone just said it like ‘Olga.’ When you say it fast, it sounds like Olga. I’ve been called that since I was like 10 years old. It’s a Russian girl’s name, but I’m not a girl.”
The Toy Dolls, famous for its unlikely punk covers of mainstream hits, one of the most recent being Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” shot to fame in 1982 when its punk rendering of the classic children’s song “Nellie the Elephant” made the Top 5 in Britain.
“‘Nellie the Elephant’ is an old English nursery rhyme from years ago,” said Olga. “And I had an idea of this ‘woo-oo-oo’ thing for a long time [the rising chant that preceeds the chorus of ‘Nellie the Elephant’], and I was looking for a song that could actually match together, and I found that song about 27 years ago. And I just put the two together and it seemed to work really nicely. We don’t always play ‘Nellie the Elephant,’ not every night, but we will in Russia.”
Admitting that it is difficult to be original within the punk idiom, Olga said it can be reached through years of copying things.
“When we first started, we were just copying other people’s songs, because that’s all there was. You copied other people’s acts and things, and I think it takes many years to develop your own kind of style. It really takes a long time. And I just carry on writing songs, writing songs and keep touring and touring, and eventually you develop your own kind of thing. But in the beginning, yeah, it is very difficult to be completely original, I agree.”
Even if the Toy Dolls draws crowds around the world, punk rock is mainly dead in Britain, according to Olga.
“We were playing in Britain maybe about 20 years ago and there was just not much of an audience at all, hardly anybody, and since then we only played once in London, London was fine,” said Olga.
“We just concentrated on Japan and America and Europe. I mean we might start playing in England some time, but I just don't think there are any kind of fans left as such. It’s a shame but that’s the way it is. People can’t believe it when we fly to, like, Brazil and we play in front of, like, 3,000 or 4,000 people, and the Brazilians say, ‘You must be very popular in England,’ we say, ‘There’s no one in England.’ They can’t believe it but that’s the truth.”
Today’s British bands may carry their punk influences on their sleeves, but Olga said he did not follow the contemporary music scene, preferring classical music.
“I’ll be quite honest with you; I hardly ever listen to the radio or television, because I’m not really interested in the things that are happening at the minute,” he said. 
“I looked at the Top 10 charts the other day in a newspaper, and I've never ever heard of the bands. It has the name of the band and the name of the song, and I don't know whether the name of the band is the song, or the name of the song is the band, I got no idea! I never listen to the radio or anything. All I listen to is classical music, Classic FM radio, which I prefer. So I’ve got no idea about the present music scene. You know, it’s just a different scene for us altogether.”
“Seriously, I mean probably punk music is my favorite by far, but I wouldn't listen to punk all the time in the house, I’d rather just listen to classical, because if you play in kind of a punk band and you tour, and it’s punk, punk, punk all the time. It just shrinks your mind and does your head in. I like to listen to mainly quiet classical kind of thing. But probably favorite bands… Stiff Little Fingers is probably my favorite band.”
The Toy Dolls’ most recent studio album, released in November 2004, was called, disturbingly, “Our Last Album?” and was accompanied by “Our Last Tour?”
“But I put question marks at the end,” said Olga.
“What happened was I went to live in Japan for a bit, and I played with a different band, the Dickies, so we had about two years away from playing with the Toy Dolls. I wanted to see how we would actually feel on live gigs. I wasn’t sure that everything would be successful, so we decided to call it ‘Our Last Tour?’ and ‘Our Last Album?’ with a question mark, just to see how it will all go and see how we will actually feel. And it’s been fantastic, so it probably won’t be our last tour and our last album, yet.”
American punk bands such as Green Day and Offspring have become phenomenally successful in the past few years, but Olga said he prefers British punk. 
“Apart from British punks haven’t got any money, it’s completely different things altogether, I mean lots of American bands that we know, like Offspring and everybody, they come from a totally different area altogether,” he said. 
“We live in poverty, you know, they come from, like, Orange County, everybody has got swimming pools, so they write about, sing about different things. And all the production and all that is very slick and very nice. I mean I like some American bands, I really do, but for me I think the main punk bands, they come from England.
“I’m sure the weather has a lot to do with it, especially the West Coast. People come from a sunny climate and live [with] swimming pools, with lovely cars and everything, they sing about different things compared to us living in rainy little England. You got like a different view on life. But I mean I prefer the early English punk bands to American, but it’s fantastic that they’ve done so well, and they’ve got more money, better distribution, all these kinds of things, so they can become really popular, which is really nice, I envy them. 
“But providing that they are doing what they exactly want to do. I wouldn't want to be really, really popular, believe it or not, if I wasn’t doing exactly what I want to do. And I'm really, really, completely satisfied at this level, to be honest.”

The Toy Dolls performs at PORT on Friday. www.thetoydolls.com

TITLE: Tackling terrorism
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The New British Drama Festival presents two plays about terrorism performed in English.
Two new innovative plays by the modern British playwrights Mark Ravenhill and Dennis Kelly staged by the British Paines Plough Theater will be presented during the four-day New British Drama Festival held in St. Petersburg from Tuesday to Friday, June 9. 
The festival is being held by the British Council as an all-Russian project aiming to present the new British dramatic theater in Russia.
“Product” by Ravenhill and “After the End” by Kelly are new plays dealing with the relevant topic of terrorism. “After The End” starts with a terrorist nuclear attack that consequently helps to reveal the complicated interpersonal relationships of the terrorist’s victims. The play’s characters, Mark and his work colleague Louise, wait for help in an old bomb shelter at the back of Mark’s flat. The play shows that human ambitions and will for power are strong even in extreme situations and how Mark and Louise become each other’s foe, rather than the terrorists.
Ravenhill, one of the leading  British contemporary playwrights, approaches the topic in a different way. He probes the terrorists’ motivation for cruel attacks that seem illogical to average people. Ravenhill will perform as an actor for the first time in “Product.” He plays a film executive who relates a screenplay to a young starlet dreaming of a good role. It is the story of a girl falling in love with a suicide bomber.
“One of the reasons I want to do this monologue is because normally, after you’ve written a play, you’re powerless,” Ravenhill said in an interview with The Guardian. “You’re waiting for directors to decide if they want to direct it, for actors to choose if they want to be in it. But if needs be, a play could just be me telling a story. That is still theater.” 
“I was thinking about calling it Mark Ravenhill: Unplugged,” he said. “It’s a little experiment; I wanted to see how simple a play could be. Because that’s the real pleasure of theater, you just get together and make it.” 
Ravenhill exploded onto the London stage with his play “Shopping and F***ing” in 1997, joining a crowd of young, British writers who were later grouped under the term In-Yer-Face Theater. A combination of seedy subject matter with an utterly contemporary attitude and a black sense of humor and morality made “Shopping and F***ing” extremely popular all over the world, including in Russia.
Ravenhill’s following plays, “Faust is Dead,” “Some Explicit Polaroids,” “Mother’s Clap’s Molly,” “Totally Over” and “The Cut” were also popular.
Kelly’s first play, “Debris,” was staged in 2003 and soon was translated into German and Dutch for its staging in Europe. The next provocative play, “Osama the Hero,” came out in 2005.
“St. Petersburg lacks such events,” said Alla Vasilyeva, arts project manager at the British Council. “Many new directors and playwrights present their work in Moscow usually. So it is a unique chance to see the distinguished British performances on the local stage.”
“After the End” will be performed at the Maly Drama Theater — Theater of Europe on Tuesday and Wednesday, and “Product” will be performed at the small stage of the Lensoviet Theater on Thursday and Friday, June 9. They will be performed in English with Russian translation provided.
On Friday, June 9, Ravenhill willgive a masterclass for young actors, directors and playwrights at the Lensoviet Theater. Entrance is free.

www.britishcouncil.org/russia

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
TEXT: Despite the promoter’s recent claims, The Rolling Stones is not coming to St. Petersburg after all, at least not this year. 
The Stones’ concert, orginally scheduled for June 13, was officially postponed due to 63-year old guitarist Keith Richards’ head injury last week, along with 14 other shows on the European leg of the band’s current A Bigger Bang World Tour, but the promoter, PMI Corporation, had expressed hope that the concert would be rescheduled to early July and become the first European date on the tour. But now the concert has been canceled for this year and may take place next year instead. Tickets can be returned between June 13 and Sept. 1. See page 2 for more information.
Meanwhile, the aging rockers were slammed by colleagues in the music business this week. 
Ex-Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, 60, said that the Stones should to stop touring altogether.
“I think it’s ridiculous, actually. [Lead singer] Mick [Jagger] and Keith should get a life,” Gilmour was quoted by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper as saying.
The American rock musician Bon Jovi, 44, said he would retire on time.
“I won’t be like the Stones,” he told the Guardian newspaper. “I don’t anticipate being ‘sixtysomething’ and doing a lot of shows. You probably heard Keith fell out of a tree a few days ago. I don’t envision myself being like that.”
In an interesting move, a rival free open-air rock festival that was due to take place at the Palace Square on the same night as The Rolling Stones’ show was transferred to the Kirov Stadium, the original site for the Stones’ gig. 
Boasting a bizarre lineup featuring German hard rockers the Scorpions and Russian pop band Zveri, the festival was reported to be originally set up by a rival promoter to undermine the Stones’ concert.
Morrissey rumors reemerged this week with the local edition of the listings magazine Afisha reporting that the ex-Smiths singer will perform in Moscow on June 29. The venue is yet to be set, the magazine added.
However, local promoter Ilya Bortnyuk of Svetlaya Muzyka, said no Russian concerts for Morrissey have been confirmed as yet.
“When approached, Morrissey replied that he wouldn’t object to performing in Russia, and he would even prefer to perform in St. Petersburg rather than Moscow, but there’s a long distance between wishes and an actual concert,” said Bortnyuk by phone Thursday.
Bortnyuk added that he is working on promoting a Morrissey show in St. Petersburg, but no concert has yet been set.
According to the web site Morrissey-Solo, between June 29 and July 2 the singer will be in Denmark where he will perform at Roskilde Festival on July 2.
The urban-folk band La Minor, hot from a tour of Europe, will perform at Platforma on Friday, while the local punk band PTVP, or Posledniye Tanki v Parizhe will perform at Red Club on the same night.

TITLE: Raising the tone
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Aimed at restoring the pre-Revolutionary tradition of musical soirees, the “Sergei Oskolkov and His Friends” festival, running through June 18 this year, is keeping a low profile.
Founded in 1997 by prominent St. Petersburg pianist and composer Sergei Oskolkov as a series of concerts in the charming and crumbling suburban town of Oranienbaum, one of the less-well-preserved former royal estates, the annual festival juxtaposes traditional and avant-garde composers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and poets from Russia and several Western countries. 
The festival’s venues include Oranienbaum’s Stone Hall, Peterhof’s Grand Palace, Smolny Cathedral, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s and Alexander Pushkin’s apartment museums and the St. Petersburg House of Composers.
Look out for a performance of Oskolkov’s “Count Nulin” on Wednesday at the Pushkin museum. The composer describes his chamber opus, involving a pianist, a soprano, a bass, a baritone and an actor as an “opera-anecdote” based loosely on Pushkin’s playful poem of the same name.
A concert at the White Hall of Peterhof’s Grand Palace on June 15, titled “A Parade of Composers” features some of the city’s brightest piano talents, including Polina Osetinskaya, Alexei Goribol and Peter Laul, performing works by Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Ravel and contemporary St. Petersburg composer Leonid Desyatnikov.
On Sunday, Peterhof is the setting for a chamber concert-turned-master class by the Mariinsky Theater baritone Anatoly Timofeyev, who claims to be able to teach anyone to sing over the course of three lessons. The singer will demonstrate an versatility of timbre, with bass, baritone and tenor arias listed on the recital’s program.
The festival brings to light at least one forgotten masterpiece: a must-see event is the festival’s opening on Saturday, featuring a work by Maxim Brazhnikov, a Soviet-era composer and researcher who discovered, preserved and encoded the ancient manuscripts containing the scores of the ancient Russian Orthodox znamenny raspev, a special kind of religious chant.
Znamenny raspev comes from  znamya which means “sign,” and special signs were used to write down tunes.
“In 1949, Brazhnikov wrote a beautiful concerto inspired by these chants but the talented work was shelved until 1995,” Oskolkov said. “The composer was offered the chance to perform the work on the condition that he dedicated the piece to Lenin, but Brazhnikov declined the compromising proposal even at the high risk of his work falling into oblivion. I am very proud to be able to get the piece performed and known to audiences.” 
Like many classical performers, Oskolkov is concerned about the limited interest the younger audiences show in this music. The composer, who teaches sound engineering at one of the local universities, finds it difficult to even promote the classics among his students.
“Their ignorance in academic arts is alarming; the names that we worship don’t ring a bell with them, and I would have to educate them about the entire history of music to get them interested,” he said. “When I offered one of my students the chance to practice a piece by Georgy Sviridov, she got excited and asked if he had any relation to [popular singer] Alyona Sviridova.”
The festival closes on June 18 at Smolny Cathedral, with the Russian premiere of composer and artist Valentin Afanasiyev’s futuristic work “Visible Music: The Musical Light Palette” exploring the music of color, rhythm and space.
Attempts to link color and music date back centuries, with Alexander Scriabin and Arnold Schoenberg experimenting in the field but Afanasfiyev has developed a consistent system bringing musical notes in exact line with colors.
Afanasiyev’s work, peformed by the Mussorgsky Theater symphony orchestra and choir, leads the audience into a captiviting multi-colored world, with corresponsing colors changing and a visual picture evolving as the score moves on.
As Afanasiyev puts it, the festival aims to draw an emotional response from audiences.
“The human brain has two hemispheres, and if one of them is heavily prevalent, a human turns into a monster or a caricature,” he said. “In the Soviet years, the rational element dominated people’s lives, and festivals like this help to make modern Russians more balanced people.”
In Afanasiyev’s opinion, during the Soviet era, Karl Marx’s theories about the structure of society, with its material basis and spiritual superstructure, became rooted too deeply in people’s minds.
“Culture is still seen as part of the non-essential superstructure, as something one can live without, and certainly something to be sacrificed first in times of hardship,” the musician said. “This is a tragic mistake.”
www.newfest.ru, 
www.fundart.spb.ru

TITLE: Moving pictures
AUTHOR: By Andrei Vorobei
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Last Thursday the State Hermitage Museum opened perhaps the most “dynamic” exhibition ever held at the museum. 
“Experiments in Visual Kineticism” features around 50 works of “kinetic” art in which motion or the appearance of motion is incorporated into the work. Although  the genre has roots in the modernist 1920s, the heyday of kinetic art was the 1960s and 1970s with an example of it winning the first prize at the Venice Biennale in 1968.
At the Hermitage, this widespread international trend is represented predominantly by its Italian adherents, but is strengthened with work by other European followers, including those from Russia. 
There are two common ways artists interpret the idea of motion in kinetic art. One of them straightforwardly approaches it in a traditional physical way: spectacular kinetic sculptures, mobiles or gadgets are designed to be set in motion, as a rule, by certain external stimuli, such as air, light, water, sand or just a button to start up a motor or electromagnetic force. 
In another interpretation, motion is implied and entirely based on optical illusions. In this art, the theoretical proposition that “all painting is based on tricks of visual perception” reaches its extreme, since the optical ruse in such works of art exists for its own sake. Here, kinetic art is closely related to Op Art (Optical Art), which developed almost in parallel with it. Often both styles feature the same names  such as, for instance, the Hungarian born French artist Viktor Vasarely, whose work is also on display at the Hermitage show. 
An impression of movement in such works is acheived by the repetition or variation of colors, lines and shapes. 
Often the percieved motion depends on the viewer moving in relation to the painting: as the viewer changes position, the surface of the image appears to shift from a flat image to a three-dimensional one and so on. 
Ultimately, kinetic art is even more familiar to the casual viewer than he or she might expect. No other form of art was as immdeiately and completely assimulated into mass culture. 
The optical and technical tricks that once hung on museum walls soon appeared as widespread elements of commerical graphic design and even on the desks of ordinary offices. All those perpetual motion toys use the powerful meditative potential of their museum originals. Similarly for these and other playful qualities, the discoveries made in kinetic art were broadly adopted by design and advertisement industries. 

Experiments in Visual Kineticism runs through July 25 at the Hermitage. www.hermitage.ru

TITLE: La dolce vita
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A string of arts events with a Mediterranean flavor sweeps the city Friday when the local Italian community celebrates the 60th anniversary of the founding of the modern Italian Republic.
Romantic painter Ippolito Caffi, one of the most fascinating of 19th century Italian artists, whose artistic style is close to France’s Camille Corot and England’s William Turner, is enjoying an extensive exhibition at the General Staff Building of the State Hermitage Museum. 
Entitled “Lights of the Mediterranean”, the display showcases an impressive collection of Caffi’s masterworks which are renowned for bridging the Venetian-born genre of veduta with a new, more personal take on the art of painting. An indefatigable traveler, Caffi found inspiration in the landscapes of the finest Italian, European and Middle Eastern cities. The exhibition plunges the audience into the atmosphere of 19th century Venice, Milan, Genoa, Paris, Jerusalem, Cairo and Athens.
Also on Friday, classical music fans will be heading to the Glinka (Small) Hall of the Shostakovich Philharmonic, where pianist Leonora Baldelli, cellist Maria Cecilia Berioli and actress Paola Gassman will perform a distinguished program of works by Nadia Boulanger, Astor Piazzolla, Alberto Ginastera, Carlo Pedini, Ottorino Respighi and Gabriel Faure.

TITLE: Survival of the fittest
AUTHOR: By Katherine Shonk
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In DBC Pierre’s latest novel, newly unconjoined twins in London and a young woman fleeing the war-torn Caucasus find themselves similarly unversed in the ways of the world.
A pair of newly unconjoined twins, set loose in London, must decide whether to embrace freedom or remain within their safe, familiar cocoon.
A young woman from a war-torn republic in the Caucasus leaves home in search of a better future for herself and her family.
These are the two storylines that DBC Pierre launches in alternating and eventually intersecting chapters in his second novel, “Ludmila’s Broken English.” (His first, “Vernon God Little,” won Britain’s prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2003.) Though they inhabit very different corners of the globe, twin brothers Blair and Gordon “Bunny” Heath and Ludmila Derev face a similar challenge — the need to adapt to an alien environment — and are similarly ill-equipped to face the adventures that will befall them. 
Blair and Bunny, born attached at the trunk, are lifelong wards of Britain, sequestered in the Albion House Institution, a “centuries-old jumble of menacing architectures crouched deep in the northern countryside.” Acting on the theory that Bunny has become Blair’s parasite, the British health service, “newly privatised” in the novel’s slightly futuristic setting, arranges for the brothers to be surgically extricated from each other at the age of 33. Once they have recovered, they are dispatched for four weeks’ community leave in the bustling capital. 
Meanwhile, in the fictitious post-Soviet backwater of Ublilsk Administrative District Forty-One, Ludmila and the rest of her family find themselves similarly cut adrift by a formerly paternalistic state. Farcically, the Soviet Union abdicated its responsibility for the Derevs’ well-being to the drunken, incestuous head of the household. Just pages into the novel, Ludmila’s grandfather attacks her, leaving her with a sobering choice. “The equation was suddenly this: if Aleksandr sodomised her, he would more quickly be persuaded to sign his pension voucher, and bread would appear on the family table that night. ... And if she wet the air with lusty squeaks, there might even be orange Fanta.” Soon after accidentally killing Grandpa by stuffing a glove in his mouth, the young heroine confronts another crude Catch-22: Her grandmother advises her to make up for the deceased’s pension by choosing between prostitution and work in the munitions plant. Ludmila lucks out only when the family realizes that the sale of their tractor might temporarily stave off the wolves at the door. 
So the novel’s three protagonists set forth on what might have been a collision course, if only it didn’t take such a very long time for their paths to cross. Blair leaves the institution without looking back, eager to plunge into the sex, hedonism and sheer normality he has been denied. Asexual Bunny would just as soon cower through the month of freedom, eating bacon and sipping gin. Ludmila, after killing a second man (the tractor’s buyer) for untoward advances, has the most ambitious plan. She heads to neighboring Kuzhnisk to meet up with boyfriend Misha, a deserting soldier from the local conflict. Together they intend to travel overseas and join the ranks of those who “wouldn’t tolerate the inconvenience of war in the place where they lived.” 
“Ludmila’s Broken English” begins boldly, perhaps too boldly; played for laughs, the passage in which Ludmila kills her lustful grandfather is liable to lose a few faint-hearted readers. Subsequent chapters, in which Blair and Bunny quibble endlessly over the possibilities afforded by their liberation, are more likely to turn off even more, due to tedium and, for non-Brits at least, an excess of slang and inside jokes. This is a shame because, after this uneven start, passages of brilliance lie nestled within the novel’s dense, darkly comedic middle. 
Most successful is Pierre’s cutting portrayal of Ublilsk, a civilization in rapid decline. The novelist researched this portion of his book by visiting Armenia and frequenting Russian-bride web sites, and he fixes a keen eye on the degradation and desperation that can exist in forgotten pockets of the world. The description of the region’s bread delivery echoes the matter-of-fact bleakness of Alexander Solzhenitsyn: 
“As keeper of the bread depot, the last registered business of any kind in the district, Lubov’s power was absolute. The depot was a mildewed cockpit from which she piloted the destinies of the district’s last mollusc-like inhabitants. Every week, a forlorn box-car was uncoupled from a train on the main line, and pushed on to a disused siding that ran to within four kilometres of Ublilsk. ... Oafish young men met the wagon each week, carrying metal bars and sharpened chains for security. Rumour had it they now also carried a gun. They were Lubov’s retarded son and nephew — for the stigma of feeble blood twice stained her — and they would heave and pull the wagon as far as the track would allow, then unload the bread into sacks, and carry it over their backs to the depot. ... The town had several simple faces rumoured to be the cost of a dirty loaf.”
Even more vivid is Ubli, the tongue Pierre gives his characters, “said to be the language most exquisitely tailored to the expression of disdain.” The Ublis’ dialogue is presented as word-for-word translation, a technique that at first feels stilted. But once the reader acclimates to common Ubli turns of phrase such as “gather your cuckoos,” “don’t toss gas,” “cut your hatch,” and the ubiquitous “Hoh!” it becomes delightfully daffy, as does the natives’ constant pushing of their chins at anyone who gets the slightest bit on their nerves. In Ublilsk, contempt is the local currency; beyond the district’s borders, its expression is the only source of power. “Imagine!” Ludmila scolds a sweet young woman who attempts to befriend her in Kuzhnisk. “A new and important visitor and you waste the crucial first hour, the golden hour, with squeakings about yourself!” 
Ludmila’s unwavering crabbiness lends the story some inspired humor; unfortunately, it stands in the way of her development as a fully rounded character. When a crooked Kuzhnisk biznesmen signs her up on an “Internet introduction service,” it’s clearly time to start worrying, but the girl’s tough exterior impenetrably lacquers over her underlying pathos and naivete. The story of what happens when conjoined twins are separated and cut loose in society should also set the stage for compelling drama, but the brothers remain too rigidly defined — Blair is the wild one, Bunny the priss — to retain much interest. And Pierre’s failure to recount the specifics of their separation — we are told that they “shared certain organs,” but not how they are divided up on the operating table, or how the twins are (or are not) physically altered by the procedure — seems an odd oversight for an otherwise scatological writer. 
When the twins do finally meet up with Ludmila (yes, the introduction web site plays a role), the results are unsatisfyingly brief. Nearly all of the novel’s major characters converge in Ublilsk for a gruesome finale that seems to want to be chilling, but instead comes off feeling flat, even predictable. 
Still, those who like their literature in the grotesque vein of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor will appreciate Pierre’s transplantation of the tradition to a very different southern clime. The Caucasus is unexplored territory in contemporary English-language fiction, and in many sections of “Ludmila’s Broken English,” Pierre does an admirable job of introducing a new audience to the horror and black humor to be found there.

Katherine Shonk is the author of “The Red Passport,” a collection of short stories set in contemporary Russia.

TITLE: African Union Peace Deal Rejected by Darfur Rebels
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KHARTOUM, Sudan — Two Darfur rebel groups refused on Thursday to sign a peace deal ahead of a deadline set by the African Union to end the three-year-old conflict that has killed tens of thousands in Sudan’s remote west. 
The African Union, set up to promote social, political and economic integration in Africa, has raised the specter of UN sanctions against Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) if they did not sign before the May 31 deadline.
The AU’s Peace and Security Council will now decide what, if any, punitive measures are to be taken against the two factions who say an earlier deal signed by one group in May is unjust and does not meet their basic demands.
The council will meet in the coming days although no date has been set. Many AU deadlines have been set and missed over the past two years of negotiations without any repercussions.
Only one SLA faction headed by Minni Arcua Minnawi signed the AU-mediated May 5 deal with the government. Minnawi told Reuters the others needed to sign up to address their concerns from within rather than be outside in the cold.
“Let them hurry to sign,” he said. “If they join the agreement they can develop things but while they are outside they cannot develop the document.”
But he said no changes could be made to the current deal.
Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur, the other SLA faction leader, is in Nairobi but his group said he would not sign unless changes or additions were made to the text, conditions which the AU and Sudan’s government reject.
The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) leader Khalil Ibrahim, in last-minute talks with Slovenian President Janez Drnovsek, said the deal was not acceptable.
“We are calling on the United Nations and international mediators to be patient, not to force an unacceptable peace on people of Darfur,” he told a news conference in Ljubljana. 
Slovenian President Janez Drnovsek said he would continue to talk to JEM to try to find a solution. “If other actors in negotiations will be ready to prolong the deadline Slovenia is ready to help.”
While Minnawi’s rebel faction has the most firepower in Darfur, Nur is from the region’s largest Fur tribe. Analysts say he may cause a split along ethnic lines if he does not sign.
The SLA and JEM have said they want more political posts, better compensation for the victims of the conflict and a say in disarming the government-armed Arab militia.

TITLE: Iran Determined to Stay Nuclear
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s foreign minister on Thursday welcomed direct talks with Washington on his country’s disputed nuclear program but rebuffed a U.S. proposal that Tehran must suspend uranium enrichment as a condition, state-run television reported. 
“Iran welcomes dialogue under just conditions but (we) won’t give up our (nuclear) rights,” the television quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying.
“We won’t negotiate about the Iranian nation’s natural nuclear rights but we are prepared, within a defined, just framework and without any discrimination, to hold dialogue about (our) common concerns,” he added.
Mottaki’s statement was the country’s first direct reaction to an announcement by the United States on Wednesday that it is willing to join other countries for face-to-face talks with Iran, as long as Tehran stops enriching uranium.
“Our message to the Iranians is that one, you won’t have a weapon, and two, that you must verifiably suspend any programs at which point we will come to the negotiating table to work on a way forward,” President Bush said Wednesday. 
“I thought it was important for the United States to take the lead — along with our partners,” Bush said. “And that’s what you’re seeing. You’re seeing robust diplomacy. I believe this problem can be solved diplomatically and I’m going to give it every effort to do so.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at the State Department the United States will come to the negotiating table as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities. She said the United States was taking the move to underscore its commitment to a diplomatic solution and to enhance prospects for success. Mottaki said Iran has no intention to halt its uranium enrichment program. “There is no evidence proving Iran’s diversion (toward nuclear weapons),” he said.

TITLE: Canadians Healthier Than U.S. Neighbors
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: WASHINGTON — Despite complaints about long waits for services, Canadians are healthier than their U.S. neighbors and receive more consistent medical care, according to a report released on Tuesday.
A telephone survey of more than 8,000 people showed that even though Americans spend nearly twice as much per capita for health care, they have more trouble getting care and have more un-met health needs than Canadians do.
The survey was done by Harvard Medical School researchers who include members of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates a national health program in the United States.
“These findings raise serious questions about what we’re getting for the $2.1 trillion we’re spending on health care this year,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard.
“We pay almost twice what Canada does for care, more than $6,000 for every American, yet Canadians are healthier, and live two to three years longer,” Himmelstein added in a statement.
“Canadians had better access to most types of medical care (with the single exception of pap smears),” Himmelstein and colleagues wrote in the study, published in the American Journal of Public Health.
“Canadians were 7 percent more likely to have a regular doctor and 19 percent less likely to have an un-met health need. U.S. respondents were almost twice as likely to go without a needed medicine due to cost (9.9 percent of U.S. respondents couldn’t afford medicine versus 5.1 percent in Canada),” they added.
“After taking into account income, age, sex, race and immigrant status, Canadians were 33 percent more likely to have a regular doctor and 27 percent less likely to have an un-met health need.”
The researchers analyzed data from a telephone survey of 3,505 Canadian and 5,103 U.S. adults.
They wanted to see if there were any differences in health between Canadians, who have a tax-supported national health care system, and Americans, whose health care largely depends on private insurers, employers or the free market, with older Americans and the very poor cared for by Medicare, Medicaid and other joint federal-state health insurance plans.

TITLE: British Couple Say “Give and Take” Key in Record 78 Years of Marriage
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: LONDON — Lifetime lovers Frank and Anita Milford have become Britain’s longest-married living couple after celebrating their 78th wedding anniversary, newspapers reported.	
The pair met as teenagers at a dance in Plymouth, southern England, in 1926 and married two years later.
Asked for the secret of their enduring union, Frank Milford, 98, a retired dock worker, was quoted in Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Telegraph as saying: “We don’t always see eye to eye and we do have a small argument every day.
“But that comes and goes. We are always here for each other.”
His 97-year-old wife added: “The key is give and take and lots of laughter.”
With their relationship as strong as ever, the couple hope to beat the record for Britain’s longest-ever marriage of 80 years, set by Percy and Florence Arrowsmith. Percy Arrowsmith died last year.
“There’s every chance we could break that record,” Anita Milford said.
“These days marriages don’t last long. A lot of people get married with the idea that if it doesn’t work out there’s no worry, but we can’t understand that.”
The pensioners, who lived in a bungalow in the St Budeaux area of Plymouth until last year when they moved into a nursing home, have two children, Marie and Frank, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Quake Toll
BANTUL, Indonesia (AFP) — The number of casualties from the Indonesian quake has soared as the United Nations said hospitals were overcrowded and still lacked basic supplies to treat the masses of injured. 
The death toll rose to 6,234 while the number of those hurt in the quake more than doubled to some 46,000, with more than 33,000 suffering serious injuries, the social affairs ministry said.
Hospitals in the quake zone were still overwhelmed five days after Saturday’s 6.3-magnitude temblor rocked Central Java, with patients spilling out from wards and badly in need of care, a UN official said.

Gay Marriage Fight
ALBANY, New York (Reuters) — New York State’s highest court started hearing a case on Wednesday that gay rights activists hope will overturn as unconstitutional a state law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. 
The New York case is one of several initiatives by gay rights activists across the United States where gay marriage has been a divisive issue in recent years, particularly in the 2004 presidential election.
“There are 46,000 families of same-sex couples with children in New York and there is no dispute they are stable families who are excluded from the benefits of marriage,” said Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who was representing many of the same-sex couples. 

Political Pedophiles
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) — Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.
The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: “We are going to shake The Hague awake!” 
The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.
“A ban just makes children curious,” Ad van den Berg, one of the party’s founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper.
“We want to make pedophilia the subject of discussion,” he said, adding the subject had been a taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighboring Belgium.

Princely Children
PARIS(AP) — Monaco's Prince Albert II has acknowledged he is the father of a second illegitimate child, a 14-year-old girl living in California, his lawyer said in an interview published Thursday. 
Albert, ruler of the tiny Mediterranean principality, "officially recognizes a paternity that was legally established a few weeks ago," lawyer Thierry Lacoste was quoted as saying in France's Le Figaro newspaper.
Albert had initially planned to keep his parentage of Jazmin Grace Rotolo secret until she reached adulthood, but "the situation had become untenable for her" in recent weeks amid increasing speculation about her father, Lacoste said.

TITLE: Gretzky To Stay in The Desert City
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: PHOENIX, Arizona — Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky showed his commitment to coaching by signing a long-term deal with the Phoenix Coyotes. 
Despite a trying first season behind the bench, Gretzky said he had no hesitation in accepting a five-year contract to stay in the desert city.
“I’m excited about the next five years,” Gretzky said. “Obviously, our goal here is to make our team a Stanley Cup championship team.”
Phoenix (38-39-5) failed to make the playoffs and the season was quite an ordeal for Gretzky.
His wife, former actress Janet Jones, and associate coach Rick Tocchet were linked to an alleged gambling ring in New Jersey in February. Gretzky also took a leave of absence earlier in the season to be with his ailing mother in Canada, who later died of lung cancer.
New Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes expected Gretzky, who has minority ownership in the team, to return as coach.
“We knew Wayne enjoyed coaching and would be back to run the team,” Moyes said.
The NHL’s all-time leading scorer, Gretzky joined the franchise in February 2001, when the Moyes ownership group completed the purchase of the Coyotes.
“You couldn’t ask to live in a better city or be in a better situation,” Gretzky said. “I truly enjoyed the coaching more than even I anticipated.”

TITLE: Hurricanes and Sabres Set for Decider
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: RALEIGH, North Carolina — For nearly two weeks, the Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres have fought to a standstill to see who will play for the Stanley Cup, so closing the intense series with a Game 7 seems fitting.
Even inevitable.
“If you would’ve told me before the series that we’d be getting ready for Game 7, I wouldn’t have been surprised,” Carolina forward Kevyn Adams said.
“This is what we as competitors live for, so there’s no reason to be tight or nervous. It’s about going out there and playing your best game. We’re excited. We’re looking forward to this. And it’s nice to be at home, too.”
In an Eastern Conference finals series tied 3-3, the Hurricanes’ home-ice advantage might be the only discernible difference between evenly matched teams playing Thursday for the right to face Edmonton in the Stanley Cup finals. Five games have been decided by a goal, the last two in overtime. And throughout the series, momentum has turned with each shift.
The Hurricanes and Sabres have always seemed to find a way to win when they needed to most. Now they’re both preparing for a game that will leave the loser with the empty feeling that a season’s worth of hard work went unfulfilled.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Sabres co-captain Chris Drury said. “You don’t know how many of these you’re going to get in your career and your life. If we enjoy it and have a positive attitude going in with nothing to lose, I think we’re going to be all right.”
Neither franchise has had much success in Game 7s. The Sabres are 1-4 while the Hurricanes are playing their first since moving before the 1997-98 season to North Carolina from Hartford, Conn., where the former Whalers went 0-3 in Game 7s.
Still, few expected either team to even have this chance when the season began. The Hurricanes had missed the playoffs for two consecutive seasons since making an unexpected run to the Stanley Cup finals in 2002. The Sabres hadn’t won more than 37 games in a season since last making the playoffs in 2001.
But with rule changes that sought to eliminate the defensive clutching and grabbing that bogged down scoring, these teams evolved into examples of what the post-lockout NHL hoped to be: fast-paced and offensive-minded.
The formula was enough to carry each to 52 regular-season wins — franchise records for both — and two rounds worth of playoff victories.
“This is kind of how we pretty much figured it would go,” Hurricanes captain Rod Brind’Amour said. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy and it certainly hasn’t been.”
Now the question is which team will impose its brand of play well enough to advance. Considering the way the past three games have gone, it’s impossible to predict.
Carolina is the only team to win consecutive games, following a 4-0 road win in Game 4 — the only game to be decided by more than one goal — with a 4-3 overtime home win in Game 5 to put the Sabres on the brink of elimination. But Buffalo — which controlled play for much of Sunday’s loss — came out with a dominating first period to take an early lead in Game 6 before getting a 2-1 overtime win on co-captain Daniel Briere’s power-play goal.
Don’t expect the Sabres to change much heading into Thursday, either.
“We’re not going to approach it any differently,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “I think the way we have to approach Game 7: same intensity, same desperation.”
Ruff did his part to increase the tension with some criticism of the Hurricanes on Wednesday, calling them a “pretty arrogant bunch” for laughing during the Game 4 rout. He also said he was tired of their complaints about officiating or the state of the ice in Buffalo.
Carolina’s players did little more than roll their eyes when told of the comments.

TITLE: Rise of Chinese Soccer Checked By Shortage of Young Players
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SHANGHAI, China — Expectations were high four years ago when China made its World Cup debut in what was heralded as the first of many such finals appearances.
This time, though, China failed to even make it through the group stage of qualifying. 
So what went wrong? “The biggest problem is not enough young players,” Bora Milutinovic, who coached China at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, said in an  interview. “They’re a long way from competitive soccer.” 
Whatever progress China was making, however, came to a screeching halt in November 2004, when its qualifying campaign ended after losing to Kuwait on goal difference. 
Yet China’s problems involve much more than not scoring goals. China has struggled to expose its players to the game’s most competitive level, failing to overcome a lack of strong soccer tradition and decades of communist isolation and heavy-handed government control.

TITLE: Soccer Fan Fights Against ‘Hooligan’ Image
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Gary Kitching is self-employed, married with three children and has never been arrested. 
A 44-year-old England soccer fan, he feels compelled to launch pre-emptive strikes against anyone who thinks the team’s followers are all hooligans.
“If we carry on the (hooligan) pathway, we will always be stereotyped, now won’t we?” said Kitching, a supporter of Sheffield United who visits orphanages and organizes soccer camps for kids in the foreign countries that host his beloved side. 
Pity the average England fan. These are the devoted who yearn to travel the world in support of the “Three Lions” without being seen as the root of all evil in soccer.
It’s a tough reputation to shake. Britain has been forced in recent years to enact a raft of measures to prevent hooligans from wreaking havoc at international soccer matches — such as the riots that marred the Euro 2000 tournament in Belgium and the Netherlands and the 1998 World Cup in France.
Besides some 3,500 court orders that require known troublemakers to surrender their passports before big tournaments, England’s Football Association took its own steps to try to stem fan-related violence.
It shut down its fan club and restarted it with new rules. Members had to reapply and agree to criminal record checks. Only those who agreed had access to tickets allotted by the federation.
There will be an additional series of safeguards when England and its entourage of some 100,000 travel to Germany for the World Cup. British police officers will also attend the June 9-July 9 championship to bolster the work of their German counterparts.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Soccer Friendlies
LONDON — (AP) Three of the seven World Cup teams playing warmup matches Wednesday came away with wins — France, Iran and Paraguay. 
Italy and Switzerland had to settle for a 1-1 tie, while Trinidad and Tobago lost to Slovenia 3-1 and Saudi Arabia was shut out by Turkey 1-0.
France beat Denmark 2-0 with Thierry Henry scoring in the 12th minute and Sylvain Wiltord adding a second from the penalty spot in the 76th. Iran had to overcome a two-goal deficit to beat Bosnia 5-2, while Paraguay defeated Georgia 1-0.

Lance Cleared
AMSTERDAM (AP) — Lance Armstrong called it a “witch hunt” from the very beginning, saying a French newspaper used dubious evidence to accuse him of doping — even charging that lab officials mishandled his samples and broke the rules. According to a Dutch investigator’s findings released Wednesday, he may have been right.
The report, commissioned late last year by the International Cycling Union, cleared the record seven-time Tour de France champion of allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his first win in 1999.
It said tests on urine samples were conducted improperly and fell so short of scientific standards that it was “completely irresponsible” to suggest they “constitute evidence of anything.”

Woods To Play Major
LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Tiger Woods ended speculation that he might skip the U.S. Open while grieving over the death of his father by announcing on his website that he plans to tee it up at the second major of the season. 
Woods’ participation in the 106th U.S. Open at the Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York would end the longest layoff of his pro career. The championship begins June 15.
Woods hasn’t competed since finishing third at the Masters on April 9 and skipped another of his usual stops on the PGA Tour when he passed on the Memorial tournament this week in Ohio.

Clemens’ Family Choice
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) — The memory of his mother pushed Roger Clemens to come back. The chance to play with his oldest son persuaded him to pick the Houston Astros. 
“We'll see what happens," Clemens said Wednesday. Here we go.”
Clemens agreed to a $22 million contract Wednesday to pitch for Houston for the rest of 2006, ending months of speculation around baseball and in his own mind whether he could — or even wanted to — play a 23rd season.
“I think I’ve placed more responsibility on my shoulders than I ever have in my entire career,” Clemens said. “But I accept that challenge.”
His two youngest sons wanted him to walk away. But one of Clemens” sisters swayed him by musing on what his mother, who died last September, would have preferred.

TITLE: Loser Henman Hits Out At French ‘Shambles’
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: PARIS — Tim Henman described the handling of his match as a shambles after a second round defeat by Russian Dmitriy Tursunov at the French Open on Thursday. 
Trailing by two sets to love overnight, Henman snatched the third but squandered nine break points in the sixth game of the fourth to go down 6-3 6-2 4-6 6-4.
Though he produced a vastly improved performance on Thursday, Henman was still smarting from the suspension of the match on Wednesday evening because of bad light.
“It was just a shambles,” said Henman, who was warned for swearing in the second set on Wednesday night.
“The decision-making was non-existent. I think the darkest point was at the beginning of the second set. I wanted that sort of quantified – what is good light, what is bad light?
“(The supervisor) said, ‘Well, we’re playing on all the other courts’. So I said: ‘Does that make the light acceptable?’ He said: ‘We use our experience’.
“And then at the beginning of the third set, it’s the lightest it’s been for three-quarters of an hour and then he says: ‘No, we stop now, we’ve stopped on all the other courts’.
“I really wasn’t that bothered whether we carried on. Not a lot was going right so I was happy to stop.
“But then you come back in the locker room and there’s five courts that were playing for another half an hour. So it was just a bit of a circus really.”
The 31-year-old, a surprise semi-finalist in Paris in 2004, was the only Briton to reach the second round after Andy Murray and Greg Rusedski lost in round one.
He said he still felt confident going into his favorite part of the year, on grass at the Stella Artois Championship at London’s Queen’s Club, and Wimbledon. 
“There’s a big part of me that really is very, very confident about the way that I’ve been playing, the way that I’m moving on the court,” he said.
“My movement, I think my strength and my enjoyment is probably as good as it’s been in the last three or four years, and that’s a big, big motivating factor.
“Sure, I’d like the results to improve, but I just don’t really have any doubts that they will improve because I’m playing good tennis.”

TITLE: Chelsea Get Shevchenko For $48 Mln
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Chelsea have signed Ukraine's World Cup striker Andriy Shevchenko from AC Milan for a club record fee, the English champions said on Wednesday.
“I am here for the challenge and the excitement of playing in the Premier League,” the 29-year-old told Chelsea's official website after agreeing on a four-year contract.
“I am going from one big club to another and joining a team of champions.” 
Chelsea did not disclose the exact fee but said it broke the previous club record of 25.98 million pounds ($48.81 million) paid to French club Olympique Lyon for Ghana midfielder Michael Essien last August.
Former European Footballer of the Year Shevchenko said it was the ideal moment to be joining the Londoners.
“I think I have arrived here at the perfect time,” he said. “The Champions League has to be a realistic target for next season but it is not just about the Champions League.
“Chelsea are going for their third Premiership and I like the club's mentality of wanting to win every game they play.”

TITLE: Inconsistent Indians Win
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Indians have been inconsistent during the first two months of the season. It got them to .500.
Jake Westbrook pitched seven innings and the bullpen finished the Indians’ third shutout in seven games, a 5-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday night. 
A six-game losing streak earlier this month dropped the Indians to 17-21. With the pitching starting to come around, they are now 26-26.
“I think with the pitching staff and the players they have, there’s no doubt they’ll be in the pennant race,” White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. “There’s a lot of time left. A lot of people here are panicking, but when I look around as an opposing manager, they have some pretty good ballplayers.
“If their pitching hangs on, they’re going to be there.”
Westbrook (5-3) allowed six hits — five singles — didn’t walk a batter and struck out five. The White Sox, who won the series opener 11-0, haven’t scored in the last 15 innings and were shut out for the first time since Sept. 21.
“With their lineup, you cannot lose focus and you have to make good pitches,” said Westbrook, who is 2-0 against Chicago in 2006. “Hopefully I can build off this.”
Grady Sizemore went 3-for-4 with a triple and two RBIs, and Ben Broussard homered for Cleveland.
In other AL games, it was: Seattle 14, Texas 5; Oakland 7, Kansas City 0; New York 6, Detroit 1; Baltimore 6, Tampa Bay 5 in 11 innings; Boston 8, Toronto 6; and Minnesota 7, Los Angeles 1.
Westbrook, relying on his sinker, recorded 14 of his 21 outs on grounders.

TITLE: Detroit Pistons Get Back to Swarming Ways
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: AUBURN HILLS, Michigan – Shaquille O’Neal was about to throw down another backboard-shaking dunk. Ben Wallace wasn’t having it. The 6-foot-7 Wallace leaped and stuffed Shaq’s slam – forcing a jump ball, putting the 7-1 O’Neal on his back and sparking Detroit’s defense that refused to let the Pistons’ season end. 
“It was a big play – a momentum-changer,” Wallace said of the third-quarter block.
“You know it was a foul,” O’Neal said. “Don’t ask dumb questions.”
Whatever, the Pistons got back to their swarming ways when the Miami Heat had the ball, and Tayshaun Prince scored a career playoff-high 29 points to lift Detroit to a 91-78 win Wednesday night in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals. 
The Heat did not score in the final 3 1/2 minutes while Detroit pulled away with the last nine points of the game. Miami also hurt itself by going 6-of-20 from the free throw line.
“We just came out aggressive like we talked about and played Pistons basketball,” Chauncey Billups said. “There’s pressure on them now, now that they are home.”
Miami hosts Game 6 on Friday night with a chance to advance to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. If the Heat lose, they have to come back to suburban Detroit for Game 7 on Sunday. 
“Ain’t no pressure on us at all, we have a golden opportunity to win Game 6 on our home floor,” Miami’s Dwyane Wade said. “They’re the defending conference champions, there’s no pressure on us.”
Wade scored a series-low 23 points – eight below his previous series average – and O’Neal had 19 points for the Heat.
“They played hard and like a desperate team,” Wade said.
An inspired Raja Bell was back from injury and Leandro Barbosa came off the bench to score 24 points as the Phoenix Suns thrashed the Dallas Mavericks 106-86 on Tuesday, leveling their Western Conference final at 2-2.
The Mavericks, led by 16 points from Josh Howard, received double digit efforts from six players but it was not enough to top the motivated Suns as the best-of-seven series shifts back to Dallas for Game Five on Thursday.
NBA MVP Steve Nash contributed 21 points and seven assists to the Phoenix totals while Boris Diaw poured in 20 points and Shawn Marion added 15.

(AP/Reuters)

TITLE: Champions Cup Stays In Petersburg
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) European Champions Cup (ECC) General Assembly Meeting took place in St. Petersburg on Thursday with promising results for local hockey fans. 
After the official draw for the 2007 IIHF European Champions Cup, IIHF President Rene Fasel announced that negotiations looked positive to extend the ECC — a club event that features the champion clubs of the top six ranked European countries — through 2009 and St. Petersburg would continue to host it. 
“We really want to develop a tradition of coming to St. Petersburg. The fans are great, you’ve got a great arena, and it’s a wonderful cultural place.” St. Petersburg hosted the inaugural ECC in 2005 and has a contract to host it through 2007.
Fasel also dispelled rumors that the 2007 World Ice Hockey Championship might be moved from St. Petersburg to Kazan. “The IIHF approved an application from Russia that listed Moscow and St. Petersburg as the host cities. We haven’t received any requests from the Russian Ice Hockey Federation to change the location.”
The 2007 IIHF ECC will be from Jan. 11-14 and will showcase Ak Bars, Kazan (Russia), HC Lugano (Switzerland), and FÊrjestads BK (Sweden) in the Ivan Hlinka Division and HPK HÊmeenlinna (Finland), Sparta Prague (Czech Republic), and MsHK Zilina (Slovakia) in the Alexander Ragulin Division.