SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1345 (9), Tuesday, February 5, 2008
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TITLE: Medvedev Aiming for Low-Key Campaign
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev may be getting blanket coverage from state-controlled television. But it appears that his official media presence in the run-up to the March 2 presidential election will be a lot more modest.
Medvedev, all but guaranteed to win the election, is planning to run an “ascetic” presidential campaign, which officially kicked off Saturday, a United Russia official close to Medvedev’s campaign said.
“This is not only because the other candidates are not serious competitors, it was also the wish of Medvedev himself,” the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Medvedev is not merely being humble, analysts say: His campaign handlers have made a pragmatic choice to ensure that his popularity does not eclipse that of President Vladimir Putin and to prevent voters from feeling manipulated.
Medvedev has been dominating — often together with Putin — television news broadcasts ever since Putin publicly anointed him as the president’s preferred successor in a midday December broadcast.
Putin is likely to figure in Medvedev’s campaign ads, the campaign official said.
“Given how Medvedev was nominated, there should be no doubt that his proximity to Putin will be reflected in the campaign materials,” he said.
Putin and Medvedev, who have known each other since the early 1990s, when they worked in the St. Petersburg City Hall, will both be in the Rostov region city of Novocherkassk when the presidential campaign officially begins Saturday.
In Novocherkassk, Putin will chair a council of some 40 senior government officials, mayors and governors convening to discuss problems of local governance and the so-called national projects — the massive and expensive social development programs in the regions, which Medvedev oversees.
Sources in United Russia and the presidential administration said Medvedev’s team would produce only two television campaign ads, Vedomosti reported Wednesday.
One will show Medvedev together with Putin and the slogan “Together We Win.” The other will feature teachers and social workers telling viewers about the success of the national projects, the report said.
The campaign billboards, which the sources said would be few, will also feature Medvedev and Putin together alongside the slogan “Onward Russia!” Vedomosti reported.
The campaign official told The Moscow Times that there would be more television ads and billboards than indicated in the Vedomosti report, though he declined to elaborate.
Liberal Democratic Party leader and candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky will run 60 different television ads, the party’s press service said.
The Medvedev campaign will be more “reserved” in the regions than the United Russia campaign in the run-up to the Dec. 2 State Duma elections, the campaign official said.
Medvedev, who was formally nominated by the pro-Kremlin party United Russia, is expected to win in the first round of the election, according to all major opinion polls published last month.
Analysts said Medvedev’s relatively quiet campaign would be a way for the Kremlin to ensure that there is no threat of Medvedev’s popularity overtaking that of Putin, who wants to remain the controlling figure after he steps down in May.
“If he gets 82 percent, as the [independent] Levada Center predicted in January, then formally Medvedev would be far more popular than Putin, who won his first term with slightly more than 50 percent of the vote in 2000,” said Sergei Mikheyev, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies.
Kremlin-connected pollsters VTsIOM and Public Opinion Fund show less support for Medvedev -- 71 percent and 50 percent, respectively, in their latest polls.
Medvedev’s campaign strategists are also having difficulties developing an individual platform because he only recently became a politician, and his current platform is merely a continuation of Putin’s, Mikheyev said.
An aggressive campaign by Medvedev could turn off the electorate and result in low turnout by voters already fed up with United Russia, said Alexei Mukhin of the Center for Political Information.

TITLE: Experts: Russia Hit by Cancer Epidemic
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia’s current healthcare system cannot cope with the scale of what they see as a cancer epidemic in the country, a number of Russia’s top oncologists admitted at a conference in Moscow on Monday.
Each year in Russia, 300,000 people die of cancer.
Around 2.5 million Russians suffer from cancer, and more than 450,000 new cases are registered annually. The average age of cancer patients in Russia is 63.3 for men and 62.9 for women. 
Cancer specialists are calling for the government to take immediate steps, including funding a federal program aimed at combating cancer.
“A special service must be created that would be directly responsible to the government and the parliament,” said Mikhail Davydov, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 
Davydov was speaking at the “Movement Against Cancer” forum that opened in Moscow on Monday. 
“But most importantly, the state is responsible for the health of its citizens, including the two million cancer sufferers,” he said.
Davydov urged the government to substantially increase the funding for buying more equipment and medicines to enable doctors to provide the necessary treatment for all patients. 
“For instance, Russia has only 70 radiation therapy machines, while there are around 3,000 in U.S. clinics,” Davydov said. To make matters worse, of the very few machines that Russia does have, a large proportion are outdated and are therefore of little help.
The gap between conditions in some Moscow clinics and hospitals in small towns in other regions is huge and felt on all levels, from equipment to training, experts say.
Healthcare is one of Russia’s four declared “national projects,” along with education, housing, and agriculture. First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin’s handpicked successor, is responsible for these projects.
However, oncology or cancer treatment is not listed as a priority in healthcare projects, Davydov said. 
Cancer is widely seen in Russia as an untreatable illness. Public awareness of new methods and medicines is very low, the doctors said.
Vladimir Semiglazov, the director of the Petrov Oncology Institute, said many Russian women are reluctant to undertake regular breast screening, and often contact clinics when the illness is in an advanced stage.
“In countries where women undergo regular breast screening, the number of fatal cases of breast cancer has been in decline,” Semiglazov said. “In Russia, by contrast, breast cancer fatalities have increased by 13 percent during the past 8 years.”
Semiglazov said the breast cancer statistics for Russia today are seemingly worse than Soviet era figures, when fewer opportunities were available in terms of both screening and treatment. In 2006, almost 20 percent of all breast cancer patients died in Russia, whereas only 13.5 percent of patients died in 1980. 
Many people postpone seeing a doctor until it becomes impossible to ignore symptoms and the disease progresses to its final stages. 
Boris Poddubny, head of the endoscopic division of Russia’s Blokhin Oncology Medical Center, urged doctors to change their attitudes and be more outspoken both with their patients and the media.
“People need to know as much as possible about their condition and what can be done to help it,” Poddubny said. “They need to know that there are methods and medicines to treat their illness. At the very least we need to get everyone to learn once and for all that a timely diagnosis can lead to a complete recovery.”
However, with many treatments unavailable, education is only part of the answer. Drugs for certain illnesses, including many types of cancer, are free on prescription and according to government estimates, about 5 million people can technically benefit from the system.
But the government has failed to provide enough funds for the program. In 2007, the 34.9 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) allocated to the system was less than half the 74.5 billion rubles spent in 2006, Dmitry Reikhart, head of the Federal Fund for Obligatory Medical Insurance, told reporters at a Moscow press conference in October 2007. 
To complicate matters further, the government has been slow to pay drug providers, resulting in diminished supplies. The state debt amounts to about 20 billion rubles, down from about 36 billion rubles in January 2007, according to Tatyana Golikova, minister for health and social development.

TITLE: How Vladimir Putin Put Kremlin Back on Top
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Kremlin spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky compared the emerging “power vertical” to a phallic symbol in October 2003, saying in a speech that no one should expect it to grow too big.
President Vladimir Putin was the main motor behind this consolidation of Kremlin power, often at the expense of state and public institutions. And as he prepares to leave office this spring, the power vertical has clearly proven to be workable, especially in sensitive endeavors such as wholesale political reforms.
With the power vertical, Putin has accomplished the Herculean task of restoring the state’s ability to act, but the whole state machinery has been modeled to serve the Kremlin rather than to develop the country, politicians and political analysts said.
“I haven’t seen how the power vertical has helped solve social problems. What it does best is election fraud, when the whole state machinery works to ensure the results that the Kremlin wants,” said Viktor Alksnis, an independent deputy who served in the State Duma from 1999 to 2007 and lost his seat because of Kremlin-backed legislation meant to strengthen the power vertical.
Putin took his first step toward building the power vertical shortly after his election in 2000, when he moved to sideline the governors who had wielded considerable power under his predecessor, President Boris Yeltsin. At the time, Russia faced a very real threat of falling apart, with fighting raging in Chechnya, Tatarstan seeking to adopt the Latin alphabet, Ingushetia allowing polygamy, and most regional law enforcement agencies answering to governors, not the president in Moscow.
The governors sat in the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the parliament, and had the power to block legislation and approve the nominations of senior government officials, including the prosecutor general. They had a tacit agreement with Yeltsin to deliver votes for the Kremlin when needed in exchange for being allowed to run their regions as they wished.
“This was indeed a useful undertaking. Putin put an end to corrupt regional leaders’ aspirations to rule at home and ignore federal laws,” said Gennady Gudkov, a United Russia deputy for most of his 2003-07 term in the Duma and now a deputy with A Just Russia.
In June 2000, the Duma passed a Kremlin-backed bill to deprive governors and regional legislature speakers of their seats in the Federation Council and the immunity from prosecution that came with them. The governors in the Federation Council vetoed the bill, but the Duma overrode their veto and in late July the governors bowed to the Kremlin’s wishes. They also reluctantly backed a Kremlin proposal to create seven super districts led by presidential envoys charged with making sure the regions in each district obeyed federal law.
The president also secured the right to dismiss governors under criminal investigation, even if charges had not been filed.
Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who fiercely opposed the changes, denounced them at the time. “The general purpose of all these measures is to concentrate power in the president’s hands,” he said. Luzhkov serves as the mayor and governor of Moscow, which holds the status of both city and region.
Delivering his first state-of the-nation address in July 2000, Putin said the weakness of the state had stalled economic and other reforms. “Power should be based on the law and the vertical created in accordance with it,” he said.
Interestingly, Putin used the word “vertical” three times in his first state-of-the-nation speech. He never used the word in the seven following ones.
Having inherited a largely dysfunctional state from Yeltsin, Putin faced the urgent need to create a stronger state, said Lilia Shevtsova, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center. “He also tapped into public demand for a strong state and offered the Russian elite a familiar notion: a centralized state,” she said.
In the fall of 2000, the Kremlin pushed a new Tax Code through the Duma that obliged regions to send most tax revenues to federal authorities, who then decided how to allocate the money among the regions. The change meant governors could no longer withhold funds to show dissent. It also spelled an end to independent social polices in the regions. The new rules applied to regions that relied on federal subsidies to cover budget shortfalls, and only a few, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, did not need the state handouts.
Alksnis and Gudkov said Putin should have stopped with the governors. But he did not.
Many current and former officials in Moscow and the regions contacted for this report expressed a reluctance to discuss Putin’s power vertical. A Communist spokesman said no one from the party would comment. Requests to United Russia over the past month went unanswered. Insiders explained privately that politicians hoping to keep their jobs or return to politics did not want to be seen as critical of the Kremlin. Incidentally, former Duma Deputy Sergei Glazyev, who sharply criticized Putin when he ran against him in the 2004 presidential election, refused to comment for this report on Jan. 23, and just two days later was appointed deputy secretary-general of the Customs Union of the Eurasian Economic Community, a trade body that unites Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

The Next Step
After curbing the governors’ powers, Putin faced two paths toward strengthening the state, Gudkov said. “He could have strengthened the system of oversight that the various branches of power exercised over one another, but he opted to strengthen only the executive branch of power at the expense of the others,” he said.
Shortly after Putin’s inauguration in May 2000, the Kremlin mounted a drive to strip other political players of their decision-making powers, cracking down on big businesses and their media outlets.
Lacking broad public support in the mid-1990s, Yeltsin turned to the country’s super-rich, the oligarchs, for assistance. The oligarchs got a say in politics, both directly in government decisions and through powerful media outlets such as ORT television, controlled by billionaire Boris Berezovsky, and NTV television, owned by Vladimir Gusinsky.
In February 2000, days before being elected president, Putin declared that big businesses should keep away from political decision-making. Several months later, Gusinsky was jailed briefly and then allowed to leave the country after agreeing to pass control of NTV to state-owned Gazprom. Berezovsky also fled Russia in late 2000 as investigators began opening criminal cases against him and his associates. ORT, now known as Channel One, became at the time perhaps the Kremlin’s loudest mouthpiece.
Since then, many private media outlets — smaller television channels, radio stations and national newspapers — have been methodically bought by state-controlled companies or Kremlin-friendly businesses.
The most stinging blow to the political ambitions of the oligarchs most likely came with the 2003 arrest of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the country’s most wealthiest businessman. Jailed for eight years on fraud and tax evasion charges after a lengthy and scandalous trial, Khodorkovsky has served as a warning to other business leaders of what to expect if they upset the authorities, analysts said. Another oil billionaire, Mikhail Gutseriyev, fled Russia last year, fearing arrest after his company bought Yukos assets coveted by state-owned Rosneft.

Rise of the Siloviki
While the number of institutions with a say in politics and the economy has dwindled under Putin, those who are making the decisions have become less representative of the population, said Dmitry Badovsky, an analyst at the Institute of Social Systems with Moscow State University.
“The siloviki swiftly replaced the regional, business and media elites that played a very important role in politics under Yeltsin,” he said. The siloviki are the hawkish clan of security and military officers brought by Putin to the Kremlin.
Taking control of the court system posed little challenge for the Kremlin, given that the government decides the financing of the courts and Putin personally appoints federal judges. Also, many judges are retired prosecutors and police investigators linked to the siloviki, although no exact statistics are kept.
Some reforms have been drafted to liberalize the courts, but they have largely remained on paper, with prosecutors remaining overwhelmingly in control of the courtrooms. Judges are now acquitting around 0.5 percent of defendants, while the acquittal rate for jury trials is closer to 20 percent, according to statistics from the Supreme Court.
“Basmanny justice” has become a catchphrase in describing Russia’s court system after Moscow’s Basmanny District Court issued a series of controversial verdicts favoring prosecutors in recent years, including those in the Khodorkovsky case.
The hostage crisis in the Beslan school in September 2004 gave new impetus to the Kremlin’s drive to strengthen its grip over the other branches of power.
Shortly after the terrorist attack, Putin warned that the country was in danger of falling apart and announced sweeping reforms that he said were needed to strengthen the state. He canceled popular elections for governors, and they are now effectively appointed by the president. The Duma is now formed on a proportional system, with no more independent — and often outspoken — deputies.
In addition to strengthening the state, Putin said, the changes would improve discipline among officials and make them more responsible.

The First Backlash
The reforms sailed through the United Russia-controlled Duma in late 2004, and almost immediately the country saw firsthand a drawback of the power vertical. In January 2005, thousands of people took to the streets to protest a law that replaced discounted social services with small cash payments.
“This was a blatant failure of the power vertical,” Gudkov said. “The Kremlin pushed this very sensitive legislation, which affected the lives of millions of people, through the parliament in just three months, and no serious discussion of it was allowed in the walls of the State Duma.”
While United Russia saw its popularity ratings dip, Putin managed to escape the scandal unscathed by laying the blame on regional authorities, who he said had failed to properly calculate the payment amounts in advance.
“This is ridiculous because officials in the regions were expecting orders from the Kremlin but didn’t get them,” Alksnis said.
The power vertical was further strengthened in May 2005, when the Duma passed legislation that raised the threshold to win Duma seats from 5 percent to 7 percent and banned political blocs and movements from running for the Duma. Smaller parties had teamed up in blocs in the past.

Civil Rights Go Last
Civil rights groups, increasingly powerless in an information vacuum built by the Kremlin-controlled media, were targeted last. In April 2005, the Duma approved the creation of the Public Chamber, a post-Beslan initiative ostensibly designed to represent civil society in its dialogue with the government. The Kremlin, however, directly and indirectly selects the chamber’s members, and the government decides its budget.
Respected human rights organizations such as Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group have refused to join the chamber, only to be accused by the authorities of accepting money from foreign governments and of acting against Russia’s national interests.
In January 2006, Putin signed a prohibitive law on nongovernmental organizations that put their activities and finances under the close scrutiny of the authorities. Many opposition NGOs and public groups were forced to disband, while the difficulties that many others faced trying to reregister under the law signaled how easy it would be for the authorities to close them if they wished.
Overall, analysts said, the power vertical seems to be working because the government is flush with cash and able to offset any management blunders. The system also provides at least a semblance of control over the money that Moscow pumps into the regions to boost their industrial and social development, they said.
“The formation of state corporations and the launch of the so-called national projects — which consume billions of dollars — would not have been possible without the creation of the power vertical first,” said Alexei Titkov, an analyst with the Institute of Regional Studies.
Concentrating power in the executive branch is a common practice in many countries as they leave their Communist past behind, Badovsky noted.
Admiration for Putin has not grown into a full-fledged personality cult, but the government and Duma’s promise to follow a set of policies called Putin’s Plan reveals the importance of Putin’s role at the top of the power vertical.
With the expected election of Dmitry Medvedev as president in March, political insiders are wondering whether the power vertical will collapse and whether a nascent system of institutional checks and balances might gradually return. Many are asking whether Putin will try to remain at the top as prime minister, a position he has said he would accept in a Medvedev presidency.
In any case, few people these days would probably want to take Pavlovsky’s lead and associate Putin with a phallic symbol. A journalist in Ivanovo who dared to compare Putin to a phallic symbol in 2006 was charged by prosecutors with insulting the authorities and fined 20,000 rubles ($850).

TITLE: Serbia Picks Pro-Europe President
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BELGRADE, Serbia — Europe expressed relief on Monday after a pro-Western incumbent edged out an extreme nationalist in Serbia’s presidential election, just days before the potentially explosive declaration of independence of Kosovo province.
Serbia’s state electoral commission said Boris Tadic won 50.5 percent of the vote, while his pro-Russian challenger Tomislav Nikolic had 47. 7 percent — a difference of some 128,000 votes among the 4.5 million ballots cast on Sunday. The remaining 1.8 percent of ballots were invalid.
The Tadic victory diminishes fears in the West of a violent Serbian reaction to the breakaway of Kosovo, considered by the nationalists to be the medieval cradle of Serbian statehood and religion.
He pledged to stay on a pro-Western course.
“This is Serbia which is going straight to the European Union,” Tadic told thousands of jubilant supporters early Monday. “This is a victory for the whole of Serbia and its democracy.”
But, the tightness of the vote indicates that Tadic will remain under intense pressure from the nationalists to act tough against the countries that recognize an independent Kosovo as the United States and European Union have indicated they would do - including the possible downgrading of diplomatic ties.
Although no one had expected a new Balkan war if Nikolic had won, he and conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica had been expected to unleash a destabilization effort in the region with a strident anti-Western campaign and planned street demonstrations.
Both Tadic and Nikolic oppose independence for province, with its ethnic-Albanian majority. But Tadic has ruled out the use of force and would likely seek to preserve close ties with America and the EU even if they recognize statehood for Kosovo, which has been run by the United Nations and NATO since the 1998-99 war there.
Tadic’s win could destabilize his coalition government with Kostunica, who refused to endorse him in the election unless he abandoned his pro-EU policies.
So Tadic, under nationalist pressure and needing to maintain the coalition, would have to approve the prime minister’s plan to impose an economic and travel blockade of Kosovo Albanians once they declare independence.
Liberal Democratic Party official Zoran Ostojic said, however, “Now we expect from Tadic to take steps against Kostunica’s anti-European government.”
“Serbia faces great challenges at the moment. These call for prudence and far-sightedness on the part of the political leadership,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday.
In a message to Tadic, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU’s executive commission, called the win “a victory for democracy in Serbia and for the European values we share.” He also called this a “critical moment” for Serbia and the western Balkans.
Nikolic’s Radicals said the election results showed that “half of Serbia” wants to keep Kosovo within the country, and that “no one can stop” the nationalists from winning some future election.
The outcome of Sunday’s runoff election, however, indicates that more than half of the country is fed up with the Kosovo crisis and wants closer ties with the EU.
A narrow majority of voters also opted for closer ties with the West instead of with Russia, which the ultranationalist candidate had advocated as an expression of gratitude for Russian support in blocking Kosovo’s statehood at the United Nations.
“The citizens of Serbia have more than clearly opted for their future in the European Union,” said Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, of Tadic’s Democratic Party. “Now, there is no going back,” he said.
The European Union was quick to congratulate Tadic and said it wanted to speed up Serbia’s progress toward membership in the bloc.
Tadic’s Democrats played a key role in the ouster of former autocratic President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
Nikolic, deputy leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, served as a deputy prime minister during Milosevic’s 1998-99 war in Kosovo, when NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days to stop his brutal crackdown against the province’s separatists.

TITLE: Communist Leader Says Russia Ruled by Thieves
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The only outspoken Kremlin critic in Russia’s presidential election next month said on Monday the vote could not be fair because the country was run by “thieves.”
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov has said the campaign is skewed in favor of Dmitry Medvedev, who has been overwhelming favorite to win since outgoing President Vladimir Putin endorsed him as his successor.
“Elections in Russia can’t be fair,” Zyuganov told reporters in Moscow as he unveiled his election program. “Because privatization itself was unfair, because everything has been stolen and because thieves can’t call fair elections.”
Zyuganov was referring to the 1990s sell-off of state assets to entrepreneurs in preferential deals that critics say amounted to outright theft. Putin has criticized some of the privatizations but left most of them intact.
“There is an iron-clad rule in any country and in any kind of society: A thief should be in jail and not in charge,” Zyuganov said.
Opinion polls give First Deputy Prime Minister Medvedev, who is also chairman of state gas monopoly Gazprom, about 70 percent support. Zyuganov is polling around 12 percent.
Putin, constitutionally barred from serving a third consecutive term, has said he will serve as prime minister in a Medvedev government and is widely expected to hold on to much of his power once he leaves office.
Zyuganov said Putin and Medvedev were “completely irresponsible people” and had sat by as Russian industry and social welfare collapsed.
He said last month he was considering pulling out of the race on the grounds it was unfair. He has lodged complaints with the main television stations because he says they give Medvedev favorable coverage but rarely allow him on air.
On Monday he said he was staying in the race because “I don’t want to give the country away to a group of nouveaux riches.”
“It’s a tragedy for the country when its government is staffed by dilettantes,” he said, highlighting Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov as an example of what he called “Putin’s incompetent administration.”
Serdyukov, a former furniture salesman who is the son-in-law of Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, was appointed defense minister last year. Like many of Putin’s political allies, he hails from St Petersburg.
Zyuganov said he was running to remind people that “if dollars from the oil and gas bubble dry up or even shrink a little, then the Russian financial and economic system will collapse somewhat faster than some people can imagine.”
The other challengers in the March 2 election are Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a nationalist who avoids direct criticism of the Kremlin, and Andrei Bogdanov, head of the tiny Democratic Party who used to work for a pro-Kremlin party.
Western governments have urged Russia to hold a fair and competitive vote. European observers accused the Kremlin of interfering in a parliamentary vote in December that was won by Putin loyalists.

TITLE: Milosevic’s Family Get Asylum
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Russia has granted asylum to the widow and son of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, both of whom are on Interpol’s wanted list, the Federal Migration Service said Friday.
Mirjana Markovic, 65, and Marko Milosevic, 33, entered a Moscow police station in March 2005 and made a formal request for political asylum, an agency spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing agency policy.
“Everything was done in accordance with international conventions,” the spokesman said.
They were granted asylum in March 2006, the spokesman said.
Serbian media reported in recent days that Markovic and Milosevic had received asylum, but Friday’s announcement was the first time Russian authorities had confirmed their refugee status.
They were granted asylum after their passports expired, Itar-Tass reported Friday, citing an unidentified law enforcement official.
The Foreign Ministry declined to comment. A spokesman for the Serbian Embassy in Moscow said he had learned about the development from the media.

TITLE: Key events in President Vladimir Putin’s drive 
to increase Kremlin control
TEXT: February 2000: Putin, then acting president, declares that big businesses should avoid politics.

May 2000: Putin says in his first state-of the-nation address that the weakness of the state has stalled economic and other reforms. He uses the word “vertical” three times in the speech but never mentions it again in later state-of-the-nation addresses.
June 2000: Media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky is jailed on suspicion of defrauding the state out of $10 million. He is later allowed to leave the country after agreeing to pass control over NTV television to Gazprom. Another powerful businessman, Boris Berezovsky, flees Russia in late 2000 after criminal investigations are opened against him and his associates. In 2007, oil billionaire Mikhail Gutseriyev flees Russia amid a criminal investigation that he calls politically motivated.

June 2000: The State Duma passes a Kremlin-backed bill to deprive governors and regional legislature speakers of their seats in the Federation Council and the immunity from prosecution that comes with them.
	
Fall 2000: The Kremlin pushes a new Tax Code through the Duma that obliges the regions to send most tax revenues to federal authorities, who then decide how to allocate the money among the regions.

October 2003: Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky is arrested at gunpoint on his private plane in a criminal investigation widely seen as the Kremlin’s punishment for his political ambitions. Khodorkovsky is now serving an eight-year prison sentence after being convicted of fraud and tax evasion charges in 2005.

Fall 2004: Shortly after the Beslan hostage crisis on Sept. 1-3, Putin warns that the country is in danger of falling apart and announces sweeping reforms aimed at strengthening the state. Among the reforms, Putin cancels popular elections for governors in favor of a system under which the president effectively appoints them. Putin also says the Duma will be formed on a proportional basis, with no more independent -- and often outspoken -- deputies.

January 2005: In the first backlash against the power vertical, thousands of people take to the streets to protest the replacement of discounted social services with small cash payments.

April 2005: The Duma approves the creation of the Public Chamber, which is ostensibly designed to represent civil society in its dialogue with the government. The Kremlin, however, directly and indirectly selects the chamber’s members, and the government decides its budget.

May 2005: The Duma passes legislation that raises the threshold to win Duma seats from 5 percent to 7 percent and bans political blocs and movements from running for the parliament.

January 2006: Putin signs a prohibitive law on nongovernmental organizations that put their activities and finances under the close scrutiny of the authorities.

TITLE: Activists Arrested As They Try to Picket
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The local leaders of Eduard Limonov's banned NBP party and the Narod movement were arrested, with other activists, as they attempted to hold a rally in St. Petersburg on Saturday.
Narod's Sergei Gulyayev and NBP's Andrei Dmitriyev, as well as 20 other activists, were seized by the OMON police and thrown into police buses within a few minutes after picketers unfolded banners and started to chant slogans.
Between 30 and 40 protesters were to picket the North-West Interior Ministry Troops Headquarters at 33 Millionnaya Ulitsa to protest the verdict of the North Caucasus District Military Court that sentenced Interior Troops lieutenants Yevgeny Khudyakov and Sergei Arakcheyev to 17 and 15 years in prison, respectively, for murdering three Chechen civilians in 2003.
Both men denied the charges. The picket’s organizers claim the officers are not guilty.
“First of all, I’d like to stress that the action was not nationalist,” said Dmitriyev by phone on Monday.
“It was not like we were advocating that Russians should kill non-Russians, absolutely not. Primarily, it was an action to defend juries, and an action whose aim was to show that Russian Interior Troops officers who took part in this Chechen war, unleashed by [Russian presidents] Yeltsin and Putin, are victims as much as participants of Dissenters’ Marches or as the Yukos people.” 
Dmitriyev compared Arakcheyev to the imprisoned NBP members and Yukos managers, describing them as “victims of the system.”
“They [the officers] were acquitted by the jury twice, but the verdict was trampled upon because Putin said it was not right, and [Chechen president] Ramzan Kadyrov said, ‘Our people don’t understand this.’
“These people were obviously scapegoats for somebody else’s crimes,” he said.
According to Dmitriyev, the organizers approached the Central District Administration about the picket but it was not sanctioned because, as the organizers were told, the proposed site in front of the Interior Troop’s headquarters was needed for military training.
The administration suggested Chernyshevsky Gardens, outside of the city center, instead, but the organizers refused. 
“We sent a reply saying that we do not agree to Chernyshevsky Garden but are ready to move the picket to the other side of the street,” said Dmitriyev.
“This was our offer, and they, in violation of Russian law, didn’t send us a reply. That’s why one cannot say that the picket was unsanctioned,” he said.
“We acted according to the law, we came and stood across the street opposite to the North-West Interior Ministry Troops Headquarters and we were dispersed at once, in a hard way,” said Dmitriyev.
Hours before the location was blocked by OMON policemen and trucks. According to Nazbol.ru, only around 25 protesters managed to pass through police lines to the site. Arrests followed almost immediately.
“The picket lasted one minute, literally. We only had time to produce the banners saying ‘We Won’t Let Juries Be Trampled On,’ ‘Free Russian Officers,’ ‘Kadyrov Is a Bandit,’ and we were immediately dispersed.”
Most of the detained, except Gulyayev and Dmitriyev, were released late on Saturday. Having spent the night at the police precinct, Gulyayev and Dmitriyev were released in the morning the next day. They are charged with “failing to follow policemen's orders and taking part in unsanctioned picketing.”
Dmitriyev said he and Gulyayev felt they got special attention from the authorities because the March 2 presidential elections are approaching.
“The day before the action, on Feb. 1, both Gulyayev and I got a call from investigator Alexander Maksimov and were invited to an interrogation,” he said.
“They are now considering opening a criminal case against us for the ‘March Against the Growth of Prices,’ which was on Nov. 3. Three months later, they suddenly noticed that speeches there contained hidden calls for extremist activities and insults to representatives of the authorities. 
“I think they will try to isolate us for the period of the elections and [a march planned for March 3]. And we will try not to give them that chance,” said Dmitriyev.
A Dissenters March is scheduled for March 3, the day after the presidential election is held.

TITLE: Medvedev Meets Farmers, War Veterans
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Presidential front-runner Dmitry Medvedev hit the campaign trail over the weekend with a promise to continue subsidies for farmers amid Russia’s drive to join the World Trade Organization.
“As far as the WTO is concerned, we are working on this issue. But we will offer adequate state support for the development of the agricultural sector,” Medvedev said during a visit to Volgograd, the site of one of the biggest World War II battles, known by its Soviet-era name of Stalingrad.
Agriculture and the WTO are key battlefields for liberal- and conservative-minded politicians. Liberals believe sticking to tough WTO rules will boost efficiency and competitiveness in farming, while conservatives say it could kill the sector.
Medvedev’s visit to Volgograd coincided with the 65th anniversary of the Stalingrad battle, a turning point of World War II in which the Red Army broke the backbone of the Nazi military machine.
Medvedev, who with President Vladimir Putin’s support is widely expected to win the March 2 election, met war veterans and promised them state support.
“The state will continue to raise the veterans’ pensions and take care of medical help and recreation for you,” he told them.
Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister, visited Volgograd on the day when presidential campaigning officially kicked off. Medvedev has said he will not take part in campaigning events like rallies or debates, citing a busy schedule in the Cabinet. His regional tours are arranged as business trips.
Medvedev, 42, stuck to this carefully crafted image in Volgograd. “Unemployment fell by about 5 percent. Many positive tendencies are becoming evident, and we can say that the republic is developing,” he said, answering a question from reporters about Chechnya.
As during other recent appearances, Medvedev, wearing a blue blazer and black roll-neck shirt, made no major policy statements.
This format of his visits, lavishly covered by media, allows Medvedev to bypass strict limitations on media appearances by candidates, something his opponents say is unfair. The other presidential candidates are Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and independent Andrei Bogdanov.
Medvedev visited a ski resort near Sochi on Sunday.
On Friday, he promised that the government would plow more than 2 trillion rubles ($81 billion) into improving the education system over the next two years. “We could not dream of this just a few years ago,” said Medvedev, seated next to Putin at a tsarist-era palace in the old Cossack capital of Novocherkassk, in the Rostov region.
Friday’s meeting was to discuss public education, one of the four national projects that Medvedev oversees in the Cabinet. Officials at the meeting said schools were already benefiting from higher investment thanks to a national economic boom powered by exports of oil and gas.
“It was not too long ago that only 10 percent of children went to schools with modern equipment,” Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko said. “Now the figure is 30 percent and we intend to take it to 70 percent by 2010.”
Putin said improving education would result in benefits all around.
“The main thing is improving the competitiveness of our economy,” he said.
Medvedev used the meeting to trumpet a record birth rate for 2007. “I am happy to say that, according to the latest report by the State Statistics Service, last year we had the biggest number of births in 25 years, since the Soviet days,” he said, without giving a figure.
“Let’s not stop at this achievement,” Putin said.
(Reuters, SPT)

TITLE: Internet Appeal For Two Missing Boys
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The police are looking for two boys, aged 7 and 8, who went missing in the town of Tosno, Leningrad Oblast, on Friday, as friends of their families turn to the internet to aid them in the search. 
Classmates Maxim Linkov, 8, and Sasha Pronin, 7, came home from school on Friday and asked Linkov’s mother for permission to go for a walk at about 2:30 p.m. She said they could go as long as they were back by 4 p.m. when she was due to go to work.  
The boys failed to return on time and at 6 p.m. Linkov’s father went to look for them, Fontanka. ru reported.
At midnight Linkov’s parents called the police, who organized a search of the local area that was continuing on Monday afternoon.
Linkov, who is 1.30 meters tall (4 foot, 2 inches) and has brown hair, was dressed in a red hat with a light green logo, a dark green jacket and jeans. He has also has a scar on his head.
Pronin is described as slim and has light brown hair, was dressed in a black hat with red and white spots, a dark jacket with red insets and warm pants with light blue insets. He also does not pronounce the sound “r” correctly.
On Saturday a woman informed the police that she had seen the boys on Friday. The woman said she saw them on a commuter train going to St. Petersburg. She said the boys were walking along the train asking for money, Fontanka.ru reported.
Both boys come from good families and this version seemed unlikely to their parents and police.  
However, the woman said that she remembered the eyes of one boy very well and that he resembled one of the boys whose pictures she had seen at the police department.
Anybody with any information on the boys is asked to call the police on 8 813 612 0002.
The police press service in St. Petersburg said the Tosno police are doing everything possible to find the boys.
Meanwhile, one of the families’ friends has put pictures of the boys on a LiveJournal page and the Russian version of Facebook, VKontakte at http://vkontakte.ru/events.php?act=s&gid=1448249_.
“I appeal to all St. Petersburg residents. My friends are in trouble: their son Maxim is missing...” the family friend wrote on VKontakte.
Internet users have responded with sympathy.

“I really hope the boys will be found. I understand you very well; I’ve been in a similar situation. The most important thing is to believe and everything will be all right,” Olga Marus wrote on the page.

TITLE: BSGV Thrives Despite Societe Generale Loss
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: In contrast to a massive loss reported by French banck Societe Generale, its Russian subsidiary Bank Societe Generale Vostok (BSGV) increased profit by over 50 percent last year, according to a statement released Friday. BSGV said it had made a profit of $196 million in 2007.
Last month Societe Generale reported a loss of 4.9 billion euros (7.26 billion dollars) as the result of fraud. According to a statement by Societe Generale, junior trader Jerome Kerviel made unauthorized transactions worth 50 billion euros speculating on future contracts.
In addition to that, the bank lost about two billion euros as a result of the liquidity crisis in the global financial market. Rumors have circulated about a probable merger between Societe Generale and another French bank — BNP Paribas.
Despite the loss, Societe Generale expects its net profit for 2007 to vary between 600 million and 800 million euros. The bank will increase its capital by 5.5 percent by issuing new shares to maintain stability and finance development.
In Russia, Societe Generale operates several subsidiaries — BSGV, ALD Avtomotiv, Rusfinansbank, Delta-Credit and Sozhekap.
“During 2007, BSGV maintained positive dynamics and increased profitability in all major business areas. This was the result of investment into corporate and retail banking and regional offices. The good performance was also due to a diversified product portfolio and improved control over spending,” the statement said.
BSGV assets nearly doubled last year, increasing from $2.27 billion to $4.46 billion by January 1, 2008, while the bank’s capital increased by 17.3 percent up to $236.5 million. BSGV is currently increasing its capital by an additional $142.7 million. Client deposits increased by 81 percent to $1.26 billion, and credit portfolio more than doubled, increasing from $1.45 billion to $3.36 billion.
“We’ve demonstrated impressive performance despite the instability in the world financial market. We will continue expanding into Russia’s regions. In 2008 we will open about 30 new offices and will operate in about 20 regions,” said Mark-Emmanuel Vives, president and general manager of BSGV.
The St. Petersburg branch of BSGV reported revenue of $19.9 million, and its credit portfolio increased by 30 percent up to $395.7 million.
“BSGV also has ambitious goals for 2008. We plan to increase the number of individual clients from 25,000 to 35,000 people, issue 9,000 bank cards, install 40 new cash machines and open two new branches — in the Central and Vasileostrovsky districts,” said Yelena Sheveleva, general manager of the St. Petersburg Branch of BSGV.
BSGV has stated that its development strategy will not change. The bank will continue its acquisition of Rosbank, which was announced earlier last year. BSGV does not plan any changes in operations, tariffs or products as a result of the damage caused to its parent company.
“Obviously, the nominal loss reported by Societe Generale increased the risk that the upcoming acquisition of Rosbank could fail. However, Societe Generale stated emphatically that all the deals announced earlier would be completed,” said Denis Mukhin, analyst for banks and currency markets at BrokerCreditService investment company.
The acquisition of Rosbank is expected in the first half of February. “The parent bank has started negotiations to borrow 5-6 billion euros globally to overcome this crisis, and they are very likely to succeed,” Mukhin said.
As for the regional expansion of Societe Generale subsidiaries in Russia, Mukhin said that this development could be financed by BSGV and not by the parent bank. “These expansion plans are unlikely to be revised,” he said.
BSGV currently has 140,000 private clients and 2,700 corporate clients.

TITLE: Workers, Managers Agree
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Workers at the Vsevolozhsk Ford plant in the Leningrad Oblast on Monday agreed in a secret ballot to accept the offer of the plant’s administration of a new employement agreement.
“The additional agreement will be signed today and will take effect from March 1,” Alexei Etmanov, head of the plant’s trade union said.
Etmanov said that although not all of the workers’ demands were met completely, the workers were satisfied with the administration’s offer.
“I wouldn’t call it a compromise, but rather the next step forward in our negotiation process,” Etmanov said.
Initially Ford workers demanded to have their average salary raised to 28,000 rubles ($1,136). They also wanted their night shift cut by an hour.
The offer of the administration includes a salary raise of 16-21 percent, depending on individual qualifications. As a result the average salary will reach $1,044, the initial salary will be $776 (it was previously $612), and annual bonuses will range from $204 to $408, depending on the length of service, Etmanov said.
In addition, the plant’s workers will receive a bigger discount on the purchase of new Ford cars, additional payment for overtime, and a new schedule for shift work.
The discount on buying new Ford cars will now be 15 percent, compared to a previous discount of four to seven percent.
The salary raise was the main demand of a strike at the plant that took place from Nov. 20 through Dec. 17.

TITLE: Poland Set To Promote Cheaper Alternative to Nord Stream Pipeline
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will seek to persuade Russian officials to pick a “cheaper” route for Gazprom’s planned Nord Stream pipeline during a visit to Moscow on Friday. 
“Nord Stream is three or four times more expensive” than a rival link that passes through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, known as the “Amber pipeline,” Poland’s economy minister, Waldemar Pawlak, told reporters in Warsaw on Friday. “It also costs about three or four times more to transport gas via Nord Stream.” 
The Nord Stream pipeline, a Russian-German joint venture, will stretch 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald in Germany and is scheduled to begin carrying gas in 2011. Nord Stream’s costs will probably be higher than the 5 billion euro ($7.4 billion) initial estimate, Dirk von Ameln, in charge of getting approval from countries affected by the pipeline, said last month.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>View of Okhta Sold</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — AFT Development is acquiring 2.6 hectares of land at the junction of Smolnaya embankment and Tulskaya Ulitsa, opposite the future Okhta Center office complex, RBC reported Monday.
AFT Development plans to construct an elite residential complex. The land plot was formerly occupied by Baltika furniture plant.

<b>IFC Invests $50 Mln</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has invested $50 million in equity of the Sodruzhestvo group of companies, one of the largest producers and distributors of soybean meal and other animal nutrition products in the CIS, Interfax reported Friday.
In addition, IFC has provided a five-year loan of $50 million to Sodruzhestvo. The funds will be used to refinance the group’s debts and improve its port facilities.

<b>Building Investment</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The East-European Financial Corporation has acquired 93 percent of NiprodorNII, the largest Russian road and bridge planning company, Interfax reported Monday.
The remaining seven percent of shares are owned by the company’s managers. The East-European Financial Corporation plans to invest into its construction division.

<b>Interest Rates Rise</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Russia’s Central Bank has increased its refinancing interest rate from 10 percent to 10.25 percent. This is the first increase in the refinancing interest rate in Russia since summer 1998, Interfax reported Friday.
In June 1998, the refinancing interest rate increased to 80 percent a year, which was followed by a financial crisis and default of the government on its financial liabilities. Over the last ten years the refinancing interest rate has steadily decreased.

<b>More Power For City</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Northwest Power Network will invest six billion rubles ($245 million) into a new power plant in St. Petersburg. Construction is due to start in the first quarter of 2008, Interfax reported Friday.
The capacity of the new power plant is planned at 330 kilowatts. The plant will serve the Central district of the city.

<b>Rosneft Retracts Bid</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg, SPT) — Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer, has dropped its bid for a stake in Slantsy, a processing plant for shale and secondary petroleum products in the Leningrad Oblast, Vedomosti reported.
Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov said in mid-January that Rosneft was competing with billionaire Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova Holding for control of the government’s 56 percent stake in the Slantsy plant. After studying the purchase, Rosneft backed out, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified person with knowledge of the matter.
Renova already owns a 30 percent share of the plant, and will bid for a 41.8 percent stake. On Friday Interfax reported that the Russian government had included its stake  in the plant on the privatisation plan for 2008.
<b>U.K. Stalls on Sakhalin</b>
LONDON (Bloomberg) — The U.K. has yet to reach a decision on a $1 billion loan for the Sakhalin-2 oil and natural-gas development off Russia’s Pacific coast after four years of deliberating.
Britain’s Export Credit Guarantee Department hasn’t decided if the project meets its environmental criteria, ECGD Director of Communications Steve Robert-Mee said Thursday in an interview in London. The financial model for the development changed when Russia’s Gazprom joined the project last year, he said.
State-run Gazprom acquired a majority stake in Sakhalin-2, cutting Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s share in half. The project on Sakhalin Island, a breeding ground for endangered gray whales, is opposed by the environmental group WWF.

<b>Renault Representatives</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Renault SA nominees may take senior positions at AvtoVAZ if the French company completes the purchase of 25 percent of Russia’s largest carmaker, Vedomosti reported.
Renault, which agreed to buy shares in Togliatti-based AvtoVAZ in December, will nominate the Russian company’s chief operating officer, financial director, chief engineer and other executives according to the preliminary agreement, the newspaper reported, citing Renault Vice President Patrick Pelata.
AvtoVAZ will confirm or reject Renault’s nominations for those posts, Pelata said, according to Vedomosti. AvtoVAZ Chief Executive Officer Boris Alyoshin will continue to head the company, Vedomosti said, citing Ruben Vardanian, chairman of AvtoVAZ shareholder Troika Dialog.

<b>Oil Spill in Dagestan</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — A Russian oil pipeline spilled 100 tons (730 barrels) of crude Sunday in the north Caucasus region of Dagestan, near the Caspian Sea, after a seam burst.
The leak was reported at about 10:30 a.m. and the pipeline was closed down by 12:30 p.m., Oleg Grekov, the spokesman for the Emergency Ministry’s Southern Federal District branch, said by telephone Sunday. There was no explosion or fire, he said.
Emergency crews have cleaned up the polluted soil and put up barriers to prevent 5 tons of oil that spilled into the Rubas River from reaching the Caspian Sea about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away, Grekov said.

<b>Virgin Eyes Russian Net</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Richard Branson is looking at telecommunications, Internet and music businesses in Russia, Vedomosti reported Thursday.
His plans are at a very early stage in Russia, Branson told the Russian daily. Branson did not provide more details. 

<b>Businesses To Get Help</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — The Russian government may spend as much as $1 billion to help Russian companies expand abroad, Vedomosti reported, citing unidentified government officials.
The money is likely to be used to create a new government agency to lobby for Russian business interests and to improve the nation’s image oversees, the Moscow-based newspaper said Monday.
Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina proposed creating such a structure to the Cabinet in November, according to the paper.
Vedomosti also reported that several senior Economy Ministry officials are planning to leave their posts for research and banking jobs outside the government.

<b>Gazprom List Revealed</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov was included on a list of 19 candidates for the board of Gazprom, the world’s largest natural-gas producer.
Shareholders will be able to elect the new 11-member board at an annual meeting on June 27 in Moscow, Gazprom said Monday in an e-mailed statement.
The current board, chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, approved the list Monday. Medvedev, the frontrunner in the March 2 presidential vote, would have to step down from the post if elected and wasn’t included on the list.

<b>Kazakh Gas Prices Rise</b>
ALMATY (Bloomberg) — Kazakhstan, holder of the largest gas reserves in the former Soviet Union outside Russia, raised the price for shipping the fuel to Gazprom by 27 percent.
Moscow-based Gazprom agreed to pay $1.40 for shipping 1,000 cubic meters of gas 100 kilometers (62 miles) in 2008, Kazakh gas-pipeline monopoly KazTransGaz said in an e-mailed statement Monday. The 30-cent increase took effect Jan. 1 and won’t change this year, the Astana-based company said.
Kazakhstan plans to ship more than 47 billion cubic meters of Russian gas across its territory this year, and more than 54 billion cubic meters of Central Asian gas to Russia, KazTransGaz said. The fuel is transported along six pipelines, with the Soyuz link connecting Gazprom’s Orenburg processing facility in Russia with Ukraine via Kazakh territory.

TITLE: January Marked By Highs And Lows on Volatile Stocks
AUTHOR: By Catrina Stewart
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian stock markets bowed out of January with one of their worst months of trading in years, the benchmark RTS suffering its biggest losses since 2000. 
Few would have it believed it in those days of cautious optimism of early January, as investors rolled back from vacation. But global fears over a U.S. recession sent international markets tumbling — with Russia no exception — and few are willing to bet on when the markets will turn. 
Stocks tumbled by 17 percent on both the MICEX and RTS indexes in January, with the former losing more than 20 percent since its December high. 
In Russia, trading was volatile during the week, and a rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve had quite the opposite effect of what might have been expected, sending Russian stocks down Thursday by 3.8 percent and 4.2 percent on the RTS and MICEX, respectively, in what UralSib termed an “irrational frenzy” of selling. 
The markets started to pick up Friday, spurred by interest in coal miner Raspadskaya, which rose 11.8 percent. Gazprom and UES jumped by 4.6 percent and 5.15 percent, respectively. The RTS finished the day up 3.3 percent, and the MICEX up 4.2 percent. 
“The market has come off enough that people have started to come back into the market,” said Douglas Rohlfs, who works in international equity sales at Metropol. “Most of the gainers have been the blue chips. A lot of these names were heavily sold off.” 
If anything was an incentive to buy, it’s how far some of these stocks fell in January. On the RTS, Rosneft has plunged 27.4 percent, while Unified Energy System has fallen 23 percent. Gazprom fell 15.1 percent on MICEX. 
But worse may be to come, after Friday’s U.S. job figures for January were down 17,000. 
“There are probably a few more bouncy days,” said James Fenkner, managing partner at Red Star Asset Management. “For big money to come back, volatility has to come down, and there has to be clarity on the depth of the U.S. recession.” 
Investors noted that some of the Russian mutual funds would be showing big losses, given their tendency to buy after the market goes up and sell after it goes down. 
In Europe, French insurer AXA became the latest in a line of companies to place a temporary ban on withdrawals from its property funds, after investors rushed to take money out amid concerns of a property crash. 
“Within Russia, there was this view than long could never go wrong,” Fenkner said. “And so people were leveraged and had options ... that they had to cover, and that pushed the market further.” 
Weekly data suggested that Russia was still in favor, with a miniscule inflow of $1.5 million, while China and Brazil suffered substantial outflows, according to EPFR Global. 
Few wished to predict the bottom of the market, stressing the view that the Russian markets have succumbed to global stimuli, rather than anything of its own making.

TITLE: Central Bank Takes Drastic Measures
AUTHOR: Reuters, SPT
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Central Bank took markets by surprise Friday by using a wide range of measures to curb inflationary pressures and sacrificing banking-sector liquidity to defeat price growth. 
The bank said it would raise the floor for its key one-day repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent, reserve requirements on ruble retail deposits by 50 basis points and on foreign currency liabilities by 1 percentage point. 
“This is really a serious action — the Central Bank raised its untouchable repo rate, which had been constant for several years,” said Mikhail Galkin, an analyst at MDM Bank. 
The move may hit the banking sector hard, as it is still licking its wounds after the global liquidity crunch had shut the window to international capital markets. It also represents a major policy shift after months of heavy liquidity injections. 
“The repo rate hike is the most serious monetary-tightening measure among all the moves taken today. This will most likely provoke a sell-off in ruble bonds,” Galkin said. 
The bank also said it would raise all of its deposit rates, a currency swap rate and a rarely used refinancing rate, seen as a ceiling for its official interest rates, by 25 basis points. 
The move comes as the U.S. Federal Reserve has embarked on an unprecedented monetary easing to help the economy escape looming recession, and the European Central Bank has so far made inflation its priority over growth. 
The Russian economy showed robust growth rates of 8.1 percent last year, up from 7.4 percent in 2006 and 6.4 percent in 2005. 
The Central Bank announced its move after markets had closed in Moscow. 
“This is the most surprising move by the Central Bank in the past several years. Probably no one in the market had expected such a move in a situation of liquidity shortage,” said Yevgeny Nadorshin, analyst at Trust Bank. 
Inflation spiraled out of control last year, hitting 11.9 percent and becoming a major headache for the Kremlin ahead of the presidential election. 
Putin made the fight against inflation a priority for his government, but the official inflation target of 8.5 percent looks unrealistic after prices spiked by 2.3 percent to 2.4 percent in January, according to preliminary estimates. 
The government’s leading economic policymaker, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, offered assurances Saturday that prices would not surge once a freeze on some goods was lifted in the spring. 
“Prices will continue to grow slowly, but they will not jump after they are freed up,” Kudrin said on Channel One television. 
Kudrin said after a Cabinet meeting Thursday that the Central Bank might use all available instruments to fight inflation, including a nominal appreciation of the ruble exchange rate. 
“It’s a step in the right direction, but given the inflation problem Russia is facing, it’s not enough,” said Zsolt Papp, chief economist at KBS Financial Products. 
The Central Bank injected billions of rubles into the banking system through its repo operations at a rate around 6.0 percent last year, a policy praised by economists and the banking community.

TITLE: Unilever Acquires Siberian Ice-Cream
AUTHOR: By Joram Kanner
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Unilever, the owner of more than 400 brands from Dove soap to Magnum ice-cream bars, agreed to buy Russian ice-cream maker Inmarko for an undisclosed price.
Inmarko is the country’s “leading” ice-cream company, with sales of about 115 million euros ($171 million) in 2007, London- and Rotterdam-based Unilever said Monday in a statement.
Unilever expanded into Russia in 1992 and owns four plants in the country, which it views as “strategic” because of the swelling local economy, company spokesman Tanno Massar said Monday. The company, which makes Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, plans to double output of deodorant sticks at its St. Petersburg plant this year after moving production from the U.K. in 2007.
“Russia is one of the priority countries for Unilever, along with China,” Herman Verstraeten, general director for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, said Monday at a press conference in Moscow. “We’ll keep on investing a significant amount of money in manufacturing and operations here.”
Unilever’s Russian sales are rising about 20 percent a year, and the company plans to seek further local purchases, Verstraeten said. Russian revenue “will only increase,” he said, helped by Inmarko.
Unilever controls the largest share of the world ice-cream market at 17.5 percent, compared to 14 percent for Nestle SA, the biggest food company and owner of the Haagen-Dazs brand, Massar said, citing 2006 data from Euromonitor.
“In the context of the global fight between Unilever and Nestle, this is a logical step,” Yann Gindraux, an analyst at Vontobel Holding in Zurich with recommendations of “sell” on Unilever and “buy” on Nestle, said of the acquisition. Unilever is paying about twice sales for Inmarko, he estimated.
Unilever fell 33 cents, or 1 percent, to 32.8 dollars at 10:38 a.m. in Amsterdam trading. The shares have dropped 12 percent in 2008 after three years of gains.
Inmarko, the Novosibirsk-based maker of Magnate and Status ice cream, was started in 1991 and has Russian and Kazak activities. It has three Russian factories in Novosibirsk, Omsk and Tula and employs more than 4,500 people, according to Unilever, which now has more than 2,000 workers in the country.
Unilever expects to complete the purchase in the year’s first half.

TITLE: Local Oil Port To Modernize
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: Petersburg Oil Terminal, Russia’s largest oil-product exporting port, plans to spend as much as $200 million on modernizing facilities as it seeks to expand annual loading capacity by a quarter to 15 million metric tons.
The plans for the next two years include constructing a rail unloading area, upgrading existing facilities and training personnel, Kirill Kotin, a spokesman for the company, said in a telephone interview Friday. The terminal is part of the St. Petersburg harbor complex on the Baltic Sea.
“Based on our previous activities and development, we estimate that further modernization will cost $150 million to $200 million,” Kotin said.
The port is now operating near its full annual capacity of 12 million tons and ships diesel, oil products and bunkering oil, Kotin said. Bunkering oil is also known as shipping oil. Management may consider exporting gasoline and kerosene after the upgrade is complete if demand continues to grow, he said.
Russia’s government has sought to boost export capacity on the Baltic Sea to compete with ports in Latvia and Estonia. The terminal shipped 11.5 million tons of oil products in 2007, 8.5 percent more than the previous year, according to its web site.

TITLE: Investment Planned For Transport
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia may invest as much as 21 trillion rubles ($862 billion) to improve transportation infrastructure over the next seven years to handle increasing domestic traffic and transit shipments from Asia.
The government will spend 10.17 trillion rubles by 2015 if the infrastructure development program is adopted, Transport Minister Igor Levitin said Friday during a government meeting.
The remainder will come from private investment. The government will also consider selling “transport bonds,” he said without elaborating. 
Russia’s transportation infrastructure crumbled during the 1990s and is increasingly unable to handle growing passenger and cargo traffic as the country enters its 10th consecutive year of economic growth. Russia also wants to benefit from its location between China and Europe to serve as a “transit bridge.”

TITLE: Ports Begin Bidding For Tax Breaks
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: The government has begun accepting bids from the country’s seaports for tax breaks and other incentives to upgrade infrastructure and diversify the economy. 
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry will accept applications for the “special economic zones” until March 30, and the results will be announced a month later, the federal agency managing the project said Friday. 
The Ust-Luga port on the Baltic Sea, Murmansk on the Barents Sea, Taman on the Black Sea and the Pacific Ocean ports of Vostochny and Nakhodka have expressed an interest in bidding for the exemptions, the ministry said. A government committee will choose from bids submitted by regional governments.

TITLE: Prosecutors Ask Britain To Hand Over 5 Suspects
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prosecutors have asked Britain to extradite five suspects in a fraud case at state-owned shipping giant Sovkomflot, adding another twist to the already fraught relationship between London and Moscow. 
But unlike high-profile figures such as tycoon Boris Berezovsky and Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev, the former managers and businessmen might find it hard to win political asylum. 
Among them is Yury Nikitin, a shipping magnate accused of setting up a scam with ocean freighters that Sovkomflot says has cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. 
The Investigative Committee, a semi-autonomous agency under the auspices of the Prosecutor General’s Office, said in a statement Friday that it was seeking to extradite Nikitin and four others over the purported embezzlement of more than $700 million. “The documents were sent to Britain already in 2006,” the statement said. 
The only other person identified in the investigators’ statement is Yury Privalov, a former Sovkomflot manager who was arrested in Switzerland in December 2006, where he is currently imprisoned and fighting extradition to Russia. 
“The question of [Privalov’s] extradition [from Switzerland] is currently being decided,” the statement said. 
But Switzerland’s highest court ruled in December that Privalov could only be extradited if Moscow guaranteed that the conditions of his detention would comply with those specified in the European Convention on Human Rights. 
Privalov claims that he is being prosecuted for political motives similar to the Yukos affair. The Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne, by contrast, said that there were no reasons to believe that in this case Moscow was trying to persecute a political opponent. 
Nikitin said he would seek political asylum in Britain. “I want British government protection,” he said, British newspaper The Guardian reported Friday. 
The report said Nikitin was claiming to be the victim of political infighting in Moscow with factions wanting to deprive him of his “legitimate profits.” Nikitin also said he fled following police raids on his St. Petersburg offices and a threat to conscript his son into the army and send him to Chechnya, the report said. 
The British government did not comment on the case Friday. A spokeswoman for the Home Office in London merely said she could “neither confirm nor deny the existence of an extradition request ahead of [an] arrest.” 
Spokespeople for the Investigative Committee and the Prosecution General’s Office, where the charges originated since the Investigative Committee was only formed in 2007, also refused to elaborate. 
Sovkomflot’s deputy head, Vladimir Mednikov, said he would only speak about the civil litigation that his company has been pursuing in Britain since 2005. 
Sovkomflot, which operates one of the world’s largest merchant fleets, currently with 59 vessels, is seeking compensation from a host of offshore companies and two former managers, including its CEO until 2004, Dmitry Skarga. 
Skarga was replaced as Sovkomflot CEO in 2004 by former Transportation Minister Sergei Frank. Skarga then became a senator for Volgograd in the Federation Council but quit his post in 2006. Kommersant reported at the time that he left to face trial in Britain. 
Mednikov, the Sovkomflot deputy head, said that to his knowledge Skarga was still living in Britain. 
Skarga and 10 other Federation Council members asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to investigate the 2005 purchase by Sovkomflot of three ice tankers for $424 million, claiming that Sovkomflot may have overpaid $140 million on the deal, Vedomosti reported in 2006. 
Attempts to contact London solicitors that represent Nikitin and Skarga were unsuccessful Friday and over the weekend. 
Privalov’s lawyer Stefan Wehrenberg reiterated that he would take his client’s extradition case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, because he deemed the guarantees demanded by the Lausanne judges insufficient. 
Wehrenberg also said his client was no longer among the defendants in the civil case in Britain. “A judge has ruled that he is no longer part of the litigation,” he said by telephone from Zurich. 
While Privalov’s name appears at the top of the list of the list of 29 defendants, including 26 companies, on a litigation fact sheet obtained from Sovkomflot’s London office dated Jan. 29, the document states that in substantive issues “a settlement has been reached with Mr. Privalov.” 
According to the fact sheet, he and Skarga are accused of having accepted bribes from Nikitin to set up a fraudulent scheme involving vessels’ sale and lease-back transactions. 
According to the Swiss ruling, published on the Federal Court’s web site, Russian prosecutors maintain that Nikitin founded a number of firms registered in the British Virgin Islands.

TITLE: Plutonium Reactors To Shut Down Early
AUTHOR: By H. Josef Hebert
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — Two of Russia’s plutonium-producing reactors may be closed six months ahead of schedule, a major milestone in U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts, a senior Energy Department official said. 
The official said Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko told Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman during a 40-minute meeting Friday that shutting down the two reactors in the west Siberian town of Seversk within months was a realistic plan. 
Bodman also was given assurances that a program to upgrade security at many of Russia’s nuclear sites would be completed on schedule by the end of the year, and the Russians would act to ensure security improvements will be maintained into the future, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the exchange had not yet been announced. 
The United States and Russia have been working for years on arrangements to close Russia’s three plutonium-producing reactors, the two at Seversk and a third in the city of Zheleznogorsk that is scheduled to be shuttered at the end of next year. 
While Russia has agreed to dispose of 34 tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium, it has continued to produce about 1.2 tons per year of new plutonium in the three reactors, raising additional proliferation risks. 
The reactors provide electricity and heat to the nearby towns, and Russia has refused to shut them down until two fossil fuel plants are built. 
The United States has committed $926 million to help build the fossil plants, with the one at Seversk almost completed. 
Kiriyenko told that Bodman the two Seversk reactors already have been operating at half power, cutting by 50 percent the amount of plutonium that is being produced, the U.S. official said. 
Shutting the reactors has been a major U.S. nonproliferation goal. It has been an “up and down” struggle over the years to get the Russians to scrap the reactors, said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at Harvard’s Project on Managing the Atom, who has monitored closely Russia’s post-Cold War handling of nuclear weapons material. 
Aside from the plutonium issue, Bunn said, “The three reactors are among the most unsafe reactors, possibly the most unsafe reactors, in the world.” 
He said the reactors were used by Russia to develop the design of the Chernobyl reactor, site of the nuclear industry’s worst-ever accident. 
On a broader issue, Bodman and Kiriyenko discussed progress in completing security upgrades — improved fencing, alarm systems and guard houses — for weapons material at hundreds of buildings and bunkers at sites across Russia. 
Kiriyenko “gave Bodman his promise that he would do what’s necessary” to complete the upgrades by the target date of the end of this year, the U.S. official said. 
Bodman told Kiriyenko that the United States viewed these safeguards as a key area of U.S.-Russian cooperation and “essential to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.” 
So far upgrades are completed at 85 percent of the sites covered by the U.S.-Russia security improvement program.

TITLE: RUSAL To Construct Chinese Smelter
AUTHOR: By Aleksandras Budrys
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — United Company RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminum producer, said on Monday it will partner China Power Investment Corp (CPI) in building a 500,000-tonne smelter in western China and a bauxite and alumina complex in Guinea. 
The deal gives UC RUSAL, majority owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, a foothold in China’s fast-growing aluminum market, already the world’s top consumer and producer of the light metal used in drinks cans, cars and construction. 
“It is important that RUSAL fixes its presence in China, which is the largest aluminum market,” said Alexander Pukhayev, metals and mining analyst for Deutsche Bank in Moscow. 
“It’s good that RUSAL will also secure energy supplies, as China’s situation in the electricity sector is not as good as Russia’s,” Pukhayev said. 
UC RUSAL said in a statement it had signed a memorandum of understanding with CPI, a major Chinese energy firm, giving it 49 percent of a smelter in Qinghai province that will have capacity to produce at least 500,000 tons a year of aluminum. 
The smelter will be supplied with energy from CPI’s hydroelectric power facilities on the Yellow River. 
CPI would also own 49 percent of a new bauxite and alumina complex in Guinea, which will have capacity of up to 2.8 million tons of alumina per year. 
UC RUSAL and CPI will finance the projects in proportion to their ownership and will create a working group to conduct an audit and feasibility study. UC RUSAL said the study is slated for completion by mid-2008 and the project could start in 2009. 
UC RUSAL accounts for 12 percent of global aluminum output.

TITLE: Manufacturing Continues To Grow as Orders Boom
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Manufacturing expanded in January for the fourth consecutive month, reaching the highest level since August 2006 as new orders rose, a gauge of industrial production showed Friday. 
VTB Bank Europe’s Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 55.3 in January from 54.3 in the previous month, the bank said Friday. A figure above 50 indicates growth, below 50, a contraction. The bank surveyed 300 purchasing executives among Russian manufacturers. 
The result “reinforces a trend formed over the fourth quarter of 2007,” said VTB economist Dmitry Fedotkin. “Underpinning the rise in the headline index was a strengthening in both domestic and export orders, coupled with comparatively high employment growth.” 
Imports grew faster — 47 percent from January through November as the trade surplus narrowed 9.5 percent in the period — than in 2006 as rising incomes and investment fueled demand for manufactured goods, according to Federal Customs Service data.

TITLE: U.S. To Get More Uranium
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: WASHINGTON — U.S. nuclear power reactors will be able to obtain more supplies of Russian enriched uranium for fuel, under a trade deal signed by the two countries Friday. 
The agreement will provide U.S. utilities with a reliable supply of nuclear fuel by allowing Russia to boost exports to the United States while minimizing any disruption to the United States’ domestic enrichment industry. 
“The agreement will encourage bilateral trade in Russian uranium products for peaceful purposes,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said. “It will also help to ensure that U.S. utilities have an adequate source of enriched uranium for U.S. utility consumers.” 
Gutierrez and Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko signed the deal allowing for sales of Russian enriched uranium directly to U.S. utilities. Before the agreement, such direct transactions were not permitted. 
For years, the U.S. government has restricted Russian uranium shipments, fearing that the country would dump uranium in the U.S. market and financially hurt the major American uranium supplier, USEC. 
A Rosatom spokesman said that with the new trade deal, “the volumes of direct deliveries of uranium enrichment services may total 20 percent of the market, so one in every five atomic stations in the U.S. will work thanks to the import of Russian uranium enrichment services.” 
Under the deal, Russian uranium exports to the United States would increase slowly over a 10-year period, beginning in 2011, when shipments would be allowed to reach 16,559 tons. 
Exports would then increase about 50 percent annually over the next two years and increase more than tenfold from 41,398 tons in 2013, when the current “Megatons to Megawatts” program expires, to 485,279 tons the next year.

TITLE: Microsoft Makes $44.6 Bln Offer For Yahoo
AUTHOR: By Ari Levy
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: SAN FRANCISCO — Jerry Yang, who pledged last year to lead his team of “Yahoos” to victory, may find investors would rather team up with Microsoft Corp. 
Yahoo! Inc. rose the most since its first day of trading when Microsoft offered $44.6 billion for the company, the second- most popular search engine, on Feb. 1. Yang, who returned as Yahoo’s chief executive officer to try to reverse a two-year stock slump, had presided over a 32 percent drop before the bid. 
Microsoft said Yahoo executives snubbed its overtures last year in favor of tackling Internet search leader Google Inc. independently. Yahoo’s stock performance shows investors don’t embrace that strategy and that Yang’s promises to revamp the company’s search engine and gain on Google were in vain. 
“It’s hard to look shareholders in the eye and say it doesn’t make sense,” Robert Doll, chief investment officer of global equities at BlackRock Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey, said of Microsoft’s unsolicited offer. “There won’t be a whole lot of options for Yahoo.” He oversees $1.3 trillion in assets, including stock in Microsoft, the world’s biggest software maker. 
Microsoft’s $31-a-share bid came three days after Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo posted an eighth straight quarter of declining profit and projected sales that trailed most analysts’ estimates. 
Yahoo was trading at $19.18 before the offer. The shares rose 48 percent in Nasdaq Stock Market trading on Feb. 1 and advanced 47 cents to $28.85 at 9:41 a.m. New York time Monday. Microsoft gained 8 cents to $30.53, while Google dropped $4.18 to $511.72. 
Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt called Yang to suggest a potential partnership between the two companies to thwart Microsoft’s bid, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing people familiar with the matter. 
“Yahoo has a lot of options, and you can look at what analysts have said about those options,” spokeswoman Diana Wong said when asked about the Journal’s report. Yahoo said in a statement on Feb. 1 that it will review the offer “promptly.” 
Yang, 39, agreed to take over at Yahoo in June, replacing Terry Semel, after its share of web searches tumbled and the company lost out on sales of graphics-based ads mainly to social-networking sites like News Corp.’s MySpace and Facebook Inc. 
In Semel’s six years at the helm, he built Yahoo’s online ad business through acquisitions and internal development. While the shares jumped almost sevenfold under his watch, Google’s rising dominance led the stock to plunge 35 percent in 2006, and investors began calling for Semel to resign. 
“I’m ready to rally our near-12,000 Yahoos around the world,” Yang said on a conference call when he took over. He planned to foster “a winning culture, while strengthening our leadership team to galvanize Yahoos around our goals.” 
Microsoft’s bid came too soon for Yang to prove himself, said Ellen Siminoff, who worked with him at Yahoo for seven years and now leads Mountain View, California-based Efficient Frontier, which helps companies advertise on search engines. 
“It’s hard to get any sort of change that quickly,” Siminoff said. “He would rather sell having fixed the company than sell after a perception of weakness.” 
Microsoft chose Yahoo as a partner after repeatedly coming in a distant third in Internet searches and failing to bolster advertising revenue on its own. Yahoo would give Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft the most popular group of web sites in the U.S., which reach about 500 million people worldwide. 
The U.S. Justice Department is “interested” in reviewing the antitrust implications of the deal, agency spokeswoman Gina Talamona said last week. Neelie Kroes, commissioner of competition for the European Commission, said her agency also would scrutinize a Microsoft-Yahoo deal. 
The offer “raises troubling questions” for web users, Google said yesterday, questioning whether Microsoft would seek to exert “inappropriate” influence over the Internet. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith disputed the claims in a statement. 
Microsoft and Yahoo explored ways to work together in late 2006 and early 2007, according to a letter by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to the Yahoo board dated Jan. 31. Yahoo rejected the idea of being taken over by Microsoft a year ago, according to Ballmer, 51. 
“I doubt that Jerry and David want to sell Yahoo,” said Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of basketball’s Dallas Mavericks, who sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo in 1999. “But this is a very smart move for Microsoft. There will surely be a ton of duplication on the technology side, which should cut costs significantly.” 
The offer from Microsoft is one of many options Yahoo is evaluating, Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock said in a Feb. 1 e-mail to employees obtained by Bloomberg News. The board will respond after reviewing the alternatives, they said. If Yahoo accepts the deal, Yang stands to get about $1.6 billion in cash or Microsoft stock for his 52.8 million shares. 
Microsoft may seek to oust Yahoo board members should they reject its offer, said a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified. Under Yahoo’s bylaws, stockholders must nominate directors by March 13, ahead of the company’s annual meeting, the person said. 
Yahoo’s advisers, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., are approaching other potential bidders in search of a higher offer, the New York Times reported Feb. 2. 
Microsoft may have to raise its price to win over Yahoo’s board, said Jason Helfstein, an Oppenheimer & Co. analyst in New York. Helfstein suggested in a Feb. 1 report that an increase to as much as $40 a share, or about $53.5 billion, was possible.
Yang and co-founder David Filo, both then graduate students, started the company in 1995 with $2 million from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital in Menlo Park, California. Word of “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” had spread beyond their trailer at Stanford University, helping the site get up to a million hits a day within months of its debut, according to Yahoo’s corporate web site.

TITLE: Ryanair Profits Fall On Higher Fuel Costs
AUTHOR: By Tracy Alloway
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: LONDON — Ryanair Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest discount airline, said profit declined for the first time in seven quarters and may drop 50 percent next year on higher fuel costs and lower consumer spending. 
Ryanair shares fell the most in four years in Dublin trading. Third-quarter earnings excluding a gain from aircraft sales dropped 27 percent to 35 million euros ($52 million), or 2.35 cents a share, the company said in a statement Monday. 
Profit may fall to 235 million euros in the year starting April 1, when Ryanair is “essentially unhedged” against rising oil prices, the Dublin-based company said. Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary plans to cut ticket prices further and add routes to take market share from low-cost competitor EasyJet Plc as slowing European economies reduce demand for flights. 
“We’re fearful that Ryanair may now undergo a strategy of short-term pain for long-term gain by pushing through capacity growth in a tough environment,” said Ross McEvoy, an analyst at Bloxham Stockbrokers in Dublin who rates the stock “buy.” 
Ryanair shares fell as much as 55 cents, or 15 percent, to 3.05 euros, the biggest drop since Jan. 28, 2004. The stock was trading at 3.21 euros as of 1:16 p.m. local time, taking declines this year to 31 percent and reducing the company’s value to 4.76 billion euros. EasyJet, Europe’s No. 2 discount carrier, dropped as much as 11 percent, the most since Jan. 8. 
“The current outlook for the coming fiscal year is poor,” O’Leary said today. “The European airline sector is presently facing one of these cyclical downturns, with possibility of a perfect storm of higher oil prices, poor consumer demand, weaker Sterling and higher costs at unchecked monopoly airports.” 
Growth in the U.K., Ryanair’s biggest market, may slow to 1.8 percent this year, the lowest since 1992, according to economists, as higher credit costs and a housing slowdown curb consumer spending. British Airways Plc, Europe’s third-biggest carrier, last week warned of weakening bookings for economy- class, short-haul tickets — the Irish airline’s specialty. 
Ryanair has already cut average fares by 4 percent in the past year, to 39 euros, including baggage charges. Yields next fiscal year may be flat or fall further, the airline said Monday. 
Oil reached a record 100.09 a barrel on Jan. 3 and crude for March delivery was recently priced at $88.84 in New York. Ryanair is hedged at $65 a barrel this fiscal year but largely unprotected for the next. Fuel accounts for more than one- third of the company’s operating costs and a $1 movement in oil above $65 adds 14 million euros in annual costs. 
“The price went against us,” Chief Operating Officer Michael Cawley said in an interview. “At this stage we’ll take our chance on the spot price. It would be wrong to hedge if we felt there was a strong chance the market might fall.” 
Ryanair will start hedging if crude falls below $80 a barrel, O’Leary said at a press conference Monday. The CEO expects the price of oil to decline in a coming recession. 
“We think a recession is now likely,” he said. “In many ways we would welcome it. That may remove some competition.” 
Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted earnings of 35.6 million-euros for the fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31. Sales rose 16 percent to 569 million euros. 
Profit was clipped by the lower average fares, a doubling in charges at the carrier’s London Stansted hub and an increase in average flight lengths. 
Including a 12.1 million-euro gain from the sale of five Boeing Co. 737-800 aircraft, net income slipped 1.2 percent to 47.2 million euros. Year-earlier earnings were swollen by a 10 million-euro gain after a hotel operator canceled a contract, triggering a penalty. 
Ryanair is charging for non-flight-related items to help buoy revenue as ticket prices slide. So-called ancillary sales grew 30 percent in the period to 111 million euros. Tests with onboard mobile phones should start in April, the carrier said. 
Net income for the year through March should still increase by 18 percent to about 470 million euros, in line with previous guidance, the company said. Should oil decline to $75 a barrel, the “most optimistic” scenario, fiscal 2009 earnings may grow 6 percent to about 500 million euros, it said. The low-end estimate of 235 million euros is based on an oil price of $85 and a 5 percent drop in yields. 
Ryanair’s outlook may be excessively negative given that competitors are limiting growth plans, constraining overall capacity, said Stephen Furlong, an analyst at Davy Stockbrokers and house broker to the airline. He rates the stock “buy.”

TITLE: Bank’s Fate in Balance
AUTHOR: By Ben Livesey and Jon Menon
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: LONDON — Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group Ltd. was given until the end of the day on Monday to revise its offer for Northern Rock Plc. Luqman Arnold’s Olivant Advisers Ltd. dropped out of the contest saying it won’t submit a new bid. 
Virgin and its backers are competing with a standalone proposal by Northern Rock’s management team. Bidders for the bank, which has borrowed about 24 billion pounds ($47 billion) in emergency aid since September, will submit revised proposals based on a funding plan guaranteed by the government. 
“If they do have some money, from a government perspective Virgin will be the leading prospect,’’ said Ralph Silva, research director at London-based Tower Group in an interview Monday. “If investors make too much of a huff about this’’ the company will be nationalized, he said. 
Virgin’s original proposal, disclosed Nov. 26, pledges to inject about 1.3 billion pounds ($2.6 million) into the bank, of which $1,283 million would be a rights offer. The plan would give Virgin a stake of about 55 percent in the bank, Silva said. 
Northern Rock lost 8.3 percent to 88 pence in an extended closing auction in London, valuing the company at $730 million. The shares had earlier gained as much as 12 percent. 
Branson’s plan to maintain revenue at the company by selling Virgin Money products to Northern Rock customers may also help the company retain most of its jobs in England, Silva said.

TITLE: Friendships Count In Primaries
AUTHOR: By Adam Tanner
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SAN FRANCISCO — When campaigning for president in a country as large as the United States, it helps to have famous friends to share the campaigning.
With exhausted candidates hopscotching between 24 states as far apart as New York, California and Alaska, which are voting in primaries and caucuses on Tuesday, the help is all the more valuable.
For months, stars of local and national politics and celebrities have campaigned for the Democrat and Republican candidates, but ahead of the busiest day of the primary season called Super Tuesday, the pace has intensified.
Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, brother of slain President John Kennedy, held rallies and fundraisers for Democrat Barack Obama, trying to pass the luster of his family’s name to the Illinois senator.
“The Kennedy dynasty is ending, so I think this is their way of saying this is our last hope for change,” Rita Celidonio, 58, said at a Kennedy rally in Oakland on Friday. “They’re passing the mantle.”
Several attendees said an endorsement by John Kennedy’s only surviving child, Caroline Kennedy, helped solidify their vote for Obama. “That was a key editorial and became my point of no return,” said Drew Hess, 34, a real estate investor, said of Kennedy’s opinion column in the New York Times last week.
Obama is hoping Kennedy and others could contribute to a major upset in California, the nation’s most populous state and biggest electoral prize, where he is running neck-and-neck with Senator Hillary Clinton of New York in polls. Obama is spending the days before Tuesday’s vote in other states.
Former President Bill Clinton is the biggest star in his wife’s arsenal. His two terms saw prosperity, but he is also highly controversial as his impeachment following a tryst with an intern angered many party faithful, and he has irritated some voters with negative remarks about Obama.
Politicians with local support if not the famed Clinton name have also lent a hand.
“It lends credibility to a campaign,” said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who campaigned for Clinton, a Democrat, in California, Nevada and Iowa. “It does help motivate staff and volunteers to see someone they recognize.”
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has sent his five adult children and wife off to remote states such as Alaska, Montana and North Dakota.
“I tell you, one of the reasons I love family is they’ve been working for me in this campaign,” joked Romney, who has stressed family values as a political issue.
Action film star Chuck Norris has helped attract attention to a previously little known former Governor Mike Huckabee, who won the Republican Iowa caucus. When another actor known for his brawn, Sylvester Stallone, declared his support for John McCain, the Arizona senator enthusiastically responded: “Yeah! Rambo versus Chuck Norris!”
Sometimes, surrogates may say things that the campaign does not publicly embrace. At a recent debate, Huckabee explained that he did not agree with tough-guy Norris’ statement that McCain was too old.

TITLE: Nominations Up For Grabs On ‘Super Tuesday’
AUTHOR: By Charles Babington
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — The top presidential candidates and their big-name supporters campaigned from coast to coast Sunday, but one contender seemed atop everyone’s mind: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney contrasted themselves, and each other, with Clinton as though she were the nominee. Her Democratic rival, Barack Obama, played along to a degree, saying Clinton is so polarizing that he is their party’s better bet.
Rather than diverting the less-than-flattering attention, Clinton embraced it.
“I’ve been taking the incoming fire from Republicans for about 16 years now, and I’m still here, because I have been vetted, I have been tested,” she said in a TV interview before campaigning in Missouri and Minneapolis.
“There’s unlikely to be any new surprises,” Clinton added, implying the same cannot be said of Obama, who has been in Congress three years.
Her confidence notwithstanding, polls showed Obama narrowing the lead that Clinton has enjoyed among Democrats nationwide, even as McCain appeared to be pulling away from Romney.
With 24 states holding presidential contests Tuesday, Sunday was an intense day of campaigning and advertising, making it all the more remarkable that one figure managed to dominate so much of the talk and speculation.
For years the New York senator and former first lady has been an object of fascination, mystery and sometimes scorn by Americans, few of whom seem neutral toward her. She is the Democrat conservatives most love to hate, and McCain and Romney campaigned against her Sunday as if in a proxy battle against one another.
“If we want a party that is indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton on an issue like illegal immigration,” Romney said, “we’re going to have John McCain as a nominee. That’s the wrong way to go.”
McCain, campaigning in Connecticut, said he has never sought special projects for his state, and added: “In her short time in the United States Senate, the senator from New York, Senator Clinton, got $500 million worth of pork barrel projects. My friends, that kind of thing is going to stop.”
The Clinton fascination is trickier for Obama. He wants to capitalize on Republicans’ opposition to her without agreeing that she is the inevitable nominee.
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” before campaigning in Delaware, the Illinois senator said the problem is “not all of Senator Clinton’s making, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Republicans consider her a polarizing figure.”
Obama drew an impressive crowd of 20,000 in downtown Wilmington, but his campaign attracted attention in other places, too. It said he would air a TV ad during the Super Bowl, an expensive time slot, in two dozen states with presidential contests this month. And at a Los Angeles event, his stand-ins were his wife, Michelle, TV star Oprah Winfrey, and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President Kennedy.
They were joined by, Maria Shriver, the wife of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who followed in the steps of Caroline and their uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, in endorsing Obama.
“I thought, if Barack Obama was a state, he’d be California,” she said to a crowd of 9,000 inside UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. “Diverse, open, smart, independent, bucks tradition. Innovative. Inspirational. Dreamer. Leader.”
Winfrey bridled at criticism she received after her first campaign foray for Obama in three early voting states.
“You know, after Iowa, there were some women who had the nerve to say to me, ‘How could you? How could you?’” she said, with mock indignation. “‘You’re a traitor to your gender.’”
The crowd booed.

TITLE: ‘Super Tuesday’ Calculations Set to Influence Vote’s Result
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: WASHINGTON — When it comes to presidential primaries, Democrats and Republicans play by different rules. One party likes to share. The other, not so much.
Which goes a long way toward explaining why Arizona Senator John McCain hopes to take control of the race for the Republican presidential nomination in Super Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses.
And why the busiest primary day in history may merely intensify the contest between Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
“The delegate selection process is designed to keep the campaign going for as long as possible” among Democrats, said Howard Wolfson, communications director for Clinton’s campaign.
The Democratic rules provide for delegates to be awarded proportionately on the basis of the popular vote. It wasn’t always that way, but a change designed to weaken the control of party bosses was ushered in after the riotous Vietnam War-era 1968 convention.
This year, Wolfson added, the calendar “was designed to pick a candidate as quickly as possible.”
Instead, the result, he said, is “this unbelievable, grueling sprint from the 26th of December to the 5th of February that will not result in a nominee being chosen.”
The sprint has been no less grueling for Republicans. But the GOP’s winner-take-all contests make a difference.
McCain, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and others slogged through several contests, trading victories and dividing delegates.
Then came Florida, in which McCain pocketed all 57 delegates in a breakthrough triumph. Endorsements from numerous party leaders soon followed, including Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Rick Perry of Texas.
“It gives you a chance to end the race earlier,” said Charlie Black, a strategist for McCain. “Theirs is going to drag out.”
In all, Democrats have primaries in 15 states and caucuses in seven states and American Samoa on Tuesday, with 1,681 delegates at stake.
Republicans hold 15 primaries, five caucuses and one state convention, and pick 1,023 delegates.
Nine of the Republican contests are winner-take-all.
McCain is favored in primaries in five of them — his home state of Arizona, as well as Rudy Giuliani’s New York, and New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware. That’s a total of 251 delegates. Losers get none, no matter how close they come.

TITLE: Poor Taste Soul Politics
AUTHOR: By Richard Lourie
TEXT: Mentioning Senator Hillary Clinton’s name in an e-mail to a Moscow friend evoked a fury in the reply that caught me off guard. Though counting herself no great follower of President Vladimir Putin, my friend was still put out by Clinton’s comment that he had no soul. She was offended both as a patriot and as an Orthodox believer. 
It is never pleasant to hear your country’s leader compared to the walking dead — especially by a foreigner. This also would seem to be a perfect example of the “politics of personal destruction” that Bill Clinton wished to put aside during his own run for president. 
My friend and her family are beneficiaries of the success of the Putin years. They are able to worship freely without fear of consequence in their careers. They are able to make a decent, honest living and have risen from the squalor of a communal apartment to acquiring a comfortable, spacious apartment of their own. They travel frequently and freely. Though they speak of their annual vacation in Spain with casual insouciance, on some level they remember when the Soviet border had a lock and key. Their pleasures are keener precisely because they don’t take them for granted. 
Critical voices will immediately point out that religious freedom really began in 1988, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the celebration of the 1,000th anniversary of Christianity in Russia. Freedom of travel was already well developed under President Boris Yeltsin as was economic opportunity. But those things had a different quality under Gorbachev and Yeltsin — they were exceptional, a lark, a spree. A chance to grab a billion from a collapsing state and a fairly regular and predictable business environment are two different things. 
To some degree, remarks are always taken out of context. Every remark is made in the context of a culture with its own complex webs of associations and attitudes. Hillary Clinton’s remarks were an offhanded crowd-pleaser  — a joke told to a group of voters in New Hampshire. But that sheen of softening humor wasn’t there when the words reverberated in Russia. By then, her words had only their naked meaning, and an unpleasant meaning it was in a country that is still smarting from the humiliations of the ‘90s. 
Warning against personalizing diplomacy, Clinton was playing off U.S. President George W. Bush’s famous remark about looking into Putin’s eyes and getting a sense of his soul. Her exact words were: “He was a KGB agent. By definition he doesn’t have a soul.” That kind of smart-aleck, college-girl remark may have played well in a small-town gathering of voters, but it doesn’t play well on the international stage. 
The Russian leadership, of course, also makes plenty of derogatory remarks about the United States that are, like Clinton’s, designed for domestic consumption only. But there are real differences. Putin almost never mentions the United States directly and certainly would never say anything openly hostile about Bush personally. Putin’s veiled assertions can, however, be more pervasively poisonous than outright denunciations. 
One thing does, however, seem certain. Whatever actual configuration Russian politics assumes after the March 2 presidential election, Putin is going to be a force to be reckoned with for a good while to come. That’s no secret and should have been clear to Clinton. So where was her vaunted experience when that remark was made? 
It wasn’t something Barack Obama would have said. He’s got too much soul. 

Richard Lourie is the author of “A Hatred For Tulips” and “Sakharov: A Biography.”

TITLE: A Perfect Couple
AUTHOR: By Vyacheslav  Nikonov
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin’s decision to serve as prime minister should First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev become the next president has made the duo’s electoral success in March a virtual certainty. Although Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, and Liberal Democrat Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky are running — in contrast with 2004, when they fielded stand-ins — neither will get more than 15 percent of the vote. And it will be difficult for Democratic Party leader Andrei Bogdanov to get more than 2 percent of the vote. 
But, while Medvedev’s victory in the first round of voting appears assured, important questions will arise after the ballots are counted: How will power be distributed between Medvedev and Putin? Who will be in charge? Will Russia have to rewrite its laws and Constitution to give the prime minister more official power? Is Putin risking his political future by accepting a formally secondary role and making himself accountable for all social and economic policy? 
The Constitution does not allow for a “technical presidency.” The head of state has extensive powers, which alone indicates that Medvedev will be a strong president. Moreover, Medvedev is a strong-willed politician and a very experienced administrator. 
But Putin will be a strong prime minister, if only because he’s Putin. He is set to remain the most popular person in the country for a long time to come. In consenting to become prime minister, Putin is well aware of what to expect.  After all, he served as prime minister for several months in 1999. 
Many commentators underestimate the prime minister’s powers. According to the Constitution, the prime minister is head of the executive branch, and the government is empowered to determine the main direction of domestic and foreign policy. 
Much depends on who is prime minister; heavyweight politicians holding the office can potentially eclipse the president. Recall Yevgeny Primakov or Putin at the end of Boris Yeltsin’s last presidential term, when it was obvious to everyone that the prime minister was running the country. 
The 2008 version of Prime Minister Putin will undoubtedly be stronger than the 1999 version. So no changes are required to the laws or the Constitution for him to remain a key political player. But Medvedev — youthful, energetic and with a fresh mandate — will be far stronger than Yeltsin was in 1999. 
A powerful prime minister seems preferable. One of the chief weaknesses in the design of Russia’s constitution is that power is separated from accountability. The president has the most power, but the government is held accountable for policy results. 
From this standpoint, the U.S. model, for example, is more successful because the head of state also leads the government. While not entirely addressing the flaws in the design, the new situation — with the strongest political figure heading the executive branch — will permit more effective performance by the government, which is still battling to recover from Putin’s administrative reforms of 2004. 
Many commentators have reproached Putin for agreeing to take a job that they say is beneath him. As prime minister, he would assume responsibility for building roads, social services, inflation and many other problems that could undermine his popularity. But Putin should be thanked rather than reproached. 
But how stable will this new polycentric system of governance be? How long will Medvedev remain president and Putin prime minister? What if they quarrel? 
Of course, stability requires agreement between the two key actors; and there are sure to be plenty of opponents and allies trying to stir up trouble between them. But Putin and Medvedev have worked together for more than 17 years with no serious conflicts. Moreover, Putin has never made a mistake about the loyalty of the people he promotes. 
In the Yeltsin era, sacked officials often took revenge by publishing their tell-all memoirs about their ex-bosses. In the Putin era, no one has done so. Former prime minister and Kremlin critic Mikhail Kasyanov was inherited from Yeltsin. When Putin made the most important appointment of his life — his choice of successor — one can be sure that his calculations were thorough. 
So Medvedev will become the next president and will hold that office for at least one full term. And Putin will remain prime minister throughout that time, with a good chance of becoming president again in 2012 or 2016 — or after any other presidential election over the next two decades. 

Vyacheslav Nikonov is president of the Politika Foundation. © Project Syndicate.

TITLE: Skeletons In The Closet
AUTHOR: By Roman Kupchinsky
TEXT: Reputed crime boss Semyon Mogilevich has been living comfortably in his villa in Moscow for the last seven or eight years. When he was suddenly arrested on Jan. 23, the logical question many asked was, “Why now?” 
One of the reasons might be tied to Gazprom’s recent push to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In order to do this, Gazprom must do some serious housecleaning, and it apparently decided to start by distancing itself from RosUkrEnergo, the gas trading company that is 50 percent owned by Gazprom. It is clear that Gazprom would have difficulty passing a thorough due-diligence investigation given its current links with RosUkrEnergo. 
When RosUkrEnergo was created in July 2004, it was Gazprombank, a structure that has been linked to the siloviki, that surfaced as the co-owner of the company. In mid-2006, Gazprom announced its intention to list on the NYSE, and it started to take a close look at what skeletons were in its closet. 
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is one of its biggest critics, and has demanded that RosUkrEnergo be shut down. 
By arresting Mogilevich, the Kremlin also displayed a measure of good will toward the United States, where Mogilevich remains on the FBI’s wanted list on charges of money laundering and fraud. 
In addition, the arrest boosts the image of First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. In October 2007, Medvedev, at the height of the controversy over RosUkrEnergo’s purported debt to Gazprom of more than $1 billion, told German television that Gazprom was a “fully transparent” company and that it would most likely “review its relationship to RosUkrEnergo in 2008.” 
One of the many power struggles between the siloviki and the “liberal” factions within the Kremlin involves a listing for Gazprom on the NYSE.  Medvedev would love to score this victory to rapidly increase the company’s market capitalization by billions of dollars. Whether Medvedev will succeed will depend largely on what happens with RosUkrEnergo. 

Roman Kupchinsky is a partner in the U.S.-based consulting firm AZEast.

TITLE: Pop Music as Key Tool In Armenian Elections
AUTHOR: By Matthew Collin
TEXT: As the race for Armenia’s presidency heats up, with candidates hurling abuse at each other and gunshots fired outside campaign offices, pop music has emerged as a propaganda tool in this increasingly fierce struggle for power. Last week, Serzh Sargsyan, the current prime minister and the favored candidate of the political establishment, deployed Armenia’s 2008 Eurovision Song Contest hopeful, Sirusho, as he chased the youth vote. 
Sirusho is a cheerful but chaste-looking former child star who seems to specialize in romantic ballads with an ethnic twist. She is one of a series of Armenian pop stars who have joined the Sargsyan roadshow and have publicly supported Serzh. 
When it comes to sugar-sweet choruses and faux R&B grooves, the opposition candidates seem to be lagging behind. But Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the first president of post-Soviet Armenia who recently made a dramatic comeback and is a candidate for the top job again, does have a feisty little ringtone available for download from his web site, featuring a campaign-trail chant over a breathless house groove. 
It’s called “Struggle,” which fits nicely with the clenched-fist campaign logo and Warhol-style portrait on the site. Meanwhile, Ter-Petrosyan seeks to portray himself as the righteous avenger riding into town to confront a ruling elite. 
And yet none of this comes close to the awesome propaganda spectacles staged by Mikheil Saakashvili during his recent campaign for re-election as the president of Georgia. As well as a high-tech traveling musical revue, there were also specially produced pop songs, one of which even managed to weave Saakashvili’s policy priorities — joining NATO and winning back Georgia’s breakaway regions — into a lyric titled “Misha is Cool.” 
Inevitably, many pop stars who publicly commit themselves to politicians are doing it out of self-interest: literally, singing for their suppers. Ukrainian rocker Oleg Skrypka, one of the musical heroes of Orange Revolution, once told me that some of those who played for Viktor Yushchenko during the 2004 election had switched sides after previously backing his opponent. “Pop is prostitution, so it was normal for them,” Skrypka said. “It was like at a market when you discuss the price. They discussed the price being offered by each candidate, but when they saw Yushchenko winning, they became the No. 1 revolutionaries.” 
Skrypka, of course, proved his commitment to his cause in subfreezing temperatures behind the barricades of Kiev. How many other singers would do the same if they were put to the test? 

Matthew Collin is a journalist in Tbilisi.

TITLE: Useless Dudes in Cyber Era
AUTHOR: By Mark H. Teeter
TEXT: February is National Reading Month in the United States — and not a moment too soon. Last November, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts issued “To Read or Not to Read,” a sobering report detailing how American youth have been reading progressively less and worse, with both frequency and proficiency declining at “troubling rates.” Once American kids enter adolescence, the NEA intoned, “they fall victim to a general culture which does not encourage or reinforce reading ... [so] they do more poorly in school, in the job market and in civic life.” Yikes. 
As American youth devolve from lettered erudition toward incoherent grunting, Russia is raising a generation of young readers who are kicking butt and taking names. The latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, compiled by Boston College researchers from 215,000 subjects in 40 countries, reports that in fourth-grade students’ ability to read both literary and informational texts, Russia’s children rank No. 1 in the world — and one with a bullet, as Russian scores improved markedly over last the PIRLS measurement in 2001. 
Before discouraged Americans decide to surrender world leadership to an impending tsunami of little Russian super-readers, consider several points. First, don’t panic: I have been hearing about the problems of U.S. literacy all my life, from “Why Johnny Can’t Read” (1955) to “A Nation at Risk” (1983) and the NEA’s earlier “Reading at Risk” (2004). These and myriad other fine studies have made serious points and contributions, surely, but they never head off further rounds of frightening reports, do they? 
Second, note a key demographic: The NEA reproves American teenagers, while the PIRLS lauds Russian ten-year-olds — apples and oranges. Actually, preteen Americans are improving. The percentage of 9-year-olds who “read almost every day for fun” rose a tad from 1984 to 2004, and the group’s median reading scores rose considerably. The problem comes at the next level: The percentage of 17-year-old daily readers plummeted during the 1984-2004 period, and their average reading scores declined correspondingly. 
What about Russian teenage readers? Will the bionic fourth-graders of PIRLS fame maintain their collective reading jones down the line? Judging by the former 10-year-olds I teach, the answer is: Ask a different question. While the Russian undergraduates I have seen from 2000 to 2008 do enjoy a somewhat broader base in traditional literature than my American students, the difference between them is nowhere near as great as that between both groups taken together and their analogues of 20 years ago in the venue and nature of their reading. Here, in fact, lies the real concern for both nations. 
Many U.S. students today, from elementary school through college, not only do the majority of their reading via the Internet, they apparently do the majority of their living there too. In the documentary “Growing Up Online,” shown on U.S. public television Jan. 22, viewers got a picture of youth culture more revealing and worrisome than the NEA’s. Here one saw a bright, engaging high school senior who, thanks to the short-cuts long available on the net, had never actually read a book — repeat, never. Viewers also met normal, prosperous parents who had literally no idea of the focus of their children’s lives — and sometimes deaths — until they learned what was happening in their offsprings’ cyberspace. 
Russia’s kids in aggregate are less invested in the aggressively expanding and largely unmonitored online universe than their U.S. peers, which might explain why mine seem somewhat more in touch with “dead-tree books.” But the gap is closing fast, as anyone who walks by Moscow’s Internet cafes knows. 
American teenagers are reading, all right, and writing, too — but in cyberversions of both. Their preferred texts are remixes that speed digestion  — such as the quick-study Internet Hamlet, where poor Yorick, formerly “a fellow of infinite jest,” becomes “a very funny guy” — while their writing limns a stark, post-demotic landscape of emoticons and pop text messaging (“i got $ r u up 4 smting kool 2nite?”). Russian kids text- message furiously, too, and may already be learning, alas, that the classic “superfluous men” of Russian literature are now “useless dudes” or something. 
So, it’s actually National Reading Month everywhere. But the real issue isn’t reading as such, it’s whether we — the useless dudes and funny guys who still read and write columns like this one — are ready to engage Literacy 2.0 and the brave new world it represents. 

Mark H. Teeter teaches English and Russian-American relations in Moscow.

TITLE: Millions Stranded as China Hit by Freeze
AUTHOR: By John Ruwitch
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CHENZHOU, China — Millions remained stranded in China on Monday ahead of the biggest holiday of the year as parts of the country suffered their coldest winter in a century.
Freezing weather has killed scores of people and left travelers stranded before the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival — the only opportunity many people have to take a holiday all year.
It has also brought China unwanted negative publicity six months before the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
President Hu Jintao chaired an emergency Politburo meeting on Sunday for the second time in a week to discuss rescue efforts.
“We have to be clear-minded that the inclement weather and severe disaster will continue to plague certain regions in the south,” said a statement issued after Sunday’s meeting. “Relief work will continue to face challenges, posing a tough task.”
The China Meteorological Administration said the weather was the coldest in 100 years in central Hubei and Hunan provinces, going by the total number of consecutive days of average temperature less than 1 degree Celsius (33.8 degrees Fahrenheit).
But it expected brighter weather ahead, though fog could become a problem and temperatures at night would likely still be below freezing, slowing the thaw.
“The weather over the disaster-stricken regions is likely to turn better in the next several days, but it is still necessary to remain alert for possible low temperatures, frozen rain, snow, freezing and heavy fog,” said administration head Zheng Guoguang.
He added the cold snap had caught the country off guard, in an area unprepared for such heavy snow. But climate change could see more extremes in weather in China, Zheng warned.
Four people died after a snow-laden roof collapsed at a fuel station in the eastern city of Nanjing on Sunday, Xinhua news agency said. One person was killed in a stampede at Guangzhou railway station in the south as people rushed to board trains. Roads and railways, some of which have been blocked for days, have started to move again, and fewer flights were being cancelled, state media said, offering a glimmer of hope.
Authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou said their priority was to clear the backlog of travelers, having cajoled millions of migrant workers to stay put and skip the holiday.
Elsewhere, efforts turned to restoring power and water, which some cities, such as Chenzhou in the south, have been without for more than a week, causing some to question China’s ability to handle emergencies months before Beijing holds the Olympics.
“Without power the only information we have been getting is by SMS from the government,” said Chenzhou resident Zheng Ninghong, tending a fruit stall amid the slush.
“There was one, I think, that said it would get warmer, but what we need is electricity.”
China has largely avoided unrest throughout the crisis, in part due to hundreds of thousands of soldiers and paramilitary police that have been deployed around the country to help with disaster relief and crowd control.
Mobilizing the might of the state, China has deployed more than 300,000 troops and nearly 1.1 million militia and army reservists to get traffic moving and ensure power supplies.
Pictures from Wuhan, capital of the central province of Hubei and lying at the middle reaches of the Yangtze and Han rivers, showed cars blanketed not by snow, but by ice. Riverside barriers and trees were draped in huge icicles.
The China Daily quoted Li Pumin, spokesman for top planning body the National Development and Reform Commission, as saying power plants in Beijing and Shanghai had only enough coal for less than seven days.
“But top economic planners said the country had reversed a sharp decline in coal reserves. There was enough coal on Saturday to generate electricity for the entire country for the next eight days,” the newspaper added.

TITLE: Giants Pull Off Historic Super Bowl Win
AUTHOR: By Barry Wilner
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GLENDALE, Arizona — With the Super Bowl on the line, look who had the perfection thing down Pat: Eli Manning and the road-conquering New York Giants. And what a beauty their 11th straight road victory was, a 17-14 Super Bowl win Sunday that shattered the New England Patriots’ unblemished season.
In one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, Manning, New York’s unlikely Mr. Cool, hit Plaxico Burress on a 13-yard fade with 35 seconds left. It was the Giants’ fourth consecutive postseason away win and the first time the Patriots tasted defeat in more than a year.
“There’s something about this team,” Manning said. “The way we win games, and performed in the playoffs in the stretch. We had total confidence in ourselves. The players believed in each other.”
It was the most bitter of losses, too, because 12-point favorite New England (18-1) was one play from winning and getting the ultimate revenge for being penalized for illegally taping opponents’ defensive signals in the season opener against the New York Jets.
“I don’t rank them,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “It’s disappointing.”
The Giants had the perfect answer for the suddenly imperfect Patriots: a big, bad defense and the improbable comeback led by Manning. Yes, Eli Manning, who outplayed league MVP Tom Brady and furthered the family legacy one year after older brother Peyton led Indianapolis to the title.
“I talked to Peyton and he said, `Go in there, have some fun, you can do it.’”
It was how Eli and the Giants did it.
After Brady found Randy Moss for a 6-yard touchdown with 2:42 to go, New England’s defense couldn’t stop a final, frantic 12-play, 83-yard drive. It featured Manning’s unlikely sack-avoiding scramble and a spectacular leaping catch by David Tyree, who had scored New York’s first touchdown on the opening drive of the fourth quarter.
“It’s the greatest feeling in professional sports,” Burress said before bursting into tears.
“That’s a position you want to be in,” said Manning, who followed Peyton’s MVP performance last year with one of his own. “You can’t write a better script. There were so many big plays on that drive.”
And now the 1972 Miami Dolphins can pop another bottle of champagne in celebration of a record still intact, the NFL’s only perfect season.
“As for the 1972 Dolphins, I don’t take joy in the fact the Patriots lost — period,” said Jim Mandich, the tight end on the 17-0 team. “But I do relish and savor the fact that there has only been one unbeaten team in the history of the NFL, and it is the 1972 Miami Dolphins.”
The Patriots were done in not so much by the pressure of the first unbeaten season in 35 years as by the pressure of a smothering Giants pass rush. Brady, winner of his first three Super Bowls, was sacked five times, hurried a dozen more and at one point wound up on his knees, his hands on his hips following one of many poor throws in New England’s lowest scoring game of the season.
“They played well,” a dour Belichick said. “They made some plays. We made some plays. They just made a few more. We played as hard as we could. We just couldn’t make enough plays.”
Hardly a familiar position for the record-setting Patriots and their megastar quarterback. This time, it wasn’t the Patriots but the Giants making the game-winning rally. This time, the unflappable quarterback making the clutch play wasn’t Brady but Manning, who had been booed by Giants fans for most of his four seasons for a lack of emotion.
Oddly, it was a loss to the Patriots that sparked New York’s stunning run to its third Super Bowl and sixth NFL title. New England won 38-35 in Week 17 to finish the spotless regular season. But by playing hard in a meaningless game for them, the Giants (14-6) gained something of a swagger and Manning found his footing.
Their growing confidence carried them through playoff victories at Tampa, Dallas and Green Bay, and then past the mightiest opponent of all.
“Every team is beatable, you never know,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. “The right moment, the right time, every team is beatable.”
Not that the Patriots were very mighty this day. They even conceded with 1 second on the clock as Belichick ran across the field to shake the hand of Coughlin, then headed to the locker room, ignoring the final kneeldown.
That it was Manning taking that knee was stunning. He showed the maturity and brilliant precision late in the game usually associated with, well, Brady.
Peyton Manning was seen in a luxury box jumping up and pumping both fists when Burress, who didn’t practice all week because of injuries, caught the winning score.
“We just hung in there on offense, kept executing,” said Burress, who wasn’t far off on the 23-17 prediction he made a few days ago. “It came down to one play and we made it.”
The Giants became the first NFC wild card team to win a Super Bowl; four AFC teams have done it. They also are the second wild-card champions in three years, following the Pittsburgh Steelers after the 2005 season.
“It’s the way we went about our work,” Coughlin said of the 11-1 road record. “The road signified the coming together of a team. We rode that emotion all the way through.”
The upset also could be viewed as a source of revenge not only for the Giants, but for the other NFL teams over Spygate back in September. That cheating scandal made headlines again late in Super Bowl week, and could have placed an infinite cloud over New England’s perfection. Until the frantic fourth quarter, the only scoring came on the game’s first two drives.
The Giants did almost exactly what they sought with the opening kickoff, using up nearly 10 minutes to go 63 yards. Almost exactly, but not quite, because they settled for a 32-yard field goal after converting four third downs on the 16-play series. The 9:59 drive was the longest in Super Bowl history.
That 3-0 lead lasted for the rest of the quarter, but only because the Patriots were stopped at New York’s 1 as the period expired. On the next play, Laurence Maroney scored.
New England’s 12-play drive was aided by a 16-yard pass interference penalty on linebacker Antonio Pierce in the end zone. It began with Maroney’s 43-yard kickoff runback.
It was the fewest possessions in the first quarter of a Super Bowl.
New York’s first series of the second quarter looked dangerous after Amani Toomer’s lunging sideline catch for 38 yards. But rookie Steve Smith mishandled Manning’s throw at the New England 10, Ellis Hobbs intercepted and returned it 23 yards.
Those are opportunities teams can’t waste against a strong opponent, let alone the Patriots. It was Manning’s first interception of the postseason, albeit entirely not his fault; the last was by Hobbs in the season finale.
The Giants survived rookie Ahmad Bradshaw’s fumble, which he recovered, on their next series, because their league-leading pass rush came alive when the Patriots got the ball back. New York sacked Brady on successive plays, forcing a punt, but the Giants’ were hurt by an illegal batting of the ball penalty on Bradshaw after reaching the New England 25.
Justin Tuck’s second sack, in the final seconds of the half, forced a fumble recovered by New York teammate Osi Umenyiora. The Giants’ celebrated defensive line controlled much of the half, holding the most prolific offense in NFL history to a measly 81 yards and seven points. New England had the ball only 10:33.
“We played them five weeks ago and it was a three-point game,” Brady said. “And they made enough changes and really eliminated what we did offensively.”
But New York’s mistakes left the Giants with just three points at halftime — and there are no moral victories in Super Bowls.
So the Giants got a real one as the maturing Manning hung in to find Tyree for a 5-yard touchdown to cap an 80-yard drive for a 10-7 lead.
Pressed unlike they are accustomed to, the Patriots responded with their own 80-yard march as Brady finally got some time. Moss, who caught a record 23 of Brady’s record 50 TD throws this year, scored with 2:42 to go when cornerback Corey Webster fell. The first 19-0 season was right there.
Eli and the Giants snatched it away.

TITLE: Miller’s Mix Victorious In Super Combi
AUTHOR: By Jean-Luc Courthial
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: VAL D’ISERE, France — Bode Miller was far from his best in the slalom portion of Sunday’s World Cup super-combi, and that might be why the American won both the race and clinched the discipline title.
“I was at 40 percent in the slalom,” Miller said after winning in a combined time of 2 minutes, 18.45 seconds. “I know that if I’m at 100 percent in the slalom, chances are that I won’t finish.”
The American skied the Face de Bellevarde downhill leg in 1:33.88 in the morning, 1.37 seconds faster than second-place Didier Defago of Switzerland. Most of the slalom specialists trailed by more than a second.
“I’ve understood that when I’m at 100 percent in the downhill, it gives me more maneuvering room over my opponents,” Miller said. “I can then adjust in the slalom.”
Miller’s 30th win on the World Cup circuit, and fifth this season, was enough to give him his third super-combi title with 410 points. He won the discipline in 2003 and 2004.
The win also increased Miller’s lead in the overall World Cup standings.
“There are still four or five guys who can win the overall title,” said Miller, who won the top trophy in 2005.
Miller has 1,067 points after 28 races. Benjamin Raich of Austria is second with 945, and downhill leader Didier Cuche of Switzerland is next with 882.
Ivica Kostelic of Croatia, who finished second Sunday, 0.38 behind Miller, was second in the super-combi standings with 256 points.
Kostelic was 2.26 seconds off the pace after the downhill leg, but had the fastest slalom time. Croatian teammate Natko Zrncic-Dim was third.
Jean-Baptiste Grange was second in the super-combi standings before the race and the only skier who could prevent Miller from winning the discipline’s crystal globe.
The Frenchman trailed Miller by 2.77 seconds after the downhill run. He pushed himself to cut the deficit in the slalom, but did not finish, making two mistakes in the course’s upper section.
“I was not in a good rhythm,” Grange said. “To skid off the course can happen. But it’s due more to fatigue than pressure. I haven’t had a day off since Jan. 1.”
Grange ended up fourth in the standings with 220 points, 25 less than third-place Daniel Albrecht of Switzerland.
Despite Grange’s DNF, Miller praised him and other slalom specialists.
“I can’t compete in the slalom against guys like (Julien) Lizeroux or Grange, who invest all their energy in slalom,” said Miller, who also won the Bormio and Wengen downhills, the Kitzbuehel combined, and the Chamonix super-combi.
The next men’s World Cup race is a slalom scheduled for Saturday at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

TITLE: Sri Lanka Rocked By Bomb
AUTHOR: By Simon Gardner
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: COLOMBO — A defiant Sri Lankan military paraded tanks and troops as fighter jets flew overhead on Monday to mark the country’s 60th anniversary of independence amid fears Tamil Tiger rebels would attack the celebrations.
Thousands of police and troops were on high alert in the capital Colombo as the island’s armed forces put on a show of military might along a promenade by the Indian Ocean.
The parade came a day after a suspected female Tiger suicide bomber killed 11 people and wounded 92 in an attack on the island’s main train station, which sits a few hundred meters from the site of Monday’s parade.
Hours after the parade, a soldier was killed and three were wounded when a suspected Tiger roadside bomb hit an army tractor near the south-eastern town of Buttala, the latest in a litany of attacks as a 25-year civil war escalates.
“Two years ago no-one believed that terrorists could be defeated but during the last two years we made it a reality in our motherland,” President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in an address to assembled military top brass, politicians and diplomats, referring to territorial gains against the rebels in the east.

TITLE: Lewis Hamilton Target Of Racist Taunts in Spain
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MADRID — Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton suffered racist abuse from Spanish fans during testing at the Montmelo circuit in Barcelona, Spanish media reported on Sunday.
Reports in a number of papers said the McLaren driver was booed and insulted whenever he made his way from the team motorhome and into the pits on Saturday.
The correspondent from sports daily Marca said that shouts of “puto negro” (f***ing black) and “negro de mierda” (black shit) were clearly heard and that large sections of the crowd were involved.
“It is not right the way he is being treated,” McLaren test team manager Indy Lall was quoted as saying.
Marca said that the circuit director asked for fences to be put up around the McLaren paddock and ordered the removal of banners that had been put up opposite the team’s base.
Daily La Vanguardia also said the circuit director had reminded fans of their obligations at the venue.
“We would like to make a plea to the fans to behave correctly, no type of offensive behaviour can be tolerated,” circuit director Ramon Pradera was quoted as saying in the newspaper.
Hamilton, who finished runner-up in last year’s championship, has become a hate figure in Spain because of his rivalry with former McLaren team mate Fernando Alonso who now drives for Renault.
“McLaren has raced and tested on Spanish circuits for many years and everyone connected with the team regards Spain and the Spanish people with great affection, Lewis included,” said a McLaren spokeswoman.
Incidents of racism have plagued Spanish sport, in particular football, in recent years.

TITLE: Israel Hit by Deadly Suicide Attack In Town With Nuclear Reactor
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM — A suicide bomber on Monday blew himself up in the southern town that houses Israel’s secretive nuclear reactor, killing at least one Israeli and wounding six, authorities said. Police said a second attacker was shot dead before he could detonate his explosives belt.
It was the first suicide attack in Israel in a year, and officials were investigating whether the attackers came in through Egypt after Palestinians breached the Gaza-Egypt border last month. A violent offshoot of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement claimed responsibility, which could complicate recently renewed peace efforts.
Government officials dismissed the notion that the heavily guarded Dimona nuclear reactor was the target of the attackers. The explosion took place in an industrial area about six miles from the reactor site.
“We heard a large explosion and people started to run. I saw pieces of flesh flying in the air,” a witness identified only by her first name, Revital, told Army Radio.
Ambulances and a large contingent of soldiers, rescue workers and police rushed to the scene, a shopping center in the small, working class town. The dead Israeli woman was not identified.
“The terror organizations have showed again who they are and what they are,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel. 
“Their goal was and continues to be to kill Israeli citizens in their homes and their schools and in their shopping centers. Israel will continue to fight against this murderous terror as it is its duty and responsibility to secure the safety and security of Israel,” he said.
At Sunday’s Cabinet meeting, the heads of security services warned that because of the anarchy on the Gaza-Egypt frontier, Palestinian militants might enter Israel through Gaza’s Sinai desert to attack a civilian Israeli target, a government official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the Cabinet meeting was closed.
Southern Israel has been on alert against militant attacks since the Gaza Strip’s Islamic Hamas rulers breached the border with Egypt on Jan. 23. Egypt managed to reseal the border only on Sunday.
The breach made Israel’s Negev desert, where Dimona is located, more vulnerable to penetration by Palestinian militants who could enter through Egypt’s porous border about 40 miles away.
However, the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the group affiliated with Abbas’ Fatah movement that claimed responsibility, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that it sent attackers from the West Bank town of Ramallah to carry out the “heroic martyrdom bombing in Dimona.”

TITLE: Thousands Flee Chad as Rebels Withdraw
AUTHOR: By Moumine Ngarmbassa
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: N’DJAMENA, Chad — Thousands of civilians fled Chad’s capital on Monday after rebel forces pulled back from the city following two days of street fighting in an attempt to overthrow President Idriss Deby.
The central African country’s government said it had forced back the rebels, who had stormed into N’Djamena aboard armed pickup trucks. 
But the rebels called the pullback late on Sunday a “tactical withdrawal” before a renewed assault.
“We’re asking the population to leave,” rebel spokesman Abderamane Koullamalah told Radio France International (RFI). 
Chad’s Foreign Minister Ahmat Allam-mi said N’Djamena was calm and under the control of Deby’s government forces.
“The battle of N’Djamena is over,” he said, speaking to RFI from Addis Ababa where he had attended an African Union summit.
The rebels, including some of Deby’s former allies, denounce his 18-year rule as corrupt and dictatorial. Chad says they are backed by Sudan, which denies helping them and in turn accuses the Chadians of supporting rebels in its Darfur region.
The rebel attack, the second in under two years to hit the capital, forced France to use its troops stationed in its former colony to evacuate at least 700 French and other foreign nationals from the landlocked oil-producing state.
Inside N’Djamena, a Reuters reporter said there were no sounds of fighting on Monday morning.
Military vehicles belonging to government forces moved around the city. Bodies of dead civilians were visible in some streets, killed in two days of chaotic heavy fighting over the weekend that followed the rebel thrust into the city.
A Reuters correspondent across the Logone-Chari river from the city reported a flood of refugees streaming over the Ngueli bridge into Cameroon.
“I saw one girl wounded from a stray bullet in the back. There were children crying, almost all of them were frightened,” Reuters Television correspondent Emmanuel Braun said.
Rebel spokesman Koullamalah told RFI that rebel units were still “at the gates of the city.”
Earlier, the Chadian opposition quoted him as saying the rebel forces had made a tactical withdrawal to meet up with reinforcements.

TITLE: Keegan’s Side Stay Winless
AUTHOR: By Martyn Herman
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Michael Owen scored Newcastle United’s first goal since the return of Kevin Keegan as manager on Sunday but they could still only draw 1-1 at home with north-east rivals Middlesbrough.
The England striker rose high to head Newcastle in front from Emre’s free kick just before the hour of a lively contest at St James’ Park but Boro got a deserved equaliser with less than five minutes to go through Robert Huth’s looping header.
The result leaves Newcastle only seven points above the Premier League relegation zone in 12th place with tough matches against Aston Villa and Manchester United next up. Middlesbrough, in 13th, are five points above the bottom three.
Second from bottom Fulham gave their survival hopes a boost with a 2-1 victory at home to Villa after Aaron Hughes had gifted the visitors the lead with an own goal.
Simon Davies equalised when he flicked in a Jimmy Bullard free kick and Bullard then sealed a first victory for new manager Roy Hodgson with a superb late free kick.
Fulham have 19 points but are only three points behind Reading who are immediately above the drop zone. Defeat cost Villa the chance to move above Liverpool into fifth place.
Keegan was left frustrated in his search for a first victory since returning to the club after 11 years but it could have been far worse.
Boro squandered several chances in the second half notably through Gary O’Neil. In stoppage time they also had a goal disallowed when Jeremie Aliadiere smashed in a rebound after Stewart Downing’s free kick came back off the post.
On Saturday Arsenal took over top spot with a 3-1 victory at Manchester City while champions Manchester United needed a stoppage time equaliser in a 1-1 draw at Tottenham.

TITLE: Ghana Reaches Nations Semifinals
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ACCRA, Ghana — Host Ghana and tournament favorite Ivory Coast both reached the African Cup of Nations semifinals on Sunday, staying on course to meet each other in the Feb. 10 final.
Sulley Muntari set up goals in each half Sunday for Michael Essien and Junior Agogo, helping Ghana beat Nigeria 2-1 after Ayegbeni Yakubu had given the Super Eagles the lead.
Chelsea striker Didier Drogba scored his third goal of the tournament and his club teammate Salomon Kalou added two more in the Ivory Coast’s 5-0 rout of Guinea. Abdulkader Keita and Bakari Kone also scored.
Ghana will play either four-time winner Cameroon or 2004 champion Tunisia in the semifinals, while Ivory Coast will face either defending champion Egypt or outsider Angola.

TITLE: Two Earthquakes Strike Much of Central Africa
AUTHOR: By Arthur Asiimwe
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KIGALI, Rwanda — Earthquakes struck Rwanda and neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday, killing at least 30 people and seriously injuring 350 more, officials said.
The two quakes struck close together in Africa’s Great Lakes region hours apart along the western Great Rift Valley fault. The first quake, with a magnitude of 6.0 and its epicenter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, happened at 10:30 a.m., followed by another 5.0 quake in densely populated southern Rwanda at 1:56 p.m.
“The death toll has now increased to 25 from the earthquake. Two hundred have serious injuries,” Deputy Rwandan Police Chief Mary Gahonzire told Reuters. 
“Rescue efforts are underway but the number of dead could rise, as so many people are trapped.”
The acting governor of Congo’s South Kivu province, Bernard Watunakanza, told Reuters by telephone from the eastern town of Bukavu that aftershocks were happening “every 20 or 30 minutes.”
“Up to now there are five dead and 149 seriously injured. Many people are traumatised,” he said.
An official from Congo’s U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MONUC, said buildings had been destroyed in Bukavu.
“There is lots of damage. Many buildings have been hit. Lots of houses have completely collapsed,” said Jacqueline Chenard, MONUC spokeswoman in Bukavu.
Earthquakes are common in the western Great Rift Valley — a seismically active fault line straddling western Uganda, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and neighboring Tanzania.

TITLE: Russia Advances in Rain-Hit Fed Cup
AUTHOR: By Bernie Wilson
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SAN DIEGO, California — Steady rain washed out Sunday’s matches at the Fed Cup quarterfinal between Germany and the United States, forcing organizers to try again on Monday.
Officials waited four hours past the scheduled starting time before calling it a day. The rain let up for about an hour and workers attempted to dry off the court at La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club before the rain resumed and the match was postponed.
The best-of-5 series was tied at 1-1.
When it resumes, Lindsay Davenport is to play Tatjana Malek in the first reverse singles match, followed by Ashley Harkleroad against Sabine Lisicki. The doubles match is scheduled to be Davenport and Lisa Raymond against Julia Goerges and Anna-Lena Groenefeld.
The winner will move on to face defending champion Russia, which reached the semifinals behind Maria Sharapova. China and Spain also reached the semifinals.
Sharapova, who made her Fed Cup debut this weekend, cruised past Shahar Peer 6-1, 6-1 to give the Russians a 2-1 lead over host Israel. Anna Chakvetadze then defeated Tzipi Obziler 6-4, 6-2 and the Russian doubles team won the final point to make it 4-1.
“It’s a great win,” said Sharapova, who won her second straight Fed Cup match.
China edged France 3-2 despite losing both reverse singles matches to reach the World Group semifinals for the first time, and Spain took an insurmountable 3-1 lead over Italy.
Sharapova, who won the Australian Open last week for her third Grand Slam title, won nine games in a row from 1-1 in the first set. The Russian then won on her fifth match point.
“I realized I was one point from winning the match and I definitely had a few nerves toward the end but I am glad I won,” Sharapova said.
Yelena Vesnina and Dinara Safina completed the day for Russia by beating Peer and Obziler 6-0, 1-6, 6-4.
Sharapova was selected to Russia’s squad for last year’s Fed Cup final against Italy in Moscow, but was injured and didn’t play in the 4-0 win. The current team does not include No. 3 Svetlana Kuznetsova.
China went into Sunday’s three matches in Beijing with a 2-0 lead over France, but Virginie Razzano beat Li Na 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 and Nathalie Dechy defeated Yan Zi 6-3, 6-2 to even the score.
Yan and Zheng Jie then teamed to beat Dechy and Razzano 7-5, 7-6 (5) to put the Chinese into the semifinals.
“Our level is improving all the time,” China captain Jiang Hong-Wei. “We have more experience and more fight. The girls try very hard for the team. I hope we will be the strongest team.”
Anabel Medina Garrigues delivered the winning point for Spain by beating Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 6-1 in the first reverse singles match. Medina Garrigues won six straight games to close out the second set after losing the first game.
Italy got a point back in the second reverse singles match with Sara Errani beating Lourdes Dominguez-Lino 5-7, 6-4, 6-0.
Italy, which won its only Fed Cup title in 2006, reached the final last year but lost to Russia.
In World Group II, Japan beat Croatia 4-1. Also, it was Ukraine 2, Belgium 2; Czech Republic 2; Slovakia 2; and Argentina 2, Austria 1.

TITLE: Troubled Britney To Stay in Mental Ward
AUTHOR: By Sandy Cohen
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES, California — Britney Spears got her stay in a psychiatric ward extended Sunday, as doctors decided to keep her hospitalized an additional 14 days, someone close to the pop star told the Associated Press.
Spears was to be released from UCLA Medical Center’s psychiatric hospital Sunday, but doctors and a medical officer at the ward determined that she should remain, said the person, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
Spears was committed Thursday for a 72-hour hold for evaluation. Paramedics, flanked by a police escort of about a dozen officers on motorcycles, in cars and a helicopter, took Spears from her home to the psychiatric hospital before dawn.
To extend her stay, hospital staff members cited a section in the state law that allows patients to be retained for medical treatment if they are found to be gravely disabled or a danger to themselves or others, the person said.
A UCLA Medical Center spokesman did not immediately return a phone message Sunday seeking comment. Calls to attorneys Sorrell Trope, Spears’ personal lawyer, and Andrew Wallet, also were not returned.
Court Commissioner Reva Goetz ruled the day after Spears was hospitalized — and following a year of increasingly bizarre public behavior — that she needed to have someone else take over her personal and financial affairs.
Goetz named Spears’ father, James Spears, as her conservator. Goetz also named Spears father and Wallet as conservators of the pop star’s estate. A court creates a conservatorship when it concludes a person no longer can care for themselves or their personal and financial affairs.
In placing Spears in one, Goetz also issued a restraining order, keeping Sam Lutfi, the pop star’s friend and sometime manager, away from her.
Goetz also granted the conservator access to Spears’ medical records, as well as the right to restrict her visitors and to provide her with around-the-clock security. She ordered a hearing Monday to review the matter.
Spears’ current hospitalization is the second this year for the 26-year-old singer, who has been in spiral of bizarre behavior since November 2006, when she filed for divorce from Kevin Federline, the father of her sons, 1-year-old Jayden James and 2-year-old Sean Preston.
Since her breakup with Federline, Spears has been seen at public events in short skirts and without underwear, has shaved her head bald, run over a photographer’s foot with her car, left the scene of a fender bender, flogged another car with an umbrella and abandoned a car in traffic when it had a flat tire.
Recently, she was seen sitting on a sidewalk, holding her pet dog and crying.

TITLE: Married Sarkozy Cosy Next to Carla
AUTHOR: By Crispian Balmer and Sudip Kar-Gupta
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy married supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni at the Elysee Palace on Saturday, just three months after they started dating.
“Ms. Carla Bruni Tedeschi and Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy would like to announce that they got married this morning in the presence of their families and in the utmost privacy,” a statement from Sarkozy’s Elysee office said.
The pair tied the knot at a low-key, civil ceremony conducted by the mayor of the Paris district that houses the president’s grandiose official residence.
“I married two voters ... who live at 55 Rue du Faubourg St. Honore,” Mayor Francois Lebel told Europe 1 radio, giving the official address of the Elysee.
“The bride was wearing white and was ravishing, as usual,” he said, adding: “The bridegroom wasn’t bad either.”
Sarkozy and Bruni indicated last month that they planned to marry after a whirlwind romance and made clear that it would be a private affair, far from the eyes of the press.
Their relationship has been splashed across the media and Sarkozy’s popularity ratings have plunged in recent weeks, with voters complaining that the president was focusing too much on his private life and not enough on the country’s many problems, including rising prices and flagging consumer confidence.
Now they are wed, Sarkozy might find it easier to manage the relationship because Bruni will become the first lady of France and will start travelling with him on his many overseas trips.
Lebel said the wedding took place in a room on the first floor of the Elysee Palace and lasted about 20 minutes.
“There were around 20 people there, close family and a few friends,” he said. The mayor said the last French head of state to marry while in office was Napoleon III in 1853.
Sarkozy, 53, separated from his second wife Cecilia last October following an 11-year marriage and just five months after winning power. His colleagues said he was deeply upset by the divorce.
However, friends say he started seeing 40-year-old Bruni the following month and they were photographed visiting Paris Disneyland together in December. They then spent the Christmas holidays together in Egypt and Jordan.
Photos of the glamorous couple sparked a media backlash against Sarkozy, who was widely described as “president Bling Bling”, obsessed by the rich and famous. One opposition leader dubbed him a modern-age Louis XIV, France’s “Sun King.”
Their quickfire relationship also surprised many in his entourage.
Bruni, 40, has been portrayed as a man-eater in the press and has previously been linked with rock stars Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, as well as U.S. businessman Donald Trump and French former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius.
While she is a well-known leftist sympathizer, Sarkozy is a right-winger, viewed as a law and order hardliner.
Sarkozy’s own mother urged him not to re-marry after his divorce and Bruni herself has spoken out against marriage. 
“I’m monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy and polyandry,” she told the Figaro Madame magazine a year ago.
She has a son from a previous relationship, while Sarkozy has two grown-up sons from his first marriage, and a third son from his marriage to Cecilia.
Bruni threw a surprise birthday party for Sarkozy last week at her plush Paris home and friends say the pair are extremely happy together.
RTL radio said Sarkozy’s witness at the wedding was Nicolas Bazire, a senior figure in the LVMH luxury goods group, while Bruni’s witness was Mathilde Agostinelli, head of communications at Prada France.
The radio station also quoted Bernadette Chirac, wife of previous French President Jacques Chirac, as saying getting married at the Elysee, the president’s official residence, was “a wonderful thing”.
“I want to express all my best wishes to this new household. She is very, very beautiful,” she added.

TITLE: Be Nice to Rats, Activists Say
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING — An animal rights group called Monday for China to treat rats with kindness and respect, as millions across the nation begin to celebrate the coming Year of the Rat.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, said it has asked the Chinese government to consider animal welfare laws for rats used in laboratory experiments. The group also recommended a series of guidelines for animals used in science.
“Rats sing, they dream, and they express empathy for others,” Coco Yu of PETA’s Asia-Pacific branch said in a statement.
China has increasingly become a place of business for international pharmaceutical companies, the group said.
The country has a shoddy animal rights record. 
There is little animal welfare legislation, many zoos are poorly run and animal parts are traded for use in traditional Chinese medicine.

TITLE: Kenyan Sides Talk Amid Bloodshed
AUTHOR: By Tim Cocks and Duncan Miriri
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: NAIROBI, Kenya — Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan brought Kenya’s rival sides together again on Monday after a weekend of clashes cast a pall over a skeleton deal meant to stop a month of post-election bloodshed.
Annan, 69, mediated an agreement between the parties on Friday to take steps to end violence that has killed around 900 people, plus a commitment to resolve the crisis within 15 days.
The talks resumed on Monday with a Red Cross briefing on the extent of the bloodshed, officials said.
Underscoring the difficulty Annan faces, President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga traded harsh words on Friday. Clashes between groups of youths claiming allegiance to one side or the other raged over the weekend.
Kibaki says he fairly won the December 27 election that returned him to power and accuses Odinga of fanning violence. Odinga says Kibaki stole victory from him and refuses to recognize him as president.
Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula, who just returned from an African Union summit where his country was in the spotlight, said the east African regional bloc IGAD — chaired by Kenya’s government — would be involved in efforts to end the crisis.
“IGAD countries are sending their foreign ministers to Kenya on Wednesday to express solidarity with the people of Kenya and the dialogue that is going on,” he told reporters.
Wetangula said people on both sides had made statements “that could spoil the mediation talks” and urged a rapid solution.
“We cannot afford to be a permanent feature on television screens for all the wrong reasons,” he said.
Kenya’s image as a stable and prosperous African state has taken a serious hit as a result of a crisis that has harmed the economy and exposed bitter tribal divisions.
At least 900 people have been killed in politically-sparked ethnic clashes and police response to protests, and some 300,000 forced to flee their homes in one of Kenya’s worst periods since independence from Britain in 1963.
‘BE SERIOUS’
In the volatile and ethnically mixed western region, gangs fired arrows and threw rocks at each other in front of police who were unable or unwilling to intervene on Sunday.
On Monday, residents said calm had returned save for a little looting, and urged the politicians to get to work.
“Raila and Kibaki must be serious. They must not talk together and then go to the press saying something different. They should agree on what they tell Kenyans. We are confused,” farmer Sylvester Barake said, sitting in an empty gas station.
In an indication of gangs being organized, a white pickup delivered food and milk to youths in Chebilat before they used tires, petrol and straw to torch a medical centre.
Despite Annan’s efforts, Kibaki and Odinga remain at loggerheads, their bitter feud still raging over who won a vote observers said was too badly run for anyone to know.
If Annan achieves a compromise, it is unclear how quickly that will quell ethnic tensions, now in a cycle of attack and revenge that police appear unable to contain.
What started as a political dispute has uncorked decades-old divisions between tribal groups.

TITLE: Suicide Bomber Kills Four In Pakistan Ahead of Poll
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — A suicide bomber attacked a Pakistani military bus taking medical corps staff to work in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Monday, killing himself and four military personnel, security officials said.
Violence has intensified in Pakistan in recent months, with the army battling militants in the northwest and suicide bomb attacks in towns and cities, raising concern about prospects for the nuclear-armed country in the run-up to February 18 elections.
The bomber was on a motorcycle that rammed into the bus during the morning rush hour outside the army’s National Logistics Cell. Several vehicles were badly damaged and army caps were scattered on the floor of the destroyed bus.
City police chief Saud Aziz said the bomber killed himself and four others and the military said the four dead were its personnel. Police said about 25 were wounded, 10 seriously.
It was the seventh suicide bomb blast in Rawalpindi, where the army has its headquarters, in the past six months. The bomb went off about 100 meters (yards) from the rear of the army headquarters compound.
Earlier attacks included a blast on a bus taking staff of the main military intelligence agency and a gun and bomb attack that killed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as she was leaving an election rally on December 27.
A top interior ministry official in Punjab province, of which Rawalpindi is part, said more bombers were plotting to strike.
“We are receiving information that a new spate of these terrorist bombers is on and they have entered the province of Punjab in different localities,” provincial home secretary Khusro Pervaiz Khan told Dawn TV.
Punjab is the most important battleground in the parliamentary elections that are meant to complete a transition to civilian rule.