SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1224 (90), Friday, November 24, 2006
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Ban On EU Meat Threatened
AUTHOR: By Miriam Elder
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia has threatened to ban all imports of animal products from the European Union, an EU spokesman said Wednesday — just two days before a summit where the two sides appear set for fractious talks over their future cooperation.Russia is citing concerns over food hygiene standards in Romania and Bulgaria, which are due to join the EU on Jan. 1, as the reason to impose the EU-wide ban, a spokesman for the European Commission said.
Russia informed the commission "of their intention to ban EU animal product exports" starting Jan. 1 in a letter two weeks ago, spokesman Philip Tod said in Brussels.
The ban would affect all meat, fish and dairy products, which account for $2.2 billion in EU exports to Russia annually.
The Helsinki summit has already been clouded by Poland's refusal to agree to starting talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Russia.
The talks come amid an increasing EU-Russia divide over energy policy, as Russia continues to reject EU calls for it to adopt an Energy Charter Treaty that would open its pipeline network to third-party access and promote greater competition.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated the country's position Wednesday, saying in televised remarks that Russia had no intention of ratifying the treaty because of the flaws inherent in it.
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin's top EU envoy, said in televised remarks Wednesday that Moscow would ratify the treaty "neither today nor tomorrow," and that energy would be a priority at Friday's summit.
Poland insists it will not drop its veto until Russia lifts a yearlong ban on Polish food imports and ratifies the Energy Charter Treaty. Talks on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement need the approval of all 25 EU members to begin.
Yastrzhembsky said the ban on Polish meat imports was due to licensing violations connected to non-Polish producers.
"This is a purely internal matter for the EU," he said, referring to Poland's veto.
The EU's step to publicize the Russian threat — which came in a letter dated Nov. 3 — seemed to indicate that tough talks lay ahead.
"We would not consider a ban in any way justifiable, as we have taken precautions that no at-risk products would be allowed to circulate within the single market," Tod, the EU spokesman, said by telephone late Wednesday.
A spokesman for the Agriculture Ministry's veterinary watchdog disagreed.
"The European Union decided to include Bulgaria and Romania [as new members], but these countries are unsafe in the sense of veterinary quality," the spokesman said, RIA-Novosti reported. "The movement of goods within the European Union is unrestricted."
The embargo threat is an attempt by Russia to ensure a tough negotiating position on sensitive energy talks during the upcoming summit, said Alexander Rahr, program director of the Hamburg, Germany-based Korber Center for Russia and CIS Affairs.
"This threat is a means to force the EU to somehow take a more negotiable position toward Russian energy," Rahr said. "This is a warning sign of how difficult the talks will be."
Brussels recently dropped its insistence that Russia ratify the Energy Charter Treaty before the start of talks on the new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which would spell out EU-Russia relations on everything from visa to trade regimes. Talks on the treaty will instead be a part of the negotiations. Yet, Poland has refused to budge so far.
President Vladimir Putin issued a thinly veiled warning to Poland — and to other Eastern European countries, which are traditionally more suspicious of Russia than their western neighbors — that they risked splitting Europe with their opposition.
"Future talks should not deteriorate into an exchange of complaints," Putin wrote in an op-ed piece published Wednesday in the Financial Times.
"Those who warn of the danger of Europe becoming dependent on Russia see Russia-EU relations in black and white and try to fit them into the obsolete mold of 'friend or foe.' Such stereotypes have little in common with reality, but their persistent influence on political thinking and practice runs the risk of creating fresh divisions in Europe," Putin wrote.
Russia banned imports of Polish meat in November last year over hygiene concerns. Poland argued that the ban was a politically motivated response to Warsaw's support for Ukraine's Orange Revolution.
Russia has also played the hygiene card over other sensitive issues — banning U.S. chicken and pork imports during tough bilateral negotiations with Washington on its World Trade Organization bid and halting imports of Georgian goods and Moldovan wine as those countries turn Westward.
Tod, the spokesman, said the EU had addressed Russia's concerns in a Nov. 15 letter to the Agriculture Ministry, but had yet to receive a response.

TITLE: President Promises To Fight Corruption
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev and Simon Saradzhyan
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin promised a massive offensive against corruption Tuesday, promising that the state would start scrutinizing the incomes and property of police officers, prosecutors and judges, and their families as well.Putin also said at a meeting of 700 senior law enforcement officials that bureaucrats should not moonlight, police should conserve their energy for major crimes and all bills sent to the State Duma should be "corruption proof."
Prosecutor General Yury Chaika warned of flourishing organized crime in the oil and gas sector and complained that investigators were focusing on small businesses and leaving big companies alone.
Tuesday's gathering in the Kremlin's ornate Marble Hall topped a two-month effort by Chaika to beef up the functions of the Prosecutor General's Office. Together with Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, Chaika has visited all seven federal districts to discuss the need for better coordination between his office and other law enforcement agencies at all levels of government.
Putin said he would order new legislation that ensured the continuous monitoring of the civil servants and their families.
"The time has come to enshrine in the law requirements and bans for law enforcement and court officials that have been tested both here and abroad, particularly measures such as the monitoring of incomes and property," he said.
In a stern warning to all civil servants, Putin said bureaucrats should refrain from making money on the side. "If you want to make money, go into business. If you want to serve the state and realize your potential in civil service, live on state pay."
He said current legislation would not allow corruption to be rooted out, even if law enforcement officials were top notch and did their best to stop offenders.
Amending the Criminal Code to toughen punishment for corruption would not be enough, he said, and the parliament should pass laws making it impossible for federal, regional and municipal officials to "enter corruption deals" as part of their day-to-day work.
He also called on the parliament to pass legislation that would allow Russia to implement fully United Nations conventions against corruption and transnational organized crime.
Echoing a recent call by Chaika, Putin said each bill considered in the parliament should be evaluated to ensure that it was corruption proof.
Chaika spoke at length about the need to battle corruption in the State Duma last week. Among other things, he proposed that prosecutors evaluate bills and draft regulations to ensure they would not foster corruption.
Putin also took law enforcement agencies to task, saying increased professionalism and discipline were "the key way to lower the crime rate."
He singled out the Interior Ministry for failing to curb growing crime despite continuing budget hikes and a formidable staff. "The share of grave and very grave crimes is growing, and so is street crime."
To halt further growth, Putin recommended police focus on grave crimes while making less effort to investigate minor offenses. Another priority should be juvenile crime, he said, adding that teenagers were becoming easy prey for drug dealers and extremists. "If we don't reverse this trend, we will see the rise in the next few years of an entire generation of socially disoriented people who defy the law," the president warned.
Another sign of insufficient professionalism among law enforcement officials is the number of controversial jury acquittals, Putin said. It is the failure of detectives and prosecutors to investigate comprehensively and collect sufficient evidence that prompts juries to acquit suspects, he said.
In a long speech that followed Putin's, Chaika singled out the national energy sector as a hotbed of organized crime, particularly in the Urals and Volga federal districts.
"According to Interior Ministry accounts, organized crime has taken root everywhere in the fuel and energy sector — from oil wells and gas stations to big oil companies," he said.
But criminal cases related to illegal businesses and tax evasion involve only small- and medium-sized businesses and rarely involve big oil companies, he said.
Chaika reiterated Putin's call to set up mechanisms to monitor the incomes of civil servants and called for tougher laws to combat extremism. For example, he proposed the introduction of prison sentences for Internet providers and domain owners that allowed extremist materials on their web sites.
He painted a grim picture of growing crime and increasingly corrupt and inept law enforcement officials, particularly from the Interior Ministry.
In the first nine months of this year, more than 2.6 million crimes were registered, a 12 percent increase from the same period last year, he said. Petty crime jumped by 34 percent, while only 20 percent of premeditated murders were solved.
"This happens because the field work done by detectives is insufficient and unsatisfactory," he said.

TITLE: No Orange Revolution Festivities in Kiev
AUTHOR: By Mara D. Bellaby
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV — Ukraine quietly remembered the second anniversary of the Orange Revolution on Wednesday, with all sides agreeing that the upheaval made the country more democratic despite disillusionment at the failure to improve people's lives.Little orange was visible on the streets of Kiev, but as darkness fell, about 1,000 mostly elderly Ukrainians gathered on Independence Square under the flags of nationalist parties, listening to speaker after speaker extolling them not to be discouraged.
"Despite what anyone thinks about this page of our history, it was a turning point. ... [It brought] a new understanding of the relationship between the government and citizens," Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said at a Cabinet session.
The Orange Revolution began hours after the polls closed in the Nov. 21, 2004, presidential election between the Kremlin-backed Yanukovych and pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko. As the Central Election Commission began churning out fraudulent vote counts in favor of Yanukovych, Yushchenko summoned his supporters to Independence Square for night after night of rallies.
Twelve days later, the Supreme Court declared the vote count fraudulent and ordered a rerun, which Yushchenko won. But the euphoria ended as Ukrainians grew disillusioned with the power struggles, rising gasoline and meat prices, and allegations of corruption among a group that had promised to be squeaky clean.
By the first anniversary, the leaders were so divided against each other that they lost out in the March parliamentary elections. Yanukovych's party won the most votes, put together a majority coalition and formed the Cabinet. Yanukovych — the winner of a vote recognized as Ukraine's freest and fairest ever — took back the prime minister's job. And thanks to constitutional reforms, he also enjoys more power than before. Yushchenko's popularity is so low that a recent opinion poll showed he would get less than 15 percent of the vote if the election was held now.
On the eve of the anniversary, Yushchenko defended his record. "The main thing that was achieved is something which you never feel when you have it — it is freedom," Yushchenko said in a televised interview.

TITLE: Adamov Fraud Trial Kicks Off
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The trial of former Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov began Tuesday after two postponements. Adamov faces charges of organized fraud and abuse of power stemming from his time in office from 1998 to 2001.The judge in the closed hearing at the Zamoskvoretsky District Court was to decide whether to admit evidence against Adamov submitted by the team of prosecutors, and on that basis whether to proceed with the trial or dismiss the charges.
If convicted, Adamov could face up to 10 years in prison.
Adamov, 67, was detained in Switzerland at the request of U.S. authorities in May 2005 on suspicion of stealing $9 million in U.S. funds that were earmarked for improving nuclear safety in Russia.

TITLE: Doctors Puzzled By Russian Spy's Illness
AUTHOR: By Tariq Panja
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Ailing former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko's condition has deteriorated and doctors remain puzzled by his critical illness, which probably was not caused by the toxic metal thallium or radiation, a doctor said Thursday.A friend said Litvinenko was on life support.
Dr. Geoff Bellingan, director of critical care at University College Hospital, said Litvinenko's condition had shown "a dramatic deterioration" overnight. He did not comment on the report by Litvinenko's friend, Alex Goldfarb.
"We are now convinced that the cause of Mr. Litvinenko's condition was not a heavy metal such as thallium. Radiation poisoning is also unlikely," Bellingan said, reading a statement to reporters outside the hospital. "Despite extensive tests, we are still unclear as to the cause of his condition."
Doctors originally suspected Litvinenko had been given thallium. They later said it is more likely he is suffering from the effects of another substance, possibly a radioactive one.
Friends and dissidents have alleged that an attack on Litvinenko was carried out at the behest of the Russian government. Litvinenko sought asylum in Britain in 2000, and has been a relentless critic of the Kremlin and the Russian security services.
Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch is investigating Litvinenko's illness.
On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, issued a sharp denial that it was involved in any assassination attempt.
"Litvinenko is not the kind of person for whose sake we would spoil bilateral relations," SVR spokesman Sergei Ivanov said, according to the Interfax news agency. "It is absolutely not in our interests to be engaged in such activity."
The SVR, one of the successor agencies of the Soviet KGB, declined to comment to The Associated Press.
The British Broadcasting Corp., quoting an unidentified hospital source, reported that X-rays had shown that Litvinenko swallowed three objects of dense matter, which had lodged in his intestines.
The BBC said it was unclear whether the objects were related to Litvinenko's illness, and the hospital declined to comment.
Bellingan dismissed the reports.
"Suggestions that an X-ray identified three objects in his body are misleading," he said. "We are now convinced that shadowing on the x-ray was caused, as might be expected, by Prussian Blue, a nontoxic therapeutic agent which was administered as part of his treatment.
Goldfarb, the friend of the former KGB spy, said earlier in the day that his friend's heart has stopped working properly on its own.
"He went into a cardiac failure overnight," said Goldfarb, who alternately described Litvinenko as on a "ventilator," "artificial heart support" and "artificial resuscitation."
Goldfarb, who had joined Litvinenko's wife Marina and the former agent's father by his bedside, said the 43-year-old's condition had been deteriorating over the last few days.
"His heart has been generally weak of the past few weeks, he had low blood pressure yesterday, and his heart had stopped. He was in intensive care for that reason," Goldfarb said.
Litvinenko worked both for the KGB and for one of its successor, the Federal Security Service.

TITLE: Canada Claims Detainee Is Russian Spy
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — A man arrested on espionage charges is an elite Russian spy who had been collecting intelligence on Canada for more than a decade, Canadian authorities said in court documents.The man, identified as Paul William Hampel, was taken into custody by the Canada Border Services Agency on Nov. 14.
In documents filed in a federal court in Montreal on Tuesday, Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials said they had reason to believe Hampel was a member of the Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR. He was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.
SVR spokesman Sergei Ivanov declined to comment on the case Wednesday.
Hampel's lawyer, Stephane Handfield, said Hampel would seek a delay in the proceedings aimed at deporting him because he only received the summary of the evidence against him on Tuesday.
The court documents said Hampel had used a fraudulent birth certificate to obtain at least three Canadian passports, and recommended that he immediately be deported.
"Hampel's establishment of a legend based on Canadian documentation has provided him with the ability to covertly further the interests of the SVR for over a decade both within Canada and abroad," the federal summary reads. A "legend" is a spy's fictional life story.
The documents said that when Hampel was detained and searched by authorities at a Montreal airport Nov. 14, they found his fraudulent Ontario birth certificate in a travel pouch under his shirt; $6,810 in five currencies; three cellular phones; five sim cards (several of which were password-protected); two digital cameras; and a shortwave radio.
Details of his three Canadian passport applications in 1995, 2000 and 2002 were included in the documents. Though most of the contents were blacked out, the first two applications claimed that Hampel was a lifeguard and travel consultant.
The last time suspected Russian spies were captured and expelled from Canada was in 1996.
Canadian authorities said the captured spies, Dmitry Olshevsky and Yelena Olshevskaya, who went by the names Ian and Laurie Lambert, were actually "sleeper" agents for the SVR.
Intelligence services worldwide are moving away from the practice of deploying agents with assumed names and life stories, said Andrei Soldatov, a security services analyst with Agentura.ru. "It is increasingly difficult to plant such an agent into foreign society and to protect his or her legend," he said.
Soldatov said these agents did not usually collect sensitive information, but acted as middlemen between moles and intelligence officials.
(AP, SPT)

TITLE: Poisoning Unnveres Russian Expatriates Living in London
AUTHOR: By Kim Murphy
PUBLISHER: LOS ANGELES TIMES
TEXT: LONDON — Here in Moscow-on-the-Thames, it was a calling card from home.A former KGB agent who has settled in London to raise his family gets a warning that his name is on a Mafia hit list, then falls ill from a mysterious poisoning. Dark theories involving the Kremlin and sinister business figures tumble around town like blini from a hot skillet.
Suddenly, the elegant Mayfair townhouses with window-box geraniums and the Chelsea gastro pubs with designer vodka don't seem so very far from Russia.
The apparent attack on Alexander Litvinenko has reminded London's 300,000-plus Russian residents that the long, often menacing arm of Slavic capitalism and politics is only a 3 1/2-hour Aeroflot flight away.
"We are thinking about this and discussing this, but to tell you my opinion, it's not just murder and poisoning — it's politics," said Elena Ragozhina, who edits New Style, a magazine for the New Russians of London.
"This kind of situation exists with all countries which started new to capitalism," she said. "All new business is sometimes quite — not dangerous — but not so quiet, not so relaxed. And if you will read books about how business started in America and other different countries, you will find the same examples."
London has attracted exiles and immigrants from all over the world. The 21st century has belonged to Russians, many of them millionaires who brought their rapidly earned capital to the security, investment opportunity and favorable tax laws of England.
"In general, the main reason people come here is safety. And we see this place as much cleaner, with a higher standard of living," said Dimitry Antonov, a native of Novosibirsk who works for a Ukrainian oil and gas holding company in London.
Businessmen who would never leave home in Moscow without a team of bodyguards often go solo in London, he said. "It's a little bit more civilized."
Except when it's not.
Friends believe Litvinenko's accusations of skulduggery against Russian authorities landed him in London's University College Hospital, where he remains in serious condition.
The Russian government has dismissed as "nonsense" suggestions that it was involved, and many commentators in Russia have pointed the finger at the tangled web of expatriate Russian politics in London.
A few Russian emigres find solace not just in Britain's tax laws, which allow their earnings to sit comfortably unnoticed offshore, but in sympathetic political leaders who have resisted attempts of the Russian government to extradite its opponents. The most famous of them is businessman Boris Berezovsky.

TITLE: Authorities Accused of 1,947 Abductions
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Police and soldiers have kidnapped nearly 2,000 people in Chechnya since 2002, according to a human rights report released Wednesday.Of 1,947 people kidnapped, 684 people have been freed and 189 have been found dead. The others have disappeared without trace and are presumed dead, the report compiled by Memorial and the International Federation of Human Rights said.
Investigations have only been opened into 34 of the 1,947 cases, the report said.
The data cover 25 percent to 30 percent of Chechen territory.
The number of kidnappings reported since 2002 has been steadily declining — 539 incidents in 2002 fell to 320 last year — but that does not mean that the rule of law is returning to the region, said Oleg Orlov, head of Memorial.
"What we are seeing is that kidnappings are moving into the shadows. People are afraid to report incidents," Orlov said.
He said 90 percent of known disappearances in recent years were initially not reported by relatives and friends.
"When people are kidnapped, that is when the torture begins," said Lidia Yusupova of Memorial's Grozny office, referring to claims of systematic prisoner abuse in Chechnya that have been widely reported in the media.
The 113-page report, which contains specific accounts of kidnapping, unlawful detention and violence carried out by Interior Ministry troops and Chechen forces working for Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, will be presented to the United Nations, Orlov said.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the ministry could not immediately comment on the report.

TITLE: Shell Wants 'Clear Signal' it's Welcome
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: HELSINKI — The head of Royal Dutch Shell in Russia on Thursday demanded an end to months of sniping and threats by Kremlin-backed officials. "We would like to hear clear signals that international oil companies continue to be welcome in Russia," Chris Finlayson told a business conference in Helsinki, where Russian President Vladimir Putin and European Union leaders will meet on Friday.Russia's Natural Resources Ministry and the state agencies for environmental and technical compliance, which all have the power to delay or derail projects, have aimed their toughest rhetoric at the Sakhalin-2 project off Russia's Pacific coast, which Shell leads.
Projects run by other firms such as Exxon Mobil and BP Plc have also been threatened, but Shell's case grew into a political row that drew complaints and demands for explanation from Brussels, London and The Hague.
Many analysts see the campaign against Shell as part of a wider Kremlin drive to increase state control over the lucrative energy sector.
Shell stepped into the firing line last year when it doubled its cost estimate for the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas scheme to $22 billion, infuriating Russia, which will now have to wait much longer to see returns from the project.
"Recently there have been a lot of discussions about what Russia gets from Shell's Sakhalin project and whether the deal is fair for Russia," Finlayson said.
"We believe that, despite the increase in costs, the project is still highly beneficial to Russia."

TITLE: X5 Plans Large Share Issue
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia's largest grocery retailer X5, which is listed in London, plans a large share issue on the local market next year, its head Lev Khasis said on Thursday."I think that we will place shares of an additional issue in a significant volume on a Russian bourse," Khasis told reporters, without specifying the size of the offering. "I think it will happen as early as in 2007."
Discount food retailer Pyaterochka, which earlier this year was taken over by supermarket chain Perekryostok to form X5, in 2005 placed 30 percent of its capital on the London Stock Exchange.
Khasis said core shareholders, which include Alfa Group, would not seek to boost their ownership stakes through the share offering. "Our goal is not to cut free float below 25 percent," he said.
The London shares were issued by a company registered in the Netherlands.

TITLE: Alfa Group Raises Voting Stake in Vimpelcom
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia's Alfa Group has increased its voting stake in the country's No. 2 cellphone firm Vimpelcom to 35.8 percent from 32.9 percent, a document filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Thursday.Alfa is in a bitter conflict with Norway's Telenor over Vimpelcom's expansion in Ukraine, where Telenor controls market leader, Kiyvstar.
In September, Alfa asked Jam Holding Asset Management to buy shares from the market, while Rightmarch, a company controlled by Alfa's telecoms arm Altimo, had the right to buy out the stock from Jam from Oct. 26 to Jan. 1, 2007. Rightmarch will have the right to vote with the shares at Vimpelcom's shareholders' meetings.
Thursday's document said the transaction had been completed.
Analysts have said the deal is aimed at neutralising moves by Telenor to increase its influence over Vimpelcom. In June, Telenor struck a deal with ING Bank to acquire 3.5 percent of Vimpelcom from the market. Telenor, which will neither own the shares nor have the right to vote with them, said the agreement could help it hedge pricing risks.
Both Telenor — which owns 26.6 percent of voting shares in Vimpelcom — and Alfa have filed requests to the Anti-Monopoly Service asking for permission to increase their stakes in Vimpelcom.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Business Center PlansnST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Peterburgskaya Nedvizhimist has announced plans to construct an A-class business center in Petrogradsky district, Interfax reported Tuesday.
Construction of the 40,000 square meter complex will be completed by the end of 2008. The cost of the project is $70 million.Book SalonnST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Over 200 printing-houses and libraries from 16 countries will take part in an international book salon, running from Nov. 24 through Nov. 26 at Lenexpo exhibition complex, Interfax reported Tuesday.
The project is financed by City Hall, Federal Agency for Press and the Russian Book Union.
A second salon will take place in St. Petersburg at the end of May 2007.Shale SalenST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Leningrad Oblast government will auction off, December 21, a 20 percent stake in Leningradslanets company, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Applications for the auction are being accepted up until December 19. The starting price has been set at 18.7 million rubles.Last year net losses suffered by Leningradslanets increased 12.4 times — up to 45.7 million rubles.
The plant can process six million tons of shale oil a year.Gripping SalesnST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Nokian Tyres plans to increase sales by 16.5 percent this year — up to 800 million euros, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Next year sales of Nokian Tyres in Russia are expected to reach 200 million euros. During nine months of 2006 company sales in Russia amounted to over 120 million euros.Sberbank ProfitnMOSCOW (Reuters) — State-owned Sberbank , Russia's largest bank, posted cumulative net profits of 72.9 billion roubles ($2.74 billion) in the first 10 months of 2006, up 28.3 percent from a year earlier, it said on its web site.
The results, to Russian accounting standards, provide the most timely measure of performance at Sberbank, which only recently published half-year results to international accounting standards for the first time.
Sberbank's loan portfolio grew to 2.4 trillion roubles as of Nov. 1 from 1.8 trillion roubles a year earlier, while deposits increased to 1.8 trillion roubles from 1.4 trillion.Apatit WinsnMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Apatit, which was part owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former chief of Yukos Oil Co., won a court ruling against the federal tax service, Vedomosti said, citing a court official.
The fertilizer maker was charged with 5.37 billion rubles ($188.2 million) in back taxes for 2001, most of which in fines and interest for the alleged malpractice, the newspaper said.
Apatit disputed about 5 billion rubles of that in court, Vedomosti said.
The court found 5.04 billion rubles of the bill was unfounded, the paper said. The company still faces 6.6 billion rubles in back tax claims for 2002 and 2003, Vedomosti said.Gazprom Gas CutnMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Gazprom, Russia's natural gas export monopoly, will cut deliveries to neighboring Azerbaijan by two thirds next year, Interfax said, citing company spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov.
"Gazprom expects gas deliveries to Azerbaijan to contract to 1.5 billion cubic meters next year,'' Kupriyanov said at a briefing, the news service reported. Given Russia's plans to increase the price of gas deliveries, "this volume will fully meet Azerbaijan's needs,'' Kupriyanov said.Cameco VenturenSASKATCHEWAN (Bloomberg) — The venture Cameco Corp., the world's largest uranium miner, is forming with Russia's Tenex plans to develop fields in four countries as surging prices for the metal make difficult projects more affordable.
The venture, announced by Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Cameco late yesterday, will probably start work in Asian Russia, at fields considered too expensive to develop a year ago, before uranium prices almost doubled, Tenex spokeswoman Yekaterina Shugaeva said via telephone in Moscow Thursday.
"We will probably start with projects in Far East Russia, along the lines of our venture with Mitsui,'' Shugaeva said.Unreserved RisenMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia's gold and foreign currency reserves, the world's third largest, rose for a fifth consecutive week to a record on high oil prices. The reserves advanced $1.9 billion to $278.9 billion in the week ended Nov. 17, after surging $2.8 billion the previous week, the central bank said in an e-mailed statement Thursday.
Russia's reserves have swelled 59 percent this year, and grown from $12 billion in 1998, as the price of Urals crude, the nation's main export blend of oil, rose more than sixfold, Bloomberg data show.

TITLE: Putin Shuns Hike in Gas Prices
AUTHOR: By Simon Shuster
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin took his government to task Wednesday for its poor handling of power shortfalls. But he stopped short of acting on the advice of top officials to jack up the price of natural gas to avert a mounting energy crisis."If everything had been done as needed, there would be no breakdowns, and people would not suffer," Putin said at a long-anticipated strategy meeting in the Kremlin.
But, he added, "almost nothing has been done. Thousands of people are now without fuel or electricity."
Anatoly Chubais, head of electricity monopoly Unified Energy Systems, and Alexei Miller, head of natural gas monopoly Gazprom, planned to tell Putin that the main way to avert a crisis was a substantial and immediate hike in gas prices, now at $46 per 1,000 cubic meters.
"This price is wrong," Chubais told reporters before heading off to the meeting.
He warned of tough times this winter, noting that electricity usage reached record highs in Tyumen, western Siberia, on Tuesday even though the temperature had been a relatively normal minus 15 degrees Celsius. Last winter, Tyumen usage only reached similar levels during a January low of minus 55 degrees.
"Frankly speaking, we don't fully understand this phenomenon ourselves," Chubais said. "This is an entirely new situation, and it requires a new policy in the government."
Under the current policy, the price of gas grew by 11 percent this year and will increase by another 15 percent in 2007.
But Chubais and Miller want the price doubled to about $90 per 1,000 cubic meters, an increase that would create an incentive for Gazprom to provide more gas at home instead of to Europe, where it can ask for five times more.
Also Wednesday, Gazprom teamed up with smaller gas suppliers to create Russia's first free exchange market for trading in natural gas. The deals on opening day averaged $60 per 1,000 cubic meters, showing the willingness of consumers to pay more than the state-set price for gas.
Putin's economic aide, Igor Shuvalov, reiterated that the government was committed to raising prices to stimulate growth among smaller producers of gas, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. But those increases will come only in the next few years.
Political pressure seems to have proven too strong to allow the short-term doubling of the price. A higher price would lead to a spike in inflation, and since electricity tariffs are pegged to gas tariffs, the public would most likely end up paying more for both gas and electricity ahead of State Duma elections next winter and the presidential vote in 2008. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov asked Putin on Tuesday to put off raising gas prices until after 2008.
Putin noted at Wednesday's meeting that the government planned to invest 45 billion rubles ($1.7 billion) in the power industry next year.
The insufficient gas supply, which is largely blamed on low domestic prices, has been the biggest thorn in the side of UES as it enters the main phase of a $83 billion development program, Chubais said. So far this year, demand for power has grown by 4.6 percent, a rate Chubais called unprecedented. In order to meet it, UES would have needed to increase its gas consumption by 7 percent. But it has only been able to get 3 percent more gas, all of which came from small independent suppliers, not Gazprom. To make up the difference, UES has had to turn to more expensive fuels such as coal and oil, which cost five times more than natural gas.
This has resulted in losses for almost all of UES' generating companies, the CEOs of five of them said at a conference Monday.
UES' development program would create 23 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2010 and 43 gigawatts by 2015, boosting the country's total capacity by more than 30 percent over 10 years, UES chief financial officer Sergei Dubinin said at the conference.
However, the first new turbines will only go live in 2008, and stopgap measures are being used now to avert a crisis. On Wednesday, Russia informed Azerbaijan that it might cut electricity supplies by 80 percent next year due to domestic shortages.
This winter, 16 to 25 regions will face limitations on their power consumption, said Dmitry Akhanov, head of the UES strategy department. Last year, only Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tyumen were warned of possible limitations, and 406 organizations in Moscow were actually limited by about 5 percent.
But this year, Akhanov said, "the situation is almost horrible" in Tyumen and Moscow.

TITLE: Landmark Hydro OGK Power Tenders Unveiled
AUTHOR: By Elif Kaban
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — As millions of Russians brace for winter power shortages, Russian electricity reforms moved up a gear on Wednesday with word of a first multi-billion tender to build new hydroelectric power stations.The landmark tender, to build hydro-power stations in the Far East at an estimated cost of up to $15 billion, is planned for early 2007 and will be a major test of investor appetite for Europe's fastest-growing electricity market.
A senior official at Russia's Hydro OGK, one of the world's largest producers of hydroelectric power, said Austrian utility Verbund, Norway's Norsk Hydro and Statkraft, U.S. Alcoa Inc and Russia's newly merging aluminium giant Rusal-Sual were among the companies interested in the projects.
"There are huge opportunities for foreign investors," Yevgeny Druzyaka, Hydro OGK's head of strategic communications, told Reuters.
He said the tender would be to build the Yuzhno-Yakutsk hydropower complex with an installed capacity of 8.5 gigawatts at an estimated cost of $12-$14 billion, and the Nizhnye-Zeyskaya and Nizhnye-Bureyskaya stations, with combined installed capacity of 600 megawatts at a cost of $1 billion.
"We will announce the public tender at the beginning of 2007 and we will decide in the first quarter of next year. We expect to start construction in greenfield investments probably in the summer of 2007," Druzyaka said.
Hydro generation, which provides 20 percent of all power produced in Russia, acts as the backbone of the power industry by stabilising supplies and ensuring reliability of the system.
Hydro OGK was spun off from Russian electricity monopoly Unified Energy System (UES) under sector reforms aimed at introducing competition.
Once the UES restructuring is complete, Hydro OGK will be the world's second largest hydro generating company after Hydro-Quebec. It would have an installed capacity of 23.3 gigawatts.
Currently 40 hydropower plants have been incorporated into the company, with an installed capacity of 21 gigawatts.
Not long ago, such deals were unthinkable amid seemingly endless government dithering over the politically fraught need to reform Russia's crumbling electricity industry.
But now all of a sudden the Russian power sector has become a happening place with investment bankers circling for a slice of the action and a diverse range of investors from hedge funds to European utilities eyeing the market.
A pilot IPO in October by power generator OGK-5, one of six wholesale generation firms spun off from UES, raised $459 million. That was near the top of its indicative price range — and more offerings are to follow in the coming months.
UES chief Anatoly Chubais says Russia faces an electricity-supply crisis which he says would have been avoided had the restructuring — the only reform still happening in President Vladimir Putin's Russia — kicked in sooner.
Investors face risks from the slow pace of tariff deregulation and uncertainty over the price and availability of natural gas, which fires some 80 percent of the power stations.
Druzyaka said investors in the tenders were being offered stakes of up to 50 percent minus one equity share. "For the time being, they are ready to work with us on this basis," he said.
Foreign investors jointly building a plant will also be offered a long-term fixed price for electricity, for example for up to 25 years, Druzyaka said.
The mega-hydro plants must stay under state control under strategic sector reforms, along with the federal grid company.
But investors may own up to 100 percent of the smaller hydro plants, Druzyaka said, adding the plan was to build 120 megawatt installed capacity through such plants by 2010, mostly in the north Caucasus.
Verbund and Hydro recently agreed to evaluate possible projects in a joint working group, and Verbund spokesman Gerald Schulze confirmed the company was interested in the projects by taking a minority stake of up to 49 percent.
Alcoa's country manager for Russia, William O'Rourke, recently told Reuters that talks were "going well" with Russian officials on the possibility of building a hydro-station in the Far East to supply a proposed smelter.Additional reporting by Christian Gutlederer in Vienna and Douglas Busvine in Moscow.

TITLE: Gazprom Gains Control Over Gas Field in Yamal
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Gazprom has gained control of a big gas field on the Yamal peninsula by buying it from its former owner after reaching an out-of-court settlement, newspapers reported Wednesday.Vedomosti and Kommersant said the gas monopoly had gained control over the Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye field, citing unidentified Gazprom sources and the field's former owner.
The newspapers said the field held 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves as opposed to previous reports of 1.2 trillion cubic feet.
The new volume would be enough to supply Europe for three years. Aton brokerage said the development was positive for Gazprom.
"South Tambey will add 6 percent to the Gazprom's existing reserve base," Aton Brokerage said.
"This also means that Gazprom is likely to be the only gas producer on the Yamal peninsula, and the almost 5 trillion cubic meters of still undistributed gas reserves would ultimately end up on Gazprom's books."
Gazprom had initially planned to buy 25 percent in the firm, which controlled the field, but Vedomosti said it had ultimately agreed to buy full control from the former owner, Nikolai Bogachyov, for undisclosed sum.
Spain's Repsol said in February that it was considering setting up a joint venture with Anadarko Petroleum and Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye's license owner for an integrated liquefied natural gas project on Yamal.
Officials at Gazprom were not immediately available for comment Wednesday and it remains to be seen whether the plan to operate the gas field together with foreign partners will survive after Gazprom acquires the field.

TITLE: IN BRIEF
TEXT: Power StakesnMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — E.ON AG is in talks with Russian utility Unified Energy System to buy stakes in Russian power plants, Handelsblatt said, citing an interview with UES Chief Executive Officer Anatoly Chubais.
Chubais plans to meet with E.ON Chief Executive Officer Wulf Bernotat next week to discuss the liberalization of the Russian power market, the newspaper said. E.ON is interested in taking stakes in up to four power producers, and is likely to be successful in at least one bid, Handelsblatt said, citing unidentified people in Moscow.Uralkaly OutputnMOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Uralkaly, the world's fifth-largest producer of potassium fertilizer, will not return to full production at a mine that accounts for a fifth of output until 2009, Vedomosti reported, citing unidentified executives.
The BKPRU-1 mine flooded on Oct. 30, and its temporary closing will cut output of potash ore next year by 20 percent to 6.2 million metric tons.

TITLE: FSBMay Be Up to Its Old Tricks
AUTHOR: By Boris Volodarsky
TEXT: On the evening of Feb. 18, 1954, in Frankfurt, a man called on Georgy Okolovich, a leader of an anti-Soviet emigre union. The business at hand was murder. But things took a different turn when Okolovich opened the door. "I'm a captain in the Ministry of State Security and I have been sent from Moscow to organize your assassination," the visitor told him straight out. "I don't want to carry the order out and I need your help." His name was Nikolai Khokhlov. He defected to the United States and revealed that the Soviets used assassination as a political instrument.Three years later, Khokhlov was at a conference in Germany when, while with friends, he drank a cup of coffee and collapsed hours later. The doctors called it simple food poisoning, but his condition deteriorated until, 10 days into his illness, his hair began to fall out, his bone marrow was found to be severely damaged and his body showed an almost total loss of the white blood cells that are vital to the proper functioning of the immune system. Later tests uncovered the culprit: deliberate poisoning by a new and previously unknown form of thallium. He lived to tell the tale.
Fast-forward to November 1998, in Moscow, when Colonel Alexander Litvinenko of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to assassinate tycoon Boris Berezovsky. He was soon arrested and put in the infamous Lefortovo prison. The head of the FSB at the time was Vladimir Putin. A court cleared Litvinenko the following year of all accusations, including service misconduct and assorted others, but he was rearrested and retried the following year, and cleared again. In 2000, he and his family went to live in exile in Britain. There, Litvinenko published a book that tied the 1999 bombings of Moscow apartment buildings — which justified Russia's reinvasion of Chechnya — to the Putin presidential election campaign, which was successfully propelled by that war.
Earlier this month, Litvinenko was invited to tea at a London hotel with a Russian man who was familiar to him from his Moscow days. Some hours later, he had a sushi lunch at Piccadilly Circus with an Italian acquaintance, Mario Scaramella, who wanted to give him documents purportedly throwing light on the recent assassination in Moscow of the opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead last month in her apartment building.
That night, he became violently ill. At first, doctors suspected food poisoning. It was only on his 10th day in the hospital, when his hair began to fall out, that toxicology tests were performed. His body contained, these tests showed, three times the fatal dose of thallium. John Henry, a clinical toxicologist who was the first to pinpoint the dioxin poisoning of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, examined Litvinenko last Saturday and told the BBC: "There's no doubt that he's been poisoned by thallium." According to my sources close to Alexander, whom I've known for a couple years, investigators now suspect that he was poisoned at the tea, not the lunch. The name of the Russian suspect hasn't been made public by the police.
When I heard the other day that Alexander's condition was worsening, I thought the doctors perhaps made the same mistake as in the Khokhlov case. Thallium has never been known to attack the blood stream, but that's what's happening to Litvinenko. Specialists at the U.S. military hospital in Frankfurt only later discovered that Khokhlov was exposed to radioactivated thallium, which initially only results in non-specific gastrointestinal symptoms. Only later did they observe a moderate elevation of blood lipids, leukocytosis and anemia that occurs in most high-level intoxications. By the time the symptoms known to be after-effects of radiation began to appear, the radioactivated thallium had already disintegrated, making it very hard for doctors to find and for investigators to confirm the poisoning. The same scenario may be playing out with Litvinenko. On Tuesday, the London hospital treating him said it could not confirm the poison was thallium — a diagnosis that in the Khokhlov case was only made by a special U.S. military hospital.
I last met Alexander at London's Connaught Hotel to discuss the Khokhlov case, about which I'd published a monograph. He was investigating the death of Yury Shchekochikhin, an opposition parliamentarian and journalist, who died in suspicious circumstances in 2003 after a two-week illness. His symptoms were similar to Yushchenko's, pointing clearly to exposure to a toxic agent. After his death, no autopsy was performed and access to medical records wasn't allowed.
Litvinenko is a small thorn in the side of the current Russian regime. He lives abroad and holds a British passport. That didn't protect him, nor did it protect Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian dissident who in 1978 was killed by a KGB ricin-tipped umbrella near Waterloo station.
It is perhaps too early to discuss how and why Litvinenko was poisoned. Some things are clear. This was likely the work of the Russian secret service that had been after him for years. Whether the Russian president, who was often the object of Litvinenko's fierce and fearless mockery, is involved is open to doubt. I wonder if Putin is in control of his squabbling entourage. Whatever the truth, this poisoning also looks to be directed against Berezovsky, now in exile in London and campaigning for regime change in Russia. Litvinenko is one of his advisers.
Russian foreign intelligence denies any involvement in his poisoning. It cannot deny, however, its long history of using poison as a weapon. The "Kamera," or as KGB veterans might remember it, "Laboratory No. 12," was founded in 1921 in a corner of Lenin's Cheka. This office innovated biological and chemical agents as advancing science and the Kremlin dictated. But one thing in their design has stayed constant: To make the victim's death or illness appear natural, or at least produce symptoms that would baffle doctors long enough to delay proper treatment. The Chechen rebel Khattab was poisoned in 2004, as was Trotsky's secretary Wolfgang Salus in 1957. Countless other victims were never identified as such.
Before the Litvinenko case, the most prominent poisoning involved Yushchenko, whose digestive tract and once-chiseled face were destroyed by a complex, dioxin-based compound during a meal with the top officials of his country's security service.
Yushchenko was an unwelcome candidate for Moscow in Ukraine's 2004 elections. Like Khokhlov, he survived; all leads in that case point to the Kamera. The investigation has been hindered by overt pressure on Yushchenko's doctors at home and in Austria, where he was treated, and Ukrainian politicians.
At this hour, Alexander Litvinenko is fighting for his life in a London hospital.

Boris Volodarsky, a former Soviet military intelligence officer who lives in London, is the author, with Oleg Gordievsky, of the forthcoming "KGB: The West Side Story." This comment first appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

TITLE: Cynical Policy on Caucasus Will Backfire
AUTHOR: By Georgy Bovt
TEXT: When South Ossetians overwhelmingly backed a referendum on independence earlier this month, Russian television stations provided extensive coverage of the celebrations in the capital, Tskhinvali.The result — nearly 100 percent support for independence from Georgia, which is to say joining Russia — came as no surprise.
The referendum was held during the peak of an anti-Georgian campaign waged by the government in Russia. Pro-Kremlin pundits said the Georgian state was illegitimate, and that its borders had only been established in 1931.
You get the impression that the Kremlin is preparing the ground for partitioning Georgia and annexing the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The residents of these regions certainly got the message, especially since most of them received Russian passports during the "distribution of citizenship" campaign a few years back. This campaign was both unprecedented and entirely unfair when you think how hard it is for people in other former Soviet countries to obtain Russian citizenship.
Expectations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia are high. Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh is reported to have told his inner circle that President Vladimir Putin promised that within an hour of Kosovo formally declaring its independence from Serbia he would establish diplomatic relations with Abkhazia.
In this context we mustn't forget the self-proclaimed republic of Transdnestr, which held its own referendum a few weeks earlier. Here again, nearly 100 percent of voters supported independence and the prospect of becoming part of Russia.
At the same time, however, Putin reiterated Russia's recogntion of Georgia's territorial integrity during a mid-November meeting with European Union leaders in Finland. He said Russia had no interest in annexing the breakaway regions of Georgia and Moldova.
As it happens, a slowdown in the push toward independence in these regions in recent weeks has coincided with a similar slowdown in Kosovo. The point is that a linkage has been created between the fate of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr and that of Kosovo, as became clear earlier this year in connection with the secession referendum in Montenegro.
Many close to the Kremlin railed against the "cynical" law that required 55 percent of Montenegran voters to support the referendum to split from Serbia. In the end, 55.4 percent voted for it. Why 55 percent, they asked. After the referendum passed, these same people explicitly linked the status of Kosovo to the separatist regions in Georgia and Moldova. The logic was simple: if Kosovo secedes from Serbia, Russia will back independence for Abkhazia and the rest. If you can do it, they suggested to the West, then so can we.
Discounted in this tit-for-tat position are the people of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdnestr, who genuinely wish to become part of Russia. Moscow openly supported the referendums in Transdnestr and South Ossetia, but then it tied the fate of these regions to events in Kosovo, demonstrating that it was prepared to turn its back on these people and their hopes.
And what about Russia's position on independence? Does Moscow truly support an independent South Ossetia? If so, why should Kosovo matter? If Kosovo does not secede from Serbia, Moscow will withdraw its support for secession closer to home.
This is how the fate of nations is decided — like pawns on a chessboard. Nations and people were manipulated by the Great Powers during the period of "realpolitik," and it seems that Moscow sees no reason to abandon this approach. It views the Commonwealth of Independent States as the same sort of chessboard on which it competes with the European Union and the United States. Russia can only lose credibility and influence in the region as a result. This sort of cynicism will do little to attract new allies and friends now or in the future.

Georgy Bovt is editor of Profil magazine.

TITLE: All the president's men
AUTHOR: By Walter C. Uhler
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: A study of civil-military relations reveals much about the state of Russia today.Dale Herspring is a professor of political science at Kansas State University and one of America's most highly regarded scholars of the Russian military. Yet, his decision to examine the impact of Russian presidential leadership on its military was provoked, not by any event in the Soviet Union or Russia during the past 20 years, but by his study of civil-military relations in the United States.After writing a book on this subject, in which he concluded that the American president's "leadership style played a major role in determining the level and nature of conflict between the White House and the uniformed military," Herspring asked himself: "Could this be the case in the U.S.S.R and Russia?"
Operating from the assumptions that Russia is a "subject culture" — one in which people wait to be told what to do — and that "Russian military culture is an even more extreme example of a subject culture," Herspring theorized that the presidential leadership style of Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin was especially critical to the Soviet and Russian high commands during the period of collapse and transition from the Soviet Union to Russia.
Effective leadership was necessary to ensure the successful transition of the high command to the new polity. Without such leadership, the military would deteriorate and combat readiness would drop. And without effective leadership, a dangerous politicization of Russia's generals and admirals might emerge.
As Herspring demonstrates, all three problems came to plague the military, thanks to the ineffective leadership practiced by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. President Putin has attempted to repair the damage, with mixed results.
When writing about the rule of Gorbachev, Herspring understates the obstacles he encountered while attempting to reestablish political control over the Soviet military. As Gorbachev's chief foreign policy aide, Anatoly Chernyaev, observed: "the army used to be off limits, beyond all criticism. What criticism could there be? No one even had a remote idea, nor had they any right to know, how the army spent the hundreds of billions of rubles it was unconditionally allocated."
Nevertheless, Herspring is correct to conclude that Gorbachev alternated between viewing the military as a problem — both in terms of the resources it consumed and the threat it posed in the eyes of the world — and being indifferent to its concerns.
He shocked the military with his proposal to shift from an offensive to defensive military doctrine and antagonized the high command with his policy of glasnost, which exposed previously secret military decision-making to scrutiny by civilians.
But he especially alienated the high command "with his decision to use the military not once, but three times, against the Soviet populace [in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Lithuania] and then blame them for carrying out his orders." After seeing how the undeserved blame for using force in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1989 undermined their prestige and integrity, Soviet officers became reluctant to carry out similar orders. This psychological "fettering" of the Soviet military was labeled the "Tbilisi syndrome."
Herspring credits the Tbilisi syndrome (as well as the long Soviet tradition of noninvolvement in civilian affairs) for keeping much of the military on the sidelines in August 1991, when a group of conservatives attempted to reverse the disintegration of the Soviet Union by initiating a coup against Gorbachev.
Boris Yeltsin's brave opposition to the attempted coup, his early cultivation of the military and promises of support initially impressed the high command. But as Herspring makes clear, Yeltsin's rule proved to be an absolute disaster for the Russian military — far exceeding the damage inflicted by Gorbachev.
According to Herspring, although Yeltsin talked about military reform, he "wanted a weak military and a weak Army leader," which is why he continuously slashed the defense budget, appointed the incompetent Pavel Grachev as Russia's first defense minister and subsequently detached the General Staff from the Ministry of Defense in order to weaken both.
He committed the unpardonable sin of ordering these ill-provisioned and ill-trained soldiers to war in Chechnya, thus causing the deaths of thousands of conscripts and junior officers. Moreover, when the war turned into the debacle his officers predicted, Yeltsin publicly blamed the military.
According to Herspring, "It is difficult to convey just how bad the situation inside the Russian military was when Yeltsin left the scene. Dedovshchina [extreme hazing] was rampant, crime was out of control, officers were leaving the Army in droves, equipment and weapons were falling apart, the draft was joke, the kontraktniki process [professionalization of the army] was not working, and combat readiness was at an all-time low."
Herspring credits Putin for pushing military reform, especially the development of "permanent readiness units" composed of kontraktniki and designed to fight small wars. He also returned the General Staff to a subordinate position within the Ministry of Defense, established mortgage credits, to enable junior officers to find housing, established a single purchasing agent and "worked to reform and modernize the military-industrial complex."
Yet, defense industry expert Vitaly Shlykov has disagreed, claiming that defense contracts are awarded "to the best-connected firms, not those that provide the best products or services." And Professor Steven Rosefielde recently wrote that "the military is disgruntled over Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov's FSB-influenced leadership and reforms, and soldiers' resentment of their meager pay might lead them to mutiny in support of regional secessionists."
But, unlike these analysts, Herspring attaches overriding significance to establishing stability and predictability in civil-military relations — for which he gives President Putin high marks. Moreover, "had Gorbachev and Yeltsin paid attention to Russian military culture and provided the generals with the stability they sought, the military might have avoided the hell it went through, especially under Yeltsin."
Nevertheless, for Russian military reform to work, the price of oil must remain high and Russia must have "a relatively benign external environment for the next five to ten years."
Thus, beyond effective leadership, Russia's next president will also need good luck.Walter C. Uhler is the president of the Russian-American International Studies Association.

TITLE: Epic failure
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A long-awaited film version of 'And Quiet Flows the Don' hasn't impressed the critics.Launched with great fanfare earlier this month, Sergei Bondarchuk's television version of Mikhail Sholokhov's "And Quiet Flows the Don" has been slammed by critics as a "comic book" and a klyukva, or cranberry, a slang term for kitsch aimed at the overseas market. Even worse, real-life Cossacks criticized the casting of Rupert Everett in the role of macho hero Grigory Melekhov.The seven-part mini-series was launched Nov. 7, attracting enormous ratings. The first episode was watched by about one in five Russians. A promotional campaign by Channel One emphasized the series' tangled history: Made in the early '90s by the late Bondarchuk but never finished due to financing problems, the film was held by an Italian bank for many years, before being bought back by the channel and completed by the director's son, Fyodor Bondarchuk.
Despite the hype, critics panned the first episode. Gazeta.ru said it "was missing only a laugh track," referring to the dubbing of Ukrainian dialect over the English spoken by the actors. Film critic Lidiya Maslova told Radio Liberty: "It's so obvious that the foreign actors don't understand what they're playing." She called the series a "comic book" and a "cranberry in sugar intended for export."
In an online survey carried out by Izvestia and published three days after the first episode, 34 percent of respondents described the series as a cranberry while another 42 percent said "you can't do better than the old film," referring to Sergei Gerasimov's 1957 epic.
Cossacks living in the Don region depicted by Sholokhov also found fault with the series, which concluded Thursday. The Regnum news agency interviewed one Cossack leader, Vladimir Voronin, who said the series was beautifully shot but complained that "it has no soul." He praised Everett's riding skills, but not his love scenes, which he called unconvincing: "How can a gay man, who doesn't know what a woman is, act in a love scene?"
Nezavisimaya Gazeta interviewed a Cossack who knew the novel's author. "It's lucky that Sholokhov didn't live to see this," he commented. He also picked on inaccurate details, such as a married Cossack woman wearing her hair loose instead of pinned up.
RIA-Novosti published a report that some Cossacks were planning to picket the Ostankino television center over the series, but this report was later withdrawn.
Nevertheless, the series has had some support. Director Alexander Mitta, who made the action thriller "Air Crew," told the tabloid Zhizn that he disagreed with the critics. "I must confess that, honestly, I liked the film. The best thing about it is its epic scale."
Alexander Arkhangelsky, a presenter for Kultura television, said in a radio interview with Ekho Moskvy: "I think it's not the most successful work of a great director ... but I don't think it's such a catastrophe as everyone is saying. We've seen plenty of films that were worse."

TITLE: Chernov's choice
TEXT: Novus closed this week, its founder and manager Denis Cherevichny, also known as DJ 108, has revealed.The trendy indie bar occupied the second floor of what was officially, as it turned out, a student canteen, and was kicked out by the scared owners when state health and safety inspectors visited to check the place. Cherevichny added that he found the bar's famous novuss table soaking in the rain outside (novuss is a Latvian game reminiscent of billiards for which the bar was named).
For the past couple of months, Cherevichny has also been running Mod, a larger bar on Konyushennaya Ploshchad, that hosts both live concerts and DJ sets, but is notorious for its poor acoustics.
Maina, a new club with rock bands and DJs that opened last month in the northern outskirts, sent an email to the press last week asking journalists to spell its name with an exclamation mark. An exclamation mark or not, the club's faraway location, hefty prices and eclectic repertoire scare off many local club regulars. In a recent move, the club canceled free concerts by mostly instrumental postrock bands promoted by Denis Rubin, the former art director of the now-defunct club Platforma, on Tuesdays.
Rubin, however, continues to promote occasional concerts at Decadance, the elitist bar that reopened on Ulitsa Rubinshteina, although rock fans complain they can't get in because of "face control," while the place is frequently filled by a crowd not interested in live music. Electronic/video artist Vasily Shumov of the Los Angeles-based band Center was reported to be offered money by some members of the public to perform cover versions of songs by request at his recent concert there.
Tsokol, a new club launched by the team that managed the legendary underground club Moloko which was closed last year by the authorities, will celebrate what would have been Moloko's 10th anniversary on Wednesday. Markscheider Kunst, the band credited as being the first to perform there, will play.
The Moscow-based film club Cine Fantom will promote a Days of Cine Fantom event in St. Petersburg with underground film screenings, often presented by film-makers, with discussions to be held at the Rodina film theater and local clubs such as Griboyedov, Stirka and Mix during this weekend. See www.artbereg.ru for the full program.
Meanwhile, the Modern Art Center, the home of the experimental music and arts festival SKIF located in the former Priboi film theater, will hold a two-day multi-media event called Autumn (Osen) on Friday and Saturday.
The event will be headlined by Germany's Mediengruppe Telekomander and Austria's NotTheSameColors. For details see www.kuryokhin.com.

— By Sergey Chernov

TITLE: Lord of the flies
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Mikhail Shemyakin turns to the world of insects in his new Mariinsky ballet.Imaginative designs unfortunately clashed with choreographic banality at the premiere of a triple bill of ballets at the Mariinsky Theater last week. "Metaphysics", "The Meek One" and "Le Sacre Du Printemps" set to music of Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninov and Igor Stravinsky respectively were all choreographed by Donvena Pandurski, while artist Mikhail Shemyakin was responsible for the designs.The first ballet, "Metaphysics," attempted to look into the inner depths of the human psyche and explore "man and woman as two poles that attract and repel one another," as the libretto phrased it.
Philosophy proved a tough nut to crack.
The abstract show, lacking consistency, short of drama and originality, felt as if it had been inspired by molecular or cellular biology.
Watching the randomly moving dancers, dressed in tight tricot, painted in ribbons, was reminiscent of biology classes in school and looking into the microscope at multiplying bacteria.
The next ballet, "The Meek One," was equally confusing, with a young man's despair revealing itself in consulsive, spasmodic gestures. The meek one of the title — performed by Olesya Novikova — is envisioned by Pandurski as plain and bland, a nearly translucent and ghostly creature that is remarkably lifeless.
The best thing about the premiere was the performance of the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev. Traditionally very much at home with Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Rachmaninov, the musicians were at their inspired best. Ironically, the show is best enjoyed with eyes closed, in nirvana, with the exception of a lively rendition of "Le Sacre Du Printemps," which, despite failing to break any new ground in choreography, looks set to become a top-selling children's matinee.
With a fitting subtitle "Scenes From the Life of Insects," the production was apparently inspired by the favorite children's book, "Mukha-Tsokotukha" (Buzzing Dung-Fly) by Kornei Chukovsky. Abundant with vivacious insects of all kinds imaginable — ants, butterflies, beetles, dragonflies, grasshoppers — the ballet tells a gripping story about the confrontation between carefree insects and a spider who is eventually defeated by the most unlikely force, a subtle Sylphide.
The stage is almost always crowded, and the choreography is mostly limited to energetic pantomime, with frogs jumping about, butterflies flapping their wings, grasshoppers, well, hopping around and beetles romping over the stage.
The triple bill is Shemyakin's third production for the Mariinsky.
When Shemyakin and choreographer Kirill Simonov took on Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" in 2001, Shemyakin was in charge of everything apart from the choreography — direction, libretto, sets and costumes. However, his Hoffmannesque sketches and drawings for the ballet made it clear that the artist was already suggesting the dancer's movements. With "Princess Pirlipat," which followed in 2003, this trend became more obvious; the 45-minute work was more of a puppet show or, at best, a pantomime, than a ballet.
It may have been more honest to credit Shemyakin with the choreography as well. The presence of ballet masters in those ballets is mere convention, and the real problem was the depth of Shemyakin's interference since ballets have to start with movement, rather than sets and costumes. Shemyakin dressed almost all of the dancers in heavy crinolines and further hampered their movements by making them perform sweating under giant masks and richly decorated hats. The luxurious costumes dictated, suggested and limited the movements all at once.
Much critisized then for dressing the performers in heavy costumes, the artist has liberated them this time. Ironically, this freedom has exposed the shows' most vulnerable point, its trivial choreography. Just as much as Shemyakin's sets were imaginative, creative and sumptuous, the dancers' moves designed by Pandurski were uninspired.
All that said, Shemyakin's visual images have been known to reach out well to audiences. His version of "The Nutcracker" is one of Mariinsky's bestselling shows. The new ballets seem to have made it even further. A teacher helping autistic children called up the theater last week asking for some posters advertising the ballets to be sent to their school. She explained that the children, otherwise reluctant to communicate, were hugely excited by the sight of the poster when they saw it on the street, and did not want to stop looking at it.

TITLE: Revealing the absurd
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: For almost 20 years, NOM has been an institution in the St. Petersburg alternative-culture scene. Loved by some and hated by others, the collective of musicians, authors, painters and filmmakers is known for scrutinizing the dark corners of the Russian soul, spoofing Soviet and post-Soviet lifestyles and skewering irrational ideologies like anti-Semitism and homophobia through its output of songs, books and films.Following a concert in Moscow on Thursday alongside Drum Ecstasy, an experimental band from Belarus, NOM boasts a new, more electronic sound on its 10th and most recent album, "A More Powerful One" (Boleye Moshchny).
"The name shouldn't be taken literally, but it sounds different," bassist and singer Andrei Kagadeyev said in an interview. "We rejected archaic studios for the first time, recording and mixing everything on a computer."
Besides Kagadeyev, the band's current lineup includes showman and vocalist Ivan Turist (real name Yury Saltykov) and keyboard player Nikolai Gusev, formerly of Stranniye Igry and AVIA, two of St. Petersburg's seminal rock groups of the 1980s. That trio is occasionally augmented by Alexander Liver (real name Dmitry Tikhonov), who lives in France near the French-Swiss border and sings in the choir of the Geneva Opera House.
The band's sound draws from rock, new wave, pop, Soviet torch songs, Gypsy folk and cabaret. But NOM is inspired as much by literature as by music, especially by OBERIU, a Leningrad absurdist group from the 1920s and '30s that included such authors as Daniil Kharms. NOM paid homage to the group on its 2004 release "Album of Real Art" (Albom Realnogo Iskusstva).
NOM formed in 1987 in Pushkin, a historic town outside St. Petersburg that was home to four original members: the brothers Andrei and Sergei Kagadeyev, Liver and Turist. It took its name from the phrase neformalnoye obyedineniye molodyozhi, a perestroika-era term for subcultures such as punks or hippies.
NOM played as a quintet until 1998, when two members — Kagadeyev's younger brother Sergei and drummer Vladimir Postnichenko — quit to form another band, which, confusingly, was also called NOM. For several years, the two bands were known by fans as NOM-Euro and NOM-Zhir.
Andrei Kagadeyev said the split was caused by differences in the musicians' approach to showbiz. The breakaway members wanted to make it big, but ended up dissolving in 2001. Postnichenko now runs the grungy St. Petersburg bar Tsinik, while Sergei Kagadeyev works in television in Moscow.
"We've always stood outside showbiz, even during perestroika," Kagadeyev said. "Showbiz has its own laws, but, on the other hand, there's a niche for bands like us. We have nothing to complain about. We manage to find small labels that invest money into our projects. We're cut off from radio rotations and the media, but there is the Internet. We've even resumed touring other cities in Russia where we have fans, not only in Moscow and Europe."
Though the band has always been interested in visuals, having produced about 30 music videos throughout its history, its first feature film was "Apiary" from 2002. The film tells the story of a demobilized soldier who arrives at his army friend's hometown, only to discover it's been taken over by aliens.
NOM's second film, "Geopolyps," is a hilarious collection of four shorts. Three spoof the official mythologies of Vladimir Lenin, Kim Il Sung and Adolf Hitler, while the fourth is set in today's Russia and satirizes such figures as President Vladimir Putin and St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko.
Earlier this year, the band premiered its latest zero-budget film venture. "Belarus Tale" is a 30-minute satirical piece that traces the development of a small-time World War II-era looter into a corrupt traffic cop. Though its action takes place in the Belarus town of Vitebsk, it was mostly filmed in Peleslavl-Zalessky, a town outside Moscow, where the band got access to an authentic war-era train, vehicles and uniforms.
"It grew from our own experiences and impressions, while taking the action into Belarus added to the film because we could also play with the language and music," said Kagadeyev.
NOM often alludes to aspects of Soviet and post-Soviet life, though it also reaches out to Westerners — its 2003 album "Russisches Schwein" was sung in English and German. Kagadeyev said the band's meaning was not lost on audiences during European tours.
"They perceive us as a theatrical-musical whole," he said. "It's difficult to say about the verbal aspect, but they perceive the absurd, so I think there's no misunderstanding."

TITLE: Aussies in Early Command of Ashes
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BRISBANE — Ricky Ponting completed his 32nd test hundred as Australia dominated the opening day of the first Ashes test against England at the Gabba on Thursday.The Australian skipper batted magnificently to reach the close unbeaten on 137 with Mike Hussey on 63 and the world champions in cruise control at 346 for three.
It was a tough day in the field for England who lost the toss at the start of their bid to defend the Ashes they won back last year for the first time since 1989.
Justin Langer got the Australians off to a flying start when he blazed a quick 82 but England briefly pegged them back, dismissing Matthew Hayden (21) and Damien Martyn (29) before an unbroken partnership of 148 between Ponting and Hussey tipped the scales firmly Australia's way.
Captain Andrew Flintoff was the best England bowler, capturing the wickets of Australian openers Langer and Hayden, while left-arm spinner Ashley Giles dismissed Martyn after getting the nod ahead of Monty Panesar.
However, England's three main pace bowlers failed to threaten with Steve Harmison ominously starting the series with a horrendous wide that went straight to Flintoff at second slip and conceding 52 runs from 12 wayward overs.
James Anderson was equally ineffective, going for 88 off 18 and Matthew Hoggard leaked 62 from 16. Part-timers Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell bowled 10 overs as England searched for a breakthrough.
While England's bowlers disappointed, the tourists did at least field much better than their last visit to Australia when they conceded 364 on the opening day to set the tone for a series in which they lost the Ashes after only 11 days.
The Australians, desperate to avenge the series loss in England last year, batted with a ruthless determination that illustrated their determination to win back the Ashes.
Ponting, who has scored nine test hundreds in 13 matches since the last Ashes, underlined his position as the world's best batsman with a chanceless display.
He opened his account when he pulled Harmison to the boundary and set about building an innings that featured some exquisite straight drives and pulls.
Ponting passed his 50 off 65 balls then reached his ton off 163 deliveries in 200 minutes, equalling Steve Waugh's record for the most test hundreds by an Australian.
The only players to have scored more are Indians Sachin Tendulkar (35) and Sunil Gavaskar (34) and West Indian Brian Lara (34) though at just 31 years of age Ponting looks destined to pass them all if he maintains his current form.IMPOSING TOTAL
Langer, under pressure to retain his place in the team ahead of Phil Jaques, laid the foundations for Australia's imposing total when he smashed two boundaries in the first over and raced to his fifty off 66 balls.Flintoff, wearing a black armband to mourn the death of his wife's grandfather, briefly put the brakes on the scoring when he removed Hayden with the total on 79, caught by Paul Collingwood at second slip.
He also dismissed Langer after lunch when he drove the ball straight to Pietersen at cover-point, who managed to hold on to the catch after dropping six in the last Ashes series.
Martyn had looked in great touch and on his way to a big score when he nicked a catch to Collingwood at slip off Giles with the total on 198.
But his dismissal was little relief for England as the left-handed Hussey joined in the run-feast.

TITLE: 145 Die on Iraq's Deadliest Day
AUTHOR: By Thomas Wagner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BAGHDAD, Iraq — In the deadliest attack since the beginning of the Iraq war, suspected Sunni-Arab militants used three suicide car bombs and two mortar rounds on the capital's Shiite Sadr City slum to kill at least 145 people and wound 238 on Thursday, police said.The Shiites responded almost immediately, firing 10 mortar rounds at the Abu Hanifa Sunni mosque at Azamiya, killing one person and wounding seven people in their attack on the holiest Sunni shrine in Baghdad.
Beginning at 3:10 p.m., the three car bomb attackers blew up their vehicles one after another, at 15 minute intervals, hitting Jamila market, al-Hay market and al-Shahidein Square in Sadr City. At about the same time, mortar rounds struck al-Shahidein Square and Mudhaffar Square, police said.
As the fiery explosions sent up huge plumes of black smoke over northeastern Baghdad, and left streets covered with burning bodies and blood, angry residents and armed Shiite militiamen flooded the streets, hurling curses at Sunni Muslims and firing weapons into the air.
Ambulances raced to the scenes and police Colonel Hassan Chaloub said at least 145 people were killed and 238 wounded in the blasts, which destroyed many outdoor food stalls and parked automobiles and buses.
Sadr City is the home of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Car bombs in Sadr City have killed and wounded hundreds of people.
Sectarian fighting also broke out in another part of northern Iraq on Thursday, when 30 Sunni insurgents armed with machine guns and mortars attacked the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry building. After a three-hour battle, during which Iraqi soldiers and U.S. military helicopters intervened, the attackers were repulsed. But at least seven guards of the ministry were wounded, said police First Lieutenant Maitham Abdul-Razaq.
The Sadr City and Health Ministry attacks were the latest example of widespread sectarian fighting involving Sunnis and Shiites that is leaving Iraq either on the verge of a civil war or already fighting one.
At about noon Thursday, heavy clashes broke out between about suspected Sunni insurgent gunmen and guards at the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry building in northwest Baghdad, security officials said.
State-run Iraqiyah television said the Health Ministry was being attacked with mortars by "terrorists who are intending to take control of the building."
Security officials said about 30 gunmen, believed to be Sunni insurgents, had launched the attack. Iraqi troops were being rushed to the area and all roads leading to the ministry in Bab al-Muadham neighborhood were closed, said the security officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
Police Lieutenant Ali Muhsin said the attack began at 12:15 p.m. when three mortar shells hit the building, causing damage. After that, gunmen on the upper floors of surrounding buildings opened fire.
Ministry workers were trapped in the building.
"The gunmen fled as American helicopters and Iraqi armored vehicles arrived. Employees were able to leave starting about 3:15 p.m.," Health ministry spokesman Qassim Yehyah said.
Health Minister Ali al-Shemari is a follower of al-Sadr, the radical anti-American Shiite cleric.
Earlier Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier also had swept through an area of Sadr City, killing four Iraqis, wounding eight and detaining five, police said.
The raid was the fourth in six days that coalition forces have raided Sadr City, which is home to the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The militia is suspected of having kidnapped U.S. soldier Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old Ann Arbor, Michigan, resident as he was was visiting his Iraqi wife in Baghdad on Oct. 23.
The Mahdi Army also is suspected of having kidnapped scores of people during the raid on a Ministry of Higher Education office in Baghdad on Nov. 14. The ministry is predominantly Sunni Arab.
In the raid on Sadr City at about 4:30 a.m., coalition forces searched houses and opened fire on a minivan carrying Iraqi workers in the al-Fallah Street area, killing four of them and wounding eight, said police Capt. Mohammed Ismail. Iraqis often pay a small fee to crowd such vehicles and travel early in the morning to sites where they hope to get work as day laborers.
Ismail said the coalition raid also detained five Iraqis.
In a statement, the U.S. military confirmed the raid and said it was conducted in the continuing effort to find al-Taayiean. It confirms the detention of five Iraqis and that a vehicle was shot at by Iraqi forces after "displaying hostile intent." But the coalition did not report Iraqi casualties.
Residents of Sadr City gathered around the minivan, which had bullet holes in the windscreen and its sides, and blood stains inside.
"I was surprised by the heavy shooting on our minivan. I was hit badly in my left hand," said one worker, Ahmed Gatie, 24, as he was treated at Imam Ali hospital. "I can only feed my family when I work. What will happen now?"
Three other patients were lying on hospital beds or being treated, and four bodies were bodies were lying in a morgue.

TITLE: Argentina, Russia Prepare for Final
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Nikolay Davydenko and Marat Safin will lead Russia against David Nalbandian and Argentina in the Davis Cup final.The International Tennis Federation announced both lineups Tuesday for the Dec. 1-3 final, which will be played on carpet at the Olympic Indoor Stadium in Moscow.
Davydenko and Safin will be joined by Mikhail Youzhny and Dmitry Tursunov. Jose Acasuso, Agustin Calleri and Juan Ignacio Chela are also on Argentina's team.
Both lineups are unchanged from the semifinals, when the Russians beat the United States and Argentina downed Australia.
Davydenko, who is ranked third and won the Paris Masters earlier this month, did not play in Russia's semifinal win over the United States. Tursunov, however, clinched the spot in the final by beating Andy Roddick 17-15 in a fifth-set marathon.
Nalbandian is Argentina's top-ranked player at No. 8. He lost to James Blake in the semifinals of the Masters Cup on Saturday.
Russia is playing in the Davis Cup final for the first time since beating France to win the 2002 title. Argentina, which lost to the United States in the 1981 final, is making only its second appearance in the final.
Both teams are allowed to change two players up to an hour before the draw, which takes place on Nov. 30.

TITLE: Lebanon On the Brink After Minister is Killed
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIRUT, Lebanon — Allies of a slain Christian government minister turned his funeral into a powerful demonstration of anger against Syria on Thursday as hundreds of thousands jammed downtown Beirut to pay their respects.The coffin of Pierre Gemayel, wrapped in the flag of his Phalange Party — white with a green cedar emblem — was brought from his hometown and carried through applauding throngs in downtown Beirut to the St. George's Cathedral, where the packed congegration sang hymns.
Police estimated some 800,000 participated in the rally and funeral.
In a rare move, the head of the Maronite Church, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, left his mountain headquarters to lead the funeral service. Family members and dignitaries, including France's foreign minister and the Arab League secretary general, were participating.
The country's top Shiite politician, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Syrian-backed Hezbollah, also attended in an attempt to show national unity.
But in the wake of Gemayel's slaying, Lebanon is polarized to a degree not seen since the 1975-1990 civil war.

TITLE: Pakistan, Windies Draw Second Test in Multan
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MULTAN — Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf missed a double century by nine runs as the second test against West Indies ended in a high-scoring draw on Thursday's final day.Yousuf made 191, his seventh hundred of the year, putting on 152 runs for the sixth wicket with Abdul Razzaq, who was out for 80, as Pakistan reached 461 for seven before play was called off after tea.
Both fell in identical fashion to casual shots in the final session, caught by Shivnarine Chanderpaul at short mid-wicket off left arm spinner Dave Mohammed.
Razzaq hit eight fours and one six in his 117 balls knock for his seventh half century while Yousuf faced 344 balls and hit 21 fours in his 424 minutes knock.
Pakistan lead the three-match series 1-0 after a nine-wicket win in the first test in Lahore.
Pakistan made 357 in their first innings in the drawn test before skipper Brian Lara scored a magnificent 216 to spearhead a reply of 591.
Yousuf, who was 176 at tea, also missed a double hundred in Lahore by eight runs. He completed his 21st career century and joined West Indian Viv Richards and Sri Lankan Aravinda de Silva in the elite list of batsmen who have hit seven hundreds in a calendar year.
His 1562 runs in 10 tests in the year are second to Richards 1710 runs in 11 matches in 1976. Before this year, Yousuf had scored 14 hundreds in seven years of international cricket.
West Indies started the day hoping for an upset win with Pakistan on 212 for two, still 21 runs in arrears. When Imran Farhat (76), Inzamam-ul-Haq (10) and Shoaib Malik (4) fell before lunch there was a faint chance of the visitors being able to chase a reachable total on the flat batting track.
However, Yousuf and Razzaq dented those hopes with their stand. Pakistan led by 227 runs when the match ended.

TITLE: No Survivors in Polish Mine Catastrophe
AUTHOR: By Ryan Lucas
PUBLISHER: THE ASSOCIATED
TEXT: RUDA SLASKA, Poland — The bodies of all 17 men who had been trapped underground after a mine explosion in southern Poland have been found, bringing the final death toll to 23, the mining company said Thursday.The men were killed by Tuesday's explosion more than a kilometer below the surface at the Halemba mine in southern Poland. There were no survivors.
"This brings to an end this very sad day," said Zbigniew Madej, spokesman for the state-run Coal Company, at the scene. "Nobody has a sense of relief, but rather a great weight on their heart."
President Lech Kaczynski declared a period of national mourning to last through Saturday, and prosecutors said an investigation was under way.
Six of the bodies were recovered shortly after the explosion and the remaining ones were located after rescue efforts resumed in the night, Madej said.
Jan Gawra, one of 220 miners involved in the rescue attempt, emerged from the mines after digging through the night, his face and clothes black with coal dust.
He said he had worked for 22 years with some of the men whose bodies he helped recover.
"I didn't want to meet with them in this way," said Gawra with a deep breath. "We knew who was down there but we couldn't tell who was who. They were too burned for that."
The search had to be suspended for most of Wednesday when rescue teams found high concentrations of gas that they feared could cause a second explosion.
It resumed shortly before midnight, and the teams found the bodies after digging through hundreds of meters of rubble for more than three hours, Madej said.
In addition to bringing down the rubble, the methane gas explosion would have produced temperatures of some 1,000 Celsius (1,800 Fahrenheit), Madej said.
"Rescuers were working in extremely difficult conditions," said Zbigniew Goldstein, a main adviser to a mine rescue center based in nearby Bytom. "We had methane, we had poisonous gases, high temperatures, high humidity, water threats, structural changes after the explosion. Everything that can happen down there."
It may take some time to determine whether the miners were killed in the initial blast, by the cave-ins, or whether they died afterward, rescue officials said.
Hundreds of red and white candles burned outside the entrance to the mine complex through the night, and family members prayed at the nearby shrine of St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners, before the announcement that there had been no survivors.
After the news, a young woman left the canteen where the miners' loved ones gathered during the two-day ordeal, sobbing as two other women supported her on either side.
President Kaczynski, who surveyed the site on Wednesday and met with grieving family members, has pledged a full investigation. The government has also promised financial assistance for the bereaved and a review of safety at all Polish mines.
Michal Szulczynski, a spokesman for regional prosecutors, said his office had opened an investigation and was questioning witnesses, including Coal Co. officials.
The miners, aged between 21 and 59, were attempting to retrieve equipment from a shaft that was closed in March because of dangerously high gas concentrations. The Coal Co. said equipment worth 70 million zlotys ($23 million) was left behind, and the team hit by the explosion had been sent in to retrieve it under the supervision of specialists.
Labor unions complain that a lack of investment and massive layoffs in recent years have resulted in falling safety standards at the nation's mines.
The nearly 50-year-old Halemba mine, located in the heart of the Silesia industrial region, is one of the oldest in Poland, and has a record of serious accidents.
It is the worst mining disaster to hit Poland in nearly three decades, and one that hit an economically depressed region that has already witnessed tragedy this year. Just 10 kilometers (6 miles) away, a Polish exhibition hall collapsed during an international trade fair on Jan. 28, killing 65 people and injuring more than 160.

TITLE: Wie's Woes Continue In Japan
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KOCHI, Japan — Michelle Wie made a disastrous start in her latest bid to make the cut at a men's golf tournament Thursday, shooting a 9-over-par 81 in the first round of the Casio World Open.The 17-year-old's troubles started early at the par-72 Kuroshio Country Club. After teeing off in light rain on No. 10, she bogeyed the par-4 12th hole and had four straight bogeys from the par-3 14th.
"I don't think it was pressure," said Wie. "My first couple of drives went left and it was tough to get my rhythm back after that."
Wie, who had nine bogeys for the round, is making her second appearance at the US$1.19 million event. Last year, she bogeyed her final two second round holes to miss the cut by a stroke.
Japan's Azuma Yano and compatriot Tetsuhara Haraguchi were tied for the lead with India's Jeev Milkha Singh after all three shot 6-under 66. Wie was 101st, two strokes ahead of last-place Tomomichi Oto.
Despite failing to make a single birdie, Wie said she wasn't too concerned about her game.
"I don't think I was playing that bad," said Wie. "My long game put a lot pressure on my short game. I have to get my confidence back on my drive and just hit the ball the way I always do and I'll be fine."
Wie has made the cut in just one of her 11 men's tournament starts — in May at the Asian Tour's SK Telecom Open in South Korea.
In her last three men's events, she withdrew from the John Deere Classic because of heat exhaustion after playing 27 holes in 8 over and finished last in the European Masters (78-79) and 84 Lumber Classic (77-81). She's winless in 33 LPGA Tour appearances, the last nine as a professional.
Wie said she was still confident about making the cut.
"I've been practicing and working on my game a lot," said Wie.
"I still have a positive mind-set for tomorrow."

TITLE: Woods Surges To Seventh Slam
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LOS ANGELES — Tiger Woods fired a bogey-free six-under 66 to surge to a two-shot victory over Jim Furyk at the $1 million PGA Grand Slam of Golf at Poipu Beach, Hawaii on Wednesday.It was the 10th win of the season for Woods, who has made the event his own personal property, having lifted the title seven times in eight starts.
Woods's vice-like grip on the 36-hole tournament appeared to have loosened as he began the second round three shots behind overnight leader Furyk.
The 30-year-old world number one was quickly on the charge, however, carding birdies on the second and third holes to climb back into contention.
While Woods continued to pile up the birdies, adding two more to go into the turn with the lead, Furyk, Australia's Geoff Ogilvy and Canadian Mike Weir could only watch helplessly as the world number one raced ahead.
"I certainly hit it better than I did yesterday," Woods told reporters.
"I putted well again. But more importantly, I got the three shot lead that Jim had on me down to one for the first three holes.
"The conditions being that tough, I thought that was probably the most ideal start I could have had, is to be able to pick up two shots that fast. Overall, I really hit the ball crisp and clean today, which was nice."
Having squandered a three-shot lead with six holes to play at the Dunlop Phoenix tournament in Japan and losing to Padraig Harrington in a playoff last weekend, Woods made sure there would be no repeat.
After Furyk birdied the 18th to trim Woods's advantage to a single stroke, the British Open and PGA champion immediately hit back with a birdie at the last to seal his two-shot victory with a total of eight-under 136.
"Only time I really felt like I pretty much had everything under control is when Jim didn't hole his third shot on 18," Woods said. "I figured I could three-putt from there and be okay."
Furyk, a part-time resident of Hawaii and 2003 Grand Slam champion, signed for a one-under 71 to sit second on six-under 138. Ogilvy and Weir both signed for two-over 74s to finish in third and fourth.
The PGA Grand Slam of Golf brings together the winners of the year's four majors. Woods captured two of them and Ogilvy claimed the U.S. Open to earn his invitation. Phil Mickelson, winner of this year's Masters, opted not to play.

TITLE: Inter Milan, Chelsea Advance
AUTHOR: By Mike Collett
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Inter Milan and Chelsea took their places in the last 16 of the Champions League on Wednesday while Barcelona avoided the ignominy of becoming the first reigning European champions to be eliminated in the group phase.Inter secured their place in next phase with a 1-0 Group B win over Sporting Lisbon in Milan to ensure they advanced with previously-qualified Bayern Munich who drew 2-2 at Spartak Moscow. The defeat means Sporting are eliminated.
Hernan Crespo smashed home Inter's winner after 36 minutes.
Chelsea advance from Group A despite losing 1-0 at Werder Bremen where Per Mertesacker scored the only goal after 17 minutes with a powerful downward header following a corner.
Despite the defeat Chelsea remain top of the group with 10 points, the same as Werder and two ahead of Barcelona, who won 2-0 at Levski Sofia.
Chelsea have a better head-to-head record against Werder and even if they should unexpectedly lose at home to Levski Sofia in their last group match on December 5, and Barcelona beat Bremen to take top spot, Chelsea cannot finish lower than Bremen so qualify in second place at worst.
Barcelona were facing elimination if they had lost on Wednesday but goals from Ludovic Giuly (5th) and Andres Iniesta (64th) ensured they remain in contention.
They will go through if they beat Werder in their final match, but they cannot afford any slip-ups.
A home defeat or a draw means they will become the first champions to fail to advance from the group stage since the competition was launched in 1992.TOP SPOT
Liverpool secured top spot in Group C with a 2-0 win over PSV Eindhoven at Anfield where Steven Gerrard and Peter Crouch scored the goals that brought PSV's 17-match unbeaten run in all competitions to an end.In the same group Girondins Bordeaux beat Galatasaray 3-1 to take the UEFA Cup place open to teams finishing third in their Champions League groups.
Bordeaux started the game as the only team in the competition without a goal after four matches — but then scored three times in 28 minutes to wrap up the victory.
Alejandro Alonso (22), Lilian Laslandes (47) and Julien Faubert (50) scored for the home side while Japanese midfielder Junichi Inamoto struck for Galatasaray after 73 minutes.
The Turks had been reduced to 10 men in the 59th minute when Arda Turan was red carded for a head-butt on Franck Jurietti.VALENCIA VICTORIOUS
Valencia wrapped up top spot in Group D with a match to spare after their 2-0 win over Olympiakos Piraeus.The Spanish side made it four home wins out of four against Greek clubs in Europe with goals either side of halftime from Miguel Angel Angulo and Fernando Morientes.
Olympiakos have now played 30 away matches in the competition without a victory.

TITLE: Toronto Stuns Cleveland
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TORONTO — Chris Bosh poured in 25 points and pulled down 14 rebounds as the Toronto Raptors shocked LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers 95-87 to snap a six-game losing streak on Wednesday.Back at the Air Canada Centre after a 0-5 road trip, the Raptors appeared energized by the home crowd, squandering a first-quarter lead then rallying in the fourth to ease past the Eastern Conference leading Cavaliers.
The win eases the pressure on Raptors coach Sam Mitchell, who has come under increasing criticism following his team's stumbling start to the season.
Toronto fans were not happy, booing as they watched the Cavaliers erase a 19-point lead and come back to tie the contest at 47-47 late in the second half.
But by the end of the game, the capacity crowd of 19,800 was on its feet cheering as the Raptors dominated the fourth quarter, outscoring Cleveland 22-12 to secure just their third win of the season.
Tim Duncan had a game-high 19 points and Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili chipped in with 17 each to power the Spurs to a 106-86 win over the Miami Heat in San Antonio.
Yao Ming (25 points, 14 rebounds) and Tracy McGrady (13 points, 12 rebounds) both carded double-doubles as the streaking Rockets overcame 22 turnovers to beat the Washington Wizards 86-82 in Houston to record their seventh win in nine games.
Carlos Boozer dumped in 32 points and grabbed 13 rebounds and Deron Williams added 20 points and dished out 13 assists as the Utah Jazz stopped the Kings 110-101 in Sacramento, improving their record to an NBA best 11-1.

TITLE: Sabres Slice up Maple Leafs To Seize Best League Record
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NEW YORK — Daniel Briere scored twice to lift the Buffalo Sabres to the top of the NHL overall standings with a 7-4 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday.The Sabres spotted the Maple Leafs a two-goal first period lead then unleashed their league-leading attack, hitting back with four straight goals to seize control of the contest to the cheers of a capacity crowd at the HSBC Arena.
Maxim Afinogenov, Brian Campbell, Jiri Novotny, Chris Drury and Jason Pominville each counted once for the Sabres who improved to 18-3-1 and moved one point clear of the Anaheim Ducks for the league's best record.
Darcy Tucker scored twice for the Maple Leafs to give him 15 for the season while Jeff O'Neill and Kyle Wellwood also found the net.
Despite giving up four goals, Ryan Miller was named the game's first star for his sparkling play in the Sabres net as Toronto out shot the Buffalo 36-27.
Bobby Holick notched his 15th of the season as the Atlanta Thrashers scored four unanswered goals to claim a fight-filled 4-2 comeback win over the Capitals in Washington.
Joe Sakic scored in a shootout lifting the Colorado Avalanche to a 3-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks in Denver.
Rookie Mike Smith made 17 saves to record his second career shutout and Jeff Halpern had the game's only goal as the Stars edged the Nashville Predators 1-0 in Dallas.