SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1203 (69), Tuesday, September 12, 2006
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TITLE: Death Toll in Siberian Mine Fire Hits 25
AUTHOR: By Steve Gutterman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Rescuers early Monday recovered the bodies of the last of 25 miners killed by a fire in a Siberian gold mine, while Russia's top emergency official suggested a delay in reporting the underground blaze was a fatal mistake.The bodies of the last four miners, who had been missing since the fire broke out Thursday in the Darasun mine some 3,000 miles east of Moscow, were found Sunday, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Natalya Lukash said.
Their bodies were brought to the surface in the early hours Monday, Russian media reported. Regional authorities said the Chita province would mark Monday as a day of mourning.
Of the 64 workers in the mine when the blaze began, 31 made it to the surface within hours.
"From now on we will celebrate a second birthday on Sept. 7," said one of them, Dmitry Strelov, in televised comment from his hospital bed.
Eight more survivors, their faces streaked with soot, emerged from the smoke-filled tunnels Saturday, saying they managed to stay alive for two days several hundred yards underground by sticking together. The eight were treated for hypothermia and carbon dioxide poisoning.
One miner, Nikolai Selishev, said he and his companions had found an area where fresh air was blowing in and stayed there until the smoke and gas lifted enough for them to move farther.
Officials said last week that negligence during welding work may have sparked the blaze at the mine, which has been in operation since 1901.
But Russian authorities indicated a delay in reporting the fire allowed it to spread quickly.
The welders first attempted to put out the fire themselves and waited nearly an hour to call for help, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, citing Nikolai Kutin, deputy head of government safety watchdog agency Rostekhnadzor.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu also criticized the delay.
"This delay in reaction — during which people tried to deal with the situation themselves and did not inform even the leaders of the shift or the work they were doing, let alone the mine leadership — this is, of course, quite serious," Shoigu said in televised comments.
The gold-and-metals mine is operated by London-listed Highland Gold Mining PLC. The 105-year-old mine has been plagued with operational problems for more than a year, Dow Jones Newswires reported, badly delaying the schedule for raising output and contributing to the causes of Highland's net loss last year.
Mining accidents are common in the former Soviet Union, where operators often lack funds to invest in safety equipment and technical upgrades. However, Vladimir Rossikhin of the Russian Independent Union of Coal Miners said safety had improved in recent years amid Russia's economic recovery.
The Ministry of Natural Resources said Friday it would carry out a special inspection of safety practices at the country's mines, and an environmental official said the ministry would thoroughly check Highland's Russian operations.

TITLE: Prosecutor Slams Pulkovo Airlines, Airport
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Multiple flight safety violations have been identified at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport and in the operations of the city-based air carrier of the same name, the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office said Friday.The office claims to have examined two Tu-154M planes. The are of the same type as the Pulkovo airplane that crashed in eastern Ukraine on Aug. 22, killing 170 people.
The checks were carried out with Rostransnadzor, a state transportation watchdog, and took place shortly before the planes took off, finding numerous breaches of safety procedure, the prosecutor's office said in the statement posted on its website.
"We have found an absence in the log books of date and time indications of when the resolutions of technical malfunctions and failures took place, non-compliance and the omission of observations of the schedules of the sanitary checks of the aircrafts," the prosecutor's office wrote in its statement.
The office also found that "incidents related to low technical maintenance and aircrafts' collisions with birds during their landings in the airports continue to occur."
"Some incidents occurred as the result of the actions of flight personnel due to their misconduct and violations of instructions," the statement reads.
Moreover, "the quality of the runaway surfaces of Pulkovo Airport is not always in compliance with requirements," the statement continued.
The reports were sent to the management of both companies and, according to the prosecutors' office, "arrangements to improve flying safety were put in place, and the persons responsible for the administrative violations were penalized."
Pulkovo Airport declined to comment on Monday.
Vasily Naletenko, Pulkovo Airlines' director for external relations told the Delovoi Peterburg business daily newspaper last week that "when [the check] was done in June, some insignificant shortcomings had been found, but we quickly eliminated them."
"What's really interesting is who might benefit from the fact that such information surfaced at a time when any negative information about the company is to be received very keenly," Naletenko added.
Marina Peshekhonova, Pulkovo Airlines' press-secretary, speaking with the St. Petersburg Times on Monday, said that her company could not comment on the case as Naletenko is on vacation.
She also said that Naletenko's comment to Delovoi Peterburg "was not official."
Yelena Ordynskaya, chief assistant to the St. Petersburg's prosecutor, responsible for dealings with the media said Monday that the checks on Pulkovo had been carried out in May and June of this year, but declined to give the reasons for the checks.
As to why this information had not been released earlier, Ordynskaya said she did not see why she had to disclose this information. She added that previously she had been on vacation and that she had released the information on her own initiative following her return.

TITLE: Navy Launches ICBM in Arctic Sea
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The navy successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine near the North Pole, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Sunday.The nuclear submarine K-84 launched the missile Saturday, and all three test warheads hit their target, a testing range in the Archangelsk region on the Barents Sea, Ivanov said.
Ivanov's report was made in televised comments to President Vladimir Putin.

TITLE: Georgian Region to Vote on Status
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — Leaders of the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia said Monday they would hold a referendum on independence in November — a move likely to infuriate the government in Tbilisi and stoke already spiraling tensions.The announcement came just days before Moldova's Trans-Dniester — another breakaway region in another former Soviet republic — holds its own referendum asking citizens if they want to be independent or to unite with either Moldova or with Russia.
Both the governments in Georgia and Moldova have long sought to bring their respective separatist regions back under central control. Both regions get strong support from Russia.
Eduard Kokoity, president of South Ossetia's unrecognized government, signed a decree Monday naming Nov. 12 as the date for the referendum vote, government spokeswoman Alena Gabarayeva said.
Residents — many of whom hold Russian passports — will also be asked whether they support the policies of the region's leadership, she said.
There was no immediate reaction by Georgian government officials.
South Ossetia broke away from the central government following a war in the early 1990s and has sought to become part of Russia. Perpetually simmering tensions with Tbilisi have spiked in past weeks, most recently when South Ossetian forces fired on a helicopter carrying Georgia's defense minister and when Georgian police exchanged fire with South Ossetian forces.
Trans-Dniester, which broke away from Moldovan government control in the 1990s, will hold its referendum Sept. 17.

TITLE: New Facility To Destroy Weapons
AUTHOR: By Judith Ingram
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MARADYKOVSKY, Russia — Engineers covered in head-to-toe protective gear inserted a neutralizing solution Friday into bombs filled with a nerve agent, officially starting the work of Russia's first plant for destroying the deadly chemicals.The opening of the Maradykovsky plant accelerates Russia's campaign to eliminate the world's largest arsenal of the toxins.
The plant, 450 miles northeast of Moscow, holds 6,900 tons of nerve agents stored in aerial bombs and missile warheads — more than 17 percent of Russia's stockpile.
Dignitaries, townspeople and journalists gathered Friday for the opening ceremony on a makeshift stage outside the plant, which is ringed by three barbed-wire fences. Several miles away, a sign proclaimed the road to the plant a closed zone.
"Today's event demonstrates Russia's efforts to strictly fulfill its international commitments and shows that Russia has the political will to see through to the end the process of chemical disarmament," said Viktor Kholstov, deputy head of the Federal Industry Agency, which is in charge of the effort.
The destruction facility, on the site of one of Russia's seven former chemical weapons production plants, will become a focal point of the push to meet an April 2007 target for Russia to destroy 20 percent of its stockpile.
To date, Russia has eliminated just 3 percent, as opposed to the 39 percent destroyed by the United States, which is home to the second-largest stockpile.
Besides the Maradykovsky plant, Russia has two other chemical weapon destruction facilities, both built with generous foreign funding. The Maradykovsky plant is the only one for destroying nerve agents as opposed to blister agents.
Construction of another plant that was to have been the biggest — Shchuchye, with chemical weapons stored in millions of artillery shells — has bogged down in disputes between Russia and the United States, the main funder.
The delays at that plant have pushed Maradykovsky onto the front line. It is the sole site to be funded 100 percent by Russia.
"The Russians a couple of years ago made a critical decision that if they were to have any chance of meeting Chemical Weapons Convention deadlines, they had to go to the easier, bulk agent sites," said Paul Walker, a weapons expert at Global Green USA, the Washington-based affiliate of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's Green Cross International environmental organization.
"I think also from a reason of national pride, they really wanted to do one site themselves and have it be successful."
Friday's ceremony had a strong dose of patriotism, opening and closing with an army band playing the national anthem. President Vladimir Putin's envoy to the Volga River region, Alexander Konovalev, said the plant "is a demonstration of the growing economic might of the Russian government."
Disarmament officials gave credit to Switzerland, which recently announced it is spending some $2 million on an electricity grid for the plant.
The bombs at Maradykovsky hold VX, soman and sarin, as well as a less deadly mixture of lewisite and mustard gas.
Technicians will open each bomb, drain out some of the agent within if necessary, insert a neutralizing reagent, close up the bomb and let it sit for 80-110 days to let the chemical processes take place, said Gennady Bezrukov, chief engineer of the Federal Chemical Weapons Storage and Destruction Administration.
When it is running at full strength, the plant will be able to neutralize 96 weapons a day, Bezrukov said.
Green Cross representative Tamara Ashikmina said she was satisfied that authorities were providing sufficient safety for the population and the environment. But the local population still has concerns, she said.
"Of course the population is anxious, because guests come and go but they have to live here," said Ashikmina, head of the chemistry department at Vyatka State University in nearby Kirov.

TITLE: Envoys: North Korea To Test A-Bomb
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — A British newspaper reported Sunday that Russian diplomats believed it was now highly probable that North Korea would carry out its first underground test of a nuclear device.The Sunday Telegraph said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had made his intentions clear during recent talks with Russian and Chinese officials in Pyongyang.
Although Kim was pressed to resume six-party talks over his nuclear program, the Russians concluded that he was serious about showing that his scientists had successfully built a nuclear weapon, the newspaper said.
"Their fears appear to bolster American suspicions that a test is being prepared, after intelligence reports last month of unusual vehicle movements in the area believed to be the test site," the Sunday Telegraph reported.
The paper said Russia and China, who are North Korea's closest friends, have warned Kim that detonating an atomic device would alienate them.
The newspaper did not make clear where it got all its information, but quoted an unidentified Russian diplomat as saying it was highly probably that, "if North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, it would face severe punishment. It would pose a very serious threat to world peace."
Also on Sunday, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported that North Korea was testing new medicines in Russia for Kim, amid reports that the leader's health has worsened and he has trouble walking.

TITLE: Lavrov Denies UN, Power Plant Connection
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday rejected a claim that Moscow would halt construction of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant if it expelled UN nuclear inspectors as part of its dispute with the West, RIA-Novosti reported.
"This is not a report, but a clear provocation," Lavrov said from the Palestinian Territories. "Quite a number of people want to complicate the situation around the problem of Iran's nuclear program."
The claim was made earlier Friday by a high-ranking source fully informed of the progress of Russian-Iranian talks over Bushehr.
Moscow has long refused to link the Bushehr plant to the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions, which Washington says are cover for a nuclear weapons program.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, on Friday reiterated the official position that Bushehr was fully under UN control and need not be linked to nonproliferation concerns.
Kiriyenko, who was in London for a conference, said the construction was going according to plan, that the reactor would start up in September next year, and that nuclear fuel would be delivered in March or April.
The source said any Iranian attempt to break with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, would trigger a halt.
"If Iran expels the IAEA inspectors, we will immediately halt our work," the source said.
"I think the reason Iran has not expelled the inspectors yet is that they do not want us to stop our work," he added.
Iranian officials have often threatened to "review" cooperation with the IAEA if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
Iran's parliament is also currently studying a bill that would oblige the government to halt all IAEA inspections if the Security Council "decides to deprive the Iranian nation of its legal rights" to a civilian nuclear power program.
Iran last week ignored a Security Council demand that it stop uranium enrichment — a process that can be used to make nuclear reactor fuel and weapons-grade material — by Aug. 31.
On Saturday, President Vladimir Putin said it was too early to talk about sanctions against Iran for its nuclear ambitions. The contract to build the 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant was signed in 1992. "A realistic deadline [for transmitting power to the grid] is November 2007. This means a physical start-up [of the reactor] in September and the dispatch of fuel ... six months earlier," Kiriyenko said. "That means March or April."
(Reuters, SPT)

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: American HeldnMOSCOW (AP, SPT) — Christopher Garner, a U.S. citizen, and his wife, Svetlana, a native of Ukraine who lives in Khabarovsk, were detained in Moscow Sunday on suspicion of killing a man believed to be related to the wife, Interfax reported.
Investigators believe the pair killed the man, placed his body in a bag and dumped it Thursday on the outskirts of Solnechny, a village in the Khabarovsk region, a Khabarovsk police duty officer said.Fake Bomb ThreatnMOSCOW (SPT) — The police chief at Yekaterinburg's Koltsovo airport and his deputy have been arrested and charged with phoning in a false terrorist alert in order to help a friend catch a plane.
The police chief, identified by NTV television as Colonel Mukhamedkhanov, has been charged with abuse of office.
Mukhamedkhanov ordered a St. Petersburg-bound plane to turn around in mid-flight on Feb. 5 and return to Yekaterinburg because of a reported bomb threat.
Mukhamedkhanov ordered an airport duty officer to phone in the warning to air traffic controllers because his friend had missed the flight after a party at a local hotel, prosecutors told RIA-Novosti.German MemorialnVOLGOGRAD (AP) — Russian and German officials gathered on Saturday to inaugurate a memorial dedicated to more than 100,000 German soldiers who perished in the Battle of Stalingrad.
The Battle of Stalingrad is widely seen as being the turning point in World War II, leading to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Several hundred Germans, many holding photographs of their relatives killed in the battle, attended the memorial's opening in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad.
The memorial is meant to foster friendship and forgiveness between the two nations.

TITLE: Missing U.S. Officer 'in Trance'
AUTHOR: By Leila Saralayeva
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — A U.S. Air Force officer who went missing for three days in Kyrgyzstan said she felt as if she was in a trance when she discovered what she believed was a bomb in her back pocket, police said.Major Jill Metzger, 33, disappeared Tuesday while shopping for souvenirs in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. A U.S. military official said she was being moved to a hospital in Germany.
A massive search involving Kyrgyz and U.S. investigators found no trace of Metzger until late Friday, when she knocked on the door of a house in a town about 35 kilometers from Bishkek and told its inhabitants she had been abducted, Kyrgyz Deputy Interior Minister Omurbek Suvanaliyev said.
Metzger told Kyrgyz law enforcement agents that her captors held her in a residence in a rural area about 50 kilometers from the capital, he said.
"Her first testimony was that, when she became separated from her group in the department store, someone put a hard object and a note saying it was an explosive in a back pocket of her jeans," said Kemilbek Kiyazov, chief of the Chuysk regional police department.
"In the note there were also detailed instructions about where to go and what to do. Metzger says it was as if she were in a trance and fulfilling someone else's wishes," Kiyazov said.
Metzger said she was met by three men and a woman who put her into a minibus, took her to a residence and placed her in a dark room. Kiyazov said Metzger escaped by striking one of her abductors when he brought her food.
Kiyazov, who saw and talked to Metzger, said her hair had been dyed dark brown and her hands were stained with dye. He said it would be necessary to question her again to get more details.
The investigation into her disappearance is continuing, said Major Mike Young, chief spokesman for U.S. Central Command Air Forces in Qatar.
Captain Anna Carpenter, a spokeswoman at the U.S. air base at Bishkek's Manas airport, where Metzger had been temporarily stationed, said Saturday that the major was in "stable condition."
Metzger was taken to another U.S. base in the region, Carpenter said, and a relative said it was Bagram, the main U.S. military facility in Afghanistan.
Metzger was in the process of being moved to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, for evaluation, Air Force Captain Dustin Hart said Saturday from North Carolina. "The goal is to get her home as soon as she can," Hart said.
Metzger phoned her parents in Henderson, North Carolina, on Saturday to let them know she was safe, The News and Observer newspaper of Raleigh reported. Her parents said the call left questions about her disappearance; they still did not know why she vanished, where she was or how she got back.
"She kept saying, 'I'm fine, I'm OK, I'm OK,'" her mother, Jeanette Metzger, told the newspaper.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Bridgestone Plantn ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Bridgestone, the world's second-biggest tiremaker, will build a plant in St. Petersburg, Russia, Vedomosti said, citing city unidentified city officials.
The Tokyo-based company will build the facility near a car factory Nissan Motor Company is building, the newspaper said. Bridgestone officials declined to comment, Vedomosti said.
Bridgestone rivals Michelin & Cie. and Nokian Renkaat Oyj already have factories in Russia. Michelin produces about 2.1 million tires a year near Moscow and Nokian produces about 1.9 million tires a year near St. Petersburg, Vedomosti said.Land Reclamationn ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Fifteen hectares of land has been reclaimed on Vasilievsky Island for construction of the sea passenger terminal, which will be started by the end of 2007, Interfax reported Saturday.
In 2006-2008 about 146 hectares of land will be reclaimed with another 330 hectares to follow in 2009-2011. The total cost of the project is $1 billion — the federal budget will supply $224 million, the rest will be funded by private investors.Building Exhibitionn ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — An international construction exhibition, The Baltic Construction Week, runs Wednesday through Saturday at Lenexpo, RBC reported Monday. About 740 companies from 20 countries will take part in this exhibition — the second largest in Russia.

TITLE: RSPP Founder Volsky, 74, Dies
AUTHOR: By Valeria Korchagina
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW—Arkady Volsky, who is credited with preventing an industrial collapse after the Soviet demise and founded the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, died Saturday in Moscow. He was 74.
He died of complications from leukemia, Russian media reported.
Volsky, a critic of the Yukos affair, was an active player in business and politics until last year, when an internal squabble at the powerful big business lobby, known as RSPP, saw him pushed aside and handed an honorary post.
"Volsky's death is a big loss, not only for the RSPP but for the entire business and political community of the country," Alexander Shokhin, who replaced Volsky at RSPP's helm, said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
Volsky represented a relatively rare breed of the country's political and business leaders who managed to have equally successful careers under Communist rule and during the first wild years of Russian capitalism.
Born in Belarus on May 15, 1932, and raised in an orphanage, Volsky started out at a ZiL car factory as an ordinary worker and eventually became the factory's party boss.
Moving into government, he served as an aide to Soviet leader Yury Andropov in the early 1980s. As an aide, he pressed for the return of Andrei Sakharov from exile in Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod.
In the late 1980s, he joined the Communist Party Central Committee's division in charge of industry. At the time, he also tried to settle an ethnic and territorial conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. During the 1994-96 Chechen war, he participated in peace talks with rebel leaders.
In 1990, Volsky founded an organization uniting some of Russia's first capitalists. The group later grew into the RSPP. During the August 1991 coup attempt, Volsky managed to call Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who was under house arrest in Crimea, and confirm that he was not ill, as the nation had been told.
Volsky quit the Communist Party in disgust after the failed coup.
Gorbachev said Saturday that Volsky played a key role in making sure that industry did not collapse completely after the fall of the Soviet Union, Interfax reported. He praised Volsky for his attempts to establish a dialogue between business and the state.
From 2000, Volsky was also among the few public figures in Russia who dared to criticize publicly the state's legal onslaught on Yukos and its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Liberal politician Irina Khakamada said she had known Volsky since 1989 and recalled that even though he was a senior Communist official, he had supported private entrepreneurship, Interfax reported. Condolences also were expressed by President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and former President Boris Yeltsin.
Volsky will be buried at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery on Tuesday, Interfax reported. A civil memorial was due to be held from 10 a.m. to noon at ZiL's House of Culture. A church service was due to be held at the Novodevichy Monastery at 1 p. m. and be followed by the burial.
Volsky is survived by his wife, Lyudmila, a son, a daughter and six grandchildren.

TITLE: Exxon Warns Kremlin Over Sakhalin Pressure
AUTHOR: By Deepa Babington
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — ExxonMobil on Thursday warned Russia to honor a decade-old production-sharing agreement to develop the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas block or risk spooking other foreign investors in the country.
The statement comes as the government and Exxon squabble over whether the company has automatic rights to develop newly discovered reserves around existing deposits in the Sakhalin-1 project.
The government plans to auction off the new deposits, while Exxon believes its license territory should be automatically enlarged to include them.
Exxon said it was in talks with the government to resolve the issue, but that any resolution should account for the rights of consortium members and strictly comply with the Sakhalin-1 agreement as well as the law.
"As the Sakhalin-1 project is one of the largest single foreign direct investments in Russia, it is globally visible and therefore serves as an indicator to others of the success or failure for other potential large foreign investment in the Russian oil and gas industry," Exxon spokesman Bob Davis said in a statement.
"Any failure to honor the [agreement] could inevitably undermine the confidence of foreign investors and have a significant negative impact on the Russian investment climate," he said.
Analysts have said the Kremlin — which had already alarmed foreign investors with its dogged pursuit of oil company Yukos for back taxes — is showing signs of increasing unhappiness with major projects controlled by foreign investors.
Weeks of pressure by Moscow on the rival Sakhalin-2, led by Royal Dutch Shell, culminated last Tuesday with the country's environmental watchdog saying it had asked a court to recognize that the scheme did not comply with ecological rules. Work will have to stop at that project if the suit is successful.
Exxon, meanwhile, said it had started the process of exporting oil from Sakhalin-1 on schedule, marking a major milestone for the closely watched project.
That met Exxon's own forecast of exports starting in August, despite some reports earlier in the summer that they could be delayed to October.
Sakhalin-1 is the biggest new oil find in the area in many years and is expected to boost supply in a tightly stretched global market, helping ease high crude prices and displacing sales of competing African and Mediterranean crude into Asia.
The first oil from Sakhalin-1 began flowing into the export system on Aug. 29, and the initial tanker will begin loading at the newly built DeKastri terminal this month, Exxon said.
Oil production from the project should ramp up to a peak rate of 250,000 barrels per day by the end of 2006, it said.

TITLE: Property Battle Rages Over City's Historic Center
AUTHOR: By John Varoli
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Seven years of Russian economic growth has more than quadrupled property values to an average of $1,800 a square meter in St. Petersburg, the tsarist-era capital, says Itaka, a local real-estate firm.The boom has inspired developers to restore gritty and dilapidated historical properties to their former grandeur, yet preservationists say property developers are flaunting laws and altering the historical center.
While there was little new construction in the center after postwar rebuilding in the late 1940s, the past 18 months have seen the first glass-and-concrete, post-modernist buildings rise. Developers have recently begun demolishing tsarist-era buildings such as the barracks of the Preobrazhensky Regiment.
In 2004-05, a local developer, Corporation C, tore down a 19th-century building at 3 Kazanskaya Ulitsa, and put up a sleek, four-story, glass-and-concrete structure to house a luxury department story, Vanity Opera. Prominent cultural figures and preservationists, such as State Hermitage Museum Director Mikhail Piotrovsky, say that it clashes with the surrounding pre-1917 buildings.
The preservationists' worst nightmare, however, could materialize next year if Gazprom, the natural-gas company, proceeds with a 300-meter-high office tower across the river from the historical center. To sweeten the deal for a politically powerful investor, City Hall has indicated it is willing to waive zoning laws restricting height to 70 meters.

Architectural Harmony
"I'm not against new construction and architectural styles, but just don't do it in or near the historical center," said Alexander Margolis, head of the St. Petersburg Historical Preservation Foundation. "City Hall makes too many concessions to developers, and if this continues, in 15 years the city will lose the architectural harmony that makes it one of the most beautiful cities in the world."
Though St. Petersburg, founded by Peter the Great in 1703, is one of Europe's youngest cities, it has more than 7,000 historically listed buildings. In 1991, UNESCO declared the entire city center a World Heritage Site. The Russian state, however, is only able to maintain a fraction of these buildings and many are in danger of ruin.
Beyond a few dozen high-profile palaces and churches, hundreds of other buildings garner little attention. Some developers want these listed structures to be sold. With the city unable to pay for upkeep, developers say that only the private sector can save these buildings from certain destruction.

Modern Needs
"It's necessary to find a balance between the preservation of historical structures and the needs of modern life," said Sean Henry, head of HPH, a U.K. real-estate company that has restored 25 historical properties in St. Petersburg's center. "In the end, a city is something that is alive and which has to grow."
The most ambitious recent project is New Holland, a 7.6- hectare island built by Peter the Great in the early 18th century that until last year served as a navy depot. U.K. architect Norman Foster and ST Novaya Gollandiya, a company owned by Moscow real-estate magnate Shalva Chigirinsky, began work on the site last month.
The $320 million to $400 million project will convert dilapidated, red-brick navy storehouses into a seven-level commercial and cultural hub, with about 180,000 square meters of space that will include three luxury hotels with over 500 rooms, according to Chigirinsky.

Historical Identity
"Our main goal is to preserve the historical identity of New Holland, while creating a viable business project," he said, sitting in his downtown Moscow office, adding that the renovated complex will open no later than June 2010.
New Holland's crown jewel will be a covered outdoor amphitheater seating up to 3,000 people. The stage will rise out of the water in the center of an existing pond. Heated seats will allow the amphitheater to work year round, with concerts in warm months and skating events in winter.
"New Holland has been closed, neglected and crumbling for years, and it desperately needs to be developed and opened to the public," said Yulia Demidenko, deputy director of the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. "Foster's project strikes me as the perfect balance between preserving history and the demands of modernity."
Other projects have aroused intense debate and resistance. Three years after the Russian Culture Ministry chose French architect Dominique Perrault to build a new, second building for the Mariinsky Theater, work has not progressed beyond the demolition of a Stalinist-era landmark building and a giant hole in the ground.

Mariinsky Quagmire
Perrault's design calls for a massive black marble structure to be covered by an incongruent, translucent golden glass case. The project's opponents, who say it's too large and will destroy the 19th-century look of the neighborhood, have managed to delay construction, embarrassing the theater.
"We're still working hard with the architect," said Mariinsky Artistic Director Valery Gergiev after a June 22 press conference. "The original design was too ambitious, and too big. I don't want a monstrous theater, and prefer something that won't dwarf the original Mariinsky."
Some developers have pushed forward with equally radical projects. In 2005, Vozrozhdeniye Sankt Peterburga (St. Petersburg Renaissance) began work on Paradny Kvartal (http://www.paradny.ru/ ), in the posh Tavrichesky Sad district.

Demolitions
To make way for Paradny, billed as a luxury residential and office project, at the end of 2005 Vozrozhdeniye destroyed nine buildings from the 18th and early 19th centuries that constituted the military base of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, the elite personal guards of the czars.
Only three historical buildings were left.
Vozrozhdeniye is part of LSR Group, headed by Andrei Molchanov, the son of city vice-governor, Yury Molchanov, one of whose responsibilities is real-estate development.
According to the St. Petersburg Historical Preservation Foundation, in 2001 city hall listed all 12 Preobrazhensky buildings as historically protected. In August 2004, shortly after Valentina Matviyenko became governor and Yury Molchanov became her vice governor, they were removed from that list.
"This was a terrible crime because these buildings should have been restored, and not torn down," said Margolis. "What happened with Paradny Kvartal is a dangerous precedent that can lead to the destruction of the historical center as we know it."

Building Copies
Neither Vice-Governor Molchanov nor the city hall Committee for the Preservation of Historical Monuments (KGIOP) responded to questions sent to their offices. Vozrozhdeniye said it will build copies of the destroyed buildings, and will use historical details in the new buildings.
"The facades of these buildings will correspond with the 18th-century buildings that were once on this spot, and which once housed officers' quarters," said Vozrozhdeniye in a statement. "The insides of these buildings will meet the high standards of Class A office space."
Such attitudes toward Russia's history infuriate preservationists, who say there is little they can do because of the power of the Russian government and its corporate allies.
"The people who run our city are above the law," said Margolis. "In the 1990s, St. Petersburg was crumbling and threatened by a lack of investment, but now it's threatened by too much money in the hands of too few people who have unlimited power to do whatever they want."

John Varoli writes on culture for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.

TITLE: U.S. Giant Eyes Fast Expansion
AUTHOR: By Andrea Rothman
PUBLISHER: STAFF WRITERBLOOMBERGTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEXT: By Yekaterina DranitsynaGlobal fast-food chain McDonald's has announced ambitious plans for the Russian fast food market and St. Petersburg in particular, considerably increasing the number of its restaurants over the next few years."St. Petersburg is the most dynamic region for the company in Russia, and the potential of this city is huge," Prime-Tass news agency cited Khamzat Khasbulatov, McDonald's president for Eastern Europe as saying Friday.
"In the next four to five years we are going to triple the number of fast food restaurants in St. Petersburg. Within one to two years we will start opening restaurants in Leningrad Oblast as well," he said.
At the moment McDonald's operates 23 restaurants in St. Petersburg, including four McAuto and five McCafe restaurants.
By the end of 2006 the company will invest $10 million into opening seven new restaurants. Spending $1.5 million to $2.5 million per restaurant McDonald's will keep expanding its chain by 10 new restaurants a year over the next four years.
A real estate expert said McDonald's should have no problem finding locations for the new restaurants.
"McDonald's exercises a flexible policy towards restaurant location — occupying separate buildings, parts of buildings and parts of shopping centers. Thus I can't see any obstacle for development," said Nikolai Kazansky, director for investment consulting at Colliers International in St. Petersburg.
"Beside acquisition, the company can rent property, which does not entail such a considerable initial expense," Kazansky said.
Kazansky indicated that developers regard McDonald's as one of the most attractive tenants of their shopping centers and thus could offer more interesting rental agreements to the company.
"Sale & lease back deals are very popular in the western real estate market. They include the sale of the building and its subsequent leasing. I suppose that McDonald's could do something similar by selling their property and becoming a tenant," Kazansky said.
Last year McDonald's reported turnover was 1.5 billion rubles ($56 million) in St. Petersburg — a considerable share of the local catering market.
In 2005 catering turnover in St. Petersburg was estimated at 14 billion rubles ($523 million), Prime-TASS reported, citing Tamara Solovyova, head of the catering department at the Committee for Economic Development, Industrial policy and Trade.
McDonald's proposed expansion will be slightly ahead of the catering market's predicted growth.
According to the Gortis marketing research agency, city residents increased spending on catering services in recent years.
They spent 10.5 billion rubles on restaurants, cafes, bars and canteens in 2003, 13 billion rubles in 2004 and 17 billion rubles last year.
Referring to state statistics, Gortis analysts indicated that catering turnover increased by 31 percent in 2004 and by 24 percent last year.
"A significant share of spending in St. Petersburg comes from tourists. However this spending was not reflected in the data," Gortis said in the report on the catering market.
McDonald's chain in Russia comprises 154 restaurants. Last year the company opened 18 new restaurants. By the end of this year the chain would include 179 restaurants.Vneshtorgbank Buys 5% of Airbus ParentMOSCOW — European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Company, the parent of planemaker Airbus, said Russian state-owned bank Vneshtorgbank has bought a 5 percent stake in the company."We got notification late Friday,'' Michael Hauger, an EADS spokesman, said late Sunday. The stake is worth about 922 million euros ($1.17 billion) at Monday's share price.
Russia's aerospace industry has been building ties with EADS and Chicago-based Boeing Company Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, said in February that it's in talks with Russia on a $25 billion partnership that would include design work on a new single-aisle plane, parts for the proposed twin-aisle A350 model and a project to convert airliners into freight aircraft.
"This may strengthen the relationship between the Russian state and EADS, which in turn may help their prospects of sharing in valuable future orders and development work while partnering on manufacturing and materials supply with Russian industry,'' said
Will Mackie, an analyst at Mainfirst Bank AG in London who has a "neutral'' rating on EADS shares.
Shares of EADS, Europe's largest aerospace company, rose as much as 21 cents, or 0.9 percent, to 22.63 euros and were up 0.5 percent at 10:46 a.m. in Paris. The stock is down 29 percent this year following delays in construction of the A380 superjumbo jet and in development of the A350 model.
Vneshtorgbank Senior Vice President Vasily Titov confirmed in an interview today that the bank had notified EADS of the purchase. He declined to comment on Vneshtorgbank's plans regarding EADS.
The bank, once the Soviet Union's foreign trade bank, may raise as much as $3 billion in an initial public offering next year and use some of those funds to expand its retail network in Russia.
The lender is planning a stock sale as part of a drive to broaden its business at home and abroad and double assets amid an eighth year of economic growth in Russia, the bank's chief executive officer, Andrei Kostin, said in an April 18 interview.
The bank, which currently has a $20 billion loan portfolio, is seeking to lend to more sectors of the economy outside oil and gas,
Kostin said. Vneshtorgbank also plans to further expand abroad as well, opening offices in China and Africa, he said.
The purchase of the EADS's shares comes after two of the company's largest owners decided to reduce their stakes.
DaimlerChrysler AG said in April that it will reduce its stake to 22.5 percent from 30 percent in a forward transaction by lending the shares to banks. The buyers will become the technical owners in 2007.
Lagardere SCA, a Paris-based media company, cut its 15 percent stake to 7.5 percent in April. The French state still holds a 15 percent stake.
DaimlerChrysler, based in Stuttgart, Germany, and Sogeade, a French holding company that combines the Lagardere and French state shares, are founding partners in EADS and have an agreement that gives them control over all key decisions, including selection of board members.
"The share acquisition puts Vneshtorgbank like others in the free float,'' Hauger said Sunday. Asked whether the Russians might win a seat on the board, he said the purchase "doesn't change the shareholder pact.''
Hauger said Russia is an important market for big aerospace companies, offering "production capabilities, as well as being one of the world leaders in supplying materials'' to the industry.
EADS's Airbus unit is hoping to sell its new long-range, widebody A350 to Aeroflot, Russia's largest airline.New Border CrossingHELSINKI — Finland and Russia on Friday opened a new crossing point on their 1,300-kilometer joint border, hoping to speed lines of waiting vehicles that have stretched dozens of kilometers in recent weeks.The new crossing, on the southeastern border at Nuijamaa, 250 kilometers east of Helsinki, is expected to be able to handle twice as much traffic as before, officials said.
"This will really speed things up," Major Harri Malmen of the Finnish Frontier Guard said. "It will be a great help and will relieve the pressure we are seeing with a gradual growth in border traffic."
Last year, 1.3 million crossings were recorded at the old Nuijamaa border post near the border town of Lappeenranta, an increase of 5 percent on the previous year.
This year, the number of crossings is expected to reach 1.4 million, Malmen said.
In all, more than 5 million border crossings were recorded in 2005 at eight border crossings between Finland and Russia — an increase of 5 percent on the previous year.
In recent weeks, traffic jams of up to 40 kilometers have been seen at the joint border, blamed largely on Russian bureaucracy.
Finnish border officials were to discuss the problem with their Russian counterparts in Lappeenranta at a weekend of festivities meant to celebrate Finnish cross-border cooperation.
The events, attended by European Union Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, include marking the 150th anniversary of the 45-kilometer long Saimaa Canal, which stretches from Lappeenranta to the border town of Vyborg, in the northwestern part of Russia, and the Gulf of Finland.

TITLE: Extreme Games
AUTHOR: By Mikhail Fedotov
TEXT: The author Vasily Grossman once said the hardest problems always generate the simplest and most incorrect solutions. Amendments to the federal media law and administrative code introduced as measures to combat terrorism, which go before the State Duma for a first reading Wednesday, contain a definition of "extremism" that expands the term to the point of absurdity. This in a country where official reaction to real acts of violence against individuals based on their racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious or social backgrounds is rare and selective.The broader the definition of extremism, the easier it is for the authorities to use it against anyone who has displeased them. The latest amendments define it as "infringing on the rights and freedoms of a citizen or citizens or doing damage to the health and/or property of citizens on the basis of their convictions, racial or ethnic affiliation, creed, social affiliation or social origin."
Translated from legalese, almost any derogatory article can now be interpreted as extremism if the author cannot prove that a statement corresponds strictly to reality. Thus, journalists will need the investigative authority of a prosecutor and faith that a voice recording (which they had better have) will be enough against a high-placed crooked official.
This legal novelty has drawn scant attention from commentators. Everyone has been talking about the fact that the anti-extremism law passed earlier this year includes "the public defamation of any government official" in the definition. The first application of this legal novelty was against Viktor Shmakov, the editor of Provintsiyalniye Vesti, a newspaper in Bashkortostan. He was charged after the publication of the articles "Experienced advice. Instructions for the Behavior of Revolutionaries During Mass Popular Demonstrations" and "The Bashkir Revolutionary Committee Short Program of Emergency and Frontline Measures For the First 100 days After the Revolution."
Shmakov shouldn't be worried, however, as the defamation of officials must be, according to the law, established by the courts. The Criminal Code does not as yet contain such an article.
But this loophole will undoubtedly be closed. Criticizing the authorities will be defamation, and defamation will be extremism. And, according to the new amendments, any media outlet can be closed down for acting as the "cause of damage to the person or health of citizens, the environment, public order, public safety, property or the legal economic interests of individuals or legal entities, society or the state." This net is wide enough to snare just about anyone, especially if those doing the fishing are acting on personal interests and the victim has only the Constitution and the European Court of Human Rights on his or her side.
What is important is that we don't confuse extremism with opposition, criticism, or dissent — even when these are expressed in extreme terms. Established democracies long ago not only stopped punishing dissent, but also those who promoted it. Those statutes that do remain long ago became dead law. In British law, for example, "incitement to mutiny" remains a serious crime, but since 1945 has been interpreted to cover actions designed to provoke social unrest and civil disobedience with the aim of disrupting the government's legal functioning and has not been invoked since 1947.
French legislation still includes an 1881 statute that criminalizes defamation of a state institution, minister, lawmaker or civil servant. But this law also has not been applied in practice for decades and, in effect, has lost its power. This is the result of the simple fact that these societies now look differently on criticism and interpret freedom of speech more broadly.
All of this has to be balanced against matters of necessity in a Russia where extremism, and ethnic hatred in particular, have clearly become a reality. Horrific events like the murder of a 9-year-old Tajik girl or a Peruvian student in St. Petersburg, or the recent bombing of Moscow's Cherkizovsky market can no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents. Political discussion is rife with conspiracy theories that nationalist groups like the White Patrol and the Movement Against Illegal Immigration are just parts of a highly clandestine extremist nationalist organization seeking to take power. Implicit in these theories is the prescription that only a powerful Kremlin can stop this absolute evil from triumphing.
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like law enforcement or security bodies are serious about countering the real growth of extremism in the country. Law-enforcement agencies are themselves hotbeds of xenophobia. A nationwide survey by the Levada Center polling agency said 40 percent of police officers supported the idea that Russia should be a country for ethnic Russians, while 67 percent expressed negative views about people from the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Moreover, state officials still frivolously label extremist acts as simple hooliganism or the escapades of madmen. Statements from the top addressing the issue seriously are interpreted further down the "power vertical" as necessary rituals, but little else. "We know very well all of those who should be [behind bars], and it would only take a couple of days to haul them all in," a friend in law enforcement told me recently. "But nobody seems to be interested in this."
So a vicious circle is forming. The authorities refuse to take systemic corrective action against the growing problem of extremism in society, preferring instead to use it as a pretext for maniacally plugging any cracks through which free thought could have an influence on the political process. In turn, the deliberate undermining of democratic institutions fans extremism further, as it does not allow outlets for protest or opposition on the field of normal political competition. The authorities could still break this vicious circle. The question is whether they have the will, ability or time.Mikhail Fedotov is secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists and one of the authors of the federal media law.

TITLE: The Governor Takes a Stand On Apraksin Development
TEXT: The shopping center Apraksin Dvor is opening up to new investors. Last month, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko criticized the center's development agency for being slow in preparing the complex for reconstruction and privatization — she also said its activities lacked transparency. It would be better, she said, to contest the rules of reconstruction in order to hand it over to big and wealthy investor.Why has such a story gained so much publicity? The answer is simple — over the last few years, the "Valentina Ivanovna said" factor has become more important than any official decrees. Well, the legal documents are often shaped by the governor's words.
Her words are essential. For instance, she said that the Eliseevsky Shop on Nevsky Prospect should not be leased to a perfume retailer from Moscow, and the deal between Arbat-Prestige and Eliseevksy's long-term tenant Parnas quickly fell through.
Surprisingly, for such a location, no new tenant has yet been installed, which means I must admit that, contrary to what I predicted, Smolny doesn't seem to have a candidate lined up for the property.
The Apraksin Dvor case seems more obvious. According to the rumors, a big investor has already been found it's the Swedish investment company Ruric, which is currently reconstructing two buildings in the same complex. Ruric's management denied that it was going to acquire the whole of Apraksin.
The 14-hectare quadrangle that is Apraksin Dvor was constructed in the 18th century on the outskirts of the city but is now located in the very center of city — literally on the corner of another huge shopping center, Gostiny Dvor.
Apraksin consists of 57 buildings, most of them belonging to the state and in very bad shape. About 10 of them have been reconstructed and sold; another 10 are currently being worked on.
So there is no single owner or leaseholder of Apraksin but dozens of them, all with contracts under different terms.
The city administration has had a bit of experience selling occupied buildings. Three such buildings located on Nevsky Prospekt were sold last year at a very competitive price. It is left for the happy new landlords themselves to negotiate with the tenants, whose contracts last for decades.
But in the case of Apraksin Dvor, agreements with at least ten companies will be violated, because the city has already sold them buildings within the complex.
And all the efforts of the agency, founded in order to develop Apraksin, will go to waste.
Legal experts say that Smolny will not dare to violate such laws, while some market players believe such a contest to be quite possible if "Valentina Ivanovna said" has its usual import.

P.S.
By the way, some companies have learned the new rules and use the governor's words as protection. For instance, the city's oldest and famous bookstore Dom Knigi, that needs to relocate during the building's renovation, is hoping to return thanks to quotes from Matviyenko, who promised publicly that this building will always have a bookstore.

TITLE: Learning Lesson Of Kondopoga
TEXT: Rioting and racially motivated violence in the northwestern town of Kondopoga last week shone a spotlight on one of the most serious problems facing society today: ethnic tensions.In Kondopoga, the unrest was sparked by a bar fight involving Slavs and an Azeri bartender. Two Slavs died. Soon the town was torn apart by angry mobs of Slavic youths. Natives of the Caucasus residing in the town fled for their lives.
Xenophobia and racism are hardly unique to this country, but they pose a particular threat to the stability and well-being of a society that comprises some 75 distinct ethnic groups.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said Tuesday that the unrest in Kondopoga was the result of the government's inability to develop a clear, effective nationalities policy and of soaring unemployment in the North Caucasus, which forces many to move elsewhere in search of work.
Over the last 15 years, most towns have acquired a signficant number of residents from the Caucasus and Central Asia, who have fled armed conflict as well as economic collapse at home.
Zyuganov was only half right, however.
The government should be working to improve economic conditions in the country's poorer, southern regions and to rebuild areas, such as Chechnya, which have been ravaged by war.
But the real lesson of Kondopoga has to do with tolerance.
Legal immigrants to this country and migrants from the North Caucasus have the Constitutional right to live and work where they like without fearing for their safety. The riots in Kondopoga make clear that, at present, they enjoy this right only on paper.
Those guilty of murder and looting in Kondopoga must be brought to justice, of course. But the government cannot stop there if it wants to address the underlying problem that ripped this small town apart.
First and foremost, the authorities must ensure that the natives of the Caucasus who fled Kondopoga and sought shelter among relatives and friends in neighboring cities are allowed to return and get on with their lives.
If this doesn't happen, xenophobic extremists across the country might decide that this sort of behavior is permissible. And that could shred the very fabric of this multi-ethnic society.
The real lesson of Kondopoga is the need for tolerance. The government should take the lead in driving this lesson home.

TITLE: Schumi To Retire This Year
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MILAN — Italian motor racing fans never truly took Michael Schumacher to their hearts but they have realised what they will be missing when the celebrated Ferrari driver bows out at the end of this season.Schumacher announced on Sunday, shortly after winning the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, that he would call it a day after the final race of this year's championship.
The seven times world champion is the most successful Formula One driver in history having broken a series of records.
But while Italian fans loved the years of triumph for Ferrari and their German driver, Schumacher was never adored in the way many sportsmen are in the country.
Schumacher was perceived as cold and had not learnt enough Italian and while there is nothing the local fans respect more than a winner they also want their champions to be "simpatico."
The German has tried to fit the role — his language in media appearances in Italy changed over the years to reflect the Italian wish for emotion, commitment and sentimentality.
It always appeared a little forced but on Sunday he showed genuine emotion at the reaction of the most passionate fans who poured on to the track to salute his last victory in Italy.
The response to his retirement was straightforward gratitude for the success he has brought an Italian sporting institution.
But the Italian media also did not waste the opportunity to highlight the emotional nature of Sunday's race and the decision that followed it.
"The cold champion is now fragile," said Corriere della Sera in an article noting how Schumacher's personality was always much more human than the image built up of the ruthless winner.
On Sunday, Italians got the emotion they had always wanted from Schumacher — the pictures of his wife Corinna in tears and receiving a hug from Ferrari's team boss Jean Todt were accompanied by a wedding day photograph of the happy couple.
"For you he is a legend, for me he is a husband," Corinna was quoted by Corriere della Sera in an article recounting their relationship.
Schumacher said on Sunday his decision was based on a desire to go out at the top, but Gazzetta also focussed on his warm words for his family. "I decided with Corinna," was one headline in the newspaper's coverage.
Gazzetta's main editorial on Schumacher's retirement began: "He did not cry, but he wasn't far off. It was in that moment, when a man confronts what he has inside, that Michael Schumacher could hardly find his voice," wrote columnist Pino Allievi.

TITLE: U.S. Remembers 9/11 Attacks
AUTHOR: By Tabassum Zakaria
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — Americans bowed their heads in silence on Monday where hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center five years ago, killing nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest attack on U.S. soil.Ceremonies starting on Sunday night revived traumatic memories of the day when al Qaeda hijackers attacked the twin New York towers and the Pentagon in Washington and seized a fourth plane that crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania.
The anniversary has sharpened an election-year debate over whether America, caught in a vicious unpopular conflict in Iraq, is any safer.
His approval ratings weighed down by the war, President George W. Bush and his wife Laura bowed their heads for two moments of silence in New York, first at 8:46 a.m. local time, the moment a plane flew into the north tower, and again at 9:03 a.m., when the south tower was hit.
At Ground Zero, where the towers collapsed to the ground, New York police officers in blue marched down a ramp into the pit for a solemn, flag-waving ceremony on a day of crisp, clear blue skies, eerily similar to Sept. 11 five years ago.
"Five years have come and gone, and we still stand together," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a crowd that included relatives of those who died.
Spouses and partners of victims were due to read out the names of all 2,749 who died at the World Trade Center.
At the Pentagon, 184 people perished on that day and another 40 died when United Flight 93 crashed into the countryside at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after a passenger revolt before it could hit its Washington target.
Nineteen hijackers also died in the attacks.
Bush began his day at New York's Fort Pitt firehouse, which lost one firefighter on Sept. 11. Later he planned to attend ceremonies in Shanksville and at the Pentagon before addressing the nation from the Oval Office on Monday night.
"There's still an enemy out there that would like to inflict the same kind of damage again," Bush said on Sunday after visiting Ground Zero. He said the anniversary was "also a day of renewing resolve."
The hijacked airplane attacks transformed Bush into a self-described war president and he initially received high marks from Americans by attacking al- Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But the warm glow cooled as American casualties mounted in the Iraq war and the hunt for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden foundered.
Facing the prospect that Democrats could wrest control of Congress from his fellow Republicans in November elections, Bush has been pushing his national security credentials as he did successfully during his 2004 re-election campaign.
While the White House insisted the anniversary ceremonies and Oval Office speech were not about politics, images of the commander-in-chief in solemn remembrance were a welcome respite for Bush from the drumbeat of criticism about the Iraq war.

TITLE: World Expresses Mixed Feelings 5 Years On
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — The nations of the world joined Monday in solemn remembrance of Sept. 11 — but for many, resentment of the United States flowed as readily as tears.Critics say Americans have squandered the goodwill that prompted France's Le Monde newspaper to proclaim "We are all Americans" that somber day after the attacks, and that the Iraq war and other U.S. policies have made the world less safe in the five years since.
Heads bowed in moments of silence in tribute to the 3,000 killed in the attacks on New York and Washington — while a top al-Qaida leader issued new warnings in a videotape that appeared to be fresh. And dissident voices brushed the portrait of a planet that has traded in civil liberties and other democratic rights in its war on terror.
Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel — an advocate of closer ties with Washington — had veiled criticism of the United States, saying: "The ends cannot justify the means."
"In the fight against international terror ... respect for human rights, tolerance and respect for other cultures must be the maxim of our actions, along with decisiveness and international cooperation," she said.
The international landscape has changed irreversibly since terrorists hijacked four airliners in 2001, crashing two into New York's World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and another into a Pennsylvania field.
Allies in the U.S.-led war on terrorism that the attacks unleashed renewed their resolve Monday to fight fanaticism, while militants blasted Washington's response as ineffective and pledged continued resistance.
New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark joined many when she said: "No, we're not more secure since 9/11."
Clark said more should be done to reach out to moderate states and leaders in the Islamic world to encourage understanding between different peoples, and to help end the sense of alienation and exclusion among some young Muslims that fuels extremism.
In Europe, whose own soil has been struck three times since Sept. 11 by terrorist attacks, commemorations touched each nation.
Bells tolled in Rome's city hall square. In London, bouquets of white roses and yellow carnations were piled in a memorial garden where the names of 67 Britons killed in the New York attacks are inscribed — and where a steel girder from the World Trade Center is buried.
At a 38-nation Asia-Europe summit in Helsinki, Finland, leaders stood in silence. The stock exchanges in Nordic and Baltic countries were observing two minutes of silence to honor the victims of the world's worst terror attacks.
"9/11 will be in our memory forever," said Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni during a ceremony in the a downtown piazza designed by Michelangelo. "We all remember where we were, what we were doing, what our first reaction was.
France's President Jacques Chirac, in Helsinki, reiterated in a written message to President Bush of his nation's "friendship" in the fight against terrorism.
A week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Chirac flew over the World Trade Center site — the first foreign leader to pay personal condolences. That solidarity quickly dissipated into rancor in the buildup to the Iraq war, when Chirac led opposition to Bush's plans.
Israel's Haaretz daily expressed disappointment and cynicism in an op-ed piece that said: "This is Sept. 11 five years later: a political tool in the hands of the Bush administration."
In Southeast Asia, U.S. and Philippine troops fighting Islamic extremists prayed for peace, as other remembrances took place in Japan, Australia, Finland, South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who won the country's first post-Taliban election in 2004, expressed the appreciation of the Afghan people to the U.S. for the "sacrifices of your sons and daughters" in rebuilding his country. But on the streets of Kabul, many Afghans said that they had not seen much improvement.

TITLE: Federer, Sharapova Win U.S. Open Titles
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — Dominant and inspirational in equal measure, Swiss maestro Roger Federer snapped up another three Grand Slam titles in a glittering 2006.They were the seventh, eighth and ninth Grand Slam crowns for the 25-year-old, yet vanquished rival Andy Roddick fears the best is yet to come.
"I think he's improving which is scary," said Roddick, who battled gamely but lost to Federer 6-2 4-6 7-5 6-1 in Sunday's U.S. Open final.
Federer's victory over 2003 Open champion Roddick was accomplished without the world number one playing his best tennis for several stretches during the match.
The Swiss hit 69 winners and made only 19 unforced errors but his standards are so high many felt he was not at his best.
His dominance this year, in which the French Open was the only slam to elude him once again, keeps the question lingering about whether he can win the Grand Slam — Wimbledon plus the Australian, French and U.S. Opens — in one year.
It is one of the toughest tasks in sport, a feat no man has accomplished since Rod Laver achieved it in 1969.
Federer believes he can do it provided he can tame the slow, red clay of Roland Garros. He reached the French Open final this year but lost to rival Rafael Nadal.
"This time around, I really believe I can win," Federer said after his Open triumph. "Whereas before, I thought it's too tough, too long, too hard and everything. I doubted myself from the early rounds on.
"But now, being so dominant in all the other slams, I know I can win the French, you know? Nadal here or not, I know I could beat him, too, because I was so close."
After reaching the final at Wimbledon, it was expected that claycourt strongman Nadal would challenge Federer at every turn.
His quarter-final loss at the Open to Russian Davis Cup player Mikhail Yuzhny left the clear impression he is not yet ready to challenge Federer's dominance, however.SHARAPOVA WINS
While Federer stamped his authority more indelibly on the men's game, Maria Sharapova's victory at the Open was a different milestone altogether, more of a coming of age for the 19-year-old Russian, a signal that she is ready to challenge for Grand Slam supremacy.Her 6-4 6-4 victory over second-ranked Justine Henin-Hardenne on Saturday was a confidence builder, a sign that she is ready to back up her 2004 Wimbledon title.
The Russian knocked off world No. 1 Amelie Mauresmo to reach her first Open final.
"I'm thrilled that I got to experience another Grand Slam win and that it's a different Grand Slam, and the vibe is a little bit different," said Sharapova. "There's definitely nothing like winning your first major.
"But to win your second is kind of like the cherry on the cake. But there are a lot more cherries that I'm going to put on that cake, so I'm looking forward to having them."
Sharapova got more than a little testy with reporters when questioned about an apparent illegal signal she received during the final.
Television cameras showed Sharapova's hitting partner Michael Joyce holding up four fingers during the match.
In response, Sharapova returned what appeared to be a similar four-finger signal.
Sharapova said after the match that she wanted to have a "positive interview" with reporters and refused to answer what the signal meant.
The Russian had also been questioned over the past few days about receiving courtside advice from her father Yury.
Between games, when he drank water, Sharapova drank water, and when he ate a banana, she ate a banana.
"Honestly, I believe at the end of the day, personally, my life is not about a banana; it's not about what I wear; it's not about the friends that I have," she said.
"My career right now is about winning a tennis match. And right now I'm sitting here as a U.S. Open champion, and the last thing I think people need to worry about is a banana."MARTINA RETIRES
Martina Navratilova put a crowning gloss on her magnificent career by teaming up with Bob Bryan to win the U.S. Open mixed doubles final on Saturday.Navratilova, in her last tournament, and fellow American Bryan beat Czechs Kveta Peschke and Martin Damm 6-2 6-3.
It was a fitting way for Navratilova, who turns 50 next month, to hang up her racquet, her 59th Grand Slam title adding to a remarkable record that began when she turned professional in 1975.
She rose to the top of the women's game with serve-and-volley brilliance, accumulating 167 singles and 177 women's doubles titles. She was world number one for a total of 331 weeks.
Her Grand Slam haul includes 18 singles crowns, 31 women's doubles and 10 mixed doubles titles.
"It's entirely fitting, Martina that your last match would be winning another Grand Slam title," said U.S. Tennis Association president Franklin Johnson in presenting Navratilova and Bryan with their trophy and a $150,000 check.
"I have so many memories," Navratilova, who won the first of her four U.S. Open singles titles in 1983, said to a large Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd that stayed on after Maria Sharapova's singles triumph over Justine Henin-Hardenne.
"Thank you for a great ride," she said, echoing remarks made by Andre Agassi after his last career match earlier in the tournament.
"Like Andre said I'll take this memory with me for the rest of my life."
Bryan, who ended the match with an ace, said: "I congratulate you on the best tennis career of all time."
The Czech-born Navratilova, who became a U.S. citizen in 1981, raised the level of the women's game after transforming herself from a podgy teen-ager to a supremely fit athlete who dominated the women's game.
Navratilova also had an impact off the court as WTA Tour players president for six years and as an openly gay athlete.
Navratilova has retired once before, in 1994, only to return in 2000.
This time, though, she says it is for real.
"This was the last match. No more. No more," she said.
Damm, who earlier on Saturday had teamed up with India's Leander Paes to win the men's doubles final, said he was thrilled to participate in the special occasion.
"I would like to congratulate Martina," Damm said. "It's been an unbelievable career.
"Obviously she has a lot of fans in the Czech Republic, where she was originally from, and I wish her the best in the after-life — the tennis after-life."

TITLE: In New Video, Al-Qaida Targets Israel, Gulf States
AUTHOR: By Lee Keath,
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CAIRO, Egypt — Osama bin Laden's deputy warned that Persian Gulf countries and Israel would be al-Qaida's next targets, according to a new videotape aired by Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Monday, the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.Ayman al-Zawahri also accused the governments of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia of supporting Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Addressing the West, the al-Qaida No. 2 said, "You should not waste your time in reinforcing your troops in Iraq and Afghanistan because their fate is doomed ... Instead, you have to reinforce your troops in two regions. First is the Gulf, where you would be thrown out ... and second is Israel."
He also condemned the UN peacekeeping force now deploying in Lebanon under terms set out in a cease-fire resolution.
"What is so terrible in this resolution ... is that it approves the existence of the Jewish state and isolates our mujahedeen in Palestine from Muslims in Lebanon," he said in excerpts of the video aired on Al-Jazeera television.
"This is consecrated by the presence of international troops who are hostile to Islam," he said. "Anyone who accepts this resolution means that he accepts all these catastrophes."
In other portions of the tape aired by CNN earlier Monday, al-Zawahri urged Muslims to intensify their resistance against the United States and warned in general terms of new terror strikes.
The video was not on any of the militant web sites that usually carry messages and videos from al-Zawahri and other al-Qaida figures. As-Sahab, the terror network's media arm, had posted notices late Sunday that the video would be available.
It was the latest in a flurry of al-Qaida videos released ahead of the anniversary. But unlike the others, it appeared to be new with references to Israel's bombardment of Lebanon this summer and the capture of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
"You gave us every legitimacy and every opportunity to continue fighting you," said al-Zawahri, addressing the United States. "You should worry about your presence in the Gulf, and the second place you should worry about is Israel."
The video shows the Egyptian-born al-Zawahri dressed in white and seated in front of a wall of bookshelves.
"Your leaders are hiding from you the true extent of the disaster," he said. "And the days are pregnant and giving birth to new events, with Allah's permission and guidance."
Al-Zawahri criticized the West for supplying Israel with weapons, and he called on the Islamic world "to rush with everything at its disposal to the aid of its Muslim brothers in Lebanon and Gaza."
Late Sunday, another video posted on the Internet, purportedly by al-Qaida, showed previously unseen footage of a smiling bin Laden and other commanders in a mountain camp apparently planning the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
That tape's documentary-like retrospective of the five years since the attacks was unusually long — 91 minutes, split into two segments — and sophisticated in its production quality, compared with previous al-Qaida videos. The footage — with English subtitles — surfaced on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the attacks, on a web site that frequently airs messages from bin Laden's terror network.
"Planning for Sept. 11 did not take place behind computer monitors or radar screens, nor inside military command and control centers, but was surrounded with divine protection in an atmosphere brimming with brotherliness ... and love for sacrificing life," an unidentified narrator said.
The video released Sunday, stamped with the emblem of As-Sahab, al-Qaida's media branch, was titled "Knowledge is For Acting Upon" and subtitled "The Manhattan Raid."
It included the last testament of two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Wail al-Shehri and Hamza al-Ghamdi, and showed bin Laden strolling in the camp, greeting followers.