SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1410 (74), Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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TITLE: VIPS Dance Up a Storm At Forum In Sochi
AUTHOR: By Nadia Popova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: SOCHI — A warm sun and lapping waves might be the perfect backdrop for striking a business deal, but as Russia was buffeted by a financial crisis, a storm whipping in off the Black Sea coast seemed to serve the purpose better.
As participants at the Sochi investment forum gingerly walked along the shore under umbrellas searching for a round table or food, both of which were hard to find, contracts worth almost $20 billion were being signed.
Troika Dialog managing director Andrei Sharonov, who moderated the forum’s opening plenary session at Sochi’s Winter Theater, advised the audience to send text messages if they wanted to buy shares. 
“The forum regulations do not forbid that,” he said, smiling. 
“The market has grown 20 percent,” someone shouted from the stalls in reply.
The financial crisis appeared to be the reason for the absence from the forum of Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who had both stayed in Moscow to man the fort. 
German Gref, the former economic development and trade minister who now heads Sberbank, canceled a news conference after being called back to Moscow for an urgent meeting, a spokesman for the bank said.
A senior official from a North Caucasus republic, who asked not to be identified because he said he feared he wouldn’t be invited again, complained that many of the potential investors from Moscow he had planned to meet at the forum didn’t show up because of the financial crisis.
Those who came, however, seemed to have real fun celebrating the market’s recovery on Friday. 
While hundreds of the forum’s participants enjoyed cold shashlik and folk dancing at the more plebian of the forum’s main parties, top government officials and business leaders strutted their stuff on the glass dance floor at the VIP nightclub Platforma, where rock groups Uma Turman and Nautilus Pompilius performed their sets.
With the waves rolling in toward the platform where the club is located, the guests warmed themselves up with red blankets, mojitos and passionate dancing on the glass floor, which is suspended directly above the Black Sea.
Some VIPs eschewed the dance floor at the Thursday night party, however. First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov remained at his table, deep in conversation for most of the evening with Norilsk Nickel’s new chief executive, former Federal Tourism Agency chief Vladimir Strzhalkovsky.
One of those who boogied on the dance floor Friday evening was Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, who danced up a storm to the wild strumming of a rock ‘n’ roll violin.
Wimm-Bill-Dann chairman David Yakobashvili could also be spotted dancing in a corner of the dance floor, while ballerina Anastasia Volochkova, sporting a costume with white spangled trousers, was making her way closer to the stage, in a swirl of gyrating nonballet steps rather than her usual pirouettes.
While the VIP guests treated themselves to sushi and intricate gourmet canapes, parties were held all over the city as the rest of the 8,000 guests also needed to relax — particularly after the stress of navigating what most agreed was an organizational nightmare.
With the Soviet-era sanatoriums in the city charging an average of $500 per night, some guests had to pitch up at out-of-town hotels 40 minutes’ drive away. That would have been the average traveling time without the monster traffic jams, which clogged Sochi’s streets from morning to night as police shut roads to give priority to VIP guests and their wailing blue lights.

TITLE: Investors Hope for End to Market Volatility
AUTHOR: By Miriam Elder, Nadia Popova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writers
TEXT: SOCHI — Leading Russian and foreign investors reacted with cautious optimism this weekend at an annual gathering in Sochi to an emergency government package aimed at bolstering the country’s bourses but warned that difficulties remain ahead for the markets and the economy itself.
“Things don’t just become normal in one day,” David Yakobashvili, chairman of dairy producer Wimm-Bill-Dann, said on the sidelines of the 2008 Sochi International Investment Forum. “We can’t yet say that a trend exists, it is still emotions shaking the markets on the basis of politicians’ statements. We may still not have reached a bottom.”
Russia’s MICEX and RTS indexes soared 29 percent and 22 percent, respectively, on Friday, reversing most of the week’s losses. The gains came a day after President Dmitry Medvedev unveiled a multibillion-dollar stimulus package to buoy the markets.
An air of jubilation permeated the forum on Friday afternoon, yet business leaders warned that the effects of Russia’s market drop would be felt for at least a year and would spread to sectors of the economy as yet untouched.
“The reasons that created this situation still exist,” Andrei Sharonov, managing director of Troika Dialog and a former deputy economy minister, said in an interview. “Mechel, TNK-BP, Georgia — they just accelerated the process.”
About $25 billion of foreign capital fled the country in the wake of Russia’s war with Georgia in August, while its markets sank more than 20 percent in the first half of last week.
Bankers conceded that Russia’s wild economic boom, founded on soaring oil prices, had led to looser risk controls.
“When all was quiet on the market, we were closing our eyes to some potential risks,” said Viktor Kuzmenko, the head of UniCredit Bank in the southern city of Stavropol. “Now we are giving risk management our utmost attention.”
Many said they expected that the credit crunch would soon hit Russia’s real estate market, collapsing prices and, crucially, passing the pain of the turmoil on to middle-class Russians, who tend to invest in hard assets such as real estate rather than stocks and bonds. Real wages could also be affected, as firms cut down on projects and labor in the face of decreased credit lines and slowed growth.
“That’s the next step,” said Sharonov, referring to the possible drop in wages.
The overwhelming popularity of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his protege, Medvedev, has come on annual real GDP growth of about 7 percent, providing average Russians with unprecedented wealth.
Newscasts on state television last week failed to cover the turmoil on Russia’s markets until they were first closed on Wednesday, and many mid-level participants at the Sochi forum said they believed that no crisis existed. Key to the government’s policy, analysts said, was ensuring that no retail banks failed.
Addressing the forum, Putin stuck to familiar themes, reassuring investors that Russia would keep its markets open to foreign investment, while urging reciprocal access abroad. But he also employed the tough anti-U.S. rhetoric that has characterized his comments since last month’s Georgian conflict, laying the blame for the market plunge squarely on the financial turmoil in the United States.
His comments appeared to be a response to comments last week from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Russia’s leadership was putting the country “on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance.”
“I take any attempts to throw us back to the time of the Cold War as … a direct threat to our modernization project,” Putin told the forum. “Confrontation is not our choice.”
At a meeting Thursday evening at his Sochi summer residence, Putin assured top Western investors — including the chief executives of BP, Shell, Total, Deutsche Bank and Siemens — that there were “no systemic problems in the Russian economy,” news agencies reported.
Yet some expect changes ahead. Veniamin Golubitsky, head of construction firm Renova Stroygroup, said he thought a new real estate landscape would emerge because of the credit crunch.
“It’s harder for us now to get money from the banks,” Golubitsky said, adding that he believed that housing prices could fall up to 10 percent this year.
“The crisis will lead to some changes in the market generally,” Golubitsky said. “Bigger companies will absorb the smaller ones, as those will have their access to credit cut.”
He said Renova Stroygroup, part of billionaire Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova Group, was planning to buy up small firms in Russia and abroad, but declined to provide details on funding or potential assets.
One of the country’s richest businessmen, Mikhail Prokhorov, also said he was considering investing in real estate projects but declined to provide details. “You’ll see,” he said, before ducking into a black Mercedes and speeding away after the forum’s opening session.
Both Prokhorov and Golubitsky praised the state’s emergency measures, with the government lowering export tariffs for oil firms and reserve requirements for banks, injecting up to $44 billion into the banking sector and pledging up to $20 billion to prop up state-run blue chips on the market.
The initial announcement of the extra access to funds named VTB, Sberbank and Gazprombank as the only beneficiaries, but an additional 25 banks will be included on the list, the Finance Ministry said Sunday evening, Bloomberg reported. 
Government officials, however, sounded an optimistic note.
“Many investors are worrying whether Russia’s economy will hold through this financial tsunami,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov told the forum. “Ten years ago, something similar happened. Nothing like this can happen in Russia today,” he said, noting that Russia had amassed $560 billion in foreign reserves as well as over $160 billion in two oil stabilization funds.
The global credit crisis and the latest events on Russian markets “are not a catastrophe for our economy,” he said.
“Investment will grow less quickly this year than last, but it won’t be less than 15 percent,” Zhukov said, adding that the government still expected gross domestic product per capita to rise to $30,000 by 2020 and to $50,000 by 2030.
Foreign investors, vastly outnumbered by Russians at the forum, were more circumspect.
“It is a critical time for Russia,” Samuel DiPiazza, CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers, told the forum. “There are great opportunities today, and there are great risks.”
“You must be careful how you respond to the crisis and not endanger the fundamentals,” he said. “Capital will move where there is a receptive market — markets that have a good and efficient rule of law.”

TITLE: Local Celebrities Plant Trees to Protect Cherished Garden
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Well-known local artists gathered Sunday to oppose the authorities’ plans to destroy one of the few surviving courtyard gardens on Petrograd Side and build a business center on the site, amid ongoing infill construction in the city.
Film director Alexander Sokurov, ballerina Alla Osipenko and actress Larisa Dmitriyeva were among the people including artists, musicians and local residents who planted “name” trees in the garden on the corner of Syezzhinskaya Ulitsa and Ulitsa Blagoyeva, near the city’s zoo.
Such celebrity tree-planting events are organized by Green Wave, a pressure group set up to campaign for the protection of green areas and bodies of water that have been put in danger by Governor Valentina Matviyenko’s town-planning policies since she took office in 2003.
With Petrograd Side garden crossed off the list of law-protected public areas last year, Matviyenko gave permission to a company called Anastasia for preliminary groundworks for construction on the land in February. 
Nearby residents did not find out about the plan until a notice for a public hearing over the land was published in an obscure local newspaper last month.
Apart from the fate of the garden itself, the residents, who formed a pressure group to defend the garden soon after hearing the news, are concerned that construction will damage the aged buildings where they live.
The area in question is a 680 square-meter piece of grass-covered land, with several tall trees on it. It adjoins an old residential building and is surrounded by an iron fence. The residents installed a swing for children and are planning to build a playground on the site.
The police that keep an eye on any outdoor public activities in the city arrived on the scene as activists started to gather, but did not get involved and soon left. The participants then planted several young trees bought by Green Wave activists. 
Banners reading “No to Infill Construction” and “If You Can’t Send a Bureaucrat to Prison, Plant a Tree” (it rhymes in Russian) were placed on the fence and the blind wall of the adjoining building.
In the course of the event, which lasted more than an hour and drew dozens of supporters, six trees were planted, with plywood plaques carrying the name of the person who planted each specific tree attached. 
Green Wave was launched by musician Mikhail Novitsky, who sings and plays guitar with local band SP Babai, in 2003. Many artists and musicians, including actress Svetlana Kryuchkova, director Roman Viktyuk, singer/songwriter Alexander Gorodnitsky and rock band DDT frontman Yury Shevchuk, have taken part in its tree-planting events, planting over 400 “named” trees.
Hundreds of city gardens have been destroyed in the past few years to make way for business centers and elite residential buildings, and many more are endangered. According to Green Wave’s website, a total area of 67 hectares (165.6 acres) of the city’s green spaces have been eliminated during recent years. 
Last week, City Hall officials proposed to exclude 1,510 pieces of land from the register of protected public green areas. City preservationists, such as Green Wave, suspect shady dealings between construction companies and bureaucrats.
Sokurov explained his participation as the last resort to stop destruction, because the authorities are deaf to public opinion.
“The authorities do not react to anything anymore, be it petitions or media appearances; so such public events are the only thing left that we can do,” he said, speaking to journalists after planting his tree.
Even though Sokurov admitted he has no illusions about the effectiveness of Sunday’s event, he stressed that such actions are nevertheless meaningful and are important for defending the city from bureaucrats and construction companies.
“They still can proceed with construction, but now they will have to walk all over us,” Sokurov said.

TITLE: ‘Merchant of Death’ in Thai Court
AUTHOR: By Ambika Ahuja
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: BANGKOK — An alleged arms smuggler’s extradition hearing to the United States began Monday after a string of delays in the high-profile case because of complications with his defense team in Thailand.
Viktor Bout, dubbed “The Merchant of Death,” has been indicted in the U.S. on four terrorism charges. He was arrested in Thailand on March 6.
Though Bout denies any involvement in illicit activities, he is regarded as one of the world’s most-wanted arms traffickers and was purportedly the model for the character portrayed by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 movie “Lord of War.”
Chained at the ankles, Bout made no comment as he was led into Bangkok’s Criminal Court.
Monday’s hearing was briefly interrupted at the start when defense attorney Preecha Prasertsak petitioned the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the Russian had been illegally detained. After a half-hour adjournment, judges said the complaint would be considered at a later date.
Bout’s defense team has repeatedly said she plans to fight his extradition, a procedure that has been bogged down by the Russian’s inability to hold onto a lawyer.
The hearing was initially scheduled to start June 9 but was postponed when Bout’s attorney at the time said he had heart problems.
Bout was then given a court-appointed attorney who failed to show up for the rescheduled hearing on July 28, saying he had another case in court at the same time. That lawyer was dismissed and Bout was assigned representation by Preecha.
It was not immediately clear how long the extradition proceedings would take.
The 41-year-old Russian faces charges of conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile, according to a U.S. indictment made public May 6. He faces a life sentence.
American prosecutors say Bout was offering a deadly arsenal of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, including more than 700 surface-to-air missiles, thousands of guns, high-tech helicopters, and airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles. The U.S. classifies FARC as a terrorist organization.
The charges were based in part on a covertly recorded meeting in Thailand on March 6. Bout was arrested after a sting operation in which undercover U.S. agents posed as Colombian rebels.
Bout, who has been accused of breaking several U.N. arms embargoes, has a long list of alleged clients including African dictators and warlords such as former Liberian President Charles Taylor, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and both sides of the civil war in Angola.

TITLE: Matviyenko’s Son Threatens Law Suit
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — The son of St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko is threatening to sue a British newspaper that wrote he insisted on staying at Nottingham Castle — of Robin Hood fame — in lieu of a hotel in the city.
The story, which appeared Tuesday in the Nottingham Evening Post, said banker Sergei Matviyenko was planning to attend a martial arts competition and had rejected a four-star hotel in favor of staying at the castle. 
The report, which claimed that he would be arriving with a 40-person entourage, quoted Matviyenko as saying: “I was looking forward to learning more about Robin Hood while staying at this historic place.”
The story was picked up by British tabloid The Sun and given the headline: “Russian Can’t Rent Robin’s ‘Hood.’”
But a spokesman for VTB-Development, where Matviyenko is general director, said Friday that Matviyenko was not planning to attend the martial arts competition and had not asked to book the castle.
“Sergei is planning to sue the Nottingham Evening Post for slander and undermining his business reputation,” spokesman Ivan Balyuk said in an e-mail.
A Nottingham Evening Post employee said the newspaper was unaware of any planned lawsuits and said there would be no official comment. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Martial arts promoter Tony McDonagh said he had been asked to book rooms for Matviyenko and had called the castle, among other venues. “I contacted a number of places on his behalf,” he said. “The castle was one place. It was basically my idea.”
Matviyenko did not have a 40-person entourage, McDonagh said. The Sept. 27 competition involves some 40 Russians, including athletes, but Matviyenko’s request was for “up to eight more people,” he said.
McDonagh said he had been asked to book the rooms by M1 Global, a martial arts events promoter. Matviyenko is vice president of the martial arts league Mix Fight M1.
Vadim Finkelshtein, the president of the Mix Fight M1 league, derided the hubbub as “completely stupid.” “We didn’t ask for anything, no palace. They have made Sergei into a monster,” he said, adding that he would attend the competition and stay in a three-star hotel. He said Matviyenko would not go and had never planned to go.
Nottingham Castle supervisor Ynys Crowston-Boaler said the castle, which is now a museum, was not fit for Matviyenko or any other overnight guests because it has “no ensuites or plumbing.”
“He wouldn’t want to toddle off to the public toilets in the middle of the night,” Crowston-Boaler said.

TITLE: New Iran Sanctions Opposed by Russia
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — The Foreign Ministry made clear Saturday that Russia opposes a Western push for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
Russia spoke out against a fourth round of UN sanctions against Tehran at a meeting of the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany in Washington on Friday, the Foreign Ministry said.
Russia stressed the need to draw Tehran into “constructive dialogue,” the ministry said in a statement. “In this context, we spoke out against the development at this time of new measures along UN Security Council lines.”
Russia agreed to three previous rounds of UN sanctions, but along with China has slowed down their passage and ensured they were less punitive than measures the United States was seeking.
The United States and its European allies are pushing for quick passage of a fourth sanctions resolution to show the international community’s resolve amid a crisis in Moscow’s ties with Washington and Brussels over last month’s conflict in Georgia.

TITLE: Brenton Offers Advice at the End of Four Rocky Years
AUTHOR: By Nikolaus von Twickel
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: British Ambassador Tony Brenton is stepping down at the end of this month to write a book about Alexander Menshikov, who was the de facto ruler of Russia after Peter the Great’s death.
During his four-year tenure, which Brenton described as “bumpy,” ties between London and Moscow have plummeted to post-Cold War lows over disputes involving oil companies, former KGB spies and English-language lessons.
In addition, the ambassador and his wife were robbed in St. Petersburg in 2005 and hounded by members of Nashi, the pro-Kremlin youth movement, in 2006 and 2007.
“Yes, I think it’s been pretty bumpy,” Brenton said in an interview this week at the British Embassy.
But he dismissed suggestions that he was disillusioned.
“I really love Russia and wish to maintain links with Russia,” he said. “One of the most wonderful things about the country is its colorful, dramatic history and its colorful and dramatic people that populate that history.” 
Top among them, he said, was Menshikov, the flamboyant statesman and general who rose from pastry salesman to the country’s de facto ruler after Peter the Great’s death in 1725.
Speaking in a far-reaching interview, Brenton, 58, criticized Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the involvement of government agencies in the TNK-BP dispute, saying both incidents had sent worrisome signals to Western investors. He praised a recent telephone conversation between the two countries’ foreign ministers that included profanity, calling it positive because it showed the two sides were talking.
Brenton said his successor, career diplomat Ann Pringle, faced a tougher start than he did but that she should build upon the positive fundamentals that continue to govern London’s relations with Moscow, despite the series of crises between both sides.
“She is inheriting in some ways a more difficult situation than I did,” he said. 
While issues like Russia’s refusal to extradite a suspect in the murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko and London’s refusal to extradite businessman Boris Berezovsky remain unresolved, there are many good things to focus on, he said.
“My advice to my … successor will be: There is enough good there, there are enough positive things for us to work on, to help build the relationship in a positive direction,” Brenton said.
He also advised her to travel around the country more often than he did, explaining that he found himself “trapped in Moscow by a succession of crises.” 
“When we want to take a country really seriously, we send a Scot,” he said, joking about Pringle’s nationality.
Earlier this summer, he said, both sides began to get over some of the problems as Prime Minister Gordon Brown “had a good meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev” on the sidelines of a Group of Eight summit in Japan.
But then the war over Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia struck. “Until Georgia came along, things were on the mend,” he said.
As London took a critical stance towards Russia’s military invasion into its southern neighbor, it seemed that both governments would have a hard time avoiding clashes. Last week, a telephone conversation between Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov and David Miliband resulted in a damaging newspaper report that said Lavrov swore at his British counterpart. Lavrov later denied swearing at Miliband and said he had mentioned a Western diplomat’s unflattering description of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Brenton took pains to point out the positive aspect of that conversation, while stressing that its contents were confidential: “The media reporting was unfortunate, but the important fact is that Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Miliband are talking to each other, that they are talking straight to each other. That it is not mere diplomatic politesse, that they are saying worthwhile things to each other.”
But the ambassador said Moscow’s response to the conflict over South Ossetia went way over the top. “Russian troops marching into an independent sovereign country has been very, very damaging from every point of view,” he said.
“The whole Georgia thing was a shock for Western public opinion and particularly for Western investors,” he said.
Brenton suggested that President Dmitry Medvedev should now follow up on his domestic policy promises. “The most effective thing that Mr. Medvedev can do is actually to pursue the agenda he annunciated for himself when he became president: … building up the rule of law, dealing with corruption, getting the state less involved in business activity,” he said.
“If he can be seen to make real progress on them, then that will regenerate some of the business confidence that has been lost — partly as a result of Georgia, partly as a result of TNK-BP,” he said.
Brenton identified the shareholder dispute at TNK-BP as a worrying signal for investors.
While struggles among owners were not unknown even in the best-run companies, he said, it was “very unfortunate” that various Russian government agencies became involved. TNK-BP was searched by police for alleged tax violations earlier this year, while the Federal Migration Service blocked visas for the company’s foreign staff.
“The effect of that is to give business the impression that the Russian state is taking sides in a private shareholder dispute, and it is in Russia’s own interest to avoid giving that impression and to show foreign investors that there is a level playing field for investors,” Brenton said.
Brenton also took pains to praise the French-led mediating efforts in Georgia as a “huge success” for Europe. “They had to move fast. Inevitably there were confusions,” he said.
Lavrov has repeatedly complained that official documents prepared by Paris had different wordings in Moscow and Tbilisi.
Brenton said the main point was that Europe succeeded in stopping the fighting in five days. “After further clarifications, there is now an agreed way forward, and all the signs are that both Russia and Georgia are observing that. I think that is a very big success for both French and for EU diplomacy,” he said.
Brenton noted that pointing to the U.S. role in Georgia just produced inflammatory rhetoric. “The danger that has been revealed by the Georgian situation is that it has brought out a lot of Cold War dinosaurs on both sides,” he said.
He explained that many commentators in Russia are suddenly criticizing the United States, while many commentators in the West “are only too pleased to say the bear is back, Russia is on the march again. I think all those commentators are wrong,” he said.
“We had a particular issue in an area we all know is highly combustible and dangerous. Our job now is to get the fire under control and get the peace process moving,” he said.
On all areas of dispute, Brenton was adamant that London had adopted the right stance.
“My job is to represent the British government, and my view is that we have always responded as reasonably as possible to the various pressures,” he said.
Yet he refused to hand out blame, saying merely that “lots of things have gone wrong from both sides’ point of view.”
The key, he argued, was to leave the past behind. “We had the British Council affair where our feeling is that the Russian government behaved very wrongly but where again we now are in a position where we have to look forward rather than back and try to solve that problem as well,” he said.
The dispute about the legal status of the British Council, a government-sponsored agency that promoted British culture and offered English lessons, among other things, is still unresolved, Brenton said. “There is a huge hunger here for the British Council all over the Russia. We need to establish a clear status for the British Council for the offices,” he said.
Brenton said he was “100 percent confident” that British culture was in high demand: “As I travel round the country, everybody tells me, ‘We want the British Council.’ ‘Where is Shakespeare?’ they say to me.”
Brenton suggested that he was leaving the Foreign Service to write the book because he had achieved everything he could hope for. “They do not have a more interesting job than ambassador to Moscow, so it is time to move on,” he said.

TITLE: Philippines Touted As New Vacation Hotspot
AUTHOR: By Yevgeny Rozhkov
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: St. Petersburg is regarded as a promising market from which to attract tourists, according to representatives from the Republic of Philippines’ Department of Tourism (DOT) who arrived in the city at the weekend with a mission to promote the country as a new travel destination in South East Asia. On Saturday, the city welcomed a delegation of nine tour operators and 15 hotel managers and owners from the Philippines, an archipelago nation made up of 7,107 islands that is experiencing a rapid increase in tourism. 
Eduardo Jarque Jr., undersecretary of the Department of Tourism for the Republic of the Philippines, said that the major purpose of such sales missions is to instruct people and pave the way for strong growth in arrivals from Russia, which have increased by 30 percent this year. Spending by Russian tourists quadrupled in the same period.  
“Surprisingly, we have the biggest delegation ever coming here and we expect a lot from our visit to St. Petersburg. To start with, there is an honorary Consul here and representatives from the city government are enthusiastic about cooperation and will be helping us a lot. DOT will be sponsoring a lot of familiarization trips to intensify our plans,” said Jarque.
Similar sales missions were held in Moscow in 2006, in Russia’s far east — Vladivostok and Khakbarovsk — in 2007, and after a series of surveys and market research, DOT has included St. Petersburg in the shortlist of cities with favorable attitudes to tourism opportunities and enrolled the most competent and credible travel organizations and hotel service providers including Annset Holidays, Baron Travel, Marsman Drysdale Travel and Sofitel Plaza. 
Marianna Ordzhonikidze, now head of City Hall’s tourism department, used to work as a tour operator sending groups on diving holidays in the Philippines 18 years ago. With the new passenger port that welcomed its first visiting liner earlier this month and reconstruction plans for Pulkovo airport, St. Petersburg, in Ordzhonikidze’s opinion, will provide unlimited opportunities for tourism growth. 
“The current growth rate for 2008 is 20 percent. Due to the concept approach to tourism development, more and more tour operators keep entering the market, which is seeing saturation but is still capable of accommodating prospective players, both from Russia and abroad,” said Ordzhonikidze.
Sergei Alexeyev, honorary consul of the Republic of the Philippines in St. Petersburg, reports constant growth in the number of tourists traveling between the countries, as regular flights are now being established. “Forty years ago, the Soviet Union was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the Philippines, and there was a sea route between Kronshtadt and Manila.”
The Philippines is part of the East Indies, a vast group of islands to the south and east of mainland Asia. The three main Philippine island groups are Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. The country’s main tourist attractions are diving sites, mountain climbing and caving.
“We have three major industries in the country,” said Mr. Jarque. “These are agriculture, tourism and Filipinos who constantly send money home.”
The first quarter of 2008 signaled a strong start for the Philippines’ tourism sector as arrivals grew by eight percent to reach 858,244 visitors in total, spending a total of $1.02 billion, according to DOT statistics. The sharpest increase was in tourists from France and Russia, who increased by 30 percent, followed by the United Kingdom with 26 percent.

TITLE: Russia-EU Talks to Resume Next Month
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: SOCHI — French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Saturday that talks on a Russia-EU pact, postponed after the war in Georgia, could resume early next month as Moscow and Paris sought to boost ties in the energy and technology sectors.
“The EU position is clear: We hope the talks will resume as soon as the provisions of the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan are carried out,” Fillon told a news conference after talks with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. 
Under a plan agreed on by President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, Russia would withdraw its forces from undisputed Georgian territories soon after the EU deploys monitors there. 
“There are no reasons not to resume talks early next month,” Fillon said. 
After their talks, Putin and Fillon signed a document on developing relations in the high-tech, energy and space sectors, including cooperation in developing the Shtokman gas field and a joint project to launch Soyuz spacecraft from a French facility. 
Arianespace, the commercial arm of the European Space Agency, is to buy 10 Soyuz-ST booster rockets under a contract signed Saturday by Arianespace chairman Jean-Yves Le Gall and Anatoly Perminov, head of the Federal Space Agency, Russian news agencies reported. 
Le Gall said the contract was worth $300 million to $400 million. The rockets will be launched from the Kourou center in French Guiana, starting next year. 
Russia generates income by marketing its booster rockets and its Baikonur Cosmodrome, in neighboring Kazakhstan, for commercial satellite launches. The Federal Space Agency said a Canadian telecommunications satellite, Nimiq 4, was successfully launched from Baikonur on Saturday.
Additionally, Electricite de France said it was considering the acquisition of a stake in Inter RAO after signing a cooperation accord with the utility. 
Marc Boudier, head of EDF’s mainland European business, said the company might buy a “very humble stake” in Inter RAO, which is looking to expand overseas.
The utilities may develop joint power projects, including a company to sell electricity in Eastern Europe, Inter RAO chief executive Yevgeny Dod said Saturday. 
The flurry of business activity came at a time when the EU is reviewing its ties with Russia. 
The EU condemned Moscow’s intervention in Georgia, but members are split over how to handle relations with its biggest energy supplier. The EU stopped short of imposing sanctions but suspended talks on a new treaty regulating their relations with Russia. 
“We wanted this meeting to take place at the original time because it’s very important to strengthen the partnership between the European Union and Russia, and France and Russia,” Fillon told Putin late Friday. 
Fillon’s remarks highlighted the differences within the EU — some members, including France, Germany and Italy, urge caution in relations with Russia, while others, mainly former Soviet satellites, want tougher action. 
Putin seized the opportunity to say cooperation with France had not been affected “in any way” by the Georgian crisis.
(Reuters, AP, Bloomberg)

TITLE: Oil Sector Taxes to Be Cut in 2010
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — The government will propose more tax cuts for the oil industry this year and implement them in 2010, Kremlin economic aide Arkady Dvorkovich said Friday, without giving many details of the plan.
President Dmitry Medvedev met top officials Thursday to discuss tax reform after a debate between a pro-growth camp, which wanted a major cut in value-added tax, and fiscal hawks, led by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
Following heated exchanges, the two sides agreed to a compromise that postponed a decision on VAT until 2009 and required the government to look instead at cutting taxes on the oil sector.
“In effect ... a decision was made on lowering the tax burden for the oil sector,” Dvorkovich told a news conference. He said the proposal would be drawn up this year and applied from 2010.
He said discussions were continuing over whether the country would cut the oil export duty or mineral extraction tax, which together provide the same amount of budget revenues as the VAT.
Russia said Thursday that it would slash the oil export duty from Oct. 1 to allow oil firms hit by weaker crude prices to save $5.5 billion, boosting their stocks and money market liquidity.
The tax initiatives, which include a more favorable depreciation regime allowing the firms to write 30 percent of new equipment costs off their tax base, will cost the state a maximum 0.5 percent of annual GDP, Dvorkovich said.

TITLE: Gazprom Inks Gas Deal With Venezuela
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: CARACAS, Venezuela — Gazprom was among eight companies that signed deals to develop offshore gas fields with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela at a ceremony presided over by President Hugo Chavez in the country’s capital Friday.
The deals included U.S.-based Chevron, Italy’s Eni, Portugal’s GALP Energia, Qatar Petroleum, Malaysia’s Petronas, Argentina’s Enarsa and Japanese companies Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Itochu, in a sign that Chavez’s government is open to some outside investment despite sweeping nationalizations. 
The ceremony came a day after Gazprom and Total signed another deal to explore for gas with neighboring Bolivia, another country that is seeking to bolster its ties to Moscow.
Venezuela is home to South America’s largest natural gas reserves, but they have remained largely untapped while the country focused on oil production. 
Officials expect joint investment over the next eight years to hit some $19.6 billion, Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters. 
Under one agreement, Gazprom, Eni and Petronas signed a memorandum of understanding to help develop the offshore gas fields Blanquilla and Tortuga.
Chavez, who ejected U.S. majors ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips from multibillion-dollar oil production projects last year, told the Chevron delegation, “We want to be friends with gringos.”
Earlier this month, Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassador and threatened to cut off oil supply to the United States.
Chavez, who is traveling to Moscow next week at the invitation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is planning new oil projects with Russian companies and joint military exercises with Russian warplanes and ships in the Caribbean by December.
Venezuela also is in talks to buy Russian air-defense systems and armored vehicles, and has expressed interest in the new Su-35 fighter, due off assembly lines in 2010, Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov said Wednesday in Caracas, where he was accompanying Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Interfax reported.
The allies have sealed more than $4 billion in defense deals since 2005. Venezuela has bought Sukhoi fighter planes, Mi-17 helicopters, and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, most of which have already been delivered.
The Russian-Venezuelan alliance was mocked Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said Russia was only isolating itself.
The United States is confident that its own relations with Western Hemisphere countries “will in no way be diminished by a few, aging Blackjack bombers visiting one of Latin America’s few autocracies,” she said.
During his visit, Sechin announced that Rosneft, LUKoil, Gazprom Neft, Surgutneftegaz and TNK-BP are looking to build a $6.5 billion refinery to process Venezuela’s tar-like heavy crude, RIA-Novosti reported.
On Thursday, Gazprom and Total signed a deal with Bolivia’s state energy company YPFB that could bring $4.5 billion into Bolivia, the Bolivian government said.
Total chief executive Christophe de Margerie said in Sochi on Friday that the deal was part of a global partnership with Gazprom. 
Bolivia also plans to seek Russian aid in energy, agriculture, and defense, the country’s leftist president, Evo Morales, said at the signing ceremony Thursday. 
(Reuters, AP)

TITLE: Russia, Turkey Resolve Trade Dispute
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: ISTANBUL — Turkey and Russia have resolved a trade spat that Ankara says has cost its exporters more than $1 billion in lost revenue, the state-run Anatolian news agency quoted a senior Turkish official as saying Friday.
Turkish exporters began suffering delays late last month at Russian border crossings after Ankara allowed two U.S. ships to pass through the Bosporus Strait to provide aid to Georgia after Moscow’s military action there.
Soon after, Russia implemented the trade curbs, and Turkey retaliated by delaying Russian goods at border checkpoints.
“We have found a solution to the problem while protecting the rights of Turkish industrialists and traders,” Deputy Prime Minister Hayati Yazici said, the agency reported.
The agreement, which is designed to simplify export procedures, will take measures to prevent mandatory physical searches of goods entering either of the countries. It was signed Thursday.
Representatives from the two countries will meet again within months, Yazici said, to discuss application of the deal.
Ankara has sought to boost trade with Moscow as it tackles a current account deficit that has been widening as energy costs increase.
Textile and clothing, which make up the bulk of exports to Russia, were Turkey’s biggest foreign currency earner in 2007, bringing in $22.6 billion. Additionally, Turkish builders have invested billions in Russian construction projects.
(Reuters, Bloomberg)

TITLE: Putin Says Markets Have Stabilized After Financial Crisis
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russian markets, roiled by global financial turbulence, had “stabilized,” as banks borrowed $13 billion at an emergency auction and the government considered more steps to bolster liquidity.
“The country’s financial authorities have reacted quickly to the situation in the world economy,” Putin told ministers in comments broadcast on TV.
The government rushed to pledge more than $100 billion in emergency funding last week in a bid to stabilize soaring interbank rates and collapsing stock prices in the wake of the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy. Credit markets in Moscow seized up after brokerage Kit Finance defaulted on some repurchase agreements, fueling panic and propelling the MosPrime overnight lending rate to a record 11.1 percent on Wednesday.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>VTB Stocks Jump</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — VTB Group, Russia’s second-biggest bank, jumped Monday after Vedomosti newspaper reported it might agree to acquire Svyaz-Bank as early as that day.
State-run VTB closed 0.69 kopeks, or 16 percent higher at 5.04 kopeks in Moscow, extending its 60 percent gain on Friday. The bank may buy Moscow-based Svyaz-Bank, which failed to receive an emergency loan from the central bank, Vedomosti reported. VTB has completed due diligence on Svyaz-Bank and may decide on an acquisition today, the newspaper said.

<b>Udokan Talks Underway</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — GMK Norilsk Nickel is in talks with Russian Technology Corp. on joining the Udokan copper project in Siberia, Interfax said, citing Chief Executive Officer Vladimir Strzhalkovsky.
A unit of Metalloinvest, the iron-ore supplier controlled by billionaire Alisher Usmanov, won this month’s auction for Udokan, Russia’s biggest untapped copper field. Metalloinvest said afterwards that it would develop Udokan with Russian Technologies, a state corporation chaired by Sergei Chemezov.
Norilsk dropped out of the bidding because it didn’t want to lead the project or work on it without partners, Strzhalkovsky told Interfax.

<b>Antitrust Case Dropped</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia dropped an antitrust investigation into oil producer Surgutneftegaz, saying it had established that the company doesn’t have a dominant position in the oil products market.
The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said in July it opened an antitrust probe into Surgutnetegaz and four other integrated Russian oil companies over pricing in the oil products market. An investigation found that Surgutneftegaz controls less than eight percent of the gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and fuel oil market, the watchdog said.
Surgut was also the only one of the five to comply fully and on time with a request for information by the regulator. The other companies in the probe are Lukoil, Gazpromneft, TNK-BP and Rosneft.

<b>Renault Licensing Deal</b>
ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — AvtoVAZ, Russia’s biggest carmaker, will pay Renault SA 220 million euros ($321 million) for licensing rights.
AvtoVAZ will spend 120 million euros for licenses to assemble and distribute Renault power-supply devices and an additional 100 million euros for rights to the French manufacturer’s car platforms, AvtoVAZ said in an e-mailed statement on Monday.
Togliatti, Russia-based AvtoVAZ, controlled by state-run holding company Russian Technologies Corp, sold a 25 percent stake to Renault in February. The licensing payments were approved at a Sept. 5 shareholders meeting, the company said.

<b>New Renaissance?</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov agreed to buy half of Renaissance Capital, one of Russia’s biggest banks, after the credit squeeze led to a plunge in the country’s financial stocks and a two-day halt in Moscow trading.
Prokhorov’s Onexim Group holding company will pay $500 million for 50 percent minus one voting share of Renaissance Capital, Prokhorov told reporters in Moscow on Monday.
The deal comes less than a week after Russia’s benchmark Micex Index dropped 25 percent over three days.

TITLE: Time to Treat Russia as a Partner
AUTHOR: By Andrew C. Kuchins
TEXT: Before heading to Moscow to participate in the recent Valdai Discussion Club, I had the sense that the United States was on the verge of a new era of confrontation with Moscow that could prove far more dangerous and unstable than the previous Cold War. Alliances are more rickety and as the war last month in Georgia proves, communication is not always clear, with tragic results. 
Suffice to say that the Valdai meetings did little to alleviate my concerns. The Russian presenters, with the exception of opposition figure Garry Kasparov, were all singing from the same song sheet: “We don’t want a new era of confrontation, but the choice is yours” — the United States’. 
And from the U.S. side, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a powerful speech on Sept. 18, concluding, “The decision is Russia’s and Russia’s alone.” Obviously both Moscow and Washington have choices, but I have little confidence U.S. leaders will make the right ones that will enhance the security of the United States and Europe, let alone Russia. What Washington needs right now is not megaphone diplomacy with Moscow, but real diplomacy. 
While the United States may deplore the Kremlin’s decision to invade Georgia — and certainly its decision to rapidly and unilaterally recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia was wrong — the consensus among Russian politicians and most people is that the Kremlin was right and justified. Although government propaganda on television is partially responsible for this national consensus, it also reflects the country’s catharsis after more than 15 years of perceived relentless geopolitical expansion of the West at Moscow’s expense. 
President Dmitry Medvedev told us that when he spoke with U.S. President George W. Bush on the phone during the hostilities with Georgia, Bush asked him, “What do you need this for?” Medvedev responded, “George, I had no choice, and if you were in my shoes you would have done exactly the same, only more brutally.” Medvedev went on to say that if Washington chooses to expand ties with Georgia and arm it, Washington does so “at its own risk.” 
When Medvedev said at Valdai, “We will not tolerate any more humiliation, and we are not joking,” I believed him. Russian history tells us that we should not underestimate the willingness of Moscow to spill blood to defend the country’s interests as it sees fit. At this moment, the United States needs to focus on that prospect rather than spend so much energy defending past policy. 
The Kremlin perceives the Balkan war, NATO expansion, Kosovo independence and missile-defense deployment in Central Europe as having one thing in common — the U.S. drive to flaunt its interests and ultimately contain if not weaken Russia’s geopolitical position. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, Washington’s strategy was to tell Moscow that these pro-U.S. measures were in Russia’s interests. The Bush administration has harped on Russia’s supposed obsession with zero-sum thinking, but the net result was the same — the United States did what it wanted, and it did not take Russian interests seriously. 
For years since the Cold War, I have believed that war with Russia had a likelihood of close to zero. Today, that probability seems, while obviously difficult to quantify, between 1 and 2 percent and rising. Frankly, I find that an unnecessarily risky proposition which requires some bold, creative and ultimately wise thinking on the part of the U.S. to reduce the risk. 
If the U.S. desire is for a more liberal and democratic Russia that is at peace with its neighbors, who really believes that a policy of isolation and confrontation — the current U.S. course — will help achieve those goals? After spending the past 30 years studying Russia and working with Russians, I am convinced that the answer is “no.” When the Kremlin tells us that the current global security structure is not working, it is right. It is entirely wrong, however, to insist on spheres of influence and “privileged relations with our neighbors.” 
But the Bush administration’s approach that presses every Kremlin red button and crosses every one of its “red lines” is also dangerously failing. For example, does rapid NATO expansion and deployment of missile-defense components in the Czech Republic and Poland really advance U.S. security interests at this moment? 
Now is not the time to freeze the Russians out but to engage them more seriously than the United States ever has since the collapse of the Soviet Union. 
The United States may well find itself surprised with how engagement and respect may lead to deeper cooperation with the Kremlin on global security challenges and a more pluralistic and open Russia that is at peace with its neighbors. I know that sounds counterintuitive and certainly runs against the political mood in the United States, but the fact is that Washington has never tried such an approach in the post-Soviet period. 
This does not by any measure mean appeasing the Kremlin or giving it a veto over anything. But it does mean treating Russia more like a real partner to achieve long-term objectives in the interests of all parties. If the United States continues its current policy toward Russia, it increases the likelihood of a head-on collision between two global powers. 

Andrew C. Kuchins is director and senior fellow of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

TITLE: Exporting Dollars and Financial Crises
AUTHOR: By Anna Shcherbakova
TEXT: Last week was not easy for banks. The stock market dropped steeply and some of its most active players lost so much that they were unable to meet their liabilities to partners on time. Among them was the KIT-Finance investment bank, known as the most agressive, modern and dynamic of financial institutions. Its retail branch is young but strong. Within the second quarter the amount of private deposits grew by 60 percent to 8.8 billion rubles ($346 million). Last Friday, private clients couldn’t get their money back from it. But a couple of state-owned banks had already promised to support KIT in exchange for share in it. However sad it may be for its shareholders and top managers it sounds promising for those depositors who didn’t stand in line in front of the bank’s offices to make panic withdrawals. 
Lines of private clients who would like to withdraw their money are a recurring nightmare for all bankers these days. Massive unscheduled withdrawal of deposits can ruin almost any bank or, at the very least, cause it serious problems. 
To withdraw or not to withdraw – that was a question I heard frequently from my acquaintances  last week. One of them texted it from Sweden, where he was spending the weekend and had heard the terrible rumors that Moscow-based ATMs were short of money. 
I don’t presume to give advice on such important issues, but I can say that I didn’t withdraw from my own bank account any more than I needed for day-to-day expenses. Firstly, I do not feel comfortable loaded with cash. Secondly, I don’t see any secure options as to where to put my spare cash. And, finally, we have a deposit insurance system. 
“I don’t feel anything is going wrong,” I was told by a friend of mine, a private entrepreneur whose personal intuition has saved his business more than once. Me too, I should add. Ten years ago in August 1998 the devaluation of the ruble came as a complete surprise. But in June or July I had felt something in the air and changed my modest ruble savings to dollars. 
Today’s crisis, and there is no doubt that there is a banking crisis in Russia, is not like the 1998 crisis. It’s closer to the situation in 2004 when banks stopped transactions due to a lack of confidence in each other. This time, they desperately need financial resources but the international financial crisis has made it impossible to borrow abroad.  They will try to attract the domestic depositors, at least those who are not afraid, and pay for their risk with high interest rates. So, private clients are a more crucial issue for banks than ever. Those banks that need private money immediately will promote their high rates. Greedy people will go there. The more cautious will probably go to the state-owned or foreign banks, who have more resources and whose offers are more modest. The latter will be able to buy the former if they cannot stay afloat. The risks for smaller banks are higher than for private depositors, at least for the cautious among them. This scenario looks good for the customers, but ignores the risk of inflation and soft devaluation.  

Anna Shcherbakova is the St. Petersburg bureau head of business daily Vedomosti.

TITLE: Mbeki’s Replacement Named in S. Africa
AUTHOR: By Wendell Roelf
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: CAPE TOWN — The ruling African National Congress will name party deputy head Kgalema Motlanthe as South Africa’s caretaker leader after the ousting of President Thabo Mbeki, ANC members of parliament said on Monday.
ANC leader Jacob Zuma made clear his backing for Motlanthe as he pledged that the party would ensure a smooth transition and economic policy continuity despite the biggest political crisis since the end of apartheid in 1994.
“We have in cabinet many experienced ministers, including the deputy president of the ANC, Kgalema Motlanthe. I’m convinced that if given that responsibility, he would be equal to the task,” said Zuma, in his first public remarks since Mbeki announced he would resign in the face of ANC demands to quit.
Motlanthe is a left-leaning intellectual, widely respected by both the radical leftists and business tycoons within the ANC. He is seen as a figure who could help heal the deepest divisions in the party’s history.
“He’s a very solid person and if you’ve read his statements he always avoids wild rhetoric. He seems to also avoid making enemies and in the present political climate that’s a good thing,” said Keith Gottschalk, a political analyst at the University of the Western Cape.
“Certainly, most would regard him as presidential material.”
ANC militants led the charge to force out Mbeki after a judge threw out graft charges against his rival Zuma and suggested there was high-level political meddling in the case.
African National Congress parliament members told Reuters the party would name Motlanthe to replace Mbeki until the poll expected around April, which the ANC is widely expected to win.
The opposition Democratic Alliance said parliament would elect Mbeki’s successor on Thursday.
Motlanthe is a former student activist, a trade unionist and a former soldier in the ANC’s disbanded military wing UmKhonto we Sizwe. In 1977 he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and was jailed on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela and Zuma under the racist apartheid regime.
Policy changes under Motlanthe in the short interim period would be unlikely, but foreign investors eager for stability and a continuity of policy in Africa’s biggest economy will be watching closely for clues on the ANC’s future policy.
“In the short term, uncertainty will remain as the new political regime settles in, with some cabinet changes likely in coming weeks,” said Mike Davies, Middle East and Africa analyst at Eurasia Group.
The rand currency fell after Mbeki’s resignation, but it recovered some losses on Monday, and bonds and equities firmed.
Zuma sought again to reassure markets that he will not give in to pressure from leftist union and Communist Party allies to shift away from Mbeki’s business-friendly policies if he becomes president in 2009.
Motlanthe’s appointment is almost certain to be officially approved by the ANC-dominated assembly.
But Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he was “deeply disturbed” by the ANC’s ousting of Mbeki.
“It is good old-fashioned tit-for-tat. Our country deserves better. The way of retribution leads to a banana republic,” the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told reporters.
Uncertainty may still deepen if Mbeki supporters split from the ANC and contest elections as a breakaway party in 2009, as media reports suggest they will.
Seeking to ease concerns that an exodus of pro-Mbeki ministers would hurt the country, Zuma said the party wanted all current cabinet ministers to remain in their posts.
That suggests widely respected Finance Minister Trevor Manuel — a key figure for foreign investors — will remain.
Manuel indicted on Saturday he will not resign and has repeatedly said he will serve at the request of any president.

TITLE: Fans, Players Bid Farewell to Historic Yankee Stadium
AUTHOR: By Ronald Blum
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: NEW YORK — Derek Jeter climbed the mound, surrounded by his teammates, and began the final farewell.
Microphone in hand, the New York captain addressed the 54,610 fans who came to say so long to Yankee Stadium, his words booming around the old ballpark where the voices of Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle had echoed years before.
“So take the memories from this stadium, add it to the new memories that come with the new Yankee Stadium and continue to pass them on from generation to generation,” he said.
The winning tradition that began with a 4-1 victory over the Boston Red Sox on April 18, 1923, ended with a 7-3 triumph over the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday night. It was a bittersweet evening in which the Yankees staved off postseason elimination rather than add another title to their vast collection.
Next April 16 they open a $1.3 billion palace nearing completion across 161st Street, which also will be called Yankee Stadium. But it will not be the same.
With a yellowish moon rising beyond left-center, Mariano Rivera scooped dirt into a clear container, then took his family out to Monument Park 40 minutes after throwing the final pitch at 11:41 p.m. The grounds crew filled dozens of white buckets with infield dirt — multimillionaire players on both teams had knelt to scoop up the famous soil from the mound and home plate area, stuffing it into their pockets.
Fans stayed around for 45 minutes, not wanting to walk through the exits one last time. Frank Sinatra’s recording of “New York, New York” was heard over and over. The organist played “Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight.” Two dozen mounted police galloped onto the field. The one fan who ran on the field was quickly tackled.
At 4 a.m., Yankees staff and interns were still in the infield, running the bases, throwing each other grounders, drinking beer and digging up dirt.
Hours earlier, Johnny Damon and Jose Molina homered two final long balls in the park where Ruth hit the first on opening day, a stadium that was baseball’s biggest, brightest, grandest stage. The bat that Damon used and Molina’s spikes were immediately given to the Hall of Fame.
Andy Pettitte, who along with Jeter helped the Yankees win four World Series titles, got the victory.
“This is going to be right up there as far as special nights,” Pettitte said.
Appropriately enough, the final Yankees player to bat in the House that Ruth Built was Jeter, whose grounder to third ended the eighth. He was removed with two outs in the ninth, took the final curtain call and started thinking about what to say.
“I was scared to death. When I was younger I used to get really, really nervous when you have to do an oral report in front of 25 people, so I guess I’ve come a long way,” he recalled later.
Before the game, his great predecessors were remembered during a 65-minute ceremony that included 21 retired players, six of them Hall of Famers.
“I feel like I’m losing an old friend,” Reggie Jackson told the crowd.
Julia Ruth Stevens, 92-year-old daughter of the Babe, threw out the ceremonial first pitch.
“I’m very, very sad to think that the Yankee Stadium is not going to be in existence any longer,” she said. “I wish it could have remained as a New York landmark, but I guess like all things it has come to its final days as we all do.”
Fans were allowed on the field starting at 1 p.m. and entered through the left-field seats not far from where Aaron Boone’s pennant-clinching home run landed five years ago.
Glenn Bartow and his 13-year-old daughter arrived more than 12 hours before the game began at 8:36 p.m., and were the first ones into Monument Park.
“We come every Sunday,” Emily Bartow said.
Visitors touched the 24 plaques and six monuments, posed next to them for family photos. Under the kind of cloudless sky that made people recall summer days of yore, they slowly circled the warning track. Those who could not walk were pushed along in wheelchairs. Parents brought strollers to make sure toddlers got to experience the great ballpark before it is dismantled.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi went onto the field early to sign autographs. Mike Mussina and Alex Rodriguez posed for photos with rooters. Joba Chamberlain even took fans’ cell phones and shouted messages to their family and friends.
Bernie Williams, back at the ballpark for the first time since the Yankees cut him two years ago, had his car circle the stadium one last time before he walked in.
“All the memories that I have here, I know that I’m going to have to keep them in my head because this place is not going to be any longer,” Williams said. “There is a part of me that feels very sad about watching the stadium go.”
Even Yogi Berra knew this was the end. One of the game’s most beloved players stood beneath the stands in a full vintage uniform. Now 83, the man who coined the phrase “It ain’t over till it’s over” put his own stamp on the day.
“I’m sorry to see it over, I’ll tell you that,” Berra said.
Bob Sheppard, the 90-something public address announcer who started in 1951, read the opening welcome. He missed this season because of illness but recorded his greeting and the introduction of the Yankees starting lineup.
The 1922 American League pennant, the first to fly in the ballpark, was unfurled in the black batter’s eye beyond center field. Young men and boys were introduced representing the opening-day lineup in 1923.
Then came the living Yankees who make the stadium a standard for excellence.
Willie Randolph slid into second base when he was announced. Fan favorite Paul O’Neill pointed to the Bleacher Creatures in right field. Williams received the longest ovation, which lasted nearly 2 minutes. Don Larsen, who threw a perfect game here in the 1956 World Series, scooped up soil from the pitcher’s mound in a plastic cup, assisted by Whitey Ford.
“That’s just priceless,” Girardi said.
No mention was made of Roger Clemens, whose legacy has been clouded by accusations he used performance-enhancing drugs. George Steinbrenner, the team owner since 1973, did not attend.
Outside, the marquee that usually has the day’s start time and opponent said: “Thanks for the Memories.” In the seventh, a video was played of Sheppard reading a poem:
“Farewell old Yankee Stadium, farewell/What a wonderful story you can tell/DiMaggio, Mantle, Gehrig and Ruth/A baseball cathedral in truth/Farewell.”
It was 1:05 a.m. by the time the grounds crew dug up home plate. The pitching rubber came up 10 minutes later. By then a picture of the Babe, winking, was on the video board.

TITLE: At UN, Leaders To Mull Crises
AUTHOR: By Edith M. Lederer
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: UNITED NATIONS — World leaders meeting at the UN General Assembly this week face a global financial crisis that threatens the United Nation’s efforts to generate billions of dollars to fight poverty, especially in Africa.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week he was very concerned the economic slowdown and turmoil on Wall Street could have a negative impact on the ability of rich nations to help achieve United Nations goals to improve the lives of the poorest people who live on less than $1 a day.
Leaders were set to begin a week of meetings on Monday.
Before the US financial meltdown rippled around the globe, Ban asked world leaders to arrive a day early for the annual ministerial meeting of the UN General Assembly to focus on Africa’s development needs — and to interrupt their speechmaking Thursday to make new commitments to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals.
“We are experiencing a development emergency,” Ban said in an AP interview. “This is one of the triple crises that I have termed — climate change, development emergency, and global food crisis.
“This week, with the help of all world leaders, I would like to really mobilize necessary resources and galvanize political will to as high as possible as I can,” he said.
The leaders are arriving in New York as the U.S. Congress starts debate on a $700 billion proposal to buy a mountain of bad mortgage debt in an effort to revive U.S. credit markets, and whether they are prepared to make fresh commitments to help the poor remains to be seen.
The weeklong meetings begin Monday with a high-level session on African development that 106 of the 192 UN member states have signed up to attend — including 34 heads of state and 11 heads of government.
Undersecretary-General Cheick Sidi Diarra, Ban’s special adviser on Africa, said he was concerned about the world economy’s downturn but he still expected developed countries to keep their promises of increased aid.
At a summit in Scotland in 2005, the major industrialized powers agreed to increase yearly aid to developing countries by $50 billion by 2010 compared to 2004, and to channel $25 billion of the increase to Africa.
But Ban said in a recent report that rich donor nations have failed to deliver on their promises and must increase aid by $18 billion a year. Of that, $7.3 billion would have to go to Africa.
¦?U.S. Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, seeking to bolster her foreign policy credentials, will meet leaders of U.S. allies Afghanistan and Colombia on Tuesday in New York.
A campaign aide said on Saturday that Palin will meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, in addition to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The meetings will take place on the fringes of the annual UN General Assembly in New York.
Palin, who has been governor of Alaska for two years, has little foreign policy experience. She is facing a debate on Oct. 2 in St. Louis with the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Joe Biden, a veteran senator from Delaware who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
(Reuters)

TITLE: U.S. Takes Back Ryder Cup From Europe
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — An upbeat United States team inspired by rookie Anthony Kim won the Ryder Cup for the first time in nine years on Sunday, beating Europe by 16- points to 11-1/2.
Kim crushed Sergio Garcia 5&4 in the top encounter to set the tone for the Americans before Jim Furyk secured the decisive point with a 2&1 victory over Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez at a sun-drenched Valhalla Golf Club.
It was Europe’s heaviest defeat since they were pummeled 18- to 9- at Walton Heath in 1981, and ended a run of three successive victories in the biennial team competition, the last two by lopsided margins.
“My players poured their heart and soul into this for one week,” an emotional U.S. captain Paul Azinger said in a television interview beside the 17th green.
“They played great, the crowd was unbelievable and I couldn’t be happier. It’s a pretty amazing feeling.
“You know, they brought themselves there and if I was the guy that helped organise it, then I’m happy to be that,” he added, referring to his players. “But those guys did it. They deserve the credit.”
Azinger was hugged by his opposite number Nick Faldo after Furyk was conceded a short par putt by Jimenez at the 17th to give the Americans the 14- points needed for victory.
“Congratulations to Paul,” Faldo said. “Twenty-four guys have given their hearts and souls in this event and Europe has come up short but the golf was fantastic.
“I’m so proud of my 12 guys. We have a straight back and chin up but the Americans this particular week were a little bit better than us.”
Kim delivered a sparkling display against an off-key Garcia to trigger a rousing start for the U.S. as they established early leads in eight of the 12 matches in front of boisterous but largely good-natured crowds.
The 23-year-old birdied three of the first four holes to take control before Garcia lost the sixth hole.

TITLE: Quality Official Quits Amid Chinese Toxic Milk Scandal
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BEIJING — The number of Chinese infants sick in the hospital after drinking tainted milk formula doubled to nearly 13,000 and the country’s top quality regulator resigned on Monday in the latest blight on the “made-in-China” brand.
Four deaths have been blamed on the toxic milk powder, which causes kidney stones and agonizing complications, and a string of Asian countries have banned or recalled Chinese milk products.
The official Xinhua news agency said in a brief statement that the country’s quality chief, Li Changjiang, had quit in light of the case. “Li was the highest ranking official brought down so far by the dairy product contamination scandal,” it said.
The Communist Party chief of Shijiazhuang, home to the Sanlu Group which made the tainted milk powder, has also been fired, Xinhua said, the latest official to loose their job for mishandling the incident.
The Health Ministry said the number of children hospitalized due to the milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine rose from a previously announced total of 6,244 — which included many who had left the hospital — to 12,892, including 104 who were in serious condition.
More than 1,500 had already left hospital and nearly 40,000 with milder symptoms “received clinical treatment and advice” before going home. The ministry did not explain the sharp rise.
The jump to more than 54,000 affected children was announced late on Sunday, escalating a scandal that has again shaken trust in Chinese products after last year’s scares over toxic and shoddy goods from toothpaste and drugs to pet food and toys.
Melamine, used in making plastics, has also been found in cartons of milk and some dairy exports, but no illnesses from those sources have been reported.
Medical experts said on Monday that, as well as causing kidney stones, melamine could potentially cause far more serious complications by crystallizing and then blocking tiny tubes in the kidneys.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited hospitals in the national capital in a bid to reassure an anxious public. But he also said the outbreak of poisonings exposed deeper failings.
“Although the ordinary people are very understanding, as the government we feel very guilty,” he said, according to Xinhua. “This event is a warning for all food safety.”
He also vowed stiff penalties if the problem re-emerges. “If there are fresh problems, they must be even more sternly punished under the law,” Wen said.
China’s food quality watchdog has said it found melamine in nearly 10 percent of milk and drinking yoghurt samples from three major dairy companies: Mengniu Dairy Co, the Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group and the Bright group.
Nitrogen-rich melamine can be added to watered-down milk to fool quality checks, which often use nitrogen levels to measure the amount of protein in milk.
Past product safety scandals have exposed corruption, influence-peddling and lumbering, feuding bureaucracies overwhelmed by fragmented, cost-cutting producers. The milk scandal has shown a government campaign did not end those woes.
China’s dairy producers faced a “crisis of confidence” that would need strong official steps to cure, said Lao Bing, manager of a Shanghai-based dairy investment company.
“Consumers will start rebuying in a month or two if they feel sure the government is undertaking a vigorous clean-up,” he said. “Exports will take longer. This will have a major impact.”
Japan’s Marudai Food Co. Ltd withdrew buns made with milk supplied by Yili. A spokesman for Japan’s Nissin said that that group had also recalled products with Chinese dairy ingredients.
The Japanese government has asked 90,000 companies to check if imports have been contaminated with melamine.
Other markets that have banned or recalled Chinese milk products include Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Taiwan banned all mainland dairy products from Sunday.
Dutch dairy group Friesland Foods removed three types of milk products from shelves in Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau as a precaution, a spokesman told the ANP news agency.
The products were made by a Chinese company in which Friesland Foods holds a minority stake. Friesland Foods said less than 1 percent of its products were affected.
Even White Rabbit Creamy Candy, a popular Chinese brand of milk sweet, was contaminated with melamine, Singapore has warned.
Over the weekend, a three-year-old Hong Kong girl was found to have a kidney stone after drinking a milk product tainted by melamine, making her the territory’s first suspected victim.
But the biggest worry remains in China.
Sanlu, the nation’s biggest maker of infant milk powder, knew about the problem but did not disclose it publicly for at least a month throughout August, when Beijing hosted the Olympics, officials have said.
The revelation brought a surge of panicky parents and children to hospitals, and the government has promised free treatment for stricken children. But some parents said they worried about costs and long-term complications.
Zhou Zhijun, from south China’s Hunan province, said she took her wailing, increasingly thin daughter to hospitals at least three times from June to late August before doctors diagnosed a kidney stone.
“All those visits and checks cost 20,000 yuan ($2,900), and I still don’t know who will pay for that,” she said, adding that her 15-month-old baby had drunk Sanlu milk powder. “Also what if there are complications and problems later? Who’ll pay for that?”
The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture said despairing farmers were dumping milk and killing cattle after companies stopped buying their supplies. It promised subsidies to help farmers.

TITLE: Russians Defeated In
Davis Cup
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: BUENOS AIRES — Teenager Juan Martin del Potro demolished Igor Andreyev in straight sets on Sunday to give Argentina a 3-2 win over Russia and send them into a Davis Cup final against Spain.
Del Potro, two days short of his 20th birthday and playing his first home Davis Cup tie, won 6-4 6-2 6-1 as Argentina avenged their 2006 final defeat by the same opponents.
Earlier, Nikolay Davydenko hauled the Russians back into the tie by beating a tired David Nalbandian 3-6 6-3 7-6 (7-2) 6-0.
Argentina, who led 2-0 on Friday, will host Spain in November’s final after chalking up their 13th successive home win, a run stretching back to 1998.
Nalbandian’s defeat, only his fourth in 20 Davis Cup singles and his first at home, left an eerie silence over the Parque Roca court, but Del Potro quickly restored the crowd’s enthusiasm by winning the first set.
Andreyev had no answer to Del Potro’s ground strokes and, after both players lost their opening service games in the second set, Del Potro broke in the fifth game and again in the seventh when Andreyev sent a forehand into the net.
Growing in confidence, Del Potro, who also beat Davydenko in straight sets on Friday, was even more dominant as he polished off the third set in only 32 minutes, finishing the tie when Andreyev overhit a forehand.
Del Potro, who won four successive ATP tournaments this year, was mobbed by his team at the end.
“I never dreamt about deciding the tie because I thought we would have finished it off earlier,” he told a news conference. “Everything worked out perfectly and we are in the final.”
Team captain Alberto Mancini said: “He played incredible tennis. He began nervously which is logical but after that, he showed his real self.”
Nalbandian, involved in a five-set doubles match on Saturday, had no complaints about his defeat.
“It was a tough game and he played very well,” he said. “He won fair and square.”
Nalbandian won his first set as Davydenko, who said during the Olympics that he had lost his hunger for the game, once again looked out of sorts.
But the world number six suddenly found his game, making Nalbandian chase around as he sprayed the ball to all corners of the court.
After wrapping up the second set, Davydenko went 4-1 ahead in the third and, although Nalbandian managed to pull level, Davydenko easily won the tiebreak 7-2.
The Russian then reeled off the final set in only 33 minutes,
During the third set, Davydenko protested to the umpire after Nalbandian tried to whip up the crowd.
“It’s one thing for the home crowd to spontaneously get behind their team, but I don’t think it’s either very professional or pretty for a player to stir them up,” he told a media conference through an interpreter.

TITLE: Zenit Looks to Europe as Premier League Hopes Dwindle
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian premier league leaders Rubin Kazan beat Spartak Moscow 1-0 on Sunday to close in on their first national title.
A 15th-minute strike by Serhiy Rebrov proved decisive. The former Ukraine striker also scored the only goal in Kazan’s 1-0 victory over Dynamo Moscow a week ago.
Rubin, on 48 points from 22 matches, lead second-placed Dynamo, who beat bottom-of-the-table Shinnik Yaroslavl 2-0 on Saturday, by nine points with eight games remaining.
Spartak, who lost Czech defender Martin Jiranek to a leg injury early in the game, dropped to sixth place with 33 points.
In St. Petersburg, champions Zenit suffered a 3-1 home defeat by CSKA Moscow that all but ended their already slim chances of retaining their title.
The 18-year-old Alan Dzagoyev, who has caught the eye of Russia coach Guus Hiddink with his ball control, pace and vision, scored twice while Brazil striker Vagner Love added another for the army club from the spot.
Russia international Pavel Pogrebnyak scored a consolation goal for Zenit, who are in seventh place and trail Rubin by 17 points, although with a game in hand.
Zenit captain Anatoly Tymoshchuk conceded his team’s title hopes. “We must now concentrate on the Champions League,” the Ukraine midfielder told reporters after the loss to CSKA.
Zenit coach Dick Advocaat was left to rue his side’s missed chances.
“We had about a dozen great chances and managed to score only one goal while our opponents did not waste a single chance,” said the Dutchman.

ENGLAND
Salomon Kalou came off the bench to head a deserved 80th-minute equaliser for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge after Park Ji-sung’s 18th-minute opener for ailing champions United.
Chelsea, on 11 points, are level in second place with Liverpool, who were held to a 0-0 Anfield draw by Stoke City.
They are a point behind Arsenal, who produced another great display of slick-passing to come from behind and beat Bolton Wanderers 3-1 away.
The weekend’s big winners on and off the pitch were Manchester City who announced that the paperwork on their Arab takeover will be signed on Tuesday and then their players went out and thrashed Portsmouth 6-0.

ITALY
AC Milan beat Lazio 4-1 at home to chalk up their first league win of the season after two defeats.
Gianluca Zambrotta and Kaka netted two cracking goals to help the hosts on their way and ease the pressure on coach Carlo Ancelotti.
Champions Inter Milan were equally as clinical in their 3-1 win at Torino with Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring one and again looking on top form.
Injury-hit Juventus won 1-0 at bottom side Cagliari thanks to Amauri’s strike and Alberto Gilardino scored again in Fiorentina’s 1-0 victory over Bologna. AS Roma notched up their first win of the campaign when they overcame Reggina 3-0.

SPAIN
Barcelona thumped promoted Sporting Gijon 6-1 away for Pep Guardiola’s first win of the Primera Liga season on Sunday, but they only moved up to ninth in the standings.
Valencia are top with seven points from three games after beating ten-man Osasuna 1-0 at home, the same as Almeria and Villarreal who both won on Sunday.
Early pace-setters Espanyol slipped to fourth also with seven points, following their 1-1 draw at home to Getafe on Saturday.
Atletico Madrid are fifth with six after sweeping aside Recreativo Huelva 4-0 at the Calderon on Saturday.

TITLE: Nationalist Named New Japanese Prime Minister
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: TOKYO — Outspoken nationalist Taro Aso, an advocate of spending and tax cuts to boost the economy, won the race on Monday to become Japan’s next prime minister and swiftly set his sights on an election expected within months.
Aso, a former foreign minister, clinched the ruling Liberal Democratic Party leadership vote by a landslide to take over from Yasuo Fukuda, who quit this month just as the economy flirts with recession and faces further damage from turmoil on Wall Street.
“As I traveled around the regions, I became even more convinced that the economy was in a recession,” Aso, 68, told a news conference after winning the leadership, adding his priority was to revitalize the economy before tackling a huge public debt.
However, Aso may have little time to revive the world’s second-biggest economy if, as media and pundits predict, he calls an early poll for parliament’s powerful lower house.
“Standing here, I feel that this is Taro Aso’s destiny,” Aso, the grandson of a premier, told LDP members after winning 351 of 525 valid votes cast by party lawmakers and chapters.
“But the LDP, as the government party, must resolutely fight the (opposition) Democratic Party in the next election, and only when we have won that election will I have fulfilled my destiny.
Aso, set to be voted prime minister on Wednesday by virtue of the ruling bloc’s majority in parliament’s powerful lower house, will be Japan’s third prime minister in a year. Both his predecessors quit in the face of a deadlocked parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house and can stall bills.
“It’s going to be a weak government and there is going to be an election and there will probably be a weak government as a result of the election,” said Columbia University professor Gerry Curtis. “Japan will not be in a position to play a more dynamic role in world affairs. It will be more and more inward-looking.”
The ruling bloc is expected to lose in the next election the two-thirds lower house majority that allows it to override upper house vetoes, and analysts say a clear victory for either side camp may prove elusive, leaving more policy paralysis.
One voter predicted that, with many longing for change, the long-ruling LDP could lose its grip on power altogether.
“The Liberal Democratic Party is already finished regardless of who got elected,” said 52-year-old advertising producer Youji Nomura. “The LDP is completely corrupt, and I don’t think the new prime minister would last even a year, no matter who it is.”
Aso, who wants tax cuts for businesses and stock investors, has said Japan’s goal of balancing its budget by 2012 could be put off, a stance that has alarmed fiscal reformers in his party but charmed local party machines looking toward the election.
Aso won five times the votes of his nearest rival to clinch the top post on his fourth attempt to lead the party.
Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano, a fiscal conservative, was a distant second with 66 votes and former defense minister Yuriko Koike came in third with 46 votes for her bid to become Japan’s first female prime minister.
Japanese media said Aso was considering keeping Yosano in a new cabinet to be formed on Wednesday as well as tapping another rival, former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba.

TITLE: Pakistan Leaders ‘Missed Bomb’
AUTHOR: By Nahal Toosi
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s top leaders were to dine at the Marriott hotel that was devastated by a truck bombing over the weekend, but changed the venue at the last minute, a senior government official said Monday.
The blast in the capital Islamabad killed at least 53 people and underscored the extremist challenge facing nuclear-armed Pakistan. Additionally, wo intelligence officials said Pakistani troops and tribesmen opened fire on two U.S. helicopters after they crossed from Afghanistan into the northwest tribal region, where Taliban and al-Qaida militants are operating.
In a further sign of the country’s deteriorating security situation Monday, gunmen kidnapped Afghanistan’s ambassador-designate and killed his driver in the main northwestern city of Peshawar, said a spokesman for the mission in the city.
The spokesman, who gave his name as Babri, said Abdul Khaliq Farahi was abducted as he traveled toward his home in the city. He gave no more details, but the kidnapping and killing was also confirmed by the Afghan charge d’affairs in Islamabad, Majnoon Gulab.
Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik did not specify why the prime minister and president decided to move the dinner from the Marriott to the premier’s house but said the decision was kept secret.
“Perhaps the terrorists knew that the Marriott was the venue of the dinner for all the leadership where the president, prime minister, speaker and all entire leadership would be present,” he told reporters. “At the eleventh hour, the president and prime minister decided that the venue would be the prime minister’s house. It saved the entire leadership.”
Some 270 people were wounded in the attack, while the dead included the Czech ambassador and two U.S. Department of Defense employees.
Most of the victims were Pakistanis, a fact likely to increase pressure on the government to stem the rising violence in the Muslim nation that many blame on the country’s partnership with the U.S. in the war on terror.
Suspicion has fallen on al-Qaida or the Pakistani Taliban in the blast.
But Amir Mohammad, an aide to one prominent Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, said the militant group was not involved and shared the nation’s grief. Mehshud was blamed by the last government for a suicide attack that killed Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s wife, the pro-U.S. politician Benazir Bhutto. He denies that charge too.
“We have our own targets and we execute our plans precisely with minimal loss of irrelevant or innocent people,” Mehsud was quoted as saying by his spokesman. “We have nothing to do with the Marriott hotel attack.”
The government is under U.S. pressure to crack down on the militants, who are also blamed for staging rising attacks on coalition forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
The officials who described Monday’s helicopter incursion into the border region spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. They said informants in the field told them it took place about one mile inside the disputed and poorly demarcated border in the Alwara Mandi area in North Waziristan.
The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing, the officials said.
Pakistan’s army and the U.S. military in Afghanistan said they had no information on the reported incursion.
A week ago, U.S. helicopters reportedly landed near Angoor Ada, a border village in South Waziristan, but returned toward Afghanistan after troops fired warning shots.

TITLE: Obama Heads South To Prepare for Debate
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama undergoes three days of preparation this week for a crucial foreign policy clash with John McCain in the first debate of the general election campaign.
Aides say it will be an opportunity for Obama to demonstrate proficiency in an area where polls have shown voters give the edge to McCain, a 26-year Washington veteran who promotes his ties to leaders around the world.
Obama will head to Florida to prepare for Friday’s event at the University of Mississippi.
If Obama can hold his own on foreign policy, it could ease those worries, aides said Sunday as they tried to lower expectations for the first-term Illinois senator, a powerful speaker but an uneven performer in multiple debates during the Democratic primaries.
Instead, senior Obama adviser Robert Gibbs said it is McCain who needs to meet expectations.
“John McCain has boasted throughout the campaign about his decades of Washington foreign policy experience and what an advantage that would be for him,” Gibbs said. “This debate offers him major home-court advantage and anything short of a game-changing event will be a key missed opportunity for him.”
While Obama is cloistered in Tampa, Florida, veteran Washington lawyer Greg Craig will play the role of McCain in the debate preparations. Craig was a member of President Clinton’s defense team during the impeachment proceedings. In 2004, he was a stand-in for President Bush when Democratic nominee John Kerry prepared for his debates. Craig also has advised both Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on foreign policy.
The bulk of Obama’s time in Florida will be devoted to the debates, but he’s also likely to hold some campaign events in the area.
Polls show a tight race in Florida. McCain won the state during the GOP primaries but Obama didn’t compete there because of Democratic Party sanctions against Florida because it held its nominating contest too early in the season.
Obama and McCain are scheduled to debate three times between Friday and Oct. 15, sandwiched around one matchup between their running mates, Senator Joe Biden and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
But the opening presidential debate traditionally sets the tone for voters and it’s often difficult for a candidate to overcome a poor performance. This debate also comes as the financial markets remain turbulent and the campaign rhetoric has shifted from foreign issues to domestic and economic concerns.
At an outdoor rally in Charlotte, Obama stayed focused on the turmoil on Wall Street, and laid blame at the feet of Republican policies he said McCain is committed to continuing.

TITLE: Livni Expected to Become New Israeli Premier
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: JERUSALEM — Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni wasted no time Sunday working to put together a new government, meeting with potential coalition partners even as outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert formally resigned. Her ability to move fast in her first task could have far-reaching effects on Mideast peace talks.
Livni, who has gained respect for favoring peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria while distancing herself from the unpopular Olmert, would become Israel’s second female prime minister after Golda Meir, who served from 1969-1974.
A former lawyer and one-time agent in the Mossad spy agency, Livni has 42 days to form a government.
Olmert remains in office until a new government is approved by the parliament, and he has pledged to press ahead with peace efforts as long as he is premier. That in itself might push reluctant Israeli politicians to deal quickly with Livni.
Olmert’s dismal approval ratings approach single figures, and both those who favor an accord with the Palestinians and those who oppose it don’t want him to be the one who presents an agreement to the people.
Livni met leaders from the pivotal Shas Party Thursday, hours after she won a primary election to succeed Olmert as head of their Kadima Party. Over the weekend, she sat with leaders of several other factions, and later Sunday, she met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, head of the Labor Party, Olmert’s main partner.
Formal steps were overtaken by events, and the two unfolded in parallel universes.
Olmert told his Cabinet on Sunday morning that he would resign and followed that with a visit to the official Jerusalem residence of President Shimon Peres — both formalities in a process that began in late July, when Olmert caved under the pressure of multiple corruption probes and announced he would step down after the Kadima primary election.
“This decision was not easy, it was not simple, and it was not taken in an offhanded way,” Olmert said before the start of the Sunday Cabinet meeting. He pledged to help Livni, a longtime rival, form a new government.
“Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented to me this evening his resignation as head of the government,” Peres said after the two met. Peres thanked him for his service. Olmert did not talk to reporters.
At stake is political stability in Israel as the clock winds down on a January target date for a peace accord with the Palestinians, set by Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference last November.
Livni favors negotiations and making concessions to forge a peace agreement, but if she fails to form a coalition, elections would be called, and Israel might not have a new government until next spring. That could freeze peace efforts for months.
Olmert succeeded the popular and respected Ariel Sharon, who was felled by a stroke, and weeks later Olmert led Israel into a war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. The decision to go to war and its inconclusive outcome, along with the damage wrought by almost 4,000 rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah, decimated Olmert’s popular support.
Then old corruption allegations caught up with him. Police began pressing their investigations, and a key witness testified in a “trial” against Olmert though no charges had been filed. That led Olmert to step down, setting the search for a new leader in motion.
On Sunday, Peres consulted with the parties over who should join the new government. Peres faced a shorter deadline than the week allotted him by law — he was due to leave for the United Nations on Monday to address the General Assembly session the next day. Peres said he would announce his decision before leaving for New York.

TITLE: Making Sensible Choices
AUTHOR: By Boris Kamchev
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The topic of business schools in Russia and their development has created polemic opinions since their first appearance in the late nineties. Experts and public discussions on this kind of education are becoming more intensive year after year, as the deficit of managers is higher than ever before. The strong support that business schools have from big corporations and the government is due mainly to the fact that Russia’s rapidly developing industry depends on the growth of labor productivity, which would be impossible without boosting the efficiency of management. 
During the last decade, more than sixty business schools have opened in Russia to satisfy the soaring demand for MBA qualifications. The Russian business education market is worth $55 million annually, with almost 5,000 people receiving a diploma each year.
Possessing an MBA degree is now a crucial criterion in Russia for candidates applying for top management positions. 
The questions facing future MBA specialists, who range from recent graduates, entrepreneurs, senior managers and young and industrious city mayors, include the following: Are they making the right decision in enrolling on an MBA course; what are their expectations for their career development and salary increase upon completing an MBA; and is an MBA a waste of money or an effective investment?
According to research presented during the recent Baltic PR Weekend conference and conducted by Igor Dyukov, marketing consultant at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) in St. Petersburg, potential MBA students mostly ask for recommendations for schools from their business contacts. The most popular areas chosen by MBA students in the St. Petersburg branch of SSE are finances and marketing. Only three percent of the students surveyed had chosen international management courses, and the majority of the students had decided to enroll on an MBA program in order to improve the production process of the company at which they work. Dyukov’s statistical research also shows that the main expectation SSE students have after completing a course is to improve their personal competencies. In second place are expectations of career growth and an increased salary. 
Dyukov said that the majority of the students enrolled on SSE programs are Russian, but during the school’s ten-year existence, students have come from Finland, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, India, Japan and the U.S.
Lyudmila Murgulets, a senior tutor at SSE and recent MBA graduate, said that the students who come to the school are mostly Western oriented, open to innovations and the systematization of their knowledge and experience. Their primary aim is to obtain a Western diploma in Russia and to secure their career growth.
“In the course of my contact with students, I have learnt that they have two basic motivations when deciding to attend a course – firstly, the fear that they might lose their competitive edge — a diploma makes them feel more confident. Secondly, an MBA opens new horizons for them, enabling them to improve their business,” Murgulets said during the forum’s MBA roundtable. Hired managers, not entrepreneurs, make up the majority of students at SSE, she added.
According to Alexei Popov, head of the Executive MBA program at SSE, the prestige of the school has an influence on the prestige of students. The better rating an educational institution has, the better the starting position a student will have in their future role as manager. 
Experts named the Financial Times MBA rating as the most influential and popular in the West, because it is based on more than one hundred factors and has been in existence for a decade. 
Popov said that western ratings of MBA schools rate projected salary growth above everything else, unlike ratings published in Russia, like those of Delovoi Peterburg newspaper, which rate knowledge gained and contacts made as top criteria.
“Western ratings take into consideration the starting salary, as well as projected salary growth over three and five years. The motivations behind studying at a business school in the West differ from those in Russia,” he said during the roundtable presentation, adding that the starting salary for an MBA graduate from the most prestigious Western schools like Wharton or Harvard is at least $160,000.
Education experts, however, are skeptical over some of the information published about Russian business schools, and believe there is no such thing as a perfect ranking system.
Olga Udovichenko, vice-dean of the Graduate School of Management (GSoM) at St. Petersburg State University, said during the roundtable presentation that international MBA rankings are more objective, but schools have to obtain international accreditation to be listed there. 
To avoid confusion in selecting the right school, experts recommend checking the school’s accreditation first, as the most valid assessment of the prestige and quality of the business school and MBA programs it offers.
“If a school is looking to receive international accreditation, its programs and brand must be proven to be of an international standard; it must be examined and assessed according to more than 40 criteria,” said Udovichenko during her roundtable presentation.
“The content of the programs is closely examined, along with teaching methods, quality control systems, the teaching faculty, available resources, the degree to which the school is international and its connections with businesses, the personal and professional development of the school’s graduates and many other factors,” she said. 
During the next five years, GSoM plans to maintain its current accreditations and start the process of applying for AACSB and EQUIS accreditation. Together with AMBA, which the school already has, these accreditations constitute “Triple Crown Accreditation,” considered the most prestigious status among contemporary business schools. 
According to Olga Chebotkova, partner at Transearch International, one of the biggest executive search companies in the world, only 10 percent of the biggest international and Russian companies operating in the country list an MBA diploma as a compulsory requirement for top management positions. This can sometimes make it difficult for an MBA graduate to find a common means of communication with the rest of the team, and for them to assess the previous achievements of the team.
However, employers show an indisputable preference for people who have completed an MBA program.
“Personally, I consider an MBA diploma to be an advantage. The knowledge obtained is structural, business is perceived as a game, an exchange of experiences. You sit on the desk, change your role and feel quite different; and at the same time you are faced with new activities,” said Chebotkova.

TITLE: A Changing Market
AUTHOR: By Olga Sharapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Since the MBA degree won recognition around the world, international business education has undergone a renaissance in Russia. From the 1990s when the local market emerged, business knowledge has became a condition for professional success. There are now 12 business schools, both Russian and international, in St. Petersburg alone.
 The history of MBA programs in Russia is relatively short, resulting in a lack of real and long-term practice.
“Traditionally, studying for a second degree is still very popular in Russia. But the main difference between the MBA degree and a second Russian diploma is that the first provides a lot of skills and practical knowledge in how to create and develop a business,” says Alexandra Mayorova, head of the Professional Search and Selection (PSS) department at Ancor Banking & Financial Services.
The oldest and most well known universities, such as St. Petersburg State University and Moscow State University, cooperate with international business schools from the U.S., U.K., France and other countries.
In addition, with support from the National Russian Education state project, a new campus for the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg State University is being built in Strelna, a suburb of St. Petersburg. Along with Skolkovo in Moscow, these institutes are designed to be an alternative to foreign schools. Students can live on campus for the duration of their study. 
Open Business School (OBS), based in St. Petersburg, has been part of the IIM LINK Regional Network for 15 years, which in turn has partnered the Open University Business School (U.K.) MBA programs since 1992. 
Nadezhda Golenischeva, marketing director of OBS, describes Russian business education as a combination of European teamwork points and the leadership focus of American MBA programs. 
“I think there is a precise target among Russian students: Take a personal leap forward,” says Golenischeva. For Russians it is often more important to make personal progress in the field of business than to be an equal part of a work team. 
 “Russian students usually have a high level of understanding and fluency in English language. Our MBA courses are taught in English only. Russians have strong ambitions, motivations and background that help them in studying,” said Jack Neasham, Acting Regional Manager for the U.K. Open University MBA program in Russia, Romania and Ethiopia. 
 “Our mixture of online  and face to face support offers great  flexibility, as well as the quality mark of the three main international  accreditations.”
Golenischeva believes that Russian business schools are still developing institutes, and that only foreign MBA programs can provide a full and systematic business education. OBS offers a Professional Certificate and Professional Diploma in Management, as well as the internationally recognized Master of Business Administration. The Open University is the U.K.’s only university dedicated to distance learning. 
“We see St. Petersburg in particular and Russia in general as a key market for us,” says Neasham.  
“The Russian market is growing fast and we expect to see growing demand for MBAs. We aim to provide a very good product. We don’t just offer MBAs, we also present initial certificate and diploma courses. We are very keen to extend our activity, and to try to support the development of OBS.”
Mayorova describes the latest changes in MBA programs as nothing less than a revolution. 
“Progress and improvement in online and distant marketing, the development of learning in an electronic format — all these achievements make MBA courses far more mobile, diverse and attractive to applicants. Not only the course elements, but education technology itself change modern MBA programs.”  
Distance learning today bears little resemblance to earlier correspondence courses. Students are well supported by tutorial groups, international communication and e-conferencing, which provide the impulse and support necessary for effective work. 
  Anna Kulashova, head of Microsoft’s northwest department, gained her MBA from the Open University Business School last year. Kulashova, whose picture graces the cover of OBS magazine, said that she deliberately chose an MBA program in English in order to prepare her for international business relations. 
“If you want to work in a global corporation, you have to understand that you will be faced with another kind of conditions, and you will have to meet the requirements. Business is growing and developing, and we just can’t escape that reality,” she said. 
The most popular and well established MBA schools in St. Petersburg include St. Petersburg State University Graduate School of Management, the Stockholm School of Economics, the Open University Business School and others. 
The Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), which opened in the city in 1997, aims to combine Russian values such as “state-of-the-art academic findings with successful business experience,” according to Dr. Anders Liljenberg, dean of the SSE Russia and associate professor of the Stockholm School of Economics in his web-message. 
“Our vision is to contribute to the development of sustainable business in Russia, via the pursuit of sound, long-term, fair and socially responsible business practice benefiting primarily the customer, in consequence the organization itself, and ultimately the interests of Russia and its citizens. It is capitalism with a human face!” 
The last expression is a paraphrase of a well-known Soviet slogan, “Socialism with a human face!” 
Many schools now offer programs tailored specifically to the Russian market. SSE has two executive programs — Oil & Gas and Strategic Marketing — reflecting the fact that the school is trying to attract managers who are focused on working in Russia.  
“The most obvious adaptations of MBA programs to Russian courses are the great number of modifications towards the local market and local companies,” says Ancor’s Mayorova. 
“Business schools here offer different schedules of studying: full-time, part-time, evening, distance, online and module learning. So every student can choose the timetable that suits them most.  Foreign business schools don’t have the same range of opportunities that Russians schools do.”

TITLE: Study Options for the City's Foreign Students
TEXT: The Faculty of Sociology at St. Petersburg State University offers a two-year multidisciplinary Master’s degree program in Studies in European Societies. The course is run in cooperation with Bielefeld University in Germany, and is taught in English.
The program is divided into four different modules, and students study European societies from an economic, political, cultural and sociological perspective. Two second-year students from Norway, Ida Stien Wullun and Hilde Kutshera, said they were very satisfied with the program. 
“The most attractive part is the international environment in the classroom. Several nations are represented, which makes discussions about European societies very fruitful,” said the students, who are taught by both Russian and German professors.
In addition to the courses on European societies, students on the program also have German and Russian language classes. The program also offers a three-week German language school in Bielefeld, where visits to different German foundations and organizations are included.

TITLE: Expert Advice: Andrei Volkov
AUTHOR: By Boris Kamchev
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: During the last Baltic PR Weekend, which has been held in St. Petersburg since 2001, participants had the opportunity to talk to Andrei Volkov, a business education expert and vice-dean of Skolkovo Business School in Moscow. His presentation during the MBA roundtable within the conference prompted several questions from the audience about the development of Russian business schools and particularly about Skolkovo, one of the country’s most prestigious business schools, which produces top manager profiles for companies mainly working in oil, gas and metallurgy.  
What is an MBA in its essence? 
There are two interpretations of the MBA concept. Firstly, an MBA is a stated collection of subjected standardized knowledge and skills. With accreditations like AACSB or AMBA, this standard is even more valuable. According to these standard, there is a certain minimum content that has to be taught at the business school. The second perception is that an MBA is simply a cover, a kind of commodity shelter of some managerial competencies that gives you a lot of freedom of activity. Under this MBA cover, there are many orthodox and unorthodox models. 
The strongest schools seek to develop their own way, they assert their construction and models. Behind them is the second echelon of schools, which pursue the quality of the former, as a rule. The question currently being discussed a lot within our circles is whether there are too many business schools in Russia or not. This is the third moment. I think that Russia lags behind in its management profiles. We need many more well educated managers if the government is serious about building the whole pyramid: small business, medium business and big business. I think that our market is big enough to create the management profiles our industry needs.
How should a business school be organized?
One can ask oneself the question, “Am I investing my money in the right business school? What is the ideal model for the business school on which I’m spending my time and money? A good business school in Russia can cost $50,000, but if you are planning to attend Harvard or Duke you have to pay double. Thus, in an ideal model, a business school has to create a uniquely organized club space, in order to build a special type of communication. In the history of management education, people involved in the process have understood that learning from each other is the best way to gain knowledge. At best, only fifty percent of this knowledge should be transferred from the professors or speakers. Therefore the school has to be a communication space that allows inspiration of this dialogue. This is the first principle for an investment-attractive MBA. 
Having some kind of training base is the second principle. People have to train themselves in different ways: how to make decisions, form assessments, perspectives and models. Case studies, intensive discussions (brainstorming) and imitational models are the latest and most popular methods of realization of this training base. The student can imitate in a short time a situation of losing control, a situation which cannot be reversed. The time period is faster than in real life. There is another denotation — concentrated reality; a person has to try the business opportunities that they don’t have time for in reality.
On the MBA program we are planning at Skolkovo business school, our attendees have to complete a minimum of four projects. As we are focused on rapidly developing markets, one project has to be conducted in China or India. One project has to be public — the student has to create a reform plan for a hospital, university, local government economy or similar. There has to be a project in the commercial sector, for a corporation, and finally, there has to be a start-up project — the student has to try to start his own business from scratch. 
Thirdly, a good business school has to provide networking. During their studies, students should meet with public decision makers, and those who are working in the economy: politicians, presidents, ministers, vice-ministers. 
Is there international demand for the Russian business education market, or for business schools like Skolkovo?
The demand is very low, but we don’t have any other options. We cannot penetrate the global market and be listed among the most prestigious business schools if only thirty percent of the students are internationals. 
But I’m optimistic about this problem because interest in developing markets is growing exponentially. There are more and more people coming from abroad to educate themselves and work in Russia. On our short-term programs, we are increasingly seeing foreign managers who want to work in Russia, and who are aware that the direct transference of schemes is not operational. That’s why we have a historic chance right now — maybe not everyone will try Harvard, Wharton or IMD.

TITLE: Global MBA Market Trends
AUTHOR: By Nigel Banister
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Globalization and technology have had a huge impact on the executive education market. The landscape has tremendously changed over the past decade. Many Western economies have entered a period of recession whilst other parts of the world continue to prosper and grow, notably in Asia. As an international school offering finance, construction and engineering MBA programs to more than 3,000 executives worldwide, though we haven’t felt a downturn in enrollment. On the contrary, in time of recession people are especially keen to get ahead of the crowd and also our student base is very widespread geographically.  
We have noticed a series of leading trends, beyond the increasing popularity of specialist MBAs, with vocational diplomas, which provide students with customized programs to suit their career. Flexibility has also been an important trend, as a lot of people are increasingly reluctant to take 18 months off to study for an MBA, especially in the context of the credit crunch.  As I travel to our different centers around the world — Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jamaica, and soon Shanghai — I have picked up a number of other leading trends on the global MBA market. 
BRIC in Focus 
The first major trend is that any big business school will now have offices or be planning to open one in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Russia is very important to us; we have had Russian students for over a decade, and have noticed a huge increase in numbers during the past two years. We are also finding that we are getting a lot of students from Africa recently, now equating to 15 percent of the cohort. 
  Many schools have launched Global MBA programs. Our own Global Manchester MBA program has been largely oversubscribed and is a huge success only a year after having been launched. Globalization, which is being accelerated by the rise of emerging economies, in particular China and India, and by the falling of entry barriers around numerous countries, has been driving this demand. In parallel, a lot of business schools have started to offer shorter courses to meet the students’ demand, although this is not something we are considering at Manchester. 
Back to Basics
In terms of popular modules, there has been a shift away from specific program modules such as banking and financial management to more traditional modules such as leadership and international business strategy. This reflects three major factors of today’s market: Increased competition and recession in the West, and globalization. When times are tough, improving leadership talent is more than ever a business priority, as leadership skills are really put to the test and organizations with the right quality and quantity of leaders will be those emerging from the mass, as they will weather the storm better than the less prepared and equipped. In the face of pressure to reduce costs, organizations must remain firm in their commitment to invest in leadership. International business strategy has also been a favorite.  
 Bricks and mortar
Specialists’ MBA, covering industries such as construction and engineering, have been very popular. For instance, three years ago, Manchester Business School Worldwide launched an MBA for Construction Executives that was developed with U.K. industry bodies of excellence such as ConstructionSkills, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and Royal Institute of British Architects.   
The MBA for Construction Executives has met with phenomenal success in Dubai, which is the heart of a tremendous construction boom and where the school has a thriving branch. I can see a similar pattern occurring in Russia, given the huge construction spur currently underway throughout the country, the revenues it is generating (it is estimated that the construction industry is now comparable in turnover to the domestic oil industry), the launch of enormous infrastructure projects by private developers and federal agencies, and the tremendous need for more housing in the country. 
For years now, getting an MBA has been seen as a rite of passage for many executives wanting to further their career and get the most coveted jobs in a competitive and global market. Despite fears that the popularity of the qualification would dilute its “gold standard” reputation, the MBA remains the leading business qualification in the world. 
We see a clear path for us in Russia, as our next strategic point to open a branch given the rise in our student base here. With a thriving economy and dynamic workforce, we very much see a future for us here and very much hope that we will see more and more Russian executives joining our ranks. 

Nigel Banister is CEO of Manchester Business School Worldwide www.mbs-worldwide.ac.uk. Manchester Business School is ranked 22nd in the world by the Financial Times Global MBA Rankings published in January 2008.

TITLE: The Russian Scholarship
TEXT: Manchester Business School Worldwide is offering an MBA scholarship for Russian students January 2009. The scholarship, which is worth ?8,700 (approx 393,250 rubles) and covers 50 percent of an MBA fees can be won by answering the following question:
“Explain in 1,500 words how an MBA from Manchester Business School could benefit your career and your organisation in the context of Russia’s evolving business climate.” 
The competition paper must be sent to admissions@mbs-worldwide.ac.uk no later than 17 October 2008. A completed application form for one of the MBS Worldwide MBA programs should accompany it. 
 For more information about the scholarship: 
http://www.mbs-worldwide.ac.uk/russian_scholarship.asp

TITLE: Russian Women Take the Lead in MBA Studies
AUTHOR: By Christophe Coutat
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Women are applying to MBA programs in greater numbers than ever before. The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) reports that currently, 40 percent of those taking the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) test are women. This trend has been confirmed by the Forte Foundation, an organization that promotes women in management. Forte found that for the first time in 15 years, the number of women in business schools has risen significantly.
“An MBA can transform your skill set, give you flexibility, and help determine what success means to you,” says Elissa Ellis, Forte Executive Director. “It is a credential offering women optimal opportunities and flexibility in business.”
At New York University Stern School of Business, for example, women make up 37 percent of the MBA population. In a league of its own, the Simmons School of Management in Boston is the only business school in the world designed specifically for women. 
“Our mission is to educate women for power and principled leadership,” says Deborah Merrill-Sands, the dean of the Simmons school.
Russian women seem to be a lot more active than the world average: according to the same GMAC report, women accounted for 54 percent of all the GMAT takers holding Russian citizenship. In Russia, females have traditionally outnumbered males as GMAT takers, and the gap appears to be widening over the years, while the total number of Russian test takers continues to grow steadily.
Due to the fact that in the Russian Federation, there are more women than men considering MBA studies, Western European and American programs have a keen interest in the Russian MBA market.
Breaking Stereotypes
Business schools want more women on their MBA programs for two reasons. Firstly, they want to provide women with the management knowledge to fast-forward their careers in the business world. Secondly, they want to break down the stereotypes about women in the workplace. According to Catalyst, an organization that promotes women in business, the broad-based cultural stereotypes about gender can create difficult predicaments for women in top management positions. Catalyst findings suggest that, due to stereotyping, “women’s leadership talent is routinely underestimated and underutilized in organizations — and yet organizations need women’s talent in order to succeed.”
Santiago Iniguez, Dean of the Madrid-based IE Business School, says, “We are convinced that the successful business models of the future will be those that best know how to interact with an increasingly sophisticated and demanding social environment.”
Taking Advantage
Women bring many assets to the table that make for a diverse MBA environment. When researching particular schools, women should look at the number and variety of women’s organizations on campus. INSEAD, for example, invites women to join its Women in Business Club, which features prominent speakers at its meetings. Wharton, where women make up 33 percent of the student population, organizes an annual Women in Business conference, a highly rated event propelling women into positions of leadership.
Russian women appear to be taking full advantage of their studies and contributing greatly to the programs when they study abroad. Sean Rickard, Director of Full-Time MBA Program at Cranfield University in the U.K. says, “Over the years I have come to respect our Russian students and none more so than the women. They have a serious attitude to work and are diligent and methodical in their studies. As a result they are a joy to teach and fellow students find them supportive and reliable colleagues — attributes that are particularly important at Cranfield, where great emphasis is placed on the learning team.  But there is another reason why I am so pleased to welcome Russian woman to the program. They are full of fun, love to socialize and their good humor ensures that they are nice people to associate with.”
In selecting the most appropriate business schools, candidates should ask school representatives how many female teachers there are in the faculty. It is also worth asking whether business schools sponsor networking activities and community services run and organized by women.
Scholarships for women are also an incentive. A select number of business schools have joined forces with the Forte Foundation to create opportunities for the advancement of women in management. Within the partnership, Forte member schools award scholarships to highly qualified women. In addition to financial support via scholarships, scholars gain exposure to leading companies in the Forte network. 
Finding Flexibility
In order to choose the right program, women should talk to school representatives, current students and alumni about the differences between the learning environment and social atmosphere. Representatives have found that women are more likely than men to look for a school environment where they will find other people with similar life experiences and backgrounds to their own. 
Many of the top European and American business schools have started accepting women from a younger age and with less experience, in addition to offering shorter and more flexible programs. According to GMAC, more women applied to MBA programs in 2007 than in the previous year, but the application trend is starting to favor part-time programs. 
“The consistently positive trend in the volume of female applications for part-time programs has contributed to a larger proportion of women among part-time MBA programs (37 percent) than among full-time MBA programs (27 percent),” says the GMAC report.
Some women apply to business schools soon after graduating from university. The University of Rochester’s Simon Graduate School of Business, for example, has started admitting students with little or no previous work experience. 
“As a result of our Early Leaders initiative, we have seen improvements in recruiter satisfaction and gender diversity,” says Mark Zupan, dean of the Simon Graduate School of Business. “The percentage of females in our entering class has increased from 26 percent to 32 percent over the last two years.”
Women should also ensure that the business schools they choose have strong and committed alumni networks, since an MBA creates valuable coaching opportunities for women, especially as they begin to look for jobs. Women turn to each other and to alumni for practice on case questions and mock interviews, and for coaching on phone interview techniques. Alumni can be very helpful in providing tips and explaining the hiring practices within a wide range of organizations. 

<i>Christophe Coutat is the founder of Access MBA.</i>

<hr>

The Access MBA One-to-One event will take place in St. Petersburg on Saturday, Oct. 11. The event gives prospective MBA candidates the opportunity to meet face to face with the world’s top international business schools. Qualified professionals are given the chance to meet with business school representatives in private one-to-one meetings, and Access MBA advisors help orient candidates towards the appropriate business schools at the event. 
“The ACCESS MBA Tour has a successful format that allows business schools to speak one-on-one with potential students for 25 minutes,” says Deise Leobet, Business Development Director for IE Business School (Instituto de Empresa). The school, ranked in the top 10 worldwide, participates in the Access MBA Tour every year.
Candidates who match school’s admissions criteria are selected for one-to-one meetings. Qualified candidates are typically English-speaking individuals with at least 3 years of professional experience and holding a Bachelor’s degree or the equivalent.
The Access MBA Tour includes over 100 prestigious business schools that are accredited and internationally ranked. Among them, 70 percent of the top 100 MBA programs worldwide are featured at the events. Participating schools include INSEAD, Instituto de Empresa, Esade, IESE, HEC, ESCP-EAP, Manchester, Cambridge, Cranfield, SDA Bocconi, RSM Erasmus, Wharton, NYU Stern, UCLA, Thunderbird, Tuck (Dartmouth), Kellogg-WHU and more.   
Access MBA is a project of Advent Group, a Paris-based communications agency that coordinates educational and recruiting events throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and North America.

The Access MBA event takes place on Saturday, Oct. 11, from 9.15 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. at the Astoria Hotel.
For further information and to register online, visit www.accessmba.com

TITLE: Summer Camps for Today's Pioneers
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Almost every Soviet child spent at least one month every summer in a pioneers’ camp, where they would learn new skills, try new activities and meet other children. After declining with the fall of the Soviet Union, the tradition is now being revived, with more and more parents trying to get their offspring to take part in the same activities they did in their own childhood. 
The name of the first Soviet summer camp is still a household name. Artek was founded in the Crimea in 1925, and started the tradition of the pioneer vacation. The sanatorium was founded with the slogan, “Every pioneer should have a healthy summer.” The first camps were primarily sanatoria for young pioneers with tuberculosis and other illnesses, but later became a popular vacation location for all children. Parents did their best to send their offspring to the main pioneer camps, such as Artek or Orlenok, near the Black Sea resort of Tuapse. The most popular destination was the Black Sea, but those who could not get to the south were packed off to the nearest countryside. 
There were about 40,000 camps in the Soviet Union, attended by 10 million children per year. Similar camps existed in many other socialist countries, and the trend is also widespread in the U.S. and Canada. According to the American Camp Association, there are about 12,000 camps in the U.S.  But only the Soviet Union had such ideological camps. 
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the number of pioneer camps began to decline. Those that remained turned into commercial organizations, and summer camps began to make a profit. Following their example, other camps began opening, both private and state-run.
Today there are more than 70,000 summer camps in Russia, both state and private. Although their names have lost the word “pioneer,” the main idea of the vacation has remained the same. The children relax, play some sports, improve their social skills and gain new knowledge. The focus of the camps is still on various interests, such as sports, travel and arts. Some have a particular focus, such as painting or music. In Moscow there are even special computer camps, but most parents do not approve of this trend for their children.
“First of all, parents should ask their children about their interests. And only then should the adults try to coordinate it with their task,” said Yelena Danilova, the deputy director of the Haglar Humanistic Academy of Global Language and Relaxation summer camp. 
“Maybe parents want their child to just have a rest or improve their English or have lots of new experiences. For example, if they see the ideal holiday as a journey, the best option is a summer camp abroad.”
One of the most standard parental requirements is outside activities and fresh air for the child. So, just as in Soviet times, camps situated on the seaside are becoming more and more popular. 
“Five years ago, parents were afraid to send their children far away, for example to the south. Now they trust camps more. The percentage of children attending camps far from home has risen,” said Danilova.
Another factor looked at by parents when choosing a camp is how long the establishment has been operating. The old established camps are the most widely trusted, since their names are usually familiar to everyone and they have a reputation for being reliable. 
Another important factor is accommodation. Most summer camp buildings today are built of stone; there are very few camps that still have the traditional wooden blocks. Some modern private camps do not have their own site, so they rent accommodation for the duration of the vacation. The location can even be an elite hotel. 
“Elite accommodation is not so important for children. They only pay attention to it for the first five minutes. Parents worry about it more — everything should be neat and tidy, and of course, warm, especially if the child goes on an autumn or winter vacation,” said Danilova.
“Living conditions are important, but parents should not regard it as the be-all and end-all. The main aim is to satisfy all the requirements in the children’s activities.”
Psychologists recommend choosing programs with varied activities that constantly change. Children should be involved in all games by camp leaders and teachers. 
“Programs in which the children choose the activities themselves are only good if the child has an appropriate character. Such camps are cheaper, but if the child is shy, he will not participate in anything,” Danilova said.
“There is another type of program in which the child can try all the activities, the camp leaders involve them in everything, and they do not have to choose.”
Psychologists believe camps can bring children out of themselves and help them to understand what they want out of life. Often teenagers conceal their real interests, and present quite a different image to others. The task of the teachers is to show them that everyone will be happy if the child is sincere. 
“The camp leaders should help the child to adapt to the new surroundings. Going to camp is always a stress for the child, especially if it is their first independent trip. They are entering a new community, nobody knows them, and they  may behave differently to the way they do at school or at home,” said Tatyana Chernikova, a psychologist.
For younger children, the camp is an even greater stress than for older ones. The child might fail to integrate with the other children, who may show aggression toward him. 
“If the child is small and he overcomes all the difficulties, he will gain a lot, acquire social and communication skills. He will learn how to make other people like him, and it will help him in the future.”
Children of all ages learn how to make friends at camp. 
“They live, eat and play together, it brings them very close to each other and children often continue to keep in touch when they have returned home,” said Chernikova. 
“Yet, for a teenager it is a great disaster if camp society does not accept him. Children can even develop depression afterwards; it is more serious than with small children.”
If teenagers find themselves rejected by the camp community, they may start misbehaving and start drinking and smoking. This behavior can continue when they return from camp.
The final decision in electing a camp is almost invariably made by the parents, and the last factor that can influence their decision is the cost. Fees vary from 9,000 to 25,000 rubles per program. According to the Social Security Fund, the average cost of a 21-day stay in a camp near St. Petersburg is about 15,000 rubles.

TITLE: Stanislavsky Method Attracts Foreign Students
AUTHOR: By Olga Sharapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: With the success of “The Peculiarities of the National Hunt” (1995) and “The Peculiarities of National Fishing” (1998) and other films with a humorous take on different distinct aspects of Russian life directed by Alexander Rogozhkin and starring Ville Haapasalo, the young Finnish actor was catapulted to stardom in Russia.
But only some fans realise that Haapasalo had just finished studying at the St. Petersburg State Theater Arts Academy when he landed his first film role in “National Hunt” and hadn’t expected the celebrity it would bring him. 
In an interview with Expert magazine, the actor admitted that he wasn’t ready for fame and even changed his occupation for a while. Then Haapasalo realized that fame was an occupational hazard and continues to act, appearing most recently in this year’s smash hit “The Irony of Fate: The Sequel.” Haapasalo is in fact far more well-known in Russia than in Finland. 
Haapasalo is not the only example of a foreigner who has studied at the Academy and preferred to pursue work in Russia. 
Giuliano Di Capua, like Haapasalo, was a student of Professor Veniamin Filshtinsky and was honored for his performance as Voynitsky in a degree production of “Uncle Vanya” in 2000. Now this artistic and energetic Italian-Swiss lives in St. Petersburg, is married to the Russian actress Ilona Markarova and has a respected list of acting and directing credits to his name. Di Capua played a leading role in Pavel Chukhrai’s “The Russian Game” (2007) and recently directed “The Vagina Monologues“ on the St. Petersburg stage. 
“It is very convenient to be Italian in Russia,” Di Capua said. “I am beginning to hide my Swiss identity here because it doesn’t suit the ‘fashion.’ I even say sometimes that I personally know Toto Cutugno [an Italian singer popular in Russia], although I haven’t lived in Europe for 15 years!“
Di Capua lists the works of Gogol, Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as among his favorites and expresses a love of the Russian countryside. “And I found my woman here,” he adds.
It is difficult to claim that a Russian theatrical education helps students from other countries to achieve guarenteed professional success, but most of them recognize its high standards and say that only here, in spite of social, financial and cultural problems, they can acquire the necessary skills for an artistic life. 
Antonio Villani, another Italian student in Filshtinsky’s acting class, said it took him a long time to decide to study in St. Petersburg. 
“The constant rise in fees frustrates me a lot. Now we have to pay 178,000 rubles ($7,000) per year — a 22,000-ruble ($860) increase on last year. Unfortunately, I can say that neither Italian and Russian organizations, nor the Academy, support me. Also, conditions at the dormitory aren’t the best. I just hope  I can find money to finish the Academy because I want to study here very much.“ 
“It is also true that in Italy, life is much worse,” Antonio continues. “You need to have ‘protection’ and special links to get a role or job in the theater in Italy and life there is becoming unstable with political and economic changes. Another problem is that I am in the Academy all day, from 9.30 a.m. till 11 p.m. I just haven’t time to write, call, meet my friends or even show myself as an actor.” 
Alessandra Giuntini, another Italian student of Filshtinsky’s course, said she has similar problems, although her parents support her financially.
But both Italian students believe that they can learn the secrets of the Stanislavsky acting system only in St. Petersburg, where mentors such as Filshtinsky and Lev Dodin practice their art and pass on their knowledge. 
“Sometimes I feel fragile — or maybe I am too Italian,” Giuntini said. “I miss Italian morning coffee and this old habit in Florence where people don’t lock their doors. It is impossible to imagine this here. Of course, my life in Italy was much more comfortable and stable than in St. Petersburg, but the problem was that I didn’t have problems. The atmosphere here is fussy and bustling and I like it. From my childhood I knew I would come here. Thanks to the great support of my Mom — she is from Russia — I can study in St. Petersburg. If before I had just dreamed of being an actress, now I understand that first of all I have to be a person.”
Why do foreigners used to having a comfortable lifestyle — or at least one without hardships — choose the unpredictability of Russia and the hard life of studying at the Academy? Perhaps Stanislavsky himself offers a clue. “Private life is always material for creativity,” Filshtinsky, echoing the great acting teacher, said. 
“The Russian theater school aims to educate actors by asking them to make philosophical and spiritual sacrifices,“ Professor Nikolai Pesochinsky, an experienced lecturer at the Theater Studies Department of the Academy, said. “I see how foreign students transform into real artists and here they realize that theater is not just a show for a satiated audience. According to the Stanislavsky school, artistic and individual development is achieved by overcoming yourself. And if you are able to surmount different kinds of difficulties, it will make you better and stronger as an actor and person.”
“I have found what I wanted at the Academy,” said Villani. “It is a process of acting and understanding yourself as part of a performance. I am trying to reach here an inner freedom of being on the stage. In our lessons we start from little actions. Step by step these details increase into a performance. And every action should present us personally and show our life and feelings. In the core of the acting system here is the idea of how to be a person, how to learn to be a person on stage.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. academic Dr. Carol Rocamora visited the Theater Arts Academy and Filshtinsky’s master-class. As a devotee of Russian theater and the Stanislavsky method, Rocamora has translated Chekhov plays and works at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts as a writing and acting teacher.
Sitting in on a class given by Filshtinsky in which students were rehearsing a performance of Chekhov’s story “The Grasshopper,“ Rocamora said, “I am so excited by the ensemble spirit and application of the Stanislavsky method. The study has so much energy. It just has fabulous bursts of creativity but also it is great that the teacher is very demanding of the students.”
An international program, master-classes and a summer school are part of the regular work of the International Department of the Academy. According to Lyudmila Mymrikova, Head of International Education, there is no lack of interest in the Academy from foreigners. 
“We provide many exchange programs between famous schools such as O’Neill Theatre Arts Institute and Yale School of Drama in the U.S., as well as Helsinki University and Theater Academy and Tampere University in Finland,“ she said.

TITLE: Russian Language Gains Popularity
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer started learning Russian because 40 percent of the world’s chess literature was published in that language. People have various reasons for studying Russian, and there are various programs available in the city to cater for all kinds of requirements. 
Twenty years ago, Russian was at its peak of popularity among foreign students. Almost every university in Great Britain had a Russian language department. Some years later, however, this trend became unprofitable and many such departments were closed. Now interest is emerging once again. Students who study foreign languages at European universities usually spend a year in the country of that language as a standard part of the program. 
Many of those who come to St. Petersburg attend classes at the department of philology and arts at the city’s State University, which has a special department that teaches Russian as a foreign language (for students whose universities have an arrangement with the State University) and Smolny College of Arts and Humanities, where students from any university can study. Traditionally, this was the most popular option among foreign students in St. Petersburg.
Yet it is not the only option. There are a large number of other language courses in the city, including many private schools. When choosing the right one, it is first of all necessary to define a student’s aim in studying the language. 
“I am studying journalism, and in Germany Russia has always been and continues to be one of the main countries in international reporting. And I have always been interested in Russia, its people, its culture, its politics — and the only way to get into that is of course by studying the language intensely,” said Mareike Aden, a German student studying Russian at the Herzen Institute.
Whether Russian is needed for business, a job or simply as a better way to understand the country, Russia’s wealth of literature or its films, it is important to find an appropriate course in terms of intensity and teaching format that corresponds to the particular purpose. 
“Our students are also business people and even the head managers of large companies. Most of them are foreigners and they have to understand and speak Russian better if they work in St. Petersburg,” said Natalia Moroz, the head of the Swiss Center international school. 
“In summer there are also special intensive programs for foreign bankers, especially from Switzerland. Almost every bank nowadays has an Eastern European department, so they need to learn Russian,” said Moroz.
Both teachers and students recommend asking friends as the best way to find the right course. Aden is an exchange student in St. Petersburg, but followed recommendations to find a language course here. 
“I had heard from a Russian teacher in Germany that the Herzen Institute has a good reputation, so when I arrived I asked my tutor at the journalism faculty if they could arrange something for me there.”
The Internet can prove less reliable. 
“I looked on the Internet of course, but all the sites I found did not really help. You never know the quality of a school or course anyway, and sometimes I got the impression that they are rip-offs. So without the help of Russians I would have been pretty lost,” said Aden.
It is also worth paying close attention to the program content. The most popular teaching format nowadays is the communication method, which aims to make students speak as much as possible rather than spending long periods studying grammar separately. Texts and exercises such as “grammar in dialogs” and “a study of regional linguistics” combine grammar with advice about the customs of the country. 
When choosing a course, another decision to be made is whether to study in a group or have individual lessons with a private tutor, or a combination of both. Previously, group lessons were the most popular option, whereas now many students are choosing to have private lessons in pairs.
“It is like an individual lesson, and they divide the price equally. The fee is a little higher than for a group lesson. Everyone likes this option and now there are students who do not even want to study in groups,” said Moroz.
Other students prefer to have individual lessons. 
“I wanted to be more flexible and I had some Russian knowledge already, which was quite unstructured: I knew some advanced things, but had problems with some basics, so I thought the best option for me would be to have an individual teacher to do exactly what I wanted and needed to do,” said Aden. 
It is often the school’s responsibility to find accommodation for students coming to Russia. A popular option is the homestay system, by which the students live with Russian families. Teachers believe the language immersion and everyday communication are a welcome complement to formal lessons. 
“The organization is a very big and important part of courses for foreign students. The school should help them with any difficulties such as visas and registration,” said Moroz.

TITLE: Textbooks Reveal Weaknesses
AUTHOR: By Olga Sharapova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In the Soviet Union, before the start of the school year in September, a school bazaar would be held at which students and their parents would try to find the necessary textbooks and other materials for school. It was a traditional annual ritual that has continued to this day. If you go at this time of year to St. Petersburg’s main bookstore, Dom Knigi, you will see crowds of children and a huge number of textbooks.  
Every era has its own model of how to teach the growing generation, but the success of this process depends on several factors including the teacher’s skills, the level of education and the textbooks used.
 The Soviet education system, though closed and isolated from innovation, had strong traditions and textbooks of a high standard, some of which had already reached their 17th edition. All books had to be tried out by experts and passed by a state committee. For example, Alexander Peryshkin’s textbook on physics was the most popular handbook for that subject among Soviet pupils for more than 60 years, and is still valued both by schoolchildren and publishers. 
In contrast with the stability of the Soviet era, contemporary Russian schools are distinguished by changing trends in education, such as the introduction of the Single State Examination.
    Some modern textbooks have come under fire from the state, teachers, parents and even children for the format or methods used. Some contain omissions and errors — a recent geography textbook stated that the population of Russia was 14.2 billion instead of 142 million. 
After perestroika the old structure was destroyed, and the new one is still being formed. A current problem in Russian education is the quality of educational books. Schools have to choose suitable textbooks from a long federal list of 1,120 names. The main difficulty lies in contextual background, especially in subjects such as history and literature. 
In an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the director of the History Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Chubaryan said, “A general problem is that the construction of new textbooks is old. For instance, history textbooks in most cases talk about Russia’s political and economic history, but they don’t include stories about everyday life or descriptions of real people during historical circumstances.”
Low quality textbooks emerged after the textbook market was transformed from a state-regulated sphere into a very profitable business. Just a few years ago, there were about 150 publishing houses specializing in textbooks. Most of them had no experience in producing textbooks and supplements, but they printed books because the industry is worth billions of rubles. 
 To regulate the market, in 2005 a special council was founded consisting of academics and scientists from both the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and the Russian Academy of Education (RAE). The RAS representatives check facts, concepts and scientific innovations, while the RAE representatives are responsible for the structure of textbooks and adaptation of the materials to schoolchildren’s psychology, abilities and programs. Only 20 percent of textbooks were passed first time this year, and 46-48 percent received the federal stamp of quality after a second examination. Of more than 95 Russian publishing houses that produce textbooks, only 39 remain on the federal list of books permitted in schools.  
In spite of the large number of publishing houses, there is an unofficial list of the principal players on the educational book market, whose books are the most popular with bookstores and schoolchildren. Yelena Kuzikova, manager of commercial services at Dom Knigi, lists only a few key publishing houses, including the oldest publisher in Russia, Prosveshchenye (Enlightenment), founded in 1930.  
Kuzikova said that other best-selling publishing houses include Drofa, Russkoye Slovo, Yuventa, Vintana-Graph, Mnemozina and others. Most are from Moscow, but there is a regional branch of Prosveshchenye in St. Petersburg, along with several local publishing houses producing books about the northern capital, its history and culture.
Teachers and students, as the main consumers of textbooks, have their own opinions about the market. Anna Ismailova, who teaches English, says the situation is problematic. 
“My problem is that I need to choose the best product from more than similar 10 textbooks, and give precise advice to the children on what kind of book they should buy. Although my subject necessitates frequent study, there’s not enough time for it on the official school program. I would also recommend different supplementary materials, which are generally expensive. Of course, it is better to use books published in England, but about 30 percent of my pupils can’t afford them.”

TITLE: Educational Institutions
TEXT: <i><b>Finec, International Double Degree Master Programs </b></i> 

21, Sadovaya ul., Tel: 310 1957, 
E-mail: miba@finec.ru , 
master.fr@finec.ru 
www.miba.finec.ru   
Finec offers three double-degree Master programs in Economics or Management conducted jointly with leading European Universities from Germany, France, Italy and Poland:
 “Corporate Finance, Control and Project Management” provides profound knowledge in the fields of finance and accounting. 
“Economy of Enterprise and International Integration.” In the second year of study, graduates have three specializations to choose from — TQM, HRM and Business Restructuring.
“Master of International Business Administration Hamburg – St.Petersburg” provides profound competence in international business administration. The best students are awarded scholarships from DAAD.
All the programs are full-time in St. Petersburg and are taught for two years in English. Graduates of the programs are awarded a Double Degree: from the European Partner-University and Finec.

<i><b>Higher Economic School of St. Petersburg State UEF </b></i>
34, Nab. Kanal Griboedova
Tel: 310 3862, 312 8737
E-mail: dir@mipk.spb.ru
www.hes.spb.ru
The school offers a two-year MBA program, “Management of the Enterprise,” focused on training top- and middle-level managers. The program is provided in partnership with the Higher International School of Commerce of Metz, which is a member of the ICN Group (business school), and Nancy University (France).
The program begins on Oct. 1 and includes four or five lectures per week in the evenings as well as on Saturdays.Cost: 465,000 rubles.
The two-year MBA program “Marketing” is focused on training top- and middle-level managers who are working in the field of marketing. The program is provided in partnership with University of Applied Science Anhalt (Bernburg,Germany).
The program begins on Oct. 27 and includes four or five lectures a week in the evenings as well as on Saturdays.Cost: 390,000 rubles.
The two-year MBA program “HR-Management” is focused on the training of top- and middle-level managers, who are working in the field of human resources management. The program is provided in partnership with the Business School of University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland.
The program begins on Nov.17 2008 and includes four or five lectures a week in the evenings as well as on Saturdays. Cost: 390,000 rubles.

<i><b>INTERNATIONAL BANKING INSTITUTE-STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS </b></i>
60, Nevsky Prospekt, Room 421
Tel: (812) 571 5309, (812) 570 5962
E-mail: mba@ibi.metrocom.ru
www.ibi.spb.ru
www.ipc.ibi.edu.ru
MBA programs have been conducted jointly by the International Banking Institute and Stockholm University School of Business since 1994 with help from the Swedish government. Executive MBA Banking and Finance — 1.5 years. Executive MBA International Business — 1.5 years. MBA Financial Management — 2.5 years. Executive MBA Bank Management — 2 years. Executive MBA Corporate Finance — 2 years. Programs are run on a part-time and modular basis in English and Russian.
There is a pre-diploma training session in Stockholm. Cost: International Executive MBA programs — 9,500 euro; MBA Financial Management — 13,750 euro; Executive MBA modular programs — 7,800 euro. Graduates are awarded two diplomas: an MBA Diploma from the Stockholm University School of Business and an MBA Diploma from the IBI.

<i><b>International MANAGEMENT Institute of St. Petersburg (IMISP)</b></i>
50, Line 9, Vasilievskiy Island, 
St. Petersburg, 199004 Tel.: 323 9200; 
E-mail: lvova@imisp.ru
http://www.imisp.ru  
IMISP’s MBA program was designed in collaboration with leading specialists from Italy’s Luigi Bocconi University and was approved by the EU, which has also provided financial assistance. MBA IMISP has AMBA, CEEMAN and RABE accreditations.
Applications for an MBA are accepted until April 4, 2008 and the program begins on April 14, 2008. Students must be permanent residents of the Russian Federation or hold valid visas throughout the period of study. The program takes two years to complete.
The school offers a part-time program that allows working managers to study. 

<i><b>Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg State University</b></i>
3 Volkhovsky Per., Office 308. 
Tel.: 323-8441, Fax: 329-3234 
E-mail: mba@gsom.pu.ru
www.gsom.pu.ru
A member of AACSB, CEMS, EFMD, GRLI and EABIS, the Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg State University, created on the School of Management’s platform within the framework of the National Priority Project in Education, offers a comprehensive portfolio of degree programs in management “Executive MBA, PhD, Master in International Business (pre-experience English-language program with the opportunity to get a second CEMS’ Master in International Management degree), Master in International Technology and Innovation Management (MITIM) and Bachelor degree in Management” as well as a wide variety of open and customized Executive Education programs.

<i><b>The Open Business School in St. Petersburg</b></i>
6 Inzhenernaya Ul. 
Tel.: 325 9401, 570 5445 
E-mail: info@ou.ru
//www.obs.ru
The Open Business School offers two internationally recognized MBA programs focused on practical skills via combined learning: — The Open University Business School (U.K.) MBA program, with classes in St. Petersburg taught in English by Open University professors. Accredited by AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS. From 720,000 rubles. Intake is until Sept. 22, 2008. — The MBA of the International Institute of Management LINK (Moscow) is partly based on the OUBS MBA program, but also meets the requirements of the Russian Ministry of Education standards for MBA programs. Studies are in Russian in St. Petersburg. Accredited by AMBA. From 445,000 rubles. Intakes are until Sept. 22, 2008 and March 22, 2009.
The unique and flexible learning methods allow managers to gain knowledge, develop new skills and add value to their organization while continuing to work and develop their careers, regardless of their location.

<i><b>The Stockholm School of Economics Russia</b></i>
2 Shvedsky Per. 
Tel.: 320 4800, 320 4801
E-mail: info@sserussia.org
www.sserussia.org
• EMBA — General Management 
• EMBA — Strategic Market Development 
• EMBA — Oil & Gas. Industrial sector
These are two-year programs consisting of 15 modules. Each module is taught over five days, from Wednesday to Sunday. 
Eighty percent of the faculty comes from the Stockholm School of Economics in Stockholm, 20 percent from other top international business schools (INSEAD, Wharton), and Russian guest speakers/consultants. The working language for EMBA General Management and EMBA Strategic Market Development is English. Industrial sector program lectures by foreign professors are translated simultaneously.
Entrance requirements are a completed post-secondary education program and adequate managerial experience (minimum 5 years). The admission procedure includes testing and an interview in English (in Russian for EMBA Oil & Gas applicants).

<i><b>Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, St. Petersburg</b></i>
16 Birzhevaya Liniya, St. Petersburg Tel.: +7 (812) 331 7544
E-mail: mail@vlerick.ru 
www.vlerick.ru
Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School runs one postgraduate degree program in St. Petersburg — Part-time Executive MBA in General International Management. Cost: 540,000 rubles. 
The school also offers Company Specific Programs.