SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1215 (81), Tuesday, October 24, 2006
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TITLE: President Defends His Stance Over Georgia
AUTHOR: Combined Reports
TEXT: LAHTI, Finland — President Vladimir Putin on Friday defended his government's tough stance on Georgia and dodged EU leaders' demands that he commit to a legally binding energy charter that would guarantee better access to Russia's oil and gas fields.The 25 European Union leaders, meeting with Putin over dinner following a one-day summit on energy, also grilled the president over the recent killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an apparent execution-style slaying that EU leaders raised as an example of slipping human rights in Russia.
Putin called her death "a brutal murder" and pledged to hunt down her killers, diplomats said.
Putin sidestepped European appeals for moderation on Georgia, however, and said he was acting to prevent conflict between Georgia and the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have close ties to Russia.
"To our great sorrow and concern, the situation is developing in the direction of possible bloodshed," Putin told reporters.
He accused Georgia of trying to take back the two regions "by military means. This is what you and I should be afraid of ... bloodshed in that region."
Georgia's foreign minister accused Putin of deliberately misrepresenting the tensions between Georgia and Russia, and insulting the intelligence of his European colleagues.
"The government of Georgia and the people of Georgia have no intention to use force against its citizens as repeatedly stated," Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told reporters in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
"This is pure fiction and the Russian president knows this, but chooses to presume that the international community is ignorant," he said.
The summit's host, Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, confronted Putin on human rights and democracy in Russia, as well as on EU concerns about Moscow's protracted military campaign in Chechnya, officials and diplomats said.
"It was a tough message," Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said. But Putin "was very forceful" in defending his administration's Chechen policy.
EU leaders spent Friday in the lakeside town of Lahti, north of Helsinki, forging a united front on energy before meeting with Putin.
The leaders of the European Union, which already depends on Russia for one-quarter of its energy, urged Putin to implement a legally binding energy charter that would ensure supplies of Russian oil and gas for Europe.
The EU is anxious to secure future supplies of oil and gas from Russia, but concerned about Moscow's reliability as a source at a time of questions about backsliding on democracy in increasingly authoritarian Russia.
Last winter, a dispute with Ukraine led Moscow to turn off the taps temporarily, disrupting natural gas supplies for several EU nations.
"From the economic point of view, we demand that Russia be a stable and reliable supplier," Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said.
The 25 EU leaders succeeded in coming up with a common stance on how to approach Russia on energy, but Putin disagreed with their views, Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said.
"The European Union was speaking in one voice — one single voice — and of course, Russia wasn't speaking in the same voice," he said with a laugh.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged Moscow to implement the international energy charter that would give independent producers access to Russia's closely guarded export pipelines and set more transparent rules as well as provide safeguards for investors.
Putin, however, refused to commit to the charter.
"The leaders of Russia and the EU have once again confirmed that energy cooperation should be based on ... the mutual responsibility of producers and consumers of energy resources, and on the security of vital energy infrastructure," Putin said at a news conference following the talks.
But "we believe that certain provisions of the charter should be defined better," Putin said.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Friday's talks with Putin were just the start of a wider discussion on EU's partnership with Moscow. The two sides meet again Nov. 24 for an EU-Russia summit.
"We are not through discussing energy yet," he said. "You scratch your head if you see how business is conducted there."
(AP, Reuters)

TITLE: Iran, Press Top Rice's Agenda
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday delivered a symbolic rebuke to Russia over shrinking press freedoms even as she courted President Vladimir Putin for help in punishing Iran for its nuclear program.Rice also discussed sanctions on North Korea following its nuclear test and urged both Russia and Georgia to reduce the tension between their countries.
Rice made a point of scheduling an interview with Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper where Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter critical of the Kremlin's policy in Chechnya, had worked before she was killed this month. Rice also met with Politkovskaya's son.
A senior U.S. State Department official discounted suggestions that the Russian government might perceive Rice's meeting with the newspaper editors as criticism of Kremlin policies.
"We planned this not as a poke in the eye but an absolutely necessary and human step," said the official, who described the meeting as very emotional for Rice.
Her one-day trip to Moscow followed talks in Asia last week over North Korea's nuclear test on Oct. 9. Russia voted for UN penalties against North Korea after the test, and the United States is seeking Russian cooperation for an upcoming vote on sanctions against Iran.
Yet even before Rice arrived in Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would not allow the Security Council to be used for punitive measures against Iran.
Russia, however, was ready to discuss ways to pressure Iran into accepting broader international oversight of its nuclear program, Lavrov said.
"Any measures of influence should encourage creating conditions for talks," Lavrov said in an interview with the Kuwaiti News Agency KUNA that was posted on the Foreign Ministry web site on Saturday.
"We won't be able to support and will oppose any attempts to use the Security Council to punish Iran or to use Iran's program in order to promote the idea of regime change there," Lavrov said.
A draft resolution is expected to be introduced in the Security Council early this week, and diplomats have said they would seek limited penalties for Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.
Rice's decision to meet with Novaya Gazeta editors and reporters was a reminder to Putin of the widening rift between Russia and the United States over what the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush sees as a rollback of democratic gains under Putin. Rice met privately with Putin later Saturday.
Previewing her message to the newspaper editors, Rice told reporters traveling with her that she wanted to speak to one of a shrinking number of "independent voices" in the national media.
"The fate of journalists in Russia is a major concern," Rice said. "Anna Politkovskaya was a particularly well-known and well-respected journalist, so I think it's important to note that."
Politkovskaya had repeatedly accused Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov's security forces of abducting, torturing and killing innocent people. Her newspaper posthumously published her last story, which described cases of torture by the Kremlin-backed Chechen security services.
Since Putin's election more than six years ago, he has presided over what critics have called a steady curtailment of press freedoms won since the Soviet Union's collapse. Top independent television stations have been shut down and print media are under growing pressure from officials.
Rice and her staff also sought details about a law that requires foreign nongovernmental organizations to re-register. "In some cases it is being implemented in ways that is making it difficult for NGOs to operate and so I think we have to go over that," Rice said.
Senior State Department official Dan Fried met with federal human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin to discuss the NGO law and said there had been progress.
Nearly 80 NGOs suspended work last week after failing to meet an Oct. 18 deadline set by the law, which was adopted earlier this year and provoked widespread criticism in the West. On Friday, the U.S. State Department called on Russia to enforce the new NGO law in a way that facilitates the work of these organizations, not hinders it.
Rice also brought up Russia's conflict with Georgia and urged both sides to tone down their rhetoric. "I think we have been clear with both sides that cooler heads need to prevail here," Rice said.
"We are asking the Georgians and the Russians to do everything they can to de-escalate the tensions."
Reporters Without Borders, a leading media rights group, urged French authorities Friday to strip President Vladimir Putin of one of France's highest awards, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.
The organization, which classifies Putin as one of the world's press freedom "predators," expressed shock and anger when he received the honor during a visit to France last month.
"It is outrageous to say that Putin has rendered service to causes that France defends," it said. "It beggars belief that Putin has been given one of the greatest honors France can bestow on a person."
(AP, Reuters)

TITLE: Second Drugs Expert Dies Within a Week
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Within days of the funeral of Vyacheslav Revzin, St. Petersburg's chief children's narcologist, another high-ranking local drugs expert was found dead.Ivan Shvets, head of Narcology District Clinic No.2, was discovered by the police on Saturday after allegedly hanging himself.
Officers from the Pushkin district police discovered a brief death note next to the body, which read "Life did not work out." The police press office on Monday did not give details but said the scene indicated that Shvets had committed suicide.
Vyacheslav Revzin died on Oct. 16 in Alexandrovskaya hospital after three days in a coma after being attacked by an unidentified group.
Aza Rakhmanova, St. Petersburg's chief epidemiologist and a leading expert on HIV/AIDS, said Revzin and his team had been instrumental in creating an efficient and coherent policy for the combating of drug abuse.
The two deaths have not been officially linked by the police, but they follow a recent court case closely linked to the field of narcology in the region.
Sergei Tikhomirov, formerly chief narcologist of the Northwest region, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in early October for orchestrating the murder of his deputy, Larisa Artyukhovskaya, who was killed by an explosion in her apartment building in August 2004.
The court also found that Tikhomirov had planted explosives in his apartment and imitated an assassination attempt on himself in an effort to mislead the investigation into the death of his deputy. Revzin was a witness in the Artyukhovskaya murder case.
The attack on Revzin was not the only case of violence directed against local substance-abuse specialists over the past five years.
In February, 2003, Tikhomirov's predecessor in the job, Leonid Shpilenya, then chief narcologist of the Northwestern region, was attacked by a group of youngsters armed with metal sticks, and taken to a hospital with heavy bruising. Within months, another two attacks followed, including an explosion on the doctor's staircase. Shpilenya resigned from his post in June 2003.
In 2001, an unidentified individual threw sulphuric acid at Natalya Kulikova, then chief doctor at the St. Petersburg Narcological Clinic. The narcologist survived the attack, despite severe burns.
Statistics on the number of drug addicts in Russia vary significantly.
While there are just under 400,000 registered intravenous drug users in Russia, independent experts suggest the real number may be ten times higher.

TITLE: Top Personnel Quit Channel STO
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: St. Petersburg's television channel STO is likely to change its policy following the resignation on Friday of the channel's head, Viktoria Korkhina, its general producer, Andrei Maksimkov, and its financial director, Ilya Krylov.The management of Baltiyskaya Media Gruppa, which owns STO, "was satisfied with the management's application to resign" on Friday, according to the channel's press service.
Korkhina, now STO's former general director, said the channel is ready to develop in new directions, but believes her work for the channel is done.
"We consider our work to be accomplished. We created a major project literally from scratch. Now it is ready for a new push forward. But this will happen without us," she was quoted by the St. Petersburg-based Fontanka news portal as saying.
Earlier this year the channel changed its owner and analysts believe the resignations are a result of that change in ownership.
In May, Oleg Rudnov, the owner of the Volna company acquired 76.24 percent of the channel's shares from TV-Kupol, which has the broadcasting license for the channel's frequency, Fontanka reported.
"Rudnov didn't force us to change the concept of the channel, but accepted our resignation at once," Korkhina told Fontanka on Friday.
The changes in the channel's concept and its policies are inevitable, experts say.
Mikhail Podushko, the strategic development director of the St. Petersburg-based market research company Comcon — WorkLine Group said the channel has the potential to become a fully-fledged city channel by seizing the niche that was vacated when St. Petersburg's Channel 5 went national at the beginning of October.
"When Channel 5 became national, the city effectively lost its only channel, as it had been positioned as being regional for years," Podushko said.
According to Podushko, Petersburgers have already noticed the change in the channel's coverage — Petersburg news on Channel 5 now competes with reports from around the country, no longer being the channel's priority.
Previously, STO ranked second among the city's local channels, unable to challenge Channel 5. Now, Podushko said, "the field could be occupied by STO without any struggle."
Kirill Nikolayev, head of Nikolaev e:Consulting, said the changes at the channel will be dependant on who is appointed to head the channel.
"A new broom sweeps clean: the changes [at the channel] could go in any direction, but it all depends on who will head the channel," he told St. Petersburg Times on Monday.
Nikolayev believes that the logical step for STO would be to invite Viktor Mashendzhinov, who left STS TV channel last week, to head STO, but said "this is probably not going to happen."
The channel's administration was unavailable to unveil the new management team Monday, but said that a new management team is already in place.
"Nobody is available to comment, as the people authorized to pass on information to the media are in a meeting with the new management," a spokesperson for STO channel told the St. Petersburg Times on Monday.
Lenizdat.ru, a web resource for media professionals, however, reported that one of the NTV Channel's longest serving employees, Andrey Radin, agreed on Monday to become STO's deputy director for news broadcasting.
"The existing STO channel will be transformed into a regional television station, with new programming. I consider the job to be interesting, that's why I agreed to the offer," Radin said.

TITLE: Extremists Attack Gallery Deemed To Be Anti-Putin
AUTHOR: By Maria Levitov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Ultranationalists donning heavy boots and knit caps stormed one of the city's best known art galleries Saturday, beating owner Marat Gelman and destroying paintings by the Georgian-born artist Alexander Dzhikia.The attack on the Guelman Gallery, on Ulitsa Malaya Polyanka, took place around noon.
As the 10 suspects flooded the gallery, they ordered two female workers against a wall before tearing down the artwork, smashing computers and pounding Gelman.
"It was monstrous," Gelman said shortly after being released from hospital where he was treated for scrapes and bruises.
The attack came one day after artworks — including one showing a scantily clad President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President George Bush and Osama Bin Laden frolicking in bed — were removed from a plane at Sheremetyevo Airport. The artworks were en route from the Guelman Gallery to an exhibition in London.
A criminal investigation into Saturday's attack has been launched by prosecutors, RIA-Novosti reported. The Prosecutor General's Office could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Ultranationalists and other far-right extremists see the Guelman Gallery as "a hotbed of cosmopolitanism and anti-Russian values," said Vladimir Pribylovsky, president of the Panorama think tank.
Pribylovsky suggested there might be a link between the gallery's irreverent treatment of Putin's image and Saturday's attack. "Gelman is an artistic person," he said. "He chooses on his own which master to serve."
Gelman made a name for himself in late 1990, when he opened the Guelman Gallery, which quickly earned a reputation for housing some of the country's most avant-garde art.
In the mid-1990s, Gelman delved into politics, serving as a consultant to the Kremlin.
In 1995, he founded, with Kremlin-connected analyst Gleb Pavlovsky, the state-friendly Foundation for Effective Politics think tank.
Gelman's ties with the Kremlin extended beyond the era of President Boris Yeltsin.
In 2003, he was one of the masterminds behind the creation of the nationalist Rodina party, which Kremlin officials hoped would channel votes away from the Communist Party in the parliamentary elections.
And in 2004, he served as a political consultant to Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin's candidate in the Ukrainian presidential election.
But more recently, Gelman appeared to have had a falling out with the Kremlin, Pribylovsky noted.
He put on the controversial "Russia-2" exhibit last year at the same time that the state-sponsored Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art was being held. One major difference between the two exhibits, Gelman said, was "Russia-2" made room for art that addressed themes banned from the other show such as Putin, Chechnya and the Orthodox Church.
Ultranationalist and religious groups have accused the exhibit of inciting religious and ethnic hatred.
And in June, Gelman invited Eduard Limonov, head of the anti-Kremlin National Bolshevik Party, to read from his new book, "Limonov Against Putin," at the Guelman Gallery.
On Sunday, Gelman dismissed the suggestion that there might be a tie between Saturday's attack and the Friday detention of the artworks at Sheremetyevo-2 airport heading from his gallery.
Matthew Bown of the Matthew Bown Gallery in London was transporting the 11 pieces of art from the Guelman Gallery for a London show when he was ordered off his plane and questioned by police at the airport, the gallery said in a statement posted on its web site.
Officials confiscated the artwork, telling Bown he had been detained because several of the pieces "contain representations of heads of state," the gallery statement said.
Russian officials were also concerned about an image of a suicide bomber sporting racy lingerie in a photomontage titled "The Girl Has a Date," the gallery statement said.
Amendments to the law on extremism, approved by Putin in July, define as extremist slander of a government official and public justification of terrorism.
Bown flew out of Moscow late Friday without the artwork, Gelman said.
A spokeswoman for Sheremetyevo said that she was unaware of the incident.

TITLE: Russian Film is No. 1 in Rome
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ROME — A Russian film based on Shakespeare's "Hamlet" won top prize at Rome's first international film festival on Saturday."Playing the Victim" by Kirill Serebrennikov, a critically acclaimed theater director, was named best film among the 16 movies in the competition. They were mostly art-house titles by new directors.
Serebrennikov's film is a family drama centered on a young student who uncovers the mystery surrounding his father's death.
The jury also gave a special prize to "This is England," British director Shane Meadows' story of a 12-year-old boy befriending a group of skinheads in the early 1980s.
In different ways, both films explore the confusion and disillusionment of younger generations. They were chosen by a 50-member jury made up of ordinary moviegoers and supervised by Italian director Ettore Scola.
"Neither of these two very beautiful films is commercial, but I hope both will reach the big audiences," Scola said.
Serebrennikov said his film, adapted from a play by the Presnyakov brothers, was a film "for Russia and for Russians." "We still believe that cinema can change people's way of thinking and their consciences," he said. "I think my film is an artistic portrayal of what is passing through the minds of people in Russia today: terror, hope, insecurity."
Italy's Giorgio Colangeli was named best male actor for his role as a convicted murderer in "L'aria salata," while the best actress award went to France's Ariane Ascaride, for her interpretation in "Armenia" by director Robert Guediguian.

TITLE: Royal Bear-Killing Saga Still Running
AUTHOR: By Ciaran Giles
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MADRID — The Spanish royal palace insisted Friday that reports King Juan Carlos killed a drunken bear during a hunting trip in Russia were ridiculous. But it seemed to edge away from an initial flat-out denial that the monarch had killed a bear at all."We have no comment to make because this story is totally ridiculous and the source is sensationalist," said a palace spokesman whose name could not be used due to palace rules.
He added that the palace would neither confirm nor deny that the king had been hunting during a trip to Russia in August or whether he had shot a bear.
On Thursday, the palace denied that the king, a known hunting enthusiast, had killed a bear — drunk or sober.
"I don't know if he was hunting or not," said the spokesman Friday. "It was a private visit on the invitation of President [Vladimir] Putin."
A Russian wildlife official insisted Friday that the king had in fact been hunting.
Vologda Governor Vyacheslav Pozgalyov opened an inquiry Thursday after he was said to have received a letter from the region's deputy hunting chief, Sergei Starostin, claiming that a bear named Mitrofan had been fed honey mixed with vodka before being released near the site where the king was to be hunting.
Starostin wrote in the letter that the local authorities turned the king's hunting into a "disgusting fraud."
On Friday, Starostin chafed at the initial Spanish royal palace denials that the king had killed any bear in Russia, saying "it's impossible to turn black into white."
"I and my subordinates had organized that hunting," he said. "Our bosses had told us to do that, and we had to obey."
Starostin said regional officials previously had ordered him to stage hunting outings involving tame wolves for some Russian visitors.
"We didn't like doing that with the wolves, but it was even worse with the bear. The bear was very good-natured, it had lived alongside people for three years. To take him out and shoot him was a plain murder."
Yevgenia Toloknova, spokeswoman for Pozgalyov, said Friday that the official commission created to investigate the reports had not yet reached any conclusions.
"It will take some time to study the issue and reach conclusions," she said, adding that no specific time limit had been set for the commission to present its findings.

TITLE: Questions For Putin Pour In
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — More than 300,000 questions for President Vladimir Putin were submitted within the first 24 hours of phone lines opening for his annual televised question-and-answer marathon, organizers said Sunday.The organizers' web site, President-line.ru, said a total of 305,735 queries had been submitted by 10 a.m. Sunday, with three days to go before Wednesday's televised session.
The most popular subjects to date included student funding, the minimum wage, economic reform, relations with Russia's neighbors and soaring housing costs, the web site said.
The call-in show will be Putin's fifth. In previous years, he has answered almost 60 questions in a three-hour program, a format he claims to enjoy. In a touch of populism, he usually makes at least one questioner's wish come true.
Last year, after a pensioner told the president she had to lug water home in buckets, the local government sent in plumbers and budgeted 80 million rubles ($3 million) to fix the problem.

TITLE: Saakashvili Will Not Fight Breakaway Regions
AUTHOR: By Mara D. Bellaby
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TBILISI, Georgia — Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Saturday ruled out the use of force to establish central government control over two separatist regions and said Tbilisi remained open to dialogue with Moscow to reduce tension between the two countries."We certainly, absolutely, categorically are not starting any military confrontation," Saakashvili said, rebutting President Vladimir Putin's statement at a meeting with EU leaders on Friday that Georgia was planning to take back South Ossetia and Abkhazia by military means.
"Georgia's long term strategy is simple," Saakashvili said. "No fast solutions ... any short-term solution would be beneficial to the people who want trouble."
Abkhazia and South Ossetia receive strong Russian backing, and Moscow has given passports to many residents in both regions. Fears are strong that the escalating tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi could trigger an outbreak of violence that would draw in the entire volatile Caucasus region.
Russia and Georgia have had a history of friction since they went their separate ways with the collapse of the Soviet Union 15 years ago. That tension increased after Saakashvili came to power in 2004, pledging to bring separatist regions back into the fold, bolster ties with the West and lead his nation to join NATO in 2008.
Georgia's temporary detention of four Russian military officers last month led Moscow to impose a transport and postal blockade against this nation of 4.5 million. Russia had already banned Georgian citrus, wine and mineral water — some of the country's most important exports.
Saakashvili sharply criticized Russia's tough actions, particularly the deportation of an estimated 800 ethnic Georgians living in Russia and the harassment of Georgian-owned businesses.
"This is much larger than Russia's relation with its small neighbor," Saakashvili said, calling for dialogue to resume. "What is developing is very, very dangerous and not showing any signs of stopping."
"Any dialogue is better than this kind of exchange of remarks," he said.
Saakashvili compared the tension to a conflict over values, and linked it to Georgia's development as an independent state that is seeking its own role out from under Moscow's shadow.
"If you look at the point where our problems started to emerge, it is around the time where we started to grow as an economy, when we started to solve social problems," Saakashvili said, insisting that Moscow always reacted negatively "around the time we started to move in the right direction and to work."
Earlier Saturday, Georgia's Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili urged Europe not to remain silent as tension mounts.
"We need your voice, the collective unified voice of Europe," Bezhuashvili said. "Don't leave us alone. ... It is a clash between European values and practices and those that are practiced in Russia today."
Separatist leaders of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, however, have reaffirmed that their regions would never agree to submit to control from Tbilisi.
"That train has left the station," South Ossetia's separatist leader, Eduard Kokoity, said earlier this week.
Abkhazia's separatist President Sergei Bagapsh said a delegation of the provincial parliament would travel to Moscow next week to ask it to recognize the region's independence.
"Abkhazia will never be able to live together with Georgia within the same legal area, within one state," Bagapsh was quoted as saying Saturday by Interfax.
Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the regions broke away from Tbilisi's control during bloody wars in the early 1990s. The two run their own affairs without international recognition.
Georgia has accused Russian troops of backing separatists and called for the international community to play a larger role in resolving both conflicts.
Saakashvili said he was hopeful that long-term economic development, backed by international support, would help restore Georgia's territorial integrity.
"The solution won't come overnight," he said. "We are working hard, we need to develop our economy. Then there will be less and less incentives for any separatist moves, provided foreign meddling goes away."
Late Thursday, Saakashvili proposed that the country's next presidential election be held in 2008, instead of a year later as scheduled, to coincide with the parliamentary election.
The United States will not support Georgian military action to end the conflict in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a top U.S. diplomat said in Brussels on Friday.
One day after traveling to Tbilisi to meet with Georgian government officials and opposition leaders, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said the United States was adamantly opposed to a military option on the part of the Georgian government to resolve growing tensions with the separatist provinces.

TITLE: Spokesman Claims Comment By Putin on Rape Charges Was Joke
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin's comment about rape charges filed against the Israeli president was a joke, the meaning of which had been lost in translation, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.Putin's comments Wednesday about Israeli President Moshev Katsav, suspected of raping female subordinates, came during a Moscow visit with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"Greetings to your president," Putin told Olmert, Kommersant reported. "I would never have expected this from him. He surprised us all. We all envy him."
Peskov did not dispute the quote as reported in the newspaper.
"It was just a joke that was said at the start of the meeting," Peskov said.
He said the words have a different meaning in Russian than English but declined to specify what other meanings those might be. Peskov added: "The president condemns rape or sexual abuse."
Asked if the president would apologize for his remarks, Peskov said, "We don't think of this as a kind of insult." Putin's comments, he said, were not meant to be heard by anyone else and were not part of the formal talks between Putin and Olmert.
Putin often tries to establish a rapport with leaders by joking about current affairs, but the jokes often seem to be a vehicle for exposing their weak points.
At a July news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in St. Petersburg, Putin parried a question about democratic backsliding in his country by referring to a scandal implicating the British leadership.
Nor was it the first time Putin has surprised an audience with an off-color remark. He once called for "wiping out Chechen rebels in the outhouse." And he told a French journalist at a news conference who had asked a question about Chechen human-rights abuses to come to Russia for a circumcision.
"I would recommend that whoever performs the surgery does it so you'll have nothing that grows back afterward," Putin said.
(SPT, AP)

TITLE: Legal Experts Criticise Changes to Civil Code
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The State Duma has approved the first reading of part IV of the Civil Code, consolidating the norms of intellectual property protection previously regulated by special laws.From January 2008, the Civil Code will come into force, abolishing all other laws on intellectual property. Experts have strongly objected to the move, saying it will result in a legal mess, contradictions and troubles protecting the rights of individuals and companies.
"In most countries intellectual property is regulated by special laws," Alexander Sergeyev, head of civil legislation department at St. Petersburg State University of Economy and Finance, said at a round table at Rosbalt news agency Monday.
"The legislation on intellectual property is changing very fast, while the Civil Code should be a stable legal act. Including the norms of intellectual property protection into the Civil Code will prevent their proper development," Sergeyev said.
He also warned that changing the legislature could prevent Russia from entering the WTO.
"Existing laws, despite all their weak points, have been analyzed by international experts and considered as corresponding to international standards. Changing the Civil Code just before entering the WTO is like waving a red flag before a bull," Sergeyev said. Not being specialists in intellectual property, the law's authors made a number of mistakes, with contradictions and dubious definitions, experts said.
Vadim Uskov, patent attorney and head of Uskov & Partners legal firm, described the new law as a "pre-production model."
As an example of an obvious mistake, Uskov said the Civil Code does not define what actions could be regarded as an "abuse of trademark." At the moment that definition is provided by the Law on Trademarks, which is to be abolished from 2008.
According to the new law, only Russian residents are allowed to appeal to the courts to protect their intellectual property, which contradicts even the Russian Constitution, Uskov said.
"Many paragraphs limit the rights of foreign authors and performers," he said.
Yelena Nikolayeva, chief specialist of the legal department at the Russian Authors' Society, said that the new law does not limit the number of organizations that will be able to represent collective authors' rights. All those organizations will be able to sell licenses.
"Pirates will not suffer from the new law, while law abiding companies will get into additional trouble," said Natalia Panicheva, commercial director of ShnurOK, a company representing the rights of Sergei Shnurov, singer for the group Leningrad.
Victor Naumov, a member of State Duma expert council on the legal regulation and the protection of intellectual property, entrepreneurship and tourism, said that the changes in the legislation are unreasonable and premature.
Even the existing legislature is not yet used on a regular basis, Naumov said. Last year the Arbitration Court investigated about one million cases, and only 999 cases were related to the protection of intellectual property.
"Unless the judges understand the new law in detail, they will not start working with it," Nikolayeva agreed.
As a potential source of risk Naumov indicated the paragraph on "work products."
"According to this law, employees get considerably more rights than they have in the current legislation," Naumov said.
He recalled the recently created technoparks and the development of a "knowledge economy." Employers will face higher risks if employees are able to contest their rights over the created products, Naumov said.

TITLE: Vneshtorgbank Makes Profitable Run to IPO
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: One of the latest companies to reregister itself in the city, the Vneshtorgbank Group, reported a 294.5 percent increase in net profits for the first-half of 2006. Core revenue increased by 96 percent and assets by 23 percent to $45.3 billion, the company said last week in a statement."Russian economic growth continued and there was further development of the Russian banking system and VTB Group. The acquisitions at the end of last year of one of Russia's top-10 ranked banks, Industry and Construction Bank and the European banks formerly owned by the CBR, alongside organic growth across key business lines, led VTB Group to continue its growth in business volumes and profits," the statement said.
Consolidated net profit for the first half of 2006 was $576 million, a record in the group's history. Core revenue increased to $1.753 billion.
Net interest income increased to $743 million, a rise of 75.2 percent. Net fee and commission income rose to $161 million, an increase of 103.8 percent.
"Customer transactions remained a key factor in business volume and core income growth, reflecting the group's strategy of orientating itself towards corporate, retail and investment banking," the VTB statement said.
Fee and commission income growth was supported by an increase of fee-earning transactions in VTB and VTB Retail Services (VTB24) outlets, as well as consolidation of Industry and Construction Bank, which has historically generated high commission income thanks to its strength in the Russian Northwest.
Net loans and advances to customers rose to $23.695 billion, up 18.9 percent, supported by a 45.6 percent growth in customer deposits that reached $18.593 billion.
The group's profit before taxation was $683 million as compared to $221 million in the first half of 2005. Operating income rose by 133.6 percent to $1.294 billion.
Denis Moukine, analyst at Brokercreditservice investment company, saw VTB Group's performance as positive and to a certain extent surprising.
"The structure of VTB income in the first half of the year has changed. A major part of operating income (43.1 percent) still comes from net interest. Net gains from securities are traditionally second most important (20.5 percent of operating income), including $119 million earned from sale of KamAZ shares," Moukine said.
The main surprise is the "unexpectedly high profit" gained from foreign exchange — $218 million, 16.8 percent of operating income, Moukine said.
The analyst indicated that the acquisition of the city-based Industry and Construction Bank significantly contributed to the increase in the group's fee and commission income.
"In terms of the present report, VTB managed to increase return on equity to 20.75 percent a year as compared to 12.8 percent last year and keeps diversifying its credit portfolio by increasing the share of retail business," Moukine said.
"The second half of the year could be even more profitable for the bank, which is especially important in terms of VTB's IPO, due to take place in the first half of 2007," he said.
At the end of 2005, VTB Group consolidated Industry and Construction Bank, Moscow Narodny Bank, BCEN-Eurobank, Ost-West Handelsbank and East-West United Bank.
This year it acquired 98 percent of Bank Mriya (Ukraine) with assets of $426 million for $67 million.

TITLE: No Official LUKoil Warning
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — LUKoil said Friday, a week after being threatened by a government agency with losing 19 licenses for environmental violations, that it had yet to receive any official warning.
"As of today, neither the company itself, nor its Komi subsidiary has had any official warnings as a result of Mitvol's trip," said Igor Zaikin, head of LUKoil's department for industrial safety and ecology on Friday.Oleg Mitvol, the outspoken deputy head of the Natural Resources Ministry's environmental regulator, visited LUKoil sites in the Arctic Komi republic earlier this month and threatened to revoke licenses to develop oilfields there. LUKoil is sure that the authorities will find no environmental breaches in its activities in Komi, Zaikin said. "We are proud of the results of our environmental safety works in this very region, and to say that something is wrong with it there — absolutely no," he said.
Apart from the threat to withdraw the Komi licenses, the Natural Resources Ministry last week asked the Federal Tax Service to provide information on 398 of 406 LUKoil licenses.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Nordea ProfitnSTOCKHOLM (Bloomberg) — Nordea, the biggest Nordic lender by market value, may see third-quarter profit rise after it booked a gain from selling a stake in a Russian bank and lending increased.Net income probably rose 40 percent to 789 million euros ($991 million), or 30 cents a share, from 563 million euros, or 21 cents, a year earlier, according to the average estimate of 25 analysts surveyed by SME Direkt.Quick BusinessnWASHINGTON (Bloomberg) — Starting a business in Australia takes 201 less days than it does in Haiti, according to the World Bank in Washington D.C.
It takes two days to start a business in Australia, while starting one in Haiti takes 203 days.
The time required to start a business in Afghanistan dropped 83 days in 2005 from the previous year, while the time required in El Salvador decreased by 75 days.
In Russia the time required fell from 36 in 2004 to 33 days in 2005.

TITLE: Probe Into Leak Of Secrets to TNK-BP
AUTHOR: By Catherine Belton
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Several government officials are being investigated on suspicion of handing over classified documents to TNK-BP, prosecutors said Friday."The disclosure of these materials could be used for purposes contrary to the strategic interests of the state in the energy sector and could have a negative impact on its prospects, the strengthening of its position on international markets and on the energy and economic security of the country," the Prosecutor General's Office said on its web site.
The officials handed over photocopies of the documents to a TNK-BP representative, it said.
A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office declined to identify the officials, saying to do so would harm the investigation. She declined to disclose any details of the criminal investigation.
The announcement surprised TNK-BP, which is already under pressure amid a state review of foreign energy interests and talk its Russian shareholders want to sell out to the state. "We have no information that any of our employees are involved in this incident," spokeswoman Marina Dracheva said. "The company always gets its data from the government and from government agencies according to the correct procedures.
"We do not break any laws."
Kommersant, citing government sources, reported Saturday that the case was likely connected to the firing in late August of Leonid Bondarenko, an adviser at the government administration's energy resources department. Bondarenko was fired after security service agents caught him handing over the draft of a state decree on energy investments to an unidentified employee of TNK-BP, Vedomosti reported last month.
Government spokesman Yevgeny Revenko could not be reached for comment Friday evening.
Vedomosti reported last fall that TNK-BP had seen some of its operations in western Siberia frozen by the Federal Security Service, or FSB, for purported violations of the law on state secrets. Even though the company denied the report, BP's foreign executives have been subject to FSB investigations into whether they had access to state secrets, including data on the nation's oil and gas reserves, which under the law is classified.
An industry insider said the latest investigation was contributing to growing unease at TNK-BP following recent state threats to revoke its license to develop the vast Kovykta gas field and the killing this month of the company's chief engineer at Kovykta.
"This could be part of the buildup in pressure," the insider said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. "This has to have been approved at the highest level."
Kommersant, without citing anyone, reported Saturday that the documents involved in the case related to the setting up of a gas exchange.
It noted that Friday's announcement followed an Oct. 18 complaint from two members of the State Duma's Security Committee that Western security services had supposedly created a special branch of "energy intelligence" to react to threats to energy security.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Roman SpanMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich flew to Iceland for talks with President Ragnar Grimmson on producing geothermal power in Russia's Far East, Interfax said.
Abramovich, governor of the Chukotka region across the Bering Strait from Alaska, also met with the leaders of Icelandic energy companies, including Reykjavik Energy, and visited the country's largest fish-processing plants and the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, Interfax reported Monday.
The Russian news service cited an unidentified district official as saying Aramovich was part of a delegation of Russian officials led by Kamil Ikhakov, President Vladimir Putin's special representative to the Far East Federal District.
Russia, the world's largest energy producer, has several active volcanic zones similar to those in Iceland, where nearly all homes are heated and powered by geothermal sources.Rosneft TalksnMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil company, is in talks with unidentified oil companies to buy stakes in refining operations in Europe Chief Executive Sergei Bogdanchikov told French daily newspaper La Tribune about the talks Monday, without giving details. Rosneft spokesman Nikolai Manvelov confirmed the Tribune report. He declined to comment further on the matter.
Rosneft is also planning to bid for refining facilities in Russia, including those of bankrupt Yukos Oil Co., Bogdanchikov told La Tribune. The company doesn't plan to increase its stakes in joint ventures on the island of Sakhalin, Bogdanchikov told La Tribune.Gazprom ContractnMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Gazprom, the world's biggest natural-gas producer, expects to soon sign an accord on supplying Gaz de France SA with the fuel through a pipeline the company is building across the floor of the Baltic Sea.
The company has already signed contracts covering about 14 billion cubic meters a year of deliveries through the so-called Nord Stream link, Sergei Balashov, Deputy Head of International Business at Gazprom, said Monday at a conference in Moscow. He declined to give a timetable for the Gaz de France accord.
The 1,200-kilometer (720-mile) Nord Stream pipeline will travel directly into Germany from Russia, passing under the Baltic Sea. It's planned to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of gas a year starting in 2013. France, Europe's fourth-largest gas consumer, last year used 45 billion cubic meters of the fuel.
About 29 percent of that amount came from Russia.Russian GrowthnMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia's economy expanded 6.6 percent in the first nine months, heading for an eighth-straight year of expansion, Interfax reported, citing Industry and Economy Minister German Gref.
Industrial output in January through September grew 4.2 percent from the same period last year, Gref told President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin Monday, according to Interfax. The news service didn't give figures for the third quarter.
Gross domestic product advanced 7.4 percent in the second quarter after a 5.5 percent increase in the first three months of the year.Exxon AccordnMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Sakhalin-1 project in Russia's Far East signed a preliminary accord to sell natural gas to China National Petroleum Corp., Interfax said, citing an unidentified Sakhalin-1 investor.
The accord, which defines the obligations of both parties and the principles of price formation, should lead to a firm contract, the Russian news service said, without saying how much gas CNPC wants to buy. Exxon earlier said it was ready to deliver 8 billion cubic meters of the fuel a year to China, Interfax said Monday.
Exxon's partners in Sakhlin-1 are state-controlled Russian oil producer Rosneft, India's state-owned ONGC Videsh Ltd. and Japan's Sakhalin Oil & Gas Development, which is half owned by the Japanese government.Rusal BidnLONDON (Bloomberg) — Russian Aluminium, which is set to create the world's largest producer of the metal, declined to confirm or deny a report from the Times of London that it may bid for Anglo American Plc.
"In terms of other opportunities, we will look at those at they come along,'' said Chairman Andrew Michelmore, 54, in an interview in London on Monday.
Russian Aluminium, also, known as Rusal, is based in Moscow and plans to buy Russian aluminum producer Sual Group and assets from Swiss commodity trader Glencore International AG.
The company sees the integration of the Sual and Glencore assets as "the key focus at the moment,'' Michelmore said.
Rusal plans to bid for London-based Anglo, the world's second-largest mining company, to create a company worth 50 billion pounds ($94 billion), the Times reported Oct. 21.

TITLE: Scottish Baker Rises to a Capital Challenge
AUTHOR: By Svetlana Graudt
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — There is one moment that stands out in Andrew Park's memory: the time when, as a teenager, he got a lesson from a baker on making the perfect loaf.That lesson, taught more than 30 years ago, still has practical value for the Scotsman with big, tattooed arms and a typically Scottish sense of humor.
"I like to joke, but I am a professional," said Park, 45, the production director of Baltiisky Khleb, or Baltic Bread, a St. Petersburg-based company that has recently opened two bakery-cum-cafe-cum-confectionery shops in Moscow.
On a recent tour of duty in Moscow to oversee the opening of the new shops, Park was spending his days training staff, greeting customers in his accented but fluent Russian and personally giving away thousands of samples of pastries and bread outside the Ulitsa Malaya Dmitrovka branch.
Park came to Russia nearly 15 years ago to work as a consultant with the EU program TACIS, or Technical Assistance for the Commonwealth of Independent States. Later, he worked with the CIS bread sector for Paratis, a Belgian consulting services company. In this capacity he met a Russian businesswoman, Lyudmila Zubakova, and in February 1995 the pair opened their first bakery. The Scotsman contributed knowledge of European technology and original recipes, while Zubakova came up with the money. In 1998, he began working for Baltic Bread full time.
In the beginning, the bakery supplied three supermarkets run by Zubakova, but when the bread business took off, she closed the supermarkets and opened a bread factory instead.
"We work very closely," Park said. "If I need new equipment, she gives it to me."
He said Baltic Bread was the first bakery in St. Petersburg to produce sliced and wrapped loaves.
The company now operates five confectioners in St. Petersburg, he said, in addition to the two Moscow outlets.
"I pushed Lyudmila to open up in Moscow," he said. "Moscow is the center of the world."
Park said he had developed more than 130 bread recipes for the chain.
"I take an idea concept and bread of the world and lots of my own ideas," he said.
After five years as a chief technologist, Park was promoted to his current position as production director.
It has been an impressive journey for this father of five, originally from Queenzieburn, a small village of about 3,000 people between Glasgow and Edinburgh. He is now married to his second wife, Inna, whom he met 10 years ago in St. Petersburg and who was the company's chief technologist at the time.
His father, a miner, died of a heart attack when Andrew was 5 and the youngest of four boys. His mother said to him, "Take a job that you want to do." Aged 14, Park got a summer job at a local bakery.
Although he was the only boy in a nutrition class at school, he wasn't bullied.
"I was quite well made, and nobody joked with me."
After graduating from the Glasgow College of Food Technology, he joined the British Territorial Army. With it, he traveled to the United States, Germany and Africa, all the while making bread and baking cakes.
In his line of work, the main problem today is personnel, he said.
"In such a big company, the rotation of staff may be high. We try to train the staff, shag za shagom," he said, using the Russian for "step by step."
Park said that being a baker may not be much of a career, but a good baker can still "make a good life."

TITLE: Shell Gets Claim For Back Taxes
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Authorities are investigating tax payments of a venture half-owned by Royal Dutch Shell, the oil firm said Friday, adding to the pressure it is facing in its Sakhalin-2 project.Shell's Salym Petroleum Development, or SPD, joint venture with Sibir Energy said it had received a back tax claim that it was disputing.
"Tax authorities conducted a planned tax check at the SPD branch in Nefteyugansk in the summer. They discovered some violations for 2002 to 2004. We do not agree with the claims and have filed a suit with the Nefteyugansk arbitration court," said Yelena Zakupneva, external affairs manager at SPD.
"We did nothing wrong and hope to win the case," she said.
Zakupneva declined to say how much the demand was for, but Vedomosti put the figure at more than $10 million.
The venture operates three fields in the Khanty-Mansiysk region of western Siberia and started producing commercially last November. It is expected to be producing at least 165,000 barrels per day by the end of the decade.
The back tax claims follow months of inspections of the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project off the Pacific coast, which is led by Shell.

TITLE: Severstal Eyes $1.7 Bln IPO
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Russia's Severstal said it planned to raise up to $1.7 billion by listing up to 15 percent of its shares in London as it prepares to pursue major acquisitions in the consolidating steel industry.Alexei Mordashov, Russia's seventh-richest man, told Reuters on Monday that his shareholding in Severstal would fall below 80 percent but no lower than 75 percent from his current 90 percent after the share offering in November.
Mordashov said the company would use the proceeds to reduce debt and strengthen its balance sheet as it prepares to pursue large mergers and acquisitions.
"We will be ready for big moves in the future in terms of mergers and acquisitions. How far and to what extent it is difficult to say now," he told Reuters in a telephone interview, adding the firm would be able to fund deals using shares or cash.
Mordashov said the share offer was expected to raise about $1.7 billion for the steelmaker, Russia's largest when including its foreign assets, which has a current market value of $11.6 billion.
The deal also would bring Severstal's total free float, including 10 percent already listed in Moscow, to as much as 25 percent.
The offering at that size would be Russia's second-largest after state oil firm Rosneft's $10.4 billion listing in July.
The third-largest was Sistema's $1.6 billion in February 2005.
Mordashov declined to comment on whether Severstal was interested in bidding for Anglo-Dutch miner Corus Group, which last week agreed a takeover by India's Tata Steel, but he suggested no bid was imminent.
"We are very much preoccupied with the offering today," Mordashov told Reuters.
Mordashov is keen to expand after his attempt to merge Severstal with Arcelor this year was trumped by a $32 billion offer by world leader Mittal Steel.
Mordashov declined to give an expected range for the float but said there was strong interest from investors in Russia, Europe and the United States.

TITLE: Half Wrong on Europe's Doom
AUTHOR: By Gideon Rachman
TEXT: Europeans of a nervous disposition should probably avoid going into bookshops on their next visit to the United States. If they venture inside, they might come across an array of titles with a bloodcurdlingly bleak view of their continent's future.In Bruce Bawer's "While Europe Slept" — now in its eighth printing — the U.S. reader is told that by ignoring the threat from radical Islam, "Europe is steadily committing suicide and perhaps all we can do is look on in horror." Tony Blankley, author of "The West's Last Chance," warns that: "The threat of the radical Islamists taking over Europe is every bit as great to the United States as was the threat of the Nazis taking over Europe in the 1940s." In "The Cube and the Cathedral," George Weigel, a Catholic conservative, claims that "Western Europe is committing a form of demographic suicide." In this he echoes U.S. arch-conservative Pat Buchanan, who argues in his bestselling "The Death of the West" that Europe's population is set to fall to 30 percent of its current level by 2100, and therefore "the cradle of Western civilization will have become its grave."
I suspect that few Europeans would recognize themselves in this distorting mirror held up from the other side of the Atlantic. And yet — tempting as it was to toss all these books in the trash and go out for a drink in the midst of my doomed civilization (one might as well enjoy what little time is left) — it is impossible to dismiss the American prophets of European doom completely. Strip away the hysteria and the hype, and they make two serious points.
First, European fertility rates have fallen well below the rate of 2.1 children per woman needed for a population to remain stable. Across the European Union the average fertility rate is now approximately 1.5. This downward spiral in population is self-reinforcing, since Europe will have fewer and fewer women of reproductive age in the future. The second point is that the Muslim population of Europe is rising sharply at the same time as the white, European population is falling. The U.S. pessimists argue that this is a recipe for social turmoil, or worse.
These trends could, indeed, spell trouble. In fact, European officials are also alarmed. Last week, the European Commission warned that without reform, the aging of the EU's population will see average economic growth rates of a mere 1 percent per year from 2030 to 2050. Meanwhile, a lively, sometimes agonized, debate about the assimilation of Muslim immigrants is taking place across the continent.
The trends the U.S. doom-merchants have latched on to are real enough. The weakness in their arguments is that at every stage they tend to make the most pessimistic assumptions.
Take demography: Buchanan argues that "The Spanish birthrate is the lowest in all Europe and the population is projected to fall by 25 percent in 50 years." Such projections only hold, however, if you assume that Spain will have no net immigration. In fact, over the past three years more than half a million immigrants per year have been arriving in Spain, pushing the population over 44 million. Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, projects that the 25 members of the EU will have a total population of 449.8 million in 2050, compared with 456 million today because falling fertility will be largely offset by rising immigration.
The problem is not that the European population will simply shrink away, but that over the next 50 years, Europe will have to deal with the fact that its population is becoming both much older and much more diverse.
If Europe's welfare states remain unreformed, the aging of the population could lead to a fiscal meltdown as pension and healthcare systems become unaffordable. But, as the saying goes: "Something that cannot go on forever, won't." Demographic pressures are already forcing Europeans to change their welfare systems and career patterns. In some countries, the process will be very difficult. In others, it might be relatively painless.
Similarly, the U.S. pundits' vision of a Muslim takeover of Europe — creating a new continent called "Eurabia" — relies on projecting demographic trends to their limit and beyond. Weigel fantasizes about a day when "the muezzin summons the faithful to prayer from the central loggia of St Peter's in Rome." Given that just 1.7 percent of the Italian population is currently Muslim, that seems a long way off. Of the 456 million people in the EU, just 15 million to 16 million are Muslim.
Of course, rapid immigration from the developing world combined with higher fertility rates among immigrant populations means that the Muslim population of Europe is likely to rise sharply. In some places such as France, where Muslims already make up 7 percent to 10 percent of the population, the changes could be quite dramatic.
Until a few years ago, mainstream European opinion would have shrugged off rising Muslim populations as unworthy of debate but that is no longer the case. Just this week in Britain there has been heated argument over the wearing of veils by schoolteachers and the radicalization of Muslim students. One recent poll found that nearly one-third of young British Muslims agreed that the July 2005 bombings in London were "justified because of British support for the war on terror."
That is a truly alarming picture, but it is also just a snapshot. There is no doubt that tensions between Muslims and other Europeans are at an unprecedented high after Sept. 11, 2001, the Iraq war, riots in Paris and terrorism in London, Madrid and Amsterdam. It is certainly possible that things will just get worse, but it is not inevitable. Zachary Shore, the author of "Breeding Bin Ladens" and the only one of the American authors in question to have taken the trouble to talk to a lot of European Muslims, sees Europe's Muslim population as poised "at a critical fork in the road: One trail leads them to western integration, the other sets a course for alienation and possible extremism."
European governments are acutely aware of this and are changing policies in response. The British are rethinking their "multicultural" approach to immigration; the French are considering positive discrimination; the Danes have cracked down on arranged marriages. Who knows — some of these policies might even work. If they do not, politics and policies will change again. Of all the many scenarios for the future of Europe, perhaps the least likely is that Europeans will simply sleepwalk off a cliff.Gideon Rachman is a columnist for the Financial Times, where this comment was first published.

TITLE: In the Case of Energy, Security Starts at Home
AUTHOR: By Tatyana Mitrova
TEXT: After two decades of relative calm on world energy markets, recent years have come as an unpleasant surprise for political elites in most countries. Rapid rises in oil and natural gas prices, accompanied by significant fluctuations and irregularities in energy supplies and tensions on petroleum-product markets have turned energy security into a hot political topic. The apogee came in July at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, where global energy security was the main theme. Among the range of problems discussed at the summit — including transparency and predictability on global energy markets, energy efficiency, the need to develop alternative technologies, the physical security of energy infrastructure, energy poverty and the environment — the most difficult task is to make timely investments to ensure that energy supply will meet growing demand.In the 30 years from 1971 to 2000, global energy consumption rose by almost 90 percent, and by 2030 it is expected to grow by another 150 percent. Given such a boom in demand there is the threat of a slowdown in supply, not due to a current overall lack of energy resources but to a subsequent reduction in efforts and investment to increase energy production. Growth in demand means the need for a corresponding growth in investment to create an efficient energy security system (the International Energy Agency conservatively estimates this figure at $17 trillion by 2030). The basic problem is that, due to the extremely capital-intensive and inertia-bound nature of the energy sector, we have not yet been able to find an effective mechanism for timely investment within the free market system. Private capital only reacts to clear price signals, which given a five- to 10-year investment cycle leads to periodic deficits in production capabilities. A serious contribution to the slowing of energy supplies also comes from the rapid growth in spending as a result of substantial increases in the cost of technology and infrastructure needed to develop increasingly hard-to-access energy resources.
An indicator of the growing disparity between increasing demand and stagnating supply was the leap in fuel prices in the early 2000s and rapidly growing instability in these prices. This process was accompanied by increasingly disproportionate regional energy production and use, resulting from the fact that a greater number of countries and major regions were unable to fuel their development with their own energy resources. Countries in this group now account for 90 percent of global GDP.
Under these conditions it is absolutely understandable why these countries are showing such interest in energy supplies from Russia, with its huge gas reserves and slightly smaller oil reserves. Given the export orientation of the Russian energy sector and high world prices, Russian energy companies are also interested in increasing exports, while the dominant role of revenues from energy exports to foreign customers in Russia's budget forces the government to facilitate the maximum possible increases in export flows.
But this is where we must be especially careful. The endless discussions about global energy security are beginning to create the impression that this concept has gradually squeezed the idea of Russia's energy security out of the national consciousness. It is obvious that there can be no global energy security without energy security for individual countries. "This winter we may run into electricity supply problems on a scale with which no one in the world has had to deal," Anatoly Chubais, head of the electricity monopoly Unified Energy Systems, or UES, recently warned. "Even now in summer, and not winter conditions, we have been forced to impose limits on consumers, and we are now working at maximum capacity." Electricity may now become a brake on development.
The main problem for Russian energy — the absence of timely investment in production to meet rapidly rising demand — is part of a larger global trend. Over the seven-month period ending in August, demand for electricity in Russia grew by 5 percent, compared to a previous annual rate of 1.7 percent. The deficit in generating capacity is exacerbated by the fact that UES has already run into shortages of natural gas, the burning of which accounts for 45 percent of total electricity generation in Russia. And roughly half of all planned new capacity in the electricity sector will be gas-based, even though Gazprom is refusing to increase supply, saying that it had not agreed to any of the plans. Gazprom is planning to increase extraction production — from 548 billion cubic meters in 2005 to 560 billion in 2010 — but it is also planning to increase exports, and at a much greater pace — from 151 bcm in 2005 to 180 billion in 2010. This means that domestic supplies will effectively be frozen.
Here we run into the question of the relationship between global and national energy security. Clearly Russia should meet its export obligations and has every reason to talk about its special role in guaranteeing stability on global energy markets. Limiting energy supplies to the Russian economy, however, and thereby slowing growth rates in favor of further massive increases in exports is clearly not in the national interest. This is not to suggest that gas exports be redirected to the domestic market. It is imperative that current agreements be fulfilled. The main question concerns increases in production. To attract this additional supply to the domestic market the government will have to raise gas prices. But a whole spectrum of emergency measures has to be put in place, including the creation of conditions to make investment in the fuel and energy sector as attractive as possible, the articulation of defined industrial, science and technical policy and improvement in the efficiency of energy useage. Gazprom's refusal to sell more gas to UES is absolutely understandable given that current inefficiencies mean that much of the gas will be wasted.
When drawing up these anti-crisis measures, the interests of all parties involved — Gazprom, UES, coal companies, the nuclear industry, the state and the public in general — will have to be consulted. This process will be painful but should not be allowed to drag on, as investments made today will only start to deliver results in a few years. It is important not just for Russia but for the whole world that raw material energy exports should not harm the country's economic development. Only if Russia experiences a normal rate of development will it be able to play a stabilizing role in world energy markets.Tatyana Mitrova is head of the Center for International Energy Market Studies at the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

TITLE: Underdogs, NFL Kickers Make Grade
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — It was a tough week for NFL quarterbacks. For long-range kickers and underdog teams, it couldn't have been any better. The Atlanta Falcons knocked Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger unconscious, then finished off the favored Steelers 41-38. The Minnesota Vikings sidelined Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, then romped 31-13 on the Seahawks' home field.And the Oakland Raiders lost Andrew Walter to a hamstring injury, but went on to win their first game of the season, 22-9 over the Arizona Cardinals.
In other upsets, Kansas City edged San Diego 30-27, Houston routed Jacksonville 27-7 and Tampa Bay nicked Philadelphia 23-21 on a last-second field goal by Matt Bryant that cleared the bar from a stunning 62 yards — the third-longest in NFL history.
Atlanta also needed a wild overtime finish to knock off the Super Bowl champion Steelers on Morten Andersen's 32-yard field goal 7 minutes into the extra period.
In a remarkable game that included six lead changes, Atlanta thought it had won in regulation when Michael Koenen, who handles punting and long field goals, made a 56-yarder with 35 seconds remaining. But Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher called timeout just before the snap and the officials waved off the play.

TITLE: Taliban Gives New Warning
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KABUL — Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has used the holiest Muslim holiday of the year to warn that his men will intensify their fighting in Afghanistan to "surprising" levels to drive out foreign forces.In a lengthy message to Afghans for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, Omar also urged NATO to withdraw its almost 20,000 troops and stop sacrificing soldiers for the United States, adding the nation stood with him.
"With the grace of Allah, the fighting will be increased ... and it will be organized in the next few months," he said in a Pashto message to media also posted on the Internet and signed "Leader of the Faithful in the Afghan Resistance."
"I am confident the fighting will be a surprise for many," said the one-eyed leader, who has a $10 million bounty on his head.
This has been the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since Omar's Islamist government was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
NATO, which took over full national command of the war against the Taliban from U.S. forces this month, says attacks in the south have fallen since it killed hundreds of insurgents in a two-week offensive last month named Operation Medusa.
But fighting and bombings are virtually daily events and the government has warned of a rise in suicide bombings ahead of the traditional winter lull in combat.
One police officer in Kabul said 15 men had been caught trying to enter the city with explosives ahead of Eid.
Taliban video obtained by Reuters this month shows fighters well-armed and equipped in the mountains of Uruzgan in the south. They are seen fighting, looting a police post and beheading men identified as spies. Several suicide bombers pledge to die to drive the "infidels" from their country.
In the latest fighting, NATO said it killed five rebels in an air strike in Paktika province, bordering Pakistan, on Sunday.
Omar said President Hamid Karzai would face Islamic justice for cooperating with Washington.
"The Kabul puppet regime has failed to establish peace and stability as well as to control narcotics," he said, adding members of the government were involved in the opium trade.
Officials and analysts say the Taliban is partly funded by drug lords underwriting fighting and insecurity to keep the police and the law from their poppy fields and smuggling routes.
Afghanistan supplies about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw material for heroin, and its crop is expected to jump about 60 percent this year.
Talking to reporters after Eid prayers at the presidential palace, Karzai did not comment on Omar's message, but called on Afghans not to be swayed by the Taliban.

TITLE: Tigers Claw Back To Tie the World Series
AUTHOR: By Larry Fine
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: DETROIT — The Detroit Tigers roared back in the World Series with a 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday, squaring the best-of-seven championship at 1-1 thanks to a brilliant performance by Kenny Rogers and a 10-hit attack.The Tigers warmed the Comerica Park crowd of 42,533 with a club-record tying homer by Craig Monroe, three hits from Carlos Guillen and another inspired display by veteran left-hander Rogers on a chilly night in Detroit.
"I'm certainly glad we got a split out of this one tonight," Detroit manager Jim Leyland said, a day after his side had lost the opener 7-2.
The series now shifts to St Louis for Game Three on Tuesday with Detroit lefty Nate Robertson (13-13, 3.84 earned run average) opposing Cy Young holder Chris Carpenter (15-8, 3.09).
Giving up just two hits, Rogers extended his remarkable post-season pitching streak to 23 innings without allowing a run with eight scoreless innings but his performance was not entirely spotless.
A substance at the base of his pitching thumb was noticed in the first inning and led to discussions between the umpires and managers.
Television replay close-ups showed the 41-year-old had discoloration at the bottom of his thumb during the first frame that had been cleaned off by the time he took the mound for the second inning.
Rogers said after the game that some grime had collected on his hand through a combination of the wet dirt after a day's cold rain and his use of the resin bag and that when he noticed it after the first inning he wiped it clean.
"I'd do anything to distract anybody, but I think after the first inning I was fine," said Rogers, who has given up only nine hits in his superlative 23-inning streak.
"I didn't even know it was there until after the inning."
An umpires spokesman after the game said there was no evidence of the pitcher trying to tamper with the ball.
Whether or not Rogers was trying to bend any rules, the wily left-hander was even more effective over his last seven innings than he had been in the first, when he gave up a walk and a single to Scott Rolen before retiring the side on a comebacker hit by Juan Encarnacion.
Rogers did not yield another hit until Yadier Molina singled to right leading off the eighth inning.
St. Louis then went on to score an unearned run in the ninth off reliever Todd Jones.
Cards manager Tony La Russa declined to talk about his discussion with the umpires, instead opting to praise Rogers for his performance on the mound.
"When a guy pitches like that, as a team, we don't take things away from anybody."

TITLE: Death Toll Reaches 44 in Attacks Across Iraq
AUTHOR: By Hamza Henda Wi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq — Militants targeted police recruits and shoppers rounding up last-minute sweets and delicacies for a feast to mark the end of the Ramadan holy month, the highlight of the Muslim year. At least 44 Iraqis were reported killed across the country.The U.S. military announced the deaths of a Marine and seven soldiers, raising to 86 the number of American servicemembers killed in October — the highest monthly toll this year. The pace of U.S. deaths could make October the deadliest month in two years.
Six soldiers were killed Sunday, three by small arms fire west of the capital and three by bombs within Baghdad, the military said. On Saturday, a Marine was killed in restive Anbar province and another soldier died in fighting in Salahuddin province.
"There will be no holiday in Iraq," said Abu Marwa, a 46-year-old Sunni Muslim father of three who owns a mobile phone shop in the capital. "Anyone who says otherwise is a liar."
In Sunday's bloodiest attack, gunmen in five sedans ambushed a convoy of buses carrying police recruits near the city of Baqouba 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 15 and wounding 25 others, said provincial police chief Maj. Gen. Ghassan al-Bawi. The recruits were returning home after an induction ceremony at a police base south of Baqouba.
A series of bombs also ripped through a Baghdad market and bakery packed with holiday shoppers, killing at least nine people and injuring dozens, police said. The attack came a day after a massive bicycle-bomb and mortar attack on an outdoor market killed 19 and wounded scores in Mahmoudiyah, just south of the capital.
The Iraqi Islamic Party issued a statement blaming Shiite militiamen for the attack in Mahmoudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad. The Sunni organization claimed Shiite militiamen had killed 1,000 residents in the town since the start of the year.
In the U.S., the Bush administration has been wrestling to find new tactics to contain the bloodshed ahead of the U.S. congressional elections on Nov. 7 as both Republican and Democratic lawmakers from both parties expressed wavering confidence in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ability to come to grips with the rising bloodshed.
Republican Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday that pressuring al-Maliki may not work because he does not have much clout.
"We keep saying, 'Go to your Shiites and get them straightened out, or the Sunnis, or divide the oil.' And al-Maliki is saying, 'There isn't any group here that wants to talk about those things,'" Lugar said.
U.S. President George W. Bush stood firm in his support for al-Maliki, saying he "has got what it takes to lead a unity government." But the president noted the urgency the new government faces to stop the killing.
"I'm patient. I'm not patient forever, and I'm not patient with dawdling," Bush said. "But I recognize the degree of difficulty of the task, and therefore, say to the American people, we won't cut and run."
The outcome of a White House meeting Saturday among Bush and his top security and military officials could become clearer early next week when Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, are scheduled to conduct an unusual joint news conference in Baghdad.
The Bush administration took issue with a report in The New York Times on Sunday that said Casey and Khalilzad were working on a plan that would outline milestones for disarming militias and meeting other political and economic goals.
The report said the blueprint, to be presented to al-Maliki by the end of this year, would not threaten Iraq with a withdrawal of U.S. troops. The White House said the article was not accurate, and the administration was constantly developing new tactics to help the Iraqi government sustain and defend itself and govern.
Also Sunday, a U.S. State Department official Alberto Fernandez apologized for saying U.S. policy in Iraq displayed "arrogance" and "stupidity" in an interview broadcast by Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.
"Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al-Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase 'there has been arrogance and stupidity' by the U.S. in Iraq," said Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

TITLE: Thieves Lead To Discovery Of Tombs
AUTHOR: By Sierra Millman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SAQQARA, Egypt — The arrest of tomb robbers led archaeologists to the graves of three royal dentists, protected by a curse and hidden in the desert sands for thousands of years in the shadow of Egypt's most ancient pyramid, officials announced Sunday.The thieves launched their own dig one summer night two months ago but were apprehended, Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters.
That led archaeologists to the three tombs, one of which included an inscription warning that anyone who violated the sanctity of the grave would be eaten by a crocodile and a snake, Hawass said.
A towering, painted profile of the chief dentist stares down at passers-by from the wall opposite the inscription.
The tombs date back more than 4,000 years to the 5th Dynasty and were meant to honor a chief dentist and two others who treated the pharaohs and their families, Hawass said.

TITLE: Sharapova Makes History at Zurich Open
AUTHOR: By Erica Bulman
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ZURICH, Switzerland — Maria Sharapova became the first Russian to win the Zurich Open, defeating Daniela Hantuchova 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 Sunday in the final.Sharapova, who won her third WTA title this season, still has a chance to finish the year as the top-ranked player. She'd need to win next week in Linz, Austria, and at the season-ending WTA Championships in Madrid.
Amelie Mauresmo, who withdrew from the Zurich Open with a shoulder injury, and second-ranked Justine Henin-Hardenne, who hasn't played since mid-September because of a knee problem, still lead the U.S. Open champion in the rankings.
Mauresmo leads Sharapova by 630 points, but many of the Frenchwoman's points will expire before this season ends. Henin-Hardenne would have to fail to reach the WTA final for Sharapova to finish on top.
Neither Henin-Hardenne nor Mauresmo are expected to play before Madrid.
"Becoming No. 1 is a huge achievement, but I don't personally think ending the season as No. 1 is a huge deal," said Sharapova, who was top-ranked in August 2005. "I honestly can't remember who finished last year No. 1.
"You remember who won the Grand Slams and who has been No. 1, not who finished the year No. 1."
Sharapova, who withdrew from the recent Kremlin Cup with a foot injury, said she was playing through pain in Zurich. She picked up her 14th career title, her other wins this season coming in San Diego and Indian Wells, Calif.
Hantuchova had to save three break points on her first serve before Sharapova swept the next six games.
Both players took advantage of the on-court coaching, which is allowed at this tournament, after the first set. Sharapova spoke to coach Mike Joyce, while Hantuchova talked with her mother.
The motherly advice seemed to help. Hantuchova broke Sharapova's opening serve in the second set and then saved five break points in the final game to even the match.
"She told me to be a bit calmer and not go for the crazy shots, to focus on what I had to do," Hantuchova said. "I felt I turned it around well."
Before the final set, Sharapova took a bathroom break, and her father appeared to follow. Hantuchova again spoke to her mother, but it didn't prove to be as effective.
Sharapova broke to take a 3-1 lead in the final set, holding serve and winning with an ace down the middle.
"It was weird having that letdown in the second set," said Sharapova, who dropped only one set in Zurich and is 5-1 against Hantuchova with five straight wins.
Hantuchova, who has only one career title, played in a final for the first time in 14 months.

TITLE: Panama Backs Plans for Canal Expansion
AUTHOR: By Mike Power and Chris Aspin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: PANAMA CITY — Panamanians overwhelmingly backed a plan on Sunday to give their famous 92-year-old canal its biggest-ever overhaul, an ambitious project the government hopes will help lift the country out of poverty.The $5.25 billion face-lift allowing the inter-oceanic canal to handle mammoth modern cargo ships won four-to-one voter support in a referendum, the Central American nation's Electoral Tribunal said.
The project for the canal, which was U.S. territory until it was returned to Panama in 1999, will double its capacity to enable more and bigger ships to cross between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, boosting government revenue.
Fireworks cracked over the night sky in a victory celebration and revelers drove around the capital honking their horns and waving red, white and blue Panamanian flags.
"Never in the history of the country have we Panamanians taken a decision of this magnitude," President Martin Torrijos said. "We have set the bases to build a better country."
"Behind us is the time we lost. ... Ahead is the time to overcome the shame of having a country in which 40 percent of our people live in poverty," he said in a television address.
Expansion of the canal, an engineering wonder first opened in 1914, will create a jobs bonanza for Panama's 3 million people and boost economic growth, supporters say.
Critics warned the plan could bankrupt the small nation, which is already burdened with huge debts and where most people live in poverty, if costs spiral. Taxpayers could be forced to pick up the tab and investors lose money.
But for supporters like Gilberto Valencia, a media relations expert celebrating the plan's approval, the positives outweighed the negatives.
"It is going to create jobs and help the poor," the 34-year-old said, standing beside huge loudspeakers blaring music from open vans to entice others to join the party.
Opened in 1914 at a cost of $375 million and 25,000 lives, the canal was dynamited and dug out by thousands of laborers who braved deadly malaria and yellow fever. It saves ships a long haul around South America's treacherous Cape Horn and carries around 4 percent of world maritime trade.
But its lock system is too small for many modern tankers and ships making the passage, mainly from the United States, Japan, China and Chile, also face longer waits to make the 80-kilometer inter-oceanic trip as global shipping grows.
France's Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, started the Panama Canal in 1880 but abandoned it nine years later when the project went bankrupt.
The U.S. government bought the canal in 1904 and 10 years later opened the waterway. With an eye on naval supremacy and control of the Western Hemisphere, the United States ran the canal for most of the past century.
The father of President Torrijos was the populist military leader Gen. Omar Torrijos who signed treaties in 1977 with the then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter in which the United States agreed to hand over the canal to Panama in 1999.
"History will record this as the day when Panamanians made the first major decision on the Panama Canal and their future by themselves," Ricaurte Vasquez, minister for canal affairs and a former finance minister, said.
The expansion plan, due to start in 2008 and finish in 2014 will build wider locks and deeper and bigger access channels, and let ships with 12,000 containers pass through, up from around 4,000 containers at present.

TITLE: Alonso Wins Title In Brazil
AUTHOR: By Alan Baldwin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SAO PAULO — Renault's Fernando Alonso took his second successive Formula One title on Sunday, finishing runner-up in a Brazilian Grand Prix won by Ferrari's local favorite Felipe Massa.Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, in the final race of his career, showed all his grit and determination to go from last to fourth after a ninth-lap puncture crippled his challenge for victory.
Renault retained the constructors' championship they won last year with 206 points to Ferrari's 201. Alonso ended the season with 134 points, 13 more than Schumacher.
It was Massa's second career victory and made him the first Brazilian to win at home since Ayrton Senna in 1993. He took the checkered flag in glorious isolation, 18.6 seconds clear of Alonso, to a rapturous roar from the crowd.
Briton Jenson Button was third for Honda.
Schumacher, 10 points behind Alonso but with seven wins each, had needed one last victory to have any hope of an eighth title while the Spaniard required only a single point from his last race with Renault before joining McLaren.
"Thank you, thank you. Thank you for all these years, it has been a pleasure to work with you," gasped Alonso on his car's radio after crossing the finish line to become Formula One's youngest double champion.
"It's been a fantastic weekend and I need some time to believe I am champion again," the 25-year-old told a later news conference. "It's my last race for Renault and a fantastic way to finish the relationship."
Whatever the odds against him, Schumacher wanted to go out with his head held high and he achieved that with a stirring and memorable performance.
Starting 10th on the starting grid, he carved through to sixth and had just overtaken Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella for fifth when the Ferrari stepped out of line with a puncture.
Television images were inconclusive but Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn blamed the Italian.
"I think Giancarlo clipped Michael's tire as he went past him and screwed our race. So it's very unfortunate because we had by far the quickest car today," he told Germany's Premiere television.
The 37-year-old German limped back to the pits for a new rear left tire but the most successful driver in Formula One history was not done yet.
Rejoining in 17th place, and with a heavy fuel load, he proceeded to reel off a series of fastest laps to tear back up through the ranks to where he had been before.
With 16 laps to go, he was back behind Fisichella in sixth place and pushing hard.
The pressure paid off eight laps from the end when Fisichella ran wide across the grass at turn one and Schumacher sped through to take fifth place with McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen, his successor at Ferrari in 2007, next in his sights.
He got him three laps from the end with a totally uncompromising passing move at the end of the uphill pit straight, refusing to back off as they ran wheel to wheel with the wall to his left.

TITLE: Manchester United Defeats Liverpool FC 2-0
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Manchester United stayed in first place in the English Premier League after beating Liverpool 2-0 Sunday.Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand each scored a goal for United, which leads defending champion Chelsea on goal difference. Both teams have 22 points.
Scholes, who was making his 500th appearance for United, scored in the 39th minute. Ryan Giggs sent a low cross to Scholes, who was unmarked in front of goal. Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina raced off his line to block the first shot, but Scholes followed up to beat Sami Hyypia to the rebound and send the ball over the goal line.
"As long as the team wins it doesn't really matter who scores the goals," Scholes said. "It was quite special. If it's your 500th game or your first game, playing for Manchester United is a big thing. Just to get the win is the most important thing."
Ferdinand added the second in the 66th after Jamie Carragher failed to clear another cross from Giggs. Ferdinand pulled the ball onto his left foot and shot into the top corner for his first goal since an injury-time winner against Liverpool on Jan. 22.
Liverpool nearly took a 1-0 lead in the 30th minute in front of a Premier League record crowd of 75,808 at Old Trafford when Netherlands striker Dirk Kuyt headed a cross from Mark Gonzalez straight at goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar.
Liverpool is in 11th place — 11 points behind the leaders — with only one point from five games on the road.
Arsenal moved up to fourth place with 17 points after beating host Reading 4-0, the team's fifth straight win. Thierry Henry scored two goals and Alexander Hleb and Robin van Persie added the others.
Palermo moved into first place in the Serie A after beating AC Milan 2-0.
Mark Bresciano slipped past Alessandro Nesta to score Palermo's first goal in the 48th minute and Amauri added the other in the 73rd off a rebound.
Palermo improved to 15 points, ahead of Inter Milan on goals scored. Inter was held to a 0-0 draw by Udinese.
Milan remained with four points following its first loss of the season. The team began the campaign with an eight-point penalty for its role in the Italian match-fixing scandal.
Inter played without struggling forward Adriano, who was given a week's leave to go home to Brazil and regain his focus.
Inter coach Roberto Mancini replaced strikers Hernan Crespo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic with Julio Ricardo Cruz and Alvaro Recoba in the second half. The game ended when a free kick by Recoba was blocked by Udinese's wall five minutes into injury time.
AS Roma, which was held to a 1-1 tie by visiting Chievo Verona, is in third place with 13 points.
Sergio Pellissier put Chievo ahead in the 41st on a play that appeared to be offside, and Roma captain Francesco Totti equalized in the 66th on a rebound off a shot from David Pizarro.
Real Madrid ended Barcelona's unbeaten streak in the Spanish league, winning 2-0 on goals from Raul Gonzalez and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Madrid, with 14 points, now trails leader Barcelona and Valencia by two points. The hosts took the lead in the third minute when Raul jumped and headed in Sergio Ramos' cross from the right.
The Madrid captain then sent a left-footed shot against the crossbar in the 15th and Robinho's shot stretched goalkeeper Victor Valdes four minutes later.
Barcelona controlled much of the first half and pressed at the start of the second, but Van Nistlerooy scored in the 51st. The Dutch striker reached Roninho's pass ahead of Valdes and volleyed in for his fourth goal of the season.
Valencia stayed perfect at home after a 1-0 win over Osasuna. David Villa scored his fifth goal of the season.
Hamburger SV snapped a 14-match winless streak with a 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga.
Substitute Paolo Guerrero scored both goals for Hamburg, including the winner in the 86th minute. Andriy Voronin scored for Leverkusen.
FC Nuremberg and Eintracht Frankfurt also remained unbeaten after a tie.
Ajax stayed in first place in the Dutch league, and defending champion PSV Eindhoven moved into second.
Ajax downed Feyenoord 4-0, with Kenneth Perez scoring two goals and setting up two more for Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.
PSV moved into second place after beating AZ Alkmaar 3-1. It was AZ's first loss of the season.
Manuel da Costa scored in his Dutch league debut for PSV, while Edison Mendez and Arouna Kone added the others. Demy de Zeeuw scored for AZ, which hasn't beaten PSV at home in eight years.
Ajax leads with 21 points, two more than PSV and four ahead of AZ.
Rangers moved into third place in the Scottish Premier League after a 3-2 victory over St. Mirren.
Charlie Adam, Thomas Buffel and Nacho Novo all scored for Rangers, which trails leader Celtic by 10 points. John Sutton scored both goals for St. Mirren.
Atromitos beat defending champion Olympiakos 1-0 in the Greek league with Giorgos Korakakis scoring the lone goal in the 60th minute.
Despite the loss, Olympiakos retains the lead in the Greek league with 18 points, five ahead of Panathinaikos.
Lyon extended its winning streak to 11 games and took an eight-point lead in the French league after beating Marseille 4-1.
Juninho scored two goals and Karim Benzema and Kim Kallstrom added the others for Lyon, which has 28 points. Habib Bamogo scored a consolation goal for second-place Marseille.
Auxerre tied Paris Saint-Germain 0-0 in a dull match with few chances.

TITLE: Learning the Benefits Of Ergonomical Truth
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Its principles can be found in offices and workplaces all over the world. The sciences of anatomy, biomechanics, demographics, physiology, and human psychology are all to a certain extent integrated under its banner. Now even Russian industry is realizing that the scientific discipline of ergonomics can raise labor productivity and ultimately increase profits.
In the U.S. a third of company losses related to employee absences are due to illness caused by poor working conditions, according to a report by the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration. 
Although there are no such statistics relating to the situation in Russia, experts say the situation here is a great deal worse.  
In the West, a cost-cutting solution that has been practiced for years is the science of ergonomics. And so logically the pioneers of this approach in Russia were Western and joint-stock companies. 
“It is obvious that ergonomics is closer and more understandable to foreign companies than to Russian ones. On the one hand, Europeans have a different, more respectful attitude to human labor than Russian employers. On the other, in the West companies compensate their employees for work-related illness. U.S. employers annually pay out $20 billion in compensation to their employees while over $60 billion is spent indirectly on related problems. 
It is no surprise, therefore, that many companies prefer to splash out once on an ergonomically more sound workplace than lose so much every year,” said Dmitry Simkin, author of training programs on ergonomics in the office and workplace. 
In Russia, the Labor Code states that an employer must keep all workplaces safe and possess the related certification for doing so. 
However, many of these labor standards are now out of date — they are a world away from sophisticated, modern ergonomics and in practice are often ignored by employers.  
Instead, a lack of professional blue collar workers and the correspondingly high level of competition on the labor market has prompted managers of Russian production facilities to apply ergonomic principles themselves, not just to raise labor productivity, but to motivate employees and create a positive atmosphere in the workplace.
While in the West the long tradition of ergonomics has bred a glut of specialists and consultants, in Russia, where the process is still in its infancy, such specialists are still limited in number. 
Simkin, who has been consulted by such companies as Ford, Kraft Foods, OTIS Lift and JSC St. Petersburg Cardboard&Printing Plant, said the shortage of professional consultants is due to the fact that ergonomics is a combination of a number of different sciences. 
“I am lucky to have 15 years experience of treating spinal diseases, I have had a good education in technical sciences and have developed a creative approach that helps me to be a unique ergonomics expert who has patents for several inventions related to ergonomics,” he said.
Companies start using the principles of ergonomics at different times in their development. Some of them, initially, prefer to use ergonomics in the office and then move to the factory floor, while others do the reverse. 
“On the factory floor, we emphasize different things – all blue-collar space differs in one way or another,” Simkin said. 
“For example, workers who assemble an elevator in a shaft, do not have what one could call a real workplace. And my aim, as a consultant, is to examine all the factors that influence labor productivity and safety.” 
Effective and safe labor methods and various technical solutions are offered to facilitate the process of work. Then the workers and managers attend courses to learn about safe labor practice and ergonomic solutions. 
According to Simkin, an ergonomic audit of one workplace, that on average costs 3,000 rubles ($110), includes an analysis of the technological process, interviews with workers, the formulation of problems and a discussion of the possible human and technical solutions — all of which ends up in a written report. Then it is the client who decides on how to invest into the ergonomic environment of its plant. 
“It depends on the gravity of the problem, a company’s resources and the cost of the recommended changes. I always try to find solutions at a reasonable price. The duty of an ergonomics consultant is not only to optimize the use of human resources but also to prevent the purchase of the expensive or ineffective equipment, and to learn to use the equipment that is already available at the plant,” Simkin said. 
Among the companies that have sent their workers on ergonomic training sessions is Ford. It used not only the broad experience of its European plants but often applied ergonomic solutions developed by its workers on such courses. Kraft Foods has also invested a lot of money into ergonomics and found seminars of particular interest. 
“Without motivated personnel and special training, an ergonomic workplace not does fulfill its aim, while, after training, labor became less tiring and more productive,” said Natalia Belyaeva, HR manager at Kraft Foods.

TITLE: The trendy concept of outsourcing continues to confuse.
AUTHOR: By Yelena Andreyeva
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Is it a question of companies not knowing what they’re missing? Or does the very idea imply a degradation of workers’ rights?

Over the last few years outsourcing has become a trendy word in Russia. In the West, business segments typically outsourced include information technology, human resources, facilities and real estate management, accounting, customer support and call center functions, manufacturing and engineering. While most of these areas involve the outsourcing of business functions, in human resources it is of course people who are the outsourced object. 

How to hire a professional 
An outsourcing company will find the worker who meets your requirements. You do not even need to employ that person – the specialist would be hired by the outsourcing provider and effectively leased to your company to carry out some defined task, for instance as a replacement to a secretary, accountant or IT specialist. 
HR outsourcing includes staff leasing and outstaffing. Outstaffing means that the provider officially recruits some of the new employees for the client company. This might be done so that the new staff can be checked during a trial period, because they are only needed for temporary projects, or because the company has a limited head count. Unlike leasing, when the provider searches for the personnel, outstaffing lets companies find the appropriate staff themselves while still employing them through the provider. 
If you are going to outsource personnel it is important to remember that the provider is only responsible for the professional characteristics of the personnel, while it is the client company that controls a worker’s performance. 
However, the same outsourcing terms can often have different meanings.
For example, at Kelly Services, staff leasing means outstaffing or payroll outsourcing, temporary outsourcing means the outsourcing of temporary workers on hourly pay for projects with a marked deadline, while outstaffing means finding staff when employee numbers have been temporarily reduced. 
“Some companies do not like the name “outstaffing” and prefer to say “outsourcing” or “staff leasing.” As providers we often speak in our own language with the clients,” said Olga Kapralova, PR and Marketing Executive at Intercomp. 

What are the advantages of HR outsourcing?
Companies that outsource their personnel do not need to provide them with HR administration or include them on the payroll, they do not provide insurance but instead focus on what they want to achieve. 
It seems to be any employer’s dream fulfilled – to have professional personnel and get rid of all the problems related to human resources. However, even in a dream you need to face the reality.  
Outsourcing problems
One of the main problems with the outsourcing business in Russia is that it does not have a special legal framework that regulates the rights and duties of the client company, outsourcing provider and the outsourced personnel. Trade unions complain that outsourced personnel have limited rights.

What kinds of companies outsource personnel?
The biggest users of outsourcing in Russia remain foreign companies. 
“Most global companies have outsourced some business functions in the countries in which they work and Russia is not an exception. Also some companies that have just entered the local market outsource personnel during the legal registration process that, for foreign firms, tends to take a long time,” said Tatiana Modeeva, head of Intercomp Branch in St. Petersburg. 
However, according to analysts, over the last few years more and more Russian companies have started to use outsourcing, mostly hiring blue collar staff. 
“Not many Russian companies realize the benefits of outsourcing. At first glance, it seems to be more expensive to have temporary personnel but, as soon as the company understands the costs it can avoid it immediately makes use of outsourcing,” said Alexei Zelentsov, regional director of Kelly Services recruiting agency in the Russian Northwest Russia. 
Opinions vary as to whether companies economize through outsourcing or not. 
“For foreign companies with a limited head count outstaffing helps to improve their financial indicators, while in any case staff leasing is profitable for client companies,” said Maria Margulis, director of a Leasing company at ANCOR holding in St. Petersburg. 

What personnel 
can be outsourced?
On average, companies have preferred to outstaff managers and leased blue collars such as workers in retail, as well as warehouse packers and loaders and others.  “Now the outsourcing of white collars in finance, engineering and IT is also in demand,” Zelentsov said. 
As for Margulis, among the main reasons for the popularity of  HR outsourcing is the lack of personnel on the market. “Foreign companies entering the market have simply little chance of finding qualified staff. That is why they use the recruiters’ services,” she said.

How many providers 
of HR outsourcing are there now in Russia?
Most recruiting agencies that provide HR outsourcing services that comply with the Labor Code are international companies. 
Analysts hope that a new law will help the legal development of outsourcing in Russia, doing away with schemes whereby people are recruited by small and false companies and get paid under the table.

TITLE: Computers To Replace Traders
AUTHOR: By Joe Bel Bruno
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — When the Dow Jones industrials crossed 12,000 for the first time this past week, many of the people on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange were probably wondering if they’d be around to see the blue chips’ next 1,000-point milestone. 
Brokerages and specialist companies including Credit Suisse Group, LaBranche & Co. and others have begun to let staff go as the NYSE implements an electronic trading system that allows more automated transactions and reduces the need for humans on the exchange’s famed trading floor. 
The new technology is part of the Big Board’s renaissance, designed to make the exchange more competitive with the Nasdaq and other all-electronic markets. 
“We’ve known for a while that there would be fewer people on the floor, and there are some of us that say there is going to be nobody left,” said Steve Porpora, managing director of floor operations for securities company William O’Neil. “I have faith, like with every other bit of new technology, we’ll be able to do our jobs quicker and better.” 
The new hybrid system — named so because it retains humans but has a greater dependence on computers — represents the biggest technical leap on the floor in some three decades. It automates some of the tasks that have long been performed by specialists, the people who match buyers and sellers. 
By Friday, some 80 NYSE-listed securities were handled through the system, and all the exchange’s 2,700 companies are expected to be online in December. The implementation of the system coincides with the NYSE’s need to comply with new Securities and Exchange Commission rules that require exchanges to become more competitive in executing trades. 
That competition has already eaten away at some of the NYSE’s market share — exchanges now can trade each other’s stocks electronically, ending the exclusive listings that once limited where stocks could be bought and sold. 
Lou Pastina, head of the execution team for the NYSE’s electronic system, expects the number of shares traded on the exchange to soar under a hybrid system. “This is a competitive business,” he said. “Investors are looking for the fastest services, the one that provides the best pricing will be the one to get the business. We’re giving tools to do that, and to compete.”
Some of the people who work the floor believe the NYSE’s strategy will achieve that goal. Doreen Mogavero, a 30-year floor veteran and partner in Mogavero, Lee & Co., said she didn’t see things as “doom and gloom” and said the hybrid system presented new opportunities. 
“Most of the people down here, even if they aren’t as optimistic, are actively seeking to find their place in this new market,” she said. “There’s always opportunities in change, you just have to find it.”

TITLE: Managing a Lack Of Banking Professionals
AUTHOR: By Anna Akhmedova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s banking market is undergoing something of a retail boom. More and more banks are opening retail facilities with an eye on becoming universal financial institutions.
Banks have a particular interest in consumer credits, something still not widely developed in Russia, and they are trying their best to offer various types of credit.
All of which results, in the short-term at least, in a deficit in qualified top-managers, as well as higher salaries, in the sphere of retail banking.
Olga Dragomireckaya, head of Gazprombank in St. Petersburg, said that the monthly salary of a top-manager in retail banking can reach $3000. 
According to Anna Bogina, head of the Finance and Banking group at recruiting agency Ancor, the head of a bank’s retail department might earn $2500 to $5000 a month, depending on how successful the bank’s business is. 
While Yulia Kriyevich, head of Kelly Financial resources at the recruiting agency Kelly Services, said that with a decent command of the English language, a manager might earn up to $5000 a month. 
It is important to note that specialists in corporative banking can only earn these kinds of salaries with no less than five years’ experience, while in retail, in view of the lack of qualified labor, even young specialists can earn such amounts. 
Kriyevich said that the average age of specialists in the retail business was 30. 
“The deficit is connected with the fact, that retail banking in Russia is still at an early stage of development,” said Alexander Konishkov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of the International Moscow Bank. 
Dragomireckaya said that Russian banks have concerned themselves with retail for a long time, and that is why new technologies and specialists are only just appearing.                                                                                                       
Pavel Izumov, deputy director of the Petersburg office of Nomos-bank agreed, saying it is a logical consequence  that there is no qualified management.
The top jobs are usually given to the heads of banking offices, who, as a rule, know how to work with private clients. 
They have contacts and experience of working with people. And Izumov believes that the qualified managers in this sphere have been well trained for retail banking.  In fact banks have begun headhunting managers from the sphere of fast-moving consumer goods. 
“Such people are interesting to banks because they are good sellers,” said Bogina. They can go to any interesting shop and instead of selling cola or cigarettes sell banking products, she said. 
They have qualities much needed in retail banking. And people with a deep knowledge of the banking business do not have such experience, she added. 
So banks have to choose. 
There are nearly 50 top managers currently working in St. Petersburg’s retail banking business and another 50 such vacancies. In corporate banking nearly 300 professionals are involved in management and the deficit stands at nearly 100 people.
According to Bogina the same applies to foreign banks. 
“The difference is in the language. Foreign banks want their managers to know English,” Bogina said, adding that a salary can increase by up to 20 percent accordingly. 
If Russia enters the World Trade Organization, many of the country’s banks will get bought up by Western institutions. 
So, according to Bogina, managers already working for Western banks in Russia will be in a good position.
She is confident that as the retail market grows so salaries will follow suit.  
“I think that banks will hire young specialists and train them as appropriately-skilled managers,” said Bondarevskaya. 
Of course preference should be given to those with experience.  Universities offer a universal education, but every bank has exclusive services. Two to three years in retail counts as good experience, she said. Corporative credits are more developed, which is why there are more managers in this sphere of banking. 
According to Indrek Neivelt, chairman of the supervisory board of St. Petersburg Bank, finding a good manager in this sphere is not a great problem. 
“The main thing is to find a manager who’s grown up in this market and has a certain flair and the ability to take one or two large steps forward,” he said. 
For Bondarevskaya the key to being a manager in the retail business is communication — you should be able to explain everything to a person who knows nothing. 
At the same time, a manager from the retail sector needs less knowledge because he works with people — he needs to do less analytical work. 
“I am convinced that after university it is much easier to get into retail banking than corporative banking,” she said.
Even the import of experienced Western managers won’t solve the problem of deficit, said Izumov from Nomos-bank. 
“To be successful in retail-banking, a manager must have an idea of the specific character of the Russian banking business,”  he said.
Neivelt agrees. “There are no problems finding top-managers with experience, because a bank can invite him from abroad. But if they hire someone who doesn’t know how this very market is thinking, he won’t be effective,” said Neivelt.
Izumov said that as a rule, in banks with Western capital, Russian managers hold the top jobs while Western specialists only occupy middle-management positions. 
“The lack of managers in retail-banking forces banks to outbid their rivals when a top-manager becomes available. That is why salaries are so high in this sphere,” he said. 
In his opinion, a manager’s salary could be anything between 20,000 rubles ($741) to 55,000 rubles ($2037).
“The strategy should be to train ones own specialists, while remaining open to experience and trying to attract consultants from abroad,” said Neivelt.

TITLE: Fighting For Workers
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: As the shortage in qualified personnel continues, salaries for even the most basic staff keep rising.
If the local labor market remains favorable for employees, employers will find themselves competing for a limited number of qualified professionals. The city’s leading companies are increasing salaries above inflation and generously offering additional benefits to retain specialists, ANCOR recruiting company concluded in its last labor market survey.
“The situation in the labor market still remains favorable for employees and difficult for employers because demand for many specialists exceeds the workforce available,” said Natalya Martikainen, Project Manager in Salary Survey Group at ANCOR.
Neither the volume nor the structure of job opportunities differs much from 2005. According to ANCOR, the labor deficit is highest in the production industry and retail because new companies are arriving in the city and local firms are expanding their businesses.
What makes the situation even more difficult is that the lack of qualified personnel is seen “not only among middle and top level specialists but also among basic staff.”
“Companies are in need of ordinary administrative staff (secretaries, receptionists) and qualified workers, including mechanics and electricians — salaries for these specialists keep rising,” Martikainen said.
Apart from regularly revising salaries, most employers pay compensations for night shift and holiday work as well as providing bonuses depending on specific individual or group achievements.
Basically the employers pay for food (on average $2.51 a day per person) and offer additional health insurance. The average cost of the latter increased from $471 last year to $541 this year.
Some employers offer loans to personnel for up to three years (the maximum size of the loan is $22,355), options to buy the company’s shares and nongovernmental pension schemes.
Out of the 68 companies surveyed, 74 percent provide financial support to employees, 53 percent fund sports activities, and 63 percent give presents to employees’ children.
53 percent of companies pay birthday bonuses, 43 percent allow employees to get full pay during sick leave, 35 percent sell corporate property at a discount.
A few companies provide additional health insurance for employees’ relatives. 59 percent of companies offer vaccinations to employees.
Depending on the employee’s position they could receive a company car and compensation for fuel and maintenance. Ones employer might also cover the costs of a mobile phone, education and training courses.
93 percent of companies organize parties at New Year and Christmas, 59 percent organize summer corporate events — picnics and team building exercises being the most popular.
When asked about the labor market, local businesspeople were quite confident in their ability to hire and retain employees.
Valentin Katkalov, director of personnel at St. Petersburg Bank, said the bank does not suffer from any serious lack of specialists.
“At the moment the situation is rather favorable for employers — some banks are reorganizing and many qualified specialists are losing their jobs,” Katkalov said.
Nevertheless, the bank competes for qualified professionals, he said, mainly by monitoring salaries.
“We try to keep key specialists’ salaries slightly higher than the market average. Salaries are increased once a year,” Katkalov said. At the same time, many departments use a bonus scheme to reward specialists’ positive impacting on bank performance.
The employer should never be complacent, because methods of attracting and keeping specialists are constantly changing, Katkalov warned.
“We renew the compensation package every year and try to provide a comfortable environment for work and professional growth,” he said.
Tatiana Kolesnikova, quality and environment director at Scania Peter, also denied any shortage in labor saying that the company staff  “is complete with competent and very qualified specialists.”
The only weak point, she indicated, is the number of production specialists.
“Following a series of reforms in the 1990s, demand for engineers fell. Technical institutions started to supply graduates in economics, management and engineering and management. Now engineers and specialists in production are much more in demand,” Kolesnikova said.
Another problem with new employees is often their poor command of English. Kolesnikova said that in closely monitoring labor market trends the company has succeeded in maintaining low staff turnover.
“Of most importance is our corporate culture. We focus on long-term results, with respect to individuals and social protection. We delegate tasks, increase employees’ responsibility and involve them in achieving global targets,” she said.

TITLE: Equipping Students For a Golden Future
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A lack of qualified specialists is still proving the bane of city managers, especially in the hi-tech industry. More and more companies are targeting students with training programs and internships. But the challenge then remains to keep this newly-equipped potential within the company.
Last year, the Polymetal mining company introduced an internship program “Youth. Professionalism. Careers” offering university students practical skills for careers in the mining industry.
This year over 80 students participated in the program, and although it cost the company five million rubles ($189,000) to run, managers consider it a wise investment.
“A significant number of students who completed an internship expressed a desire to join Polymetal as full-time employees,” a representative of the company said by e-mail.
Last year 29 students joined the company on a full-time basis and 33 interns signed contracts to begin full-time work in 2006 — this equates to over 50 percent of the program participants. Similar figures are expected this year.
Polymetal faces a lack of specialists in remoter regions of Russia, where deposits and exploration sites are located. Because of this, the company has to work closely with regional universities.
The program enables students to apply skills taught at school and university in a practical way. The particular set of skills depends on a student’s area of interest and on whether they work at the company’s headquarters in St. Petersburg or at one of the operating deposits or exploration sites.
According to the company’s representative, an internship allows one to check if a potential employee would suit the company and vice versa. It also gives students the chance to try out a variety of potential careers and find out which would be the best for them.
Next year Polymetal plans to launch a number of similar programs at leading professional technical schools across the country. Many large companies run some kind of education program. Motorola, McDonald’s and General Electric are widely known for their corporate universities. In Russia, Ilim Pulp timber company educates potential employees in this way. 
Yelena Kitayeva, recruiting specialist at Arbat-Nevsky agency, noted that such programs aim, for the most part,  to give an understanding of corporate culture and company products. Such knowledge is difficult to get anywhere else other than in the company.
From the employer’s point of view, education programs “simplify the transition period for future employees, who gain knowledge of corporate essentials in a comfortable environment,” Kitayeva said.
Such activities can also be a form of PR, giving potential employees a positive image of the company, she said.
“The disadvantage is the relatively short period of study and lack of formalization. As a result, the interests of the employer can suffer,” she said.
Kitayeva suggested selecting appropriate candidates for education programs, signing an “education contract” with students and introducing a formalized attestation procedure to make sure the company spends money on the “right people” who will not walk away on graduating.
In any case, employers should not expect too much in terms of loyalty. Kitayeva said that usually young specialists stay in the same position for just one to three years.
“Then the specialist either looks for more attractive terms elsewhere or moves up within the company,” she said.
Offering additional education for students is common practice among IT companies, said Jury Ivanov, General Manager of ARCADIA++ recruiting agency.
Such programs are carried out either in cooperation with universities or independently, in the company’s own learning center.
“The benefits for employers are obvious. They get specialists fine-tuned to their needs. But the number of students that can be given such treatement is always limited,” Ivanov said.
For example, SoftJoys Computer Academy teaches students in groups of just 15 to 25 people.
Ivanov also warned that on graduating such specialists can just switch to another employer. “Unfortunately, there is no legal basis to retain them, and the decision whether to stay or go depends on the specialist’s honesty,” he said.
Ivanov suggested that a competitive salary together with clear career prospects would help retain specialists.
In the IT industry the average time spent working in a particular company depends on many factors, including its financial stability and image.
“According to our observations, this average has decreased. For example, among young programmers it is ‘bon ton’ to switch employer once a year,” Ivanov said.
Nevertheless, companies still invest in personnel because the level of education in technical universities in Russia does not correspond to the requirements of the business, he said.
At least the employer has to teach new staff the practical skills of using modern equipment and methods of software development, Ivanov said.

TITLE: How Would You Give Someone the Boot?
TEXT: A selection of thoughtful professionals from a variety of businesses were asked for their tips on giving an employee the sack with the minimum of fuss.


Felix Kassan, security consultant:
I fire a bodyguard for dishonesty, if they’re drunk or not on time, for not properly registering when they take arms from storage, for being rude to clients and for not having their uniform. For the first reminder I take $150 off their pay, and for the third at the latest I fire them.
“We worked on a case where a general director was fired and left the office with original business documents. He rang and demanded $100,000 for them. I keep all the important company documents in the bank. I keep the employees’ labor books in the safe, too. They need them to get a new job, and I would never give them back unless they sign everything and I know they’re not taking documents home. 
“Don’t trust anyone. A very nice employee can become a bad one when you fire them. This is the real Russia, not what high-paid lawyers tell you.”


Tim Carty, partner, 
Ernst & Young’s human 
capital department: 
Firing is extremely rare: The technicalities of it are pretty difficult. If you’re trying to fire someone for cause, like stealing, you have to prove it in court. The only other form you see is making someone redundant.
“The overwhelming number of terminations are done by mutual consent. Either the employee resigns, or the employer sits down and has a career discussion with them on why their career isn’t going as well as it could be. In that situation, the employee can agree to go elsewhere, and you pay compensation, normally around three months’ pay. 
“A bad way is an organization that turns around to someone and says, ‘You’re fired.’ There’s a severe amount of risk. Most labor law cases here are where the employer failed to follow due process: The employer will lose, the employee will be reinstated and back-pay will have to be given, and then you have to go through the whole process of doing it properly.” 


Alex Shifrin, director, 
The Creative Factory:
The best way to avoid conflict is to fire someone on a positive note. This means that you bring out a positive trait of theirs, and allow for the ‘environment’ to be a mitigating factor in his or her dismissal. This may or may not be the case, but there’s really no need to crush someone. 
“There has been much discussion whether it’s better to do this at the start of the week or the end of the week. From the perspective of the person being let go, there really isn’t any good day for it, so do it at the end of the pay period to make it smooth for accounting.
“We had to let our art director go recently. We have an open plan office, and I couldn’t really call him over to my desk and let him go within earshot of everyone, so I set up a lunch with him to do it.”

TITLE: A Hot Lesson in Team-Building
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: “The idea of a team is very important. If people feel part of a team, they get pleasure from their work,” said Anna Sagaida, chief consultant and head of Top Hunt International Selection Office in St. Petersburg.
Today every manager is expected to build a united team. It guarantees success in business. There appears the so-called “synergy effect” when the knowledge and actions of each person combine to improve the overall result.  
The employee who is a member of a team usually strives for greater efficiency and puts his knowledge to better use. 
“Effective work is impossible when people do not hear or understand each other,” said Sagaida.
Effective teamwork is an intermediary goal towards getting good, sustainable results. 
“Business is done not by machinery but by people, they are the main asset,” said Tatiana Grin, Marketing Manager of ANCOR.
According to the specialists at Begin Group, the notion of a team implies three main parts: the understanding of common goals, the freedom necessary for its achievement and interpersonal relations. Although one might find the following definition in a dictionary — the team as a group of people linked by a common purpose — a group does not necessarily in itself constitute a team. 
The team needs building.
Business theorists at the end of the twentieth century popularized the concept of team building. “Team building” refers to the process of establishing and developing a greater sense of collaboration and trust between team members. It can be done in different ways – through the organization of leisure activities and events, team assessments and outdoor activities. 
“Such events are useful because people can learn more about each other, communicate under informal conditions. But organizers should remember that people are sensitive to any insincerity that might arise. Rather than hold it in a formal manner, it’s probably better not to hold it at all,” said Sagaida. 
The development of corporate culture is an important stage in team building. 
Almost 90 percent of western and half of Russian companies work on some form of corporate culture from the moment they are set up, according to Begin Group research. 
“Corporate culture should always be maintained, and managers should be instrumental in encouraging it. It usually depends on the view of the director — if they entrust the process to another person, it will gradually get other features and reflect the ideas of that individual,” said Oleg Kubatko, the head of HRM department in Begin Group Company. 
“Corporate culture is usually something discussed between employees of different companies, and it often has a great influence on the person’s choice of workplace. A company’s ‘climate’ is very important,” said Grin.
“And employers not only look at professional skills but at the personal qualities of an employee, how they will get on with other staff,” she said.
The organization of leisure time and holidays also helps overcome the psychological barrier in communication. According to Begin Group research, 50 percent of companies only mark “standard” holidays such as New Year and company anniversaries. 
Around 40 percent celebrate various events throughout the year like employees’ birthdays, and the completion of projects, and only eight percent do not celebrate anything at all.
“Our company runs big corporate events twice a year: The New Year party and summer team building combined with the company’s birthday, and every event has its own concept and scenario and the whole company takes part in it,” said Grin. 
Most companies use firms that specialize in organizing such events, and even if the service is unsatisfactory, companies might refuse the provider but not the service. 
And finally – there are team-building courses. A number of training courses have gained in popularity. 
“These are trainings in the “shock” style, during which employees get professional skills in quite unusual situations,” said Peter de Jager, a Canadian management-consultant. 
“According to Office Angels company research, 50 percent of employers are ready to organize trainings with “survival tasks” if they will bring successful results.”
Such trainings include outdoor competition with extreme activities. 
“There is the principle of less words – more action,” said Sagaida.  
“The main thing is to determine the aim of the training, the idea behind it, and then to combine it with the interests of employees, to find a suitable program, providers,” said Grin. “Team building is a great responsibility,” she added.
Team building in large, developing companies is often aimed at helping new people adapt to the team. 
There are various activities, from “office-karaoke” to “assault courses.” But whatever you choose, the main thing, according to Paul Jackobs, an expert at Office Angels, is that the course should be “interactive, attractive and substantial,” and if possible without friction.  
Although teambuilding is reasonably popular and widespread, not all companies have jumped on the bandwagon. 
“Our company does not hold team building, maybe because in our profession team building happens by itself every day. When an employee has a problem, it is discussed by the whole team, everyone tries to help with the provision of information, contacts or just give advice. It gives us a daily feeling of team spirit,” said Sagaida. 
In forming a team, one should be ready to face difficulties. There can be two ‘leader’ personalities in one team or several leader teams; a close team might disagree with the boss’s decisions and resign from the company; employees might not accept new ones. Often relations can become too friendly and it becomes difficult for the boss to treat employees in an appropriate fashion.

TITLE: In Search of a Western Way of Life
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Despite Western governments’ attempts to render immigration as difficult as possible, many educated Russians have found a way through into Fortress Europe — we look at their attempts and find out why in the end they’ll most likely return to the Motherland.

Foreign countries are often a source of great fascination. Most people just visit them on holiday maybe once or twice a year, but there are some who’ll go as far as actually leaving their homeland for the challenge of living and working abroad. And it is no longer as a source of riches that Russians are attracted to the West — one might say the whole process has more of a theoretical basis, which often ends with a return home.
One of the most attractive things about moving abroad is the chance to receive a Western education. The British Government has just announced a new scheme whereby graduates from the country’s 50 top business schools can stay on and work in the U.K. for up to 12 months on completing their MBAs. This will form part of the government’s Highly Skilled Migrant Program.

A Western Education
“It is much easier to find a job when you not only have experience but also a so-called, “Western education.” Of course such an education can vary with regards to quality, but the fact remains that “Western education” is well-known and is a sort of brand,” said Julia Gnezdilova, a graduate with an Executive MBA from Cass Business School. 
“Nowadays lots of Russians are getting top positions in investment banking and in the financial sphere abroad. Mostly these are graduates from leading business schools,” said Olga Chebotkova, executive search partner of Top Hunt International. 
“I’ve already worked at The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London and decided to get an MBA degree because it helps when building a career in banking or consulting,” said Gnezdilova. “It helped me to get a new job, also at a bank in London,” she said.
Russia has a great tradition of mathematicians and continued strength in this sphere is helping Russian students find jobs at investment banks, says Dr. Joanna Zaleska, Lecture in Management at Cass Business School.
The Russian Federation was one of the original 29 countries to sign up to the Bologna Accord in 1999. The implications for all 40 current signatories is a greater mobility of students across Europe, something that will impact on the numbers of Russian students in the U.K. as well.
“In the early 1990s, when students first arrived from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the learning curve was steep for them, but we now find that many of our Russian and Eastern European students bring cosmopolitan work experience with them, just like students from the rest of the world,” said Professor David Sims, Associate Dean for MBA Programs, Cass Business School. 
Western countries are interested in young qualified specialists and try to involve them in work. However, English law means an employer can’t hire foreigners without a work visa, which can’t be granted without a work permit, which in turn is dependent on having been offered a job, said Ruslan Koutlukaev, a graduate from the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Surrey, currently working on a project in Guildford. The Chevening grant-aided student believes he now “has to consolidate on theory and increase his experience,” which the country allows him to do.

Realizing Your Self
Self-realization is an important part of a career. But often Russia cannot provide its specialists with tasks that are fulfilling enough. Traditionally, in the IT industry for example, specialists move to the U.S., Canada, Germany or Australia in search of more challenging work. 
“I think Russian professionals do not feel that their work is appreciated as much as it would be abroad. Especially in the field of academia, you have to work many years before you are able to achieve something substantial in Russia. However you do not get enough income to support yourself. Unfortunately some young professionals do not feel motivated to work in Russia because they cannot be fully self- realized,” said Elmira Dyafarova, a Graduate Tutor at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, who went to the U.K. four years ago to study for an MA in Tourism Resource Management. 
“I would probably be able to get a good job in a business in Russia. However, I would not be able to pursue my career in academia with much success. I would do part-time teaching as I enjoy it a lot, but unfortunately I would not receive much of a salary, and would have to find another job too,” she said.
The path to success is not necessarily quicker abroad, but more certain if you make the effort. In Russia there is a greater chance of quick success.
“However it might not be linked to ones merits and personal capabilities,” said Roman Stepanov, who is currently working at the Accounting and Finance division of Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University.
“In terms of getting a job in England, I am under the impression that you are more likely to be successful applying for academic jobs, as British universities tend to have more leverage over the issue of work permits. They are less driven by profit, and therefore it is easier for them to justify the additional expense associated with employing a foreigner,” said Stepanov.

Promotion of Interests
In the sphere of business, if a manager is successful in Russia he is often sent abroad, promoted within the same company. 
“Usually it is done to encourage effective work. The employee receives not so much an increase in position but an increase in status,” said Chebotkova.
Such people go abroad to develop their career, getting work experience in the sphere of international business, studying the Western world of work.
“Internal promotion usually happens without headhunters,” said Chebotkova.
The opportunities are sometimes too great to miss. “I had success building a center for MBA advice in Russia, but it was aimed at Russian-speakers and more B2C rather than B2B — the latter has opened up other horizons,” said Zoya Zaitseva, Business Development Manager at QS Network, London.
When Russian companies make acquisitions abroad, they prefer to appoint their own managers. Mostly this is the case in countries such as Iran, Algeria, Vietnam, the countries of Latin America and North Africa. The specialist just needs to speak English and have the desire to work abroad. The salaries are not much higher than in Russia and the climate and living conditions are often difficult to cope with. Positions in countries like the U.K., Holland and Denmark are obviously more attractive but few and far between. 
Money is no longer a great factor motivating movement abroad. Taxes are often lower in Russia, and the difference between top-manager salaries in the West and in Moscow or St. Petersburg has become insignificant.

Securing one’s Freedom
“What I like about my work in the U.K. is the freedom and opportunities it gives me. I can do research and also teaching, two activities I always wanted to do,” said Dyafarova.
A popular motivation is security. 
“I feel much safer here, in London – I’m not dependent on a moody and greedy boss. I don’t have to worry about taxes or travelling expenses – everything is done by the company automatically,” said Zaitseva. 
“I would say relative fairness in promotion and also freedom to travel are the main benefits. It is much easier to apply for other visas if you have a U.K. work permit. Also I would argue that British companies invest more in the development of their employees than most Russian companies,” added Stepanov.
The other point is comfort. It depends on one’s ability to integrate into the local community, a task Russians sometimes find difficult in a British setting. 
“Abroad you are part of something, and do not necessarily have the opportunity to start afresh with your own project. In this respect Russia seems a more exciting place,” said Stepanov. 

Homeland Health
“Russians understand that by staying in the West one can actually miss interesting and important things. For instance, those processes in Russian business that the West had gone through a long time ago and will never see again,” said Chebotkova. 
“So, many specialists get theoretic knowledge in the West then come to Russia to realize it in practice with professional experience,” she said.
“With its dynamic opportunities for developing one’s career, one’s own projects, Russia is more attractive than, for example, Europe,” said Julia Nikitina, managing partner of St.Petersburg office Boyden. Even those who’ve found real success abroad have not forgetten about their homeland.
“I don’t see myself working in London till the end of my life — I am Russian and at some point will come back,” said Zaitseva. “So far I am in love with what I am doing and feel that I can do much more for Russian MBA candidates, young graduates and managers in London,” she said. “As soon as you have the job you love and friends to have fun with, life is perfect, but it doesn’t depend upon the location,” she revealed.