SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1408 (72), Tuesday, September 16, 2008
**************************************************************************


TITLE: Aeroflot 
Jet Crash Kills 88 
In Perm
AUTHOR: By Olga Tregubova
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PERM, Russia — An engine fire — not a terror attack — appears to have caused the crash of a Russian jet that killed all 88 people on board, officials said Monday.
The right engine of the Boeing 737-500 apparently failed and caught fire as the plane was preparing to land Sunday in the city of Perm in the Ural Mountains, said the chief of Russia’s federal Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, who is in charge of the crash probe.
Russia’s Transport Minister Igor Levitin said that no trace of explosives had been found on the crash site about 750 miles east of Moscow. Levitin refuted earlier reports that claimed the plane had exploded in the air and media allegations that it could have been brought down by a terror attack.
The plane slammed into the ground on the outskirts of this industrial city of 1 million people just a few hundred yards from small wooden houses and apartment buildings. Officials said no one on the ground was killed.
Flight 821, operated by a subsidiary of national flag carrier Aeroflot, carried 82 passengers, including six children under 10, and six crew members, Aeroflot said.
Aeroflot officials said the plane was circling at about 3,600 feet in “difficult weather conditions” — including low cloud cover and rain — when it suddenly crashed.
Flight controller Irek Bikbov told Channel One television that the plane’s pilot was behaving in a strange way, disobeying orders to go lower on the final approach and instead taking the jet to a higher altitude.
When he asked the pilot whether things were normal on board, the pilot answered positively but his voice was strained as if under stress, Bikbov said.
“He was behaving in a strange manner and wasn’t following my orders,” Bikbov said.
The plane’s flight recorders have been found, and officials said it will take three to four weeks to analyze them.
The jet crashed on a railroad embankment, damaging a section of the track. Parts of the plane’s fuselage reading “Aeroflot” and “Boeing” lay askew on the rails, along with clothing, life preservers and engine parts. The crash briefly disrupted traffic on a section of the Trans-Siberian railway.
Emergency workers in camouflage uniforms picked up human remains and placed them in blue bags. Relatives of passengers were asked to provide blood and DNA samples to help in the identification, which is expected to take weeks.
Pavel Shevchenko, a 36-year-old Perm resident who lives just 300 yards from the crash site, said he was awoken by an explosion and ran outside. Shevchenko said he feared his acquaintances or friends could be among the dead.
“It’s awful. There’s just no words to describe it,” he told The Associated Press.
Russia and other former Soviet republics have some of the world’s worst air traffic safety records in recent years, according to the International Air Transport Association. Experts blame weak government regulation, poor pilot training and a cost-cutting mentality among many carriers.
No problems were reported with the 15-year-old jet when it was last inspected at the beginning of 2008, Aeroflot deputy director Lev Koshlyakov said. The plane had been used by a Chinese carrier before the Aeroflot subsidiary, Aeroflot-Nord, leased it earlier this year.
Among those killed was Gennady Troshev, 61, a retired army general who commanded troops in Chechnya. Human rights activists had accused him of tolerating rampant abuses in the war-ravaged republic.
Sunday’s crash was the second involving a Boeing 737 in the former Soviet Union in the past month. A Boeing flying from the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan to Iran crashed shortly after takeoff Aug. 24, killing 64 of the 90 people on board.
The pilot of that plane has been detained by prosecutors, officials said this week.

TITLE: ‘Non-Political’ City Rally Tightly Policed
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: With St. Petersburg authorities attempting to stifle protest against Governor Valentina Matviyenko’s town-planning policies, organizers chose to turn Saturday’s March for the Preservation of St. Petersburg into a stationary meeting near Yubileiny Sports Palace. However, they said would sue City Hall because, according to law, the authorities may only suggest a different route or location but have no right to change the actual form of a demonstration.

In the days leading up to Saturday’s event, three routes for the march were rejected under various pretexts by City Hall, two printing plants refused to print a newspaper with information about the march, activists distributing leaflets were harassed by the police and no announcements were made in City Hall-controlled local media.

Matviyenko’s town-planning policies have been criticized for destroying historic buildings and gardens, permitting infill construction on green spaces, erecting massive business centers and elite residential buildings that disfigure the historic center, and a plan to build a 396-meter tower for Gazprom that threatens the city’s historical skyline.

Even though the organizers — social organizations including Movement for Civil Initiatives and the preservationist pressure groups Living City, Okhtinskaya Duga, Save Yuntolovo and Protect Vasilyevsky Ostrov — had asked participants not to bring party flags or any other political symbols (political opposition groups were not involved in planning the event), the police presence was immense.

The democratic party Yabloko provided some technical assistance but, unlike last year’s March for the Preservation of St. Petersburg, was not officially on the organizing committee.

An estimated 1,000 protesters were easily outnumbered by the police and fully-equipped OMON special forces, which parked 16 buses along Prospekt Dobrolyubova, preventing passersby and motorists from catching a glimpse of the protest. Heavy OMON trucks, police vans and at least one armored vehicle were stationed around the area. Local police did not release information to the press on how many of its officers were involved in policing the protest.

Protesters had to pass through metal detectors and were subjected to searches by the police as they entered the protest area.

Supported by several culture figures, the rally included a performance and a brief speech by Yury Shevchuk of DDT, one of Russia’s leading rock bands. Filmmaker Alexander Sokurov, who directed “The Russian Ark” among other movies, came to the rally, although he did not speak due to illness, according to the rally’s announcer.

However, the organizers’ decision to make the rally non-political antagonized the Other Russia, the pro-democracy coalition that includes Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front and Eduard Limonov’s banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP), who refrained from taking part in the event.

According to Living City coordinator Yulia Minutina, the rally was aimed at “true defenders of the city,” rather than parties looking to “advertise themselves.” Organizers feared that the banned NBP’s flags could provoke the OMON into attacking the protesters.

Both the United Civil Front’s Olga Kurnosova and the NBP’s Andrei Dmitriyev criticized the decision to depoliticize the event as a “mistake.”

“It’s absolutely obvious that the most striking outrages that happen in the country and in the city stem from political reasons, for instance the liquidation of gubernatorial elections made the authorities almost accountable to citizens,” Kurnosova said by phone on Monday.

Gubernatorial elections were abolished in 2005; the Russian president now appoints the governors of Russia’s eightysome regions. Matviyenko was appointed governor of St. Petersburg in 2006, after having been elected to the position in 2003.

“Dividing political and social organizations plays into the hands of the authorities, because only a united protest can be a broad protest. It should be just the opposite — don’t divide people, but unite everybody, then victory will come sooner.”

Speaking by phone on Monday, Dmitriyev said he hoped that the opposition would return to the form developed at the Dissenters’ Marches and other protests of the past two years, which united very different organizations marching under very different flags.

Despite its declared “non-political” nature, politics were touched upon by some speakers, especially from Yabloko, at Saturday’s rally. Yabloko’s Mikhail Amosov spoke for democracy, freedom of speech and the punishment of non-elected bureaucrats, while St. Petersburg Yabloko leader Maxim Reznik announced that the party is organizing a petition calling for the dismissal of Matviyenko.

TITLE: President Promises Help For Markets
AUTHOR: By Oleg Shchedrov
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday promised extra liquidity to heal falling Russian stock market, but denied Russia was in crisis or nearing it.
Medvedev told top businessmen that his economic reform plans were not affected by economic woes and war in Georgia, but urged them to use the opportunity and grab a larger share of domestic markets to reduce their volatility.
“Despite all the global economic problems there are today, the situation in our economy is on the whole completely stable,” he said. “We definitely have no crisis or pre-crisis situation.”
A series of corporate disputes and a global credit crunch have rocked investor confidence in Russia, prompting a sharp sell-off in stocks, bonds and the rouble as money fled Russia.
A brief war with Georgia, in which Russia found itself in an international isolation facing the possibility of Western sanctions, has added to Russia’s economic woes.
As Medvedev addressed four dozen of Russia’s richest men in a gilded Kremlin hall, markets plunged to the lowest level in over two years, driven down by the bankruptcy of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers and falling oil prices.
Russia’s RTS index was down over 7 percent at one point at 1,245.82 points.
“The task of the government at the present time is to ensure sufficient liquidity in the domestic market. This problem ... needs to be removed,” Medvedev told his guests, summoned to discuss Russia’s economic strategy.
Russian markets have lost around 50 percent of their record value since Medvedev, a 43-year-old former corporate lawyer, took office in May promising to modernise the economy and offer a fair plan for local and foreign investors.
Medvedev said the market downturn and new rifts with the West after the Georgia war have not changed his reform agenda or his commitment to keep Russia part of a global economy.
“I know you are concerned by the question of how our economic ties with the European countries, the United States will develop,” he said. “I have already said this: we will do everything to continue mutually beneficial cooperation.”
“If they try to stop us accessing certain markets ... there will be no catastrophe for the state of for those sitting here,” he added. “To some degree, this will only encourage the development of the domestic market.”
Medvedev also ruled out that the looming political confrontation with the West will lead to Russia’s self-isolation or change the essence of its market economy.
“Despite what happened in August ... despite the military solution, nothing in the principles of economic policy will be changed,” he said. “There should not be a change in priorities. We do not need militarisation of the economy or a statist economy.”
“Let no one hope for a change,” Medvedev added clearly addressing his remark to opponents at home as well.
The participants of the meeting discussed at large a series of moves, which could help Russian markets recover and give domestic companies cash to upgrade and diversify their business.
Ahead of the meeting, the businessmen said they wanted to discuss with Medvedev easing taxes. But there have been disagreements between various financial and industrial lobbies.
Medvedev also said Russia should learn lessons from both the Georgia war and its latest economic problems.
“Our presence in the domestic stock market is still too small: I mean state financial institutions, private insurance companies and pension companies,” he said. “These are exactly the players who stabilise situations on the financial markets elsewhere in the world.”
Medvedev promised to push ahead with plans for legislation to reduce red tape and corruption in Russia, reform the courts and encourage small and medium sized businesses.
“We should create conditions for a new investment wave,” he said. “We will count first and foremost on the Russian investors, although will welcome foreigners as well.”

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Drug, Rape Arrests</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Police arrested a suspected drug dealer from Tajikistan allegedly carrying more than 23 kilograms of heroin disguised as washing powder, Interfax reported.
The man was seized during a special raid while driving a car filled with narcotics. The Tajik citizen has a temporary registration in Russia. Prosecutors have already opened a criminal case and are investigating the circumstances.
Police detained a suspect in a pedophilia case after a 9-year-old girl was raped on the stairs of an apartment building on Friday, Interfax reported.
The suspect is reported to be a 28-year-old man, employed as a worker at a local construction company who has served several terms in jail for crimes including the rape of a child.

<b>Affairs of the Art</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Prominent dissident artist Mikhail Shemyakin has become a consultant in an international arts project that sees Russian and British teenagers creating experimental works of art. 
Russian schoolchildren will be able to approach Shemyakin with questions they may have over the course of the program, entitled “Turbogeneration,” and inspired by collections in London’s modern art galleries.
The project, launched this month, is aimed at helping young people to develop tolerance and find mutual understanding despite social, political, religious and cultural differences.

TITLE: Russian Bells Ring After 80 Years at Harvard
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — A set of church bells rang out for the first time Friday after being returned to Moscow’s oldest monastery from the United States nearly 80 years after they were sold off as scrap under Stalin. 
Soviet authorities stripped 18 bells from Danilovsky Monastery as part of a campaign against religion and put them up for sale. U.S. industrialist Charles Crane saved them from being melted down and donated them to Harvard University, where they hung in a tower for decades. 
The bells’ return, sponsored by billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, has been presented as a powerful symbol of the Kremlin’s drive to revive Orthodox traditions. It was also a rare bright spot in relations between Russia and the United States, chilled by Moscow’s military intervention in Georgia. 
“The bells, which were in forced exile for more than 80 years, have returned,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II said after blessing them. “We thank all those who preserved them in these difficult years. 
“The monastery bells will again call believers to prayer and will tell them about the beauty of Orthodox church services and Orthodox traditions. They will call people to peace,” he said. 
President Dmitry Medvedev rang the bells three times, followed by Vekselberg, who sponsored the operation to recover them and cast replicas for Harvard after years of negotiation with the university. In 2007, the replicas were consecrated at a ceremony in Moscow and shipped to the United States, and the first original bell was returned to Moscow. 
“The success of the project was possible because the efforts of the state, church and society were united both inside our country and abroad,” Vekselberg said in a speech Friday.

TITLE: Pardons, Paroles Fall Sharply Under Putin
AUTHOR: By Galina Stolyarova
TEXT: Russian authorities did not parole a single convict.
Forty-seven percent of Russians asked by the influential state-run polling agency VTsIOM in the first week of September said they would under no circumstances agree to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s plea for parole. 
Former oil magnate Khodorkovsky was sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison for fraud and tax evasion. His former company, Yukos, was declared bankrupt in July 2006 after being hit by a huge claim from the tax authorities for 734 billion roubles (US$27.5 billion).
The ill-fated oligarch, who had funded opposition politicians, may be regarded as a personal enemy of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and most experts give Khodorkovsky few chances for parole. 
But a closer look at Russia’s system of showing mercy to prisoners reveals a shifting understanding of the purpose of judicial punishment.
In the U.S.S.R., the pardon commission was a nominal body, but things changed under former President Boris Yeltsin. The National Pardons Commission, created in April 1992, was previously the only channel through which prisoners could appeal their sentences — a situation that created enormous backlogs of unconsidered cases.
Applications for pardons in Russia receive backing from a wide range of bodies as diverse as prison administrations and the Russian Orthodox Church. 
Under Yeltsin between 700 and 800 prisoners were granted pardons each year, but in the Putin-Medvedev era the process has come to a standstill. 
The regional commissions produce decisions but then the cases have to receive the blessing of a regional governor and then move on to — and get stuck in — Moscow. Results have been discouraging. Forty-two people were pardoned in 2005, and only 9 in 2006. 
Granting pardons is a constitutional duty that exerts a form of control over the country’s judicial system. The human aspect of each case considered for a pardon plays an important role. The authorities — and increasingly the public — appear to be in a state of denial of the significance of this role.
A pardon commission does not aim to review verdicts handed down by the courts but, rather, estimates the danger that a prisoner represents to society if he or she is released. 
However, Russia’s jails remain overloaded and some experts say that a year in a Russian jail is the equivalent of two or three years in jail abroad.
“Nearly 90 percent of people released from jail come out with tuberculosis, which they caught in prison,” said Tatyana Linyova, a doctor with the Red Cross in Russia.
“One person whose appeal we supported had already served nine years of a 14-year term,” said St. Petersburg writer Mikhail Kurayev, a member of the local pardon commission. 
“When I met him, I saw someone in a condition I would call ‘social and spiritual anabiosis;’ someone living an artificial life. Punishment is about correcting a personality. It is not about revenge,” Kurayev said.

TITLE: Russian Forces Withdraw From Poti Region
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: POTI, Georgia — Russian troops withdrew from the region around Georgia’s Black Sea port of Poti on Saturday, within a Sept. 15 deadline set for the first phase of a pullback brokered by France.
Georgia welcomed the move and said it hoped Russian forces would keep to an Oct. 10 deadline to withdraw completely from Georgian territory outside the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was confident this deadline would be met. A 200-member team of EU monitors will also be deployed in Georgia before the beginning of October, Solana said.
A reporter saw troops in armored personnel carriers and trucks pull out from positions on the outskirts of Poti after dawn. Russian forces also left another three positions on the way to nearby Senaki.
In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry said later Saturday that the withdrawal had been completed two days before the deadline set in the agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and endorsed on Sept. 8 by President Dmitry Medvedev.
“Russia expects the same strict and good-willed adherence to this agreement from all parties concerned, above all from the Georgian leaders, and likewise from the European Union,” the ministry said in a statement on its web site.
Russia sent forces deep into Georgia last month after repelling an attempt by Tbilisi to retake South Ossetia.
Last Monday, Moscow agreed to withdraw its troops from “security zones” inside Georgia around South Ossetia and Abkhazia within a month.
The deal, brokered by Sarkozy on behalf of the EU, included a commitment to pull out by Sept. 15 from “monitoring posts” in the Poti region, where an oil and dry grain shipment port is considered vital to the Georgian economy.
“This is an example of Europe being united and the aggressor having to retreat,” Georgian National Security Council Secretary Kakha Lomaia said. 
But Lomaia said that even with the departure of those 250 soldiers and 20 armored vehicles, some 1,200 Russian soldiers still remained at 19 positions inside Georgia.
Although major fighting has now stopped, sporadic violence persists in and around both breakaway regions. Two Georgian policemen were gunned down in separate incidents last week. The latest death took place Saturday after shots were fired at a Georgian police checkpoint from a village in Abkhazia.
Georgia’s government, meanwhile, pressed its claim that ethnic Georgians are being persecuted in South Ossetia. Officials said Ossetian paramilitary fighters doused several ethnic Georgians with kerosene and ordered them to leave their villages late Friday.
Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria said Ossetian paramilitaries first set fire to houses owned by ethnic Georgians in two South Ossetian villages, Koshka and Disevi.
South Ossetian government spokeswoman Irina Gagloyeva called Georgia’s latest allegation “a complete lie.”
Former parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze, a popular former ally of President Mikheil Saakashvili, on Friday questioned the wisdom of the war with Russia, calling for a national “conversation” about whether the conflict could have been avoided.
A group of European lawmakers called on Friday for Russia to be suspended from the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly over the Georgia conflict. 
(Reuters, AP)

TITLE: Lavrov Used Foul Language With Miliband, Report Says
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov subjected his British counterpart to a torrent of four-letter words during a telephone call over the situation in Georgia, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.
The paper said that Lavrov repeatedly used foul language as British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned him that Europe would reassess its ties with Russia following the country’s invasion of Georgia last month. 
According to the Telegraph, the conversation was so laden with obscenities it was difficult to draft a readable summary. 
The paper cited an unidentified “insider” as the source of its information but did not say when the exchange took place.
In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry denied the report and on Saturday accused the British government of deliberately leaking its version of the exchange to the media.
“Such leaks are probably aimed at attaining political ends and pouring oil on the flames of hysteria surrounding Russia’s actions in the Caucasus,” ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said, Interfax reported. “As we understand, the leak was authorized by David Miliband.”
Britain’s Foreign Office denied that allegation but did not comment on the tenor of the conversation.
“We don’t go into the details of confidential discussions between foreign ministers,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman said Friday. 
The spokeswoman refused to comment further and demanded to speak anonymously in line with department policy.
Nesterenko promised that Russia’s transcript of Lavrov’s conversation with Miliband would soon be posted to the Foreign Ministry’s web site.
British-Russian relations are at a post-Cold War low after Russia refused to extradite a suspect in the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and closed offices of the British Council earlier this year.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Heating Switched On</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — As temperatures plunge, regular central heating in residential property is due to start next week, while test heating begins this week in kindergartens, schools, hospitals and other state-funded social and medical institutions, Governor Valentina Matviyenko said at a news briefing on Monday.
“Owing to cold weather and considering weather forecasts for the coming weeks, regular heating will begin two weeks earlier than last year,” Matviyenko was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. 
“This will require an additional 150 million rubles ($5.86 million) in funding but we will allocate this money immediately and without hesitation because we care about the health and comfort of the city residents,” Matviyenko said.

TITLE: New Holland Project Seeks New Deadline of 2012
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Rozhkov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: New Holland, a triangular artificial island and former closed military facility that is being redeveloped as a multifunctional center, was revealed at the weekend to a delegation of VIPs, including David Lewis, Lord Mayor of the City of London, and William Elliott, British Consul General in St. Petersburg. 
“We feel that the guests from Great Britain want to share the atmosphere of being part of this project, which is being realized by the British architect Lord Norman Foster,” said Tatiana Protasova, executive assistant to the senior project manager. 
Founded by a decree of Peter the Great in 1721, New Holland, which has an area of over 7.6 hectares, was used for drying timber used in shipbuilding during the 18th and 19th centuries, and in 2004 was turned over to the city of St. Petersburg by the Russian Defense Ministry. The results of a subsequent tender to develop the island were announced in 2006, with ST New Holland LLC, now part of the Russian Land Implenia joint venture in real estate development, emerging victorious with a project designed by Lord Norman Foster. 
Foster’s studio, Foster and Partners, is responsible for some of the world’s most iconic new buildings, including the Swiss Re headquarters in London (affectionately known as the “gherkin”), the new German Reichstag in Berlin, the Great Court for the British Museum, HSBC headquarters in Hong Kong and London, Commerzbank Headquarters in Frankfurt and the Bilbao metro system. 
The New Holland project envisages the regeneration of the entire island, including the renovation of the island’s 18th- and 19th-century buildings, which will be preserved and adapted for modern use, as well as the construction of exciting new structures. The multifunctional center will include cultural and exhibition facilities, luxury hotels, offices, serviced apartments, underground parking, retail outlets and entertainment areas. The architect’s plans envisage three separate entrances to the island and several underground car parks providing 1,000 spaces. 
“The heart of the project — the brand new Palace of Festivals — is designed to combine a 2,000-seat concert hall with art galleries and exhibition areas. It will be a spacious multifunctional structure with an amphitheater incorporating the island’s internal lake and seating up to 3,000 guests; a floating stage will be available in the summertime, while during the winter months the lake will be transformed into an ice skating rink,” said Gregory Ingleright, consultant for the New Holland project, who led the guests’ tour on Saturday.
The British architect’s winning proposal was part of a bid by ST Novaya Gollandiya, which promised to invest $319 million into the project and complete construction by 2010. 
Ingleright said that investment was now expected to reach $800 million, due to the high costs of carrying out underground construction, along with other factors such as inflation and the falling dollar.
Shalva Chigirinsky, the Moscow-based developer behind ST Novaya Gollandiya, said the company would finance 30 percent of the project’s costs, with the rest to be borrowed from various sources, Interfax reported. Details of the project have yet to be defined more accurately, Chigirinsky said last year. Two other companies, NHI Group and Stroi Holding, competed for the high-profile contract.
Commercial exploitation of the island could provide an annual turnover of up to $100 million to the managing company, while the payback period after the project’s completion will be six to seven years, according to estimates by experts.
The new buildings of the New Holland project have been designed with functional flexibility in mind. Five new bridges will unite the island with the surrounding neighborhood, and together with two existing bridges and two canals linking the island’s internal lake to its water boundaries, will accomplish the project’s main goal: the integration of New Holland into the city after nearly three centuries as a closed military facility. 
“The site is unique. Located in the heart of St. Petersburg, New Holland is within walking distance of the Hermitage and Nevsky Prospekt,” said Viktor Afonin, deputy director of City Hall’s Agency for Strategic Investments.
Use of the latest materials and technologies make this an ecologically sound and “intelligent” project. For example, the design of the engineering systems allows operational modes to be varied in winter and summer, enabling power saving and the optimization of operating expenses.
The complexity of geological and hydrological explorations and the condition of the power network and other infrastructure, along with the need to reinforce the building’s foundations, has caused the deadline for the completion of the project to be reviewed. 
Last week the company made an offial request to extend the deadline to 2012. 
George Yazikov, head of City Hall’s Committee for Investments and Strategic Projects, said “We have to treat the historic buildings with care, and any acceleration in renovation may damage the island’s infrastructure,” said Yazikov.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Aeroflot Hit by Crash</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Aeroflot, eastern Europe’s biggest airline, declined in Moscow trading after an airliner in its Aeroflot Nord unit crashed on Sunday, killing 88 people.
Aeroflot dropped as much as 4.95 rubles, or 7.6 percent, to 60 rubles and was down 2.7 percent as of 11:23 a.m. Monday in the Russian capital, where the company is based.
A Boeing Co. 737-500 plane bound for the central Russian city of Perm crashed during its descent just after 3 a.m. Moscow time, killing all 88 passengers and crew, Aeroflot said in a statement yesterday.

<b>New Investment Pledge</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — President Dmitry Medvedev said the Russian government will create the conditions necessary to attract a “new wave of investment” in the economy.
The government will make a final decision on tax cuts in “the near future,” Medvedev told business leaders in the Kremlin Monday, without being more specific.
Economic priorities haven’t changed and the country continues to have “all the conditions” needed to quicken economic growth, Medvedev said.

<b>Potash Producer Sued</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Uralkali, Russia’s second-largest potash producer, said it “intends to defend itself vigorously” after it was among companies sued in the U.S. for conspiring to fix prices.
“Uralkali continues to be focused on the management of its business in the best interests of its investors,” the Berezniki, Russia-based company said in an e-mailed statement. 
The company was named in a lawsuit filed by Minn-Chem last week in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota and also in another lawsuit filed last week by Gage’s Fertilizer & Grain in the U.S. District Court of Illinois.

<b>Hotel Venture Planned</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Merrill Lynch & Co. and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development plan a venture with billionaire Viktor Vekselberg to build mid-range hotels in Russia as international investors seek to fill a dearth of rooms.
The group intends to develop as many as 20 three-star and four-star complexes that will be run by Park Plaza Hotels Ltd., the EBRD said in a statement on its web site. Merrill Lynch confirmed the information on Friday.
The new chain will address “unmet demand” in Russia’s regions, where “relatively few” international operators are active, the EBRD said. The project “will increase competitive pressure in the local hospitality sector currently dominated by Soviet-style hotel accommodation,” the EBRD said. 
Moscow has the most expensive city rates in the world, according to the U.K. business travel agency Hogg Robinson 

<b>Russia-Turkey Dispute</b>
ANKARA (Bloomberg) — A trade dispute with Russia will cost Turkey $1 billion if it’s not resolved by the end of this month, Milliyet newspaper reported, citing Foreign Trade Minister Kursad Tuzmen.
Russian authorities are imposing lengthy customs procedures on Turkish-made goods. Officials from the two countries are discussing ways to resolve the dispute, Tuzmen said during a visit to the Mediterranean city of Mersin, according to Milliyet.

TITLE: Medvedev Warns Against EU Economic Sanctions
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that economic sanctions against his country would be ineffective because it is not a “banana republic.”
“Exerting pressure on the Russian Federation by using sanctions is senseless,” Medvedev told business leaders at the Kremlin on Monday. “With a banana republic, you can close a few channels and create a dramatic situation.”
Relations between Russia, the world’s biggest energy exporter, and the West hit a post-Soviet low after the country’s five-day military conflict with Georgia over South Ossetia.
European Union leaders shied away from imposing sanctions on Russia when they convened for an emergency summit on Sept. 1.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pre-empted any possible EU or U.S. veto of Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization, saying on Aug. 25 that Russia would pull out of deals that it had struck as part of its membership bid that harm its interests.
Medvedev on Monday reaffirmed Russia’s desire to join the global trade arbiter, though he repeated that membership would be on Russia’s terms.
“WTO is not a carrot,” he said.

TITLE: Major Firms May Buy Shares
AUTHOR: By William Mauldin
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Six of Russia’s biggest companies have at least $17 billion in cash that may be used to buy back shares to help mitigate the biggest quarterly market slump in a decade, VTB Group said.
Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz, TNK-BP, GMK Norilsk Nickel, Severstal and Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel are among the companies that have either said they will buy back shares or are likely to do so, VTB said.
“Lots of Russian companies compensate their top managers with stock options,” VTB strategist Ivan Ivanchenko wrote in a note to investors Monday. “A buyback is likely to drive prices higher, which in turn makes managers better off.”
Lukoil, the country’s biggest non-state oil producer, said last week it will ask the board to approve a buyback program, after Chief Executive Officer Vagit Alekperov and his deputy Leonid Fedun bought 3.2 billion rubles ($124 million) of stock.
UralSib Financial Corp. said Monday it is “skeptical” of the proposal.
“We do not believe that the company would have sufficient cash assets in the fourth quarter to meet such an obligation, as revenue has been hurt by the fall in oil prices,” while capital spending and costs have increased, UralSib said.
Missing from VTB’s list were VTB’s own shares, which JPMorgan Chase & Co. said should be bought back because the bank “appears to be struggling to deploy its capital efficiently.”
“With the bank’s own shares at distressed levels, the case for a buyback is compelling,” JPMorgan analysts Alex Kantarovich and Oxana Segedevich wrote in a note dated last Wednesday.

TITLE: Micex Falls Amid Global Storm
AUTHOR: By William Mauldin
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russia’s Micex Index slumped, led by Russia’s biggest banks, as global credit market turmoil pushed Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch to accept a takeover.
The ruble-denominated Micex Index sank 2.3 percent to 1,111.29 at 11:27 a.m. in Moscow. The dollar-denominated RTS Index dropped 1.4 percent to 1,323.21.
“The direction and strength of headwinds blowing hard from Wall Street as Lehman Brothers slips into bankruptcy are a great unknown and promise an extremely volatile and unpredictable session,” Alfa Bank strategists Ron Smith and Erik DePoy wrote in a note Monday.
Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, succumbed to the subprime mortgage crisis it helped create in the biggest bankruptcy filing in history. Bank of America cemented its status as the largest U.S. consumer bank by agreeing to acquire Merrill Lynch, the world’s biggest brokerage firm.
Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, tumbled 3.2 rubles, or 6.7 percent, to 44.60 rubles, the lowest in two years. VTB Group fell 0.36 kopeks, or 7.1 percent, to 4.75 kopeks, a record low.
Aeroflot, Russia’s biggest airline, sank 2.45 rubles, or 3.8 percent, to 62.50 rubles. The company will “halt collaboration” with its Aeroflot Nord regional carrier, 51 percent owned by Aeroflot, after a crash in the city of Perm killed 88 people on Sunday.

TITLE: Anxious Oligarchs Seek Assurances From Medvedev
AUTHOR: By Henry Meyer
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — When it comes to containing Russia, the invisible hand of the markets may be the West’s most potent weapon.
Tightening access to international credit and mounting stock losses are hurting Russian billionaires as well as state-owned corporations, prompting calls by businessmen to heed Western complaints over Kremlin policy in Georgia.
The head of the country’s biggest business association, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, met President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, urging him to take “anti-crisis” measures.
“The stock market is plunging, capital is fleeing, there is a severe shortage of liquidity in the banking system, prices for many core exports are falling and inflationary pressures are strengthening,” the business group’s Alexander Shokhin said in a live televised Kremlin meeting. Current policies “may turn out to be inadequate,” he said.
After rejecting Western appeals not to recognize breakaway Georgian regions, Medvedev last week signaled compromise for the first time. He agreed to implement a European Union-brokered cease-fire and pull troops back into the disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Mevedev told the gathering of Russian billionaires that the government doesn’t want “either confrontation or isolation.”
Last month’s five-day war, triggered by Georgia’s effort to retake South Ossetia, sent equity, debt and currency markets reeling, reflecting investor worries that commercial ties would fray.
“This is a natural alarm clock,” Igor Yurgens, a board member of the business group and adviser to Medvedev, said in an interview before Monday’s meeting. “It’s a concern to big owners, it’s a concern to the Russian economy. There are limits to what Russia can do alone if it chooses to be isolated.”
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin acknowledged the impact Thursday, saying Russian companies felt a “jolt” as reaction to the war added to the fallout from turmoil in global financial markets. Medvedev called for officials to do “everything necessary” to attract capital. Central-bank chairman Sergey Ignatiev said the bank was taking “massive measures” to provide extra funds to lenders.
The U.S. dollar-denominated RTS index has plunged nearly 30 percent since war broke out Aug. 7, putting its loss since July 1 at 43 percent. The ruble is close to a 13-month-low and investors have pulled $35 billion from Russia since the war, according to BNP Paribas SA. That is the worst capital flight since the 1998 debt default; the cost to insure against default has risen to a four-year high.
That’s making it pricier for the two biggest energy companies, Gazprom, where First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov succeeded Medvedev, 43, as chairman, and Rosneft, whose chairman is Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, to borrow abroad.
“The government will soften its stance because Gazprom needs to refinance, Rosneft too,” said Irina Yassina, a researcher at the Moscow-based Institute for Economy in Transition. “This isn’t just a question of national security, it’s a matter of the personal wealth of top officials.”
Among those feeling the pinch are the owner of steelmaker Severstal, Alexei Mordashov, who was listed as the world’s 18th richest person with $21.2 billion by Forbes magazine in May. The value of his stake in the company is more than $3 billion, or a fifth lower than it was before Aug. 7, putting it at below $12 billion.
Mordashov was at the Kremlin Monday, along with other billionaires including Vagit Alekperov, president of Lukoil, and Viktor Vekselberg, founder of the Renova Group and an investor in British Petroleum Plc’s TNK-BP joint venture.
State-run Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, was the first Russian company to price a loan since the war. To borrow $1.2 billion, it was forced to pay almost double the interest-rate margin above the London interbank offered rate that it paid in November, or 85 basis points.
Russian banks need to refinance about $45 billion of debt by year’s end, according to Standard & Poor’s.
While losses have mounted, complaints have been muted. The reluctance of those with the most at stake to criticize the government stems from the fate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man.
Khodorkovsky is now serving an eight-year prison term for fraud and tax evasion, charges he blames on his political opposition to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s president.
Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire who owns 30 percent of Aeroflot, says the government has intimidated even the wealthy into silence. “Businessmen are frightened,” Lebedev, whose stake in the airline is worth some $210 million less than before the conflict, said.
While he criticized the government’s “stupid, militaristic rhetoric” since the war, he said he had no means to convey his concerns. But the need for action is urgent, Lebedev said: “There is panic on the markets, liquidity has practically dried up.”

TITLE: Ukraine To Reduce Budget Gap
AUTHOR: By Natalya Zinets
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: KIEV — Ukraine’s 2009 budget deficit is to be cut to 1.4 percent of gross domestic product from 2 percent this year, Finance Minister Viktor Pynzenyk said Saturday.
Pynzenyk, addressing a Cabinet meeting, also said spending on servicing and repaying state debt in 2009 would hit a record level of 28.2 billion hryvnas ($5.81 billion).
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko briefly addressed the meeting, but she made no mention of Saturday’s deadline to reconstitute the Orange coalition underpinning the country’s pro-Western leadership after its collapse last week.
“The budget deficit is to stand at 1.4 percent of GDP,” Pynzenyk told ministers. “Budget revenue in 2009 is to be 285 billion hryvnas ... expenditure is to stand at 302.4 billion hryvnas.”
Pynzenyk said budget parameters had been calculated based on indicator forecasts issued by the government last week.
Those forecasts put 2009 inflation at 9.5 percent against 15.9 percent this year and growth at 6 percent of GDP, compared with 6.8 percent in 2008. The foreign trade gap is expected to widen to $25.3 billion next year from $15.4 billion in 2008.
The meeting sought to finalize the 2009 budget for submission to parliament by Monday, as required by Ukrainian law.
Regarding debt, Pynzenyk said the country faced risks because of its expected rise in payments, particularly over revenue from privatization and unfavorable conditions for borrowing on world markets.
Ukraine’s privatization program is in disarray, with only about 10 percent of receipts realized amid disputes over sell-offs between Tymoshenko and President Viktor Yushchenko — a one-time ally with whom she is now in conflict.
“Next year, we will see a peak in spending on servicing and paying back the state debt — 28.2 billion hryvnas — of which 56 percent concerns foreign debt,” Pynzenyk said.
“The first risk is linked to the budget deficit. The State Property Fund has not produced a single proposal for privatization, and most of the financing for the deficit is to come from privatization.
“If this is to be replaced with new borrowing, this will place a further strain on the budget.”
Pynzenyk added that global economic conditions could “affect the development of Ukraine’s economy given the importance of exports. It could affect GDP growth rates and budget revenues.”
He made no mention of the price the government expects to pay for imported gas from Russia and Central Asia — a subject of frequent disputes with Moscow since 2005.
Russian officials suggest that the price might leap to $400, from $179.50 now. An official from the president’s secretariat said it had concluded that the government was assuming a 40 percent rise.
With politicians issuing no new proposals on patching up the ruling coalition of political groups led by Tymoshenko and Yushchenko, Ukraine faced a period of deepening political certainty.

TITLE: Record $47.9 Billion Planned for Defense
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Spending on arms will rise to a record $47.9 billion next year, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Friday, as the Kremlin moves to beef up the armed forces after a conflict in Georgia. 
National defense orders will rise to 1.2 trillion rubles ($47.9 billion) in 2009, 70 billion rubles higher than previously planned, Ivanov said in televised remarks. 
“We have managed to convince the Finance Ministry that the volume of state defense orders in 2009 will be 70 billion rubles higher than previously planned,” Ivanov told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. “The overall volume of state defense orders next year are planned at a record level of 1.2 trillion rubles.”
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin gave a similar figure Thursday, saying spending including arms purchases and pay raises would reach 1.28 trillion rubles next year. The increase was approved before the conflict with Georgia, he said.
State defense orders includes spending on arms by all of the country’s military organizations — such as the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and special services — as well as repairs and spending on research and development. 
Kudrin said the new weapons part of the budget would advance 30 percent, though he did not give exact figures because the information is classified. 
Ivanov did not give reasons for the rise but said prices for military goods were rising faster than government inflation forecasts. 
President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday that the five-day conflict in Georgia last month had shown that the armed forces needed modernizing and that problems with equipment needed to be resolved. 
Putin hiked defense spending during his eight-year presidency in an attempt to stop the decline of the country’s once-mighty fighting forces. But domestic critics and former officers say the armed forces are hampered by rampant corruption, poor discipline, faulty equipment and outdated battle plans, which still focus on a major land war in Europe. 
In the draft budget, spending on national defense is set to rise more than one-quarter to 1.28 trillion rubles in 2009, from 1.02 trillion rubles this year. A more detailed breakdown of the spending is classified. 
Putin told Ivanov that he had approved increases in spending on space programs and that he had signed a decree ordering an additional 67 billion rubles for the Glonass satellite navigation system. Putin said an additional 45 billion rubles would be spent on the federal space program over the next three years. The money, he said, would be used to build a new cosmodrome in the Far East, finance the international space station and help space research.
Reuters, Bloomberg

TITLE: Enel’s Chief Not Worried About Projects Amid Political Turmoil
AUTHOR: By Natalya Shurmina
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: SREDNEURALSK, Sverdlovsk Region — The head of Italy’s Enel, Fulvio Conti said Saturday that he saw no political risks facing his company in Russia, despite Moscow’s weakened relations with the West after last month’s war in Georgia.
“There are no reasons for the political situation to impact our projects. ... I am not concerned and not worried and don’t see anything terrible. Russia is a part of Europe, and relations will develop,” Conti told reporters.
The energy major plans to invest a total of $8 billion into its projects in Russia, including in the gas and electricity sectors, where some of Enel’s work has been given the blessing of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin before going forward.
“When we work in this country, we feel like Russian citizens,” Conti said, adding that Enel had already invested 3.3 billion euros ($4.62 billion) in Russia, and would pour in another 2.2 billion euros before 2012.
The Russian investment climate suffered a massive blow from August’s war in Georgia. The conflict, fought over Georgia’s pro-Russian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, heightened political risks as falling commodities prices and a weakening ruble were already weighing down on the economy.
Danske Bank estimated last week that increased political risk premiums have cost the Russian stock market 15 percent to 20 percent in losses out of almost 50 percent that the country’s indexes have shed since May.
Conti spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a 410-megawatt turbine unit at the Sredneuralsk Power Station in a suburb of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains.
The power station is owned by electricity generator OGK-5, which Enel acquired in February for $4 billion.
Half of the fuel for the new turbine will come from a joint gas venture between Enel and another Italian energy giant, Eni. Last April, Enel spent $852 million creating the venture to acquire gas fields previously owned by bankrupt oil firm Yukos.
“The first gas will start flowing in 2010,” Conti said.
Enel and Eni are cooperating on this project with Gazprom, which has long been seeking access to European energy assets and infrastructure.
In March, Conti said Enel would give Gazprom a stake in an Italian power plant to reciprocate for gas supplies to OGK-5.
“We let Gazprom choose between stakes in three electricity stations. So far, there is no decision. Gazprom is looking at the options, but there is still enough time to make a choice,” Conti said.
At the ceremony, Sverdlovsk Governor Eduard Rossel offered Enel another project in the Urals — to increase the generating capacity of OGK-5’s Reftinsk power station.
Rossel said the project would open the door for Enel to cooperate on electricity supplies to United Company RusAl, the world’s largest aluminum producer, which is considering plans to build a new smelter in the area.

TITLE: Kovykta Talks to Be Resumed
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: LONDON — BP said Friday that it expected to revive talks on a joint venture with Gazprom after settling a dispute in TNK-BP. 
BP and Gazprom last year agreed to contribute assets worth about $3 billion to a joint venture. TNK-BP planned to sell its stake in the Kovykta gas field to Gazprom, while BP had an option to buy back a quarter of the deposit. Talks stalled while BP was locked in a power struggle with its partners in TNK-BP. 
“Gazprom said two months ago that they were going to stop talks until” the dispute was settled, BP spokesman Toby Odone said. So far, the next round of talks has not been scheduled, he said. 
The joint venture “idea hasn’t died,” Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said. “But so far we have not advanced” talks. 
Neither BP nor Gazprom has set deadlines for the creation of the joint venture, Odone and Kupriyanov said.

TITLE: How to Revive Investor Confidence
AUTHOR: By James Beadle
TEXT: Russia’s benchmark RTS Index has dropped nearly 50 percent since peaking on May 19 and nearly 30 percent since the outbreak of war with Georgia over South Ossetia. Addressing ongoing declines last week, President Dmitry Medvedev and other officials promised that the government has the power to return the market to previous highs and blamed the drop on the financial crisis under way in the United States.
Certainly, the developed world’s credit crisis is affecting Russia’s financial sector, as global markets are more interrelated than ever. But the causes of this market rout can be found predominantly within Russia’s domestic market.
The stock market imploded for a single and simple reason. Share prices had risen until the potential returns ceased to justify the risks of investment. After seven years of positive performance, Russian equities peaked with consensus upside of just 20 percent. Lower potential returns, coupled with peaking commodities prices, focused investor attention on the risks. Then a series of disappointing events over the summer proved that Russia’s risk profile had not declined as quickly as potential returns. In fact, it had increased. Equity prices swiftly corrected to restore the most basic rule of finance: Returns should be commensurate with the risks of investing.
There are currently two remedies under consideration for tackling the market crash: oil tax cuts and investing state reserves. A plan to cut oil taxes is welcome and overdue. Long predicted, such fiscal change would improve the fundamental value of the country’s oil and gas sector, its largest index component. Conversely, investing portions of the National Welfare Fund in the stock market would substantially compromise all that Russia has achieved in eight years of commodity-driven growth.
While this summer’s equity market collapse has been a disastrous event for all involved, like all problems, it can also be viewed as an opportunity. With more than $500 billion wiped off the nation’s market capitalization, the country’s stocks can’t fall much further. Now is the perfect time to implement the aggressive changes necessary to turn Russia into a global financial center. 
The necessary foundations could be set now, while the market is already sold far below fundamental logic. The key steps that need to be achieved include:
• Eliminate the shareholder caste system. At present, wealthy government-friendly individuals and companies occupy a higher caste, foreign businesses and smaller companies are blatantly treated as lower castes. If Russia is to become an international financial center, it must implement equal rights for all types of corporation and investor.
• Institute transparent legal controls. The bureaucracy should stop selectively applying gray laws. This weakens confidence in the clarity and application of the law.
• Recognize that the world is tightly interconnected and design a foreign policy with this in mind. Russia has a rightful place at the top table of global decision makers, but acting unilaterally alienates global investors, who crave predictability and stability above all else.
• Complete economic objectives. Certainly Russia has moved far economically since its default 10 years ago. The stock market, which is a means of observing economic progress, peaked more than 6,000 percent above its 1998 low. But now the same risk-reward imbalance that hit equities threatens the economy itself. As Russia gets richer, growth will naturally slow. Yet the costs and complications — the risks, in other words — of doing business here continue to rise. To achieve sustainable long-term development, Russia must move fast to diversify its economy and reduce corruption. At the same time, lower inflation would maximize real growth.
The market is now oversold and offers an excellent buying opportunity, but this inflection point offers far more. If the government takes these decisive steps, it can build a sustainable foundation for its economy and capital market. Unfortunately, the proposals currently reverberating around the market offer no such long-term solution.
Many participants support the idea of investing the National Welfare Fund into the local equity market. As justification, some cite that the United States cuts interest rates or bails out financial firms whenever its market starts crashing. Yet, these two ideas are starkly different. Washington acts to correct the economic causes of equity market declines. 
At stressful junctures, it is crucial to differentiate between cause and effect and act appropriately.
Cutting oil taxes will help at the margin. In addition to boosting company valuations, it will reassure investors that there is a plan to sustain budget revenues by preventing production declines. By contrast, pumping the National Welfare Fund into the equity market will dramatically compromise Russia’s greatest modern achievements: economic stability and low sovereign credit risk, achieved through responsible fiscal management. The government can do much with its reserves to benefit the country, but investing them into the domestic equity market will put them at risk of collapsing exactly when they will be most needed.
Sovereign wealth management is a controversial subject. But the International Monetary Fund is about to release a code of conduct, and there are recognized best practices for protecting national wealth for future generations. The global financial centers of the 21st century will define themselves by adopting these best practices. Filling the role of domestic equity investor of last resort is certainly not a recommended strategy.
The equity market has halved, yet commodities prices are resiliently elevated, despite recent deep corrections. With a strong and determined government in control, Russia has a unique opportunity to implement the necessary changes to become a 21st-century global financial center. The right choices at this inflection point can set the country on the path to a bright and prosperous future.

James Beadle is a Moscow-based investment strategist.

TITLE: Four Wars in One
AUTHOR: By Richard Lourie
TEXT: A friend of mine in New York gets his hair cut by a Russian emigre barber. When asked his opinion of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the barber replied, “He forgot what country he was living in.” Georgia forgot what country it was living next to. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is the Khodorkovsky of statesmen.
Though the war was ruinous for Georgia, it wasn’t an unalloyed victory for Russia. A war now has at least four dimensions: the physical, meaning land, sea and air combat; the cybernetic, meaning inflicting damage to the opponent’s IT capabilities; the PR struggle over whose narrative will prevail; and, finally, the aftermath and consequences sometimes known as the peace.
Though Georgia started this war, it has been portrayed as the plucky little David to Russia’s Goliath. But what’s interesting is how poorly Georgia fought. Little Finland bloodied Stalin’s Red Army in the Winter War of 1940-41, and Chechnya essentially defeated the Russian army in the first war between them in the mid-1990s. Extremely well-equipped by the United States, the Georgian army fled in disarray almost at once. Ordered to attack South Ossetia, the Georgian army did so in a horrific pre-dawn assault, but was not motivated to defend the disputed territory nor even to make the Russians pay dearly for their victory. This shows that the war was essentially political and had no real grassroots support.
We don’t know much about the cyber-attack on Georgia except that it happened. We don’t know who launched it — Russian government agencies, freelancers, something in the middle — or how effective it was. Georgia and Russia each accused each other of provocation. The world settled for a simple narrative: Georgia attacked, but Russia overreacted. A person’s Russophobia or Putinophobia can be measured by exactly how much that overreaction is stressed. 
Now what? South Ossetia should ultimately be reunited with North Ossetia, from which it was unnaturally separated by the caprices of Soviet officialdom. The status of Abkhazia is trickier and should probably continue in its current limbo until cooler heads prevail. Self-determination and territorial integrity are opposing principles, and usually your politics determines which one you choose. Self-determination is fine when the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia or Serbia are collapsing. Territorial integrity was of no importance when the United States invaded Iraq or makes incursions into Pakistani territory. 
Neither South Ossetia nor Abkhazia wish to be part of Georgia, as any internationally monitored referendum would prove in a minute. In fact, the best anti-Russian position would be to vigorously support the two breakaway republics in the hopes of fomenting similar secessionist unrest in Russia. Some elements in the oil-rich Islamic regions of Russia have reportedly been encouraged by the apparent success of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russia was justified in counter-attacking Georgia, but justifications aren’t winning it the peace. It is losing prestige and foreign capital at an alarming rate. It could change the atmosphere dramatically by offering to pay part of Georgia’s rebuilding costs, say, $250 million. Magnanimity in victory plays better than pugnacious rationalization. If Georgia turns down the offer, so much the worse for them.
What the United States and the West have to do is rethink the policy of NATO expansion. George Kennan, creator of the “containment doctrine,” was against it from the start, knowing it would lead to exactly the sort of situation we now have on our hands. And that has to be done fast and well, with a stone-cold sober sense of how to relate to the new resurgent Russia. If a new relationship between the West and Russia is not worked out, the next crisis could easily break out over Ukraine. Since Ukraine is 10 times bigger than Georgia, things could be 10 times worse there.

Richard Lourie, author of “Sakharov: A Biography” is now writing “The Death of Russia.”

TITLE: Thousands Rescued in Texas as Ike Strikes
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: GALVESTON, Texas — As teams persisted in the biggest search and rescue operation in Texas history, a new phase of the disaster wrought by Hurricane Ike was only beginning while thousands of people faced long stays in crowded shelters because their homes were damaged or destroyed.
The death toll from Ike rose to 28, but many of those were far to the north of the Gulf Coast as the storm slogged across the nation’s midsection, leaving a trail of flooding and destruction. Glass-strewn Houston was placed under a weeklong curfew, and millions of people in the storm’s path remained in the dark.
Rescuers said they had saved nearly 2,000 people from waterlogged streets and splintered houses by Sunday afternoon. Many had ignored evacuation orders and tried to ride out the storm. Now they were boarding buses for indefinite stays at shelters in San Antonio and Austin.
“I have nowhere to go,” said Ldyyan Jonjocque, 61, waiting for a bus while holding the leashes of her four Australian shepherd dogs. She said she had to leave two dogs behind in her home. She wept as she told of officers rescuing her in a dump truck.
In hard-hit towns like Orange, Bridge City and Galveston, authorities continued their door-to-door search well into the night, hoping to reach an untold number of people still in their homes, many without power or supplies.
Many of those who did make it to safety boarded buses without knowing where they were going or when they could return to what might remain of their homes.
Shelters across Texas scurried to find enough cots, and some evacuees arrived with little cash and no idea of what the coming days held.
Even for those who still have a home to go to, Ike’s 110 mph winds and battering waves left thousands in coastal areas without electricity, gas and basic communications — and officials estimated it may not be restored for a month.
“We want our citizens to stay where they are,” said a weary Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas. “Do not come back to Galveston. You cannot live here at this time.”
Michael Geml has braved other storms in his bayfront neighborhood in Galveston, where he’s lived for 25 years, though none quite like Ike. The 51-year-old stayed in the third-story Jacuzzi of a neighbor’s house, directly on the bay, with family pets as waves crashed across the landscape. But amid the havoc, Geml asked anyone who would listen — even his rescuers — for an odd commodity: cat litter for his spooked feline.
“I’ll never stay again,” Geml said. “I don’t care what the weatherman says — a Category 1, a Category 2. I thought I was going to die.”
Kathi and Paul Norton huddled inside their house in Crystal Beach until it collapsed and was swept away. Their flag pole kept the house from collapsing on top of them, buying them a few seconds to escape, holding onto the staircase.
“You never know what a hurricane is like until you ride it on a staircase,” said Kathi Norton, 47. As she spoke outside the giant, warehouse-like shelter on a former Air Force base in San Antonio, busloads of new evacuees were arriving, bumper to bumper.
The hurricane also battered the heart of the U.S. oil industry as Ike destroyed at least 10 production platforms, officials said. Details about the size and production capacity of the destroyed platforms were not immediately available, but the damage was to only a fraction of the 3,800 platforms in the Gulf.
It was too soon to know how seriously it would affect oil and gas prices.
President Bush made plans to visit the area on Tuesday.
He said getting power restored is an extremely high priority and urged power companies to “please recruit out-of-state people to come and help you do this.”
Ike was downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved north. Roads were closed in Kentucky because of high winds. As far north as Chicago, dozens of people in a suburb had to be evacuated by boat. Two million people were without power in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Of the 28 dead, five were in the hard-hit barrier island city of Galveston, including one body found in a vehicle submerged in floodwater at the airport. There were two other deaths in Texas and four in Louisiana, including a 16-year-old boy trapped in rising floodwaters. Several were farther inland.
Two golfers died when a tree fell on them in Tennessee. There were two deaths in Indiana; three died in Missouri. One person died in Arkansas and three in Ohio, including two motorcyclists killed when a tree toppled on them at a state park.
Ike killed more than 80 in the Caribbean before reaching the U.S.
Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, was reduced to near-paralysis in some places. But power was on in downtown office towers Sunday afternoon, and Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical complex, was unscathed and remained open. Both places have underground power lines.
Its two airports — including George Bush Intercontinental, one of the busiest in the United States — were set to reopen Monday with limited service. But schools were closed until further notice, and the business district was shuttered.
Five people were arrested at a pawn shop north of Houston and charged with burglary in what Harris County Sheriff’s spokesman Capt. John Martin described as looting, but there was no widespread spike in crime.

TITLE: In European Soccer, East Faces Richer Western Rivals
AUTHOR: By Zoran Milosavljevic
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BELGRADE — Forced to sell off their best players to keep afloat, many eastern European soccer clubs found themselves easy prey for wealthier rivals from the continent’s top leagues in the early rounds of the Champions League and UEFA Cup.
Only six teams from eastern Europe have reached the Champions League group stage, which starts on Tuesday. Five of those have done so either automatically or by eliminating fellow east European rivals in the third qualifying round.
Lack of money is at the heart of the problem, say coaches in eastern countries.
“The uncontrolled outflow of young prospects is the biggest problem and we simply have to find a way to keep them longer if our clubs are to stand any chance of success in Europe,” said Dragoslav Stepanovic, who coaches Serbian first division side Cukaricki Belgrade.
Stepanovic said Serbian champions Partizan Belgrade, beaten 4-3 on aggregate by Turkey’s Fenerbahce, might have enjoyed better fortune under different circumstances.
“Partizan could have qualified for the Champions League if they had kept (Montenegro striker) Stevan Jovetic in their ranks because he is one of those players who make a difference,” Stepanovic told Reuters.
Jovetic joined Italy’s Fiorentina during the close season while Red Star Belgrade, the 1991 European Cup winners who were eliminated from the UEFA Cup in the second qualifying round, have held on to only three first-team players from last season.
“Serbia’s top clubs sell from 10 to 15 players every summer and buy as many who are not as good and that makes it impossible to mould them into a respectable team,” Stepanovic said.
“Also, scouting in Serbia is poor because the trick is to buy better players with limited resources and get your money’s worth as some clubs from eastern Europe have done.”
Six eastern European teams were defeated by rivals from the West in the Champions League final qualifying round and most of them were predictably drubbed by their more heralded opponents.
Steaua Bucharest, the 1986 European Cup winners, were the exception as they knocked out Turkey’s Galatasaray to complete a remarkable run of success by Romanian teams in the early stages of the Champions League and the UEFA Cup.
Steaua have joined CFR Cluj in the lucrative group stage of the Champions League while five Romanian teams are vying for berths in the UEFA Cup group stage.
Croatia’s Dinamo Zagreb, like Partizan and Red Star, reluctantly release promising youngsters well before they reach their peak and then watch them flourish elsewhere. This time, they paid the price with a 5-1 aggregate defeat by Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League.
“We are not at the level we want to be and I hope things will improve next season,” Dinamo executive vice-president Zdravko Mamic said.
“Also, it saddens me to see only 8,600 fans turn up to watch the return leg that could have seen us through to the group stage if the situation had been just a bit better,” he said.
Dinamo fans complained on messageboards that they had heard it all before after seeing their club sell their top players every season since their last participation in the Champions League group stage in 2000.
Allowing Luka Modric (Tottenham), Niko Kranjcar (Portsmouth) and Vedran Corluka (Manchester City, then Tottenham) to migrate to the greener pastures of the Premier League has certainly boosted Dinamo’s finances but it has also deprived Croatia’s most successful club of the quality needed do well in international competition.
Former Romania defender Miodrag Belodedic, who was part of Red Star’s 1991 outfit, said there was only one way to success for the struggling clubs.
“Fans in Serbia must understand that privatisation is the only way forward because there can be no prosperity without fresh investment,” he said. “Without that, they will have nothing but memories of a better past.”
Romanian clubs owe their unprecedented success to the economic transition that lured quality players from abroad and allowed Cluj to win their first league title last season with 23 foreigners in their squad.

TITLE: ‘Sulu’ Weds Boyfriend Of 21 Years
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOS ANGELES — George Takei and his longtime partner, Brad Altman, have agreed to live long and prosper together.
Takei, 71, and Altman, 54, were married Sunday in a multicultural ceremony at the Japanese American National Museum that featured a Buddhist priest, Native American wedding bands, a Japanese Koto harp and a bagpipe procession.
The couple, both clad in white dinner jackets with black pants, made a grand entrance to the tune of “One Singular Sensation” from the Broadway musical “A Chorus Line.” They stepped into a circle of yellow roses and lilies, where they shared a traditional Japanese tea ceremony and were wed by a Buddhist priest.
The couple, who have been together for 21 years, wrote their own vows.
Altman said that he had called Takei many things during their two decades together — “life partner, significant other” — but that their marriage represented “a dream come true for me.”
“I can add ‘my husband’ to the list of things I call you,” he said.
Takei called his longtime partner an “organized, detail-obsessed, punctuality-driven control freak.”
“I’m easygoing with details, so we’re a good fit,” he said in the trademark baritone recognizable to all “Star Trek” and Howard Stern fans.
“I vow to care for you as you’ve cared for me ... and to love you as my husband and the only man in my life,” Takei said as he held Altman’s hands.
The priest then pronounced them “spouses for life.” A bagpiper played as the newlyweds walked out, followed by friends, family and a few members of the press.
Takei said he and Altman chose to make their wedding public — and have been outspoken gay-rights advocates for years — for the sake of democracy.
“We have a relationship that’s been stronger and longer-lived than some of our straight friends, and yet we were not equal,” Takei told The Associated Press before the ceremony. “What this does is give us that dignity; (it’s) being part of the American system and being whole. We’re making the American system whole as well, as America is becoming more equal.”
Such activism is nothing new for Takei. He participated in the civil rights movement, served as a Democratic delegate in 1972 and fought for redress for those — like his own family — who were forced into internment camps after World War II.
“I grew up determined not to be marginalized,” he said. “That served as an incentive for me to be proactive.”
He and Altman were among the first couples to receive a marriage license in West Hollywood when the state began granting licenses to gay couples on June 17.
“A quarter century ago, when I first met Brad, (marriage) was the farthest thing from our imagination,” Takei said. “But what seemed impossible at one time becomes, over the passage of time, more and more ‘what if’ and ‘why not.’ We have to participate in moving society along to be a better democracy.”
Wedding guests included “Star Trek” stars Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols, who served as best man and best lady, Hollywood executives, local and national government officials and the couple’s relatives from around the world.
Keeping with the multicultural theme, guests dined on Asian/Baja Californian fusion cuisine and took home Japanese tea-ceremony treats in boxes printed with the phrase: “May sweet equality live long and prosper.”

TITLE: Swimming Medalist Popovich Compared to Phelps
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BEIJING — Erin Popovich thinks it might be time to get a job.
Here’s something for the resume: four gold medals and two silver in swimming at the Paralympics. Even better, she won 10 gold medals in the last two Paralympics, bringing her total to 14. Add to that five silver medals in her three Paralympics.
Popovich might have gone home with six gold in Beijing, but she had to settle for silver in two weekend races — the 50-meter butterfly on Saturday and the 50 freestyle on Sunday.
“Four long years of hard work and training paid off,” said Popovich, who trained for the games with the Colorado State swim team. Six days a week, as much as five hours a day, Popovich has been working toward Beijing, particularly after graduating last December.
“I guess I should find a job sometime soon,” she said, with the swimming competition ending Monday and the Paralympics finishing Wednesday.
The 23-year-old swimmer has been compared to Michael Phelps, who won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.
“We have a lot of drive and determination. We’re extremely competitive both in swimming and just in life,” she said. “To even be mentioned in the same sentence … is a tremendous honor for me, to be seen in the same light as that is huge.”
Popovich has a form of dwarfism and competes against other child-sized athletes and swimmers with other disabilities.
She churns through the water with thick arms and powerful legs, beating opponents like Huang Min of China by more than 6 seconds in the 200-meter individual medley and nearly 4 seconds in the 100-meter breaststroke.
But it was also the slender Huang who dashed Popovich’s hopes of pulling off another all-gold performance at the Paralympics, winning the gold in the 50-meter butterfly Saturday.
“Popovich has won lots of golds, but this one belongs to me,” Huang said. “Everyone who’s truly devoted can be successful.”
Popovich, selected by teammates as one of four captains of the U.S. squad, smiled and gamely answered questions after Huang ruined her perfect record in Beijing.
Popovich’s dominance in the pool is testament to her hard work.
“I’d love to say I could just hop in the water and swim fast,” she said. “Unfortunately that’s not the case.”
On Sunday, she was upset by American teammate Cortney Jordan in the 50 freestyle. Jordan finished in 33.84 seconds, with Popovich at 33.92. It was Jordan’s first gold in these games to go with two silver—100 freestyle and 400 freestyle—and a bronze in the 200 individual medley.
“I was so shocked,” Jordan said, still panting five minutes after the race. “I had no idea that was going to happen. Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe I just did that. It was amazing and something I will remember for the rest of my life.”
Popovich was again a gracious loser.
“I put my best effort forth,” she said. “Cortney just had a phenomenal swim tonight. She did wonderful, she deserves it.”
The United States had another four-gold winner in Jessica Long, who fell short in an effort for a fifth gold Sunday and finished fifth in the 50 freestyle. Long won gold in the 100 butterfly, 100 freestyle, 200 individual medley and 400 free. She also won silver in the 100 backstroke and bronze in the 100 breaststroke.
At Colorado State, Popovich approached the swim team with a simple question: “Any way I can swim?”

TITLE: Mugabe to Share Power With Enemy Tsvangirai
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: HARARE — Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe signed a power-sharing agreement with opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai on Monday, relinquishing some of his powers for the first time in nearly three decades of iron rule.
The deal followed weeks of tense negotiations to end a deep political crisis compounded by the veteran leader’s disputed and unopposed re-election in a widely condemned vote in June. Under the agreement, Tsvangirai will become prime minister.
“This agreement sees the return of hope to all our lives. It is this hope that provides the foundation of this agreement that we sign today, that will provide us with the belief that we can achieve a new Zimbabwe,” Tsvangirai said after the signing ceremony.
Zimbabweans hope the agreement will be a first step in helping to rescue the once prosperous nation from economic collapse. Inflation has rocketed to over 11 million percent and millions have fled to neighboring southern African countries.
Cheers greeted the signing of the deal at a Harare hotel by Mugabe, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, who leads a breakaway faction of the main opposition party.
The three smiling Zimbabwean leaders exchanged copies of the agreement and shook hands in front of South African President Thabo Mbeki, who brokered the deal, and other African leaders.
Mugabe, 84, made clear he would not tone down his attacks on Western countries such as former colonial power Britain. He accuses them of supporting the opposition in a bid to drive him from power.
“African problems must be solved by Africans...the problem we have had is a problem that has been created by former colonial powers,” Mugabe said after the signing ceremony as Tsvangirai looked uncomfortable.
But he added: “We are committed to the deal, we will do our best.”
Western countries are still keen to see how the deal works in practice but the European Union said on Monday it stood ready to bring aid to Zimbabwe if the new government took measures to restore democracy and the rule of law.

TITLE: Ronaldo Gets Golden Boot
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ROME — Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo believes he changed the game by scoring 31 goals from midfield in the Premier League last season to win the European Golden Boot award.
“With this Golden Boot I have changed football a little. Usually strikers won it and I’m a winger,” the Portugal international told La Gazzetta dello Sport after receiving the trophy at a ceremony in his native Madeira on Saturday.
Ronaldo said he is confident of winning the Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year prizes after inspiring United to the Champions League-Premier League double last term.
“The best candidate for the other prizes is Cristiano Ronaldo,” the 23-year-old said.
“To be honest, I think I have been the most consistent and the best. And over time I want to enter the book of the all-time best players.”
Ronaldo, who has been sidelined since undergoing surgery on his right ankle in July, said he does not fear a hostile reception at Old Trafford after making an unsuccessful request to be sold to Real Madrid in the close season.
“When I put on the (United) shirt, I give my all. And I’m already in the history of the club,” he said. “When I play again the fans will love me again.”
He also said it was unlikely he would move to Manchester City, after media reports linked him to a big money move to the cross-town rivals.
“No one knows my future, but I don’t see myself in the shirt of another Manchester team,” he said.

TITLE: ‘Baby Schumi’ is F1’s Youngest Winner
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MONZA, Italy — Sebastian Vettel provided an answer on Sunday to all those wondering how German Formula One fans could ever replace Michael Schumacher in their affections.
The 21-year-old, dubbed “Baby Schumi” by his national media, won the Italian Grand Prix to become the sport’s youngest winner and the first German to triumph since Schumacher retired in 2006.
Already Formula One’s youngest points scorer and the youngest to start on pole position, the Toro Rosso driver tried in vain to play down the comparisons with the Ferrari great.
“To compare anybody to Michael I think is a bit ridiculous,” said Vettel. “I’m very young and at a very early stage of my career and therefore I think there is no need to make a comparison.”
He may need another 90 wins to equal his compatriot but he in on the right track, having spent time at Schumacher’s Kerpen karting circuit and sharing his love of soccer.
The seven-times champion, watching from the Ferrari pit wall, was open in praise for a youngster who never put a wheel out of place after starting behind the safety car on a wet and slippery surface.
“What he did today was absolutely first class — to make no mistakes in these conditions and dominate the race from the start, and that in a car that is not the fastest,” he told Premier TV.
“I was crossing my fingers that the car would keep going and he’d bring it home. I’ve known him since he was small, we’ve played football together and so we are close.
“He has the potential to be world champion but it’s a long and rocky road,” added Schumacher, who first brought Vettel to the attention of Toro Rosso co-owner Gerhard Berger when the German was a baby-faced teenager with a love of karting.
Berger, himself a winner at Monza with Ferrari, agreed.
“I’m not into comparisons but what I do know is that this guy will win a lot of races and a lot of championships,” he told reporters.
Vettel, one of Formula One’s more talkative and playful drivers with a love of British humor, was for once lost for words.

TITLE: In Lourdes, Pope Speaks Out Against Euthanasia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LOURDES, France — Pope Benedict XVI urged ailing pilgrims to accept death “at the hour chosen by God,” reasserting the Vatican’s opposition to euthanasia on Monday at an open-air Mass for the sick.
Benedict administered the sacrament of the sick to pilgrims in wheelchairs and on gurneys, many bundled in quilts against the chill.
In his homily, the pope said the ill should pray to find “the grace to accept, without fear or bitterness, to leave this world at the hour chosen by God.” The Vatican vehemently maintains that life must continue to its natural end.
The message has special resonance in Europe. Belgium and the Netherlands have legalized euthanasia, and Switzerland allows counselors or physicians to prepare a lethal dose, though patients must take it on their own.
France permits patients to refuse treatment that can keep them alive but stops short of allowing euthanasia. The debate in France was revived this year with the death of a woman whose tumor burrowed through her head, leaving her with constant pain, hemorrhaging and difficulty eating.
Benedict’s Mass for the sick outside the gold mosaic facade of the Basilica of the Rosary was the final stop on his visit to Lourdes. The shrine in the foothills of the French Pyrenees draws 6 million pilgrims a year, many of whom believe that Lourdes’ spring water has the power to heal and even work miracles.
Helped by attendants, the sick bathe in pools of the cool water and take it home in plastic jugs and vials in the shape of the Virgin Mary. Thousands of people have claimed to be cured here, and the Roman Catholic church has officially recognized 67 incidents of miraculous healing linked to Lourdes.
At the close of Mass, Benedict anointed 10 ailing pilgrims, ranging from a teenage boy to an elderly nun in a white habit. He gently touched their foreheads and palms with oil and addressed each one in his or her own language.
“Unfortunately we know only too well: the endurance of suffering can upset life’s most stable equilibrium, it can shake the firmest foundations of confidence, and sometimes even leads people to despair of the meaning and value of life,” the pope said.

TITLE: Davydenko Cleared In Betting Flap
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: LONDON — Russian tennis star Nikolay Davydenko was cleared by the ATP on Friday after a yearlong investigation into suspicious betting patterns on a match he lost to a low-ranked opponent.
The governing body of men’s tennis said it found no evidence of wrongdoing by Davydenko, opponent Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina or anyone else associated with their match in Sopot, Poland, on Aug. 2, 2007.
“The ATP has now exhausted all avenues of inquiry open to it and the investigation is now concluded,” the association said in a statement.
Davydenko, then ranked No. 5, pulled out of the match against the 87th-ranked Vassallo Arguello in the third set, citing a foot injury.
Betfair, an online bookmaker, voided all bets on the match. It received about $7 million in wagers on the match, 10 times the usual amount for a similar-level match. Most of the money was on Arguello, even after he lost the first set.
ATP investigators spoke to Davydenko, his wife and family members and reviewed telephone records. This summer, Davydenko said he may have inadvertently tipped off bettors by talking too loudly about his injury to his wife during the tournament.
Davydenko, now ranked No. 6, has always denied any wrongdoing and expressed confidence he would be cleared.
The ATP said it interviewed “a number of individuals involved in the match” and reviewed betting account details of those who wagered on the match. It also reviewed phone records from Davydenko, Vassallo Arguello and their support personnel.
However, “certain individuals” declined to provide phone records, the ATP said. Some records eventually were turned over but they had been destroyed by telephone companies in line with data protection laws, the ATP said.
Speaking at Wimbledon this year, Davydenko said Russian spectators might have overheard him talking to his wife and entourage in the stands at the Sopot tournament.
“Everything was going on. I spoke in the center court with my wife … [in] Russian,” he said. “Maybe it’s possible, if I can say something [like] ‘I don’t want to play or I can retire,’ …some people can understand.”
That sort of inside information could have sparked the flood of telephone or Internet betting.
An independent review commissioned by tennis’ governing bodies identified 45 matches that merited a closer look, including eight at Wimbledon.
The ATP has approved a list of 15 recommendations from an independent review panel to combat potential for corruption in the sport.
A string of players has been punished for betting violations this year. Last month, France’s Mathieu Montcourt was banned from the tour for two months and fined $12,000 after being found guilty of betting on matches.

TITLE: Homesick Kuznetsova Retains Fed Cup for Russia
AUTHOR: By Ben Harding
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MADRID — Russia lifted the Fed Cup for the fourth time in five seasons on Sunday after Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Spanish number one Anabel Medina Garrigues and their doubles pair completed a whitewash.
The world number seven’s 5-7 6-3 6-4 victory in two hours and 39 minutes gave Russia an unassailable 3-0 lead that was achieved despite the absence of the country’s top three players and underlined Russia’s dominance of the women’s game.
The victory for Kuznetsova, who had not won a tournament all year, was no easy matter however. Medina Garrigues fought bravely with the noisy backing of the near full 4,000-seater stadium, before finally running out of steam in the last set.
“Today it was important for me,” said the 23-year-old from St Petersburg. “I felt very nervous, I had so many ups and downs but still, bringing the win for my team, it’s amazing.”
As on Saturday, Medina Garrigues, ranked 29 in the world, was slow out of the blocks, meekly conceding her first two service games in the face of her opponent’s powerful groundstrokes.
Kuznetsova seemed to be cruising but in the fifth game, the 26-year-old Spaniard somehow produced a fizzing crosscourt backhand off a Kuznetsova smash to set up a break and then hold her own serve in the following game.
The first set swung decisively the way of the Spanish Olympic doubles silver medalist in the ninth when Kuznetsova squandered four set points with a series of wayward forehands.
A fired-up Medina Garrigues set up her second break back of the set with a running drive backhand down the line before a deflated Kuznetsova patted the next ball into the net.
In a match played with great sportsmanship, Kuznetsova over-ruled a line judge to give her opponent a point with the set poised delicately at 5-5. Medina Garrigues went on to break the former U.S. Open champion before holding her own serve to take the first set.
Medina Garrigues canceled out an early break from Kuznetsova in the third set but failed to keep the pressure going and the Russian’s greater poise on the big points proved decisive.
Kuznetsova said after the match she was leaving the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona, where she has trained for over a decade, to return to Russia.
“I miss my country and I think I need to do a few things differently to change my game. I love Spain but I think it’s time to change, this is what my soul is asking me to do,” she said.

TITLE: Kazan Tops Table
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian premier league leader Rubin Kazan moved a step closer to its first title by beating Dynamo Moscow 1-0 in the top-of-the-table clash on Sunday.
Former Ukraine striker Serhiy Rebrov, who joined Rubin from Dynamo Kiev in March, scored in the second minute to give the Kazan side 45 points from 21 matches and a nine-point lead over second-placed Dynamo.
Amkar Perm, 2-1 winner at Shinnik Yaroslavl, is third.
Serbia winger Milos Krasic scored twice to lead CSKA Moscow to a 4-1 rout of struggling Luch Vladivostok, lifting the army side to fourth place.
Champion Zenit St. Petersburg crushed Terek Grozny 4-1 to stay in the title hunt by moving up to seventh on 31 points with a game in hand.