SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1238 (4), Friday, January 19, 2007
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TITLE: Conscript At Center Of Hazing Scandal
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Human rights group Soldiers’ Mothers has discovered medical files that show that 20-year-old conscript Roman Rudakov, who has been kept in the emergency ward of military hospital No. 442 after doctors removed his small intestine on Sept. 30, 2006, had been severely beaten in the abdominal area three weeks earlier. Rudakov was taken to Moscow’s Burdenko hospital on Thursday for a partial intestine transplant.
“During active questioning of the patient it emerged that he had received a severe kick in the abdominal area; after the attack he experienced strong and persistent stomach pains and contacted doctors for medical help,” read official extracts from Rudakov’s medical record issued by the hospital. 
Rudakov also has a history of illness that should have made him ineligible for the draft.
The document, obtained by Rudakov’s younger sister Olga, was passed on to the St. Petersburg-based headquarters of Soldiers’ Mothers which in turn forwarded the information to the media.
However, to Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, Rudakov’s case is purely medical and not related to a physical attack. 
“Rudakov’s illness has nothing to do with abuse of discipline and bullying,” Ivanov told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday. The minister also claimed to have been informed about the case soon after Rudakov found himself at the hospital.
Ella Polyakova, head of Soldiers’ Mothers, expressed disbelief at Ivanov’s words. 
“In his letters home, Roman even contemplated suicide; he considered slitting his wrists so bad had the bullying become,” she said. 
“Food rations were so meagre that in one of the letters Roman recalled finding a biscuit in the garbage and eating it.”
Talking to reporters on Tuesday at the Soldiers’ Mothers’ headquarters, Roman’s older sister Svetlana quoted letters he sent during his army service, where he described being frequently tortured by senior recruits. 
“During drills we were beaten in the feet and in the head; we are forced to squat repeatedly more than 400 times,” read one of the letters. “Senior recruits extort money; I can’t bear it here anymore, I can’t live like this.”
In his letters Rudakov complained about continual health problems. 
“I feel weak all the time, and my stomach constantly hurts,” Svetlana quoted from another letter. “My blood test was very bad but doctors did nothing.”
His illnesses were exacerbated during his army service, according to Roman’s letters. He claimed doctors ignored his complaints and alarming results of blood tests.
Ruslan Linkov, head of human rights organization Democratic Russia, blamed military authorities for procrastination in Rudakov’s case. It took more than four months and the intervention of Soldiers’ Mothers before he received appropriate treatment, he said.
“The military were scared of handing the patient over to civil doctors because it would bring to light mishaps in treatment, and the whole question of the doctors allowing the conscript’s condition to worsen so much,” Linkov said. “He should not have been drafted in the first place. His health complaints should have been taken seriously.”
Rudakov’s family members complain that military doctors are trying to isolate Roman and stop him communicating with the outside world. His mobile telephone has been confiscated, hospital visits are limited, and even close relatives are often denied access to his ward.
Igor Puzanov, chief commander of the Leningrad Military District denied any wrongdoing on the part of the military commission which found Rudakov suitable for service. 
Speaking to Interfax News Agency this week, the officer said the recruit’s illness was complicated and it could not possibly have been discovered during a routine examination.
“A sudden progress of his illness could have been triggered by absolutely anything from a glass of Coca-Cola to a cold,” the agency quoted Puzanov as saying.
Soldiers’ Mothers’ Polyakova said hazing patterns described by Rudakov in his letters are sooner the norm, rather than exception in the Russian army.
“Our office is piled with desperate letters from recruits, where they tell chilling stories about beatings, humiliation, rape, money extortions and being forced to work as free construction workers for friends of the officers,” Polyakova said. “The letters come from all over Russia but the general public only finds out about the brutalities when we manage to make a splash and get a lot of the media interested – like it was now or in the infamous case of private Andrei Sychev, who had to have both his legs and part of his genitals amputated after physical abuse in the army. Sadly, many people still underestimate the scale of the problem.”

TITLE: Security Stepped Up After Terrorist Threat
AUTHOR: By Henry Meyer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia stepped up security in major cities Wednesday, deploying thousands of extra police and urging public vigilance a day after officials warned of a possible terrorist threat on public transportation.
In Moscow, which was last hit by terrorist attacks in 2004, officials took the unusual step of ordering cell phone service shut off in the subway system. The measure appeared to be an effort to avert the possibility of explosives being detonated by the phones.
Uniformed police, some with bomb-sniffing dogs, patrolled subway and train stations as well as other sites around Moscow, checking documents and standing guard at entrances. Public announcements asked passengers to be on alert for suspicious items.
Moscow’s three main international airports introduced stricter passenger checks and additional police patrols of terminal buildings, news agencies reported.
On Tuesday, the Federal Security Service said the national anti-terrorism headquarters had received information from foreign countries about the possibility of a terrorist act involving ground transport and subways.
A committee spokesman said Wednesday that Russian authorities had so far found no evidence supporting the existence of a threat. “The information we received from our foreign colleagues has not been confirmed at this time,” said the spokesman, Nikolai Sintsov.
The Kremlin’s top official in charge of counterterrorism cooperation, Anatoly Safonov, said the tip-off had come from intelligence agencies of several countries, Interfax reported. Russia cooperates against terrorism with nations around the world, including the United States.
Russian television showed a heightened police presence at other towns around the country.
Sintsov said authorities detained two people in the western Siberian city of Tyumen found in possession of 22 pounds of explosives, and were checking two suspicious packages found in Moscow — one in a subway station.
Citing police, Russian news agencies reported that the package was labeled “infection” and held numerous capsules containing a gray substance. Officials at Moscow’s consumer safety agency said they believed it was not dangerous, RIA-Novosti reported.
A top police official, Interior Ministry Col. Gen. Nikolai Rogozhkin, was quoted by news agency RIA-Novosti as saying 5,000 extra police officers had been dispatched in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major centers.
The Moscow subway, one of the world’s busiest, carries about 8 million passengers a day. After the 2004 attacks, it began installing surveillance cameras on all subway cars.
Moscow transport police Col. Viktor Ivashchenko said his force had also bolstered the number of officers on patrol to 600 and pointed out that some preventive measures being taken by police would not be observable.
One Moscow resident said he was more cautious Wednesday.
“I was even suspicious when a woman in the metro placed her bag down there,” the man, who gave his name as Anvar, told AP Television News. “I’m on guard whenever possible.”
Police officers checked the tickets of all passengers who entered the Kiev railway station in central Moscow as security guards with walkie-talkies patrolled the station.
But Sergei Zaitsev, who was waiting for a train at the Kiev station, was skeptical about the security measures.
“All they did was look at my ticket, not my bag. If I wanted to, I could easily take a bomb and plant it on a train,” he said. “Terrorism is still a very real threat here.”
Tuesday’s announcement came amid a lull in terrorist scares and attacks in Russia.
The country has seen high-profile terrorist incidents in recent years. They included hostage-takings and subway and airline bombings linked to the 12-year conflict in mostly Muslim Chechnya, where large-scale fighting ended years ago but an insurgency continues.
In February 2004, an explosion ripped through a Moscow subway car during rush hour, killing 41 people. In August 2004, a suicide-bombing just outside a Moscow subway station killed 10 people.
Also in August 2004, suicide bombers who boarded their planes at a Moscow airport blew up two Russian passenger jets that exploded almost simultaneously, killing all 90 people on board.
The Kremlin has scored a series of notable successes in its fight against terrorism, including the death in July of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for some of the nation’s bloodiest attacks.

TITLE: Estonia Berated by Duma Over Monument
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian lawmakers on Wednesday sharply criticized Estonia for possible plans to remove a statue that honors Red Army soldiers who helped drive Nazi forces from the Baltic nation.
The State Duma voted 407-0 to pass a resolution that urged President Vladimir Putin and the government to reconsider bilateral cooperation with Estonia, a former Soviet republic that is now member of the European Union and NATO.
Last week, the Estonian president signed into law a bill allowing for the removal of the statue, which was erected in the capital of Tallinn in 1947. The monument upsets many in the country that suffered five decades of Soviet occupation.
The law also enables the removal of several other Soviet-era monuments in the nation of 1.3 million, which has a sizable Russian-speaking minority.
Russia’s foreign minister called the decision “blasphemous.”
Like Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, but was briefly taken over by Nazi Germany the following year. Red Army troops, seeing themselves as liberators, recaptured Estonia in 1944. It regained independence in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Moscow routinely accuses Estonia and Latvia of discriminating against their Russian-speaking communities.
Estonia’s Foreign Ministry said officials would not comment on the Russian resolution. “Estonia is not in the habit of responding to groundless accusations,” Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said.

TITLE: Amnesty Refused to Four Chechen Fighters
AUTHOR: By Sergei Venyavsky
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — Authorities have refused to grant amnesty to four of the more than 500 suspected militants who have surrendered under an amnesty plan in Chechnya and the surrounding region in southern Russia, officials said Wednesday.
Russian authorities announced the amnesty in July as part of efforts to end the insurgency in Chechnya after 12 years of nearly constant conflict, pledging that militants who surrender would not be prosecuted unless they are suspected of particularly grave crimes such as murder, rape or terrorism.
Of the more than 500 people who surrendered by Monday’s deadline, about 60 have been amnestied, while four are being investigated on suspicion of grave crimes, the chief prosecutor’s office in Chechnya said.
It said more than 300 already had been checked and would soon be notified of the outcome, while authorities were still reviewing more than 160 others.
The Kremlin has offered several similar deals in the past, with mixed results. The latest proposal followed the death in July of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev.

TITLE: Frenkel Officially Charged With Murder of Banker
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prosecutors on Wednesday charged banker Alexei Frenkel with organizing the murder of Andrei Kozlov, a senior Central Bank official who sought to clean up the banking industry.
Prosecutors at the Basmanny District Court formally entered the charges against Frenkel in connection with the killing of Kozlov, who was shot at point-blank range Sept. 13 as he left a football game in Moscow, the Prosecutor General’s office said in a statement.
Frenkel, who was detained last week, has vehemently denied the accusations.
“My client … said he will cooperate with investigators to prove his innocence and to help investigators to find the actual criminals,” said Frenkel’s lawyer, Igor Trunov.
Kozlov oversaw a cleanup of Russia’s banking sector, closing down dozens of banks — including Frenkel’s — over the past three years for alleged money laundering and other practices.
On Friday, the Basmanny court ordered the formal arrest of a second suspect, Liana Askerova. She is reported to have identified Frenkel as the person who organized the murder.
Kommersant said Askerova, the co-owner of a Moscow restaurant, helped Frenkel find the hit men.
She has not been formally charged.
Askerova’s lawyer Nikolai Klyon told Interfax on Tuesday that he and other attorneys had not been allowed to see her.
Prosecutors said seven people had been arrested in total in connection with Kozlov’s murder.
Frenkel, 35, was the CEO of VIP Bank, whose license was revoked last June. He also was a co-founder of Sodbiznesbank, whose license the Central Bank revoked in 2004, accusing it of padding its books with fictitious capital and processing ransom cash. Sodbiznesbank was the first Russian bank shut down under new money-laundering laws.
In October 2005, the owner of the defunct bank was shot dead as he was traveling in a car outside of Moscow. His wife and daughter also died.
On Tuesday, Interfax reported that three former senior executives of the St. Petersburg branch of VIP Bank had been detained on suspicion of involvement in attacks on the former head of the branch. The banker’s car was bombed and his house set on fire in 2004.
(AP, SPT)

TITLE: Russia’s Richest Woman Sued By Her Own Brother
AUTHOR: By Kevin O’Flynn
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Yelena Baturina, the country’s richest woman and the wife of Moscow’s mayor, is being sued by her brother and former business partner Viktor Baturin.
Baturin, formerly the deputy head of Inteko, the billion-dollar concrete, plastics and real estate business that his sister heads, said Wednesday that he was suing the company for his dismissal and for the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of Inteko shares.
“As Mayor Yury Mikhailovich Luzhkov taught us, if your rights have been infringed then you should sue,” Baturin said by telephone.
The businessman insisted that he was not attempting to get back his job at Inteko but simply fighting for his rights.
An Inteko representative refused to comment.
Baturin announced the lawsuit in an interview with the tabloid newspaper Tvoi Den on Wednesday.
For a company well-known for its ability to keep out of the public view, this is the second incident that has thrust it into the media spotlight in as many months. Forbes magazine postponed its December issue after Inteko threatened to sue over a cover story about Baturina. The issue was only published after Forbes editor Maxim Kashulinsky tendered his resignation and the Forbes U.S. office intervened.
The two siblings, who had been in business together at Inteko for more than 15 years, split in December 2005, although Baturin’s departure was only officially announced in January 2006. Two months later, Baturin sold his 1 percent stake in the company for 552 million rubles ($21 million) to Inteko.
Baturin did not say why he had waited a year to sue but insisted that his sacking was illegal. He said he had not been formally informed of his departure, as required by the law. He also said he wanted back his workbook, which shows his employment history, and information about his pension payments. He said he expected the court case to be over by the end of this month. He refused to say in what court the case would be heard.
Media reports have speculated that the split between the two was linked to Baturin’s leadership of Inteko-Agro in the Belgorod region. Inteko-Agro has fought a bitter dispute with regional authorities over farmland, and Inteko has linked the dispute with the killing of one of its lawyers in October 2005.

TITLE: Mariinsky II Not Going to Plan
AUTHOR: By Evgenia Ivanova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Russian government has suspended its contract with architect Dominique Perrault to plan and construct a new building for the Mariinsky Theater due to fears his French firm might fail to deliver the project on time.
“At present Perrault to us is not a world-renowned architect, but just a contractor, who does not meet his obligations,” Mikhail Shvydkoi, the head of the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography was quoted by Fontanka.ru as saying on Thursday. 
The new theater, known as Mariinsky II, must be built by 2009. Perrault’s controversial modern design will now be constructed by another company to be decided by tender. 
The French company’s proposals were rejected by the Glavgosekspertiza, the state body in charge of building permits, and, as a result, was returned to the company for a follow-up revision at the end of December. 
“It appears that unfortunately [Perrault’s] bureau can win competitions, but they are unable to deliver the satisfactory documentation regarding their project,” Shvydkoi said. 
The North-Western Directorate for the Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration of St. Petersburg, or NWDCRR, the representative of the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography, confirmed Thursday the contract was suspended as they are concerned Perrault’s firm will not be able to finish planning in time and that mistakes found in what appears to be the first official verdict from experts during the entire period of planning the theater, are too serious to fix quickly.
“The criticism is of a serious nature. It concerns the building’s stability, its safety and the absence of coordination between different parts of the projects done by various subcontractors,” a source at the press office of the NWDCRR told the St. Petersburg Times in a telephone interview Thursday.
“If we want to build the theater by the end 2009, we need to get the project approval and start construction as early as April this year. We had serious concerns regarding the ability of Perrault to be able to fix all the issues within the deadline,” she said. 
Nina Grigoryeva, the project’s operational director for Perrault, confirmed Thursday the contract with her company had been suspended.
“We were given the findings with 107 outstanding issues on Dec. 25, and 65 issues were new to us. We have immediately started working on them, but four days after we were informed in writing that our contract has been frozen,” she told the St. Petersburg Times on Thursday. 
Grigoryeva found it “too difficult” to explain the reasons behind the unsatisfactory conclusion made by Glavgosekspertiza, but said in any case Perrault himself would like to retain field supervision of the project. 
“If he receives all the guarantees that the project will be realized according to his drawings, then of course he would like to supervise it because it is his own project,” she said.

TITLE: Thinkers Have a Dream: A Russian Martin Luther King
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Locked in a situation of uncertainty in a country in which they believe abuse of civil rights is rampant, Russian intellectual liberals are awaiting a messiah. But at a roundtable discussion held this week to mark the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr., some of them drew lessons from the life and teaching of the U.S. civil rights leader.
Nevertheless, opinions are divided over whether the dream of having a leader like King can ever come true in a nation whose social dynamics bear some similarities with King’s America, but whose history is so differeent. 
“Russia’s King would face a state that systematically shrugs off anything that has to do with rights,” Andrei Lukyanov, a professor at the St. Petersburg University of Service and Economy’s Institute of Sociology, said at a discussion held on Monday at the St. Petersburg American Corner library and learning center. 
“The appearance of a charismatic figure reminiscent of King would be timely at least because Russia is gripped by violent national, ethnic, religious and ideological intolerance, a focus of King’s fight,” said Lukyanov on what would have been King’s 77th birthday. 
“Look at the recent wave of hate murders of foreign students and the Kondopoga racial unrest to prove me right,” he said. “[King] is my model; someone with charm, great authority and the power to influence the people in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious Russia is urgently needed to save Russia from its climate of hate and intolerance,” said Anna Sharogradskaya, director of the St. Petersburg North-Western Press Center, a local media pool mainly for outspoken human rights advocates denied a place in the state-controlled media. 
Sharogradskaya believes that the late Andrei Sakharov, a nuclear scientist who was turned into a prisoner of conscience by the Soviet communist regime, could have become a King-like figure had he lived and had the state not been too fast in “killing the seeds [of human rights awareness] before they grew.” 
But she says signs are that “within the next decade a charismatic leader may arise from among the humanitarian intellectual circles,” adding, “at least [the late Russian thinker] Dmitry Likhachyov laid a foundation for such figures to crop up.”
Backing Sharogradskaya, Galina Kozhevnikova, director of the Moscow-based SOVA Information Analysis Center said Likhachyov had some of the same qualities as King, only that he was short of a following. 
“Likhachyov was morally unstained but the Russian mass he was supposed to recruit was, and still is, unaware of prevailing social problems… He was not only undermined from the upper political circles but also lacked media and public support,” she said. 
However, Kozhevnikova is pessimistic about the appearance of such a leader now. 
Ruslan Linkov, head of the Democratic Russia organization said “at a glance, it looks like day-dreaming to expect someone like King in Russia in the near future, in a country where people don’t give a damn about rights… but miracles can happen.”
But on the other hand, he said, “it is out of such situations that charismatic leaders evolve… only that if he turns up, then he will have to re-write the Russian constitution entirely,”  while suggesting that, “ unlike in America where King came from church circles, the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the most xenophobic institutions in Russia is the last place from where such a man should be expected to come.” 
However, Linkov believes that the idea of expecting a leader reminiscent of King to unite people under the banner of racial equality is not likely in a country where racial discrimination exists at every level. 
Linkov said even FC Zenit St. Petersburg soccer club “has a slogan that goes; ‘No Black in the Colors of the Zenit.’”
“The best option for Russia is not to look for a universal King, but imposing little Kings into various social units,” he suggests.
Another contributor suggested that leadership is needed among Africans who live in Russia.
“Yes! We need King in Russia, rather for uniting Africans than for anything else” said Dr. Lyubov Ivanova, a lecturer at the Moscow State University’s Institute of Asian and African Studies and London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

TITLE: S Group Unveils Plans for Hotel, Health Spa
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The Finnish company S Group will open a five-star spa hotel on Vasilievsky Island this summer. On Jan. 5, SOK signed an agreement with Holiday Club Resorts acquiring business operations of the Holiday Club St. Petersburg spa hotel, which is being built at Birzhevoy Pereulok.
Total investment in the hotel and spa is 60 million euros. At a press conference on Tuesday managers of both companies expressed confidence in their ability to outdo competitors in the hotel and health and beauty treatments markets.
“We know that Pribaltiiskaya Hotel has an aquapark, but it is for the most part aimed at children. Our concept is not focused on slides and children’s entertainment. We follow the classic concept of body care and treatment,” said Juhani Jarvenpaa, President and CEO of SOK Holding Oy.
The total area of construction is 25,000 square meters. The hotel will be located inside an elite residential and office complex that is being constructed by local company LenSpecSmu.
The hotel will offer 271 double rooms, 5 suites and 26 timeshare apartments for two to six people. The complex will include two restaurants, four bars and a cafe, a bowling alley and a gym, 12 conference halls and 30 heated parking spaces.
The hotel is being constructed from scratch, while the spa center will be located in a former warehouse built in  the 19th Century. The spa will offer health and beauty treatments, nine types of sauna, jacuzzis and a 165-square meter pool.
According to the 20-year investment agreement, SOK will manage the business operations of the hotel, spa and restaurants while the premises will remain the property of London & Regional Properties.
Holiday Club Resorts will focus on developing timeshare business. “We set ourselves the goal of creating the largest chain of timeshares in Europe by 2010,” said Kimmo Hellgren, senior vice-president for sales and marketing at Holiday Club Resorts Oy.
At the moment, Holiday Club Resorts owns timeshares in Spain, Sweden and in 12 locations in Finland serving over 30,000 clients. Following the new strategy, Holiday Club sold 6 hotels in Finland to S Group last year.
In October, S Group announced the construction of two four-star hotels in St. Petersburg — Sokos Hotel Vasilievsky also located on Vasilievsky Island (255 rooms) and Sokos Hotel Olympic Garden on Moskovsky Prospekt (348 rooms).
In this project, the spa was designed to bea special attraction for the hotel. It will be capable of serving 400 people at a time. The managers expect that about 1,500 people will visit the center daily.
“Hotel guests will be only a small part of clients. We aim to attract city residents. We know that hydrotherapeutic procedures are very popular among Russians. In Finland, we had to hire Russian personnel,” Jarvenpaa said.
A day at the spa will cost from 25 euros to 30 euros. A room in the hotel will cost 240 euros and 420 euros in the low and high season respectively. LenSpecSMU will complete construction of the hotel in June. The spa will start operating in the fall.
“Locating a hotel of such a class in the historical center of the city is the only possible option. Vasilievsky Island suffers from problems with transport access, however historical architecture could compensate for the inconvenience for the hotel clients,” said Sergei Bogdanchikov, head of the consulting department at the London Consulting and Management Company.
Bogdanchikov saw constructing the hotel from scratch as an advantage. “It will provide maximally convenient planning and technical equipment, which is impossible if a historical building is being reconstructed,” he said.
Bogdanchikov estimated the pay-back period at 10 years to 11 years and the profitability of the spa at about 15 percent a year.
It could become the first European standard spa in the city. Nevertheless, Bogdanchikov said that the profitability of the complex would be lower compared to shopping centers because of larger expenses for equipment and qualified personnel.
Other experts questioned the viability of the concept.
“If the hotel is constructed with a wellness spa it could never pay off,” Nikita Savoyarov, head of tourism consultancy ET Consult, said.
“It would be rational in countries that have a long tradition of consuming wellness spa services, like Spain, Italy or France,” he said, adding that Russia lacks such a culture, and local sales managers are not used to selling such services.
Savoyarov indicated that educating personnel or “importing” them from abroad would be an expensive exercise.
Considering price policy most of the city residents will prefer local sanatoriums that can be found in abundance in St. Petersburg and its suburbs, he said.
“St. Petersburg has a deficit of good pools, but in this building the pool is likely to be small and narrow. Electricity and water purification will cost a lot,” Savoyarov said.
He also considered the location inconvenient. “That’s not the place to build a five-star hotel,” he said.

TITLE: Merkel To Push On Energy
AUTHOR: By Miriam Elder
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that she would use her country’s EU presidency to push for an agreement ensuring Russia’s ability to act as a reliable energy supplier.
Merkel’s tough statements on Russia came four days before she was due to meet President Vladimir Putin for talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Sunday.
“We need reliable relations,” Merkel told a session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. “At the same time, we can’t ignore issues like freedom of the press, civil liberties or conflicts in Russia’s neighboring countries.”
Germany took over the rotating six-month EU presidency Jan. 1, in the midst of an energy dispute between Russia and Belarus that later saw oil supplies cut to Germany and four other European countries for three days.
“We intend to do everything we can for a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Russia to begin under the German presidency,” Merkel said.
“Energy will be high on the agenda,” she added.
The current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, a wide-ranging bilateral accord that maps out all dealings between Brussels and Moscow, is due to expire this year. Poland has blocked the start of talks on negotiating a new accord until Russia lifts a yearlong ban on Polish meat.
“We hope we are very near a solution on the export of Polish agricultural products to Russia, which will allow us to start talks soon,” Walter-Jurgen Schmid, Germany’s ambassador to Moscow, told reporters Wednesday.
European Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou held talks with Polish officials in Warsaw last week, and representatives from Russia, Poland and the European Commission were meeting Wednesday in Berlin in hope of reaching a deal, he said.
Kyprianou hopes to sign a letter of intent on lifting the ban with Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev on Friday, Reuters quoted a commission spokesman as saying.
A spokesman for the Agriculture Ministry’s licensing agency could not be immediately reached for comment.
If Russia lifts the ban on Polish meat and Poland reciprocates by lifting its veto to starting negotiations, tough talks still likely lie ahead.
“Recent experience has shown that we need a serious energy dialogue,” Schmid said.
Five EU countries were struck with oil cuts earlier this month, when a key pipeline delivering Russian oil to Europe was shut down in the midst of a tariff dispute between Belarus and Russia.
Merkel’s remarks on the cutoffs were some of the harshest to come out of Europe, and reaffirmed that her approach to Russia was markedly different from that of her predecessor, Gerhard Schroder.
A Russian-speaker who grew up in East Germany, Merkel is less trustful of Putin than her predecessor, who often praised the Russian leader for bringing economic and political stability to the country, analysts said. She spent her first year as chancellor rebuilding ties with the United States, which had been damaged over Schroder’s opposition to the war in Iraq.

TITLE: Tenants, Owners Fear for Future of Apraksin Dvor
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Private owners and investors of shopping areas in Apraksin Dvor, a downtown area widely known for its open-air market, strongly objected to new ideas for the development of the territory at a press conference Thursday. Meanwhile, the city administration believes the territory can not be preserved in its present condition.
In November 2002, the Committee for State Property Management signed an agreement with the Apraksin Dvor Agency for Reconstruction and Development — a joint-stock company registered in 2003. This agreement expires in 2010.
The city government also issued 23 decrees on planning and reconstruction, signing investment agreements with a number of companies — owners and tenants of the shopping areas and outside investors.
CEO Alexander Shabasov said that the Apraksin Dvor Agency has spent 85 million rubles ($3.2 million) of attracted funds on the reconstruction of engineering networks. Eleven of the total number of buildings on the territory, which total over 52, have already been reconstructed by investors. 
However, in August 2006 the city suspended all the works. In September 2006, Governor Valentina Matviyenko proposed to auction the right for reconstruction and find one investor for the whole territory to speed up the reconstruction.
At the moment the city government is discussing new projects for the development of the territory and the relocation of the open-air market.
Tenants and owners have become concerned about various rumors circulating in the local media concerning the territory. Scenarios include the creation of a new street from Lomonosova Square to Sadovaya Ulitsa, which is to say straight through Apraksin Dvor or the demolition of the existing buildings to make way for the construction of a new shopping and entertainment complex.
On Thursday, the Apraksin Dvor Association of Tenants and Entrepreneurs distributed an open letter to Matviyenko asking for an explanation and the protection of their rights. 78,000 square meters of shopping areas are in private hands, which is over 50 percent of the total shopping area in Apraksin Dvor.
“What is amazing is how the city ignores the interests and rights of investors and city residents,” said Yuriy Kozlov, head of the Apraksin Dvor Association of Tenants and Entrepreneurs.
He said that many buildings on the territory are legally protected architectural monuments that can not be demolished.
“Our rights are being violated. We have an investment agreement. But it turns out that we just threw away this money,” said Irina Ivanova of the Car Trade Center, one of two buildings on the land.
The Association and Agency claim they have found investors who are ready to finance the remaining reconstruction works. According to their statement, they could complete reconstruction by 2010.
Officials refused to attend the press conference. However, Igor Metelsky, chairman of the Committee for State Property Management, in an official reply issued to the Rosbalt news agency, gave two reasons for the city government’s decision to reconsider the concept for the development of Apraksin Dvor.
“In reality, the development of the territory was limited to localized reconstruction of particular buildings without changing the conditions of their usage. We did not see any change to the poor social environment which has formed in Apraksin Dvor and led to chaotic trade and law abuse,” Metelsky said in the letter. In the event of property being confiscated, the owners will receive compensation, Metelsky indicated.
Shabasov said that his Agency “has nothing to do with the open-air market.”
“The city earns $1 million from tenants. If they do not want to have such an environment, it is their responsibility to change it,” he said.
As for the slow pace of reconstruction, Shabasov blamed the authorities and power monopolists that do not cooperate with the company.
The conflict does not have an easy solution, the expert said.
“Investment agreements provide investors with rights but include obligations as well. If these obligations and technical requirements are not observed, the city can break the agreement and transfer all the rights to a new company,” said Denis Martyushev, a partner at Beiten Burkhardt in St. Petersburg.
Martyushev said there have been a number of cases when the city had to transfer rights from one company to another. “It’s been happening since 1991. Recently, it started to happen more often because the city has tightened up its control,” he said.
Martyushev cited the example of the Mobi Dik container terminal which has been widely discussed in the local media recently.
Investigating cases of violations of investment agreements in court could take 1.5-2 years, Martyushev said. “It all depends on the exact terms listed in the investment agreements,” he added.
Martyushev said that “according to the law, an investor could get compensation, if he created additional value that could not be separated from the property which is seized.”
“However, Apraksin Dvor is a very complex site. Numerous participants are interested in this territory. The place is very attractive for the development of shopping areas,” Martyushev said.

TITLE: Sound waves
AUTHOR: by Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Australian musician Mick Harvey, co-founder of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party, has taken a break from playing with fellow Australian Cave to put together an album of his film music.
In a recent email interview from his home in Melbourne, Australia, the 48-year old Harvey, whose recorded solo work includes a pair of acclaimed tributes to the late French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, explained his interest in composing for films.
“It is a great creative outlet and challenge, to find the atmosphere and sense of the film in music,” he said.
“Many people feel that music is the soul of a film and often that is the case, so it’s a big responsibility and an exciting artistic endeavor.”
Released in Russia on SBA/Gala Records Inc.-EMI, “Motion Picture Music ‘94-’05” is Harvey’s second compilation of film music featuring pieces he wrote for a wide range of cinematic works, including “Lighting Fires,” Geoff Bennett’s documentary of Sydney-based painter Tim Storrier, to “Rien ne vas plus,” a German “photo film” by Katja Pratschke and Gusztav Hamos featured at last year’s Venice Film Festival, and “Chopper,” Andrew Dominik’s feature film based on the autobiography of legendary criminal Mark “Chopper” Read. 
Harvey said these films do not have much in common.
“Not really, other than the filmmakers asking me to do the music, though all of them, perhaps unsurprisingly, have an element of tragedy about them,” he said.
“There must be something about my body of work which attracts those particular filmmakers to me.”
Though most of the films featured on the album are not available in Russia, Harvey reckons it is not necessary to watch the film to enjoy the album.
“Many people are interested in soundtrack works in general,” he said.
“It’s not a mainstream thing but then most of what I do isn’t in the mainstream. I just had a lot of material from films I’d worked on over the years that I liked and I’m in the fortunate position of having some public profile and a record label which is interested in releasing my stuff. I can get it released so I do. Wouldn’t you?”
Composing for soundtracks, is often a question of creative control — usually it is directors who have the final say on what music will be used, but Harvey said this is not the case with him.
“My special arrangement with the directors is usually that I’m friends with them or at the very least that I know them well,” he said.
“It’s true that the director, or in the worse case scenario, the producers have final say in what is used in a particular film. The only way around that is to have a very good working relationship with the director. This has worked for me so far. The couple of times this was not the case did not work out satisfactorily.”
Film music is often supposed to be illustrative or create a mood and can hardly be separated from the picture, but Harvey said it was not a problem for him.
“I had a lot of music to choose from,” he said.
“Obviously in instances where I felt this was the case I didn’t use those pieces of music.”
Twenty years ago Harvey and Cave’s band The Bad Seeds was exposed to the camera in Wim Wenders’ 1987 movie “Wings of Desire.”
“I don’t remember, but that certainly didn’t help get me any film composing jobs,” said Harvey. 
“It was simply that friends of mine who were beginning to make films began asking me to write their music. Quite simple really.”
“Motion Picture Music ‘94-’05” features material that Harvey recorded in his home music room over five years.
Apart from Harvey’s own compositions, the album features “The Farewell Song, Go for Gold,” co-written and sung by Nick Cave, but the Bad Seeds is now on hold, according to Harvey.
“Well, obviously it’s on pause,” he said.
“We haven’t played since May 2005 in Australia and Nick has been immersed in film work and Grinderman. The plan is to record a new Bad Seeds album in the middle of 2007.”
The next release from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds will be a live double DVD called “The Abattoir Blues Tour” documenting the band’s two shows from 2003 and 2004, due on Jan. 29.
Meanwhile, Harvey is finishing another album of songs, a follow-up to “One Man’s Treasure,” his 2005 solo effort, to be released in May, he said.
Harvey sings and plays guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums. He has been involved in many Cave-related and Bad Seeds’ side projects. In the mid-1980s he formed the band Crime And The City Solution, with whom he recorded six albums until the group disbanded in 1991. 
He also collaborated with British singer/songwriter PJ Harvey (no relation), playing on “To Bring You My Love” (1995) and “Is This Desire?” (1998) and producing her Mercury Prize-winning album, “Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea” (2000).
He translated into English and performed songs by Serge Gainsbourg on the albums “Intoxicated Man” (1995) and “Pink Elephants” (1997) that were reportedly praised by Gainsbourg’s former wife and collaborator Jane Birkin.
Now again based in Australia after some time in Europe, Harvey said the move did not change his way of working.
“I work from here the same way I’ve worked from wherever I’ve lived for the last 20 years. I spend the time in the places where we all congregate to work and outside of that I do my own things in my own time.”

Mick Harvey’s “Motion Picture Music ‘94-’05” is out in Russia on SBA/Gala Records Inc.-EMI. Www.mickharvey.com

TITLE: Chernov’s choice
TEXT: With all energy spent during the  January holidays, music listings this week lack virtually any big names, and, what’s worse, unlike last year, there are almost no rumors about international acts who are likely to perform in the city in the next 12 months. 
However, it might be worthwhile to check out Deti Picasso, a Moscow-based Armenian folk-tinged band fronted by vocalist Gaya Arutyunyan, who sings in Russian and Armenian. The band will play at Griboyedov Hill on Friday. 
Early next month Deti Picasso will perform a very special one-off concert in Moscow with Seattle-based singer/songwriter/accordeon player Jason Webley. According to promoter Bad Taste, Deti Picasso will perform some Webley songs, Webley will perform some Deti Picasso songs and they both will play together. But before his Moscow gigs Webley will come to St. Petersburg. 
Webley, who last performed in the city at the now-defunct Platforma club in May 2005, will play at an unlikely venue called Bar XXXX II (don’t ask how it is pronounced), a new pub at 34 3-ya Sovetskaya Ulitsa, on March 3.

— By Sergey Chernov

TITLE: Top dog
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Thai food aficionados around the city may be excited to learn about the opening of a new Thai restaurant on Ulitsa Rubinshteina, considering the dearth of Thai food in St. Petersburg. They will not be disappointed by a visit — on the contrary, Mops, which means “pug-dog” in Russian, offers first-class service, superb food and very agreeable surroundings.
Our waitress was helpful and friendly from the moment we entered, seating us straight away and taking away our coats to the cloakroom herself, right up to dealing with our awkward multiple check requirements at the end of the meal.  
She willingly moved us and our starters, which had just arrived, to a larger table with a throne-like sofa when we were joined by another guest, and throughout the evening remained attentive, cheerful and eager to recommend dishes.  
Having requested the separate wine menu and made our choice, we relaxed over a bottle of exceptional Chablis, chilled to perfection, at 1,350 rubles ($50) and worth every ruble. While waiting for our food to arrive, we took in the surroundings. Mops has three rooms: the first is a black and white tiled, which looks very trendy but is rather cold and unappealing. It leads onto an equally trendy bar, but by far the best place to be seated is the room to the right of the entrance, the biggest and most luxurious of them all. The vaulted cream ceiling is painted with polka dots while the walls are curiously padded and decorated with a pattern of green ferns on a black background.
The tables and chairs are also black, but any effect of gloom is counterbalanced by the dazzling cream floor.  Unlike so many restaurants with a modern fashionable design which end up appearing simply cold and characterless, the overall effect in Mops is of an airy, comfortable spot created by a few cushions depicting elephants, an eponymous pug-dog ornament and some rather kitsch tiger-head lamps — not entirely in keeping with the overall style, but a welcome addition nonetheless.  
For such opulent surroundings however, the food is very reasonably priced, with only one dish (an entire duck) exceeding 650 rubles ($24.50). For starters we chose soup with prawn balls, glass noodles and shiitake mushrooms (180 rubles, $7) and fresh spring rolls with vegetables at 190 rubles ($7.15). The spring rolls were presented rather like sushi rolls with two accompanying sauces and were indeed very fresh. The soup was also a success and both dishes were beautifully presented on unusual square white crockery.
Just to confirm that all the dishes on the menu are indeed freshly prepared, our ever-helpful waitress was happy to ask the chef to substitute the chicken in a green curry (280 rubles, $10.50) for various vegetables on behalf of the vegetarian in our party. 
Once again, the presentation was flawless and included some remarkable two-tone rice. More importantly, it was a sublime, creamy wonder and as spicy as promised. It came as no surprise to learn that the chefs are native Thais. 
My guest’s red curry barbeque duck (370 rubles, $14) had quite a different taste and was somewhat sweeter, featuring a unique combination of strawberries, pineapple and grapes alongside the duck, a recipe few of us would think to try at home, but surprisingly delectable. 
We barely had room for the caramelized fresh fruit, a sweet and sticky medley of apple, pineapple and pear, which we shared for 150 rubles ($5.60) and made a nice ending to the meal.
However, no visit to Mops would be complete for any guest without a trip to the sumptuous toilets. Discreetly hidden behind a panelled door in the bar, dim lighting, red wallpaper and an eerily soothing children’s lullaby playing in the background lend them a soft, dreamlike quality, whilst the washbasin suggests that, as with the rest of the restaurant’s design, no expense has been spared.  A nice touch is that instead of paper towels, there is instead a large basket of rolled-up red face cloths for guests to dry their hands and another basket below for used cloths. It’s enough to make any diner feel like a pampered pooch.

TITLE: Zoo story
AUTHOR: By Leo Mourzenko
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In 1983, one of the main cult directors of the past century, Francis Ford Coppola, directed “Rumblefish,” a gang story that overnight made stars of Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke and Nicholas Cage; in 2004, Gus Van Sant, directed the Palme Dior-winning “Elephant,” a visually outstanding movie about high-school shootings that was immensely powerful and yet didn’t jump to any conclusions. The director of “Alpha Dog” Nick Cassavetes (who also directed last year’s sudden hit “The Notebook”) probably wanted to accomplish the achievements of both of these cinematic landmarks: make a shocking social statement while leading a bunch of handsome male actors into the major league. 
Time will tell if “Alpha Dog” is a classic in this league. 
However, the movie avoids the “based on a true story” curse, the curse of a January release — the time when the most pathetic cornucopia of junk hits the screens after the holiday season — and also avoided the curse of the “singing celebrity” (Justin Timberlake, in one of the lead roles, is good and doesn’t steal the show more than he was supposed to.) 
“Alpha Dog” deserves another compliment for using only half of the clichés that movies about troubled youth usually use — and ends up being surprisingly truthful because of it. 
However the film’s main strength lies in its message, encoded well enough that the movie stands a great chance of becoming a cult classic among those it condemns — those who take “Scarface” seriously, those who see authenticity in 50 Cent’s videos and those kids and grown-ups alike who refuse the reality of an adulthood dominated by the truly scary word “consequence” and prefer to live in a fantasy world, however flawed and tragic this world may be. 
“Alpha Dog” depicts the sad, true story of slain 15-year-old Californian Zach Mazursky. His drug addict brother had “some unfinished business” with Jesse James Hollywood (renamed Johnny Truelove in the movie), a rising drug lord who kidnapped the kid and later ordered him to be murdered. In the middle of the shooting the unfortunate gangster was arrested by Interpol in Latin America and is now facing trial — which gives the story at least a hint of a gratifying ending, if the word is applicable.
The film unravels as a series of interviews with key witnesses, mixed with segments of the actual story, which is in fact quite simple. Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch), inspired by his mafia boss father (Bruce Willis) runs a successful drug business. Jake Mazursky (Ben Foster), is a far less successful junkie who, as opposed to some of Truelove’s accomplices, refuses to suck up to him and gets involved in an open conflict with the boss. After a series of insults, Truelove, with a couple of his gang buddies, including Frankie Ballenbacher played by Justin Timberlake, run into Jake’s brother Zach (native Petersburger Anton Yelchin) and kidnap him. 
The kid however doesn’t mind. He helps Frankie clean the house, takes care of his marijuana plantation and amuses everybody just by being there. When a few girls present figure out he’s kidnapped and refuses to go back supposedly not to let his brother down, they call it “like, really romantic.”
The rest is predictable. Truelove finds out he can face a life sentence for kidnapping and decides to get rid of the boy. No spoiler here, after a few dilemmas and some preparation Zach ends up dead. On the poster, the kid’s face, in black and white, is central, with “victim” written below and, although some promoters have put Timberlake’s picture there too, the kid’s fate is clear from the very start. 
After a description like that it’s easy to imagine another didactic movie about the evilness of drugs, guns and poor parenthood. Indeed, the movie is didactic — but it teaches a different subject. 
Drugs, guns or bad parents aren’t evil, although each subject has a deadly effect in this story, and many others like it. No, the evil thing is stupid people, their infantilism and denial of reality. 
This includes the “brilliant” gang members who are told to be afraid of the sentence for kidnapping without thinking that the death penalty is worse. 
And it includes Truelove who doesn’t even attempt to give or sell the kid back, at least to his junkie brother, but orders him killed to become a “real” criminal. 
It includes everyone who thinks the kidnapping is romantic; everyone who thinks flashing guns and dealing drugs is cool because it’s done in the movies; everyone who witnesses much of what was going on and doesn’t do anything about it. That’s why every passerby in the movie has a name and a witness number, making them bystanders. Their negligence leads to the death of a kid who, being a product of this society of infantile idiots, doesn’t escape and honestly believes that this was the life to live: the one where you never grow old. 
It also includes Frankie’s father, who plants pot and rolls around with young girls; Truelove Sr. and his aged assistant, who both act like they’re 20-years old, a girl’s mother, who turns down her daughter’s plea to help save Zach because she took an ecstasy pill. Collective infantilism prevails. 
It will most likely prevail in reality when this movie is viewed by crime story lovers who will say there’s not enough action and pubescent Timberlake fans who will call it gruesome and boring. For the rest of us, it’s just not appealing enough: a talkative movie with no visual flair and a bad ending. We, kids, don’t like that. Too bad.

TITLE: Clash of Titans as Valuyev Faces McCline
AUTHOR: By Roy Kammerer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN — When St. Petersburg boxing champ Nikolai Valuyev steps into the ring Saturday to defend his WBA heavyweight title, he will finally be picking on someone his own size — or at least close to it. 
Depending on Friday’s weigh-in, the 7-foot, 330-pound Russian and 6-6, 270-pound challenger Jameel McCline of the United States could tip the scales for a combined 600 pounds, which promoters say would be a record for a title fight. 
“People are fascinated,” Valuyev’s promoter Wilfried Sauerland said. “This is a fight of superlatives, the biggest heavyweight championship of all time.” 
The fighters’ hulking size naturally makes for good promotion and is one reason why the fight in Basel, Switzerland, has been sold to television in 63 countries, although not the U.S. market. 
Beyond the size factor, the bout pits the 33-year-old Valuyev — in his third defense and hoping for heavyweight unification fights — against a 14th-ranked challenger who knows this could be his last chance at age 36. 
Some wonder how Valuyev (45-0, 33 knockouts) will handle fighting an opponent he doesn’t tower over, someone he can’t just jab into submission from the outside with his long reach. 
“Valuyev says I am the biggest, tallest fighter he has ever fought,” McCline said. “He is mechanical and slow. That is my chance. My strength is my speed and my explosiveness. I am very optimistic I will be the first to beat him.” 
Valuyev is looking beyond McCline to Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record, a mark that remains unbeaten for a heavyweight champion. 
“I never thought of the record, but so many people have asked me about it, it is now my goal,” Valuyev said. “And I won’t just fight easy boxers.” 
Valuyev beat Larry Donald on a controversial decision to set up his title win in December 2005 against John Ruiz, which was also a close call. Since then, Valuev has faced comfortable defenses against Owen Beck and Monte Barrett. 
“McCline, just because of his size and experience, is going to be a tough fight,” Valuyev said. 
McCline (38-6-3, 23 knockouts) could thrust himself back into the heavyweight picture with a victory — ending a downhill slide since Wladimir Klitschko stopped him in the 10th round of a 2002 WBO title fight.

TITLE: Sharapova Advances Despite Heat
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MELBOURNE  — Top seed Maria Sharapova made up for her exhausting opening victory with a 6-0 6-3 drubbing of fellow Russian Anastassia Rodionova in the Australian Open second round on Thursday. 
Sharapova, who was within two points of defeat by Frenchwoman Camille Pin in searing midday heat on Tuesday, looked much more comfortable on a cooler evening and clinched victory in 58 minutes. 
The world number two said she felt fully recovered from her gruelling three-hour opener which she won 9-7 in the final set. 
“I’m definitely recovered from it, I feel good physically,” she told a news conference. “I played a little bit better today but still nowhere near my top level and I think I can definitely get better as I play more matches here.” 
Sharapova said she had not done anything special to get over the Pin match during which she admitted it had been impossible to concentrate properly. 
“I just rested a lot, stayed inside, drank and I wanted to finish it in two (sets) today,” the 19-year-old said. 
Sharapova, who stayed on course for her first Australian Open title and third grand slam, still thinks players should be protected more from the problems of playing in extreme heat. 
“I think when it gets to a certain point where it’s extreme heat, players should probably stop. Even if there is a 20-minute delay, I think that’s why the roof’s there. Heat is one of the most dangerous things for players.” 
Sharapova started strongly, picking off her 24-year-old opponent with trademark booming groundstrokes and putting her under constant pressure with her serve. 
Rodionova, world number 100, raised her game in the second set but, struggling with a thigh injury that required treatment, she was powerless to stop Sharapova from beating her for the third time in three meetings. 
“Today I felt like I could work on a few things and really see how I was playing,” Sharapova said. “I’m glad I got off to a good start and I’m glad I was able to finish the match quickly.” 
Sharapova, who has reached the Australian Open semi-finals in the last two years, will play Italian Tathiana Garbin, the 30th seed, in the third round. 
In the men’s draw, fifth seed James Blake continued his imperious run by casting aside fellow American Alex Kuznetsov 6-4 6-1 6-2 on Thursday. 
Blake, who retained his Sydney International title last week, used terrific court coverage and pinpoint accuracy to see off the 19-year-old world number 216 on Rod Laver Arena in an hour and 21 minutes. 
Kuznetsov threatened a tougher match when he broke Blake’s opening two service games, but the 27-year-old’s experience shone through as he dismissed his Ukrainian-born opponent and regular practice partner. 
With a title under his belt this season, Blake finally believes he is worthy of a long-term place in the world’s top 10. 
“I’ve continued to work hard, so I’m not surprised by the fact I continue to get better,” said Blake, who crushed former world number one Carlos Moya in his opening-round match.

TITLE: Chelsea Banks On Arsenal Victory Against Manchester Utd
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Arsenal take on old foes and Premier League leaders Manchester United this weekend with champions Chelsea crossing their fingers for a Gunners victory. 
Arsenal pose only a distant threat to Chelsea’s hopes of a third consecutive league title, but they could help Jose Mourinho’s men close a six-point gap on United. 
Fourth in the table on 42 points, Arsenal are one point behind Liverpool, nine behind Chelsea and 15 adrift of a United side they beat 1-0 at Old Trafford last September. 
Buoyed by League and FA Cup success over Liverpool, plus a 10-man league win at Blackburn Rovers last weekend, Arsenal are in good shape for one of their biggest games of the season. 
Thierry Henry is on form, strike partner Emmanuel Adebayor, scorer of that winner in Manchester, is delivering on his potential and there are plenty of goals in the midfielders. 
However, Arsenal are handicapped by the injury absence of defender William Gallas, while a suspension for rock-solid Gilberto, following the Brazilian midfielder’s red card at Blackburn, will be a real blow on Sunday. 
A few years ago, this was a highly combustible fixture which pitted sides led by Roy Keane and the equally combative Patrick Vieira, causing ructions on and off the pitch. 
The infamous “Battle of the Buffet,” in which bits of pizza were allegedly thrown at United manager Alex Ferguson, followed the end of Arsenal’s record-breaking unbeaten league run of 49 games in October 2004. 
A year earlier, another fracas at Old Trafford had led to four Arsenal players being banned and their club fined for the ugly scenes at the end of a 0-0 draw. 
Keane and Vieira, along with the more vitriolic rivalry, are now long gone. 

SWASHBUCKLING UNITED 
However, the Emirates will still host a tightly-contested game between the Premier League’s top scoring sides, with United looking to repeat a swashbuckling 4-2 win at Highbury last year. 
United winger Cristiano Ronaldo has been superb this season, along with evergreen playmaker Paul Scholes and French striker Louis Saha. Wayne Rooney has a good record against Arsenal since scoring the winner for Everton as a 16-year-old unknown in 2002. 
United, who lost the 2005 FA Cup final to Arsenal on penalties, still face a probing test of their away form, though, after taking just four points from their last three league games on the road. 
Chelsea will hope to be only three points behind United when that match kicks off on Sunday afternoon, following their own demanding away fixture at Liverpool on Saturday. 
Hit by speculation about the future of coach Jose Mourinho and the injury absence of captain John Terry, among others, Chelsea need to show the stuff of champions at Anfield. 
Despite their League and FA Cup defeats by Arsenal, Liverpool have won nine and drawn two of their home league games this season and the champions can expect a rough ride in the day’s early kickoff. 
Outside the title race, Bolton Wanderers are at Middlesbrough while Portsmouth host relegation strugglers Charlton Athletic in later Saturday games.