SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1352 (16), Friday, February 29, 2008
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Candidate Takes Lines From Putin
AUTHOR: By Francesca Mereu
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has promised to continue Vladimir Putin’s policies after his likely landslide victory in the March 2 presidential election.
He appears to be continuing Putin’s speech patterns as well.
In his public appearances since Putin publicly endorsed him for president in December, Medvedev has displayed a style of articulation that political allies and pundits say intentionally mimics that of the tough-talking Putin.
“Freedom is better than the lack of freedom — this principle should be at the core of our politics,” Medvedev said in a speech at the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum last week, sharply stressing the first syllable of each word and pausing for effect, just like his mentor. “I mean freedom in all its manifestations — personal freedom, economic freedom and, finally, freedom of expression.”
Medvedev’s cadence and enunciation are no accident, said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin spin doctor and State Duma deputy from United Russia, the party that nominated Medvedev for president.
Specialists have worked with Medvedev to make his voice sound “tougher” in response to focus-group data showing that voters want “someone like Putin,” Markov said.
But the strategy may not last long after the election, he added.
“Now he is picking up Putin’s style, but in the future he will correct it,” Markov said.
Given that Putin and Medvedev have the same image makers, their increasingly similar affectations come as no surprise, said Ilya Ponomaryov, a Duma deputy from pro-Kremlin party A Just Russia. By having him talk like Putin, Medvedev’s handlers are emphasizing that he is the president’s heir.
“[Former President Boris] Yeltsin was not so popular in our country, so Putin had to do his best to distance himself from him,” Ponomaryov said. “Now the situation is different. Any resemblance to Putin is only positive.”
A Just Russia, along with political parties Civil Force and the Agrarian Party, have backed Medvedev’s candidacy.
Maria Sergeyeva, Medvedev’s campaign spokeswoman, said she was unaware of any changes in Medvedev’s articulation. “We cannot comment on this because we have no information about it,” Sergeyeva said.
By parroting Putin’s speech, Medvedev is also reassuring voters that the relative stability under Putin will continue after he leaves office, said Alexei Mukhin, head of the Center for Political Information.
“The powers that be want to make people understand that nothing is going to change under a new president,” Mukhin added.
Medvedev has only recently begun studying up to become president, and the first step of any apprenticeship involves imitation, “like babies do with adults,” said political analyst Yury Korgunyuk, who said Medvedev was even imitating Putin’s gait.
“When he becomes president he will develop his own way of walking and talking, and then we will have Putin parroting him,” Korgunyuk said. “This is how things work in our country.”
Sergei Dorenko, a linguist and radio show host with Ekho Moskvy, said it was natural for Medvedev, 42, to imitate Putin.
“Medvedev is young, and Putin is the only president he has seen,” Dorenko said.
Putin’s predecessor, the late Yeltsin — famous for bouts of slurred speech and drunken public shenanigans — was hardly an example, nor was former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev with his heavy southern accent, Dorenko said.
“Before them we had the old and dying [Konstantin] Chernenko and the other old and dying [Yury] Andropov,” Dorenko added.
It is not the first time that Medvedev has taken to imitating his boss, said Stanislav Belkovsky, a Kremlin spin doctor turned political analyst.
After his appointment as deputy head of the presidential administration in 2000, Medvedev began to speak and behave like Alexander Voloshin, then head of Putin’s administration, Belkovsky said. At one point, Medvedev took things too far, adopting Voloshin’s habit of showing up late for work, Belkovsky said. “Putin told him he could come late when he was the next Voloshin,” he said.
Voloshin could not be reached for comment.
Despite the verbal mimicry, it is highly unlikely that President Medvedev will become a puppet in the hands of Putin, who has agreed to become prime minister after Medvedev’s likely election, a government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
“When he understands that the tough voice and diction he is now acquiring are his own, he will become a completely independent president,” the official said. “He will be close to Putin only for a few months to learn the job.”
Putin, after all, consulted with Yeltsin daily during his first six months in power, the official said. “After that we saw what he did,” he said.
Medvedev is not the first Russian politician to imitate Putin: First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, once widely seen as a leading contender to succeed Putin, also adopted articulation strikingly similar to Putin’s before Medvedev’s anointment in December.
Nor is imitation reserved exclusively for Putin, said Vladimir Yevstafyev, vice president of the Russian Association of Communication Agencies, an organization of advertising and marketing companies. “Some time ago, everyone in [Unified Energy System chief Anatoly] Chubais’ team spoke like Chubais,” Yevstafyev said.
Chubais, a former deputy prime minister and former head of Yeltsin’s administration, was the architect of the voucher system that transferred thousands of state-owned companies into private hands in the 1990s.
“It’s nothing new in Russia to imitate the boss,” Yevstafyev said.

TITLE: Medvedev Slammed for Airtime Monopoly
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The current presidential election campaign has not differed much from previous ones, as the overwhelming majority of television coverage has gone to the Kremlin’s choice candidate, a report from a media monitor released Thursday says.
Legal changes introduced by the United Russia-controlled State Duma in 2005, meanwhile, and the general lack of transparency in the legal and administrative systems, have further entrenched the advantages enjoyed by those in power by denying opponents fair coverage.
The report presents the findings of a study by the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, which analyzed the coverage afforded the four presidential candidates in prime time — from 6 p.m. to midnight — from Feb. 2 to Feb. 25.
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev clocked 17.3 times more airtime on NTV than that combined for the other three candidates — Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Democratic Party head Andrei Bogdanov.
The equivalent numbers were 5.5 times on TV Center, 4.2 on Channel One and 1.8 on Rossia. Ren-TV provided more-or-less balanced coverage, offering almost equal airtime to all candidates except Bogdanov, who received about one-third of the coverage afforded the others.
The contents of the report were in line with other studies of the same issue.
There were 1,832 references to Medvedev on national television in a study covering all time slots between Dec. 10, when he was singled out by President Vladimir Putin as his preferred candidate, and Feb. 26, according to the Medialogia think tank, which focuses on the Russian media.
In the meantime, other candidates have received much less attention. Zhirinovsky was mentioned only 533 times, Zyuganov 479 and Andrei Bogdanov 258 times.
Like the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, Medialogia monitored only federal television channels: Channel One, Rossia, TV Center, NTV and Ren-TV.
Election law calls for equal access to media for all candidates. The national television channels are the main source of information for an overwhelming majority of Russians.
Medvedev’s decision not to take part in televised debates has not hurt his on-screen time, which has been a total of 84 hours and 33 minutes, according to the report. Zhirinovsky received about a third of this, with 29 hours and 36 minutes of coverage, Zyuganov was a bit further behind, at 24 hours and 45 minutes, and Bogdanov received just under 15 hours of coverage.
Medvedev’s dominance on the airwaves decreased in February, but there were still more references to him on television than to all the other candidates combined, according to Medialogia.
Challenged several times by Zyuganov’s campaign officials and by journalists over the lack of comment or action in the face of such a blatant slant in coverage, members of the Central Elections Commission stood by the conviction that Medvedev was covered not as a presidential candidate but as a senior government official doing his job.
Arkady Lyubarev, head of the monitoring department at the Independent Institute for Elections, pointed to a 2005 amendment to the election law allowing senior officials to run for office without taking leave from their official posts during the campaign period, as previously required.
“It is an abnormal situation now: Medvedev’s work is shown daily, which is actually campaigning, but you can’t prove that he was appearing as a candidate,” Lyubarev said.
Tatyana Stanovaya of the Center for Political Technologies joined Lyubarev in saying that, without the established political reputation enjoyed by Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky, the extra attention was important to bolstering Medvedev’s support.
Lilia Shibanova, executive director of Golos, Russia’s major independent elections watchdog, pointed to the fact that debates and campaign ads for other candidates are largely shown during the daytime or early morning, when most viewers are either sleeping or at work. In contrast, reports about Medvedev are shown on prime time news programs.
By dodging debates and having his campaign portrayed as coverage of his work as first deputy prime minister, Medvedev has deprived the race of its essence — political discussion — Shibanova said.
Earlier this week, two Moscow courts threw out cases filed by Zyuganov’s campaign demanding equal airtime on Channel One and Rossia. In both cases his campaign cited data from Medialogia.
Ostankinsky District Court Judge Alexander Bobrov ruled that the mere fact that all candidates had appeared on television meant they were receiving equal access, Kommersant reported Wednesday. Savyolovsky District Court Judge Tatyana Adamova has yet to disclose the grounds for her refusal of Zyuganov’s claim.
n A freelance journalist cooperating with the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations and the London-based Institute of War and Peace Reporting has been accused by Russian authorities of working in the northern Caucasus illegally, IWPR said in a statement Wednesday.
Alan Tskhurbayev had his office in Vladikavkaz raided on Feb. 11 by local police, who seized his computer and documents. Tskhurbayev has rejected the charges against him.

TITLE: Two Protesters Arrested for Carrying a New Iron Curtain
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Several dozen police on Thursday afternoon violently manhandled two liberal activists carrying a large sheet of rusty metal with the words “The Iron Curtain Returns” painted on it near the headquarters of the democratic party Yabloko.
Grigory Pashukevich and Alexander Gudimov, both members of Yabloko’s youth wing, were detained before they had managed to walk fifty meters with the ironic iron banner as they left the party office at 46 Ulitsa Mayakovskogo.
Tipped off that the pair would be in the street with the sign, the police had arrived early to observe the door of the building. Within seconds of the activists setting out, they were besieged by dozens of policemen coming from all directions. The police had apparently been hiding in nearby courtyards.
The police asked no questions as they grabbed the men, pushed them into a police van, kicked and trampled the metal sheet with their boots, and drove away. 
The spectacle, witnessed by about 20 journalists who had also been invited to see the activists carry the “iron curtain” as a protest against diminishing 
openness in Russia, lasted just under ten minutes.
The police refused to explain what laws the activists had violated but said carrying the metal sheet was “an unsanctioned outdoor action that must be immediately stopped.”
Gudimov said the plan had been to carry the metal sheet from the Yabloko headquarters to the office of the local branch of Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front on Vasilievsky Island, while also using the walk as a way to declare their political opinion. 
“It feels as if Russia has been taken back three decades in a time machine, so surreal our life has become,” Gudimov said before he set off on the walk. “The country is corrupt and ruled by double standards. The rich kids of the Russian elite are studying in the U.K. but with the St. Petersburg office of the British Council being forced to shut down, ordinary locals can no longer get the help of this organization; the European University, one of the most respected private universities, was closed.”
A “new Iron Curtain,” Gudimov continued, separates ordinary Russians not only from Western media and Western education, it imposes a strict control over every aspect of people’s lives, limiting rights to access information and express opinions.
Pashukevich said they chose this impromptu form of reaching out to fellow St. Petersburgers with their view on  Kremlin politics, because reaching an agreement with City Hall on holding a demonstration or meeting of protest has become virtually impossible. 
“Even when we get permission the police crush the protests so we thought that walking through the city with a banner is the only suitable option,” he added.
But Pashukevich seems to have underestimated police reaction to the idea.
Yabloko activist Darya Makukhina looked on in disbelief and horror as the police threw her fellow activists into the van. 
“I am bewildered,” Makukhina said. “They haven’t done anything wrong! A friend of mine was badly beaten by the police at the last Dissenters’ March and nobody has been punished. The police in Russia are above the law and the constitution. They go about as they please and do not even pretend to obey the law.”
Maxim Reznik, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko compared the detention with a special law enforcement operation against long-wanted repeat offenders.
“This is absurd; such a staggering police presence against two harmless and innocent people is insane,” Reznik said. “This is what you get in Russia when you want to express a critical opinion, even if it comes in the form of merely carrying a banner. Dissent is now regarded — and treated — as a crime by Russian law enforcement agencies.”
Yabloko activists were astounded by the vigor with which the officers attacked the improvised metal poster, calling the police behavior barbaric. 
Observers of the ferocious police reaction noted that leaving footsteps has been a signature style of the country’s police for many decades. In the Soviet era, underground artists were oppressed for ideological reasons, with the police breaking in to their studios, destroying their displays and leaving footprints on their canvasses. 
Dmitry Shagin, an artist with the underground group Mitki, still owns one of his early paintings with a large print of a policeman’s boot on it.
On Monday, an opposition Dissenters’ March, organized by the anti-Kremlin political coalition the Other Russia, will take place in reaction to Sunday’s presidential election, widely seen as a coronation of Kremlin candidate Dmitry Medvedev without democratic merit. 
The demonstration will start at 5 p.m. outside the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall and end with a protest meeting in the Chershyshevsky Gardens. 
The route has been sanctioned by City Hall.

TITLE: Clinton Struggles With Name
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CLEVELAND — U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who has argued she would be stronger on foreign policy than rival Barack Obama, stumbled over the name of First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in a debate Tuesday.
When asked whether she knew the name of President Vladimir Putin’s certain successor, Clinton struggled.
“Um, Med-medvedova, whatever,” she finally said.
Obama, who fielded a second question, did not pronounce the name.
In Tuesday’s debate, both candidates criticized President George W.Bush’s policies on Russia.
“I can tell you that he’s a handpicked successor, that he is someone who is obviously being installed by Putin, who Putin can control, who has very little independence,” Clinton said. “This is a clever but transparent way for Putin to hold on to power, and it raises serious issues about how we’re going to deal with Russia going forward.”
Obama criticized Bush for neglecting the U.S.-Russia relationship after first saying he had seen Putin’s soul.
“[Bush] then proceeded to neglect our relationship with Russia at a time when Putin was strangling any opposition in the country, when he was consolidating power, rattling sabers against his European neighbors as well as satellites of the former Soviet Union,” Obama said.
He said Medvedev “is somebody who was handpicked by Putin.”
Putin has not held back his feelings about the former U.S. first lady.
“A state official must at least have brains,” he snapped at a press conference earlier this month when asked about Clinton’s comment that former KGB officers do not have souls.

TITLE: Putin Attends Mariinsky’s 225th Anniversary Event
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The celebrated opera diva Anna Netrebko, of St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, received Russia’s highest state cultural honor in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.
President Vladimir Putin presented Netrebko and three other artists at the theater with the title People’s National Artist as the Mariinsky celebrated its 225th anniversary with a gala concert.
Putin, who attended the concert, also announced that the state would increase its funding of what he called “the cradle of Russian musical art” to up to 1.5 billion rubles ($62 million) a year.  Putin said that now the Mariinsky would have a budget equal to that of Moscow’s Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater.
In a speech, Putin said that the Mariinsky “brings fame to its country” and “generously gives its art to the audiences around the world.”
“Today, the state treats its spiritual properties, especially the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theaters, very responsibly. Therefore we’ll increase the budget of the theater,” Putin said.
He said the state would also allocate 3 billion rubles ($124 million) for the historic theater’s reconstruction in 2010-2012.
Mariinsky Theater director Valery Gergiev thanked the president emotionally for the support.
 “We now live in a country that goes forward with confidence. And special thanks to the president for the opportunities our theater now has,” he said.
Along with Netrebko, the title of National Artist was given to opera soloists Vasily Gerelo and Vladimir Galuzin, and ballerina Yulia Makhalina.
A string of other honors were handed out to artists, chorographers and administrators at the theater, whose opera and ballet companies are still known abroad by its Soviet-era name, the Kirov.
At the concert, Netrebko sang the song of Giuditta from the operetta of the same name. The superstar soprano, 36, moved around the stage so quickly that some of her fans — still excited about the announcement that Netrebko made two weeks ago that she is pregnant — became concerned.
Netrebko sang in the second part of the concert after she received her honor from Putin. Before that she said it would be hard for her to sing in “such excited mood.”
Mariinsky ballerina Ulyana Lopatkina performed a piece from “Raymonda.”
Also, Leonid Sarafanov and Alina Somova danced the pas de deux from the ballet “Le Corsaire.”
The Mariinsky Theater is one of the oldest theaters in Russia and counts among its alumni ballet dancers such as Anna Pavlova, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.  Each year the theater stages up to 12 premiers and undertakes tours around the world.

TITLE: 11 Regions to Vote on Sunday For New Parliament Deputies
AUTHOR: By Francesca Mereu
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Voters in 11 regions Sunday will cast ballots in local parliamentary elections coinciding with the presidential election. But they won’t have many liberal opposition candidates to choose from.
In the wake of a disastrous performance in the Dec. 2 State Duma elections, the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, is fielding candidates in only one region, while Yabloko is not on a single ballot.
“The party has no money,” senior Yabloko official Galina Mikhalyova said.
Requirements to get on the ballot vary depending on the region, but Yabloko would have had to put down about $50,000 in deposit money or collect about 10,000 signatures to register in a given region, Mikhalyova said.
“Both tasks are impossible for an opposition party,” she said.
SPS, meanwhile, will run only in the Ivanovo region, where the threshold to make it into the regional parliament is only 4 percent — three percentage points less than the threshold to make it into the State Duma.
Neither Yabloko nor SPS managed to break the 7 percent barrier in the Dec. 2 Duma elections, which they say were fraught with violations and abuses by authorities.

TITLE: Regions Put On Election Shows
AUTHOR: By David Nowak
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Hello to Spring! Goodbye to Winter!
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of either of these festivals, as neither had anyone else until regional officials conjured them up to entice people from their homes and down to their local polling station Sunday.
Perks being offered at polling stations in different regions across the country include the chance to win a car, vote for Sochi’s 2014 Olympic mascot, attend free concerts or fill up on free pancakes.
The need to get every last ballot into the box appears to have regional officials thinking outside it.
Come Sunday, every major pollster predicts that Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin’s handpicked successor, will be voted Russia’s next president.
But analysts say the Kremlin’s position is clear: For Medvedev to be handed the moral authority to implement whatever policies he sees fit, he will need a significant turnout. The more votes, the greater the legitimacy.
Central Elections Commission officials have predicted a nationwide turnout of 65 percent. Sochi city administration spokesman Dmitry Mikheyev said everything was being done to boost turnout.
“There will be a holiday atmosphere; the city will be alive,” Mikheyev said.
The program will include concerts and raffles on public squares to draw crowds and free public transport to help people get there. Local businesses have put up the prizes.
Only those casting a ballot will qualify for a raffle ticket, with prizes including three cars — one red, one white and one blue — and food discount vouchers.

TITLE: City Targets Private Investors
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: St. Petersburg’s government plans to attract private investors to help overhaul parts of the city’s economy that range from health care to utilities, municipal officials said Wednesday.
The municipality expects to present “more such projects” by the middle of this year, said Maxim Sokolov, the head of the committee on investments and strategic projects, at a roundtable discussion in St. Petersburg.
The authorities will look for partnerships to improve the infrastructure and energy supply in city districts undergoing extensive development, Sokolov said. Private investors will also be allowed to own and operate hospitals and pharmaceutical factories.
St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, is already pursuing four public-private initiatives in an effort to increase financing for the city’s aging road and transport network.
The municipality will hold a tender next month on a planned 30 billion-ruble ($1.2 billion) expansion of the city-owned Pulkovo airport and will offer a concession to run Pulkovo’s operations for as long as 30 years.
The Russian government transferred ownership of Pulkovo to the city last October after the municipality committed to attracting 30 billion rubles of outside financing for the airport’s overhaul.

TITLE: From One Electronics Firm To Another
AUTHOR: By Yekaterina Dranitsyna
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Contract electronics manufacturer Flextronics will open a plant in St. Petersburg this year, where the company will produce liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets in premises that formerly housed Elcoteq.
Elcoteq is selling its plant in St. Petersburg because the venture proved to be unprofitable. Despite the failure of its predecessor, Flextronics’ managers expect the plant to make a profit. The venture may be undertaken with the assistance of the local authorities.
“A new high-tech production enterprise will enable us to make use of the city’s human and scientific resources. The company plans to expand its production facilities, which fits in with the policy of innovation we have adopted in the city,” Valentina Matviyenko said Tuesday in a statement.
The governor stated that the local authorities would support the project “in every way.”
According to the agreement signed between Flextronics and the St. Petersburg government, the company is expected to invest $100 million in the production premises and the plant should employ about 2,000 people.
Elcoteq is also a global company specializing in electronics manufacturing services. The company constructed its plant in St. Petersburg from scratch and has operated it since 2005, producing telecom equipment mainly for export markets.
This enterprise did not seemingly get the same support and appreciation from the city government.
“The St. Petersburg plant has been loss-making due to underutilization, which was partially caused by the unfavorable custom duties for the import of components. The divestment of the Russian subsidiary will play a central role in improving Elcoteq’s profitability and balance sheet in 2008,” Jouni Hartikainen, Elcoteq’s president and CEO said Tuesday in a statement.
Flextronics is acquiring the whole of Elcoteq’s subsidiary in St. Petersburg, including the premises and personnel but excluding existing customer agreements. Neither company revealed the cost of the deal, but Elcoteq stated that it expects to make a one-off gain of approximately three million euros ($4.5 million) related to the sale.
The plant is 14,700 square meters in size and employed 550 people at the end of January this year.
“Flextronics is a larger company than Elcoteq — it should be easier for Flextronics to cooperate with the city authorities,” said Dmitriy Kuznetsov, deputy director of Balt-Audit-Expert.
“The Finnish company’s experience proved that foreign investors should be assisted. For the city it is a kind of investment in the employment and social wellbeing of the local population,” he added.
Kuznetsov indicated that the market for LCD television sets in Russia had grown quickly in recent years and has good prospects for further development.
“In Russia, people with average incomes cannot afford to buy property or get a mortgage. As a result, Russian families spend their disposable income on cars and consumer electronics. It is sensible not only to produce but also to sell electronics in Russia, thus economizing on customs taxes,” Kuznetsov said.
According to a statement issued by City Hall’s Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade (CEDIPT), the authorities plan to assist Flextronics in forging ties with local technical colleges to train their employees.
The city authorities will also assist the company in its negotiations with the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade in order to decrease import taxes.
“Considering that several automotive companies are establishing their production facilities in the city, the opening of a new electronics plant is significant. Electronics producers could supply components to automakers,” said Sergei Phiveiskiy, deputy chairman of CEDIPT.
“This project will increase the competitiveness of St. Petersburg and enhance the trade turnover of industrial products and equipment, both cross-border and on the local market,” Phiveiskiy said.
Authorities expect that global electronics manufacturers who cooperate with Flextronics could consider St. Petersburg as a possible production site.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>EBD Increases Assets</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Eurasian Bank for Development, an international financial institution founded by Russia and Kazakhstan, increased its assets by 70 percent over the last year up to $1.3 billion, the bank said Tuesday in a statement.
The bank earned a net profit of $39.26 million, quadrupling results from 2006. Capital increased by 37 percent up to $853.9 million.

<b>Makromir Profits Leap</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Makromir development company reported a net profit of $299.7 million last year, as opposed to $41.2 million in 2006, Interfax reported Tuesday.
Assets increased from $313 million to $1.057 billion, and capital from $92 million to $399 million. Outstanding debt increased from $127.2 million to $394.8 million and debt to shareholders from $35.2 million to $167.4 million.

<b>Water Tender Planned</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The St. Petersburg government is planning a tender for a concession agreement on the development of water supply to suburban districts, Interfax reported Wednesday.
The tender will be announced in November or December this year, and the winner will receive funding of 60 billion rubles ($2.5 billion). The winning company should complete the work within seven years.

<b>Lenenergo Investment</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Lenenergo power distribution company will increase investment by 72 percent this year up to 19 billion rubles ($788.7 million), Interfax reported Thursday.
In 2007, Lenenergo invested 11 billion rubles ($456.6 million). This year the company plans to construct three new power plants and reconstruct five existing power plants and networks.

<b>Turnover From Cars Up</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Strategiya Rost holding more than doubled turnover of its car division last year, the company said Tuesday in a statement.
In 2007, turnover accounted for 2.2 billion rubles ($91.3 million). The company sold 5,553 cars. As well as three dealer companies distributing General Motors and Honda cars, the holding includes a car insurance company.

<b>Port to Double Cargo</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — The Greater Port of St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland plans to double capacity by 2025 to handle an expected surge in shipments to and from the European Union, Russia’s biggest trading partner.
The port will be able to handle 70 million tons of cargo a year by 2015 and 120 million tons annually by 2025, versus 60 million tons last year, said Nikolai Asaul, head of the city’s transport committee. Most of the increased capacity will be for container traffic.
FGUP Rosmorport, the state-run operator of the port, plans to spend 4.7 billion rubles ($195 million) on upgrades and repairs this year, General Director Yury Parfenov said at a meeting at City Hall late Wednesday.
Cargo volume at the port has tripled in the past 10 years, since the start of the country’s current economic boom. Further expansion will require building new road and rail links to the complex, said Andrei Karpov, an adviser to St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko.

TITLE: Hungary Signs Up to South Stream Plan
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Hungary formally signed on Thursday a deal to join Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom’s $15.18 billion South Stream gas pipeline. The pipeline, which will be jointly built by Gazprom and Italy’s ENI, will take Russian gas to southern Europe.
Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany came to Moscow on Thursday to sign up for South Stream, the rival to the EU’s Nabucco project, handing Russia a victory in the battle to supply gas to Europe after Serbia and Bulgaria signed up too.
“Stable cooperation in the oil and gas sectors is a joint contribution by Russia and Hungary into Europe’s energy security,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said after the signing ceremony in the Kremlin.
Hungary’s government sought on Wednesday to defend its decision to join Gazprom’s South Stream gas pipeline which some observers fear will scupper plans for an EU-backed project to cut dependency on Russian energy supplies.
Zsolt Nemeth, chairman of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and the opposition Fidesz party’s foreign affairs spokesman told a committee hearing on Wednesday that Gyurcsany should not be allowed to sign up without a parliamentary vote.
“The fundamental problem of Fidesz with the South Stream pipeline is that it increases the unilateral dependence of Hungary on Russia (for gas supplies),” said Nemeth, head of foreign policy for the main opposition Fidesz party.
Gyurcsany has frequently been criticized for his closeness to Russia and the Hungarian government has flip-flopped on the issue of Nabucco as it is dependent on Russia for 80 percent of its gas needs, one of the highest levels in Europe.
Hungary is a key transit point for Russian gas piped from Ukraine and Gyurcsany agreed to join the 10 billion euro ($15.18 billion) South Stream project during a visit by Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin’s protege earlier this week.
The U.S. has been pushing the European Union to ensure that Nabucco, a 3,300 km (2,051 mile) $6 billion pipeline across Turkey to central Europe, gets built and warned last week that South Stream could end up costing $20 billion-$30 billion.
The Gazprom and ENI SpA project would pipe gas through the Balkans to Italy and a spur would come to Hungary under the deal signed on Thursday.
Nabucco, expected to start construction in 2010, is backed by a six-company consortium led by Austria’s OMV and also including Hungarian oil company MOL MOLB.BU.
Gyurcsany’s Socialist-led government said it remained committed to Nabucco and that it expected rising energy demand in both Hungary and Europe to support both projects.
Some analysts say that South Stream will soak up demand if it is built and make it harder for Nabucco to sign up customers which will place the financing of the project in jeopardy, thus increasing Gazprom’s stranglehold on Europe.
“The planned capacity of Nabucco would be 30 billion cubic metres. We are aware that this pipeline alone would not solve the supply problems of either Hungary, nor Europe,” Economy Minister Csaba Kakosy told the committee meeting.

TITLE: Russia Ends Dispute With India
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: NEW DELHI — India and Russia have ended a protracted dispute over the cost of a Soviet-era aircraft carrier which will be now sold at a higher price to the Indian navy in 2011, officials said Thursday.
Indian Defense Secretary V. K. Singh, returning from Moscow, said a new undisclosed price had been agreed for the 44,570-tonne Admiral Gorshkov.
Russian export firm Rosoboronexport in 2004 signed a deal to refurbish the carrier for 970 million dollars but last year demanded India pay an additional 1.2 billion dollars.
Singh declined to give details of the negotiations but conceded “there will be a substantial increase in the “reworked estimate” for the modernization of the 30-year-old ship.
Defense sources said India has agreed to pay up to 900 million dollars more for the carrier and added that a domestic shipbuilding yard was rushing experts to speed up the project.
“India is sending more than 100 trained personnel from its shipyard to the Sevmash shipyard to join 1,200 Russian personnel who are working on that ship,” a ministry official said.
Secretary Singh said the Gorshkov will be rechristened INS Vikramaditya and join the Indian navy as early as 2011.
Russia accounts for 70 percent of Indian arms supplies but late deliveries, and commercial disagreements, have led New Delhi to use other suppliers such as Israel, Britain, France and the United States.

TITLE: Ukraine Faces Gas Cuts Again As Talks Continue
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s president, facing a threatened cutoff of natural gas by Moscow next week, insisted Wednesday that his country has paid its debt, but Russia’s natural gas monopoly wasn’t satisfied.
Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom says it will cut off exports of Russian-origin gas to Ukraine on Monday unless the government signs documents on debt payment and future deliveries. Those documents are to formalize an agreement that President Viktor Yushchenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached this month to avert another threatened cutoff.
Yushchenko said Ukraine has paid its debt and “the tension in gas relations with Russia has been eased.”
But Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said Ukraine has only settled its debt for 2007 supplies.
“To pay what one owes for last year is not a heroic feat; there is nothing to be proud of,” Kupriyanov said.
Ukraine imports gas both from Central Asia and Russia, all of it arriving in Gazprom-controlled pipelines. Gazprom says about 25 percent of Ukraine’s gas imports are Russian-origin; that’s the portion Gazprom says it will cut off Monday if the documents aren’t signed.
Much of the Russian gas consumed in Western Europe comes in pipelines that cross Ukraine. A cutoff by Gazprom to Ukraine in January 2006 caused supply disruptions to Europe.
In the earlier cutoff threat this year, Gazprom said Ukraine owed $1.5 billion. But it later said Ukraine owed Russia for an additional 4 billion cubic meters of gas.
Ukraine refuses to pay some $80 million for natural gas consumed in 2006 because Moscow is asking it to pay for those supplies at the 2007 prices, according to the government.
The dispute underlines Ukraine’s dependence on Russia even as Yushchenko tries to move the country closer to the West. Russia is often accused of using its natural resources to bully countries that have political differences with the Kremlin.
Ukraine’s natural gas imports are clouded by going through a series of middlemen. Ukraine buys gas from an intermediary that is half-owned by Gazprom called RosUkrEnergo, which in turn sells it to the Ukrainian middleman UkrGazEnergo, which then supplies it to the national gas company, Naftogaz.
Yushchenko’s statement said the debt had been paid to the intermediaries. It was not clear if those companies in turn had paid Gazprom.
Under the Putin-Yushchenko agreement, the intermediaries are to be eliminated but will be replaced by two other middlemen companies — each to be half-owned by Gazprom and Naftogaz.
Many Ukrainian officials have sought elimination of all gas intermediaries, which they see as siphoning money into private pockets. Deputy Prime Minster Oleksandr Turchynov accused Gazprom of pressuring Ukraine over the debt because of Kiev’s opposition to middlemen.
“Despite attempts to whip up tensions around the gas issue, the government will continue its policy of bringing the gas market out of shadow, which means elimination of any intermediaries and shadowy criminal schemes,” Turchynov said.

TITLE: Never Underestimate Medvedev the Understudy
AUTHOR: By Jim Hoagland
TEXT: President Vladimir Putin will offer the next U.S. president a frail olive branch in the person of Dmitry Medvedev next Sunday, when voters dutifully go to the polls to ratify Medvedev as Putin’s chosen successor. 
Leadership changes in Moscow and Washington this year will provide an opening for a halt in the erosion of U.S.-Russian relations, as well as in the war of words that Putin has been waging. 
But three things need to happen. First, Medvedev must turn out to be the liberal reformer that Putin now allows him to say he is. Second, a new U.S. president will need to return quickly to a cooperative relationship with Russia on nuclear arms reductions and strategic stability, which the George W. Bush administration has largely abandoned. Finally, in their twilight months, Bush and Putin will need to manage their tangled relationship with a skill and restraint lacking thus far. 
Putin, who intends to continue wielding power as Medvedev’s prime minister, is offering only an option, not a commitment, by putting forward the charismatically challenged Medvedev to deal ceremonially with foreign leaders. 
Medvedev has used his position as a Kremlin administrator to win Putin’s complete trust, if former KGB officers possess such a thing. When Medvedev visited Washington a few years ago, his reserve and self-effacement made officials here wonder why he had made the trip — a sentiment I shared after questioning him over the course of a dinner held by the Nixon Center. 
But like Claudius under Caligula, or Anwar Sadat under Gamal Abdel Nasser, Medvedev survived by underreaching, while others perished by grasping for too much too soon. 
As recently as a year ago, then-Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was the clear front-runner for the presidency. When Putin launched a scathing broadside at Bush at the Munich security conference in February 2007, Ivanov played the contrasting good cop, delivering statesmanlike oratory promising global harmony. But his manifest impatience became politically fatal, Russian analysts say. 
Putin saved Russian provinces the trouble and expense of having primaries; they were all held in Putin’s mind. With his encouragement, Medvedev has given campaign speeches that promise respect for the rule of law, more personal freedoms, a much-reduced state role in the economy and cooperation with other countries, including the U.S. 
Were Medvedev to carry out these promises, he would have to uproot the siloviki whom Putin has installed both in the Kremlin and in corporate jobs where they have raked off fortunes. He would also have to reverse the country’s march away from democracy that has created much of the recent tension between Washington and Moscow. 
Putin, of course, may be playing a cynical, short-term game by extending such promises through Medvedev. He is warning the siloviki that they can be tossed to the anti-corruption wolves of public opinion if they ever cross him. Internationally, a more moderate stance by the Kremlin as a new U.S. president is being chosen may be an effort to coax the acknowledgment of Russia’s return as a global power that Putin craves. 
Some support for this idea comes from Putin’s relatively mild public reaction to Kosovo’s Feb. 17 declaration of independence and immediate Western recognition of the former Serbian province. Visiting Washington a few days later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down Kosovo as a point of U.S.-Russian conflict, saying the United Nations should determine what happens next. 
Putin had already signaled that Moscow would swallow Kosovo’s independence when he agreed recently to attend a NATO-Russia Council summit in Bucharest in April. His agreement came after months of strong attacks by Putin on decisions by Romania to join the alliance and host U.S. bases. 
NATO’s 27 members will meet with Putin in Bucharest after holding their own summit, where the focus should be on the alliance’s problems in Afghanistan. Bush will need to maintain alliance unity on that issue rather than risk new divisions by pushing for military agreements with Ukraine and Georgia, as some at the White House want. 
“Putin wants to be preoccupied with domestic business,” Peskov told me, portraying the Bucharest meeting as something of a swan song on the international scene for his boss. 
Who knows? It could be true— even if Putin doesn’t mean it to be. The examples of Claudius, Sadat and others show that underestimating understudies can be dangerous. Come to think of it, I guess Putin didn’t bother to see “All About Eve,” the 1950 U.S. classic film about an understudy who manipulates and betrays her mentor, when it was shown at the KGB’s intelligence training school during his student days in 1985, according to another graduate of that institution. 

Jim Hoagland is a columnist for The Washington Post, where this comment appeared.

TITLE: A Way to Let Abkhazia Live a Normal Life
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: Kosovo has declared its independence. Russia was only a spectator in the process, cheering as loud as it could and threatening the possibility of independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia’s two breakaway regions.
On the issue of unrecognized republics, Russians are split between two camps — patriots and liberals.
Patriots believe that Kosovo should be a part of Serbia, but when it comes to Abkhazia, it is a different matter entirely. They believe that Abkhazia should not be a part of Georgia. Liberals believe that Kosovo should be independent, but they also think that the situation in Abkhazia is different.
As it turns out, our patriots and liberals share remarkably similar views. They both agree that Kosovo is one thing and Abkhazia is quite another.
In my opinion, however, the two cases are identical. Both Serbia and Georgia freed themselves from the influence of the Soviet Union. After gaining freedom, both began instituting repressive measures against ethnic minorities in their territories — in Georgia, it was war; in Serbia, genocide. Thus, both of these small countries decided to become small versions of the Soviet Union.
Later, both nations underwent regime changes, and the current leaders in both countries would never repeat the mistakes of their predecessors.
What is the greatest difference between Kosovo and Abkhazia? It is not so much between these two regions themselves, but between Europe’s official position on Kosovo and the Kremlin’s position on Abkhazia.
Europe’s policy toward Kosovo is very rational. It does not want to support a weak semi-state in the center of the continent. Europe wants to see a self-sufficient Kosovo and recognizes that this is impossible without recognizing Kosovo’s independence.
On the surface, it appears that Moscow is providing assistance to Abkhazia, but it is really doing everything to ensure that Abkhazia never gains independence.
If Russia really wants to improve Abkhazia’s condition, it should stop doing two things. First, Moscow should put an end to the delays at the Russian-Abkhaz border crossing lasting hours. It should also stop provoking military conflicts on the border between Abkhazia and Georgia. Once Russia stops doing these two things, the people of Abkhazia will be able to lead a normal life.
The real problem is that Russia does not want Abkhazia to have a normal life. The endless waits at the border guarantee that no tourists, with the possible exception of the poorest, will ever try to visit Abkhazia. The constant skirmishes in the mountainous regions are a sure way to put off possible investors. As partial compensation, Moscow not only grants Abkhaz residents Russian passports, but also provides them with pensions and social benefits, fostering a sense of dependence on Moscow.
In reality, though, Russia is less interested in helping the people of Abkhazia than it is in causing problems for Georgia.
Abkhazia is destined to become independent. Having won the war against Georgia, this small republic already enjoys a sort of de facto independence from Tbilisi. Moreover, Abkhazia’s geographic position is such that the only road available to Georgia to invade Abkhazia is through the perilous Kodori Gorge, which Abkhazia can easily defend with a small group of fighters.
In any event, starting a war with Abkhazia would amount to fighting an entire people, and this would entail unacceptable military and civilian casualties for Georgia. Since President Mikheil Saakashvili is attempting to build a democratic state, he would not be willing to sustain these losses.
Any way you look at it, Abkhazia is doomed to become independent. And today’s democratic Georgia is doomed to pay the price for the previous government, which made two crucial mistakes — sending tanks into Abkhazia in 1992 and, even worse, losing the war. In a similar way, Serbia is also paying a high price for the crimes of former President Slobodan Milosevic.

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

TITLE: No escape
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Tequilajazzz, one of the city’s leading alternative rock bands, performs the second of its two traditional winter concerts on Friday — while the release of the band’s long-awaited new album has been postponed.
The band has to play many concerts to finance recording sessions, which, in turn, delays studio work, Tequilajazzz frontman Yevgeny Fyodorov explained.
According to Fyodorov, record labels are interested in the final product, but are reluctant to invest in it. “They are all ready to put out albums, but they say, ‘Bring us the album, we’ll listen to it and perhaps release it,” he said.
“So we work on a do-it-yourself basis. We don’t want to agree to crushing contractual terms because record labels follow interests of their own in any case. They look after their own profits,” he said.
“We don’t complain — this is our way, it’s rather hard, slow, but it’s understandable.” 
Fyodorov started out playing bass in the 1980s with a punk band called Obyekt Nashmeshek, or Target for Ridicule. It was the first punk band that managed to stage official concerts in the late 1980s, when it performed biting anti-establishment songs such as “Komsomol Card.”
In the following decade, Fyodorov split with frontman Alexander “Ricochet” Aksyonov and formed a new band, Tequilajazzz, which then played hard-edged rock. On Friday at Zoccolo, the band will play songs from an upcoming album — its first in five years.
In its latest incarnation, the band’s output is sophisticated soft-rock — personal songs dealing with children’s dreams, mental states or the subtleties of relationships.
The new, as yet untitled, album was expected to come out in February, but has been postponed. Tequilajazzz gave the public a taste of the new material by releasing a self-produced, four-track CD single called “Berlin” in September.
The idea was to “remind ourselves that we’re not only a live band,” Fyodorov said in a recent interview this week. True to its indie principles, the band sold the single at cost price, he said.
The band will play many of the new songs at Zoccolo, even though many don’t yet have names, Fyodorov said. All the songs on the upcoming album, which will be the band’s sixth, were composed during the past year.
“The name has nothing to do with geography,” Fyodorov said of “Berlin” and its title song. 
“It’s a figure of speech for how the song’s hero feels, as is usual in our songs. Just as our song ‘Aviation and Artillery’ had nothing to do with the armed forces, this one has nothing to do with Berlin.”
Recalling the explicitly political songs of Obyekt Nashmeshek, Fyodorov argued they still hit home. “Komsomol Card” was a harsh attack on the Soviet youth organization that “would sound relevant now if it was addressed toward current Kremlin-backed youth organizations,” he said.
But he describes his new songs as “a departure into romantic, Gumilyov-style stuff,” referring to the exotic, romantic verses of Nikolai Gumilyov, a Silver Age poet shot by the Bolsheviks in 1921.
“It could be called cultural escapism, perhaps,” he said, “but one can recall the fate of Gumilyov himself, whose end was eventually determined by the political situation. So it’s all interrelated.”
Even if the band’s new songs do not deal with politics, at live performances Fyodorov often comments on current affairs, whether it is election violations or Russia’s “dubious” victory of the Sochi 2014 Olympic bid.
“I don’t have any nostalgia for the [Soviet] political regime, the so-called stability,” he said. “It’s obvious that the Soviet Union is coming back or rather is being re-enforced, and I feel deep disappointment,” he said.
The long break that Tequilajazzz took before recording its new album was partly due to lack of funds, Fyodorov said. “We’re a self-financed band, so unfortunately, we have to finance our recordings ourselves. To record an album we have to play a lot of concerts, which distracts us from recording an album.”
But Fyodorov disagrees with the stereotype that bands should release regular studio recordings. “We don’t write songs for the sake of writing. We try to record strange things because we don’t want to repeat ourselves — and you’re always close to repeating yourselves in our genre, as pop music has many limitations,” he said.
“Releasing an album every year has been a contractual demand by the recording industry for several decades since the introduction of LPs. It is only linked to business, nothing else,” he said. “After all, a writer can take 10 years off and then publish a work of genius.”
For Sunday’s presidential elections, Fyodorov said he would obtain otkrepitelnoye udostoverenie, a certificate that allows one to vote in other places than the polling station nearest to their place of residence, beforehand.
“I’ll put it on the wall, or I’ll decide what to do with it later,” he said. “At least I will have it in my hands.”
Fyodorov, who describes his feeling about Russia’s political life as “deep disillusionment,” reckons the recent bans on concerts and arrests of punk rock fans who gathered to pay their tribute to the late Grazhdanskaya Oborona leader Yegor Letov are somehow connected to the upcoming elections.
“These are all suspicious moves [on the part of authorities] that happen on the eve of the elections, while the actions of the official candidates are held with much pomp. They marginalize the people who have been already marginalized even further, taking them out of civic life.”
According to Fyodorov, most rock musicians, who were once subversive, have turned into petit-bourgeois.
“I don’t want to upset musicians, but I think almost 98 percent of musicians and other artists, they just don’t care,” he said.
“When they get a chance to start making money, they all make money... It’s enough to watch some Sunday television program, when the presenter visits some artist for the viewers to see how they live. I have an impression that all the artists live in the same apartment — it all looks very similar, very petit-bourgeois. And usually there are no books anywhere — or they hide them in some secret room.
“Of course, there are people like Mikhail Borzykin [of Televizor] or Posledniye Tanki v Parizhe, who started to express their political stance — in very small clubs. But as a rule, everything is petit-bourgeois.”
However, Fyodorov said he sees positive changes in the city’s underground rock scene. 
“There’s a lot of interesting things happening on the very bottom, at Zoccolo or at Fish Fabrique — so many bands that I can’t remember their names,” he said.
“There’s a lot of interesting artists there, and what’s very pleasant is that they don’t even try to get to the top. They are part of a new formation and do not give a damn if they are played on [Russian rock station] Nashe Radio or not. 
“Only a few years ago the situation was opposite. Everybody wanted to get on there in order to play at the Nashestviye festival [the annual outdoor event promoted by the station]. There’s a lot of thinking people now. They are the people who understood the situation, who understood that you don’t need to compromise to get to the top. Nothing interesting happens at the top, as a rule.” 
The clampdown on freedoms also might lead to a new explosion of creative energy and protest in music, as it did in the 1980s, Fyodorov admitted.
“It can’t be ruled out, that’s what I am waiting for,” he said.
“A great number of very diverse bands emerged in the 1980s, and, because of my age, I grew up on that music. In fact, I am waiting for [a new rock explosion].”
 
Tequilajazzz will perform at Zoccolo on Friday. www.tequilajazzz.spb.ru

TITLE: Chernov’s
         choice
TEXT: Dozens of teenagers who had gathered, peacefully, to hold a memorial procession in memory of <b>Yegor Letov</b>, the late punk icon and leader of Grazhdanskaya  Oborona, and then were attacked by policemen who threw them into a police bus on Sunday, were detained for “minor public order offences,” the police said this week.
A total of 73 fans were detained, said Vyacheslav Stepanenko, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in St. Petersburg, by phone on Thursday. 
Stepanenko denied that the Letov memorial concert at Orlandina club later on Sunday had been stopped by the police, and explained that the heavy OMON police presence outside the club had been at “the promoter’s request,” following concerns about public order.
“When a person wearing a police uniform shouts, ‘There will be no concert,’ using foul language (it is actually a violation of the law), it’s difficult to say that the police have nothing to do with it,” said musician <b>Mikhail Novitsky</b>, whose band SP Babai was to perform, alongside other local bands.
The concert was stopped after a suspicious minor fire in the building, when the club was quickly filled by policemen and firemen, he said.
“The firemen appeared incredibly  quickly, as if they had been waiting round the corner,” said Novitsky, who said there were three police cars and an OMON police truck outside the club.
“It looks like something of an expensive treat when you have such a large number of OMON police keeping an eye on public order at a club concert,” he said.
Meanwhile, some of the musicians who were to perform at <b>The Other Song</b> concert at ROKS club, scheduled for Feb. 27, but canceled by the club last week — after a call from authorities, the bands believe — said they will perform at the Dissenters March instead.
Novitsky and Televizor frontman Mikhail Borzykin, who spoke at a press conference at the offices of the liberal party Yabloko this week, alongside actor Alexei Devotchenko and the United Civil Front’s local leader Olga Kurnosova, said they would perform several songs at a protest meeting at Chernyshevsky Gardens that would come at the end of the march.
The Dissenters March, protesting at the “cheat’s” manner in which the presidential elections have been conducting, will start near the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall at 5 p.m. on Monday.
Borzykin said he would not be voting in Sunday’s presidential election. “I will ignore the election, and I have nothing left to do but go to the Dissenters March on March 3,” he said.
“I don’t have much of a choice; my photo is on the front page of the newspaper calling people to come to the Dissenters’ March. Five of the activists who distribute the paper near metro stations have already been detained. One was beaten. The choice has been made. On March 3, I will go to the march,” he said.
<i>— By Sergey Chernov</i>

TITLE: Sell out
AUTHOR: By Guy Faulconbridge
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin’s icy blue gaze may soon be replaced by the softer brown eyes of his protege Dmitry Medvedev in the portraits that stare from the walls of tens of thousands of Russian offices.
Bureaucrats and businessmen have been snapping up Medvedev photographs ever since Putin — whose eyes famously gave President George W. Bush “a sense of his soul” — backed the former corporate lawyer as his successor last December.
Now Medvedev sales are soaring ahead of Sunday’s presidential election, in which he is set for an overwhelming victory. Russians hang framed pictures of the Kremlin chief in government offices, businesses and even schools in a show of public fealty that portrait sellers say has its roots in Tsarist history and the Soviet Union’s personality cults.
“Since it was announced Medvedev was the official successor, we immediately started getting inquiries about him and now Medvedev has really overtaken Putin in sales,” said Vladimir Tyshko, who sells photographic portraits of politicians.
“With the elections approaching, Medvedev is selling very well: about 70 percent of people want portraits of Medvedev and 30 percent want Putin now. Before Putin was of course the absolute leader by sales, now it is Medvedev” he said.
Tyshko’s www.vRamke.ru Internet shop sells a giant 1.2 meter-high Medvedev portrait for 20,000 rubles ($826.80). Smaller portraits, showing a benevolent-looking Medvedev, go for 2,000 rubles.
Russians have been putting up portraits of their tsars, general secretaries and presidents for centuries, though the tradition weakened slightly after the fall of the Soviet Union.
But Putin’s portrait is everywhere. Some officials even have several photographs of the former KGB spy to show their loyalty.
Putin, who plans to work as prime minister alongside President Medvedev, said this month he saw no need to hang his successor’s portrait in his office.
“In order to establish my relationship with Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvedev] I won’t need to hang his portrait on my wall if he is elected president,” Putin said.
“I don’t see anything shameful in the fact that bureaucrats have the portrait of their leader in their offices. I don’t see any servility or grovelling. This is an element of statehood in the same way as a flag or emblem.” But local officials are preparing for a new president.
“Representatives of the region took 40 of them not long ago,” said Alexander Smirnov, whose photograph studio in the Sverdlovsk region has been supplying local book shops with Medvedev photographs for 500 rubles each.
Under Putin the president’s face has turned into a mini-industry, with thousands of framed photographs sold and even watches, necklaces, carpets and “matryoshki” — traditional carved wooden dolls — bearing his portrait.
Many observers say Putin could remain the power behind the Kremlin throne after he steps down as president.
“The Medvedev ones have sold out,” said one shop assistant in a Moscow bookshop. “Buy the Putin one — he is still the boss.”

TITLE: Grounded
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: A new production of Richard Wagner’s early masterpiece “Der Fliegende Hollander” (The Flying Dutchman), which premiered on Sunday and Monday at the Mariinsky Theater, received a surprisingly tedious and stagnant rendition from British director Ian Judge.
It is hard to fault the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Valery Gergiev as it thrived in the tumultuous power, rage and excitement of Wagner’s score. Visually, however, the staging felt like an engine that would never start. 
Judge’s production, advertized as “the most important operatic premiere of the season” is replacing Temur Tchkheidze’s 1998 production which has not run since 2003 after the sets perished in a fire at the theater’s warehouse. Gergiev regarded the damaged show as one of the biggest losses of the blaze but nevertheless decided against asking the same team to reconstruct the production.
Gergiev instead recruited Judge — responsible for the Mariinsky’s 2001 rendition of Puccini’s “La Boheme” — whose 1992 staging of “Der Fliegende Hollander” at London’s Royal Opera House won rave reviews from the European press. The critics then described Judge’s take on Wagner as “terrific” and “a brilliant display of stagecraft.” 
“The boat transforms into the spinning room, the spinning room into the harbor; and the ingenuity of this theater magic counts among the most exciting technical achievements I have seen in the opera,” reads a review in the Independent on Sunday.
The substantial showbiz element in that show worked very much to the production’s advantage. But in the Mariinsky production the squeaking of a ladder overpowers the orchestra as stagehands struggled to push it. The director made the singers less busy. Senta and Hollander spent most of their stage time standing still glaring at the audience and singing out arias.
For those who saw the Covent Garden show, the Mariinsky production would strike them as remarkably static. Although the modest-sized Mariinsky stage is notorious among international directors for its limited technical capacities that restrict their creativity, the stationary nature of the new staging clearly has more to do with its director’s choice of a traditional approach.
Despite the lack of stage dynamism the production was not entirely unmoving, emotionally. Vladimir Vaneyev (Hollander) sang the role with flair and depth, creating a tormented and desperate wanderer torn by his cold and bottomless diabolic passions. Hollander was full of intensity and inconsolable pain.
Olga Sergeyeva (Senta) avoided the most common mistake of portraying her heroine as a hysteric. Without being overly shrill, Sergeyeva demonstrated a powerful dramatic timbre with a wealth of color and range. Her Senta was a troubled, restless and lonely soul never at peace with herself. 
German director Peter Konvichny, who staged “Der Fliegende Hollander” in Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater in 2004, interpreted the opera as a story of social outcasts, but Judge rejects incorporating a modern social context into the opera. His staging, unlike Konvichny’s, does not allude to modern realities. All characters exist within the limitations of the medieval German legend that Wagner’s opera is loosely based upon. Judge emphasized Senta’s emotional alienation by placing her with her back to the audience in a large bright-red armchair, the same color as Hollander’s ship. The airmchair stands across the stage from the other girls. Moving in a somnambulant fashion, Senta never seems to be able to break loose from her dreams about Hollander. It seems that the heroine’s erotic fantasies enslave her and alienate her from the outside world and the people around her. This idea never quite succeeds in getting from inside the director’s mind onto the stage to create a coherent acting concept.
For every director, one of the greatest challenges in “Der Fliegende Hollander” is the finale. While in Christine Mielitz’s production that is currently running in Vienna’s Staatsoper, Senta sets herself on fire and dies engulfed in the flames, Judge resorted to letting Senta and Hollander walk hand in hand into the sea to be slowly engulfed by a gigantic wave. 
So peaceful and serene is the finale with its consensual couple, that you would sooner believe you are watching newlyweds rather than a deranged woman driven to a suicide with her lover. As the light blue wave falls down on the couple, one wonders if the scene was meant to be a bedroom after all. 
The contrast with Wagner’s tumultuous, tempestuous score is astounding. While the orchestra reveals a story of untamed passion, the director visualizes it as a tranquil happy ending. Some orthodox Wagnerian audiences would regard that as a blasphemy.
The machinery used in the production evokes the obsolete resources still in use in Sweden’s historic Drottningholm Palace Theater dating from the 18th century, where a thunderstorm sound is created by banging a metal sheet and shaking a wooden container filled with stones. However, the old-fashioned machinery is part of the Drottningholm’s antique charm and the theater is used primarily for baroque operas. 
But at the modern Mariinsky Theater, the use of a sheet and a large ventilator to imitate a stormy sea is tough to swallow. It is simply too hard to believe.

TITLE: Beauty in motion
AUTHOR: By Alastair Macaulay
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: Audiences who came of age in the Iron Curtain era still find it astonishing to contemplate a career like Diana Vishneva’s. Vishneva is the prima ballerina of the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet in St. Petersburg, and appears on its foreign tours, dancing not just its old ballets but also its newly acquired Balanchine repertory. She is a leading guest artist with American Ballet Theater in its New York seasons at the Metropolitan Opera House, dancing both ballet classics and mid-20th-century gems by Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan. This week she is presenting a season of her own at City Center in New York, dancing in a triple bill of ballets created for and around her by more or less eminent choreographers.
Any such career was a mere pipe dream 30 years ago, when Irina Kolpakova of the Kirov was barred from the new choreography of the West, and when Natalia Makarova, by defecting, cut herself off from the Kirov company, whose style she still exemplified. Vishneva, by contrast, has new opportunities.
It’s hard to think of a more sheerly beautiful ballerina in the world today than Vishneva: the proportions of her body are delectably harmonious, and her porcelain-doll face is both wide-eyed and heart-shaped. And as her program’s title, “Beauty in Motion,” suggests, her beauty carries through from physique into physicality. She really can be doll-like, and sometimes adopts an air of contrived innocence; or she can be a true child of nature, gorgeously and blithely opening her lovely limbs out into the air like a nymph or sylph; or she can be a polished dynamo whose brilliance and control startle. Always she gives off light.
Though these three ballets must have been intended to display all these facets of her while also displaying her as an exponent of the new, they leave audiences feeling that they’re not getting quite enough of her. Of the three, only two bring rewards.
The program is billed as three acts. Act I is Alexei Ratmansky’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” by far the program’s most complex and rewarding work in terms of sheer dance. Schoenberg’s atonal 1912 score, still strange and difficult — even now, it sets listeners’ teeth on edge — abounds in paradoxes. The masculine title role is sung by a woman (here the mezzo-soprano Elena Sommer, singing the German text with a marked Russian accent), whose voice moves between speech and song. The Pierrot of the songs is both hero and fool; the drama contains excitement and pathos, naïveté and violence, and the mood shifts between delicate refinement and populist liveliness.
The program’s Act II, “F.L.O.W.” (“For Love of Women”), choreographed by Moses Pendleton, dips in and out of kitsch. The central scene of “F.L.O.W.” has Vishneva horizontal and seemingly nude on a mirrored slope. Now she is a dragonfly on the water’s edge; now a child curling back into fetal shape above her own twin; now one of those Cecil Beaton looking-glass photographs turned into dance; now Narcissus with his/her reflection. 
Act III, Dwight Roden’s “Three Point Turn,” is wall-to-wall neo-academic, pseudo-erotic cliché for three couples (Vishneva with Desmond Richardson, Maria Shevyakova with Lobukhin, and Yekaterina Ivannikova with Sergeev). Everything onstage — the high extensions, the pirouettes, the lunges, the lifts — is big, showy, fakey, with no contrasts in scale.
Everyone onstage dances like hell, and when we get to hell, it will be full of ballets like this. Its loud rock score, by David Rozenblatt, sounds like a refrigerator copulating with a hot tin roof.

“Beauty in Motion” continues through Sunday at City Center, 131 West 55th Street, New York. www.citycenter.org.

TITLE: Good things come in small packages
AUTHOR: By Regina Schrambling
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: Now that sushi has become as predictable as guacamole at cocktail parties, the last word in small bites is overdue for discovery.
Zakuski, a Russian tradition dating from Tolstoy’s time, is food made for drinkers, although teetotalers would have a hard time resisting temptation. The usual array laid out to pick and choose from includes savory, salty or highly seasoned snacks such as smoked salmon, stuffed eggs, meatballs, vegetable “caviars,” small servings of salad or big wedges of hot cheese or mushroom pie. The flavors are always dramatic but complementary, and the contrasting textures only amplify the experience of playing with food.
Zakuski translates as “small bites,” and the mix of one- or two-morsel choices on a single table or tray — hot and cold, homemade and store bought, aggressively seasoned and totally mellow — is what makes the classic idea so appealing.
Anya von Bremzen, an émigré from Moscow who literally wrote the book on zakuski with her 1990 “Please to the Table,” describes them as “another spin on meze, tapas and antipasto” and says they are comparable to smorgasbord in that “for the most part you can make a meal of them.” But you can’t do that without vodka — at least not in her birthplace, where they drink straight shots.
“The main reason Russians love zakuski is that they can’t drink vodka without eating,” Von Bremzen says. “It’s always: Toast, bottoms up, then eat zakuski, then have another vodka.”
Zakuski can be served for lunch or dinner, she added, or “whenever they’re ready to drink vodka, which for Russians is between 4 and 5.” Not for nothing are zakuski always eaten sitting down.
Unlike tapas, or Italian aperitivo, zakuski are always served on small plates with forks. A selection can be the start of a meal, followed by borscht, an entree and dessert, she says, but “a main course seems anticlimactic.”

Crossing borders
No one knows how zakuski originated, although the concept may have come from Scandinavia and was well established by the 19th century, “especially among the landed gentry, who lived on estates where everyone had to travel far; when people came over they served zakuski and vodka.”
In Poland, another country where vodka is the first beverage choice after water, zakuski are known as zakaski, and are typically served as a buffet before a main meal, especially at Easter, according to Andrew Ziobro, a vice president at Restaurant Associates who has made them a New Year’s Eve tradition at his home in New York City.
“Czechs don’t do it; Germans don’t,” Ziobro says.
“But the border between Russia and Poland changed so frequently I think there was a fluid movement [of food traditions]. It’s very similar to Swedish smorgasbord, and the Swedes invaded Poland at one time.”
The last time Ziobro served zakaski he included pickled flavors — chanterelles, porcini and herring — richness such as smoked sheep’s milk cheese and eggs stuffed with smoked shrimp and dill, and traditional dishes such as smoked meats with beet relish spiked with horseradish (“Polish ketchup”) and Warsaw salad with white beans, eggs, cucumbers and apple in sour cream. All were paired with vodka, of course.
While Russian zakuski vary by class and by region, Von Bremzen says the easy rule is three cold choices followed by three hot. Given that all of it is a sponge for vodka, the foundation is usually meat or fish with bread, black or white. Herring is always on offer, accompanied by raw onion rings or green onions and eggs, or made into canapés. Some kind of salmon or smoked whitefish might also be served, along with cold cuts and horseradish.
Another category of cold snacks is spreads meant to be eaten on lavash such as spinach, beet or eggplant purée (each enriched with a walnut sauce), or garlicky cheese or mushroom caviar.
Salads are essential: potato and beet; sauerkraut with boiled potatoes, dill and scallions in vinaigrette; or salad Olivier — poached chicken, potatoes, apples and pickles.
For hot zakuski, “lots of women make a cabbage pie or little piroshki,” Von Bremzen says.

Do try this at home
For anyone who wants to try zakuski at home, even with wine or Champagne rather than vodka, Von Bremzen’s top choices include a super-garlicky spinach dip and her mother’s shortcut version of the classic savory cheese pie, with a combination of grated mozzarella and feta seasoned with fresh cilantro and dill and baked in store-bought puff pastry. Her eggs stuffed with salmon caviar are also an elegant change from the usual bar snacks.
But zakuski are also open to interpretation. A few years ago in Estonia, I found the usual mushroom caviar transformed by the addition of smoked salmon and red pepper.
In Russia today the concept is changing, too. On Von Bremzen’s last trip to Moscow she said, traditional zakuski were hard to come by. Instead, the offerings were more international, with imports such as Iberico ham, bocconcini or venison carpaccio more common than vegetable caviar.
“There’s so much money there, it’s obscene,” Von Bremzen said.

TITLE: Russians to launch kimchi into space!
AUTHOR: By Choe Sang-Hun
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: SEOUL, South Korea — After South Korea began sending soldiers to fight beside American forces in Vietnam, President Park Chung-hee made an unusual plea. He wrote to President Lyndon Johnson to say that his troops were miserable, desperate for kimchi, the fermented cabbage dish that Koreans savor with almost every meal.
Chung Il-kwon, then the prime minister, delivered the letter to Washington. When he traveled overseas, he told Johnson, he longed for kimchi more than for his wife. The president acquiesced, financing the delivery of canned kimchi to the battlefield.
Now kimchi is set to conquer the final frontier: space.
When South Korea’s first astronaut, Ko San, blasts off April 8 aboard a Russian spaceship bound for the International Space Station, the beloved national dish will be on board.
Three top government research institutes spent millions of dollars and several years perfecting a version of kimchi that would not turn dangerous when exposed to cosmic rays or other forms of radiation and would not put off non-Korean astronauts with its pungency.
Their so-called space kimchi won approval this month from Russian authorities.
“This will greatly help my mission,” Ko, who is training in Russia, said in a statement transmitted through the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. “When you’re working in spacelike conditions and aren’t feeling too well, you miss Korean food.”
Kimchi has been a staple of Koreans’ diets for centuries. These days, South Koreans consume 1.6 million tons a year. Until recently, homemakers would prepare the dish by early winter, then bury the ingredients underground in huge clay pots. Now, many buy their kimchi at the store and keep it in special kimchi refrigerators, which help regulate the fermentation process.
It is hard to overstate kimchi’s importance to South Koreans, not just as a mainstay of their diet, but as a cultural touchstone. As with other peoples attached to their own national foods — Italians with their pasta, for example — South Koreans define themselves somewhat by the dish, which is most commonly made with cabbage and other vegetables and a variety of seasonings, including red chili peppers.
Many South Koreans say their fast-paced lives, which helped build their country’s economy into one of the biggest in the world in a matter of decades, owe much to the invigorating qualities of kimchi. Some take a kind of macho pleasure watching novices’ eyes water when the red chili makes contact with their throats the first time. And when Korean photographers try to organize the people they wish to take pictures of, they yell, “Kimchiiii.”
Ko’s trip will be an occasion for national celebration. Since 1961, 34 countries, including Vietnam, Mongolia and Afghanistan, have sent more than 470 astronauts into space. Koreans found their absence among the countries that fielded space missions humiliating, given their country’s economic stature. The government finally decided in 2004 to finance sending one scientific researcher into space.
Ko, a 30-year-old computer science engineer, beat 36,000 contestants in a government competition to earn his spot on board the Russian-made Soyuz rocket. He will travel with two cosmonauts and will stay in the International Space Station for 10 days conducting experiments.
Space cuisine has come a long way since the early days of exploration, when most of the food was squeezed out of tubes before it was discovered that regular food could be consumed in conditions of weightlessness. Now, astronauts can order from a fairly wide variety of foods, from chicken teriyaki to shrimp cocktail, with some modifications. For instance, hamburger rolls produce crumbs that can float off and clog equipment, so other breads are used. But the food at least looks, smells and tastes familiar.
Still, guest astronauts may carry special cuisine. One, Charles Simonyi, who spent part of the fortune he made at Microsoft to travel as a “space tourist” last year, took along a six-course meal prepared by the French chef Alain Ducasse.
The South Koreans created versions of several other foods for Ko’s mission, including instant noodles, hot pepper paste, fermented soybean soup and sticky rice. But kimchi was the toughest to turn into space food.
“The key was how to make a bacteria-free kimchi while retaining its unique taste, color and texture,” said Lee Ju-woon at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, who began working on the project in 2003 with samples of kimchi provided by his mother.
Ordinary kimchi is teeming with microbes, like lactic acid bacteria, which help fermentation. On Earth they are harmless, but scientists feared they could turn dangerous in space if cosmic rays and other radiation cause them to mutate.
Another problem was that kimchi has a short shelf life, especially when temperatures fluctuate rapidly, as they sometimes do in space.
“Imagine if a bag of kimchi starts fermenting and bubbling out of control and bursts all over the sensitive equipment of the spaceship,” Lee said.
He said his team found a way to kill the bacteria with radiation while retaining most of the original taste.
Kim Sung-soo, a Korea Food Research Institute scientist who also worked on “space kimchi,” said another challenge was reducing the strong smell, which can cause non-Koreans to blanch. He said researchers were able to reduce the smell by “one-third or by half,” according to tests conducted by local food companies.
 Ko, the Korean astronaut, said he would use the kimchi to foster cultural exchange. He plans to prepare a Korean dinner in the space station on April 12 to celebrate the 47th anniversary of the day the Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin became the first human in space.
The developers of the “space kimchi,” meanwhile, say their research will continue to benefit South Korea in a practical way even after Ko’s historic mission.
“This will help globalize kimchi,” Lee said.

TITLE: In the spotlight
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
TEXT: Last week, MTV Russia started a new showbiz gossip show called “Minimum Program,” which promised to tell you “everything you always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.” I was hoping the first 30-minute show would reveal who ordered the 2006 shooting of pop singer Avraam Russo, how many singers list their korporativki concerts on their tax returns and whether Vladimir Putin really enjoys watching his pet rock band Lyube sing “Kombat” for the 50th time — or just finds it too awkward to admit he’s more of a Leonard Cohen fan.
But as the philosophers say, it’s all about asking the right questions. And MTV did the job, as long as you wanted to know whether pop singer Slava’s breast popped out of her dress at the MTV film awards for publicity reasons and whether Svetlana Khorkina’s singing voice is as good as her triple saltos. The answer to both those questions was no, although opinion was divided on whether Slava’s bosom jumped or was pushed.
The breast incident took place on the red carpet in April last year — that’s how fresh the gossip was. Slava burst out of her plunging yellow dress just as she stepped into the camera flashes. I was standing nearby, but somehow missed this crucial moment, probably because I was turning blue with cold. If Slava did pull on some hidden string, as publicity-seeking journalist Otar Kushanashvili suggested on the show, it was a brave step. She was risking hypothermia on a particularly wintry evening, not to mention unfavorable comparisons with the event’s guest presenter, Pamela Anderson.
The show’s title is a crack at “Maximum Program,” a huge ratings winner on NTV, which specializes in shocking secrets of the stars — although the shocks and the stars often turn out to be somewhat less exciting than announced. MTV tried to mix it up a bit with graffiti-strewn backgrounds and racy camera work, plus its trademark repetition of sound-bite clips for the benefit of any watching goldfish.
The segments on a stripping female boxer and people having sex in nightclub bathrooms weren’t up to much, but there was gold among the dross and gratuitous shots of Anna Semenovich’s cleavage.
Khorkina, who has retired from gymnastics to concentrate on reality shows and being a United Russia Duma Deputy, talked of her budding pop career and sang a little in a hesitant voice. “In show business, I think you can go on stage and lip-synch,” she added frankly. The show cut to a clip of her doing just that, and very pretty she looked, too.
The best moment came when Viktoria Bonya, a former participant in the Dom-2 reality show, talked acidly of rapper Timati, who last year released a music video that was stylized to look like a homemade sex tape. Timati tried to sell the chance to be his partner for $100,000, but “apparently no one bought the role,” Bonya said scornfully. She makes sure that she gets paid for her own lightly clad photo shoots in men’s magazines.
What went unsaid — but hung in the air — was the fact that the finished video featured Timati cavorting with It Girl and reality show host Ksenia Sobchak. And the question that I’m not afraid to ask is whether she got a freebie or had to pay for the privilege of snuggling up to Timati’s gold medallions.
Call me old-fashioned, but I like to think that no money changed hands to bring about that strange liaison. It was just the moonlight, a camera crew and two of the biggest egos in Russian show business.

TITLE: A child’s eye view
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: MOSCOW — Just days before Russia’s presidential election, the country’s children have no doubt who will win, judging by an exhibition of drawings that opened Tuesday in Moscow.
The competition titled “Draw the Future President” so far features only Dmitry Medvedev and his backer President Vladimir Putin, according to Yekaterina Shumeiko, spokeswoman for the organisers, the weekly tabloid Express Gazeta.
The other three candidates in Sunday’s election do not feature at all.
In the drawings, shown on Express Gazeta’s website, the usually bland Medvedev appears in many guises. He cradles a newborn baby, heads into space, and dons a tight red singlet to help Putin lift up Russia.
Express Gazeta launched “Draw the Future President” not long after Putin named Medvedev his preferred successor late last year. Five hundred children aged between seven and 16 have submitted drawings from all over Russia.
Organizers expect 3,000 pictures by the end of the competition in May, when the new president will be inaugurated.
The lack of interest in the other three candidates reflects the way that massive Kremlin support and a near monopoly over coverage on state television have given Medvedev the mantle of president-in-waiting.
“Children see Dmitry Medvedev as president,” said Shumeiko.
Many pictures depict the government bureaucrat and Gazprom energy giant chairman as a kindly adult, including one drawing in which he meets a child’s grandmother to raise her pension.
A competition to draw Putin two years ago resulted in more colorful offers, including one showing the president conquering the moon and another where he brushes his teeth next to a solid gold toilet.
“Putin was already in his second term and they knew him well and love him. They do not know Medvedev at all.” said Shumeiko, pointing out that in many of the pictures Medvedev looks a lot like Putin.
The winner of the Putin competition took home a puppy related to the president’s dog Connie, with a keg of German beer given to the parents. The winner of the Medvedev contest will get a laptop computer.

TITLE: Design for living
AUTHOR: By Andrew Bender
PUBLISHER: The Los Angeles Times
TEXT: HELSINKI, Finland — “I’d prefer to face indoors,” I said to my friends Christopher and Dirk, who had taken me out for dinner on my first night in Finland’s capital last October.
We were about to be seated at Lasipalatsi, the “glass palace” restaurant. Although the view through the wall of windows was compelling — with the sharp angles of the Kiasma contemporary art museum on one end, the intricate brickwork of Stockmann Department Store on the other and trams and pedestrians coursing along the wide boulevard below — I was drawn to the warm reds and beiges, deep-grained blond woods and clean lines of the interior.
Fall and winter, with long nights and chilly temperatures, may not seem like the best seasons to visit Helsinki, but for design fans it’s prime time. The action moves indoors to the Modernist spaces that have made this country famous — shops, hotels, restaurants — plus a whole design district.
This is your chance to see the home base of familiar Modern designers, such as Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), the architect and furniture designer who was one of the first to make good design affordable. You’ve seen his work even if you didn’t know it was his: three-legged birch stools with legs rounded at the top, Savoy pattern glass vases that cradle flowers in their many crannies, geometric-patterned hanging lamps in lightweight, white-painted aluminum.
This also is the home of other design icons: Eliel and Eero Saarinen (buildings and furniture), Marimekko (textiles), Iittala (tableware), Fiskars (scissors), even Nokia (phones).

DESIGN CENTRAL
A design district in the town center continues to nurture this creativity. People here speak of designers with the reverence that Angelenos reserve for film directors.
The Design Museum is like taking Finnish Design 101. Although the 19th century building is Beaux Arts in style, its permanent collection focuses on the 20th century, minimalist and functional: ceramics in eternal shapes, blown glass, silver coffee servers and a whole wall of chairs. Exhibits stop around the 1980s, but the evolution is plain to see, from frilly, ornamental forms you might imagine in the palace of Russia’s Catherine the Great through simple Midcentury forms that remain important today.
Armed with this visual vocabulary, I next visited the nearby Design Forum Finland, a foundation that brings together dozens of contemporary artists and designers in special exhibits and a shop that had me saying, “Wow!” every few feet. I was tempted by Mika Ihanus’ easy-to-hold chopsticks, whose top ends twist like trees in the wind; Tonfisk Design’s white cylindrical coffee carafes, with cork caps and shells of bent birch at the base; tiny, flat, white, square ceramic plates with rounded corners, nesting in an oblong tray; flower-shaped reflectors for you (or your dog) to wear while walking at night.
The design district is just out the door, with about 150 shops and restaurants mostly clustered in a four-by-six-block section of the Punavuori neighborhood, a few blocks west of the harbor and south of the central railway station.
I quickly found myself browsing in a shop called Secco, whose Treasures of Wasteland collection recycles old materials into new. Inner tubes become shoulder bags; computer keys become key rings, jewelry and refrigerator magnets; UNICEF bags for shipping rice are transformed into slippers; old zippers find new life as bracelets; and used LPs become bowls and letter holders.
Sprinkled among the design district’s dozens of shops selling housewares are tiny clothing boutiques, which include cutting-edge designers such as Hanna Sarén and Ivana Helsinki, the first Finnish design house on the 2007 Paris Fashion Week runway, with “Fennofolk” designs that combine Scandinavian and Slavic motifs.
Then there are collectives such as HundPark, where young designers make a name for themselves with clothing and accessories, including hats, dolls and casual and club wear for men and women. My favorites — black-and-white woolen caps knitted with an airplane pattern, and a handkerchief printed with: “Oh, I think I dropped my handkerchief.”

Marimekko mecca
If you’re after established brands for the home, head to Esplanadi, the boulevard on either side of Esplanade Park, about a 10-minute walk away. First stop has to be Artek, the company Aalto started with his wife, Aino, and other collaborators. His three-legged 60 stool has never gone out of style.
Across the street is Marimekko, whose Kaivo pattern wall hanging (which looks like three eyes stacked atop one another) was an icon in the ‘70s. This pattern remains ever popular, alongside table linens and clothes in Marimekko’s signature bright colors, spots, stripes and patterns.
Down the block is Iittala, Finland’s best-known maker of tableware. It’s the official manufacturer of the Alvar Aalto line. While there, I shadowed some Japanese tourists, who declared the triangular bowls, stacking coffee servers and penguin-shaped pitchers “oshare” (cool).
It would be easy to spend a day or two shopping; maps of Design District Helsinki are available at shops, hotels and tourist offices. Prices, even accounting for the exchange rate, are similar to what you would pay for designer and handcrafted goods stateside; Aalto’s 60 stool, for example, retails at Artek for $169, comparable with online retailers.
While exploring Helsinki, be sure to sample some of the city’s atmospheric cafes and restaurants too. Perfect for a leisurely meal or a quick warmup.
Better yet, this is the land of the sauna — one of Finland’s great gifts to the world. Many homes and hotels here have them. I went with Christopher and Dirk to a historic gem of a sauna and pool, the municipal Yrjönkatu Swimming Hall, tucked into a corner just a quick walk from the design district.
Although there’s nothing Modernist about the building’s 1928 interior, it’s one of the city’s most memorable spaces. Encircling the pool are two stories of columns in shades of blue from sky through robin’s egg to royal, with white-curtained cabanas on the second level. Clothing is optional here — no one I saw in the pool wore anything more than a kickboard — and different days belong to each gender.
For this Angeleno, the sauna delivered on its promise of warmth and relaxation and turned the chill into a wintry mirage.

TITLE: Please sir, can I have some more?
AUTHOR: By Tobin Auber
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Soup & Wine // 24 Kazanskaya Ulitsa // Tel: 312 7690 // Open daily from midday to 12 a.m. // Menu in Russian and English // Lunch for three without alcohol 1,550 rubles ($64.50)

Small but perfectly formed, Soup & Wine is a welcome addition to the restaurant scene in St. Petersburg — a very reasonably priced eatery that’s ideal for a light lunch or somewhere to drop into after a ballet or on your way out for a night clubbing.
Housed in what must be one of the tiniest spaces on Kazanskaya Ulitsa, it could, at a push, seat about fifteen people. The designers have done well though, using high stools and high tables to maximize the room’s area, with a small bar at one end and the toilet door curtained off next to it. The décor is in warm tones, matching the wood used for the tables and chairs, and the styling is minimal, with the exception of a golden nodding cat on the bar and a potted plant on the windowsill that could pass as a small palm tree.
The selection of dishes isn’t huge, but neither are the prices. The soups range from 90 to 250 rubles ($3.75 to $10.50), while the wines (which come highly recommended but weren’t sampled on this trip) range from 500 to 1,900 rubles ($21 to $79) a bottle. In addition there are a selection of snacks and light meals that also won’t overly damage your bank balance.
We started with a French onion soup (140 rubles, $5.80) which was gladly lapped up by a self-confessed French-onion-soup fanatic. Her verdict was unequivocal — thick, served with nutmeg sprinkled round the edge of the dish and the traditional piece of French bread and Gruyere cheese on the top. The tomato soup (140 rubles, $5.80) was similarly well received, again given the thumbs up for its thickness, richness and freshness. The mushroom soup (180 rubles, $7.50), which was listed among the specials on the blackboard behind the bar, was more of the same story. We accompanied all this with a basket of wonderfully fresh bread (40 rubles, $1.60), the only minor niggle being that the portion could have been double or even treble the size. Otherwise, the perfect winter warmer to offset the truly miserable weather  that could be seen out on Kazanskaya. 
Next came two panini, all of the sandwich options being priced at 130 rubles ($5.50). Both the mozzarella and tomato and the brie and avocado were made with excellent ingredients and had just the right blend of crunchy exterior and succulent interior. Again, though, those looking for copious portions should seek elsewhere, with the sandwiches only half the expected size. 
The pear and walnut salad with a pear dressing (230 rubles, $9.50), on the other hand, was a far more satisfying affair — a generous portion served in a large bowl, it combined a somewhat bizarre but largely successful concoction of flavors. The apple pie (80 rubles, $3.30), was similarly large, though light in texture, while the homemade chocolate truffles (110 rubles, $4.50 for four) were strictly for those with a very sweet tooth.
A special mention should also go to the pot of strawberry flip fruit tea (120 rubles, $5), which was complemented for its tart flavor. 
As both prices and pretensions at St. Petersburg’s restaurants and cafes continue to rise at an alarming rate, then, Soup & Wine is something of a move in the right direction — simple fare in simple surroundings, neither of which will leave you with the feeling that you’re paying well over the odds.

TITLE: Blood, sweat and tears
AUTHOR: By Manohla Dargis
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
TEXT: “There Will Be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic American nightmare, arrives belching fire and brimstone and damnation to Hell. Set against the backdrop of the Southern California oil boom of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, it tells a story of greed and envy of biblical proportions — reverberating with Old Testament sound and fury and New Testament evangelicalism — which Anderson has mined from Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil!” There is no God but money in this oil-rich desert and his messenger is Daniel Plainview, a petroleum speculator played by a monstrous and shattering Daniel Day-Lewis.
Plainview is an American primitive. He’s more articulate and civilized than the crude, brutal title character in Frank Norris’s 1899 novel “McTeague,” and Erich von Stroheim’s masterly version of the same, “Greed.” But the two characters are brothers under the hide, coarse and animalistic, sentimental in matters of love and ruthless in matters of avarice. Anderson opens his story in 1898, closer to Norris’s novel than Sinclair’s, which begins in the years leading up to World War I. And the film’s opener is a stunner — spooky and strange, blanketed in shadows and nearly wordless. Inside a deep, dark hole, a man pickaxes the hard-packed soil like a bug gnawing through dirt. This is the earth mover, the ground shaker: Plainview.
Over the next two and a half mesmerizing hours Plainview will strike oil, then strike it rich and transform a bootstrapper’s dream into a terrifying prophecy about the coming American century. It’s a century he plunges into slicked in oil, dabbed with blood and accompanied by H. W. (eventually played by the newcomer Dillon Freasier), the child who enters his life in 1902 after he makes his first strike and seems to have burbled from the ground like the liquid itself. The brief scenes of Plainview’s first tender, awkward moments with H. W. will haunt the story. In one of the most quietly lovely images in a film of boisterous beauty, he gazes at the tiny, pale toddler, chucking him under the chin as they sit on a train very much alone.
“There Will Be Blood” involves a tangle of relationships, mainly intersecting sets of fathers and sons and pairs of brothers. (Like most of the finest American directors working now, Anderson makes little on-screen time for women.) But it is Plainview’s intense, needful bond with H. W. that raises the stakes and gives enormous emotional force to this expansively imagined period story with its pictorial and historical sweep, its raging fires, geysers of oil and inevitable blood. (Rarely has a film’s title seemed so ominous.) By the time H. W. is about 10, he has become a kind of partner to his father, at once a child and a sober little man with a jacket and neatly combed hair who dutifully stands by Plainview’s side as quiet as his conscience.
A large swath of the story takes place in 1911, by which point Plainview has become a successful oilman with his own fast-growing company. Flanked by the watchful H. W., he storms through California, sniffing out prospects and trying to persuade frenzied men and women to lease their land for drilling. (H. W. gives Plainview his human mask: “I’m a family man,” he proclaims to prospective leasers.) One day a gangling, unsmiling young man, Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), arrives with news that oil is seeping out of the ground at his family’s ranch. The stranger sells this information to Plainview, who promptly sets off with H. W. to a stretch of California desert where oil puddles the ground among the cactus, scrub and human misery.
Not long afterward oil is gushing out of that desert. The eruption rattles both the earth and the local population, whom Plainview soothes with promises. Poor, isolated, thirsting for water (they don’t have enough even to grow wheat), the dazed inhabitants gaze at the oilman like hungry baby birds. (Their barren town is oddly named Little Boston.) He promises schools, roads and water, delivering his sermon with a carefully enunciated, sepulchral voice that Day-Lewis seems to have largely borrowed from the director John Huston. Plainview is preaching a new gospel, though one soon challenged by another salesman, Paul Sunday’s Holy Roller brother, Eli (also Dano). A charismatic preacher looking to build a new church, Eli slithers into the story, one more snake in the desert.
 Anderson has always worn his influences openly, cribbing from Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman among others (he helped the ailing Altman with his final film, “A Prairie Home Companion”), but rarely has his movie love been as organically integrated into his work as it is here. Movie history weighs on every filmmaker, informs every cut, camera angle and movement. “There Will Be Blood” is very much a personal endeavor for Anderson; it feels like an act of possession. Yet it is also directly engaged with our cinematically constructed history, specifically with films — “Greed” and “Chinatown,” but also “Citizen Kane” — that have dismantled the mythologies of American success and, in doing so, replaced one utopian ideal for another, namely that of the movies themselves.
This is Anderson’s fifth feature and it proves a breakthrough for him as a filmmaker. Although there are more differences than similarities between it and the Sinclair book, the novel has provided him with something he has lacked in the past, a great theme. It may also help explain the new film’s narrative coherence. His first feature, “Sydney” (also known as “Hard Eight”), showed Anderson to be an intuitively gifted filmmaker, someone who was born to make images with a camera. His subsequent features — “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia” and “Punch-Drunk Love” — have ambition and flair, though to increasingly diminished ends. Elliptical, self-conscious, at times multithreaded, they contain passages of clarity and brilliance. But in their escalating stylization you feel the burdens of virtuosity, originality, independence.
“There Will Be Blood” exhibits much the same qualities as Anderson’s previous work — every shot seems exactly right — but its narrative form is more classical and less weighted down by the pressures of self-aware auteurism. It flows smoothly, linearly, building momentum and unbearable tension. Day-Lewis’s outsize performance, with its footnote references to Huston and strange, contorted Kabuki-like grimaces, occasionally breaks the skin of the film’s surface like a dangerous undertow. The actor seems to have invaded Plainview’s every atom, filling an otherwise empty vessel with so much rage and purpose you wait for him to blow. It’s a thrilling performance, among the greatest I’ve seen, purposefully alienating and brilliantly located at the juncture between cinematic realism and theatrical spectacle.
This tension between realism and spectacle runs like a fissure through the film and invests it with tremendous unease. You are constantly being pulled away from and toward the charismatic Plainview, whose pursuit of oil reads like a chapter from this nation’s grand narrative of discovery and conquest. His 1911 strike puts the contradictions of this story into graphic, visual terms. Anderson initially thrusts you close to the awesome power of the geyser, which soon bursts into flames, then pulls back for a longer view, his sensuously fluid camera keeping pace with Plainview and his men as they race about trying to contain what they’ve unleashed. But the monster has been uncorked. The black billowing smoke pours into the sky, and there it will stay.
With a story of and for our times, “There Will Be Blood” can certainly be viewed through the smeary window that looks onto the larger world. It’s timeless and topical, general and specific, abstract and as plain as the name of its fiery oilman. It’s an origin story of sorts. The opening images of desert hills and a droning electronic chord allude to the beginning of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” whose murderous apes are part of a Darwinian continuum with Daniel Plainview. But the film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic. It reveals, excites, disturbs, provokes, but the window it opens is to human consciousness itself.

TITLE: Bloomberg Says He Won’t Run
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ended months of speculation that he might become a candidate for U.S. president, saying he would use his influence to push for nonpartisan solutions to the nation’s problems. 
“I listened carefully to those who encouraged me to run, but I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president,” Bloomberg, 66, wrote in an editorial published in Thursday’s edition of the New York Times.
“In the weeks and months ahead, I will continue to work to steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance,” Bloomberg wrote.
In June, Bloomberg renounced his Republican Party affiliation and declared himself an independent. Before his election as mayor in 2001, he had been a lifelong Democrat. While ruling out a candidacy on his own, Bloomberg took back previous assertions that he would refrain from endorsing anyone.
“The race is too important to sit on the sidelines, and so I have changed my mind in one area,’’ he wrote. “If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy, I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House.’’
Bloomberg’s mayoralty has been characterized by efforts to limit gun sales to criminals, improve the city’s public schools, and experiment with incentive-based programs to encourage people to lift themselves from poverty. The city’s crime rate has dropped to a historic low, with less than 500 homicides in 2007, the fewest since the police department began keeping such records in the 1960s.
He has promoted wide-ranging public-health efforts aimed at reducing smoking and obesity, increasing access to medical clinics and aggressive monitoring through the use of testing and surveillance for AIDS and other infectious diseases.
In the past year, he has traveled to several U.S. cities and as far as China and Indonesia to promote those efforts and to rally governments to pursue policies that would reduce carbon gas emissions and conserve energy. Earlier this month, he addressed a United Nations conference on climate control. Bloomberg has a little less than two years remaining before term limits end his mayoralty on Dec. 31, 2009.
“I am hopeful that the current campaigns can rise to the challenge by offering truly independent leadership,’’ he wrote.

TITLE: Clemens Stonewalls As Drugs Probe Intensifies
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KISSIMMEE, Florida — Roger Clemens declined to say whether he was aware Congress had asked the Justice Department to investigate whether he lied in sworn testimony about steroid use.
A letter drafted by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Henry Waxman and ranking Republican Tom Davis was sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Wednesday. They asked the Justice Department to look into Clemens’ recent statements in a sworn deposition and at a public hearing that he “never used anabolic steroids or human growth hormone.”
Clemens was working with minor leaguers at the Houston Astros’ spring training camp when the congressional request became official.
When he was finished, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner emerged from an indoor batting cage to a large group of autograph-seekers, reporters and photographers. He was asked several times if he was aware of the request and never answered.
“Guys, the big team is up that way,” Clemens said, referring to the Astros, whose spring training clubhouse is about 200 yards from the minor league complex.
Later in the afternoon, a clubhouse assistant backed Clemens’ black Hummer up to a service entrance to the building, which helped the pitcher keep away from about two dozen reporters and photographers who tracked him all day.
Clemens came out just after 2 p.m. and as he was asked about the congressional request one more time, he responded, “See y’all tomorrow,” hopped into the Hummer and drove away.
The congressmen wrote in a letter that Clemens’ testimony directly contradicted that of Brian McNamee, his former personal trainer, who said he injected Clemens with anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.
“Mr. Clemens’s testimony is also contradicted by the sworn deposition testimony and affidavit submitted to the committee by Andrew Pettitte, a former teammate of Mr. Clemens, whose testimony and affidavit reported that Mr. Clemens had admitted to him in 1999 or 2000 that he had taken human growth hormone,” the letter said.
Clemens arrived at the Astros’ minor league clubhouse just before 11 a.m. Wednesday. The minor leaguers, including Clemens’ oldest son, Koby, opened a minicamp on Monday and Clemens has permission from the team to participate.
Wearing a white baseball cap, a long-sleeved black shirt and blue jeans, Clemens walked toward the horde as the Astros’ major leaguers were practicing on an adjacent field.
“Wow, you guys need to get a life,” Clemens said, shaking his head. “There’s a big league team to the left, I think.”
Clemens refused to stop and answer questions before briskly walked into the clubhouse.
“I did all I’m gonna do yesterday,” he said.
On Tuesday, Clemens would not answer direct questions about Andy Pettitte or reports that Congress was considering the request that it made to the Justice Department on Wednesday.
Once he took the field, Clemens didn’t seem distracted by the news from Washington. He came out of the clubhouse just before noon, dressed in gym shoes, black warm-up pants, a red Astros jacket and a black Astros cap.
He tutored Astros prospect Brian Bogusevic on his pitching form, then shed his jacket and took the mound on one of the team’s practice fields.
Underneath the jacket, Clemens was wearing a gray T-shirt that had an Astros’ star logo on the front and read “There is Only One Star” on the back.
Koby Clemens, a catcher in the Astros’ farm system, was the first batter, hitting several deep fly balls off his father as about 100 fans watched from behind a steel gate and yelled encouragement.
“The fans are behind you!” said one. “We love you, Roger!” said another.
Two Clemens supporters wore T-shirts that read “Rocket Fuel Has No HGH.”
“I believe him,” said Guy Rabich, who made the shirts at his home in nearby St. Petersburg, Florida. “He is the greatest of all time. I do feel bad for him. He’s really a nice guy, nice to fans, nice to everybody.”
Clemens threw on the outdoor field for about 45 minutes, giving advice to batters between pitches.
“Get your eyes working, come on,” he said after infielder Danny Klassen swung and missed.
A few pitches later, Klassen smacked a line drive to left-center.
“There you go!” Clemens said.
He cracked a smile when infielder Chris Johnson swung and missed at a breaking ball.

TITLE: James Crosses 10,000 Pt Mark
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BOSTON — LeBron James hit a milestone. The Boston Celtics hit their shots.
James returned from a first-half ankle injury to score 26 and become the youngest player in NBA history to reach the 10,000 points, but Boston got 22 points from Ray Allen to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 92-87 on Wednesday night.
“When you have an off-shooting night like this, it’s tough to pull a game out,” said James, whose 7-for-24 shooting sank the Cavs to 38 percent from the floor. “Especially against the best team in the league.”
Kevin Garnett scored 18 points with 11 rebounds to help Boston win its third straight and improve to 2-2 for the season against the defending Eastern Conference champions. The Cavaliers were playing their third game with four new players, including Ben Wallace, acquired in an 11-player, three-team deal at the trading deadline.
“They’re so new, we really didn’t see them,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “They’re going to be so much better because of that trade.”
Cavaliers coach Mike Brown was ejected with 42 seconds left in the third quarter after he had to be restrained by his assistants while arguing a foul call against James. His star took a shorter break: he sprained his ankle and missed the last 4:24 of the first half, but X-rays were negative and he was back for the start of the second.
“I know my ankle, and tomorrow it’s going to be a lot worse,” James said, expressing the hope he would be ready for Friday’s game against Minnesota.
“I’ve had my share of ankle injuries. The first thing I thought was, ‘Not again. Not another one to go down for our team.’ We have been hit with the injury bug, the cold bug, guys have been walking around here sick and injured. I didn’t want to go down.”
James reached the 10,000-point milestone at 23 years and 59 days, more than a year younger than Kobe Bryant was when he hit the milestone in 2003 (24 years, 193 days). It took James 368 games to do it-the ninth-fastest in league history.
“It doesn’t make me happy to do it in a losing effort,” James said. “To be in the record books is a tribute to my teammates, myself and my family.”
James hit the mark on a dunk that made it 63-54 with 4:54 left in the third quarter. But Boston, which shot 52 percent, quickly extended its lead back to double-digits; after hitting the first two baskets of the fourth quarter to make it 75-66, the Cavs never got closer than 10 points until the final minute.
Delonte West’s meaningless 3-pointer for Cleveland at the buzzer counted because of goaltending, making it appear closer than it was.
“We had our hands full (with James), but I thought we did a pretty good job,” Allen said. “I think we gutted it out.”
James was hurt after driving for a layup when he came down on Paul Pierce’s foot. He hobbled off toward the Cavaliers bench and then dropped onto the court in front of the scorer’s table with 4:24 left in the first half.
When the whistle blew, Brown and the training staff rushed over to attend to James, while the crowd hushed and the players on both benches looked over to see what was happening. After being looked at on the floor for a few minutes, he limped off to the locker room, favoring his right leg, getting a cheer from the Boston fans.
Boston led 25-16 after one quarter, with 12-5 rebounding edge, then took a 33-18 lead early in the second.

TITLE: FARC Releases 4 Hostages After 6 Years
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: CARACAS — Four Colombian lawmakers begin their first full day of freedom Thursday, the day after being released by FARC guerrillas.
Speaking in Caracas, they told of their years-long ordeal and of other captives left behind in the jungles of Colombia.
“It’s the greatest feeling: to be born again. You can’t imagine the horrors of living seven years in the subhuman conditions we were kept,” Luis Eladio Perez told reporters late Wednesday after being picked up by Red Cross officials flown in on Venezuelan aircraft.
He explained he had survived a heart-attack, three diabetic comas and a kidney malfunction because of tropical diseases.
He also said he feared for the most high-profile prisoner still held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Ingrid Betancourt, and vowed to do all to have her freed as well.
Betancourt, a 46-year-old French-Colombian who was seized in 2002 as she campaigned for the Colombian presidency, was “very, very sick, physically and morally spent,” he said, adding that he last saw her on February 4.
Perez said three Americans captured in 2003 by the rebels were also faring badly, adding that they would likely remain in captivity unless a FARC leader who was jailed for 60 years in January gets his sentence reduced by US courts.
Perez and the three other freed hostages - Gloria Polanco, Orlando Beltran and Jorge Gechem - were recovered Wednesday by Red Cross and Venezuelan officials.
They were flown out of the southern Colombian jungle in two Venezuelan helicopters bearing the Red Cross symbol and later flown by plane to Caracas.
The four had spent more than six years in the hands of the Marxist FARC, who constantly moved them around in tropical woodland to prevent their rescue by the Colombian military.
It was the second such joint Red Cross-Venezuelan mission in as many months.
In both cases, the FARC said it would only hand the hostages over to services commanded by leftwing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has rocky relations with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
After the latest hostage release, the FARC called for the Colombian government to make concessions on one of the rebels’ principal demands: that a temporary demilitarized zone be created around two rural munipalities.
It wants the zone to be used for negotiations in which more hostages will be released in return for the freeing of 500 rebels in Colombian prisons.
“Now the army must leave (the towns of) Pradera and Florida for 45 days, with guerrillas and an international community presence as guarantors, so negotiations can take place in this area for the liberation of the guerrillas and the prisoners of war held by the FARC,” it said in a statement delivered to the Caracol radio station.
US State Department spokesman Tom Casey, while welcoming Wednesday’s development, said it was “reprehensible that the FARC ... continue to hold hostages, including our (three) American citizen contractors who have now spent several years in captivity.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said a spokesman, hopes FARC’s “positive gesture will be soon followed by further releases ... and renews his call for all hostages ... to be freed as quickly as possible,” including Betancourt.
Chavez late Wednesday made a “from the heart” appeal to top FARC leader Manuel Marulanda to move Betancourt to a safe location “urgently.” 
“I’ll send you a message through our regular channels to see how we can go about releasing Ingrid,” Chavez said during a meeting with reporters. 
The rebels’ insistence on Chavez heading up the two recovery operations appeared to be intended to embarrass the Colombian government, which has been resisting their demands. 
The Venezuelan leader, whose fierce anti-US rhetoric runs counter to Uribe’s pro-Washington position, has nettled his neighbor by suggesting the FARC be dropped from US and EU terror organization lists and be regarded as a legitimate armed political force. 
Chavez’s spokesman Jesse Chacon told reporters late Wednesday: “The only way out of this is a negotiated settlement and a political settlement. There is no military solution to the conflict in Colombia.” 
He added that, with the FARC’s release of the four, it was expected “the Colombian government will also make a gesture.”

TITLE: Algerians in Guantanamo Could Return Home Soon
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ALGIERS — The United States may soon sign an agreement with Algeria on the possible return home of Algerian prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, the official Algerian APS news agency reported Wednesday.
Visiting Assistant U.S. Secretary of State David Welch told Algerian reporters that Washington hoped “to conclude soon an accord with Algeria” on the issue, APS reported.
Algerian newspapers have said there are believed to be between 17 and 25 Algerians held at the facility on Cuba.
U.S. President George W. Bush has said he would like to close the camp, which holds about 275 detainees and he calls a necessary tool in the war on terrorism.
Human rights groups and foreign governments have said holding suspects for years without trial violates basic international legal standards.
“The question is to know if we have prisoners who ought to be prosecuted,” APS quoted Welch as saying. “Even if that is not the case, that does not mean that they are not dangerous.
“We want to send prisoners back to their countries of origin, but we must assure ourselves that they do not represent a danger, because we have seen examples of prisoners returning to their countries and who were later released.”
U.S. officials say some governments will not take custody of their citizens held at Guantanamo, others would not treat their citizens humanely and still others are not willing to provide security guarantees Washington believes are necessary.
Algerian President Bouteflika offered an amnesty for Islamist rebels in 2006 as part of a reconciliation policy aimed at ending years of violence in the north African country.
As part of the reconciliation drive he authorized the release from jail of more than 2,000 former members of an Islamist armed rebellion that aims to overthrow the government.
Algerian newspapers say some of the released former fighters rejoined the rebellion after they were freed and have taken part in attacks on government targets in recent months.

TITLE: Sports Watch
TEXT: <b>Advocaat Banned</b>
ARIS (AFP) — European football’s governing body UEFA on Thursday handed a three-match touchline ban to Dick Advocaat, Dutch coach of Russian side Zenit St. Petersburg.
UEFA’s disciplinary commission handed the ban to Advocaat, who was dismissed from the technical zone for gross misconduct in the second half of the UEFA Cup Round of 32 second leg encounter with Spanish side Villarreal on Feb. 21.
Zenit lost the match 2-1 but went through on away goals.
The ban will cover Zenit’s two UEFA Cup Round of 16 games against French side Marseille on March 6 and 12, plus one European club match after that.
Under the terms of the ban Advocaat will not be able to visit his side’s dressing room and will watch the games from the stand.

<b>Holyfield Vs. Tyson?</b>
SYDNEY  (Bloomberg) -— Evander Holyfield said he and Mike Tyson are discussing the possibility of fighting each other for a third time, the Guardian newspaper reported, citing an interview with the four-time heavyweight boxing champion. 
Holyfield, 45, said Tyson approached him via an intermediary to discuss a rematch, the Guardian reported. Their second fight in 1997 ended in controversy when Tyson was disqualified for twice biting Holyfield, on one occasion tearing off a chunk of his ear.

TITLE: Reporter Held By U.S. As Enemy Combatant
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: KABUL, Afghanistan — A journalist with Canadian television station CTV who has been held for four months without charge has been designated an unlawful enemy combatant, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
An “enemy combatant review board” determined Jawed Ahmad, an Afghan who worked for the network, was dangerous to foreign troops and the Afghan government, Major Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, told The Associated Press.
Ahmad is being held at the U.S. military compound in Bagram, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kabul.
“His case went before an enemy combatant review board. He was afforded an opportunity to provide a statement to the board, and the board determined there was credible information to detain him as an unlawful enemy combatant,” Belcher said. He did not say when the review took place or if Ahmad was represented by counsel.
Belcher declined to provide details about the “credible information” and would not say if Ahmad had any more contact with militants than other journalists working in Afghanistan. It is common for journalists in the country to have the contact information of Taliban fighters so they can seek the militants’ comments for news stories.
“As an unlawful enemy combatant, he posed a threat to coalition forces and the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Mr. Ahmad was in no way targeted because of his work as a journalist,” Belcher said.
Ahmad, 22, who is also known as Jojo Yazemi, was detained Oct. 26 at a NATO air base in the southern city of Kandahar, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based rights group. He was later transferred to a detention center at Bagram.
Ahmad’s brother, Siddique, has said the military accused his brother of having contact with local Taliban fighters.
CPJ said in a statement Tuesday that it received a letter from the Pentagon on Feb. 22 about Ahmad being held as an enemy combatant. The group demanded that U.S. authorities disclose evidence and specify charges against him.