SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1320 (86), Friday, November 2, 2007
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TITLE: Lugovoi Lashes Out At British Spy Services
AUTHOR: By Chris Baldwin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The man wanted by Britain for the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko says British secret services are trying to destabilize Russia.
Former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi, speaking exactly a year after meeting Litvinenko on the day he fell ill, said he had been caught in a web of intrigue that senior figures in Britain were using to damage Russia.
“For the past 15 years in particular, they have been doing everything they can to abase Russia and discredit her on the world stage,” Lugovoi told reporters on Thursday.
Lugovoi met Litvinenko at a London hotel on Nov. 1 last year with another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun. Later that day, Litvinenko complained of feeling ill. He was admitted to hospital and died on Nov. 23 from polonium 210 poisoning.
In a posthumous letter, Litvinenko accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being responsible for his death, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed as nonsense.
Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, said Lugovoi should be brought to justice for killing her husband.
“I will not speak about Sasha today, this is not his day. This is the day of his killers,” she said in a statement.
“The President of Russia, who has been named by Sasha as the instigator of his murder, is obstructing the investigation and backing the suspect with the full clout of Russia’s statehood.”
Lugovoi again denied any involvement in the murder. Russia has refused to extradite him citing its constitution, which bans handing over its own citizens.
Lugovoi repeated allegations that Litvinenko, a former FSB officer, had been working for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, after working for Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky. Lugovoi once also worked for Berezovsky.
He said he was using his role as a parliamentary candidate for the nationalist Liberal-Democratic party to draw attention to what he called the abasement of Russia by foreigners.
“I felt that I have to demonstrate to the entire Russian government what can happen to a Russian citizen, what may happen to the whole country, if we allow anybody to smear the Russian people any further,” Lugovoi said.
Litvinenko’s wife said Lugovoi’s rise to prominence shed a bad light on modern Russia.
“Presidential support has turned the accused murderer into a national hero,” she said. “He is about to become a member of the Duma. With heroes, presidents and a parliament like that, Russia is destined to a sad future.”

TITLE: Suspect Identified in Bus Blast in Tolyatti
AUTHOR: By Oleg Shchedrov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian detectives investigating a bus bomb blast which killed eight people said on Thursday they had identified a suspect, amid fears of fresh terror attacks in the run-up to parliamentary elections next month.
Wednesday’s attack, which wrecked a passenger bus in the central city of Tolyatti and also injured 50 people, came at an uncomfortable time for the Kremlin ahead of the Dec. 2 elections and a presidential vote next March.
The head of the federal investigation committee, Alexander Bastrykin, told Vesti-24 television that detectives had identified a suspect in the blast but did not name the person.
Aluminium wire and nails, similar to those blasted into the bodies of the victims by the explosion, had been discovered during a search of the suspect’s apartment, he added.
“We have every reason to believe that this person, willingly or not, performed actions which led to the explosion in the bus,” Bastrykin said.
He did not say who might have been behind the blast.
“There can be two explanations: this was either a terrorist act motivated by some reason, not necessarily by nationalism, or a careless handling of explosive substances which could blow up during motion,” he told Russian television.
Authorities declared a day of mourning in Tolyatti, a car-making city 1,000 kilometers southeast of Moscow named after Italian Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti and best known as the home of the Lada car.
Several thousand people gathered for an rally near the local university, whose students were among the dead.
“Events in Tolyatti should not divide us,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted Putin’s envoy to the Volga region, Alexander Konovalov, as telling the rally. “We should remain united.”
Hours before that, Konovalov lashed out at authors of rumours that there was more than one explosion in Tolyatti on Wednesday and that others could be expected.
“Special services are seriously working to identify the people who spread the rumours,” Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. “I view them as accomplices to the terrorists.”
The blast came just over a month before Russia votes in parliamentary polls widely seen as a referendum on Putin’s eight years in power.
Putin says he will leave the Kremlin after his successor is elected in March presidential polls. 
But Putin wants his policies, which have brought Russia relative prosperity and stability after the chaotic 1990s, to continue.
Among his key achievements, Putin has cited a crackdown on terrorism, which flourished in Russia at the time he came to power in 2000. However, a series of recent incidents could cloud the picture.
A day before the Tolyatti bomb blast, local security officials met to discuss security arrangements during the elections and ahead of a national holiday marked on November 4 and pledged not to allow any “terrorist acts” to happen.
In August, a bomb blast ripped through an express train halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. 
In another incident, earlier this month another bomb explosion destroyed a minibus taxi in the southern Russian region of Dagestan.
No one has been charged with either crime, but investigators have said Islamic extremists from North Caucasus regions bordering restive Chechnya were the prime suspects.
“Is it the beginning of a new terror war?” the Izvestia daily asked on Thursday.

TITLE: Changes to Voting System Lead to Fears of Ballot-Stuffing
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In what human rights advocates see as the use of the government machine in the interests of United Russia, the Kremlin-backed ruling party, representatives of a number of both state-run and private organizations have complained that local district authorities are putting pressure on them to organize their staff’s vote in Duma elections on Sunday, Dec. 2. 
In these organizations, for whom Sunday is a working day, employees have been ordered to obtain otkrepitelnoye udostoverenie, a certificate that allows one to vote in other places than the polling station nearest to their places of residence.
“Casting a vote is a right, not a duty, and the authorities must not intervene in this process,” said Boris Vishnevsky, a political analyst and member of political council of the liberal party Yabloko. “Forcing the people to vote in an organized form is clearly an attempt to manipulate the elections.” 
Irina Terentiyeva, head of the labor union of the Okhta Center of Aesthetic Education for Children, was bewildered by the visit of a senior official of Krasnogvardeisky District — where the center is located — and the pressure that she felt was exerted.
“They threatened to fire us if we do not demonstrate the full turnout of our staff at polling stations,” Terentyieva said. “The officials were rude, and showed no respect. We felt extremely humiliated.”
Terentiyeva and other teachers contacted Yabloko for advice and support. Maxim Reznik, head of the local branch of Yabloko, said the party has already sent appeals to the city’s prosecutor’s office and the St. Petersburg Election Commission asking to investigate the complaints.
Private enterprises have also found themselves under pressure to organize their employees’ vote. 
A copy of a document that was this week sent to all commercial tenants of the Sennaya Trade Center by the center’s managers, obtained by The St. Petersburg Times, show that pressure is being applied on companies to organize their employees participation in the election. 
“This is not a request to make your staff vote for a specific party,” reads the letter in bold capital letters. However, the document appears to have a mild, recommendative character. 
Tenants, the document suggests, are expected to “demonstrate loyalty, solid understanding and high organization towards the administration of Admiralteisky District [where the center is located] and oblige all employees to obtain the vote certificates to be able to vote at the polling station No.18 in the vicinity of the trade center.”
Vishnevsky said that behind the strategy of organizing people’s vote at work could be a plan to cast fake votes. 
“Observers are not allowed to make copies of the protocols, and there will be no way for them to check whether anyone ‘voted’ twice, both at their work and place of residence,” Vishnevsky said. 
Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, a Moscow-based non-profit organization, said the level of transparency of elections in Russia has lowered significantly. 
“Only party observers are allowed to monitor the vote, while access of independent Russian observers is not restricted,” he said. “There are also limitations to what documents the observers can request.” 
In the recent years, human rights advocates have alleged a number of cases of ballot-stuffing but none of them has reached court owing to lack of evidence.
In previous election campaigns political parties resorted to straightforward bribes to voters. However this pattern is not likely to be repeated in December. 
“At stake is the voter turnout, because, according to public opinion polls most Russians are inclined not to participate in the elections,” Kabanov said.
In what critics see as the triumph of using “administrative resources” or government institutions to influence the electoral process, President Vladimir Putin in October agreed to stand at the head of the United Russia party list. 
“The issue of voter turnout has evolved into Putin’s personal trust test but the problem is that too many people do not fully associate Putin with United Russia even though he went as far as fronting their list,” Kabanov said. “More than half of Russians are planning to ignore the elections, according to various nationwide polls - a natural yet dangerous political apathy of a highly corrupt state like Russia — and spin doctors are panicking.”

TITLE: Russia Urges Diplomacy As Iran Warns U.S. of ‘Quagmire’
AUTHOR: By Fredrik Dahl
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TEHRAN — Iran warned the United States on Wednesday it would find itself in a “quagmire deeper than Iraq” if it attacked the Islamic state, and Russia stepped up efforts for a diplomatic solution to Tehran’s nuclear row with the West.
The warning by the head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, a target of new U.S. sanctions announced last week, added to angry rhetoric between the two old foes that has prompted speculation of possible U.S. military action.
U.S. President George W. Bush has suggested a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to World War Three. Washington insists it wants a diplomatic solution but a U.S. official said on Wednesday more “tough-minded diplomacy” was needed to make this route work.
“If the enemies show inexperience and want to invade Islamic Iran, they will receive a strong slap from Iran,” Jafari said in comments carried by the semi-official Fars News Agency.
“The enemy knows that if it attacks Iran it, will be trapped in a quagmire deeper than Iraq and Afghanistan, and they will have to withdraw with defeat,” he told a parade in north-central Iran, without mentioning the United States by name.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are expected to meet in London on Friday to discuss a possible third round of UN sanctions, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns said.
“It’s very important that the Security Council stay united and focused on this and that the third resolution be passed,” he told reporters in Paris. “If we want diplomacy to succeed, we’re going to have to see more tough-minded diplomacy.”
He said this should include European sanctions on Iran.
The United States has refused to rule out military action if diplomacy fails. Iran has so far refused to heed UN demands to halt nuclear work that has both civilian and military uses.
Iran, hoping to ward off any further sanctions on its oil-dependent economy, agreed with the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in August to clear up suspicions about its past secret nuclear activities.
Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program are one of the factors that have pushed oil prices to record highs of over $90 a barrel in recent days.
Russia, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, says dialogue rather than punishment or talk of military action offers the best way to ease tension. It says the IAEA process should be given time to run its course.
Speaking after talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday evening, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, according to a transcript from his ministry:
“We encouraged the Iranian leadership to undertake further — and preferably more active — work with the IAEA to clear up those questions which have been raised by the agency with regard to the Iranian nuclear program’s past.”
Lavrov, visiting two weeks after a trip to Tehran by President Vladimir Putin, said he “underlined the importance of closing these questions as soon as possible, in order to restore trust in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s activities.”
Lavrov’s visit coincided with vital talks in Tehran between officials from Iran and the Vienna-based IAEA on implementing the August agreement.
Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei will report to the agency’s 35-nation board of governors in mid-November. If Iran has not answered sensitive questions by then, Western powers say they will move to have tougher UN sanctions adopted.
In Washington, U.S. officials said they expected the five permanent UN Security Council members — the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — as well as Germany to meet later this week in London to discuss new sanctions.
Britain and France back a tough line on Iran. China, like Russia, has opposed an early move to tighten economic sanctions, saying Iran should be given longer to cooperate with the IAEA.
The UN Security Council has already imposed two sets of limited sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt enrichment, a process to make fuel for nuclear power plants that can also, if refined further, provide material for bombs.

TITLE: Son Suspected of Killing Presidential Bureaucrat
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Local media have reported that chief suspect in the murder of an employee of the Presidential Administration and his ex-wife is the couple’s son after discrepancies emerged between his account of killings and that of other witnesses. 
The bodies of Igor Vasilevsky, 46, and his former wife Yulia, 45, were found near their dacha in the exclusive St. Petersburg suburb of Komarovo on Sunday. Both had been shot in the head, the ANN news agency said.
Their son, Leonid Vasilevsky, 19, a student at St. Petersburg State University, had reported to police that his parents had gone for a walk but didn’t come back, Fontanka.ru reported.
The police found the bodies of the Vasilevskys in a forest park half a kilometer away from the dacha on Monday night. 
The Vasilevskys had recently divorced but continued to meet each other.
In contrast to Leonid’s account, neighbors told police that they saw him first walking with his mother and later sat in his father’s car and drove somewhere with him, Gazeta.ru reported.
Police have reportedly found a man who sold a gun to the Vasilevskys’ son through mediators. 
Media speculation on Leonid’s motive for the murder focused on his wish to receive his inheritance. The Vasilevskys owned two pieces of expensive land in Komarovo.  
Prosecutors have opened a criminal case under article 105, part 2 of the Russian Criminal Code (murder of two or more people).
The City Prosecution Service could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

TITLE: Russia Limits OSCE Observers
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WARSAW, Poland — Russia has said that only 70 OSCE election observers can monitor its upcoming parliamentary vote and has imposed restrictions on how long they can stay, the organization said Wednesday, describing the curbs as unprecedented.
Campaigning starts Saturday for the elections, and most voters are expected to support the main pro-Kremlin party.
United Russia, which controls the current parliament, is expected to consolidate its position in the Dec. 2 ballot, especially after President Vladimir Putin announced a month ago he would lead the party ticket.
Urdur Gunnarsdottir, spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, said Russia limited the number of observers to “up to 70” and was restricting how long they could stay in the country to the “short term.” She said the letter’s wording was ambiguous and the time limits were not clear.
“We have never received such an invite, which clearly restricts the work of observers,” she said. “That is unprecedented and will affect our ability to do our work in a serious and meaningful way.”
The OSCE — in which 56 countries from Europe, central Asia and North America participate — sent 400 observers for the last parliamentary election in 2003 who stayed less than a week. An additional 56 long-term experts remained about six weeks, Gunnarsdottir said.
Russia’s Central Election Committee informed the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, of the restrictions in a letter Wednesday. 
The letter was faxed to the Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE branch charged with observing elections, Gunnarsdottir said.
Russia repeatedly has criticized the OSCE monitoring process, suggesting observers are biased. OSCE observers described the 2003 election as a step backward for democracy, saying the state used the media and other levers to favor United Russia.

TITLE: Navy Plans Move to St. Petersburg
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Defense Ministry is planning to move the Navy headquarters to St. Petersburg in the latest instance of a federal institution being shifted to the former capital — and President Vladimir Putin’s hometown.
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has instructed Navy chief Vladimir Vysotsky to draft a plan for the move from Moscow to the historical Admiralty and surrounding buildings in St. Petersburg, an unidentified Defense Ministry official said, Kommersant reported Wednesday. Serdyukov was acting on orders from the Kremlin, and the government has already been instructed to allocate funding for the transfer, the official said.
The move would be the second by a federal institution to St. Petersburg, following the Constitutional Court. Analysts told Kommersant that the decision was likely based on political considerations and could undermine command and control capabilities in the short term.
The relocation to the 18th-century site — built under Peter the Great as a shipyard but now home to a naval cadet school and the Leningrad Naval Base command — is planned to start in April, Kommersant quoted another Defense Ministry source as saying.
The new location, over 700 kilometers from the Defense Ministry and strategic forces commands in Moscow, will pose significant communication challenges. It will also mean the purchase of apartments for thousands of personnel who will have to be relocated.
The Navy has already asked for 15 billion rubles ($607 million) for the move, Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye reported.
Independent analysts, however, say the cost would be at least 20 billion rubles ($800 million), which could be better spent on hardware for a Navy hit hard by a lack of funding since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independent military weekly reported.

TITLE: KGB Veterans Call for an End to Turf War
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — A group of retired senior KGB officials have called on the country’s security services to end a turf war between competing agencies that has turned into a bitter public conflict.
In an open letter published Wednesday in the ultranationalist newspaper Zavtra, the retired officials — including General Vladimir Kryuchkov, the last KGB chief — warned security services of the consequences of infighting
“Trust us from our experience,” they wrote. “There will be major troubles, and this is unacceptable.”
Security services should be a source of stability in the country, not discord that can be exploited by “foreign and domestic destructive forces,” they wrote.
The former officials supported Federal Drug Control Service chief Viktor Cherkesov, who went public with a similar demand in early October following the arrests of several senior drug control officials by the Federal Security Service and the Investigative Committee.
The arrests were widely seen as revenge against Cherkesov’s agency, which had an active role in the investigation into Tri Kita, a Moscow furniture store accused of evading millions of dollars in import duties and smuggling Chinese goods through FSB storage facilities. The investigation led to the ouster of several high-ranking officials in the FSB and the Prosecutor General’s Office last year. President Vladimir Putin assigned Cherkesov’s people to the case.
Cherkesov wrote an article in Kommersant on Oct. 9 arguing that internecine feuding over power and influence between security services was a threat to national stability.
Putin scolded Cherkesov in Kommersant for publicly airing dirty laundry but on Oct. 20 created a new state committee to fight illegal drugs and named Cherkesov as its chief.
In e-mailed comments Wednesday, Vagif Guseinov, former KGB head of Soviet Azerbaijan and one of the signatories of the letter published in Zavtra, said the infighting was driven by greed.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Alcohol Price Rise</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The price of alcoholic drinks in Russia may rise up to 10 percent by the end of the year, Interfax reported on Thursday.
The price of alcoholic drinks often rises close to New Year but this year the rising price of spirit alcohol is influencing the hike.
“The price of spirit alcohol increased by 10 percent this summer. Added to this is the rising price of bottles, other ingredients, and transportation costs,” said Viktor Alexeyev, general director of Christall Lefortovo trading.

<b>Drug Squad Poisoning</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Two members of St. Petersburg’s Drugs Control Department have died from poisoning, Interfax reported on Wednesday.
“The case is now under investigation.  There was poison, and now we need to found out what poison it was,” Alexander Mikhailov, head of information department at Federal Drug Control Service.
Mikhailov said the conditions of the officers’ death were “strange” but that further investigation was needed to make clear what happened.

<b>Bad School Dinners</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg prosecutor’s found numerous violations of legislation about the preparation of meals in the city’s educational institutions, Interfax said on Tuesday.
Most of the educational institutions checked did not provide hygiene control and allowed the use of aluminum cutlery, dining and tea crockery with cracks, chips, and damaged enamel, prosecutor’s said.
In some institutions, prosecutors also found out-of-date products.

TITLE: Court Rules Against Yukos Receiver
AUTHOR: By Miriam Elder
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A Dutch court on Wednesday ruled that Yukos receiver Eduard Rebgun did not have the right to sell off the firm’s foreign assets in a bankruptcy auction in August, handing back control of Yukos’ Dutch subsidiary to its former managers.
The ruling threatened to nullify the results of the controversial auction, which saw a group of U.S. investors scoop up the firm’s foreign assets.
“The Russian bankruptcy of Yukos does not align with fundamental legal principles as accepted in the Netherlands,” the Amsterdam court said in its ruling.
The court also said it refused to recognize bankruptcy manager Eduard Rebgun as the legitimate receiver of Yukos’ Dutch subsidiary, Yukos Finance BV, reinstating former managers Bruce Misamore and David Godfrey. The ruling has immediate effect.
Rebgun oversaw a series of state-organized bankruptcy auctions earlier this year that sold off the remains of Yukos, once the country’s largest oil company.
He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Most assets went to state-controlled Rosneft in a process decried by critics as lacking transparency.
In a surprise twist, Promneftstroi, a former Rosneft subsidiary bought by Moscow-based U.S. businessman Stephen Lynch, won the Aug. 15 auction for Yukos Finance organized by the Federal Property Fund. Lynch bought Promneftstroi days before the auction.
“We’re studying the ruling, as we will study all the rulings we expect in this long court process,” Lynch said.
Lynch, who owns real estate firm Monte Valle, was backed by a group of foreign investors, including Bob Foresman, vice chairman of Renaissance Capital, and Richard Deitz, president of U.S. hedge fund VR Capital and a former head of fixed income at Renaissance.
Rebgun can appeal the decision in the Amsterdam Court of Appeal.

TITLE: Mining Companies In Karelia Lose Licenses
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Following public protests and new instructions from the federal authorities the Karelian government has been forced to revoke 153 licenses for mining. The licenses allowed permitted quarrying dangerously close to Ladoga and Yastrebinoye lakes and were issued in contradiction to the federal legislation.
Mining companies, which have invested millions of dollars in geological surveys, engineering and equipment, have strongly objected to the shutting down of enterprises which they claim were legitimately licensed to operate according to the regional laws.
“Of this huge number of companies that lost licenses, only a few enterprises were really able to invest into quarries, logistics and distribution,” Artyom Menumerov, secretary of the Northwest Union of Miners, said at a press conference Tuesday.
On the most disputed territory in the Lakhdenpokhsky district only three or four mining enterprises could viably operate, despite the fact that the authorities had licensed over 40 companies, provoking ecologists and the local population to protest, Menumerov said.
After a number of investigations, the head of the ministry for natural resources Yury Trutnev last month recommended that no new licenses be issued for mining in the vicinity of Ladoga Lake and that current licenses be revoked. Trutnev called for the establishment a nature reserve in the area.
On Oct. 25, the governor of Karelia issued a decree, revoking all licenses granted from April 2006 onwards.
At the press conference, miners called for the companies that harmed the environment or violated the law to be penalized, rather than the elimination of the whole industry in the region. They said that the new law selectively penalized companies. The plans for a quarry in Murtamyaki village have not been banned, because the license was issued in 2003. Stone extracted in this quarry will be shipped via Lake Ladoga.
“I think this illogical decision will be revoked in court. We need new quarries. The shortage of stone, granite and other construction materials will lead to price hikes for residential real estate,” said Yury Kazakov, professor at the St. Petersburg Architectural and Construction University.
Kazakov blamed transnational corporations for financing ecologists to back the decision.
One of the mining companies, Ecoprom, has invested $28.9 million in its project. Having completed a geological survey in the Lakhdenpokhsky district, the company found a reserve of granite with a potential extraction capacity of over one million square meters of granite a year for 60 years.
On March 7 this year Ecoprom received a license to mine the area. During the two months that followed, the regional authorities licensed other 45 companies in the same district. “It inflamed public opinion. All those licenses, obviously, weren't taken to develop the quarries,” said Nikolai Bolshov, deputy director of Ecoprom.
“We're still working on our project, despite all this turmoil,” said Yulian Kobzar, coordinator of a quarry project at Yefimovsky Karier, a company, which invested $2.5 million.
Prime-Tass reported that in January-August 2007, mining enterprises in Karelia increased turnover by 32.8 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching $640 million.
This summer, environmentalists and local entrepreneurs called for an ecological resort to be founded in Karelia to protect Lake Ladoga from the effects of quarrying. They claim the resort would be a profitable venture attracting both Russian and foreign tourists, supplying taxes to the regional budget and creating jobs locally.
Miners, in turn, have said that each new quarry would provide five times more in taxes for the regional budget as the proposed tourist industry development plans.

TITLE: VimpelCom Seeks to Borrow $4.5 Bln
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Mobile phone firm VimpelCom aims to close syndication of a $4.5 billion loan in early December and may refinance the debt in 2008 via a eurobond issue, a banking source said Tuesday.
VimpelCom, in which private equity group Alfa and Norway’s Telenor own strategic stakes, is the target of intensifying media speculation that it is raising the cash to acquire fixed-line operator Golden Telecom.
“VimpelCom wants to get the money up front. They plan to cover the six-month bridge financing with an issue of eurobonds,” the source said, adding that the deal structure should be finalized this week.
People familiar with the matter said VimpelCom was eyeing the deal as a so-called convergence play to bundle its services with those of Golden Telecom, which has launched urban Wi-Fi networks in Russia.
A second source suggested that the deal might involve a share swap. “VimpelCom will buy Golden Telecom, and the shareholders of Golden will get a stake in VimpelCom,” the source said.
Such a transaction could create value in the country’s saturated mobile phone market, where penetration has reached 114 percent and subscriber growth is expected to fade, analysts said.
“Strategically, this is a good idea for VimpelCom,” said Igor Semyonov, a telecoms analyst at ING Bank.
“If this happens, it won’t be surprising, as [VimpelCom CEO Alexander] Izosimov’s comments some time ago clearly suggested it was time to think about new drivers of growth.”
Izosimov said in July that VimpelCom had been in touch with Golden Telecom to explore entering new business lines.
VimpelCom’s main rival, market leader MTS, plans to bundle services with fixed-line affiliate Comstar.

TITLE: Investigators Raid Promsvyazbank Offices
AUTHOR: By Catrina Stewart
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Interior Ministry investigators on Wednesday raided Promsvyazbank, which is controlled by the Ananyev brothers, in the latest of a series of high-profile raids on banks.
Promsvyazbank, the country’s 13th-largest bank by assets, confirmed that searches were carried out at its two main offices, while Interfax later reported that the offices of the bank’s real estate subsidiary were also searched.
“The [search] was connected with the activities of one of our clients,” a bank spokeswoman said by telephone. “The bank is continuing to operate normally.”
As of lunchtime Wednesday, there was no sign that the investigators were still at the bank, and employees refused to comment. Security guards referred all questions to the bank’s press office.
Nobody from the Interior Ministry could be reached for comment Wednesday, but Interfax cited a ministry source as saying the search was related to a real estate dispute involving a senior manager at Promsvyazbank and that the bank itself was not directly implicated in the criminal investigation.
“The bank in this case was probably only a financial tool,” the source said, Interfax reported.
Brothers Alexei and Dmitry Ananyev, estimated by Forbes magazine to each have a personal fortune of $1.7 billion, hold controlling stakes in Promsvyazbank, while Germany’s Commerzbank has a minority stake. Dmitry Ananyev is one of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district’s two representatives in the Federation Council.
Dmitry Latypov, an aide to Dmitry Ananyev in the Federation Council, said the senator was unavailable for comment.
Beate Schlosser, spokeswoman for Commerzbank in Germany, said they were not aware of the searches.
The search is the latest in a series of recent high-profile raids on banks.

Staff writer Tai Adelaja contributed to this report.

TITLE: Lufthansa Cargo Overflights Banned
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BERLIN — Russia has banned Lufthansa Cargo flights over its territory, disrupting service on 49 connections per week from Frankfurt to Astana, Kazakhstan, a spokesman for Deutsche Lufthansa confirmed Wednesday.
“Since Oct. 28, we are flying around Russian airspace,” Peter Schneckenleitner said. “Each round trip takes an extra three hours and we are having significant delays.”
Lufthansa passenger flights were not affected by the ban.
Schneckenleitner said the reason for the ban was a “disagreement with Russia about the royalties it charges for overflights” above its territory.
A spokesman for the Transportation Ministry denied that Lufthansa Cargo flights had been banned, saying the company had been flying over Russia under a temporary license that expired Oct. 27.
“If they want to resume flights they have to formally apply for new permission,” ministry spokesman Timur Khikmatov said.
Khikmatov said there were no issues between Russian authorities and the German carrier. “I do not understand this hysteria on their part.”
Aeroflot Cargo reported in the meantime that its cargo flights had been briefly banned from flying to Germany.
Aeroflot said it lost permission to fly to Germany on Monday “in response to Russia’s introduction of some bans of flights of the Germany company Lufthansa Cargo over Russian territory.” Permission was restored Tuesday and flights resumed, the company said.
The German government confirmed earlier Tuesday that it was holding talks about the Lufthansa overflight ban, but declined to comment further.
“We assume that the nuisance will soon be cleared,” said a German transport ministry spokesman, Sven Ulbrich.
The Lufthansa spokesman also expressed confidence that a resolution could be reached. “However, if the situation stays like this we will soon have to reduce flights,” he said.

TITLE: Report Raises Russia’s Competitiveness Rank
AUTHOR: By Tai Adelaja
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia has improved in competitiveness over the last year but still trails its West European peers by a long margin, the World Economic Forum showed in a report to be released Thursday.
The Geneva-based foundation’s Global Competitiveness Report placed Russia at 58th place out of the 131 countries surveyed in terms of competitiveness, four places up from its 62nd position from 125 nations last year.
The report, based on questionnaires compiled by around 11,000 global business leaders, sought to assess technological development, public institutions and macroeconomic environment among the countries surveyed.
Russia’s lackluster performance was attributable to weaknesses in its institutional environment and business standards, the report said. Among emerging economies, Russia was found to be less competitive than China and India, ranked 34 and 48, but better than Brazil, which stands at 72.
One explanatory factor is that Russia has lagged behind in implementing legal and administrative reforms, said Yaroslav Lissovolik, chief economist for Deutsche UFG.
“Russia embarked on reforming state institutions and the private sector five or six years ago, while China and Brazil were already on the next stage of active modernization and reform,” Lissovolik said.
Other negative aspects cited by the survey included a perceived deficiency in government efficiency, where Russia ranked 118th, and the lack of an independent judiciary, where it came in 106th, as well as more general concerns about state favoritism in dealings with the private sector.
Weak property rights protection was also reflected in this year’s report and was described as “extremely poor and worsening.” Private institutions also performed badly, with the country’s corporate ethics ranking at 120th.
Russia has been able to regain some of the ground lost in the last two years with modest improvements in areas such as performance-based compensation, availability of specialists and diminished market dominance by a limited number of business groups, the report said.
Yevsei Gurvich, head of the Economic Expert Group, generally agreed with the report’s findings but added that recurring issues, such as protection of intellectual property rights and independence of the judiciary, will long continue to sour the country’s image.
On a more positive note, Russia has been able to draw on its legacy in terms of production capacity, basic skills and other assets, the report said. But the report warned that unless there was an improvement in underlying competitiveness, dependence on oil and gas revenues would only increase over time.
“The natural resource-based economic boom remains the biggest obstacle to reform in Russia,” Gurvich said. “Growth is fueled by the development of the natural resources sector, and the growth of other sectors are dependent on this.”
The United States topped this year’s list, followed by Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Finland. Among other former Soviet republics, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all outranked Russia, in 27th, 45th and 38th place, respectively, while Ukraine came in at 73.

TITLE: Low-Profile Senator Gets Top Job at Housing Fund
AUTHOR: By Anatoly Medetsky
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — A low-profile United Russia senator who graduated from Moscow’s Marxism-Leninism University will manage billions of dollars as head of the state corporation created to improve housing conditions.
Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov appointed Konstantin Tsitsin, who is deputy chairman of the Federation Council’s Budget Committee, as director of the corporation in a decree published Wednesday on the government’s web site.
Named the Housing Reform Assistance Fund, the state corporation will spend at least 250 billion rubles ($10 billion) over the next four years to repair deteriorating apartment buildings or move people out to new homes. President Vladimir Putin ordered the body’s creation in his state-of-the-nation address in April.
A Finance Ministry source said the fund could receive 500 billion to 1 trillion rubles this year, Interfax reported.
Before his appointment to the Federation Council, Tsitsin worked as an aide to Andrei Vorobyov, head of United Russia’s executive committee, according to the council’s web site. Tsitsin’s biography on the web site otherwise describes him only as a student, stating that he graduated from what is now Bauman University as well as from the Marxism-Leninism University and the State Tax Academy.

TITLE: AvtoVAZ, Magna Axe Plans
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — AvtoVAZ and Canada’s Magna have dropped plans to build a plant to manufacture cars for the country’s largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ said Wednesday.
AvtoVAZ said in a statement that a preliminary agreement to build a $2 billion plant, signed in May in the presence of President Vladimir Putin and Magna chairman Frank Stronach, had expired.
“It would be economically disadvantageous” to build the plant from scratch, AvtoVAZ spokeswoman Natalya Sidoruk said. Another factor that spoke against the plant was time, she said, declining to provide more details.
On May 18, Stronach and AvtoVAZ chairman Sergei Chemezov inked a memo of intent to build the plant to create a new C-class model.
Under the plan, AvtoVAZ and Magna were expected to invest $1 billion each into the project, but AvtoVAZ has had difficulties securing state financing.
The plan envisioned initial production of 220,000 cars, in sedan, hatchback and estate body trims, later rising to 450,000 units per year. Putin said at the time that the plan had potential and added that he hoped the project would be carried out.
Magna will remain a priority supplier of components for AvtoVAZ and will also consider investing in production of plastic parts for AvtoVAZ, among other projects, AvtoVAZ said.
A Magna International spokesman confirmed that the companies would not build the plant but said they would continue to cooperate.

TITLE: Combustible Countries
AUTHOR: By Alexander Petersen
TEXT: Combustion happens when fuel combined with oxygen, usually at high temperature, releases heat. While U.S. foreign policy has focused on so-called failed states, it should be concentrating on those countries with the right combination of high-temperature ingredients not just to implode, but to combust. 
Take Beirut. The atmosphere in this buzzing but beleaguered city is tense. There are military checkpoints, complete with sandbags, armored personnel carriers guarding key throughways, and barriers to slow down traffic in front of lawmakers’ homes. Lebanon’s intensely fractured parliament must vote on the country’s new president by Nov. 24, and there is good reason for the increased security. While driving in a suburb of Beirut on Sept. 19, an anti-Syrian member of the parliament, Antoine Ghanem, and two of his bodyguards were blown up by a car bomb. 
Most Lebanese and Western governments assume that Syrian security forces were behind the blast. This is based on scores of similar political assassinations dating back to Lebanon’s 15-year civil war. The first round of the presidential vote was scheduled to take place in late September but was postponed first until after Ramadan, and then a second time until Nov. 12, because of boycotts by pro-Syrian opposition members of the parliament. 
The endless power-jockeying between sectarian factions and the constant threat of violence within Lebanon mean that there will always be one group for which it will be politically advantageous to goad Israel. Currently, that group is Hezbollah, against which Israel waged a war last year. Until the almost intractable sectarian divide within Lebanon is resolved, the country’s combustibility will ensure the region’s combustibility as well, threatening Israel’s security and U.S. strategic interests. 
Another such combustible case is Pakistan, where U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf just narrowly averted a full-scale insurrection by relinquishing his role as chief of the armed forces and allowing exiled opposition figures to return to the country. In the little time before the next challenge to his administration, he must focus on the parts of the country the central government does not effectively control. 
Until economic conditions improve dramatically and defiant tribal leaders can be placated, ethnic Pashtun chiefs in the area will continue to support attacks across the border in Afghanistan, as well as foment rebellion within the country. The region’s almost inherent combustibility will ensure the combustibility of nuclear-armed Pakistan, and undermine U.S. strategic interests in stabilizing Afghanistan. 
The third combustible state may at first seem surprising, but it presents the greatest threat to U.S. strategic interests in the long term. According to the conventional view, President Vladimir Putin’s growing authoritarian grip has brought stability and prosperity — hence his sky-high approval ratings — even as vast sections of the economy are effectively nationalized and the opposition and media are quashed. These developments create a stable, if overly confident Russia in the short term. But they are also a sign of the nation’s underlying combustibility. 
More than any other country in the world, Russia faces a long-term demographic crisis: The population of ethnic Russians declines by more than one million every year. Meanwhile, the number of Muslims in the country, from the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East, is surging through immigration and high birth rates. The response of many Russians is racist nationalism, in many cases encouraged by the state. The respected human rights group Memorial has linked Kremlin-supported youth group Nashi, which runs summer camps where white, Orthodox, ethnic Russians are encouraged to breed, to numerous hate crimes. 
As ethnic and religious minorities become majorities in a number of key neighborhoods, districts and towns, a counternationalist backlash brews. Putin and his possible successors know this, and the strengthening of central power is part of a bid to prevent the biggest potential combustion of all: the Balkanization of Russia’s over 160 ethnic groups. Yet their clampdown could also exacerbate the tension. Local government restrictions, limiting the number of Muslim vendors at outdoor markets, for example, only serve to deepen minority frustration. Such an explosion in Eurasia would have profound implications for U.S. and European energy security, transnational crime and migration flows across the continent, not to mention the fate of Russia’s poorly secured stockpiles of nuclear materials. 
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is wary of failed states, which is a justified concern. But combustible countries that could destabilize entire regions through their inbuilt instability should be the priority. 

Alexandros Petersen is a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This comment appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

TITLE: The Price of Democracy
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: On Oct. 13, there was a natural gas explosion in Dnipropetrovsk, located in eastern Ukraine. About 30 people died.
Ever since the explosion, almost every Ukrainian politician has attacked Viktor Vekselberg, the owner of DnipropetrovskGorGaz, which is the local gas company that may be responsible for the blast.
Actually, Vekselberg owns only 50 percent of the company. The other half is owned by Mikhail Abyzov, but this is beside the point. Since Vekselberg is a public figure and a Russian oligarch to boot, he is a more attractive target to blame for the accident.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko declared that he would teach Russian oligarchs a lesson about “criminal liability, if they don’t understand their moral responsibility.” Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has “assembled a group of 10 lawyers that will force Mr. Vekselberg to pay for all losses caused by the accident.”
Ukrainian Emergency Situations Minister Nestor Shufrych, a member of Viktor Yanukovych’s coalition, announced that he would press for nationalizing DnipropetrovskGorGaz if Vekselberg failed to reimburse the ministry to the tune of $20 million, the amount the government apparently spent handling the disaster.
The primary cause of the gas explosion is not known. It could have been caused by the dilapidated condition of gas lines, a high-pressure surge or tampering with gas meters by residents of the apartment building.
People are hurling accusations at DnipropetrovskGorGaz. And the threats to nationalize the company are disturbing. No Ukrainian politician has missed the chance to exploit the deaths from this tragedy as a PR opportunity or to promote the interests of their financial backers. And some are guilty of doing both.
“Is this the glorious democracy we were fighting for?” you might ask.
Yes. In fact, this is democracy in its best form. As a result of this public outcry, Vekselberg announced that he would pay the families of the deceased $100,000 each and $10,000 to each of the injured. Do you recall how much was paid to victims after a similar explosion in Arkhangelsk took the lives of 60 people? I’ll refresh your memory: The families of the deceased received 100,000 rubles (about $4,000) each.
And how much did the victims of the Dubrovka theater attack receive as compensation? In 2004, even the most persistent plaintiffs managed to win a maximum payment of only 327,000 rubles (about $13,000). And then there was the Moscow City Court ruling that increased the compensation for Alla Alyakin, a Dubrovka hostage, by 2 kopeks.
Contrary to what many think, democracy is not justice at all. It is all a bunch of lies, demagoguery and populism. It is also about politicians who exploit a tragedy — and the public outrage that emerges as a consequence — to grab shares of profitable industries under the false mantra of “justice.”
But in this case, the result of this demagoguery and corruption is that Tymoshenko’s political bloc will pay each victim 2,000 hryvnas ($395), while the government will allocate 5,000,000 hryvnas (roughly $1 million) to compensate the victims and help them acquire new apartments. Democracy has a price — an absolutely concrete price.
Compare the $100,000 that each victim in Dnipropetrovsk will receive with the additional 2 kopeks paid to Alyakina in Moscow. This clearly underscores the difference, in arithmetic terms, between a country where the president is compelled to please the people and a country where the people worship their president.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.

TITLE: Mixed Message
AUTHOR: The Wall Street Journal
TEXT: U.S. President George W. Bush gave a speech Oct. 23 in which he observed that “the need for missile defense in Europe is real and I believe it’s urgent.” Perhaps U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates should reread it. 
We say this after Gates appeared in Prague the same day to announce that the Bush administration would press ahead with plans to build a limited ballistic missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, but would “delay activating them until there was concrete proof of the threat from Iran.” Gates also suggested that Russian personnel might be allowed on the site in light of the Kremlin’s “concerns.” 
Gates was also less than reassuring with his comments about delayed activation and the need for “concrete proof.” Gates wasn’t clear about the standard of proof he’d require to consider Iran’s threat concrete. In his speech, Bush noted an intelligence assessment that “with continued foreign assistance, Iran could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States and all of Europe before 2015.” 
The notion that the United States must wait for concrete proof before it acts runs contrary to the whole purpose of ballistic missile defense. As Bush observed, missile defense is intended to do more than prevent a ballistic missile from reaching its target. It’s also meant to alter the “calculus of deterrence” by dissuading potential adversaries from launching — and building — ballistic missiles in the first place. The sooner it is built, the less likely it will need to be used. 
The deeper mystery is why we are negotiating with President Vladimir Putin at all. Russia’s objections to the proposed site make no sense; 10 interceptors pose no threat to its estimated arsenal of 6,000 nuclear weapons. The Kremlin did not help its case by doing Tehran’s bidding at the United National Security Council or by treating Gates and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with contempt during their recent visit to Moscow. Persistent reports that Russian scientists have been abetting the Islamic Republic’s programs don’t build confidence, either.
A Pentagon official assures us that there “isn’t any daylight” between the president and his secretary. We trust means Gates has come around to Bush’s point of view, not the other way around.

This comment appeared as an editorial in The Wall Street Journal.

TITLE: Ferry on the Neva
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Seven years after his first performance in St. Petersburg, Bryan Ferry is back - but this time he will be backed by a rock and roll band featuring guitarist Chris Spedding and will introduce some songs from “Dylanesque,” his new album that pays homage to Bob Dylan, the 20th century’s greatest songwriter.
The elegant frontman of the British glam-rock legends Roxy Music took a break from his band’s long-awaited reunion album and, unlike his previous releases, recorded “Dylanesque” in just a few days — with a little help from his friend and Roxy Music co-founder Brian Eno.
Amid original compositions, cover versions play a great role in Ferry’s work, whose band’s biggest hit was its unlikely version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” in 1981. Ferry, whose solo albums occasionally feature covers, set the trend for cover albums with “These Foolish Things,” his first solo outing in 1973, which also included a cover of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall.”
David Bowie responded with “Pinups,” an album of his favorite songs from the 1960s, the same year, while John Lennon covered some 1950s and early 1960s rock and roll on “Rock and Roll” in 1975.
Released in March, “Dylanesque,” Ferry’s 12th solo album and the follow-up to 2002’s “Frantic,” was recorded when Ferry took a break from recording sessions with a reunited Roxy Music. “Dylanesque” includes 10 songs recorded by Dylan between 1962 and 1975, including such classics as “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” “Gates of Eden” and “All Along the Watchtower,” as well as “Make You Feel My Love,” taken from Dylan’s 1997 album “Time Out of Mind.”
Ferry first came to St. Petersburg in 1997 paying a visit to Eno, who was then on a lengthy sabbatical in the city, and spent time at the Hermitage and Mariinsky Theater. 
He performed with a 13-member band of jazz and classical musicians complete with brass and strings in September 2000 at the Shostakovich Philharmonic at the end of his “Slave to Love” tour, which was technically in support of a compilation album of the same title that featured much of “As Time Goes by,” his 1999 album of classic jazz and pop songs from the 1930s. 
Ferry also used the visit to celebrate his 55th birthday which coincided with the day of the show.
Ferry spoke to The St. Petersburg Times by phone from London last week.

<b><i>Your history of Bob Dylan covers started with “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” in 1973 — it was radically different from the original, you added perhaps soul and gospel influences to it. It was also sort of a glam rock period for you. What inspired you to record a Dylan cover at that time?</i></b>
Well, at the time I did that first solo album, “These Foolish Things,” and I thought I’d choose 10 different songs from different musical genres, you know, of people whom I like... perhaps an interesting selection, a cross-section of musical tastes. The title track, “These Foolish Things,” was a song from the 1930s, from the golden period of pop songs, which is still being performed as a classic song by many people. And I thought Dylan is such an important character in the history of popular music; I thought ‘I must do a Dylan song.’ [“These Foolish Things”] was a big hit, it was my first solo single. So since then I did one or two Dylan songs on different albums, and I thought, ‘One day I must do a complete selection of Dylan songs for an album.’ Because they’re such beautiful songs, very poetic. He uses a very good vocabulary, they’re intelligent songs. If you’re a singer, you have to sing great songs. In my solo career since then I have tried to expand my repertoire in different ways, and this is one of the pieces of the puzzle.

<b><i>How did it happen that you started to listen to Dylan in the first place? You come from a different generation and a totally different scene.</i></b>
Yeah, I mean when I was at university I remember people carrying Dylan albums, his first albums, like acoustic records, his early records. For me they were not so interesting at that time; I was very much into rhythm and blues and electric guitar, I liked the noise and energy of black American music, and it wasn’t until later that... perhaps, I don’t know, I’m not sure when, perhaps when he did “Blonde on Blonde” or something, and he played with The Band — certainly I found it very interesting, and since then I have been a very big Dylan fan.
I’ve only seen him play once, and this was last year. I saw him last year: very, very good... I think he’s also a great singer as well as a great songwriter, but I think I sing his songs in a slightly different way. 
Well, although we seem very, very different stylistically from one another and our careers are quite different, it seems to me that we had a lot of the same musical influences, which is quite interesting — you know, American blues singers and that kind of thing. I think also we both come from a similar kind of blue-collar, quite hard working class environment, also.

<b><i>So hearing Dylan’s electric songs made you look back to his earlier work?</i></b>
Exactly, and I started to appreciate the beauty of those songs and simplicity of the performance, although, on my album, “Dylanesque,” I bring a band feel to most of the songs, with lots of instruments playing. We did it very live, of course, and it was a very spontaneous record to make. There wasn’t much planning, just we did it, you know. And it was very enjoyable to make. It’s been very enjoyable to perform live, so on a tour we are doing perhaps six or seven of those Dylan songs, and the rest of the show, of course, is a selection from my solo career and also from Roxy Music.
I have a big band of about 10 people. We have three wonderful guitar players, so there’s a lot of guitar interaction. And it is a rock and roll band, basically — although some of the musicians are quite sophisticated. Two of them are from a jazz background. Leo Abrahams is a more avant-garde guitar player, Chris Spedding is very famous in the world of guitar players, and the young boy, Oliver Thompson, a teenage boy, he’s a very good rock player.

<b><i>For the album you’ve mainly chosen songs from the 1960s and three from the 1970s — what was your choice based on?</i></b>
It was just based on my feelings for the song, sometimes you don’t analyze too much — you just say, ‘I love this song, I feel it,’ and if I feel the song, I can perform it.

<b><i>Having skipped the 1980s entirely, you did “Make You Feel My Love” from Dylan’s 1997 album, “Time Out of Mind.”</i></b>
The latest song I chose was “Make You Feel My Love,” a ballad. I’m not sure which record it’s on. All the others were from an earlier period. But when I heard this other song, this ballad, the slow one, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a beautiful one.’ So I threw this one in as well. It’s one of the most popular songs from the album, actually.

<b><i>Do you feel your approach to covering Dylan songs changed much since “Hard Rain”?</i></b>
Yes, because I think “Hard Rain” was a very radical reading of the song, it was completely different. But on this album I think I haven’t really tried too hard to change the songs. I didn’t want to make it a difficult album at all. It was just a kind of celebration of Dylan songs, you know. And I suppose one [which is] quite different is “Positively 4th Street,” as I used strings on it. It’s quite beautiful and quite different from his original version.

<b><i>Is there any change of meaning when you perform songs now that Dylan wrote in the 1960s?</i></b>
I think a great song can be done in many different ways and can be taken into a different time, you know, and can be appropriate in a different way. And some of Dylan’s inspiration for his protest songs was obviously the war in Vietnam, and now there’s a war in Iraq, and it’s still just as appropriate... Even if you take a war away, they still stand up as very interesting pieces of work, I think.

<b><i>It’s interesting that “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” was not even written by Dylan. (On his 1962 eponymous debut album Dylan announces that he first heard the song from blues guitarist Eric von Schmidt.)</i></b>
Exactly! Exactly, that’s one of his covers. But sometimes you stray away from your original intention just on a whim, you know. And I thought it was just such a good song and added a different flavor.

<b><i>What interpretation do you like the most on the album?</i></b>
Oh, I think, probably “Positively 4th Street,” yeah.

<b><i>Does “Dylanesque” somehow stem from “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” that you covered on [the 2002 album] “Frantic”?</i></b>
I think very much so. Some of the same musicians, from those sessions, play on two of these songs, I think.

<b><i>You have never met Dylan, but maybe you have heard any reaction from him, indirectly — if not to this album, then to “Hard Rain”?</i></b>
No, nothing! Still waiting. But it doesn’t matter. I’m sure he must be pleased that people like his work so much.

<b><i>Your previous album of covers was “As Time Goes By” in 1999, which was mostly songs from the 1930s. Is there any logical connection between it and “Dylanesque”?</i></b>
No, just the fact they are great songs — but from a different period. I like to show, I hope, a diversity of interests. It’s always a bit of an adventure, you know.

<b><i>On the album you worked again with Brian Eno — how did it happen and how was it working with him after such a long pause?</i></b>
I don’t know, I was in contact with him, and I said, “You know, I’m doing a Dylan album — do you want to comment, you come and listen and maybe do something.” He said, “I’d love to.” So he came and... It’s exciting always to work with Brian. He is a character. Very intelligent, very talented. Yeah, we have a kind of interest in art together, many interests in common. That’s good.

<b><i>There’s also [ex-Procol Harum guitarist] Robin Trower on the record.</i></b>
His is a very small role on this album. He only played acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar on one song, “All Along the Watchtower,” which was a demo that I did eight years ago, so that track is interesting. We started it years ago during the “Taxi” sessions for an album called “Taxi” [1993], and then later I added the other instruments. Interesting how some songs have different lives from the others, you know. But the other songs were done very quickly. Very quickly.
When I had my other songs which we did in one week, I looked at this track and said, “Ah, I’d really like to include it,” and just finished it off. It’s like an artist sometimes has canvases in his studio unfinished and picks it up one day and “Haha, a few strokes and it’s finished!”

<b><i>Just before you recorded “Dylanesque” you had been recording a Roxy Music reunion album — are you going to finish it?</i></b>
Yes. Next year, when I finish my tour, I think I will hopefully go back to the Roxy album that I started last year. We shall see, we shall see, no plans yet, nothing fixed. It would be nice to do it.

<b><i>Thank you very much.</i></b>
Yeah, I’m looking forward very much to coming to St. Petersburg, later to Moscow. It’s exciting to travel. Today I go to Kazakhstan and then I come back to go to Vilnius and start my Russian tour.

Bryan Ferry performs at Bolshoi Drama Theater (BDT) on Monday.
www.bryanferry.com

TITLE: Chernov’s
         choice
TEXT: An <b>attempted bombing</b> at a rock concert at the ROKS music club last month is still in the media spotlight as the police confirmed that three detained suspects belong to a neo-Nazi youth group on Wednesday, when top local police officers held a press briefing on the case.
A man aged 21 was detained last Thursday and two other men aged 20 and 21 were detained on Saturday, according to Fontanka.ru. 
A diagram of the explosive device and bomb-making manuals were found when their apartments were searched.
A bag with an explosive device containing 200 grams of TNT and 700 grams of screw-bolts was found on stage by a guard during the performance of Swedish punk band Blisterhead. 
The bomb did not go off because its makers made a mistake assembling it, the police were reported as saying.
The concert, which drew an estimated 400 fans, was stopped by the police as headlining local ska-band Spitfire was performing. 
Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code (terrorism), under which the detained men are being charged, can lead to 20-year prison term. 
Local Nazis’ most infamous attack on a rock musician dates to Nov. 11, 2005, when 20-year-old Timur Kacharava, a punk musician and a philosophy student, was stabbed to death by a group of eight or 10 attackers in the city center, outside a Bukvoyed bookstore. An annual vigil has been held on the site on that date since then.
“I would get crazy if I were in Spitfire’s shoes,” said Alexei Nikonov of the politically-conscious local punk band <b>PTVP</b> that will perform a major concert at Orlandina on Friday.
“The concert is called ‘Against All,’ after the position in voting ballots that they [the Russian authorities] canceled and denied us an opportunity to vote ‘against all,’” said Nikonov by phone of Thursday.
“We decided to play political songs in this concert, but political in a broad sense — there will also be songs against philistines and against the clericalism that they push on us now.”
Despite the bomb incident and occasional visits by investigators, ROKS club is operating as usual, hosting British grindcore band <b>Napalm Death</b> on Friday (800 rubles, or $32, on the door.) 
Their older compatriots, the 1970s prog-rock band <b>UFO</b> will perform at Port on Sunday (900 rubles, or $36).
<b>Bryan Ferry</b> performs in the interiors of the city’s best-known drama theater, the Bolshoi, or BDT, on Monday, with tickets costing between 2,000 and 8,000 rubles ($81-$324). 
However, even a couple of weeks ago tickets cheaper than 3,500 were not available. Such prices, sadly, put Ferry’s gig out of reach for the average rock fan.

<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Portrait of a collector
AUTHOR: By John Varoli
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Victor Pinchuk, a steel billionaire, has provided the answer to one of the biggest mysteries in the art market.
There has been much speculation about the buyers of contemporary masterpieces snapped up over the last two years amid suspicion that the anonymous spenders might be Russian. Now it can be revealed: One of the biggest is Pinchuk, a 46-year-old Ukrainian.
His collection includes some of the most expensive living artists: seven works by Briton Damien Hirst, two by American Jeff Koons, and six by German photographer Andreas Gursky. All three men attended the opening of an exhibition in Kiev this month displaying the works — showing Pinchuk’s strength of contacts and determination to put the city on the art map.
“Pinchuk is probably the top player from the former Soviet Union on the international contemporary art market,’’ said Oxana Bondarenko, head of the Victoria Art Foundation, owned by Leonid Mikhelson, the billionaire chief executive of Novatek, Russia’s second-largest natural-gas producer.
Behind the scenes, Pinchuk let Bloomberg television into his country house in Kiev’s Koncha-Zaspa suburb to show yet more paintings that art watchers did not know he possessed, including Ilya Mashkov’s 1912 painting “Still Life With Flowers,” sold on Dec. 1, 2005, for $4.39 million — seven times its top estimate, and at that point the most expensive painting sold at a Russian auction. This was a spur-of-the-moment present for Pinchuk’s wife Yelena, who said she was “very surprised’’ at her birthday two days later.
“I still love Russian and Ukrainian impressionism and modernism, but my main focus now is contemporary art,” Pinchuk said in an interview. Well groomed, wearing a suit minus a tie, he speaks fluent English. His passion for art collecting began in the early 1990s with pre-World War II Russian and Ukrainian paintings. He began collecting contemporary art in 2002.
Pinchuk, son-in-law of former Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma, owns Interpipe, Ukraine’s biggest producer of steel pipes for oil and gas companies, as well as TV stations, and steelmaker VAT Dniprospetsstal. Forbes estimates Pinchuk’s fortune at $2.8 billion, while he said “the chief executive officer of my company estimates my fortune at $10 billion.”
“Pinchuk knows what he’s doing and has a sincere and strong passion for contemporary art,” said Bondarenko. “At the same time he understands that collecting contemporary art will improve his international image.”
The new show is at the Pinchuk Art Center, which opened in September 2006 as the first private museum of contemporary art in the former Soviet Union. Admission is free and it had 150,000 visitors in its first year. Pinchuk said he spent as much as $15 million to acquire and renovate the six-floor Czarist-era building, though it is already too small. Next year, he starts work on a larger museum near the Dnieper River. He hopes it will be completed by 2012.
“We plan to make Kiev a really important international destination for contemporary art,” he said. “Contemporary art will help modernize society, especially the young generation.”
Pinchuk would not comment on how much he spent on the newest acquisitions that include Gursky’s 7-by-11 foot photograph “99 Cent II,” which is a wide shot of the inside of an American supermarket where items cost no more than 99 cents.
“I bought some pieces through Sotheby’s and Christie’s,” said Pinchuk. “But I mainly buy directly from the artists and through their dealers.”
The two paintings by Koons now in Pinchuk’s collection are “Girl (Dots),” and “Landscape Waterfall II.” Both are dated 2007. Among Hirst’s works are “The Cancer Chronicles/ Jesus and the Disciples” dated from 1994-2004. This work stirred the most emotions at the Kiev opening. It consists of 13 large canvases covered with flies and resin, as well as 12 cow heads in glass cases of formaldehyde. 
“I was surprised by how focused the Pinchuk collection is, and by how much all the art makes sense,” Koons said in an interview. “The space itself is very intimate and modern.”

TITLE: Now showing
AUTHOR: By Larisa Doctorow
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In recent years the Hermitage has, rather sadly, mounted no blockbusters and presented quite a few one-painting exhibitions coming from the West, a novelty among major world museums that would be best forgotten.
It is pleasing then to visit a newly opened exhibition of the work of Max Beckmann (1884-1950) that presents about 100 works and marks the first Russian show by this very important German artist of the first half of the 20th century.
The exhibition has been organized on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the twinning of Hamburg and St. Petersburg.
Most of the exhibition’s items are prints, with a few drawings and oils. The core of the exhibition is drawn from the private collection of Claus- Berdt Hegewisch, who was captivated by the master’s lithographs and concentrated mostly on them, and reflects one collector’s tastes and not the rich legacy of Beckmann’s opus. The drawings and oils were loaned by art museums in Hamburg and Lubeck.
In his lifetime Beckmann kept changing his painting style although he always remaining close to his roots in German Expressionism. At the start of the show a famous self-portrait executed in 1907 is presented. The painter depicted himself framed by a window looking onto a springtime garden. His observant and intelligent eyes search for the meaning of life. It is one of many self-portraits by Becknmann. They all serve as an attempt by the artist to understand himself and penetrate his inner world. 
Other oils from later periods show a sampling of the topics that fascinated the painter, such as  “Boats on a Seashore,” “Flowering Acacias” and “Café Bandol,” where the spectator sees a setting sun, palm trees and a sail. The painting “Sea Lions in a Circus” is very curious. It was paimted in 1950, the final year of Beckmann’s life and signifies a return to his former interest in circus life. 
Life in general interested Beckmann in all its aspects, and he always strived to form his own opinions. In 1914, when World War I broke out, he volunteered to serve and spent two years in the trenches of Flanders as a medical orderly. Beckmann’s works dating from this time brought him international acclaim but at a price: after suffering a nervous breakdown he was sent for treatment to a Strasbourg military hospital. 
After the war was over, Max Beckmann enjoyed fame, financial security and a professorship in the Frankfurt Art School. European art galleries regularly exhibited his works.
The lithographs of the 1920s show life in Berlin between the wars. Scenes from the circus, nightclubs and theater foyers filled in with women in cocktail dresses and men in tuxedos. 
When the Nazis came to power, Beckmann was forced to leave Frankfurt for Berlin, and later Amsterdam, where he spent the war years. The painter felt forgotten and isolated, and he was penniless. In his diary he wrote: “At last I feel indifferent towards everything and everyone. My solitude and my misfortune last too long.”
He emigrated to the United States and new life was breathed into his work. His works were given wide attention in the art world and at the 1950 Venice Biennale, a pavilion was devoted to him. Regrettably this interesting exhibition is not well advertised and within the Hermitage and there are no signs leading visitors to it. 
It is nearly impossible to buy and hard to consult the catalogue, although one has been printed, and the lighting of the gallery and lay-out do not do justice to Beckmann’s works.

TITLE: High notes
AUTHOR: By George Loomis
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In April, Mstislav Rostropovich’s body was laid to rest in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery with scarcely less public attention than that accorded his friend Boris Yeltsin, who was buried there just four days before. Such a finale for the great musician would have seemed inconceivable at the point in his life where Elizabeth Wilson ends her book. She brings his story down to 1974, when he was, for all practical purposes, kicked out of the Soviet Union. The government had made life difficult for him since 1969, when he gave refuge to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Learning that the writer was ill and living in an unheated apartment, Rostropovich lodged him in a flat on the grounds of his dacha in exclusive Zhukovka outside Moscow, at the very time authorities were stepping up their campaign against the dissident. Rostropovich went on to write a fervent condemnation of official attacks on Solzhenitsyn, who had recently won the Nobel Prize. He mailed it to four Moscow publications before embarking on an international tour, and upon returning he too was persona non grata.
The pages Wilson devotes to Rostropovich’s steadfastness and growing despair in the face of governmental pressure are among the most gripping of her book, as one would expect. Restricted in his travel and performing opportunities, and ostracized by many fellow musicians, the once lionized musician wrote directly to Leonid Brezhnev for permission for him and his family to leave the country for two years, which was granted. Traveling ahead of his family with a suitcase, two cellos and his Newfoundland dog, he experienced a final indignity at the airport when customs officials wouldn’t let him take his medals. Sixteen years elapsed before he returned to Russia, and when he did the Soviet regime was no more.
This book, which appeared shortly before Rostropovich’s death, deals with his Soviet career, and Elizabeth Wilson, who is perhaps best known for her biography of Dmitry Shostakovich, as well as one of the cellist Jacqueline du Pré, is uniquely qualified to write it. She actually studied cello with Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory from 1964 to 1971 and, in addition, was the daughter of Sir Duncan Wilson, Britain’s ambassador to Russia when Rostropovich’s situation became acute. The book deals extensively with Rostropovich’s work at the Conservatory, where he joined the faculty soon after completing his post-graduate work there in 1948, at the age of 21, and remained until his departure from Russia. Wilson’s fellow students Natalia Shakhovskaya, Alexander Knaifel, Misha Maisky, Natalia Gutman and Ivan Monighetti are a few of his illustrious protégés.
To hear his students tell it, studying with Rostropovich was not just an education in cello playing but an education in life. He disliked dealing with purely technical aspects of playing, insisting that they be bound up with the musical result. Even playing with a beautiful tone was unimportant if not backed by musical purpose. Instead of telling students to play softly here or change their bowing there, he sought to inspire their musicality with images from life. Although he sometimes gave private lessons, he favored a classroom approach in which all his students participated and benefited from his work with a given individual. When he was having trouble explaining a point to Maisky about Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations,” he finally said “look at all those beautiful girls sitting there. Pick one and just play for her,” knowing full well, as did everyone else in the class, that Maisky had a crush on one of them. Like most great musicians, Rostropovich had innate, superhuman musical skills, in particular a phenomenal memory — all put to staggering use in a 1963-64 cycle of 11 concerts embracing 44 works for cello, including more than 20 premieres.
For a musician of such prodigious gifts and boundless energy, the limitations of a single instrument were understandably confining. He responded both by expanding the possibilities the cello offered as an outlet for him and by broadening his own musical pursuits. He worked determinedly to win greater acceptance of the cello. Irritated that the instrument was excluded from the first Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, he ensured that a new division devoted to cello was in place for the Tchaikovsky’s second installment four years later. Above all, he was a catalyst for new compositions, giving the world premieres of more than 200 works.
Early on he tried his hand at composing, though he quickly concluded that his efforts were outclassed by those of his idols, Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev. An accomplished pianist, he often accompanied his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, in recital, and he regularly illustrated points in class on the piano, not the cello. His metier became conducting, but primarily after he left Russia. “I have always dreamed of a cello with one hundred strings,” he once wrote. “I have envied conductors who inspire orchestral musicians in an artistic vision for which no single instrument possess sufficient means of expression.” His father, who was also a cellist but died when Mstislav was only 15, had urged his son to become an instrumentalist before turning to conducting so as to win the respect of his players. The younger Rostropovich made his debut as a conductor only in 1962, later conducting at the Bolshoi Theater until his work there was unceremoniously curtailed.
Wilson is generous in allowing her fellow students to relate their own experiences with the maestro. But the cumulative result is repetitiveness, as they spin yet more variations on the theme of what a fount of inspiration he was or relate further anecdotes about the demands he placed on them. A fair amount of the book is for the cello aficionado, and portions even seem pitched to Wilson’s own circle. But the author’s discussions of interpretive issues relating to individual works are often illuminating, and a comprehensive index makes them readily accessible as a reference source to the student or serious amateur.
Rewarding, too, are Wilson’s discussions of Rostropovich’s relationship with three 20th-century giants, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten. Rostropovich was only 26 when Prokofiev died, yet the composer created significant works for him, perhaps most important the Symphony-Concerto (Sinfonia Concertante), whose later incarnations reflect Rostropovich’s suggestions. Shostakovich’s wife told Rostropovich in confidence that if he wanted Shostakovich to write a piece for him he should never ask him to. 
The strategy worked, and in a touching moment Shostakovich sought to make sure that Rostropovich really liked a new piece (the First Cello Concerto) before he asked Rostropovich’s permission to dedicate it to him. Rostropovich was less reticent about badgering Britten, who also became a close friend; the composer’s companion, tenor Peter Pears, jokingly complained that Rostropovich was a bully who wanted Britten to write exclusively for him.
Rostropovich was nothing if not strong willed, and had zero tolerance for incompetence. Regarding an early tour, an official chided him for directly informing the American impresario Sol Hurok what he would play, rather than going through the Culture Ministry. Accordingly, Rostropovich phoned the ministry to tell them what works he planned to program, information that was duly passed on to Hurok: Bach’s Suite No. 7 in F minor, the Mozart Fourth Cello Sonata, Scriabin’s Cello Sonata — all nonexistent, of course. More serious was his revulsion at the official attacks on Prokofiev, Shostakovich and others in 1948, which must have been a formative event in shaping his attitude toward the regime. He later asserted that, unlike many other musicians, he never expressed the slightest doubt about these composers, and they responded by writing music for him. Wilson gives a real feeling for this indomitable personality. There is a reference to Vishnevskaya singing at the Bolshoi in a new production of Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini” — it was Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Francesca” that she sang — but otherwise the book is thoroughly researched and fluently written. 

George Loomis writes about classical music from Moscow and New York.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Channel One’s new game show, “Wall on Wall,” has a brilliantly simple concept: Players stand on the edge of a swimming pool as a Styrofoam wall advances toward them. Their task is to fit themselves through an interestingly shaped hole in the wall. If they have curves in the wrong places, then the wall gently pushes them into a heated swimming pool. The only question, really, is how many times you can watch a celebrity in a silver bodysuit tumble into a pool. Perhaps a little conservatively, Channel One gives the show an hour-long slot.
Not surprisingly, this show comes from Japan, where it used to be broadcast as a section of a popular light entertainment show. To get an idea of the original, I had a look at the web site of the makers, Fuji Creative Corporation, who market the format as “Hole in the Wall.” It didn’t give much information, but had a picture of a very flexible man making his way through a bright pink wall. Perhaps Russian television should take a look at some of Fuji’s other shows. I liked the sound of “Love Love Train,” where contestants have to confess their love while riding on a toy train.
Television magazine 7 Dnei wrote that the Russian version is pretty faithful to the original, although there are some local innovations, such as the radio hosts Gennady Bachinksy and Sergei Stillavin, who commentate pointlessly from a glass booth, and a group of tanned lifeguards who stand around trying not get their swimsuits wet. It’s a brave attempt to add some sex appeal — unfortunately the silver bodysuits are so unflattering that even the prettiest contestants won’t be dripping anything except lukewarm water.
In Saturday’s episode, a female team made up of gymnast Svetlana Khorkina and two former figure skaters, Anna Semenovich and Maria Butyrskaya, took on a male team made up of chubby television presenter Alexander Tsekalo, leggy television presenter Ivan Urgant and plump comedian Sergei Sivokho. So there was never much question about the winner. Although I did notice some audience members waving Russian flags — Channel One likes to have a bit of patriotism, even if it’s only about who can land with the biggest splash.
The show came across as pretty good-natured, even though there was an element of laughing at the portly Sivokho, who was dragged out of the pool by the whole team of lifeguards. Tsekalo hammed up his preparation, doing energetic push-ups and giving Sivokho a back massage, while football commentator Vasily Utkin strode around in a tuxedo, saying things like, “it’s the Styrofoam’s lucky day,” when the wall broke against the mighty bust of Semenovich.
“Wall on Wall” certainly leaves a pleasanter taste in the mouth than NTV’s new Saturday-night showbiz gossip show, “You Won’t Believe It.” I should watch my words here, as Izvestia television critic, Irina Petrovskaya, wrote that she was picketed by a group of dwarfs after she questioned the artistic value of the show, whose co-host is a dwarf, Vladimir Shket. However, the problem here is that he’s not a proper co-host, but is given tasks such as attempting to flirt with pop star Zhanna Friske that are purposefully designed to make him look stupid.
Saturday’s episode was a particularly lame collection of stories that looked like they were put together by the celebrities’ PR people. One was about pop singer Vitas being big in China; another was about footballer Dmitry Bulykin being big in Germany. Add to that some funny foreigners trying to say “You Won’t Believe It” in Russian and Shket trying to look up girls’ skirts, and you have the kind of show that should be pushed bodily into a very deep swimming pool.

TITLE: Irish eyes are smiling
AUTHOR: By Shura Collinson
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Tara Brooch // 18, 2nd Sovietskaya Ulitsa. Tel: 336 6666 // Open 24 hours, food served from 11a.m.-2.a.m. // Menu in Russian // Dinner for two 1,878 rubles ($76)

Since it opened this summer, the city’s newest Irish pub, the Tara Brooch, has quickly become a hit with locals who may have failed to make it past the nearby XXXX II bar’s stringent face control, or who may simply prefer its relaxed atmosphere and cheaper prices. It is certainly a welcome addition to an area which, although located a mere stone’s throw from Ploshchad Vosstaniya, until the recent opening of underground club Tsokol and the not-so-underground XXXX II, could only boast the legendary lesbian club Tri-El as local entertainment.
Tara Brooch is a cavernous maze of partitions and booths, which means that although the pub’s total area is vast — far exceeding the city’s other Irish pubs — it still retains a cozy and intimate atmosphere. On a more practical note, many tables are located on raised sections right up against the bar, which runs the length of the pub. This is extremely handy for attracting the server’s attention promptly.
The pub’s selection of drinks is impressive and thorough. As well as whiskies, wines and cocktails, the menu includes a wide spectrum of beer, ranging from Russian Bochkaryov at 98 rubles ($4) to Central European beers priced around 198 rubles ($8) — for a pint, naturally. We sampled some divine Hoegaarden, Harp and Franziskaner (all 198 rubles) and Krusovic light (148 rubles, $6), all of which were perfectly chilled and delightfully refreshing.
Tara Brooch stands out from its peers for its lack of loud music — live, Irish or otherwise. Instead, classic western rock hits enhance the relaxed yet lively atmosphere without impinging on conversation. 
The food menu is an eclectic combination of Russian beer snacks and pub grub with an Irish element thrown in. The solyanka (traditional Russian soup with meat and vegetables), 148 rubles or $6, was served lukewarm, leaving my Russian guest in doubt as to whether it had been prepared “properly” — that is, the ingredients thrown together and baked in an earthenware bowl in the oven immediately before serving. 
Fortunately, Tara Brooch is evidently blessed with a microwave, since it was whipped away and returned piping hot in a matter of minutes, at which point it was declared satisfactory. 
The Irish cream soup for the same price was another matter entirely. It was pale fluorescent green in color and was extremely frothy, giving it the appearance of a mousse rather than a soup. What looked like small red berries nestling in the foam transpired to be red peppercorns, which added a most unusual and welcome tang to the creamy broccoli soup. The effect was fantastic, and highly memorable. 
Bizarrely for an Irish pub, Tara Brooch — which means “around the world” in Irish — does not have an English language menu.
This peculiarity, however, does not prevent it from including traditional pub fare, such as steak and Idaho potato wedges, 348 rubles ($14). The steak was somewhat disappointing, since our waitress did not trouble herself to enquire how my guest would like it. A laughably small, well done slice of meat that would certainly never have been declared worthy of the title of steak in France, arrived soon after the soup and sat on the bar getting cold until we had finished our starters. Cheese sticks with Chinese sauce — melted cheese in batter, 148 rubles, $6 — were mouthwateringly good, although the sauce seemed to differ little in taste or appearance from that Russian classic, mayonnaise with pink food coloring, that accompanied the slightly less enjoyable onion rings at 178 rubles, ($7).

TITLE: Rambo in the sand
AUTHOR: By A. O. Scott
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: What good is geopolitical turmoil if you can’t have some fun with it? Hollywood has been posing that rhetorical question for a long time now — from “Ninotchka” to “Rambo” by way of a battalion of World War II combat pictures — but it has so far been a bit squeamish about turning the various post-9/11 conflicts into grist for escapist entertainment.
“The Kingdom,” a whodunit/blow-’em-up directed by Peter Berg, corrects this lapse by taking aim at the ethical nuances and ideological contradictions of the war on terror and blasting away.
Berg, an actor whose directing skills improve with each project (his last for the big screen was the underrated “Friday Night Lights”), shows himself adept at the rapid cutting and hectic camerawork that are fast becoming the lingua franca of action filmmaking.
“The Kingdom” takes the breathless visual precision of the Jason Bourne movies — what the film scholar David Bordwell calls “intensive continuity” — out of the abstract hall-of-mirrors universe of intra-C.I.A. skulduggery and into a semiplausible world of international tension. Rather than explore that tension, as some other, more ostentatiously serious movies coming out shortly seem poised to do, Berg and Matthew Michael Carnahan, the screenwriter, do what they can to relieve it with fireballs and frantic chases. The result is a slick, brutishly effective genre movie: “Syriana” for dummies.
Which is not entirely a put-down. Intricate, earnest puzzles have their place in the movie cosmos, but so do lean, linear stories with clearly defined villains and heroes and lots of explosions.
The members of the cast, which includes two recent Academy Award winners (Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper), do not trouble themselves exploring the finer points of their craft, but their unpretentious professionalism is nonetheless satisfying to watch. Foxx does most of his acting with the muscles in his jaw and his upper arm, delivering terse dialogue in a silky whisper. Cooper punches the folksiness buttons as a forensics expert whose aw-shucks manner masks a steel-trap mind. Jason Bateman is the class clown, and Jennifer Garner, no slouch in the jaw-flexing department, also exercises her tear ducts and her trigger finger.
The four of them play F.B.I. investigators who travel to Saudi Arabia (the kingdom of the title) to investigate a horrific double terrorist attack on American oil company workers and their families. The team’s trip is opposed by the State Department and the lily-livered attorney general (Danny Huston), who don’t want to antagonize an important ally. Backed up by their no-nonsense boss (Richard Jenkins), the Forensic Four nonetheless head to Riyadh.
Their motives are personal as well as professional, since one of their colleagues was killed in the attacks. Their presence is barely tolerated by the Saudi authorities, many of whom are either incompetent or in cahoots with the jihadis. Meanwhile, Jeremy Piven shows up as an embassy flunky whose job is to prevent Special Agent Fleury (Foxx) and his colleagues from doing theirs.
But Fleury recognizes a fellow good cop in the person of Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), a Saudi colonel who helps the Americans both before and after the bullets and rocket-propelled grenades start flying. Once they do, the good guys are in the familiar, physically perilous but morally gratifying position of being outmanned and outgunned with the cavalry nowhere in sight.
“I’m not saying America is perfect,” Fleury says a while before the climactic barrage, “but we’re pretty good at this.” If by “this” he means making high-impact action movies, it’s hard to argue. And “The Kingdom,” hair-raising as it is, is also curiously soothing in its depiction of American competence and righteousness.

TITLE: 3 Win in Singapore
AUTHOR: By John O’Brien
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SINGAPORE — Australia’s Kane Webber birdied the final hole in fading light to join a three-way tie for the lead on five-under-par 66 after the first round of the $4 million Singapore Open on Thursday.
Webber matched early pacesetter and compatriot Gavin Flint’s bogey-free effort, with America’s Jin Park joining the Australian pair at the top of the leaderboard as a number of big names lurked a few shots behind.
Playing his first tournament in Asia, American world number two Phil Mickelson adapted quickly to the demanding par-71 Serapong Course to shoot a three-under 68, level with South Korea’s K.J. Choi in a tie for fifth place.
Angelo Que of the Philippines is alone in fourth place on four-under.
Australia’s Adam Scott, seeking a hat-trick of titles here this week, enjoyed a solid start, the world number six ending his round in a share of 11th place after a one-under 70.
Fiji’s Vijay Singh also shot 70, while hopes of a local victory were dashed when Singapore’s leading player Mardan Mamat was disqualified after he signed for a three-under 68 instead of 69.
Teeing off in the third group of the morning in benign conditions, Flint shot five birdies in a bogey-free round to post a challenging mark that was not matched until Webber and Park completed their rounds later in the day.
“I hit the ball and putted really well today,” the 26-year-old Flint told reporters after two sublime approach shots on the closing holes set up back-to-back birdies.
“There are four or five really strong holes that you must have good tee shots on. I was able to do that, which is probably the key to going low on this course.”
Also teeing off in the morning, Mickelson led at the turn before a double-bogey six on the third (his 12th) and some erratic driving stalled his charge.
“The fairways are tight from tee to green,” the 37-year-old said. “I was lucky to escape with a three-under. If I can get my driver and three-wood turned around, I should enjoy three good remaining days.
“It’s a good test of golf. I am not surprised about that because I knew we were going to be tested here.”

TITLE: Japanese Cut U.S. Support
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO — Japanese warships were ordered home from the Indian Ocean on Thursday after opposition lawmakers refused to support an extension of their mission supporting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.
A State Department spokes-man said the U.S. was “disappointed,” although the move is not expected to have a major impact on American operations.
The pullback was an embarrassment for Japan’s new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, a strong advocate of the six-year mission who vowed to pass legislation that would give Japan at least a limited role in fighting terrorism in the region.
America’s top ally in Asia, Japan has refueled coalition warships in the Indian Ocean since 2001. But opposition parties effectively scuttled the mission by raising concerns in parliament that it was too broad and possibly violated Japan’s constitution.
Japan’s main opposition party made significant gains in July elections and is pushing to scale back the country’s role in international peacekeeping efforts that involve military operations.
Legislation had been passed repeatedly to renew the mission, but the latest extension expired Thursday amid a parliamentary stalemate. Japan refueled its final ship on Monday.
The two ships in the mission — a destroyer and a refueler, with 340 troops aboard — were expected to take about three weeks to return, navy spokesman Kozo Okuda said.
“We were able to complete this mission because of your pride and training,” Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in a message broadcast to the troops. “We all await your return.”
U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer and envoys from coalition countries met with Japanese lawmakers on Wednesday and stressed the importance of Tokyo’s refueling role. 
However, U.S. Defense Department Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters earlier in the week that the halt would not have “any operational impact whatsoever.”
Japan provided about 126 million gallons of fuel worth $520 million to coalition warships in the Indian Ocean, including those from the U.S., Britain and Pakistan, according to the Defense Ministry.
Analysts said the political disarray in Tokyo could have repercussions with the U.S. alliance.
“I think ending the mission would give the impression to the U.S. that Japan is not fulfilling its responsibility,” said Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a political scientist at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo.
Fukuda is to visit the U.S. later this month, and is hoping to smooth over relations when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visits Tokyo next week.

TITLE: Lampard Hatrick Boosts Chelsea
AUTHOR: By Mitch Phillips
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — A Frank Lampard hat-trick, including a scrambled effort in injury time, helped holders Chelsea overturn a 3-2 deficit and beat Leicester City 4-3 in the fourth round of the League Cup on Wednesday.
Seven of the top nine in the Premier League were in action and, as usual in the country’s third competition, most of them fielded largely reserve sides.
They generally proved strong enough though as Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Blackburn Rovers and Everton, as well as struggling Tottenham Hotspur, joined Chelsea in the quarter-finals. West Ham United earned a place on Tuesday.
Chelsea’s 45-game home unbeaten record seemed set to disappear when they trailed 3-2 with three minutes left at Stamford Bridge but Andriy Shevchenko, with virtually his first contribution of the night, lashed home a brilliant equalizer.
In a furious injury-time finale Lampard got the ball over the line and, although Shevchenko then banged it back into the net after it had been hacked clear, Chelsea gave the goal to the England midfielder.
He had earlier scored in the 20th and 29th minutes after Championship (second division) side Leicester had gone ahead through Gareth McAuley after six minutes.
Leicester, however, refused to lie down. They equalised through DJ Campbell and then went 3-2 up with a rare Carl Cort goal in the 74th minute before Chelsea’s late heroics.
Brazilians got all the goals for last-season’s runners-up Arsenal as Eduardo da Silva scored in each half and Denilson added the third in their 3-0 romp at Sheffield United.
Robbie Fowler’s return to Anfield was a disappointing one as his Cardiff City side lost 2-1 to Liverpool, Nabil El Zhar and Steven Gerrard on target for the hosts.
There were two all-Premier League ties in which an Elano penalty four minutes from time was enough for Manchester City to win 1-0 at Bolton Wanderers while Benni McCarthy and Morten Gamst Pedersen earned Blackburn a 2-1 win at Portsmouth.
Tottenham Hotspur beat Blackpool 2-0, with goals from Robbie Keane and Pascal Chimbonda, in their first game under new Spanish manager Juande Ramos and Everton needed an extra-time goal by Tim Cahill for a 1-0 win at Luton.
The draw for the quarterfinals takes place on Saturday.

TITLE: London Police Found Guilty in Shooting
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — A jury on Thursday found London’s police force guilty of violating health and safety laws in a high-stakes anti-terrorist operation that led to the shooting death of a Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber.
London’s Metropolitan Police was convicted of placing lives at risk and fined $362,000 in the operation that led to the death of 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22, 2005.
The force was also assessed $798,000 in prosecution costs.
Prosecutors told the jury at London’s Central Criminal Court that police killed de Menezes and put the lives of others at risk during their anti-terrorism operation because of flawed planning and chaos at headquarters.
The force had denied the charge, saying the killing was an error, not a crime. Police chief Ian Blair issued a statement after the verdict, expressing “my deepest regrets” over the killing.
The Brazilian electrician was killed by police who followed him into London’s Stockwell subway station from an apartment building that had been linked to a failed bomber. He was shot seven times after he boarded a train.
The shooting occurred the day after a group of would-be suicide bombers botched an attack on London’s transit system, and two weeks after a similar attack killed 52 commuters and four bombers on three subway trains and a bus.
No individual officers have been charged over de Menezes’ death. The foreman of the jury told the court that blame did not rest with Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, the officer in charge of the operation.
“In reaching this verdict the jury attaches no personal culpability to Commander Dick,” he said.
Police lawyer Ronald Thwaites had argued that a health and safety prosecution should never have been brought and was a last resort by prosecutors who had failed to find enough evidence to charge any individual with murder or manslaughter.
Thwaites told the jury that de Menezes was shot because he had behaved suspiciously and “because when he was challenged by police he did not comply with them but reacted precisely as they had been briefed a suicide bomber might react at the point of detonating his bomb.”
After two of the bombing suspects were identified as living in the same south London apartment building as de Menezes, police developed a plan to watch the building and stop anyone who came out for questioning. Firearms officers charged with making such stops did not arrive at the scene until several hours later, when de Menezes had already left.
Two teams of surveillance officers tailed de Menezes as he left his apartment and boarded two public buses before entering the subway system.
The prosecution said there was no good reason for the police to fail to stop a possible attacker from entering London’s subway network, just two weeks after suicide bombers had killed 52 people.
“If he [de Menezes] had been a suicide bomber emerging with a backpack and a murderous intent, no one had any established plan that could have dealt with him because the firearms officers had not arrived,” prosecution lawyer Clare Montgomery said.
Surveillance officers never positively identified de Menezes as a suspect or completely ruled him out, prosecutors said.

TITLE: French Charity Accused Of Kidnapping Chad Children
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: N’DJAMENA, Chad — Most of the 103 African children described as orphans from Sudan’s Darfur region by a French charity that tried to fly them to Europe appear to have at least one living parent, UN agencies said Thursday.
The case prompted another African country, the Republic of Congo, to suspend all international adoptions, a decision one agency warned could have harmful repercussions for families seeking legitimate adoptions.
The French charity, calling itself Zoe’s Ark, was stopped last week from flying the children from Chad to Europe, where the group said it intended to place them with host families. Seventeen Europeans have been detained by Chadian authorities, including six French citizens who were charged with kidnapping. The group says its intentions were purely humanitarian.
Aid workers who interviewed the children at an orphanage in eastern Chad said most of them come from villages on the Chadian-Sudanese border region.
“Ninety-one of the children referred to a family environment made up of at least one adult person whom they consider as a parent,” the UN’s Children Fund, the UN refugee agency and the Red Cross said in a joint statement.
The French Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the claims by the little-known group that the children were orphans from Darfur.

TITLE: Halloween Costumes Deemed in Bad Taste
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ALLEN PARK, Michigan — Detroit Lions quarterback Jon Kitna and his wife dressed up as a naked man and a fast-food drive-through attendant at a teammate’s Halloween party, depicting an embarrassing moment for one of the team’s assistant coaches.
Now Kitna is getting some flak on local TV and in a newspaper column. Kitna said he was just trying to have fun, but regrets the scrutiny the costumes created.
“If I would’ve known this, I wouldn’t have done it because I didn’t want to try to bring attention to it,” Kitna said Wednesday while surrounded by reporters and television cameras.
Defensive line coach Joe Cullen pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct and guilty to impaired driving after he was arrested twice last year, once in August 2006 after police said he was driving nude through a Wendy’s drive-through lane, and a week later when they said he was driving under the influence of alcohol.
Cullen later was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings twice a week.
“He’s done everything they’ve asked of him,” Lions coach Rod Marinelli said before this season started. “And, there’s a lot more that he’s had to do.”
Marinelli said Kitna’s costume was a non-issue with the team.
“It’s Halloween,” Marinelli said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Cullen said “no comment” as he walked off the practice field Wednesday, but the team said it asked him if the costume bothered him.
“No, not at all,” Cullen said in a statement released by the team. “It’s in the past.
Kitna and his wife wore the costumes to a teammate’s charity party Monday in suburban Detroit, where the prize for the best outfit was a car.
“All I was trying to do was wear a costume that people would have fun with,” Kitna said. “I wasn’t trying to demean Joe. If he hadn’t come so far, I would not ever have done it. He’s very confident of who he is and is very peaceful about what’s happened in the past.
“When we talked yesterday, the first question out of his mouth was, `Did you win?’ He seemed to not have a problem with it.”
Defensive tackle Cory Redding backed that notion.
“He was still red this morning because Kitna didn’t win,” Redding said. “It was all fun and games.”
Kitna, a born-again Christian who invites teammates to his house to explore their faith, also laughed at the costumes that poked fun at him and his wife.
“Somebody dressed up as me and my wife and came in Bible-thumping,” Kitna said with a grin.

TITLE: Heather Mills Slams Tabloids
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — Heather Mills McCartney spoke out Thursday against Paul McCartney and the tabloid press for not stopping articles that she says have resulted in death threats against her.
“All I can say is when we first split, I said to Paul, ‘I’m going to be crucified. ... You know why we split. You know the truth. They don’t need to know the details, but you need to stand up and say, “I’m responsible for the breakdown of this marriage,”’“ Mills McCartney said on NBC’s “Today,” one in a series of interviews with U.S. morning talk shows.
“If you say that, I’ll walk away with nothing, and we’ll do a very gentle and quick divorce. And he promised he’d do that. I have evidence of that. And he did nothing,” Mills McCartney said.
Mills McCartney broke her silence Wednesday about issues surrounding her divorce case with the former Beatle in interviews on British television. She said that the police told her “serious death threats” had come from an underground movement.
Mills McCartney was asked Thursday whom she thought was behind the threats.
“Well, I can’t say who I think it is because it will affect our family, but I know a lot of information, and, you know, certain people don’t want certain things coming out because of their image,” she told NBC.

TITLE: Andy Murray Advances Toward Shanghai Surprise, Wins in Paris
AUTHOR: By Patrick Vignal
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: PARIS — British number one Andy Murray moved closer to a Masters Cup spot by crushing Frenchman Fabrice Santoro 6-4 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the Paris Masters Series on Thursday.
The 20-year-old Murray, one of several players fighting for the two remaining tickets to the Nov. 11-18 season-finale in Shanghai featuring the world’s top eight, needed just 69 minutes to brush aside the 34-year-old Santoro.
The Scot climbed to a provisional eighth in the ATP Race and could score precious points in the next round when he faces another Masters Cup contender — either Frenchman Richard Gasquet or American James Blake.
Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis had earlier knocked out Paris title holder Nikolay Davydenko with an impressive 6-2 6-2 win to keep alive his own Masters Cup hopes.
Baghdatis offered a near faultless display to set up a quarter-final with Spain’s Tommy Robredo or Argentine Guillermo Canas and keep alive his slender Masters Cup hopes.
Russia’s Davydenko, seeded fourth in the $2.45 million indoor event, looked sluggish before bowing out with a backhand error at the end of a one-sided contest lasting just 73 minutes.

TITLE: Churchill Fought With Cabinet, Archive Shows
AUTHOR: By Thomas Wagner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Winston Churchill had bitter disputes with his Cabinet during the Cold War about building the hydrogen bomb and conducting private diplomacy with the Soviet Union — even threatening to resign at one point, declassified documents showed Thursday.
The aging British prime minister threatened to quit in 1954 in order to quell a revolt by Cabinet ministers, angered at his high-handed leadership style, according to Cabinet notebooks released by the National Archives.
The details are in Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brook’s notebooks covering the year 1954.
The first flashpoint occurred during a two-day Cabinet meeting on July 7-8, when Churchill, then 79, announced that the time had come for a decision on whether to replace Britain’s existing atomic weapons with the more powerful hydrogen bomb.
He argued that the H-bomb was “essential” to deterring a Soviet attack.
“[We] must be able to make it clear to Russia that they can’t stop effective retaliation. That is [the] only sure foundation for peace,” he said.
Harold MacMillan, then Britain’s housing and local government minister, was appalled. It was, he said, a “shock to be told, casually, that we were going to do this.”
He was backed by the Lord Privy Seal, Harry Crookshank, who demanded: “Is this sensible for [the] U.K. alone in Europe to do this when we know we shall not wage [a] major war without the U.S. as [an] ally?”
Churchill prevailed as other ministers argued that the H-bomb was simply a more “efficient” version of Britain’s existing atom bomb.
Churchill served as prime minister during World War II as the atomic era dawned, from 1940-1945, and again during the Cold War from 1951-1955
In 1954, Churchill got into even more trouble with his Cabinet when ministers learned he had sent a secret telegram to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, proposing a grand Anglo-Russian summit in Vienna, Austria. The ministers were outraged he had not consulted them first.
The attack was led by Lord Salisbury, the lord president of council, who said that while the prime minister had the constitutional right to make such decisions, ministers had the right to resign if they disagreed.
“If you reserve your absolute right to conduct such personal correspondence, we shall have to consider our position also,” Salisbury told Churchill.
Churchil was adamant that he would accept no censure for an initiative undertaken in good faith. Ministers remained unhappy when the Cabinet returned to the issue two weeks later.
This time, it was Churchill’s turn to threaten to quit.
“[I] don’t admit that my action was improper. If the Cabinet thought so, I should have forfeited their confidence and should resign,” he told the meeting.
Despite some grumblings, none of the ministers called his bluff.