SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1396 (60), Tuesday, August 5, 2008
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TITLE: Nevzlin Sentenced To Life
AUTHOR: By Alexi Shaw
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Moscow City Court on Friday convicted former Yukos co-owner Leonid Nevzlin on several counts of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced him to life in prison, though the businessman was absent from the trial.
Judge Valery Novikov found Nevzlin guilty of organizing five murders, including the 1998 killings of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of Nefteyugansk, and Valentina Korneyeva, the director of trading firm Feniks.
Alexei Pichugin, Yukos’ former security chief who was jailed for life last August on charges of involvement in the same murders, was acting on Nevzlin’s orders when he organized the slayings, Novikov said in his verdict.
Nevzlin, who fled to Israel in 2003, has repeatedly dismissed the charges as baseless and politically motivated. His press service issued a statement Friday claiming that the verdict “was dictated in advance by the Kremlin.”
“Just as in Stalin’s time, the goal of the Kremlin is to destroy its opponents by criminalizing them with false allegations,” the statement said.
Eric Wolf, Nevzlin’s Israeli spokesman, said in a statement that they would appeal the decision.
“But we do not expect the Supreme Court to reconsider the verdict,” Wolf said, adding that they would take the case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Nevzlin’s lawyer, Dmitry Kharitonov, told reporters that the verdict was “all convenient conjecture.”
Prosecutor Alexander Koblyakov said he was pleased with the decision. “Nevzlin got what we asked for, which was what he deserved,” Koblyakov said after the sentencing.
Friday’s verdict and sentencing were predictably dry for a trial in absentia. The signature glass courtroom cage for defendants was empty, while Kharitonov was visibly bored, sitting at a barren defense table.
After issuing his verdict, Novikov spent five hours recapping the evidence for each charge. He said it had cost Yukos $150,000 to have Petukhov, the Nefteyugansk mayor, killed.
Petukhov had accused Yukos of grossly underpaying taxes. In the weeks before he was gunned down on a Nefteyugansk street on his way to work, he had taken his case to then-President Boris Yeltsin. Korneyeva, the slain businesswoman, had refused to sell her downtown Moscow office to Bank Menatep, Yukos’ holding company, prosecutors said.
Novikov ordered Nevzlin to pay 5.5 million rubles ($235,000) in compensation to the victims.
“I’m not interested in money,” said Farida Islamova, the only relative of the victims present at the verdict. “I only want justice and for 10 years have known that [former Yukos CEO Mikhail] Khodorkovsky and Nevzlin murdered my husband.”
Yukos, formerly the country’s biggest oil company, was forced into bankruptcy in 2006 by a slew of what many viewed as politically motivated multibillion-dollar back tax charges. Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, another former Yukos shareholder, are currently serving jail sentences of eight years on tax and fraud charges.
Dozens of the company’s managers fled abroad amid the fallout of the affair. Britain has rejected Russian requests to extradite several Yukos executives, including Alexander Temerko, a former senior vice president.
Russia has repeatedly called for Nevzlin’s extradition from Israel and has placed him on an Interpol wanted list. Israel has turned down the requests, citing a lack of evidence.
In May, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld Nevzlin’s citizenship and ruled that the Russian charges are groundless, according to a copy of the ruling obtained by The Moscow Times.
Koblyakov, the prosecutor, said after the sentencing, however, that given negotiations with the Israeli government, there is still a chance that Nevzlin could serve out his life sentence in Israel.
In December, the Prosecutor General’s Office said it was also investigating a possible connection of Yukos executives, including Nevzlin, to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security service agent who was killed by radiation poisoning in London in 2006. Weeks before his death, Litvinenko had met with Nevzlin in Israel.
Britain has accused former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi of murdering Litvinenko and called for his extradition, a demand that prompted a chill in the countries’ diplomatic relations.
TITLE: Seminal Author Dies, 89
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin’s slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.
Stepan Solzhenitsyn said his father died late Sunday at his home near Moscow, but declined further comment.
Through unflinching accounts of the years he spent in the Soviet gulag, Solzhenitsyn’s novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.
And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person’s courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.
Beginning with the 1962 short novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” Solzhenitsyn devoted himself to describing what he called the human “meat grinder” that had caught him along with millions of other Soviet citizens: capricious arrests, often for trifling and seemingly absurd reasons, followed by sentences to slave labor camps where cold, starvation and punishing work crushed inmates physically and spiritually.
His non-fiction “Gulag Archipelago” trilogy of the 1970s shocked readers by describing the savagery of the Soviet state under Stalin. It helped erase lingering sympathy for the Soviet Union among many leftist intellectuals, especially in Europe.
But his account of that secret system of prison camps was also inspiring in its description of how one person — Solzhenitsyn himself — survived, physically and spiritually, in a penal system of soul-crushing hardship and injustice.
The West offered him shelter and accolades. But Solzhenitsyn’s refusal to bend despite enormous pressure, perhaps, also gave him the courage to criticize Western culture for what he considered its weakness and decadence.
After a triumphant return from exile in the U.S. in 1994 that included a 56-day train trip across Russia to become reacquainted with his native land, Solzhenitsyn later expressed annoyance and disappointment that most Russians hadn’t read his books.
During the 1990s, his stalwart nationalist views, his devout Orthodoxy, his disdain for capitalism and disgust with the tycoons who bought Russian industries and resources cheaply following the Soviet collapse, were unfashionable. He faded from public view.
But under Vladimir Putin’s 2000-2008 presidency, Solzhenitsyn’s vision of Russia as a bastion of Orthodox Christianity, as a place with a unique culture and destiny, gained renewed prominence.
Putin argued, as Solzhenitsyn did in a speech at Harvard University in 1978, that Russia has a separate civilization from the West, one that can’t be reconciled either to Communism or western-style liberal democracy, but requires a system adapted to its history and traditions.
Putin’s successor Dmitry Medvedev sent condolences after news of Solzhenitsyn’s death, Russian media reported.
“Any ancient deeply rooted autonomous culture, especially if it is spread on a wide part of the earth’s surface, constitutes an autonomous world, full of riddles and surprises to Western thinking,” Solzhenitsyn said in the Harvard speech. “For one thousand years, Russia has belonged to such a category.”
Born Dec. 11, 1918, in Kislovodsk, Solzhenitsyn served as a front-line artillery captain in World War II. In the closing weeks of the war, he was arrested for writing what he called “certain disrespectful remarks” about Stalin in a letter to a friend, referring to him as “the man with the mustache.”
He was sentenced to eight years in labor camps — three of which he served in a camp in the barren steppe of Kazakhstan that was the basis for his first novel. After that, he served three years of exile in Kazakhstan.
That’s where he began to write, memorizing much of his work so it wouldn’t be lost if it were seized. His theme was the suffering and injustice of life in Stalin’s gulag — a Soviet abbreviation for the slave labor camp system, which Solzhenitsyn made part of the lexicon.
He continued writing while working as a mathematics teacher in the provincial Russian city of Ryazan.
The first fruit of this labor was “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” the story of a carpenter struggling to survive in a Soviet labor camp, where he had been sent, like Solzhenitsyn, after service in the war.
The book was published in 1962 by order of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who was eager to discredit the abuses of Stalin, his predecessor, and created a sensation in a country where unpleasant truths were spoken in whispers, if at all. Abroad, the book — which went through numerous revisions — was lauded not only for its bravery, but for its spare, unpretentious language.
After Khrushchev was ousted in 1964, Solzhenitsyn began facing KGB harassment, publication of his works was blocked and he was expelled from the Soviet Writers Union. But he was undeterred.
“A great writer is, so to speak, a secret government in his country,” he wrote in “The First Circle,” his next novel, a book about inmates in one of Stalin’s “special camps” for scientists who were deemed politically unreliable but whose skills were essential.
Solzhenitsyn, a graduate from the Department of Physics and Mathematics at Rostov University, was sent to one of these camps in 1946, soon after his arrest.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, an unusual move for the Swedish Academy, which generally makes awards late in an author’s life after decades of work. The academy cited “the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature.”
Soviet authorities barred the author from traveling to Stockholm to receive the award and official attacks were intensified in 1973 when the first book in the “Gulag” trilogy appeared in Paris.
The following year, he was arrested on a treason charge and expelled the next day to West Germany in handcuffs. His expulsion inspired worldwide condemnation of the regime of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
Solzhenitsyn then made his homeland in America, settling in 1976 in the tiny town of Cavendish, Vermont, with his wife and sons.
Living at a secluded hillside compound he rarely left, he called his 18 years there the most productive of his life. There he worked on what he considered to be his life’s work, a multivolume saga of Russian history titled “The Red Wheel.”
Although free from repression, Solzhenitsyn longed for his native land. Neither was he enchanted by Western democracy, with its emphasis on individual freedom.
To the dismay of his supporters, in his Harvard speech he rejected the West’s faith “Western pluralistic democracy” as the model for all other nations. It was a mistake, he warned, for Western societies to regard the failure of the rest of the world to adopt the democratic model as a product of “wicked governments or by heavy crises or by their own barbarity or incomprehension.”
Some critics saw “The Red Wheel” books as tedious and hectoring, rather than as sweeping and lit by moral fire.
“Exile from his great theme, Stalinism and the gulag, had exposed his major weaknesses,” D.M. Thomas wrote in a 1998 biography, theorizing that the intensity of the earlier works was “a projection of his own repressed violence.”
Then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev restored Solzhenitsyn’s citizenship in 1990 and the treason charge was finally dropped in 1991, less than a month after a failed Soviet coup.
Following an emotional homecoming that started in the Russian Far East on May 27, 1994, and became a whistle-stop tour across the country, Solzhenitsyn settled in a tree-shaded, red brick home overlooking the Moscow River just west of the capital.
Following the death of Naguib Mahfouz in 2006, Solzhenitsyn became the oldest living Nobel laureate in literature. He is survived by his wife, Natalya, who acted as his spokesman, and his three sons, including Stepan, Ignat, a pianist and conductor, and Yermolai. All live in the United States.
TITLE: Case Against Alleged Gang Leader ‘Kumarin’ Sent to Court
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: The case against local businessman Vladimir Barsukov (a.k.a Kumarin), reportedly one of the former leaders of the Tambov criminal group, who is facing charges of orchestrating and carrying out a series of raids on large St. Petersburg companies and organizations, and other crimes, has been sent to the Vasileostrovsky District Court, the Prosecutor General’s press office said on Monday.
According to a statement posted on Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office website, Viktor Grin, Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General, has authorized a summing-up of the case that involves “a string of illegal raids on St. Petersburg enterprises and properties between 2004 and 2006 committed by an organized gang formed by Vladimir Barsukov (Kumarin).”
Barsukov, who changed his last name from Kumarin in the 1990s, was arrested on Aug. 22, 2007, during a special raid carried out by a joint team of law enforcement officers from Moscow and St. Petersburg, prosecutors said. The businessman was then transferred to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, where he is still being held.
In the 1990s, Barsukov was alleged to be the head of the Tambov gang, one of the most feared criminal syndicates in St. Petersburg at the time.
In October 1999, Viktor Novosyolov, the controversial then-vice-speaker of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, who was believed to be the Tambov group’s lobbyist in parliament and known to maintain close ties to Barsukov, was murdered and the powerful Tambov group was suspected in a series of killings of local businessmen.
Vladimir Markin, an official representative of the Investigative Committee of the General Prosecutor’s Office, told reporters in Moscow on Monday that an investigation continues into Barsukov’s possible involvement in a series of other crimes, including forming a criminal gang, murder and attempted execution-style contract killing.
The prosecutors are probing Barsukov’s possible links to, in particular, an attempt to organize a contract killing aimed at eventually seizing ownership of the St. Petersburg oil terminal.
The Prosecutor’s Office website said that Barsukov has been charged in forming a criminal gang, money laundering and swindling.
The investigators believe the gang illegally seized a total of 13 local commercial enterprises. The cost of these properties amounts to 5 billion rubles ($213 million).
“At present, the Committee has established that in 2005-2006 Barsukov, with the assistance of seven other individuals — who are currently under arrest — formed a criminal gang, seized ownership of the Peterburgsky Ugolok restaurant and the Magazin Smolninsky store, and then sold these illegally acquired properties to a third party,” Markin said.
According to the investigation, Barsukov and his accomplices bribed officials at the St. Petersburg branch of the Federal Tax Service to alter the unified state database where the properties were listed, and to withdraw several sets of key documents related to the properties’ original ownership.
“In order to deprive the original owners of a chance to return the properties, the gang accomplished a chain of fictitious sales of properties until they were purchased by the businessmen under the gang’s full control,” reads the prosecution’s conclusion.
The Tambov Gang case has prompted a series of corruption investigations involving neglect of professional duties by certain members of law enforcement agencies and high-ranking civil servants.
Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said the Tambov Gang investigation exposed powerful corrupt networks involving law enforcement officers as well as state executives and the prosecutor’s own staff.
Barsukov, who has continually denied being a leader in the criminal community, has won several cases against Russian journalists who directly accused him of criminal connections in their publications.
However, Chaika has repeatedly stated that the Tambov criminal syndicate “has been exposed” having launched an investigation into a series of seizures that the prosecutors believe the gang was responsible for.
To strengthen his point, Chaika said more than 40 people had been charged in connection with the Tambov gang investigation prior to Barsukov’s arrest.
The Barsukov case is one of eight criminal cases regarding severe crimes committed by St. Petersburg-based criminal gangs that are currently being investigated or supervised by the General Prosecutor’s Office.
Over the past decade, a string of Western media outlets, including Le Monde and Newsweek, linked Kumarin to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin through Vladimir Smirnov, the former head of St. Petersburg operations of SPAG, an agency that had been set up to invest in the city’s real estate, and an old associate of Putin.
In 1994, as a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Putin awarded the St. Petersburg Fuel Company, or PTK, the monopoly for supplying gasoline to the city.
At the time, Smirnov was a major shareholder inthe Petersburg Fuel Company and local media reported that the company was controlled by the Tambov.
In the mid-1990s the high-profile contract killings of major players in the fuel market rocked the city, contributing to its reputation as Russia’s criminal capital, or “Banditsky Petersburg.” In 1998, Smirnov took over PTK and appointed Barsukov as his deputy.
TITLE: City Sends 50 Competitors to Olympics
AUTHOR: By Irina Titova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: More than 50 sportsmen and women from St. Petersburg and 12 athletes from the Leningrad Oblast will take part in the Summer Olympic Games beginning in Beijing on Friday, representing more than 10 percent of the Russian Olympic team.
St. Petersburg’s contenders will fight for medals in 20 sports, including rowing, basketball, Greco-Roman wrestling, cycling, volleyball, kayaking and canoeing, judo, athletics, sailing, swimming, gymnastics, shooting, tennis and fencing.
At the 2004 Athens Olympics, 45 Petersburgers took part, winning 12 Olympic medals: one gold, three silver, and eight bronze.
The list of athletes from the Leningrad Oblast includes seven female water polo players from the town of Kirishi and a female basketball player from Tosno. Two competitors from the town of Gatchina are on the reserve team.
When the Leningrad Oblast Olympians return from the Games, the Oblast administration plans to receive them with honors. The Leningrad Oblast sports committee has said that medalists will receive a financial reward, Interfax reported.
Twenty-three servicemen serving in the Leningrad military district are competing at the Olympic Games. Among the military sportsmen there are three cyclists, six swimmers, four wrestlers, four fencers, one shooter, four track-and-field athletes, and one canoeist.
At least 467 Russian athletes will take part in the upcoming Olympics, nine more than in the Olympics in Athens. The whole Russian delegation is 847 strong.
In Athens, Russia came third overall in the medal table, winning 92 medals, totaling 27 gold, 27 silver and 38 bronze medals.
At Friday’s opening ceremony in Beijing, St. Petersburg’s sportsmen and women will be cheered on by Governor Valentina Matviyenko, who is traveling to the Games as part of the Russian government delegation headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Matviyenko earlier announced that St. Petersburg is preparing to bid for the chance to hold the Summer Olympic Games in 2020.
“We would really like to apply for the Olympics of 2020 but before that we need to go through all the inner procedures. Today under agreement with the Russian Olympic Committee we are preparing a preliminary application,” Matviyenko was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Matviyenko said she hoped the International Olympic Committee would support the city’s plans.
TITLE: Senior General Sent as Envoy To NATO
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia has appointed one of its most senior generals as new chief military envoy to NATO, the Defense Ministry said on Monday, stressing the importance of Moscow’s ties with the Atlantic military alliance.
“Army General Alexei Maslov, chief commander of Russia’s Ground Forces, will become the new chief military envoy to NATO,” a Defense Ministry official told Reuters.
“His appointment is meant to underline the importance Moscow attaches to its relations with NATO.”
Moscow fiercely opposes NATO’s eastward expansion and views membership bids made by its ex-Soviet neighbors Ukraine and Georgia as a threat to Russia’s national security.
TITLE: Thousands Enraptured By Moon Eclipsing Sun
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: An enormous swath of western Siberia was submerged in darkness Friday afternoon as the moon completely blocked the sun, enrapturing huge crowds of Russians and foreign tourists.
The peak of the eclipse occurred in Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city.
There, forecasts of cloudy skies proved wrong, and tens of thousands of people who had flocked to the center of town were able to observe the rare total eclipse of the sun — which lasted two minutes, 23 seconds — in its full beauty.
All gazed in wonder as an eerie silence descended on the city and gushes of unusually strong wind tore through the crowd of sky-watchers. Birds stopped chirping, and the temperature suddenly dropped.
Lucas Heinrich, a physics student from Berlin who traveled to Novosibirsk with classmates, described the eclipse as “unbelievable.”
“It became cold and dark, and suddenly it was light again. I am very happy — it was worth the trip,” Heinrich said.
NTV television reported that more than 10,000 foreign tourists arrived in Novosibirsk, the largest city in the eclipse’s path, to watch.
The eclipse began in Arctic Canada and passed through Greenland, western Siberia and Mongolia before ending in China, where some saw it as a dark omen ahead of the start of the Olympic Games in Beijing this week.
In Novosibirsk, the airport announced that it turned on nighttime landing lights during the total and partial darkness, which lasted more than two hours.
At the city zoo, polar bears and white tigers suddenly lay down to sleep. A snow leopard grew restless and ran around its cage until the sun reappeared.
Cloudy weather in other parts of Western Siberia prevented many people from enjoying the spectacle.
Viewers were repeatedly warned to prevent eye injuries by wearing protective glasses, which sold throughout Novosibirsk for 50 rubles ($2).
In Moscow, half the sun was blocked, but cloud cover prevented Muscovites from viewing the partial eclipse.
In St. Petersburg, people shouted “Look! Look!” and pointed above as the sun’s outer corona appeared in the sky.
“You just feel part of nature. … This is so rare,” said Lev, a software specialist in St. Petersburg. Many used special sunglasses, computer disks and even beer bottles to watch it.
In the remote Siberian settlement of Berezovaya Katun, near Russia’s border with China, a large crowd of tourists, including some from France and Mongolia, clapped and cheered as organizers released thousands of balloons into the darkened sky.
“It is quite eerie for any thinking person to watch how everything turns into darkness in broad daylight,” the Kremlin’s top medical adviser, Gennady Onishchenko, told Vesti-24 channel.
People have been recording solar eclipses for perhaps 4,000 years, and they typically inspire a combination of dread, fascination and awe.
According to NASA, the next total eclipse will occur July 22, 2009, starting in India and moving across Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, China and over the Pacific Ocean.
(AP, Reuters)
TITLE: Migrant Labor Figures Increase
AUTHOR: By Ali Nassor
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Federal Migration Department collected 120 million rubles ($5.2 million) in the first six months of this year from raids it carried out on more than 17,000 employers of illegal immigrants, including trading and construction sites, matching the amount of fines it collected in the whole of last year from slightly more raids.
“But only half of the amount has so far reached the state coffers as most of the violators are too poor to afford the fines,” said the head of the department, Colonel Yury Buryak.
“About 80,000 rubles in fines for employing an illegal manual laborer is quite a big burden for most employers, but the penalty is worth it as it makes an employer think twice before taking the risk,” he said.
The penalty for an individual employing an illegal worker is a maximum fine of 50,000 rubles.
“Judging from random raids our inspectors carry out, the violations revealed are only a tip of the iceberg,” Buryak said.
“We are fighting a war which is almost impossible to win when employers are running for cheap laborers in pursuit of quick and big profits, forgetting the fact that illegal immigrants live in this city at the expense of tax payers,” he said in response to a question whether his department had any way of measuring the economic contribution foreign workers make to the city and its surrounding region.
“After all that’s a question for tax collectors, not me,” he said.
He said that while 350,000 foreign nationals applied for Russian citizenship during the period, 172 including six deportees were evicted from Russia.
Work permits were issued to about 130,700 foreigners, meeting only about 60 percent of the planned target. The number also includes 54,000 foreign workers who arrived on direct invitations from 1,950 organizations during the period in St. Petersburg and Lenoblast, Buryak said. Just 6,200 foreign workers arrived on direct invitations during the same period last year.
More than 90 percent of foreign workers in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast are citizens of ex-Soviet countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States, Buryak said.
TITLE: Pro-Tibet Activists to Hold Candlelit Event
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Local pro-Tibet activists will join Candle for Tibet, a Dalai Lama-blessed global protest to be held around the world on the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games on Thursday, at 9 p.m. local time.
Global organizers are expecting millions to take part in what they describe as the “world’s greatest light protest” to raise their voices for Tibetan freedom.
“The most important goal is to draw attention to the Tibet issue, to show sympathizers in the city that we exist and to show the world that such action is possible in Russia,” said Yelena Kim, the activist behind the local leg of the campaign, speaking by phone on Monday.
“The lack of protests does not mean that Russian citizens are indifferent to the issue of Tibet and what is happening there.”
However, the St. Petersburg authorities have warned that no protests during the Olympic Games will be tolerated, according to Kim.
“We were told by a Smolny [City Hall] official not to organize any protests during the Olympics,” Kim said referring to Thursday’s event. “We would fail to coordinate with the authorities any mass protest, if we tried to.”
Kim expects about 50 people to take part in Thursday’s candlelit event in St. Petersburg.
“It’s quite a dangerous thing, and many people would prefer to meditate on this issue or light a candle at home, rather than in a public place,” she said.
According to Kim, the local event is planned to take place on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, on the small area between Kanal Griboyedova, the Dom Knigi bookstore and the Kazan Cathedral.
“It will be easy to escape from there [if the police interfere].”
The Russian authorities and state-controlled media share a pro-China position on human rights abuses in Tibet, according to the activists.
“I think [the protests are banned and suppressed] for economic reasons, rather than political ones,” Kim said.
“But on the whole there’s a problem with democracy [in Russia], that’s why they ban things.”
Local authorities banned a planned pro-Tibet rally during the Olympic Torch relay in St. Petersburg in April, while several single protesters, including Kim and the democratic party Yabloko’s Alexander Gudimov, were detained under various pretexts on that day. The rally was finally held a month later, in May.
The Candle for Tibet campaign was launched by David Califa, an Israeli citizen, in April, and has been coordinated via the website www.candle4tibet.org.
“The Dalai Lama says in his letter of support to our campaign that people in the free world take freedom for granted,” said Califa in a statement. “This is the essence of our campaign — making people stop and think about their freedom. We’d like people to think about what it means to them, to imagine how it feels to be deprived of it, and to have a say about it.”
Candles are planned to be lit at 9 p.m. in cities around the globe.
Updated on Wednesday, Aug. 6. After this article was published, the organizers moved the Candle for Tibet event to a different location for security reasons. Now it is planned to take place at the same time at a location on the Fontanka embankment. For exact location, call +7 960 237-2957 or +7 952 209 0554.
TITLE: More Russians Believe Putin Holds Reins, Survey Says
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russians increasingly see Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as holding the real power in the country even though he is no longer president, a new poll shows.
The poll by the independent Levada Center says 36 percent of those surveyed see Putin as more powerful than his successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, who garnered just 9 percent.
The poll, released Thursday, is a sharp divergence from a similar survey in March, the month Medvedev was elected, when both leaders polled around 20 percent.
Then, as now, nearly half of those polled said Putin and Medvedev had equal powers.
The presidency is the far more powerful position under the constitution, and both men have stressed that this would not change. But in recent weeks, Putin has demonstrated that he still wields far more clout.
The clearest example was Putin’s televised dressing-down of steel and coal producer Mechel last week, which sent the Russian stock market tumbling and reminded investors that the political risk of doing business in Russia remains high.
Medvedev has tried to stem the damage by reiterating his determination to improve Russia’s investment climate.
On Thursday, he signed off on a new anti-corruption plan and called on the government to stop “causing nightmares for business.”
Most Russians see Medvedev as carrying out Putin’s policies, as confirmed by the Levada survey. Only 2 percent of the 1,600 people surveyed said the new president was setting a completely new course.
The Levada survey, conducted nationwide from July 18 to 22, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
TITLE: Deripaska Tipped to Be in Running for Pulkovo
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Rozhkov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: City Hall has announced the nine companies who are participating in the tender for the reconstruction of Pulkovo Airport and have submitted volumes of technical and background documentation to boost their chances of winning the tender, which requires $1 billion in investment and will offer multi-billion returns. None of the bidders is currently regarded as the unanimous favorite, but experts say that the real battle will be unfolding between behind-the-scenes financial corporations.
The tender for the reconstruction of Pulkovo was announced by the St. Petersburg authorities in April, during a presentation in London that attracted more than 100 interested companies, of which just nine have become preliminary bidders. They are the Moscow-based Petroport-Kontsessii Open Stock Company, Nevskoye Nebo Ltd, Nevsky Aeroport Ltd, Novaport Ltd and Farvater Financial and Industrial Company; the St. Petersburg-based Alice Construction Corporation and International Airport St. Petersburg Ltd; and two bidders from abroad — India’s GMR Infrastructure Ltd and Turkey’s TAV Airport Holding Company.
“[Pulkovo Airport] is meaningful and significant for the city and we are delighted to see numerous bids,” said Alexander Vakhmistrov, St. Petersburg deputy governor and head of the tender commission, announcing the list on Thursday.
Oleg Panteleyev, head of the analysis department at Aviaport Agency, told Vremya Novostei newspaper that it was impossible to rank the bidders in the tender. “In my opinion, India and Turkey are unlikely to have good chances if they participate without considerable financial back-up. But a surprising update on partnership issues may be the next part of the tender process.”
Although City Hall declined to name the companies taking part in consortia until the bids have been reviewed, there is speculation that some of the participants have been created specifically to be eligible to bid, and most of the bidders are backed by larger holding investors who have already declared their intention to seize the opportunities that have opened with the decision to develop Pulkovo Airport.
Among the backstage companies, Vedomosti reported Friday, is Russian aluminum oligarch and billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element, acting in partnership with Singapore’s Changi Airport and represented by Nevsky Aeroport. Other participants include a grouping of billionaire Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova holding company and the German road construction company Hochtief, while Vneshtorgbank (VTB) is allied with the German airport operator Fraport Group, the newspaper reported
Lider Asset Management, the largest company of its kind in Russia in terms of assets, stands behind Petroport-Kontsessii Open Stock Company, together with Vienna Airport Group, sources at Lider confirmed on Monday.
“The strategic partnership of Lider Asset Management and Vienna International Airport allows both our companies to coordinate efforts and gain a synergic effect from the cooperation of the two companies,” said Mikhail Bykhanov, deputy Chief Investment Officer at Lider.
The local private housing developer Alice Corporation is the only bidder in the tender that is not related to the aviation industry or airports. According to Andrei Bryundikov, Alice’s CEO, the company is interested in a bigger construction project and is now looking for a partner capable of managing the airport as soon as the reconstruction is completed.
According to the concession agreement signed at City Hall, the winning company is to manage Pulkovo for thirty years, making it a mouthwatering bonus for investors, as estimated income during that time could vary from $5 billion to $10 billion. Experts say that even more income is expected as the reconstructed Pulkovo will have a small, modern private aviation terminal, which will provide services for business people who travel in private jets.
“The excitement around Pulkovo is easy to explain,” said Yevgeny Shago, an analyst at Ingosstrakh Investments, who believes the estimates of passenger growth rates are generally exaggerated as Pulkovo Airport will not become a transit hub serving 25 million passengers by 2025, as City Hall hopes. “The rates will at most double. Investors are attracted because airports are at present probably the only kind of promising asset not being distributed,” he said.
Next Monday, the bidding companies will see further shortlisting according to the size of their assets, which should include more than $1 billion, and whether they have sufficient experience in construction and airport management. To avoid censure from Russia’s monopoly bodies, the tender conditions, elaborately implemented by the city’s transport committee, restrict air transport companies from owning more than 15 percent of bidding companies. In addition, airport owners or operators located within 800 kilometers of St. Petersburg, such as Helsinki, Stockholm, Riga, Tallinn, Minsk and Moscow, are also ineligible for taking part in the tender.
When the results are announced next Monday, the companies on the shortlist will have to submit official bids. The winner will be announced in March next year, but Smolny is reluctant to announce the amount of investment needed for Pulkovo.
“We have approved estimates, but they are still approximate and the figures are not to be made public,” said Vakhmistrov, declining to comment on the fact that earlier this year the local media reported a starting investment figure of $1 billion.
The project’s architecture will also be the responsibility of the winning investor, who will have to liaise with the British firm Grimshaw, whose design was chosen at the end of last year.
The renovated airport terminal will comprise three commercial areas, including parking lots, a business center and hotel, as well as the transport terminal which will feature a 22,000-square meter baggage reclaim area and a large departure and arrival center. When the reconstruction is complete, Pulkovo Airport is expected to be able to accommodate around 17.5 million passengers annually.
The airport will continue to operate during the reconstruction process, whose timeframe will be determined by investors. According to Pulkovo Airport’s CEO, Andrei Murov, flight schedules will not be affected. “The terminals at Pulkovo-1 and Pulkovo-2 are capable of handling the passenger flow.”
Together with Moscow’s Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo, Pulkovo is one of the biggest airports in Russia and is the biggest in the northwest, with a net income of around 625 million rubles ($26.8 million) in 2007. During the first half of 2008, passenger numbers totaled 3.3 million.
TITLE: TNK-BP’s CFO Quits Amid Ongoing Dispute
AUTHOR: By Lucian Kim
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — TNK-BP’s Chief Financial Officer James Owen quit on Monday, the first top executive to resign since a dispute erupted between BP and its billionaire partners for control of Russia’s third-biggest oil producer.
Owen tendered his resignation to Chief Executive Officer Robert Dudley on Monday, the company said in an e-mailed statement, less than two weeks after Dudley himself left Russia citing “sustained harassment” in receiving permission to work in the country and performing his duties.
TNK-BP, a 50-50 venture between BP and a group of billionaires known collectively as AAR, is embroiled in a dispute over strategy and management. BP is struggling to maintain control amid pressure on its directors.
“There’ll be a fundamental management change after this chain of events,” said Vladimir Matias, managing director of Asset Capital Partners in Moscow. “The signal is very clear, this won’t be cosmetic.”
BP CEO Tony Hayward and billionaire Mikhail Fridman met in Prague on Wednesday to seek a resolution to the dispute after the battle for control of the company intensified last month.
The investors in the venture are Fridman and fellow billionaires German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik. Fridman and Vekselberg have said BP treats TNK-BP like a subsidiary and has constrained growth, which BP denies.
Owen said he was quitting because the dispute at the venture makes it difficult for him to work independently, as his role demands, according to the statement. He will leave at the end of this month.
“I greatly regret that we are losing Jim,” Dudley, 52, said in the statement. “He will be very hard to replace.”
In Dudley’s absence and with Owen’s imminent departure, Chief Operating Officer Tim Summers is the last foreign manager at the company’s Moscow headquarters. A “core executive group” covers for the CEO when he is out of the country, Summers said on July 24, hours before Dudley left Russia. The group includes Owen; Khan, TNK-BP’s executive director; Vekselberg, executive director for natural gas; and himself, Summers said at the time.
Hayward said on Tuesday that BP would not be “intimidated by strong-arm tactics” and vowed to defend its rights at TNK-BP.
BP last month pulled its remaining 60 employees contracted to work at the venture from Russia, as a minority shareholder in TNK-BP’s traded unit sought to overturn the agreement covering their services.
Dudley may step down as CEO under a possible deal to resolve differences between BP and its partners, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing people involved on both sides of the negotiations.
BP would also agree to a revision of profit-sharing, and in return Vekselberg and Khan would give up their management roles, the Journal said.
Stan Polovets, who represents the billionaire shareholders in TNK-BP, said on Friday nothing had been agreed at the meeting between Hayward and Fridman. “The meeting was a first step but there are many difficult issues that need to be resolved,” he said.
TITLE: Power Companies Unite To Protest Price Controls
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Power producers voiced alarm Friday after a government regulator clamped down on pricing by Mosenergo, the Moscow power generator controlled by Gazprom, in the country’s first-ever competitive tender for electricity capacity.
Major players in the electricity industry, grouped in the Council of Power Producers and Strategic Investors in the Power Industry, joined forces to protest after the Market Council, a government watchdog, forced Mosenergo to cut its asking price by more than 10 percent, for 875 megawatts of capacity, Market Council head Dmitry Ponomaryov said.
“The signal that we are receiving is that things might not develop as they should and that is the main danger,” Mikhail Slobodin, head of billionaire Viktor Vekselberg’s electricity holding Integrated Energy Systems, told a news briefing.
Slobodin also heads the lobby group, which was formed late last year.
In the tender, Mosenergo asked for up to 380,000 rubles ($16,000) per megawatt of capacity, but was eventually forced to reduce it to 340,000 rubles ($14,500), Ponomaryov said.
Initially, the Market Council demanded a 30 percent cut, largely because of the government’s fear that prices for basic goods are soaring out of control.
The negotiations lasted several days, instilling tension into the tender. The next tender is scheduled for December.
“It’s a very negative signal to the market,” Slobodin said. “If even Gazprom came under such pressure, what will happen to private producers?”
Slobodin said the lobby group would be talking with the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and the Federal Tariffs Service to work out a pricing system in the next two to three months.
“We want transparent and clear rules of the game,” Slobodin said. “If a viable system for capacity supplies contracts is not created, there will be no logic for us to [create] new generation capacity.”
Ponomaryov tried to reassure producers, saying the state “was not trying to limit prices on the free market and was in the process of discussing a just pricing system.”
At the tender, generators set aside a portion of their capacity for a given period.
The Market Council has the right to adjust the price if it deems it unjustified. Industrial consumers buy the capacity to ensure steady electricity supplies at predictable prices.
Mosenergo recently spent about $1 billion installing state-of-the-art turbines at its Moscow plants. Its asking price was twice the state-regulated price it had been charging. The regulator refused to allow such a drastic jump in prices for Mosenergo’s industrial clients.
Gazprom declined to comment Sunday.
David Herne, director of Halcyon Advisors, an investor in the country’s electricity market, said if the capacity market “worked properly, Mosenergo would have the right to put the price as high as it wants.”
“The problem is that the other players would have it lower, so no one would buy electricity from Mosenergo,” he said.
Reuters, SPT
TITLE: Helsinki Ferry Sets Sail Again
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Finland’s Stella Lines recommenced the passenger ferry connection between St. Petersburg and Helsinki on Saturday, after a gap of three years.
The Julia, with a capacity of 1,860 passengers and cargo deck for 400 cars, will set sail from St. Petersburg on odd dates and from Helsinki on even dates, making a total of three cruises a week. The service will operate all year round.
The trip will take 11 hours, and the cheapest one-way ticket will cost 50 euros ($78). A cabin will cost 100 euros ($156), and a car space will cost 120 euros ($187).
The official agent of the line is Inflot Worldwide St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg residents were able to get to Helsinki by ferry until 2005, when the route was closed due to low numbers of passengers using the service.
Going to Helsinki by ferry will take twice as long as by car or train, but experts say it will still be more convenient and pleasant.
Igor Molchanov, vice-governor of St. Petersburg, said driving to Helsinki takes about five hours but is complicated by lines at customs.
“At the same time, traveling by ferry to Helsinki can be sheer enjoyment,” Molchanov said, Mir television company reported.
The active development of the sea connection between the two countries will be possible when the existing visa regime is relaxed or canceled, travel industry experts say. With this in mind, city authorities have suggested introducing an amendment to the law by which ferry and cruiseship passengers would be able to stay in Russia without a visa for up to 72 hours. The new law is to be ruled on in September. If passed, it would attract even more foreign tourists to St. Petersburg, Mir reported.
TITLE: Economic Development Ministry Suggests Slashing VAT
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Economic Development Ministry is proposing cutting value-added tax by one-third, from 18 percent to 12 percent, in a step that is likely to bring the ministry into conflict with the Finance Ministry, which opposes a reduction.
Deputy Economic Development Minister Stanislav Voskresensky told reporters during a presentation on tourism and recreation in the Altai region that the proposal had been submitted to the government. The ministry has yet to see any of the Finance Ministry’s proposals on reducing VAT, he said.
President Dmitry Medvedev has backed the idea of cutting VAT, while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called for the dispute over VAT to be resolved by August. A lower VAT rate could take effect as early as 2010.
Much to the dismay of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who has said that cutting VAT could wreak havoc on the country’s economy, Medvedev and Putin have sided with the industrial lobby, which has publicly supported it.
“Such a reduction of VAT [would be] an absolutely destructive decision,” Kudrin told reporters June 25.
Economists were divided about the merits of the Economic Development Ministry’s proposal. “This measure could severely shrink the government’s budget and negatively impact the oil market,” said Alexander Morozov, an economist for HSBC in Moscow.
TITLE: BoNY Lawsuit Postponed After Blakey Incapacitated
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Russian government’s $22.5 billion lawsuit against the Bank of New York Mellon has been adjourned until October 6 after a key witness for the Russian side was unable to attend the Monday hearing, the bank said.
Since last May Russia has been seeking compensation after a former vice president at the bank, Lucy Edwards, helped launder more than $7 billion from Russia in the late 1990s through Bank of New York accounts and shell companies.
The witness, American jurist and legal scholar G. Robert Blakey, was the main author of the U.S. law on which Russia has based its suit — the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO — a U.S. anti-organized crime law from 1970.
He testified at a hearing in July that Russian courts can apply the U.S. law, and that the bank was liable under RICO for Edwards’ role in money laundering.
On Monday, Blakey, who is 72, was supposed to be cross-examined by the bank’s lawyers but could not attend the hearing due to illness, the spokeswoman, Natalya Miroyevskaya, told Reuters.
“The testimony of the experts that has been put forward by the plaintiff needs a lot of further clarification, so it is essential that we see a thorough cross-examination,” Miroyevskaya said.
After Blakey is cross-examined, the court is to hear expert witnesses called by the bank, founded in 1784 by Alexander Hamilton and now a global custodial power handling $23 trillion in assets around the world.
Former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh has already submitted written testimony on behalf of the bank, saying that a Russian court has no right to try a RICO case. He has so far not traveled to Moscow to address the court.
TITLE: Central Bank Increases Reserve Requirements in Fight Against Inflation
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Central Bank, on the warpath against inflation, said Friday that it would raise mandatory bank reserve requirements from Sept. 1 in a bid to soak up the liquidity pool from foreign borrowings.
Requirements on banks’ liabilities toward foreign lenders will rise to 8.5 percent from 7 percent from Sept. 1. On ruble retail deposits, they will increase to 5.5 percent from 5 percent and on other liabilities to 6 percent from 5.5 percent.
This is the second increase in just over two months, as the Central Bank battles to rein in inflation currently running at around 15 percent on an annualized basis.
“It’s not a surprise. The Central Bank is ... making another step toward tightening monetary policy. From the three options — appreciating the ruble, hiking interest rates and raising the reserve requirements — it’s choosing probably the least painful one,” said Stanislav Ponomarenko, head of research for Russia at ING.
The Central Bank also said it would raise reserves averaging ratio — which allows banks to spread their reserves over time and even out periods of excess and scarce liquidity — to 0.55 from 0.5.
The Economic Development Ministry said recently that it expected inflation for 2008 to be 11.8 percent, but analysts forecast a rate of 13.2 percent.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Russian Yahoo! Office
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Yahoo! plans to open a representative office in Russia, Vedomosti reported on Friday.
Yahoo is seeking a manager for the Russian office, according to information placed on job-search web site Monster.com and professional network LinkedIn, the Russian daily said. Yahoo did not reply to Vedomosti’s written and phone requests for comment, according to the report.
Hummer Sale Possible
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — General Motors is negotiating with Russian carmakers, including billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Russian Machines, on a possible sale of the Hummer brand, Vedomosti reported Monday.
GM may offer the assets to Moscow-based Russian Machines or billionaire Vadim Shvetsov’s Sollers, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified official at Citigroup, which is managing the talks.
Avtotor, a carmaker based in Kaliningrad, Russia, held initial discussions with GM on buying Hummer, Vedomosti said, citing an unidentified senior manager at Avtotor.
iPhones on Their Way
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Apple’s iPhones will go on sale in Russia next year, Vedomosti reported, citing Yevgeny Butman, a Moscow-based director of Apple IMC, Apple’s official vendor in the country.
Customers will have to sign up for contracts with Russian phone carriers at the time of purchase, the Moscow-based newspaper said. No single carrier will have exclusive rights to iPhone’s service contracts, according to Vedomosti.
Apple declined to comment to Vedomosti. About 470,000 iPhones are already operable in Russia after the handsets were hacked to work on unauthorized networks, the newspaper said, citing Moscow-based Mobile Research Group.
VTB Shares Hit Low
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — VTB Group, the Russian bank that went public in the world’s biggest initial public offering last year, fell to a record low in Moscow trading.
The shares dropped 1.5 percent to 7.92 kopeks on the Micex Stock Exchange, or 42 percent below the IPO price of 13.6 kopeks.
“This is negative for Russian banks in the short term and will slow asset growth slightly,” UralSib Financial Corp. said in a note to investors Monday.
Vedomosti reported Monday that the global credit crisis and rising real estate prices are slowing the growth of Russian mortgage lending as banks tighten lending standards, boost interest rates and increase the minimum down payment.
Sibir, Shell Negotiate
LONDON (Reuters) — U.K-listed oil firm Sibir Energy said on Monday it was in talks with joint venture partner Royal Dutch Shell about a deal which would expand its business in Russia.
“Sibir is considering all opportunities that would allow it to expand its business in Russia. Sibir discusses various opportunities with different companies on a regular basis and Shell is one of them,” the company said in a statement.
At the weekend, the Sunday Times newspaper reported that Shell and Sibir, partners in Siberia-based Salym Petroleum Development (SPD), were discussing a deal in which Shell would swap its take in the SPD for an equity holding in Sibir itself.
TITLE: Putin Continues Antitrust Campaign
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called on Monday for new anti-monopoly legislation to be drafted in September and put Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin in charge of drafting it.
Russia’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS), which often lacks the political clout to deal with large companies violating existing anti-cartel laws, was recently publicly chastised by Putin for failing to keep kerosene prices low.
“I asked the head of FAS to draft a package of laws which should improve anti-monopoly legislation in order to prevent cartel deals, create transparent and clear competition rules,” Putin was quoted by Russian agencies as saying.
The watchdog is currently investigating New York-listed miner Mechel, whose stock has been ravaged by Putin’s attacks on its pricing policy, as part of its probe into high domestic coal prices.
The watchdog’s head Igor Artemyev earlier said about a quarter of Russia’s overall prices growth is a result of cartel agreements, while a study posted on FAS’s website showed that about a half of Russian businessmen had never heard of FAS.
Artemyev, a former opposition politician, is walking a tightrope, trying to pursue his anti-monopoly agenda in a business environment dominated by influential state-controlled firms whose boards are packed with top officials.
In 2007 FAS issued fines worth a total about 500 million rubles ($21.31 million). Also in 2007 FAS fined gas export monopoly Gazprom 300,000 roubles ($12,790) for violating anti-monopoly laws.
A decision to place Kudrin, one of Putin’s closest allies, in charge of drafting new anti-monopoly laws may boost the watchdog’s political clout.
“I ask you, in your role as deputy prime minister, to take it under control,” Putin was quoted by the agencies as telling Kudrin during a government meeting.
On Thursday, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said it would soon propose amendments to the Criminal Code that would introduce criminal liability for company executives responsible for price collusion and monopolistic activities in key sectors of the economy.
The proposal, which would make violation of anti-monopoly rules punishable by up to 10 years in jail, was backed by Putin at a Wednesday meeting with Artemyev.
“You must do what you must to protect the consumer, as well as to promote economic development because cartel collusion can lead to stagnation,” Putin said, Interfax reported.
The proposal is part of an effort to curb rampant price collusion and combat the formation of cartels, Yelena Nagaichuk, a spokeswoman for the service, said Thursday.
The amendments, which would regulate competitive practices especially in energy, metals and construction, would be presented to the Cabinet within three weeks, after which it would be sent to the State Duma for consideration, Nagaichuk said.
Nagaichuk said Putin’s support for the bill would guarantee its passage through the State Duma.
Artemyev said the amendments to Article 178 of the Criminal Code would make it easier to gather evidence against violators of anti-competition laws.
Existing price-fixing law provides for a penalty of up to 15 percent of a company’s turnover. The law also specifies a jail term of up to five years’ imprisonment, but as it only refers to legal entities, this is unenforceable.
He explained that the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code would change all that, adding that if passed, the executives of companies found guilty of formation of cartels could face up to 10 years in prison.
“The flaw in the existing law is that it only covers legal entities as a whole while violations committed by individual company executives cannot be prosecuted,” said Alexander Partin, a lawyer with Pepeliaev, Goltsblat & Partners.
“With the amendments, senior executives would be more conscious of their responsibilities, knowing fully that it is not only the company’s money at stake.”
Sergei Voitishkin, a corporate and M&A partner at Baker & McKenzie, said the existing anti-competition law contained sufficient penalties.
“The new rules appear to be part of the ongoing government effort to clamp down on companies with a dominant position in the market to keep prices in check,” Voitishkin said. “However, the provision for 10 years’ imprisonment for an economic crime such as forming a cartel may be way too tough.”
Voitishkin said the country also needed to address the issue of laws “being applied selectively,” especially in cases where they could be abused by overzealous state officials.
(SPT, Reuters)
TITLE: Appeal Date Given To Khodorkovsky
AUTHOR: By Chris Baldwin
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — A Russian court has set Aug. 21 for an early-release appeal hearing for jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a spokeswoman for the local court in the Siberian city of Chita said on Monday.
Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, was sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison for tax evasion and fraud. His trial was viewed by many as a climax of the Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to subdue politically ambitious business leaders.
The fate of Khodorkovsky’s appeal for release, which follows new charges of embezzlement and money laundering, is broadly seen as a test of new President Dmitry Medvedev’s stated commitment to establishing a “rule of law” within Russia.
In June, Medvedev told reporters in Germany that “the procedures for a pardon are open to any and all citizens convicted of one or another crime, including Khodorkovsky.”
The 45-year old Khodorkovsky’s lawyers said at the time that Medvedev’s public pronouncement was not the driving force behind their latest legal move.
“This is not a request for absolution or amnesty. It is something all prisoners who have served their sentences apply for, and the majority ... receive a conditional release,” Khodorkovsky’s chief defence lawyer Yury Schmidt said in July.
In his appeal for early release to the Ingodinsky district court in Chita, 5,000 kilometers east of Moscow, Khodorkovsky maintained his innocence and accused investigators of manipulating evidence in his case.
“For my own part let me add: they are falsifying the evidence, and all this is encouraged by the court’s failure to intervene,” he wrote in an appeal posted on July 16 on his web site, www.khodorkovsky.info.
New charges filed on July 1 accused Khodorkovsky and his imprisoned business associate Platon Lebedev of “theft through embezzlement and the legalisation of the money acquired as a result of a large-scale crime”, prosecutors said.
Khodorkovsky’s legal team in July said the new charges were a recycled version of a 2006 indictment, with only a few minor changes, and that prosecutors were playing for time as the legal filing date for early release approached.
After Khodorkovsky’s arrest in October 2003, the Russian authorities brought his company Yukos to its knees by imposing tens of billions of dollars in back tax claims before selling off its main asset.
The state-controlled oil major Rosneft later bought most of Yukos’s assets and became Russia’s largest oil company.
Last year a Swiss court halted cooperation with Russia in a criminal case and lifted a freeze on Yukos’s funds, saying Russian officials were “being maneuvered by the powers that be with the intention of reining in the class of rich ‘oligarchs’ and sidelining potential or declared political adversaries.”
Russia’s prosecutor general slammed the decision as an unfriendly move.
TITLE: Goldman Sachs Acquires Elite Development
AUTHOR: By John Wendle
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs said Friday that it had bought Pokrovsky Hills, an elite townhouse neighborhood in northwest Moscow, from U.S. insurance firm AIG and Deutsche Bank for an undisclosed sum.
Jones Lang LaSalle, adviser to AIG and Deutsche Bank, would not disclose the price, while real estate analysts put it at $350 million to $450 million.
Pokrovsky Hills has a reputation as a sound investment and strong fixed-income earner, but some real estate analysts said buying into a real estate developer could have been a better play.
“Goldman Sachs would have done better to buy stock in a developer. It is much easier to buy stock than to buy the underlying project itself,” said Tigran Hovhannisyan, an analyst at Troika Dialog. “Real estate prices have jumped, but [publicly traded] developers’ stock has gone down significantly. Goldman Sachs could have bought stock at a discount.”
While real estate prices in Moscow have gone up 30 percent since the beginning of the year, some real estate developers’ stocks have fallen by two-thirds over the same period, he said.
No one at Goldman Sachs, Jones Lang LaSalle, AIG or Deutsche Bank was available for comment Friday.
Pokrovsky Hills, a 9.2-hectare development of 260 townhouses near the Leningradsky and Volokolamskoye highways, has a total rentable area of 45,584 square meters, according to Hines, the developer and property manager of the site. Major tenants include several embassies and corporate clients. Houses average 220 square meters.
Another real estate analyst said Goldman Sachs had made a good investment. AIG and Deutsche Bank made good returns in the two years they owned the project, and its proximity to the Anglo-American School ensured its success, he said.
TITLE: Zenit’s UEFA Success Down to Soviet-Style Funding
AUTHOR: By Peter Brophy
TEXT: In 1990, the English football writer Simon Inglis called Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was still then known, the most unsuccessful footballing city in Europe. During several decades, a single league title in the Soviet era together with a single triumph in the Soviet Cup represented a meagre return for the only top level team in the Soviet Union’s second city. Now, after winning a second national title in 2007, Zenit is finally starting to punch its weight, as shown by the spectacular 4-0 win over Bayern Munich followed by victory in May’s UEFA Cup final against Glasgow Rangers in Manchester. Their success shows just how seriously the team from Russia’s northern capital wants to make up for lost time, but it also demonstrates the growing power of Russian clubs generally.
In 2005, CSKA Moscow shocked Sporting Lisbon with a 3-1 victory in a UEFA Cup final held at the Portuguese club’s own stadium. Zenit’s supporters may also have been at a numerical disadvantage when they faced Rangers, whose fans had only a 300 km journey to Manchester from Glasgow, but the St. Petersburg side produced an assured display to emulate CSKA’s achievement and become the second Russian club to win a European trophy.
The key to Zenit’s recent resurgence has been the involvement of a backer with deep pockets. Ahead of the 2006 season, the vast state-owned oil and gas concern Gazprom acquired the club, which has enabled it to keep hold of home-grown players by offering salaries competitive with those on offer in the rest of Europe, and to bring in talent from both Russia and overseas. In July of that year, the experienced Dutch coach Dick Advocaat arrived to steer the club to a fourth-placed finish in the Russian Premier League, which resulted in the entitlement to play in the UEFA Cup during the current European campaign. Last season’s title success, meanwhile, means that Champions League football will come to St. Petersburg for the first time in the 2008/09 European season.
After seeing his Arsenal team slide to defeat against CSKA in Moscow in the autumn of 2006, Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger was moved to comment that, “A Russian team could win the Champions League in the next decade,” but in comparison to the wealthiest leagues of western Europe, gate receipts and TV and sponsorship revenues are small. This means that, for there to be any prospect of Wenger’s prediction becoming a reality, the successful clubs all need additional financial backing to a major degree. Lukoil, for instance, stands behind Spartak Moscow, traditionally Russia’s biggest club. The Moscow city government funds FC Moscow, a club in existence for barely ten years and lacking the levels of support enjoyed by most of its rivals, but which managed successive top-six finishes in 2006 and 2007. Zenit looks as well placed as any to become a genuine force: it has the unqualified support of almost all fans in Europe’s fourth-largest city, and Gazprom is building a new 60,000-seater stadium to be ready for 2009.
There is an irony in all this, because it effectively represents a step back to the old days. The way top-level sport was organised and operated in the Soviet Union always differed markedly from the western model.
All of the major clubs were state-owned and controlled. Dinamo Moscow, famously, had links to the Interior Ministry, while CSKA Moscow was the army team. Zenit itself started life as the factory team of the Leningrad Metal Works and was known as Stalinets before being co-opted in 1940 as part of the Zenit national sports society for armaments workers. But in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russian clubs threw off the shackles of the state and prepared to stand on their own two feet, reforming as private companies.
This was an undistinguished period for the Russian domestic game. The Soviet league had been a strong competition, but the poverty of the product on the pitch reflected the financial difficulties of clubs who suddenly had to cope with the loss of their traditional backing.
Fans were left unimpressed by the result, and generally fixtures between poorly paid and motivated teams were played out in desultory atmospheres in largely empty stadia.
The resurgence in Russian football in recent years has come as a consequence of a reversal of the old policy. The ownership or patronage of corporations and bodies associated with the state or public sector has once again become a pre-requisite for success.
The question for those bodies and organisations is how deep they are going to be prepared to dig to compete. To take an example, in the English season ended May 2006, Manchester United’s turnover was significantly in excess of $300 million, and with additional commercial and TV revenues in the two years since then, it is likely to be substantially in excess of $400 million for the current financial year. This is against Zenit’s reported 2008 budget of $120 million. The UEFA Cup, very much the junior partner of the two major UEFA club competitions, may thus be a realistic target for the likes of CSKA and Zenit, but the figures suggest that if Arsene Wenger’s prediction is to become a reality and a Russian club is to win the Champions League competing against the likes of United and Real Madrid, a much greater level of financial investment is still needed.
Of course, while self-financing to this level is clearly currently beyond Russian clubs, they can nevertheless aim to redress the gap in funding. The website www.eufootball.biz estimated that in 2007, Zenit could only cover around 20 percent of its revenues from its own commercial activities. However, it would seem that this is something the club is trying hard to change. At points around the city, there are now concession stalls selling official merchandise, which is also available via the club’s website. There’s a Zenit radio station and official magazine. The club has a partnership arrangement with German club Schalke 04 which, according to Zenit’s official website, “envisages cooperation and exchange of experience in the areas of construction and refurbishment of football stadiums and pitches, training and selection procedures, commercial tournaments and friendly matches organization, public relations work and work with fan groups.”
Perhaps this hints at the model that Russian clubs are likely to continue to seek to follow. While there seems no alternative to large subsidies from their current backers if they want to continue to compete on the European stage, they are likely to try to mitigate the reliance on that backing by becoming as commercially sophisticated as possible. And, naturally, they will continue to look to the western European leagues, which currently lead the way in commercial development, for examples of how best to achieve this aim.
Finally, belated congratulations to Zenit on their momentous achievement in May. Their UEFA Cup performances in 2008 were inspirational, and hopefully will serve as a basis for the club to push on and become a force at the European level in the seasons to come.
Peter Brophy is a Senior Associate and Solicitor at DLA Piper in St. Petersburg.
TITLE: Moscow’s Triangular Diplomacy
AUTHOR: By Alexander Veytsman
TEXT: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Over three decades ago Richard Nixon pioneered “triangular diplomacy” by forming two separate alliances with China and the Soviet Union, which had adversarial relations with each other in the early 1970s. Nixon’s diplomacy allowed the United States to drive a wedge through the heart of the Second World, making each of the two communist countries cautious of the other’s alliance, which in the end significantly enhanced U.S. bargaining power. In our time, triangular diplomacy is very much alive, but the country effectively pursuing it is no longer the United States but Russia.
During the eight years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, Russia has adopted this type of diplomacy by creating several mini-triangles. Within each triangle, two of the three sides belong to Russia and the United States. The third country differed each time, although the main criterion always remained the same: That country had to lack diplomatic contacts with the United States and reside on the enemy list of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Russia thus chose to form strategic alliances with Iran, North Korea, pre-2003 Iraq, Syria, Venezuela and even Hamas. Some came in the form of semitransparent arms deals, as in the cases of Iran and Syria; some led to greater energy ties, like with Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. Paralleling those partnerships, Russia maintained an ostensibly stable relationship with the United States, which is a necessary precondition for successful triangular diplomacy.
The U.S. buildup of similar diplomatic triangles against Russia has been less prominent. The Bush administration forged alliances with Georgia and Ukraine, aiming to diminish Russia’s influence on its former republics. This approach, however, has been largely ineffective since both countries, and especially Ukraine, have a substantial economic dependency on their larger neighbor. The U.S. push for their membership in NATO has fallen on the deaf ears of West European colleagues, who fear alienating Russia over two states that do not add much strategic value.
Meanwhile, Putin’s alliances carry far greater weight. They are vital to several major conflicts on the U.S. diplomatic front, in which Russia maintains relative neutrality.
The prospect of expelling Russia from the Group of Eight, raised by U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle, could tilt Russian neutrality toward its partnerships with “rogue states.” Russia would not tolerate humiliation. While no longer a superpower, it seeks to be a major political and economic player in the world arena. As Dmitry Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center analyst, said: “What Russia craves is respect. It does not want to be a junior partner — it wants to be an equal.” The Putin administration was successful in restoring Russia’s image which had been severely weakened in the 1990s. The triangular diplomacy comes as an inevitable result of this on the political front, while the rising price of oil strengthens Russia on the economic front.
The G8 expulsion would once again divide the world order into pro-U.S. and pro-Russian domains. The world’s rogue states would eagerly join a pro-Moscow bloc, and this would make it difficult for the United States to fulfill its key foreign policy objectives. At a time when Washington intends to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, secure loose nuclear materials, stabilize Iraq and achieve resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it cannot afford to instigate a Cold Peace in U.S.-Russian relations.
Instead, the United States should turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Specifically, Washington could leverage Moscow’s alliances to conduct diplomacy with the rogue states, when necessary. The recent presence of William Burns, former U.S. ambassador to Russia and current U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, during nuclear discussions with Iran indicates that a dialogue is at times inevitable.
Since direct and immediate talks with a country such as Iran or Syria may be politically damaging for the U.S. side, Russia could become a safe conduit for breaking the ice. Its role could be that of an honest broker, ranging from a dialogue-facilitator to a third-party host of bilateral negotiations. As the ice breaks, so will some of Moscow’s triangles. Triangular diplomacy is incapable of sustaining itself when the two former foes commence dialogue. Meanwhile, Russia would get the respect that it seeks.
The proponents of Russia’s expulsion from the G8 would argue that Putin’s nondemocratic policies should not be encouraged, but punished. But what political purpose would the proposed punishment serve for the United States? Few question Russia’s rise of authoritarianism in the post-Yeltsin years. Yet the country is still far more liberal than it was in 1972, when Nixon made his historic visit to the Soviet Union and launched detente. Nixon was no lover of communism, but he chose to close his eyes to some aspects of Soviet domestic politics when it served U.S. foreign policy interests. The next president of the United States should choose to do the same.
Alexander Veytsman is a senior manager for international markets at American Express in New York.
TITLE: Putin’s $60Bln House Call
AUTHOR: By Yulia Latynina
TEXT: On Thursday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin heaped criticism on a company for activities that he said were harmful to the country’s economy.
The company turned out to be Mechel, which Putin accused of selling raw materials to overseas customers at half the price it charges on the domestic market. Because of bad health, the company’s owner, billionaire Igor Zyuzin, did not attend the meeting with other leaders of the metals industry. “Of course, an illness is an illness,” the prime minister said, and advised Mechel’s owner that he should recover quickly “or we will have to send him a doctor to clean up all these problems.”
Putin’s threat cost the ailing oligarch nearly $6 billion — the amount Mechel’s American Depositary Receipts fell on the New York stock exchange on Friday, the day after Putin’s statement.
One of the reasons why Putin has expressed dissatisfaction with Mechel is because the coal producer prefers to sell its products on the spot market to maximize short-term profits during periods of rising coal prices. But with prices rising as much as they have over the past year, Mechel’s largest buyers — steelmakers Novolipetsk and Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, or MMK — seek long-term contracts with the coal supplier in order to lock into lower, fixed coal prices.
It is not surprising that Novolipetsk and MMK, which are the two leading giants in the country’s steel industry, are much closer than Mechel is to the Kremlin and to Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who now oversees this industry. It was Sechin, apparently at the urging of the steel giants, who prepared the incriminating report to Putin about Mechel’s purported price-fixing.
This is Putin’s second recent attempt as prime minister to intervene directly in the economy. On July 11, he ordered the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service to “wake up” and find out why domestic jet-fuel prices are higher than on global markets. If as president Putin claimed that the Yukos affair was an exception, as prime minister it would seem Putin is determined to control the economy with his own hands.
If Mechel’s share price drops much further — or worse, the company is forced into bankruptcy — its ADR shareholders would have sufficient grounds to sue Putin in a New York court. Yukos’ former owners made a similar claim against Putin, but they would have had a tough job proving in court that Putin was liable for Yukos’ bankruptcy.
It would be hard to imagine U.S. President George W. Bush saying on television that he will “send a doctor” to “help” Bill Gates solve the anti-trust issues facing Microsoft.
In the free world, government leaders do not speak that way to businesspeople. Putin’s threat sounds more like what a Mafia don might say when his underlings step out of line. Usually, we learn about these kinds of threats only with the help of hidden microphones (or with microphones that leaders mistakenly think are turned off), but in this case, Putin sent the message to the whole world loud and clear on national television.
One question is: How much will this conflict ultimately cost Mechel? But the more interesting question is: How much it will cost Novolipetsk and MMK? These events are a classic illustration of the old saying that you should not call a wolf to protect you from a mad dog. The steel-producing giants seemed to have called on Sechin to help secure long-term coal contracts with Mechel at fixed, low prices.
But the subsequent overall decline in Russia’s stock market, which fell by $60 billion the day after Putin’s statement, has already cost the country’s steel industry far more than the losses it would have ever incurred from Zyuzin selling coal through the spot market.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
TITLE: 4 Days Before Olympics, Attack in China Kills 16
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING — Two men rammed a dump truck into a group of jogging policemen and then tossed explosives into their barracks Monday, killing 16 officers in a restive Chinese province bordering Central Asia, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
The attack in Xinjiang province came just four days before the start of the Beijing Olympics — an event that has put security forces nationwide on alert and that at least one militant Muslim group has vowed to disrupt. Xinhua, citing local police, called it a “suspected terrorist attack.”
Meanwhile, about 20 people angry about being evicted from their homes in central Beijing demonstrated Monday not far from Tiananmen Square, saying the Olympics should not curb their legal rights.
The attackers in Xinjiang struck at 8 a.m., plowing into the policemen performing their morning exercises outside a hotel next to their paramilitary border patrol post in Kashgar, Xinhua said.
After the truck hit an electrical pole, the pair jumped out, threw homemade explosives at the barracks and “also hacked the policemen with knives,” the report said.
Fourteen died on the spot and two others en route to a hospital, while at least 16 others were wounded, Xinhua said.
Police arrested the two attackers, one of whom had a leg injury, the report said.
The attack was one of the deadliest and most brazen in recent years in Xinjiang province, where local Muslims have waged a sporadically violent rebellion against Chinese rule.
Local government officials declined comment Monday. An officer in the district police department said an investigation had been launched.
The exact location of the attack in Kashgar could not immediately be determined. Kashgar, or Kashi in Chinese, is the name of an oasis town that was once a stop on the Silk Road caravan routes and lies about 80 miles from the border with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Chinese security forces have been on edge for months, citing a number of foiled plots by Muslim separatists and a series of bombings around China in the run-up to the Olympics, which open Friday. Last week, a senior military commander said radical Muslims who are fighting for what they call an independent East Turkistan in Xinjiang posed the single greatest threat to the games.
Xinhua said that Xinjiang’s police department earlier received intelligence reports about possible terrorist attacks in the week leading up to the Olympics by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. The name is used by a group that China and the U.S. say is a terrorist organization, but Chinese authorities often use the label for a broad number of violent separatist groups.
In Xinjiang, a local Turkic Muslim people, the Uighurs, have chafed under Chinese rule, fully imposed after the communists took power nearly 60 years ago. Occasionally violent attacks in the 1990s brought an intense response from Beijing, which has stationed crack paramilitary units in the area and clamped down on unregistered mosques and religious schools that officials said were inciting militant action.
Uighurs have complained that the suppression has aggravated tensions in Xinjiang, making Uighurs feel even more threatened by an influx of Chinese and driving some to flee to Pakistan and other areas where they then have readier access to extremist ideologies.
One militant group, the Turkistan Islamic Party, pledged in a video that surfaced on the Internet last month to “target the most critical points related to the Olympics.” The group is believed to be based across the border in Pakistan, with some of its core members having received training from al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, according to terrorism experts.
TITLE: Murray Downs Djokovic For 1st Masters
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MASON, Ohio — Four match points had just slipped away from Andy Murray. Frustration was starting to build. The nearly 100-degree Fahrenheit temperatures (37 deg C) on the court were getting to him, too.
Was he going to let a chance for his first Masters championship melt away like this?
Showing a newfound concentration, Britain’s top player regained his bearings and took the set to another tiebreaker. Then, he took control with the best shot of the match, an in-the-corner winner that set up a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) victory over Novak Djokovic for the Cincinnati Masters title on Sunday.
The 21-year-old Murray crouched in exultation when he finished it off, then swatted a ball into the stands and hunched over, trying to catch his breath before accepting the crystal trophy shaped like a shield.
“It’s huge to win your first sort of major tournament, and to do it in a match like today makes it more special,” Murray said. “I put in a lot of work off the court to be able to win these sorts of tournaments, and it makes it all worthwhile.”
His breakthrough victory ended a $2.6 million ATP Western & Southern Financial Group Masters that will be remembered more for what it did to the world rankings.
Rafael Nadal lost to Djokovic in the semifinals, but piled up enough rankings points during the week to finally wrest the No. 1 spot from Roger Federer in two weeks. Federer has led the rankings since Feb. 2, 2004, with Nadal right behind him for the last three years.
While the quest for No. 1 overshadowed the week, the world’s third-ranked player had a week that was about as good as it gets — until he met Murray for the second time in two weeks.
Last week, Murray changed tactics and beat Djokovic in the quarterfinals at Toronto, his first career win in five matches against the 21-year-old Serb. Djokovic had not lost a set all week in Cincinnati, making for an interesting rematch.
Murray made fewer errors and put himself in position to close it out in the second set. Up 5-3, he got four match points and failed to convert any of them, allowing an apparently down-and-out Djokovic to get back into it. Djokovic had twisted his left ankle while planting for a shot, was moving tentatively and looked vulnerable at that point.
“He was making me have a lot of unforced errors,” Djokovic said. “He was playing a lot of slice and changing pace to my forehand. I just lost the rhythm.”
Given the reprieve, Djokovic got back on his game. The turning point came when they were even in the tiebreaker.
They went back-and-forth on one point, running each other around the court until Murray put a crosscourt backhand in the corner. Both players pulled up and bent over in near-exhaustion, and Djokovic patted his racket in appreciation of what had just happened.
“That point was insane,” Murray said. “We had like a 30-shot rally, and I was dictating most of the point. But in those conditions, when you played so many long points and you’re really going for the shot, your legs get really fatigued.”
Ahead 5-4, Murray finished it off.
It was a highlight of the best summer of Murray’s career. He also reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal at Wimbledon. When the next rankings come out on Monday, Murray will move up to No. 6, the best of his career.
“I’ve started to play more consistently in the bigger tournaments,” Murray said. “Obviously winning your first one makes a big difference in your confidence. I’ve never been past the quarters of a Slam before, so there’s still a long way to go.”
It was something of a surprise for Murray, who has an abnormal right kneecap that causes pain and swelling. It was so worrisome that he had a medical scan at the start of the week.
Reassured that there was no significant injury, Murray got stronger as the week went on. He was steady at returning serves — he had broken his opponents 17 times in 40 games heading into the final. He also used a lot of ice, packing his troublesome right knee after each match to keep the inflammation down.
TITLE: Doubts Linger About Age Eligibility Of Some Gymnasts
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING — Birth dates found in online documents have raised questions about the age of another Chinese gymnast — bringing the total to three, or half the women’s team expected to contend for a gold medal, who may be too young to compete in the Beijing Olympics.
Yang Yilin, a medal contender in the all-around and the uneven bars, was born Aug. 26, 1993, according to the 2004, 2005 and 2006 registration lists previously posted on the web site of the General Administration of Sport of China. That would make Yang only 15 later this month. Gymnasts have to be 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible for the games.
In the 2007 registration list, however, Yang’s birthday is listed as Aug. 26, 1992, making her eligible to compete. Similar concerns have already been raised about the ages of He Kexin, a gold-medal favorite on uneven bars, and Jiang Yuyua.
Chinese gymnastics officials did not immediately respond to a fax from The Associated Press asking for documentation of Yang’s age and an explanation of the discrepancy.
Asked about the records that appear to call Yang’s age into question, International Gymnastics Federation secretary general Andrei Gueisbuhler said he couldn’t comment without seeing them.
“If I don’t have written proof of something … we have to take for granted the passports that we’ve seen and have been checked by the IOC are OK,” Gueisbuhler said.
Though the International Olympic Committee was in contact with the gymnastics federation and Chinese officials over the eligibility questions, president Jacques Rogge said Saturday it was clearly a FIG issue.
“The IOC relies on the international federations, who are exclusively responsible for the eligibility of athletes,” Rogge said. “It’s not the task of the IOC to check every one of the 10,000 athletes.”
The team gold medal is expected to be contested by two countries: China and the United States, and He and Yang have the potential to give the Chinese a sizable advantage.
Both have scored 17s on the uneven bars this season, while only one American, Nastia Liukin, has done the same. In team finals, three gymnasts compete on each event and all three scores count.
But Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics, said the Americans aren’t concerned with who China has in its lineup.
“This is not a USA Gymnastics issue,” he said. “This is an IOC and FIG issue.”
Age falsification has been a problem in gymnastics since the 1980s, after the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 to protect young athletes from serious injuries. The minimum age was raised to the current 16 in 1997.
North Korea was barred from the 1993 world championships after FIG officials discovered that Kim Gwang Suk, the gold medalist on uneven bars in 1991, was listed as 15 for three years in a row. Romania admitted in 2002 that several gymnasts’ ages had been falsified, including Olympic medalists Gina Gogean and Alexandra Marinescu.
Even China’s own Yang Yun, a double bronze medalist in Sydney, said during an interview aired on state broadcaster China Central Television that she was 14 in 2000.
But questions about the current Chinese team have been particularly fierce. The New York Times first reported the suspicions about He and Jiang, and the AP also has found documents that indicate the two might be too young to compete.
He’s birthdate is listed as Jan. 1, 1994 in the 2005, 2006 and 2007 registration lists found by the AP. She is not found on the 2004 list. A list of competitors at a 2007 provincial competition shows Jiang with an Oct. 1, 1993, birthdate.
There are also possible inconsistencies involving alternate Sui Lu. The 2004 and 2005 registration lists include an athlete named Sui Lu who was born on April 1, 1993. In the 2006 and 2007 lists, however, the birthday is given as April 1, 1992, and the Chinese character for her first name “Lu” is different from the one used previously.
“Not to do anything about that, this is ridiculous,” said longtime gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi, who will be part of NBC’s broadcast team in Beijing and whose wife, Martha, is now the coordinator of the U.S. team. “It’s just as grave and just as brutal like cheating with doping.”
Officials with the Chinese Gymnastics Association have maintained that all of its gymnasts are of age to compete in Beijing, saying they applied for passports for the athletes “according to all valid legal identification cards” provided by local governments where each athlete lives. They also provided photocopies of He and Jiang’s passports, which were issued in July 2007 and March 2006.
He’s birth date is listed as Jan. 1, 1992, Jiang’s as Nov. 1, 1991.
“The International Gymnastics Federation strictly verified their passports and confirmed that their ages met the age rules for participating in the World Championship, World Cup and Olympics,” the association said in a statement.
TITLE: Afghanistan, India in Terror Talks
AUTHOR: By Matthew Rosenberg
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW DELHI — The leaders of India and Afghanistan on Monday decried last month’s bombing of New Delhi’s mission in the Afghan capital — but made no mention of the country both hold responsible for the attack: Pakistan.
India and Afghanistan — and, reportedly, the United States — believe Pakistan’s powerful spy service, the Inter-Services Intelligence, orchestrated the bombing that killed 58 people in an effort to undermine growing ties between New Delhi and Kabul.
Instead, it may have only strengthened them. Indian Prime Minster Manmohan Singh said Monday that India would give another $450 million to aid in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
He called the bombing “an attack on the friendship between India and Afghanistan” and pledged that “we will not allow terrorism to stand in our way.”
Singh spoke after meeting Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who told reporters: “Afghanistan will stand with our friends in India in fighting the menace of terrorism.”
“As India has suffered immensely from this menace, Afghanistan has too,” added Karzai, who arrived Sunday and was heading home later Monday.
Singh and Karzai conspicuously avoided any direct reference to Pakistan, which both have repeatedly accused of harboring and aiding Islamic militant groups behind numerous attacks in India and Afghanistan, including the embassy bombing.
That attack is being widely viewed as the latest salvo in the six-decade rivalry between predominantly Hindu India and largely Muslim Pakistan, which was born in the bloody partition of the subcontinent upon independence from Britain in 1947.
Pakistan has long considered Afghanistan a strategic rear base in any potential conflict with India, and is wary of New Delhi’s efforts to forge strong ties with Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
But, if anything, the attack has mainly strained the stagnating India-Pakistan peace process. Indian officials say the talks are now at their lowest point since the process began in 2004.
Apart from the Kabul bombing, the peace process is also suffering from repeated exchanges of gunfire in recent months across the frontier in Kashmir, an overwhelmingly Muslim region split between the two and claimed entirely by both.
The Himalayan region has been the focus of two of the countries’ three wars, although the frontier had been largely quiet since a truce was declared in late 2003.
TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: Zenit Get Win At Last
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — FC Zenit St. Petersburg recorded a 2-1 win Saturday in a Premier League match against FC Moscow. Playing at home in Petrovsky Stadium, Zenit secured the victory with goals from Igor Denisov and Fatih Tekke.
Having fallen behind to a goal from Alexei Rebko in the first half, the hosts fought back to secure their first win in four matches. The result sees Zenit climb into the top half of the league for the first time in months.
UEFA Cup winners Zenit have had to cope with an extensive backlog of league fixtures. Contesting their 9th match in just 27 days, the defending champions picked up a much needed win.
Dog Do is Discus Don’t
VILNIUS (Reuters) — Two-time Olympic discus champion Virgilijus Alekna encountered an unusual problem at a final pre-Beijing training session in Lithuania at the weekend—his practice venue was covered in dog waste.
“Dogs were doing what animals usually do, defecating and peeing,” the professional bodyguard told Lithuanian daily Lietuvos zinios after the stadium he was using to train was used for a dog show on Sunday.
“There were lots of dogs and they have left lots of things behind … and nobody even tried to collect them.
“I have no idea how can I train in such conditions … and who would clean the discus after every throw.”
Alekna said he was looking for another training ground, probably in Kaunas, about 100 km from the capital Vilnius.
The 36-year-old won the discus at Sydney in 2000 and Athens four years ago.
Team USA Dominate
SHANGHAI (AFP) —Team USA showed their strength Sunday as the world’s top basketball team powered past European champion Russia 89-68 before an energized crowd in Shanghai in an Olympic Games warm-up match.
The US side, hoping to mesh an arsenal of NBA stars ahead of next week’s Beijing Games, fully displayed their superior shooting skills while smothering the Russians with a stifling defense.
Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant led with 19 points, while Denver Nugget Carmelo Anthony scored 17 and Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat added 16.
Team USA jumped out to a 20-point lead early in the third quarter, with Bryant leading numerous drives to the basket that either resulted in him scoring or setting up an open shot for a teammate.
Loko Win Rail Cup
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — FC Milan, Chelsea and Sevilla of Spain all gathered in Moscow this weekend, as contestants in Lokomotiv’s annual Railways Cup.
The first day of the competition, which was won last year by Holland’s PSV Eindhoven, saw Sevilla defeat the Italian giants by a single goal.
In the other semi-final, a late equalizer by Ruslan Kambolov kept Lokomotiv in the competition. They eventually triumphed over Chelsea in a penalty shootout.
Sevilla though proved too strong for the hosts, winning 3-0 in the final. French star Nicolas Anelka produced the tournament’s best individual performance in the 3rd-place playoff, scoring 4 times as Chelsea breezed past Milan 5-0.
TITLE: New HIV Generation Learns To Live Life
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MEXICO CITY — Keren Dunaway was 5 when her parents used drawings to explain to her that they both had the HIV virus — and so did she.
Now the 12-year-old is one of the most prominent AIDS activists in Latin America and a rarity in a region where few children are willing to break the silence and tell their classmates they have HIV for fear of rejection. She edits a children’s magazine on the virus.
“The boys and girls who live with HIV are here and we are growing up with many goals,” Keren said Sunday at the opening of an international AIDS conference where she shared the stage with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
“We want to be artists, teachers, doctors — even get married and have kids... But achieving these goals will only be possible when we receive the attention we need, when we are guaranteed the medicines that we need, when we are accepted in schools.”
Taking several deep breaths to overcome stage jitters, Keren delivered what was clearly the star speech of the conference’s inauguration: Audience members repeatedly interrupted her brief, but moving words with loud applause and whistles, and followed her discourse with a standing ovation that lasted well after she left the stage.
In an interview with The Associated Press days before the conference, Keren talked matter-of-factly about the virus she has had since birth, flashing a dimpled smile and exposing a row of braces.
“It’s like a little ball that has little dots, and is inside me, sort of swimming inside me,” she said, curling her fist as she recalled what her parents explained to her with drawings long ago.
Keren’s openness about her HIV status comes as the virus’s victims grow increasingly younger.
Worldwide, people ages 15-24 accounted for 45 percent of people infected with HIV in 2007, according to the 2008 UN AIDS report.
In Latin America, 55,000 of the nearly 2 million people with the virus were under 15 years old, the vast majority of them infected by their mothers. Only 36 percent of pregnant women in the region receive medicine to prevent transmission, although that is an increase of 26 percent since 2004.
And while more than 60 percent of the adults with HIV receive antiretroviral drugs in Latin America, only about one-third of children do. Experts say less research and funding has been dedicated to medicine for HIV-positive children, who require smaller doses and additional medication to offset the aggressiveness of antiretrovirals.
Even so, children born with HIV are increasingly looking forward to long lives.
“There’s a whole new generation of young people that were born with HIV that are reaching adulthood. It presents very interesting challenges,” said Nils Katsberg, UNICEF’S director of Latin America and the Caribbean.
It won’t be easy encouraging HIV-positive children to speak out in Latin America, where talking openly about sexuality is often taboo.
When she first started school, Keren’s classmates refused to play with her. Speaking out about HIV made all the difference. At 9, she began accompanying her parents — founders of the AIDS advocacy group “Llaves” — on talks to schools. She has visited half-a-dozen countries to share her story.
Last year, she started up “Llavecitas,” a children’s version of a magazine her parents publish. The Llaves foundation distributes 10,000 copies every two months across Honduras.
Too often, children with HIV “live in a culture of secrecy,” said Maria Villanueva Medina, a psychologist with Casa de la Sal, a group that runs an orphanage for children with HIV in Mexico City.
TITLE: Iran Firm on ‘Nuclear Rights’
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will not give up “a single iota of its nuclear rights,” the country’s president said Saturday, rebuffing an informal deadline to stop expanding uranium enrichment or face more sanctions.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the remarks during discussions with Syrian President Beshar Assad, who arrived in Tehran on Saturday for a two-day visit, the Iranian president’s official web site said.
Assad is in Tehran to discuss Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment, following a request from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Tehran was given an informal two-week deadline, set July 19 by the UN Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany, to stop expanding uranium enrichment — at least temporarily — in exchange for their commitment to stop seeking new UN sanctions. Ahmadinejad’s stance signaled both a failure of Assad’s mission and a rejection of the deadline, although his comments indicated he was not ruling out international talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
While stating that the Iranian nation “will not give up a single iota of its nuclear rights,” he also said any participation in international talks on the nuclear issue would be aimed at reinforcing those rights.
Assad has been seeking a more prominent Mideast role for Syria.
TITLE: 150 Trampled to Death in Stampede
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: SHIMLA, India — Close to 150 Hindu worshippers, including scores of children, are confirmed to have died at a temple in northern India in the worst stampede in the country in three years, police said Monday.
Tens of thousands of people had thronged the Naina Devi shrine in Himachal Pradesh state to attend weeklong religious festivities when the rumor of a landslide triggered panic among devotees on Sunday.
“The death toll as of now is 148, and 48 people are injured,” a police spokesman said early Monday.
Police started hitting devotees with batons to check the commotion, but this only created further panic, witnesses said.
“Whoever fell down was trampled upon by the surge of devotees,” Mohni Singh, a local television journalist who was present at the site, told AFP.