SOURCE: The St. Petersburg Times
DATE: Issue #1449 (11), Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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TITLE: City Sees Trio Of Protests
AUTHOR: By Sergey Chernov
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: Protests were held in St. Petersburg this weekend against multiple violations in the course of municipal election campaigns, dismissals and attacks on left-wing and trade union activists and the abrupt introduction of a compulsory Unified State Exam (EGE) for school students. Two rallies were targeted by pro-Kremlin provocateurs, while the authorities attempted to relocate the third, to no avail.
Two men dressed as waiters came with trays of black caviar sandwiches to an authorized rally organized by Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front (OGF) and supported by the Yabloko Democratic Party to protest violations during the local election campaign.
The sandwiches were a reference to a can of caviar found in the luggage of Olga Kurnosova, the local OGF leader, when she was returning to St. Petersburg from the southern Russian city of Astrakhan last year. The case against Kurnosova, who is officially suspected of smuggling caviar, is described by her movement as “fabricated.”
After the two were taken away by the police, a group of young people dressed in jackets of Young Guard, the youth wing of the Kremlin-backed United Russia party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, tried to produce some mocking posters, but were also sent away by the police, who are obliged by law to follow the requests of the rally’s official organizer in such situations.
Held near Chyornaya Rechka in the north of the city, the protest was a reaction to what the opposition sees as massive violations in the work of city election committees. It drew around 60 people, including preservationist and ecological pressure groups and the Ingria separatist movement. 
No OGF candidate was registered for the forthcoming municipal elections. The authorities refused to register 65 of Yabloko’s 100 candidates, according to Alexander Shurshev, a spokesperson for Yabloko. He said that virtually all of United Russia’s 1,500 candidates were easily registered. 
According to OGF’s web site, the 14 OGF candidates were refused registration when the signatures they had gathered were declared “fake” by an election commission. Kurnosova said that the signatures she had collected were altered after she submitted them to the electoral commission.
The oppositional and independent candidates who were refused registration are now suing the electoral commissions. Kurnosova said that OGF activist Mikhail Yeliseyev won his case in court on Monday, with the judge ordering the electoral commission to register him as a candidate.
The protesters held posters reading “Enough United Russia,” “Shame on the Election’s Falsifiers” and “I Vote for Independent Candidates.”
On Saturday, about 400 trade union and left-wing activists protested against mass dismissals and continuing attacks on activists at Ploshchad Lenina near the Finland Station. 
Along with trade union activists from the Ford and General Motors plants, the Movement of Civic Initiatives (DGI), Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), Left Front, TIGR (or “Tiger” — the Association of Active Citizens) and anarchists took part in the protest.
Along with dismissals and salary reductions, speakers drew attention to an attack on Yevgeny Ivanov, the GM plant union leader who was beaten by unknown assailants on Feb. 8.
Similar meetings were held in several other Russian cities, most notably in Moscow and Tolyatti. The St. Petersburg rally was the largest.
In response to the rally, Youth Guard activists posted stickers reading “I’m for Russian Workers” on the way to the rally’s site. The stickers included the logos of firms that do not even have plants in Russia, such as Daewoo and Hyundai, as well as those of Ford and General Motors, whose workers were among the driving force behind the meeting.
Ironically, the most innocent of the weekend’s three rallies — Sunday’s meeting against the newly introduced compulsory Unified State Exam (EGE) — was targeted by the authorities, who tried to stop the rally despite having previously authorized it.
Initiated by a group of school students and supported by the democratic youth movement Oborona (Defense), the Federation of Socialist Youth and the Union of Communist Youth, protesters gathered to demand the right for students to choose between the EGE and the existing exam system, and for the dismissal of Education Minister Andrei Fursenko.
According to Maxim Ivantsov of Oborona, the district administration repealed the authorization by telephoning the organizers two days before the planned event, saying that a pipe had broken on the site in front of the Russian National Library on Moskovsky Prospekt. The administration suggested the meeting should be moved to the less populous Park Aviatorov.
When around 100 protesters came to the meeting’s original location, they found dozens of police officers and two emergency repair trucks, but no work was being carried on. “When we are going to hold any event, there are always ‘repair works’ or an ‘emergency situation,’ it’s a typical pretext for the authorities,” Ivantsov said by phone on Monday. 
“It looked comical; we stood in one place, the truck came to us, then we stood in another place, the truck came to us; wherever we moved, the truck tried to drive us away from the place.”
While the police were persuading the protesters to move to Park Aviatorov, Sergei Malkov and Vladimir Dmitriyev, two Communist Party deputies from the city’s parliament, arrived at the location and told the police they would have a deputy’s meeting with the electorate — a form of gathering that does not require any authorization.
Reluctantly, the police let the meeting begin, though without a megaphone and banners, but at one point tried to detain a young man who had a poster with a drawing of Putin and the words “Still getting a grant? Then we’ll come for you!” A police colonel also found a Federation of Socialist Youth sticker on the protester and was determined to take him to the police station until Deputy Dmitriyev intervened. After negotiations, the protester was allowed to stay until the end of the event and soon managed to escape.
Later, a female police lieutenant targeted a girl who had a cartoon of people watching television, with the words “Idiot Nation” written in English under them. But when she took a closer look, she apparently didn’t understand the meaning, and after a brief exchange with the girl and her boyfriend stepped away. No arrests were made.

TITLE: Kudrin Says Ruble Devaluation Complete
AUTHOR: By Nabi Abdullaev
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin offered assurances over the weekend that the plummeting ruble would stay around its current level for now and that no steep devaluation of the currency should be expected.
“It is already over. The main stage is over,” Kudrin said of the ruble devaluation in televised remarks from Rome on Saturday.
President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in a televised interview Sunday, echoed Kudrin, saying Sunday’s rate of 34.56 to the U.S. dollar reflected its real purchasing power and that the Central Bank will not allow abrupt changes of the ruble rate. 
Kudrin spoke on the sidelines of a meeting of finance ministers from the Group of Seven developed nations, who gathered in Italy to discuss measures to counter the global economic crisis and reform international monetary institutions. Russia’s delegation at the summit, led by Kudrin and including Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev, did not participate in the work of the gathering. 
It was not clear from the Russian officials’ remarks whether the ruble — which rose 4.5 percent last week after losing more than one-third of its value against the dollar since last fall — would be devaluated further.
But Kudrin said the ruble might strengthen as a reserve currency within five years if the government pushes for tough macroeconomic policies.
“We have all the chances in the world to strengthen our position in this direction for a midterm period, that is during five years,” he said.
Kudrin added that the ruble devaluation was a “powerful medicine” for the Russian economy, giving a boost to credit and liquidity for the next two months.
Kudrin also sounded a reassuring note as he spoke of other basics of the Russian economy. Russia’s budget deficit in 2009 will be less than Britain’s, meaning no more than 8 percent of the gross domestic product, Kudrin said. 
He said this estimate was based on the revised budget, which is calculated with an oil price of $41 per barrel.
Last week, Kremlin economic aide Arkady Dvorkovich said the 2009 budget deficit would not exceed 8 percent of GDP.
There will be no cuts in social spending in 2009, said Kudrin, who has struggled for several years to limit social spending from the Reserve Fund, which accumulated revenues from the oil prices boom.
The deficit will be covered by money from the Reserve Fund, Kudrin said in Rome. This may push the inflation rate up to 14 percent in 2009, he said.
Inflation reached 13.3 percent in 2008.
Russia will continue helping out its former Soviet allies, with Armenia standing next in line to receive credit, Kudrin said. 
Moscow previously agreed to provide Belarus and Kyrgyzstan with loans of $2 billion each.
Kudrin said Ukraine has not officially turned to Russia for a stabilization loan of $5 billion, as reported in the media, but consultations are going on between the two countries’ finance ministries.
Echoing a step taken by both the U.S. and German governments, Kudrin said his ministry was working on a plan to limit the fat bonuses awarded to top bank executives, particularly at state-controlled banks.
Kudrin said Russia would join the G7 as a full-fledged member in 2009, Itar-Tass reported.
The G7 comprises the finance ministers of the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, Great Britain, France and Italy.
Since 1997, Russia has been a member of the G8, which comprises the heads of state of the G7 countries and Russia.

TITLE: Morales Visits Moscow
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: MOSCOW — Bolivia will receive helicopters from Russia to help fight drugs and assistance to develop energy resources in the poor South American country, the Russian president said Monday.
The moves were part of Moscow’s push for more clout in Latin America. Bolivian President Evo Morales became the first leader from the landlocked, Andean nation to visit Russia since Moscow and La Paz established diplomatic relations in 1945.
Morales and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a declaration emphasizing their similar positions on global issues and opposition to U.S. policies including the decades-old embargo against Cuba, plans for a missile shield in Europe and NATO expansion.
Morales praised the resurgence of Russian attention to Latin America, where Medvedev has courted Soviet-era allies and others in a bid to increase Moscow’s influence and further its economic interests. He met with Morales in November during a regional tour that included Venezuela, Brazil, Peru and Cuba.
“Russia’s return to the region is very important,” Morales said at a joint news conference.
Medvedev said Russia’s activities in Latin America are not aimed at undermining the U.S.
But plans to provide Bolivia with helicopters follow disputes with Washington over anti-narcotics efforts that badly strained Bolivia’s ties with the Bush administration.
Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador in September and suspended operations of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which he accused of spying. Before leaving for Moscow, he said he would discuss the immediate purchase of helicopters and loans of other aircraft to fight production of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine.
Medvedev and Morales oversaw the signing of agreements calling for cooperation in the arms trade and anti-narcotics efforts. Medvedev indicated Russia expects to reach a deal to provide helicopters soon.
“We hope that implementation of the first large contract, for the supply of Russian helicopters to Bolivia, will begin in the very near future,” Medvedev said.
Medvedev did not say how many helicopters Moscow might provide, but Russia’s top arms sales official, Mikhail Dmitriyev, suggested that it would be fewer than 20.
Dmitriyev said Venezuela is also interested in other Russian weapons, and that Russia might loan Bolivia money to buy the helicopters and other arms, the state-run RIA-Novosti and Itar-Tass news agencies reported.
Medvedev stressed the importance of energy cooperation and said Russia’s gas monopoly, Gazprom, has signed memorandums to establish a “strategic project” for long-term involvement in Bolivia.
“We are talking about the Russian side helping our friends from Bolivia in the development of hydrocarbons and the construction of a gas transport system on the territory of Bolivia,” Medvedev said.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>15 Killed in Hostel Fire</b>
MOSCOW (Reuters) — At least 15 people died and seven were injured when a three-storey wooden hostel erupted in flames in southern Russia, local emergency officials said on Sunday.
“The house burned out fast, like a box of matches,” an official with the emergencies committee of Astrakhan region said by telephone.
He said the fire, in a hostel built for local workers but inhabited by nearly 80 squatters, broke out late on Saturday in the town of Molodyozhny. The cause was not immediately clear.
Russian media said the hostel was closed after an official commission found its condition dangerous for residents and electricity was switched off, but squatters reconnected it using makeshift wiring.

<b>Foreigners Blamed</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Foreign workers in Moscow are fueling a rise in murders and rapes as the economy contracts for the first time in a decade, cutting construction jobs and boosting demand for illegal drugs, the Russian capital’s top prosecutor said Monday.
Serious crimes committed by immigrants from former Soviet republics increased 10 percent in January, after reaching a record percentage of solved crimes in 2008, Moscow Prosecutor General Yury Semin said on his office’s web site.
Foreigners last year committed a record third of all murders, half of all rapes and more than a quarter of all drug-related felonies, Semin said, without being more specific.

TITLE: Court Rules In Favor Of Missionary
AUTHOR: By Natalya Krainova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Europe’s top human rights court has ordered Russia to pay several thousand euros to a U.S. missionary expelled on national security grounds in 2002.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg found that Russia had violated its obligations to protect religious freedom when it expelled Patrick Nolan, a missionary with Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, as a threat to national security on June 22, 2002, Nolan’s lawyers said Saturday.
“Mr. Nolan, who had lived in Russia for nearly eight years, was refused re-entry into Russia in 2002 following a short trip abroad, notwithstanding the fact that he possessed a valid entry visa and his 10-month-old child, of whom he was the sole custodial parent, remained on Russian soil,” his lawyers said in an e-mailed statement.
The court on Thursday awarded Nolan damages of 7,000 euros ($9,030), according to a statement on its web site.
The court also found that Russia was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights for separating him for 10 months from his infant son, imprisoning him overnight at the airport when he returned to Russia from a trip to Cyprus, deporting him before he could seek a review of his case and refusing to disclose a report by the Federal Security Service that served as the basis for his expulsion.
No explanation for the expulsion was initially provided.

TITLE: Crew of Hijacked Faina Welcomed Home
AUTHOR: By Maria Danilova
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: KIEV — Twenty joyful but exhausted sailors stepped off a plane and into the arms of their loved ones — a happy ending to an emotionally searing, four-month hijack drama off the coast of Somalia.
Embracing sobbing wives and parents in the freezing cold outside Kiev’s Boryspil Airport on Friday, the crew of the MV Faina — 17 Ukrainians, two Russians and a Latvian — recounted how they were crammed into a tiny room and haunted by the fear of never seeing their families again.
Somali pirates seized the Faina, laden with several dozen tanks and other heavy weapons, off the Horn of Africa on Sept. 25. The ship and crew were released only a week ago after pirates sped off in skiffs with a $3.2 million ransom that had been dropped to the ship’s deck by parachute.
In between, hunger, fear, worry and sadness gnawed at the Faina’s crew.
Looking tired and frail, most clad in green camouflage-patterned coats, the suntanned sailors said their diet consisted almost exclusively of rice or noodles only once or twice a day. They spent most of their 18-week ordeal caged up in a small cabin and were seldom allowed walks on the deck. “They put us in a cage like this was a safari and nobody came to us, nobody talked to us,” said Atrium Girzhev, a skinny, 22-year-old mechanic whose mother, Olga, had trembled with anxiety as she waited for him to disembark from the plane.
Girzhev said the crew tried to keep their spirits up by reading and rereading a small collection of books on the ship.
Olexandr Prisukha, 44, said the pirates treated them roughly for the first month or so, but then eased up after some crew members made progress learning Somali and helped the pirates recover when they fell ill. “We wanted to live, and we survived,” a smiling Prisukha said after embracing his wife, Olena, 41. “We’re grateful to everyone who took part in our rescue.”
Still, he complained that the arms-laden ship was sent into dangerous waters with no military escort and no means of protection against pirates.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko joined family members who greeted the sailors, even though many relatives had accused him of ignoring their plight. “What is most important is that human losses were avoided,” Yushchenko told relatives at the airport.
But one life was lost — the Faina’s Russian captain Vladimir Kolobkov died of a suspected heart attack shortly after the hijacking.
The sailors praised Kolobkov’s compatriot Viktor Nikolsky, who took over as acting captain. Nikolsky sought to lower the ransom demands and thereby hasten the crew’s freedom by explaining to the pirates that the ship’s military cargo was old, Prisukha said.
The seizure of the Faina raised fears that its cargo of 33 T-72 tanks and other weapons could fall into the hands of pirates or al-Qaida-linked terrorists in the failed African state of Somalia.
Most sailors said the hijacking had not sparked thoughts of a career change but added that they would not be hurrying back to work.
Asked what he planned to do upon arrival, Prisukha said with a broad grin, “Now? Now I will love my wife.”
A Russian warship has captured three pirate vessels off Somalia, the Navy said Friday. The Peter the Great warship detained 10 pirates on the boats, it said.

TITLE: Veterans Remember Afghan War As U.S. Steps Up Fight
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: MOSCOW — Twenty years after Red Army troops pulled out of Afghanistan, the last general to command them says the Soviets’ devastating experience is a dismal omen for U.S. plans to build up troops there.
On Friday, the anniversary of the Soviet departure from the Afghan capital, the State Duma adopted a resolution honoring the soldiers who “were faithful to the warrior’s duty, who displayed heroism, bravery and patriotism.”
In retired General Boris Gromov’s view, the valor was shown in an unwinnable battle.
“Afghanistan taught us an invaluable lesson. ... It has been and always will be impossible to solve political problems using force,” said Gromov, the last soldier to leave Afghanistan two days after the Kabul pullout.
He told reporters that U.S. plans to send thousands of new troops to Afghanistan would make no difference against a resurgent Taliban, who came to power in 1996 in the chaos after the Soviet withdrawal.
“One can increase the forces or not — it won’t lead to anything but a negative result,” Gromov said.
The Duma resolution credited the Red Army with the “repulsion of international terrorism and narcotics trade” and “averting a breeding ground for a new war” on Russia’s border.
That appeared to blame Afghanistan’s current fighting and soaring opium trade on the U.S.-led military operation launched in 2001 against the Taliban. Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has made the same suggestion recently, saying the alliance has repeated the Soviet Union’s mistakes in Afghanistan and added its own.
The Soviet Union lost some 15,000 soldiers in the war, which began when Moscow sent in troops to battle guerrillas who were fighting a Soviet-supported government. The invasion brought international opprobrium on the Soviet Union — including a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow by countries including the United States, China and Japan.
It also shocked millions of Soviets who had been taught that their massive military was the world’s most potent but saw their heavy equipment and powerful weaponry overwhelmed by ragged, Western-backed insurgents.
“It’s like fighting sand. No force in the world can get the better of the Afghans,” said Oleg Kubanov, a stocky 47-year-old former officer with the Order of the Red Star pinned to his chest at an anniversary concert in Moscow.
“It’s their holy land, it doesn’t matter to them if you’re Russian, American. We’re all soldiers to them.”
Thousands of veterans, some in dress suits and some in combats, gathered Friday for a lavish concert organized by Moscow City Hall. As they embraced and posed for pictures before the show, many cited the United States’ troubles as proof that their campaign in Afghanistan had been hopeless from the start.
“They’ll send more in, and they’ll lose more,” Andrei Bandarenko, 42, a former special forces officer, said of the U.S. plans. “What does Obama know about the situation on the ground? We had our own fool, Gorbachev, who knew even less.” 
(AP, Reuters)

TITLE: Belligerent Speech Creates New Patriotic Figurehead
AUTHOR: By Anna Malpas
PUBLISHER: Staff Writer
TEXT: MOSCOW — Maria Sergeyeva stretched out a slim leg to show off her boots and pulled on her gray ribbed sweater. 
“I’m dressed completely in Russian clothes,” she said, giggling. “That is, except for the belt. I have to admit that’s Chinese.” 
With Hollywood looks and belligerent rhetoric befitting a Komsomol rally, Sergeyeva, 24, has become the new face of the country’s patriotic youth and a polarizing figure in the Russian-language blogosphere, the country’s most vibrant forum for political debate. 
What sent her star rising was a nationalistic, muddled, yet memorable speech at a rally near Red Square last month in support of the government’s measures to combat the financial crisis. 
In the Jan. 31 speech, which has prompted both admiration and mockery among bloggers, Sergeyeva told the crowd that she knows “for certain” that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, President Dmitry Medvedev and pro-Kremlin party United Russia will “protect me” from the financial crisis. 
“They’ll give me work and won’t let me be laid off illegally,” Sergeyeva shouted. 
In one of the speech’s most widely discussed lines, Sergeyeva gave an impassioned defense of the country’s embattled domestic automakers. 
“Teach Putin to make a [Lada] better than a Lexus,” Sergeyeva implored. “If you don’t know any better, don’t dare to criticize the Russian auto industry!” 
The video of Sergeyeva’s performance quickly became a sensation on the Russian-language Internet, or RuNet. It appeared on Sergeyeva’s LiveJournal blog, which went on to get 140,000 hits, she said in an interview. 
Numerous bloggers called her a hypocrite after a photograph of Sergeyeva emerged showing her at the wheel of a foreign-made SUV. 
The photo was taken at a wedding four years ago, when she posed in a friend’s car, Sergeyeva protested in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times. “It’s just a funny story,” she said. 
Sergeyeva has sparked such an online buzz that the moderator of the Russian blogosphere’s largest community, Ru_politics, announced Wednesday a ban on further posts mentioning Sergeyeva. 
“There has been too much Masha in the community,” the moderator said. 
A Budding Politician
Pro-Kremlin youth groups have been a platform for precocious politicians to launch their careers. 
In 2006, United Russia declared that at least 20 percent of its tickets for regional legislative elections had to go to political activists aged 21 to 28. 
One of the most prominent of these next-generation lawmakers is 24-year-old Robert Shlegel, a former spokesman for the country’s most prominent pro-Kremlin youth group, Nashi, and now a State Duma deputy with United Russia. 
Shlegel, who made headlines after joining the Duma by attacking readers of erotic magazines and sponsoring a controversial bill that would have toughened the penalties for libel, said Sergeyeva’s overnight fame could pave the way for a future in politics. 
“I think it was a good, emotional speech,” Shlegel said of Sergeyeva’s seminal Jan. 31 performance. “There are some problems, it came out a bit clumsy, but it’s likely that her political career will turn out very successfully.” 
Arriving for an interview at a cafe near the offices of Young Guard, United Russia’s Youth Wing, in northern Moscow, Sergeyeva said she had stayed up until 6 a.m. writing reports. She pulled out a pack of low-tar cigarettes and ordered a coffee. 
After a stint in the Democratic Party of Russia, which she left because of the party’s support for Russia’s membership in the European Union, Sergeyeva joined Young Guard in 2006 and swiftly climbed the ranks. 
“I was always proposing initiatives, writing scenarios for events and coming up with ideas,” she said. “Then I began to give speeches myself at events.” 
The turning point in her career, she says, was a speech she gave at a 2007 protest organized by The Other Russia, a loose coalition of opposition groups led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and writer Eduard Limonov. 
In the speech, a video of which is posted on YouTube, she claims that Kasparov “sold himself to American spies” and says Limonov “has the face of someone who is psychologically abnormal.” 
“I personally consider them my enemies,” Sergeyeva said. “They cast doubt on things that are very important to me: the integrity of Russia and its sovereignty.” 
Sergeyeva, who is strikingly similar in appearance and manner to actress Reese Witherspoon in the 2001 movie “Legally Blonde,” has shown a penchant for sneering remarks about the appearances of those she deems political foes. 
In her LiveJournal blog, Sergeyeva described liberal journalist and political commentator Yevgenia Albats as an “aging Komsomol worker” and suggested that radio talk show host and journalist Yulia Latynina was becoming increasingly unattractive. 
“She used to be pretty as well as smart,” Sergeyeva wrote of Latynina. “What do you need to do to turn into that in a photo?” 
Sergeyeva suggested that excessive negativity was physically affecting Latynina. 
“It’s my personal opinion,” Sergeyeva told The St. Petersburg Times. “I’m not saying that Yulia Latynina is ugly. I’m saying that if a person experiences a lot of negative emotions — and if you read Latynina, she is just always negative — that negativity is reflected in the face.” 
Albats, editor of the liberal weekly magazine The New Times, could not be reached for comment. Latynina, who writes a column for The St. Petersburg Times, said that as a rule she does not comment on what “people paid by United Russia” say about her. 
Sergeyeva denied that she received a salary from United Russia. “I do everything on a voluntary basis,” she said, adding that she earns income from editing, writing articles and teaching writing skills. 
Marginal opposition figures and Kremlin critics aren’t the only people Sergeyeva has zeroed in on as enemies of Russia. Young Guard has also embraced an anti-immigration platform. 
At one demonstration last year, she held up a checked suitcase and called on immigrants to “go home.” 
Sergeyeva said she dropped most of her party work in December but continues as a member of the political council. “I needed to take a break to decide what to do,” she said. 
She said she hopes to run for the Moscow City Duma, since she wants to work on local projects such as preventing the construction of a garbage incinerator in the city’s southern Yasenevo district, where her retired parents reside. 
Apart from her activism, Sergeyeva is studying philosophy, which she calls necessary for a political career. “You should study not contemporary textbooks but the works of great thinkers,” she said. “I’m now rereading Churchill’s speeches.” 
Oleg Kozlovsky, leader of the opposition youth group Oborona, dismissed Sergeyeva’s significance in Russian politics and ascribed her rapid ascendancy to her blind loyalty to the ruling elite regardless of convictions. 
“It’s not the most talented or devoted person who wins the competition, it’s usually the most loyal or active people,” Kozlovsky said. “You need to be very cynical in order to succeed, you don’t need to stick to any ideas or values.” 
Sergeyeva said she’s not just a gimmick. 
“On the blog, I am just the way I am,” Sergeyeva said. “On the one hand, it is just the same kind of tribune as a stage at a political meeting. On the other hand, it is the place where I reveal myself as a person. 
“I don’t have the concepts of private life versus public life and work, I don’t have the concept of weekends versus my work schedule. You could say that I’m always in the political fight.” 

Working Class Hero?
Sergeyeva says she comes from a working-class background: Her father was a metal worker and her mother an accountant. 
Her own rhetoric is populist, punchy and a little bit vulgar. 
A video posted on the Young Guard web site this month shows her sitting in a Lada. “The time is over for people who used to say that anyone without a billion could kiss their ...,” she says, with the final word bleeped out. “Now, they will be doing the kissing, because they didn’t work, they just consumed.” 
In a new video, she sings a nonsense song with arm movements, while a subtitle says, “The crisis is not in toilets but in people’s heads.” The video is interspersed with images mocking Kremlin critics. 
It is exactly this earthy appeal that could propel Sergeyeva to greater prominence, said political commentator Alexander Morozov, a former senior official with the left-of-center, pro-Kremlin party A Just Russia. 
“I think she will become even more famous,” Morozov told The Moscow Times. “[She] is trying to find a new audience ... whom she sees as a new middle class, the people who will be the post-crisis middle class.” 
Morozov said he foresees Sergeyeva becoming a celebrity akin to socialite Ksenia Sobchak. “I think she will be become a new media figure,” Morozov said. She will develop her activities not in the direction of pure politics, but will become ... a Ksenia Sobchak not for the rich but for the poor.”

TITLE: TNK-BP Will Borrow $1Bln and Cut Expenses
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: TNK-BP plans to raise about $1 billion in medium-term debt in a “difficult” market to fund projects and refinance borrowing this year, chief operating officer Tim Summers said Friday. 
The company, Russia’s third-largest oil producer, will also cut 2009 capital expenditure by about 10 percent from a planned $3.3 billion, which already represented a 27 percent cut from 2008’s investment of $4.4 billion.
TNK-BP’s board decided not to declare dividends for the second half of 2008 at its meeting in Zurich on Friday and will review the issue later, Summers said.
The 50-50 venture between BP and a group of four Russia-connected billionaires plans to repay about $1.8 billion this year, he said. TNK-BP has about $6 billion debt, some of which “is long-dated,” said Summers, who has been TNK-BP’s acting chief executive since Dec. 1. 
“The bond markets look quite difficult to access at the moment” as the current macroeconomic environment provides “opportunities” to acquire assets, Summers said. 
TNK-BP reopened a search for a new CEO after shareholders halted talks with Denis Morozov, the former chief executive of Norilsk Nickel. Former CEO Robert Dudley left after a battle between BP and the billionaires’ consortium AAR over strategy and management. 
BP is drafting a shortlist of candidates for the new CEO. Summers said his contract for the role has been extended until mid-year. 
“One or two of the shareholders have indicated their wish to take time to get the right person for the role. Therefore, I think it’s a question of getting the right person as opposed to fitting in any particular timeline,” he said.
TNK-BP plans to start pumping crude at its Uvat project in Siberia next week. Oil will be supplied into the new 264-kilometer pipeline for injection into the national network, he said. Production will be between 20,000 barrels per day and 30,000 barrels per day this year. The company plans to invest about $2.5 billion in the Uvat project at the initial phase of development, Summers said. 
Depending “on the ultimate potential of the reservoir” it will be possible to produce as much as 9 million tons per year (180,000 bpd) “coming from that region” with several deposits, he said. “It will take time” to reach that output rate. 
TNK-BP has restored gas extraction to the “seasonal normal levels” this month after Gazprom, the country’s gas export monopoly, ended restrictions on supplies into the nation’s pipeline network, imposed in January, Summers said. 
Gazprom cited lower demand for gas from Russian consumers as one of the reasons for gas pumping limitations. 
TNK-BP increased oil and gas production by 2.6 percent to 601 million barrels of oil equivalent last year, Summers said. 
(Bloomberg, Reuters)

TITLE: LUKoil Eyes Iraqi Oil Fields
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: ISTANBUL — LUKoil is interested in bidding for at least two of the fields Iraq is offering in an oil and gas bidding round, two company sources said Friday.
“We are interested in both the West Qurna and the Rumaila oil fields,” one source said.
LUKoil may join forces with U.S. major ConocoPhillips to bid for the fields, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity on the sidelines of a workshop between Iraqi officials and oil firms on the bidding round. Conoco owns a 20 percent stake in LUKoil.
Rumaila is the largest field on offer and alone accounts for nearly 15 percent of Iraq’s oil reserves.
LUKoil has lobbied Iraqi officials to revive a deal for West Qurna that it signed while Saddam Hussein was in power.

TITLE: Gazprom Set to Open First LNG Plant
AUTHOR: By Amie Ferris-Rotman
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: MOSCOW — Russian and Japanese leaders will jet to the Pacific island of Sakhalin this week for the debut of Russia’s first LNG plant, a project the Japanese hope will advance their energy security despite its controversial history.
President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, with a delegation of senior energy officials and executives, will watch one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas plants come on stream Wednesday.
Gazprom controls the Sakhalin-2 project, which will produce 6 million tons of LNG this year, or around two-thirds of its annual capacity of 9.6 million tons.
“Very soon after the launch, the first tanker will set sail to Japan,” said Ivan Chernyakhovsky, spokesman for the project’s operating firm, Sakhalin Energy.
Late last year, Gazprom said its first LNG shipment would launch at the beginning of 2009, although this came after several delays since 2008. Earlier this week, the Energy Ministry said the first cargo would depart in March.
Gazprom bought control of the $22 billion project after a prolonged crisis that forced Royal Dutch Shell, the project’s former leader, and its partners to reduce their holdings. Analysts had expected that the battle would lead to delays.
Shell is now a minority shareholder along with Japan’s Mitsubishi and Mitsui.
The battle became symbolic of resource nationalism in Russia and the state’s desire and ability to renege on previous deals.
Resource-poor Japan, the top consumer of LNG, seems unshaken by the deal’s murky past.
“It’s a positive step. It gives the Japanese a chance to diversify the available volumes on the market,” said Jason Kenney, head of oil and gas research at ING in Edinburgh.
“It’s going to be part of the energy metric in Northeast Asia for many years,” he said, adding that other untapped reserves in the region could potentially add significant volumes.
Cooled to liquid form and transported on tankers, LNG became an instant favorite in Japan, as the country does not have easy access to pipelines.
Last year, Japan imported 69.26 million tons of LNG, with Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia providing more than half.
The ultramodern plant will dispatch specially created tankers around the world from Sakhalin, whose southern tip is a short boat trip from Japan.
The majority of exports — 65 percent — will go to Japan, while the remainder will be sold to South Korea and the North American market via a Mexican terminal.

TITLE: In Brief
TEXT: <b>Industrial Output Sinks</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian industrial production slumped more than economists expected in January as demand eroded for cars, trucks and construction materials.
Output shrank 16 percent after falling 10.3 percent in December, the Moscow-based Federal Statistics Service said Monday.
That was the biggest contraction since the service moved to a new methodology in 2003. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 12 economists was for a 12 percent decline. In the month, production dropped 19.9 percent.

<b>Rome Seeks EU Backing</b>
ROME (Bloomberg) — Italy will request European Union support for a pipeline project planned by Eni SpA and Gazprom that would transport Russian gas to western Europe.
“Italy will ask that the South Stream gas pipeline be inserted in the list of priority projects for the European Union,” Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Monday at a press conference in Rome with Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
Eni, western Europe’s biggest gas seller, and Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas producer, plan to jointly build the 900-kilometer (558-mile) South Stream pipeline. The pipeline would originate in Russia, travel under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and then split in two.

<b>Turkey May Be Model</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia may seek to replicate a nuclear contract model agreed to with Turkey, allowing it to own and operate the atomic plants it builds in other countries.
The former Soviet state, which plans to construct and manage Turkey’s first nuclear facility, may seek similar deals elsewhere, according to Russian reactor builder Atomstroyexport. The Turkish accord hinges on a commitment from that nation’s government to guarantee long-term power sales from the plant, Atomstroyexport’s First Vice President Timur Ivanov said Monday in an e-mailed statement.
Such contracts allow the country providing the technology to exercise more oversight over plant safety and non-proliferation.

<b>Overdue Payments Rise</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian overdue home loans held by the federal mortgage agency jumped in the fourth quarter as more people lost their jobs.
Loans equal to 11.4 percent of all mortgages held by Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending were at least 30 days late at the end of last year, versus 9.1 percent at the end of September, according to the state company’s web site.
Unemployment jumped by half a million people to 7.7 percent of the workforce in December, while real wages slid 4.6 percent as companies rushed to cut costs.

<b>Passenger Numbers Fall</b>
MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russian airline passenger numbers plunged the most on record last month as the country’s first economic contraction in a decade cut demand for travel.
Carriers flew 2.5 million passengers in January, 19 percent less than the 3.1 million flown in the same month last year, according to federal transportation agency data. That’s the biggest decline since at least 2006, when records began.

TITLE: Prokhorov Knocks Off Deripaska on Rich List
AUTHOR: By Torrey Clark
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Mikhail Prokhorov jumped to the top of Russia’s rich list after his fortune shrank less than those of his fellow billionaires. Oleg Deripaska tumbled from first to eighth after losing $35 billion, Finans magazine said.
Prokhorov was worth $14.1 billion at the end of last year, $200 million more than Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich, who retained the runner-up slot in the sixth-annual ranking by Finans, a Russian rival to Forbes.
Deripaska, the majority shareholder of aluminum producer United Co. RusAl, was the first of Russia’s billionaires to cede assets to banks last year as credit markets seized up and the country was pushed to the brink of recession after a decade of uninterrupted growth.
The number of dollar billionaires more than halved to 49 from 101 as asset prices plunged, Finans said. The combined fortunes of the richest 49 Russians slid 69 percent to $151 billion, tracking the 67 percent decline in the benchmark Micex Index of 30 stocks as the global slowdown hobbled demand for energy and metals exports.
Prokhorov, 43, outstripped Vladimir Potanin, 48, for the first time as the former partners unwound their holdings. Prokhorov sold a 25 percent stake in GMK Norilsk Nickel, the country’s biggest metals producer, to Deripaska in April for as much as $8 billion in cash and 14 percent of RusAl. Potanin slid to seventh from sixth with $5 billion, less than a quarter of his estimated wealth last year.
Tumbling commodity prices and a collapsing ruble made foreign-currency debts more expensive to service and harder to roll over. Business leaders who helped foreign corporate debt in the past three years are now putting up chunks of their empires as collateral for government support to avoid losing shares to foreign creditors.
Deripaska, 41, downplayed his wealth in previous years as he built up debt to expand his holdings. In October he was forced to cede stakes in auto-parts maker Magna International in Canada and German builder Hochtief to western banks after they lost more than half of their market value. RusAl held on to its Norilsk Nickel stake after a $4.5 billion bailout loan from state development bank VEB.
RusAl’s stake in Norilsk now has a market value of about $3 billion, based on the share price, compared with $13 billion when it bought the stock in April.
Abramovich, who divorced his wife Irina in 2007 and is now model Dasha Zhukova’s partner, was voted “the most interesting billionaire” by 3,900 Finans readers, with 49 percent of the vote. Fellow bachelor Prokhorov, who was arrested on pimping charges in the French ski resort of Courcheval in 2007 before being cleared, was second with 12 percent, followed by Potanin with 9.1 percent and Deripaska with 7 percent.
Oil billionaires held six of the top 20 slots, compared with five last year. Vagit Alekperov, chief executive officer and shareholder of Lukoil, rose to fourth from 11th last year, even as his fortune slid 44 percent to $7.6 billion. Mikhail Fridman, one of BP’s Russian partners in TNK-BP, fell to sixth, from fourth last year, with $6.1 billion. The price of Urals crude, Russia’s chief export earner, fell 54 percent last year, hitting a record high of $142.50 a barrel in August before dropping to a four-and-a-half year low of $32.34 in December. The benchmark blend has traded at an average of about $44 a barrel since the start of the year.
Yelena Baturina, wife of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, remained the only woman on the list, with $1 billion, thanks to her investment in building materials.
Developers and builders who entered the billionaire list on the back of the country’s construction boom, including Mirax Group founder Sergei Polonsky, led the exodus this year. Troika Dialog Chairman Ruben Vardanian, Sibir Energy’s Shalva Chigirinsky and Polymetal shareholder Alexander Mamut were among 51 Russians who lost their billionaire status.
Excluded from consideration this year for the first time are people who live abroad and don’t own major assets in Russia, including Boris Berezovsky and Leonid Nevzlin, Finans said.

TITLE: Medvedev Launches TV Chats
AUTHOR: By Scott Rose
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev debuted Sunday in what he said would be a series of regular television addresses aimed at discussing the government’s work to fight the economic crisis.
In an interview aired on state channel Rossia, Medvedev said he felt it was “important to speak the truth” and explain the economic woes “that the entire world is living through, and that our country is living through.” In particular, he defended the government’s policy of stashing away oil revenue for a rainy day, which he said had left Russia in a relatively good position to cope with the crisis.
“Honestly, in recent years ... people used to curse the government,” he said. “They would say, ‘Why are you pumping so much money into the Reserve Fund? ... You only live once, and you need to spend as fast as possible to get results more quickly.’”
The Reserve Fund and the National Welfare Fund — successors to the stabilization fund created in 2004 — have been a key resource for the government’s anti-crisis measures. The Finance Ministry has steadfastly defended the funds, which are intended to cover possible budget deficits and boost pension spending.
Medvedev said Russia was in a much better position than governments that “thoughtlessly spent” instead of creating similar reserves. 
“They’re now nearly bankrupt, whereas our financial and economic situation is entirely stable,” he said. 
Medvedev’s informal approach with the new television program echoes a longstanding tradition of radio addresses by U.S. presidents, begun by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. The monologues, which he called his “fireside chats,” became a weekly fixture in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush began releasing a podcast during his tenure. 
Natalya Timakova, Medvedev’s spokeswoman, said the interviews would be held every three to four weeks and there would be no set format, Reuters reported. She said, however, that they would not be monologues. 
The reassurances from Medvedev could be needed as the economy is facing its first recession in a decade and rapidly rising unemployment rates. 
Critics of the government have accused it of being slow to recognize the full extent of the economic crisis, and opposition groups have been protesting more regularly in Moscow and the regions.
Medvedev also discussed the devaluation of the ruble, the government’s efforts to fight inflation and unemployment and bailout measures for industry and the financial sector.
Medvedev appeared to cast a pall over the accomplishments of the past decade of booming growth, calling the crisis “an opportunity for everyone to test himself, to find out what he’s capable of.”
“It’s easy to work when there’s lots of revenue, above all from oil and gas exports,” he said. “It’s like you’re not really doing anything yourself, and the profit just keeps coming in. That’s great. But now it’s important, first, to show that we can learn to spend money — budget money — rationally, and second, to be a competent manager.”

TITLE: Chelsea FC Announces $95 Million Loss
PUBLISHER: Combined Reports
TEXT: Chelsea made a 65.7 million pound ($95 million) loss as owner Roman Abramovich converted half his interest-free loans to the London team into equity, the Premier League football club said in a statement Friday. 
The loss for the year to June 30, 2008, fell by 12 percent as revenue rose 12 percent to a record 213.1 million pounds on higher broadcast income. 
Chelsea, unprofitable since Abramovich took ownership in 2003, said last year that it aimed to break even before 2009-10. Abramovich’s move to reduce his loans to Chelsea to 339.8 million pounds showed his dedication, chairman Bruce Buck said. “There should now be no doubt as to the owner’s commitment to the club and the stability of the company’s funding structure,” Buck said. 
Abramovich, 42, fired Luiz Felipe Scolari on Feb. 9 after the team slipped to fourth in the league. Russia coach Guus Hiddink will lead Chelsea until the end of the season. Hiddink said in an interview Sunday that he planned to retire after the 2010 World Cup.
Chelsea parted company with Jose Mourinho in 2007 after he led the team to two straight Premier League titles and fired his replacement Avram Grant eight months later. Their departures, along with five other coaching staff, cost 23.1 million pounds in severance payments, Chelsea said Friday. Abramovich has spent about $840 million on the club since 2003. 
(Bloomberg, Reuters)

TITLE: Fisheries Agency Set to Open Chain of Seafood Stores
PUBLISHER: The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: The Federal Fisheries Agency said Friday that it would open a chain of seafood stores throughout the country to cut out middlemen and that it was considering consolidating state assets in the sector into a giant holding.
The first Okean, a seafood chain popular in Soviet times, will open in Russia by the end of spring, said Andrei Krainy, the agency’s head.
“[Okean] will be the place where producers and consumers can meet without middlemen. We are expecting that fish will be sold here around 30 to 50 percent cheaper than in other stores,” Krainy said, RIA-Novosti reported.
The approach would be similar to an Agriculture Ministry plan, announced last summer, to unite government and private grain assets from 28 companies to create a giant, state-controlled grain corporation. Stores are planned in Astrakhan, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, Krainy said. 
The agency is planning on a making a decision in March on whether to create a state-owned fishing giant. Rosrybflot would be built on the basis of Arkhangelsk Trawling Fleet, Krainy said, Interfax reported. 
There are also plans to build 600 new boats, Interfax reported.

TITLE: Telecom Experts See Emergence of European Model
AUTHOR: By Boris Kamchev
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Expectations and prognoses for the major Russian telecommunication companies take into consideration concerns that the global financial crisis will impact on the industry this year. Analysts debate how the industry will develop with the mergers and acquisitions of smaller players by bigger ones, which began last year, what consequences telecoms should expect during the ongoing financial turmoil and whether they may be limited in making investments abroad.
The Russian telecom industry is one of the few sectors of the country’s economy in which major industry shares are owned by foreign investors. The biggest foreign investors are Norway’s Telenor and TeliaSonera, the dominant telephone company and mobile network operator in Sweden and Finland. 
“Despite all the joint-stock conflicts and risks peculiar to our country, foreign investors have a major interest in the Russian market and consider it to have a great deal of potential,” said Sergei Karikhalin, head of analysis at Kapital management company.

The End of Independence
The latest trend on the Russian telecoms market is network operators purchasing their own retail chains. The domestic mobile phone operator VimpelCom, which owns Beeline, the most popular brand in Russia, last year bought 49 percent of the Yevroset stores which sell mobile phones and related services. 
Yevroset’s main competitors are Svyaznoi and Tsifrograd. Russia’s leading operator MegaFon recently announced its plans to buy the latter. At the beginning of 2008, Tsifrograd was in third place in terms of the number of mobile phones sold, holding eight percent of the market in Russia, Vedomosti reported earlier this month. 
However, experts say the crisis has changed the distribution of market shares — the profitability of the dealership business is very low, and retailers have already accumulated millions in debts. 
MTS also recently announced its plans to enter the retail sector by buying stakes in Telefon.ru, a key Russian mobile phone retailer. 
Experts predict that 2009 will see the disappearance of the independent retail market and adoption of the European model, in which operators own their own retail chains. 
“The time for independent mobile phone retailers has passed,” said Vladislav Kochetkov, an analyst at Finam investment company. “However, it still isn’t clear how telecommunication operators will use their commercial assets, and it is difficult to say how much the ruble will lose in value, which reflects on the prices and so on. Most likely, the main fight will unfold between Yevroset and Svyaznoi,” he said. 
The three main Russian mobile network operators: MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon, also known as the “big three,” share most mobile phone subscribers in Russia. VimpelCom provides services to more than 60 million customers in Russia and the CIS.  The group’s GSM and 3G license portfolio covers a territory with a population of about 250 million. 
Smaller players like Tele2, which holds six percent of the market share, or Sky Link (one percent) have tried to transform themselves into major players during the past few years.
“There are risks that the growth of revenues for operators like Sky Link could slow down when 3G and 4G technologies are activated in full capacity,” said Kochetkov. “Fundamentally, Tele2 has a strong strategy. The company’s high rates of growth are due to attractive tariffs for mass consumers. Its low pricing strategy could result in good output during the crisis, and the operator could grow faster than the market itself,” he said.  

A New Era
Long-distance communication is a crucial segment of the telecom industry. The burning issue in this segment is market liberalization, after telecom minister Igor Schegolov recently approved an order for changes to the conditions for selecting operators for intercity and international communication. Analysts say the latest government regulation signifies that the battle operators have waged during the last three years to obtain the right to enter the long-distance calls market, without the mediation of the former monopolist Rostelecom, is over. As a result, the monopolist — currently Russia’s leading long-distance telephony provider — will lose its privileged market position and be forced to diversify its services.
 “This is good news for the ‘big three,’” said Denis Kuskov, head of the local telecom information agency Nedelya Sotovikh Tekhnologii. “It’s no secret that the market always responds positively if there are many competitors. It’s also good for clients, who can choose between several operators,” he said.
Long-distance codes are currently owned by Rostelecom, Mezhregionalny Tranzittelekom, SCS Sovintel, Arktel, Sinterra and several others.

Getting a Share
Analysts say that as a consequence of the global financial crisis, Russian telecom companies will slow or even halt their foreign investments. For almost a decade Russian operators have been actively investing and expanding abroad, but experts predict they could revise their strategies in the near future. 
“In spite of the fact that companies are suffering from slowing economic activities, we have to understand that the biggest Russian operators have debts that they have to repay,” said Karikhalin. 
“Secondly, their shareholders (like those of AFK Sistema or Altimo), desperately need money to support their other businesses, so they could be tempted to use the available capital that companies possess,” he said.
Karikhalin said that during the current crisis, the best solution is to buy up Russian and foreign shares that have fallen in price, but the main issue is still how to obtain money for such acquisitions. 
“VimpelCom may experience difficulties with refinancing its debts, bearing in mind the company’s announcement of plans to expand into Cambodia, Vietnam and possibly Laos,” said Olyesa Vlasova, telecom analyst at UralSib financial corporation. “The potential volume of these markets is more than 100 million subscribers, with less than 30 percent penetration in the mobile services network,” she said.
Vlasova said that the announced investments are not unduly ambitious. Developing a mobile services network in Cambodia would cost $200 million. MegaFon and VimpelCom have also submitted bids to acquire shares in Iranian and Afghan operators.  
Karikhalin said that in the next few months, many telecom shares will change hands, and the winners in these challenging times will be determined by tenacity, business acumen and creativity. 

Stagnation
Looking ahead, industry analysts expect circumstances on the market, in particular the global economic crisis, to affect telecom operational and financial indicators, which will lead to corrections of their plans before the crisis worsens. 
“The growth of revenue rates will not be as important as it was,” said Ilya Fedotov, telecom analyst at Veles Kapital investment company. 
“This will apply to mobile service operators, as well as landline service providers. As a result of the general slowdown in business activities, we will observe stagnation, mostly among mobile service providers,” he said.

TITLE: Revolutionary Innovations in Telecom
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: Telecommunications is one of the most rapidly developed industries in Russia, and of the few spheres that has not been severely affected by the economic crisis. It will not only survive the complex economic situation, market experts say, but continue to develop and introduce new technologies and services as one of the fastest-developing industries.
“If from 2002 to 2005 clients connected to the Internet using dial-up, since 2006 there has been a turnaround and now most users have broadband access,” said Andrei Zakrevsky, commercial director of the St. Petersburg branch of Northwest Telecom. 
“Just ten years ago, dial-up Internet access with the speed of 30 kbps seemed convenient. Now most users are interested in a speed of 2 Mbps and even higher,” he said.
According to Northwest Telecom experts, Internet speeds have become 1,000 times faster during the last 10 years. Every year sees growth in the volume of new technologies appearing on the market. 
“Every technology can truly be considered a revolutionary one,” said Zakrevsky.
The project with the most potential for St. Petersburg is currently the Passive Optical Network (PON). The Next Generation Network (NGN) based on PON continues to be developed. 
“The new optical network makes it possible to remove all speed restrictions on carrying data, protects the channel and provides high quality service,” said Zakrevsky.
By using PON technology, customers have the opportunity to use a whole range of modern telecom services —  including telephony, high-speed Internet access and Internet Protocol Television (IP TV) — from one operator over a single broadband connection. This bundling of services is known as Triple Play.
IP TV is a system in which digital online television is delivered using Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure. Instead of being delivered through traditional broadcast and cable formats, IP TV is received by the customer through technologies used for computer networks.
Almost all telecom companies are focusing on Triple Play and are trying to withdraw existing systems. 
“Currently, one operator provides Internet at home, another provides wireless Internet access somewhere in the city, and a third one provides an intercity connection. And every operator has their own login and password for the client, their own account, and there are different relationships with different operators,” said Rodion Levochka, director of products and marketing at Rostelecom, Russia’s leading long-distance telephony provider.
“We aim to package all these services together, and try to offer a whole range of various services,” he said.
“The Triple Play service will be profitable both for customers and providers, especially during the crisis,” said Ruslan Yevseyev, chief director of St. Petersburg Cable Television Company. “When connecting to one combined package, the user saves money on all services by getting them from one company. It will be just one account, with one technical support source. And the provider gets the opportunity to increase the ARPU — the average revenue per user,” he said.
Increasing ARPU is the main goal of all telecom companies.
Among telecom clients are many corporate ones, and working with them is an inalienable part of telecom development. One of the innovations in this area is VPN — a Virtual Private Network. 
“First of all, VPN development covers companies and organizations represented on the territory of the whole of Russia,” said Levochka.
“It should be understood than VPN is not always a corporate network like it used to be — a corporate database, corporate email, and corporate telephony. VPN is the basis for unique services. For example, we are developing a video-conferencing network for Russian courts,” he said.
Another one of Rostelecom’s projects is linked to prisons.
“It will be a system of video-meetings for correctional centers. Our country is large, convicts are often in prison far from their homes and do not see their relatives for years. Video-meetings will partly solve this problem,” said Levochka.
Some services intended for corporate clients will be available for everyone. For example, the freephone number 8 800 was previously used exclusively by companies and organizations. Now telecom companies offer it to all customers — private as well as corporate. 
“It depends on whom the client calls, and how often,” said Levochka. “This number can be registered for work or for private life, for example, for calling close people who should always be in touch and available, and whose calls the client is prepared to pay for.” 
Rostelecom is currently working to make services as simple as possible, and to minimize clients’ contact with company representatives with the aim that the customers should be able to do everything themselves.
Convenience for clients is an important factor for telecom companies. Even if the customer is not an advanced user, the technical support service will explain everything by phone. But it can be difficult for clients to get through to the support office.
“We are developing a project to change the way clients’ telephone calls are received. The waiting time on the telephone should not be more than one minute, even in at busy times,” said Dmitry Anchunov, general director of InterZet. 
Companies are also focusing on making it easy for all clients to use telecom services, regardless of their age and skills. 
“We are working on a project for a new client terminal where customers won’t need to read complicated manuals. It will be enough to just install the necessary programs and, by following simple instructions and choosing what they want, to find the necessary file or connect to the necessary service,” said Anchunov.

TITLE: No Threat to Telecom Market From Crisis
AUTHOR: By Olga Kalashnikova
PUBLISHER: Special to The St. Petersburg Times
TEXT: In times of economic crisis, telecommunications is one industry in which people won’t try to save money, say telecom market players. The difficult economic situation is reflected in consumer purchasing power, but the percentage spent by people on telecommunications is one to two percent of what they spend altogether, according to data from the St. Petersburg Cable Television Company. Moreover, TV, telephone and the Internet have become an integral part of people’s lifestyles and are the most economical sources of entertainment.  
Telecom companies are not relaxing, however, and have taken some steps to safeguard their stable development. Credit — the biggest current problem for many enterprises — tends to be avoided by telecom companies.
“We grow and develop by reinvesting our profits, without involving bank loans,” said Dmitry Anchunov, general director of InterZet. “We have not stopped developing, but are concentrating on cities and regions with good potential that are not yet covered by our network. We are also paying a lot of attention to specialists who are without work now due to the crisis.” 
Company budgets for 2009 have been drawn up, together with plans detailing anti-crisis measures. According to experts from Rostelecom, Russia’s leading long-distance telephony provider, the company’s programs are only distantly linked to the crisis. The company works without credit, which is why there is no major fallout from the crisis on its development, Rostelecom representatives said. 
There is also a list of telecom companies that are supported by the state, though according to the government’s press office, inclusion of an organization on this list does not guarantee financial support. As stated in the government report, the main aim of working with these companies is to support their stability using not only credit facilities, but with measures such as state guarantees, subsidized interest rates and state orders. 
In spite of the low percentage of earnings spent on telecommunications, the general stagnation in consumer revenues will not cause tariffs to grow, as there is also strong competition among Internet providers. Prices for Internet services have grown continuously lower, so in order to support the necessary level of ARPU (average revenue per user), companies try not to lower prices, but rather to provide more services and higher speed Internet access.
“The tariffs in St. Petersburg have already been established,” said Anchunov. “The speed of the most popular tariffs (for 450 rubles per month) is higher now than the offers of Moscow providers. Yet there are also providers that offer low prices, for example, unlimited access for less than 300 rubles [per month]. Now the market is divided between ‘quality’ and ‘cheap’ services,” he said.
Faced with a choice, it might seem logical for people to choose the cheaper option during an economic crisis, but providers disagree.
“As we know from our experience, clients will go for quality, even during the crisis,” said Anchunov. 
Optimizing tariffs is the way to survive in crisis, industry experts say. 
“We increase the speed, but keep the same monthly fee. In this way we can keep the ARPU at the same level,” said Ruslan Yevseyev, chief director of the St. Petersburg Cable Television Company.
Experts predict the number of clients will increase by 70 to 80 percent.
“This is our main task, especially if there is a good opportunity to provide services not only in St. Petersburg, but also in the suburbs,” said Yevseyev.
The reason for such an increase lies in the intensive assimilation of areas covered by telecom networks. This happens primarily due to better services and new offers on the market, but only if they do not require expensive new equipment. 
Telecom companies will continue to modernize their services during the crisis. Rostelecom said its specialists carry out such work regularly, and it will not be affected by the crisis. 
“Just as before, in 2009 we will modernize our network to improve the quality and quantity of our telecom services to clients,” said Yevseyev.
“We [modernize services] constantly because there is a rapid growth in the number of clients who make huge demands for our services.  For example, the next one will include digital TV,” said Anchunov.
New technologies are constantly being developed and appearing in the sphere of telecom.
Expansion in the regions has to be postponed, consider analysts. There is a lack of cash and it is becoming difficult to develop regional projects. Some are even frozen.
The main players on the telecom market are large companies, but according to forecasts, the crisis could bring about a redistribution of the market. Small companies that have developed mostly with the use of their own finances will survive, while medium-sized businesses that already have debts will be bought by large operators.

TITLE: Tele2 to Expand Across Russia
PUBLISHER: Bloomberg
TEXT: MOSCOW — Tele2, Sweden’s second-largest telephone company, plans to add more than 600,000 customers in Russia in the first half of the year as it expands across the country.
Tele2 will start services in 10 to 12 Russian regions this year, Donna Cordner, head of the Russian unit, said at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday. In Russia, fourth-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, climbed 38 percent to 2.2 billion rubles ($63 million), Tele said. “If there is an impact from the financial crisis, we are in a very good position,” Cordner said. “Our intention is to continue to offer low prices.”
Tele2’s Russian customers topped 10.4 million at the end of 2008, from 8.6 million a year earlier, the company reported Feb. 10. The Stockholm-based company plans capital spending of as much as 4.7 billion kronor ($687 million) this year, with as much as 1.3 billion kronor earmarked for Russia.

TITLE: Battle Against Inflation Should Be a Top Priority
AUTHOR: By Martin Gilman
TEXT: Among the Group of 20 countries, which represent 80 percent of global output, Russia stands out as an anomaly in at least one way: It continues to have a problem with high inflation. 
It was announced on Thursday that Russia’s inflation rate rose in January for the first time in five months as a result of increases in utility rates and higher costs of imports fueled by negative real interest rates and a rise in government spending. 
The annual inflation rate rose to 13.4 percent, and consumer prices rose 2.4 percent from December. Food prices gained 15.9 percent in the year through January, while the cost of services, such as electricity and heat, rose 16.9 percent. Inflation has barely reflected the impact of ruble devaluation, so inflation will likely accelerate in February and March. 
Russia’s decoupling from the rest of the world has been sudden. Just six months ago, the inflationary surge was a global preoccupation for everyone, including the United States, the European Union, China and nearly all emerging economies. At that point, what was happening in Russia could have been interpreted as part of the global price surge. 
Now Russia stands alone among the G20. (Although Ukraine’s price performance is even worse, it is not a member of the G20.) The Economic Development Ministry estimates that inflation could reach 13 percent in 2009. The latest International Monetary Fund projections for 2009 show no other G20 country with expected inflation in the double digits. Even normally inflation-prone countries like Argentina, Indonesia or Turkey are expected to see price levels rising by no more than 6.8 percent, 7.3 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively. The IMF projects Russian inflation at 12.6 percent. 
The irony is that Russia has decoupled at a time when many advanced countries are seriously worried about the specter of deflation. 
Russia’s monetary policy has been too loose for far too long as witnessed by negative real interest rates (that is, adjusted for inflation). This may have been good for banks but is fatal for the economy over time. Continuing high rates of inflation represent a real threat to not only a quick exit out of the immediate economic crisis but could seriously jeopardize a resumption of medium-term economic growth and development. 
Many argue that inflation should be relatively low on the priority list of the Russian government at this juncture. After all, output, unemployment, the budget, balance of payments and the ruble exchange rate should arguably be the policy priorities. With Russia mired in a globally induced recession, maybe now is not the time to worry about the level and trajectory of price increases? 
This would be wrong. Bringing inflation quickly under control is critical to the realization of the other economic goals. We have learned with surprising abruptness in recent months how intimately Russia is linked to the global economy, and we must understand that the country’s inflation inertia cannot be decoupled from a solution to its other economic challenges. 
In the current challenging economic environment, there are some factors over which Russia has no control. Like everyone else, Russia will just have to accept what happens to oil prices and the fate of the U.S. dollar. Both values could remain as volatile in future as they have been last year. 
But inflation is largely within the government’s control. Monetary policy should be tightened and interest rates need to be raised dramatically to positive real rates. Fiscal policy should also play a supporting role in trimming the excess spending out of the revised 2009 budget. 
Perhaps such advice seems counterintuitive at a time when everyone else in the world is throwing money at their economic problems. The contrast is more nuanced. Substantial public resources are being directed at macroeconomic stabilization and support for the banking sector. Even with some trimming, the shift from Russia’s budget surplus in mid-2008 (4 percent of gross domestic product) to a budget deficit in mid-2009 (estimated to be 6 percent of GDP) is likely to be more than double the similar shift that will take place in the United States. 
The belated implementation of a much tighter approach to liquidity will not only dampen price rises but will also help support the ruble. Having had the political courage to adjust the rate in line with the drop in oil prices despite the nervousness of the population, there is a serious risk that the new ruble floor will not hold for long if the real rate continues to appreciate because of rising prices. No amount of reserves will be able to resist market pressures if the country loses its recently rediscovered competitiveness because of inflation. 
Of course the real appreciation of the rate is not alone in explaining Russia’s current economic tribulations, but inflation has caused enormous damage. Besides the exchange rate, negative real interest rates distorted investment decisions, making the non-oil economy much less resilient in weathering a downturn. Inflation has undermined the competitiveness of Russia’s manufacturing industry at a time when the oil and commodity sectors are in the grip of a severe price slump. 
Lower inflation will eventually allow for lower nominal rates of interest, lowering the cost of credit to Russian households and companies. With less of a differential compared to rates in other countries, the incentive for large destabilizing capital flows should also subside. And with positive real interest rates, investment can be more efficiently allocated by the private sector. This will be a crucial factor for the realization of a diversified and growing non-oil economy. 
In recent days, we have seen some tentative steps taken by the Central Bank to fight inflation, but much more needs to be done. If the path ahead is so obvious, why the reluctance? The banks are the problem. Obviously, their borrowers have not benefited from the low real rates charged by the Central Bank to the banks. Assuming that competition can work, higher policy rates need not affect the economy adversely. But bank margins would be squeezed and they would have much less scope for profitably betting against the ruble. Banks may even need to consider doing serious credit analysis and lending to the economy. The inevitable cost will be defaults and the need to recapitalize what remains of the country’s banking system after the widely expected consolidation. 
In the end, hopefully we will see a policy-induced inflation surprise this year. Once the higher prices of food imports, owing to the rapid depreciation of the ruble, work through the system in coming weeks, we could see a big, pleasant drop in inflation. We could ultimately see a strengthening of the ruble in a higher interest rate environment. It is really the choice of the Central Bank and Finance Ministry. This is the real test of their courage to do what is right for the country despite the short-term costs and political pressures. 

Martin Gilman, a former senior representative of the International Monetary Fund in Russia, is a professor at the Higher School of Economics.

TITLE: A Rich Tradition of Toadyism
AUTHOR: By Oleg Gordievsky
TEXT: About 10 years ago, as I was tuning in to various Russian radio stations, I first started hearing the name of a mysterious Vladimir Vladimirovich. Initially I thought the broadcasters must be referring to the poet Mayakovsky, who committed suicide in 1930, but I quickly realized that they were talking unctuously about Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who was appointed pretty much out of nowhere in August 1999 by President Boris Yeltsin to be the prime minister. 
I was struck by the way the radio, television, newspapers, politicians and even prominent people from the world of culture from the very beginning referred to this youngish, low-ranking former intelligence officer not by his position or even by his surname, but in such an ingratiating way, devoid of self-respect and any remnants of dignity. It seemed a prime example of total toadyism. But as the years went by, the glorification of Putin grew even greater, becoming almost universal and almost obligatory. 
Maybe this is to some extent a Russian tradition. Well before the Bolshevik Revolution, there was a fair amount of toadyism as well. Remember Anton Chekhov’s short story “The Death of a Government Clerk,” in which a clerk accidentally sneezed on the neck of an important official sitting in front of him. The clerk apologized profusely, and the official magnanimously forgave him, but the clerk still felt guilty and frightened. He went home and died of distress. 
But before 1917, even the tsars did not enjoy the adoration and adulation that Putin receives. After the Revolution, and especially after Josef Stalin replaced Vladimir Lenin, the personality cult around the vozhd, or great national leader, exceeded anything that Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini enjoyed, suggesting that the Russian mentality had changed and sycophancy had become a pattern of thought and even a way of life. 
Indeed, Russia today is full of Putin’s portraits and busts and slogans praising the great Vladimir Vladimirovich. (Even the economic crisis has barely touched his popularity ratings.) This is comparable to the contrived personality cult of Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled from 1964 to 1982.
Under Stalin, people resorted to exaggerated eulogies of the Great Leader out of fear for their lives. Over 20 million people died in the gulag, and if you didn’t praise Stalin you were almost asking to join the list of his victims. But under Putin, many people often demean themselves in order to keep their jobs, to get a promotion or to get access to the country’s vast wealth. When he was asked why he was encouraging such uncivilized behavior, Putin implied that the majority of Russians are not terribly cultured or sophisticated, similar to what Stalin told German novelist and playwright Leon Feuchtwanger. 
But there is plenty of evidence that Russia’s cultured and quite sophisticated elite are no different than their predecessors were in 1937 in terms of their grotesque flattery of Putin. Here is a sampling of some of the more vivid quotes, all from 2008:
• St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko: “Your democracy knows no bounds.”
• State Duma Deputy and Kremlin spin doctor Sergei Markov: “In order to attain the level of Putin, [President Dmitry] Medvedev will have at the very least to carry out the same sort of heroic deeds that Putin accomplished during his eight years of rule.” (I wonder exactly which “heroic deeds” Markov had in mind?) 
• Celebrity film director Nikita Mikhalkov: “I thank God for Putin.”
• Vladimir Yevtushenkov, a leading oligarch and shareholder in Sistema, put it more simply: “Putin is a giant!”
• Danil Granin, a Russian writer best known as the author of stories about Soviet intelligentsia: “Vladimir Vladimirovich! It’s very good that you were born!”
Former Patriarch Alexy II outdid all of these members of the Russian beau monde in terms of flattery, but in light of his recent passing, I will refrain here from any quotations.
People abroad are amazed by Putin’s periodic three-hour “impromptu press conferences” in the spirit and style of Fidel Castro, but in Russia it is widely known that they are carefully rehearsed. Even implicitly critical questions are unacceptable in any circumstances. I quote a provincial reporter about the preparations for such an event: The selection process to decide which journalists would be allowed to attend “took about a fortnight and was conducted in the most painstaking fashion. They took only morally stable citizens of tidy appearance. ... They turned down both unacknowledged poets and people who like wearing the whole year round the same old pair of jeans with blisters on the knees. ... But on the eve of the president’s arrival, even the morally stable and neatly dressed people had an extremely strict briefing session: They were not to leave their designated spots, they had to move around only as an organized group, they must keep their voices down and refrain from using any [mobile] phones.” 
After reading and listening to the Russian media for the past few years, I have decided it is a waste of time and given it up. Now I’m reading good literature instead, including works by that other Vladimir Vladimirovich — Mayakovsky. 

Oleg Gordievsky is a former KGB agent in Britain. After being exposed as a double agent in 1985 and placed under house arrest in Moscow, he escaped to London. Gordievsky is the author of four books and recipient of the Order of St. Michael and St. George and is an honorary doctor of the University of Buckingham.

TITLE: How Soap Operas Can Save Us
AUTHOR: By Alexei Pankin
TEXT: Finally, Arshavin is leaving,” one of my co-workers said. He was commenting on the drama surrounding the decision by Andrei Arshavin, one of Russia’s best football players, to leave Zenit St. Petersburg to play for London’s Arsenal team. My friend sounded both resigned and relieved, like a person who has learned that a favorite soap opera character has finally died after teetering on the brink of death for the last 38 episodes. 
“Don’t get too upset,” I answered. “Filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov has taken the new chairman of the Cinematographers’ Union to court, and that is guaranteed to be a soap opera of its own.”
The television miniseries industry is in crisis today as production companies have sharply reduced staff and are trying to unload existing material at a discount without making plans to shoot anything new. This has important consequences for Russia. 
We clearly underestimate the significance of soap operas in our lives. If a monument to the liberal economic reforms of 1992 is ever built, the main figure should be a hero from a popular Mexican or Brazilian soap opera. Since Russians were glued to their television sets, never missing a single show, they neither had the time nor the emotional strength to stage an uprising against the government.
Remember when Rossia television attempted to cancel the “Santa Barbara” soap opera? It was met with public protests that were rivaled only by pensioners opposed to the monetization of benefits.
From Jan. 11 through Feb. 6, I counted no fewer than 42 messages on the RIA Novosti web site about Andrei Arshavin’s negotiations with various foreign football clubs, and on peak days as many as 10 updates were posted on the story. Week after week, national television carried the story of Arshavin’s wheeling and dealing.
If the ongoing saga of his quest to pick the right club at the right price resembled an action film, then the struggle for control of the Cinematographers’ Union is closer to the psychological thriller “Twin Peaks.” 
The basic storyline runs like this: Last December, the Cinematographers’ Union replaced celebrity film director Nikita Mikhalkov, who had been the union’s chairman since 1997, with another film director, Marlen Khutsiyev. Mikhalkov rejected the decision. The Justice Ministry refused to register the change due to what it claimed were procedural violations. Mikhalkov’s supporters filed a lawsuit calling for the decision to be annulled. Meanwhile, Mikhalkov is organizing a new convention. Both sides hold news conferences. Mikhalkov’s opponents accuse him of corruption and of sucking up to authorities, while his supporters accuse the other side of fomenting an Orange Revolution. 
At the same time, the media is contradicting itself, with Izvestia printing a column opposed to Mikhalkov one day, and then publishing another piece by the newspaper’s deputy editor attacking the blasphemous author the next day. The public has no idea what is going on, but it takes great pleasure in following the real-life soap opera played out by country’s two leading masters of the screen and script.
“The Rich Also Cry” was the name of one of the first Mexican soaps shown on Russian television. It was precisely this series that kept Russians in their warm living rooms in front of the television and not rebelling on the streets against the government’s shock therapy. Let’s hope that the same themes, now unfolding in real life, will play their own therapeutic role during the present crisis.

Alexei Pankin is the editor of IFRA-GIPP Magazine for publishing business professionals.

TITLE: Clinton Warns N. Korea On First Mission Abroad
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: TOKYO — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Tokyo to begin her first trip abroad as President Barack Obama’s chief diplomat, said Washington’s alliance with Japan is a cornerstone for the U.S. and warned North Korea to live up to its commitments to dismantle its nuclear programs.
She arrived Monday in Tokyo to a large group of dignitaries, including two Japanese astronauts who flew on the U.S. space shuttle.
Clinton is in Asia to meet with the leaders of Japan, China, South Korea and Indonesia.
“The bilateral relationship between the United States and Japan is a cornerstone in our efforts around the world,” she said. “We will be looking for ways to collaborate on issues that go beyond just our mutual concerns to really addressing global concerns.”
Clinton said the main issues on her agenda included climate change, clean energy and nuclear proliferation, along with the global financial crisis.
“I have come to Asia on my first trip as secretary of state to convey that America’s relationships across the Pacific are indispensable to addressing the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the 21st century,” she said.
Her message on the plane before arrival was focused on North Korea.
“The North Koreans have already agreed to dismantling,” she said. “We expect them to fulfill the obligations that they entered into.” During the now-stalled “six-party talks,” Pyongyang agreed to stop its weapons work in exchange for economic and other incentives.
On Monday, the 67th birthday of leader Kim Jong Il, North Korea claimed it has the right to “space development” — a term it has used in the past to disguise a missile test as a satellite launch.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency accused the United States and other countries of trying to block the country’s “peaceful scientific research” by linking it to a long-range missile test.
Last week, Clinton warned North Korea against any “provocative action and unhelpful rhetoric.”
During her plane trip, she implicitly criticized the Bush administration for abandoning the so-called 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, reached during President Bill Clinton’s first term in the White House, which called for the North to give up its plutonium-based weapons program.
The framework collapsed when the Bush team accused Pyongyang of maintaining a separate highly enriched uranium program, about which Secretary Clinton said there was still great debate. As a result, she said, the North had restarted and accelerated its plutonium program, allowing it to build a nuclear device that it had detonated in 2006.
Clinton said one goal of her trip was to demonstrate a new U.S. commitment to work with Asian leaders on “problems that no one nation, including ours, can deal with alone.”
The administration’s goal, she said, is to push climate change and the global financial crisis to or near the top of the agenda. Ongoing issues like North Korea’s nuclear programs and human rights in China will remain priorities, she added.
In Tokyo, Clinton will try to reassure a jittery nation of the importance the United States places on ties with Japan and will sign an agreement to move about 8,000 of the 50,000 Marines on the island of Okinawa to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.
In a nod toward Japan’s role in international affairs, Clinton is also expected to announce that she will send the special U.S. envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan to a Japanese-hosted donors conference for Pakistan.
Clinton is also promising to meet with the families of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. “We do want to press the North Koreans to be more forthcoming with information,” she said.
In Indonesia, Clinton will stress a new U.S. willingness to engage with Southeast Asian nations, many of which felt neglected by the Bush administration.
On her final stop, in China, Clinton’s agenda will encompass the full sweep of the economic crisis, global warming, clean energy, North Korea and health issues.

TITLE: Isinbayeva Breaks New Record of 5 Meters
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: DONETSK, Ukraine — Russia’s athletics icon Yelena Isinbayeva set a new indoor world pole vault record of five meters at the annual Bubka memorial tournament here on Sunday.
The 26-year-old beat her previous record of 4.95m, which she achieved here last year, and it was the sixth time in as many years that she has set a new world record indoors in Donetsk.
Two-time Olympic champion Isinbayeva was trailing Brazilian Fabian Murer, who set a new South American record with a 4.81m vault, but managed to clear the 4.86m mark in her next attempt to assure herself top place.
Her next two attempts at 4.96m were unsuccessful, but on her third try she managed to clear 4.97m to set a new world record.
“It was just superstition,” she said. “We decided for 4.97 instead of wasting another attempt on an unlucky number.”
She then ordered the five-meter mark, which she managed to clear on her second attempt.
Isinbayeva said that her pre-meet game plan was to add two world records to her already bulging collection.
“We had in mind to first do 4.96 and then five meters,” she said. “The reason is the atmosphere here. It’s a very special competition and there are lots of special connections for me here.”
Isinbayeva has two more competitions planned this winter — in Birmingham next weekend, and the Prague International on Feb. 26.
Steve Hooker of Australia, the Olympic champion, won men’s polevault with 5.92m, but still short of Sergei Bubka’s 16-year-old world record of 6.15m.
It was Hooker’s fourth victory in as many outings this winter, but his win came in dramatic circumstances.
Tired from a schedule that’s taken him from New York and Boston to Paris and Donetsk in just two weeks, the Australian decided to pass on a warm-up, fearing fatigue.
He opened with a easy clearance at 5.62m, and decided to subsequently pass at 5.72m, 5.82m and 5.86, choosing instead to watch the competition unfold.
“I saw that the others were jumping well,” he told www.iaaf.org.
“The gap was almost too long but I thought it would be safer to wait.”
After a pair of misses, Hooker produced a massive clearance to seal the victory before raising the bar to 6.16m, but he wasn’t close.
“I’ve had so many competitions in just the past week that I’m really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed for a few days,” Hooker said.
His European tour concludes in Stockholm later this week.

TITLE: Chavez Wins Right to Remain
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez won a referendum to eliminate term limits Sunday and vowed to remain in power for at least another decade to complete his socialist revolution. Opponents accepted defeat but said Chavez is becoming a dictator.
Fireworks exploded in the sky and caravans of supporters celebrated in the streets, waving red flags and honking horns. Thousands of people gathered outside Miraflores Palace, where the former paratroop commander appeared on a balcony to sing the national anthem and address the crowd.
“Those who voted ‘yes’ today voted for socialism, for revolution,” Chavez said. He called the victory — which allows all public officials to run for re-election indefinitely — a mandate to speed his transformation of Venezuela into a socialist state.
“Today we opened wide the gates of the future,” he said. “In 2012 there will be presidential elections, and unless God decides otherwise, unless the people decide otherwise, this soldier is already a candidate.”
With 94 percent of the vote counted, 54 percent had voted for the constitutional amendment, National Electoral Council chief Tibisay Lucena said. Forty-six percent had voted against it, a trend she called irreversible. She said turnout was 67 percent.
At their campaign headquarters, Chavez opponents hugged one another, and some cried. Several opposition leaders said they wouldn’t contest the vote.
“We’re democrats. We accept the results,” said opposition leader Omar Barboza.
But they said the results were skewed by Chavez’s broad use of state resources to get out the vote, through a battery of state-run news media, pressure on 2 million public employees and frequent presidential speeches which all television stations are required to air.
Opponents say Chavez already has far too much power, with the courts, the legislature and the election council all under his influence. Removing the 12-year presidential term limit, they say, makes him unstoppable.
“Effectively this will become a dictatorship,” Barboza told The Associated Press. “It’s control of all the powers, lack of separation of powers, unscrupulous use of state resources, persecution of adversaries.”
Voters on both sides said the referendum was crucial to the future of Venezuela, a deeply polarized country where Chavez has spent a tumultuous decade in power channeling tremendous oil wealth into combating gaping social inequality.
Chavez supporters say their president has given poor Venezuelans cheap food, free education and quality health care, and empowered them with a discourse of class struggle after decades of U.S.-backed governments that favored the rich.
“This victory saved the revolution,” said Gonzalo Mosqueda, a 60-year-old shopkeeper, sipping rum from a plastic cup outside the palace. “Without it everything would be at risk — all the social programs, and everything he has done for the poor.”
Chavez took office in 1999 and won support for a new constitution the same year that allowed the president to serve two six-year terms, barring him from the 2012 elections. Sunday’s vote was his second attempt to change that; voters rejected a broader referendum in December 2007.
Venezuela’s leftist allies in Latin America have followed the model. Ecuador pushed through a new constitution in September and Bolivia did so in January. Both loosened rules on presidential re-election. Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinistas also plan to propose an amendment that would let Daniel Ortega run for another consecutive term.

TITLE: Lance Loses Bike In California
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: SANTA ROSA, California — Lance Armstrong finished among the leaders in the Tour of California’s opening stage on an exasperating Sunday that included drenching rain, a flat tire and even the theft of his time-trial bike.
Armstrong persevered through his profoundly gloomy day to finish fifth in the stage, although he was awarded a finish time identical to that of 17 other riders in a large peloton directly behind surprise winner Francisco Mancebo of Spain.
Armstrong led a chase group that never quite caught up to the soaked race leaders on the final miles of a grueling 107-mile grind.
But the day began inauspiciously and got worse before a solid finish by Armstrong, who might have been rethinking his comeback during five frigid hours in the rain — if he hadn’t already endured much tougher struggles with cancer and doping allegations during a historic racing career that includes seven Tour de France titles.
“Holy hell. That was terrible,” Armstrong wrote on his Twitter feed about 15 minutes after finishing. “Maybe one of the toughest days I’ve had on a bike, purely based on the conditions. I’m still freezing.”
Cycling doesn’t get much more exasperating than it did Sunday for Team Astana, which lost four bikes to thieves Saturday night, some time after Armstrong finished 10th in the prologue. His time-trial bike was stolen from the Astana truck in Sacramento along with the race bikes of teammates Steve Morabito, Yaroslav Popovych and Janez Brajkovic.
Astana spokesman Philippe Maertens confirmed the bike thefts to The Associated Press after it was reported by Armstrong himself on Twitter. Armstrong later posted a picture of his missing bike, which has distinctive yellow-and-black wheels and the logo of his Livestrong foundation.
The rain fell in steady sheets from the opening miles of Stage 1 in Davis, a famously bike-friendly college town southwest of Sacramento. Most riders needed about five difficult hours to cross the rolling hills of the Napa Valley before ending up in Sonoma County, but Armstrong stayed in contention despite a flat tire along the way.
Race officials didn’t release the stage’s results until three hours after the leaders crossed the finish line, apparently debating how to handle the rulings made necessary by the rain. Armstrong and Astana teammate Levi Leipheimer were among the 18 riders all given identical finish times 67 seconds behind Mancebo. Their individual finishes — Armstrong in fifth and Leipheimer in 15th — will count in the overall points standings.
The intricacies of the officials’ decision didn’t matter to Mancebo. He took an early lead and stayed in front of the chase group until the downtown finish, when Vincenzo Nibali of Liquigas caught him with just one lap to go on the three-lap circuit.
Mancebo somehow reclaimed the lead and barely held off Nibali and Quickstep’s Jurgen Van de Walle in a surprisingly entertaining finish.

TITLE: 12 Dead in Suspected U.S. Drone Attack in Pakistan
AUTHOR: By Javed Hussain
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: PARACHINAR, Pakistan — At least a dozen people were killed in Pakistan’s Kurram tribal region on the Afghan border on Monday when a suspected U.S. drone fired missiles at a building used by militants, witnesses and officials said.
“Afghan Taliban were holding an important meeting there when the missiles were fired,” an intelligence official in the area said of the attack in a mountainous region called Sarpul, on the outskirts of Baggan village.
The attack was the first in the Kurram tribal region and came two days after a missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal region killed at least 25 mostly Central Asian fighters believed to have al Qaeda links.
Abdul Rahim, a cleric in Sarpul, said he saw around 15 bodies pulled out from the rubble and 20 wounded, though there was no other corroboration immediately available and Taliban militants surrounded the area.
He said he saw two missiles fired.
Kurram’s top administrator, Arshad Majeed Mohmand, confirmed the strike and said according to his information three missiles were fired, but he had no details about the casualties.
It was not immediately known if there were any senior Taliban or al Qaeda figures among the dead.
The building that was hit was formerly used by Afghan refugees’ children, but militants moved in around two years ago, according to villagers.
“A drone is still flying in the area and smoke can be seen over the area where the missiles struck,” said a paramilitary official, also requesting anonymity.
This was the fourth attack since U.S. President Barack Obama took office last month, showing there was no change in policy since the last year of the Bush administration, when attacks by pilotless aircraft against militant targets on Pakistani territory were ramped up.
The new civilian government, elected a year ago, and the army have complained that the U.S. missile strikes are counterproductive and have fanned an Islamist insurgency across northwest Pakistan.
A senior U.S. lawmaker, Senator Dianne Feinstein, kicked off a fresh controversy when she told a Senate hearing last week that drones were being operated and flown from an air base inside Pakistan.
“As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times on Friday.
But, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi denied the statement and said the drones carrying out these attacks were not operating from Pakistan.
“Pakistan has not allowed these drone attacks, there was no permission before nor is there any now,” he told reporters in central Multan city late on Sunday.
“This is happening without any understanding and it is affecting our sovereignty, and we think that it is causing collateral damage.”

TITLE: Mauresmo Defeats Dementieva to Win Final of Paris Open
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: PARIS — Amelie Mauresmo won her first WTA Tour title in two years Sunday, outlasting Elena Dementieva of Russia 7-6 (7), 2-6, 6-4 in the final of the Open GDF Suez.
The Frenchwoman broke Dementieva twice in the third set, winning the opening game on a forehand error from Dementieva before increasing her lead to 4-1 after the Russian sent a backhand wide.
Dementieva saved a match point at 5-2 to erase a break. But Mauresmo converted her second match point with a service winner for the former top-ranked player’s first title since Antwerp, Belgium, in February 2007.
“The feeling you have when you conclude a tournament with the title is different than a good week with a defeat,” Mauresmo said. “It’s a special feeling. It gives you an extraordinary confidence.”
The two players traded breaks in the first set until the fourth-ranked Dementieva held her serve to take a 4-2 lead, but Mauresmo managed another break to draw level at 5-5. In the tiebreaker, Dementieva slammed a forehand winner on the line at 5-5 to get the first set point, but she wasted it with a backhand pass that sailed wide.
A forehand error from Dementieva at 7-7 gave Mauresmo her second set point, which she converted when Dementieva sent a forehand return into the net.
Dementieva came back in the second, breaking Mauresmo for a 4-2 lead and securing the set when Mauresmo made two consecutive double faults.
“Amelie really picked up her game and played at her best this week,” Dementieva said. “I’m very happy for her. She had such a tough time to go through, with all the injuries, and she was trying so hard to come back to the level she used to play.”

TITLE: UAE’s Refusal to Grant Israeli Tennis Player a Visa Could Help Qatar
PUBLISHER: The Associated Press
TEXT: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The top official in women’s tennis reprimanded the United Arab Emirates on Sunday for blocking an Israeli player from a premier Dubai tournament, calling the decision to deny her a visa “regrettable.”
But the absence of Shahar Peer could extend beyond the matches under way. The WTA Tour is planning to review its future in Dubai, and the UAE — which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel — could face a possible blow to its ambitions of becoming an international hub for big-ticket sports.
“Ms. Peer has earned the right to play in the tournament and it’s regrettable that the UAE is denying her this right,” WTA Tour CEO Larry Scott said in a statement issued after the UAE’s last-minute decision.
Peer, ranked 48th, had been scheduled to play Monday in the Dubai Tennis Championships, a joint ATP and WTA event which includes all the top 10 women’s players.
“All the players support Shahar. We are all athletes and we stand for tennis,” said Venus Williams. “The players have to be unified and support the Tour whichever direction they take on the issue.”
Reigning French Open champion Ana Ivanovic said: “I really don’t like sports to be mixed with politics.”
Peer broke barriers last year in Qatar when she was the first Israeli to play in a WTA Tour tournament in the Persian Gulf. But the UAE — locked in a rivalry with Qatar to host major sports events — could face setbacks if the WTA and other federations grow skittish of planning events with the prospect of Israeli athletes being blocked.
Last month, Peer was the focus of protests in New Zealand over Israel’s recent three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip against Hamas militants. She was provided extra security at the ASB Classic tournament there.

TITLE: British, French Nuclear Subs Allegedly Damaged in Crash
PUBLISHER: Reuters
TEXT: LONDON — Two nuclear-armed submarines, one British and one French, have collided while on separate exercises in the Atlantic Ocean, British newspaper reports said on Monday.
The nuclear-powered submarines were badly damaged in the underwater collision earlier this month, the Daily Telegraph said. No one was injured in the accident and there was no damage to the vessels’ weapons, the Daily Mirror added.
Neither the British nor the French defence ministries would confirm that the collision had taken place but both issued statements on their nuclear submarine force.
The French defence ministry said Le Triomphant, a nuclear missile submarine, struck a submerged object, which it said was probably a shipping container, while returning from patrol.
It said the vessel suffered damage to its sonar dome, which houses navigation and detection equipment but was able to return to base at L’Ile Longue in Brittany under its own power.
“This incident caused no crew injuries and at no time threatened nuclear security. There has been no interruption to the nuclear deterrent capability,” the ministry said in a statement.
The defence ministry in London said it did not comment on submarine operations and would not confirm the reports.
However, in a brief statement, it added: “We can confirm that the UK’s deterrent capability has remained unaffected at all times and there has been no compromise to nuclear safety.”
The Sun said modern anti-sonar technology is so good that it is possible that neither submarine detected the other in time.
After the accident in the mid-Atlantic, the Royal Navy’s HMS Vanguard returned to base in Faslane, western Scotland, with dents and scrapes visible on its hull, the Sun reported.
Vanguard is one of four British submarines that carries the Trident nuclear missile, the country’s nuclear defence system. Le Triomphant carries 16 nuclear missiles.

TITLE: Beckham Admits He Would Find It Difficult to Return to Galaxy if Talks With AC Milan Fall Through
PUBLISHER: Agence France Presse
TEXT: MILAN, Italy — David Beckham has admitted that he would find it hard to go back to Los Angeles if the Galaxy and AC Milan failed to come to an agreement over his proposed transfer.
Beckham was speaking following his team’s 2-1 defeat to champions Inter in the Milan derby on Sunday that virtually ended Milan’s hopes of claiming the Scudetto crown this season.
And while he said he had nothing new to add in the way of developments to his potential switch from the Americans to the Italian giants, he left no doubt as to how he would feel should the move not go through.
“(There’s) nothing that I know of, not yet,” said Beckham, who is desperate for a switch to Italy to enhance his chances of playing in the 2010 World Cup finals.
“I’ve said I want to stay here and obviously if I do go back it will be a bit difficult. But I’m always professional so we will have to wait and see when the final decision is made.
“I hope things go the way I want them to. I’ve already said that I want to stay, I’m enjoying my time here and hopefully I will (stay).”
“Talks have obviously been going on and on and whether talks will go on or not, everyone’s still talking about it. It’s out of my hands but there will be talks next week.”